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Chuck’s Commentary - The Iran War Risks Going Global + The Politics Of AI Hasn’t Been Invented Yet · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello there, and welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Thursday episode of the Chuck Podcast, where I
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  Speaker 1: promise politics for the rest of us, right, a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of normalcy in a world dominated by extremes. At least,
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  Speaker 1: that's my pledge to you. Here, got a nice loaded
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  Speaker 1: up pack show, so I have a top five list
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  Speaker 1: for you. Of course we'll have some questions, and like
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  Speaker 1: I said, I got I got a busy couple of
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  Speaker 1: topics I want to get to, including what you don't
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  Speaker 1: maybe what you don't fully appreciate about what's happening with
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  Speaker 1: a run right now, Like I said, where the politics
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  Speaker 1: of AI are heading. It's fascinating and I've had my
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  Speaker 1: own unique front row seat on this issue. To put
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  Speaker 1: it succinctly, this anger over data centers ain't about data centers,
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  Speaker 1: but I will explain that. And then, of course we
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  Speaker 1: are less than a week away from the start of
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  Speaker 1: the final primary sprints, and boyd, we got a big
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  Speaker 1: one coming up on August fourth, multiple states, but the
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  Speaker 1: big one being Michigan. So I have a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a campaign notebook to share with you as well.
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  Speaker 1: But look, this is a politics podcast, right every day,
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  Speaker 1: every time I come on at the end of You know,
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  Speaker 1: I always want to begin trying to do my best
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  Speaker 1: to say where are we right, where are we headed?
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  Speaker 1: What's going on? Less than one hundred days from the
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  Speaker 1: election day, And so I guess I would title this
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  Speaker 1: part of my segment the Main Thing is still the
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  Speaker 1: main Thing. And one thing I've learned covering politics for
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  Speaker 1: as long as I have is it I can usually
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  Speaker 1: tell what worries a political party by what it suddenly
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: wants to talk about. When the campaign message starts sounding
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: like a Greatest Hits album, it's usually because the new
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: material isn't testing very well. And that's what you can
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: sense happening right now amongst the Republicans. If you look
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: at just the last ten days, the intentional news that
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  Speaker 1: the administration or Republicans in Washington have tried to make
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  Speaker 1: include an obsession over Faucian COVID, the Smithsonian, and this
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: decision to put warning labels outside that Donald Trump got
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: involved with. I haven't even brought up the weird obsession
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: that Trump clearly has with Sammy the Boulo Gravano and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: what the word eighty six means and that whole bizarreness.
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  Speaker 1: Call me, he's tried to relitigate the twenty twenty election
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  Speaker 1: multiple times, right, including what that speech in the nation.
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  Speaker 1: We got the release of these Biden conversations with his
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  Speaker 1: author and you look at it. I'm not saying these
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: stories aren't interesting. I'm not saying some of these stories
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: aren't legitimate. Maybe there's something to debate, and maybe some
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: deserve some scrutiny, don't get me wrong, But notice what
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: all of those stories have in common at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: They're all about essentially yesterday, but today's headlines. What's actually
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: happening in everyday people's lives. Those headlines suck for this
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: administration and for the party in power. To the Middle East.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It's tariffs, it's inflation, it's a price of groceries, it's
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: interest rates. The issues that got Donald Trump elected are
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the issues he's ignoring at the moment, and the issues
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  Speaker 1: that he said were going to be issues had Kamala
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  Speaker 1: Harris gotten elected or suddenly the issues he's dealing with
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  Speaker 1: at Iran war, rising prices, inflation. And the point is, guess.
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  Speaker 2: What were the top issues in twenty twenty four are
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  Speaker 2: still the top issues today with a few added on,
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  Speaker 2: including AI, which really is an extension of the economic
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  Speaker 2: anxiety aspect of things that's already out there, and so
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  Speaker 2: it's pretty obvious to be that like this is one
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  Speaker 2: of those spaghetti at the wall situations and word, look,
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  Speaker 2: by the time September comes along, he can try all
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  Speaker 2: he wants to try to throw a get out, don't
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  Speaker 2: you remember COVID And trust me, if the Democrats.
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  Speaker 1: Were losing right now in the midterms, right now, they're
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  Speaker 1: in the right now, they're ahead. Right. If you were
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  Speaker 1: just saying which parties ahead, the Democrats are a head. Right,
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  Speaker 1: they're more likely to gain Senate seats and House seats.
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  Speaker 1: Republicans are more likely to lose Senate seats and lose
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  Speaker 1: House seats. We disagree. And whether they're going to lose
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  Speaker 1: enough for the majority, right, we don't know that that's
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  Speaker 1: what's up for grabs, what seems to be whatever. But
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: nobody's expecting Republicans to gain anything, which means they're going
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  Speaker 1: to The question is are they going to lose by
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  Speaker 1: a litter or lose by a lot. If the Democrats
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  Speaker 1: are in the situation, they'd be talking about election denihilism.
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  Speaker 1: They'd be talking about January sixth. The point is when
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  Speaker 1: you can't talk about the issues that are currently impacting
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  Speaker 1: everybody's everyday lives because you think it's bad for you politically,
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  Speaker 1: and you start talking about the issues that used to
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  Speaker 1: work for you and the greatest hits. And so what
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  Speaker 1: I would say is, as you sort of consume all
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  Speaker 1: of this, sort of wait a minute, what's why are
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  Speaker 1: we relitigating COVID? Are we still talking about the twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty election. What it really is is a massive tell
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  Speaker 1: that Republicans would like, look, this is base management, and
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to work right these issues,
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  Speaker 1: everything we've talked about, nobody in the mainstream world is
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: paying any attention to them. That doesn't mean they may
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  Speaker 1: not have opinions about this, that doesn't mean they may
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  Speaker 1: not be empathetic to what Team Red or Team Blue
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  Speaker 1: thinks on these issues. But this is not voting issues
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  Speaker 1: for them. And if anything, I think that the I
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  Speaker 1: think Republicans see this as a way to try to
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  Speaker 1: keep the base from, you know, beating them up over Iran,
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  Speaker 1: keep the base from being frustrated about Epstein, keep the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: base from being frustrated by this economy. So it's sort
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  Speaker 1: of like I throw them some red meat, distract, distract, distract,
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  Speaker 1: Let's do Fauci. Let's do this right, I it is,
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  Speaker 1: it's sort of it's it's sort of right in the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: regular sort of what do you do when you're on
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  Speaker 1: the w when your side is losing, Try to change
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  Speaker 1: the subject, try to talk about something that's in better shape.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that I guess what I would say
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  Speaker 1: is that's how you should process what you're seeing come
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  Speaker 1: out of the White House. They would love the culture
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  Speaker 1: war stuff they think gets their voters out. Talking about
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Fauci they think gets their voters out. I'm not so sure,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that any game they think they
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: get in the base. The trade off is losing an
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  Speaker 1: independent who are like, what are you guys doing right?
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  Speaker 1: The independent voter may think the Democrats are too liberal
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  Speaker 1: and the Republicans are too trumpy. The political party getting
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  Speaker 1: caught behaving like their stereotype is the one Independence punished
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  Speaker 1: the most come election day, and right now it does
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  Speaker 1: appear as if Republicans are waving more like their stereotype.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll see how many socialists and up nominees going
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  Speaker 1: into the general election. But that's sort of where I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to kick things off. But I want to transition
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  Speaker 1: to I think what is a much This is going
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  Speaker 1: to sound ridiculous in one regard. Somehow I think the
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  Speaker 1: Iran war is being underplayed and what do I mean
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  Speaker 1: by that? I want to try something with you before
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  Speaker 1: I get totally into this subject. This is not a prediction.
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  Speaker 1: It's simply a census. Here's the question, all right, I
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  Speaker 1: want you to sit with this question as I tick
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  Speaker 1: through everything with you. Think about the war with Iran
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  Speaker 1: a minute. Ask you think about how many countries do
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  Speaker 1: you think have been directly involved, not sympathetic to the war,
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  Speaker 1: but not concerned about actually involved either shot at somebody
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  Speaker 1: got shot at, intercepted something, hosted something, or brokened something.
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  Speaker 1: Pick a number, hold on to it. No, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: doing some mental trick here Oz you know, ah, I
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  Speaker 1: will take you. See I told you you had the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: number seven in your head, right, But I digress. Most
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  Speaker 1: people are probably going to immediately say, well, there's three
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  Speaker 1: countries in the war of Aroun. The United States is
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  Speaker 1: real Irn. Some people who've been paying really close attentions
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  Speaker 1: might say six or seven, right. They might add Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq,
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  Speaker 1: guess what the real number is. It's close to thirty
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  Speaker 1: three zero. And I want to talk you through it,
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  Speaker 1: because this walk through the data is the argument I'm
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  Speaker 1: about to make. Let's start with who's actually fighting the
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  Speaker 1: United States, Israel, Iran. Then there's Iran's network of proxies
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  Speaker 1: as below, which of course Lebanon, the houties of Yemen,
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  Speaker 1: the Amal Movement, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Islamic resistance.
