Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - The Iran Ceasefire Has…Ceased + The Voters You Don’t Hear From Actually Decide American Elections

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Chuck’s Commentary - The Iran Ceasefire Has…Ceased + The Voters You Don’t Hear From Actually Decide American Elections · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: It is our Thursday edition. This means this will be
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the last time I'm here this week until our Monday episode.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: And let me give you a quick rundown of what
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to expect. I've got a fascinating new report to share
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  Speaker 1: with you. That explains in America is more than red
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  Speaker 1: and blue. It is a tapestry when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: our politics. Red and blue do not describe it accurately,
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  Speaker 1: progressive versus MAGA doesn't describe it accurately. Some stunning results
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  Speaker 1: from what is a report that I look forward to
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  Speaker 1: every four years, brought to you by our friends at
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  Speaker 1: the Pew Chediable Trusts. It's an amazing It's basically the
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  Speaker 1: us into the categories that we are not the ones
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  Speaker 1: we think we are. And I'll get into that, but
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  Speaker 1: that's the meat and potatoes. The data nerd in me
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. But it also the report will provide
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the blueprint of you know, does what does America really want?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: And I think what this report does is properly let
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you know that the two bases of the two political
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: parties are the ones that are out of touch. And
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I know many of you probably believe that and thought
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that for a long time. I have the numerical data
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to prove it. So that is an important item that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to live in. We're going to simmer in,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and we're going to understand it will help you understand
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: today's American political electorate. But I'm going to begin with
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: what we're in the middle of stow, and that is
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the never ending conflict, incursion war with Iran. It's now
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: active again, fully active again. There's I guess we're going
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to have a debate and whether the White House is
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: going to claim that the war that the sixty day
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: clock begins anew But I don't believe that anybody believes
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that that is sort of in the spirit of the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: law when it comes to the War Powers Act. So
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: in theory, we are now, you know, at a point
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: where he should be asking Congress for permission to do this.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And I think that it's possible that what's happening at
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the moment, the decision to restart the bombing campaign against Iran,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: could restart the debate inside of Congress about whether what
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the president's doing is even legal. But let's talk about
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the situation he's in. He's in some ways nothing has
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: changed on Iran based on what and it certainly hasn't.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: My take on this on the current situation that we're
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: in hasn't changed since he was begging for a deal
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: thirty nine days ago, right, and it feels like in
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the last thirty eight days, we've been this close to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a deal. It's around the corner. It's coming soon. Don't
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: worry the price of oil, buy your stocks. You know
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you can't help, but wonder how much this has been manipulated. Right,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the deal is coming tomorrow, it's going to be here.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And lo and behold, not only are we not closer
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to your deal, we're so far away from a deal
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that he now realizes he actually has no leverage and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: he's got to figure out how to get leverage, which
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: is why the bombing campaign has restarted. Look, he has
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: mismanaged this war from beginning to end. Right, what's still
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: unclear is what is he trying to achieve. And if
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the goal is to make sure they don't have a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon, he was on a path to that, We
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: were on a path to that, we had a nuclear
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: deal that could have been used to continue that path.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: But whether it's his own stubbornness, his own realization that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the deal he was about to agree to with the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Iranians was basically going to be the nuclear deal two
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: point zero and he was embarrassed or he can't you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: know anything, that looks like what Obama did is going
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to like. The easiest way you can get him not
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to do something is by saying, well, if you do that,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: it's something Obama did, He'll stop it in his traction.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: No matter how rational an idea it is, no matter
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: how good of an idea it is, he just won't
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: do it. He's got this is he does have a
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: few things that trigger him. Obama is one of them.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: He's obsessively competitive with Obama. And it's hilarious because I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: don't really think Obama gives you know, MoMA's no fan.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: He's got a lot of issues with him. In fact,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: he feels I think he's got his own sense of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: guilts that somehow his presidency delivered the Trump presidency.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I don't think he views himself as this, you know.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And I think that also drives Trump crazy, that Obama
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't really care as much of what Trump thinks of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: him as what he thinks of Trump.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: But needless to.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Say, he has this phobia on anything Obama. And it
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: just so there's a part of me that's suspicious that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the whole reason why they didn't end up with the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: deal that was probably going to be more favorable to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the Iranians than he ever wanted it to be. But
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it was looking a little too much like the Aura
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: nuclear do. But it goes back to what objective are
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you trying to get? And the problem is he started
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: this war with it in tandem with Israel, who had
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: their own objectives which were not our objectives. Their objective
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: was regime change. Our objective supposedly was not. But Trump
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: got talked into doing this and thought, well, regime change
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: would be a nice feature. If it all worked out,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: then I'd be a hero. I would solve a problem
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: that other presidents couldn't solve. Well, now he realizes why
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: every other president didn't do what he ended up doing,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: because he ended up handing the Iranians more leverage, not less. Right,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with a couple of problems here. Problem number
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: one is that the Arras care less about their population
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: than we do ours. That is, that is a huge
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and that is you know, it's frankly one of the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: problems with the Russia Ukraine war, right, the Russians don't
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: care about their soldiers. Putin doesn't care about his people,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Ukraine does. And so there's always got there's that asymmetric
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: aspect of things. That's problem number one. Problem number two, Uh,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: in this case was just a lack of planning. And
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know who didn't. You know, it's clear nobody
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: wants to own the idea that that the that that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: he wasn't warned about the strait of hormones. That be
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: careful here. This is this is their trump card, so
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: to speak. And I'm using the word trump card not
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: as a pun but literally as a reference to the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: card game bridge. I am old enough to know how
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to play bridge. I am one of the weirdos and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: gen x that knows how to play bridge. I actually
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: like bridge. And it's a pretty big trump cart. It's
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: not enough to win the war, but it's enough to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: make this war incredibly painful for the globe. By the way,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we got another inflation report that once again showed third
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: straight month inflation is going up. And now Donald Trump
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is trying to say I love inflation in some convoluted
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: way that somehow it's going to help him help the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: country make more money because we're taking Iran's oil reserves.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He's got some convoluted line of thinking that only his
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: beautiful mind understands but the bottom line is this economy
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: is getting more unaffordable, this war is now further away
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: from being solved, and the energy crisis that is hitting
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the globe. We don't have there's no hope on the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: horizon that this is going to obey anytime soon. But
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  Speaker 1: Trump didn't have leverage. I mean, this is the you know,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: this goes to, don't start a war that you're not
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  Speaker 1: comfortable trying to finish and you're not comfortable trying to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to win.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And that's the problem.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: With this, with this decision he was he's been trying
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to have his cake and eat it too. He wants
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: he wants to try to air strike his way into victory,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: which of course we know never works and never has worked.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And he's hoping that somehow that the Iranians are going
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to behave like the Venezuelans have been behaving, right, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that this is just all There's going to be some
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: transactional Iranian leader that's going to see the world the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: way Donald Trump sees it, and he's magically going to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: cut this deal and everybody's going to live happily ever after.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And he's learning the hard way that this is not
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: how this exists.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So in some.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Ways, and this is where I think when people politicize war,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you you sometimes overlook sort of, well, look, he never
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: should have started it, and if he was going to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: start it, he should have been more overwhelming with it.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Like to me, if you weren't ready to commit ground
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: troops to at least securing the straight of Horn moves,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have started this war. And I get it. Politically,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: he had no interest in committing ground troops because he
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: knew that is probably where MAGA would leave him and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: there would be full abandonment on that. So he was
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: trying to essentially keep his political coalition together and at
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the same time still try to do something about this.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing he's and this is in some ways,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: this is a metaphor for Trump's entire un You know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: here's this guy who's both wildly successful and wildly unsuccessful. Right,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's wildly successful in that. Hey, he's bullshitted his way
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to the presidency. So man, congratulations, Right, he has failed
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: his way up to the ultimate powerful job on this planet. Right,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you hear the phrase failing up? I mean, you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: he's mismanaged Casinos he mismanaged his own father's business. He
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: mismanaged the inheritance. Literally, had he done not touched his
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: inheritance and just let interest payments a crew he would
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: have made he'd be wealthier today, well at least pre presidency.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Now he's used the taxpayers to to sort of line
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: his pockets. But this is really an extraordinarily successful failure
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of a career, right, it is just failure after failure. Now,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: what he's good at is marketing. He's a brilliant marketer,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: he's a brilliant promoter, and he's a terrific storyteller. Right, which, Look,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: he has his Yes, if he didn't have him, he
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten here. Well, you can get to the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: presidency doing this, but eventually and you can half at
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and so in his mind, right, he's worked hard for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: these things, but he's really sort of half asked his
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: way through life, and he's trying to half ask. He's
