Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode -The Blue Wave Is Building… But How Big Will It Be? + 25 Years After 9/11: How The Attack Reshaped America

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Full Episode -The Blue Wave Is Building… But How Big Will It Be? + 25 Years After 9/11: How The Attack Reshaped America · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
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  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
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  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
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  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
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  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
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  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
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  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
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  Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4255. Hello there and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toddcast. The
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: first September edition. We are coming to you by the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: time you're listening to this. We'll be somewhere either right
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: at 60 days until the midterms or 59, depending if
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you delayed a day. And I got a packed episode
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: for you. We're going to hit a lot of big themes, including...
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Some new midterm analysis and a couple of deep dives
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that I've gone into that I think help gave me
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a clearer picture of the battle for the Senate in particular.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I want to share with that. We had another primary
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: night on Tuesday, got a few takeaways from that, but
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  Speaker 1: we also have more specific data on overall turnout during
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the primaries. It's an incredibly important tea leaf to read.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I've been sharing that with you as well. We've got
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  Speaker 1: a crisis, a five alarm fire at the Pentagon. I
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: want to get into that. And we've got a broken house.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And I'll explain that. My interview for this episode, Brian Knappenberger,
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  Speaker 1: he is the writer and director of a new documentary
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that's on Netflix right now. It just hit as we
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: published as we published this episode. It is essentially the
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  Speaker 1: documentary that every Netflix subscriber is going to have an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to watch on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And
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  Speaker 1: this is sort of Generation 9-11. It's called Turning Point
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  Speaker 1: Generation 9-11. And what Knappenberger did with this doc was
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  Speaker 1: try to both capture the feelings of the moment, which is,
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  Speaker 1: I would argue, nearly impossible. I've certainly got a lot
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of A lot of my own feelings that I didn't
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  Speaker 1: feel were captured there, but I didn't expect it to be.
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  Speaker 1: But what was more important is sort of how 9-11
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  Speaker 1: impacted a generation of young Americans who were maybe five
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  Speaker 1: or six when it hit and are now more than
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: coming of age. And those were the conversations that certainly
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  Speaker 1: hit pretty hard there. So it's definitely, we have a
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  Speaker 1: very robust conversation about 9-11 and its legacy and where
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  Speaker 1: it stands. And it's just, You know, for those of
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  Speaker 1: us that went through it, those of us, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that day is still, I was at the Watergate publishing
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  Speaker 1: a hotline that day. I'll never forget a staffer named
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Court Ruddy who was, you know, as soon as we
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: heard the Pentagon was hit, he just looked around the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: corner and was trying to, because you could see we
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: were right on the Potomac. You could see the Potomac
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: from our offices. And he was looking to see if
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: he could see the smoke from the Pentagon. And we
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: didn't know what else to do, but we kept publishing.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And that's what we did because, you know, it was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: like we had to keep ourselves busy. I made sure,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody called their parents, called their loved ones,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: let them know everything was OK. But my offices were
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: right across the street from the Saudi embassy. So to
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: say that everybody was a little bit nervous is an understatement.
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  Speaker 1: I spent my evening driving as many people home as
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I could because I didn't want anybody on the metro.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Taking a subway, taking public transportation. because we were all,
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  Speaker 1: that's what people forget about that day is we were
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: convinced this was only the beginning. And perhaps it's still
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  Speaker 1: the most remarkable aspect of all that is that that
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  Speaker 1: was not, it ended up being the beginning, middle and end.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And yet we have scar tissue from wars that still
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: feel like they haven't ended on that. I'll have a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: new top five list, hot off the presses on where
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: things stand in the Senate. As I said, I have
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a pretty clear picture now. And then of course, Week one,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the trek, the University of Miami's campaign to prove to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the world they are the best team in college football,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the best program in college football, that we are building
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: something that is sustainable and bigger and better than those
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: two overrated conferences called the Big Ten and the SEC.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So I'll give you a little bit of my exclusive
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Miami preview. Who else is going to give you Chuck
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Todd's preview of the University of Miami football season? And
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: then I have a couple of words about the Angels
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers. But look,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I know why you tune in. Let's start with the midterms.
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  Speaker 1: Because I think we now have what may be the
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  Speaker 1: most important political tea leaf we've gotten all year. Bottom
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  Speaker 1: line is this, a democratic wave is building. What we
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  Speaker 1: don't know is how big it's going to be. And
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  Speaker 1: that's why I'm using the word building. I'm not telling
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  Speaker 1: you there's going to be a democratic wave or a
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  Speaker 1: tsunami in November. We're still two months away. There's still
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  Speaker 1: things that can happen. Campaigns matter. Debates matter. Candidates matter.
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  Speaker 1: Those things matter. But if you're looking for actual evidence
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  Speaker 1: that a wave is forming, we just don't know. This
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: is going to be a hurricane, but is it a
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  Speaker 1: category one or a category five? The best piece of
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  Speaker 1: evidence we have right now is overall primary turnout. And
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  Speaker 1: it's not simply the comparison of, and this is the
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  Speaker 1: total number, basically the Democrats won the midterm primaries. Hard stop.
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  Speaker 1: What do I mean by that? more Democrats showed up
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  Speaker 1: to vote in Democratic primaries than Republicans showed up to
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  Speaker 1: vote in Republican primaries. It is about the most important
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  Speaker 1: stat you can have in your pocket to try to
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  Speaker 1: project what's going to have in November. And it's not
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  Speaker 1: just what happened this cycle, it's how it compares to 2022, 2018,
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  Speaker 1: and 2014. So stick with me here. Um, John Kovulian,
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  Speaker 1: a Republican data analytics guy and sort of one of
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the best modelers out there on the Republican side of
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  Speaker 1: the aisle. He's a frequent contributor to our election night
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: live streams that I do with DDHQ and Chris Eliza.
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  Speaker 1: He was on again on Tuesday night, but he's a
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  Speaker 1: must follow on X if you're a political junkie. He is,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, he works on one side of the aisle.
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  Speaker 1: His X feed isn't about just promoting stuff. He's just
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  Speaker 1: a data guy and you learn so much of it. Well,
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  Speaker 1: he's been tracking this very closely, the partisan primary turnout
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  Speaker 1: across the country, state by state. He updated his numbers
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  Speaker 1: through the Massachusetts primary from Tuesday night. And Democratic turnout
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  Speaker 1: overall is running about, according to John, about 35% higher
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  Speaker 1: than it was for Democrats in 2022. As for Republican turnout,
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  Speaker 1: it's down about 4% from 2022. Overall primary turnout is
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  Speaker 1: up 14%, but all of that rise in turnout is
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  Speaker 1: due to Democrats showing up in the primaries. That alone
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  Speaker 1: should get your attention. But then you compare it with 2018, right? Remember,
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  Speaker 1: 2022 was the red mirage, right? The red wave that
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  Speaker 1: didn't form. But it was still a Republican-leaning year, and
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  Speaker 1: primary turnout told us it was going to be a
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  Speaker 1: Republican-leaning year. But let's compare it to 2018. 2018 was
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  Speaker 1: a pretty decent Democratic wave. I say decent. It got 40%.
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  Speaker 1: seats for Democrats, but they did lose two Senate seats.
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  Speaker 1: And Democratic primary turnout this year is running 25% higher
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  Speaker 1: than it ran in 2018. And Republican turnout this year
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  Speaker 1: is also above 2018 for what it's worth, 14%. So
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  Speaker 1: we have greater engagement overall in both parties for this
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  Speaker 1: midterm than before, but it is supercharged on the Democratic side.
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  Speaker 1: And overall turnout is 20% higher compared from 2026 through
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  Speaker 1: to 2018. But here's one more number I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: come back to. Of the people voting in one of
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  Speaker 1: the two major party primaries so far this year, Democrats
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  Speaker 1: are accounting for about 56% of all voters, right? In 2022,
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  Speaker 1: they were 40% of all voters. In the blue wave
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  Speaker 1: 2018 election, Democrats were 54%.
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  Speaker 2: 54%.
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  Speaker 1: And then if you go back to 2014, Republicans were 55%.
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  Speaker 1: So you see, right, it is a foreshadowing mechanism. Whichever
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  Speaker 1: party is more enthusiastic during the primary season is usually
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  Speaker 1: the party that comes out ahead in November What we
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  Speaker 1: don't know is how much do they come out ahead, right?
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  Speaker 1: But that pattern, you go back to 2014, Republicans won
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  Speaker 1: the primary turnout game. They picked up seats. It was
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  Speaker 1: a reddish wave. 2018, the Democrats won the primary turnout game.
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  Speaker 1: They gained seats. 2022, Republicans won the turnout, narrowly, but
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  Speaker 1: they won the turnout. They narrowly were able to get
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  Speaker 1: control of the House. So it's that trend line that
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  Speaker 1: should really get your attention. Now, look, somebody may clip
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  Speaker 1: this and say, Chuck Todd's already declared blue wave is here. Look,
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  Speaker 1: there are plenty of ways that this could both be
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: correct and still be a tropical storm rather than a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: category three hurricane, right? And I think that's a fair thing.
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  Speaker 1: It is a tea leaf. That's what it is. But
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it is better than any poll that's out there because
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: this is measuring actual people who showed up to the polls.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And if you show up in a primary, you're definitely
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: showing up in a general, right? And that's why this matters.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So it's already Democrats are ahead of the Republicans when
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: it comes to general election turnout. But look, I'm a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: huge believer in looking for election indicators That don't ask
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: voters what they're going to do, but instead just you
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: get to observe what they actually did.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: That's special elections. That's fundraising. That's voter registration. And that's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: turnout because it's the behavior that matters. People will tell
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  Speaker 1: a pollster anything, but voting is voting. And so when
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  Speaker 1: you compare 2026 to 2022 and then 2018 and 2014,
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  Speaker 1: I just think it absolutely crystallizes that, oh, a wave
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  Speaker 1: is blue wave is building. What we don't know is
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: how big this sucker is going to get. But look,
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  Speaker 1: the ingredients for one are clearly there, right? Republicans have
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to worry about the next two months. And it's, you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: they're going to be playing a lot of defense. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get more to that in a minute. Now,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: let's talk about Massachusetts voted this week. Next week, we've
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: got New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware. And then mercifully,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: we're basically done with primary season. What did we quickly
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: learn in.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: You know, in Massachusetts, I would just say, look, the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: old guard's in trouble, but they hung on. You know, Massachusetts,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in some ways, it almost behaves, its politics behaves kind
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of machinish-like. And it's still kind of an old guard,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you know, it's been chipped away at. And I think
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the Massachusetts Democratic Party is in the middle of being remade,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: but it's not completely there yet, right? That's why Richie
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Neal survived. That's why Stephen Lynch survived. Ed Markey is
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: sort of, you know... He's really good at sort of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: moving where things are. But Seth Moulton, I think Markey
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: could have lost another type of candidate, another type of campaign.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Seth Moulton just didn't run that campaign and he was
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the wrong candidate. Look, there are two significant things to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: watch in next week's primaries, New Hampshire and Delaware. We
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: got the Senate primaries, both on the Democratic side, Republican side.
