Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Doubles Down On Election Conspiracies + ICE Prepared Itself For War… And We’re Seeing The Consequences

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Doubles Down On Election Conspiracies + ICE Prepared Itself For War… And We’re Seeing The Consequences · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
0:02
Speaker 1: by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about medicare is
0:06
Speaker 1: somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere, and you're skeptical
0:12
Speaker 1: of that, as you should be. I get it. I mean,
0:14
Speaker 1: there's a federal lawsuit going on right now over exactly
0:18
Speaker 1: this companies that branded themselves as unbiased while allegedly pointing
0:22
Speaker 1: people toward whatever would pay them the most, as some
0:26
Speaker 1: sort of broker. So if your default is to distrust
0:28
Speaker 1: everyone in this space, honestly, I get it. I'm a
0:31
Speaker 1: bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole reason I
0:34
Speaker 1: want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent medicare advisors
0:38
Speaker 1: whose entire model is that their advisors are not paid
0:42
Speaker 1: to push any one plan. They're just trying to help. Yes,
0:46
Speaker 1: there's compensation that goes with it, but it's across the
0:49
Speaker 1: board is what they're trying to do. At the end
0:51
Speaker 1: of the day, they're advocating for you. They're not the
0:53
Speaker 1: insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person who actually goes
0:57
Speaker 1: through your doctors, your prescriptions needs, and then compares them
1:02
Speaker 1: to every single plan available to find the best one.
1:05
Speaker 1: That will work for you and hopefully send save you
1:07
Speaker 1: a couple of dollars too. And here's the part that
1:11
Speaker 1: sets Chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've been in
1:14
Speaker 1: a role. They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
1:17
Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
1:19
Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know the plan,
1:22
Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
1:24
Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
1:28
Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
1:31
Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
1:35
Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
1:38
Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
1:41
Speaker 1: When I like about these Chapter folks, I've spent time
1:44
Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare,
1:49
Speaker 1: and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
1:53
Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
1:56
Speaker 1: and less confusing. Okay, so look, take this cup deism
2:00
Speaker 1: you already have in all of this, pointed out your
2:02
Speaker 1: own plan for twenty minutes. It's free, there's no pressure,
2:06
Speaker 1: and then call Chapter today at nine eight zero seven
2:09
Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd,
2:18
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Chuck Podcast, what I like to
2:21
Speaker 1: call politics for the rest of us. And we begin
2:25
Speaker 1: with an incredibly busy week. And I say this because
2:32
Speaker 1: here I have decided to go down to two podcasts
2:35
Speaker 1: a week. Although if you're listening, hopefully you're already listening
2:38
Speaker 1: to Super Tuesdays with Chris Lizza that are our new
2:42
Speaker 1: our new jointly produced show there. So obviously you've heard
2:48
Speaker 1: you've heard from me there, but a lot's been We've
2:50
Speaker 1: just had a ton going on, and we're going to
2:52
Speaker 1: have a ton happening today. If you're listening to this
2:55
Speaker 1: on Thursday, we're going to be anticipating some well, we're
3:02
Speaker 1: gonna anticipate something from the President regarding his fetish about
3:05
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election, and it's a little bit of
3:09
Speaker 1: a topic I want to cover here. We're going to
3:10
Speaker 1: cover Ice, we're going to cover Iran, and we're gonna
3:15
Speaker 1: cover a little daylight saving times among other things. But
3:18
Speaker 1: those are the four big stories I want to hit
3:19
Speaker 1: on Trump and his continued election denialism. What's happening with
3:23
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton, who's been nominated for positions
3:30
Speaker 1: of trust in our government, for Attorney General and Director
3:33
Speaker 1: of National Intelligence. I'll have my top five list, it's
3:37
Speaker 1: a fun one this week. My top five current athletes
3:41
Speaker 1: who I think we'll make, who already look like they
3:44
Speaker 1: have what it takes to make successful politicians. The only
3:51
Speaker 1: requirement was you have to be an active player right now,
3:55
Speaker 1: right So there's nobody there's no just retired guys or
4:00
Speaker 1: on my list. It is people who are currently no
4:03
Speaker 1: owners or coaches on my list. That means you, Steve Kerr,
4:06
Speaker 1: who I do think is somebody who I could picture
4:10
Speaker 1: getting talked into running for office in the state of California,
4:13
Speaker 1: say four years from now, when they're incredibly unhappy with
4:16
Speaker 1: their current governor, whoever that happened to be. So there's
4:20
Speaker 1: your rundown of what to expect on this episode. But
4:23
Speaker 1: I do want to begin with what we're going to
4:26
Speaker 1: hear later tonight, and I'll certainly do a follow up
4:30
Speaker 1: on sort of the nonsense that we're anticipating, and President
4:34
Speaker 1: is planned a primetime address. We hope to get some
4:37
Speaker 1: update on Iran, and I'm going to get to that
4:39
Speaker 1: question here in a few minutes. But we're going to
4:43
Speaker 1: get some some sort of allegation that he's going to make.
4:49
Speaker 1: The rumors have been all over the place. I kind
4:51
Speaker 1: of am always hesitant to repeat rumors of what he
4:54
Speaker 1: may or may not say. He clearly plans to it
4:58
Speaker 1: looks like target the state of Georgia individually on this.
5:04
Speaker 1: But I tell you, we got a little bit of
5:06
Speaker 1: a preview on Wednesday of just how silly this whole
5:09
Speaker 1: thing is, right and how ridiculous Republicans who feel like
5:16
Speaker 1: they have no choice but to perform for their audience
5:19
Speaker 1: of one end up behaving and looking silly. Jay Clayton, Right,
5:23
Speaker 1: there's two. There's two things going on right now and
5:26
Speaker 1: sort of top of the list in Washington, and that
5:29
Speaker 1: is confirm. We had this confirmation hearing for Todd blanch
5:32
Speaker 1: who's the president's personal attorney, who somehow got confirmed to
5:35
Speaker 1: be Deputy Attorney General, which to this day, having the
5:38
Speaker 1: president a former personal lawyer to the president, particularly on
5:41
Speaker 1: criminal cases, working at the Justice Department, never should have
5:45
Speaker 1: been confirmed in the first place. Like that is a
5:48
Speaker 1: that is an ethical line that Republicans breach that they
5:52
Speaker 1: would have would have filibustered forever. Had a Democrat tried to.
5:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I can only imagine at Bill Clinton tried
5:59
Speaker 1: to nominate David Kendall to be Attorney General, who was
6:03
Speaker 1: his personal lawyer during the whole Monica and Paula Jones
6:06
Speaker 1: and all that mess. I mean, it would have and
6:08
Speaker 1: rightfully so, right the Department of Justice is not supposed
6:12
Speaker 1: to have this. All that said, and obviously I am
6:16
Speaker 1: personally sort of offended by the idea that we are
6:19
Speaker 1: going to diminish the Department of Justice like this. This
6:22
Speaker 1: is not a partisan statement. This is something that harms
6:25
Speaker 1: the country, harms trust and the rule of law. Now,
6:28
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche was under some tough questioning from John Cornyn
6:32
Speaker 1: in particular, and I think he failed the Cornan test.
6:35
Speaker 1: Now we'll see what Cornyn does. But Cornyn made the
6:38
Speaker 1: weaponization Fund his primary issue that he interrogated on, and
6:42
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear that Blanche did not want to get
6:46
Speaker 1: caught lying under oath, so he never lied, apparently because
6:49
Speaker 1: he basically admitted that the deal is still alive and
6:53
Speaker 1: that only Congress could kill this deal. And who knows
6:56
Speaker 1: if there's the votes to kill this. We've already seen
6:58
Speaker 1: a test vote on it didn't kill it. So if
7:03
Speaker 1: that really is the line the weaponization fund for Tillis
7:06
Speaker 1: and Cornyn, well Blanche would not I think he. I
7:10
Speaker 1: think he. You know, if we take Cornyn and till
7:13
Speaker 1: Us at his word and you throw in the fact
7:17
Speaker 1: that there is I cannot imagine a scenario Susan Collins
7:21
Speaker 1: votes to confirm Blanche under this scenario with her up
7:24
Speaker 1: for reelection. I find it highly unlikely Lisa Murkowski does,
7:28
Speaker 1: and then you throw in a John Curtis and in
7:31
Speaker 1: you tube. I think we'll be troubled by this, and
7:33
Speaker 1: probably politically feels comfortable enough to to to say no.
7:38
Speaker 1: And I don't think the votes are there, and you'll
7:41
Speaker 1: see once one Once the vote isn't there, then all
7:45
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the whole bunch of people may just
7:47
Speaker 1: come out against it and then they kill it. But
7:49
Speaker 1: that's that. You'll see that every once in a while.
7:52
Speaker 1: But Blanche had a very bad back and forth with Cornyn.
7:56
Speaker 1: It certainly appears if Cornyn, if you take him at
7:59
Speaker 1: his work on this, then Blanche failed. Two. He wouldn't
8:08
Speaker 1: put into writing that this weaponization deal is dead, or
8:11
Speaker 1: that this sort of shielding from iris audit agreement and
8:17
Speaker 1: all of that. So I've been skeptical that Blanche could
8:21
Speaker 1: get confirmed because I think it's a real we are
8:23
Speaker 1: it is, it is a real test, right. I have
8:27
Speaker 1: positive here, and I still am sitting with my belief
8:31
Speaker 1: that we're. Trump's script is loosening on the party, and
8:35
Speaker 1: I think this Blanche inability to confirm Blanche will be
8:38
Speaker 1: the evidence will be the will be a big piece
8:42
Speaker 1: of evidence to support my thesis on this. But we'll
8:45
Speaker 1: find out. Now there was another confirmation. Jay Clayton, who
8:50
Speaker 1: has been nominated to replace Tulca Gabbett, is the Director
8:53
Speaker 1: of National Intelligence. I want to share this before I
8:57
Speaker 1: get into the lack of common sense around all things
9:03
Speaker 1: having to do with Donald Trump in twenty twenty. But
9:07
Speaker 1: I just want to read you this transcript. Some of
9:09
Speaker 1: you may have already seen it on social media. This
9:12
Speaker 1: back and forth between John Ossoff and Jay Clayton, asof
9:16
Speaker 1: begins with a simple question, and he starts in He's
9:20
Speaker 1: asking him multiple questions and even asks them, is you
9:23
Speaker 1: know did you know? Essentially you know, the way you
9:26
Speaker 1: would in any sort of lie detector test. You want
9:28
Speaker 1: to get something on there that you know he has to,
9:30
Speaker 1: you know, say it did you know did President Trump
9:33
Speaker 1: pardon a convicted drug lord? Which we know he did.
9:37
Speaker 1: It's the former president of Hondorus, right, so he uh
9:42
Speaker 1: so Clayton accepts the premise of that question and says yes.
9:48
Speaker 1: Then the next question, asof asks is well, who won
9:52
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election? And after answering the first sort
9:56
Speaker 1: of question, and again, if you want to say that
9:59
Speaker 1: us Off was basically being a troll on this, so yeah,
10:04
Speaker 1: but when you have people who won't who are going
10:07
Speaker 1: to be ridiculous, you may think it's silly to ask.
10:10
Speaker 1: It's even sillier to sit there the way mister Clayton looked.
10:14
Speaker 1: So he's asked who won the twenty twenty election? And
10:18
Speaker 1: Clayton goes, I'm you know, I'm not going to do
10:19
Speaker 1: this with you again after he had answered the first
10:23
Speaker 1: question having to do with the pardoning of the drug lord?
10:26
Speaker 1: Uh for on Doris, and then Asoff responds, well, this
10:29
Speaker 1: is a job interview. You have an obligation to be
10:31
Speaker 1: honest with this committee. Who won the twenty twenty election?
10:34
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to get into it with you,
10:36
Speaker 1: then you're not being honest. And fourth, and it goes
10:38
Speaker 1: on and it keeps going, and Clayton just sits there
10:42
Speaker 1: and won't answer the question. He won't answer the question,
10:47
Speaker 1: And in some ways this is probably as good of
10:50
Speaker 1: a preview as you can have. So what we do
10:53
Speaker 1: know is this, there are people that Donald Trump is
10:58
Speaker 1: appointed into the federal government who belie leave their jobs
11:01
Speaker 1: or on the line if they don't produce evidence that
11:04
Speaker 1: he that he wants to see. So just we already
11:08
Speaker 1: know that everybody who's working for him is not on
11:11
Speaker 1: the up and up, particularly on this issue, because if
11:15
Speaker 1: he wanted to be on the open, this is for
11:16
Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence. You know. The irony to
11:18
Speaker 1: this is as horrendous as this answer is. I mean,
11:23
Speaker 1: and of all jobs, you've got to be giving the
11:26
Speaker 1: most honest assessment of frankly, sometimes not the not stuff
11:32
Speaker 1: that is factually certain. Right, interpreting intelligence reports it can
11:40
Speaker 1: be very subjective, So you want a pretty high you know,
11:46
Speaker 1: pretty a student intellect there, pretty common sense oriented. So
11:50
Speaker 1: the irony is that Jake Clayton's probably going to be
11:52
Speaker 1: a lot more responsible than Telsa Gabbert ever was in
11:55
Speaker 1: this position. And yet the fact that he sat there
11:58
Speaker 1: looking like a ridictions sickophan in not being able to
12:06
Speaker 1: say what everybody knows, which is Joe Biden won the
12:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, and the fact that Donald Trump has
12:12
Speaker 1: so effectively cowered supposedly grown men. This is a grown
12:18
Speaker 1: ass man sitting there just act having to behave like
12:24
Speaker 1: like I can't my parent, my daddy won't let me say.
