Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Republicans Are Officially Out Of Ideas + Has Texas Finally Turned Purple?

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Full Episode - Republicans Are Officially Out Of Ideas + Has Texas Finally Turned Purple? · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
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• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
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  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Three, nine, eight, five.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Hello there and welcome to the Thursday episode of the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd cast. And you know what that means? If
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: we are in college football means I will begin and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: end with some references to the big college football weekend.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I am. You can see this is the big game
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  Speaker 1: this weekend is LSU at Ole Miss. The return of
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  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin. I'm not going to say that I have
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a shirt for every game I'm going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: throughout this season, but I do try to acquire a shirt.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Think of me as like the old Ted Knight character
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: in Too Close for Comfort. I will always just try
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to find if I do an event at a university,
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  Speaker 1: I end up with either a nice polo or a
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  Speaker 1: shirt of some sort that I will try to continue
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to make part of the recurring agenda. official uniform of
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  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast. So this week, being Lane Kiffin
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: returns to Oxford, Mississippi, I thought it was time to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: get the hot. You know, when I first learned, you
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: just say hotty toddy, and I used to think, oh,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: does the drink come with it? Then you realize they
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: don't really care about the drink part of this. They
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: care about a lot of drinking in Oxford. But the
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  Speaker 1: actual drink that is the hotty toddy, I think they
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  Speaker 1: care less about. But I think we're all rooting for
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss this week, this weekend, right? Who's rooting for
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  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin and LSU other than most of Lane Kiffin's family?
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to say both. I'm going to guess some
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of Lane Kiffin's family roots against him, right? I'm just kidding, Lane,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: sort of. And the LSU diehards. Other than that, right,
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the world is rooting for for the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: abandoned football team known as the Ole Miss, known as
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  Speaker 1: the University of Mississippi, right? So anyway, it is obviously
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Miami has a Friday night game. Always get nervous about
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Friday night games, but I'll have a lot to say
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: about the weekend in college football later in this episode.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I do want to give you a quick rundown of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: what we're going to talk. Look, let's just say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there are two ways to find out how things are
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  Speaker 1: going in politics. One is polls. The other is just behavior.
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  Speaker 1: And House Republicans are losing their you-know-what. They're fighting with
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  Speaker 1: each other. They don't know what to do. They just
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  Speaker 1: are running out of town, scared, tail between their legs,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: because none of them are on the same page. They
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  Speaker 1: couldn't even get a gas tax holiday together. It is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: lord of the flies in the House Republican conference right
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: now I guess we could call this the last days
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  Speaker 1: of Mike Johnson's leadership, because regardless of whether it's highly unlikely,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Republicans keep their majority. And if they don't keep their majority,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's highly unlikely Mike Johnson is the House
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  Speaker 1: Republican leader come 2027. And it does seem as if
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  Speaker 1: it's all coming apart. So we'll do that. My interview
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  Speaker 1: is a deep dive on all things Texas. It's a
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  Speaker 1: longtime reporter. A good friend of mine, somebody I've worked
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: with years ago, Abby Livingston, worked nearly a decade for
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune. It's just a native Texan herself. And
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  Speaker 1: I really thought it was important to just understand what's
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  Speaker 1: been happening. Look, the simple story of Texas Senate is
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton's kind of corrupt and Tallarico is sort of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: trying to run a different type of campaign. And that's
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  Speaker 1: why this is a race. But the reality is there's
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: a lot going on underneath the service in Texas beyond
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Senate race. There is a subtle shift happening.
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  Speaker 1: There is a Republican Party that is at war with itself.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a bit of a civil war going on
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  Speaker 1: inside the Texas Republican Party that is leading to opportunities
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  Speaker 1: for the Democrats, including this governor's race and perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: Senate race as well. And it really does open the question,
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  Speaker 1: is this– This is not about whether Texas goes blue. OK,
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  Speaker 1: Texas is not going to become a blue state. But
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  Speaker 1: is Texas going to become a purple state? And it's
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  Speaker 1: very possible we're going to find out right now. And
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: this interview with Abby, we go through all of it,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: including the Beau French nonsense. He's that railroad commissioner who
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is so blatantly racist that many Republicans are trying to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: distance themselves. Karl Rove said he's going to vote for
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  Speaker 1: a Democrat for the first time in his adult life.
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  Speaker 1: because of Beau French and what he said after the
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  Speaker 1: UT game last week. And in fact, we spent a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of time on that UT game because it's interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Abby has an interesting theory on the political significance of
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  Speaker 1: that game and what it could mean for this election year.
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  Speaker 1: But this is one of those interviews where if you're
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  Speaker 1: looking to sort of feel like you've spent the last
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  Speaker 1: 20 years knowing– Ohio is a swing state, knowing you've
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: been Iowa and Michigan, all these traditional swing states. But
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  Speaker 1: we really haven't had Texas in a competitive environment like
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  Speaker 1: this for as long as it's been in this cycle.
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  Speaker 1: And I feel like we all need a better education
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  Speaker 1: on what Texas is today, how it got here, what's
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: been happening inside the Texas Republican Party. And this And frankly,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: this shift from sort of the Bush era to the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: MAGA era and how it's this MAGA era dominance of
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the Texas Republican Party, maybe it's undoing. And that's, I think,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: ultimately the question, I think, hanging in the air that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: we'll see. One victory for Democrats in Texas in 2026
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  Speaker 1: does not mean something has changed. But if they win
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  Speaker 1: two or more statewide races- And remember, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: stuff's on the statewide ballot in the state of Texas.
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  Speaker 1: I do think we'll start to say this is the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of a new era of Texas politics and a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: new era of competition in Texas politics. We'll also spend
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of time taking your questions, of course.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I will do my deeper, more
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and always the exclusive home of Chuck Todd's preview of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the college football weekend. Where else are you going to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: get this? Others. than the Chuck Todd cast, right? Before
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: we get back into it, I wanna give you a
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: quick word on something I'm involved in and I'm pretty
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: excited about it. On October 22nd and 23rd, I'm gonna
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: be hosting Nextpredict in New York City. It's got the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: world's largest prediction markets conference. Two days, two weeks out
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: from the midterms with the exchanges, the traders and the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: regulators all in one room, right? So if you wanna
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: try to understand what is this industry, Where is it headed?
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  Speaker 1: What does it mean? Well, Nextpredict, this is going to
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  Speaker 1: be the place to be. So like I said, I'm
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: going to be hosting quite a few panels. I'm involved
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: with this project. Registration is at nextpredict.io. That's N-E-X-T-P-R-E-D-I-C-T dot I-O, nextpredict.io.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: If you want to try to understand the prediction markets,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: not as something to participate in, but more as what
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is this industry? Where is it headed? What is it about?
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: How will it be regulated? All of those things. That's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: what this conference is about. So take a look. But
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to begin with what... has been just a
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  Speaker 1: continuation of sort of the saying that I've used before.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: You've heard me say it. It's an old Haley Barbarism.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And I know he didn't invent this line, but he
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: popularized it for me. Good gets better, bad gets worse.
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  Speaker 1: And if things are bad right now for Republicans, I
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: think this is the week we're saying bad gets worse, right?
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  Speaker 1: And you have, first of all, an interest rate hike,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which leads to a massive sell-off in the stock market,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: which is only, why do we have this interest rate hike? Well,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: we have this interest rate hike because inflation right now
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: needs to be tamed. And why does inflation need to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: be tamed? Because of all the policies of Donald Trump
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: right now. And so the economic five-alarm fire The political
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: five-alum fire that this current economic situation is causing is really–
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  Speaker 1: you can now start to see it is eating away
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  Speaker 1: at the confidence that Republicans may have had going into
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the fall because it's not there at all. I mean
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you can hear it in the tone of voice J.D.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Vance used earlier this week when it comes across almost
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: as like, look, we know we have screwed up these
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: first two years. But give us, I'm going to read
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the direct quote, give us another chance. Give us another
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  Speaker 1: couple of years to continue to work on the amazing
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: things that we've been doing for the past two years.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Even if you don't agree with us on every issue,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the other party is consumed by craziness. Look, I talked
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: about this a little bit yesterday. That was, you know, we, J.D.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Vance is, I give him credit. He's trying to live
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in reality, right? Donald Trump does not live in reality.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump still wants to make you believe this economy
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: is great. The golden age is here because for Donald Trump,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: he's never been wealthier, right? Donald Trump's greatest years of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: wealth accumulation has happened because of the presidency, right? He
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: has used the presidency to finally become a billionaire. He
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: never could become a billionaire before the presidency, but he
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: has used the presidency as one of the greatest grifts, frankly,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: in American history and how he's pulled it off. So
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's economy is doing fabulous, although he has a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: huge setback with the fact that the crypto industry hasn't
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: been able to totally capture the United States Senate. I'm
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: going to get into that a little bit later in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: this podcast as well, because I do think crypto created
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a blueprint or at least showed you how corporate capture
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: happens on Capitol Hill. And I think it's an important
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: story for you to know some of the details of.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: But it does look like it might have hit a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: brick wall. But I do think the delusion of Trump, right?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He cannot seem, you know, he keeps trying to say, no,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you know, this is not, you know, the Iran war
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: is going wonderfully. We're doing great. Pay no attention to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the facts that you keep seeing. I mean, we now
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: have troops having to anonymously send photos of the damaged
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: bases in the Middle East to CBS. And they've had
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to do so anonymously and be very careful because this
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Pentagon is hiding everything, right? I mean, you know, Thomas
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Massey may have introduced articles of impeachment on Pete Hegseth
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: as much as a troll, and certainly he's upset about Israel,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: upset about a lot of things. But the fact of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the matter is, Pete Hegseth has been a disaster at
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: this Pentagon. And by the way, the House is avoiding
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that vote because when you introduce the articles the way
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: he introduced them, there has to be a vote the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: next time they convene. And by quickly adjourning, the House
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: essentially has avoided now having to vote on the Hegseth
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: articles of impeachment until after the election. And I have
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to say, if I'm Pete Hegseth, that makes me really nervous.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I actually would have wanted this vote right now because
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans would have basically done the party line. If it's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a Democratic shellacking, there may be some Republicans who have
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: nothing to lose who may never have liked Hegseth in
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the first place. And all of a sudden this could
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: get some bipartisan momentum. This is one of those, huh,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the unintended consequence may make this matter more down the road. Look,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: who knows? Obviously, some of this stuff is just political gamesmanship.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't a slam dunk
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that the Articles of Impeachment vote would have gone the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: way Hegseth would have wanted now. But it is much
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: more precarious for him to hold this vote on those
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: articles of impeachment after the election, especially if the result,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: especially if Republicans decide that one of the reasons they
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: lost was the public didn't like this war with Iran.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: They didn't like all the economic fallout with the war
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: with Iran. And in fact, if you want, you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: one of the one of the points I've been driving
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: home to you guys over the last few months is
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I've said geographically, the state that I think is the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: one that will tell us if this is a blue
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: wave or not is the state of Iowa. And I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: have maintained that for a few reasons. But one is because,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you know, for a state with just four congressional seats,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: three of the four are swing districts. Three of the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: four are in play. And The Senate seat's in play.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: The governor's seat's in play. So you have, this is,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, this is as good of a test on
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Republican leadership on both the state and federal level in
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the state of Iowa. Well, there are, of the four
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: members of Congress that represent Iowa, two are seeking re-election.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And two were seeking statewide office. One of them lost
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a primary, Randy Feenstra. The other one, Ashley Hinson, is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the Republican nominee for Senate. The other two, Marianne Miller-Meeks,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: who has won by the skin of her teeth in previous,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: her district is so swinging. I think one time she
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: won by the landslide of six votes after multiple recounts.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And then Zach Nunn, who was the Des Moines seat.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: These two Republicans, Marianne Miller-Meeks has been on my podcast
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in the past. She's one of the She's a Republican
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that believes in climate change. And it was a conversation
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that we had a couple of years ago on that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, I would call her a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: traditional Republican. And Zach Nunn is somebody who is a,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: is sort of a Bob Dole Republican. When I, when
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I say Bob Dole Republican, I mean, you know, somebody
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that is, is going to support the party, whether it's,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: whether it's helmed by Mitt Romney or it's helmed by
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. He's a card carrying member of the Republican party,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and he's going to be a good party soldier. In fact,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He wanted to run for governor. He wanted to run
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: for Senate. And Trump twisted his arm and said, no,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: don't abandon that seat. That's a tough seat to hold
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: as an open seat. It'll be a little bit easier
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to hold if you run as an incumbent. So he's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: in a tough fight. Well, when they held the Iran
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: War Powers Resolution vote earlier this week, the number of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans joining Democrats, right, it passed again, this sort of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: this Essentially, it is it is it does not have
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you know, it is symbolic, but it is an important symbol.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Three more Republicans. So we have now seven Republicans that
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: are voting with the Democrats essentially to to say that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that that the president needs to come to Congress to
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to get permission to continue this war. It's a basic
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: message that's being sent here, right? Two of those three
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: new Republicans, Marianne Miller Meeks and Zach Nunn out of Iowa.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: What do you think they're seeing in their polling? I've
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: been stressing that, in particular, the part of the country
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: paying the steepest price for this war of choice of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: President Trump's are the Midwestern ag states, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, in particular. The price of diesel hits anybody
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in the ag sector. The price of diesel hits anybody
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: in the trucking sector. These are states that have quite
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a few people who work in trucking, who work in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the ag business, who are seeing the direct impact on
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: their bottom lines by this essentially energy crisis that has
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: been caused by President Trump's decision to launch this war
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: with Iran. And the fact that you have two, these
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: are again, Zach Nunn and Marianne Miller-Meeks, these are not
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: people that regularly break from their party. and they broke
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: on this. And it is, again, they're in nail-biter races.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, this vote tells me they're even more vulnerable
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: than I thought they were. The fact that they wanted
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to be seen as finding a way to be against
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Trump on something. And they thought the Iran war was
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the safest place to be. Well, we've seen the polling
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: on this, right? It's not even close. This isn't a
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a majority of the country's against it, but
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Republicans are more supportive. No. Majorities on both parties believe
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: this was a bad decision. Yeah, there are a few
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: more Republicans supportive of the president's decision than not, but
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: we know this thing is not it is not popular
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: in swing congressional districts. So it is it is again,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it's a tea leaf. And as I said, there are
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: certain tea leaves worth reading. This one is worth reading.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just any two new members of Congress. It
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is two in, you know. If the Democrats are winning
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: 15 to 25 seats, these two in Iowa are sort
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of what I would say is numbers 14, 15, you know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: in that range. These aren't the first seats that flip,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: but these are the seats that give you the governing majority.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And these are the seats, frankly, that win the, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: it's funny, especially that Des Moines seat, right? When the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Democrats are in the majority, they usually have at least two,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: if not three, congressional seats in Iowa. And when the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Republicans are in the majority, they usually have at least
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: two of the three swings, if not all three. In
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: this case, they have all three at the moment. And
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I think that this is why it's as good of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a barometer as any. And the fact that you got
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that vote, I think, tells you everything. This episode of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Soul.