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  Speaker 1: This is the seat Jeannie Shaheen is vacating. Chris Pappas,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the likely Democratic nominee, is suddenly looking over his left shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: There is a progressive challenger that has gotten a little
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: bit of traction in at least one poll we've seen.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But I always want to be careful. The University of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire polling has been a mess. They've been a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: mess all over. And so I don't I would be
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: let's not overrate it completely. You also have two senators
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: running against each other, two former senators, John Sununu and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Scott Brown. By the way, this is like the 18th
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: time I think Republicans have had multiple former U.S. senators
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: running in primaries in New Hampshire. Bob Smith and John Sununu,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I think, ran once again. I think Bob Smith and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Scott Brown ran against each other once or whatever. But
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Sununu is likely to come out on top. The Sununu
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: name is still gold in that state, particularly in a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Republican primary. And we'll see. I think John Sununu in
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: any other camp year would be a formidable general election opponent.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It's an uphill battle in this environment because of the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: national wins. But I do want to do a little
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: bit of a dive here in the Senate and give
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you a little taste of what I wrote about this week,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: both for my column that appears both in New Sphere
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and in Substack. I spent a lot of time essentially
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: trying to look at some– different ways that the battle
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: for the Senate could get impacted. And I'll be honest,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I have one idea of where I think the Senate's going.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And then I did this deep dive on gubernatorial races
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and their impact on Senate races over the last 20 years,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: over the 21st century. And I ended up coming to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a different conclusion about which seats I think are more
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: likely to flip and which ones aren't. So I want
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to make an argument that's going to sound that it's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: incorrect at first. But I believe this. Control of the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: United States Senate may ultimately be decided not by any
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Senate races, but by three governor's races, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So stick with me here. Because what I went and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: did is did a bunch of sort of data analysis
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: on this. And by the time I finished, I changed
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: my mind about which state I think might be the Democrats'
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: last legitimate path to a Senate majority if the wheels
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: fall off in Michigan. Well, let me establish the map here.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: For Democrats to have any conversation about Senate control, they
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: already have to have a really good night on the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: East Coast, right? So for the purposes of this exercise,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to assume that they're going to find a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: way to win under this environment, North Carolina, Maine, Ohio,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and Alaska. Now, I don't want folks to sit here
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and assume I've already predicted this, but I'm going to–
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: because those four are a heck of a lot easier
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: for Democrats to win in this environment than the next
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: couple of Senate seats that they would need if for
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: some reason they didn't get one of those four. So–
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and I know particularly Ohio and Alaska and Maine, we're
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: not going to say they're gimmies. I think North Carolina,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: that definitely feels like that's going to flip to the Democrats.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty bullish about Democrats in Ohio because I think
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the anti-tech atmosphere that's there, I think Vivek Ramaswamy being
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: so closely associated with tech, let alone Elon Musk, let
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: alone Donald Trump, I think that's a negative threefer. I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: think he is going to be a huge drag on
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the ticket, not a small drag on the ticket. And
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the– I can't believe
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I'm saying this. I think there's going to be a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Democratic sweep in Ohio tomorrow. because of this unusual combination
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: of just anger at tech and literally Ramaswamy being the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: exact wrong avatar Republicans could have at this moment, right?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: This is somebody who is just embedded in the tech community.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how he punches his way out
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: of this, but we'll see. But look, we're not even
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: talking about Senate control if they can't flip those four.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna start there. And if they flip all
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: four of those, Then of my three states, Michigan, Texas,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and Iowa, then Michigan is sort of the first big challenge, right?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Michigan is now the firewall for the Democrats. They flip
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: those four, North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, and Alaska, and they
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: hold Michigan. Texas and Iowa don't matter. They've got their
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Senate control. But if they lose Michigan, then they have
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to find another Republican seat. And it is that next
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: category of targets that Democrats have in the Republican Senate, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: That's just another level of difficulty. A lot of those states,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you can see a path to 47% for Democrats. It
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: gets really hard to go find those last three points
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in those states. A lot harder to find them there
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: than in, say, Alaska, where Mary Patello in the first
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: round of voting already got to 49%. Or a place
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: like Maine that has elected plenty of Democrats, a state
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris carried. Or a place like Ohio where Sherrod
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Brown has recently won. Or a place like North Carolina
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: where Roy Cooper has won plenty. But Michigan becomes a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: firewall situation, which means Democrats would have to win it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: If they lose Michigan, they'd have to win a Senate
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: seat in a state they haven't carried for president since
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama or one that they haven't carried for president
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: since Jimmy Carter. Okay. Okay. That's the map they're staring
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: at here. But before I get to those three states,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: there's one of the Senate race that I don't think
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Republican leaders expected to be spending September thinking about, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that's South Carolina. Darlene Graham survived a Republican runoff against
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Ralph Norman last week. Barely, right? 52-48. And remember what
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: it took for Republicans to drag her across the finish line.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump had to personally intervene. He went to South Carolina.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Maggie had to spend heavily. President put his political capital
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: behind Graham in a way that he hadn't done for
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: anybody else on the ballot this year. And she survived narrowly.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So you would think, all right, South Carolina, Republican state.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: All's good, right? Nope. Because Ralph Norman, who lost that runoff,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is still pretty bitter. He got up and said, we
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: fought hard, the voters have spoken, and now let's go
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: beat the Democrats. Nope, that isn't what he did. Ralph
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Norman hasn't done that yet. He was asked this week
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: what he would tell South Carolina voters who haven't made
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: up their mind in November. And you know what his
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: answer was? This is what he told the Greenville News.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Vote for Ralph Norman. Now, technically, Norman is not announcing
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: some organized writing candidacy. There are South Carolina election law
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: issues actually involved here. They have sore loser laws. But politically,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that's almost besides the point, right? The Republican nominee just
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: won 52-48, and the guy who got 48% is not
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: telling his voters to, quote, come home to the Republican.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: He's telling them, vote for him. Basically, sit the race out.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Write in somebody else. Don't vote for either Graham or
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee. And then Norman continues to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: criticize Trump's intervention in the primary. He called it shocking. Look,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: we all get why Norman intervened.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Norman's upset because if Trump doesn't intervene, Norman is the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee. But Ralph Norman had to know that at
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: some point Donald Trump was going to exact revenge on
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: him because Ralph Norman endorsed Nikki Haley in the presidential
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: race in 2024, not Donald Trump. That said, Norman claims
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: he's still really supportive of Trump, but he's still upset.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: He goes, I just don't understand why the president decided
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to get involved. And I'm like, you really don't know
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: how personal he takes everything? There's both a personal in
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the positive with the grams and a personal in the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: negative with you, Mr. Norman, who chose to support opponent. Now,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: good on you for doing it, right? You didn't back down.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: You weren't afraid. But we know how Donald Trump operates.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: But if you've got him going out there and you're
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, do you decide to try to take advantage
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of this? Do you start to maybe run some ads
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in the most conservative parts of the state, sort of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: amplifying Ralph Norman's comments, questioning why, you know, because there's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: already a bunch of conservatives in South Carolina who were
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: never big Lindsey Graham fans. Annie Andrews isn't going to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: be able to convince those folks to vote for Annie Andrews,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: but she might be able to convince those folks not
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to vote in the Senate race. And Ralph Norman basically
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: just offered up.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: A....
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: It's almost like a book blurb, right? He gave you
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the blurb to use in paid advertising to give Republican
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: voters the permission slip to not vote for Darlene Graham.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty potentially powerful thing to use there. Now,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: so we'll see. But I have a feeling, I think, look,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham hasn't, you know, he didn't clear, he hasn't
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: cleared 55%. I think he cleared 55% in two of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: his last three elections. And Darlene Graham's not Lindsey Graham.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, but it's certainly another place where I
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: think Republicans are going to have to spend a little
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: bit more money and a little bit more time. I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: don't know if the Democrats have excess money. I don't
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: know if they would bother to spend it in South
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Carolina rather than in, say, Mississippi or rather than, say, Kansas.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: But Boy, Ralph Norman has just handed them an engraved
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: invitation to start playing around here. Because if you just
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: get 10% of the Norman vote to vote for a
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: third party candidate or write in Norman's name or skip
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the Senate race, that's a much more realistic path for
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews to win. Hey, this episode of the Chuck
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• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of 2026. Now, it brings me back to the three
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: governor's races, though. I wanted to give you that a
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: little update because I just, Norman did this on Monday.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It's just astonishing. This is in the Greenville News, which
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is the paper of record for the part of the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: state that has been the most skeptical of the Grams,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: both Lindsey and Darlene. So we'll see. It's a very
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Republican part of the state. Annie Andrews is not going
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to do well there. But again, it's about splitting voters off.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: But I want to bring up the governor's races here
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit because there's also another reminder here. Washington
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: consistently gets one thing wrong when it comes to the midterms.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: at least the Washington ecosystem, and I say this as
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: somebody who has spent my entire career inside the ecosystem,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: we obsess over Senate races. We obsess over the control
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of House races, who's up, who's down, which seats are
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: going to flip. And in a lot of these states,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: that's not necessarily what voters are talking about, right? Usually,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: if a race has a high profile Senate race and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a governor's race, no matter, even if the Senate race
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: is super high profile, most of the time, voters are
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: more concerned and interested in the governor's race, especially when
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: it's an open seat. The governor's races in general usually
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: are what I say, they make the weather in the state, right?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And part of that is mechanics, right? The gubernatorial campaign,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: first of all, the governor's race is usually at the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: top of the ticket in these midterm years, in most
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of these ballots. And the gubernatorial nominee is usually running
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the statewide political operation, right? They're usually either in charge
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: of the state party, appointed the party chair, sort of
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: get control of it. It is, you know, in many ways,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: they're sort of the linchpin of the entire turnout operation
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and field program and things like that. And it's also
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: a reminder that voters treat governor's races where they care
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: about the two candidates. Senate races are usually treated as jersey.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: You know, am I voting for the red jersey or
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the blue jersey? It's usually less about the person. There's exceptions.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I think Texas and Michigan are exceptions in this case.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But governor's races are much more personal. But what matters
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: here are in states where there's both a governor's race
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: and a Senate race, where the governor's race can impact turnout,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: but more importantly, especially in places where you know the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: gubernatorial nominee is going to outrun the Senate nominee, how
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: much padding do they need? How much Can they drag
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: them over the finish line? So here's a few facts
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that we already know going in. Ken Paxton is going
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to run behind Greg Abbott in Texas. Abdul El-Sayed is
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: probably going to run behind Jocelyn Benson in Michigan. And
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Josh Turek is going to run behind Rob Sand in Iowa.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So the question then is, what kind of number does
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Abbott need for Paxton to survive? What kind of number
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: does Benson need for Abdul Al-Sayed to survive? And what
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: kind of number does Rob Sand need to suddenly get
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Turek from the dreaded 47% zone over into the 48, 49,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: or 50 territory that might just be enough to pull
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: it off, right? So that's what I wanted to figure out.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: So in order, I want to give you a little
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: taste of the research I did. So I kind of
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: went backwards. I pulled every midterm Senate race going back
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to 2002, where there was also a governor's race on
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the ballot. Then I narrowed it down to the genuinely
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: competitive Senate races. And I ended up with 46 races
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: total going back to 2002 of competitive Senate races that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: were running simultaneously with governor's races in that state. And
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I know 46 is not bulletproof statistically, et cetera. But
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: there were some interesting patterns here, right? The first one
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: is a pattern that tells you a lot about how
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: our politics have changed over 25 years. When you go
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: back to 2002 and 2006, roughly half the states that
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: were holding competitive Senate races and governor's races, they actually
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: split between the two parties, meaning there were 22 states
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: in 02 that had both a governor's race and a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Senate race. And literally in 11 of them, I think
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it was, 11 of them where they split, right? A
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Democrat won one, the statewides, while the Republican won the other. Frankly,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: it was something that used to happen all the time.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And 2002 and 2006 saw a flurry of them. But
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: since 2010, basically since the Obama era, the start of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the Obama era, only about 25% of these midterm races
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022, only about one in
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: four of the states that held both a governor's race
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and a Senate race did we see a split decision.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Ticket splitting hasn't disappeared. It's just become less common, right?