12:30
Speaker 1: It's really just sad to watch all this. It could
12:34
Speaker 1: be funny except that it's doing nothing but tearing the
12:38
Speaker 1: country apart and completely eviscerating trust in our election system.
12:44
Speaker 1: And it's clearly a feature Donald Trump is going out
12:47
Speaker 1: of his way. And this gets it to really what
12:50
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing with his with what he's done
12:54
Speaker 1: with ice and I'm going to get to that in
12:55
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and what he's doing with election integrity
12:59
Speaker 1: in his head, in their head. Donald Trump has convinced
13:02
Speaker 1: his own advisors that his people won't show up unless
13:05
Speaker 1: he's deporting people as violently as possible. And I'm all
13:11
Speaker 1: right exaggerating that part of it, but certainly if they
13:13
Speaker 1: don't look like they're aggressively deporting people, so yes, some
13:16
Speaker 1: theater involved with it, and yes, this physical violence that
13:20
Speaker 1: we've been seeing as a feature. I think to some
13:24
Speaker 1: of Trump world than it is a bug in this system,
13:28
Speaker 1: which is why what Mark Waynemullen said was suddenly rescinded
13:31
Speaker 1: by the President. But again, I'm going to get into
13:33
Speaker 1: that in a few minutes. But I do think they
13:36
Speaker 1: believe that talking about twenty twenty and talking about and
13:42
Speaker 1: doing the massive deportation and looking like you're trying to
13:45
Speaker 1: just deport anybody that doesn't look like a community member
13:52
Speaker 1: is somehow going to help their turnout in the midterms.
13:56
Speaker 1: I think this is crazy. I think all they're doing,
13:58
Speaker 1: all Donald Trump is doing is is is probably making
14:03
Speaker 1: it easier for Democrats to sweep. I really think they're
14:07
Speaker 1: missing there there. This is a complete misread, and it's
14:10
Speaker 1: probably a misread. His consultants know it, his strategists know it.
14:14
Speaker 1: Everybody in that West wing knows it. They're just not
14:17
Speaker 1: going to tell him because they don't have the guts
14:20
Speaker 1: to say no to him. So we got a little
14:23
Speaker 1: bit of preview, right, but look, you don't have to.
14:27
Speaker 1: I think we you know, we already saw, We already
14:31
Speaker 1: know what Trump's going to do, because believe it or not,
14:36
Speaker 1: right just before preparing for this ridiculous speech he wants
14:40
Speaker 1: to prepare that he's going to do supposedly later tonight
14:43
Speaker 1: about this about election fraud. You know what he did
14:46
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, first thing in the morning. He gave his
14:49
Speaker 1: complete and total endorsement for governor of Minnesota to the
14:53
Speaker 1: Pillow Man, right, the guy who is mister mister mighty
14:58
Speaker 1: Pillow CEO himself, Mike Lindell. So think about the timing
15:02
Speaker 1: of this one. The day before he's supposedly going to
15:05
Speaker 1: give this major speech meant to convince the country that
15:07
Speaker 1: our democratic systems are fragile and compromised and somehow cost
15:11
Speaker 1: him the twenty twenty election. Trump formally hit the campaign
15:14
Speaker 1: trail for the single most famous, legally discredited election conspiracy
15:20
Speaker 1: theorist we've had in modern history. Move over, Patrick Byrne.
15:25
Speaker 1: It's Mike Lindell. Right. This is where the political rhetoric
15:30
Speaker 1: of the rally stage crashes headfirst into the cold hard
15:34
Speaker 1: reality of a courtroom. Me let me run down the
15:37
Speaker 1: track record here of mister Lindell. Okay, what he called
15:41
Speaker 1: one of the quote America's greatest and most hardworking patriots.
15:44
Speaker 1: Mike Lindell was so incredibly sure he had proof of
15:48
Speaker 1: Chinese election hacking in twenty twenty that he offered five
15:51
Speaker 1: million dollars in prize money to anyone who could prove
15:53
Speaker 1: his data wrong. Well, a conservative computer forensic expert took
15:57
Speaker 1: about on it showed that data was completely garbage, and
16:00
Speaker 1: guess what, a private arbitration panel, later backed up by
16:02
Speaker 1: a federal judge, ordered Lindell to pay five million dollars,
16:09
Speaker 1: So his claims couldn't even survive his own self imposed challenge,
16:14
Speaker 1: of which an arbiter had to get involved and force
16:17
Speaker 1: him not to be a welcher on his bet. And
16:20
Speaker 1: that was just the warm up back Smart Mattic sued
16:22
Speaker 1: Mike Lindell and one summary judgment last fall, meaning a
16:25
Speaker 1: federal court has looked at the rhetoric record and decided
16:29
Speaker 1: this didn't even need a trial. It was such a
16:31
Speaker 1: slam duck. A jury in Colorado find that Lindell defamed
16:36
Speaker 1: a former Dominion employee. That verdict is on appeal, but
16:40
Speaker 1: he lost at once. He'll lose the appeal. Just last month,
16:43
Speaker 1: Lindell settled the billion dollar defamation suit brought by the
16:47
Speaker 1: voting machine company formerly known as Dominion. Six years of
16:51
Speaker 1: claiming he had the evidence that would put people in prison,
16:54
Speaker 1: and when it counted in every form with rules and
16:57
Speaker 1: consequences where you'd have to actually tell the truth, he lost,
17:01
Speaker 1: he settled, or he paid. And yet this is the
17:05
Speaker 1: standard bearer, a man who is right now telling Minnesota
17:08
Speaker 1: voters that if he's elected the state's voting machines, his
17:11
Speaker 1: words need to be melted down and turned into prison bars.
17:16
Speaker 1: The man's a lunatic. Now it highlights the fundamental, glaring
17:20
Speaker 1: paradox at the heart of this entire ridiculous movement. We're
17:24
Speaker 1: expected to believe a narrative where elections in this country
17:27
Speaker 1: are only unsafer rigged when Donald Trump loses them. Not
17:32
Speaker 1: only that, apparently they're only safe when Democrats are in charge.
17:37
Speaker 1: Hear me out. Think about the logic. So in twenty sixteen,
17:42
Speaker 1: when the Obama administration was running elections and Trump won
17:46
Speaker 1: and the outcome stood. Now, even then, even in victory,
17:49
Speaker 1: he claimed somehow there were three to five million illegal
17:51
Speaker 1: votes had been cast against him in California because he
17:54
Speaker 1: couldn't accept even losing the popular vote right, But he
17:57
Speaker 1: had no evidence. He never produced, it never has shown
18:00
Speaker 1: up anywhere. And it is just worth reminding right, the
18:05
Speaker 1: same guy that also claimed to this day that he
18:07
Speaker 1: didn't lose the iow of Cox's Ted Cruz. Okay, so
18:11
Speaker 1: we know his fraud claims show up sometimes win or lose.
18:15
Speaker 1: When he wins, the fraud explains the popular vote, and
18:17
Speaker 1: when he loses, the fraud explains the loss. Right. The
18:20
Speaker 1: only constant in his head is it's you know, if
18:22
Speaker 1: he doesn't get his way, it's fraud. Because this man
18:24
Speaker 1: is so narcissistic he literally thinks everything revolves around it.
18:29
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty four, somehow the Biden administration ran
18:33
Speaker 1: an election that Trump won, and suddenly the system worked perfectly.
18:36
Speaker 1: Again run by Democrats, there were no commissions, no audits,
18:39
Speaker 1: no midnight tweets about rigged machine. But in twenty twenty,
18:42
Speaker 1: the only election of the three entirely run by Donald
18:46
Speaker 1: Trump's own administration, with his own handpicked and pointees running
18:52
Speaker 1: federal election security, this is the one we're supposed to
18:55
Speaker 1: believe was hopelessly compromised. Keep in mind who was actually
19:00
Speaker 1: running the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in November twenty twenty,
19:05
Speaker 1: Chris Cobb's a Trump and pointing nine days after the
19:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, His agency released a joint statement calling
19:11
Speaker 1: twenty twenty the most secure in American history. Prebs was
19:16
Speaker 1: fired by tweet shortly after that. That was the official
19:21
Speaker 1: federal security assessment of that election, and it is never changed. Now.
19:26
Speaker 1: If you trace the evolution of these theories over the
19:28
Speaker 1: last six years, you realize you aren't looking at a
19:30
Speaker 1: real You're not looking at a legal argument. It is
19:33
Speaker 1: a total shell game. When one theory gets debunked or
19:37
Speaker 1: sued out of existence, the goalposts just get dragged to
19:39
Speaker 1: a new part of the field. First, in late twenty twenty,
19:43
Speaker 1: it was illegal law changes, dominion voting machines. Then when
19:47
Speaker 1: those claims faced actual legal threats, it shifted to targeting
19:50
Speaker 1: individual Georgia election workers and wild remember the Italy Gates,
19:55
Speaker 1: foreign hacking plots, satellites in Italy. I don't think this
19:58
Speaker 1: was Jewish lasers just yet, but we're getting there. By
20:01
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, the narrative pivoted to two thousand, that
20:04
Speaker 1: movie two thousand Mules, with that grifter Dinesh Desuza claiming
20:10
Speaker 1: a massive, coordinated conspiracy of physical ballot stuffers. Right by
20:14
Speaker 1: late twenty two, twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
20:17
Speaker 1: the focus shifted to social media censorship and the Twitter files.
20:20
Speaker 1: That is what did it right. And now in twenty
20:23
Speaker 1: twenty six, we're moving it again because now it's foreign
20:25
Speaker 1: actors and classified intelligence. But foreign actors played no role
20:29
Speaker 1: in sixteen, but apparently played a huge role in twenty.
20:33
Speaker 1: So why does the story keep changing? Well, there's a
20:36
Speaker 1: simple reason. Every single time these theories are forced to
20:39
Speaker 1: stand up under oath, they completely disintegrate. Let's look at
20:43
Speaker 1: the scoreboard. Dominion was paid seven hundred and eighty seven
20:46
Speaker 1: million dollars by Fox News to settle its defamation suit.
20:49
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani conceded in court filings that his statements about
20:52
Speaker 1: two Georgia election workers were false, that he was a liar,
20:55
Speaker 1: resulting in a staggering one hundred and forty eight million
20:58
Speaker 1: dollar judgment against him, that his probably successfully bankrupted him
21:01
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. Sidney Powell's own defense
21:04
Speaker 1: lawyers are getting court that no reasonable person would conclude
21:07
Speaker 1: her claims of election fraud quote were truly statements of fact.
21:10
Speaker 1: How about that her own lawyers made the case that
21:13
Speaker 1: our client is so bizarre and ridiculous that there's no
21:16
Speaker 1: way anybody would have taken them seriously. The Gateway Pundit
21:19
Speaker 1: had to issue retractions for its false claims about those
21:22
Speaker 1: same Georgia election workers. The media company behind Two Thousand
21:25
Speaker 1: Mules had to issue a public apology and pulled the
21:27
Speaker 1: film from distribution. After an innocent Georgia man they had
21:30
Speaker 1: accused of ballot trafficking was investigated and cleared. Newsmax and
21:35
Speaker 1: Ann both had to settle defamation suits against Smartmatic, and
21:39
Speaker 1: Lindell settled Lost paid, as we already just covered. So
21:44
Speaker 1: for those of you who are still claim these arguments
21:45
Speaker 1: never got their day in court, let's clear up that
21:48
Speaker 1: myth once and for all. We're not citing any sort
21:51
Speaker 1: of democratic sources here. There's a report called Loss Not Stolen,
21:55
Speaker 1: written by lifelong conservative Republicans. Ben Ginsberg, dean of a
21:59
Speaker 1: Republican election lawyers. I hesitate to call them somebody who
22:03
Speaker 1: I've called a friend, and I hope that doesn't harm
22:06
Speaker 1: his reputation. I'm with you, bet, and former Senator John Danforth,
22:11
Speaker 1: who you've heard on this podcast. They went through every case.
22:14
Speaker 1: Trump and his allies filed sixty four of them across
22:16
Speaker 1: the country. Thirty of those cases had full hearings on
22:19
Speaker 1: merits dismissed. Fourteen were voluntarily withdrawn by the Trump team
22:23
Speaker 1: before a hearing could even happen for fear of lying
22:26
Speaker 1: under oath. Twenty were dismissed on standing just or procedural
22:30
Speaker 1: grounds because they were just bad lawyers. The single solitary
22:33
Speaker 1: case they won was in Pennsylvania, and it was a
22:36
Speaker 1: minor dispute over voter id deadlines involving far too few
22:39
Speaker 1: votes to affect the outcome. Had nothing to do with fraud.
22:43
Speaker 1: So even in Georgia, the epicenter of so many of
22:46
Speaker 1: these allegations, the state conducted a one hundred percent manual
22:49
Speaker 1: hand I recount of all five million paper ballots. The
22:53
Speaker 1: physical paper matched the machines spind all the theories you want,
22:56
Speaker 1: my friends, but you cannot back hack a fie piece
23:00
Speaker 1: of paper, right, did they go through like Maduro? Somehow
23:03
Speaker 1: flew them in in Venezuela. So when you watch the
23:07
Speaker 1: screen on Thursday night and you see this tired old
23:10
Speaker 1: man yelling at the end of a bar, this election
23:15
Speaker 1: was stolen and he's going to have the presidential seal
23:18
Speaker 1: in front of him because God love him. And you
23:21
Speaker 1: hear this dramatic build up, the warnings and the promises
23:24
Speaker 1: of newly uncovered secrets. You wouldn't believe what his people
23:27
Speaker 1: are finding. Right Remember during burtherism with him, Just remember
23:32
Speaker 1: the trail of retractions, settlements, bankruptcies, dismissed court cases left
23:37
Speaker 1: in the wake of the last six years. And remember
23:42
Speaker 1: who got his endorsement the day before. The stories keep
23:45
Speaker 1: changing the facts. Do know the President's fetish continues, and
23:51
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people that are being humiliated
23:53
Speaker 1: along the line by going along with this. Jay Clayton,
23:58
Speaker 1: You're gonna wish that clip exist. This episode of the
24:06
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Soul. So if
24:09
Speaker 1: you love that end of the day unwined but hate
24:11
Speaker 1: the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you. These
24:15
Speaker 1: sparkling THCHC drinks and gummies give you the same relaxed
24:18
Speaker 1: social feeling without the alcohol, without the calories, and without
24:23
Speaker 1: the crash. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling
24:26
Speaker 1: good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious
24:30
Speaker 1: hemp derived THCHC and CBD products designed to boost your
24:33
Speaker 1: mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office.