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: always tried to half ask the presidency, right, he sort
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of he thinks if he sits at the desk, it
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: means he's busy. And so this, this half assery is
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: how you end up doing sort of half measures and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: trying to conduct a war, complicated war with Iran. He
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: didn't take this as seriously as he should have the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: people around him. You know, it is, you know, the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: incredible disappearing act that Marco Rubio plays every time Aron
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't go well, and jd Vance almost in a similar pattern. Right,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Neither one of them have been wanting their fingerprints on this.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Both of them have made this clear that this was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's desay, because my goodness, who would whoever would
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: ever decide anything outside of Donald Trump and a Donald
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Trump presidency. And boyd, the fact that you see, you know,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: such light touches on the policy by Rubio and Van
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: should tell you everything you need to know on this.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't have anybody around him that's telling him
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this is a mistake. He certainly has people around him
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that have told him that, hey, be careful here, that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: this is you know, not popular, and things like that.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's he's not getting any sort of pushback,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: but you know, he's got a defense department that is
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: staffed with with with with folks that I think are
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: not just sycophantic, they also have their own weird ideology,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: this Christian nationalism business where I mean, I'm not gonna
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get too sidetracked by that business.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But what they've been doing with church and state and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: essentially obliterating the line between church and state in our
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: military and trying to trying to insert certain religions into
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the military, trying to decide in a country that literally
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was founded on freedom of religion. Apparently the Pentagon is
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: going to be a place where there is no freedom
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of religion. I mean, it is an what the for
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: what it's worth, those new protocols that the Pentagon put out,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's unconstitutional. It's not even like this is it should
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: be a nine to nothing at the Supreme Court. Completely unconstitutional.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: What they've done, every move that he has made on
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: religion is absolutely massive violations of the First Amendment. I mean,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's open and shot. We just need some more
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: aggressive lourying here. But that also means you're getting a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: certain type of individual there that really is clearly and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: not a very strategic thinker, and maybe a bit too.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're a religi, if you're a bit
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: fanatical about your faith, then you may view the issues
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: with iron in religious terms, which create these exits. You know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: which basically mean all common sense goes out the window.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And that's that should be a concern to all of us.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So this is now, I mean, this has been a quagmire,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: but now it's back to being a quagmire.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Thats exchanging bombs.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: We are in a full on this the Q word
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it now applies. He is you know, he had boxed
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: himself in. He created this box. This was a problem
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of his own making. All of that is true, and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: now he's got his own quagmire. He's got no way
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: out of it because the Iranians know he wants a
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: deal worse than they want to deal. At some point
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: they need a deal to But the Israelis are certainly
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: have their own agenda here that is different than the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: agenda of the United States, and now it is certainly
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: gotten in the way of what Trump wanted. But Trump's
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the one that, you know, he opened up this can
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of worms, right, He's the one that greenlit the attack
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in the first place. He's the one that let BB
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: talk him into I mean, and that's what he's embarrassed about.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And that's why he's Remember the more the louder Trump
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: screams about things that he that that he's doing. Usually
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it means he's done the opposite. I tell BB what
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to do. Translation, he knows BB talked him into something,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and now he's kind of embarrassed, but he can't admit
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that BB talked him into this. And I know that's
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: part of my job here is to help you understand
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: how Trump thinks. And I'm I'm not wishcasting here. This
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: is who he is, and you'll just have to you either.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: You're listening here, so you trust that that that I'm
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you what I believe, my honestess. What I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: believe is an honest assessment here.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Of him. And so.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: At some point Congress is going to have to step
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in because this is, you know it is, because he's
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: got to do one of two things. He's either got
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to truly escalate here and be willing to put ground
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: troops and maybe take the straight in order to have
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the leverage that he wants to get the outcome that
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: he wants, or he's going to have to agree to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a modified version of the of the original Iran nuclear
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: deal that's probably more favorable to Iran than the Obama ever.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Was, because the Iranians.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Have more leverage and it's Donald Trump's fault that the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Iranians have more leverage, and that's why we're here. You know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: here's hope. We know the markets are going to probably
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: pull Trump back at some point over the weekend, and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in fact, maybe he pulls back by Monday. Right, He's
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: going to do this, let the markets tank on Friday,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: have sort of this weekend, and he's going to hope
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that he can that they can restart talks, and I'm
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: sure they will happen in some form or another, and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: they're going to keep dragging it along because until he
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: somehow and the only way this changes is if we
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: could control the straight And I say this, I'm not
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: advocating this, but the but he's not you know are
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they Is he willing to escalate enough to try to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: take control of the state. And I think we know
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the answer to that too. So he's, like I said once,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: he's half assing this. And here's where we are. But
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend to know how how this
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: ends other than we know it's going to be a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: negotiated settlement. It is still probably going to look like
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the Man Nuclear Deal, but he's trying desperately to make
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it clear that it isn't that, and you know, I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: still think that outcome is the one that's most likely.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you this, politically, he's already lost the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: midterms because there is no way any of this record,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: there's no way this gets better, that it creates a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: better situation financially for the country, or anything like that.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: By the time we start voting in November. We are
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: nearly in mid June, and we are now going to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: start actually feeling the effects that everybody said was going
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to happen when this war began in early spring. And
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: so that's why it's it's in some ways. But there's
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: a reason Trump keeps saying I don't care about the midterms.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I don't care about these things. It's his own coping mechanism,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: because in that sense, he's at least speaking truth in
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that he knows he is is.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: He has made this.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: It's impossible for his party to succeed in the midterms,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: especially now, and now he's probably divided his own party.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: There's going to be more Republicans that will vote with
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the Democrats on the War Powers Resolution the next time
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it hits the floor. And I promise you it's about
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to hit the floor again as soon as they all
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: come back. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought
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  Speaker 1: to you by Quints. So summer always changes, certainly how
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  Speaker 1: quints dot com slash chuck use that code. But what
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I really hope you simmer in today is I'm gonna
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: do my best to describe this.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Essentially, it's the.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It's it's where we all sit politically, and I have
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: good news for you. What you think you know about
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the country is actually true. Most of us live in
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: this messy middle there is and I'm gonna put the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: specific yard lines Somewhere between the twenty yard lines is
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: where most of us live. And it is now twenties,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: not thirty fives, for what it's worth, but most of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: us live inside the twenty yard lines. If we're going
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to use the football field as our sort of political
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: spectrum here, and the base of the democratic part of
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the progressive base that gets that it is the defining
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: feature of the left leaning party in this country is
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: seven percent of the electorate, and the defining feature of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: MAGA is about nine percent of the electorate. And by
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the way, both parts of those electorates, the most progressive
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: left and the most MAGA right are the least diverse
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: groups in this entire political census. They are the whitest
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: groups wi white white, by the way, not right white.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: They are white male on MEGA and they are white
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: women on progressive left. That is they they talk about
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: punching above their way. They are the defining features of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: what people think are red and blue, and they're not
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: even a majority within their own coalition. So that's the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: most important thing. If you take away one thing from
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: what I'm about.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: To go through. That's the one thing.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: That are two loudest, most committed, most quoted bases in
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: American politics, right that maga core on the right and
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the progressive left together are not even a majority in
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: this country. And it's not even closed. Ironically, the super
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: left is seven percent of the country and the super
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: hardcore right is actually twenty one percent. And that's important.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: There There is a bit I've always said, right, the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Republican base is larger than the Democratic base, which is
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: why Democrats have to win more moderates in order to win.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: They got to win more of the middle to get
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to fifty percent than the right does. That's why you
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: have this asymmetrical fight in the middle about the two parties.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So remember I've been saying this before, Well, this we
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: actually have numbers to put to it. And if you
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: add in the most committed groups on both ends of
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the spectrum, the total number of committed partisans is thirty
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: eight percent. It's about twenty one percent on the right
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and about seventeen percent on the left. So what that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: means is that the other sixty two percent of us
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and I say us because I'm somewhere in the middle here,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the actual majority in this country. We sit in this messy,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: cross pressured, exhausted middle that does not fit cleanly into
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: either party, which is being shaped by this out of
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: touch base of each of both parties. The bases are
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: not the country. The bases don't even account for a