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  Speaker 1: In Iraq. There's a lot of these these sort of
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Irani Iranian proxies in Iraq. So we're already well past
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  Speaker 1: three countries just what I described. Now, let's look at
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a sort of second ring here, and that's territories that
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: have been hit in this war. So let's look at
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: whose actual soil has been struck Iran, Israel, Lebanon, obviously, Iraq,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the Kurdistan region. Then you have the Gulf States, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Cutter,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ue and Omat. And
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: then here's where it can get a bit strained. Azerbaijean
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: two drones hit hit an enclave out there, damaged an airport. Turkey,
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  Speaker 1: a NATO member had Iranian ballistic missiles come down on
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: parts of their country. A drone hit Britain's Royal Air
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Force base on Cyprus, and Iran took a shot at
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  Speaker 1: Diego Garcia, a joint US UK base in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the Indian Ocean roughly twenty three hundred miles from Iran.
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  Speaker 1: I mean Diego Garcia a reminder that this is not
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  Speaker 1: a regional war. Now, Iran is disputing it happened, calls
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  Speaker 1: it a false flag. US fish will say a missile
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  Speaker 1: broke up mid flight and another was intercepted, so there's
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  Speaker 1: some question there. Now the question is who's pulling triggers.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the tear. Nobody seems to count countries that have
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  Speaker 1: actually shot at something. Cutter shot down two Iranian SU
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: twenty four bombers, the first country in this ward to
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  Speaker 1: down an Iranian aircraft. It's not the United States. With Cutter,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: NATO has intercepted four ballistic missiles over Turkish air space.
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  Speaker 1: Britain intercepted a drone headed for a rock. Then there's
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the one that'll stay with you for a while. A
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Kuwaiti faighteen pilot shot down three American F fifteen's friendly
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: fire three of them. Now, let's go to the Europeans.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Greece is frigates and f sixteens to defend Cyprus. Italy,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the Netherlands and Spain sent warships. Ireland offered a French
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: soldier was killed by a drum strike in Iraqi, Kurdistan.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: American ones and B two staged out of Britain and Germany.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And then two that sounded like they're from a different country.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Sri Lanka interned in Iranian tanker in its port. That's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the first time a warship has been interned in a
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: neutral country since the Second World War. And an American
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: submarine sank an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a ship that was on its way home from a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: multi national naval exercise in India. It is the first
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: ship sunk by a submarine in combat since the Falklands,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: first by an American submarine since World War II. There's
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: one more outer ring the mediators. Pakistan broker the April
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Seas fire. The Prime Minister and the Army chief were
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: personally involved. Pakistan hosted the highest level talks between the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: United States and Iran since nineteen seventy nine, Oman and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Kadar have hosted the rest. So did you do the count? Thirty? Now?
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  Speaker 1: What did you guess? So here's where I want to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: be careful, because I think the loudest voices on this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: have been wrong for three years running. Every time something escalates,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: somebody says world war three, right. Donald Trump's been the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: biggest sort of cassundra on this, and they've been wrong.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Every time. There's no world war. Nobody's drafting anybody. We
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: don't have any general mobilization. The great power blocks have
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: not hardened into two teams, if you will, the way
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: they did in nineteen fourteen for World War One or
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine for World War two. And honestly, the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: formal alliances didn't even show up. In March, Trump asked
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: NATO to help reopen the Strait. NATO said no, China
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: said no. He turned around and publicly attacked and South
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Korea and Australia for not joining, and declared the United
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: States doesn't need anybody's help. So, if your test is,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: did the treaty system activate the answers? No, the treaty
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: system set this one out. So in that sense, the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: catastrophists here have lost that argument, but I think that's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the wrong test here. The question was never whether the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: alliances would formalize. It's whether the wars would merge. And
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: that's something we need to be very concerned about at
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: the moment, because they have. They haven't merged through treaties.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: The war between Russia and Ukraine and the war between US,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Iran and Israel have merged through supply chains. I think,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: much scarier than we are fully appreciating. Let me show
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you what I mean, because this is the first time
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I've been nervous about the idea that could go global.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: You know, the first half of this story. After Russian
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: invaded Ukraine, Iran became one of Moscow's most important armed suppliers.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Those shah had drones right then, the production technology. Then
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: they licensed a factory on Russian soil. Russia has fired
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands of them at Ukrainian cities. It was
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a huge advantage for a time for Russia using the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Iranian drums. Well, as we all know now, Ukraine is
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: now the world's foremost expert on drone warfare. Russia is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: now shipping Irony now because of the Iran's needs. Russia
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: now has to ship Russian maid Iranian drones essentially back
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: to Iran. How do we know this, Zelenski, He told us.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: He told us that this spring, so just sit with
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the submitting Iran to signed the weapon. Russian licensed it,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: mass produced it, improved it under live fire in Ukraine,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and now the improved version is back in Iran to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: be fired at American troops in the Persian Gulf. That's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: not two wars learning from each other. That's one production
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: line with two customers, and it runs the other direction
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: just as fast. Ukraine has become the world's leading practitioner
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of shooting these things down. They're experts because it's had
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: four years of practice. So this spring, Ukraine deployed two
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty eight military specialists of five countries, the UAE,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Cutter, Kuwait, and Jordan. It's the first time
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian air defense teams have ever been sent to another
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Country's local forces handled the ballistic missiles. The Ukrainians handled
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the drones because they know the drune. They've been living
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: with it since twenty twenty two. Zelenski flew to Saudi
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Arabia to sign a security agreement Saudi Aramco got in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: line to buy Ukrainian interceptors, and the deal on the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: table is Barterer Ukraine's cheap interceptors in exchange for the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: expensive Western air defense missiles that Ukraine can't get enough of.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Iran understands exactly what happened. Tehran's envoy in Kiev called
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it a stunt, and an Iranian member of parliament announced
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that all of Ukraine is now a legitimate target. So
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a war in Eastern Europe and a war in the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Persian Gulf just declared each other in scope. They are
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: part of the targets. Now. The drone story is the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: elegant vision version of this argument. Here's the version you
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: can argue with. It's about inventory and analysis out this
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: week from the Center from Strategic International Studies here in
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: DC estimates that the American stockpile of Patriot interceptors has
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: gone from about twenty three hundred before this war began
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to somewhere between seven hundred and fifty and eight hundred
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and twenty five today. That's a decline of at least
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: sixty five percent. Those interceptors are down at least thirty
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: eight percent even after partial replenishment. Now you know why
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: some of Trump's boy who cried wolf war if you will,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: they have been able to follow through because we have
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: ammunitions problem. The inventory is now changing how the war
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: gets fought. My friends of ourt NBC reported that the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: American commanders are choosing not to shoot down Iranian projectiles
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: headed for empty parts of their own basis because the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: interceptor is worth more than the crater it will create.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We're literally having to cherry pick what's worth. You're doing
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: almost a cost assessment there. What's it going to hit? Yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that's all right, let it be. Let's not waste the fire.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: We are rationing our defense. The United States of America
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: is having to ration. There was no planning for this
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: war whatsoever. How much more evidence do we meet? This
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: is the single dumbest and biggest mistake a president has
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: made in my lifetime. I'm sorry, it is hard. You
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: cannot This is when you see the cost of this
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: down the road. It's not even going to be a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: close call when history has its judgment on this. This
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: is absolutely turning into just a total and utter mess.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: We just have to hope it doesn't become a catastrophe.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Because here's where the two wars stop being a metaphor
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and start becoming a subtraction problem. The State Department has
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: already warned that allies that patriot deliveries to Ukraine could
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: be delayed because the Pentagon is prioritizing the Middle East.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Some of those allies are worried that missiles they already
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: bought and paid for could get diverted to refill American shells.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So an interceptor fired over Rheia in Saudi Arabia as
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: an interceptor not fired over Kharkiv, same missile, same production line.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: One war competing with the other four. It's not necessarily
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: two conflicts influencing each other, but it is two conflicts
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: eating from the same plate. It's one more connection between
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: these wars, and it's the one that should bother everybody,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: regardless of where you said. In March. To blunt the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: economic damage of its own war, our government temporarily lifted
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: restrictions on the sale of Russian oil. Dumb ass, just
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a dumb, dumb decision. Read that again. War fought in
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: part to squeeze Tehran ended up unsqueezing Moscow, which of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: course only helped the Iranians. Oil rose more than forty percent,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: largest oil supply disruptis since the seventies, and China, which
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: buys more than eighty percent of Iran's oil at a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: steep discount, ends up the other beneficiary. So the war
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: made Russia's war cheaper to fund. That's right. Heck of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a job, Trumpy declaring war in Iran handed more resources
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to Russia. That brings me to the last part of this,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and it's the one that's watching all of it. China
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: is no bystander here. Beijing deployed vessels capable of tracking
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the American fleet. Chinese companies published satellite photos of US
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: assets in the region that thad Battery and Jordan F
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: twenty twos in Israel. That's not intelligence gathering. It's a message,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: we see you, and we can show anybody what you have. Look,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this is not a seamless axis. We don't necessarily this
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: is not like it doesn't quite split up this way,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: but it's getting close. Iran has blocked two Chinese ships
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: from the Strait. Trump said the Navy intercepted what he
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: called a gift from China. Had to do Iran. There's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: some friction in there, but what is real and specific
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is this. There's an argument out this month in law
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Fair that is as good as anything written about this war.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: What's interesting here is the US and Israel open this
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: war with exactly the kind of decapitating strike Beijing has
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: always imagined using on Taipei, and before dawn on February
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: twenty eighth, they killed the spring leader of Iran and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: much of the senior military command, and it end the war.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Successor named within days, chain of command held within hours,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the Revolutionary Guard was basically in charge in firing back.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: It's the same verdict Russia got outside a Kiev in
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Decapitation doesn't work. Denying a choke point
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is cheap to do and expensive don do, and a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: long war favors the disperse defender, not the sophisticated superpower.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: So Beijing is watching. So is Taipei, where a government
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: watchdog in their country said Taiwan's own counter drone defenses
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: are ineffective. So the Pentagon, where the head of the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Indo Pacific Command wants to fill the Taiwan straight with