24:37
Speaker 1: Gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost
24:41
Speaker 1: your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths,
24:45
Speaker 1: you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe. SO
24:48
Speaker 1: also has a variety of products specifically designed to help
24:51
Speaker 1: you get a better night's rest, including their top selling
24:53
Speaker 1: Sleepy Gummies, a fan favorite for deep, restorous sleep. Look,
24:58
Speaker 1: I have made no secret. I am a lever and
25:00
Speaker 1: this stuff in cannabis and hemp derived. I do not
25:03
Speaker 1: partake in alcohol. For the most part, I think this
25:06
Speaker 1: stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less
25:08
Speaker 1: addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I
25:11
Speaker 1: love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and
25:14
Speaker 1: you know after work, that's what this is. So no
25:17
Speaker 1: hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan.
25:22
Speaker 1: So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
25:24
Speaker 1: sold today, Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty
25:27
Speaker 1: percent off your entire order. Go to getsol dot com
25:30
Speaker 1: and use the word podcast that's getsol dot com promo
25:34
Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
25:38
Speaker 1: am a customer. Now let me move on to the
25:48
Speaker 1: ice Store. What we've witnessed over the last eight days
25:54
Speaker 1: is something pretty ugly, but I would argue that unfortunately,
26:01
Speaker 1: we all saw this coming over a year ago, and
26:03
Speaker 1: it's a window that I want to paint here of
26:05
Speaker 1: how policy is actually being made and unmade at the
26:07
Speaker 1: highest levels of our government and the very real and
26:11
Speaker 1: lethal consequences that follow when you have this sort of
26:14
Speaker 1: political performance theater, and it overrides basic tactical sanity. So
26:21
Speaker 1: let's go with the facts here. We've had three deaths
26:23
Speaker 1: in eight days, all connected to ICE enforcement operations. July seventh,
26:27
Speaker 1: and Houston ICE officer shot and killed a fifty teen
26:30
Speaker 1: year old fifty two year old man, Lorenzo Salgado al
26:34
Speaker 1: Rojo during a vehicle stop. Six days later in January
26:37
Speaker 1: and July thirteenth, up in Biddeford, Maine, an officer shot
26:40
Speaker 1: and killed twenty six year old Johann Sebastian Duran Guero,
26:44
Speaker 1: also at a vehicle stop, and then Tuesday morning st. Augustine, Florida.
26:48
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, a twenty year old man fleeing an
26:50
Speaker 1: encounter with ICE an HSI agents that's only in security
26:53
Speaker 1: investigative team at a gas station ran across a state
26:55
Speaker 1: road and was struck and killed by attractive trailer. Now look,
27:02
Speaker 1: here's the part you have to let think of it.
27:03
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be careful here because these investigations
27:06
Speaker 1: are ongoing, and you, you know, I believe you've got
27:09
Speaker 1: to presume every you got to take every investigation individually first.
27:14
Speaker 1: But there is an uncomfortable pattern we're all noticing. And
27:17
Speaker 1: both shootings, the men who were killed were not the
27:18
Speaker 1: targets of the ice operations. And that's not the characterization
27:23
Speaker 1: I'm trying to draw here. That is what DHS itself confirmed. Okay,
27:28
Speaker 1: they admitted this. So these were bystanders, one might call
27:32
Speaker 1: them innocent bystanders. One of them, according to Main Immigrant Advocates,
27:36
Speaker 1: was authorized to work in this country with a Social
27:38
Speaker 1: Security number. Now DHS says both men quote weaponize their vehicles.
27:42
Speaker 1: It's the same story they said about Renee Good, that
27:45
Speaker 1: somehow they tried to flee in a way that endangered
27:47
Speaker 1: officers or the public. Okay, let's see the footage. There's
27:54
Speaker 1: a reason we can't see the footage, but I'm going
27:56
Speaker 1: to get into that. In Houston, passengers in the van
28:00
Speaker 1: beauty account in Main witnesses have also challenged DHS's account
28:04
Speaker 1: and guess what, We're never going to be able to
28:06
Speaker 1: know for sure because neither agent was wearing a body camera.
28:10
Speaker 1: There's no take, no objective record, just two dead men,
28:14
Speaker 1: two contested narratives, no way to check either one of them.
28:19
Speaker 1: But a government who and a department who has a
28:22
Speaker 1: history of line since this administration took over in early
28:27
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I mean, they lied about Renee Good
28:31
Speaker 1: and they lolled about ox Bretty, so we already know
28:33
Speaker 1: they're capable of this, So they don't have any credibility.
28:36
Speaker 1: And when you don't have the body camera footage, you
28:38
Speaker 1: don't there's no institutional trust. Now I'll say this, You
28:45
Speaker 1: saw quick You saw what, in theory was faster response
28:52
Speaker 1: by this leadership team than what Christy Nome provided under
28:57
Speaker 1: DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. At least they looked at
29:00
Speaker 1: the tactical reality. They did see a crisis. They recognized
29:03
Speaker 1: that vehicle stops are quite literally among the most volatile, unpredictable,
29:07
Speaker 1: dangerous operations and all of law enforcement. It's not just
29:09
Speaker 1: for civilians but for the officers themselves. So Mark White
29:13
Speaker 1: Muman absolutely did the correct answer and hit the brakes,
29:18
Speaker 1: and on Tuesday, ICE announced that they paused most vehicle
29:21
Speaker 1: stops nationwide. By the way, I just think, you know,
29:25
Speaker 1: with the disdain and age of cameras, we shouldn't have
29:26
Speaker 1: any vehicle stops. Should only only be for going after
29:31
Speaker 1: the most violent and the most wanted people, just pulling
29:35
Speaker 1: people over for speeding, creating these creating confrontations over five
29:41
Speaker 1: and ten mile an hour speed limit. Stuff. Mail the
29:44
Speaker 1: ticket and them there are more people will be alive
29:48
Speaker 1: if you do this, and our roads will still be
29:50
Speaker 1: just the same. But I digress. So they hit the
29:59
Speaker 1: brakes smart. It's the right thing to do. He said.
30:04
Speaker 1: It was a temporary halt while officers got additional training
30:07
Speaker 1: on vehicle stop tactics, which is also and admittance that
30:13
Speaker 1: they didn't have they weren't well trained, and I'm going
30:15
Speaker 1: to get to that. It was a recognition by Mark
30:19
Speaker 1: Wayn Mullen that vehicle stops are quite literally incredibly dangerous,
30:26
Speaker 1: and in the same breath, Mark wwyn Mullen announced they're
30:29
Speaker 1: moving to expand body camera use, putting a camera equipped
30:31
Speaker 1: agent on every arrest. Why that wasn't the case in
30:34
Speaker 1: the first place, we had a government shutdown over that,
30:37
Speaker 1: if you recall. But I want to give credit where
30:39
Speaker 1: it's due, because that is what functional government looks like.
30:42
Speaker 1: You may not like Mark wwyn Mullen. He may not
30:44
Speaker 1: be your politics, but that's the right, it's the right
30:47
Speaker 1: first response when you've got three deaths in a week. Hey,
30:52
Speaker 1: we got a problem here, let's shut this down, let's
30:55
Speaker 1: get some better training, let's figure this out. All right.
31:02
Speaker 1: But that's sanity. That bureaucratic sanity lasted all of a night.
31:07
Speaker 1: I don't even think twenty four hours, because by Wednesday morning,
31:09
Speaker 1: President Trump took the truth social and publicly cut the
31:11
Speaker 1: legs out from under his own DHS leadership team. He
31:14
Speaker 1: called the traffic spot, and I'm quoting here, one of
31:17
Speaker 1: ICE's most important and effective crime fighting tools. He said,
31:21
Speaker 1: backing off would be playing right into the criminal's hands.
31:25
Speaker 1: He said the radical left would love to see it end,
31:27
Speaker 1: but it won't happen in my watch. And then he
31:29
Speaker 1: told ICE officers to go back and do your very
31:31
Speaker 1: important job. So this is a reminder Donald Trump wants
31:35
Speaker 1: the theater. The traffic stop is the most volatile one
31:38
Speaker 1: to do. It is the one that is intentionally disruptive
31:41
Speaker 1: to communities, intentionally disruptive, and it is designed this is
31:45
Speaker 1: a feature, not about I actually think Mark wayn Mullen
31:49
Speaker 1: actually doesn't want this. I don't know, but I don't
31:52
Speaker 1: think he wants the theater of this because it puts
31:54
Speaker 1: lives in danger, more lives in danger than this, sir.
31:56
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump wants this. That's what you to take
32:00
Speaker 1: away from this. Donald Trump wants the theater. He wants
32:03
Speaker 1: the violent confrontations. He wants to force this picture. Now
32:10
Speaker 1: as I sit here, the pause is technically still in effect.
32:13
Speaker 1: But think about what just happened. Right If the Department
32:15
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security ordered US safety stand down after three
32:18
Speaker 1: deaths and eight days, and within twenty four hours, the
32:21
Speaker 1: commander in chief, the President of the United States, publicly
32:23
Speaker 1: overrides him because he thought that tactical safety pause didn't
32:29
Speaker 1: make them look tough enough. Well, which official does an
32:32
Speaker 1: ICE officer in the field going to listen to? Now?
32:35
Speaker 1: The Secretary ordered the pause of the President who told
32:37
Speaker 1: him to get back out there, and also has the
32:40
Speaker 1: power to pardon. So as shocking as that whiplashes, we
32:45
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised the violence we are seeing this month
32:49
Speaker 1: isn't an anomaly. It's the entire predictable output of a
32:53
Speaker 1: machine that was set in motion more than a year ago.
32:57
Speaker 1: And it has three gears who were recruited, who they recruited,
33:01
Speaker 1: how little they were trained, and how hard they're being squeezed.
33:06
Speaker 1: So you get who you recruit. I want to go
33:08
Speaker 1: back to twenty twenty five here, when the administration took
33:11
Speaker 1: office with the mandate for the mass deportations, they realized
33:15
Speaker 1: very quickly they had a math problem. They didn't have
33:17
Speaker 1: the bodies at border, at ICE or border patrol to
33:21
Speaker 1: make this happen. So DHS launched a one hundred million
33:24
Speaker 1: dollar wartime recruitment for their words campaign that was their
33:28
Speaker 1: own phrase and an internal strategy document. And I'm just
33:32
Speaker 1: telling you these words matter in the type of officer
33:36
Speaker 1: you end up recruiting and what kind of behavior they
33:41
Speaker 1: will exhibit based on the expectations of how they were recruited.
33:47
Speaker 1: So this wartime recruitment is what's used to hire ten
33:51
Speaker 1: thousand new ICE employees on top of a workforce of
33:54
Speaker 1: roughly twenty thousand, So a fifty percent increase in a
33:57
Speaker 1: single year. You're going to change the culture of an organization. Now,
34:04
Speaker 1: when a normal police department recruits, what's the recruitment usually
34:07
Speaker 1: look like. They run ads about community public service, protecting
34:12
Speaker 1: your neighbors, protecting the vulnerable, local pride. That isn't what
34:16
Speaker 1: I did. They went straight for a very specific, highly volatile,
34:22
Speaker 1: psychological profile of recruit They engineered a marketing campaign designed
34:29
Speaker 1: to attract people who weren't looking to serve a community,
34:32
Speaker 1: who were looking for a fight. Look at the ads
34:35
Speaker 1: that they actually ran. First, they started by targeting local
34:39
Speaker 1: police officers and so called quote sanctuary cities like Chicago
34:43
Speaker 1: and Denver, and the pitch was direct. I was watching
34:47
Speaker 1: these ads during football season. As I've told all of you,
34:50
Speaker 1: when you watch all the college football I watch, you
34:53
Speaker 1: end up getting a lot of localized ads. And I'd
34:55
Speaker 1: see these ads. Your city is telling you to stand down,
34:58
Speaker 1: come to us. We're gonna give you a fifty one
35:00
Speaker 1: thousand dollars signing bonus and let you go after the
35:02
Speaker 1: worst of the worst. And it wasn't much subtext. It
35:05
Speaker 1: wasn't subtle. Your local leaders are soft, come join our army.