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: third of the country according to this pure survey. So
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: tonight we're going to use the best baseline got to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: tell you and who actually lives in this country politically,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and then I'm going to talk about what it means
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: for twenty six, twenty eight and for any campaign that
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: thinks yelling at its own base is a strategy. All right,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So let me give you a little bit of history
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: about what is this Pew Typology report. And I know
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: it's going to sound academic, yat and a little skill,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and I don't want it. I'm trying to deacademify it
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: for you. I love my academic friends, but I'm trying
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: to put this in American, not just English. So let
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: me just describe what this Pew typology is, because I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: think it's the single most useful tool in American political
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: science right now that measures where where most people live.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: And it's an incredible too that most of you have
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: never heard of because every few years Pew does this.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: It's not a normal horse race poll, and they don't
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: ask who you're voting for. They start, they ask you
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a series of questions about what you believe thirty questions government, economy, immigration, race, religion,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: foreign policy, and then they run what they call a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: cluster analysis. They let the answers sort people into groups.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: They don't ask people what group they think they belong to.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: They let the actual answers and then they sort people
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: into these groups.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: So it's not done by.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Party registration or by yard sign or whatever. And the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: result is a map of American politics that guess what
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: has more than two colors in it. This is the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: ninth time that Pew has done this survey. The first
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: time they did it was back in nineteen eighty seven.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: The methods have evolved over the years. Nineteen eighty seven
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: was done face to face, literally in people's homes. From
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four through twenty seventeen, it was done by telephone,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and since twenty twenty one they've been doing it online
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with a standing panel. It's how Pew now does all
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: of its survey work is through this panel. This year's
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: edition over ten thousand adults for survey, and they were
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: surveyed late November last year, so before the Iran war,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: there's no so it's there's a little bit of space here, right,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: So this was done as of November. Okay, it's a
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: massive sample, much bigger than any national poll that's normally
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: one thousand people, maybe two thousand people. This is basically
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: ten times the size of that. So when we use
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: numbers like telling you the progressive base in this country
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: is seven percent or the core MAGA is twenty one percent,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: we're not round We're not giving a rounding era based
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: on a small sample of one thousand people. This is
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a baseline number based on this massive sample of over
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: ten thousand people. So that's why I want to refer
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to it's the closest thing we have to a census
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of political voters in this country. So now here's the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: part that many of you, if you've read the top
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: lines of this, you probably missed this part of the story.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Because every it's approximately four years that that Hugh does this.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: They changed the categories a little bit because maybe there's
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: certain people just disappear, certain groups disappear, So these typology
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: categories change every cycle as the country changes, and the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: disappearances are actually the story that tell So you go
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: back to the very first ones. In nineteen eighty seven
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety four, Pugh had a category called New Dealers.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: This was literally the last living echo of the old
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt Coalition. It was still measurable in American politics through
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the early nineties. They're gone now, They're lung gone now.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And for thirty years nineteen eighty seven all the way
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: through twenty seventeen, there was a group that they called bystanders.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: These were the totally checked out. They were unregistered and uninterested.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Pugh stopped breaking them out as their own bucket. In
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, they've sort of dispersed them, and there's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: some similar groups here that I'm going to get to.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: But here's the disappearance that really, I think explains why
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: our politics have gotten so weird in the last ten years.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: From twenty twenty one, Pew had a group that they
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: called the committed Conservatives. It was seven percent of the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: country in twenty twenty one. These were pro business, protrayed
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: small government, hawkish internationalists. Essentially, it's your chamber of commerce,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Republican it's the true Reagan, the Reagan Republican met Romney
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Paul Ryan the Wall Street Journal editorial page, right, like
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: this is that's who the committed Conservatives were, and this
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: year's report they don't have a group. That group doesn't exist.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: It's not a group that is shrunk. It has not
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: been renamed with an asterisk. It's just gone. As a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: measurable cluster, the Reagan Republican is no longer big enough
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: or a coherent enough group for a cluster analysis like
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: this one to even find it. So the Reagan Republican.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Cold is dead. We knew it was.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: We've been a lot of people have been saying it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: My friend Bill Crystal over the Bulwark has been saying
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it in a while, and.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Here it is.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: It's now measurably gone. Okay, the model Republican president for
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: forty years doesn't have a constituency anymore in America.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: That's astonishing.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But as we saw right FDR's coalition it basically died.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It took you know, it lasted almost fifty years, and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you could say this Reagan coalition lasted about forty years, right,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So maybe that's what we take away from this, right,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and that means this MAGA coalition, you know, as another
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: thirty years minimum. That doesn't mean it will be as
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: large as it is today, but it will exist. The
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: party did not reorganize around a philosophy. It reorganized around
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: a mand right. I'm going to get back to that now.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Let's meet this year's nine archetype. Americans fall under nine
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: categories politically, so I'm going to quickly go through the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: archetypes and I put them into these nine archetypes are
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in three buckets, left, middle, and right, because there are
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: three that are firmly on the left, three that are
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: firmly on the right, and three that are essentially the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: deciders of which side gets power, the left or the right.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: The three on the left are about thirty percent of
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the country. One is what I've been talking about at top.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: The leftward progressives is what Pugh calls them. They account
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: for seven percent. Here's what you need to know about them.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: They're socialist curious. Two thirds of them say they like
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: politicians who call themselves quote democratic socialists. So these are
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: not self described socialists, but they're socialist curious. This is
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the youngest group of the nine typology groups. They're the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: furthest to the left on the political spectrum. And oh,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: by the way, they're the most skeptical of the institution
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: that is called the Democratic Party itself. So you could
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: argue that this progressive wing of the electorate is the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: party's both conscience and its biggest headache. The second group
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: on the left is what Peugh calls the loyal liberals.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: It accounts for about eleven percent of the overall electorate.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: The best way to call the these are Obama Democrats
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is probably the best way to come it. In fact,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: they're very age group wise. They're sort of in the
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: millennial age group. They're institutionalists. They believe the system can
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: work and should work. Highly educated. Sixty one percent in
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: this group have a college degree. It's the highest of
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: any group of these nine archetypes. And these are the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats that think about electability, right. They're the ones that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: looked at Tallerrico and Crocket and said, well, Tallerrico has
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: a better chance of winning type of mindset. They're the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: ones in a primary who do think about what can
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: this person win? And so they can be decisive and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: primaries right, And this is why they don't always they
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: will side with a progressive if they think the progressive
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: can win, but they will go against the progressive if
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: they think someone else has a better chance to winning.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: The third group on the left is what they literally
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: call the left out left. It's twelve percent. They're overwhelmingly Democratic,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: but they're financially stressed, they're feeling ignored. They're deeply pessimistic
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: about the country, and they just they feel left behind
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: by the Democrats. They're sort of culturally not as focused
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: on cultural issues. They're a little more economically focused. They
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: do vote blue when they vote, but they're not that
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: motivated to vote, and they're the They have the lowest
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: turnout among the left leaning groups. Now, let me tell
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: you about the three on the right. Collectively, they you know,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: so the left is at thirty percent. Collectively, these three
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: groups on the right are thirty three percent of the electorate.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: So the no apologies right is what they call maga.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: In this case, this is nine percent. But this is
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the purest maga. This is the onwn the Libs vote.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: In fact, a majority, a majority enjoy it when their
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: side humiliates the other guy. Literally, they asked the pole
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: question on that this is the only group where a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: majority said they loved it when somebody they support humiliates
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: somebody on the other side politically, and more importantly, highest
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: voter turnout group there is. They're the single most likely
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: group in America to vote. I would probably say this
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: is the Elon musk Avatar seventy four percent or male.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: No other group is that lopsided on gender. And like
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I said, and seventy percent say it's not important to
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: avoid offensive language. So this is pure MAGA. This is
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: again nine percent core MAGA. Now the other part of
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: this hardcore sort of MAGA coalition, this other twelve percent,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: is what Pugh calls faith first conservatives. They're the pew
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and pulpit right, the Christian nationalists, if you will, the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: most religious group by far, and it's the most rural,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: so geographically they live in rural America. They backed Trump
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: universally on policy. But the one distinction between them and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and what and essentially the MAGA group, the no apologies right,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is that they actually get uncomfortable with his conduct. Now
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: it's not enough for them to ever make them vote.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: In fact, they say they will never vote for a Democrat.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: So they're committed partisans. But the only difference between them
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and the Maga rite is they don't love his behavior.