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: We know that the polarization of America has really sort
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of bounded people to almost voting straight. I think 75%
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of partisans now vote straight ticket all the time, right?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: We can't come up with that figure exactly yet, but
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I think after this election, we'll be able to have
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit more way of doing that. So that's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: why I think what– that's why I think these governor's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: races could end up becoming in some ways incredibly impactful
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: on whether they are strong enough campaigns to essentially improve
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the weather for their ticket mates in the Senate race.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: So the other part that I wanted to look at.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Is this.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: How much can the Senate candidate underperform a governor before
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the party coalition breaks and that Senate candidate loses? And
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: so I went back to, I used three, I had
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: three recent candidates to try to help me figure out
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: what is the penalty for various sins that voters may
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: have for a candidate, right? Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin 2022, right?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Tony Evers gets 51, just over 51% of the vote.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Barnes got just over 49% of the vote, which means
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: there was a two-point penalty for being seen as sort
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of ideologically, you know, too far out of the mainstream.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: That's what Ron Johnson ran against him and all this stuff. Evers,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a two point penalty, right? There
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: was some small slice of Evers voters decided to cross
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: over and vote for Johnson or they skipped the Senate race.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And it was obviously Evers, you know, wasn't strong enough.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: You know, had he gotten 53 percent of the vote,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Mandela Barnes probably comes across the finish line. So I
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: looked at that and thought ideological penalty to voters is
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: approximately two points. Jay Jones in Virginia in 2025. Do
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: you remember Jay Jones, the scandal? He had those text
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: messages where he fantasized about his political opponents getting killed
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: by gunfire. It was terrible. A lot of people denounced it. Well,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: there was a voter penalty. Voters didn't like it, right?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Abigail Spanberger got nearly 58% of the vote statewide. Jones
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: got 53% of the vote. So Jones got hit with
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: about a four and a half point penalty, but he won. OK,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: so this was scandal plagued guy. There's a four and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: a half point penalty from the top of the ticket
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: to him. Now let's go to Herschel Walker, Georgia, 2022.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Brian Kemp gets 53 percent of the vote. Walker gets
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: about 48.5 percent of the vote. So call it a
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: five point penalty. And Herschel Walker.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: It wasn't one scandal. It was a lot of scandals. Right.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: It was like it was like a lot of little things.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: If you notice there, four and a half for Jones,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: five points. So scandal, right? That was about a five-point
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: penalty in Virginia, and it was a five-point penalty in Georgia.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: But in this case, Walker lost.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Well, Jones didn't survive because voters forgave him. They didn't.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: They penalized him. And it was the same size penalty
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that Walker got. But Jones survived because Spanberger gave him
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: an enormous cushion. Walker takes the same hit and Kemp
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: wins fairly comfortably for a swing state, but he didn't
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: have enough room to, you know, he didn't win by
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: enough to drag a flawed candidate like Herschel Walker over
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the finish line. So keep that, keep those two numbers
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: in mind, right? Four to five point penalty there, both
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: in Virginia and Georgia, 2022, 2025. That takes me to Texas, right?
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: That's of my three examples here. He's the scandal plate candidate.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: So what's the Abbott number got to be to save Paxton?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: So if Paxton is penalized by voters like Jones and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Walker by about four to five points, he's going to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: need Greg Abbott to win by a big number. Now,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: look at Abbott's last three elections. 2014, he got 59%
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of the vote. 2018, he got 56% of the vote.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: And in 2022, he got just under 55% of the vote.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So If you're Paxton, you look at the electoral history
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of Greg Abbott and you say, hmm, all right, good
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: news is he's hit the cushion. If I'm going to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: get the five-point penalty, all right, he's hit it before,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: so it's possible. But there's something else those Abbott numbers
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: show you. Abbott has his trajectories going in one direction, down,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: not up, right? So is Abbott going to get another 55%?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Or is Abbott going to get 54, 53, 52? Look,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: three months ago, I might've told you that Abbott was,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: that the possibility of Abbott getting to 54, 55 was realistic.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: He had a ton of money. He still has an
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: enormous amount of money. Gina Inouye is a very good candidate,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a bit underfunded, arguably from the, I could argue she's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: from the wrong part of the state if she wants
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to win statewide, Austin, right? The most liberal enclave. But
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I'm much less certain now. She's been
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: running a terrific race. Abbott has been running scared. You
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: don't flip on data centers because your polling is so good, right?
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And obviously now we know Senate Republicans aren't entirely comfortable
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: with the situation either. I mean, John Thune's posture toward
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Paxton is telling you something, right? Republican leaders don't need
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to believe Texas has suddenly become a blue state. They
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: simply understand the math problem they have. They realize that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: four to five point candidate penalty when your governor is
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: probably sitting at 54% on his best day these days.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's survivable, maybe it isn't. But what happens if
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the governor gets 52%? You got a huge problem. And
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: guess what? I think Abbott's more likely to get 52%,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: not 54%. It is this analysis and this deep dive
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: into here that is suddenly making me a lot more
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: bullish on Tallarico. I mean, I've been watching all these
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Texas polls. Tallarico's number rarely moves. It sits at 47
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: in a lot of these polls. It's the Paxson number
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: that fluctuates a lot. But ultimately, you know, I'm going
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: to stick with what has been a tried and true
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: way to look at this. When you look at these
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: past results, you look at sort of trend lines, you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: it's still Abbott's race to lose. I'm not predicting that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Abbott's going to lose here, but this is going to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: be a much closer race. He is running scared. He's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: got to use all his money for himself. He can't
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: be bailing out the entire Republican ticket. And again, there's
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a trend line happening here. right? Abbott's numbers have gone down,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: even though the fluctuation, right? He did worse in 22
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: than he did in 2018. The Democrats had a better
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: year in Texas in 2018 than they did in 2022,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: but Abbott keeps sliding ever so slightly. One more wrinkle
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: here in Texas, the libertarian line. Go back to, there's
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: one other candidate I looked at very closely to try
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to understand how much voter penalty there is for a
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: scandal-plagued candidate. Do you remember Todd Akin? Senate candidate, Missouri 2012.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: He's the guy that claimed there was not all rape
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: was the same, legitimate rape. Go Google it. The Republican
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Party walked away from him, totally abandoned him. Mitt Romney
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: was the, this was a presidential year. Mitt Romney walked away.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: So the entire party had to walk away. Aiken collapsed.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: But not every Republican voter in Missouri who abandoned Aiken
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: went to Claire McCaskill. A bunch of them parked with
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the Libertarian candidate. The Libertarian Party line got a bigger
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: number in 2012 in Missouri than they'd gotten in a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: long time. And it's an important thing to think about
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: here because a Texas Republican who cannot bring themselves to
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: vote for Ken Paxton doesn't necessarily have to become a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: James Tallarico voter. There is another place to go. Texas
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Libertarians normally get something like 1% to 3% in these
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Senate races. What if it's 5%? What if it's 6%? Shoot,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: what if it's just 4%? They're not Democratic votes. Those
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: are votes Paxton doesn't have. So there you go. So
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: use this Abbott scale. 54 or 55? Maybe Paxton can survive.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Do we see any evidence that Abbott's going to get
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: 54 or 55 this time? Or is all this evidence
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: pointing to Abbott somewhere between losing re-electionarily or winning by
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: less than five points with something like 52% of the vote?
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I have a very hard time seeing how Paxton survives.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: under those circumstances. At 53%, I have a feeling we
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: could be in recount territory. Now let's go to Michigan.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: It's a slightly different problem, right? Abdul El-Sayed, he doesn't
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: have a Paxton problem or an Aiken problem. His potential
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: penalty is ideological. That's why I looked at the Mandela-Barnes
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: race here. And that's why I think that's the better comparison.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Barnes ran about two points behind Evers. So we're going
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to call El-Sayed's potential penalty two points. Maybe it's three.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: So if Jocelyn Benson gets 54%, then I think El-Sayed
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: is probably okay. If Benson gets 52%, we are in
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: total coin flip territory now, aren't we? Right? And that's
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: why I think Michigan is now basically the firewall. And
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: some may think it could decide the Senate if you
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: don't believe in Texas. But I think I've just made
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the case that Texas is... Texas looks more like Ohio
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to me now than I ever thought it did. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: that's on me. This is why sometimes you got to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: go back and do your homework, right? I did my homework.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I got a different attitude about Texas. And I'll get
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to Iowa here in a minute. I got a different
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: attitude about Iowa. So Democrats don't merely need Jocelyn Benson
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: to win. They need her to create enough room underneath
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: her for El Sayed. By the way, I just want
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: to do a quick aside. I think the single best
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: campaign of the cycle is being run by Jocelyn Benson.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And she's not going to get the credit for it.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: And she hasn't won yet. And she, you know, stranger
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: things have happened. So I don't want to, you know,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: I don't want to presume anything. But boy, when she
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: got in, first she was, you know, she looked like
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: there was going to be a crowded primary. She cleared
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the primary for Then Mike Duggan, the popular mayor of Detroit,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: chooses not to run primary, but starts running as a
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: third party candidate. And she's like, Jesus, right? Then all
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like, could he get traction? Look,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I was a huge, I was definitely Duggan curious because
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I'm obviously very down on the duopoly these days, as
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: many of you know. But, you know, she put her
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: nose to the grindstone and, you know, just never gave
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Duggan an inch. Now, whether that was poor, you know, Duggan-
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to run a statewide campaign and just
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: was running a Metro Detroit race, whatever. Benson, you know,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: she's been everywhere. And she's also not somebody who's feeling
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: as if she's got to win the attention economy either.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. A lot of people look at
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer. Jocelyn Benson wins this race and is the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: next governor of Michigan. People need to spend a little
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: more time getting to know her. Her origin story is fascinating.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: You know, look, Republicans are going to hit her. She
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: spent a little bit of time working at the Southern
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Poverty Law Center. And obviously the Trump administration is trying
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: to make that. I think what they've done to them
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: feels a little bit suspicious, too. I think that's a
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: lot of murkiness there. But I think. I think I
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: think Benson is is when you see that it's, you know,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes campaigns don't get credit because there's not enough drama.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: You know, she somehow has dealt with all these hurdles.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And there's been very little drama. And she could end
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: up being the candidate that wins the Senate and saves
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed. Now let me move to Iowa. Iowa's where
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you could say my theory kind of fell apart, and
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I'll explain. But it made the exercise useful because it
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: really helped me understand Texas better. Look, I started out
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: thinking Rob Sand might be a tow rope, if you will,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: for Josh Turek, right? Sand wins the governor's race and
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: pulls Turek across with him. Except Iowa has its own
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: interesting history of producing enormous differences between candidates of the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: same party without splitting the ticket, right? In 2010, Chuck
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Grassley ran about 11 points ahead of Terry Branstad's winning
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: campaign for governor. In 2014, Branstad runs seven points ahead
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: of Joni Ernst, but they both win, right? Two Republicans.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: The gap can go in either direction. I mean, part
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of that is a Grassley phenomenon there, right? But the
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: party result seems to hold. In fact, Iowa hasn't split
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a governor and a Senate race since 1998. It was
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Vilsack and Grassley. So, you know, I think there is
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: something here, but I don't know what the actual number is.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I do think the Sand number... Look, I think Sand's
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: going to win the governor's race. The question is, what's
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the realistic ceiling.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: He could hit?
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Is it 53? Is it 55? Is it 57? Okay?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Those are serious questions. I do think he's sort of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: a thermometer here. And Turek, right? Turek doesn't have any...
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I'll get to this in a minute. So if Sand...