35:10
Speaker 1: And then it got worse when they went to the
35:13
Speaker 1: digital side of things, and they went onto gaming platform Spotify,
35:16
Speaker 1: TikTok Instagram, targeting young men who marinate in a hyper
35:21
Speaker 1: militarized online culture. They posted an image of Uncle Sam
35:25
Speaker 1: at a crossroads, caption which way American man a riff
35:29
Speaker 1: on the title of a book published by a neo
35:31
Speaker 1: Nazi publishing house. A phrase that Lives Today is a
35:35
Speaker 1: well known white nationalist narrative. In a separate had, this
35:39
Speaker 1: one shared by the White House itself. The soundtrack was
35:42
Speaker 1: a song called We'll Have Our Home Again, produced and
35:45
Speaker 1: popularized by a white nationalist group. They used imagery from
35:50
Speaker 1: a video game called Halo, and the message destroyed the
35:53
Speaker 1: flood and if you've ever played Halo, the flood is
35:57
Speaker 1: a brainless, parasitic alien plague that exists only to infect
36:01
Speaker 1: and destroy. That was the metaphor that this federal agency
36:05
Speaker 1: chows to compare immigrants in this country. So let's connect
36:15
Speaker 1: the dots. If you spend one hundred million dollars telling
36:17
Speaker 1: the public this job is a militarized video game, that
36:20
Speaker 1: the target is an alien parasite, and that nobody, no
36:23
Speaker 1: local police chief, no body camera will be looking over
36:25
Speaker 1: your shoulder. Who do you think signs up? Do you
36:29
Speaker 1: think you get the patient, community minded peacemaker, or do
36:33
Speaker 1: you get the adrenaline junkie. Do you get the online
36:35
Speaker 1: culture warrior? Do you get the guy who's been itching
36:38
Speaker 1: to use the tactical gear he bought online, has been
36:41
Speaker 1: costplaying on Instagram? Now, look, honest, caveat here. We don't
36:50
Speaker 1: know the full backgrounds every officer involved in this month's incidence.
36:54
Speaker 1: The Atlantic reports of one of the officers in the
36:55
Speaker 1: main shooting was newly sworn in at ICE, hired earlier
36:58
Speaker 1: this year. But he came from the Veteran Affairs Police,
37:01
Speaker 1: where he'd served since twenty seventeen. So you know, maybe
37:05
Speaker 1: he's not some mean pilled gamer with a badge. He's
37:09
Speaker 1: a career law enforcement officer. But hold on, because that
37:12
Speaker 1: fact doesn't let the system off the hook. It indicts
37:15
Speaker 1: it from a different direction. So here's a man with
37:17
Speaker 1: nearly a decade in federal law enforcement, and within months
37:19
Speaker 1: of joining ICE, he's on a surveillance operation, improvising a
37:23
Speaker 1: vehicle stop on a man who wasn't even the target,
37:25
Speaker 1: with no body camera, and a person is dead. Is
37:30
Speaker 1: it possible he was just looking for more action because
37:33
Speaker 1: he didn't like the federal law enforcement arena that he
37:36
Speaker 1: was working at and Veterans Affairs didn't give him the action?
37:40
Speaker 1: Is that what happens to the experienced hires. This machine
37:43
Speaker 1: is chewing through. So what do you think happens to
37:46
Speaker 1: the new twenty six year old recruited off TikTok? Because
37:50
Speaker 1: it's not just too they recruited, it's what they're demanding
37:53
Speaker 1: from them. NBC News reported that the administration's relentless pressure
37:59
Speaker 1: to drive up arrest numbers is put officers under their words,
38:03
Speaker 1: too much stress. They have to hit quotas. And you
38:08
Speaker 1: give police officers quotas, you're already warping and screwing up
38:12
Speaker 1: the rule of law. But you know what, they just
38:15
Speaker 1: want numbers to feed, you know, their narrative. Recruit for aggression,
38:20
Speaker 1: skip the training at a quota. It's not a law
38:24
Speaker 1: enforcement agency. That's a pressure cooker with a gut. And
38:28
Speaker 1: we wonder why there's already been so many dead Americans.
38:31
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the actual mechanics of what
38:33
Speaker 1: is happening on the streets. Any veteran police officer will
38:35
Speaker 1: tell you the vehicle stop is the danger zone. You're
38:38
Speaker 1: approaching a heavy, potentially lethal piece of machinery. You don't
38:42
Speaker 1: know who's inside, you don't know if there are weapons.
38:46
Speaker 1: You know, my mother dated a police officer. He once
38:49
Speaker 1: told me, you know, what officers are hopeful is that
38:52
Speaker 1: the driver will make sure his hands are visible. So
38:55
Speaker 1: whenever I've been pulled over for speeding, and what I've
38:58
Speaker 1: ever been pulled over is for speeding, I've always done that.
39:01
Speaker 1: Boys been mindful of that because I don't want some
39:06
Speaker 1: cop to think I'm you know, I'm not doing that
39:10
Speaker 1: for his safety. I'm doing it for mine, and I
39:13
Speaker 1: get it right. You're also standing in active traffic if
39:15
Speaker 1: it's an interstate So look, this is why the camera
39:20
Speaker 1: is a better speed detector these days, and a safer
39:22
Speaker 1: speed detector. But street cops usually get a lot more
39:27
Speaker 1: training on this stuff, and ice deportation officers they're not
39:30
Speaker 1: street cops, and they're not they didn't sign up to
39:34
Speaker 1: be street cops, but it's become a description. And for
39:39
Speaker 1: most of the agency's history, they were taking people into
39:44
Speaker 1: custody who were already in jail. This episode of the
39:52
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Ethos, and what
39:54
Speaker 1: Ethos does is it helps you find life insurance. Let
39:57
Speaker 1: me tell you why life insurance bailed me out. My
39:59
Speaker 1: father died when I was sixteen. We didn't have a
40:02
Speaker 1: lot of money when it happened, and we were in
40:04
Speaker 1: a pretty tough financial spot after it happened. I'm an
40:08
Speaker 1: only child. Suddenly my mother's single, single mother. She had
40:11
Speaker 1: a job, suddenly lost a job, looking for another job,
40:14
Speaker 1: and we were struggling. You know, my dad didn't leave
40:16
Speaker 1: us in the best financial situation, but he did make
40:19
Speaker 1: one purchase. He bought a life insurance policy. Wasn't a
40:22
Speaker 1: huge chunk of change, but it was enough when we
40:25
Speaker 1: found it. And when I say we found it, meaning
40:27
Speaker 1: we went through his desk and we found, oh, look
40:29
Speaker 1: at this, let's see if there's anything here. And it
40:32
Speaker 1: helped us out at a time that we really needed it.
40:34
Speaker 1: And that's why I think it's important that if you can,
40:38
Speaker 1: especially if you have young children, if you can get
40:40
Speaker 1: life insurance, you should get it. Life is full of
40:43
Speaker 1: unexpected emergencies, unexpected things happen. It is an extra bit
40:47
Speaker 1: of security, something you can leave and help out at
40:51
Speaker 1: a time when you're you're not there to help. So
40:54
Speaker 1: what does Ethos do well? Ethos makes getting life insurance
40:57
Speaker 1: fast and easy, and it's one hundred percent online. You
41:00
Speaker 1: can get a quote in seconds, you can apply in minutes,
41:02
Speaker 1: and you can get same day coverage. They will find
41:04
Speaker 1: you the right fit. There's no medical exam. You just
41:07
Speaker 1: answer a few simple health questions online. You can get
41:09
Speaker 1: up to three million dollars in coverage and some policies
41:12
Speaker 1: are as low as thirty dollars a month, and you'll
41:14
Speaker 1: get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers.
41:18
Speaker 1: So take ten minutes to get covered today with Life
41:20
Speaker 1: insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at Ethos dot
41:24
Speaker 1: com slash chuck that is e Thos dot com slash chuck.
41:30
Speaker 1: Application times may vary and rates may vary. So and
41:39
Speaker 1: in fact, some former ICE officials have set it out
41:41
Speaker 1: loud this month. The enforcement and removal side of the
41:43
Speaker 1: agency simply does not have deep experience with vehicle stops.
41:50
Speaker 1: They're just never been trained for this, and of course
41:54
Speaker 1: the demands of the quotas have forced this. But these
41:57
Speaker 1: officers are being sent out to perform these stops. Again,
42:02
Speaker 1: I think the conflict is a feature not above. So
42:07
Speaker 1: you combine an undertrained officer with the most volatile operation
42:10
Speaker 1: in law enforcement, A vehicle stop, add production pressure from
42:14
Speaker 1: DC for quota numbers, strip away the body camera. Tragedy
42:19
Speaker 1: isn't a risk in this equation, it's a guarantee. It's
42:23
Speaker 1: a statistical guarantee. In Houston, they were looking for one man.
42:27
Speaker 1: They stopped the van with a different man. It escalated
42:29
Speaker 1: in seconds and Lorenzo is dead. In Maine, they were
42:34
Speaker 1: watching an address for one man. A different man drove
42:37
Speaker 1: away from it, and now mister Guero is dead. In Florida,
42:40
Speaker 1: four men saw federal agents coming and ran because in
42:43
Speaker 1: July twenty twenty six, people are so terrified of an
42:46
Speaker 1: encounter with an ICE agent that you just flee, and
42:49
Speaker 1: you'll flee across a major highway because you think anything
42:51
Speaker 1: is safer than being in their custody. Given that you're
42:54
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent guaranteed your life is safe in
42:57
Speaker 1: their custody, why wouldn't you run? Wouldn't you? Of them
43:00
Speaker 1: is dead? And yet instead of letting the agency which
43:04
Speaker 1: does need fixing, And like I said, Mark wayn mullins
43:07
Speaker 1: initial response was the correct one, and the President overruled them.
43:14
Speaker 1: And this is the tragedy of this current moment. We
43:17
Speaker 1: have turned federal law enforcement into a theater of dominance,
43:21
Speaker 1: and all we have done is weaken their ability to
43:25
Speaker 1: be trusted to the public. Overall, we treated the recruitment
43:29
Speaker 1: of federal agents not as a sober exercise in building
43:32
Speaker 1: a professional constitutional force, but as a branding exercise aimed
43:36
Speaker 1: at the darkest, most combative corners of the Internet. We
43:40
Speaker 1: skipped the training because training is slow, and the quota
43:45
Speaker 1: is due Friday. And when the professionals in charge finally
43:49
Speaker 1: tried to pump the brakes, the respond from the very
43:52
Speaker 1: top was get your foot off the break, keep going.
43:57
Speaker 1: This has had real word consequences. Fifty two old father,
44:00
Speaker 1: and Houston is dead at twenty six year old with
44:02
Speaker 1: a work perman and Maine is dead at twenty eight
44:03
Speaker 1: year old, is at a gas station. Is dead. You
44:07
Speaker 1: get who you recruit, you get what you're trained for,
44:11
Speaker 1: and you get what you demand. I spent twenty twenty
44:13
Speaker 1: five recruiting for a war, skip the training, and set
44:17
Speaker 1: a quota, and in twenty twenty six, three families in
44:20
Speaker 1: three states are living with those consequences. All right, let
44:26
Speaker 1: me pivot to two more issues that have popped up
44:29
Speaker 1: this week that are obviously One is taking a huge,
44:32
Speaker 1: which is ira And I kind of want to tackle
44:34
Speaker 1: the bigger question here, which is how has this administration
44:37
Speaker 1: gotten everything so wrong about this war? Right? That's really
44:42
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not And by the way, you'll be
44:44
Speaker 1: forgiven if you're like what happened to the new fear
44:46
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons? Because if the President didedn't say that anymore. Right,
44:51
Speaker 1: we may have destroyed more items in Iran than Iran
44:53
Speaker 1: destroyed of American owned assets, but Iran has more leverage
44:58
Speaker 1: today than when this war began. That's the definition of losing.
45:02
Speaker 1: So how did this administration just get everything so wrong
45:05
Speaker 1: about this war? Five months in right straight of hormones
45:08
Speaker 1: choked off again, Kuwait taking the heaviest missile barrage in
45:12
Speaker 1: weeks five cruise missiles, ballistic missile, thirty three drones all
45:16
Speaker 1: in one night, all US assets. The Hooties are warming
45:19
Speaker 1: up to perhaps close a second choice choke point at
45:23
Speaker 1: the bab El Mandeb the other side of Saudi Arabia,
45:27
Speaker 1: at the Arabian Peninsula, a ceasefire that lasted a month
45:30
Speaker 1: before it collapsed, a memorandum of understanding that's turned into
45:35
Speaker 1: a memorandum of misunderstanding, and a president, who announced a
45:39
Speaker 1: fee for ships transmitting through the straight of horm moves
45:41
Speaker 1: on Monday, rescinded it on Tuesday, and who knows what
45:44
Speaker 1: will be thinking over the weekend. So how does all
45:47
Speaker 1: this happen? How does the most powerful military on Earth,
45:49
Speaker 1: fighting a country whose economy was already on its knees,
45:52
Speaker 1: end up five months into a war with no exit,
45:55
Speaker 1: no strategy. Anyone can name an oil at four whee ties.
45:59
Speaker 1: So walk through the errors, because there's been a whole
46:02
Speaker 1: catalog with them. And yet I also will tell you
46:07
Speaker 1: up front, I think there's one answer underneath all of them,
46:09
Speaker 1: and it's not intelligence failures. It's not incompetence at the Pentagon.
46:12
Speaker 1: It's simpler to that, and we'll get there. But I
46:14
Speaker 1: want to start with the catalog of evidence. Era one
46:17
Speaker 1: was not understanding the straight up foremos. The US military
46:20
Speaker 1: has wargamed a conflict with Iran for decades, and every
46:23
Speaker 1: one of those exercises, the strait was the whole ball game.
46:25
Speaker 1: Twenty percent of the world's oil moves through that passage,
46:28
Speaker 1: and yet, according to reporting out of War on the Rocks,
46:34
Speaker 1: two officials familiar told them that the administration underestimated Iran's
46:41
Speaker 1: willingness to actually close it and could likely have prevented
46:45
Speaker 1: the closure of that. It positioned naval assets there from
46:48
Speaker 1: day one. They didn't even prepare for it. Even bebe admitted,
46:53
Speaker 1: it took a while to understand how big that risk was.