• 37:45
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• 39:11
  Speaker 1: that's getsold dot com promo code podcast for thirty percent off.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And yes, I.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Too, am a customer.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: The next group here, that's twelve percent of the electorate
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: is what Pugh calls the unconventional right, basically soft BAGAP.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: They're younger, much less religious, but they're also a bit
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: checked out. They voted for Trump in twenty twenty four,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: but they don't always show up in midterms. His approval
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: with them has already fallen. It was at seventy eight
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: percent when the presidency started. This group is sitting at
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: fifty three percent. When Pugh looks at him as a
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: demographic group, and it is the group that's cracking first right.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: This is this is the group that has dropped his
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: approval rate from low forties to high thirties. They're the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: biggest risk of peel off. They're more likely to sit
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: home than they are to actually vote per Democrat, but
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: they're not that committed to the movement at the moment.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Now let's talk about the other thirty eight percent. So
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: you have thirty percent represents these left leaning groups, thirty
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: three percent represents these right leaning groups. So that's at
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: sixty three and because of rounding, we add up to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: one hundred and one thirty eight. These three in the
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: middle are thirty eight percent of the elector. This is
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: obviously where elections get decided. So who are these people? Well,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: let me tell you about this first group, the Order
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and Opportunity Left is what Pugh calls them because they
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: are left leaning. But I'll explain, eighteen percent of the elector.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: It's the single biggest group in the country. So this
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: is the largest political group in the country. Is this
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: sort of center left group. They're worried about crime, they
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: believe even in strong boarders, and are even open to
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: immigration restrictions. In a way, it's what makes them different
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: than the rest of the left. It's why it's hard
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to put them with the left coalition, because on law
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and order issues and even on some cultural issues, they're
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: much they're a bit more right of center. What keeps
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: them in the left column is economics, and I get
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: to that in a little bit. The point is is
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that they're gettable, and in fact it was these voters
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: that peeled off and voted for Trump which flipped those
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: swing states. The next group is what they deem This
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: is sort of where the Reagan Republicans used to be,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I guess, or where they live now. Pugh calls it
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the pragmatic and polite right. It accounts for eleven percent.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: This is the remnants of the Reagan coalition. This is
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: where my friend Jonah Goldberg libs, Stephen Hayes, Paul Ryan.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: It's it's proper probably the closest thing left to that
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: vanished committed conservative typology that Hugh had the last couple
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: of cycles. This is the oldest group age group wise.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: They're civility obsessed, so think met Romney, pro NATO, pro Ukraine.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: In fact of the they are much there. Of all
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the groups on the right are much less pro Ukraine
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: than this group, and they actually view their own party
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: more negatively than positively. So this is why they're kind
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: of the mirror image of that of the order and
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: opportunity left right. This is literally the center right what
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I described to you before, the center left, and it
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: is I think that the center left would say they
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: were Bill Clinton Democrats, and this center right would say
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: they were Ronald Reagan Republicans.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Where did Reagan and and and Clinton overlap, Well, they
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: are overlapped arguably on law and or they overlapped on
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: un foreign policy. They and they arguably over overlapped on
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: business right on free trade. That's that's where you would
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: see that. And then the last group in the middle here,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: this is by the way, that previous group, the pragmatic
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and polite right. It is I mean, this is bulwark.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: This is this is the homeless establishment Republican lives here.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And then the ninth group here in the middle is
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: nine percent of the electorate, and it's the tuned out middle.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And this is the this is the one that they
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: used to say was just like the disaffected, that they
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: didn't pay attention. They're generally checked out. Just thirty two
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: percent of them voted in twenty twenty four, sixty eight
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: percent of this group say most people can't be trusted,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: so they don't just they don't. They don't trust parties,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: they don't trust the system, and guess what, they don't
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: trust each other. All right, they're nobody's voters and they're
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: probably not worth trying to get, all right. So of
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: all the so you really have here the two swing
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: groups in America. This sort of center left is eighteen
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: percent of the country. The center right is eleven percent
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: of the country. So there's your twenty nine percent. Right,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: That extra nine percent that gives you the thirty eight
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: they're probably not voting, or if they're voting, they're voting libertarian,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: they're voting Green Party, they're voting anything other than the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: two major parties because they just borderline nihilistic. But that's
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: your So there's your swing votes twenty nine percent of
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the country. So let's you similar with that a minute. Now,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: what does this mean for twenty six and twenty eight.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Let's start on the left. So if you look at
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: those three groups, those thirty percent, the civil war inside
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: that thirty percent has already begun, right, and it's going
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: to be the entire Democratic story in twenty eight is
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: going to be this fight essentially between the progressives who
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: want to remake the Democratic Party into their own image,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: very similar to how essentially Donald Trump did with the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Republican Party versus the instant the loyal Democrats who want
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to They won't say they want to restore things back
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: to the Obama way, but they essentially they want to.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: They want to reanimate the Obama Democratic Party, and that's
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: going to be the fight. Think of it as Pete
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Boutage's versus AOSI right, Bernie Sanders versus Pete Buotages right,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: or frankly, Bernie Sanders versus Barack Obama. But here's the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: thing that jumped out of me in this right, the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: biggest difference between leftwood progressives and loyal liberals is just
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: not is not policy, it's just simply loyalty to party.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: The progressives are skeptical of the Democratic Party. Hence Bernie
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Sanders still has never become a member of the Democratic Party,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: despite making that promise multiple times when he ran for president.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: That is something that he is renigged on. Multiple times.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: He claimed he would become a member of the party,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and he refused to, but you know, I know why
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: he won't. He believes not conforming to that is what
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: gives him his superpower.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Loyal liberals are to their party, and that's going to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: be your twenty twenty eighth primary. Right, it's not going
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: to be left versus center and the issues. It's going
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: to be rebel versus institution. Right, burn it down and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: rebuild versus The system.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Can deliver if you'll let it in. And guess what.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Neither faction is big enough to get what it wants.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: The party can't be the rebel in the institution. At
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the same time, somebody's going to have to break the tie.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: And you've got this third group, the left out left right,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: who feel just pinched right now, economically pinched by the system,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and really they don't have the luxury to argue about ideology,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: which is why they when they vote, they'll vote for
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the pragmatic Democrat if the pragmatic Democrat knows how to.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Make that case to them.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Because these voters are overwhelmingly democratic. They just are not
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: interested in the ridiculous fights between left versus far left.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: But the reason they just don't have the luxuries are
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: financially stressed smistically feel alienated. The good news for Democrats
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: is these folks are never going to vote Republican, but
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: they might not vote. And then we have an engagement
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: gap with this group that right progressives seventy percent of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: them voted, loyal liberals seventy nine percent of them voted.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: The left out left was, you know, in the forties
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: much shakier. So that and that's you know, this is
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: going to be a real challenge for them in the
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: mid terms. And yes, it's a bigger challenge than the right.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: But if Democrats want to win control the House in
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the Senate, they're going to have to get those left
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: out liberals off the couch. They have to figure out
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: how to mobilize that part of their coalition. Even in
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: some ways it might be a better use of their
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: money than trying to persuade. But we'll say, but of
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: course it creates a messaging trap. Because the things that
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: fire up the progressives fighter disruptor democratic socialist energy. It's
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: the exact thing that costs Democrats the group that we're
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: going to get to here in a minute. So to
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: stick with that, now, let's go to the right side
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: of the aisle. The thirty three percent that make up
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the right wing in this country. Two of them are
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: a fortress right, the faith based right and the Maga right,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: but one of them has a leak right. That's sort
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of the other Republican group here, the unconventional right. The
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: fortress here is the no apologies right plus the faith
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: first it's twenty one percent. It's the core MAGA vote,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: totally loyal to Trump. Highest engagement in the country, by
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the way, in voting. They are more committed to voting,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: this group than anything on the left, believe it or not.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And they're not moving. They're impossible to peel away, to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: persuade or shame them, give up, stop trying.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: It ain't happen.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: But the third leg of the Republican coalition is that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: unconventional right. That's where there's vulnerability. Because this group of
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Republicans is younger, they're a bit less attached to the party,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: they're not very religious. They voted for Trump, but they
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: never were bought right. And the proof is simply in
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: that collapse of his approval.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: They started out hopeful seventy eight percent approve. It's down
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: down to fifty three percent earlier a year and the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: more this economy sours the more the war doesn't go well,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: This wears on this group of Republicans the most, and
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: this makes this is the group of voters that he
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: will lose and that he has been losing. This is
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the group of voters that moved his job of berivalreting
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: from forty five down to thirty eight. Now circle back
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: to the group of Republicans that has completely disappeared, right,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the Reagan Republican, the committed conservative. They never got replaced,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: they just got exiled. And the closest survivor is this
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: pragmatic and polite right, the center right that I was describing.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: But they have a net negative on the Republican Party.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Not all of them thinks the Republican Party should hold
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: power because they're pro ukra in a party that's gone isolationists,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and their pro civility in a party that rewards cruelty.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So the establishment right is actually politically homeless at the moment,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: and homeless voters are available voters. So the GOP's job
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: in twenty six and twenty eight is to somehow hold
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the SOFTMAGA vote and at the same time convinced the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: old Reagan coalition that is not happy with Trump that
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: somehow the Democrats are worse. It's sort of been the right.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: You sort of see that. That's how the how they've
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: gotten that Republican back right, that Nicki Haley voter, that's
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: probably the best person who writ the pragmatic and polite
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: right is the Nicki Haley voter. Nikiy Haley ended up
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: supporting Trump, but she hated that she had to do
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: it in her mind. All right, now we're going to
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: talk about the group of voters that nobody campaigns to
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: anymore because it's not on TV, and it doesn't tweet right,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't ride an algorithm. It's this thirty eight
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: percent in the middle, the order and opportunity left. The
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: eighteen percent the biggest group in America. They want the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: economic stuff that the left wants, but they're a lot
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: more worried about law and order issues. Crime is a
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: big one. They want to secure the border, and they
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: want to secure it in ways that will make progressives wins.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: It's uncomfortable. So yes, they lean blue, mostly on economics,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: but they are the most winnable big group on the board.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: And this is also a very diverse group for what
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: it's worth is much less white than some of the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: other Democratic leaning groups. Well, who did Trump pick off
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: in twenty four A lot of non white Democrats, particularly.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: In the Sun Belt.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And he sounds like he's spouses economic populism that sounds leftish,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: So you can see why he was able to make