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: wins the governor's race with 51 or 52. It just
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: means San ran a great campaign. And it tells me
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Iowa has not moved back towards the center enough from
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: its shift to the right in the Trump era. And
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: it's probably 51 or 52 won't be enough for Turek
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to win. But if San's getting 55%, then maybe something
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: is happening here. Now, here's something to think about. No
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Democrat has won an Iowa governor's race with 55% since
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Harold Hughes in 1966. Put that in your trivia column, right?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So if Sand is sitting there on election night at 55,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that's not simply a candidate having a good night. That
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: is that he might be changing the weather. And even
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: with that, I don't know if it's enough to get
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Turek over 50, right? Now there is a libertarian candidate
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: on the line in Iowa. Maybe, you know, he could
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: pull off something akin to what Jon Tester has done, right?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Two of his three races in Montana. He won with
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: less than 50% of the vote because enough Republicans parked
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: in the libertarian category. But I looked at libertarian performance
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. Historically, Iowa libertarians have maybe gotten 1%. Montana
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: libertarians consistently get over 2%. So there's not a big
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: habit of Republicans splitting off to vote libertarian the way
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: there is a little bit of it in Montana. So
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: it brings me back to where I started. You know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: when I began this exercise, I assumed Iowa was probably
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the Democrats' fifth seat, right? Right now, they need to
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: flip four and hold everything. But if they lose Michigan,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: they need to find a fifth. And I, you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: part of that is my own habit, my own personal bias.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in Iowa. I grew
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: up with Iowa as a swing state, right? Iowa's been
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a be-all, end-all for politics. And I just assumed, oh,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Iowa is finally course-correcting. It's going to be back to
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: its normal sort of Midwestern's swingy self. You know, you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I really did. I thought if, boy, if Michigan, you know,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: if Abdul El-Sayed comes up short, then the emergency pickup,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it's surely Iowa's going to be more plausible than Texas.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Except looking at this, I'm not sure that's true. I
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: think Texas has something Iowa doesn't. It has, one, a
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: potentially significant candidate penalty that you can identify. It has
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: a Republican governor who remains strong, but who is vulnerable
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: for the first time in any time. He's running for
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a fourth term, unprecedented. And there is a third party
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: line where unhappy Republicans can park without having to vote Democratic,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: but it sort of lowers the winning number for the Democrats.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: So these are the three numbers I'm going to put
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: on my election night cheat sheet, right? Benson, 54. If
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: she's there, Abdul El-Sayed has the cushion he needs. Abbott, 53.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Above it, Paxton has a chance. Below it, it's over.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Paxton loses. And then Sand is 55. Not because Sand
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: getting 55 automatically elects Turek, but it does tell me
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: something has shifted. It probably means if Sand's at 55,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: they've picked up three House seats. And then we'll see. Look,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson is a really good candidate for the Republicans.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: She's from actually a Democratic part of the state. So,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's going to be awfully tough
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: for Turek to overcome Hinson. Unless Sand really changes the weather.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: The Republican candidate for governor is very weak. The guy,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the guy is, he's going to be painted as a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: carpetbagger from Kansas. And there's just way too much, you know,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: the fact that he currently flies back and forth from Kansas,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: it feels like he's a, Sand has the resources to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: be able to paint him as a part-time Iowa resident.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Iowans care about that. Being Iowans more important than being
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a partisan. Just trust me. And Iowans know this. So
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: like I said, I started this exercise thinking I was
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: probably the Democrats' third path to the Senate majority. I
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: finished it wondering whether Texas actually might be just part
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: of the same group of four that we've been talking
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: about before. And, you know, wasn't where I expected to be.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: All right. Let me move on here. I want to
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: spend a little bit of time on something that I
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: genuinely cannot understand why Washington isn't treating as a five
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: alarm fire. We are at war. Our military is stretched.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Senior commanders are warning that the strain from the Iran
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: war is degrading our ability to respond to threats in
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: other parts of the world. And simultaneously, we have a
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense conducting an extraordinary purge in the middle
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of a war of the senior leadership of the United
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: States military. And nowhere is the damage more obvious right
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: now than in the United States Army. Frankly, I'm starting
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to wonder whether the Army is, you know, his... Anger
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: at the army is personal for Hegseth. Remember, Hegseth was
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: in the Army National Guard. He was an infantry officer.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He eventually made major.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: And he has spoken and written for years about his
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: own anger at what he believes the military became, right?
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: He clearly blames whatever promotion he didn't get or whatever
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: in the army on somebody else. And he seems to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: be taking it out on that single branch. He titled
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: his book, The War on Warriors. So this was not
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: somebody who believed in the military when he went in.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: which makes him, I do not understand how Hegseth got
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: this far, but I have a theory. I'll tell you
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: in a little bit. Look, but Hegseth has talked about
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: an army that he believes became too politically correct, too bureaucratic,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: too obsessed with diversity and not obsessed enough with fighting. Okay.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Clearly it's personal for him, right? He didn't get some
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: promotion he wished he got, but that's beside the point. Now,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: there's a legitimate argument to have about whether the Pentagon
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: has become too bureaucratic. That's a fair argument. And there's
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: a legitimate argument about whether there are too many generals,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: all right? And there's a legitimate argument about whether the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: military was preparing for the wars it wanted to fight
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: rather than the wars it actually has to fight. But
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that's not what Hegseth has been focused on. Look what
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: he's actually done. He fired General Randy George, the chief
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: of staff of the army. No public explanations. He forced
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: out General Chris Donahue, nicknamed Captain America, commander of the U.S.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Army in Europe and Africa. No meaningful public explanation. General
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: David Hodney, who was overseeing the Army's transformation effort, gone.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Other senior officers associated with George and Donahue have all
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: had their promotions blocked. Seven more officers selected for the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: two-star rank were just targeted. And now Dan Driscoll, the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Secretary of the Army, has resigned after repeatedly warning the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: White House about what Hegseth was doing. This isn't about reform, folks.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: This is an intentional gutting of the United States Army
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: by the Secretary of Defense. And here's what makes it
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: almost incomprehensible. These are some of the people who were
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: trying to change the Army in exactly the ways everybody
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: agrees it needed to change. It needed to get smarter
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: use of drones, artificial intelligence, counter drone warfare, learning from
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: what happened in Ukraine, learning from Iran, figuring out how
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: a relatively inexpensive technology can destroy enormously expensive American weapons systems.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Randy George and Dan Driscoll were actually trying to accelerate
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the transformation. Chris Donahue's command was applying lessons learned from Ukraine.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And now we're learning that the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Europe,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a unit that had been experimenting with drone warfare and
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: developing some of the very capabilities to do this better ourselves,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: is being told to go back toward a more traditional
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: airborne infantry role. Now, there are members of Congress from
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: both parties asking, what the hell are you doing? And
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: they should, but I don't think they've done it loud
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: enough personally. Because this is no longer theoretical, folks. Iran
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: has been firing drones and missiles at American forces. Russia
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: has transformed warfare with drones in Ukraine. China is watching
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: every lesson being learned in both places. If there's one
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: institution on earth that should be racing toward understanding this technology,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: it's the United States Army. And somehow this lug nut, Hegseth,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: is just firing some of the people who are leading
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: this transformation. In the middle of a war. That's the
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: part that gets me. We're doing this during a war.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: A war, it turns out, we were not prepared for.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: We don't have the munitions for. There was no planning for.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: The army is being asked to defend American bases from
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Iranian missiles. We're drawing down our munitions. We're extending deployments.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness the guys on the USS Lincoln, they get
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: 24 hours in Bangkok. Good luck with that, gentlemen. We're
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: borrowing assets from Europe and Asia. And the army itself
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't even have a Senate-confirmed chief. And it just lost
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: its secretary. It doesn't have a confirmed commander for army
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: forces in Europe, where we know Putin is thinking about
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: testing the resolve of NATO. The senior leadership of the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: army has been hollowed out intentionally by Hegseth. And the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: guy presiding over this seems increasingly interested in turning the
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Pentagon into some sort of personal reality show about himself.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: And look, you know, I struggle sort of being, you know,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: a name caller. I don't like, you know, that that's
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: supposedly what gets you to, you know, I'm not trying
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to go viral or whatever. But at some point, this
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: image making for Hegseth becomes relevant to the management question, right?
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: He's more concerned about influencers and about what the press
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: could say. You know, he's got his wife out there
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: planning a campaign for president. He's campaigning in Iowa, you know,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and he gets away with this because Trump is, you know,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: I keep, I've asked folks who are also bewildered, but
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: have some access to this White House. And they said that,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't believe, you won't believe what I'm,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: you actually will believe what I'm about to repeat. Apparently,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: they just say he's, that Trump's obsessed with Hegseth's look
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and his looks. that he's, I guess, got a crush
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: on them, right? You know, it's sort of the same
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: way he gets a, you know, because these people have
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: the look and he's just been obsessed with Hegseth since
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Hegseth was on TV at Fox. And whatever it is,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: he just, he's like, he's like mesmerized by Hegseth's square
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: jaw or whatever. And I guess Hegseth has taken advantage
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: of it and he knows it. I mean, you know,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Dan Driscoll's no Biden holdover, okay? Dan Driscoll goes in
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the Oval to basically say, This guy's a moron and
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: he's gutting the United States Army. And it's like, oh,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: but he's so dreamy. I mean, I don't get it.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And I can't believe that's the explanation I got. And
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: yet I can't. Right. It's Trump. I can't. So, look,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I just. This whole thing, we're removing generals with decades
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: of combat and command experience. We're blocking the promotion of
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: officers selected through the Army's professional process. We're dismantling parts
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of the leadership team, trying to actually figure out drone
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: warfare that clearly have us on our back feet. And
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: we've apparently got time to bring in social media influencers
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: into the Pentagon because Mr. Self-Esteem Pegseth problem. I mean, look,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the guy clearly, clearly has poser complex, right? His whole
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: workouts that he's got to show me, I mean, anybody
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: that's obsessed himself with looks and all this, I think
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: they tell you about who they are. What are we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: doing here? This is not a fricking cable TV show.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: This is not boot camp cosplay. Guy can't even do
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: a proper pull-up, by the way. And heading up the
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Pentagon shouldn't be a branding exercise. It's the United States military.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: It's the last institution Americans trust. And this guy is
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: blowing it up. The Iran war is entering its seventh month.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: The Navy is warning about its ability to sustain the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: current pace. Commanders responsible for Europe, the Pacific, Latin America
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: have formally objected to continuing some of the force commitments
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: they're being ordered to make to the Middle East. Assets
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: that we may need to deter China are being moved.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: China's happy about that. Assets we need in Europe are
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: being moved. Putin is happy about that. Important munitions are
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: being depleted. And we're doing something else that deserves a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot more scrutiny. The United States has
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: spent the last year blowing up suspected drug smuggling boats
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. Hundreds of people
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: have been reportedly killed. The administration claims they're narco-terrorists. Okay, well,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: show us. Who are these people? What's the evidence? What
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: was on the boats? What intelligence established that these people
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: were members of organizations against which the United States can
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: lawfully use military force? Why are we killing them instead
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of doing what the United States had traditionally done with
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: suspected drug smugglers? Basically, boarding the vessel, seizing the drugs,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: arresting the suspects, and getting the higher-ups. The Pentagon inspector
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: general is now examining the targeting process, so we'll get
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: a report in the next two years. Obviously, there is
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: no way any of this is constitutional. Congress did not
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: authorize a war against every suspected narcotics trafficker traveling by
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: boat in the Caribbean. And yet we've normalized the U.S.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: military blowing up boats and killing people on board based
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: largely on assurances from the same Pentagon leadership that refuses
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: to show the public the evidence. What are we doing?
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: So let's put all this together because these stories aren't separate.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: We're at war with Iran. the depletion of our military capacity,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the boat strikes, the army purge, block promotions, this leadership vacuum,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: dismantling of modernization efforts, obsession with ideological conformity. And they
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: all lead to an enormous question. Who inside the Pentagon
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: is willing to tell Pete Hegseth he's wrong? And even
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: a more important question, what happens to them when they do?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: It's what Bill McRaven warned about months ago, former head
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of special forces. guy that commanded, basically was in charge
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: of SEAL Team 6 that got bin Laden. Senior military
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: officers have to be able to walk into the Secretary
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: of Defense's office and say, no. Not, no, I won't
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: follow your order. That's not how civilian control works. But
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: they have to be able to say, no, sir, I
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: don't recommend this. This deployment creates too much risk. We
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: don't have enough interceptors or the Navy can't sustain this tempo.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Moving that carrier will create a vulnerability in the Pacific.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Firing that officer damages the morale of that institution. Stopping
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: program X makes us less prepared for the next war.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: And then you let the civilian leadership decide. That's the system.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: But it only works if the people giving the advice
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: believe that telling the truth won't destroy their careers. And
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: right now, I don't know how any senior officer at
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon could look at what's happening and not wonder
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: about that. More than 80 generals and admirals have been
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: fired or blocked from promotion. Randy George, Chris Donahue, C.Q. Brown,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Lisa Franchetti. Jim Slife, David Hodney, J.P. McGee, Joe Berger,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Jamie Sands, many more. But I'm naming them for a reason,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to that. Some of these
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: people spent three or four decades preparing for precisely the
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: moment we're in now. Many of them have left quietly,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: and I understand why. In fact, I respect it, okay?