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• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And yes, I too am a customer. Somebody was joking
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: with me lately. If the Democrats hand Donald Trump a
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: wish list of things they would like him to do,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: in the final 50 days of the campaign, because if
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: they did, he seems to be checking off each one
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of them, right? What would you want Donald Trump to do? Well,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: you would want to, hey, approve a big arms sale
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to Israel less than 50 days before the election, because
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Democrats know that supporting Israel militarily is most unpopular with
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: their youngest voters. The youngest voters are the ones that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: are the least likely to turn out in a midterm.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So you need the president to do something that gets
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: their attention, that might make them upset enough that they realize, oh,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: they need to come out and vote. And what does
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump do? Signs off on a new big arms
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: sale to Israel. And right when younger voters... are just
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: now starting, just frankly, anybody under 45 has got a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: lot of other stuff going on in their lives. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: so you start, you don't start paying attention until right
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: about now. And it's almost as if he waited till
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: more people are paying attention to do this. Nevermind that he's,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you know, more focused on his, trying to force his
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: name on somebody else's tombstone on the JFK and the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, trying to force his name on a memorial.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: He's trying to deal with the arch. I'm gonna have
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a little bit more on that as well. He couldn't
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: be focused, right, if, you know, the trap that Republicans
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: are in is that they need Trump's base supporters to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: show up to give them a chance, but they can't
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: alienate these swing voters. And Trump is doing all these
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: things that alienate swing voters, yet they can't fully distance
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: themselves because they can't afford to alienate his most devoted supporters,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: except he's not doing anything to get those folks out. Well,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to paint that picture a little bit because
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I think it underscores an incredible story I read from
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the newly named Washington news organization, the Washington Sun, formerly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: known as Notice. They had an incredible TikTok of a
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: fight that happened inside the House Republican Conference earlier this week.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And so I want to share a little bit about
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it because there's clearly– I don't there's something happening with
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: House Republicans right now that, like I said, this isn't
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: just typical congressional dysfunction. This is the this is how
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you know it's the beginning of the end.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: This is the moment you want to say people are
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: jumping ship. We are at the jumping ship stage. Everything
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: is fraying. And look, you could see it in the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: way the House got out of town.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Rather than deal with this Hegseth impeachment. But. I got
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to share this reporting, extraordinary reporting from Reese Gorman at
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the Washington Sun. Reese has been on this podcast. What
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: happened behind closed doors on Tuesday night? So Mike Johnson
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: calls a 9-15 meeting in his office Tuesday night. Leadership
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is there. And the heads of the five Republican ideological caucuses,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: these are the so-called five families, right? It's your Freedom Caucus.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It's the Tuesday group. It's the You know, literally, it's
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the far right members. It's the super moderates. But it's
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: all the different. There's five of these ideological caucuses. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: of course, because everybody loves a good mob reference, if
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you can use it, they call it the five families.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I had an old colleague at NBC used
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to refer to the network pool as the five families
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: because it was NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox. And
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it was the meeting of the five families. Everybody loves
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a good mob. mob connection, if you can make one, right?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: So it's the so-called five families plus committee chairs as well, okay?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: So you can imagine this meeting. It's about 20 people, right?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The biggest leaders in the House Republican Conference, most of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: whom are, in theory, not facing tough re-elections, but realize
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: they're all about to lose their roles as majority anything,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: whether they're committee chairs, leadership, you name it, right? And
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: what's the issue that sets everybody off? A gas tax holiday.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: So Andy Harris, he's chairman, he's a Maryland Republican chairman
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of the Freedom Caucus. He wants the federal gas tax
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: suspended through the election. Harris had used his vote on
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: a procedural measure earlier in the day to extract a
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: promise from leadership that they would at least discuss bringing
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: up the idea of a gas tax holiday. Given what
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: we've seen with gas prices, right? The Iran war is
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: causing this massive disruption in the energy markets. That is
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: only now, like if apparent, we are going to start
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to see, because the price increases we saw this week
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: was before we got the full shutdown of Saudi Arabia, right?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: We're going to start to see increases at regular gas
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: stations start to go up fast. So a bunch of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: lawmakers are panicked. Andy Harris is one of them. Gas
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: tax holiday, maybe it's 19 cents off, maybe it's, you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it may not, I don't think anybody's going to notice,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: but they needed a headline and they were desperate. So
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Andy Harris loves his own idea about the gas tax
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and he says they're going to bring this up. Except
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Sam Graves of Missouri, who chairs the Transportation Committee, shows
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: up to the meeting with a receipt, an actual printed receipt.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was an old Andy Harris social media post from
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: 2022 when Joe Biden was president. And Biden was talking
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: about suspending the gas tax because he wanted to lower
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: prices going into the midterm elections of 2022. At the time,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Andy Harris called Biden's idea, quote, just another Biden administration stunt.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: So Graves decides to remind Andy Harris of this old post.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And he says, wait a minute. Four years ago, when
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a Democratic president wanted to do this, you called it
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: a stunt. Now, weeks before an election, you want us
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to do the same thing? And apparently it set everybody off.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: According to the Washington Sun, Harris starts banging on the desk.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: This is fucking war. This is war. And he gets
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: up to leave. Andy Harris is not known as a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: guy that plays well with others. Ask anybody in the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Maryland delegation, he's on an island, it seems like at
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: times in the Maryland delegation, and he's on an island
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in the Republican conference at times. So he gets up
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to lead. The speaker tries to stop him and tells
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: everybody to stay and talk it out. Again, this is
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: all according to Reese Gorman, and I'm telling you, Reese
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Gorman is somebody who I think I think there are
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: recordings or something in that speaker's office. It's fantastic. Right.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Then Clay Higgins of Louisiana jumps in and starts berating
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Graves and calls him a disrespectful fool. So Higgins and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Harris both walk out of the meeting. One of the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: people described it as one of the craziest meetings they'd
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: ever been a part of, according to Reese Gorman. And
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: here's what makes this more than just another funny Capitol
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Hill anecdote. Look at what they were fighting about, right?
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: It's not some grand ideological dispute. It's about whether Republicans
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: should do something that some of these same Republicans attacked
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: as a cynical political stunt when Democrats proposed it four
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: years ago. And they're not merely disagreeing about it. They're
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: banging tables and screaming, this is fucking war. Boy, how
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: bad is it? I mean, if you're shooting at each other,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you know the whole thing's coming apart, right? Anyway, this
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: happens Tuesday night. You got the Massey. This meeting happens.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Massey already, without warning House Republicans, the leadership that he
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: was going to do this, uses his privilege to introduce
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: these articles of impeachment on the floor, which then have
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to be voted on. So with all this chaos, Johnson
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: then sends everybody home until after the midterms. The Sun
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: notes this isn't an isolated event. That Johnson snapped, I'm
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: sick of this shit, when Anna Paulina Luna was trying
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to push him on something in July. Other Republicans have
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: publicly complained that leadership keeps giving in to demands from
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the right. And votes have repeatedly been canceled amid internal fighting.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: This has been a regular, I mean, in some ways,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: if you follow this stuff closely, it's just another day
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that ends in Y when it comes to Congress trying
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to be in session. But you put that next to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the Hank Seth situation and you put it next to
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the House getting out of town and you realize, right,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: there are two ways to measure how panicked are Republicans.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: First of all, the fact that they were like, They've
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: run out of ideas, right? Donald Trump last week is,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I'll just send you $ 5, 000, please, right? Just straight up.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: They don't have any new ideas. You've got J.D. Vance going,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: please just give us another chance. Like, we know we
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: kind of screwed up, right? He doesn't say the screwed
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: up part, but it's kind of implied. When you're asking
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: for another chance, it doesn't mean it worked out well
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the first time when you actually use that phrase. So
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: he uses that phrase. They're trying to use ideas that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: they mocked Joe Biden for trying in 2022. They're out
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of gas, guys, literally and figuratively here. They're out of ideas.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: They realize that this is only going to get worse.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And then to put it all, right, to sort of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the icing on the cake, I quoted one Washington-based story.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: There's another local story that only reinforces just what a
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: shit show this has turned into in Trump's Republican Party, right?
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Because this may capture It may capture the moment that
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: we're in right now as well as anybody. The Washington
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Post obtained some National Park Service documents about Donald Trump's
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. It's on
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the other side of Memorial Bridge on the Virginia side.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: And the Park Service's conclusion is remarkable. The arch will
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: adversely affect, this is according to the Park Service. This
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: is not according to the Washington Post. According to the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Park Service, Washington Post obtained these documents. The arch will
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: adversely affect the Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: dozens of other historic sites. These were their words. The
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: adverse effects, quote, cannot be fully avoided. So what do
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: you do when the federal agency responsible for protecting these
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: places concludes that your project will unavoidably damage the historic
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: setting for these places? Apparently, you're going to build it anyway.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Because the Park Service says moving it somewhere else doesn't
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: work because the location at Memorial Circle is, quote, again,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: their language, Central to the undertaking. Well, who says it's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: central to the undertaking? I guess it's one person, right?
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. He believes if he can't shove himself in
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: front of our national cemetery, in between our national cemetery
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and the man who saved this nation, Abraham Lincoln. I mean,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: just this guy's got the worst case of poser complex ever,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't he? So we're having to build a grand arch
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: in this particular place. because this particular place is essential
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to this giant arch. And when the preservationists say, but
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you're going to damage the historic landscape, the proposed mitigation
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: ideas from the park service include, and I kid you not,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: signs and webpages explaining the arch. Explaining the arch. The
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: arch is some egomaniacs, wannabe historic figures, attempt to make
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: himself seem more important than he actually was. Meanwhile, the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: National Park Service's own public documents say that that specific section, 106,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that historic preservation process still isn't complete and that its
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: environmental finding is not final approval for the project. So
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I put these two stories together because one branch of
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: government has a Republican majority so internally exhausted that its
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: members are screaming at each other over a pre-election gas
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: tax lawsuit holiday that, frankly, they probably should have tried
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: to do because they could at least say they were
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: trying to do something. It's slightly better than Trump's. Let
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: me just bribe you. Let me just promise you, you know,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I'll promise you a quarter a quarter tomorrow if you
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: give me that hamburger today. And at the same time, right,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: so you get the House is a mess. House Republicans
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: are infighting. Same time, the executive branch is moving ahead
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: with the 250 foot presidential triumphal arch. even as its
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: own Park Service acknowledges unavoidable adverse effects on some of
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the most historically sensitive ground in America. And of course,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Congress is just going home. You know, you might expect
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Congress to care about this, but they've done nothing about this,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: which may inevitably be why people who may think the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats have gone too far to the left, You know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and that the most important, I think the most important
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: question in that New York Times poll was when asked about,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: do you, you know, what's more important, making sure that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: this Congress supports Trump's policies or provides a check? And
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: provide a check was nearly, you had more than half
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the country wanting to see a check provided. And it
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: is stories like this that only motivate more independent voters
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: more to say, you know what? We need to check
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: on this. And this is why midterm, it's why it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: so hard in a midterm for the party in power
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to somehow make it a referendum on the other party. Look,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I get it, right? They're trying to turn every Senate
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: candidate into Abdul El-Sayed and AOC. And I think they
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: think that maybe that doesn't necessarily swing independent voters. I
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: think they think that will somehow motivate base voters, and
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: it might. I don't know on that. And it's a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: wait and see. but it's the only message they got.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: And they couldn't even, you know, here's the thing, they've
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: thrown a few ideas out there, gas tax holiday, $ 5, 000,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: just sort of bribe, dividend bribe. But the gang that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: can't shoot straight, the House Republican Conference, can't even convene
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: itself to have a vote on any of these things.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Because in the words of Andy Harris, apparently this is
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: fucking war. All right, I want to close before I
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: get to this deep dive on Texas. And again, I
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: think It is, in some ways, I would call it
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: almost a viewer's guide to understanding what's going on in Texas.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: If you don't live in Texas, but you're obsessed with
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: what's happening in Texas right now, this is the interview
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: for you. But before we get there, I want to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: talk about how an industry captures a government. Most people
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: picture capture as bribery. And I frankly think you should.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: A bag of cash, a vote in return. But it's
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: not actually how it works. And it hasn't been for
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: a long time. The modern version of capturing Congress. is quieter, cheaper,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and for the most part, legal. To give you a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: little history here, George Stigler, a Chicago economist, laid this
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: out in 1971, believe it or not. And his argument
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: was that regulation, government regulation, is usually acquired by the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: industry being regulated and designed mostly for its benefit. Mankur
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Olson would explain later why that's possible. A small group
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: with a lot at stake will always out-organize a large
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: group with little at stake. The industry cares about its
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: bill every single day. The public mostly doesn't know the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: bill exists. So hold that framework up against a recent
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: report out of Politico that documented crypto and AI, and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: you can watch the capture being assembled in real time.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And this is really, in some ways, crypto has been
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: has been on the leading edge of this. And the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: AI space is essentially watching where crypto has succeeded and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: emulating them and watching where crypto has failed and trying
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: to avoid those failures. So what was step one? This
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: was clever. Capture the nominating process, not the Congress. So
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: what the reporters at Politico found was that AI and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the crypto super PAC spent about $ 127 million across more
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: than 100 congressional primaries this year. And they won about 90%
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of them. We've told you forever, the number of actual
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: competitive districts, you know, the outer edge of competitive this
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: year might be 40 districts. Maybe you can get it
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: to 50. And what do I mean by competitive? Anything
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: in the single digits, right? So 54, 46, anything under
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: 55 for the leading vote getter, which means there's a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: good 80 to 90% of the house where the primary
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: is the election. Well, people who spend money trying to capture,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: trying to create regulatory capture, are very aware of this,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: which is why the crypto industry focused so much money
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and attention on primaries, primaries that many of us didn't
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: actually pay a lot of attention to unless they involved
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: an incumbent and it was an interesting ideological split. So
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: by the count of Politico noted, at least one in
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: six members of the next Congress will arrive with the
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: backing from crypto. So crypto already has its claws into
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: one in six new members, the new members coming in
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: because of the amount of investment they made in these primaries.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: And that's the key word here, primaries. That's where the
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: capture is the cheapest. Turnout is tiny. The voters have
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: less information and the ads are cheaper, right? Primaries are
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: affordable for outside groups compared to the general elections, which
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: become way more expensive. So in industry, It doesn't need
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to beat an entire political party. It needs to shape
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: who the party nominates. You do that and the general
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: election is somebody else's problem. Capture happens before the oath
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: of office. Now, I do want to make a fair
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: concession here. Some of these wins were uncontested. Some were
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: safe bets that the PACs picked to pad their scorecard,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: but also to buy off people they thought were buy-offable.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: But the scorecard isn't really the point, which brings us
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to the next step. Step two, build a storefront in
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: both parties. So every major network here runs one brand
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: for Democratic primaries and another for Republican ones, right? Fair
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Shake has Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs. Leading the Future,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the AI group, has Think Big and American Mission. Public
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: First has Jobs and Democracy Pack, Defending Our Values Pack, right?