46:55
Speaker 1: How did they not know this? This guy was so
46:56
Speaker 1: obsessed with going to war, you don't think about all
46:58
Speaker 1: the various consequences. The one thing everybody knew was Iraanse
47:02
Speaker 1: A's the thing that Iranian planners built their entire strategy around,
47:05
Speaker 1: and Washington just sort of overlooked it. Air two fighting
47:09
Speaker 1: the wrong war. Right, Here's the part of the story
47:11
Speaker 1: that should genuinely bother you. Iran wasn't improvising. Back in
47:16
Speaker 1: twenty oh five, the Revolutionary Guard Strategy Center formalized a
47:20
Speaker 1: doctrine they called the Mosaic Defense, a deliberately decentralized command
47:25
Speaker 1: structure designed to survive exactly the kind of decapitation strikes
47:30
Speaker 1: that opened this war. They war gamed this, and they
47:34
Speaker 1: followed their blueprint. Their Foreign minister said it out loud
47:39
Speaker 1: as the bombs were falling. We've had two decades to
47:41
Speaker 1: study American military defeats to our immediate east. And West,
47:44
Speaker 1: and we've incorporated those lessons. A rock on one side,
47:48
Speaker 1: Afghanistan on the other. Ran took notes for twenty years.
47:52
Speaker 1: So while Washington fought a war to fined by military force,
47:56
Speaker 1: where we of course win it, we won every engagement
47:58
Speaker 1: in theory, Tehran moved the contest onto terrain that we
48:02
Speaker 1: weren't set up to contest. The straight of hor moves,
48:06
Speaker 1: the economic pain, the information warfare, the political will, because
48:10
Speaker 1: that has doomed the United States ever since World War Two.
48:15
Speaker 1: Air IREI was the strategy turn aeron missile campaign, then
48:18
Speaker 1: in naval quarantine, now what the Wall Street Journal describes
48:21
Speaker 1: as a calibrated firepower plus a reimposed blockade. Okay, that's
48:25
Speaker 1: three major military strategies of this war in five months.
48:29
Speaker 1: Each one announced was decisive, and none of that were decisive.
48:33
Speaker 1: Then the fourth era, and this one's cumulative. The president
48:36
Speaker 1: keeps negotiating with himself. This is what David Ignatious wrote
48:41
Speaker 1: earlier this week, and he nailed it. He said, declare
48:43
Speaker 1: victory one day, resumed the war the next, praise Iran's leaders,
48:47
Speaker 1: then call them scum. Announced a twenty percent protection fee
48:50
Speaker 1: for hor moves. The exact practice's own age rejected when
48:53
Speaker 1: Iran demanded it. Then kill the idea of the next morning.
48:56
Speaker 1: Now the threats hit them hard for three days. The
48:58
Speaker 1: next week, the power plants, next week, the bridges, it's
49:00
Speaker 1: always next week, right, How many next weeks have we heard?
49:04
Speaker 1: Every deadline that passes without the bridges coming down teaches
49:07
Speaker 1: Tehran the same lesson. American threats have a shelf life,
49:10
Speaker 1: and it's measured in news cycles. Now let's do the
49:13
Speaker 1: honest part, because if you're rooting against Trump here, you're
49:16
Speaker 1: going to be tempted to hear all this and conclude
49:18
Speaker 1: Irana's wedding. And that's not true either. Zoom out on Tehran.
49:22
Speaker 1: The economy is severely weakened, the nuclear facilities are under rubble,
49:26
Speaker 1: Their top nuclear scientists are dead. The leadership is report
49:29
Speaker 1: is totally divided about whether to cut a deal. That's real.
49:33
Speaker 1: The hardliners are exalting, they're almost flexing their muscles simply
49:37
Speaker 1: because they survived. But we know surviving is not a
49:40
Speaker 1: long term strategy for what comes next, and they don't
49:43
Speaker 1: appear to have a strategy. If you offered Iran supreme
49:46
Speaker 1: leader the status quo of January versus the status quo
49:48
Speaker 1: of today. He probably takes January every time. So no,
49:54
Speaker 1: it's not a story of American weakness. Here. The military
49:56
Speaker 1: did what it was asked to do. This is a
49:58
Speaker 1: story about American impatience, or specifically Donald Trump impatience. And
50:03
Speaker 1: that's my answer at the top, because at every turn,
50:07
Speaker 1: every single error in that catalog I listed, every one
50:09
Speaker 1: of them is a symptom of the same disease. Wasn't
50:12
Speaker 1: stupidity or bad intelligence simply in patience? Why wasn't the
50:15
Speaker 1: Navy position at our moves? Because prepositioning is slow and
50:18
Speaker 1: that plan was a short, sharp war. Why three strategies
50:21
Speaker 1: in five months because each one was supposed to work
50:23
Speaker 1: in weeks and when it didn't, you don't adjust, you swat.
50:26
Speaker 1: Why announce a fee and rescind it in twenty four
50:28
Speaker 1: hours because it sounded like leverage on Monday. Why threaten
50:32
Speaker 1: the bridges next week instead of just hitting the bridges
50:34
Speaker 1: because the threat is instant and the campaign takes months
50:36
Speaker 1: and it may not work. So as Kenneth Pollock, I
50:43
Speaker 1: want associate myself with his analysis of this war. Former
50:46
Speaker 1: CIA agent, he said, he goes, this is now a
50:49
Speaker 1: coercive war, of attrition, both sides trying to push the
50:52
Speaker 1: other past some unknowable pain threshold and guess what, coercive
50:58
Speaker 1: wars go on and on. So this is now a
51:02
Speaker 1: fight over leverage, not a fight over the regime, which
51:05
Speaker 1: is already a win for a run. Now here's the
51:08
Speaker 1: structural problem. This is a part that has nothing to
51:10
Speaker 1: do with anyone's character and everything to do with incentives.
51:13
Speaker 1: A war of attrition is a contest of clocks in
51:17
Speaker 1: Iran's clocks, right. That's that Taliban saying, you know, we've
51:22
Speaker 1: got the time and you've got the watches, right, And
51:25
Speaker 1: Iran's clock runs on decades. This regime is built for survival. Period.
51:31
Speaker 1: That's an institutional design. It's formal. It was formalized twenty
51:35
Speaker 1: years ago. They're not interested in having the modern country
51:38
Speaker 1: that Trump thinks they want. Not the leader is at
51:41
Speaker 1: the moment. That's that's another problem. And then Trump's clock runs,
51:45
Speaker 1: you know, is the right now it's the mid terms
51:48
Speaker 1: for instance, he needs a win or he needs he
51:51
Speaker 1: can't have a total defeat before November, and every day
51:54
Speaker 1: the straight is closed. Gas price has become a campaign
51:56
Speaker 1: issue again. Every week, this war grinds on it becomes
51:59
Speaker 1: more unpopular. And again he doesn't even talk about the
52:02
Speaker 1: original rationale for this war, which was their nuclear capabilities Tehran.
52:08
Speaker 1: They can read a calendar, their entire theory of victory.
52:12
Speaker 1: This one they wrote over twenty years ago, is survived
52:14
Speaker 1: long enough to impose costs, and the question stops being
52:17
Speaker 1: how long can Iran hold out and starts being whether
52:20
Speaker 1: Washington can stay the course. They don't need to beat
52:23
Speaker 1: the US military. They cannot beat They can't beat the
52:26
Speaker 1: US military. They just need to outweight this American president.
52:30
Speaker 1: And every flip flop, every fake you know, every rescinded threat,
52:36
Speaker 1: it's not real pressure. It's almost confirmation that their strategy
52:39
Speaker 1: is working and that they've pulled this off. So how
52:44
Speaker 1: did this administration get everything so wrong about the Iran war?
52:50
Speaker 1: It just misjudged time. Iran spent twenty years preparing for
52:53
Speaker 1: this war. Donald Trump spent twenty minutes preparing for this war, right,
52:58
Speaker 1: And in a war of attrition, the side that counts
53:00
Speaker 1: in decades doesn't have to beat the side that counts
53:03
Speaker 1: the news cycles. They just have to wait. So the
53:07
Speaker 1: best we can hope for is a managed stalemate here
53:11
Speaker 1: hopefully doesn't get Americans killed. But this is a total
53:16
Speaker 1: mess and it you know, we're his only options escalation
53:28
Speaker 1: and A I don't think he has the stomach for it,
53:30
Speaker 1: and B you don't know where that goes. So here's
53:36
Speaker 1: where we are, a managed stalemate, uh forever war. I
53:43
Speaker 1: want to do a quick little thing on daylight saving
53:45
Speaker 1: time because the House just passed a bill made a
53:47
Speaker 1: permanent sentence about to do what the Senate does, which
53:50
Speaker 1: is likely nothing. There's a bipartisan block against this idea.
53:55
Speaker 1: Tom Cotton, Conservative Republican Center from Arkansas has been a
53:59
Speaker 1: no on this for a while. John Barrasso says it
54:03
Speaker 1: can't pass with unanimous consent like it accidentally did once.
54:08
Speaker 1: And so you know, the Senate did pass this by
54:11
Speaker 1: unanimous consent kind of accidentally, and then the House couldn't
54:13
Speaker 1: pass this bill. But look, this bill is probably going
54:19
Speaker 1: to die as well. So I don't think we're going
54:20
Speaker 1: to get this permanent change. But here's the thing, we
54:22
Speaker 1: don't have to guess what happens if it does pass.
54:24
Speaker 1: We've run this experiment. We've actually run it twice. We
54:28
Speaker 1: did year round daylight saving during World War Two and
54:31
Speaker 1: then we did it again in December nineteen seventy three,
54:34
Speaker 1: those of you are fans of my time tie cast
54:36
Speaker 1: time machine segment. No, I've done this before in the
54:39
Speaker 1: middle of the OPEC oil embargo. Congress did it again, right.
54:42
Speaker 1: Permanent daylight saving time sold as energy conservation, by the way,
54:45
Speaker 1: at the time, wildly popular like it is now. Polling
54:48
Speaker 1: before it took effect showed roughly four out of five
54:50
Speaker 1: Americans were in favor of permanent daylight saving time. Who
54:54
Speaker 1: doesn't want more evening sunlight? Right? And then January came
54:58
Speaker 1: and in January, permanent daylight saving means the sun comes
55:01
Speaker 1: up after eight or eight thirty in the morning. Across
55:04
Speaker 1: large chunks of the country. Kids walked to school in
55:08
Speaker 1: the dark, kids waited for buses in the dark. There
55:10
Speaker 1: were reports of children killed in dark morning traffic accidents
55:13
Speaker 1: in Florida. Within weeks, support collapsed from that four and
55:17
Speaker 1: five number to low forties by February, and by October
55:20
Speaker 1: of that year, Congress voted overwhelmingly to undo it, and
55:23
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford signed the repeal. The whole daylight saving time
55:27
Speaker 1: permanence experiment lasted ten months. That was nineteen seventy four.
55:31
Speaker 1: This is twenty twenty six. Fifty two years later, almost
55:35
Speaker 1: exactly the interval it takes, apparently for everyone who lived
55:37
Speaker 1: through the last mistake to age out of this conversation. Right,
55:42
Speaker 1: And that's really the point of this segment. Permanent daylight
55:45
Speaker 1: savings is the perfect specimen of a certain kind of politics,
55:47
Speaker 1: the popular idea whose costs fall on somebody else. The
55:52
Speaker 1: people who love this bill are people who want daylight
55:54
Speaker 1: at six pm in July, which the bill doesn't change.
55:57
Speaker 1: By the way, you already have that. The people who
55:59
Speaker 1: pay for our third graders at a bus stop in
56:02
Speaker 1: the dark in January, and the guy pouring concrete at
56:05
Speaker 1: a construction site in the dark at seventy am. Cotton's
56:09
Speaker 1: on the merits on this one. You talked about it.
56:11
Speaker 1: It screws up workplace, particularly construction, and it screws up
56:17
Speaker 1: school children. Other than that, it's a great idea, right,
56:20
Speaker 1: And even sleep scientists agree. They've said, if you're going
56:23
Speaker 1: to lock the clock, don't do it on daylight saving.
56:26
Speaker 1: Lock it on standard time, which is the one option
56:29
Speaker 1: Congress has never seriously considered. Look, voters wants what's good
56:34
Speaker 1: for them. Sometimes, very selfishly, lawmakers like to give voters
56:38
Speaker 1: what they want. And what's good for you at six
56:40
Speaker 1: pm isn't good for somebody else at seven am. Apparently
56:44
Speaker 1: that's a lesson we're gonna have to learn about every
56:46
Speaker 1: fifty two years. See in twenty seventy.
56:49
Speaker 2: Six Top five, Top.
57:03
Speaker 1: Top So I thought i'd have a little fun. It's summer,
57:10
Speaker 1: so I thought, here's my top five current American athletes
57:14
Speaker 1: who I think have already demonstrated that they could make
57:19
Speaker 1: a successful transition to politics. Now, before you roll the
57:23
Speaker 1: eyes and saying, oh, you know, this is silly. Yes,
57:25
Speaker 1: it's silly, but it's not that silly, and it's not
57:28
Speaker 1: that crazy, because then I would say, you know, outside
57:31
Speaker 1: the United States, sports heroes moving into politics is incredibly common.
57:35
Speaker 1: It's happened over and over again, particularly in the soccer players.