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: inroads with this.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Specific group of people.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: So there's your twenty eight fight, right, Can Democrats hold
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: this economic message without scaring this group away on crime
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: and immigration? And can Republicans build an economic pitch that
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: isn't wrapped in mega cruelty and somehow pull them across.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: So that's that's how you that's how you're going to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: see campaigns try to talk to that eighteen percent. Then
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: you've got the pragmatic and polite white the eleven percent.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: And you know, one interesting thing about this group, while
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: they are old, the oldest group demographically, they're the one
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: that looks the most like America something like sixty five
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: percent white. It's like thirteen percent, teen oh ten percent black,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: nine percent Asian. That's kind of the census of the country.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: So it's it Actually it's some ways on demographics. You know,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: outside of age, it is the most the closest thing
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: to sort of the American average. The point is this
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: group as civility voters. They're the ones who will vote
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: against whoever offends them last. So a normal, non threatening Democrat,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: I think Josh Shapiro, Andy Basheer can win these people.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: James Tolerico is betting that he can win these people
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: in the suburbs of Dallas, suburbs of Houston, et cetera.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Allowed democrat is not going to win these people over right,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: That's why Jasmine Crockett may actually have been ideologically to
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: the right of Tallerico, but temperamentarily she was sounded more
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: like one of the louder people on the left, which
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is not what this voter would support. And then you
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: have the tuned out middle, that nine percent. And let's
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: be honest here, they're not persuadable. They're barely reachable. Sixty
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: eight percent of them trust nobody, a third of them vote.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: They're not a target. They are a reservoir of people
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: who've quit on all of us. Now here's what I guess,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: here's some broad conclusions here. Right, the voices that dominate
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: are politics. The only Libs right, the Democratic Socialists left.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: These are the exact voices that repel the middle that
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: decides these elections. And yet the middle is essentially got
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a gun to it, said to say, you've got to
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: pick a side. We're not going to cater to the
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: middle anymore. And arguably American politics used to be middle out.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Now it's out to the middle, and they feel like
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: and all of these voters feel like they have a
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: gun to their head deciding, well, which is the least
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: bad option for them? And the problem for the Republican
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Party with these voters, it's a the Mega brand is
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: poisoned to these pragmatic Republicans.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: They hate it.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: The progressive socialism is poisoned to that center left wing
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: of the middle. There the order and opportunity left. So
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the base isn't just not the country right. And this
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: is on say the base, the base of the left
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: and the base of the right. The base is actively
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: costing its own party, the country right. The base is
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: the right of the left is the reason why Democrats
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: are struggling, and it's the base of the right is
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: why Trump is struggling. So look, I wanted to go
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: through this in sometimes excruciating detail, I'll confess, but the
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: next time you watch a ridiculous Twitter feed Twitter feud.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you see some algorithmic driven streaming rant by
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: you know somebody used to see on cable TV, or
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: if you watch What's Left of Legacy TV and you
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: see two giant armies, one red and one blue, locked
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: at fifty to fifty, screaming across a trench. Right, the
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: idea that that, you know how sometimes the CNN panel
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: can look like that. Somehow it's Van Jones and Scott
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Jennings and they represent it all right. Remember this typology report.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Remember that there is a trench, sure, but the armies
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: that are insighted are actually super small. The most committed
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: minorities are the whitest, loudest, and most online.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: People there are.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: That's who makes up the progressive left, and that's what
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: makes up this cormaga, right according to Pew. And in
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: between them is the rest of us, a giant, diverse, tired, broke,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: skeptical middle that doesn't trust either side and mostly wishes
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: everybody would just.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Knock it off.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: So here you go. That's the American political census right now.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Look when you look at this, you know, if I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: look at it through the prism of running as an independent.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: It has never looked more opportunistic. There are all these
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: abandoned folks, there are all there's an entire sort of
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: common sense middle platform that you can run on that
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: I'm convinced if you don't have a party label, you
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: might have you might have a bigger potential constituency, but
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: I don't. The problem is what breaks through is the
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: loud and the performative, and that's what the committed left
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: and the committed right are really good at. And they
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: are defining their parties.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: They are.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Creating a perception of the two parties that is turns
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: out not the it's not what the country wants, and
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: it's not what's what's real. Right, there's an entire like this,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: this two base, this this seven percent base on the left,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and this twenty one percent base on the right. This
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is one in four Americans total, right, twenty eight percent.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: They are force feeding us a political system that literally
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: seventy two percent of the country wishes weren't the case.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: So what I hope people will do with this information
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: is realize, hey, all is not hopeless. What happens online
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: is online, and yes it matters to a point, but
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: it is not representative of real people the rest of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: us do live in this messy middle, and a politician
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that can both capture the imagination with a little bit
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: of showmanship or show womanship, but has a common sense
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: just you know, don't do dumb shit platforms, has constituencies
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: begging to be talked to by this entity. The question
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: is whether our political system and allow someone like that
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: to actually exist, right, whether our media ecosystem can make
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: room for something like this. I mean, that's what's so
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: both reassuring about this report for me and frustrating at
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: the same time. It confirmed everything I already knew and
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: believed about what the country actually is versus the perverted
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: ways the basis of the two parties have painted our politics,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and so I get hope and frustration at the same time.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: But hey, I'm here to offer a little hopium and
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I will tell you take a look it is. We
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: know we have the electorate that this country needs to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: keep this republic on the right track. We now just
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: need the political leaders to actually talk to the electorate
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that exists, not one that is menu factored through grievance online.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: And with that, I'm gonna sneak at a break and when
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: we come back, one of the one of my favorite
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: people to just have them have a great conversation with Chuck.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Close to.
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  Speaker 1: Slash predicts, slash Bonus, hyphen offer, hyphen terms, Ask Chuck.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: First question comes from Lucas, and I'm very excited about
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: this question Lucas because he says, greetings from Bloomington, Illinois.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: And here's why I'm excited about Bloomington, Illinois. I'm going
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: to tell you about that after I answer the question.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: But greetings from Bloomington, Illinois. It's a very important, very
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: important town in my in Chuck Todd's history, But I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: will tell you after the After the question, he goes
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: curious your take on private equity getting involved in college sports,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: like at the University of Utah with nil transferportal growing
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: money in the system, it feels like the line between
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: college and pro sports is disappearing. Do you think college sports,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: especially outside the SEC in the Big Ten, are an
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: on an unsustainable path? Thanks Lucas. So the answer is yes,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: this is unsustainable, but I don't want to rule out
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: that private equity might actually be more of a help
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: than a hurt. Right, private equity might be the way.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: That we can keep.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: More sports alive inside the university system.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: The concern that if we if we let's look, look
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: what the SEC and the Big ten want is to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: create the English Premier League. They want to create they
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: want to put a velvet rope around a smaller league,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: if you will, an elite college league. They haven't quite
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: said it yet, but it's you know, Greg Sanke has
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: all but telegraphed this, you know, down to the I
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: believe there was at one SEC meeting he was talking
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: about reading the history of the EPL and how how
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: fascinated he was with it, and you know how it
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: just made the EPL bigger. You know, everybody said, the
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: smaller they make it, it was going to drive fans away,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and it.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Did just the opposite, et cetera.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: The problem is the Big ten in the SEC are
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: not interested in having a national major sport.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: I think what they.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Want is something that they control. They they keep ninety
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: percent of the pie and then they'll let everybody else
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: share the other ten percent. The irony to this is
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: that I think the they limit the long term viability
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: of the sport. They limit the long term viability of
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: making money off of the sport. You know, I think
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the beauty of college football is unlike the NFL. You
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: can get a sellout in Pullman, Washington, and you can
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: get a sellout in Auburn, Alabama. And you can get
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: a sellout in Knoxville, Tennessee. And you can get one
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand people show up in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. And
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: you get my drift. You know, the NFL is not
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: in near the number of markets the college football is in.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: And so the opportunity college football has to basically be
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: you know, the NFL is getting harder and harder to access. Right,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: games are more expensive than ever they're you know, the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: red zone is expensive, all this stuff. College football has
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to be the people's football league essentially, right. Look,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: and I think that's something we got to stop.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Look, this is it.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: It's two pro leagues. You have the you know, the
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: big pro league, the NFL, and then you have this
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: he said, actually younger professional league that is college football.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: And I think ultimately we probably have to separate out
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: college football from everything else. You know, it's funny if
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: you separated out college football from everything else, if you
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: went if you went to seventy you know, sort of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the super league model. But it was an expansive version
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: of it, seventy teams, maybe maybe with relegation, and you know,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I think there's some there's a lot of interesting ways
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: you could do that. One of the private equity firms
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: running around there with money has has has a few
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: plans on this. But I think if you did the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: super League on football and had divisions and made them
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: geographically aligned, then you could almost go back to the
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: traditional conference format for all other sports basketball, baseball, volleyball.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Et cetera.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And it's probably one of those things where everybody would
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: be happy and you could, you know, still generate revenue
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: across the board in different ways. If this continues to
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: be conference driven, where all sports are essentially are at
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: the mercy of how this football decision goes down, then yes,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: all college sports are at risk. So I'd like to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: see a de risking of of the non football sports
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: here by figuring out a way to separate it out.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: So but look, you know, it's probably too late for
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the powers that be to create a system that they
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: get to have their fingerprints on. I think I think
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: they what I think collective bargaining is coming and one
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: and and once collective bargaining happens, We're going into a
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: whole other area. And then I you know, look, this
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: is where I think, Like I said, I think private
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: equity can be a net positive if depending on like,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: not every private equity deals the same, Right, what does
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: what does.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: The cash out look like?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: You know, a private equity deal that gives you some
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: front end money, you know, based on potential revenues down
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the road, sort of similar to how the pension funds
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: were investing. You know, had that idea to.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: Invest in the Big ten.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: That feels like a more righteous way to do it
