Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Poll Numbers Are Sinking: Will Kristi Noem Take The Fall? + Hated By All The Right People: The Rise Of Tucker Carlson

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Full Episode - Trump’s Poll Numbers Are Sinking: Will Kristi Noem Take The Fall? + Hated By All The Right People: The Rise Of Tucker Carlson · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. Hello,
1:51
Speaker 1: They're happy Thursday, and welcome to another episode of the
1:54
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast. Yes, I am still on the road. I'm
1:56
Speaker 1: coming to you from Dell Boca Vista. Sorry that was
2:02
Speaker 1: just a little shout out to my Seinfeld friends there
2:04
Speaker 1: I'm coming from. Actually, technically I'm staying in Deerfield Beach,
2:08
Speaker 1: but I just spoke on campus at Florida Atlantic University.
2:11
Speaker 1: I'll be speaking to their Jupiter campus tomorrow. It's been
2:15
Speaker 1: a couple of days at FAU, and I have to
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Speaker 1: just say, it's just it just makes me so happy
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Speaker 1: watching all of these Florida universities grow as successfully as
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Speaker 1: they've grown, you know, being a Floridian and being in
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Speaker 1: the press over the last twenty years. You know, look,
2:38
Speaker 1: we all have our own state pride. And you know,
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Speaker 1: I know people like to rag on Florida man and
2:44
Speaker 1: this or that, and but you know, and you know,
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Speaker 1: I grew up in all of you know, I grew
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Speaker 1: up in Miami, and you know, Miami has taken its
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Speaker 1: share of lumps. You know, gets people take pot shots
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Speaker 1: at it. People take pot shots in Florida, but you know,
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Speaker 1: when you're from here, you know, you take pride in it.
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Speaker 1: You know, people like to take pot shots at New York.
3:04
Speaker 1: New Yorkers take pride in New York. Right, people take
3:07
Speaker 1: pot shots at Mississippi. Those that live in Mississippi take
3:09
Speaker 1: a lot of pride and being from Mississippi. And of
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Speaker 1: course what we will say is you don't get to
3:14
Speaker 1: trash our state or city. Only we do on this.
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Speaker 1: But I just I've just marveled at how much how
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Speaker 1: many of these universities have grown. You know, what it
3:28
Speaker 1: was basically, you know, a four university, you know, three universities,
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Speaker 1: you know, dominated everything Miami, Florida, Florida State, and you
3:37
Speaker 1: certainly had you know, the small you know, USF and
3:40
Speaker 1: UCF have been around a while, FAU FIU UWF, but
3:47
Speaker 1: over the last thirty years they've gone from commuter universities,
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Speaker 1: small universities to full fledged just great campuses, beautiful campuses.
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Speaker 1: FAUS got multiple campuses now in the in Palm Beach County.
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Speaker 1: So it's and I'm not just saying nice things because
4:05
Speaker 1: they invited me, but yeah, I'm gonna say nice things
4:07
Speaker 1: because they invited me, but I mean it, uh, and
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Speaker 1: it's you know, what's and what's great about South Florida
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Speaker 1: is that I get political questions about all sorts of
4:19
Speaker 1: regions in the country because the beauty of Florida is
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Speaker 1: everybody's from somewhere else, right, which is always what I
4:24
Speaker 1: always took pride in the fact that I was born
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Speaker 1: and raised uh in Miami, and how unusual that's you know,
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Speaker 1: more and more usual as as as our cities in
4:34
Speaker 1: the area matures and gets older, but certainly a point
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Speaker 1: of pride there. And I'm gonna you know, well, I'll
4:41
Speaker 1: share with you a little bit of the talk I
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Speaker 1: gave to them. But before we get there that we
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Speaker 1: do have, I do want to deal with some of
4:48
Speaker 1: the news. We give you a little bit of a
4:49
Speaker 1: rundown of this episode. I have a great conversation with
4:53
Speaker 1: a journalist and author, Jason Zengerly. He works for The
4:56
Speaker 1: New Yorker. I used to work for the New York
4:58
Speaker 1: Times magazine. Probably you know, if you have read an
5:02
Speaker 1: incredible interesting profile of either a media influencer, political pundit,
5:09
Speaker 1: or politician, if it wasn't written by Mark Leibovich, it
5:13
Speaker 1: was written by Jason's Engerly. I mean, he just really knows.
5:18
Speaker 1: He's does terrific research, terrific questioning, and he's just a
5:22
Speaker 1: really good writer. And he's got a new book that
5:25
Speaker 1: I just adore. The title. I just think it's one
5:28
Speaker 1: of those you're just like, what a great title, because
5:31
Speaker 1: it just grabs you at least you're it makes you
5:34
Speaker 1: curious to at least want to figure. Let me see
5:36
Speaker 1: what this book's about. It's called Hated by all the
5:38
Speaker 1: right people, and it's about Tucker Carlson, But it's more
5:43
Speaker 1: than about Tucker Carlson, right, it's not. It basically is
5:48
Speaker 1: a book that tries to explain how the conservative movement
5:51
Speaker 1: became trumpy and uses the vehicle of Tucker Carlson to
5:56
Speaker 1: do that. Right, Tucker Carlson goes from a you know,
5:59
Speaker 1: at our neo conservative reporter of the Weekly Standard in
6:02
Speaker 1: the nineties to now, you know, he's out there on
6:08
Speaker 1: the edges of ideology of you know, whether he's flirting
6:14
Speaker 1: with white nationalism, flirting with anti Semitism, flirting with isolationism.
6:19
Speaker 1: He is certainly giving voice and seems to enjoy to
6:23
Speaker 1: give voice to anybody or any entity that is perceived
6:27
Speaker 1: to have been ostracized or is being ostracized. That in
6:33
Speaker 1: itself is a choice. He certainly has his following, and look,
6:39
Speaker 1: I've I'm one of those who knew him friendly. You know,
6:45
Speaker 1: he's still in my cell phone. I don't ever delete
6:46
Speaker 1: people out of my cell phone. I remember being surprised
6:50
Speaker 1: one day when I got a call from him, going, oh,
6:52
Speaker 1: I didn't realize we had we had each other's cell
6:54
Speaker 1: phone numbers, which we have had for years. The thing
7:00
Speaker 1: he is is whip smart. He's savvy and is a
7:07
Speaker 1: fascinating figure. I think the question we all have is
7:13
Speaker 1: does he believe anything he says? Is he become a
7:16
Speaker 1: full fledged grifter or does he feel as if he
7:21
Speaker 1: was misled? Which is part of the story, but it's
7:24
Speaker 1: a I think it's an important Yet there's different vehicles,
7:28
Speaker 1: you know. I think, you know, you could. I think
7:30
Speaker 1: this is a good one to do in sort of
7:32
Speaker 1: the conservative influencer media space. Tucker's a pretty good vehicle
7:36
Speaker 1: for that because of the journey he took. I think
7:42
Speaker 1: if you did this with a politician, you do it.
7:45
Speaker 1: I think you might do it with Lindsay Graham or
7:47
Speaker 1: Mark or Rubio. You know, they went from fanatically critical
7:52
Speaker 1: of Trump to you know, Lindsay is the biggest cheerleader
7:56
Speaker 1: in the Senate right. He always wants to be seen
7:59
Speaker 1: as that into this day, Trump still doesn't fully trust him,
8:02
Speaker 1: and nobody's quite sure if Lindsay believes all of that.
8:07
Speaker 1: Then there's Mark Rubio who has made you know, went
8:09
Speaker 1: from making fun of them Donald Trump's Genitalia to be
8:17
Speaker 1: in his chief architect and defender of foreign policy in
8:22
Speaker 1: the second term. I think you could do interesting explorations
8:27
Speaker 1: in a similar vein that Jason did with Tucker. But
8:29
Speaker 1: I think Tucker's are worthy subject and it's certainly a
8:32
Speaker 1: very readable book. Anyway, I think you'll enjoy the conversation,
8:36
Speaker 1: and it's obviously quite relevant in the current situation. We're
8:40
Speaker 1: in a few things I want to get to though,
8:45
Speaker 1: that are little politics of the day. You know, I
8:48
Speaker 1: had hinted in my last podcast that I think that
8:53
Speaker 1: Christy Nome's tenure might be measured in hours, little or days,
9:00
Speaker 1: certainly not weeks or months. She still has a job today.
9:05
Speaker 1: But you know, Donald Trump is a reactive to public opinion.
9:10
Speaker 1: He's reactive to and it is it is interest. Now. Look,
9:17
Speaker 1: there's a fine line with Trump. Right. The more you
9:20
Speaker 1: demand he does something, sometimes the more likely he won't
9:23
Speaker 1: do it right, almost out of defiance. Right, I always
9:26
Speaker 1: say he's he's always thirteen, and you have to sort
9:30
Speaker 1: of in some ways. He's got the emotional IQ of
9:34
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old, and many a thirteen year old
9:37
Speaker 1: or thirteen going on thirty or thirteen going on eight, right,
9:41
Speaker 1: And that can be Donald Trump at all times. Right,
9:44
Speaker 1: You're never sure how serious is he, and you know
9:47
Speaker 1: he'll be kajed and fascinating for a moment in time.
9:52
Speaker 1: You know, my god, he may say something that you
9:54
Speaker 1: agree with, and then he acts like the eight year
9:58
Speaker 1: old right and throws his temper tantrums and all of
10:01
Speaker 1: that stuff. So that said, I still think Christy nomes
10:09
Speaker 1: Day's her number, and there's because she she fits a
10:14
Speaker 1: profile of a person that Trump will dump. Right, he
10:18
Speaker 1: was not devoted that devoted to her in the first place.
10:21
Speaker 1: Check she's got presidential ambitions and it's he's and she's
10:26
Speaker 1: not somebody that Trump uses their parent and if he
10:29
Speaker 1: thinks this helps get her out of the way for
10:32
Speaker 1: whoever comes next in the MAGA movement, check right, here's
10:36
Speaker 1: a box. She's unpopular with pretty much everybody at the moment,
10:41
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans, and you know she's she's uh, and
10:47
Speaker 1: it may explain, you know, the easiest way to try
10:51
Speaker 1: to save your job in the Trump airs to say
10:52
Speaker 1: you were just following orders, which is what she let out.
10:55
Speaker 1: The interesting Axios report said, you know, I didn't do
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Speaker 1: her say anything that was essentially directed to me by
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Speaker 1: Stephen referring to Steven Miller or the White House. But
11:06
Speaker 1: she also fits a few other categories of why if
11:09
Speaker 1: someone's going to get fired, it's going to be her,
11:11
Speaker 1: Because number. It ain't ever going to be Steven Miller.
11:14
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller is not blood to Trump, but he might
11:18
Speaker 1: be the closest thing to blood that there is in
11:20
Speaker 1: his political orbit. I think he views Miller as the
11:28
Speaker 1: you know, I've always thought Stephen Miller. You know, on
11:33
Speaker 1: one hand, he's the type of person Trump would make
11:36
Speaker 1: fun of and would mock if Miller wasn't so capable.
11:44
Speaker 1: And that's his secret sauce he's capable. You know. If
11:50
Speaker 1: Miller's as as smart as anybody in that room understands
11:54
Speaker 1: the the byzantine structure of the federal government, he's sort
12:01
Speaker 1: of bizarro. Dick Cheney, right, Dick Cheney was that and
12:04
Speaker 1: you know, which is why. You know, Cheney understood how
12:06
Speaker 1: to use, how to move government, how to work government,
12:09
Speaker 1: what agencies work, how to you know, manipulates, strong work.
12:13
Speaker 1: But the point is is how to make government, how
12:16
Speaker 1: to bend the will of government in a direction that
12:18
Speaker 1: he wanted to bend it. But there was a principle
12:24
Speaker 1: of what Cheney wanted. He certainly had a point of view,
12:27
Speaker 1: he had a vision for the country. You know, Miller's
12:33
Speaker 1: got all of the same skill set that Dick Cheney has,
12:38
Speaker 1: except his motivation seems to be, you know, he seems
12:42
Speaker 1: to be more excited when other people are upset rather
12:45
Speaker 1: than following some sort of larger principle. And that's always
12:49
Speaker 1: something I've never been quite sure of, which is is
12:54
Speaker 1: he at all got a conservative vision or is he
12:57
Speaker 1: just a reactionary? Is he really just driven by owning
13:01
Speaker 1: the Libs? I think he is. I think he genuinely
13:05
Speaker 1: believes that we immigrate to many people into this country.
13:09
Speaker 1: So I think he does genuinely believe in that, and
13:14
Speaker 1: I think he wants to believe that this would somehow
13:20
Speaker 1: improve you know, that it and we'll see on this.
13:24
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of protectionists and isolationists and
13:29
Speaker 1: nationalists who believe that immigrant labor is what pushes wages
13:34
Speaker 1: down and what would and essentially makes turns working class
13:41
Speaker 1: jobs into low class jobs, and that there would be
13:44
Speaker 1: that fewer immigrants would actually raise the standard of living
13:51
Speaker 1: for working class people. And there's a genuine belief. So
13:55
Speaker 1: I do think he comes at this, comes to this
13:57
Speaker 1: issue specifically with a set of beliefs that he that
14:00
Speaker 1: he and he's trying to implement a policy. But on
14:04
Speaker 1: everything else, you know, I don't quite you know, I
14:06
Speaker 1: don't know that. He doesn't strike me as a small
14:09
Speaker 1: government guy. He doesn't strike me as a business guy
14:14
Speaker 1: Republican either, But I'll say this, I mean he's he's
14:22
Speaker 1: he doesn't mislead reporters. You know, he says what he means,
14:29
Speaker 1: and he means what he says. But he hasn't the
14:33
Speaker 1: trust of the president, so he ain't going anywhere. And
14:39
Speaker 1: so the only way Christy Nomes sticks around is if
14:47
Speaker 1: Trump wants her to absorb the negative press, if he
14:53
Speaker 1: if he views her as almost like a shield, a
14:56
Speaker 1: heat shield of some sort. But I don't think it's
14:59
Speaker 1: a heat shield. And I think, like I said, I
15:02
Speaker 1: think the reason the one way she's trying to save
15:04
Speaker 1: her job is by saying, you know, I'm following orders,
15:09
Speaker 1: and the implication being, you know that perhaps she could
15:14
Speaker 1: she could tell a lot of interesting stories about how,
15:18
Speaker 1: you know, what the grand planned is with Miller and
15:20
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But I'm not sure she's credible, Like
15:25
Speaker 1: I don't think, I'm sorry. I think if she gets
15:28
Speaker 1: fired and then she comes out and tries to sort
15:32
Speaker 1: of rehabilitate herself by being, you know, a so called
15:36
Speaker 1: truth teller, I don't know if she'll have credibility. She
15:39
Speaker 1: went out of her way for this performative theatrics, and
15:43
Speaker 1: this is what is on her was the theatrics, and
15:49
Speaker 1: this is and it is. I do think Trump's been
15:53
Speaker 1: convinced that what's unpopular are the tactics, not the policy.
16:00
Speaker 1: Miller's in charge of the policy, gnomes in charge of
16:03
Speaker 1: the tactics. So I'm still thinking's she's more likely to
16:11
Speaker 1: be gone than stay. And the thing that could get her,
16:19
Speaker 1: the thing that could get her are bad poll numbers.
16:24
Speaker 1: And guess what, there is one thing you know, we
16:29
Speaker 1: know that Donald Trump consumes a lot of Fox and
16:33
Speaker 1: one thing that I have always been a fan of
16:36
Speaker 1: is the Fox News poll. It is modeled off of
16:41
Speaker 1: the the NBC poll that I ran for years, that
16:44
Speaker 1: I helped run and run on the NBC side for
16:46
Speaker 1: years in conjunction with my pals Bill mcinturfett Public Opinion
16:50
Speaker 1: Strategies and Jeff Horwitz and uh At and before that
16:56
Speaker 1: Fred Yang and Peter Hart at Garon Hart Yang Research,
17:02
Speaker 1: we believed in always having a bipartisan polling polling team
17:08
Speaker 1: to help put together the questionnaire, examine the samples, and
17:11
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and they would rotate whose call center
17:14
Speaker 1: would use because it was we felt like we were
17:16
Speaker 1: going to get them and have polsters who have been
17:20
Speaker 1: polsters for the presidents or posters for presidential candidates. And
17:26
Speaker 1: one thing Fox has done with their polling unit, which
17:30
Speaker 1: is why Trump lets to trash it all the time,
17:32
Speaker 1: is they've got a very good pair of posters. Not
17:36
Speaker 1: as good as my friends in NBC. I teach you guys,
17:40
Speaker 1: because hey, I'm going to be loyal to my boys.
17:42
Speaker 1: But the Fox News poll is a pulvit I think
17:45
Speaker 1: is a very good poll. And it's like I said,
17:50
Speaker 1: it doesn't you know the poll is bad for Team
17:55
Speaker 1: read if Fox News covers it fox News. If it's
17:59
Speaker 1: if you only find it on foxnews dot com, you
18:02
Speaker 1: know it's a bad poll for Republicans. If you see
18:05
Speaker 1: it plastered all over the cable channel, it's likely a
18:08
Speaker 1: good poll for Republicans. And there will be numbers that
18:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you now that my guess is
18:15
Speaker 1: you're not going to hear about on the cable channel,
18:18
Speaker 1: but you might have to read about it on the
18:20
Speaker 1: digital channel. So the point is is that the bottom
18:23
Speaker 1: line is it not surprisingly right Basically, the big headline
18:29
Speaker 1: of this is that Donald Trump starts twenty twenty six
18:32
Speaker 1: with essentially and as bad of a place and about
18:35
Speaker 1: the same spot as Barack Obama started started his second
18:39
Speaker 1: year in his second term and George W. Bush started
18:42
Speaker 1: his second year of his second term. What does that mean? Well,
18:44
Speaker 1: guess what. Twenty oh six, which was the second term
18:50
Speaker 1: midterm for George W. Bush, was a disaster. Twenty fourteen,
18:54
Speaker 1: the second midterm of the second Obama term, was a disaster.
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Speaker 1: percent off. So the foreshadow not to go. He starts
20:32
Speaker 1: with forty four percent. And by the way, Fox News,
20:34
Speaker 1: like the NBC, poll uses registered voters, so you're going
20:38
Speaker 1: to see you know, sometimes you may see why I've
20:41
Speaker 1: seen his job approval rating in the thirties and some
20:43
Speaker 1: other poles, any poles of all Americans, which includes all adults,
20:49
Speaker 1: you know, measured against the senses, not necessarily the voter file.
20:54
Speaker 1: Trump just does worse when all in any samples that
20:58
Speaker 1: include all adults versus when it's just registered voters. As
21:01
Speaker 1: numbers improved slightly. So that's why he's sitting at forty four.
21:04
Speaker 1: Where you've seen some that have him thirty eight, thirty nine.
21:07
Speaker 1: A lot of those are of all adults, not registered voters,
21:10
Speaker 1: So keep that in mind. But let me just share
21:14
Speaker 1: with a few of these numbers, because I think there's
21:17
Speaker 1: a pair of numbers that I do think could doom
21:19
Speaker 1: Christie Nome especially, Let's put it this way, especially if
21:24
Speaker 1: Fox decides to air these numbers quite a bit, right,
21:28
Speaker 1: if they want to make this the you know, the
21:32
Speaker 1: TV team has a choice to make, right, the president's
21:36
Speaker 1: favorite shows have a choice to make, and they could
21:41
Speaker 1: make Christy nomes life miserable. So let me go through
21:44
Speaker 1: the top lines. None of them. There's really only one
21:50
Speaker 1: thing that Trump pulls okay on, and we'll get to it.
21:54
Speaker 1: This is not a good poll and again Fox News
21:56
Speaker 1: poll that could get amplified in the cable channel will see.
22:00
Speaker 1: This is why I want to share so many details
22:02
Speaker 1: here because I'm not convinced you're going to hear a
22:04
Speaker 1: lot about it. Fifty four percent think the country is
22:08
Speaker 1: worse off today than it was a year ago, bet
22:11
Speaker 1: to just thirty one percent says they're better off. It's
22:13
Speaker 1: a twenty three point deficit. Mostly comes from Democrats eighty
22:18
Speaker 1: four percent. In independence, seventy one percent say the country
22:22
Speaker 1: is worse off today than they were a year ago.
22:27
Speaker 1: Among Republicans, only sixty one percent say it's better off.
22:32
Speaker 1: Look the way our polarized environment. Right, if you're a
22:36
Speaker 1: republic if you're a Republican president, and your Republican numbers,
22:39
Speaker 1: no matter what the score is is in the eighties
22:41
Speaker 1: and nineties, you're fine with your base. When it starts
22:44
Speaker 1: to get in the sixties or seventies on questions, it
22:47
Speaker 1: means you've got problems even among members of your own party.
22:51
Speaker 1: So only sixty one percent, right, you have these huge
22:55
Speaker 1: majorities you say we're worse off Democrats, it's not surprising,
22:57
Speaker 1: but the independent number is a big deal at seven.
23:00
Speaker 1: But the fact that only sixty one percent of Republicans
23:03
Speaker 1: are saying we're better off, not a great sign. Here's
23:07
Speaker 1: more on how this economy, and that's the theme of
23:09
Speaker 1: this poll is that nobody likes this economy, and majorities,
23:13
Speaker 1: including Republicans, think the president's not focused enough on the economy.