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: thousands of drums. So everybody's watching the same tape here.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Everybody's learning from each other, which means everybody's learning the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: same lessons, including your adversary. So we'll see where this
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is headed. But let's go back to that big number
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: of thirty, the fact that maybe you didn't realize thirty
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: countries are already involved in this war that we started
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: with Iran. The fact that you to know is thirty.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: It's not a failure in your part, it's a failure
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: on a whole bunch of ranges. So this is not
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: World War three, But it is harder to see how
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: this war cleanly ends. This strategy, the number of strategic
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: mistakes and missteps that have been made here. This is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: not and here's the thing you really can separate. Whatever
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: our military has been asked to do, they've done well.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: The problem is the leadership. The problem is the strategy
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: or lack thereof. The problem is the sort of failure
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of imagination to understand what's been happening around the world,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: underestimating what's been happening in Russia and Ukraine as well.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I don't like to be an alarmist.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: You know that I just wrote a whole column. You'd
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: be vigilant, not an alarmist. But this is where our
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Congress is letting us down. What I just explained to
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you should be the single most important thing that Congress
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: focuses on at the moment. Nothing is impacting our economy
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: more than this war. Nothing is impacting our security in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the future more than this war. This should be front
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and center of concern. This should be front and center
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of information that the American people need to know. But
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this is unraveling before our eyes. Our leaders have no
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: idea how to end this thing. It's clearly now a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: war that never should have been started. And now we're stuck.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And I've said this to you before that sat the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: scariest thing is one of his most viable options is
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: escalation and a ground invasion, which then really could trigger
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: World War three. But just look at already how this
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: war was fantasticized. What started. There is a dispute between
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Israel and Iran. Has got the three superpowers involved. If
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you count the Russians as a superpower, they have nukes,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: so I guess you have to count them as one.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And look at how many countries in the Middle East
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: have already dealt with live fire, and some of them
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: have had to deliver live fire. What a total and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: utter mess, political disaster, strategic disaster. Let's just hope this
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't become a human disaster. All right. I got another
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: big topic that I want to sort of spend a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: few minutes on, and it's what I wrote about this week.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: If you caught my column a new sphere or on
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: sub stack, you know where this is going. Because I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: want to spend a few minutes about data centers. Right.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's about data centers, right, And I
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: do think this is a fascinating political story, but it's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: also a story about a political opening that neither party
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: has figured out yet. And the more I thought about
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: it over the last six months, the more I'm convinced
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that the politics of AI hasn't been invented yet. We
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: don't know where this is going. I have we think
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: we know where it should go. I know where I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to go. I want Teddy Roosevelt. We need Teddy here.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: We need somebody to channel some Teddy energy and some
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Teddy vibes. And I'm going to get to that. But
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the public is ahead of the politicians right now. They
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: are much further ahead. In fact, I saw a poll
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: earlier this week that reinforced something I've already been thinking
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: about for months now. This poll was commissioned by the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Little Tech Association and it's a new trade group representing
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: smaller tech companies. So yes, they have a stake in
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: this going after big tech will. Their whole mission is
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: to make sure the smaller tech firms have a voice
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: and they want to check the power of the biggest
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: tech companies. So they have their own agenda and you
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: should know that upfront. But the survey itself conducted by
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: you gov. They interviewed more than twelve hundred Americans and
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: here's what jumped out. Get this, Seventy two percent of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Americans say they've used AI in just the last three months.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Most of those users users claim they've had a positive experience.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So just sit with that a second, because it's important
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to understand here. Americans aren't rejecting artificial intelligence. My goodness.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Three quarters of us are using it, and most of
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: us that are using it like it. But here's the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: other half of the story. Fewer than one in five
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Americans trust big tech to manage AI responsibly. Seven and
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: ten say the biggest companies have too much power. Ninety
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: percent say their concern about how large corporations collect and
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: use their personal data, and nearly seven and ten support
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: using existing antitrust laws against the biggest tech companies. They
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: don't know it, but they're calling for Teddy. They want Teddy,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: bring on Teddy. And maybe the most remarkable number of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: all of it, nearly half of Americans don't trust anybody
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to manage AI responsibly. They don't trust Congress, we know this.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: They don't trust the Trump administration. They don't trust their
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: state government, they don't trust their local government. They certainly
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: don't trust big tech. They don't trust anybody right now,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: right that's our trust deficit. Now, think about what those
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: numbers are actually telling us. Though the public has separated
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the technology from the technologists, Washington hasn't done that yet.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the biggest disconnect going on right
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: now between the public and the politicians. Because I've asked
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: most politicians about AI today, they almost immediately started talking
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: about China, or economic competitiveness, or permitting right or electricity,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: maybe transmission lines. All of those are legitimate conversations happening
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: at the execution level of expanding our infrastructure for AI.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: But it's not the conversation the public is having. And
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that's what's interesting to me politically. Let me walk you
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: through this. For the last six months, I've had a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: theory about this data center situation. I've been testing that
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: theory out in many of my interviews for Newsphere and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: right here at the check podcast. In the theory, and
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear it again in my conversation with
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Adie Bisheer coming up. The theory wasn't really about artificial intelligence,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't even really about the data center pushback.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: My theory was that the growing backlash over data centers
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't actually about the buildings or where these were going.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: The buildings were simple, the first physical manifestation of something
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: much larger and a much bigger concern to the public.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Twenty five years of accumulated frustration with big tech finally
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: finding a physical manifestation to express frustration. So every one
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: of my interviews has become a little research project, if
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: you will. I wasn't interested in the various policy proposals.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: While they should pay for their own power, yeah, all
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: those things are true. I wanted to know what the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: politicians were learning from this pushback from the public. How
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: were they framing the issue? Did they see what I
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: thought I was seeing or were they still treating this
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: as some sort of isolated zoning fight I've had. I've
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: talked with Byron Donald's about this, Doug Jones, John Tester
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: sua superman congressman just next door to me in northern Virginia.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Plenty of Republicans Democrats are from different states, rural, urban,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: you name it, different politics. They all had different solutions.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: But underneath all of the differences something else struck me.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to just manage this backlash. Almost nobody wanted
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to delve into why the backlash existed in the first place.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Right Republicans have been talking about protecting neighborhoods. Democrats talked
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: about the need to have transparency in the process of
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: deciding where these data centers go. Some of them were
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: arguing for temporary moratoriums and others wanting to create better
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: permitting rules. All those certainly, those are some answers, But
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I kept waiting for somebody to answer a different question.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Why has this become such a potent political issue in
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the first place. I was in Dothan, Alabama. I've been
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: in Pensacola. This isn't just Silicon Valley. This isn't just
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: this is everywhere, and nobody seems interested in answering that question.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And I think the politicians in this case are behind
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the public. As many of you know. I've been in
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Pensacola for the last couple of months. During the Blue
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Angels air show a couple of weeks ago, it was
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the usual advertising banners that you get when you're at
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: any beach. If you've ever hung out at a beach,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: you know. We've got a local place here called Flounders,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: and they love their banner that says sex on the beach, right,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: they put it in quotes, five dollars Flounders, right. Honestly,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I've been coming here fifteen years, ninety you know there's
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: that there's a place called Crabs. You know, have you
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: gotten Crabs like? You know, all sorts of punds that
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: they use. If you've again, you got any beach in
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the southeast in Atlantic at this time of year, you know, Northeast.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about, These little these little
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: planes with banners around them, right. And one thing Pensacola
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: is many things. I didn't think it was ground zero
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: for the Ai Revolution. Well, one of the banners that
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: circulated quite frequently during the Blue Jewels show was a
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: political banner attacking data centers, and it wasn't paid for
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: by Democrats. It was paid for by one of the
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: one Republican attacking another Republican and a Republican primary. It
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: was one of Byron Donald's primary opponents who paid for
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the banner. A few days later, I'm in Dothan, Alabama,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: which about forty five minutes kind of due north of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Tallahassee if you're trying to picture it on a map.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: That's why I was with Doug Jones, Democratic candidate for governor,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and he told me that one of the biggest issues
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: coming up in his conversations all over the state wasn't
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: about immigration, inflation Donald Trump. Nope, not even about college
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: football in Alabama. Right, It's about data centers. Pensacola is
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: not Northern Virginia, and Dothan is not Silicon Valley. These
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: aren't places you'd expect to be arguing about artificial intelligence.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: If this were simply a debate about local electric rids
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: or local zoning, i'd expect the politics of this to
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: stay where the project's actually said. The politics are spreading
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: faster than the infrastructure. And that's how you know, we're
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: not watching a story about the politics of data centers.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: We're watching the creation of the politics of AI. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: here's what we don't know. None of us have figured
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: out what those politics are actually are yet. And both
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: parties are sort of behind the eight fall here, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: they're they're sort of they're stuck in their old way.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: So they're just you know, they're doing campaign money or
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know this or that or environmental you know, it's
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: like the right, you know, their environmental regulation guys, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: they're just obsessed with campaign money. They're quite sure how
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to do this. And I think one of the reasons
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: why Washington has struggled with this is because this issue
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: developed almost the exact opposite way most divisive political issues developed. Normally,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: politics works like this. Consultants will see an issue that
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: has the potential of percolate, Posters will tell it out,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: maybe interest groups will start organizing around it. Maybe even