57:39
Speaker 1: You've had famous soccer players like George Wee who took
57:43
Speaker 1: world you know, took soccer performances. Some people say he's
57:47
Speaker 1: the greatest player in Africa that has ever produced. Well,
57:50
Speaker 1: he eventually became the president of Liberia. Right. Another player
57:53
Speaker 1: named Romerio helped win the ninety four World Cup for Brazil. Well,
57:57
Speaker 1: he retired, went into congress, eventually the Brazil Senate. His
58:01
Speaker 1: teammate Babeto did the same thing. So this has been
58:04
Speaker 1: pretty common when it comes to I mean, even the
58:09
Speaker 1: country of Georgia has elected a a famous soccer player.
58:13
Speaker 1: Pele even served as Brazil's Minister of Sports. So soccer
58:17
Speaker 1: player's becoming politicians isn't some novelty. And since when in
58:20
Speaker 1: the middle of World Cup, I thought I'd kick off
58:22
Speaker 1: a little bit with a little bit of that. It's
58:24
Speaker 1: it is in its own way, its own career path,
58:26
Speaker 1: and it's of all the players. And I'm not counting
58:29
Speaker 1: him as an American athlete, even though he plays mostly
58:31
Speaker 1: in America these days. But Lannel Messi, I think we
58:34
Speaker 1: all know that guy could get elected, you know, the
58:37
Speaker 1: next if you wanted to be the next president of Argentina.
58:39
Speaker 1: He get elected. Now, that doesn't mean they would like
58:41
Speaker 1: him for very long, because they go they'll churn through
58:43
Speaker 1: their politicians pretty quickly. But he would certainly start with
58:47
Speaker 1: pretty high name recognition. And if somehow Harry Kane brings
58:50
Speaker 1: a World Cup to England or Jude Bellingham, watch out right,
58:53
Speaker 1: you know, move over, Nigel Farage or count Binface. You
58:56
Speaker 1: know you could get there. So that's not the list
59:00
Speaker 1: I've made here right what this list is, and it
59:04
Speaker 1: isn't a list of athletes who can win simply because
59:06
Speaker 1: they're famous. When I try to come up with a
59:09
Speaker 1: list of athletes who've already shown some of the traits
59:11
Speaker 1: that I think modern politics increasingly requires, here's my theory.
59:16
Speaker 1: Fifty years ago, athletes weren't accidentally training to become politicians.
59:20
Speaker 1: Today they are. Right, think about the job description of
59:23
Speaker 1: the modern superstar. Every interview is live, every answer gets
59:26
Speaker 1: clipped into fifteen seconds. Every social media post gets analyzed
59:30
Speaker 1: and analyzed and analyzed. Every endorsement deal gets criticized or analyzed.
59:35
Speaker 1: They're balancing teammates, owners, sponsors, fans, media, millions of strangers
59:39
Speaker 1: all expects something different from them. Right. They're managing a brand,
59:43
Speaker 1: they're leading their own organizations. Sometimes they're navigating controversy without
59:48
Speaker 1: making it worse, or at least the best ones are. Honestly,
59:51
Speaker 1: it sounds like a state campaign right on this front,
59:56
Speaker 1: and that's my point. I think that the demands on
59:59
Speaker 1: the modern athlete really have probably created a when I
1:00:08
Speaker 1: think is a bench of future leaders. Now here's one
1:00:11
Speaker 1: other rule. I intentionally left off the true goats, So
1:00:14
Speaker 1: no Lebron, no show Hey, and no Victor wembinam On
1:00:17
Speaker 1: here right, Not because they couldn't do it, But I
1:00:19
Speaker 1: do think that when it comes to political success, right
1:00:24
Speaker 1: when if you're like the guy or the woman of
1:00:28
Speaker 1: your sport, you might be almost too much in a
1:00:29
Speaker 1: bubble when I think politics rewards when it comes to
1:00:33
Speaker 1: the athletes, the once in a generation prodigy. They spend
1:00:37
Speaker 1: their lives being told they're inevitable, so they don't always
1:00:39
Speaker 1: make the best politician. To me, politics rewards people who
1:00:43
Speaker 1: had to convince everyone they belonged in that matter. So
1:00:49
Speaker 1: I try to look at who I thought the sports world.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: It's like there's fame, but it's one level down. So
1:00:56
Speaker 1: here's my count. That number five on my list is
1:00:57
Speaker 1: Travis Kelcey, and I'll be honest, if he weren't retired,
1:01:00
Speaker 1: I would have actually picked Jason Kelsey, who I think's
1:01:04
Speaker 1: got a lot of little political savvy to him, but
1:01:07
Speaker 1: he's got I think I think he's got the gift
1:01:11
Speaker 1: of gap because he's naturally curious, he's funny, he's comfortable
1:01:14
Speaker 1: talking about serious issues, but he doesn't come across self important.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: In fact, I think offensive linemen in general would make
1:01:20
Speaker 1: great politicians because you kind of you have to buy
1:01:23
Speaker 1: into being a teamwork. Like if I were to pick
1:01:25
Speaker 1: the position of player that I would want as a politician,
1:01:29
Speaker 1: it would be an offensive lineman. Right. They're the ultimate
1:01:31
Speaker 1: team players. Right, they're not looking just out for themselves.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: So but I'm gonna put Travis here. Tight ends are
1:01:38
Speaker 1: you know, they're not quite the egomaniacs that receivers are,
1:01:42
Speaker 1: if you will. And obviously he's one of the most
1:01:44
Speaker 1: recognizable athletes in America, and yet he doesn't quite take
1:01:47
Speaker 1: himself too seriously. He's comfortable in every room, football fans,
1:01:51
Speaker 1: pop culture fans, podcast audience. He connects with all of them.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: His politics is not as known as you think. You know,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: people ascribe political leanings to him and he ever confirms them.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: And he's from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, went to the year
1:02:03
Speaker 1: City Cincinnati. He's investing in civil ight there through ownership
1:02:06
Speaker 1: and professional sports. Telling you he understands attention and he
1:02:11
Speaker 1: doesn't seem consumed by it. Governor Kelsey, Ohio Governor number four.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: My this is Paul Schemes. He's Air Forced Academy. He
1:02:22
Speaker 1: spent I think two years there, then was at LSU.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: Now he's the face of the Pirates. So it's a
1:02:26
Speaker 1: little bit of the military background that I think gives
1:02:28
Speaker 1: him a little extra level of maturity. You've already seen
1:02:31
Speaker 1: it in him, right, He he always seems to do
1:02:33
Speaker 1: the right thing. He carries himself extraordinarily well. And again
1:02:36
Speaker 1: I chucked that up to the time at the Air
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Force Academy. But every public appearance feels disciplined, but it
1:02:42
Speaker 1: isn't rehearsed. You know. Lindsay Dunn, right, is also a
1:02:46
Speaker 1: pretty pretty pretty good partner for him in this as well.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: So I think he's already somebody that if you know,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: who knows what state? Right? Is it? Colorado? Is it?
1:02:59
Speaker 1: Is it Louisiana? Is it Pennsylvania? Who knows? Right? If
1:03:03
Speaker 1: he brings a world title back to Pittsburgh, it could
1:03:06
Speaker 1: be there. Number three Patrick Mahomes. So this one isn't
1:03:09
Speaker 1: about football. It's a bit more in leadership. Mahomes has
1:03:12
Speaker 1: somehow become one of the most famous people in America.
1:03:15
Speaker 1: But he does it without generating a ton of drama.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, some who follow him closely may say,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: oh what about his brother? And this? Eh, please at
1:03:22
Speaker 1: small time stuff? You know, you know, and sometimes Missus
1:03:25
Speaker 1: Mahomes is a little more out there, and you know,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: maybe some would say, oh, is that going to be
1:03:30
Speaker 1: a problem if he got into politics, but he seems
1:03:32
Speaker 1: to manage it pretty well. He doesn't manufacture a ton
1:03:36
Speaker 1: of controversy, and like I said, he he sort of
1:03:38
Speaker 1: steers clear of it.
1:03:39
Speaker 2: Right.
1:03:39
Speaker 1: Here's a guy who has got this Taylor Swift sort
1:03:43
Speaker 1: of friendship due to Kelsey, you know, had that weird
1:03:47
Speaker 1: Harrison Bucker issue, and yet he you know, none of
1:03:50
Speaker 1: it touched him, right, he was able to teflon it up.
1:03:53
Speaker 1: And he's pretty invested in the Kansas City sports community.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: He's shown some civic roots, he's got some Texas roots,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: you know, so who knows, you could see him that
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Number two of my list is Steph Curry. I actually
1:04:07
Speaker 1: think Steph is probably one of the probably the highest
1:04:09
Speaker 1: political ceiling of anyone in my list here. And it's
1:04:12
Speaker 1: not because he's loud, it's because he's really trusted. Right,
1:04:16
Speaker 1: here's a kid he grew up in kid in his
1:04:19
Speaker 1: mid to late thirties, now, right, grew up in Charlotte,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: went to Davidson College. He wasn't viewed as some camp
1:04:23
Speaker 1: miss prospect right, even though he was, you know, a
1:04:26
Speaker 1: Nepo baby if he wanted to call him that since
1:04:28
Speaker 1: his dad played in the league. But he had to
1:04:30
Speaker 1: spend years proving people wrong. Right, He didn't have to
1:04:33
Speaker 1: doesn't have to dominate every room. He's a goat while
1:04:37
Speaker 1: letting other people say they're the goats. He never has
1:04:39
Speaker 1: to say it. He's really good at making everybody else
1:04:42
Speaker 1: feel comfortable. So if you ever decided to go on
1:04:45
Speaker 1: to North Carolina run for something, I'd be taking that
1:04:48
Speaker 1: campaign pretty seriously. And that brings me to number one
1:04:51
Speaker 1: on my lists. It's Caitlin Clark, and to me, it's
1:04:54
Speaker 1: not even close. I look at everything she's had to
1:04:57
Speaker 1: navigate over the last two years. Race, gender, the WNBA,
1:05:01
Speaker 1: women's sports, social media, every culture war in America has
1:05:05
Speaker 1: tried to recruit Caitlin Clark and everybody wants her to
1:05:08
Speaker 1: become their symbol. And the remarkable thing is she just
1:05:11
Speaker 1: doesn't let it happen. Right. She keeps saying, in one
1:05:14
Speaker 1: way or the other, I'm here to play basketball. She
1:05:17
Speaker 1: acknowledges other people's experiences, so she doesn't ignore concerns that
1:05:21
Speaker 1: other players or when they get mistreated but she refuses
1:05:25
Speaker 1: to ever inflame things. She never leans into it. She's
1:05:28
Speaker 1: a reluctant person in this debate, and she refuses to
1:05:32
Speaker 1: let other people define who she is. She didn't ask
1:05:35
Speaker 1: to become this political symbol in sports, and she's had
1:05:38
Speaker 1: to become one anyway. I think she's handled it with
1:05:41
Speaker 1: incredible discipline, incredible discipline. I hope it hasn't sapped the
1:05:47
Speaker 1: joy from her playing. I was listening to a conversation
1:05:52
Speaker 1: Bill Simmons was having with Chuck Closeter Redden. They were
1:05:54
Speaker 1: He thought that you could see that there was the
1:05:57
Speaker 1: joy was missing. I don't know. I hope not right.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: She's just it's infectious to watch her play, right, But
1:06:07
Speaker 1: I just am I'm impressed. And I've always said this
1:06:10
Speaker 1: about Lebron too, with when you get that amount of
1:06:13
Speaker 1: tention and you and you don't take the bait right,
1:06:17
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of bait, and you know this
1:06:19
Speaker 1: is she's not you know, she's not a forty five
1:06:22
Speaker 1: year old middle aged person who's been through a bunch
1:06:24
Speaker 1: of stuff. Right, She's still in her twenties, in her
1:06:27
Speaker 1: mid twenties, and she handles herself like she's been you know,
1:06:32
Speaker 1: dealing with a politically divisive culture for a generation. So
1:06:38
Speaker 1: that's why to me. And again, the amount of people
1:06:43
Speaker 1: that try to force her into political controversy and she
1:06:47
Speaker 1: just won't let it happen. That is rare talent, okay,
1:06:52
Speaker 1: and that might be really good talent for where our
1:06:55
Speaker 1: politics is headed. So look, maybe none of these people
1:06:59
Speaker 1: that are actually run for office, most of them probably won't.
1:07:02
Speaker 1: I guess is one out of my five will right.
1:07:04
Speaker 1: I don't know which one, But the exercise does, I
1:07:07
Speaker 1: hope explain something about where I think politics is headed.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: Because there was a time when lawyers dominated politics. Then
1:07:13
Speaker 1: there was a time that governors were you know, that
1:07:15
Speaker 1: was your way. Then television personalities, Right, we've cut out
1:07:18
Speaker 1: the elected official part right with television personalities Trump, you know,
1:07:22
Speaker 1: maybe it's Tucker Carlson, maybe it's Stephen A. Smith. I
1:07:25
Speaker 1: think athletes become one of our next pipeline. So, right,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: sports is a safe space. Right, It's a place, especially
1:07:30
Speaker 1: if you're looking for people that might be able to
1:07:33
Speaker 1: appeal to a broader swath of people instead of just
1:07:35
Speaker 1: being polarized Team blue or Team red, you know, especially
1:07:39
Speaker 1: of independent politics flourishes, right. I think the athletes and
1:07:42
Speaker 1: military veterans can to be great places to recruit, because
1:07:45
Speaker 1: I also think the skill to be a modern day
1:07:48
Speaker 1: athlete is remarkable similar. It's remarkably similar to being a
1:07:52
Speaker 1: modern day politician. Right, It's not about policy anymore. It's
1:07:56
Speaker 1: about communication, surviving scrutiny and link pressure, saying something that
1:08:02
Speaker 1: millions of people here without making half of them immediately
1:08:05
Speaker 1: hate you. Right, that's just a Tuesday afternoon for the
1:08:09
Speaker 1: superstar athlete. So and why it's a skill set that
1:08:13
Speaker 1: might be remarkably necessary for the next generation of politics.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: The podcast Top five List is of course brought to
1:08:23
Speaker 1: you by my friends at FanDuel. The biggest stage in
1:08:25
Speaker 1: world soccer is still here, but it's leaving soon, so
1:08:29
Speaker 1: don't miss. Every goal changes everything. We've all learned this,
1:08:32
Speaker 1: and now FanDuel is given you a reason to root
1:08:35
Speaker 1: for every single goal, every one of them. Introducing every
1:08:38
Speaker 1: goal pays bet on a match and get bonus bets
1:08:41
Speaker 1: for every goal scored in that match. That's right, More
1:08:44
Speaker 1: goals means more bonus bets, and all you have to
1:08:46
Speaker 1: do is turn on your token. Look, we're at the
1:08:49
Speaker 1: end here, You've only got a little bit left to
1:08:53
Speaker 1: enjoy what has easily been at least for US consumers
1:08:57
Speaker 1: here in the United States, and do tournament right. When
1:09:01
Speaker 1: you've got the best teams making the final four and
1:09:04
Speaker 1: the best players are those best teams playing names, you recognize,
1:09:09
Speaker 1: the drama is a lot more fun to pay attention to.