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: One for the R side, one for the D side.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: They have the same goal. That's the tell of a
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: capture operation as opposed to an ideological movement. An ideological
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: movement picks a side. A capture operation makes sure it
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter which side wins. You know, they don't care
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: which party's in control of Congress as long as they
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: have allies in both parties. Politico's description is this. These
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: groups haven't sorted along partisan lines and they back whoever
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: lines up with their legislative interests in both parties. The
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: issue is the only party they belong to. So what's
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: step three? You don't have to win everywhere. You have
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: to make an example. So capture runs on deterrence. In 2024,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Fairshake's network spent roughly $ 40 million in Ohio against Sherrod Brown,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, the committee that
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: writes the crypto law. Brown lost. Every member of Congress
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: who survived noticed. This year, Fairshake and its affiliates went
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: into the fall with nearly $ 123 million in the bank.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe that money doesn't have to be spent to work.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: It works by existing. A member doing the math in
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a marginal seat doesn't need a phone call. They know
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the number, they know what happened to Brown, and they
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: decide this isn't the hill to die on. It's a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: mighty nice congressional office you have there. Be a shame
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: if you voted the wrong way on crypto and you
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: lost it, right? That's the part of capture no FEC
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: filing can show you. The fights that never happen. Step four,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: move the people along with the money. So Josh Vlasto
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: worked for Fairshake last cycle. Now he helps run leading
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the future, the AI network. Same playbook, same operatives, new industry.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Capture is a skill set and it travels. What crypto
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: built over two cycles, AI inherited in one. Step five,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you get to pick the referee. So this is where
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the policy lives. The crypto market structure bill, the Clarity Act,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: would hand the CFTC, the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: primary authority over digital assets. CFTC is a smaller agency
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: with a much lighter touch than the SEC, the Securities
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and Exchange Commission, which the industry has been fighting for years.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Crypto does not want to be regulated the way stocks
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: are regulated. Capture at its most refined isn't about getting
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: a law passed. It's literally about choosing who enforces it.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, step six is stay invisible. Capture
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: depends on low salience, right? The worst thing that happened
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to APAC is everybody knows who APAC is now, right?
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I say the words fair shake to people. Nobody knows
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: who they are, right? I'll give you an example, right?
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: This low salience. Roger Marshall of Kansas captured this perfectly
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: before the vote. He said this on the crypto bill.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Nobody back home, he said, is asking about the crypto bill.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: It's not a sign that the industry is weak. It's
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the ideal condition for the industry. When voters aren't watching,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the only people keeping score are the ones with the checkbooks.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: So that's the model. You shape the primaries. You stay bipartisan.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: You deter by example. You find somebody. You move the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: talent around. You pick the referee and you keep it boring.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And the crypto industry almost ran it perfectly. And I
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: say almost because earlier this week on Tuesday, they hit
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a wall. It failed. The Clarity Act needed 60 votes
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to get through a procedural vote, and they lost 49
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to 50. They couldn't even, in theory, couldn't even get
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: 50 votes, with Democrats citing an ethics provision around Trump's
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: crypto business interests. That was something that Democratic supporters of
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: this bill were demanding. Republicans understood why they demanded it,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: and guess who was never going to agree to something
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: like So they tried. They added some ethics language, but
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: they couldn't add what Democrats wanted because dear leader didn't
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: like it. So what broke? Why didn't this work for crypto? Well,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: there are two things, and both are lessons about the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: limits of capture. Careful in getting too greedy. The first limit,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: capture only works while it's invisible. It broke in some
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Democratic primaries first. In Illinois, Raja Krishnamoorthy lost a Senate
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: primary despite nearly $ 10 million from Fairshake. Juliana Stratton made
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the money itself the issue, calling it a MAGA-backed crypto pack.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Sri Thanadar lost his Michigan house seat despite $ 2 million
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: from the same people. So once the money becomes a story,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it stops being a weapon and it actually can turn
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: into a liability. In New York's 12th district earlier this year,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the AI industry spent heavily to defeat Alex Boris, who
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: wrote New York's AI safety law. Boris lost, but he
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: lost to Micah Lasher, who co-sponsors the same law. Brad Carson,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: whose group backed Boris, put it this way. The industry, quote,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: made him into a national hero. And a quick note
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: on Carson. He argues his group shouldn't be counted as
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: industry money because it spends to push AI regulation. It's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: still an AI company's money from Anthropic backing the company's
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: preferred rules. It's a form of capture. They just have
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: different lines that they won't cross compared to OpenAI and
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the other side of it. It's a different motive, but
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: it's still the same mechanism. And it's worth noting. But
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: here's the second limit to this capture plan. If you
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: capture the wrong principle, the whole thing can flip. And
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: this is where crypto both had an enormous success, which
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: led to enormous failure. The industry's greatest success was capturing
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the White House. And it was also its undoing. Trump
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: disclosed that he made north of a billion dollars simply
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: from his crypto businesses alone in 2025. And once the
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: president's family became a stakeholder, the bill was not a
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: boring jurisdiction fight anymore. It turned into a vote on
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: whether the president gets to regulate his own business. So
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it did two things at once, right? It made the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: issue visible, which breaks step six in your capture blueprint.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: And it made democratic opposition free. No democrat is getting
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: primaried for voting against Trump's crypto business. The deterrent evaporated.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The industry built a bipartisan capture machine and then one
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: principle made it partisan. So where does that gonna leave us?
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Where does that leave crypto? Look, capture is never permanent
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and it isn't a one-time purchase. You're always leasing because
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: politicians will, no matter how bought off they are, they
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: care about winning more than anything and they'll throw any supporter,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: even a super PAC supporter under the bus if it
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: guarantees reelection. So the crypto industry got greedy And that's
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: what happened. So the question now is AI, which is
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: trying to run the same essentially six steps that crypto
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: ran with a better funded operation, fewer self-inflicted wounds and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: an issue that most voters are only now just starting
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: to follow. But it's possible that it's too late for
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: AI too, right? That in some ways it's gotten too big.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: We'll see. Leading the futures groups have spent in about
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: a dozen primaries since New York and won every one.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: If you want to see capture done right though, don't
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: watch crypto because crypto shows you where it breaks. We're
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: going to see if AI has learned the right lessons
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: from crypto, but like I said, I'm not sure that
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the Essentially, you just have to see my last three podcasts,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: what's the issue I led with? AI. In some ways,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: it may have gotten too big. They had an opportunity
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: to pull this off. And in some ways, the problem
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: that both AI, big tech in general, and crypto ran
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: into was the good news was Trump was easy to
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: buy off. The bad news was Trump was easy to
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: buy off. And because he was so easy to buy off,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: he turned what could have been a bipartisan capture into
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: a partisan issue and made it nearly impossible for anybody
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to support the crypto industry because they lined the pockets
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and his family. Just a small little
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: reminder on how Washington actually works. All right, we're going
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to sneak in a break, and when we come back,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: my fascinating conversation with longtime Texas resident, observer, reporter, everything.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: And she's a Longhorn fan. We'll forgive her. It's Abby Livingston. Hey,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: you by Ethos. Look, let me tell you about life insurance.
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• 51:28
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• 52:28
  Speaker 1: of questions I get about all things Texas, the conversations
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I've been having with many of my sources on both
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: sides of the aisle in Texas, I feel like we
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: need a deeper dive on just how real. This is
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: not about whether Texas can turn blue. To me, it's
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: about whether Have we hit the moment where Texas is
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: now purple? Still could mean that Team Red wins most everything.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: But is this the year that we start to see
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: some purple in Texas? And the person that I have
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: worked with over the years that I think knows as
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: much about Texas politics as anybody I know is a longtime,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: is a former colleague of mine at NBC. She spent
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: seven years at the Texas Tribune, is a contributor to
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: POC Now. And those in Texas know her reporting very well.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: It's my friend Abby Livingston, a Fort Worth native. Correct.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Correct. It's the Swing County. So County.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Right. It was the it's the is it a swing
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: county still?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it will be this cycle, but
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: it has gone back and forth. But it is it's
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Tarrant County is a very rough place for Republicans right now.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: North Texas in general is just and as you know,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: as you know, and And my listeners know I'm more
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: familiar with North Texas all the time, thanks to my
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: son living in the actual city of Dallas. And it is,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I mean... Abby, just that area alone reminds me of
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: just watching Northern Virginia become Northern Virginia in the 90s.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, but you can just start to see it, right?
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: You see all these companies coming in. You see people
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: moving from all over the country. You see Americans of
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: all different stripes, all different ethnicities and backgrounds, despite what Mr.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Beau French seemed to dislike at the UT game. The
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: point is, is that It really reminds me of Loudoun
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: County in the late 90s, to be frank.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really fair comparison. But the one
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: caveat I will have with that is just a reminder
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: that Texas is just so big that it's hard to
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: make a comparison to a single dominant metro region like
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Chicago or Northern Virginia. But DFW is now, I believe, 34%.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: That media market is 34% of the state of Texas,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: which is staggering.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: That is amazing. So right there, that is now the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: biggest that there is that. Do we even call it
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: one media market?
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, as a Fort Worth resident
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: with little brother syndrome, we would like to call it
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: the Fort Worth, Dallas metropolitan area. But I mean, and
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: this is sort of my my Twitter rant here. Dallas
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: is massive and has always been massive, but Fort Worth
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: is now the 10th largest city in America. And most
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: people don't really even know anything about it. So when
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: you think about it, these are two massive cities next
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: to each other.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's not just Fort Worth that has
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: this like, I think inferiority complex. How about old, poor
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: old San Antonio, which is like considered like the, the,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: the double little brothers, right. Of Houston and Austin. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: it's what eighth largest city in the country now.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Which is funny. Cause when I was growing up, San
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Antonio was the big brother to Austin. And, um, Fort
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Worth is just– I mean I grew up on Dallas politics,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Dallas school board politics, and I couldn't have told you
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: who the Fort Worth school board was when I was
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: growing up on the news.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Interesting.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: And it's– I mean we can just start with Tarrant.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I think South Texas is by far the most pivotal
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: part of the state, but Tarrant– To give a sense
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: of what Tarrant County is like, it's got Fort Worth,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: this big metropolitan area, and its historical economic engine has
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: been Lockheed and Bell Helicopter and then oil and gas.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: And I love it as a political place. And I
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: want to be clear. I live in New York. I'm
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: not on the ground in Texas, but I'm watching it
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: from afar. And I hope one of the benefits of
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: that is seeing the watermarks. But there are many great
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: reporters on the ground.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's do this, Abby. Let's do this. I
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: want to do Texas 101 here before we dig in,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: which is you just we started with North Texas and
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: we just sort of stumbled into this. But then I
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: realized and you brought up South Texas and we need
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to talk about West Texas. It is I guess it's
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: five states. How many if you were to divide the
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: state up into the sort of digestible political chunks, North Texas,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: South Texas, what else? Give me the other chunks.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: So they refer to the triangle, which is basically Interstate
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: 35 from DFW down to Austin and San Antonio and
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: then cut over to Houston and back up and up I-45.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: And so that's the big cities. That's, you know.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I did that drive. I flew to Houston, drove to Austin,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: drove to Dallas, did not go back to Houston. But
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I did that triangle when doing college tours with my son,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: that exact. And I'll just will tell you, blown away
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: by the size of the interstates. And I come from
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: an interstate state like the state of Florida. But nobody
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: has a 27 lane highway that I've yet to come across,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: even my friends in Atlanta. But you do have that
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: in Dallas. It's pretty impressive. But that is a massive
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: area that you just described. Yeah.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: And so I would say like most, the most of
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: the population is there. And most people who live in
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: those cities have in their lives gone to those cities
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: for family, college, things like that.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: It's a regular thing, right? Houston to Austin to Dallas,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: like that, that is, they're all close enough where what
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: probably at least once every six months, somebody is going
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: to one of those other points of the triangle.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And so I would kind of And this is
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: just Abbey sociology. I wouldn't say this is something that's
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: collegiate or academically examined, but those are kind of that's
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the population center. And then you have South Texas, which
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: is San Antonio South. And that is how far west.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Do you do South Texas count as when you I
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: know the San Antonio part, but we always say South
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Texas and the heart of it is San Antonio. But
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: how far west does South Texas, when people describe it
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: as South Texas, how far west? Is it the entire
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: length of the border, the entire length of the Rio Grande?
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I kind of would say there's those three congressional districts
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: and they're all kind of lined up next to each
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: other and they're very long. They go north and south,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: but they're not very wide. And so that's what I
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: sort of de facto call South Texas, and so that's basically,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: I would say maybe Corpus Christi to Laredo. And then
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: West Texas, you've got the Texas 23, which is this
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: expansive and it's kind of sort of sort of South
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Texas and then West Texas.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: That's what I was wondering, like the southern part of
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: West Texas is probably behaves a little more like South Texas, right?