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a think tank is asked to come up with a
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: couple of proposals, and then the politicians said on a message,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, the public is brought in on
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: it a little bit. That's not what's happened here, public
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: was here way before. Politicians have been politicians are still
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: trying to play catchup. And that brings me to a
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: larger question of what I think actually has changed over
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the last twenty five years. Because this story doesn't start
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: with AI, It all starts with trust. This episode of
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• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Application times may vary and rates may vary. So what
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: change the relationship between the American public and the tech
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: industry didn't begin with suspicion, my goodness, quite the opposite.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Think back to the first Internet revolution. Search engines put
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the world's information at our fingertips. GPS fundamentally changed the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: way we traveled. Online shopping changed the way we bought
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: almost everything eBay. It was so cool, still is kind
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of cool. Smartphones put more computing power in our pockets
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: than NASA had when it sent astronauts to the moon. Right,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: it's a cliche we've heard over and over. Technology generally
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: made life better, and Americans rewarded the companies that built it.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Those companies became enormously successful, the Magnificent Seven, many of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: them are a part of Right. Nobody really complained because
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the bargain at the time felt fair. That's how American
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: capitalism is supposed to work. Somebody invents something that improves
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: people's lives. Customers benefit, investors benefit, entrepreneurs become wealthy. Everybody
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: walks away feeling like the system worked. And I don't
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: think that's the bargain people believe they're making any more
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: with these companies. Somewhere along the way, these incentives changed
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and they went in the wrong direction. Technology companies gradually
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: stopped competing primarily to make our lives easier, and increasingly
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: competed to make sure we spent more of our lives
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: with them. You may think that's a subtle distinction. I don't.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: It fundamentally changed the relationship. Social media is where that
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: became impossible to ignore. Right first, it looked like another
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: extraordinary American success story. We reconnected families and reunited old friends,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and helped neighborhoods organize, and quilters got to hang out
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: with fellow quilters, and baseball card collectors got to hang
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: out with fellow baseball card collectors. Gave ordinary people a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: voice they thought they never really had before, and there's
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: some truth to that. Then something changed. First, it was gradual,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and we didn't quite see it right away. Building community
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: became less important to these tech companies than capturing our attention.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: The longer we stayed, they figured out, the more advertising
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: we saw, the more money they made off of us,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: The more data we generated for them, the more valuable
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: we became to them. So at some point a lot
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of Americans stopped feeling like customers to big tech, and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: they started wondering where they'd become the product instead. Now
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say this happened
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: because of one company or one CEO or one terrible decision.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Relationships deteriorate, you know, incrementally, right, they erode until one
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: day both sides realized, Holy cow, we're talking two completely
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: different relationships and two different worldviews. And that's where we
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: are with tech. Tech companies still largely see themselves as
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: building products that improve people's lives, and millions of Americans
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: increasingly feel that they're simply are We're just simply being
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: optimized by these companies rather than served. These are not
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the same things. And to me, one of the clearest
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: political signs that something changed has almost nothing to do
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: with AI. It was the movement to get phones out
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of classrooms. And look, history may eventually decide those laws.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: These laws have been a mistake that we overreacted, But
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: politically that's beside the point. The fact of the matter
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: is Republican governors, democratic govern Republican legislatures, democratic legislatures. Just
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: about every Western country around the world. Some states I
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: can't agree on anything, have increasingly agreed on one thing.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Kids should spend less time on the product. Silicon Valley
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: spent years trying to make indispensable hardstop. That's a big
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: political development because whether Silicon Valley agrees with whether this
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: is a correct decision by local politicians or at overreaction,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: the public has rendered its verdict, because remember, these people
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: are representative of the public. And that's why I think
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: AI is entering a very different political environment than Internet
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: one point zero. Did the Internet arrived in a country
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: that trusted tech companies. We loved Apple. AI is arriving
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: after much of that trust has already been spent, and
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: that's a different that's a much different starting point. And
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I think this is the biggest disc of them all.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think Silicon Valley understands the conversation the country
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: thinks it's having. And I say that because I've watched
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: politicians make this mistake for decades. Candidates answer questions nobody's
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: actually asking all the time. Sometimes they do it on
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: purpose so they don't have to answer the question. And
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: big tech is doing this now. So where does this
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: leave us, Well, the politics of AI, it just hasn't
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: been invented yet. We don't have we haven't found this
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: person to capture the moment. Look, plenty of Americans have
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: opinions on this. The public is there, Washington isn't, and
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it's a huge distinction. The public has separated the technology
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: from the technologists. They're not rejecting AI, they're rejecting the
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: relationship that no longer feels like a partnership. That's what
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: everybody's getting wrong here. So I don't think the next
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: successful presidential candidate is going to win this issue by
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: promising either more data centers or less data centers, or
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: a better permitting process or a moratorian. Those are answers
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to the questions politicians are asking, but they're actually not
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the answers to the question the public is asking. The
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: public is asking something much simpler. How do we make
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: sure the next great wave of American innovation actually benefits America.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: It's a simple question. It's a complicated answer, but it's
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: a different conversation, and we're not having this common Our
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: politicians aren't having this conversation with you. Donald Trump actually
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: illustrates this trap. You know. The irony is that he
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: could have been His political rise was built on the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: idea that America's elites had actually stopped listening to ordinary people.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: So if there was ever a politician in theory position
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to redefine America's relationship with big tech, it should have
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: been the great populist, orange haired man. And to be fair,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: he did do some things that previous Republican presidents probably
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have imagined. Right, the government now owns pieces of
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: industrial policy, an equity stake at Intel, a share of
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Navidia's chip sales to China, interest tied to rare earths.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: This isn't las a fair Republicanism. I'm not sure it's
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: a good idea long term, but I will he deserves
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: it at least. I guess credit for trying something here.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: But look who got the steak, Donald Trump, his cronies
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: or Washington got the steak, not the communities that are
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: being used for the infrastructure. So in this case, Washington
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: negotiated for Washington, Donald Trump negotiated for Donald Trump. But
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Pensacola got an airplane banner. And that's the trap. So
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I think neither political party has figured this out yet.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: History suggests moments like this don't get solved by the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: political establishment. Teddy Roosevelt was a member of the establishment,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: but by the time, but it was when he was
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: an outsider. Did he have the credibility to rail against
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the system, And in some ways, maybe that's what we're
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: looking for. Somebody who was born into power but eventually
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: becomes unusually free from many of the pressures that would
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: have constrained many of his contemporaries. And that's what gave
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Teddy room to redefine the relationship between government and concentrated
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: economic power. Something similar is going to happen here. The
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: question is is going to happen in time before this
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: industry eats up everything. And I do believe there's a
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: real reward at the end of this rainbow. The first
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: politician who really understands this issue, I don't think is
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: going to come from sort of the mainstream of either party.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe it'll be a governor, maybe it'll be someone wealthy
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: enough not to depend on money, because that's the other
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: part of this. A lot of politicians are captured by
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: all this cash from these tech companies, or if anything,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: they're afraid of the cash or the tech companies. I mean,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Chuck Schumer gave away when he's rendered on crypto, right,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I mean to me, that's when he sort of just said,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I surrender being representative of the people. But it was
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: because the cash had captured him and captured the mindset
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of Democrats on crypto. So maybe it'll be somebody who
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: built this industry that now has found that now has
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: enough credibility to tell hard truths, right like what we
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: saw in Hungary, Right it was a former Orbon guy
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: who had the who had the credibility to take on
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: or One point is I don't know who it'll be,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: but I know what they're going to sound like. They're
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: not going to run against technology and they're not going
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: to surrender to it either. They're going to insist the
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: American people are not just a customer, and they're not
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: just the workforce, and they're not just your data, and
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: they're not just a temporary place to do something while
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: you figure out how to export all this into space.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: They're supposed to be the primary beneficiary of American innovation.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: And when somebody finally says that and then stands up
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to these tech companies and means it, that's when you're
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: going to know the politics of AI has arrived. Because
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: after six months of these interviews, it's the only conclusion
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I've come to, Because the more politicians I've interviewed on
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: this issue, the less interested I became in the data
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: center issue themselves. They were never really the story. The
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: story was always the relationship with big tech. Big tech
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: let us down, Big tech lost trust the American people.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: The data centers simply happened to be where the relationship
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: finally became impossible for these big tech companies to ignore.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: All right, very quickly, I said I was going to
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: have a little something here on Fauci. And look, as
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a million different ways to look at
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: this Fauci situation. It is frustrating that our political energy
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: is not being spent on preparing for the next pandemic.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about how we'd handle another novel virus
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: like the coronavirus. We're not debating what lessons we should
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: actually take away. We're having an argument about Tony Fauci,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: who's an eighty five year old retired government worker. Now
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: that's our politics of twenty twenty six. Remember, Fauci is retired.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: He became the vessel though, in which Americans poured every
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: frustration they had about COVID. So look, before we decide
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: whether Fauci got everything right, and he didn't, nobody did.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Let's remember what job he actually had. His job wasn't
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to balance the economy. It wasn't to decide whether schools
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: reopened or not, whether he didn't decide whether who got
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: unemployment benefits. His job wasn't to figure out how to
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: keep restaurants alive. His job wasn't weighing mental health against lockdowns.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: His assignment was much narrower. Tell the country what he