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: The American military has always had this culture. You don't
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: whine about civilian leadership. You don't go on television and
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: settle scores. You don't make yourself the story. You don't
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: politicize the uniform. When the president relieves you, you salute
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: and you leave. I understand it. But I'm speaking to
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: those officers right now, just as a citizen. I think
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the country needs you again. And I'm not asking you
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: to become political. I'm not asking you to endorse anything.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Democrats or any opponents to crazy Hegseth. I'm not asking
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: you to attack Donald Trump. I'm not even asking you
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to attack Pete Hegseth. You need to be witnesses. Tell
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: us what's happening. General George, tell us what happened. General Donahue,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: get in front of Congress and tell us what happened.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Admiral Franchetti, General Brown, General Hodney, General Slythe, all of
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you owe the American people an explanation to what the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: hell is happening in the Pentagon. Guess what? If we're
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: all wrong about what's happening inside the Pentagon, then testify
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: to that and tell us we're wrong. If Hegseth's reforms
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: are making the military stronger, then please explain to us
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: how they are. If these officers were removed for legitimate
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: performance reasons that simply haven't been made public, tell us that.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: But if you believe the United States military is being weakened,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: if you believe experienced officers are being removed because of
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: ideology and personal grievance, If you believe people are becoming
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: afraid to give candid military advice, if you believe the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: army's ability to fight a war is now damaged while
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: we're fighting the one we're in, you have an obligation
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to warn the country. The president's not listening. He's apparently,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you know, can't stop staring at Hegsa. I get it.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: It's asking a lot. Nobody wants to become a public
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: figure if they don't want to be one.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Some of you spent your entire adult lives believing the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: most patriotic thing you can do is to keep your
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: mouth shut after leaving command. 95% of the time, that
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: is the correct. That's correct. These are not normal circumstances, generals.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: You don't have to come on my podcast and tell
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: me what happens, though you're more than welcome. Open invitation
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: to any of you. Go anywhere. Go before Congress. Go
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: to a newspaper. Go to Fox. Go to CBS. Go
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: to CNN. Write an op-ed. Tell us what happened. Congress
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: is clearly not doing enough. Maybe they'll do a little
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: bit more. The Pentagon is refusing to explain itself. The
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: American public has no way to see inside this institution.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: But you do. You were there. And this is what
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: frightens me. We already know this is bad. We already
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: know certain things. The leadership vacuum at the Army is
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: staring us in the face. We've seen the firings. We
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: know about the black promotions. We know about all these
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: readiness warnings. The strain from Iran is real. We know
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: about the munitions problems. God knows what we don't know.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: So to the people who do know, the country needs you.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: You served America for 30 years, 40 years. America has
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: served you well too. You've got a nice retirement. You've
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: had a nice, and you know, the military does a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: good job of taking care of families. We need you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to serve one more time. This is one more tour
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: of duty you've got. Tell us what's happening inside the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth Pentagon. Because right now, silence is not protecting
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: the institution. I'm afraid silence may be helping destroy it.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: You must speak up.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to end today with what I increasingly believe
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: is the central institutional problem in American democracy. I'm going
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to give you one of our subscribers called a Todd Talk.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a little bit of
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: a Todd Talk because it's crystal clear to me now
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: what the most damaged part of our democracy is. It's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: not the presidency, the Senate, the Supreme Court. It is
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives. The House is the cancer in
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: our political system. And I use that word intentionally because
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the damage isn't confined to the House anymore. It's spreading.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: But the cancer was first showed itself in the House.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: The presidency is sick in part because the House doesn't
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: function properly. The Senate is sick in part because the
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: House doesn't function. In fact, Trust me, when you're worried
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: that the Senate's becoming like the House, that's not a compliment.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: The judiciary has become too powerful and too political in
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: part because the House doesn't function. Our political parties are
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: sick in part because the House doesn't function. And our
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: presidential elections have become these quadrennial existential crises in part
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: because the institution that was designed to process the country's
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: political disagreements has stopped doing its job. It turns out
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: the House is the single most important organ of the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: body politic. Think about the constitutional design. The House was
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: supposed to be where the country's political energy went, the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: good and the bad, the anger, the movements, the regional differences,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: the ideological differences, the crazy stuff, all of it. You
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: elect representatives closest to the people. You send them to Washington.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: They fight about it. They negotiate. They build coalitions. They compromise.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: And eventually, hopefully, they'll turn some of those disagreements into laws.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: But it's a pressure release valve. And what happens when
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: the pressure release valve stops working, the pressure doesn't disappear.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: It just goes somewhere else. Went to the presidency, went
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: to the Senate, right? With presidents, they start governing through
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: executive action. Then the next president comes in and reverses
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: those executive actions of the last president. So policy itself
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: is unstable, thanks to the House being dysfunctional. Then the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: pressure goes to the courts. Congress doesn't settle abortion or
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: immigration or trade or war powers or anything. Pick an issue.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: So eventually judges are being asked to settle questions that
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the elected branches should have settled. Now, control of the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: courts has become enormously important, but it shouldn't be if
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the House were doing its job. Senate confirmations become existential
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: because the House can't do its job. So it makes
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Senate control more existential than it should be. And because
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: so much power is migrated to the presidency, control of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the presidency is existential. Every four years, we win or
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: democracy dies. We win or America dies, right? We win
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: or everything you care about disappears. And then we wonder
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: why the country is so polarized. The House was supposed
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: to be the organ that absorbed the conflict. Instead, it's
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: exporting political conflict to every other institution in the country.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: And that's what a cancer does. It spreads. And this week,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden and Marie Glusenkamp-Perez gave us almost a perfect
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: x-ray of the disease in the House. Here's what happened.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden, Democrat from Maine's second congressional district, the more
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: rural district in Maine. It's one of the most important
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: industries in his district and in Maine overall is lobster fishing.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: This isn't some interest group that gave him a campaign check.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: This is actual communities, families, generational businesses. And Golden, has
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: been working for years on the fight over federal regulations
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: designed to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale. And
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: there is a legitimate environmental argument here. There are legitimate
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: concerns about the survival of these whales, and there are
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: legitimate concerns about the survival of Maine's lobster fishing communities.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: And that's what legislating is supposed to be about, right?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Trying to deal with the competing interests, trade-offs, et cetera.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Figuring out how do you do the most good while
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: doing the least harm? Golden believes the regulations as currently
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: envisioned could devastate the industry and the communities he represents.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: And so he was doing an interview after this whole
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: kerfuffle was taking place, and he explained to the journalist
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Natalie Fertig what the stakes were. And listen to the
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: language he used. He said, look, I literally had fishermen
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: telling me that they were contemplating suicide. And then he
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: described what losing the lobster industry would mean. He said,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: the town is decimated. no property tax base, schools closed,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: everybody moves away. It's just devastating. And he compared it
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: to losing a mill. And he talked about what happens next.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: The working waterfront disappears, outside investors come in, property gets
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: bought up, a fishing town becomes a vacation town, and
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: the people whose families have lived there for generations can't
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: afford to live there anymore. So that's what Jared Golden
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: said he was representing. It's not a national democratic constituency,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: and it's maybe not what the DCCC worries about. And
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: certainly they don't have a caucus in Washington. Those towns, people.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: So Golden made him a promise and wrote a bill.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: And what it would do is extend the existing pause
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: on new regulations and give researchers more time to figure
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: out whether there's a technological solution. that both protects the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: whales without destroying the lobster fishing industry in Maine. Look,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: you can agree with this bill. You can disagree with
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: this bill. That's not the point of this exercise. I
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: just wanted to give you a little bit of backstory there.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: My point is that Jared Golden is a representative from
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: the state of Maine. He happens to be a Democrat,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: but he's ultimately, he's one of the two members of
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Congress from the state of Maine. He decided this was
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: important enough to the people he represents that he was
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: going to fight for it. And he promised it. So
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night, his legislation is sitting in a package of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: bills that needs what's called a rule before the House
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: can debate it. This is one of those procedural votes
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: that normal people have absolutely no reason to understand. And frankly,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: that's part of the problem. Republicans currently control the House. Normally,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Republicans provide the votes for these rules. Democrats vote no,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: everybody knows their role, right? Except Republicans have been having
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of defections on their rules committee, right? Chip
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Roy is no fan of leadership, right? So suddenly the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: rule to get Jared Golden's bill on the floor was
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: in trouble. And if this rule goes down, Jared Golden's
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: lobster bill never gets a vote. So Golden, being one
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: of the Democrats on the rules committee, has a choice.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: He can vote the way Democratic leadership wants him to
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: vote and kill the Republican rule, handing Mike Johnson as
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Speaker an embarrassing defeat. He might have to send Congress
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: home and they don't vote on anything. Right? And it
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: would allow Democrats to avoid an uncomfortable vote that Republicans
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: had included in the package of bills condemning socialism. But
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: in order to do that, he would have to kill
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: his own legislation in the process. Or he can vote
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: for the rule, give the legislation he wrote for the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: people he represents a chance to pass. So Golden voted
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: for the rule. And Marie Glucincamp Perez voted with them.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: They work with each other. They're kind of ideological soulmates,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of the true blue dogs that, you know,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: have sort of been abandoned by the rest of the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And the rule passed. And then Golden's lobster
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: bill passed the House. Now, listen to Golden explain what
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the alternative would have required him to do. Here's what
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: he said to Natalie Furtick. In an era of ever-heightening
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: partisanship and disillusionment, I think people would be shocked if
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I introduced a bill to help my core constituency and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: then voted against a rule that would have advanced that bill.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: He's right.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: By the logic of Washington, he's made this promise that
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: he's going to do this bill and then he would
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: have to go back and explain, well, I couldn't do
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: it because I had to vote against a rule that
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: would have brought the bill to the floor because my
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: leadership wants to embarrass the Speaker of the House and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to vote on a bill condemning socialism. It's crazy, right?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: This is why they hate Congress. This is why we
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: all hate them. And Golden described the explanation Washington apparently
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: expects him to give his constituencies. Constituents. Well, I wanted
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: to help you, but party leadership wouldn't let me vote
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: for the rule.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: He goes, that just doesn't fly in real life. Of
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: course it doesn't. Try explaining it to the lobstermen. Sorry,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I wrote a bill to protect your livelihood. I fought
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: for it. I had a chance to get it out
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: of the House floor, but my political party wanted to
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: embarrass the other political party, so I voted to prevent
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: my own bill from getting a vote. Don't worry, though.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: I maintain good standing with the House Democratic Caucus. It's insane.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: And the idea that there are a whole bunch of
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats wanting to punish Golden and Marie-Lucy Perez for doing
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: this is just as insane. Why did you get into politics?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: To help people or to punish another political party? As
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: Golden put it, let me quote Golden, I know who
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: I work for. I work for the people that I represent,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: whether they voted for me or not. That should be
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: the most boring sentence a member of Congress could possibly utter.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: And yet, right? Apparently it's brave these days. It sounds revolutionary,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't it? Golden said something else that I think is
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: worth listening to. He said, we believe in localism and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: being rooted in the place that you live in and represent.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: We're Democrats, but we have a strong loyalty to the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: people we represent. That's what Golden thought being a Democrat meant.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: A strong loyalty to the people you represent.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Imagine that.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: And Golden's larger diagnosis of his own party is pretty brutal.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: He says some Democrats need to, quote, adjust our thinking
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: about certain things and certain tradeoffs instead of asking voters
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: to change their thinking. And when asked about the people
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: attacking him for doing this procedural vote, Golden said, I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: think those people are living in a bubble of partisanship
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: and are totally detached from reality on the street.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: And it's nuts.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's right. What happened next doesn't exactly disprove
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: his point. Democratic leadership accused Golden and MGP, Maria Glucicamp Perez, MGP,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: because none of us want to write it out so hard,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: of a significant breach of trust and promised a serious response.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: Are you telling me they broke trust by representing voters
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: first over and above partisanship? That's a breach of trust?