1:09:13
Speaker 1: So let's go MESSI as we will. So there you go,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: from the opening whistle to the final kick. Let their
1:09:19
Speaker 1: be goals on fandom. Visitfanduel dot com to get started
1:09:23
Speaker 1: right now twenty one plus in select states. For Kansas
1:09:26
Speaker 1: and affiliation with the Kansas Star Casino, it's eighteen plus
1:09:28
Speaker 1: in DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. If you have a gambling problem,
1:09:32
Speaker 1: call one eight hundred gambler or one eight hundred MI
1:09:35
Speaker 1: Reset or call one eight eight eight seven eight nine
1:09:40
Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven. You can also visit CCPG dot
1:09:43
Speaker 1: org slash chat. In Connecticut, you can visit the MD
1:09:47
Speaker 1: Gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland for help, you can visit
1:09:52
Speaker 1: gambling Heelplinema dot org. You can call eight hundred three
1:09:56
Speaker 1: two seven five zero five zero. In Massachusetts, you can
1:09:59
Speaker 1: call one eight seven seven eight hope and why, or
1:10:03
Speaker 1: you can simply text hope and why New York in
1:10:07
Speaker 1: order to get some help with any gambling concerns. Finally,
1:10:11
Speaker 1: you can also call when eight seven seven seven seven
1:10:13
Speaker 1: zero seven eight sixty seven. If you're in Louisiana, ask
1:10:17
Speaker 1: Chuck little last Chuck time. We're going to see how
1:10:23
Speaker 1: many we can get done here in the last twelve
1:10:27
Speaker 1: or so minutes. Next question comes from Brian. He goes
1:10:29
Speaker 1: Brian from Massachusetts three here third in Congressional District. I
1:10:33
Speaker 1: enjoyed taking my eighty four year old father to old
1:10:36
Speaker 1: movies when they are shown in theaters. We've seen Casablanca,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia. This week we saw Citizen Kane. My
1:10:41
Speaker 1: father did not like Citizen Kane, saying it was nonsense.
1:10:44
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it and used to show
1:10:47
Speaker 1: it to my students. Am I missing something? Maybe it
1:10:49
Speaker 1: was too artsy for him. Curious as to your favorite
1:10:52
Speaker 1: old forties and fifties films, Brian, okay, I uh i may.
1:11:00
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. The first time I saw
1:11:02
Speaker 1: Citizen Kane, I felt the same way as your father.
1:11:06
Speaker 1: He was this. This is supposed to be Orson Wells's masterpiece.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: After reading more about it, I watched it again. I
1:11:14
Speaker 1: at least understand why it's so iconic. And I understand
1:11:17
Speaker 1: and all of that, but I think it is if
1:11:21
Speaker 1: you're used to a certain type of movie, it can
1:11:23
Speaker 1: it can be slow, and you know, boy man, it's
1:11:27
Speaker 1: a long build up to Rosebud, Right, it is a
1:11:30
Speaker 1: long build up to Rosebud. But I will tell you
1:11:35
Speaker 1: the one that I flipped out. It was one of those.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: So my father when we first got a VCR in
1:11:42
Speaker 1: the early eighties and we were my dad had a
1:11:50
Speaker 1: list of movies that he said I had to see
1:11:53
Speaker 1: so and it would be so we had always one
1:11:56
Speaker 1: movie a month that he chose. We had this, we'd
1:11:59
Speaker 1: always it was just I was an only child, three
1:12:01
Speaker 1: of us for about four or five years. This was
1:12:03
Speaker 1: our pattern. It was our you know, when I was right,
1:12:06
Speaker 1: not old enough to go out yet, right, you know,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: So we watch a movie. Maybe it was Friday night movie,
1:12:11
Speaker 1: maybe it was Saturday movie. We'll run a movie and
1:12:14
Speaker 1: most of the time I got to pick, but he
1:12:16
Speaker 1: picked once a month, right, and bend her. God, we
1:12:22
Speaker 1: all fell asleep and bent her. He was so excited
1:12:24
Speaker 1: all this Chariot Racene. It redefined movie cinema, right, you know,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: Cherry Racene was great. It took a while to get
1:12:31
Speaker 1: everything else. I'll admit a cool hand Luke loved cool
1:12:35
Speaker 1: Hand Luke. We'll rewatched that, the one that always blew
1:12:41
Speaker 1: me away, and it was like one of those you're like,
1:12:42
Speaker 1: oh my god, you have to see it. And now
1:12:45
Speaker 1: I insist every generation has to see it. It's Costablanca
1:12:50
Speaker 1: because no matter how much of pop of sort of
1:12:53
Speaker 1: everyday sayings in life that you've heard played again, all
1:12:57
Speaker 1: that business, you know, shock shocked that there's casino gambling here.
1:13:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't realize how many sayings I was
1:13:05
Speaker 1: using before I hadn't seen the movie that were from
1:13:08
Speaker 1: that movie. So Casablanca is number one with a with
1:13:14
Speaker 1: a bullet for me, a sort of post you know,
1:13:17
Speaker 1: sort of a it was actually during World War Two, right,
1:13:19
Speaker 1: but of that of the movies, like if you have
1:13:22
Speaker 1: to see one movie from the forties in fifties, in
1:13:25
Speaker 1: my head, it's it's it's Cosablanca because it had such
1:13:28
Speaker 1: a huge impact I think on pop culture, both in
1:13:33
Speaker 1: the moments. Frankly, it's a I mean, you know, because
1:13:38
Speaker 1: we've kind of canceled gone with the win. Frankly, my dear,
1:13:40
Speaker 1: I Don't give a damn is no longer has the
1:13:42
Speaker 1: resonance that it did when I was growing up. Casablanca
1:13:46
Speaker 1: still still has phrases from that movie that still sort
1:13:53
Speaker 1: of get passed on right to younger folks today. So
1:13:58
Speaker 1: so for me, it's it's Costa Blanc. But like I said,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: I went through this that we cool hand Luke is
1:14:05
Speaker 1: one that stood out. I love Guests, Who's Coming to Dinner?
1:14:08
Speaker 1: That was a good one that I enjoyed in the sixties.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: Uh the Entertainer. I enjoyed that because it was one
1:14:15
Speaker 1: of the first things, first sort of non Bach, non
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Beethoven things I learned to play on the piano. That No,
1:14:23
Speaker 1: No No. It was like one of the reasons I
1:14:25
Speaker 1: really wanted to learn that song. I was obsessed with
1:14:27
Speaker 1: that song on the piano when I was when I
1:14:29
Speaker 1: was a kid. So and uh got And another one
1:14:37
Speaker 1: the original the original movie that was the Color of
1:14:43
Speaker 1: Money was the sequel for with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: This one was Paul Newman and Jackie Gleeson, and Es said,
1:14:49
Speaker 1: Shally Gleeson, there's this great scene and I've actually borrowed.
1:14:54
Speaker 1: I can't believe I blanked on the name Hustler, and
1:14:56
Speaker 1: that little edit there is just me making sure I
1:14:58
Speaker 1: have the name right. And there the scene in the
1:15:00
Speaker 1: movie Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman where they're playing this
1:15:06
Speaker 1: all nighter game right, and it's supposedly somewhat based I
1:15:09
Speaker 1: think Minnesota Fats and some of these pool pool players
1:15:13
Speaker 1: and some of the greatest nicknames. Man, Minnesota Fats, what
1:15:16
Speaker 1: a great nickname, which I guess loosely is what Gleason.
1:15:19
Speaker 1: I think that's Gleason's character going to my way back machine.
1:15:22
Speaker 1: But there's one scene in that movie that I've emulated
1:15:27
Speaker 1: on election and multiple all nighters when I've pulled them
1:15:29
Speaker 1: on election night, and that is, you know, they're going
1:15:32
Speaker 1: all night, and then finally they take a break and
1:15:35
Speaker 1: Jackie Leeson goes into the bathroom clean shaves, washes, his
1:15:40
Speaker 1: face comes up. It just sort of comes in and
1:15:43
Speaker 1: looking like a million bucks, while Paul Newman is like sweaty, tired,
1:15:49
Speaker 1: eddie ed. He sees Gleason come out of the bathroom
1:15:51
Speaker 1: looking like he took like an adrenaline shot of some sort,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: and it just overwhelmed them and and you know, he
1:15:58
Speaker 1: falls apart in Gleason was able to win this all
1:16:01
Speaker 1: night match or whatever it was in the Hustler. But
1:16:05
Speaker 1: I've used that same trick of like boy, I need
1:16:08
Speaker 1: to get another two or three hours of staying awake
1:16:14
Speaker 1: and being not just awake but aware enough to deliver
1:16:17
Speaker 1: deliver information to hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions
1:16:23
Speaker 1: if they're watching it in the middle of the night.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: And I use that movie. I borrow that trick all
1:16:28
Speaker 1: the time. So the Cosa Blanca number one, number one
1:16:33
Speaker 1: in the list. Next question comes from Rob and he writes, Hey,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: dear Chuck, I first knew you from Meet the Press,
1:16:38
Speaker 1: and I've really enjoyed following your work since. After going
1:16:41
Speaker 1: through a different difficult period of depression, eventually I decided
1:16:44
Speaker 1: to get off my ass and get outside, etc. I
1:16:46
Speaker 1: began with short walks, which trended into longer walks and hikes.
1:16:49
Speaker 1: You and your podcast have kept me company, man. That
1:16:51
Speaker 1: means a lot. I'm glad to know that I've helped
1:16:55
Speaker 1: keep you company. I know what that means. I have
1:16:57
Speaker 1: podcasts that keep me company and keep me going when
1:17:00
Speaker 1: I'm running, walking, whatever it is. Thankfully, the depression is
1:17:03
Speaker 1: lifted and I feel like I made a new friend. Well,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, enjoy the deeper dives you take into issues.
1:17:08
Speaker 1: Think thankfully, I'm doing much better now and I just
1:17:10
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know that your work made a
1:17:12
Speaker 1: real difference in my life. Rob. I'm you're very kind
1:17:16
Speaker 1: to share that. You know. This is always a reminder,
1:17:25
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you know. Look, I I'm just
1:17:28
Speaker 1: trying to put out content that I hope people find useful.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: And there's a variety of ways that these things can
1:17:33
Speaker 1: be useful. And I'm glad to know that I can
1:17:37
Speaker 1: be good company. I would hate to be bad company
1:17:40
Speaker 1: on something like this. And hey, I also think that you,
1:17:45
Speaker 1: uh you, you travel a path that a lot of
1:17:48
Speaker 1: people travel, and it's good to know you have success, right.
1:17:52
Speaker 1: You start one day at a time, one step at
1:17:54
Speaker 1: a time. So kudos, Rob, thank you for sharing that.
1:17:58
Speaker 1: Next question, uh here comes from Gavin from Brisbane, Australia.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: He goes, Hey, check love the pod, longtime listener. Recently
1:18:05
Speaker 1: in the UK, reform leader Nigel Ferrage resigned a seat
1:18:08
Speaker 1: in the Commons to force a by election, which will
1:18:12
Speaker 1: now recontest the same seat. I'm stunned that this is
1:18:15
Speaker 1: even allowed it seems like an active hypocrisy. Either you
1:18:18
Speaker 1: are prepared to a stand scrutiny or your actions of
1:18:22
Speaker 1: your actions in stay or you leave for good. I
1:18:24
Speaker 1: don't know if this is permitted in Australia, but expect
1:18:27
Speaker 1: voters in the local electorate would go nuts and punish
1:18:29
Speaker 1: the offending MP for forcing them to go back to
1:18:32
Speaker 1: the polls unnecessarily. My question, are there any states where
1:18:35
Speaker 1: a US congress person or senator could technically do the
1:18:38
Speaker 1: same regards Gavin, First of all, you saw right. We'll
1:18:43
Speaker 1: find out right Count Binface how well Count Binface does
1:18:47
Speaker 1: against Nigel Faras will tell you I think how angry
1:18:49
Speaker 1: the electorate is on this. There's actually precedent, and I'll
1:18:52
Speaker 1: give you an example of one time when it happened
1:18:54
Speaker 1: and frankly where I would argue it was the right
1:18:57
Speaker 1: thing to do. Phil Graham was a Phil Graham is somebody.