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: believed the medical risks were. That's it. Public health officials
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: have always leaned towards caution, not because they're always right,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: but because the consequences of understanding danger are almost always
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: worse than the consequences of overstating danger. If he had
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: understated the danger of this, and you have thousands of
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: people dying a day which we had, trust me, there'd
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: be many people angry today about that, with fauci as
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: they would have been as they are today. For those
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: who are literally not remembering a thing about reality on this,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: think about how government warnings work. Though the National Weather
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Service warns about hurricanes that end up turning the FDA issues,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: recall that sometimes affect products you never would have gotten
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: sick from local efficiency, Evacuate towns that never flood, and
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: public health agencies warn us every flu season, and yet
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: sometimes you don't get the flu, and most of us
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: ignore plenty of those warnings and go about our lives.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Nobody holds a hearing because a hurricane changed course. But
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: imagine the opposite. Imagine a government official saying this probably
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: isn't a big deal, and thousands more people die. We'd
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: still be investigating that mistake today. Oh right, it's called Katrina.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Do you remember. So Look, we know what's happened here.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Our memory has compressed COVID. We remember the arguments, we
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: don't always remember the atmosphere. We remember March and April
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. We remember hospitals filling up. I'd like
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to think some people will remember the refrigerated trucks outside
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: holding dead bodies, Nurses having to wear garbage bags because
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: protective equipment was running short. We had two thousand Americans
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: dying a day during some days, at the worst moments,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: more than three thousand people in a single day. There
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: was no vaccine, there was no immunity. Nobody knew what
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: the next six months looked like. Nobody knew whether schools
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: could safely reopen. Nobody knew whether we'd have a treatment
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: by summer or by Smith's. Look, I'm a proud Floridian
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and here's a cold, hard truth. The only people I
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: personally know who died to COVID lived in the state
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of Florida, and they weren't all elderly. COVID didn't discriminate,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: but people who assumed it couldn't touch them often increase
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: their own risk. Does that mean every restriction was right? No.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Does it mean every school closure was justified no. Does
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: it mean nobody overreached? Of course not. But let's just
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: remember the conditions under which those decisions were being made. Now,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: let's talk about rand Paul. Aside I've said before, I
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: think Grand Paul is one of the more interesting members
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: of the Senate. He brings a libertarian perspective that often
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: challenges consensus in his own party. I find it very valuable,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: and it's healthy in our society. Oversight is also valuable.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Congress absolutely has a responsibility to investigate how the government
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: handled COVID. The questions matter, but there comes a point
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: where oversights starts to look like a grievance. Rand Paul
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: decided to release more than an eleven hundred pages of
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Fauci's pandemic era journal's diaries, whatever you want to call them.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Then he questioned him. In a highly charged sentate hearing,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment and adviceive counsel after arguing
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that Paul's investigation had become personal vendetta. Look, I I'm
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: sorry Fauci took the Fifth I think that just you know,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: I think that makes people look guiltier than they are.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I understand why a lawyer told him to do it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt you have a justice department that isn't
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: on the up and up, that does not right. This
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: is a very politically charged justice department who will you
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: can't trust? So I understand why a lawyer would preach
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: this caution of Fauci. And he's eighty five, he's you know,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: it's ridiculous that that he's being you know, this is
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: basically rand Paul, I think is participating in elder abuse here.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean I don't think Fauci should have to
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: answer questions, but releasing the private journals was just gross.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: It's not fact finding. It was just a public humiliation.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: And you know, here's the irony here. So what did
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: we learn Anthony Fauci enjoyed the media attention. You know
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: else enjoys a lot of media attention, Ran Paul. In fact,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: if we indicted every single person in Washington who enjoyed
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: being recognized by Barbara Streiser and Julia Roberts or Kelsey Grammer,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: there'd be nobody left to serve. So look, it's very
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: frustrating watching all this. We know Rand Paul's obsession is
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: origin of COVID, and we get it. The Internet demands
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: one answer, reality gives us usually two. This virus may
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: have the answer. Everybody may be right. It's very likely.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: The most likely aspect of this is that the virus
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: originated naturally. It was being studied in a laboratory after
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: already being found naturally, and it all escaped. But the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: point is origin and release are not the same thing,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and one doesn't automatically answer the other, and it doesn't
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: do anything to help us prepare for the next pandemic.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: So look, it is it is. I just find this thing.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: It's obvious what it is. It's a political distraction to
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: what's going on right now with Republican Party politics. For
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Rand Paul, it's just an obsession it's a grievance, and
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's a terrible look on him. I genuinely
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: think this is, you know, a pretty thoughtful senator, you know,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: sixty to eighty percent of the time, you know. And
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I'm a believer in you know, I think we need
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: some socialist senators, you need some libertarian senators, you need
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: center left, you need center right. Like I am a
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: believer in pluralism because I'm a believer that when you
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: have all those voices in the room, you'll get to
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: one answer that may not be the most efficient answer,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: but it will be the one that's most accepted in
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: a democracy. Right, That's why I think it can be
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: a good thing. But Rand Paul, what he's doing, Anthony
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Fauci is only undermining his own his own credibility here.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: And I just you know, again, it looks to me
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: like the biggest sin Anthony Fauci made was enjoying becoming
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: friendly with Julia Roberts. Throw the book at him. All right,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Well that's a few quick campaign notebook items. Because we've
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: had him here, we've had Todd Achilles, the independent candidate
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: running for US Senate in Idaho. Well, he got a
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: huge break this week, the Democratic nominee with Drew Todd
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Achilles gets a one on one with Jim rish. We
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: are about to find out if having an eye next
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to your name suddenly makes a US Senate seat more
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: competitive even in Ruby Red, Idaho. But as good of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: news as an independent got in Idaho is as bad
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: as news as an independent got in Montana. Montana Secretary
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: State said, even if the Democratic nominee withdraws, this is
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Seth Bodner, who John Tester is endorsed. This is the
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: open Montana seat. Right, Steve Danes chose to retire the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee, the US Attorney Democratic nominee has pledged to
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: stay in. Most of the party is actually rallied around this.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Seth Bodner, former president of EUS in Montana, in one
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: on ones, it looks like Badner would have a fifty
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to fifty shot at winning this seat as an independent.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: But the Democratic nominee doesn't want to get out, And
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: the Secretary of State said, even if the Democratic nominee
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: gets out, state law says they have to replace the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: candidate on the ballot. So I think if you were
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the Democrats tried to win control the Senate. You would
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: have rather had the Idaho You would either have the
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Montana rulings go be how Idaho went, not how Idaho
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: went versus Montana. It was what it was on that front,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: and uh. One other thing to keep in mind the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: most the thing that's coming next with the Michigan primary
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: next week is we're about to find out how many
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: people release some bullshit polls, because there's been a lot
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: of polling released that frankly feels as if everybody has
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: put their their thumb on the scale for what they
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: hope the result will be, not what the result will
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: actually be. Here's something to contemplate before I take a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: break and we bring in our guests. And I'd love
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: your reaction to this. If I'll do all, I'll say
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: it loses, does Mom Donnie due to his due to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: his decision to what he to do be is high
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: profile with his speech about bb Yahu and having him arrested.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Was that did he actually cost I'll do as I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: sort of paint the movement, this sort of socialist adjacent movement,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: as being too obsessed over an issue that has nothing
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: to do with bringing down the cost of groceries for
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: new Yorkers or michigan Anders. Something I'm watching, something I'm
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: curious about, and something I'm curious what you guys think
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: on that front. Top top to test. As always, my
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: top five list is brought to you by Fandled and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: it's a twist a little bit. I have already spoken
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: about one person named in this thing, and it's my
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: top five independence or independent minded figures who could shape
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: control of the US Senate in the next six months.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: All right, these are five politicians who could have an
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: outsized impact on Senate control. I'm gonna start number five,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: tot Achilles. Does this become a race? It's a cheap state.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Tot Achilles has raised significant money for an independent candidate,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: reasonable amount of money for a Democratic nominee and a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: red state if he were the Democratic nominee and a
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: red state like Idaho. Tot Achilles has been on this
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: program a while ago. When he first started, when we
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: talked about why is he running as an eye, he
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: basically said, you know, more people will listen to him,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: he can have a conversation with more voters. And this
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: sort of is a thesis test for me, and I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: believe every state is a swing state. You just have
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: to find where the folk crom is. And every state
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: has a folk rum where where you can find a
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: way to fifty percent plus one, you just have to
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: find that state's full grum. And that to me, and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of times in traditionally red or blue states,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: being a so called independent sometimes you'll have an easier
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: time finding that ful crum than you would as that.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: And look, Jim Reese, he's a quiet member of the Senate.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: He's not a bomb thrower. He's sort of been a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: very sort of reliable Trump Conservative. But you know, and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: he probably a bit more to the to the right
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: than say others who've been the head of Foreign Relations.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: But he's pretty much more of an internationalist than Trump is.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: But he's tried to be a bit more Trump friendly
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: than the previous chair of that. But he's not a
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: huge right he's not a big voice. It's one of
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: those like Deb fish Er what Dan Osborne came offully
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: close to knocking off Deb Fisher of Nebraska, sort of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: a lesser known US senator in Nebraska. She was kind
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: of caught napping. Jim Reiche is the type of candidate
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: i'd keep an eye on. He's the type of could
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: get caught napping type of thing. So we shall see.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: But I I have a feeling, I have a feeling.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: In October we're going to see a forty seven to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: forty poll out of this race, which you'll tell me
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: that Risch is gonna win, probably will be favored to win.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: He's probably got an eighty five percent chance of winning.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: But this place is going to be competitive, and I'll
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I'll be very curious if he can get a televised