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I would think so, yeah. And then West Texas in
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: general is just this expanse of Midland, Odessa, and then
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: you get up north into the Panhandle. Some people in
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: the Panhandle don't want to be called South Texas, but
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: that is the rich Republican vote that Republicans are praying
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: comes through in big numbers to offset what's happening everywhere else.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: So that's the best way to sort of carve things
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: up here. So it it is now let's start with
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: my thesis up top. Um, right. We've been here so
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: many times and I, and I look, um, Florida wasn't
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: believed to be a swing state until Al Gore did
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: what he did in 2000. Even Bill Clinton winning it
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: in 96 wasn't made people believe. I don't know. Florida
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: is quite yet a swing state. Then 2000 happens. Then
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: it becomes this swingy state for, for, for a couple of,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: for a little over a decade. Um, Virginia in 06, right?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: It very much felt like, yeah, I don't know. I
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: don't know. And then it happened. And I look at
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Texas and I see similarities to Virginia 06 and I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: see similarities to Florida 2000, which tells me that's the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: beginning of becoming purple. Is that where we're at with
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Texas or am I over my skis?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. What I think is happening in
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Texas right now is five percent James Tallarico's talent, five
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: percent the environment and 90 percent Republican self-inflicted wounds.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: And this goes and this explains the entire ballots problems, because,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: you know, if this were just Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be in a. wouldn't be flip-flopping on data centers
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and running away from things as fast as he's running
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: away from. Like, this does feel like something bigger is
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: happening here.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: So I think two things are going on. With regard
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: to Abbott, he's been in office for 12 years. And
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of, I mean, and Republicans have been running
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: the state for 30 years, but Abbott in particular. And
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: so he's had a lot of policies all around that have,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: quite frankly, irritated people. Right. You know, and I mean,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: this is such a local issue, but it's something I'm
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: hearing about. The state has taken over the Fort Worth
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Independent School District, and that is causing chaos.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: All I hear is schools. Abby, I think this is
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: absolutely Abbott's biggest problem. And it looks like Kansas. It
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: looks like a Kansas redux all over again, which is
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: and what's what's happening with Rob Sand in Iowa is
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: this that tinkering with the public school system, you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: this whole idea of parent choice. It is really irritated.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: If you live in ex-urban or rural parts of your state,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: this is what happened in Kansas, what happened in Iowa.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: I'm frankly seeing it in Florida, too. You know, there's
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: only so much choice you have in rural America when
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: it comes to schools.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: So these are two separate things. So the voucher... issue
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: is coming into effect right now for the first time.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: And so that's really hitting rural schools hard. One reason
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: is because a lot of rural areas don't have a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: private school to choose from. And there's also a sense
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: that this is more of a discount for private tuition
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: rather than covering it. The other thing is, I think
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: it's disruptive to Friday night football. What if your town's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: quarterback decides to go to the private school? And this
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: is the entire organizing principle around small towns in Texas.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: And so you have that. But what's happened in Fort Worth,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and I believe it's happened in Houston as well, is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: they've literally taken over the schools. And it's this very,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: they've changed the curriculum and mothers are calling each other.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: And I am a student of Robert Caro. And one
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: of the first battles, the Robert Moses lost in New
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: York City, the master builder who managed to aggravate everyone
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: and they went along with him, was he lost a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: battle to pave over a part of Central Park that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: infuriated the Upper West Side mothers. And so since I've
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: read that, I always think mothers are really a political
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: force you don't want to rile up. And they are
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: riled up right now. So You have that. And but
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: I think there's just policies everywhere. And, you know, I
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: talked to a friend of mine who's a longtime student
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: of New York politics. And I asked her, why did
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Mario Cuomo lose in 1994? And she said to me,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: he stayed at the party too long. And so I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: think that's what's going on with Abbott specifically.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: He famously lost his chance at a fourth term. Right. Yes.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: And so but then you spread it out. And this
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: is where I think it's. So the Beau French thing
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: did not catch anyone in Texas by surprise.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: We were talking about this on Texas primary night, the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: first of our live streams. We were talking about this.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: And in the political world, people have known Beau French
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: is basically a racist who somehow got traction inside the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Republican Party to a point. And it was only a
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: matter of time before he became a national eyesore, I think.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: And that was I think that was I've talked to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: a lot of folks and it's it's I don't think
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Republicans are taking this for granted. And that's a big
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: difference from 2018. They just try.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: To defeat French. Right. But the party's pretty divided, it
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: seems like.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is this is an absolute civil war that's
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: been going on for 15 years. And so when I
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: talk to folks who don't who are not familiar with Texas,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: they roll their eyes and say, I don't believe the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: polls and Beto loss. This is stupid. And I'm just like.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Beau French is representative of things that are happening all
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: over the state. There are very poor quality candidates all
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: over the place. And you have Brandon Herrera, who I
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: don't even know how to describe his opposition research book,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: but it's probably one of the worst I've ever seen
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: in my career. And he's running in Texas 23. And,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: you know, when Ted Cruz was running in 2018, he
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: had Will Hurd running, who was ex-CIA president. golden boy
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: of Texas running very, you know, conventional ads in the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: San Antonio media market. And now you may have Democrats
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: come in and run this opposition research book, which I
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: can't even repeat a lot of the stuff in it.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: And so there are weaknesses up and down the ballot.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: There are weaknesses in the county positions that are very powerful.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: And so and so and then you get to the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: statewide and you have Abbott struggling and Abbott I'm still
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: skeptical that he could lose. That's just really.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't buy that he could lose, but I'm
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: expecting it to be under five points. I'll be shocked
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: now if it's not.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: And so his perennial job in Texas Republican politics is
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: to raise a ton of money and cover up for
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: everyone else's problems down ballot. That's part of why Cruz
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: won in 2018. And now suddenly he's got Gina Hinojosa
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: running for a pretty damn good campaign, even if it's underfunded.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: And he's, I just wonder if he's going to end
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: up distracted by her and not able to fulfill his
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: normal role. And so, and then you go one step
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: over to the Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, and he has
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: chosen this moment in time to go after THC in Texas.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: And this has shocked me, but Texas really likes its
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: THC and it's not even potheads. It's like people who
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: like the oils and the polling in this is not
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: It is. And so you just have lots of candidates
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: up and down.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: He's against his own grassroots. I mean, this is a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: case where MAGA Republicans are pro Delta aid and the
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: hemp industry and all of that stuff that is sort of.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, trust me, if you spend any time in Texas,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: these stores are everywhere. The total beverage floor, all of
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: the South. It's so funny not to go off on
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a side on here, but it's funny to me that
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: you have some states that legalized. sort of marijuana, cannabis
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: as we know it, this thing. And then you had
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: the states that didn't legalize that, but just sort of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: looked the other way on hemp-derived, what's so-called Delta A, THCA.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: And well, the South is hooked on it. I mean,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: they love it. And you see like Ron DeSantis has
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: tried to push back on the industry and he's gotten
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: blowback from some of his own supporters. And I think
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: you're seeing that in Texas too, aren't you?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, absolutely. And it's just I mean, I was
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: and this has been progressing for years. But to come
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: back to your bigger question, I'm not convinced Texas is
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: necessarily going to. This is a huge ideological wave hitting Texas.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: I think that there's a I had a Democratic person
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: in Texas tell me last year, last week, it's death
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: by a thousand cuts. What I think is the concern
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: or should be the concern for Republicans is. what if
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: people do get through? So like in 2018, a bunch
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: of state legislators lost their seats to Democrats and they
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: got a foothold in the wealthy part of Houston with
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher and the wealthy part of Dallas, which
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: you know well, represented by Colin Allred. And those are
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: really pivotal places with donor relationships, media markets, and just
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: building out a very decimated state party apparatus. And so
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: that has still, I mean, that is still paying off now,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: even if they were small gains and Beto lost. If
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: if if Tallarico, I mean, I think of this like D-Day,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: if if they can just get a little bit of
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: the beach, that is huge progress. The Texas Democrats have
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: not had a statewide leader. I guess, since 2002, 98.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: I can't remember when Bob Bullock left, but like, oh,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: go ahead. 98.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: No, this should make you happy. Actually, when I did my,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I was doing these, you know, top five all-time campaigns,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: and I talked about the importance of the tower election
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: and the special election in 1961. In Texas and the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: importance of it was just what you described. I was
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: reading this one account of it that what Towers victory
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: was the first Republican to win, you know, in that century.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: And it was this all of a sudden it meant
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the state party got checks nationally that they didn't get
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: in 1960. The state party got. And look, did it
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: take another 20 years for them to break through on
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: the state? It did. But it was the beginning of something.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: And Tower was once he got in, you couldn't dislodge him.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: And and it's like I think we saw the same
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: thing with just the many flips that you just described
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: in the wealthy areas of Houston and Dallas. Once they went,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't flip back as easily. It's basically now that's
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: new territory that belongs to Team Blue.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Well, and in that interim, you had a bunch of
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: scandals with Texas Democrats in the early 1970s, which I
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: have family members that voted Republican for decades because of
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: those scandals. And so I think it can be.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: So, yes.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: And the other comparison is Rick Perry in 1990, I believe,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: won agriculture commissioner. And that was like a big foothold.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: And so and I'm not even sure. I mean, one,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: it's just. I would say in 2018, very few people
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: could really imagine a Senator Beto O'Rourke. The race just
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: hadn't gotten that far. It just was like, is it
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: in play? Is it not?
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: It developed late. I mean, let's be honest. When I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: say developed late, look, people were paying attention to it
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: because email fundraising was a thing. And you certainly had
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: you know, beating up on Ted Cruz was sort of
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: fashionable by the left. So they saw, you know, virtue
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: signaling with Beto. But you didn't see an entire Democratic ticket.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Beto was kind of on his own, wasn't he? You know.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it was I don't think you have this
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: race without 2018. There's a lot of criticism of how
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: O'Rourke ran that race. I thought it was the best
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Senate race I'd ever seen on a Democratic side in Texas.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: And to come back to the The pot thing, I
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: always kind of felt like he was the gateway drug.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: He was the first time a lot of Republicans or
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: moderates voted Democratic. My joke with a source last week
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: was in 2018, it's like Beto got the mainline Protestants,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: particularly women, the Methodists, the Episcopalians. And what is astonishing
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: to me in this race, and it's all anecdotal, but
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: There are some Baptists who are very angry about this race.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: They're very angry about Ken Paxton and the pen and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: the cheating and the and I.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: The pen, you know, is the did the pen the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: stealing of the pen? Did that break through? Is that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: one of those things? I mean, it is. It's so
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: you're just like, God, he really stole somebody's pen. Like
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: what a dirt like what a dirty thing to do.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: And there was footage and it's like– but I am
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: also equally skeptical that that really broke through. Do you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: think it broke through? Do you think it's like one
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: of those things that, oh, yeah, the guy even took
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: some dude's pen?
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Normal people are talking about it. And what I would say,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: this is kind of one of my theories of Texas
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: right now, because the question I've really struggled to answer
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: when people ask me, why is Ken Paxton so unacceptable
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: in Texas, but Donald Trump is fine? And number one,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: I would say Donald Trump's never been that popular in
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: Texas compared to other areas. So election night 2016, that
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: was startling because Democrats... Hillary Clinton carried the Colin Allred District,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: which is wealthy Dallas, and the Lizzie Fletcher District. This
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: time they were occupied by Republicans in Houston.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the talking point? Hillary lost Texas by
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: less than she lost Iowa.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was where, and to me, you're right.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: A lot of people said, is that about Hillary? Or
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: was that actually about the Republican Party? And I think
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: it was about, I think now we see it was
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: clearly Texas, there were a lot of Texas Republicans that
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: weren't ready to sign up with Trump. There were a
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: lot of old Iowa Democrats that were ready to sign
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: up with Trump.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: Well, and so 2024 is really the only year Trump
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: has had a great year in Texas. And I mean,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't really understand the gravity of the 2024 results
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: until I started seeing the counties from Texas. And I
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: was like, wow. So that's why I think it was
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: kind of astonishing that Republicans were willing to bet so
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: much on Texas and redrawing the map because I was like,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: this is not a realignment. This is one election.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: But is this just a mislook? It's looking obvious now
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: to me. But and I never understood the belief in
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: it at the time, which was. Did Texas Republicans really
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: think that their improvement with Latinos was permanent?
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well. I think they were excited, but my impression
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: when this whole map thing came out a year and
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: a half ago or so, Republicans were panicked in Texas.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: They did not want this. They knew the map. They
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: drew this map on purpose in 2021 in preparation for
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: a wave. They did not want to go through 2018 again.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: And so the year that everyone knew a wave of
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: some sort was coming was when they decided to push
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: it to the limits. But coming back to Paxton, I've
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: kind of thought about him in the way that New
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: Yorkers think about Trump. They have lived with Trump for
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: 40 years in the tabloids. They've seen the headlines day in,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: day out. And New York just has not accepted their
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: native son as their guy in politics. And I think
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: there's a little bit of that with Paxton. And the
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Penn thing happened in like 2015 or 2016. Like these
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: These the impeachment, all of these things. And on top
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: of that, we come back to DFW. This is where
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: he's from. And he's been on the local news as
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: a state senator and then as the attorney general with this.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, his wife is a state senator.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: She's very charismatic. She's very likable. She's been running ads. So,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: you know, Dallas Fort Worth viewers have a parasocial relationship
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: with her. But so that's kind of what I'm just
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: wondering if, you know, Trump didn't his scandals did not
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: hit other parts of the country like it did New
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: York City with people who are familiar. And I just
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: wonder if there's a little bit of that going on
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: with Paxton.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Hmm. So. If let me ask this, because this where
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: I have my doubts when I say, you know, and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm overselling by saying Texas is purple. I
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: also can't get Paxton to excuse me, I can't get
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: Tallarica to 50. but I can't get Paxton to 47.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: So like it, it is, if Tallarico wins, your assumption
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: is it's under 50, isn't it?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, I think what I'm, I'm,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: and I'm not, I'm not as into the numbers as
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: other folks, but I think you have some evangelical people,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: probably women watching all of this play out and they
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: don't like what they're seeing. And, um, You know, one
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: of the things, they always say the scandal in Texas
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: is what's legal. Ethics laws are very loose. And a
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: lot of things happen that people don't like. But Texans
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: never see themselves as states with corruption images. And I
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: just think this, I think Beau French, I think Paxton,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: it's really, to a lot of folks that they've expressed
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: to me privately, a very embarrassing look for the state.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: And Texas has sent powerhouse senators to Washington my entire life.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: And this would be a big change. I mean, you
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: can criticize Ted Cruz, but he is a very smart
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: politician and he's very effective. And so I'm thinking about
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: an evangelical person who, you know, they are studying the
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: Ten Commandments. They are studying the Sermon on the Mount,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: just like the other things they learn about. And they're
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: seeing this. And so they have several options if they're upset.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: Not everyone's upset. This may be just a small group
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: of people. But you're sitting there and you're thinking, I
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: can do one of several things. I can stay home.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: And so right now, the Paxton objective is to make
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: James Tallarico so unsavory that it gets people off the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: couch and vote for Paxton. You can go vote. And
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of these people still really like Greg Abbott.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: They can go vote for him and then skip the line.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: But Paxton is at the top of the ticket.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Really, Paxton's at the top, not the governor.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: I believe so. Yeah. And there's no straight ticket anymore.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: or you can vote libertarian, which I know a lot
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: of people are going to do that, who I talk
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: to on a regular basis, or you can vote Tallarico.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: And I have heard people, again, anecdotal, but I've heard
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: People who go to Baptist Church, wealthy, despised Democrats say,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: I'm going to vote for Tallarico because Paxton's a crook.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: And so these are people I never even fathomed would
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: have these thoughts.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Does it surprise you that my little anecdotal, if you
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: drive around the neighborhood around SMU, I didn't see a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: single Paxton sign. I didn't see many political signs, but
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: I did see three or four Tallarico signs. Is that
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: what you would have expected? Sort of more silence? And
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: if anybody was willing to put a sign out, it
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: would be for Tallarico, not for Paxton, which is again,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: this is a very Cornyn-Bush Republican area, right? When you
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: call it that, that type of Republican.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. So there was a movement in Texas Republican politics
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: that signs don't vote, ignore them, they're stupid, they're a
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: waste of money. And I think the Beto O'Rourke campaign,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: in contrast, there were O'Rourke signs everywhere in Texas in 2018.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: But I think To put a sign in your yard,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: particularly if you're in a wealthy white neighborhood that tends
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: to be Republican, that is asking for negative feedback from
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: your neighbors, your friends when they drive by. So it's
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: a much bigger stand than I think a lot of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: folks realize. I've not been in the state in the last–
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: two months or so, but I hear in Fort Worth
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: and the same kinds of neighborhoods that's happening. I'm hearing
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: that in Houston, you know, and so I don't think
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of people want to put a Paxton sign
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: in their yard because of all of this baggage. So
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: there may be a sleeper vote, but I also just
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: think enthusiasm really, really matters. And even if you're not
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: the person putting the sign in your yard, you're driving
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: around and seeing this. And I think it has a
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: psychological impact on your sense of your surroundings.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting, you know, if you believe the Times poll,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: we're speaking on September 15th and the Times came out
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: with its first sort of post Labor Day national poll.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: And what I'm always I take what I what I
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: take away from the Times poll is there is basically
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: Nate Cohn's view of what the electorate is going to be.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: And his likely voter model indicated a an electorate that
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: would have elected Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by four points.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: And.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: If that is what we're staring at, right? And so
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: you're basically, essentially it's a D plus six, D plus
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: seven type of environment. They had the generic at 8.5.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: Is that enough for Tallarico in Texas?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I just think Harris is a really hard metric
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: because that race was so dysfunctional and she really underperformed
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: in Texas.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting and you're right to I'm
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: glad you hesitated there because I'll put in I'll fill
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: in a blank here. You know. One of the more
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: interesting aspects of the 24 campaign was how Harris basically
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: was at the Biden levels in all of the seven
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: battlegrounds and was dramatically. Off of Biden's levels in a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: lot of blue states. in particular, Illinois, New Jersey, New York,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: were truly dramatic where you had, well, whoa, she only
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: won that by what? 7.6 points? And yet none of
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: us are talking about, oh, is Illinois going to flip?