23:18
Speaker 1: Only twenty five percent of voters say they're better off
23:20
Speaker 1: financially than they were a year ago when Trump first
23:23
Speaker 1: of offense. More than four intents say the administration's economic
23:26
Speaker 1: policies have hurt them. Okay, only about two intens say
23:32
Speaker 1: the president's policies have helped them. Also of notes is
23:38
Speaker 1: how pessimistic voters are right now about the economy. Forty
23:43
Speaker 1: five percent expect the economy to get worse over the
23:45
Speaker 1: next year. Thirty two percent expected to get better. A
23:52
Speaker 1: year ago. There was a lot more optimism about the
23:55
Speaker 1: economy right a year ago, when they're more people would
24:02
Speaker 1: thought the economy was going to get better by two
24:04
Speaker 1: points than worse offt So this is a pretty dramatic
24:07
Speaker 1: shift that you now have nearly half of folks think
24:11
Speaker 1: the economy is going to be worse over the next year,
24:14
Speaker 1: and only thirty two percent say it's going to get better.
24:16
Speaker 1: So the pessimism at the start of this year about
24:19
Speaker 1: the economy not great. Now the good news for the
24:23
Speaker 1: president is if somehow the economy performs better, people will
24:27
Speaker 1: notice and they'll give them a bunch of credit. But
24:30
Speaker 1: the fact that they've already decided this is going to
24:32
Speaker 1: be a bad economy, it could make this an even
24:34
Speaker 1: stickier issue. Every negative economic headline only reinforces this point
24:39
Speaker 1: of view that this economy is getting worse. A few
24:44
Speaker 1: other things on his job rating, so overall, forty four
24:47
Speaker 1: percent approve of the job that has not moved since
24:49
Speaker 1: December eighty five percent of Republicans approved. Ninety seven percent
24:53
Speaker 1: of those that identify with the MAGA movement approve of
24:56
Speaker 1: his job. But his disapproval rating, according to Fox, is
25:00
Speaker 1: near all time highs among white voters fifty four percent,
25:03
Speaker 1: among self described moderates seventy percent, and among independents seventy
25:08
Speaker 1: eight percent. Independence. All right, look, they're not MAGA, right,
25:14
Speaker 1: but they're not liberal. That's a bad that's a tough number.
25:20
Speaker 1: Party that wins independence usually wins the mid terms anyway.
25:25
Speaker 1: And of course, like I said, is right now he's
25:27
Speaker 1: got the same approval rating essentially as both in the
25:30
Speaker 1: Fox Bowl, as both Obama second term Obama did and
25:33
Speaker 1: second term Bush forty three did at this same point
25:37
Speaker 1: in time. But the biggest issue that comes from this
25:39
Speaker 1: poll is that they think Trump is spending too much
25:43
Speaker 1: time on foreign policy and not enough time in the economy, immigration,
25:49
Speaker 1: and border security. Forty seven percent say he's spending too
25:51
Speaker 1: much time on it, thirty five percent say it's about rife,
25:55
Speaker 1: seventeen percent say not enough. On foreign policy, thirty seven
25:58
Speaker 1: percent say he's spending two much time, twenty seven percent
26:03
Speaker 1: say not enough, but thirty five percent say it's about right.
26:05
Speaker 1: And on the economy, only eight percent say he's spending
26:07
Speaker 1: too much time on it, sixty eight percent say he's
26:11
Speaker 1: not spending enough time on the economy. All right, when
26:14
Speaker 1: you're at sixty eight percent, it means that's independence, that's Democrats,
26:17
Speaker 1: and then and that's Republicans. They also did a word cloud.
26:23
Speaker 1: I'm glad they do some word clouds the NBC poll.
26:25
Speaker 1: We started doing word clouds before I left and Trump's
26:30
Speaker 1: top priority of president, They asked what should his top
26:32
Speaker 1: priority be? Well, voters are more likely to say economy
26:36
Speaker 1: or prices, although resigning came near to the top as
26:39
Speaker 1: that was the among the number one things that self
26:43
Speaker 1: described Democrats and many independences say should be Trump's number
26:47
Speaker 1: one task. But after that focus on the economy, everybody
26:51
Speaker 1: said that over both immigration and foreign policy, and overall
26:58
Speaker 1: this contributes to him having a negative job rating pretty
27:02
Speaker 1: much across the board on issues. Right, So he's sitting
27:04
Speaker 1: at forty four percent. And I'm going to get to
27:07
Speaker 1: this point in a minute, which is why I think
27:09
Speaker 1: Christy nomes days could be numbered if if Fox chooses
27:16
Speaker 1: to make a big deal of this on TV and
27:18
Speaker 1: he starts to see it. Right, So his overall job
27:20
Speaker 1: rating forty four fifty six percent disapprove, okay, on Greenland,
27:25
Speaker 1: his approval is just thirty one sixty seven. On inflation,
27:28
Speaker 1: it's thirty five sixty five. On tariffs, it's thirty seven
27:31
Speaker 1: sixty three disapproved. On Russia sixty two percent disapproving, just
27:36
Speaker 1: thirty seven percent. Approved on healthcare thirty eight sixty one.
27:39
Speaker 1: You see, these are just terrible numbers, right, His job
27:42
Speaker 1: rating is better than all the individual's that gets to
27:45
Speaker 1: there are some that are you know, if you make
27:47
Speaker 1: people think about specific issues, well, even those that like
27:50
Speaker 1: him don't like them on this, or don't like them
27:52
Speaker 1: on this, or don't like Well, that's what you see here.
27:55
Speaker 1: You know, he's only got two issues where his approval
27:58
Speaker 1: rating is higher than is overall job rating. His approval
28:01
Speaker 1: rating is lower on Venezuela, lower on Iran, lower on
28:05
Speaker 1: the economy, lower on Ukraine, lower on foreign policy, lower
28:08
Speaker 1: on healthcare, Russia, tariffs, inflation, Greenland. Okay, so there's two
28:14
Speaker 1: issues which he has a higher job rating than is
28:17
Speaker 1: overall rating. It's border security and immigration. But what I
28:22
Speaker 1: like what Fox did, and I really advise all polsters
28:26
Speaker 1: to do this is don't put border security and immigration
28:30
Speaker 1: in the same bucket. Separate them out. They separate them
28:34
Speaker 1: out because on border security, when you say the word border,
28:40
Speaker 1: Trump's approval rating on that is fifty two percent. You
28:44
Speaker 1: know who's not at the border, Christy No and Ice.
28:49
Speaker 1: On immigration, his approval rating is only at forty five
28:53
Speaker 1: percent and his disapprovals at fifty five That is all
28:57
Speaker 1: due to Ice. And oh, by the way, they'd ask
29:00
Speaker 1: some specific Ice questions. Fifty nine percent overall think Ice
29:05
Speaker 1: has been too aggressive. Ice does not perform well even
29:08
Speaker 1: amongst some Trump voters in this In this poll, one
29:14
Speaker 1: final question that I think sort of sums up this poll,
29:18
Speaker 1: and sort of my guess is is that for some
29:23
Speaker 1: of you, it's like, Okay, I'm not alone here, right.
29:25
Speaker 1: Fifty five percent of voters say the US position in
29:27
Speaker 1: the world is worse today than it was a year
29:29
Speaker 1: ago when Trump took office. Thirty percent think it's better now,
29:32
Speaker 1: and fifteen percent it's stayed the same. Okay now, Republicans
29:36
Speaker 1: fifty nine percent say it's better, and Trump voters fifty
29:38
Speaker 1: eight percent say it's better. But that's it, right. And again,
29:42
Speaker 1: when Trump's in the fifties or sixties among his supporters
29:46
Speaker 1: being that positive on something, and he's not sitting in
29:49
Speaker 1: the eighties or nineties or even ice seventies, that's when
29:53
Speaker 1: you know this thing is cutting across larger, larger lines.
29:58
Speaker 1: So I just want to get one more part of
30:02
Speaker 1: this survey because the specific questions on ICE, which I
30:07
Speaker 1: do think we're going to see quite a bit of
30:13
Speaker 1: on this, let me get you some of these details
30:17
Speaker 1: on ICE. So majority say ICE's efforts have been too aggressive.
30:22
Speaker 1: Among all voters, fifty nine percent say it's been too aggressive,
30:25
Speaker 1: twenty four percent say it's been about right. Seventeen percent
30:28
Speaker 1: not aggressive enough. Among Democrats, it's eighty eight percent too aggressive.
30:31
Speaker 1: Among independents, it's seventy one percent too aggressive. Among Republicans
30:35
Speaker 1: it's twenty seven percent too aggressive. Okay, so this is
30:40
Speaker 1: another one of those where he's not in the eighties
30:43
Speaker 1: or nineties on something, and that's when you know it's
30:47
Speaker 1: a problem. Here's the thing. In July of twenty twenty five,
30:51
Speaker 1: when they ask these questions about Ice Republicans, you had
30:54
Speaker 1: only seventeen percent of Republicans thought it was too aggressive.
30:57
Speaker 1: So that's jumped ten points in six months. Obviously, you
31:01
Speaker 1: might say, well they just asked it after Ice killed
31:04
Speaker 1: to American citizens. Yeah, you're going to have some impact there,
31:09
Speaker 1: even among supposedly core Republican supporters. What's interesting on this
31:18
Speaker 1: is they broke it down even further. There are parts
31:22
Speaker 1: of the president's base who now think, by bigger numbers
31:27
Speaker 1: that Ice has been too aggressive. So among Republican women
31:31
Speaker 1: it was sixteen percent in July, it's now thirty percent.
31:35
Speaker 1: Onto the two aggressive numbers. Among Trump voters, seventeen percent
31:39
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five was too aggressive. Twenty six percent
31:42
Speaker 1: say now it's too aggressive. Among independence and went from
31:45
Speaker 1: forty nine to seventy one moderates fifty one to seventy
31:48
Speaker 1: Whites without a college degree. This is one of the
31:51
Speaker 1: key demographic groups in the Trump coalition. Forty one percent
31:56
Speaker 1: called it too aggressive. In July twenty twenty five, a
31:59
Speaker 1: majority fifty five percent say it's now too aggressive. This
32:03
Speaker 1: is why if I were Christino and I turn on
32:10
Speaker 1: Fox News and I see them constantly showing these bad
32:17
Speaker 1: poll numbers for ICE. In fact, support for abolishing ICE
32:20
Speaker 1: has doubled since twenty eighteen and twenty eighteen, eighteen percent
32:23
Speaker 1: favored polishing ICE. Now it's up to thirty six percent.
32:25
Speaker 1: It's mostly driven by Democrats, but that number has doubled.
32:31
Speaker 1: ICE's reputation has gotten worse. And whose fault is that? Ultimately,
32:36
Speaker 1: I think it's it's the president's policy. It's designed by
32:39
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller. But I'm telling you you got to think
32:43
Speaker 1: about this the way Trump is going to process that.
32:46
Speaker 1: He's going to look at this and say, huh, who's
32:52
Speaker 1: in charge of ICE? Not me?
32:55
Speaker 2: She is.
32:57
Speaker 1: And as anybody has known, you talk to anybody that
33:00
Speaker 1: worked with Donald Trump, going all the way back to
33:01
Speaker 1: the Trump Organization in nineteen seventy two, and in conjunction
33:07
Speaker 1: with a journalistic friend of mine a few years back,
33:10
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of time for a big project
33:14
Speaker 1: talking to people who were in Trump's inner circle over
33:17
Speaker 1: the years. You know, you had New York inner circle
33:20
Speaker 1: in the seventies, you had the New Jersey inner circle,
33:23
Speaker 1: in the eighties, the TV inter circle, folks in the
33:28
Speaker 1: ots and in the nineties. Anyway, here's the pattern. He
33:33
Speaker 1: basically got a new inner circle about every six to
33:35
Speaker 1: eight years, and he always it always ended badly, right,
33:43
Speaker 1: there was never there was. In fact, Roger Stone might
33:49
Speaker 1: be the only person that was sort of in his
33:50
Speaker 1: inner circle in the eighties. That's still kind of welcome. Now.
33:54
Speaker 1: Nobody else is right, nobody ever sticks around because Trump's
34:03
Speaker 1: never going to take the blame. He will always find
34:06
Speaker 1: someone else to blame. And he's done that over the
34:08
Speaker 1: years that he ends up alienating his inner circle at
34:11
Speaker 1: some point one or the other, or blaming his inner circle.
34:14
Speaker 1: And so the pattern is what the pattern is. A
34:20
Speaker 1: lot of this will be dependent on the tone and
34:22
Speaker 1: tenor of how Fox reports this poll. I think if
34:26
Speaker 1: they report this poll a certain way, Christy nom will
34:29
Speaker 1: not be DHS Secretary by Monday morning. But if they
34:32
Speaker 1: bury it, right, if you know, if it doesn't get
34:35
Speaker 1: the attention on the cable channel, maybe she survives. But
34:41
Speaker 1: I I think here's the other thing. Nom's other problem.
34:46
Speaker 1: She is nobody in the nobody in the Republican Senate
34:49
Speaker 1: that gives two shits about her, right you know. J
34:53
Speaker 1: Powell has supporters in there. There's certain people that maybe
34:56
Speaker 1: Trump would like the fire and hasn't because they have
34:58
Speaker 1: a constituency, a Republican constituency, either in the House or
35:02
Speaker 1: the Senate. Christy Nobe has no constituency. That's what makes
35:07
Speaker 1: her so vulnerable at this moment. May not happen because
35:11
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't like to quote, you know, he doesn't in
35:14
Speaker 1: some case don't want to feed the beast. But I
35:19
Speaker 1: don't know. I wouldn't uh, I wouldn't answer any calls
35:25
Speaker 1: or take any you know. But then again, my guess
35:30
Speaker 1: is if it happens, it happens in a truth social post.
35:33
Speaker 1: When it does, all right, very quickly, I just want
35:35
Speaker 1: to give you guys a little rundown of what I did.
35:38
Speaker 1: I just sort of walk you through my introduction of
35:41
Speaker 1: what this speech is. And and hey, if you like
35:43
Speaker 1: what you heard, we can we can do more of this.
35:47
Speaker 1: But I sort of previewed it this way. I said, look,
35:51
Speaker 1: I wasn't there to give a lecture. This wasn't about
35:56
Speaker 1: telling you what should be. I wasn't there for a
36:00
Speaker 1: therapy session. I wasn't there to do a political rally.
36:04
Speaker 1: I was there to try to tackle three basic questions,
36:08
Speaker 1: where are we right now? How did we get here?
36:10
Speaker 1: And how do we make sure we don't stay here?
36:15
Speaker 1: And I said, I wasn't going to sit here and
36:16
Speaker 1: just try to blame all of our problems on one person.
36:22
Speaker 1: And then I was going to say things weren't simple.
36:26
Speaker 1: So I laid it out much of it. You devoted listeners,
36:29
Speaker 1: you've heard me on some of these things that you know.
36:33
Speaker 1: One of the things that I like to make clear
36:35
Speaker 1: when I have an opportunity with a large audience is
36:39
Speaker 1: just sort of, you know, try to give people a
36:43
Speaker 1: little bit of a history lesson. And you know, one
36:45
Speaker 1: of the big points I like to make is that
36:47
Speaker 1: that the era that most of us, especially the people
36:50
Speaker 1: that were in that audience and you know they're you know,
36:54
Speaker 1: my age or older, essentially, is we may have grown
36:58
Speaker 1: up in an outlier era of American history and I
37:02
Speaker 1: and the point being that our natural state as Americans
37:06
Speaker 1: is polarization, that this might be more of a natural
37:09
Speaker 1: state rather than an unusual state. Now it feels unusual
37:13
Speaker 1: to us because we grew up in this during the
37:16
Speaker 1: Cold War. Well, it turns out the Cold War really
37:20
Speaker 1: sort of kept us sort of. The Cold War served
37:24
Speaker 1: a set of moderating guardrails. You know. One of the
37:29
Speaker 1: points I make is that, like you know, the two
37:31
Speaker 1: times during the Cold War that each party went and
37:36
Speaker 1: let its base make the presidential nominating decision just massive landslides,
37:44
Speaker 1: very Goldwater sixty four, George McGovern seventy two. But those
37:49
Speaker 1: two landslides, right by the way, they were landslides against
37:55
Speaker 1: people that two presidents that were not beloved at the time,
38:02
Speaker 1: neither LBJ or Nixon. But it was more out of
38:05
Speaker 1: fear that whoa whoa, whoa gold both Goldwater and McGovern.
38:09
Speaker 1: There were enough people who convince, you know, they're going
38:12
Speaker 1: to manage the Cold War differently. We're doing okay so far,
38:15
Speaker 1: you know, we got it. We can't we can't risk
38:18
Speaker 1: we can't risk capitulating to the to the Russians or
38:20
Speaker 1: picking a fight with either way. You know, Goldwater made
38:23
Speaker 1: people think we were more likely to get into a
38:25
Speaker 1: war with the Soviets, and government looked like he was
38:28
Speaker 1: going to capitulate too much of that either way. We
38:29
Speaker 1: didn't want either one of that. But those two elections
38:34
Speaker 1: were stuffed in between three of the closest elections of
38:36
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, sixty sixty eight and seventy six. The
38:40
Speaker 1: point being is when the parties basically stayed in their
38:42
Speaker 1: mainstream and the quote unquote politics stopped at the water's
38:47
Speaker 1: edge type of mindset that everybody was kind of in
38:49
Speaker 1: the same boat. It it kept either party from nominating
38:58
Speaker 1: anybody from sort of the the minority wing of their party,
39:02
Speaker 1: right the nationalist wing with the with the with the Republicans,
39:06
Speaker 1: and the progressive or socialist wing of the Democrats. Then
39:10
Speaker 1: the Cold War ends, and literally within it's it's less
39:14
Speaker 1: than an election cycle that we get the nationalist wing
39:18
Speaker 1: of the of the Republican Party popping back up with
39:21
Speaker 1: the Pat Buchannan election. So it's it. So that's always
39:26
Speaker 1: like step one of what I do in these talks
39:28
Speaker 1: is try to sort of because it's it a line
39:33
Speaker 1: share of the audience. You know, grew up very simple,
39:36
Speaker 1: you know, in the Cold War, and it just our
39:38
Speaker 1: Cold War. And I think, you know, I've had to
39:40
Speaker 1: do this over the last ten years. Is unlearned so
39:44
Speaker 1: many political so much of the political analysis that I
39:51
Speaker 1: knew to be true through the prism of the Cold
39:53
Speaker 1: War mindset or the Cold War influenced electorate. And how
39:58
Speaker 1: much that's that's change. I mean, six of our first
40:05
Speaker 1: seven presidential elections in this century have been decided by
40:10
Speaker 1: five points or less. We only had five in the
40:12
Speaker 1: entire twentieth century, right, which essentially two thirds of that
40:18
Speaker 1: century was either a global war, hot war or a
40:23
Speaker 1: cold war. But our politics today looks a lot more
40:30
Speaker 1: like the nineteenth century, both either pre Civil War or
40:33
Speaker 1: post Civil war. But it feels very similar. The divides
40:38
Speaker 1: are similar, the arguments are similar. Who's an American? Who
40:41
Speaker 1: gets to be an American? And so it's it's sort
40:49
Speaker 1: of I do that because I think, I think it's
40:55
Speaker 1: I know what it does for me. It helps to
40:59
Speaker 1: ground me. And like, you know, look, man, we've been
41:03
Speaker 1: we've we've been in far worse places. You know, the
41:05
Speaker 1: voters eventually figure it out. Trust the voters to figure
41:10
Speaker 1: this out. And then the other big point I want
41:13
Speaker 1: to make is is, you know, we sit here and
41:15
Speaker 1: we're so preoccupied with the presidency, and you know, either
41:20
Speaker 1: we put too much on the presidency in different ways,
41:24
Speaker 1: and it's simply because of the failure of Congress, right,
41:27
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, so the more I the
41:30
Speaker 1: more I talk about how broken that essentially Congress is
41:36
Speaker 1: the is patient zero here, although patient makes it feel
41:42
Speaker 1: like they're victim. Like you know, Congress is at the
41:44
Speaker 1: root of all of our biggest complaints about the democracy. Right,
41:49
Speaker 1: Why does the democracy feel more distant from voters than
41:51
Speaker 1: ever before because the House stopped expanding, Right, it is
41:55
Speaker 1: couldn't be further away. Why do we have so much
41:58
Speaker 1: gerrymandering and transactionalism because Congress is so factionalized. Every congressional
42:08
Speaker 1: district is gerrymandered. You know, everybody is trying to sort
42:12
Speaker 1: of lock in power rather than letting the people's house
42:16
Speaker 1: be the people's house. Right. And and then of course,
42:22
Speaker 1: in order to keep power, they have tried to punt
42:26
Speaker 1: controversial decisions. So Congress doesn't you know, doesn't get involved
42:31
Speaker 1: in women's reproductive rights when arguably it should be that
42:34
Speaker 1: we should have legislation. It should be codified into law,
42:37
Speaker 1: but Congress won't touch it right, so instead it goes
42:40
Speaker 1: to the courts. Congress wouldn't desegregate the schools. The courts
42:43
Speaker 1: had to do it right, and so it Congress's dereliction
42:48
Speaker 1: of duty has empowered presidents and made the executive branch
42:55
Speaker 1: much too powerful than it should be. It is then
43:00
Speaker 1: forced activists since they can't get any relief from Congress.