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: debate with Rish and if he does, I look, I
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: think it's a terrible environment to be running as an
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: incumbent hartstop. So because of that, I don't rule anything out.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: So he's fit on my list. Number four Dan Osborne. Look,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: he's he's got the proof of concept. He came close.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee is withdrawn. Everything has cut his way. I
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: think demp Fisher would have been a slightly easier opponent
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: than Todd Ricketts. Actually mean not Todd Rickets, Pete Rickets.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Tod Rickets was my guest. The brother Pete Rickets is
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: the US Senator in this case, and he's got a
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: ton of money. I uh, look, I think if Ricketts loses,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: it's because of Trump, not because of Rickets. Right, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: those three Senate races, the agg communities in those three
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: states have been just pummeled by this administration. Right. Trump
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: has made their economic lives terrible. The tariffs have been terrible.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: This is just if if this community weren't so ruby
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: read in their cultural beliefs, I think these races would
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: already be trending in the other direction. But culturally this
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: community is just uncomfortable in some cases supporting a Democrat.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Now do these folks sit out right either way? There
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: is no scenario in my head that if Dan Nowsbourne
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: winning that isn't basically due to Donald Trump. Right. And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I don't say this to sort of excuse Pete Ricketts here,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: but that's Ricketts is defending the indefensible because you know
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: who wouldn't be in favor of tariffs at Pete Ricketts. Uh,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it wouldn't be in favor of these ag
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: of what's been going on in the beef industry, Rickett,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: But it hasn't been his decision. Right, What the Trump
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: administration has done to the egg community, particularly in the Midwest,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: it's just been I mean just political about practice. Uh uh.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: We could debate whether on the merits maybe long term
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: some of these decisions or are better decisions down the road,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: depending on your where your head is on the free market.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: But what he's been doing on tariffs is so haphazard.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: It is just you know, and then you throw in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the the the aggressive deportation which has just harmed the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: labor force for these folks, right, it's it's if Dan
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Osborne wins, it's because of Donald Trump's tariffs. A pure
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and so number three on my list of independence who
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: have a huge impact on Senate control, Seth Pontner and Montana.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about it. He's now got
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: a harder job. He's going to have a Democrat on
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the ballot. He's gonna have to make the case that,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want true independent representation and you
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: want some you know, I'll be curious, can he make
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the following pitch? Hey, you know, I'm going to be
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: listening to left, right and center as your United States Senator,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do what's right for Montana, regardless of party.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to vote with the party that has Montana's
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: interests first, and whichever party that happens to be on
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: any given issue or in any given cycle. Right. Can
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: he make that pitch credibly? Will voters buy it credibly?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: Can he convince partisan Democrats that he is not so
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: independent that he's going to somehow be supportive of Trump
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: right on some things? So I think everything's harder for him.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: It's not a binary choice. There are plenty of voters
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: that will habitually just vote by party. So I do
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: think if this is probably made this I could argue
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: that Achilles has a slightly better chance of winning his
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: two way race than Bodner now has of winning his
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: three ray race. Not quite there yet, because Bonner's got
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a ton of money, he's got some Democratic infrastructure helping him,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: so we'll see, but he's certainly going to play a
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: huge role in where this is headed. Number two on
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: my list is Lisa Markowski. No, she's not on the ballot,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: but you've heard me with miss thesis before. If Mary Petulam,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: if a Democrat wins the US Senate, see in Alaska,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: if a majority of Alaska voters have decided they want
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: to send a Democrat the United States Senate, Lisa Murkowski,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: who I assume is not going to run for reelection,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: but who knows in twenty eight she's up in twenty eight,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: she cares more. She absolutely went in out. She goes
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: where her state is. And particularly the next person I'm
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: about the name on my list. If he does one thing,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I'm prepared to watch Lisa Murkowski do another. Which leads
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: me to my number one most important and impactful independent
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: or independent minded politician who's going to have an impact
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on the Senate majority in the next six months. It's
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman. I concur with my friend, my Super Tuesday partner,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Chris Eliza, who says he doesn't believe Fetterman is going
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: to switch parties and go from D to R. I
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: agree with that. As we've seen with these parties switches
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: in the past, the more recent ones have there been
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: as many that go from major party to I as
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: go from one major party to the other. I inspector
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: went from one to the other because he wanted to
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: serve another term. But Jim Jeffords decided to actually go
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: I right, and Joe Manchin decided to go I on
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: that front. So but I've had Rick Shelby went from
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: D to R. Ben night Ors Campbell went from D
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: to R. So it's not let you you won't see it.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: And inspector of course are tod But I suspect he
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: goes I and I think he's up for grabs. I do.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm really curious what kind of relationship Brian Schatz
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: has with John Fetterman. Brian Shatz is who I expect
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: to be Senate Democratic leader going forward, certainly the more
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: influential Senate Democratic leader, even if Schumer gets to keep
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: his slot for a cycle before announcing his retirement. But
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind Fetterman, if look I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: sort of will, I'm gonna make one more observation for
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: before we get to questions. My hunch is that if
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats win when four Senate seats, are actually probably gonna
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: win six or seven. I'm one of those who believes
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: the bottom either falls out or they get somewhere, or
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: they or they're stuck at three or four, either it
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: all happens or you know, And for me, the test
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: is really going to be those egg states Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: For my prediction of you know, if Democrats win the Senate,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: they're more likely to pick up five or six than
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: they are, you know, three in a party switch or
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: four in them. You know that all depends on whether
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: my theory of the case about the tariffs comes to fruition.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: In those three states, Democrats need to win two of
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: those are shooting Republicans that have to lose two of
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: those three, since one of them will have an eye
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: for that to come to pass. But that right now,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's more likely that happens. Like here's always
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: what's more likely Democrats only net one or two Senate
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: seats or they are they net six or seven, And
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: I think the odds are greater they net six or
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: seven than that they come up under three. Just some
• 1:11:50
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  Speaker 1: seven if you're in Louisiana, ask Chuck. Let's get to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: some ass, Chuck. And before I begin, I got a
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: small correction my buddy Billy Corbyn, who, of course, for
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: those of you that don't know Billy, he is the
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: filmmaker behind maybe this single best movie that explains the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: rise of Miami in the eighties as a cultural icon,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: and that is Cocaine Cowboys. And then, of course, if
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: you're a college football fan and you have consumed a
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: thirty for thirty about the U, Billy Corbyn did two
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: of those, the U and then the sort of the
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: part two of the U, but that was also Billy Corbyn.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: So anyway, he is also the unofficial historian of all
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: things Miami politics. God bless them. And if you recall
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: the question I had from someone about from someone about
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: voter fraud examples of it actually happening. I talked about
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: the ninety seven, the ninety seven Miami mayoral race featuring
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Francis Wise, and he goes, hey, quick clarification, and I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: just want to read this directly. He said, you mentioned
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: Coroyo and Suarez resulted in a new election. He said,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: it didn't. This is my mistake. This is what I
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: get for sort of not fully doing my research, going
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: from memory on this one. And that's on me, and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: I apologize for doing that. But that's why we correct
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: the record. The judge ultimately excluded all absentee ballots due
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: to the widespread fraud from the Suarez side of things,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: and it resulted in a new count that didn't count
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: even legal absentee ballot voters. So it did effectively remove
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: Suarez from office he was mayor briefly put Coroyo in
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: office as mayor, but it did disenfranchise anybody who voted
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: legally by mail. Needless to say, he should have it
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: probably should have been a new election. But anyway, I
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: got I got that part of it well. But Billy
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: also adds, he goes, you realize, had had Suarez stayed mayor,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: he'd have been the mayor of Miami during the Laen
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Gonzales mess. And I went, oh my god, because you know,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: Suarez is kind of a weirdo. He was kind of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: being nicknamed Mayor loco at times. He was showing up
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: at odd hours of the night, if constituents sent him
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: letters or newspaper reporters like he was not it was
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: not you know, there's a Francis Suarez and his father
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: or I don't think very close because of this is
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the if old man SARS has
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: got all of the nodes connected the way they are
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: and most of the rest of us on this, but yeah,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: that would have what was already a media circus. Let's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: just say jim Ersuirez or Xavier Suarez, depending on how
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: he wanted to be referred to, which I would He
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: would I think be fine being referred to by either
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: memory serves, but yeah, he'd have tried to figure out
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: how to be more involved than this, and God only
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: knows what kind of mess extra mess that would have created.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: But I thought I wanted to give you that quick
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: correction there. All right, let's tackle some questions here. Deb
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: M in Greenville, Georgia, tenth Congressional District, Thank you for
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: telling me your congressional district. I want to continue to
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: make that a feature here. Hey, Chuck, thanks for explaining
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: politics for the rest of us. I listened to the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: pot guess while walking my dog Suki all right. My
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: question is why haven't we heard much about the people
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: who attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. After the attempt on
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: President Reagan, the public learned a lot about the shooter,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: So why is it different now? Thanks for all you do,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: deb M. It's a I I as you as many
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: of you know, I am. I am not a huge
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist. I am. I will go to my grave
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: believing that the CIA is covering up the fact that
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Oswald wasn't an asset and they went, oh shit, he
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: killed him. Oh we can't let them find out he
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: was an asset, or they'll think we were behind it. Right.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: My point is is that in my experience, government conspiracies
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: are in our cover ups are more successful when they're
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: cover ups, not for to actually execute strategies, if you will, right,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: you know, to to execute a coup and all those things.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: So I don't, I don't. I am a very im a.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: I am a skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theory,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: and it probably is due to the fact that from
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: the age of about sixteen to twenty five, I read
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: every single Kennedy assassination book I could get my hands on,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: and I considered myself an amateur expert, and then Oliver