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: If that's what the leadership thinks is a breach of trust,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: get the hell out of politics. In fact, House Democrats
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: are discussing changing their caucus rules to define what it
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: means to be a member in good standing. So maybe
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: good standing means you can't vote with Republicans on procedural motions.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe DCCC dues become part of it. Okay, but think
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: about what we're talking about. The House Democratic caucus may
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: respond to two members who decided to put constituents ahead
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: of their party on a procedural vote by writing new
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: rules designed to make it harder for members to put
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: their constituencies ahead of party. What the fuck are we
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: doing here? And then Democrats wonder why they have a
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: problem with working class voters. And you wonder why the
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Democratic brand is in the gutter. And the only reason
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: why this isn't a blue tsunami is because the Democratic
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: brand is in the gutter. The Republicans are already not
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: representing normal everyday people. Good job, Democrats. Everybody in Washington
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: says Democrats need more Jared Goldens and Marie Glucenkamp Perez.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Win rural voters, win working class voters, compete in Trump districts.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Stop talking like everybody who lives in Brooklyn and Bethesda. Great. Well,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: here they are. And they did just that. Golden represents
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: a district Trump carried. Glusenkamp-Perez represents a district Trump carried.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: They built their identities around convincing voters that they're going
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: to represent the district before they represent a party. And
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: then when they actually behave the way they promise, their
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: party considers punishing them. Folks, that's the disease. And again,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: before Republicans enjoy my tirade too much, spare me. Your
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: party's been doing the same version of this shit for years.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Ask Republicans who crossed Donald Trump. Ask the Republicans who
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: voted for impeachment. Ask Republicans who try to negotiate bipartisan
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: immigration legislation. as the members who decided their constitutional responsibility
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: mattered more than whatever party wanted that afternoon. So this
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: is not a Democratic disease. This is a partisanship disease
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: that is concentrated in the House of Representatives first and foremost.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: And there's some convenient historical amnesia here, too. We're being
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: told Democrats simply don't help Republicans pass rules. Please, they have.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: When Nancy Pelosi was minority leader, there were occasions when
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: dozens of Democrats voted for Republican rules she opposed. 2006,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: and again later that year. 2015, when Barack Obama was
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: working with Paul Ryan on trade. Democrats helped Republicans adopt
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: a rule despite Pelosi's opposition. Democratic Party seemed to survive,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: didn't it? Congress survived because that's what legislatures occasionally do.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: They legislate. I say occasionally, right? But here's why I
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: think this week's episode matters beyond Jared Golden. There's a
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: very real possibility Democrats are going to control the House
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: next year. And if the turnout numbers I talked about earlier...
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: really are signaling the beginnings of a huge wave. Perhaps
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: a pretty good possibility, but everybody celebrating a potential Democratic
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: House ought to think about what happens the morning after
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: the election. Because Democrats aren't going to inherit a functioning House.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: They're going to inherit the cancer. And they're probably not
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: going to have some gigantic majority where leadership can lose
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: 20 votes and shrug. They're going to have factions, right?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: They're going to have members from deep blue urban districts.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: They're going to have members from districts Trump carries. Members
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: elected because they promised to fight Trump every waking minute.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: And members elected because they convinced cultural conservatives and working
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: class voters that they're not like the National Party. And
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: they're all going to be in the same caucus. What
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: happens when five of them say no? What happens when
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: progressives won't support something unless leadership moves left? What happens
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: when blue dogs won't support something because leadership moved left?
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: What happens when swing district Democrats are told to take
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: a vote that could end their careers because the caucus
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: needs unanimity? Sigh, right? We've watched years of watching Republicans
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: do this. Five members here, seven there. Faction holds the
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: speaker hostage. Procedural votes become loyally test. Eventually, business doesn't happen.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: So perhaps next year, we'll spend our time saying, why
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: can't Democrats govern? And two years later, why can't Republicans govern?
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: Because changing the party, controlling a broken institution does not
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: fix the institution. The institution is broken. It's sick. And
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: here's where I think we need to go deeper. Why
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: has the house become this? Well, you know part of
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: my answer. The house is too damn small. The districts
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: are too damn big. The two parties aren't enough to
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: represent a country this complicated. All of that. I'm not
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: going to go through all of my diatribe on this.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: You've heard me time and again in my other Todd Talks, right,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: about the size of the house. about the two-party system
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: is a mess. But it's just, you know, the whole
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: thing is broken. And it has forced this partisan polarization.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: And if we increase the size of that, what we
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: need is a relief valve again. Jared Golden and Alexandria
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Ocasio-Cortez have to function as members of the same political team.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Marie Glusenkamp-Perez and some of the most progressive members from
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the safest urban districts are going to have to function
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: on the same team next cycle. Look, Republicans have the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: same problem, and we've seen it, because they're not parties, right?
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: We know we need to do this. So it was
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: unbelievable that everything comes down to party first. And leadership
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: so dominates how the House runs that I don't know
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: why we bother with 435 members. Just elect Hakeem Jeffries
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: and Mike Johnson, give them each a weighted vote based
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: on how many seats their party won. We're getting dangerously
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: close to that anyway. Because if a procedural vote becomes
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: on whose team you were on, it's everything, right? Committee
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: assignments become leverage, all this stuff. This is sick. This
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: is terrible, right? If your job is not to work
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: for your constituents, but your job is to protect the majority,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: defeat the other team, don't give the other side a win,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: don't give them a vote, don't let them embarrass us,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: that's how you end up in this completely upside-down situation
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: where Jared Golden successfully passes legislation for the people who
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: elected him that he promised he would do, and his
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: party considers punishing him for the vote that allowed him
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: to pass it. That's not a weird congressional sideshow. That's
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: a pathology. So if the House is a cancer, what's
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: the treatment? Well, as you know, make it bigger, make
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: districts smaller, make politics local again, and maybe we need
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about this whole political party mess. It's just
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: a mess. This is why you need a third or
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: fourth entity inside that is able to allow the Jared
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Goldens of the world, the Don Bacons of the world,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: the Jared Moskowitz's of the world, the Marie Glucentamp Perez,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: people that have promised to sort of represent all the
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: people in their districts, not just one faction of one
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: political party. And we don't have the ability. The House
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be this. Go read Madison. Go read
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Federalist 10.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: Ugh.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden has the most important part of this right.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: He says, I know who I work for. I work
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: for the people that I represent, whether they voted for.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: Him or not.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: The House doesn't work that way anymore. He doesn't want
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: to work for Akeem Jeffries, but apparently Jeffries thinks Golden
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: works for him. Marie Glucicamp-Perez doesn't want to work for
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: the DCCC, but apparently they think she should work with them.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Republicans don't work with Mike Johnson, and they don't work
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, but apparently Donald Trump and Johnson think
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: they do. I tell you, thank you, Jared Golden. You
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: gave a great x-ray of the disease. The house is
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: a mess. It doesn't work. It is the single, it
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: is the cancer we have to cure before we can
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: reform anything else. That's what's so frustrating about this. And
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: it's sort of this moment with Golden crystallized it. And
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: I know, you know what? It ain't the sexiest reform,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: but if we don't get the house right, we're not
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: going to get anything else. Everything, nothing else gets fixed
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: until we fix the disease that is impacting the House
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: of Representatives. Todd, talk over. All right, let's take a break.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Let's get to my conversation about a real uplifting topic,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Well, we have embarked. This
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: is going to be or is the 25th anniversary of
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: the 9-11 attacks. And, you know, 25 years is an
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: interesting period because that's basically, you know, it's an entire generation. And,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: you know, you've heard me talk about this before, which is,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: you know, when is the perfect period to feel like
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: you can get both an honest assessment of an historical
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: event And at the same time, you know, still have
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: firsthand accounts and at the same time be far enough
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: away where people feel like they can say things that
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: they couldn't say in the moment. And so we're at
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: one of those periods with 9-11. And it's in that
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: vein that my next guest is here. It's Brian Knappenberger.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: He is the executive producer and director of it. Of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: a 9-11 documentary that is landing on Netflix in the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: month of September, Turning Point, Generation 9-11. This is part
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: of the Turning Point franchise of historical events there. And
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Brian joins me now. So, Brian, I believe there's something
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that 20- to 30-year range is when I
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: feel like living sources finally tell the truth– And you're
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: far enough away where you don't have to worry about
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: personal feelings sometimes as much. Look, before we get into
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: the specifics of this documentary, you do a lot of history.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: What's your sense? What's your experience when you're trying to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: recreate a moment or trying to understand what was happening
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: in and around life during when one of these turning
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: point events happen? What's your sense of when you feel
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: like you're getting close to the truth?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I thought a lot. That's a great question.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: I thought a lot about it when we were creating this,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: creating this film. When we first released, you mentioned the
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: first series. So the Turning Point 9-11 and the War
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: on Terror was on the 20th year anniversary of 9-11. And,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people watched it on Netflix
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: and there was a lot of uh, chatter online, you know,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: I was kind of looking at how people were talking
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: about it and thinking about the film. And one of
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: the things that really struck me and that I think
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: goes to your, uh, sort of speaks to your question is, is, um,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: how many people didn't know what nine 11 was, um,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: really didn't know either. They hadn't been born yet, or, um,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: they were just too young to remember the events of
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: that day. So, um, you know, here we are, And
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: so for me, that was just really eyeopening. 9-11, like
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: so many people, it changed my life. I mean, I
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: can't imagine, you know, it changed the course of, uh,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: changed how I saw the world, you know, and changed
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: my career.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: And my wife and I moved in with each other
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: that day, that night.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, we had just started dating and she had
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: a little dog, lived on Capitol Hill. And I lived
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: in the suburbs of Arlington, suburbs of DC and Arlington.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: And I'm, and we, you know, we, we, we, we were,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: we worked at the Watergate together, um, And so, you know,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: I always have visions of my staff looking at the,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: looking like craning their neck to see if they could
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: see the smoke from the Pentagon. And I remember I'm like,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: you're not staying near the Capitol. That's insanity. And her
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: mom was a little bit conservative and probably would have
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: frowned upon it except for the circumstances that we were in.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: We never left and we get married a year later.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, but I was 28, 29 when this happened. So, yeah,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: I think you and I are about the same age.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: It's like it was a life changer, particularly if you
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: lived in New York or D.C.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, uh, exactly. And I'm not, you know, it's
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: not that you and I are old, um, but, uh.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: But we're just not young. That's how I, I'm just
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: not young anymore.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: Right. There you go. But, you know, on the first
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: anniversary of 9-11, I was I was actually in Condor.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: I was making one of my first films. It was
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: picked up by PBS Frontline. And it was so profound
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: and for me. And, you know, here we are 25
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: years later and we're about to reach the point in
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: the next couple of years where nearly half of all
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: Americans were either born after 9-11 or were too young
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: to remember the events of that day. So, you know,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: when we're making this, I'm really thinking about how how
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: this event is moving from a lived memory to to history.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: And and so this this this film is really about
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: the experience of that of that younger generation. I don't
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: assume people that know what 9-11 meant or what it
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: felt like to go through it. I wanted to bring
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: them into that day to understand that. Not, you know,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: not just the terror and the uncertainty, but but what
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: happens next? Because some of the decisions we made after
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: 9-11 in those uncertain days and weeks that followed really
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: define our current modern world more than the event itself.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: Before I get into the film, I'm just curious because
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: I know I suddenly was curious after I was watching
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: your film is it. Did you find any scholarship in
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: 1966 about how we marked the 25th anniversary of Pearl Harbor?
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: And did you look back at 1988 and how we
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: marked the 25th anniversary of Kennedy being shot? Look, I
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: was 16 in 88, so I remember all the specials because, man,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: I was an obsessive conspiracy theorist back then. I read
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: them all with Kennedy. So I have some memory of 88,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: but that is what– I was just curious. Did you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: go back to see how other sort of scarring events
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: like that that was sort of captured the imagination of
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: the country and how it was handled 25 years later?
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: I did a little bit. And I like you, I
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: remember I remember that because I was in high school. But,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: you know, one thing I did clock for sure is
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: to do the math back 25 years from my own birth.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: And that would have been Hiroshima. So 25 years before
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: I was born was Hiroshima. So that really puts it
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: in perspective. So this, this event that was so transformative
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: to us that in which we will remember it was
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: the day you moved in with your wife. It was,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: I spent every minute of that day watching television as
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: my view of the world shifted. I could feel it.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: Politics was different. My, the way I saw our country
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: was different. Uh, and, uh, And that is such an
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: indelible moment for us. But you can't be upset with
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: people who just weren't around and don't see it that way.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Look, I remember I filled out an application to join
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: the Navy Reserves. Never heard back from the Navy, by
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: the way, on that. But I remember in that aftermath,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: that first week, it was just sort of like, especially
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: here in D.C., it was inevitable more was going to happen.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: And so then you started to think, okay, what am
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: I going to do? you know, both, both in, I
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: need to contribute. And at the same time, how am
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: I going to escape when the next terrorist attack comes
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: and how am I going to live my life? And,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: and here's the thing, a lot of people were thinking
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: this way back then. And I think the most, the biggest,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about the biggest prediction did not
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: come true. It was that, right. This idea that we
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: were going to become Tel Aviv. I mean, I think
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: that was the, that is what I thought, you know,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: we lost our terrorist virginity, right. Our terrorism virginity and
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: what the, what life has been like for the average
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: person in Tel Aviv for the last 40 years, I
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: thought was going to be life in Washington and New York.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: And I guess, thankfully, it's not been that way.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And that's part of
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: what I was hoping to capture in this film, just
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: that that fear, the fear of that day, but just
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: also that uncertainty in the days and the weeks and
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: the months that followed. You know, all of those events
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: were done in a few hours in the morning. But
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: we didn't know what was coming next. We didn't know
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: if there were more coming that next day, in the
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: next week, in the next month. We were so sort
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: of traumatized by this that we just didn't know what
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: was coming next. And in hindsight, nothing came next, really.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: There was the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, both absurdly,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: sort of absurd attempts.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like bad copycats, right?