43:04
Speaker 1: They've got They spent a generation going to the courts.
43:07
Speaker 1: So what did Congress do to the courts? They politicize
43:10
Speaker 1: the courts? Right, Our courts are more politicized today because
43:14
Speaker 1: of decisions Congress may to lower the threshold to partisanize
43:19
Speaker 1: all of our judges. So, you know, I usually have
43:25
Speaker 1: you know, I always I'm hopeful, and then I do
43:27
Speaker 1: my riff on local media, which you've heard me say,
43:30
Speaker 1: and how we've sort of forgotten service journalism, and then
43:36
Speaker 1: you know, I put my ideas out there of what
43:39
Speaker 1: i'd like to see the chain, getting rid of partisan primaries,
43:41
Speaker 1: things like that. But the biggest thing is we're not
43:45
Speaker 1: going to get out of this, and this was my largerment.
43:48
Speaker 1: We're not going to get out of this until Congress
43:49
Speaker 1: figures realizes it it is. It is Article one in
43:55
Speaker 1: the Constitution for a reason, and Congress, without having to
44:01
Speaker 1: add constitutional amendments, if they could do their job, could
44:07
Speaker 1: bring some accountability back, whether it's to politicians, to government agencies,
44:13
Speaker 1: or to corporate boardrooms. You know, if we look, do
44:19
Speaker 1: we where we need a constitutional amendment is on money
44:23
Speaker 1: in politics? Right? If the courts are going to rule
44:27
Speaker 1: equate money in speech, then the only way you're going
44:29
Speaker 1: to be able to put limits is create a constitutional amendment.
44:34
Speaker 1: So there're gonna be some things we need constitucial movement.
44:36
Speaker 1: It may be that we need a constitutional amendment to
44:38
Speaker 1: force the House of Representatives to be the people's house.
44:42
Speaker 1: So I think we may need to say no congressional
44:44
Speaker 1: district can be any bigger than point three percent of
44:46
Speaker 1: the population, which if you put it right now, that
44:50
Speaker 1: would put us somewhere about one to four hundred thousand.
44:53
Speaker 1: So it would double the size of the House. And
44:55
Speaker 1: I promise you've double the size of the house. You
44:56
Speaker 1: no longer have a a electoral college problem. You've minimized
45:02
Speaker 1: the gerrymander Problemly know, by the way you may have
45:05
Speaker 1: brought the government a bit closer to the people, which
45:08
Speaker 1: was the intent of the founders. And if you're on
45:10
Speaker 1: the conservative side of the island, consider yourself a textualists
45:14
Speaker 1: or constitutionalists. That should be music to your ears. So
45:22
Speaker 1: that's the uh, that's the spirit with which I like
45:26
Speaker 1: to do some of these talks when I am invited
45:29
Speaker 1: to do it. Do a little bit of news of
45:32
Speaker 1: the day and some other things like that, but the
45:34
Speaker 1: bigger stuff and ultimately we can't. You know, the other
45:37
Speaker 1: message I have is we citizens have our work to do.
45:42
Speaker 1: You know, I'm working in the media space to try
45:45
Speaker 1: to build a better information ecosystem. Now there's some things
45:48
Speaker 1: that we can't fix as journalists, right the tech algorithms,
45:53
Speaker 1: things like that. That's what our members of Congress have
45:55
Speaker 1: to do. But people, it goes back to it. It's like,
45:58
Speaker 1: you know, don't hope that some senator is going to
46:01
Speaker 1: vote to impede convict an impeachment inquiry. Don' want hope
46:04
Speaker 1: that impeachment is going to be a magical solution, or
46:07
Speaker 1: that the twenty fifth Amendment is going to be the
46:10
Speaker 1: only way we get out of this. Is you, the voters,
46:15
Speaker 1: have to decide to take us out of this look.
46:18
Speaker 1: The other thing we all have to realize is is
46:21
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the things I sometimes we
46:23
Speaker 1: forget the following and I'm gonna I'm going to leave
46:26
Speaker 1: it here and then get to my interview with Jason
46:30
Speaker 1: Zengerly on Tucker Carlson, which I know many of you
46:33
Speaker 1: are going to be intrigued about. The voters have been
46:37
Speaker 1: sending a primal scream that they want they want better government,
46:44
Speaker 1: and they want a more responsive government, and they don't
46:47
Speaker 1: like what they had for a long time. And how
46:49
Speaker 1: do we know this Because in back to back presidencies,
46:53
Speaker 1: the American electorate did something it had never done before,
46:57
Speaker 1: and they did it to presidencies in a row. One
47:00
Speaker 1: was elected a minority to the American presidency. We'd never
47:05
Speaker 1: done that before. And then the very next new president
47:11
Speaker 1: we elect is the single least experienced in government president
47:16
Speaker 1: we've ever put into office, no military experience, no public
47:21
Speaker 1: service experience whatsoever. Some of the same voters voted for
47:30
Speaker 1: both of them. It was a primal screen we want
47:36
Speaker 1: a different direction, we want real change. And folks don't
47:41
Speaker 1: know They didn't necessarily know what change they wanted. They
47:45
Speaker 1: just knew their lives sucked and it should be better,
47:48
Speaker 1: and government needs to do more, and it became and
47:56
Speaker 1: Trump almost was a primal screen. But I don't think
47:59
Speaker 1: we fully appreciate that we did what. You know, you
48:04
Speaker 1: may not like what the voters did on one election,
48:08
Speaker 1: and you may really like what they did in the other.
48:10
Speaker 1: It all depends on where you said. But the same
48:13
Speaker 1: voters did it on both and the good politicians, the
48:17
Speaker 1: good public servants, and the good members of the press. No,
48:22
Speaker 1: voters are always trying to tell us something. Listen to
48:25
Speaker 1: what they're saying. So we'll see, all right with that.
48:31
Speaker 1: I'll sneak in a break when we come back. Jason's
48:35
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50:23
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50:28
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50:31
Speaker 1: with you with the audience many a time. And there's
50:35
Speaker 1: a lot of ways we can answer the how did
50:37
Speaker 1: we get here? How did we get here as far
50:38
Speaker 1: as the Democratic parties concerned, how did we get here
50:40
Speaker 1: in the state of media. Then there's the how did
50:42
Speaker 1: the conservative movement get to a point where it became
50:44
Speaker 1: Donald Trump? And what is the conservative and what's even
50:47
Speaker 1: the definition of conservative today, which is one of my
50:50
Speaker 1: favorite conversations with my friends Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes.
50:53
Speaker 1: And so in that spirit, my guest today, Jason's Engerly,
50:58
Speaker 1: has a new book, look Out that at first Blush
51:02
Speaker 1: is going to seem like it's a biography of Tucker Carlson,
51:04
Speaker 1: which it is not, but it is an attempt to
51:07
Speaker 1: answer this question. First of all, Jason's with me now,
51:11
Speaker 1: and Jason, I have to say I love the title
51:13
Speaker 1: of your book. I think the title of your book.
51:16
Speaker 1: You know, it's like titles matter a lot, hated by
51:19
Speaker 1: all the right people. Right, which is it does It's
51:22
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative mind. But
51:26
Speaker 1: your book is an attempt more at trying to understand it.
51:29
Speaker 1: How did conservatism find its way to Trump? Or vice
51:32
Speaker 1: versa lesson about Tucker Carlson. But Carlson, your vehicle for
51:36
Speaker 1: this conversation is that that I described the book correctly?
51:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think Tucker serves
51:41
Speaker 2: as kind of this hopefully you know, compelling vehicle to
51:45
Speaker 2: tell the history the last sort of thirty years of
51:49
Speaker 2: conservative media and conservative politics, because he started in such
51:53
Speaker 2: a different place from where he's wound up, and I
51:56
Speaker 2: think his journey in the various stops along the way,
51:58
Speaker 2: you know, kind of reveals a lot about the incentive
52:01
Speaker 2: structure that exists in both conservative media and conservative politics
52:04
Speaker 2: that has created the situation we're now in.
52:07
Speaker 1: Before I get to the larger issue here, but Tucker Carlson,
52:12
Speaker 1: the individual, those of us that have had relationships with
52:18
Speaker 1: him at different points in time in his professional life,
52:22
Speaker 1: you all have the same question what happened to Tucker?
52:26
Speaker 1: And I imagine you heard various explanations. How much of
52:32
Speaker 1: it do you think As you were pursuing this, I
52:36
Speaker 1: was having this conversation with my wife. You know, when
52:41
Speaker 1: I wrote a biography of Barack Obama, I always one
52:45
Speaker 1: of my through line observations, and it just was early
52:47
Speaker 1: on in my research, was, you know, how the relationship
52:51
Speaker 1: his white grandmother had with him and the sort of
52:55
Speaker 1: the political lessons he took from her. They weren't necessarily
52:58
Speaker 1: political lessons, but what he to book and sort of
53:01
Speaker 1: made him a bit more risk averse and just sort
53:03
Speaker 1: of navigating two worlds. Richie wrote his own book about it.
53:07
Speaker 1: But also, you know, but you can't on when you're
53:09
Speaker 1: writing about Obama. That's a part of the story Tucker
53:13
Speaker 1: Carlson's origin story, I can tell you. Ever since I
53:16
Speaker 1: read about the abandonment of Tucker by his mother at
53:20
Speaker 1: at a young age, it has been I can't unhear that,
53:25
Speaker 1: And it's at the core of everything I get when
53:27
Speaker 1: I think about, well, why does Tucker do this that
53:29
Speaker 1: or the other thing? How much does did that? I
53:36
Speaker 1: guess what I'm saying is like, how much did the
53:38
Speaker 1: personal journeys of Tucker Carlson and the professional journeys. How
53:42
Speaker 1: did you sort of both disaggregate that and and messhit
53:46
Speaker 1: if you will.
53:47
Speaker 2: And I think I was more interested in the professional
53:49
Speaker 2: journey than the personal journey.
53:51
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, you.
53:52
Speaker 2: Know, if you're doing kind if you were psychoanalyzed Tucker,
53:56
Speaker 2: I think his mom leaving at the age of five
53:58
Speaker 2: or six, and.
54:00
Speaker 1: It's the single most important thing to understanding particularly and
54:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to speak for you know, it's an important
54:08
Speaker 1: explanation for my wife and understanding why he says and
54:12
Speaker 1: thinks the things he does about women. Yeah, I can.
54:15
Speaker 1: I can definitely see that.
54:16
Speaker 2: I think there's certainly some truth to that and just
54:20
Speaker 2: the journey to send him on, and I agree with that.
54:23
Speaker 2: I definitely write about it in the book, but it's
54:25
Speaker 2: not I don't I don't dwell on it too much
54:27
Speaker 2: because Will Tucker, I think is a really interesting character
54:30
Speaker 2: and an interesting person. He's not to me, at least,
54:33
Speaker 2: he's not that interesting, you know, Barack Obama world historical
54:38
Speaker 2: you know, figure Tucker Carlston maybe not so much. So
54:41
Speaker 2: I think I wanted to write about him more because
54:45
Speaker 2: of just the role he's played the institutions. He's been
54:48
Speaker 2: a part of kind of the larger story he tells,
54:51
Speaker 2: you know, when look if he runs for president in
54:53
Speaker 2: twenty thirty two, the person writing the book then can
54:56
Speaker 2: get a little bit more into the details of his mom,
55:00
Speaker 2: ad and all that. But I do, and it is
55:02
Speaker 2: interesting and he is an interesting guy for that reason,
55:05
Speaker 2: and I do. Then you're right what your wife says. Actually,
55:07
Speaker 2: maybe I should have considered a little bit more. It
55:09
Speaker 2: probably does have a fair amount to do with his
55:11
Speaker 2: you know, thoughts about women and gender roles and the like.
55:13
Speaker 2: But I think that it's it's a more interested kind
55:17
Speaker 2: of in his relationship with Bill Crystal than I am
55:19
Speaker 2: in his relationship with his mom, because I think that
55:22
Speaker 2: in a weird way. I mean, someone once told me
55:24
Speaker 2: that the two most despised figures and most important figures
55:27
Speaker 2: in Tucker's life are his mom and Bill Crystal. And
55:30
Speaker 2: I think sort of his relationship with Bill Crystal, Yeah,
55:33
Speaker 2: accounts for a lot of what he's doing today as well.
55:37
Speaker 1: So his anger at Bill Crystal is it?
55:40
Speaker 2: Is?
55:40
Speaker 1: It? Is? It? Is it a personal vendetta? Is it? What?
55:45
Speaker 1: Do you think?
55:46
Speaker 2: You like?
55:46
Speaker 1: You understand it?
55:47
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, I think so. I mean, I think
55:49
Speaker 2: that Tucker has told other people and I think himself
55:53
Speaker 2: this story about his his journey and about his changes,
55:57
Speaker 2: and you know, it starts with him as a young,
56:00
Speaker 2: you know, very good magazine reporter at the Weekly Standard
56:03
Speaker 2: Bill Crystal, the magazine that Bill Crystal founded, and that
56:06
Speaker 2: maybe he was Tucker's first boss. And Tucker was a
56:09
Speaker 2: fairly you know, run of the mill conventional conservative, maybe
56:13
Speaker 2: a little libertarian, definitely a contrarian, but was very much
56:16
Speaker 2: with kind of where the Weekly Standard was in terms
56:19
Speaker 2: of the things that advocated for, including a very you know,
56:23
Speaker 2: aggressive foreign policy, and Tucker supported the Iraq war, and
56:29
Speaker 2: you know, and to his credit, he was one of
56:31
Speaker 2: the first conservatives to kind of renounce his support and
56:33
Speaker 2: recognize it for the catastrophe that it was. But over
56:38
Speaker 2: the years he's kind of retconned his relationship to The
56:41
Speaker 2: Standard until Bill Crystal, and he now kind of tells
56:44
Speaker 2: this story that he was this young, naive writer who
56:48
Speaker 2: was used by the neo cons to support the war
56:51
Speaker 2: in Iraq, to support free trade deals, to support open borders,
56:55
Speaker 2: and that he's now kind of making amends for that.
56:58
Speaker 2: His his answers today in some way our penance for
57:02
Speaker 2: what he did earlier, now that he knows better, now
57:04
Speaker 2: that you know, the scales have fallen away from his eyes,
57:06
Speaker 2: and Crystal just looms so large in that story, and
57:10
Speaker 2: you know, in recording the book and talking to plenty
57:12
Speaker 2: of people who Tucker worked with and all that, Like,
57:15
Speaker 2: I don't think that. I don't think Crystal brainwashed him
57:18
Speaker 2: into supporting the Iraq war. I don't think Crystal was
57:21
Speaker 2: this you know, puppet master who was controlling Tucker. I think,
57:24
Speaker 2: you know, Tucker was capable of reaching his own opinions.
57:27
Speaker 2: But I think to come to the critique that he
57:32
Speaker 2: has of kind of you know, the political and media lead,
57:36
Speaker 2: he kind of needs a stand in, and I think
57:37
Speaker 2: Crystal has become that for him and just and he
57:40
Speaker 2: really he looms very large just in Tucker's psyche and
57:43
Speaker 2: and in Tucker's own explanations for why he's going to
57:46
Speaker 2: reach this point.
57:47
Speaker 1: Well, look, I think why your book works in trying
57:49
Speaker 1: to use Tucker as a vehicle to explaining sort of
57:54
Speaker 1: how did how did what people call the Conservative party
57:58
Speaker 1: today end up here? And I say that because we're
58:01
Speaker 1: so far away from sort of the definition of we're
58:04
Speaker 1: so far away from the George Will Conservatism, which maybe
58:08
Speaker 1: I'm being too overly simplistic, but I think that's what
58:10
Speaker 1: most people, you know, in the eighties and nineties certainly
58:15
Speaker 1: viewed that, you know, he was George Will was the
58:18
Speaker 1: intellectual avatar of conservative right.
58:20
Speaker 2: He was still like a perky and conservative I mean
58:23
Speaker 2: sort of you know, trying to.
58:23
Speaker 1: Prove and Tucker Carlson with his bow tie and his
58:27
Speaker 1: is you know, attempting the nineties to virtue signal who
58:32
Speaker 1: he was. Was clearly trying to say, Hey, I'm I'm
58:36
Speaker 1: a younger version and maybe a cooler version of George Will.
58:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to make conservatism cool. But at the same time,
58:42
Speaker 1: I'm gonna but this is my path. It's funny that
58:47
Speaker 1: he like saves his venheoment venom for Crystal when in
58:52
Speaker 1: public life it was clear to me he was trying
58:54
Speaker 1: so hard to be George Will.
58:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean literally the bow tie,
58:59
Speaker 2: you know, right right out the boat understanding, like yeah,
59:01
Speaker 2: I mean you know, and he got that from watching
59:03
Speaker 2: Will on the David Prework Show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No,
59:06
Speaker 2: he definitely modeled himself and it maybe I mean, you know,
59:12
Speaker 2: he's a waspy prep school kid. It might have been
59:14
Speaker 2: hard for him to pass as a Jewish Neocon, but yeah,
59:18
Speaker 2: he used to say he was an Episcopalian Neocon. I
59:20
Speaker 2: think he was trying to sort of find this, uh
59:22
Speaker 2: you know, blend the two together. But yeah, he was
59:25
Speaker 2: very much, you know, a part of the not just
59:29
Speaker 2: the conservative establishment, but like the political and media establishment.
59:33
Speaker 2: I mean he was, he was really he's very much
59:34
Speaker 2: a creature of Washington, and he knows.
59:36
Speaker 1: But you know, I will look, I'm going to defend
59:39
Speaker 1: his outsider credential here a minute. And it goes to
59:42
Speaker 1: something that I've observed of Gavin Newsom, and I think
59:44
Speaker 1: Tucker falls into this category. So Tucker was raised a
59:48
Speaker 1: blue blood. Would you agree with that?
59:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, but in kind of a weird way.
59:54
Speaker 1: But yeah, correct. I mean, Gavin news the same thing
59:57
Speaker 1: you are. You have you don't personally have money. You
1:00:02
Speaker 1: actually your childhood was you know, you didn't have certain
1:00:05
Speaker 1: things that all the other rich kids have, but you
1:00:08
Speaker 1: got the same education as the rich kids. You end
1:00:11
Speaker 1: up at the same camps, you got the same job access,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: college access. So it's like it's such a strange thing.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: Like I think Gavin's gonna have a hard time with
1:00:20
Speaker 1: this when he starts running for president in that he
1:00:23
Speaker 1: is he is going to you know, he got all
1:00:26
Speaker 1: the benefits of being wealthy, but except for the money part, right,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: And that was so Tucker was always an outsider, even
1:00:33
Speaker 1: when he was invited on the inside. And I do
1:00:36
Speaker 1: think he wore that on his sleeve as a badge
1:00:39
Speaker 1: of honor. That was always my sense of him.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the question of Tucker and money is
1:00:44
Speaker 2: an interesting one because look, obviously his mother was an
1:00:48
Speaker 2: heiress the Miller family fortune from California, and then his
1:00:51
Speaker 2: stepmother is was an heiress, you know, the Swanson family
1:00:55
Speaker 2: food frozen food fortune. But it's not clear how much
1:00:59
Speaker 2: money was left by the time. By the time Tucker
1:01:01
Speaker 2: came along. I mean, one his mother I think left
1:01:04
Speaker 2: him one dollar in her will, and then his stepmother
1:01:07
Speaker 2: I think maybe the family portion had been depleted a
1:01:09
Speaker 2: little bit.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: I mean he was not poor though, that's what I mean. No,
1:01:12
Speaker 1: but he was also not he was not a rich kid,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: even though he was raised like a rich kid. Yeah.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think once I mean, putting aside his childhood,
1:01:21
Speaker 2: I think once he got to Washington and once he
1:01:23
Speaker 2: started his professional life there, like he was very much
1:01:26
Speaker 2: a member of the club.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: But he was in a hurry. He was definitely in
1:01:31
Speaker 1: a hurry. He took whatever TV show wanted to put
1:01:33
Speaker 1: him on right, which is how he ended. Definitely he was, yeah,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: he was.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: He was ambitious, but you know, he would get invited
1:01:40
Speaker 2: to the dinner parties and the cocktail I mean the
1:01:42
Speaker 2: Georgetown cocktail party that everybody sort of you know, makes
1:01:44
Speaker 2: fun of, like I don't know how much does exist,
1:01:47
Speaker 2: but Tucker was. I mean, you look at the people
1:01:50
Speaker 2: he was friends with. You look at the people whose
1:01:51
Speaker 2: weddings he went to. I mean you look at like
1:01:53
Speaker 2: the attendance at the launch party for The Daily Caller,
1:01:57
Speaker 2: and it's a it's a it's a list of basically
1:01:59
Speaker 2: all of his enemies today, all the people he you know,
1:02:01
Speaker 2: attacks for being members of legacy media and the political elite.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: I mean, that was that was the world that he
1:02:07
Speaker 2: lived in. And he actually lived in d C. I mean,
1:02:09
Speaker 2: he wasn't one of these like Colon Powell Republicans out
1:02:12
Speaker 2: in McLean. He was actually in the city he loved.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: He loved d C. You know he would I mean
1:02:17
Speaker 2: I remember him, you know, encouraging people to live there,
1:02:21
Speaker 2: which was not something you typically got from you know,
1:02:24
Speaker 2: Conservatives or Republicans in Washington. So I mean he had
1:02:27
Speaker 2: a very designated role within that world like he was
1:02:30
Speaker 2: I think I think in the book, I say he
1:02:31
Speaker 2: was like he was the invited skunk at the garden party.