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Stone just peed all over it right the single worst.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: It's a great movie. JFK is one of these frustrating
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: movies that I really enjoy. And he just absolutely, historically
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: just he took every conspiracy theory and tried to make
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: one grand one was he had like pieces of a million.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: It was just garbage. It was basically I feel like
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Stone wrote it literally stoned that it was. But more
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: than that, it's probably LSD. And he used the weed
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: to just calm himself down long enough to write a script.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: That's how cuckoo his and I think he sort of
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: ruined the investigation. I think even though it led to
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the release of some or files, it led to a
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: new law that was a good thing, but his actual
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: treatment of it just terrible. And as somebody read all
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: these books, it was clear he just had his He
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: just decided, you know, he wanted to have as much
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: fun as possible with the conspiracy. Now I throw all
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: that out there. I find this, particularly the Butler assassination.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: I find everything you're saying here to be odd behavior
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: by our government. We haven't had the Big Commission, we
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: haven't had an investigation. We haven't that we've seen for
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: the public. We haven't had the public accounting of what happened.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: We haven't had the congressional hearings. There have been some
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: congressional hearings, but they've been low key operations. There has
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: been a lack of it. And I don't you know, there
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: has been a lack of interest in this from the
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media. There's been a lack of interest in
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: this from Frankly, even the more conspiratorial corners of MAGA.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: It's strange, and this lack of what I would call
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: sort of investigative closure, right, you know, and a better
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: understanding of who this guy was, this the Butler Assassin,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: was the fact that none of us his name does
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: not roll off the tongue right now. You could say, well,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: that part of that is we've all learned our lesson.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: We don't want to we don't want to elevate these
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: folks and turn them into cult heroes. Right. Certainly, there's
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: certainly a real fear of that, considering how much the assassin,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: how much fame Frankly that they and I'm not going
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: to say his name, and I do know his name.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: The fact that his name is on the tip of
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: my tongue, but not the assassin that just missed Donald Trump,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: I think tells you you know, what's gotten more coverage
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: and all of that. So I do think that I
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: don't don't want these people to become famous. So I
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: think some of this we should chalk up to being
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: a bit more responsible on what we But I look,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: it's likely that we see what happened, which was you
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: had a secret service that was overly stretched, that was
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: trying to provide security details for more principles than they've
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: ever tried before at a time when they were stretched
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: with resources, and so they had to rely on local
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: law enforcement that weren't experienced at dealing with snipers and
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, I think we know the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: answer of how this happened. It was just bad preparation,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: bad you know, in a stretch. But the fact that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't had that report out there, the fact that
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: this isn't sort of been more front and center, the
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: lack of interest from lawmakers into this, I will just
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: say it actually only allows conspiracy theories to foment. And
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: I think this has been a and that I said,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: you know, do you trust I don't trust anything that
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: comes out of this Justice Department right now with Todd
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: Lanch in charge, the president's personal lawyer, I don't trust
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: anything that cash Ptel puts his hands on. Right he
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't have credib elite. It's he is not going to
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: be a credible person. But I would trust a bipartisan
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: commission to put together a report on this. This is this,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I look at that Butler moment, and we
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: were this close to what could have been a hot
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: civil wharf if things had gone the wrong way. Like
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: that was such you know, I think we deserve a
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: better understanding of the shooter's motive, what happened, How did
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: this happen? And I don't feel like you're right. I
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: don't feel like as a news story we have but
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: but this gets at our own government, our own life
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: that officials have not shown enough carry out. There's only
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: so much we in the media can do. It is
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: Congress that has the power to convene, the power to subpoena,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: the power to investigate like this, and that lack of curiosity.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the way I would put it. I'm
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: not gonna I share your I think my guess is
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: it's one of those. You know, why do I feel
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: like under any other circumstance we would have knowne a
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot more about this assassin? And the
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: answer is you're right. And like I said, the lack
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: of that sort of investigative closure, I think has only
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: opened a door to more conspiracies and that's not healthy.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Wayiam W. Northampton, Mass Right, Hey, Chuck, have a question
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: about the luxury jet President Trump accepted from the Katari government.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: If US taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions to upgrade
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: it for use as Air Force one, how would the
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: president take it with them after leaving office instead of
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: it remaining government property? And what happened to the classified
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: systems and equipment installed a taxpayer's expense. Well, first of all,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty sure he can't just take the plane.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: That Congress has to approve it. And I think you've
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: you've hopefully heard about I think it was there's this
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: great story that Lincoln got this gift that he wanted
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: to keep and he went to Congress and Congress said, no,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: you can't keep it, a gift that he got his president.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, even Donald Trump knows the rules. By the way,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: during the Dodgers ceremony, they gave him a ring and
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: he goes, oh, man, I love this ring. I don't
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: want to have to report it. He knows the rules, right.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: He doesn't get to keep any of this, I think either.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: There are I think, but Congress would have to so
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: put it this way, I don't. I'm pretty confident this
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: plane's never going to make it to his library. I'm
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: also I'd also put money in a prediction market that
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: says his library isn't built before twenty thirty at the earliest.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: And I don't know when it gets built, but it
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: ain't going to be by twenty thirty, probably not by
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty two, probably by not twenty thirty four. Now
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: you can say, well, shoot, obaba, look it took ten years.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: You know, Donald Trump the developer. I'll be shocked if
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: he's got something ready in ten years. So he's not
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: going to be able to take this plane with him,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: not without an Act of Congress. And I don't think
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: there's going to be apply and enough Congress that's going
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: to give it to him. But it has to be
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: an Congress. You have to. As president, he has to.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: It is Congress gets to decide whether he gets to
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: take this with him. Think about that when you're casting
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: your vote for Congress. This question comes from Michael t Chicago, Illinois.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: He says, Hey, where's my five timers, Cup? And here
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: here's a good we are we are we are working
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: with a new we are working with our first merchandising vendor.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Big news here. And we know that some of you
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: have even asked for maybe personalized T shirts or hats
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: that use the phrase. But I digress. So point is, Michael,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: we hear you, the people hear you, and uh at
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Toodcast, LLC, we're working on it anyway. He says, there, Chuck,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the conversation with Erape. My question is
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: about the people around President Trump. What motivates those closest
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: to him, like Todd Blanche, the Press Secretary, members of
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the cabinet. Do they generally believe what they're saying or
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: is it simply political strategy that gets left behind once
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: the cameras are off. So you are asking me a
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: question that my missus Toodcast will often ask me, Hey,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: is this person really that trumpy? Or do you know
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: who's behind him that really believes this stuff at who
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: and who does it? And look, all I can give
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: you is my my belief right. So I look at
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: a guy like top, I think there's I think most
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: of the people around Trump are opportunists. I think most
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: of the people Trump likes to pick our people that
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: he knows will be loyal to him because he knows
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: no other president would have given him that opportunity, no
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: other president would have remotely considered them for attorney general.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: So it takes people who may or may not have
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: been loyal to you. They become loyal to you because
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: they also know only Donald Trump would have given me
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to be attorney general. So I owe Donald
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: Trump my opportunity to be attorney general. So I think
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: the safest presumption is opportunism. In the first term you had,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: you had a you had opportunism mixed with some arrogance.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: And this is where people underestimate Trump. And this is
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: where I would where I in the category I put
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: John Bolton in a category I might put a Rex Tillerson.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: A gemmatis that Trump can be managed, that Trump can
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: be persuaded, that I can manage Trump. Bolton was going
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: to get Trump to do his bidding. That they all
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: sort of view themselves as smarter than Trump, so they'll
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: be able to get one by it. And the thing
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: with Trump is he's not very book smart. He doesn't
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: know anything about the history of Iran. He doesn't know
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: anything about the history of the United States and Iran.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: He probably has been briefed about it once or twice.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: In me could cherry pick a fact by accident once
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: or twice and then he uh. But what he does
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: sniff out are people that are trying to sort of
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: play him. That's what he's really good at. And that's
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: where I think that's why this administration probably is a
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: handful of more truer believers. Like I don't think Susie
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: Wills is a true believer. I think Susie Wiles at
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: first just wanted to stick it to DeSantis and she did,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: and then you know, look, I think there are a bunch,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: whether it's Marco Rubio, Susie Willis, I think they are like, look,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: I'll take the hit because I can get this part
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: of I can get this, or I can get that.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: So I do think ultimately opportunism is what drives these
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: folks you know, it's very I'm very always, very curious
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: who would actually be in the foxhole with him on
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: a January sixth he found out how few people were
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: willing to be in the foxhole with him on January
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: six He probably has more in his West wing staff
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: this time that would go along than the last time,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: but not as many as he thinks, because if you
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: join a if you join an administration out of opportunism,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: then then second things go south, you usually are among
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the first bail and so that's probably how I would
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: characterize most of these folks. All right, next question David P.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: From North Scottsdale. Oh feels like a willbonism anyway, Hey, Chuck,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: During your recent discussion about the origin of political terms
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: origins of political terms, you mentioned smoke filed Room. But
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear you explain the history of the
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: term lobbyist and it's supposed connection to will Ord Hotel,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: even if the story has been embellished over the years.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: The glisters would be fascinating. Love the show, David P.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: In North Scottsdale. Yes, well, look, I appreciate the homework
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: assignment because look, the this is one of those where