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But but since then, there's been virtually virtually nothing,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: certainly not connected to Al Qaeda.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the concept. Generation 9-11 was the goal.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: Who's your audience?
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: My audience is, well, everybody, I think, will get something
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: out of this. But I really do want to focus
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: on people that weren't around that day, who were too
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: young to remember those events, who may know a little
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: bit about it, but may not quite understand how different.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: It is, you know, our country is. I mean, America
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: after 9-11 is just a different country than the America
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: that came before it. You know, and I would I
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: would love to to not to go through not just
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: what it felt like that day for people. uh, not to,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: to communicate the fear and the uncertainty that came after. Um,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: and not to excuse the decisions that came later. I'm
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: pretty critical of a lot. No, but you have to
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: explain it.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, you had this, you know, I'm glad
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: you kept it in. You clipped a news clip and
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: I think it was Wolf Blitzer saying, you know, 63%
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: of Americans are willing to give up some freedom in
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: exchange for, you know, for security.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, that, that, You know, you wouldn't see that.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the number would be that high today.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: And that that, of course, you know, you know, with
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: security that, you know, comes that comfort perhaps. But I
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: thought that was important to include. Like you you have
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: to you could sit here and say, I can't believe
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you guys went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it just makes no sense. Yeah, it's it
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: absolutely makes little sense now. But in the moment, we'd
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: never experienced anything like this. This wasn't a nation state
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: that came after us. And more importantly, as much as
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: we also just didn't believe a stateless actor could do
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: this without the help of the state. And we were
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: just our folks. And I understand that instinct that we
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: weren't going to believe they didn't have help. And it
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: was going to take years to convince us that that
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't the case, right? So I think it's– and probably
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: to this day, I mean, I think you did your
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: best to convey that. It's still very hard to convey
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: the fear we were all living in, particularly– and again,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: this was a big divide. And I know this was
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: harder to capture in, I think, 90 minutes. Well, you need–
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: I was talking about this with my producer. To really
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: do 9-11, you might need to do the O.J. Simpson
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: made in America five-part 15-hour expose because one of the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: things that I think we've never fully appreciated is how
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: the rest of America, while certainly touched by this, not
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: like D.C. and New York, and yet we drove so
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: much of the feelings about it to the point of
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: you weren't allowed to comment if you hadn't experienced it.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is it drove us to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: make decisions. I mean, back to who this is for.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: I do think it would be I'd love the next
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: generation to kind of understand the people that are, you know,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: sort of will begin to start to take the reins.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: of power and start to make some of these decisions
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: and start to define who we are as a country.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, not to fall into the same fear and
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: suspicion that ended up leading us down a pretty dark
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: path as well. You know, we gave up personal liberties
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: as a country and it launched us into these endless
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: shifting kind of forever wars. Yeah. And, you know, a
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: lot of that fear and suspicion was directed at, you know,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: Muslim communities. And we built this enormous security and enforcement
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: infrastructure in response. Mass dragnets, suspicionless surveillance expanded dramatically. Not
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: a lot of the conversation about whether that was, you know,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: whether that flew in the face of the Fourth Amendment
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: and whether we were willing to do that or not.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: But that whole kind of infrastructure that we built, it
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: didn't disappear when that immediate threat receded. It remained and
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: it found new targets. And when you look at this,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: you know, I think when you talk to people nowadays,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: they don't realize like, you know, you and I lived
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: in a world where there wasn't a Department of Homeland
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: security where there wasn't ICE. You know, this, you know,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: 9-11 created that and created the departments that would eventually
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: become ICE. We very much live in a world now
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: that was created out of the decisions after 9-11. And
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: those decisions were largely based on fear and suspicion.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one of the things I think
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: it's one of the worst decisions government made was the
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: creation of the Department of Homeland Security. And I understand
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: how it happened. And there had been, certainly there was
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: a plan on the shelf. There would have been people
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: talking about should we have, should really Treasury and Commerce,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: you know, back then Treasury and Commerce for some reason
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: housed a few of these kind of semi-security agencies. And
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: we thought, eh, you know, maybe there ought to be
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: another cabinet agency. So there was, you know, like anything,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: there was a plan. I always tell people, you want
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: to put a plan on the shelf because you never
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: know when a crisis emerges, people are desperate for a plan,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: hand them one, you know, sometimes. And Joe Lieberman handed
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: them one. This was sort of him and a few
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: others were sort of into this, but you can go
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: back in history and any decision government makes quickly is
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: usually a bad decision. It's hard to find one that
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: when you made it quickly, that it goes well.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: In the initial series, we talked about that vote for
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: the AUMF, the authorization to use military force, which was
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: really made in the days, maybe within a week of 9-11.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: There was this kind of bill that basically said that
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: The president had the ability to go after terrorist groups
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: in a very open-ended way, terrorist groups all over the world. Countryless. Countryless, yeah.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: And that passed unanimously except for one person, Barbara Lee.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: She's the only one who said, look, as upset as everybody,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: I had to flee the Capitol. I was scared for
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: my life. I think she had an assistant or somebody,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: a staffer that was killed. But she said, look, we
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: can't let this fear just overtake us and make these
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: decisions that we may regret later. Even in this moment
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: where everybody is on board with some kind of vengeance,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: some kind of military action, we need to keep our
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: heads about us. It's striking. that there was one vote
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: that said no to the AUMF. And yet that is
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: the effort that has continued really to this day, including
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: going after groups that were never even around on 9-11.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: Well, the other thing it's hard to, I mean, you know, we,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: we were shaming people for not wearing flag pens.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: Culture, which was still more mono culture than it is today.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: We hadn't, this is pre iPhone, which means pre, you know,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: 2.0 fragmentation, right? Basically, pre-social media. Yes, there was internet. Yes,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: there was blogs. Yes, there was certainly conspiracy. There was
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: plenty of places for conspiracy theory to foment, don't get
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: me wrong. But it really was more on the outskirts,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: even the extreme edges of the internet. But the mainstream
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: conversation was, you're either pro-America or you're with the terrorists.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. People forget that stuff. I was trying to get
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: a little more of that in there, too. The freedom
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: fries or, you know, you can't call them French fries
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: because the French. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, that was
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: that was a weird moment. And it did seize the conversation.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: It was a moment of unity, too. People really... It
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: was kind of an amazing thing. I mean, it's one
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: of the most watched events in all of world history
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: up until that point. It was, you know, people... You know,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: those first... You know, there's this feeling that we've experienced
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: something together, something, you know, traumatic, but that we would
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: respond to it together. Right. We all kind of felt
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: like we were there for each other. People kind of
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: forget that that was that was true in America is
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: true worldwide.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I mean, I mean, this is going
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: to sound a little a little snarky, but, you know.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: people love New York city. And that was a, that
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: was remarkable, right? New York city was a city to,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: that you loved if you were there, but you hate
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: it if you weren't right. Type of mindset a little bit, right.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: There was always, you know, and you know, the, the,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: the coming together, rallying around New York city, which is again,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: you're not going to find that every day in some
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: of the reddest parts of America. But in that moment, right.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Everybody was, I mean, to this day, We treat firefighters
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: better as a collective, if you will, right? Local communities
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: vote to give them raises and all this stuff. Those
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: first responders in particular, we never treated those folks as
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: anything other than bureaucrats before 9-11. And our firefighters, now, no,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: we treat it all differently. Because we realize, you know,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: they don't know what moment they're putting their life on
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: the line. They just, they signed up to do this.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: And they just, they just jumped in. And so, you know,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: you're right. And it's like, we shouldn't just focus on
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: the negative. It had this, you know, we brought pride
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: into being a firefighter. And I think to this day,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: you have people wanting to be a firefighter. A little bit,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: it goes back to 9-11.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's totally true. And it really gets you,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: you know, when you're going through footage, you know, of
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: this day.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: This was a little triggering to watch this, I'll be honest, Brian.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: It is a little, yeah.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have, you know, I don't know how much 9-11,
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: I struggle sometimes doing 9-11 retrospectives. You know, you feel like, well,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: I went through it, so I know. I had to
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: cover it. I had to do all, I had to
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: live it. But I'm glad I saw this because it's
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: a I realize, boy, we have a lot more work
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that unity is right. I mean, it gets
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: you that, you know, the the, you know, the bloodlines,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: the way that people kind of came to New York City,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: that that sort of collective coming together. important part of
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: the story i'm i'm pretty critical probably of the uh
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: in this and other stuff i've done of the war
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: of the wars and the decisions that were made and
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: the way it changed our government the way we started
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: changing what it kind of meant to be an american
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: uh that sort of thing and some of that and
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: the divisiveness that came later but there was a real
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: moment of you of, you know, Trump talking about NATO.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: Why should we put the bill for NATO if they
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: know we're not doing their fair share and all this stuff?
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: But the only time, you know, this kind of key
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: Article 5, you know, was ever triggered with NATO, ever
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: in all of history, in the history of NATO, was
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: in defense of the United States after 9-11. That's it.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: The world came together and said, we're going to help you.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: We're going to protect you. That was the show of
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: unity that we've never seen at any other point in history.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I'm sure, you know, there's a
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: lot of complicated feelings for a lot of people when
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: it comes to the Bushes and the Cheneys in 9-11.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of people who have rethought their belief,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: what they think of these two people and these families
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: after the Trump era.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: Which is what made people. But I don't think people
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: fully appreciate how... In hindsight, we were lucky to have
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: an empathetic president at that moment. Whatever one thinks of
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: the decisions Bush makes down the line on the war,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: that's one thing. And we're going to have a lot
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: of policy disagreements there. But going to a mosque very
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: quickly after 9-11... To say the things that he said
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: after 9-11, the rhetoric that was used and was denounced
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: if somebody else chose to do something different. I mean,
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: we had some responsible leaders rhetorically in this country at
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: a time when, can you imagine today's leadership with a
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: similar situation? Yeah. I don't, you know, with the infusion
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: of Christian nationalism in our Pentagon. with the way Islamophobia
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: is sort of woven through so much of MAGA. You know,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, you know, at the time, it
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: was just he was behaving as we would assume any
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: president would behave. Now you look back and realize, hey,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: not every president might have behaved the way Bush behaved.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: He made an effort. That's true for sure to say
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: that Muslims are not terrorists, to reach out to the
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: Muslim community. One of the things Trump did, I think,
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: is he found that there was still... Political power somehow.
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: There was something to exploit. Yeah.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: In firing people up and regenerating some of that fear
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: and suspicion and using it for his own political purposes.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's, you know, these speeches that are equally
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: upsetting when you go back to 2016, 17, where he's saying.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: I think there should be more surveillance of certain mosques
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: and really calling for no Muslim ban. Stop until we
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: understand what's happening. Think about that. That's 15 years after
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: 9-11 and no terrorist attacks happened in that 15 years
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: at all. So why are we banning Muslims until we
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: understand what the problem is? There isn't a problem.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: This is the... This is the... The legacy of 9-11
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: that is a scourge, which is Islamophobia. Obviously, the seeds
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: were already there a little bit. Frankly, how Hollywood portrayed
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: every Muslim, right? You know, back in the 90s and
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: the early aughts was... a certain way. You and I
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: in the 80s grew up with hijackers, always happened to
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: be from the Middle East, right?