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: than if you just have sort of a more you know,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of the negative persons and the private
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: equity comes in, extracts the value and then leaves everything
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: in tatters. Right, Like, you don't want that version of
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: private equity nest around college sports. But look a lot
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: of universities operate dollar in, dollar out, and you need
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: you might need a little excess cash in order to
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: build out what you need to create long to create
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: revenue down the road. So I'll give you an example
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: where private equity could be a net positive.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: So say you're.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Florida State Football and you want to build a not
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: just a stadium, because what you're seeing is the major
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: college programs are actually wanting to do what some NFL
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: teams have done and create an entire sort of of.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: Like a a.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: An area, a gathering space that includes the football stadium,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: maybe a premier hotel, maybe restaurants, maybe shopping, you know,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: almost like an entire sort of ecosystem that you know,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: people might spend an entire weekend, you know at. It's
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: almost like a college football resort in Tallahassee and one
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: in Tuscaloosa when you can see where this is. And
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: that's a case where you need you need the private
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: equity to fund the build out of that, to get
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure in to build this incredible sort of mecca
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: to the Florida State football and what I'm describing or
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: you might see you see the similar things being done
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: at Clemson and Happy Valley, et cetera. And I think
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: that's a case where private equity because that's a that's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: an investment now that you hope would pay dividends.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: Down the road. Right.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: So that's that's just an example where it could be
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: in that positive. So that's why I don't want to
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: be I don't want to be knee jerk nega of
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: on it again. I go back to just the the
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: economics of college sports is there's just not a lot
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: of available cash, and that's why it's it's where essentially
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: private equity is are banked in that sense, and so
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: it isn't but.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: It's a.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: I do think the biggest impediment to any of this, though,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: is is Greg sank and the SEC and the Big
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Ten and whoever the hell is in charge there. I'll
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: admit Sankie is. I don't know, mister Sankee. I actually
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: like to meet mister Sankeye because I use him as
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: a punching bag sometimes. On this look, he's looking out
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: what's in the best interest of the SEC, but what's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in the bestresses of the SEC is not in the
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: best interest of college football as a whole. And I'd
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: be happy to debate him on this forever doubt he cares.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: But Lucas Bloomington, Illinois is where my mother was born,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: and ironically day my grandmother was returned to Bloomington, Illinois
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to lay next to my grandfather in a cemetery of Bloomington, Illinois.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: So my producer Nasa doesn't realize what she did by
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: ordering this up top there, but she gave me a
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: little way to make that acknowledgment. So thank you, Nesa.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think you realized that, but I appreciate it.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: And Lucas, thank you for writing, and thank you for
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: saying you were from Bloomington. By the way, my grandfather
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: started a clothing store that was once a big part
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: in Bloomington.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: It was called Marbon's. For any of you that will
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: inevitably be asking.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Brian Dee and he writes, Hey,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: I followed you for years and appreciate your perspective. I've
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: noticed that ballot counting often gets overcovered by the media,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: even when the process seems to be moving smoothly. Why
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: do you think news outlet's focus so heavily on this?
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Does it reflect reality or is it more about the
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: media environment? Yeah, you know, I certainly don't spend a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: lot of time on the process itself. I do think
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of new media that spends time
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: in the process. I think Donald Trump has certainly made
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: the process seem nefarious, So then you know, if you're
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do if you're in the press
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: is to just bring sunshine to the situation. And so look,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: I think you know, you know, two things can be
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: true at the same time. California is doing everything by
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: the book and is making sure access to the polls
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: and everybody's vote that should be counted as counted, and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: they can do a better job at figuring out how
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: to do it faster in a more efficient system, right
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: like and I think unfortunately now in our politics, right
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: if you somehow agree with a criticism that the president has,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: then you know, fu and your family, right, that's what
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: the left would say, and if you at all acknowledge that, no,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: what they're doing, there's no nefarious here. Spencer Pratt did
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: as well as any Republican can do in a county
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: that's seventy thirty democratic.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, then you're not towing the line.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Then you're you're some sort of rhino or or you know,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: you you're captive, captive of the of the crazy left
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: or something like that. But look, I think the instinct
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: of the media coverage of it is to make is
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to is to make it clear if there was something nefarious,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: we'dn't see it and it would be plainly obvious. There's
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of really people that I used to say
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: were responsible actors on the right who are exploiting the current,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of frustration with California, and I say
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: to these guys, come on, you know, everybody, Spencer Pratt
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: was not screwed. If Spencer Pratt wanted to make the runoff,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: he'd have run a campaign that wasn't megacentric and AI fueled.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: He'd have actually tried to be a bit more centrist.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: There was a path to victory, there was a path
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: to second place. He chose a performative path. That was
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: a choice. He could have gone in another direction would
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: have gotten them in. You know, you're you know, if
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: the electorate rejected you, then you didn't do a good job,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: meaning the electorate where it's at. So you either had
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to persuade them to come to where you are or
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: you need to meet the elector at where it was at.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: But I do think that both things can be true
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: here about California. They're doing everything by the book, and
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: there's got to be a faster way to do this.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Matt from Upstate New York Right's hey, a big fan
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: of the pod. Keep up the great work with social
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Security shortfalls now projected sooner. How do you see this
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: shaping the twenty twenty eight election. Do you think candidates
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: will offer real solutions or default but blame the other side.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: Let's say you think's.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: Matt from upstate New York, Well they really you know,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: first of all, all the solutions are there, and this
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: is what frustrates me, both about our debt and about
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: funding social security? You know, And how do you improve
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the trust fund? The doughnut hole folks? Right, the cap
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: on social security taxes? Right, if you take a million dollars,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: you only pay social Security taxes up to the first
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's one hundred and eighty thousand, right, There's
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a simple solution to improving you know. And I promise
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: you when you say, would you like to see social
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: security benefits cut? Or do you want to see social
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: security benefits fulfilled? Even if it means raising taxes on
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: people that make more than one hundred and eighty thousand
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: dollars a year up to you know, whatever it is.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Or you can create a donut hole and make it
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: where you know, nobody that makes you know, whoever makes
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars or less only pays Social Security
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: taxes on the first hundred and eighty and if you
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: make more than five hundred thousand dollars a year, you
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: pay those security taxes. Maybe you get a carve out
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: between one eighty and five hundred, and then you pay
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: it all the way to whatever you make. The point is,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: the solution is simple. It's sitting there. It's the cap.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: It's the Social Security tax cap. Right, It's the simplest
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: solution to this problem because the only other solution is
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: to start. You know, you get eighty percent of benefits,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: you get seventy five percent of benefits, et cetera. But
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: nobody's going to be the party then institutes that. So
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: it is the one. This will be the most fascinating
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: issue in this sort. Look, I think you're going to
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: see nothing, but as far as twenty twenty eight twenty
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: twenty six are concerned, it's going to be a lot
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: of sky is falling type of rhetoric. And you know this,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: you know, the solution isn't e isn't hard. You know,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: the right's probably going to just default to saying, well,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: if we just purge the social security roles of people
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: who shouldn't be there, there would be plenty of social
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: security for you. So they'll probably do a little bit
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: of of sort of of sort of manufactured scapegoating on immigrants,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: of which the numbers actually don't add up. To back
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: that accusation up. Is like I said, it's a you
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: know there, you could means test, right, we could means
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: test and or race, you know, raise taxes. So it
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: is going to be one of the others. So actually,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: the solutions to this aren't very difficult, and they're kind
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: of they're not painless, but they're not they're not catastrophic.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: But you know, here's the other problem. We have a
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: we have a declining birth rate, and we're deporting people constantly.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: We're shrinking our population. So if we continue to shrink
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: our population, we're gonna have to jack up taxes. If
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: you don't want to hire.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: Taxes, we're going to need more people.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Denise, a Boston public radio listener,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: which means I see around Jim and Marjorie, resident of Marlboro,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: mass and a Bostonian at heart. God bless you, Denise.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: I'm usually just a listener, but the conversation surrounding Platner
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: raised a question for me. How do you reconcile supporting
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: a candidate who seems well suited for the job with
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: concerns about their personal conduct. It often feels like the
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: most polished candidates don't always translate into effective leaders. Something
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: has to give. Look sometimes at the end of the day,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: it's your own gut check. I can't you know. I
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: think everybody wants a definitive answer here on Platner. A
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: plenty of us look at Platner through the prism of Trump.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Whether that's fair or unfair, it just is. I think
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: we both know that in the pre Trump era, Platner
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: never would have gotten off the ground, right. The Democratic
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: left wouldn't have supported that the permission slip that voters
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: have given Trump. And that's what I always say, it's
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: the voters that give the permission slip.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: The voters tell us what's acceptable and what's not. You know,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: it isn't me in the press, it isn't our political leaders, right.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: The voters decide what's acceptable. And so the voters have
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: made this character exception for Trump. That is something I
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: don't think any of us saw coming. And so the
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: voters have changed this, and the voters are likely to
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: change it again. You know, I think I shared this earlier.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: I happen to believe it'll eventually come, but we're probably
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: it's probably going to be take about ten or fifteen
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: years post Trump for us to sort of return to
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: a time when when character will matter. Likecter, you know,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: I think character is destinying all this stuff. I think
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: I think everybody looks at Platiner through a lens of
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: their own experience with people that they may know that
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: have a similar background to him. If you're if you
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: have a military veteran in your family who served multiple tours,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you look at that behavior and you're like,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I get that, I know that, I know that's work,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: you know, And you may decide is that experience that
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: should make him a better US senator or does that
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: experience make mean he's still got more work to do
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: before he should go into public service. But that's I
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: can't I can't reconcile it for you, and you can't
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: reconcile it for me. Right, I think it's it really
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: is a judgment call, right, And look, in Virginia, we
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: face something like this in twenty twenty five with J. Jones,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: the Attorney General now he's the attorney general. He won,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: but he was running against a sitting attorney general Republican
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: named Jason Miras and j Jones use some awful language,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: sort of wishing, you know, sort of dreaming about the
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: idea that a political opponent might die be a random
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: gun violence, so that his family would understand the pain
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of gun violence. I you know, something that felt disqualifying.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: You're like, really, you you want to be the attorney general?