1:02:33
Speaker 2: I mean, people liked him because he was going to
1:02:36
Speaker 2: say something that was outree or you know, you know,
1:02:39
Speaker 2: not sort of hue to the kind of standard Upper
1:02:41
Speaker 2: Northwest d C. Liberal line. But they liked him for that.
1:02:44
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, that's just Tucker, you know, and they're
1:02:46
Speaker 2: kind of like.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, who else is described that
1:02:48
Speaker 1: way in New York City who before he started running
1:02:51
Speaker 1: for president? Donald Trump? Yes, why did you invite Donald
1:02:54
Speaker 1: Trump to parties? Right? You knew who he was, but
1:02:57
Speaker 1: you kind of wanted that. Well, you know, he'll liven
1:03:00
Speaker 1: things up and we need a lively dinner party. You're
1:03:03
Speaker 1: not wrong about that. That's where Tucker and Trump I
1:03:05
Speaker 1: think have a lot in common. Oh yeah, no, I
1:03:08
Speaker 1: think so.
1:03:08
Speaker 2: And I think just the they're populism kind of playing
1:03:11
Speaker 2: this role of you know, class trader like they don't.
1:03:14
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Donald Trump always appears in a suit.
1:03:16
Speaker 2: Tucker still wears his repties and his roleless like they're
1:03:19
Speaker 2: not trying. They're not trying, you know, it's not John
1:03:21
Speaker 2: Kerrey and the Hunting Jacket or anything. They you know,
1:03:23
Speaker 2: they they sort of they have credibility in a way
1:03:26
Speaker 2: because they're not pretending they're something they're not, and they're
1:03:29
Speaker 2: able to say I was in the rooms with these people,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: I saw what they said about you when you weren't listening,
1:03:34
Speaker 2: and I'm here to tell you this is what's happening.
1:03:36
Speaker 2: And I think it's a pretty effective stick.
1:03:38
Speaker 1: And yet here's a guy who was texting all these
1:03:41
Speaker 1: terrible things about Donald Trump during January sixth and Election
1:03:44
Speaker 1: Night twenty twenty.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's funny because a lot of people obviously
1:03:49
Speaker 2: come back to those texts, and I think if you
1:03:51
Speaker 2: you know, there's obviously a great difference in what he
1:03:55
Speaker 2: said on air about Donald Trump and what he was
1:03:57
Speaker 2: saying in those texts. At the same time, I do
1:03:59
Speaker 2: think Tucker was a very His approach to Trump during
1:04:02
Speaker 2: Trump's first presidency was very different from everyone else at Fox.
1:04:07
Speaker 2: I mean, he did not he was not sort of
1:04:09
Speaker 2: the throne sniffer that you know Hannity was or Laura Ingram.
1:04:13
Speaker 2: He clearly supported Trump's political project, but he he he
1:04:18
Speaker 2: kind of kept a certain distance from him personally. He
1:04:21
Speaker 2: didn't engage in as much cull to personality stuff, but
1:04:25
Speaker 2: the end of his presidency, like even on air, he
1:04:27
Speaker 2: was he was pretty critical of Trump. I mean during COVID, during.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: The no that. That was always what made Tucker a
1:04:34
Speaker 1: compelling It was a TV show, Yeah, Hannity, Hannity was predictable.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Tucker was more like O'Reilly. Like O'Reilly. What made O'Reilly
1:04:44
Speaker 1: more interesting than Hannity. You don't always know where he
1:04:46
Speaker 1: was going to come down. Yeah, you know, yeah, you
1:04:50
Speaker 1: know what he's going to do or see.
1:04:53
Speaker 2: And I think Tucker that was sort of the way
1:04:55
Speaker 2: I think he dealt with Trump off air too. You know,
1:04:58
Speaker 2: Hannity was the you know, the shat you're.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Doing great, mister president.
1:05:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and really wanted to be involved and everything.
1:05:04
Speaker 2: Loved going to the Oval office, would call Trump all
1:05:07
Speaker 2: the time. You know, Tucker was like famous at Fox
1:05:09
Speaker 2: for letting some of Trump's calls go to voicemail. He
1:05:13
Speaker 2: really he didn't want to be He didn't want to
1:05:15
Speaker 2: be identified too closely with Trump. Hen want to be
1:05:17
Speaker 2: seen with Trump sometimes he just he was he was
1:05:20
Speaker 2: careful about That's very different than the way he's handling
1:05:22
Speaker 2: it now, So you know, they're the other aspect to
1:05:27
Speaker 2: Tucker that I think for me, the more I think
1:05:30
Speaker 2: about it and the more I read your book, the
1:05:31
Speaker 2: more I understand why he has this.
1:05:35
Speaker 1: Some affinity for Trump is that he's even at Fox.
1:05:39
Speaker 1: When he first you know, he had to do weekend
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Fox and Friends, right, he was not considered good enough
1:05:45
Speaker 1: for the top slot. I believe he was a third tier. Yeah,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: I believe he did weekend Fox and Friends. As like
1:05:53
Speaker 1: they didn't pay him. They're like he was willing to
1:05:55
Speaker 1: do it for almost nothing because he just wanted to
1:05:57
Speaker 1: promote the Daily Caller. Is that is that what.
1:06:01
Speaker 2: My understanding is when he first got to Fox, it
1:06:03
Speaker 2: was just a standard sort of low paying contributor contract.
1:06:06
Speaker 2: By the time he got the Fox and Friends, you know,
1:06:08
Speaker 2: for full time weekend gig, I think I think it
1:06:10
Speaker 2: stepped up in pay, but it was definitely he he
1:06:12
Speaker 2: would have worked at Fox for free, I mean he was.
1:06:15
Speaker 2: He really wanted to both promote the Daily Caller and
1:06:18
Speaker 2: kind of maintain a told in cable news because after
1:06:21
Speaker 2: you know, Fire, after getting washed out at CNN and MSNBC,
1:06:24
Speaker 2: Fox is the only place left.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: And I think he was.
1:06:27
Speaker 2: He was really happy when they took him on, and
1:06:30
Speaker 2: the little morsels they would throw.
1:06:31
Speaker 1: To him, he was happy to have. Well, he to
1:06:34
Speaker 1: me is the reminder that Fox is bigger than the
1:06:39
Speaker 1: than the individuals. Does he know that still, because you know,
1:06:43
Speaker 1: essentially Fox was like, we can put anybody on in
1:06:46
Speaker 1: primetime watch and they were kind of right.
1:06:50
Speaker 2: They were well, they were right about that, like Jesse
1:06:52
Speaker 2: Waters obviously has you know, fantastic ratings seemingly.
1:06:56
Speaker 1: And who is other than like a mid level producer
1:06:59
Speaker 1: for a Ryley at one point decided on air now that.
1:07:02
Speaker 2: And that was always Roger Ayles's theory of the case.
1:07:04
Speaker 2: I remember that famous line, I could put a dead
1:07:06
Speaker 2: raccoon on the air and I'd get better ratings than
1:07:08
Speaker 2: I did last year.
1:07:09
Speaker 1: So that was that was definitely the way Fox operated.
1:07:11
Speaker 2: But I do think the Tucker, in part because his
1:07:15
Speaker 2: rise at Fox occurred after Ales left, in a way
1:07:18
Speaker 2: he did become bigger than the network. He was allowed
1:07:23
Speaker 2: to get away with things there that I think other
1:07:26
Speaker 2: other stars had not been able to get away with,
1:07:28
Speaker 2: and that was partly because the als was no longer there.
1:07:30
Speaker 2: I think the other big difference is that when he
1:07:32
Speaker 2: did leave Fox. I think a lot of people assumed
1:07:35
Speaker 2: that he would disappear the same way Bill O'Reilly has disappeared,
1:07:39
Speaker 2: the same way, you know, Glenn Beck kind of has
1:07:41
Speaker 2: Megan Kelly. Based's a little bit back now, but you know,
1:07:44
Speaker 2: they would face kind of a diminishment of their standing,
1:07:47
Speaker 2: and that really hasn't happened.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: He is, you know, I mean, I would.
1:07:51
Speaker 2: Argue he's actually more influential today than he was a
1:07:55
Speaker 2: kind of I think within trying to figure that out
1:07:59
Speaker 2: within the Trump and administration and I think within kind
1:08:02
Speaker 2: of the MAGA universe. Yeah, I think he's become I
1:08:07
Speaker 2: think he's become maybe more influential and just as just
1:08:10
Speaker 2: as significant, if not more so, than he was than
1:08:14
Speaker 2: he was when he was at Fox, because I mean,
1:08:17
Speaker 2: and you can, I mean, look like you probably much
1:08:19
Speaker 2: better than I do, just the way media is changing.
1:08:22
Speaker 2: I don't think he wanted to get fired from Fox, obviously,
1:08:24
Speaker 2: and I'm sure he was very upset when it happened.
1:08:26
Speaker 2: At the same time, it it was almost a mix.
1:08:29
Speaker 2: It was kind of a blessing in disguise because he's
1:08:31
Speaker 2: been able to sort of enter into this new world
1:08:34
Speaker 2: that is becoming so important. He's gotten a head start
1:08:38
Speaker 2: all the people at Fox Cable News is, you know,
1:08:40
Speaker 2: a dying medium, and he doesn't have to operate with
1:08:44
Speaker 2: any I mean, he had very few guardrails at Fox
1:08:46
Speaker 2: by the end, but now they're none, and that is
1:08:48
Speaker 2: actually like a fairly big advantage.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: In this, in this, in this certain moment. No, there's
1:08:52
Speaker 1: no doubt.
1:08:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's he couldn't. I mean, he could
1:08:56
Speaker 2: not have had Nick Fuentez on his show at Fox,
1:08:58
Speaker 2: and now he can. I'm not saying that's a good thing,
1:09:02
Speaker 2: but I think it. He has had to learn how
1:09:06
Speaker 2: to master the attention economy a lot sooner than I
1:09:10
Speaker 2: think other people in his you were, in his position,
1:09:13
Speaker 2: have had to figure out. And he's done it in
1:09:15
Speaker 2: such a way that I think he's kind of setting
1:09:17
Speaker 2: himself up for a longer run.
1:09:24
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Speaker 1: com slash Chuck. So do you think he's the natural
1:11:10
Speaker 1: air to Rush now? You know, as we've been all
1:11:12
Speaker 1: trying to figure out that even though play Travis and
1:11:14
Speaker 1: Buck Sexon might have the Rush time slot.
1:11:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, radio is not I mean yeah, yeah, And you know,
1:11:23
Speaker 2: I mean the way Rush kind of had his relationship
1:11:26
Speaker 2: with Reagan and HW Bush and then Bush. I think
1:11:29
Speaker 2: I think Tucker's relationship with Trump, when I say he's influential,
1:11:34
Speaker 2: maybe more influential, I think it's because he has the way,
1:11:38
Speaker 2: the way he has just attached himself to Trump now
1:11:40
Speaker 2: and his relationship with Vance, which is I think even
1:11:43
Speaker 2: closer than it is.
1:11:44
Speaker 1: With Well he was at that that to me seems
1:11:47
Speaker 1: to be fascinating that that's a real Do you buy
1:11:50
Speaker 1: that that's real, that that's a real relationship.
1:11:53
Speaker 2: I think I think it's a genuine relationship, and I
1:11:55
Speaker 2: think that I don't think JD. Vans is vice president
1:11:59
Speaker 2: without Tucker. I don't think Jade Vance is Center from
1:12:02
Speaker 2: Ohio without Tucker. I mean the amount of airtime that
1:12:06
Speaker 2: Tucker gave him when he was running for Ohio Senate
1:12:10
Speaker 2: on his show, I think, among Ohio primary voters, probably
1:12:14
Speaker 2: the most important show on television. There's certainly more than
1:12:16
Speaker 2: any local news show. And then, in addition to that,
1:12:20
Speaker 2: and perhaps even more importantly, the degree to which he
1:12:23
Speaker 2: lobbied Trump during that Senate campaign to endorse JD. Vance,
1:12:27
Speaker 2: which was something Trump did not want to do because
1:12:29
Speaker 2: jd Vance had said so many bad things about him.
1:12:32
Speaker 2: You know, Tucker and Don Junior really put on a
1:12:33
Speaker 2: full court press and got JD. Vans the endorsement at
1:12:37
Speaker 2: the end of that primary, which and I don't think
1:12:38
Speaker 2: Jadvance wins that primary without Trump's endorsement. So the degree
1:12:42
Speaker 2: to which Tucker played a role in getting Trump's endorsement,
1:12:44
Speaker 2: which I've been told was a fairly substantial role, that's important.
1:12:48
Speaker 2: And then obviously during the twenty twenty four campaign, when
1:12:51
Speaker 2: there were the deepstakes going on, you know, Tucker was
1:12:53
Speaker 2: one of the biggest voices cheerleading for Vance and look
1:12:56
Speaker 2: like they are so ideologically aligned right now.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: I think I think you.
1:13:01
Speaker 2: Just look at sort of the issues that Vance focuses on,
1:13:04
Speaker 2: the positions he stakes out, and even just the stories
1:13:09
Speaker 2: he tells like they're they're kind of ripped from the
1:13:11
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson Show. There's there's a lot of there's I
1:13:15
Speaker 2: think he kind of has molded himself in some ways
1:13:18
Speaker 2: in Tucker's image.
1:13:19
Speaker 1: Well, it goes to this, you know, there's sort of right,
1:13:22
Speaker 1: there's economic conservatism, religious conservatism, and cultural conservatism, and I
1:13:26
Speaker 1: think where Tucker has his biggest influences on sort of
1:13:29
Speaker 1: shaping what the cultural conservative movement cares about, right, And
1:13:34
Speaker 1: it's the whole greet vincent. Yeah, this is why. It's
1:13:37
Speaker 1: what Rush Limbaugh did best. Rush was not a policy
1:13:40
Speaker 1: want He was not going to tell you how to
1:13:42
Speaker 1: come up with an alternative on healthcare to to go
1:13:47
Speaker 1: up against Obama. Right, that that's just not He doesn't
1:13:50
Speaker 1: He didn't care about policy. He cared more about his status, right,
1:13:57
Speaker 1: and his you know, and and ultimately right, Tucker's personal
1:14:02
Speaker 1: status and the white male grievance sort of right, inter
1:14:09
Speaker 1: he sort of interlocked and he became this avatar for
1:14:13
Speaker 1: grievance for white men. Yeah, oh definitely.
1:14:17
Speaker 2: I mean that, I mean, so much of his persona,
1:14:20
Speaker 2: so much misappeal is about you know, white grievance, similar
1:14:22
Speaker 2: to Trump, similar to Vance.
1:14:24
Speaker 1: It really is white male grievance. It's not even just
1:14:27
Speaker 1: white green yeah whatever. Yeah, I think that's right.
1:14:30
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, and there look like Tucker. I
1:14:31
Speaker 2: mean in a way that I don't think Rush Limball was.
1:14:35
Speaker 2: I think Tucker is. I think Tucker is smarter than
1:14:38
Speaker 2: Rush Limball. I think he I think he has like.
1:14:40
Speaker 1: He's probably reads intellectually a bit more curious that negatively, Like, yeah,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: I think Rush cared about golfing after he was done
1:14:47
Speaker 1: with the show. Where if Tucker is going to read,
1:14:51
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to keep reading, like, you.
1:14:52
Speaker 2: Know, got his joke about golfing is. I think when
1:14:55
Speaker 2: people ask him you do you golf, he says no,
1:14:56
Speaker 2: I still like to have sex. So he's not a
1:14:58
Speaker 2: big golf fan.
1:14:59
Speaker 1: We know that much.
1:15:00
Speaker 2: But Tucker does read. He's got I mean, he does
1:15:02
Speaker 2: have like a pretty sort of compelling critique of you know,
1:15:05
Speaker 2: consumer capitalism. I mean it's not it's not all that
1:15:09
Speaker 2: dovetails with the grievance, but there there is, you know,
1:15:12
Speaker 2: and I think that's one of the reasons I think
1:15:13
Speaker 2: why he advanced are you know, so simpatico And they
1:15:16
Speaker 2: both are smart guys who read a lot, who have
1:15:20
Speaker 2: sort of a more textured understanding of these things than say,
1:15:24
Speaker 2: like Donald Trump is just going to be at this
1:15:26
Speaker 2: lizard brain populism that Tucker advance or a slightly more theory.
1:15:31
Speaker 1: Because Tucker want to solve the problem. I get this
1:15:33
Speaker 1: sense you didn't think he does.
1:15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, the problem in some ways
1:15:38
Speaker 2: is what feeds his success, right I mean so yeah,
1:15:41
Speaker 2: I mean I I think if you could at the
1:15:44
Speaker 2: end of the day, if you could sort of just say,
1:15:45
Speaker 2: all right, we the United States can go back to
1:15:47
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and you know what everything that that means,
1:15:50
Speaker 2: and maybe you won't be on your you know, your
1:15:53
Speaker 2: podcast anymore. I guess as he would take that, you
1:15:55
Speaker 2: would take that sort of trade. I mean, I do
1:15:57
Speaker 2: think that he has like a very at this point
1:16:00
Speaker 2: sincere vision of what he wants the country to be.
1:16:03
Speaker 1: I don't think he's just saying the things he's saying.
1:16:06
Speaker 2: Purely for ratings, I think and I don't think he
1:16:09
Speaker 2: just wants to be a podcaster. I think that he
1:16:11
Speaker 2: has a larger a larger project, and larger ambitions than.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: What is that? What is I mean? You know, he
1:16:18
Speaker 1: also started a tobacco company. I mean, you know, does
1:16:21
Speaker 1: he oh yeah.
1:16:23
Speaker 2: Everything else too, right, Yeah, he wants the he wants
1:16:27
Speaker 2: the manosphere to run things. No, but he I think,
1:16:29
Speaker 2: you know, he he has you know a real sort
1:16:31
Speaker 2: of preference for traditional gender roles and restricted rights for
1:16:35
Speaker 2: you know, gay people, and and a country that's a
1:16:38
Speaker 2: lot wider than it is today, you know, filled with
1:16:41
Speaker 2: legacy Americans or heritage Americans. I I think that he,
1:16:46
Speaker 2: you know, that that's something that he wants, and I
1:16:49
Speaker 2: think he hopes that the elected officials that he supports,
1:16:53
Speaker 2: you know, make that happen. And I think that uh,
1:16:55
Speaker 2: you know, in in in Trump and especially advanced at
1:16:58
Speaker 2: least advance right now.
1:16:59
Speaker 1: I think those those are pretty good vehicles for that. Actually,
1:17:02
Speaker 1: the more I cycled through my brain, Pat he's more
1:17:05
Speaker 1: Pat Buchanan than Rush Limbo.
1:17:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Buchanan's a really important figure.
1:17:11
Speaker 1: And yet he was probably very critical of Buchanan in
1:17:13
Speaker 1: the nineties I'm sure he didn't. Music.
1:17:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, look, it's like the Weekly Standards
1:17:17
Speaker 2: mission in the nineteen nineties was to like read Pat
1:17:20
Speaker 2: Buchanan out of the conservative movement. But and I think
1:17:23
Speaker 2: this is actually quite sincere on Tucker's part. When he
1:17:27
Speaker 2: saw what happened in Iraq and when he got off
1:17:30
Speaker 2: the bandwagon very early, I think he reassessed all of
1:17:34
Speaker 2: the people who he had been sort of told we
1:17:37
Speaker 2: were wrong, and Pat Buchanan was first among them, and
1:17:41
Speaker 2: he started and he basically started to wonder, like what
1:17:42
Speaker 2: else were they? What were they right of? Buchanan was
1:17:45
Speaker 2: right about Iraq? What else was he right about? And
1:17:47
Speaker 2: you see, even going back to his MSNBC days, he
1:17:50
Speaker 2: was pretty he really shifted on immigration early, Like he
1:17:53
Speaker 2: was talking about building a border wall, you know, back
1:17:55
Speaker 2: when he was on MSNBC, like he in Buchanan and
1:17:58
Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow would debate about it, and he and Buchanan
1:18:00
Speaker 2: would be talking about building the wall, and that of
1:18:02
Speaker 2: course would be against it. I think that I think
1:18:05
Speaker 2: that the Iraq experience for him really was, you know,
1:18:08
Speaker 2: a pretty pretty important inflection point and kind of changing
1:18:11
Speaker 2: his his ideological uh, you know, just trajectory did he.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: Is that You know, it's funny that he blames Bill
1:18:17
Speaker 1: Crystal for this, but it was the Bush administration that
1:18:20
Speaker 1: really used and abused reporters who were more than the
1:18:26
Speaker 1: Bush administration.
1:18:27
Speaker 2: I mean, his best friend, the guy who now runs
1:18:30
Speaker 2: his media company with him, Neil Tatel, was Scooter Libby's
1:18:34
Speaker 2: chief of staff. He was in Dick Cheney's office. And yeah,
1:18:37
Speaker 2: the degree to which he blames Bill Crystal and not
1:18:39
Speaker 2: Neil t Tell makes me think that there's a little
1:18:42
Speaker 2: bit more going on there.