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: It's like the Illinois Senate race is not even really
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: being contested by the Republicans. So you're right. I think
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: probably her number, which might mean that if that's what
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: the electorate looks like and it got that version of
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Kamala head, Maybe this is an even worse environment for
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans than I'm realizing.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: Well, and I think Texas is needs. Well, we always
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: need to be in our own little column and group
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: because we're so big. But I just think the problems
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: in Texas are so different from everywhere else. And this
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: is an exhausted state.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: I think some of it's the death by it's this
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: whole thousand cuts thing.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: It's look. You have a Republican Party that got so
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: powerful it got divided. Right. Which is, again, what happens
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: when one party control happens. You know, politics abhors a vacuum. Right.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: In Kansas, one party control essentially shaved off a portion
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party that became the foundation of the
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: new Democratic Party in Kansas. Right.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: Is that what we're watching here or are we in
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a full fledged three party state at the moment?
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: I think we're good. I think there's a really good
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: chance we could be a three party state after the election.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: And that's why I'm so hesitant to project things. I
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: think Texas is going to paint the three parties.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Right. The Democrats are one that's fully united. And then
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: there's this thing in the middle and then there's the
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: Paxton MAGA. Right. I mean, how would you give me
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: your give me what are the two Republican parties here
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: that you've created?
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: I would break it. And this is maybe not helpful
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: to a national audience. I would break it down with
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: the Paxton impeachment, who voted for Paxton to be thrown
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: out of office and who didn't. And that is, and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: that's very state legislative centric, but, um, you.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Know, Was there a geographic alignment there? Was it rural
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: versus exurban? Was it suburban rural? I think it's more rural.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: Versus, um, city college educated. And, um, So John Cornyn
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: is obviously the representative of the more centrist Republican Party,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: even though I don't think most folks would say it's
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: that centrist. But these are OK. Here's how I would say.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: I think there's a generation of consultants, operatives, politicians who
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: grew up as Bush was on the ascent. And these
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: are folks who. got great joy in their life defeating
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats and they know how to run general elections with
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: brutal efficiency. And then you have this new generation coming up,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: which take general elections for granted. And so all that
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: matters is the primary and that is their muscle memory.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: And so what I am curious over the next few
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: weeks is Ken Paxton and these other folks run a
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: general election campaign with that kind of.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Efficacy.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: And You know, when you see Karl Rove say he's
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: going to vote for Tallarico, that's a stunner. But that
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: is literally all of his disciples.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: Did he say Tallarico, too? I know he said he's
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: not going to vote for Tallarico.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Excuse me.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. No, he's going to vote against French. Sorry.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: That felt kind of like an easy call. But it's interesting.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: He's an important permission slip, isn't he, for some Republicans?
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so I'm sorry for that error. But he's
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: got disciples who've been working in Texas politics who've been
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: saying the same thing to me for months. And- And
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: so I guess that's where I would really see the divide.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: And when you see Cornyn coming out like this, yeah,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: he's now a lame duck senator. And yeah, he's lost
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: and he's speaking his mind. But there are really, really
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: wealthy people who have been behind Cornyn. And Cornyn never
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: ran his Senate races to just win the Senate race.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: He ran down ballot. He would get on people to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: get their races together. And he was an organizational center
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: of his elections. And he's got these really wealthy billionaires
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: behind him and bundlers and people like that. And they
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: don't like Paxton. They've never liked Paxton. And this is
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: another anecdotal thing, but, you know, they have wives who
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: don't like Paxton. And so.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: So then explain this to me. And I'm going to
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I have a very cynical view of Donald Trump. This
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: won't surprise people. Donald Trump is usually, you know, available
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: to the highest bidder. So if Cornyn had all the money, people.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: How did those money people not persuade Trump to get
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: off this Paxton nonsense? Is it all due to that
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: Paxton did the one thing Trump needed somebody to do
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: to give him legitimacy on his stolen election claims? Does
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: it all go back to that ridiculous suit that Paxton
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: filed as AG? Are we seeing Donald Trump express loyalty?
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Because you would think if all of the money people
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: were Cornyn people, I'm sorry, I mean, Trump just, you know,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: The scent of money usually always brings him to your side.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: How did that not work here?
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not super well sourced in that specific part of
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: the world, but my interpretation all this spring when it
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: was there was going to be a Cornyn endorsement, it
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: never came down. This was just a chaos gremlin situation
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: where he I just think it was kind of fun
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: to play in it. And I think.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: What I've seen a national Republicans specifically in Trump world
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: is a sense that Texas, because it's, they're mistaking the
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: size of Texas for, and it's Republican nature for deep Republican.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: And it's, they have treated Texas's job in elections for
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: Republicans is to keep things calm in the state when
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: everything they can, and then send hundreds of millions of
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars out of the state. And, you know,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing with the congressional map. Just go
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: get us five seats out of Texas. And I mean,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, there's not five seats to give. And
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: most of the sources on the ground said that. So
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: I feel like Texas is this like political bank that
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: they've overdrawn on and that they've had a freedom to
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: do things that may not be politically strategic. And I mean,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: it's extended into the statewide. I think it's a level
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: of arrogance that they can do whatever they want in Texas.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: And here we are.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: Well, look, coming close doesn't mean a state is turned. right?
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: You can have close calls. Bob Vole had his closest
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: call in a Senate race right after Watergate, and then
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: it never got close ever again. So it was not
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: indicative that somehow Kansas was changing. Um, besides Tallarico and
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: the gentleman running against Beau French, um, how many democratic
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: statewide victories? And we have to remind people, Texas is
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: one of those places that elects a lot of things statewide.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: They have quite a few, more than a dozen. Um,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: And the irony is, what is it? I believe, is
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: it 1994, the last time a Democrat won anything statewide?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Gary Morrow, land commissioner, right?
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: I believe it was 94. Yeah.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So how many Democratic victories would it take for
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: you to say, oh, Texas is purple now? I assume
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: more than just Tallarico. Yes.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, and so the Democratic mindset around Tallarico is
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: they got to win. Beto came close.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: They really do. Because what does losing do? Let's talk
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: about that. What is the psychological blow of not winning
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: under these circumstances, the best possible circumstances you could possibly
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: have in this scenario?
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: There is a sobriety and cold-bloodedness in the Texas Democratic
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: world that I've never seen. And just a deadly serious
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: attitude of cutting the 2.7 margin from 2018 down is
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: not enough. And it's because they are struggling so hard
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: to convince national Democrats to send money to the state.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: And they feel like they will lose that argument if
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: Tallarico doesn't win. So Beau French has long been the
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: one when I quiz people on both sides, which statewide
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: gets through. Say Tallarico wins, who else gets through? And
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: both French's, John Rosenthal, French's opponent, is always the one
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: they point to. I'm just not there on seeing more
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: of that. But here's the metric I think would be interesting,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: because I'm just hesitant to weigh in on the statewides.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: But if this is a Cat 5 massive storm coming nationally,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's the congressional map that's going to be
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: interesting because it was engineered specifically for Republican performance. And
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: so Republicans took out five seats. One of those is
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: safe Republican. There's no way a Democrat's going to win.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: Two of those were in South Texas. Those were going
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: to be the most competitive, winnable ones. And then there
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: were two seats that were going to be really, really
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: big reach districts. The two South Texas one's basically seem
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: OK at this moment in time. And then you've got
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: those two reach districts, which there's getting to be a
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: lot of chatter in those districts, too. And then on
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: top of that, you have in South Texas what was
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a safe seat. Monica de la Cruz
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: is the congresswoman there. And there's a candidate named Bobby Polito,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: who is like the Bruce Springsteen of South Texas.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: No, I've been hearing a lot. Bobby's going to likely
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: be on this podcast pretty soon. I've heard a lot
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: about him.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: And his name ID is apparently off the charts for
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: a challenger. That seat was never even supposed to be
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: in play. So you got those five seats. It's now
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: a net zero after the Republican redraw. That is not
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: necessarily likely. But to me, maybe it's because you taught
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: me to care about House races. That's the metric I'm
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: more interested in than the statewides. If we see people
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: beyond Tallarico and French Republicans, I mean, Rosenthal win. I
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: don't even know that universe. I really don't even know
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: the universe of any Democrat winning.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: I will just walk you through my logic and how
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: I've become I've gone from skeptic on Tallarico to a
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: believer now to the point where I'm more skeptical about
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: Iowa flipping. to the Democrats than I am Texas. And
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: the thing that I didn't fully appreciate was this is
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: a slow erosion. We talk about Beto in 2018, but
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: no Republicans seem to get past 55% on the statewide ballot.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as if Beto was an outlier and everybody
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: else you know, Cruz hung on and everybody else, you know,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: won in a landslide. That is not what happened. It
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: was sort of, it was clear that, you know, Beto
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: did better than every other Democrat. But everybody, the floor,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic floor went up in 2018. And then in 2022,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: it didn't go down. Like, it's still like here, they
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: didn't have nearly the attention, near the opportunity. And what
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: Beto built in 18 stuck. So I'm sitting here and
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: applying the rules of politics. I've, I've sort of acquired and, and, and, and,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: and sort of prognosticate by over the years. And you
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: look and you're like, Oh, Greg Abbott's winning number goes
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: down every cycle. The democratic floor continues to slowly go up. Boy,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you know, at some point, this isn't, you know, the,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: This isn't some radical, a dark Idaho suddenly flips overnight.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: It is like the classic hockey stick moment. You're sort
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: of going on and then all of a sudden there's
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: going to be a tipping point. Is it this election? It's,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it certainly looks like Abbott isn't
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: going to get better than 53. The scandal penalty that is,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: I believe that Mark Murray and I have well documented
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: this over the 21st century. It is clearly somewhere between
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: four and eight points, depending on the area, but minimum four. Well,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: if Abbott's at 53, you throw in the Libertarian candidate,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: you throw in that, and I start to like, you know,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Tallarico's 48 is going to be a winning number. And
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: that to me was always the threat. That was where
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I struggled. Can he get to, you know, versus an
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: Iowa that has never had Libertarians get more than 1%
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: and is suddenly asking, you know, and there isn't a
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: scandal-plagued candidate that the Democrats get to run against. It's
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: somebody actually that's run in swing districts and has been
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: sort of preparing for a statewide run for six years.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: So it does feel as if this has been a
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: slow build and that it's, you know, they're certainly on
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: the threshold here, aren't they?
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: So I think Some of the smartest political analysis I've
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: heard in the last 10 years was from former state
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: Senator Wendy Davis. And so she ran in 2014 and
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: lost by 20 points. And it was really the low
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: point of Texas Democratic politics.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: She raised a ton of money, right? She was able
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: to let national money. She did the big reproductive rights
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: speech that went viral from the state legislative. Sort of,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say the first viral person, but
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: one of the earlier viral candidates where a moment produced
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: a candidate.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: So- When everyone's scratching their head in 2017, 2018, trying
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: to figure out if this Beto thing was real, what
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: she pointed out was, and I think the credit to...
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: this movement goes to Donald Trump. She didn't say that,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: but I am. She said, when I was running, I
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: didn't have anybody helping me underneath the ballot. There just
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: weren't state ledge, congressional candidates. She was on her own.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, she had a good lieutenant governor candidate with her,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: but it was a bad year. Nobody was running. After 2016,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: with that Hillary flip of those districts, there was just
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: this organic sense of people just getting out and running
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: and reach seats. And They were normal people. These were
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: not people who had been, you know, wanting to run
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: for office their whole lives. And Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher is
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: one of them. She was a trial attorney and she
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: just decided to run. And so that I think and
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, Beto O'Rourke has said it, too. That helped
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: him a lot. So I think it's the reverse coattails.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: And then that kind of died off. And then I
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: think once Trump won again, that sense is back. I mean,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: the reason there's all these good candidates running is because
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: they're mad. And they're also running at the state ledge level.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: The big question right now in Texas politics is not
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: is the Senate in play, but is the state House
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: of Representatives in play? And I've heard of lobbying firms
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: thinking about hiring Democratic staffers because they may need to
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: prepare for it. least a more empowered Democratic Party in Austin.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: And so I think so much of this is on
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: the ground. And while I think that the Senate Democratic
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: model of clearing the field for candidates has, I think
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: it's actually worked very well for Democrats in the last
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: 15 years. They've had seats they never should have represented,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: like North Dakota. I am skeptical that works in Texas.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: And Tallarico is very organic, but he has been going
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: to the rubber chicken dinners for years in the state.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: And I just think that that primary against Jasmine Crockett
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: was very brutal and very rough. And there are still
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: divisions there. But the fact that Tallarico had to campaign
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: in February and get his name ID out and he
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: has had to be had to be.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: It's like Obama, Clinton, the primary put North Carolina and
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: Indiana in play. two states that the Obama campaign in
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: 08 never would have put in play, but the long
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: primary forced organizing early and early organizing put them in
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: a position to actually do it. And so what you're
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: saying is this is a case where the primary forced
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: some organization that we had not seen a Democratic statewide
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: candidate do in a long time.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: Correct. And so one of the biggest traps I've seen
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: politicians in both parties make is like, oh, hey, I'm
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: a big deal in Dallas or I'm a big deal
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: in Houston. I'm going to run statewide. And it is
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: a complete lack of awareness that there are.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: So many other- Welcome to half the Miami politicians over
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: the years who tried the same thing. Yeah. When you're
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: in a big state or try LA politicians who have
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: never gone anywhere statewide.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: So they have no idea how unwell known they are
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: outside of their little media market. And so I think
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of that And I think Tallarico is
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: a pretty good party leader. I mean, I hear some
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: complaints about things and things slip through the cracks and stuff,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: but well, and I just want to back up. So
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: July of last year, I happened to be in the state.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: I was actually picking up my nephews at summer camp
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: and that's when the flood hit. And something emotionally broke
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: in the state because there were little girls who died
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: who were from every media market. It was on the
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: news for months. And I mean, the state leadership reacted
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: in some ways, but it wasn't, this was not like
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: a Rudy Giuliani 9-11 moment.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: No, it felt, they felt, it felt very similar to
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: what happened in the, in the shooting. Um, in rural
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: Texas when the cops didn't do the job. You know,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: the same, it was sort of the same, it felt
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: like government wasn't being responsive here.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: Well, and even before that, you had the winter storm.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, and that was traumatic in its own way
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: for almost everyone in the state. And so, but back
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: in July, and then the Republicans roll out their congressional map.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: And the state of the Texas Democratic world was just
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: more about, like, just, they'd all but given up. And
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: I think that map riled up Democrats. I think that
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: the congressional delegation bonded a lot in that and they
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: were much more organized than I've ever seen them. And
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: then you had the state legislators fleeing. And I think
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: there's a bonding there. And Tallarico has been very much
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: on the scene in Austin. He and Gina Hinojosa, Gina
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: Hinojosa has been around for a long time. And so
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: they have relationships all over the state that I think
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: is unique and it's because they've been pushed in a corner.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You earlier in this podcast, I'm going to try
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: to land this plane with a topic that is near
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: and dear to both of our hearts. You earlier in
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: this podcast said, you know, Ted Cruz is, you know,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: is a pretty powerful senator. And I don't disagree with that.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: But why did he think it was a good idea
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: to go on game day? I mean, I just can't
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: like I find the entire and I went off on
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: a rant on this on my previous podcast. I think
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: the entire campaign. on the Protect College Sports Act. Look,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: I've got my own issues with the specifics of it.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: But regardless, let's say you were trying to, I don't
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: understand who they're trying to persuade because they're not talking
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: to the people that they need to be talking to.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: And they are using the wrong people to try to
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: get people behind the spell, whether it's Saban, Dion, or
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz here. I don't get it. But I was
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: surprised that somebody didn't stop Ted Cruz. You know, maybe
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: a live interview in front of an Austin crowd is
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: probably not the best look for you, Senator. Who thought
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: that was a good idea?