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: And this is the way you know, It's wasn't just
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: any position he was running for, right, So the point
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: is is that I I'm not going to sit here
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: and say that my morals are your morals and my
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: and I think that that's what makes Platner very subjective.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: What is more offensive to you?
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: Is it Platner's character? Is it Susan Collins votes?
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: Right? You know?
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: And and I you can make the I'm sure there
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: are voters that will make both cases ultimately, you know,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: I've look.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the data, and the data tells me.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: And we're seeing now that a majority of voters in
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: both parties are willing to overlook character problems if it
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: prevents the other side from winning something. That's where our
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: politics are. That's the world Donald Trump was trying to create,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: and he did it. He has bent the character for
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: the country to him. He's bent the character of politics
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: to him. I'd like to fight that. It is hard
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: to fight it, you know. And this is the dilemma,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: right If you want to fight that politics, you got
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: to defeat that politics. Now, you know that's Susan Collins. Certainly.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I think there are some things you know she I
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: think she carries herself with grace. But if you don't
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: like her votes, you may not think she does, you know,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: and you may think that what she did with Kavanaugh
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: was a bridge too far. And I'm not going to
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: judge you on that, and I'm not going to say
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: you're wrong for that. I understand that. So I get
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: the point is is that And I think that's where
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: you get to that. And then there's the hardcore political
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: conversation where I don't know whether Plattner is going to
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: be a good or bad public servant if.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: He went.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of yellow flags, and will the yellow
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: flags be red flags at some point? I don't know,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, it's sort of like risk just
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: not the game, but sort of risk management. Some people
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: have a higher tolerance for risk than others. Some people
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: will gamble, some people won't. There is some risk with
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: voting for Platter. The question is whether you think it's
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: high risk or low risk. There was real I think
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: there's real risk with voting for Trump, and it all
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: depends on your risk tolerance, right, So, I know character
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: is a bigger deal for me in a vote, but
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: I will confess that I have the luxury that character counts,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and I have a luxury to worry about those things
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: because I'm not feeling economically squeezed at the moment. And
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: that's why I want to be careful here, not to
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: presume how you should feel or others real but I
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: get the dilemma. I understand the dilemma and I think
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: it would be cleaner if the Democrats had a generic
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: candidate here. But life isn't Life isn't easy, is it?
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: And generic? You know, if we could find generic politician,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: generic politician would have would be winning in a landslide
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: every cycle, in every race. That's not a lot of
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: how life works. Next question comes from Matt Am. He says, Hey,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: what's your take on concerns about potential bias and coverage
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: of platinu, particularly.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: Around who is reporting the story.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: How should audiences think about evaluating reporting versus posible underlying
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: perspectives or conflicts? Do you see any of that as
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: worth considering when assessing the broader narratives? Sincerely, matt Am. Look,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: you know, whenever I've been asked about questions of bias
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: in the reporting itself, I always do this, check my out.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, still a human being.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: Everybody's born with original bias. Okay, where you're from, who
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: you're born to? All right, what ethnicity are you?
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: Some of the stuff we're just born. Right, you're born
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: with a bias. You learn about them as you grow,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: which you're born with a bias. So that's that's always
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: the I always want to get that out of the
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: way whenever I get a question about bias. Look, I
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: am a obviously, I've been doing this a long time.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: So I think of myself as a sophisticated news consumer,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I know how to I know
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: how to find the information I need, no matter if
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: it's packaged in something that is pro platiner or antiplatiner.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I know how to find the stuff that's factually correct,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and whether I trust the reporter to report facts. You know,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: I'm fine if a reporter has a left bias or
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: a right bias, but they're always they always care about
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: the facts, right, you know that that that so there's
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of ways that you can evaluate this.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: So you know, I.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you, Matt. I have a
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: feeling that you that there might be something else you're
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: trying to ask with this question. But I also don't
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: want to try to read into something that maybe you
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: didn't intend. But I do think that I've seen a
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: lot of online commentary that takes somebody's presumed faith and
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: assumes there's a bias towards what they're reporting and how
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: they're reporting it. Be careful treading in that territory. I
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: just you know, it is there is no monoculture like that,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: it doesn't exist. And a reporter's personal.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Faith it is, it is, it is.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: I would just I hope that's you know, I hope
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: that's not where you're going. I'm going to presume you're
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: not going there. But the reason I was wondering if
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: you were is I've seen a lot of this lately.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: I've seen somebody try to dismiss a report about Platiner
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: simply because the person once worked for an organization that
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: was supportive of an organization that is a critic of Platners,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: and that just like, where are we going here? That
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: that type of you know, that's sort of guilt by
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: association and guilt by association. It's pretty un American, you
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: know it should be. I say, it's an American. It's
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: practiced all the time, but it's essentially a form of McCarthyism.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: So let's be careful on that. Evaluate what you're reading
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: based on the words that are there, not presuming based
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: on what you think.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: Folks are running.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: Now that said, I'll tell you a place that I'm
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: always wanting to know someone's bias. But the bias again,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: it isn't about a political bias. It is about a
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: It is about an academic bias or an ideological bias.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: It is when when I read history, did you come
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: at this from a left perspective or a right perspective?
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Because how you interpret older stuff? Are you interpreted it
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: through today's prism of left and right? Are you are
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: you doing your best to ground yourself in what left
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: and right look like back in that day. So I'm
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: not saying somebody's bias isn't isn't helpful to understanding why
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: or how they're covering a certain story. But you know,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: I think that in mainstream news organizations, you know, it's
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: it is the bias. There's usually the story itself is not.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: Usually the bias is. And how frequently a story gets
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: covered is almost more of a bias sometimes, and the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: topic that gets covered about a certain person can can
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: be influenced by the bias of a reporter, meaning they
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: keep wanting to cover the same angle to the same story,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: but the angle is factually correct that these new you know.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: So that's what I mean when you just this is
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: a I don't think it's a fulfilling road to go
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: down other than you know, just just learn how to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: discern how you read a story knowing that look, there's
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: plenty you know, there's plenty of facts to pull out
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: from this, And I know what I do. I try
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: to look at this and say, Okay, what's the best
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: version of this story based on the facts that are available,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: and what's.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: The politically worst version of this?
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: And looks and just as your own exercise, read your
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: next Platiner story and then say, okay, what how would
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: somebody have written this if they really didn't like them?
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: What would what more would they do it?
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: And vice versa. Julie from Portland organ wrtes is it
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: right that exit poles used to help call racist quickly
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: even though vote counting always looked took longer with more
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: mail in voting? Now do eggs and poles still play
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: the same role? Do you think the shift and how
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: results come in is contributing to public confusion? And could
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: the media do a better job of explaining it?