1:18:43
Speaker 1: Well, is that the root of his anti Semitism that
1:18:46
Speaker 1: he seems to be flirting with right now is that
1:18:48
Speaker 1: is it all he's angry at Bill and Bill Jewish?
1:18:52
Speaker 2: This is a theory that people who know him well
1:18:56
Speaker 2: have you know, offered to me that that it was
1:19:00
Speaker 2: Crystal and then just you know, beyond that that basically
1:19:02
Speaker 2: all the people he really disagreed with and who were
1:19:04
Speaker 2: attacking him were Jewish neocons, and therefore a way that
1:19:08
Speaker 2: he could needle them was to criticize Israel, and that
1:19:11
Speaker 2: was sort of where it started. I don't think people
1:19:15
Speaker 2: necessarily think that's what's driving it. Now that it is
1:19:20
Speaker 2: blossomed into something else.
1:19:21
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when you had guys like
1:19:23
Speaker 1: Bob Novak and Pat Buchanan who were were openly critical
1:19:28
Speaker 1: of of unilateral of sort of blind support for Israel militarily.
1:19:33
Speaker 1: They were, you know, and they were definitely in the
1:19:37
Speaker 1: minority in their party, but it wasn't like, you know,
1:19:42
Speaker 1: it's funny how we've allowed, you know, support for Israel
1:19:44
Speaker 1: to become this litmus test on anti Semitism when there
1:19:48
Speaker 1: used to be a bit more diversity in both parties
1:19:50
Speaker 1: on this issue. Yeah.
1:19:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, although I think I think Buchanan got sort of
1:19:55
Speaker 2: hit with the anti semitism charged more than Novak did,
1:19:58
Speaker 2: although guess Novak got it a little bit too. Tucker. Yeah,
1:20:03
Speaker 2: the way Tucker talks about Israel now, it's I think
1:20:08
Speaker 2: he goes even further sometimes than where And this is.
1:20:10
Speaker 1: Where I don't think he believes half of what he says,
1:20:12
Speaker 1: but he's looking for the reaction. And I guess this
1:20:15
Speaker 1: is that to me, this is the thing that you
1:20:17
Speaker 1: leave unresolved, and I am I would have done the
1:20:19
Speaker 1: same thing, which is what does he believe?
1:20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I look, it's impossible to know. I think what
1:20:27
Speaker 2: he believes, and I think you see this, and this
1:20:29
Speaker 2: is a real through line through conservative media is he
1:20:31
Speaker 2: does not want to be out of step with the audience.
1:20:34
Speaker 2: And you saw this, you know clearly in the texts
1:20:36
Speaker 2: the Fox News texts during the dominion that came out
1:20:39
Speaker 2: during the dominion lawsuit. You know, the way they're dealing
1:20:41
Speaker 2: with January sixth, and they're all terrified of their audience.
1:20:44
Speaker 2: And I think today Tucker is making the calculus that
1:20:48
Speaker 2: the conservative audience and the energy and especially among younger
1:20:51
Speaker 2: people is with critics of Israel with you know, borderline
1:20:56
Speaker 2: anti Semitic critics of Israel, with neo Nazis like Nick
1:20:59
Speaker 2: fuente Is. He thinks that's where things are headed, and
1:21:02
Speaker 2: he wants to make sure he's ahead of that. You know,
1:21:05
Speaker 2: he's skating to where he thinks the fuck is man.
1:21:07
Speaker 1: I'll just be honest, I guess I'm personally so resentful
1:21:09
Speaker 1: of that kind of process. I mean, especially those of
1:21:12
Speaker 1: us that are trying to build an information first you
1:21:16
Speaker 1: know ecosystem, right, which is when you let the audience
1:21:19
Speaker 1: be your managing editor. This is how we go down
1:21:22
Speaker 1: this Nobody believes anything that they read or see.
1:21:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think he tried that for a little
1:21:26
Speaker 2: bit of a little while to Daily Caller and realized
1:21:28
Speaker 2: pretty quickly that that was that was not going to
1:21:30
Speaker 2: be successful.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: Now, early Daily Caller really wanted to be Yes, it
1:21:35
Speaker 1: was certainly you know, it was going to jab at
1:21:38
Speaker 1: legacy media whenever it could and play that card. But
1:21:41
Speaker 1: they seemed genuinely interested in reporting stories.
1:21:44
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And that was the whole theory of it. It
1:21:46
Speaker 2: was going to you know, he gave that speech at
1:21:48
Speaker 2: Sea Pack in two thousand and nine where you know,
1:21:49
Speaker 2: he said nice things about the New York Times and
1:21:52
Speaker 2: he had that famous quoting of accuracy. Isn't your goal
1:21:54
Speaker 2: as a media company, like you have no future, you
1:21:57
Speaker 2: won't succeed. But I think he realized for early on,
1:22:00
Speaker 2: just by looking at the traffic numbers, that there wasn't
1:22:03
Speaker 2: an audience for that among conservative media, you know, consertive
1:22:07
Speaker 2: media consumers, and he shifted and and he's I think
1:22:11
Speaker 2: that in a lot of ways is the story of
1:22:12
Speaker 2: you know, the past fifteen years, both for him and
1:22:14
Speaker 2: for lots of other figures, just wanting to be in
1:22:19
Speaker 2: sync with what you know, viewers and readers are expecting.
1:22:23
Speaker 1: Well, So this gets into an unanswerable question but I'm
1:22:26
Speaker 1: gonna ask it anyway, which is what is the definition
1:22:30
Speaker 1: of conservatism in real America? I e. Those that don't
1:22:34
Speaker 1: you know, versus how you and I are defining it
1:22:37
Speaker 1: maybe by what? But the programs that are geared towards conservatives, right, Like,
1:22:42
Speaker 1: the programs seem a lot more radical than the conservatives
1:22:46
Speaker 1: I interact with on a daily basis.
1:22:49
Speaker 2: I guess it depends on what concern is you're interacting with, right,
1:22:54
Speaker 2: I mean, he I mean conservatism, you know, it's it's
1:22:57
Speaker 2: not recognizable what it was pre Trump. And you know,
1:23:01
Speaker 2: I think there are people who are opposed to Trump
1:23:04
Speaker 2: who are trying to maintain kind of they believe that
1:23:08
Speaker 2: there's a future or there is a conservative movement that's
1:23:11
Speaker 2: independent of Trump. And you know, you see that at
1:23:12
Speaker 2: like you know, like you mentioned I think by Jonah
1:23:15
Speaker 2: Goldberg and Steve Payce earlier.
1:23:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Dispatch, what they were trying, what they're trying
1:23:18
Speaker 1: to build back, you know, And.
1:23:19
Speaker 2: That's what I think Crystal was trying to do for
1:23:21
Speaker 2: a little while. Though he's not really trying to do
1:23:23
Speaker 2: that anymore. He's he might as well be a liberal
1:23:25
Speaker 2: at this point. But I think that that's that's a
1:23:29
Speaker 2: vanishingly small number of people. And you know, conservatism has
1:23:34
Speaker 2: been subsumed by Trump. And I think I think for
1:23:36
Speaker 2: people like Tucker and people like jd. Vance, I think
1:23:39
Speaker 2: the question is can that exist independent of Trump or
1:23:43
Speaker 2: after Trump? I think they have a real ideological vision
1:23:47
Speaker 2: of a conservatism that is obviously very populist. Is you know,
1:23:53
Speaker 2: nativist is a sort of a blood and soil conservatism
1:23:55
Speaker 2: most a returned to you like a Taftian kind of conservatism.
1:23:59
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you brought up taff because it actually
1:24:02
Speaker 1: is part of my next foot and so I just happened.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: You know, these interviews are going to air at different times,
1:24:09
Speaker 1: but I had an interview earlier that I think is
1:24:12
Speaker 1: actually going to air after this one airs. So my
1:24:14
Speaker 1: apologies to my audience about It's a book about Teddy Roosevelt.
1:24:18
Speaker 1: And what's interesting about Teddy, right is the fact that
1:24:22
Speaker 1: he was sort of an outlier in the concern in
1:24:25
Speaker 1: the Republican Party when he was named vice president. He
1:24:29
Speaker 1: was popular as president, so the party accepted him, and
1:24:32
Speaker 1: the second he left the party, they went back to
1:24:35
Speaker 1: who they were. And I've been thinking about this with
1:24:40
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, which is Trump is arguably the larger,
1:24:46
Speaker 1: a larger in life figure that the party hasn't really had. Yeah,
1:24:49
Speaker 1: you might argue Eisenhower considering the role he played in
1:24:53
Speaker 1: saving the free world. But really since Teddy, and there's
1:24:56
Speaker 1: always been this question, has Trump changed the conservative movement forever?
1:25:00
Speaker 1: Will conservatism go back? Well after Teddy it actually went
1:25:05
Speaker 1: back to the pre Teddy conservatism. We're all assuming this won't.
1:25:12
Speaker 1: Why are we all so sure? I think that's the
1:25:16
Speaker 1: you know, the key question. And I'm and when you
1:25:20
Speaker 1: say all of those I don't know, I actually don't know.
1:25:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know either when I say
1:25:24
Speaker 1: those of us that do this for a living right,
1:25:26
Speaker 1: we're trying to, you know, in our own ways, trying
1:25:28
Speaker 1: to figure out where are we, how do we get here,
1:25:31
Speaker 1: and where are we going next? Right in general, and
1:25:34
Speaker 1: with the conservative movement, you know, I mean, first I
1:25:38
Speaker 1: want to define what the hell is conservatism right now?
1:25:40
Speaker 1: And what is it going to be in five years?
1:25:42
Speaker 2: Right?
1:25:42
Speaker 1: Yeah?
1:25:43
Speaker 2: No, I think it's a real question. Is is it
1:25:45
Speaker 2: just a cult of personality around Trump? Or are there
1:25:48
Speaker 2: are there people out there who they believe in Trump
1:25:52
Speaker 2: but they also believe in you know this this harsh
1:25:55
Speaker 2: immigration policy and the tariffs and all these other things
1:25:59
Speaker 2: that have come along with Trump, so that if someone
1:26:01
Speaker 2: who isn't Donald Trump is you know, supporting those things,
1:26:04
Speaker 2: they would support them. And I think that people like Tucker,
1:26:07
Speaker 2: you know, people like Steve Bannon to a degree, people
1:26:10
Speaker 2: like JD. Vance like they're they're thinking the latter. They
1:26:13
Speaker 2: think it's about it's about the policy issues and the
1:26:15
Speaker 2: political positions, and they're they they think that there's like
1:26:20
Speaker 2: a coherence to to trump Ism and to magism that
1:26:24
Speaker 2: extends beyond the person. I mean, obviously, Donald Trump is
1:26:28
Speaker 2: you know, a singular figure and a very magnetic figure
1:26:30
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. But but I think that
1:26:33
Speaker 2: there are people like Tucker who think that it's also
1:26:35
Speaker 2: what Trump is, you know, what he's saying about the issues,
1:26:38
Speaker 2: and therefore, you know, there's there's going to.
1:26:40
Speaker 1: Be some staying power.
1:26:41
Speaker 2: I think, you know, they also recognize, people like Tucker
1:26:44
Speaker 2: that they do understand Trump's magnetism, they understand his charisma,
1:26:49
Speaker 2: they understand his you his ability to entertain. And I
1:26:51
Speaker 2: think that's always been that's been a real question about
1:26:54
Speaker 2: whoever comes after Trump. So much of Trump's success is
1:26:57
Speaker 2: you know, predicated on that that capacity he has. I
1:27:01
Speaker 2: don't think jd Vance can do that. I actually do
1:27:03
Speaker 2: think Tucker can. I mean, he is an entertainer if
1:27:07
Speaker 2: nothing else, And I think that, you know, when you
1:27:11
Speaker 2: think about who could kind of try to who could
1:27:14
Speaker 2: succeed someone like Trump and keep those those kind of
1:27:18
Speaker 2: policies alive, in those arguments alive, and also just be
1:27:21
Speaker 2: a compelling figure for people. I think Tucker, to me
1:27:24
Speaker 2: at least strikes he seems like someone who could do that.
1:27:28
Speaker 1: Do you think you know, one of the things one
1:27:30
Speaker 1: of the things I've observed about Trump over the years
1:27:33
Speaker 1: is how many people claw their way into his orbit,
1:27:36
Speaker 1: thinking they can manipulate him. And they do it for
1:27:41
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, and eventually the t Rex bites
1:27:44
Speaker 1: their head off, right, and they figure out, you know,
1:27:46
Speaker 1: people try to griff Trump and Trump, you know, you
1:27:49
Speaker 1: might be smarter than him in the moment, but he'll
1:27:53
Speaker 1: eventually be smarter than you in the long run. Is
1:27:56
Speaker 1: Trump using Carlson or is Carlson using Trump?
1:28:00
Speaker 2: I think they're using each other. I think that's why
1:28:01
Speaker 2: it's actually been kind of as successful.
1:28:03
Speaker 1: Rely they know, I think that's why they know what
1:28:06
Speaker 1: they each know what the others doing, and yes, it's
1:28:09
Speaker 1: why it works.
1:28:10
Speaker 2: And yeah, and I think there's a fair amount of
1:28:12
Speaker 2: like kind of transparency and honesty there. I do think
1:28:16
Speaker 2: they enjoy each other personally as far as I can
1:28:18
Speaker 2: you know tell from my reporting like that.
1:28:20
Speaker 1: By the way, they're both very good dinner party people. Yeah, exactly.
1:28:23
Speaker 1: You you can't be this successful in a public medium
1:28:28
Speaker 1: without being that.
1:28:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I think there's like a genuine
1:28:31
Speaker 2: kind of that they both get a kick out of
1:28:33
Speaker 2: each other. And I think that, you know, Trump kind
1:28:38
Speaker 2: of recognizes what Tucker gives him in terms of sort
1:28:42
Speaker 2: of you know, support in certain corners of the conservative movement,
1:28:46
Speaker 2: and I think Tucker clearly recognizes what Trump gives him
1:28:50
Speaker 2: in terms of just relevance. You know, once he was
1:28:53
Speaker 2: fired from Fox, he really had to and lost that
1:28:56
Speaker 2: built in audience. He had to start thinking about what
1:28:58
Speaker 2: can I do to stay in people's you know, in
1:29:00
Speaker 2: their heads, I mean, keep their attention to be angry
1:29:03
Speaker 2: at the Murdocks.
1:29:04
Speaker 1: They feel real yes, yeah.
1:29:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he says he's not and he talks
1:29:08
Speaker 2: about how, you know, Rupert Murdock was like the best
1:29:10
Speaker 2: boss he ever had, but oh, I yes, I think so.
1:29:12
Speaker 2: I think in the same way that Trump is angry
1:29:14
Speaker 2: at the Murdocks, I think that I think that was
1:29:16
Speaker 2: actually the basis in a lot of ways for this.
1:29:19
Speaker 2: This second sort of you know, phase of their relationship
1:29:22
Speaker 2: is when Tucker was fired from Fox and when Trump
1:29:25
Speaker 2: was trying to restart his political career after January sixth.
1:29:28
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump was curious at the Murdocks for the
1:29:31
Speaker 2: way that they tried to disappear him, the way they
1:29:33
Speaker 2: were supporting DeSantis. Their interests totally aligned. And I mean,
1:29:36
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember, but you know the
1:29:38
Speaker 2: first GOP debate, Fox was carrying, and Fox put on
1:29:41
Speaker 2: a full court press to make sure Trump would show
1:29:43
Speaker 2: up for it, because the knew the ratings weren't going
1:29:45
Speaker 2: to be good, and Trump kind of strung them along.
1:29:47
Speaker 2: And all the while he's talking to Tucker and they're
1:29:50
Speaker 2: plotting to have this you know, sit down interview that
1:29:52
Speaker 2: they're going to put on X that's going to air
1:29:54
Speaker 2: at the same time as the debate and be counter programming.
1:29:56
Speaker 2: I mean they I think they both wanted to stick
1:29:58
Speaker 2: it to Murdoch.
1:29:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know what Trump, what do you feel like,
1:30:04
Speaker 1: let me ask this, did you interview Tucker for this book?
1:30:06
Speaker 2: Not for this book? No, I've interviewed Tucker many times
1:30:09
Speaker 2: over the years. I mean, why didn't you interview him
1:30:12
Speaker 2: for this book? Because I tried extremely Yeah. No, I
1:30:17
Speaker 2: mean I'm surprised.
1:30:19
Speaker 1: Why why do you because he weirdly, you know, I'm
1:30:24
Speaker 1: surprised he didn't even give you the yeah, I'll sit
1:30:27
Speaker 1: down with you, even though I don't trust you at
1:30:28
Speaker 1: all type of mindset.
1:30:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, Tucker, someone like I first met
1:30:32
Speaker 2: Tucker when I was an intern at the New Republic
1:30:34
Speaker 2: and he was the Weekly Standard, and I.
1:30:37
Speaker 1: Felt like brothers sibling. Those always felt like sibling publications
1:30:40
Speaker 1: in the nineties.
1:30:41
Speaker 2: Right and we all knew the simile.
1:30:43
Speaker 1: They were both invented this magazines one from the left
1:30:45
Speaker 1: time for Right.
1:30:48
Speaker 2: I was not friends with him, but he was definitely
1:30:50
Speaker 2: someone that I knew, and.
1:30:52
Speaker 1: You were probably friendly, you had no reason enough to
1:30:54
Speaker 1: be friend LYE and I.
1:30:56
Speaker 2: Had the same relationship with him as I think so
1:30:58
Speaker 2: many political.
1:30:59
Speaker 1: Reporters who probably talk to.
1:31:00
Speaker 2: Talker and he's he would you know, you would text him,
1:31:03
Speaker 2: he would call you back in five minutes, and and
1:31:06
Speaker 2: and actually you know, I really enjoyed talking to him,
1:31:08
Speaker 2: in part because even though he was no longer a
1:31:10
Speaker 2: magazine writer, he definitely like kind of retained magazine writer
1:31:14
Speaker 2: muscle memory, and he was about stories like you would
1:31:20
Speaker 2: mean almost all you're talking to a colleague, like he
1:31:21
Speaker 2: would just sort he would be interested in what you're doing.
1:31:24
Speaker 1: By the way we kept talking about him in the past,
1:31:26
Speaker 1: tense is if is if this because the Tucker I mean,
1:31:29
Speaker 1: and and maybe that's it is the Tucker Carlson we
1:31:32
Speaker 1: knew dead or alive.
1:31:33
Speaker 2: I think he's still alive to some people. I think
1:31:36
Speaker 2: I think the thing would have changed with me and
1:31:38
Speaker 2: you know him was as soon as he went from
1:31:41
Speaker 2: I mean, there's that there's that Novak expression. You know,
1:31:43
Speaker 2: you're either a source or a target. I think when
1:31:46
Speaker 2: he went from source to target, that's when he no
1:31:49
Speaker 2: longer wanted to talk and you and he said when
1:31:51
Speaker 2: when I first approached him out the book, he was,
1:31:53
Speaker 2: you know, I'd love to talk to you.
1:31:54
Speaker 1: You know, this is great.
1:31:55
Speaker 2: And then you know, and then but I'm not sure
1:31:57
Speaker 2: if Fox will let me and sort of we had a.
1:31:59
Speaker 1: Long you know, but so you've been doing this since
1:32:01
Speaker 1: he was at Fox. Oh yeah, I start yeah, oh wow,
1:32:04
Speaker 1: this is always important. Yeah wow. So when did you
1:32:06
Speaker 1: first start this book and how much does it change? Yeah?
1:32:10
Speaker 2: So I started it in twenty twenty one. Okay, I'm
1:32:13
Speaker 2: not proud of that. It it took me.
1:32:17
Speaker 1: I did it too, I did it took me six
1:32:18
Speaker 1: years to fulfill it to your book contract.
1:32:20
Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, so I think we're on the same timeline.
1:32:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:32:23
Speaker 2: So I started it in twenty one, and you know,
1:32:26
Speaker 2: and his and ultimately he said he couldn't talk to
1:32:29
Speaker 2: me because Fox wouldn't let him, even though I really
1:32:30
Speaker 2: wanted to. And then after he was fired, I went
1:32:34
Speaker 2: to him and was like, hey, you know, you can
1:32:35
Speaker 2: talk now. And then he didn't even you know, respond
1:32:37
Speaker 2: to that. So I think he just made the calculus
1:32:40
Speaker 2: that you know, it would probably be easier to attack
1:32:43
Speaker 2: it or dismiss it if he didn't cooperate at all.
1:32:46
Speaker 2: But he I think he still talks to plenty of reporters.
1:32:50
Speaker 2: I know, I hear about this all the time. Yeah.
1:32:54
Speaker 2: Ben Smith wrote a piece back and that you know,
1:32:57
Speaker 2: I don't know, four or five years ago in the
1:32:58
Speaker 2: Times about you know, sort of Tucker bashes the medium.
1:33:01
Speaker 1: But he's also like their favorite source. You know, I
1:33:11
Speaker 1: sort of personally character assassinated me on one of his segments.