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: I know it's rhetorical.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: But I think that game is something we're going to
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: look back on. So I think when Cruz's father went
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: to UT and, you know, if your parent went there,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: you're still kind of in the tribe, even if you
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: go to the Ivy League. Sure.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: I hear you. So.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: So one of the happiest nights of my life is
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: January 4th, 2006, which was the legendary Rose Bowl game.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: And for my father, it was the 1969 National Championship.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: And all my dad wanted for me was to have
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: a national championship like that. That game, although it was
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: not a bowl game, I think is going to go
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: into the legend of that tier. And as a UT alum,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: and I've talked to a lot of my friends.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: We'll see how you do in the playoff, but okay. Yeah.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it was a good game. You just
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: haven't faced one of the top teams in the country yet,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: but that's. It's.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: But the way it was a fairytale game.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: And to look well, and I would argue that arch
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: and Sark needed this badly, right? They, whatever fair or unfair,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: there was a, there was a group of people ready
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: to pounce. Had they come up short again. And again,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: It would have been irrational in some cases. OK, but
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: they were ready to pounce. And I would argue this
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: is why I think it's one of those games where, boy,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: did that crew in Texas needed a hell of a
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: lot more than Ohio State did.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: Well, but what fascinated me was the center of the
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: politics of it.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: So I I.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: And going to the game, I watched it in a
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: bar in New York City. It wasn't even a UT bar,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: and it was filled with UT people. Now, you people
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: are everywhere. I know. You can't escape us. And on
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: the way there, I see Amy Acton, the gubernatorial Democratic
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: candidate in Ohio, trolling Vivek Ramaswamy for throwing up the horns.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: And Ted Cruz is there. He's there in his role
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: as the Senate Commerce Chairman trying to push the college stuff.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: And then there was just so much political activity around
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: this game.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, the Beau French viral clip, which
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: will it feels like it like might have ended his
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: candidacy if he loses. We'll look back at that moment
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: and say maybe if he had kept his mouth shut,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: he might have hidden and snuck in.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: Well, and so the I think most people in Texas
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: were sort of pricing in in the next few weeks,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: a Beau French thing to happen for it to happen
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: on that game that the entire country was watching. And
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: this was UT's moment to shine. And, you know, Matthew
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: McConaughey's there, Glenn Powell's there.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: And then to single out students like that in front
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: of the entire country.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: And ruin the vibe of this wonderful game. I mean,
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: the state is exploding. And, you know, there was I
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: think the best political commentary I've seen is Manny must
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: have stepped into it. This was on Twitter. If even
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: the Aggies are defending UT, which is Texas A & M.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: And I've got Aggie friends who are as irate as
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: anyone else. And the idea of South Asians attending the
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: folks of South Asian descent attending the University of Texas
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: novel is. I have some of my closest friends from
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: UT are there. They could have been that image.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: It's North Texas. I'm sorry. Yes, this is, this is,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: and that's why I say it's Northern Virginia. This is,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: this is Northern Virginia and all this. And you know,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: it's funny. You want to talk about another Oh six comparison,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: you know, when George Allen used that racist word to
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: describe the Southeast Asian, the young man that was, um,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: working for the Democrats to trail. And he said that
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: he turned a constituency, by the way, that was Republican
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: leaning at the time. In fact, he had, Allen had
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: raised more money from Indian American business leaders in Northern
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: Virginia until that happened. And then Webb got all of
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: these donors. And many of these people became huge Obama donors.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: Like it was a turning point that accelerated the financial
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: shift in Northern Virginia from Republican to Democrat. And I
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: look at what's happening and I'm like, this attack on
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asians in Texas feels like a very similar moment
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: I think it's bigger than that because, I mean, you've got...
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: When I went to University of Texas, I mean, it
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: is beaten in your head at UT that you are
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: loyal to your friends, your alumni. You know, the people
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: you went to school with, you are going to know
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: the rest of your life. And I was at UT
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: during the Iraq War. It was a very political time. But, like,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: politics just seemed to always be secondary to the rooting
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: for the football team.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: I think, I mean, Laura Ingram was tweeting some things
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: about how Tallarico couldn't possibly be a football fan. And
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: it's just all of these outsiders who didn't go to
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: UT are telling UT what they are. That is the
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: least effective way to appeal to a Texan. And they're
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: messing with, you know, part of the tribe.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: And I think that a lot of this, I mean,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: as much as proud as we are of our degrees,
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of me, excuse me, a football.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of anger about what this is doing
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: to the degrees and how it reflects on the university.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: And I think university students are coming out looking amazing.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: They're carrying themselves with grace and dignity. But it's just
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: one of those you don't you don't get to mess
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: with our family. And so and I think it's there's
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of people in the U.T. donor class who
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: I think are very disturbed with what they see. And
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: they normally are very prolific donors to Republicans. Yeah.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I don't know that this is the case,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: but I will just say that UT's loss has been
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: SMU's gain. I don't know that Hartzell decided to leave
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: Texas because he was exhausted from all the politics and
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: everything that being at that institution and being the president
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: of that institution, which might be one of the hardest
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: jobs in the country these days. I think being a
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: university president in a public institution, in a state capital
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: where politics of education are front and center, is hard.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: And an opportunity to go work at a private university
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: probably felt like relief there. Again, I don't want to
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: say I'm speaking for him because I'm not speaking for him,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: but that's not lost on me either. I get the
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: sense that the UT community is tired of the politics
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: of UT. Absolutely.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: Like when I was in college, my one political dream
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: was to be on the board of regents. And now
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. University, Insignia,
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: and it was UT, A & M, and Tech. And
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: I just don't think people in Texas want to politicize
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: their university. This is part of their identity. It's often
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: their family identity. And it just sucks all the fun
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 2: out of it.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: Well, are you going to be okay when you guys
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: realize that you can't quite measure up to Miami again?
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, is that going to be all right? You're
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: going to handle that all right?
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: As wonderful as the Rose Bowl in 2006 was, the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: 1991 Cotton Bowl, I was eight years old. It's just
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: a horrible, horrible memory of my life.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember every second of it. The 1991 Cotton Bowl.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: And that was that was that was it was it
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: was a year that Miami didn't win the title because
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: of a dumb loss early in the season. But it
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: was clear Miami was the best team in the country.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: That's that stupid split title year between Georgia Tech and Colorado,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: who both would have been touchdown underdogs against that Miami team.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: But that's neither here or there. Miami got their vengeance
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: out on Texas that day.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: You and former Congresswoman Eliana Ross-Leighton have softened my heart
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: on the U. So there you go.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say this. We are not that, you know,
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: what is interesting about this team is this team keeps
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: its mouth shut. They really, you know, the unlike what
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: we're seeing at other schools, the steam keeps its mouth shut,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: which I find I'm heartened by. So and I think
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: they really in the same way that you talked about
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: your dad, like wanting you to see, you know, what
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: it was once like, you know, and it's like, that's
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: the way I feel. I want my daughter, you know,
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: she got a taste of it last year. Like, this
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: is what I kept telling my son. No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: I got to see Miami when they were Alabama. I
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: want you to be like, there was a time it
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: was Alabama. Then it was Miami. Then it was back
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: to being Alabama. Like this is kind of how college
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: football worked, but we got a brief taste of it.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: I want, I want them to understand because it explains
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: my irrational support for that. You know, you can't ever,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: you don't ever, you don't ever let it go, but I,
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: what a look. It was a great, it was a,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: it was a great game. The only thing I wonder,
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: in this new college football era, it wasn't a must
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: win for either team. And I wonder how that changed
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: the fourth quarter strategy. I think, like I said, emotionally,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: it was a must win for various, for a variety
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: of reasons, just for the narrative crap. And like, you know,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear the outside noise. That stuff's rat poison.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: You know, Arch didn't need another week of this, right?
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I don't know if who's
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: had a Who had higher expectations going into sports? LeBron
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: James being on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 14
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: or Arch Manning just simply being born Arch Manning, right? Like,
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel for the guy, right? I know
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: some of this, you know, comes with the territory. So,
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: but there's a part of me that thought, if you
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: knew you had to win that game, would it have
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: been different? Would your game plan have been different? I
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what the playoff has done.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: To the mindset of these coaches.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: And it's the older I get, the more when those
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: young men come out of the tunnel, I just feel
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: almost maternal about them. They're 18 years old and there's
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: so much pressure on them.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: And everybody's obsessed.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: And the money's added the pressure, right? Like, yes, it's good.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: They're getting paid. But there's still 18 year old kids
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: or 20 year old kids or in the case of
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: Indiana's football team, 31 year old kids. And, you know, sorry,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: I had to get that in there. Right. But no,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: I take your point. And I think that anyway, I
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: go back. Look, I want to see college football have
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: some rules and regulations. I don't think Ted Cruz is
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: the right spokesperson for it, even if his staff is
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: doing some good work behind the scenes. But I'm not
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: convinced they've got a good bill. I think they've got
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: a bill that the courts are going to absolutely throw
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: out because labor was not at the table, period. And
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's the huge problem with this bill.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. Well, I'm not as in the weeds on it,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: but I just sometimes it's just this stuff takes the
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: fun out of it. And I just I know I but,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: you know, it was a great game and it's nice
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: to be reminded of how great college football is.
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: I will confess you guys have a tough schedule this year.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we're ready for it. Arch is proven
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: he's ready for it.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: So just don't blow it against Oklahoma. They to me,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I bought in. I'm sorry I bought in. I sold
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: my stock. Now I want you to prove to me
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: why I sold my Oklahoma stock. So just bury them
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: at the Red River rivalry, will you?
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: We could lose every game in a season and still
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: beat Oklahoma, and I'm happy. So that's where I am
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: on the Oklahoma game.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: Does it matter more than the Aggies beating the Aggies now?
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, because they beat us so much in the aughts.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: That was just a... I'm one of... I think my
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: class and the class above me were the only ones
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: that lost every single game to OU.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, I get it. I have to say the most...
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: impressed the the most unique experience i had going to
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: college station when i went for the miami texas and
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: playoff game was how obsessed the fans were about texas
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: still like it didn't like everything was about horns down
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: everything the the fight song is about ut there and
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: i'm like it made me wonder you guys are more
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: concerned about ut than you are about winning a national
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: title you're never going to win a national title like
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: in some ways they're so consumed about their um about
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: their inferiority complex with Austin that I wonder if it
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: gets in the way of everything else.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: They were more prominent as rivals in the 90s when
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 2: they were beating us then. And I will, I, you know,
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: my mom's always trained me. A & M is a great,
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: university and we need to respect them. But I do,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: I feel for them in the sense that I'm self-aware
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: enough that I think we are probably the most obnoxious rival.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: And A & M is a huge rival to us,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: but I can't imagine dealing with us as a rival.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: No, it's more painful when your chief rival doesn't think
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: you're their chief rival. Like that sucks. That is even
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: a bigger insult. Miami has a lot of those rivals, unfortunately.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: We care about.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: Them on Thanksgiving. We worry about them a lot.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: Well, they were good fans. They were really nice hosts.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: I have to say.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: I am not surprised to hear that.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: I look forward to going to another game in College Station,
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to go in September when it's
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: 175 degrees on the field, like it was apparently over
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: the weekend. Abby, this little Politics 101 of Texas, I
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: learned a lot, and I think my listeners did too.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: All right, my friend. Enjoy the rest of this campaign season.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: More importantly, enjoy this football season. You too. It'll be
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: a special one. Meredith R. writes, hey, thank you for
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: being a voice of rationality and common sense. Thank you
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: for saying that, Meredith. Either that or we're crazy together.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: I know you aren't a big SEC guy. I get it.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: If I weren't in it, I wouldn't be either. I
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: appreciate your self-awareness. But I'd love your thoughts on Georgia
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: Tech and Tennessee, especially the true freshman Tennessee QB, who
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: didn't have the best statistical game but looked poised and composed. GBO.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: Am I supposed to know what GBO is? GBO apostrophe.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: Love the podcast and your love for college sports. Thank you,
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: Meredith R. I got to ask my younger colleagues here,
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: is GBO exclamation point, is that shorthand for something? All right.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: My team tells me GBO is Go Big Orange. Meredith,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: if you want to make fun of me in another
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: question for not knowing GBO is Go Big Orange, Or
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: if my friend Jessica Taylor at the Cook Report also
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: wants to troll me about that, I will. Look, you
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: know what I can't wait for? I can't wait for
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: Texas to go in and visit Tennessee. I bet you, Meredith,
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: you can't wait to see that game. Josh Heupel is
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: just a hell of a quarterback whisperer. I'm sorry for
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: whatever happened with Nico, right? And I'd love to have
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: seen what would have happened with another year of Nico
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: with Heupel. A couple of things about that game and
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: about Georgia Tech in particular. I thought, you know, I
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: have a look. Georgia Tech has been a thorn in
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: Miami's side over the last few years. Brent Key, I
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: didn't know who deserved more credit, Brent Key or Haynes King, right?
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: The longtime quarterback in Georgia Tech, who I swear was
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: there for 30 years. I know technically he was only
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: there for four or five, but it feels like he
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: was there forever. And they're just a tough team. And they,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: you know, they usually play pretty smart. this Georgia Tech
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: team wasn't playing very smart. They do look like they're
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: sort of starting from scratch again and that they need some.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: I'm very curious. Georgia Tech is a program that has
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: an incredible history. The Atlanta, and they have some incredibly
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: successful alums. And so in theory, like our friends at Stanford, right,
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of rich people that have Georgia Tech sheepskin
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: who could be writing checks and Atlanta's a hotbed and
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: all of those things. And look, Georgia Tech has won
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: a national title in my lifetime. They split a national
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: title with Colorado. Neither one of them were the best
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: team that year. It was the team in Coral Gables
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: that was. You can just ask my friends in Austin
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: how good that Miami team was that was denied that
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: national title. But we had a Colorado beat Notre Dame.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: I believe that Notre Dame might have beat Miami. So,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that that may have screwed us
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But the point is, is that Georgia
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: Tech is, you know, this is not Vanderbilt. No offense.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: I know Vanderbilt recently has been a little bit better.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: but they haven't been the Vanderbilt, you know, great school
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: that occasionally does decent in sports. They were really good,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: you know. But the basketball program has been a little
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: bit lagging. I mean, in the 80s and 90s, Georgia
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: Tech basketball was fantastic. We haven't seen that in a while.