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, the media can do a better job explaining it.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: I think the media is trying to do a better
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: job explaining it. I know I focus on this. I
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: always constantly want to let people know, Okay, how is
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: the vote, how is the vote being reported? How does
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: it get counted? What's being counted?
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: First?
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: I want people to understand when they see blue mirages
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: and red mirages early on in a vote count why
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: it happens that way?
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Look, it's one hundred percent of the vote. When a
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the vote is in, that's your total?
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: What happened with fifty percent of the vote in depends
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: on which fifty percent got counted first, right, Like, So
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: it's just a it's a reporting bias, which is something
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: to be wary of. Look as to exit polls. So yes,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: an exit poll is a tool. But I'll explain to
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: you how how we used to use. The exit hole
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: is a projection tool. So it is a piece of
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: the tool. So you'll get your exit pole, and then
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: what you'll do is we'll we'll have people at the
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: precincts that we know are the most you know, a
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: representative sample of the precincts of that state, and then
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: we'd actually a physical people on the ground to get
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: the first returns reported from those precincts, and then you
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: match it up and if it if it matches with
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: the exit pole, then the exit pole becomes a confidence
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: builder and helps you in the projection. But I want
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: to mystify the exit pole itself was never used to
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: call rate. Was never the instrument that called the race.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: You were still getting real data in and the exit
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: pole was essentially like is it how far off or
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: on is it?
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: It was sort of like one. It was just like
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: one more extra tool. I My frustration is I think
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: exit polls are very very important to understanding why people voted,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: and they're not accurate when we report them. We always
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: report them at the start of an election night, when
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: they actually you need to wait until you see the
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: votes come in and the exit pol needs to be rewaited,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: rewaited to the actual electorate and then you have a
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: more accurate exipole. You ever notice that you'll see exitpole
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: reporting and it gets quote updated, well, it's because it
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: gets reweighted based on actual votes. So what I hate
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: is that is that the first wave of exit poles,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: they'll report data out of it and they're just misleading
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: everybody on this, so it really should never be reported. Ideally,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: an exit pole should be conducted solely to find out
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: why people voted the way they voted, and it isn't
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: ready for consumption for at least forty eight hours. But
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: that is not the way we've operated with exit poles. Now,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: we don't really have any out there. The Exitpole Consortium
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: is defunct and all the networks are now just going
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: to AP, which is why an AP's vote counting operation
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: is okay. But there's a reason all the networks wanted
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: their own and this is why I'm doing work with Decision.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: To s HQ.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: They're their own entity and they've been building their own
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: vote counting system now for about a decade now, and
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: it's outstanding, and it's better than APS, it's faster than APS,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: it's more nimble than APS, and you know, I think
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: there's more more to be done there. As for your
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: specific question, I'm mail in voting. So for states that
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: are predominantly mail ballots, we would do a telephone pole
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: in lieu of an exit poll. Exit polls are conducted
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: with literally people after they walk out of voting physical
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: voting place. We would have exit poll takers during early
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: vote and you know, the actual polling places there's basically
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, you basically survey every eight voters or every
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: five voters, whatever.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: The number you decide to use on a given day.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: But for the majority of those states that are predominantly
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: done by mail, Oregon is the biggest one.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: Is is UH You've pointed out.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: Is UH is just a more substantive telephone pole, but
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: you have a higher margin of error. I mean, you know,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: we we do our best to then wait the that
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: poll to the actual vote, when you get the when
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: you get the returns in. So that's how we've been
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: doing exit polls in states. When I say we the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: collective political community, but it's a little less accurate these days.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: But look, not to give away too much, but I'm
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: in the middle of of of helping to figure out
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: how to build a new exit pole, one that won't
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: may not cost an arm and a leg, but it
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: might actually be be able to make a dollar or
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: two and also improve the entire ability of the political
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: community to actually understand why people vote the way they vote.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: Last question comes from Scott from Pennsylvania ten. I like
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: that more people. I want you to identify your congressional
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: district with the questions.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: I like this.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: Let's make this a trend. Scott from Pa ten. Today's
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: polarized environment, even a president attending a sporting event can
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: become a political flashpoint. How do you think president should
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: approach these appearances and what's a reasonable way for fans
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: and players to react? Thanks for you continued great content.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: I you know.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: I think our presidents, if they want to go to
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: these big events, should go to these big events. I
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: don't know why we have to make a big deal
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: that they're there. Let them make the big deal. I
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: don't think the event itself should make the big deal, right,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: Why should the event? You know, let people know all
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: the famous people that have decided to go, because it does.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: You know, look, mayors get booed, Governors get booed, Presidents
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: get booed. Right, It's not always the best politics in
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: the moment. You're always gonna get food because we all
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: everybody just doesn't want politicians in the way of sports.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody else wants to read more into it
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: than sometimes.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: That it is.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: But I will say this, Man, if the Knicks don't
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: win this championship, Trump is Knicks fans are gonna hate.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: They're gonna blame Trump for decades. For decades, they were
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: on their way to a four game sweep and then
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: Trump came to the garden and took away all the mojo. Right,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: Like you could just picture how that's never Knicks fans
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: are never gonna get over. It's gonna be like, it's
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: gonna be like the oj. You know, I read a
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: recent I didn't realize this at the time, but I
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: read a recent that apparently there was conspiracy theories back during.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: The OJ era. Right.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: Famously, the Knicks were in the finals during the OJ
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: Bronco Chase and it's the famous split screen wasn't even
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: a split screen. It's like three quarters of the screen
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: was on OJ and a tiny little box with the
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: basketball game, and the Knicks were up to to one,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: and then OJ happened and then they lose it. And
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I guess the theory is because Akeim Elijahan was a
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: foreign national, he didn't really know or care about O. J.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: Simpson.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: But because the Knicks were made up of more American players,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: they were more obsessed about OJ and it got into
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: their heads more than it did the I don't know
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: if I buy it, but it's like welcome to the
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: snake bit Nicks, right where these outside events and these
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: giant personalities steal their championships from them. Anyway, Look, I
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: want I like the idea that our championship teams get
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: to be honored at the White House. That should be
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: seen as a thing, whether you're left to right. I've
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: shared the story before. You know, Donald Trump politicizes everything
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: worse than any other president. Why do I know this?
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama honored the eighty five Bears, and you know
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: who showed up and was invited, Mike Ditka. And Mike
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: Ditka was being recruited to run against Barack Obama in
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand and four during that Senate race, and Mike
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: Dick even brought up. He goes, hey, man, I didn't
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: vote for him, but I'm here, and he said it.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Then he goes, I'm here because I respect the presidency.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: I respect the president, and I love the Chicago Bears
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: and he loves the Chicago Bears. You know, why can't
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: we all behave like Ditka?
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: It's it is. Look, there's a fine line obviously, and
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: we know that. Look, why are politicians open sporting events
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: because they want the reflected glory? And no, we've never
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: had a president in so need of reflected glory more
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: than this one, right, So I I it's it's it's
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: going to happen. All I would say is, you know,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: the to me where presidents mess up is when they
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: try to get involved in sports they know nothing about.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: And that's all. It's that that would be. That would
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: be the one thing I would say on that is
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: sort of make sure you know your you know your sport,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: or make sure or lean into what you don't know
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: it and lean into the fact that, hey, I'm here
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: because everybody's loving them and I grew up and I
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: loved it, and that's it right. Don't try to make
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: it a political event. Act and behave like a fan,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: and nine times out of ten you might get more
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: respect for it. Scott from PA ten, We'll talk to
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: Little Penn State Football the next time you write. By
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: the way, I used my soapbox last episode to say
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: that the Big twelve needs to step up and what
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: Texas Tech was doing was just wrong. I saw that
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: the Big twelve did step up. They haven't made a
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: decision yet, but I'm glad to see that there is
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: public outcry about this. But let's be let you know.
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: I would like to.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: See and know.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: ESPN needs to get off its ass on this because
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: they're controlling entity of the CFP, But the College Football
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: Playoff entity can end this tomorrow. We know the NCAA
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: has no teeth, but the CFP can decide who's eligible
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: and ineligible for the College Football Off. And if you've
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: admitted to gambling on your own team, you're ineligible to
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: play in the CFP, and how that is not just
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: a standard by law for participating in the CFP is
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: beyond me. If it's not, it should be and it
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: should be done yesterday. Do I think Brendan Sooresby should
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: have access to college education?
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: I do? Should he?
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: You know, if the judge decides that he should be
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: able to be on the team, if he wants to
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: be on the team, that's fine, and that's up to
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: Texas Tech. But other teams can decide not to play him,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: and other tournaments can decide he's not eligible, and that's
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: okay too. With that, enjoy the weekend. I'll see in
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: seventy two hours until we meet them. Let's hope. Let's
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: hope we're somewhere closer to a resolution with a run,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: but I fear by Monday we won't be Hey,