1:33:14
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I'm out. You know, I was
1:33:17
Speaker 1: done with him, and you know, he was just attacking
1:33:20
Speaker 1: my employer. But he decided to use me as the vehicle,
1:33:22
Speaker 1: which is just like you know, was typical of that era, right,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: what cable news was. And I just found it to
1:33:31
Speaker 1: be unseemly by him, and I made that clear to him,
1:33:34
Speaker 1: and he just used it all. I got the sense
1:33:37
Speaker 1: he just thought I was being too sensitive, like, hey,
1:33:42
Speaker 1: you're lucky. I'm mentioning you. This is good for you.
1:33:44
Speaker 1: Like it was always the attitude Trump had, which is
1:33:47
Speaker 1: we're just in this attention economy together. And that's why
1:33:49
Speaker 1: there's a sense of Tucker when it's like, boy, he
1:33:54
Speaker 1: seems to live in reality, but I don't know what
1:33:57
Speaker 1: he believes.
1:33:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think his reality has changed a lot, though.
1:34:01
Speaker 2: I mean I think that you know, when he left
1:34:04
Speaker 2: Washington back I think in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen,
1:34:08
Speaker 2: after protesters went to his house and you know, scared,
1:34:12
Speaker 2: he was not home, but his wife was home and
1:34:14
Speaker 2: there are people outside the house channing we know where
1:34:17
Speaker 2: you live.
1:34:18
Speaker 1: I think that.
1:34:18
Speaker 2: I think I think Washington had already become fairly inhospitable
1:34:21
Speaker 2: to him.
1:34:21
Speaker 1: You know, he was, yeah, it was look, I was yeah, yeah,
1:34:26
Speaker 1: it was funny. But running we worked in the same
1:34:28
Speaker 1: building and he couldn't make eye contact with me if
1:34:31
Speaker 1: we passed each other in the hall. And it was
1:34:33
Speaker 1: the strange thing. And it wasn't just me, it was
1:34:34
Speaker 1: that he was so because he had to tape in
1:34:36
Speaker 1: that building, and he'd like it was like he was
1:34:40
Speaker 1: afraid of engaging in any conversation, so he was like
1:34:42
Speaker 1: averting eye contact with everybody.
1:34:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, he I mean, he's really shrunk his circle. And
1:34:47
Speaker 2: now you know, he lives in he lives on two islands.
1:34:49
Speaker 2: He lives on an island in Maine and an island
1:34:51
Speaker 2: in Florida. And you know where once he used to
1:34:54
Speaker 2: hang out and have lunch with, you know, David Brooks
1:34:57
Speaker 2: and Bill Crystal and all those guys. Now it's you know,
1:34:59
Speaker 2: Don Junior and Theo Vaughn. I mean, he's just completely
1:35:02
Speaker 2: sort of traded one set for another set. And I
1:35:04
Speaker 2: think I think his world has you know, he would,
1:35:08
Speaker 2: I mean, he would say it's not constricted because he
1:35:10
Speaker 2: would say, you know, you'd be constricted when he was
1:35:11
Speaker 2: hanging out with both Crystal David Brooks. But but it's
1:35:14
Speaker 2: he's he's a he's in a bit of an information
1:35:16
Speaker 2: bubble himself.
1:35:18
Speaker 1: So come twenty twenty eight, there's going to be a
1:35:20
Speaker 1: fight for control or for influence in the conservative movement. Tucker,
1:35:24
Speaker 1: Carlson and JD. Vans are in one camp. Who are
1:35:26
Speaker 1: the camps? Who are the entities that you expect to
1:35:30
Speaker 1: engage in this essentially a competition of some sort. Whether
1:35:35
Speaker 1: it's a competition of ideas or or influence is an
1:35:39
Speaker 1: open question.
1:35:40
Speaker 2: I feel like the Tucker.
1:35:43
Speaker 1: JD.
1:35:43
Speaker 2: Vance camp is I mean, they're going to be sort
1:35:47
Speaker 2: of gradations of that. I feel like the only person
1:35:50
Speaker 2: who's staking out a position that's you know, completely separate
1:35:54
Speaker 2: from that and actually in opposition to that is Ted Cruz.
1:35:57
Speaker 1: Well Cruz and he's personally gone after Carlson, right, And yeah,
1:36:00
Speaker 1: they called it cutar Carlson, like that's the new thing
1:36:04
Speaker 1: that some of them have.
1:36:05
Speaker 2: He's using Tucker as this avatar to basically he's he's
1:36:10
Speaker 2: really going after Vance for that, right, I mean, but
1:36:12
Speaker 2: he's using it's easier to go after Tucker exactly, So
1:36:15
Speaker 2: he's using Tucker as a stand in. But I really
1:36:17
Speaker 2: think I actually i'd be curious what you think. I mean,
1:36:19
Speaker 2: I feel like Ted Cruz is sort of like the
1:36:21
Speaker 2: last at least for this very moment. He's like the
1:36:24
Speaker 2: only sort of non lood and soil nationalist Republican out there,
1:36:29
Speaker 2: and the only prominent one. He's sort of actually kind
1:36:31
Speaker 2: of planting his flag there. Yes, and Rand Paul, Yes,
1:36:37
Speaker 2: it is a pure liberty Yes exactly. That is going
1:36:39
Speaker 2: to plan a slightly different flag that is that. You know,
1:36:43
Speaker 2: it'll be interesting, it's it's you know, he.
1:36:48
Speaker 1: Paul, You know Paul. No presidential candidacy suffered more from
1:36:52
Speaker 1: the rise of Trump right away than Rand Paul. Rand
1:36:56
Speaker 1: Paul had the outsider lane to himself until Donald Trump
1:36:58
Speaker 1: showed up. And the first guy who lost all of
1:37:01
Speaker 1: his he had this He started out like with a
1:37:05
Speaker 1: solid fifteen percent, which is pretty good. And when you're
1:37:08
Speaker 1: kicking off, and it was something to build on. It
1:37:11
Speaker 1: was he inherited much of his father's and it was
1:37:14
Speaker 1: sort of a bit different, right, It was that and
1:37:18
Speaker 1: and Trump just scooped it all up. And it is
1:37:21
Speaker 1: a portion of the mega movement. Right, So yes, Paul,
1:37:24
Speaker 1: we'll have to say in this socially a libertarian.
1:37:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and it's you know, and it's and it's, uh,
1:37:33
Speaker 2: you know, Trump's kind of America first he is. So
1:37:37
Speaker 2: it's so malleable at this point, right, Like you can
1:37:39
Speaker 2: be against sort of these wars, but you can also
1:37:41
Speaker 2: support them.
1:37:42
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the joke at the White House
1:37:44
Speaker 1: is that Donald Trump's the least Maga of everybody in
1:37:47
Speaker 1: the room.
1:37:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's I think Tucker's found that out.
1:37:50
Speaker 2: I think Tucker really believed a lot of that stuff
1:37:52
Speaker 2: and he was really I think, you know, he and
1:37:56
Speaker 2: when I say he's influential, like I think, you gotta,
1:37:58
Speaker 2: I gotta put the caveat like, you know, he not
1:38:00
Speaker 2: that influential. I mean he if he'd had his brothers,
1:38:02
Speaker 2: we would not have attacked Iran, probably not Venezuela. Though
1:38:06
Speaker 2: it's kind of interesting the way he hasn't criticized the
1:38:08
Speaker 2: Venezuela operation the way he criticized the Iran one.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: But he was then critical of the idea before it happened.
1:38:14
Speaker 1: He was critical really before it happened.
1:38:16
Speaker 2: Then once it happened, he totally cooled his jets, which
1:38:18
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, was kind of a a good
1:38:22
Speaker 2: sign that he's he's not you know, he's he's he
1:38:25
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be seen as too out of step
1:38:26
Speaker 2: with Trump. He you know, I think he knows where
1:38:29
Speaker 2: his bread is butter just in terms of keeping his
1:38:32
Speaker 2: relevance and he that's a that's a relationship that I
1:38:34
Speaker 2: think he's more interested maybe in preserving than he was before.
1:38:38
Speaker 2: But but I think like you're right about Paul, like
1:38:39
Speaker 2: he he definitely you know, will have he's staking out
1:38:44
Speaker 2: a position that's different from others. But I feel like,
1:38:46
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's cruise Paul and then and then
1:38:48
Speaker 2: that kind of Tucker, JD and then who There will
1:38:51
Speaker 2: be other candidates, but I think they're going to be
1:38:54
Speaker 2: wary of straying too far from where JD vance is there.
1:38:59
Speaker 2: They're certainly certainly no one's going to criticize Trump. I mean,
1:39:02
Speaker 2: that's you know.
1:39:03
Speaker 1: Whoever irony is that that if there are a whole
1:39:07
Speaker 1: bunch of people trying to have ties to Trump, being
1:39:11
Speaker 1: the one person that runs away from it could in
1:39:16
Speaker 1: theory do better than you think. But I don't know
1:39:19
Speaker 1: we'll see that many. I mean, I guess they'll get
1:39:22
Speaker 1: I don't know who that is vote. Yeah, it's sort
1:39:25
Speaker 1: of like Bredick Proberry. It's the John Kasich voter from
1:39:28
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. What happened to them? Right? Like? Are there
1:39:31
Speaker 1: enough of them? Like they're Democrats? Now I think they
1:39:35
Speaker 1: are too, But there was you know, there also was
1:39:37
Speaker 1: twenty two percent for NICKI Haley. There's probably you know,
1:39:41
Speaker 1: Maga Trump. You know, when you look at the overall,
1:39:44
Speaker 1: it's thirty five percent is always the bare bottom right
1:39:47
Speaker 1: for any mega policy. So you know, that's about seventy
1:39:52
Speaker 1: percent of the party, right when it's thirty five percent
1:39:54
Speaker 1: of the country, probably somewhere between sixty and seventy percent
1:39:56
Speaker 1: of the party, which only leaves thirty or forty right,
1:40:00
Speaker 1: the quote unquote sort of chamber, And that's the one
1:40:04
Speaker 1: I you know, the one wing of the party not
1:40:06
Speaker 1: mentioned here is kind of the business wing, right, the
1:40:08
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce wing, and I guess that would be
1:40:11
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. But Rubio has made it clear he's not
1:40:14
Speaker 1: going to challenge Vans.
1:40:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel like that that Chamber of Commerce wing,
1:40:21
Speaker 2: I mean, the way the way all of business has
1:40:24
Speaker 2: behaved this this second the second Trump presidency is. I mean,
1:40:28
Speaker 2: they're they're a lot more willing to bend the knee
1:40:32
Speaker 2: and a lot less willing to criticize Trump than they
1:40:34
Speaker 2: were the first time around, and I can't see that
1:40:37
Speaker 2: changing in the next the next few years.
1:40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder what subpoena is from a Democratic Congress
1:40:42
Speaker 1: will make them think after two years of that. I mean,
1:40:45
Speaker 1: I take your point on that, but I think they've
1:40:49
Speaker 1: underestimated the iyre that they're going to draw when when
1:40:54
Speaker 1: Democrats get power back and they we're not going to
1:40:57
Speaker 1: be able to get to Trump, so they'll subpoena business.
1:41:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, oversight committee versus getting investigated by DOJ or having
1:41:04
Speaker 2: your merger plow.
1:41:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. None of them want that. Yeah, I hear you,
1:41:08
Speaker 1: But none of them want to be you know, Frog
1:41:10
Speaker 1: marched up on Capitol Hill either, you know, yeah, sure
1:41:13
Speaker 1: saying you talk to Trump for this book. No, No,
1:41:19
Speaker 1: he did not. I was rich.
1:41:20
Speaker 2: I was surprised by he did not. He turned down
1:41:23
Speaker 2: my interview request.
1:41:25
Speaker 1: Who in the conservative media world sort of was was
1:41:29
Speaker 1: sort of the most comfortable talking about this in a
1:41:32
Speaker 1: detached way, you know.
1:41:37
Speaker 2: I like, I mean, some people didn't want to talk
1:41:39
Speaker 2: on the record. So I have to probably be careful
1:41:41
Speaker 2: about that. I'm just trying to think of who talk
1:41:43
Speaker 2: on the record. I think, you know, I think the
1:41:44
Speaker 2: people who were at the Standard back when Tucker was there,
1:41:47
Speaker 2: you know, that original crew, Crystal, David Brooks, those, Andy Ferguson, I.
1:41:51
Speaker 1: Think they're.
1:41:53
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's still probably some sort of
1:41:55
Speaker 2: personal sadness there, but they kind of moved past that
1:41:59
Speaker 2: and they just sort of looking at it, you know,
1:42:01
Speaker 2: a less sort of more just analytically at this point,
1:42:04
Speaker 2: and you know, anthropologically, and they were they they had
1:42:09
Speaker 2: some interesting insights and thoughts, but a lot a lot
1:42:14
Speaker 2: of the people I talked to for the book from
1:42:17
Speaker 2: conservative media world were you know, didn't didn't want their
1:42:20
Speaker 2: their names used.
1:42:21
Speaker 1: Does he interact with people that disagree with them that
1:42:24
Speaker 1: much anymore? I don't think so.
1:42:26
Speaker 2: I think that's I think that's the big change really
1:42:28
Speaker 2: since you know, he left Washington. Is he used to
1:42:30
Speaker 2: be kind of I think in the book, I say
1:42:33
Speaker 2: he was like the invited skunk to the garden party,
1:42:35
Speaker 2: you know.
1:42:35
Speaker 1: He was, Oh, I think that's genuinely who he is.
1:42:37
Speaker 1: He wants to debate people. Yeah, Like, I actually don't
1:42:40
Speaker 1: think I mean, his interviews were always better than the
1:42:43
Speaker 1: other conservative interviews because he would challenge a guest every
1:42:46
Speaker 1: once in a while, right Sean Annity and Laura Ingram
1:42:49
Speaker 1: every once a while Laura will challenge, but like Sean
1:42:52
Speaker 1: never challenges, right, Yeah, ever challenges a guest, you know.
1:42:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, and you it's funny
1:42:58
Speaker 2: Tucker now and most of the people he has on
1:42:59
Speaker 2: it show now or you know these you know, these
1:43:02
Speaker 2: are these softball interviews because he agrees with them all.
1:43:04
Speaker 2: But then if he has someone who don't think when
1:43:05
Speaker 2: he had Ted Cruz on before the Iran attack, I
1:43:08
Speaker 2: mean you kind of like you remember, like, man, he's
1:43:10
Speaker 2: actually a pretty good interviewer.
1:43:11
Speaker 1: He can really need a smart guy and yeah, all those.
1:43:14
Speaker 2: Things, fast on his feet, Yeah, I know, he but
1:43:16
Speaker 2: I don't think he spends a lot of time talking
1:43:19
Speaker 2: to people he disagrees with. Now, he's very much within
1:43:22
Speaker 2: kind of the Maga bubble. And that's you know, and
1:43:24
Speaker 2: there look they're probably you know, security reasons. I mean,
1:43:28
Speaker 2: it's you know, I think that just the political climate
1:43:31
Speaker 2: being what it is, I think it's it's harder probably
1:43:33
Speaker 2: for him to you know, exist outside that bubble.
1:43:37
Speaker 1: How do you get a sense he is super ambitious?
1:43:39
Speaker 1: Does he care about you know, it's interesting if you're
1:43:44
Speaker 1: Rush Lumbar or Father Coughlan, you know, you're just going
1:43:47
Speaker 1: to be interesting to historians fifty years later. Beyond that,
1:43:50
Speaker 1: nobody's going to remember who you are. If you're president,
1:43:52
Speaker 1: you know, you get it paid. I mean, is he
1:43:55
Speaker 1: does he care so much about who he is that
1:43:57
Speaker 1: he needs to run for office so that he's remembered.
1:44:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't get that sense. I think I don't
1:44:03
Speaker 2: think he's Bill Clinton. I don't think he's someone who
1:44:04
Speaker 2: has to be president. That said, I think if he
1:44:07
Speaker 2: concludes that the only way he can, you know, achieve
1:44:10
Speaker 2: his goals is by becoming president, I don't know what's
1:44:13
Speaker 2: the goal. I think the goal is changing the country.
1:44:16
Speaker 2: I think the goal is making it a place that
1:44:19
Speaker 2: you know, doesn't look very much like it does today.
1:44:21
Speaker 1: And I think that that that's ultimately it really is.
1:44:25
Speaker 1: He just wants to go back to a male dominated society.
1:44:30
Speaker 2: Male dominated, white dominated. You know, in some parts of
1:44:35
Speaker 2: what he wants to go back to I think are
1:44:36
Speaker 2: not necessarily all the negative. I mean, you know, a
1:44:38
Speaker 2: society that's you know, more about making things and having
1:44:42
Speaker 2: financial instruments. I mean, they're you know, these are not
1:44:44
Speaker 2: all bad things or wrong things. I think that's that's
1:44:47
Speaker 2: kind of his vision.
1:44:49
Speaker 1: Well, the unraveling of the conservative mind is do you
1:45:01
Speaker 1: do you think you know what the definition of conservatism is? Now?
1:45:06
Speaker 1: Do you have an idea of what I.
1:45:07
Speaker 2: Think it's after doing this? I think it's in I
1:45:09
Speaker 2: think it's in flux. And I think the point you
1:45:11
Speaker 2: made about Teddy Roosevelt's a really smart one that you know,
1:45:15
Speaker 2: there there is a scenario where maybe it doesn't go
1:45:18
Speaker 2: back to exactly what it was before. And I think,
1:45:21
Speaker 2: you know, I think the never Trump crowd is you know,
1:45:24
Speaker 2: kidding themselves if they think it will.
1:45:26
Speaker 1: But it's not gonna be never Trumpers.
1:45:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we're not bringing back yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:45:30
Speaker 2: you're not gonna have that Republican Party. It's gonna be
1:45:32
Speaker 2: something else. Will it be as trumpy and as it
1:45:34
Speaker 2: is while he's still in charge? I think that's the
1:45:36
Speaker 2: real question. I think there are I think the people
1:45:39
Speaker 2: who believe that there is kind of a ideological coherence
1:45:44
Speaker 2: to trump Ism.
1:45:45
Speaker 1: You know, I think it remains to be seen. If
1:45:48
Speaker 1: I let me ask you, this would you rather be
1:45:50
Speaker 1: John fun or Josh Holly for the next decade in
1:45:52
Speaker 1: Republican politics. Josh Holly, without a doubt. I think that.
1:45:56
Speaker 2: I think that's where the energy is. I think that's
1:45:57
Speaker 2: where and that's where young people are. I think I
1:45:59
Speaker 2: think John Thune is a dinosaur. I think I think
1:46:02
Speaker 2: Josh Holly and his his type are where where the
1:46:05
Speaker 2: future is.
1:46:08
Speaker 1: So you've been transitioning, Uh do you Are you going
1:46:11
Speaker 1: to go back to daily writing? Uh?
1:46:14
Speaker 2: Not daily, but you know I will. I'm just write
1:46:18
Speaker 2: long magazine articles, so it won't be daily. But you know,
1:46:22
Speaker 2: these days I'm at the New Yorker, at the New Yorker,
1:46:25
Speaker 2: which is actually where I am right now, little phone booth.
1:46:28
Speaker 2: I'm yeah, yeah, and so not daily, but you know,
1:46:33
Speaker 2: definitely more than one thing in six years or five.
1:46:36
Speaker 1: So you've done Times, Post and New Yorker, Is that right?
1:46:40
Speaker 2: Just the just the New Ya. I was at the
1:46:41
Speaker 2: New York Times magazine and I just I just left there,
1:46:44
Speaker 2: uh at the end of the year. So I just
1:46:45
Speaker 2: started at the New Yorker.
1:46:47
Speaker 1: And have you written a piece yet for The New Yorker?
1:46:49
Speaker 1: Not yet.
1:46:50
Speaker 2: I have a piece on Tucker Carlson in this in
1:46:53
Speaker 2: this week's issue. It's a it's an excerpt from the
1:46:55
Speaker 2: book with some new reporting about FTEs.
1:46:59
Speaker 1: Tough for fact checks. New York Times magazine or New
1:47:01
Speaker 1: Yorker both.
1:47:03
Speaker 2: Both very tough, both and you know, uh, I can't
1:47:07
Speaker 2: imagine doing this stuff without without that safety net.
1:47:12
Speaker 1: I've never written for the New York I wrote for
1:47:13
Speaker 1: The Atlantic. Single hardest fact checking situation I ever went through,
1:47:17
Speaker 1: which is awesome and it made me better, but it
1:47:19
Speaker 1: was like, God, no, I nothing like a magazine to
1:47:23
Speaker 1: do a fact check.
1:47:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're just they're well, I think they're three
1:47:27
Speaker 2: places left that do it basically. I think we just
1:47:29
Speaker 2: named all three and uh, they're it's really plauchery. Yeah,
1:47:33
Speaker 2: but it's so it's so great. I mean there's a
1:47:35
Speaker 2: reason that those places are what they are, and I
1:47:37
Speaker 2: think that's it's it's the editing as well. I mean,
1:47:40
Speaker 2: you know, spending the amount of time that they do
1:47:42
Speaker 2: kind of making sure stuff is right, and the arguments were.
1:47:46
Speaker 1: I am all for all of our friends that are
1:47:48
Speaker 1: doing well on sub stack and all of that, but
1:47:51
Speaker 1: there's nothing like collaboration to make a better product.