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: It's been disappointing. Georgia Tech baseball, Miami got one of
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: its Hall of Fame coaches from Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: baseball has been good in the past. So I feel
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: like they're at a crossroads a little bit in general.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: And you thought the football team was making progress, but
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: it feels like they're sort of stuck. It's like BC.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: You have a pretty good history. You are in an
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: urban center. You do have some wealthy alums that they invested.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: Are you going to go all in or not? And
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. We know Tennessee's all in. Between the
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: Manning family, between Peyton, between the Haslams. I get it.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: I know Tennessee's all in. And I am not sure
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: whether I'm a believer yet that Tennessee's a playoff team.
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: But I believe they've got a schedule. I believe Texas comes.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: I want to look that up real quick. Oh, that's
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: coming up. That's coming up next week. So what we
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: really have here is This week, don't, Meredith, don't screw
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: this up at Kennesaw State, but don't show a lot.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: But my goodness, September 26, your season. I have a
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: feeling Texas is not, the burnt orange might only get
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: more burnt when they show up to Knoxville. So I'm, I'm,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: the gambler in me is very interested in that Tennessee,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: Tennessee getting points at home. Anyway, uh, GBO, go big orange, right?
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: All right, Jesse writes in, hey, I'd love to hear
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the Tennessee gubernatorial race. A lot of Tennessee.
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: Tennessee has been solidly red for decades, but Jerry Green
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: is framing the race against Marsha Blackburn as a job interview,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: arguing that voters deserve debates and direct engagement from both
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: candidates before casting their ballots. Do you think that message
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: can resonate with conservative Tennessee voters? Look, the fact is
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: it hasn't. It should. And this gets into something that
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: I thought about doing a longer monologue about. But I'd
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: like to see an attempt by news organizations to modernize
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: what is political debate. Meaning, look, as much as I
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: love moderating debates, I've done a bunch of them. I
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: don't love sharing moderating duties. Like, you know, it is
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: one of those things where, you know, you don't have
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: five people drive a car. I don't believe in that.
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: It really only should be one person. So I will
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: fully confess, I've enjoyed working with plenty of my colleagues.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: I have co-moderated a bunch of debates. I enjoy solo
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: moderating better than co-moderating, just like it's a lot easier
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: to drive a car by yourself than drive a car
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: with four or five different hands also on the steering wheel.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: But as much as I think I can add a
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: lot to a debate or anybody can add, a moderator
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: can add a lot to a debate, I'm also a
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: huge fan of the Lincoln-Douglas style debate process too, right?
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: And in fact, I've I want to modify how debates
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: are done. And the Presidential Debate Commission, a bunch of
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: us had been pushing them for years to go to
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: some format like this. And they get closer and closer, right?
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to spend the next 15 minutes talking about
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: this issue, but it ends up feeling a little more
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: regimented two minutes at a time. I think right now
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: you have candidates just not wanting to participate because Republicans say, well,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: I don't trust the media. I don't like that media organization.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: And then another Democrat's than if they say, well, we'll
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: debate if you let Scott Jennings moderate. And you're like, whoa,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: what Democrat's going to agree to let a Republican partisan moderate, right?
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to see, essentially, let's bring debates to
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: the way that most people now consume political information, which
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: is vertical, right? And what I'd like to see is,
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: and this is where shoot, I'd host them on my
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel, right? I will give you a question. You respond.
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: You send me your video. Here's your video and you respond.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: Respond to the video. Candidate Y sends me theirs and
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: vice versa. If I were running a news organization right now,
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: particularly a local news organization, and this is sort of
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: a ripoff of an idea my old boss, Doug Bailey,
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: tried to do, which was, essentially invite every candidate to
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: record their plan on these 10 issues. We'll tell you
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: what issues to do and you give us one minute
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: on these issues. And each night we'll air the one
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: minutes back to back with each other, candidate X, candidate Y.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: But if I were doing a local media, I would
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: create some sort of vertical YouTube page for the Tennessee
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: governor's race. And the question of the day is this.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: Here's the vertical video from Marsha Blackburn gets to answer
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: first today. Here's her vertical video. Yeah, is it going
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: to be a little scripted? Well, debates are scripted. But
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: in some ways, you would probably get more participation. We
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: need to get more candidates to participate in engagement with
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: voters and engagement on issues. You would get more engagement
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: and essentially let them respond video to video. And As
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: a news organization, you be the ones to decide which
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: questions and issues that should be the subject of this.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: And then they submit the videos to you. You put
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: a time limit on it, 90 second, two minute, however
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do it. But the point is, is
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: that instead of standing on ceremony that we invite you
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: to our studio or we invite... Just be a platform that...
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: surfaces what these candidates believe on these various issues so
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: that you can have this job interview. And I think
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: that by forcing it that way, then what you do
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: is you invite, hey, maybe you could create a voting
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: scale or sort where, you know, where would you like
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: to see another rebuttal, right? And, you know, you let
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: voters in the district or state decide, hey, we want
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: to see more on this. Give us more detail on this.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: And you come back and, hey, the response from those
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: that have watched these videos over the last 24 hours
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: is they want more details on this and they want
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: more details on that. Look, this is just one idea.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: This was me spitballing in the shower for about five
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: minutes as I was thinking about lamenting the fact that
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: we don't have enough debates like this. It would be
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: right about now that I would start to turn on
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: C-SPAN after 10 o'clock at night and be able to
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: watch essentially debates every night from throughout the country, races
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: all over the country. But fewer and fewer candidates are
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: agreeing to debates. Fewer and fewer news organizations are having
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: luck getting candidates to agree to debates. Part of it
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: is because of our polarized climate. Part of it is
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: our lack of competition, particularly in the congressional level. But
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: it seems to me that instead of, to all my
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: friends in the media, local media, regional media, and national media,
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: instead of complaining that they won't do it on our
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: terms anymore, and they don't have to, instead, do it
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: on the terms that the voters and the viewers will
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: respond to the most. And that's vertical video. Anyway, it's
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: just one... Wait, I don't know if this solves, doesn't
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: really answer your question very well, Jesse. And I take
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: your point there. If you recall, Jesse, or you should
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: go back, I had one of the candidates running as
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: an independent who's sort of a former Republican running as
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: an independent, Lauren Pinkston. And the reason I'll never forget
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: the interview, she said, hey, our race is the most
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: colorful race because Marsha Blackburn, Laura Pinkston, And you have
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: the Democratic candidate that you were talking about, Jerry Green.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: So pink, green, black, all represented in the last names,
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: all three women, by the way, as well. I'm guessing
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: the only way Marsha Blackburn would have agreed to a
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: debate is if the late, great Dolly Parton were going
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: to moderate. Perhaps Marsha Blackburn wouldn't have refused a debate
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: moderated by Dolly Parton. But I'm guessing that's about the
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: only person. Maybe if Peyton Manning agreed to be the moderator,
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: she would have to say yes to that. But look,
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: the realistic way to do this is I do think,
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: you know, my friends in local media in Tennessee start
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: thinking different ways. It's just all about engaging these. All
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: you're asking from these campaigns is to answer questions about
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: these issues. And you can even make it like, here
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: are the five issues that our viewers or readers are
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: asking the candidates to respond to. Send us two-minute videos,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: and this is the first issue of the day, and
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: here you go. Ultimately, what's your job in local media?
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: You're trying to get more information about the candidates in
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: service to the voters. And this is one way to
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: get more information from the candidates in service to the voters.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Tyler H. here. from Michigan's Fifth.
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: Abdul Al-Sayed recently debated an empty podium after Mike Rogers
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: declined to participate. Was avoiding a one-on-one debate the right
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: strategic move for Rogers? And what do you make of
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: his decision to travel to Texas for the convention instead?
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I do not understand the
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: campaign Rogers is running. He's not I think he has
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: an opportunity here. There's a handful of Democrats that are
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: skeptical of Abdul El-Sayed for ideological reasons. But Rogers hasn't
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: made a pivot to the center. And then going down
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: to the Texas midterm convention only seemed to reinforce that. Now, look,
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: I think he I think he sees Abdul El-Sayed as
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: a financial opportunity.
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: And so he wanted to lean into that. And I'm
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: sure he raised a ton of money in Texas. from
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: donors he hadn't gotten before because of Abdul Al-Sayed. So
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: I understand the financial motivation to go down to that
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: midterm convention, but I don't think it was the best
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: voter look. And he hasn't done much of a pivot
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: to the center, at least in a significant way. And
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: there was a big blow that he got. Yesterday, Sander Levin,
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: a former Jewish senator from Michigan, 95 years old, by
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: the way, came out with a very, it wasn't a
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: great endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed, but it was basically a pretty,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: it was a pretty bad endorsement if you're, and I
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: want to read it to you a little bit, if
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: you're Mike Rogers. So Sander Levin, being a longtime Michigan politician, senator, yes,
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: Jewish Democrat, put out a statement earlier this week encouraging all,
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: he called it, encouraging all Michiganders of conscience to vote
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: for Abdul El-Sayed. Let me read his statement because it
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: strikes me that had Rogers pivoted in a different way,
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying Levin would have ever endorsed Rogers, but
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't feel like he has to put out
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: this statement. But let me read the statement. And it
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: begins this way. The administration of Donald Trump represents an
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: existential threat to our democracy. That's the first line of
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: Sander Levin's statement. I've worked with many Republicans on many issues,
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: but the MAGA movement has gone outside the realm of
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: democracy and is lurching towards authoritarianism by restricting free speech,
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: the rights of minorities, our very ability to vote, and more.
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: The terrible anti-Muslim bigotry of the campaign against Democratic nominee
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed is emblematic of their approach. I have some
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: significant disagreement with Abdul in his approach to to the
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: conflict involving Israel and the Palestinians. I have been a
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: strong proponent of a two-state solution to that crisis, and
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: he has not supported this approach. Yet, as I reflect,
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: I must say that I have had disagreements with many
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: colleagues in the House and Senate over the decades, but
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: I have never failed to support the full democratic ticket.
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: We need officeholders who will support strong action on climate change,
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: a new era of trade where workers' rights and the
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: environment come first, expanded and affordable health care, housing, child care, education, food,
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: and other basic necessities of life, who will center the
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: freedom to form unions, living wages, real retirement benefits, health
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: and safety, who will stand up and fight to advance
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: the great American experiment in a democracy where all feel welcome,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: heard and included. That's why I've devoted my life to,
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: and I am confident Dr. Abdul El-Sayed will be a
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: strong advocate for these goals. I don't, like I said,
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he puts out that statement, if
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: Rogers makes more of an effort to the center, more
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: of an effort to reach out to a group of voters,
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: perhaps like Sandy Levin, and some others who have been
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: Levin supporters. And the fact that he did, the fact
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: that he goes to the midterm convention hangs with MAGA, right?
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that was what did it, but it
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: may have been what made it easier for those that
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: were probably trying to get him to do this, to
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: come out and do this. And again, I'm not going to,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know the backstory and all this stuff. But
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: when you read the wording of that statement, right, this
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: he's clearly not this was not somebody who was enthusiastic
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: to see to get the Democratic nomination. But the behavior
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: of Rogers campaign and sort of how this is gone.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: Is how he framed why he is going to be
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: a supporter and a voter of Abdu'l-Sayed. And I look
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: at that and I think and this is where I'm like,
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think Rogers. He just hasn't figured this out.
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: A better politician would have figured out how to be
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: pro-Canada against some of these tariffs that are hurting the
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: Michigan auto industry and reaching out to those that are
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: skeptical of Abdul El-Sayed's foreign policy or his ties to
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: some parts of the socialist movement, although he's not a
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: member of the DSA. But that's not what Rogers has
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: done since the primary. And I think if you're asking me,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: I think if he's lost this race, he lost it
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: in the first six weeks after the August 4th primary.
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: This is not a race that we will say he
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: lost in the last six weeks of this election. Andrea, Salinas'
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: district is where Scott C. Turner of Oregon lets me
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: know where he is. He didn't want to tell me
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: the number. But hey, why don't I go get the number?
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: Let me make sure I get it right. the sixth
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: congressional district. So, all right, I wanted to get that
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: right for you there, Scott. I saw reports that Democrats
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: are planning investigations into Trump on several fronts if they
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: take control of the House, but how effective could those
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: investigations actually be, especially if Republicans retain the Senate? Would
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: their practical impact mostly be in the court of public opinion?
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: And how would that change if Democrats controlled both chambers finally?
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: Could Trump potentially undercut those efforts by issuing pardons, including
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: attempting to pardon himself? Thanks so much. Well, look, the
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: pardons are coming no matter what, right? And whatever hesitancy
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: he might have had of issuing pardons for all his family, well,
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: he now has the Biden precedent to point to to say, well,
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: Biden issued pardons for all his family. I'm going to
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: issue pardons for all my family. So look, those pardons
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: are coming. Do they come now, later? I mean, he
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: sells a pardon every week, right? You want to talk
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: about a story that just doesn't get traction anymore. The
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: fact that There is an entire sort of pardon industry
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: in Washington. And those that seek pardons know exactly how
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: it works. You find somebody close to the president. You
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: pay a certain amount of money. Some charge more than others.
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: You probably ought to figure out a way to make
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: sure Trump benefits in some way. Maybe you're a Democrat
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: and you say nice things about him. like a Blagojevich
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: did or a Menendez has tried to do, right, to
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: get his– or maybe you just give him a piece, right?
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: You just give him a taste of whatever it is.
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: So the pardons are a rolling thing. As for the investigations,
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: it is court of public opinion. But I think it's
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: really important to get all of this– There's different ways
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: you can use these investigations. To me, I'd be using
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: the investigations to figure out how to make sure a
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: future president doesn't do this, to figure out how do
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: we essentially– I think the proper way to look at
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: the Trump years is it's the blacklight MRI. I think
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: you've heard me say this before. It's like we turned
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: a black light onto Washington and went, oh my God,
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: this place is even swampier than we thought, right? He
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: figured out any loophole that existed that could be exploited
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: for financial gain, that could be exploited for political gain,
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: that could be exploited for narcissistic gain, he found. So
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be doing investigations just for the press release, right?
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: The investigation should be about being fact-finding to make sure
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: we don't do this again. Do we need a constitutional amendment?
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: Is this something that can be codified into law? Is
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: this an issue that runs into separation of powers? It
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: needs to be in service to reform. I also think
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: these investigations need to feature a lot of hearings, the subpoenas,
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: the big names. That is one way. But again, they
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: need to be in service to a reform, whether that
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: reform is a constitutional amendment or that reform is a
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: piece of legislation. Or whether you truly want to use
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: it to make a case for impeachment, which I wouldn't
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: do unless there's bipartisan support for it. I would say
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: bipartisan right now, and you won't have Thomas Massey there
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: to make it bipartisan come 2027. That would be the
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: only way I would use it in service of that.
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: To me, it should be in service of reform so
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: that this doesn't happen again. That's how, if you want
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: your investigations to be taken seriously and you want voters,
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: not in the partisan spaces, but sort of in the
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: middle to at least Think you're on the up and up.