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: the general belief and the actual truth. Let's just say
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: they have less in common than you think. But you
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: can thank the Willard Hotel for continuing the myth that
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: the term lobbyist was born out of their lobby. After
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of research, I'll give you a quick, quick,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: little history of it that we put together. So look,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: the origin the mythology in America is that Grant like
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: to go to the lobby of the Willard Hotel to
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: smoke his cigars, have a brandy, and while he was there,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: people would constantly come up to him asking for favors.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: And it supposedly is what made it what invented the
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: term lobbyists, But it isn't where the word itself came from,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: because the word itself was literally based on architecture because
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: in the sixteen forties it actually already had a political
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: meeting in the UK because the lobby of the House
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: of Commons would be where parliament members of Parliament would
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: meet constituents and petitioner. So that is sort of how
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: the room the lobby, and then you quickly sort of
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: right the profession itself, you know, that was the original
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: room that sort of gave the name lobbyist. Eventually in America.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: The first use of it wasn't in Washington. It was
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: in Albany. But you learn this a lot right. There
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: was Albany in the nineteenth century. This was basically the
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: number two center of the political universe after Washington. So
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: this isn't a surprise that a lot of sort of
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: political things sort of grew out of Albany and made
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: its way to Washington. But in eighteen seventeen there was
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: a New York newspaper that referred to William Irving as
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: a lobby member of the state legislature, and that then
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: it meant someone who wasn't elected but spent their time
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: trying to influence those that were elected. So and it
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: was within a year those people started to regularly be
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: referred to as actually lobbying, And in eighteen twenty you
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: actually started seeing the verb used as lobbying, and by
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: eighteen forty the word lobbyist. All of that took place.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: For Grant ever showed up to spoke a cigar in
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: the Willard. But it is worth noting one of the
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: reasons it became sort of lore with the Willard Hotel
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: is that the Willard Hotel wanted people to think that
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: that's where it was born, and I guess you could
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: argue that in Washington, maybe it is the place that
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: was where it was incubated the most. And of course
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's Grant is actually a bit of
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: a dig at Grant, because Grant was known as somebody
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: at the time who was always willing to sort of
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: trade for favors, and certainly that was the reputation that
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: he had until our friend Ron Sure Now rehabilitated Grant's
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: image in his most recent biography. So, David, I appreciate
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: you suggesting the history lesson for all of us listeners here.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: All right, last question it comes from a man Adam
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: b and Davy Anywrights. Hey, Chuck, what do you think
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: of the BBC model for news? Even if it's funding
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: model wouldn't work in the United States? Yeah, that's the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: biggest problem. Do you think the BBC's approach to public
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: media offers lessons compared to outlets like MPR? Also, are
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: there any English language international news sources you regularly rely
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: on form policy coverage? Appreciate it? So look, I think
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: that Look, anytimee you have government funding of news and information,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: you're always going to have a deep chunk of folks
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: who are skeptical or who assume that at a moment's notice,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: that dial could be turned and sometimes there'll be information.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: You won't get everything because of omission, not necessarily because
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: of propat Canada. And that sometimes is just as bad.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: If a government funded outlet doesn't report some thing because
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: it might look bad and they just ignore a story,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: well that could be just as bad as spewing propaganda.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: So I just I blanchet that a little bit. But
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I do think it might be a local news answer, right.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: I think that local news is a public good. I
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: think it's a public service. I think that there needs
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: that that some I think that the BBC is a
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: better model locally than it is nationally. I'm not saying
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: I want city halls to be running news organizations, you know,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: That's not what I'm advocating. But maybe a public private
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: you know, nonprofit partnership that helps fund independent local media
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: is a model. You know. The way the UK works
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: is everybody pays, right, It's like a surcharge in order
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: to essentially, you know, so that it's look, it's not
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: who we are, right, We're just never gonna I don't
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: think our culture is ever going to embrace it, and
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes again, I think in order to get
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: information to underserved communities and on local news, I think
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: there's a public media, but I also would like it
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: to be public private. I just think anytime you have
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: government that can that it all has some sort of
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: ability to turn the knob if you will, right, That's
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: where it's It's a little troubling to me. You're asked
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: about for look in the English language World Financial Times,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: the Economists, how at times of London time, I try
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: to read the English language version of the Spain's national paper.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: I do try to of an English language version, at
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: least weekly version their Spiegel in Germany. There is a
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: couple of English language Asian papers out of both Japan
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: and out of Taiwan that I try to keep an
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: eye on. So, but if you're asking me what do
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: I regularly read outside of US papers, it's Financial Times.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: It's probably the biggest one, more than any and I
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: think it's a boy I would I would highly recommend
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: it as a as if you only had one international
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: source outside of US news organization, I would I would,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: I would endorse the Financial Times all right with that?
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: That does it for questions. This week I had a
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: whole rant about the Hall of Fame, and I think
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: I touched on it briefly, but I have a new
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: version of it. I've gone long, but needless to say,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: here's my short answer, right, I would like our friends
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: at Baseball Reference to start a wiki hall of Fame
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: for baseball, and I want to get rid of the
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: writers as voters. I think baseball fans, the super smart,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: the Baseball Reference obsessed people should have a say and
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: we should just you know, and and and it all
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: should be out there. Roger Clement should be in the
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame with all the caveats that go with it.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: Barry Bond should be in the Hall of Fame. And
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: how Cooperstown chooses to present the displays is Cooperstown's decision.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: But we should have as baseball fans of seventy five
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: percent of us, and I think we had to use
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: the same measurement a wiki thing. Right, If seventy five
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: percent of us believe Barry Bond's a Hall of fame,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: are five there it is? And how do we become
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: a voter? You prove some level of knowledge of baseball
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: you open it up a little bit. You open up
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: this aperture because I continue to go back to the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: following thing. The writers think the Hall of Fame is
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: for them, when ultimately the only people that care and
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: visit about the Hall of Fame are baseball fans. And
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: yet they're the ones that don't have any vote or
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: any saying this whatsoever. And I think, if you want,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: just like so many institutions have less and less credibility
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: all the time, the more of the public you have involved,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: the more credibility you have. The less of the public
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: you have involved, the less credibility you have. That applies
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: to a lot of things. It also applies to the
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Baseball Hall of Fame, it applies to the football Hall
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: of Fame, it applies to the basketball Hall of Fame.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: It applies to any institution that's out there that tries
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: to create a velvet rope on who gets to decide
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: who's in, when ultimately the only reason these folks are
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: viable and interesting to anybody is because of the fans.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I'd like to see the Wiki Hall of
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Fame again. Cooperstown can display who they want. But you know,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: like a guy like Andrew Jones, who had been in
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame a long time ago, and he
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: only took forever to get in because he was overshadowed
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: during his years at the Braves by those three Hall
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: of Fame pitchers and by Chipper Jones. And that happens
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: to plenty of guys who are sort of when you
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: have teams that have four or five Hall of Famers
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: on them, like the Braves of the nineties dead, you
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: sometimes have those gaps. That happened to some Steelers. It
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: took them a little bit too long to get in
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame because you know, the first four
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: or five Steelers everybody knows, and then then you realize, hey, wait,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: he was a Hall of Famer too, someone's else e
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: Green Ones. So was it? You know? And that? But
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: I think we would have had a real argument about
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: Jeff Kent. Is Jeff Kennah hall of Famer because he
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: got to bat behind Barry Bonds or bat in front
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: of Barry Bonds, Or is Jeff Kennah hall of Famer
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: no matter where he played and how and when he
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: played right? So I just think that some of it,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I say selfishly, I want to say and I don't
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: think I should get to say over and above other
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: baseball fans. I think all of us fans should have
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: some say in this, not just the right. If you
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: want to make the writers they get ten votes to
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: my one as a super fan. Fine, but I think
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: we would have a Hall of Fame that was more accepted.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: And yeah, there'd be controversial people in it, but you
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: know what, they're already controversial people in the Hall of Fame.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: Ty Cobbs an asshole and a racist, but he also
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: owns a whole bunch of records that put him in
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. And in my wiki Hall of Fame,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: here the baseball reference in my dream scenario runs and administers.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: We'll put the character reminders on your Wiki plaque, but
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: your performance on the field will also matter to anyway.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: Just a small ole RNT. This was an odd Hall
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: of Fame class because it feels like, you know, there
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: was no when you have a first or second balloder,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: you know you have a like a you know, a
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: huge top tier. This is one where you have three
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: players who all were Hall of Fame caliber, but they
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: were never the number one star in their team, so
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: it lacked a little star power this year, right, So
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: maybe when it lacks star power, you're more likely to
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: gravitate towards that. And I found myself gravitating there, you know,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: with Kent. You know, I think that's a debate. Beltran
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: is a guy. I also think it's more of a debate.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: I'm glad for him that he got in because they
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: think he earned it was a close. I think his
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: playoff performance is that one year where he felt like
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: he hit like ninety thousand home runs during the playoffs,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: the year that the Astros inexplicably I think got to
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: the World Series as a National League team before they
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: made the switch to the other league, and so I'll
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: never forget that run. That was like a Hall of
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: Fame playoff run, right, So I think having a moment
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: matters there. But the most worthy guy was the one,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: in some ways was the least celebrated, and it was
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jones. So anyway, with that, enjoy your weekend. I
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: will see you in about seventy two hours with the
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: Monday episode. Thanks very much,