1:47:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, having having colleagues, having bosses, having people you can
1:47:58
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, just work with and talk about stuff.
1:48:01
Speaker 1: I think it does make a difference. So what do
1:48:05
Speaker 1: you help people get out of the book?
1:48:09
Speaker 2: I you know, I hope, I hope it helps people
1:48:12
Speaker 2: understand kind of how we got to this moment. I'm
1:48:17
Speaker 2: not you know, it's not all encompassing. There are all
1:48:19
Speaker 2: sorts of factors. But I do think Tucker is like
1:48:21
Speaker 2: a nice a nice kind of character and vehicle to explain.
1:48:26
Speaker 2: It's a sort of yeah, where where how we got
1:48:29
Speaker 2: to hear? I mean that's I mean, you know, I
1:48:30
Speaker 2: think people always sort of say, you know, what the
1:48:32
Speaker 2: hell are people in our world at least always say
1:48:34
Speaker 2: like what the hell happened to Tucker? And I think
1:48:36
Speaker 2: like there is kind of this larger question, you know,
1:48:38
Speaker 2: which is like, what the hell happened to all of us?
1:48:40
Speaker 2: It's not it's not just him, and and I hope
1:48:42
Speaker 2: that in reading about him, because you're not just reading
1:48:45
Speaker 2: about him, You're reading about the people who are around him,
1:48:47
Speaker 2: You're reading about the institutions he worked in. It's you know,
1:48:50
Speaker 2: and people wind up in very different places, you know.
1:48:52
Speaker 2: I mean, you like him in Crystal sort of like
1:48:54
Speaker 2: you know, their their their paths, the way they cross.
1:48:56
Speaker 2: Like there's something I think you know sort of interacting
1:49:00
Speaker 2: about that and something that you speaks to, something bigger than.
1:49:02
Speaker 1: Just the elected who's the elected Republican? If you were
1:49:06
Speaker 1: told you had to use a elected Republican as your
1:49:09
Speaker 1: vehicle to to do this, who would be the best
1:49:13
Speaker 1: candidate for that? I have a couple of nominees, but
1:49:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure is where your head would.
1:49:17
Speaker 2: Go with this? Okay, well yeah, so many of them have,
1:49:21
Speaker 2: but I would have said Ted Cruz until recently actually,
1:49:25
Speaker 2: just because you know his his sort of transformation. That's
1:49:29
Speaker 2: a great question. Uh huh, can you tell me yours?
1:49:33
Speaker 2: My two?
1:49:34
Speaker 1: My two quick ones would be Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio,
1:49:36
Speaker 1: right they started his credit gosh of.
1:49:38
Speaker 2: Course yeah, Ruby, Yeah, Rubyo even more than Graham.
1:49:40
Speaker 1: Rubyo probably more than even Lindsay. Like Lindsay is so
1:49:43
Speaker 1: transactional kind of under Yeah, there's not a book, that's
1:49:47
Speaker 1: a pamphlet. Yeah, Ruby, Rubio is interesting. Yeah, Rubyo is
1:49:51
Speaker 1: much more interesting.
1:49:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, your question earlier about people who you think they
1:49:55
Speaker 2: can use Trump, there's that's I mean because obviously Ruby.
1:49:59
Speaker 1: Was learned done with that story. Marco that's what I
1:50:02
Speaker 1: keep warning my Marco friends. Yeah, you know, he's he's
1:50:06
Speaker 1: he's unlocked the combination with Trump for Venezuela. Maybe he'll
1:50:09
Speaker 1: get there with Cuba. Yeah, that doesn't mean he's got
1:50:12
Speaker 1: you know, he's still the guy that made made fun
1:50:15
Speaker 1: of his you know what, and that will never be
1:50:18
Speaker 1: forgotten by the president. At some point he will humiliate
1:50:21
Speaker 1: Marco one more time.
1:50:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sort of what you sign up for, I
1:50:25
Speaker 2: think when when you go work there. But yeah, actually,
1:50:29
Speaker 2: you know, on JD. Vance would be a very good
1:50:31
Speaker 2: uh figure as well.
1:50:33
Speaker 1: I assigned his coll I assign his book to my
1:50:36
Speaker 1: students to read and to try to understand what do
1:50:39
Speaker 1: you want to want them to get out of it?
1:50:41
Speaker 1: To try to, uh, you know, who's that guy and
1:50:44
Speaker 1: who's the vice president? Tell me who exactly, you know,
1:50:48
Speaker 1: help explain the two, you know, where do you see similarities?
1:50:51
Speaker 1: And what what? What are hard to just to you know,
1:50:53
Speaker 1: it's more of of just most of them these days
1:50:57
Speaker 1: don't know much about his biliology and they and to
1:51:00
Speaker 1: these students, they can't believe what they read. They're like, yeah, wow,
1:51:03
Speaker 1: yeah I like that guy. They all like them. Yeah,
1:51:06
Speaker 1: they love the author K d Vance.
1:51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's like is you know law classmates, they
1:51:11
Speaker 2: all like that guy too, Maybe not so much anymore.
1:51:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey Jason, congrats. Like I said, I think you
1:51:17
Speaker 1: hit a home run with the title. Was it your idea?
1:51:20
Speaker 1: It's a great title. Hated by all the right people.
1:51:22
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, well it's you know, it's something that
1:51:25
Speaker 2: Tucker said.
1:51:25
Speaker 1: I mean Tucker, it was.
1:51:26
Speaker 2: It was what Tucker said to Victor Orband that was
1:51:28
Speaker 2: he was he was getting ripest and Tucker said, you know,
1:51:32
Speaker 2: you were truly hated by all the right people.
1:51:34
Speaker 1: It was of the ultimate compliment. So it was, it was.
1:51:38
Speaker 1: It is shockingly compared. It's one of these books. Man,
1:51:41
Speaker 1: when you see it in the airport or you see
1:51:43
Speaker 1: it like you're going to look at it a second time.
1:51:45
Speaker 1: So I hope you're right, yes, exactly. Now you're going
1:51:49
Speaker 1: to do well. You're going to do well with this
1:51:50
Speaker 1: because people are constantly trying to figure out, explain this
1:51:56
Speaker 1: to me, what the hell happened? I thought I knew
1:51:58
Speaker 1: this guy. I thought I knew this movement. What are
1:52:02
Speaker 1: we doing here? Right? And look, you you don't have
1:52:06
Speaker 1: a definitive answer because there are no definitive answers. But
1:52:08
Speaker 1: but you give us, you take us on the critical
1:52:10
Speaker 1: thinking tour that we all need to be on. Thanks,
1:52:13
Speaker 1: that was definitely a goal effect a lot. Well, there
1:52:22
Speaker 1: you go, hated buy all the right people? Is that
1:52:25
Speaker 1: something any of you want on your tombstone? You know?
1:52:29
Speaker 1: I go back to Kramer and the pet cemetery man's
1:52:32
Speaker 1: best friend, and that's what he wanted on his tomb
1:52:35
Speaker 1: So I think that's it. I'm with Kramer and rather that.
1:52:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want hated by all the
1:52:40
Speaker 1: right people, but if probably not the worst thing to
1:52:42
Speaker 1: happen your tombstone anyway. But I digress. Let's do some
1:52:48
Speaker 1: questions a little ask Chuck. It's Thursday, right, Let's let's
1:52:52
Speaker 1: let's get through something. Ask Chuck. First, one comes from
1:52:58
Speaker 1: JP says, hey, check, I have too solid questions for you.
1:53:00
Speaker 1: All right, you've already graded your own questions, JP, I
1:53:03
Speaker 1: appreciate it. One I love veep. Okay, who do you
1:53:07
Speaker 1: think in real life? Mike McClintock is based on interesting
1:53:11
Speaker 1: that's the press secretary of Matt Walsh's character there, all right?
1:53:15
Speaker 1: And then two is the Native American population across all
1:53:18
Speaker 1: states a viable voting block. Both parties are under investing
1:53:21
Speaker 1: in could they shift election results best JP Okay, first question, Well,
1:53:28
Speaker 1: you got to remember when it was written, when it
1:53:30
Speaker 1: was conceived, and so who were seen as press secretaries
1:53:33
Speaker 1: at that time. So, right, this is an early Oughts
1:53:39
Speaker 1: and so you had, you know, the different models of
1:53:42
Speaker 1: press secretaries. You had Mike McCurry, Uh, you know, he
1:53:49
Speaker 1: was he was sort of the star of the of
1:53:52
Speaker 1: the Clinton press world when he was the one having
1:53:56
Speaker 1: to do the daily briefings when they first started getting
1:53:58
Speaker 1: televised every day during the Lewinsky's handle, and how McCurry
1:54:03
Speaker 1: somehow was always praised for how he could avoid answering
1:54:08
Speaker 1: certain questions. Ari Fleischer was Bush's guy at the podium
1:54:15
Speaker 1: right in the first term, certainly during nine to eleven.
1:54:21
Speaker 1: So you know, my guess is they are sort of
1:54:26
Speaker 1: that the writers although I never asked specifically, but you know,
1:54:31
Speaker 1: you're gonna model off of what you've seen and what
1:54:33
Speaker 1: you know the public has seen. So my guess is
1:54:36
Speaker 1: based on when it was when that when the when
1:54:38
Speaker 1: this show was first conceived. So I'm gonna go with
1:54:42
Speaker 1: with Mike McCurry, Ari Fleischer, and then maybe a little
1:54:45
Speaker 1: Robert Gibbs, who could be snarky from the podium, like
1:54:48
Speaker 1: mcclint talk to Gibbs one time, and Robert's a good friend.
1:54:54
Speaker 1: I've known him thirty years. You know, poor poor guy
1:54:59
Speaker 1: is an Aubum and football fan. So I kind of
1:55:01
Speaker 1: feel sorry for my Auburn football football fans. It sucks
1:55:04
Speaker 1: being the you know, always in the shadow of Bama.
1:55:06
Speaker 1: So it's a one sec school. I have a little
1:55:08
Speaker 1: soft spot for. Plus, I have too many members of
1:55:11
Speaker 1: my extended family were Auburn, Auburn folks, so yeah, I
1:55:15
Speaker 1: I so. One time Robert and I got into it
1:55:20
Speaker 1: and he decided to broadcast my email at one of
1:55:25
Speaker 1: the press briefings. So it was the first time that
1:55:28
Speaker 1: my email went everywhere on the internet. You know, I
1:55:31
Speaker 1: didn't care. I'm like, I'm a journalist. Hey, I'm supposed
1:55:34
Speaker 1: to be an extension of the public. You want to
1:55:35
Speaker 1: find me, never hit my email address. But he could.
1:55:41
Speaker 1: He enjoyed his time at the podium every now and then.
1:55:44
Speaker 1: He didn't mind being the star of that TV show
1:55:46
Speaker 1: a little bit. Neither did Mike Recurry. Neither did Ari
1:55:48
Speaker 1: Fleischer most anyway, but that's where my guests, is there
1:55:51
Speaker 1: as for the Native American population, it depends on the
1:55:56
Speaker 1: state right there is it is. It can be a
1:55:59
Speaker 1: significant vote block in the Dakotas in close elections. It
1:56:04
Speaker 1: can be a significant source of money. In Oklahoma. The
1:56:10
Speaker 1: tribes there have the casino businesses there and they are
1:56:15
Speaker 1: quite well and they've been a huge some Basically it's
1:56:19
Speaker 1: they're the check on the Republican Party in Oklahoma. You know,
1:56:24
Speaker 1: they'll recruit candidates and fund candidates and stuff. So certainly
1:56:28
Speaker 1: their money there. Arizona, there's the first congressional district has
1:56:33
Speaker 1: a significant Native American population that that can can swing
1:56:39
Speaker 1: that seat. But you know, the thing is, it's not
1:56:43
Speaker 1: there isn't It is hard to and obviously New Mexico
1:56:46
Speaker 1: as a big A lot of times there are very
1:56:51
Speaker 1: parochial issues that motivates some of the Native American voters.
1:56:56
Speaker 1: Some of it could be very local. It could be
1:57:00
Speaker 1: specific issues with the federal government, with the Bureau of
1:57:02
Speaker 1: Land Management, which is you know who they the reservations
1:57:06
Speaker 1: have to deal with the most in some of these
1:57:08
Speaker 1: sovereign territories. So I do think that when Democrats were
1:57:16
Speaker 1: more competitive in the Dakotas, you saw more money. You know,
1:57:21
Speaker 1: one could argue Tim Johnson won. You know, you talked
1:57:24
Speaker 1: to veterans of the Tim Johnson campaign in two thousand
1:57:27
Speaker 1: and two, which was the Johnson Thune race, and then
1:57:30
Speaker 1: thun ran again two years later against Dashel. It beats
1:57:32
Speaker 1: Dashel No. Four. But in that Johnson Thune race, if
1:57:36
Speaker 1: memory served, the Democrats believe they their margin of victory
1:57:40
Speaker 1: was essentially their investment in the Native American vote in
1:57:46
Speaker 1: South Dakota. So there are certainly instances where it's been
1:57:50
Speaker 1: a significant vote, but it's it's when it's already in
1:57:54
Speaker 1: a close election Montana, in the very close elections they've mattered.
1:58:01
Speaker 1: And in general in some of these places they lean Democratic,
1:58:04
Speaker 1: but it's not always the case. You know, sometimes they
1:58:09
Speaker 1: there's just a very specific issue that some leaders. And
1:58:14
Speaker 1: the other thing is a lot of times they'll be
1:58:17
Speaker 1: voting blocks that you know, the leaders of the tribe
1:58:20
Speaker 1: might say, look, this this party is going to do,
1:58:23
Speaker 1: is going to manage this better for us. So you
1:58:26
Speaker 1: may not like this person, but this is what we
1:58:28
Speaker 1: need here. So I so I don't know if I
1:58:33
Speaker 1: would call it under investing either party, but I do
1:58:38
Speaker 1: know that in a financial sense, they're quite powerful, quite
1:58:44
Speaker 1: powerful in Oklahom, actually quite powerful here in the state
1:58:47
Speaker 1: of Florida. You know, it's why the you know, they
1:58:53
Speaker 1: they won the mobile gaming fight in the state of Florida,
1:58:57
Speaker 1: and so it's a it's a pretty powerful political group,
1:59:03
Speaker 1: but it not necessarily high in numbers. All right, Next
1:59:08
Speaker 1: question comes from Brad. He says, love the pod. What
1:59:10
Speaker 1: sign should we look for that Republicans believe they'll lose
1:59:12
Speaker 1: control of the Senate. For me, the obvious one would
1:59:14
Speaker 1: be if the public pressure ramps up on Alito and
1:59:16
Speaker 1: or Thomas to retire. Thanks for all the great work
1:59:18
Speaker 1: you do, best, Brad, Brad, I think that's a terrific
1:59:23
Speaker 1: way to look at it. I think that's coming. I
1:59:26
Speaker 1: think you're gonna see that. If I were John Thune,
1:59:32
Speaker 1: if I were the head of the nrsc Tim Scott,
1:59:36
Speaker 1: I absolutely would like to have the summer dominated by
1:59:42
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court. And one could argue that the twenty
1:59:45
Speaker 1: eighteen midterms would have been worse for Trump because he'd
1:59:48
Speaker 1: have might have not picked up any ground in the
1:59:52
Speaker 1: Senate if it wasn't for the Kavanaugh nomination that summer.
1:59:55
Speaker 1: I mean, Claire mccaskell will tell you she believes the
1:59:59
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh nomination cost her her race, that you know, she
2:00:04
Speaker 1: was making progress, that she had a winnable race, and
2:00:08
Speaker 1: then when Kavanaugh became the cause celeb for the right,
2:00:12
Speaker 1: that was it. She was toasted. So yeah, I think
2:00:19
Speaker 1: I think it's about the I think this is more
2:00:22
Speaker 1: effect effective at trying to get the base riled up
2:00:27
Speaker 1: than than sending checks, which is Trump's other instinct here
2:00:33
Speaker 1: to try to fix his mid term problems. Well, let
2:00:35
Speaker 1: me just write people checks that'll make them happy. But
2:00:40
Speaker 1: it you know, this may not come from Trump, but
2:00:43
Speaker 1: you know the stories are I you know, you hear
2:00:46
Speaker 1: there's been whispers already that the Alito's tired of of
2:00:51
Speaker 1: sort of the didn't like being a political target during
2:00:54
Speaker 1: that whole flag business. And you know Thomas Thomas is
2:01:02
Speaker 1: ready to drive that RV around the country. So I
2:01:07
Speaker 1: you know, wouldn't I'm not going to be shocked if
2:01:12
Speaker 1: both of them come open this summer. But I think,
2:01:19
Speaker 1: you know, that's if they really put it this way,
2:01:22
Speaker 1: You want to talk about a measurement, if they really
2:01:24
Speaker 1: think they could lose it all is if they both
2:01:27
Speaker 1: decide to retire and give Trump too. We should just
2:01:31
Speaker 1: be shocking, right, five Supreme Court justices in two terms.
2:01:35
Speaker 1: If you pull that up. I'm trying to think of
2:01:39
Speaker 1: what other signs. You know, look Susan Collins still has
2:01:47
Speaker 1: not filed for reelection. She's head of appropriations. If she
2:01:55
Speaker 1: doesn't file for reelection, nobody walks away from appropriations. They
2:02:01
Speaker 1: think they're going to have the gapol again. So that's
2:02:05
Speaker 1: that's among the ewers. That's you know, we're a few
2:02:07
Speaker 1: weeks away yet, but that filing deadline's coming up. So
2:02:11
Speaker 1: there's another little deadline. All right, it's my man Austin
2:02:16
Speaker 1: from Austin. Anyway, I say send say the viral photo
2:02:18
Speaker 1: of the dress blue and black to some white and
2:02:21
Speaker 1: gold others feels like the perfect metaphor from politics today.
2:02:23
Speaker 1: You know what it really does. That's a great one,
2:02:26
Speaker 1: nice Paul Austin. We've always seen different risks and priorities,
2:02:29
Speaker 1: but now feels like we can't even agree. We're looking
2:02:31
Speaker 1: at the same thing. Disagreement is fine, but democracy depends
2:02:33
Speaker 1: on a shared reality. So I still see a white
2:02:36
Speaker 1: and gold dress. Do you see a dress at all?
2:02:40
Speaker 2: Now?
2:02:41
Speaker 1: It's whatever the Lord algorithm has shoved in front of me, right,
2:02:46
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I guess you know, let me
2:02:51
Speaker 1: go back to where I started this podcast today. You know,
2:02:56
Speaker 1: we talk about our fragmented society, but I feel like
2:03:00
Speaker 1: everybody feels like they saw the same thing in Minneapolis.
2:03:05
Speaker 1: Maybe not everybody saw the same thing with the Renee
2:03:07
Speaker 1: Good killing at the beginning, but now they do. So,
2:03:14
Speaker 1: you know, for for all of them, for all of
2:03:17
Speaker 1: the all of our concerns about do we have a
2:03:21
Speaker 1: shared reality those poll numbers. I don't know about you,
2:03:28
Speaker 1: but you know, it's when I'm not with the majority
2:03:32
Speaker 1: on something that I start wondering what am I missing?
2:03:34
Speaker 1: What am I not seeing? You know, I don't think
2:03:42
Speaker 1: we're alone here. I think we all see the instability.
2:03:45
Speaker 1: We all see the lack of focus. You know, they're
2:03:48
Speaker 1: supporters of his who are saying he needs to focus
2:03:50
Speaker 1: more on the economy. You know, they won't say it
2:03:53
Speaker 1: out loud that he's making us less secure by this
2:03:57
Speaker 1: unstable mess that he's created around the world, but they're
2:04:02
Speaker 1: kind of implying it by saying he needs focus more
2:04:05
Speaker 1: on the economy. So I take your point. I think
2:04:09
Speaker 1: you're right as far as how debates go on social
2:04:14
Speaker 1: media and how the conversation can sound sometimes on the
2:04:18
Speaker 1: floor of the House of the Florida Senate. But the
2:04:20
Speaker 1: public's reaction to this presidency right now and the poll numbers,
2:04:26
Speaker 1: if we all weren't seeing the same thing, then he'd
2:04:31
Speaker 1: be doing better in the polling. I think, I think
2:04:38
Speaker 1: our reality we're seeing more of the same things than
2:04:40
Speaker 1: we maybe give ourselves credit for. All right, next question
2:04:43
Speaker 1: comes from Drew A writes, do you see connection between
2:04:46
Speaker 1: rising economic inequality and affordability pressures at home and the
2:04:49
Speaker 1: growing isolation is sentiment among Americans? Short term economic down
2:04:53
Speaker 1: terms tend to affect the party in power the political weather,
2:04:56
Speaker 1: But is what we're seeing more of a longer term
2:04:58
Speaker 1: climate shift as those pressures at millennials and gen Z harder,
2:05:01
Speaker 1: Do you expect that inward turn to intensify and what
2:05:04
Speaker 1: would that mean for you as form politicive for the
2:05:05
Speaker 1: next decade. Thanks for all that you do well. I
2:05:09
Speaker 1: got asked a similar question on Wednesday night my talk
2:05:13
Speaker 1: at FAU about but it was was and I say similar,
2:05:16
Speaker 1: It wasn't quite the same thing, but it was. It
2:05:20
Speaker 1: was about gen Z and millennials, and it was about
2:05:22
Speaker 1: their sort of you know, what are they bringing to
2:05:26
Speaker 1: the table that the other generations have. And my answer
2:05:29
Speaker 1: to that was skepticism about capitalism. And so in some
2:05:33
Speaker 1: ways I think you're you're getting at a similar sentiment here.