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: It needs to be in service of a reform to
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: prevent it from happening again. Final question, Mike B. Ogden.
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: Fellow South Florida native from Miami, Sunset86. Man, Sunset was
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: Killian's chief rival in soccer. If Killian didn't win the
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: state title, Sunset would win the state title. Anyway, good
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: to hear from you. now living in Ogden, Utah's first district,
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: where I get to cast my symbolic votes. If Democrats
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: take the House and or Senate, what can they realistically
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: do short of impeachment to influence issues like the war, tariffs, AI, immigration?
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: I'm tired of getting my hopes up only to see
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: them dashed by a lack of political will or an
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: inability to work together. Appreciate your work, Mike B. Ogden. Well, look,
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: I think some of this stuff's going to get vetoed
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: by Trump, but I do think you've got to try, right?
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: You've got to see I think that if Republicans do poorly,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: those that survive might be more open to voting against
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: him on tariffs. And you never know, right? Trump is
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: somebody that doesn't– he hates being a loser. And so
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: I think the hardest decision Democrats are going to have
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: to make is what happens when Trump calls up Jeffries
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: and Schumer and says, hey, I want to do a
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: deal on something? And he may actually want to do
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: a deal. He may be willing to sign a piece
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: of legislation that Democrats are like 80% for. Do you
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: take the deal? Look, I know, you know where I
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: come from, right? They were both elected by the people.
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: If you just, if they all decide to do something that,
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: you know, the American people sent Donald Trump to office
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: in 24, and they may choose to send a majority
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: of Democrats back to Washington in in 2026. So voters
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: are saying they want you both to figure it out.
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: So I know what I believe is long-term better politics,
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: which is if you can get something done, don't miss
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to get something done. But the political pressure
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: of a presidential primary campaign that'll be happening simultaneously, where
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: you'll have a lot of people who can backseat drive
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: what Congress is doing, and it's a free critique. And
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: these presidential candidates are going to enjoy running against Washington, going, oh,
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: there are those, you know, oh, and especially some Democrats
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: may even name check Chuck Schumer in a negative light, right?
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: So I just think the atmosphere in 27 is just
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: going to be just really odd, especially if Democrats win
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: control of both houses. Because on one hand, you'll have,
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: you know, Democrats like to legislate. They're the party of government.
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: They like to legislate and they want to do some
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: investigation and they feel like they're going to need to
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: do both. You're going to have candidates running for office
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: who are going to be running more idealistic campaigns and
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: they're going to want to mock Washington and Congress and stuff.
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: So I just, I throw all that out there as
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: I don't like the incentive structure that are out there
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: in 2027. Like I said, I think Trump at some
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: point is going to want to work with the two–
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: if Democrats win the majority. I know that sounds crazy
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: right now, but we all know Trump doesn't like– he
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: wants to be a part of every story. He wants
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: to be a part of it all. So do you
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: work with him? I think on the other stuff, you
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: can pick some stuff that you think you can get
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: bipartisan support to push him back. Tariffs is one. The
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: Iran war is one. Those are two big ones. It
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: could be the Pentagon. It could be funding Israel. So
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: there is some areas that I certainly think that going
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: down that road is possible. But I think this is
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: a real challenge for Jeffries and Schumer, or if it's
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: Schatz instead of Schumer. I kind of think it should
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: be Schatz instead of Schumer. I think Schumer sitting as
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: Senate democratic leader in 2027 and 2028 will just be,
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: he'll be a punching bag for his own party in
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: the presidential primary season. That's not good for anybody. It's
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: not good for Senate Democrats. It's not good for congressional Democrats.
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: It's not good for Schumer. Obviously it just creates all
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: sorts of, he just becomes an easy target, creates internal division. I,
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if somebody can get to Schumer and say, look, uh,
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: because if they get the Senate majority, Schumer deserves a
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: lot of credit, not a little bit of credit. Okay.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I, you may have a ton of strategic disagreements.
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: I certainly think he's made a lot of strategic mistakes.
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: There's plenty to look at over the years. I think
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: he's not the best messenger for the party. He's always
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: been better as sort of, he's always been a better
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: consigliere than the lead dog. Um, but nobody likes to
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: hear that. And, uh, And, you know, who knows, right?
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: Does he, is he willing to, if he gets this
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: majority back and it was all on him, he got
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: Mary Patello in, he got Jared Brown to get back in, right?
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: He sort of got Roy Cooper. I mean, he, some
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: of these recruits are his and they, and he deserves,
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: he did his job. But what's in the message to
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: the party is him not symbolically being leader of the
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: party anymore. And I think that that's going to That'll
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: be another. So the point is, Mike, I don't know
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: how united even to a Democratic majority will– I don't
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: know how united the Democrats will be even if the
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats have majorities in both. You'll have the presidential primary
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: causing its own sort of orbit that will potentially create
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: different types of cross currents in Washington. And then Trump
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: is going to be the wild card here. By the way,
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: what does your conference look like? How many Democrats in
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: Trump districts are in your conference? Is your majority made
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: up of only people that carried Harris districts and maybe
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: some old Biden to Trump swing districts? Or are there
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: some deeper red Trump districts that Democrats win? where you
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: suddenly have a true, you know, a more powerful and
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: bigger blue dog caucus. So, you know, how big the
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: majority is and where it comes from also matters, will
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: tell me what is feasible, what is possible, and what
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: to get done. Hey, just a quick reminder that I'm
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: hosting Next Predict in New York on October 22nd and 23rd.
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: It's the world's largest prediction markets conference. It'll be two
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: weeks before the midterms. Anybody who has a piece of
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: this industry will be there. Registration is at nextpredict.io. All right.
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little college football week three. Miami's at
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: Wake Forest. I will tell you that four months ago,
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: I circled this game as You know, there's this narrative
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: out there outside of University of Miami circles that Mario
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: Cristobal-led teams always blow a game that they shouldn't blow, right?
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: And they're not– by the way, Mario Cristobal's not– every
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: top team has this happen to them, right? What did
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: we just see with Oregon? They lost to a team
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: that lost to Tulsa the week before. But there is this–
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: one of the gambling podcasts I listen to, shout out to–
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: the big bets on campus, a guy named Stucky, who
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: always calls Coach Cristobal Mario, which just, it drives a
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: bunch of us crazy. Same as Mario, but that's okay.
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I like this guy. I don't know him,
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: but he just, you know, I think I didn't, he
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: seems like a decent dude. And he had this amazing
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: stat about Cristobal has blown, has lost a game. A
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: Cristobal head coach team has lost a game every year
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: at Miami and at Oregon when he's been a double-digit favorite.
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: He's lost at least one game. And, you know, it's
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: always this sort of a brain fart game, right? I
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: don't know how else to describe it. So, you know,
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: there's this idea that, okay, that, you know, if you
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: look at the predictions about whether Miami will win 11
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: games this year, 10 games this year, or 12 games
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: this year in the regular season, A lot of it
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: is what's priced in is this idea that they're going
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: to somehow blow a game other than Notre Dame. There's
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: an expectation that they somehow lose on the road to
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame. I don't believe that. I'm more confident they'll
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: beat Notre Dame than I am confident about some other
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: games sometimes. I know this is going to be one
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: focused team. But I think that the monkey on the
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: Cristobal back, I think he shed it. I think he
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: got rid of it during the playoff run last year.
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 1: Miami didn't lose a single playoff game, even the national
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: title game. Miami had one missed block on a punt
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: that cost them that title game. They were nearly perfect
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: in the playoff. That was a focused team. That was
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: a well-coached team. That was a team that doesn't make
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of mistakes. And what I would say is
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: I think I've seen a ton of evolution. Look, he
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: mismanaged the clock in that famous, infamous Georgia Tech game
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: a few years ago. Well, he corrects it. But one
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: thing that I've noticed about Coach Cristobal is he doesn't
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: make the same mistake twice. And so, I think this
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: team's going to be super ready for Wake. I think
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: we caught a break in that Wake's having to play
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: in a short week. Miami played on Thursday, and so
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: now they have a Friday game. But, in fact, Miami
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: has yet to play on a Saturday. First game of
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: the year was Stanford Friday. Second game of the year
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: was Thursday, Florida A & M. Third game of the
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: year is now Friday, Wake Forest. This is part of
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: the bad ACC deal that the ACC cut with ESPN
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: where they get to dictate all these ridiculous– Thursday and
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: Friday night games so that they can and then preserve
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: the better time slots for the SEC teams. Again, I
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: don't blame ESPN. I blame the ACC for allowing themselves
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: to become a junior partner with their most important business partner,
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: but I digress. So Miami's stuck. The good news is
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: we're getting all these ridiculous weekday games out of the
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: way early. The The ACC did us a favor on
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: this schedule. I will not lie. Some might argue that
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: the ACC was trying to make sure that they didn't
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: screw up Miami's season with dumbass scheduling. And so far,
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: so good. So I know that Wake's well coached. I
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: think Jake Dickard is a good coach. I think Wake
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: is one of those teams that you can't sleep on.
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: But they just went through a... They had to play...
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: what was it, triple, they go in a double overtime
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: or triple overtime. And at Purdue, they won. And I'm
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: glad they won, right? I didn't want Wake losing and
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: then going into that game. In some ways, I'm glad
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: they got the Purdue win. They can feel like they
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: won the game they were supposed to win. And now
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: they can deal with what they have to deal with
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: with Miami. But I'd like Miami to prove me right
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: about this being a focused team. Here's what I'm going
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: to learn about this team. How focused are they? How
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: much are they ready to just kick ass and take names?
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: That's my feeling. I think this team is as ready
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: to play anybody as any Miami team has been since
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: the 2001 and 2002 era. And so I've I've almost
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: got cocky confidence and I'm very concerned about even expressing
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: it because that's just when the college football gods, you know,
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: have fun with you. Right. I'm sure Oregon fans thought, well,
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: Stillwater will be a get right game. It was not. So, look,
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: it's Friday night. Students are going to be hopped up.
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: They're going to be excited. So this will be a
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: first game for some freshmen. Right. Their home game. Pretty
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: exciting night game. And it's a Friday night, so they're
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: really excited because they get to party Friday night and
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: then they get to party Saturday. So it could be
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: a rowdy crowd. It's pretty important when you're playing these
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: games at night on the road against teams you should beat.
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: Don't let them hang around. Put them away early. That's
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: this is what I'm curious. You know, I'll know I'm
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: OK with this if we're putting them away early and
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: just get it done. You know, trust the process. Get
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: better every week. So we've got that. Look, as I said,
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: and I'm representing the game of the weekend, of course,
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: is LSU coming to Ole Miss. I'm not very optimistic
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: about Ole. I look at what Louisville did to that
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss defense, and I'm wondering, what's LSU going to
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: do with that? And I know Louisville's a really good team.
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: They might be a playoff team. That's another big game
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: of the weekend. It's a big game for one of
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: the Todds here because SMU has to go to Louisville.
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: And it's arguably going to matter. Probably the winner guaranteed
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: into the ACC title game. The loser is going to
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: have to hope for some losses around the road. It
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: is probably the second most important game of the weekend
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: after LSU. Ole Miss. So, I mean, I know what
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: I'm watching at 3.30 on Saturday. It's SMU Louisville. And
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: I know what I'm watching. It's it's at seven 30
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: or eight is seven 30. It's going to be LSU
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss, but it's a pretty good weekend. Look, there's
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: another Friday night game. You know, you can put in
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: the two box at the same time. Miami plays wake.
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: There's a rank versus rank. Houston plays Texas tech. Big
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: 12 also has the same bad deal with ESPN where
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: they're stuck having to do Friday night games. Because again,
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: ESPN is only in business with the SEC, and then
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: they throw crumbs at the ACC and the Big 12,
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: but I digress. I love Houston in this spot at
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: Texas Tech. I think Texas Tech, it's not clear that
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: their defense is as good as it was last year,
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: and it's not clear that they have a quarterback yet.
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: I know they have a ton of talent, and they
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: spend the real money, but they do have a And
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: just like Miami's defense, it was amazing last year. It's
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: going to take a small step back. Houston has been
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: on the move. Houston is a team that I think
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: is only going to get better. In fact, I think
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: Houston and SMU are going to be spending money like
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: their Texas and Texas A & M and Texas Tech
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: over the next few years. I think Houston and SMU
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: are the two rising schools. I think in this era
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: of college football, being in a major market, matters a lot.
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: SMU being in Dallas, University of Houston being in Houston.
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: And so I think these will not be just sort
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: of one season Cinderella's here. But we're going to learn
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: a lot about both Houston and Texas Tech in this game.
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: But I'm on upset watch there. And I got another
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: place that I'm on upset watch for that I'm awfully
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: curious about. And that's Kentucky traveling to Texas A & M. Look,
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: Kentucky seemed to run out of gas against Alabama, but
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: they played a pretty tough first half. And Texas A & M,
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. It looks like they pulled away
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: from Arizona State. But basically, Arizona State just melted, literally, right?
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: It was like 125 degrees on the field or something
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: like that in College Station. It was super hot. Texas
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: A & M was in a tough game. And I
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: don't know if they win that game if the temperatures
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: are cooler. Arizona State, Kenny Dillingham, once again, found diamonds
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: all over the place, diamonds in the rough all over
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 1: the place. That's what he does. I would just keep
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: an eye on that Kentucky-Texas A & M game. Texas
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: A & M, you know, Chris Eliza, he's been written
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: for them, so I don't want him in totally a
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: grumpy mood, but I'm on a small upset alert on
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: that one, and I think that's going to be one
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: at least worth keeping an eye on. But other than that,
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: it's a... It's, you know, those are the three, those
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: are probably the three games that I will spend the
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: most time on learning and trying to find out about.
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: And of course, there's always the game none of us
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: are talking about that will come out of nowhere and
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: we'll be like, wait a minute, Michigan State is up
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: three at halftime against Notre Dame? I'm not saying that's
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: going to happen. I don't think that's going to happen.
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: But would it really shock you if it did, right? Or, huh.
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: Texas seems to be struggling against UTSA. They're kind of sleepwalking, right?
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: A little bit of a hangover in the Ohio State game.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: And that one, all that means is Texas won't cover
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: their 30-point spread. But the point is, is that there's–
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure– and then, of course, I glossed over a
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: game that I should have made a bigger deal out
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: of with rumors that there are moving vans in front
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: of Mike Norvell's house in Tallahassee. The Florida State is–
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: The chatter has already begun. Is this Mike Norvell's? Is
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: this game against Alabama in Tuscaloosa this weekend Mike Norvell's
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: last game? They fired the AD earlier in the week.
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: If this is a pasting, if this is just ugly,
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: is this Mike Norvell's last game? Or what if he
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 1: pulls another upset? Not a lot of people are predicting that.
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: But that's a game that could have a lot of
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: impact on the future of Florida State football, which of
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: course in my household is important to quite a few people. Anyway,
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: with that, enjoy your college football weekend. And if you
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: choose to sprinkle a few dollars, good luck. Don't overdo it.
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: And realize there's always more football. Enjoy your Sunday as well.
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: And I'll see you on Monday.