1:19:03
Speaker 1: He ran for president in nineteen ninety six. He was
1:19:06
Speaker 1: a longtime US Senator from Texas. But before he was
1:19:09
Speaker 1: a senator from Texas, he first got elected to Congress,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: and he was a conservative Republican from Texas. He had
1:19:14
Speaker 1: his whole when he ran for president. He used to
1:19:17
Speaker 1: his stump speech because we used to imitate it all
1:19:19
Speaker 1: the time at the Hotline. His stumb speech began this,
1:19:21
Speaker 1: I failed the fourth, the seventh, and the eighth grade,
1:19:25
Speaker 1: and I ended up with a PhD in economics. And
1:19:28
Speaker 1: he had this just great southern draw, but he always
1:19:30
Speaker 1: began with I failed the fourth, the seventh, and I
1:19:34
Speaker 1: might be getting his grades long. But the implication was
1:19:37
Speaker 1: he flung three times and he still ended up being
1:19:39
Speaker 1: a guy who could eventually get a PhD in economics.
1:19:42
Speaker 1: And it was the whole picture of itself up by
1:19:44
Speaker 1: the bootstraps and don't let people tell you who that
1:19:46
Speaker 1: you think you are. That sort of mindset, right. But
1:19:48
Speaker 1: he's always been well respected in the conservative community in
1:19:51
Speaker 1: this sort of conservative fiscal area. He's still alive today,
1:19:55
Speaker 1: by the way. He still see it pop out. But
1:19:58
Speaker 1: he was first elected as a Democrat Congress and when
1:20:01
Speaker 1: he got elected after Reagan became president, he decided he
1:20:06
Speaker 1: was going to switch parties. But he thought, I'm not
1:20:09
Speaker 1: going to switch parties in the voters elected me as
1:20:15
Speaker 1: a Democrat. So if I'm going to switch parties, I'm
1:20:17
Speaker 1: going to resign, change parties, run in and let my
1:20:22
Speaker 1: voters decide whether they want to send me back under
1:20:24
Speaker 1: the new party banner. I think that's a legitimate And
1:20:29
Speaker 1: you could say maybe he should have to pay for
1:20:31
Speaker 1: the special election, and there's a tax dollar situation, but
1:20:34
Speaker 1: I thought that was I think that's a pretty I
1:20:37
Speaker 1: think that's a ethical way to deal with it. I
1:20:39
Speaker 1: want to switch parties. I know voters voted for me,
1:20:43
Speaker 1: but I know it's possible some voters voted for me
1:20:44
Speaker 1: because of my party. The honest thing to do is
1:20:48
Speaker 1: give voters a chance to decide whether they affirm or
1:20:51
Speaker 1: reject my decision to switch parties. And so he resigned,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: got re elected as a Republican, ends up become a senator.
1:21:01
Speaker 1: Not too far, you know, but not too far down
1:21:03
Speaker 1: the road. And the rest is a fairly successful political
1:21:06
Speaker 1: career with a He just didn't have the charisma for
1:21:09
Speaker 1: the presidency. He could raise money with the best of them,
1:21:14
Speaker 1: but it was it was the you know, he might
1:21:18
Speaker 1: have been able to buy lots of bags of dog food,
1:21:20
Speaker 1: but the dogs didn't always want to eat the dog
1:21:22
Speaker 1: food on that one. But I thought that's the best example.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: So in theory, sure, and that, but I thought that
1:21:29
Speaker 1: was the best example, I could come up with that
1:21:31
Speaker 1: sort of matched and at least I actually think a
1:21:34
Speaker 1: a What I might argue is that it is one
1:21:38
Speaker 1: of the good one of the good ways to do that.
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Next question, Dan from California's forty ninth district, way down
1:21:44
Speaker 1: there in southern California, says, Hey, Chuck, your recent conversation
1:21:47
Speaker 1: with Tad Devine got me thinking, why don't presidential campaigns
1:21:50
Speaker 1: create more buzz around the VP selection by publicly narrowing
1:21:53
Speaker 1: the field to a few finalists and letting them campaign
1:21:55
Speaker 1: before making the final choice. Could something like that help
1:21:58
Speaker 1: build excitement and test message is or what? It create
1:22:00
Speaker 1: more problems than it solves. As an aside, I saw
1:22:03
Speaker 1: a yard sign for someone committed to the you. It
1:22:06
Speaker 1: was referred to the University of Utah, but I think
1:22:08
Speaker 1: we can all agree Miami is the true the you. Well, Dan,
1:22:11
Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that there's one big difference between
1:22:13
Speaker 1: the Utah you they do this and the U. For
1:22:17
Speaker 1: the University of Miami, we do this, but it you know,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: it's always been pretty arrogant of the University of Miami.
1:22:24
Speaker 1: Just clean the U when everybody it's called a university. Uh,
1:22:30
Speaker 1: that's when you could take the nickname that any university
1:22:33
Speaker 1: can use and you somehow make it your own. That's
1:22:36
Speaker 1: powerful branding. It's almost as successful as like Kleenex, the
1:22:41
Speaker 1: fact that most people call a tissue at Cleenex rather
1:22:44
Speaker 1: than a tissue, right. I think that that's an impressive
1:22:48
Speaker 1: branding by the University of Miami. Again, you go to
1:22:51
Speaker 1: any small community with a university and they refer to
1:22:53
Speaker 1: it as the you. And yet if you say to
1:22:55
Speaker 1: you in a national context, there's likely only one university,
1:22:59
Speaker 1: you mean, it's so take that other universities. So Mike Murphy,
1:23:09
Speaker 1: old friend of mine, one time a Republican media consultant,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: and now I think more of an independent. I think
1:23:16
Speaker 1: he unregistered as a Republican. He's not much of a
1:23:19
Speaker 1: Trump guy at all, but long time republicansul was McCain's
1:23:24
Speaker 1: chief advisor there in a couple of his presidential campaigns,
1:23:27
Speaker 1: and you know, Murphy wanted to do exactly what you're describing, basically,
1:23:30
Speaker 1: say we've got three here are all so to still
1:23:36
Speaker 1: keep control. His idea was to offer up the convention
1:23:40
Speaker 1: three candidates and then let the convention work its will, right,
1:23:44
Speaker 1: and let the candidates work the will of the convention
1:23:46
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think you want to. I think
1:23:49
Speaker 1: the presidential nominee wants to have some control of this.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: But I'm with you. I think these have been missed opportunities.
1:23:56
Speaker 1: I think the reason you don't see these bigger media
1:24:00
Speaker 1: spectacles for this is it's usually you have consultants that
1:24:04
Speaker 1: want to control the narrative. You have strategists that are
1:24:08
Speaker 1: fearful that the selection for VP can overshadow the president,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: especially especially if they're kind of if they're a milk
1:24:15
Speaker 1: toast nominee, right, if they don't have like that grade
1:24:19
Speaker 1: of a personality. Although it's hard to imagine that we're
1:24:23
Speaker 1: going to produce that kind of candidate in those nominees,
1:24:25
Speaker 1: at least in the near future, and then of course
1:24:28
Speaker 1: you can. You know. The downside is if you have
1:24:31
Speaker 1: a campaign, especially right now, both parties are so frat factional, right,
1:24:35
Speaker 1: there's so many of these little mini factional divides that
1:24:40
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, you create division. Maybe at a
1:24:44
Speaker 1: time you can't afford the division. So there's a million
1:24:48
Speaker 1: reasons to not greenlight this. And yet I'm with you,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: I certainly think we will see somebody try this if
1:24:57
Speaker 1: they are hopelessly if they think they're hopelessly behind. This
1:25:01
Speaker 1: is the type of thing you do if you're behind,
1:25:04
Speaker 1: if you're ahead, or if you think you have a
1:25:05
Speaker 1: good chance of winning, you wouldn't do something like this
1:25:09
Speaker 1: because it would be seen as too risky, even though
1:25:11
Speaker 1: I don't actually think it would be all that risky
1:25:15
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But I think it's inevitable that
1:25:21
Speaker 1: we will see a like I said, it's certainly how
1:25:25
Speaker 1: if a third party candidacy gets off the ground for president.
1:25:29
Speaker 1: I know that that's the way this will work, because
1:25:32
Speaker 1: you definitely need any attention is good attention if you're
1:25:34
Speaker 1: running to try to break through the duopoly. Right on that,
1:25:39
Speaker 1: all right? Nick in Michigan's second congressional district rights. You've
1:25:43
Speaker 1: said several times that we are likely to have at
1:25:44
Speaker 1: least one more chaotic presidential term before things begin to
1:25:47
Speaker 1: stabilize after what feels like a decade of constant turmoil.
1:25:52
Speaker 1: Can you offer a little hope as we head towards
1:25:54
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six and twenty twenty elections. What signs your
1:25:56
Speaker 1: milestones would make you think we're finally turning a corner.
1:26:00
Speaker 1: Towards a less chaotic political era. The biggest one is
1:26:02
Speaker 1: just a decisive victory, and we just haven't had one
1:26:05
Speaker 1: of those. The closest we came this century is Obama away, right,
1:26:10
Speaker 1: and that was a sixth little under seven point victory nationally,
1:26:15
Speaker 1: a fairly you know, large electoral college. Right. It included
1:26:18
Speaker 1: even victories in Indiana, North Carolina, right, every swing state
1:26:21
Speaker 1: and then some and you know, brought in fifty nine
1:26:25
Speaker 1: Senate seats, right, that was and it did force the
1:26:28
Speaker 1: Republican Party to go, we got to do things differently. Now,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: they ended up going in a much different direction than
1:26:33
Speaker 1: even they thought they were going to go into. But
1:26:35
Speaker 1: they certainly changed. Then. The point is political parties don't
1:26:38
Speaker 1: do major changes and don't try to try something different
1:26:43
Speaker 1: until they lose by a lot, not by a little.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: And so I think that the reason why I believe,
1:26:49
Speaker 1: I just think that the differences right were so we're
1:26:52
Speaker 1: so evenly divided that it does feel like it's one
1:26:57
Speaker 1: day of campaigning here, or one more television add there,
1:27:00
Speaker 1: one more doorknock. There would be the difference between winning
1:27:02
Speaker 1: and losing. Right, when you have one or two percentage points,
1:27:06
Speaker 1: literally can flip seven seats. You know, that leads you
1:27:11
Speaker 1: into you know, we're in a politics where both parties
1:27:14
Speaker 1: have a high floor, low ceiling. So it's when the
1:27:17
Speaker 1: floor collapses for one of the two parties is when
1:27:20
Speaker 1: I think we'll be there. So one of two things,
1:27:22
Speaker 1: Either an independent breaks through and is able to sort
1:27:26
Speaker 1: of split the difference and that forces radical change inside
1:27:31
Speaker 1: the two parties, or one of them gets clobbered, right,
1:27:38
Speaker 1: you know, I think the most that the party put
1:27:41
Speaker 1: it this way when you just look, if the Democrats
1:27:43
Speaker 1: lose in twenty eight, they're more likely to go through
1:27:46
Speaker 1: a massive makeover than if the Republicans lose in twenty eight.
1:27:49
Speaker 1: If the Republicans lose in twenty eight, it'll be like, well,
1:27:52
Speaker 1: maybe Vance wasn't a good nominee, maybe Trumpet. You know,
1:27:54
Speaker 1: let's see what happens next cycle. If the Democrats lose,
1:27:58
Speaker 1: it'll be thirty three out of four that they've lost, right,
1:28:01
Speaker 1: you know, it'd be sixteen, twenty four, twenty eight. The
1:28:05
Speaker 1: one they won looks more and more like an accident,
1:28:08
Speaker 1: you know, in that right it it just sort of
1:28:12
Speaker 1: was a was just an exhaustion election just to get
1:28:14
Speaker 1: rid of Trump and fix COVID. But if if you're
1:28:18
Speaker 1: at three or four, if you're the Democrats, and then
1:28:20
Speaker 1: I think you're going to have, you know, the type
1:28:21
Speaker 1: of much bigger fight and then and until one of
1:28:27
Speaker 1: these two parties pivots right, we're not. And so that's
1:28:32
Speaker 1: why I think it's like it it it's neither one
1:28:36
Speaker 1: is lost by enough to make the major changes that
1:28:38
Speaker 1: are necessary to get us out of this. That's the
1:28:42
Speaker 1: bottom line. And that's why I don't think so. I
1:28:44
Speaker 1: think we're another cycle or two away, you know, it
1:28:47
Speaker 1: needs I think I think the Democrats need one more
1:28:49
Speaker 1: kick to the head, right, Republicans probably have to lose
1:28:51
Speaker 1: twice in a row before they sober up on this
1:28:53
Speaker 1: Trump nationalism stuff. That's why, you know, if you're hoping
1:28:59
Speaker 1: for something sooner, I think the third party, you know,
1:29:02
Speaker 1: to sort of force to to sort of punish both
1:29:04
Speaker 1: parties at the same time, we get them both to
1:29:06
Speaker 1: sober up. That that's the fastest way to to sort
1:29:10
Speaker 1: of get out of this. Is sort of to throw
1:29:14
Speaker 1: you a lot in there, because I think this ping
1:29:16
Speaker 1: pong and is actually only going to drag this out,
1:29:19
Speaker 1: all right? With that, Thank goodness for the World Cup
1:29:27
Speaker 1: because it gave us what is normally the worst week
1:29:29
Speaker 1: in sports is not this specific calendar year, because I
1:29:35
Speaker 1: will confess that even I, not the biggest soccer fan,
1:29:39
Speaker 1: have been sucked in a little bit. And I'm looking
1:29:41
Speaker 1: forward to saying as I said, and this may seem
1:29:46
Speaker 1: way outdated, but I'm Team Americas. Let's go messy with that.
1:29:51
Speaker 1: I'll see you the next time.