2:05:41
Speaker 1: But this is not a new you know, when I
2:05:46
Speaker 1: think about when I keep talking about how much the
2:05:49
Speaker 1: current era echoes with the first sort of about twenty
2:05:53
Speaker 1: twenty five years of the twentieth century, you know, as
2:05:57
Speaker 1: we were, you know, both growing quickly with the industrial
2:06:03
Speaker 1: Revolution and at the same time panicking about the loss
2:06:07
Speaker 1: of our way of life. Right we were moving from
2:06:09
Speaker 1: a grarian economy to industrial economy. There were losers, people
2:06:12
Speaker 1: were being left behind all those things, and this concern
2:06:18
Speaker 1: about inequality was at its height. It's why we ended
2:06:21
Speaker 1: up with a constitutional amendment about the income tax. We
2:06:24
Speaker 1: weren't trying to tax most Americans. We wanted to tax
2:06:27
Speaker 1: the rich Americans. We were pissed off. We were angry
2:06:31
Speaker 1: at the super wealthy, at the Robert barons, at the
2:06:33
Speaker 1: Gilded Age, and you know, that was a way to
2:06:38
Speaker 1: try to offer a check and we didn't trust them
2:06:40
Speaker 1: with senators. We wanted direct election at senators. So and
2:06:48
Speaker 1: that's where I see some similarities and I think, I
2:06:51
Speaker 1: guess I look at it this way. I think millennials
2:06:53
Speaker 1: and gen Z are going to drive this because it's
2:06:57
Speaker 1: ideologically diverse, the coalition they're you know, they may be
2:07:04
Speaker 1: on different sides of that, but they're all skeptical of
2:07:06
Speaker 1: corporate power. So I kind of I so I I
2:07:20
Speaker 1: look at it this way. I think gen Z and
2:07:22
Speaker 1: the millennials are going to do I mean, look, Upton
2:07:28
Speaker 1: Sinclair right wrote, wrote about the awful conditions for labor
2:07:34
Speaker 1: and child libor and all those things, and that was
2:07:36
Speaker 1: all happening in the teens and twenties, right before government
2:07:40
Speaker 1: finally intervened and decided that it needed to put some
2:07:43
Speaker 1: structure and rules into place, and and that generation, you know,
2:07:48
Speaker 1: embraced labor unions, and you know, we're basically embracing more
2:07:53
Speaker 1: checks on corporate power. Right. So I do think that
2:07:57
Speaker 1: while that gen Z and gen Alpha are going to
2:08:00
Speaker 1: lead that charge, I think millennials are kind of victims
2:08:03
Speaker 1: of this and they will go along, right, But but
2:08:06
Speaker 1: I think by the time something is done about it,
2:08:09
Speaker 1: I think the pressure is already there with millennials, right,
2:08:11
Speaker 1: they're now raising kids and dealing with their student debt,
2:08:14
Speaker 1: and struggling to buy a home, right, all of that.
2:08:18
Speaker 1: So so I do expect this movement to intensify, but
2:08:27
Speaker 1: I think it's it is more of trying to well.
2:08:31
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why I had on the author
2:08:34
Speaker 1: of that book the Middle middle Class, essentially a new
2:08:37
Speaker 1: Deal for the middle class, because I do think this
2:08:39
Speaker 1: is there's an appetite for this, and I think what
2:08:44
Speaker 1: was the beauty of that book is a reminder that,
2:08:46
Speaker 1: you know, the free market didn't create the middle class government, right,
2:08:50
Speaker 1: you know, government had to intervene in order to protect
2:08:54
Speaker 1: and help create the conditions for a middle class. I
2:09:01
Speaker 1: think that's I think this is all going to be
2:09:03
Speaker 1: driven by gen Z and I throw Jen Alfhubb in there.
2:09:08
Speaker 1: But you know, as far as foreign policy, I don't.
2:09:17
Speaker 1: I do think that there's a lot of we've got
2:09:20
Speaker 1: to we got to put our own house in order
2:09:22
Speaker 1: before we worry about everybody else. But I wouldn't automatically
2:09:25
Speaker 1: assume that that sentiment means that person's also an isolationist, right.
2:09:31
Speaker 1: I also think that gen Z and millennials are more
2:09:36
Speaker 1: likely to call themselves global citizens than any other generation. Right,
2:09:39
Speaker 1: So that's why I don't know if they're going to
2:09:41
Speaker 1: be that. This feeling that that they you know, we
2:09:46
Speaker 1: need to focus at home doesn't automatically mean also in
2:09:51
Speaker 1: favor of an isolationist for a policy. At least that's
2:09:54
Speaker 1: where I choose to follow that one. All right. Last
2:09:56
Speaker 1: question comes from Blaze Markovic Blaze Rights, sorry about your
2:10:00
Speaker 1: Nets trading, Mackenzie Gore, Yeah, me too, man. Moves like
2:10:03
Speaker 1: that are tough to understand, especially as a Tiger's fan
2:10:06
Speaker 1: watching the schoobl drama unfold. Yeah, there's a lot of
2:10:09
Speaker 1: rumors that Schooble gets traded before the start of the season.
2:10:12
Speaker 1: Basically the best picture in baseball right now. That sucks,
2:10:16
Speaker 1: sorry Tigers fans, And with the Wizard's mismanagement, I really
2:10:19
Speaker 1: hope Monumental doesn't end up owning the Nets too. They
2:10:23
Speaker 1: do do okay with the Caps, or maybe they just
2:10:26
Speaker 1: stumbled into a Vechkin and didn't screw it up right.
2:10:29
Speaker 1: What I really want to ask is why is Nathan's
2:10:31
Speaker 1: Famous allowed to be bought by a Chinese company without
2:10:33
Speaker 1: much public discussion. It feels like a much more iconic
2:10:37
Speaker 1: American brand than others that sparked outrage like Tim Horton's
2:10:41
Speaker 1: well you're right, you know, the all American hot dog
2:10:44
Speaker 1: is now a Chinese own property. You know, what are
2:10:48
Speaker 1: you going to do next? You know, take over competitive eating.
2:10:54
Speaker 1: That's the American sport, competitive eating. We don't want no
2:10:57
Speaker 1: foreigners taking that, right. It's an excellent point. I can,
2:11:05
Speaker 1: I can, I actually pat our collective cells on the
2:11:09
Speaker 1: back that we didn't make that an outrage. I think
2:11:12
Speaker 1: in a slower news cycle, during the you know, the
2:11:18
Speaker 1: golden era of being outraged when Barack Obama wore a
2:11:21
Speaker 1: tan suit, this would have been the classic sort of
2:11:25
Speaker 1: manufactured outrage story that would have started on Fox and Friends,
2:11:29
Speaker 1: gravitated to Bill O'Reilly, and ended up, you know as
2:11:35
Speaker 1: as sort of the you know, firing everybody up over
2:11:38
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, then again, we all went crazy
2:11:41
Speaker 1: over cracker barrel. And look what that did, right, It
2:11:43
Speaker 1: made them change their logo. I can only say it's
2:11:49
Speaker 1: the timing of it just didn't catch our viral stupidity
2:11:52
Speaker 1: moment the way something like this could easily have been done.
2:11:55
Speaker 1: But I do think had this happened under Obama, I
2:12:00
Speaker 1: think we know, this would have been a good Fox
2:12:04
Speaker 1: story for at least a day or two, you know,
2:12:07
Speaker 1: We're losing America, We're losing the hot dog. What's next?
2:12:11
Speaker 1: Apple Mom and Apple Pie are going to become Chinese
2:12:13
Speaker 1: own entities too. Anyway, place appreciate the question and for
2:12:19
Speaker 1: the levity there, all right. I enjoyed. One of the
2:12:32
Speaker 1: other enjoyable things about doing doing a couple of public
2:12:36
Speaker 1: events is, you know, I get some get some podcast feedback.
2:12:42
Speaker 1: Some people love the college football, some people hate the
2:12:46
Speaker 1: college football. Everybody had an opinion about it.
2:12:50
Speaker 2: So.
2:12:52
Speaker 1: And I reassured them all that all of my sports
2:12:54
Speaker 1: reports will always be at the end of the podcast. Look,
2:12:57
Speaker 1: I just want to weigh in on something that I
2:12:59
Speaker 1: kind of wait in a couple of weeks ago that
2:13:01
Speaker 1: really got no little attention, and I didn't I'm not
2:13:06
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't looking for extra viral attention. And
2:13:08
Speaker 1: that was my rant about the Baseball Hall of Fame
2:13:10
Speaker 1: and sort of like, you know, I don't know Carlos Beltran,
2:13:16
Speaker 1: I guess and you know, we can have the conversation.
2:13:17
Speaker 1: And then it led to me sort of whining about
2:13:19
Speaker 1: how like I think all of the Halls of Fame
2:13:21
Speaker 1: have lost their way. And then I got a reaction
2:13:24
Speaker 1: from my son. He goes you know who loves when
2:13:26
Speaker 1: I do these sports reports, and he says, you know,
2:13:29
Speaker 1: I just I don't get that worked up about the
2:13:30
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. I don't really care, you know, he is.
2:13:34
Speaker 1: I mean, we made a pledge that we're going to
2:13:37
Speaker 1: I've never been to Cooperstown, and neither is he. We're
2:13:39
Speaker 1: going to go to Cooperstown when Max Sureser is inducted. Literally,
2:13:44
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I was waiting to see him.
2:13:50
Speaker 1: I really believe had the Blue Jays won Game seven
2:13:52
Speaker 1: and he'd been the Game seven winner, that he was
2:13:54
Speaker 1: going to retire, and I was going to book that
2:13:58
Speaker 1: hotel room immediately for five years later, right to make
2:14:02
Speaker 1: them stout. But he's apparently he's gonna pull the the
2:14:07
Speaker 1: Roger clements and essentially stay in shape and be the
2:14:13
Speaker 1: a stop gap signing for some contender in May or
2:14:18
Speaker 1: June or July. And I get it, man. The guy loves,
2:14:22
Speaker 1: you know, and he you know, he wasn't the Max
2:14:26
Speaker 1: of the Nationals years, but he wasn't bad. And I
2:14:30
Speaker 1: love the guy. I enjoy watching him throw baseball and
2:14:33
Speaker 1: just hope he stalks the mound, those two different colored
2:14:37
Speaker 1: eyes staring at you and all that stuff. So to
2:14:41
Speaker 1: say we're Max fans is an understatement. So we'll be there.
2:14:44
Speaker 1: Plus he's a big dog lover. You know, I always will.
2:14:47
Speaker 1: You know, if you're not a dog lover, I'm going
2:14:49
Speaker 1: to question your character. So so there's that. But I
2:14:58
Speaker 1: was it. It struck me that he said I just
2:15:02
Speaker 1: didn't really care. I used to care a ton about
2:15:04
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame when I was his age, you know,
2:15:07
Speaker 1: And there was something about the Baseball Hall of Fame
2:15:09
Speaker 1: and even the football Hall of Fame that felt like
2:15:11
Speaker 1: they always put the right people in in the right
2:15:13
Speaker 1: years and all that stuff, right, and you know there'd
2:15:15
Speaker 1: be and you know, baseball had the one penalty with
2:15:19
Speaker 1: Pete Rose, and it was like, all right, it was
2:15:21
Speaker 1: grounded in shoeless Joe Jackson, et cetera, et cetera. And
2:15:24
Speaker 1: I think the NFL had its own little gambling issue
2:15:26
Speaker 1: right when they banned Paul Hornig for a year and
2:15:28
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But you know, I was reading about
2:15:33
Speaker 1: how like the Hall of Fame just seemed they just
2:15:35
Speaker 1: feel out of touch. They don't they haven't figured out
2:15:38
Speaker 1: and you and then this Bill Belichick thing happened, and
2:15:44
Speaker 1: you know that sparked this huge outrage. You're like, if
2:15:47
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick's not a first ballot Hall of Famer, then
2:15:49
Speaker 1: who then who is right? If he can't pick? And
2:15:53
Speaker 1: then there were whispers that, oh, this was a penalty
2:15:56
Speaker 1: for spygate or to flake Gate, although I don't think
2:15:58
Speaker 1: he had any role into flake Gate, right, it would
2:16:01
Speaker 1: be Brady's Spygate would be him. I guess, well he
2:16:07
Speaker 1: was penalized, right, But is this steroids? Is this right? So?
2:16:12
Speaker 1: But what struck me and what continues to strike me,
2:16:15
Speaker 1: is the is the I just think who's in charge
2:16:22
Speaker 1: of the Hall of Fame and who gets to say
2:16:24
Speaker 1: is so bass Awkwards? If it wasn't for the fans,
2:16:29
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be any interest in having a Hall of Fame,
2:16:33
Speaker 1: And yet you have people that guard the criteria of
2:16:37
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame that is in contradiction to the fan.
2:16:44
Speaker 1: And ultimately, who drives anything in this sport, Who pays
2:16:49
Speaker 1: the who makes the salaries matter? Fan interest? It wouldn't
2:16:52
Speaker 1: for fan interest, there wouldn't be big media deals and
2:16:54
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have the money to pay these guys. The
2:16:58
Speaker 1: fans have no role at all in who even is
2:17:03
Speaker 1: even considered for the Hall of Fame or nominated for
2:17:06
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame or any vote on it. And
2:17:09
Speaker 1: the Bellichick this is you know, and I know I
2:17:12
Speaker 1: ran it about this before and I got I'm going
2:17:13
Speaker 1: to ran about this again. You know, all of these
2:17:18
Speaker 1: hall the three big halls of fame, I don't. I
2:17:20
Speaker 1: don't know enough about the Hockey Hall of Fame in
2:17:22
Speaker 1: Toronto to weigh in and how they handle things. You know,
2:17:27
Speaker 1: I'll care if if somehow Ovechkin's not a first ballot.
2:17:31
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it won't be so however they work it.
2:17:34
Speaker 1: But I'm familiar with three of the Halls of Fame,
2:17:38
Speaker 1: the Pro Football of Fame, and again it's not run
2:17:40
Speaker 1: by the NFL Pro Football of Fame, although I would
2:17:42
Speaker 1: argue the NFL get its hands on it. The Baseball
2:17:47
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame. There's
2:17:52
Speaker 1: something about the Basketball Hall of Fame that I like,
2:17:55
Speaker 1: the idea that they they're the Basketball Hall of Fame,
2:17:59
Speaker 1: and they sometimes induct pro basketball players or college basketball players,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: college coaches, and you know, they're honoring all of basketball.
2:18:10
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind to see football try that or baseball
2:18:13
Speaker 1: try that. Meaning you're you're the Hall of Fame for
2:18:15
Speaker 1: the sport, not a league. Right, of course, basketball had
2:18:21
Speaker 1: literally two competitive leagues for a while, ABA NBA. So,
2:18:27
Speaker 1: but we've got to do something about this, because it
2:18:33
Speaker 1: if the fans stop believe in the Hall of Fame
2:18:36
Speaker 1: has any relevance, nobody's going to go nobody's going to care,
2:18:41
Speaker 1: and these things are just going to go away, and
2:18:42
Speaker 1: they're just you know, it's no different than putting up
2:18:45
Speaker 1: a podcast saying well, here's my fifty greatest NFL players,
2:18:49
Speaker 1: here's my you know, Hall of Fame or his. But
2:18:54
Speaker 1: all of these halls of fame need to figure out
2:18:57
Speaker 1: how to how to give fans a role, you know,
2:19:02
Speaker 1: whether it's in the nominating process, who should be on
2:19:05
Speaker 1: the ballot in a given year, who shouldn't be, you know,
2:19:09
Speaker 1: some percentage of the vote. I don't know what the
2:19:14
Speaker 1: Pro Football Hall of Fame voting process is so weird
2:19:19
Speaker 1: and byzantine. My friend Peter King, I think I might
2:19:24
Speaker 1: see if I can get him on the podcast. He's
2:19:25
Speaker 1: been on a previous version, previous iterations of it, and
2:19:29
Speaker 1: I've done his, we've done he was one time on it.
2:19:33
Speaker 1: I'd love to understand how it works, but that's the point.
2:19:37
Speaker 1: But they've again they keep the fans out of it completely.
2:19:42
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying the fans should have but there
2:19:44
Speaker 1: should be and I go back, fans, right, journalists, players
2:19:54
Speaker 1: and coaches, Executives and coaches right, all four of those
2:19:58
Speaker 1: entities would have a say. One entity shouldn't have more
2:20:03
Speaker 1: say over the other, but all of them should have
2:20:07
Speaker 1: some say because they all. You know, it is again
2:20:12
Speaker 1: the word fame is f is for famous, not best.
2:20:16
Speaker 1: We don't say, you know, if it was the greatest players,
2:20:22
Speaker 1: wou'd say home of the greatest players. It's all of fame.
2:20:25
Speaker 1: Now it's become synonymous with the best, but it is fame,
2:20:31
Speaker 1: and part of that is part of qualifying is public interest.
2:20:39
Speaker 1: And this is one of those where you know, they
2:20:43
Speaker 1: created some new you know, it turns out it's it's
2:20:45
Speaker 1: not necessary. It might be less about Belichick personally and
2:20:48
Speaker 1: more about the convoluted way that they want to consider
2:20:52
Speaker 1: because they play internal politics. You know, if players don't
2:20:56
Speaker 1: make it through one process, then they get a second chance,
2:20:58
Speaker 1: and then there's a third chance and all this stuff.
2:21:03
Speaker 1: But it's because the system was flowed in the first place,
2:21:06
Speaker 1: and how they did thea if they always had the
2:21:08
Speaker 1: electorate broke it up with all the different stakeholders, having
2:21:11
Speaker 1: some say, I don't think they have as many of
2:21:14
Speaker 1: these screw ups. And look with baseball, they just not
2:21:20
Speaker 1: handled the steroids thing correctly. They just haven't because they've
2:21:24
Speaker 1: put too many people in that we all know did
2:21:26
Speaker 1: but just were never proven to do it. And they've
2:21:28
Speaker 1: kept a couple of people out that we all know
2:21:30
Speaker 1: would have been Hall of famers before they took it.
2:21:31
Speaker 1: If they did it. Bairy bonds right, and you're just like,
2:21:35
Speaker 1: you know, and then there's just well this person was
2:21:38
Speaker 1: mentioned in the Mitchell Report, this person once. And then
2:21:40
Speaker 1: there's like Belichick. Really, you know, every coach is trying
2:21:45
Speaker 1: to get an edge. You know. The thing about Belichick
2:21:49
Speaker 1: is he was the guy that didn't read the rule.
2:21:53
Speaker 1: He read the rule book to find out what didn't
2:21:55
Speaker 1: they think of and he and he always found loopholes
2:22:01
Speaker 1: or gaps in the rules and he'd take advantage of it.
2:22:09
Speaker 1: There's a point, and then he got caught and he
2:22:10
Speaker 1: got punished. But I don't think they fully appreciate sort
2:22:20
Speaker 1: of like how they diminish everything when somebody who's you know,
2:22:26
Speaker 1: got to burn up their ass about it and has
2:22:29
Speaker 1: the power to do something about it. You know, it's
2:22:32
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, it's like they finally can
2:22:36
Speaker 1: get their revenge. It's like to what end. So I,
2:22:43
Speaker 1: you know, the whole thing's a mess. And I and again,
2:22:46
Speaker 1: I don't think an individual did this. I do the more,
2:22:50
Speaker 1: you know, everybody wanted to jump on one person, I
2:22:52
Speaker 1: think that was that was BS. I think the issue
2:22:56
Speaker 1: was how this system worked. If go read up Mike
2:22:58
Speaker 1: Sando of the Athletic but talked about how there was
2:23:01
Speaker 1: only like three spots and then you have to get
2:23:04
Speaker 1: forty percent. I mean, there's just like it's it's like
2:23:08
Speaker 1: algebra to try to figure out how the hell somebody
2:23:11
Speaker 1: gets qualifies to get into the Hall of Fame if
2:23:13
Speaker 1: they're not a player, but on this other sub ballot
2:23:16
Speaker 1: veteran players, coaches and just oh my god, they've done
2:23:23
Speaker 1: all this. And again, the single most important entity that
2:23:27
Speaker 1: has made the Hall of Fame vote even relevant to
2:23:30
Speaker 1: anybody is fan interest. And they're the ones that have
2:23:35
Speaker 1: zero say in any of this. So I beg these
2:23:40
Speaker 1: Halls of Fame figure out how to engage the public
2:23:44
Speaker 1: and the actual fan base, not to just show up
2:23:47
Speaker 1: but to be an actual participant in some form or another,
2:23:51
Speaker 1: because I think you could bring more credibility to the
2:23:55
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame with all fans, and not just at
2:24:00
Speaker 1: a hall of fame that makes a handful of people happy.
2:24:05
Speaker 1: All right, what about college football? Enjoy your weekend. I
2:24:14
Speaker 1: will see you next month, right, because technically the calendar
2:24:19
Speaker 1: flips and the long winter gets shortened with our shortest month.
2:24:26
Speaker 1: So with that, I'll see you. I mad