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: They would be- Or communists, I guess.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: Russians. The Russian communists. But remember the terrorism, the hijackings
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: of the 80s that were the sort of the.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: That was always one of the attempts to try to
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: garner attention for various issues in the Middle East. And boy,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: I can't tell... Is it better or worse? On one hand,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: there are more Muslims in American political life today than
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: there were 25 years ago. And I frankly think a
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: lot of Muslim Americans decided, hey, you know, we need
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: to get more involved in American politics and more involved
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: in the American fabric. So we are not like seen
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: as outcasts and isolated and all this stuff. And so
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: on one hand, there's been a tremendous amount of progress.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: And yet it feels like Islamophobia only gets worse.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you felt like, yeah, I felt like pre-Trump, there
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: was significant, you know, the country had sort of made
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: some real progress to some degree. I think he discovered
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: there was this hatred there, I guess.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like we Jews have discovered with anti-Semitism, none
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: of it ever goes away. It just goes dormant for
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: a little while.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: The.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: weird way in which it's kind of shown up to is,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: you know, when we did, um, the, uh, you know, the,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: we've talked to a lot of kids who were, uh,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: who's lost parents on nine 11. And one of them
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: was this woman, uh, Laura Homer. And, um, she was,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: her father was the pilot on flight 93 that crashed
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: And she had, she really rocked me with one of
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: her comments, but go ahead. I don't want to give
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: it away.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: No, it's just really powerful. And one of the things,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: first of all, it's just her story was powerful. But
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: one of the things that really struck me was, you know,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: that she was trolled online, that she had that she was,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: you know, while she was, you did these comments, these
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: direct messages that were sort of, I don't know how
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: you describe it, I guess, mocking her or trolling her.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: And it really made it clear to me that that
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of a kind of younger generation is getting
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: what they know about 9-11 from social media. And, you know,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: social media explosion, social media happens right after 9-11. I mean,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: we're talking about I think Facebook is around 2004, maybe Twitter's.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: Maybe Reddit is something like 2005, Twitter is around 2006.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: So suddenly this is the wave of social media that
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: kind of rushes into our system, just as we're still
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: kind of trying to figure out the trauma of this event.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: And that goes in this very bizarre, dark way. This
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: very dark movement that people call the truth or movement.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: I think it's pretty clear that that's a sort of– uh,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: past that you can kind of trace and you can
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: kind of follow Alex Jones really starts to become famous
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: in that truth or movement. Um, but this, uh, you know,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: this conspiracies that swirl around it, that 9-11 was the
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: inside job. I mean, that anticipates this dark, that anticipates
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: Trump and some of the, some of the, um, divisiveness
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: online that we started to see that started to get
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: sharper and sharper. Um, And it really gets into stark
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: relief when you're hearing that from somebody who lost their
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: father on 9-11. You know, what does that person think
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: of the truther movement or this divisiveness? And just sort
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: of put in context that how far then where that
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: movement has gone and where it's taken us.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I think about sort of the broader
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: strokes of now looking back 25 years. Our post 9-11 response,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: was it a total failure in hindsight? And if it's not,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: what parts of it weren't a failure?
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: It's a good question, and we struggle with that, and
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: we try to figure that out in the film. Like
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: so many people, I was in favor of initial military action.
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: So many people felt they attacked us.
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: Got to hold somebody accountable, damn it.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: We got to do it.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to punch a wall through drywall. I'm going
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: to punch my fist through drywall and feel really good.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: Proud of myself. And then I'm going to go to
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: Home Depot and go figure out how to patch that.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: Right. And, you know, we drove the Taliban out pretty
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: quickly and we drove almost completely out of Afghanistan and
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: Al Qaeda as well. All that leadership fled into Balochistan
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: and into Pakistan and they were gone. And as I mentioned,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: my one of my first films I ever made was
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: I was in Kandahar on the one year anniversary. And
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: at that point, this was optimistic. I mean, there's no
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: other way for me to describe it. This was a positive, interesting.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: They did want to say, I mean, you point this out.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: We were we were treated as liberators. And and, you know,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: there is a you want to talk about a what
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: if what if we never go to Iraq and Afghanistan
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: is our sole focus. I don't think Afghanistan ends the
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: way it ends.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: At Abbey Gate.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we took our eye off the ball, no question,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: and created this war of choice in Iraq. So, yeah,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: it's a really stark, for me, you know, to sort
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: of be there and experience this kind of optimism that
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: there's this new chapter and then to talk to these
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: Marines that, you know, nobody thought when I was there,
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: for sure, that 20 years after 9-11, we would actually
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: be engaging Marines, sending Marines in, to assist the taliban
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: in the takeover of of of kabul i mean and
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: nothing quite says it like that we we are they
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: we're sending our troops in to assist with this and
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: so what was this whole effort of failure it kind
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: of kind of seems like it at this point uh
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: all that money that we put in uh to those
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: what's the win.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: Like what is better today than it was on september
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: 12th 2001.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: For security? For national security?
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: Or.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go with national security.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: What is better today? You know, we probably smartened up
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: about communications between intelligence agencies. You know, we probably did.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: You know, there was a real lack of communication. It
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: wasn't even a lack of communication. It was territorialism between
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: FBI and the CIA. And we were naive in that regard.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: I think we've smartened up about that. That's probably true.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: We've I think some of the even though they're kind
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: of annoying, some of the stuff at the airports is
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: is probably smart. But the ways in which we have
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: gone overboard and the ways in which politicians have exploited
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: that fear has really led us into a country that
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: has changed us. And I don't think it's for the better.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I think when you look at. uh, ice,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: the violence on the streets today that it's perpetuated by ice.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: I think that's a reverberation of 9-11. There's no question
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: about it. That, that is a result of the choices
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: that we made. Um, the kind of our, our, our
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: immigration debate has been separable from, from all of this,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: you know? Um, and I think we, we rushed into
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: a new technological world that expanded the surveillance and security
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: and surveillance of American citizens in a way that is
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: that was dangerous and could continue to be dangerous. And
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: more importantly, flies in the face of basic kind of
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: Fourth Amendment protections. I mean, you know, there's a reason
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: why founders said you can't be searched without a warrant.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: There's a reason for that. So this idea that we'd
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 2: have this mass suspicionless dragnet surveillance of Americans is who
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: aren't suspected of a crime, it just flies in the
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: face of something that's pretty important and valuable and special
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: about this country.
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: How do you answer the question of why did he
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: attack us?
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: Why did he attack us? You know, that's a good question.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: He is bin Laden. Yeah.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: Sorry, but I've got a few more on bin Laden,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: but I want to start with that. How would he?
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's a question we've sufficiently answered for
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: this generation that maybe was alive but wasn't aware?
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, officially, of course, the way he talks
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: about it. It's interesting. After he died, after Osama bin
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: Laden was killed in Pakistan, really close to this military
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: base in Pakistan, they found 6,000 documents of his. And
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 2: so they're trying to piece together some We learned a
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: little bit more about him from that. You know, what
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: do we know about him, really? Actually, he did a
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: surprising number of television interviews in the 90s for somebody
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 2: who was wanted back then. Talked to CNN and talked.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: To another kid of privilege who becomes a political extremist.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting pattern.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: But anyway, you know, he talked about the military, American
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: military next to holy sites and Saudi Arabia. He talked
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: about just I think I think it's, you know, a
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: lot has been made, I think, of and it's true
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: that that. we, you know, we backed some, some dictators and,
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: and people that, that were oppressive and, uh, that it
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: was convenient for us. And, um, and so I think,
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: I think he, uh, a lot of his point was
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: around that. Um, and so that, that is, that is the,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: that's the reason.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's a story to tell like, cause look,
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: we had a cold war mindset, right? Real polity where we,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: where our values, we, we, we look the other way.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: You know, if you were on, if you were on,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: Team capitalism, we looked the other way as long as
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: you weren't going to be on team communism. And it
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: was like you were forgiven of anything else, no matter
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: how you treated your people, whatever it was. And we were,
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: you know, we embraced transactional politics. Basically, we bought allies
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: when necessary. And when you're dealing in a binary world,
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: which is the world that the Cold War was, I
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: can explain it. but there were always going to be consequences. And,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: and the, and this is among the consequences. Look, we
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: have an entire multiple generations of Latin America. I grew
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: up in Miami. So I, I live with this multiple
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: generations of Latin Americans who don't trust the Americans, which
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: is why I like, I can't believe we're taking the
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: oil of the Venezuelans. It's like, dude, we learned nothing
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: from history. This is only going to end badly. I
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: just don't know how it's bad, how badly. And here
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: we go again. Um, But that's the that's a tough
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: thing to we won the Cold War because of these decisions.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: But it did lead it did. You know, there are
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: unintended consequences and it's possible the rise of bin Laden
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: was one of them. Yeah.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: And no question about it. To add a little irony
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: to it, you know, Osama. bin laden was one of
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: our solutions at one point to winning the cold war
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: and so we supported.
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: We were with the taliban before we were against them
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: which we went back with them remember.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly yeah um but it learn a lot about
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: that another question a very a variant of that that
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: i kind of think about is what what did he
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: what did he want to do after 9-11 and i
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: and you know there's you know i think that they
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: were they seemed you know as far as i know
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: the next video interview of his is something like 2004
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: or something he comes he comes forward that's the first
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: time that's the next time we actually see him on
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: camera and you know they were a they were a
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: small group On 9-11, they weren't they weren't a large
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: group and they and he was focused mostly on killing
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: more Americans, which led to the.
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: He was more focused on tactics than he was. Yeah.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: Something larger, right? Yes.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: But I think he came to understand that that the
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: real damage was. was the divisiveness that it caused within us.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: And I think it was the, the way that it
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: triggered us, uh, you know, going to war all over
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: the world and on this incredible, um, sort of, you know,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: this enormous amount of money that it took us to
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: go to war and the way that that would deteriorate
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: our society. I think he came to see that, um, uh,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: later that that was actually the, the success, the divisive,
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: what we would do to ourselves, uh, In divisiveness and
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 2: the kind of attrition, the cost that it would take
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: to be engaged in all these wars over so many years.
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: The operation itself, in hindsight, it really was ragtag, wasn't it?
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: They got more lucky. There was a lot more luck involved.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 2: I think that's true. When you look at 9-11, Al-Qaeda,
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: the group Al-Qaeda, I think we're talking about a few
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: hundred people The maximum. That's it. And so, you know,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: there and and I mean, in the world. And so
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: we're talking about this very small group of people that
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: were able to exploit this kind of vulnerability in our
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: system and our, you know, the openness of our country.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, doesn't this get to why the Bush administration
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: for so long just refused to believe they did this
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: on their own?
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. I think it does. I think it does.
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: But really, it's pretty striking that there's so few members
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: of al-Qaeda. And of course, there is no al-Qaeda in
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: Iraq at all before we go to war in Iraq.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: That's it. And so there's this whole debathification process where
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: we kick people out of, and then we put people
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: in prisons. There's this kind of fomenting of extremism. They
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: suddenly create this, they create AQI al-Qaeda in Iraq. It
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 2: is born out of after this as a reaction to
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: our going to war in Iraq. AQI becomes the Islamic
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: State of Iraq and grows, has broader territorial ambitions, moves
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: into Syria, adds the S, and suddenly we have ISIS,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: which is the biggest terrorist organization probably in the history
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: of the world. I mean, it's just a huge um
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: uh it was international um uh well funded because they're
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: they're stealing art and and uh oil reserves and stuff
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: so it's um it's this phenomenal kind of um domino
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: effect that that increases as our military engagement increases.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: So in uh 2051 uh at the 50th um Do
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: you think we'll be more comfortable describing basically that– I
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: have this theory that essentially about 25 years from now,
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: we're going to put all the Middle Eastern wars into
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: one bucket and just say basically the West got the
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: post-9-11 reaction wrong. And it screwed up and it cost
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: America its standing in the world. And it really set
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: back the United States as far as their global legitimacy.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: It set them back. a generation if not two it
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: feels like that's frankly the the general direction we're headed
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: by 2051 without some sort of course correction.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah well when i do that series you have me
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: on your show by the way at that point and.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: We'll both be won't it be like you know that
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: i mean that's what i'm curious about is what will
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: all this look like When the only people making these
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: will be people that really didn't experience it. So it's
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: just going to be seen as outcome focused.
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: And boy, like to me, the Iran war and the
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: Iraq war will probably get conflated the farther away we get.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: Every time we have done these war of choices, they
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: don't work out. Vietnam, Iraq. It'll start being done that
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: way because what's interesting about the first nine months of
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan that your documentary captured so well is that wasn't
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: a choice. We felt like, well, that's where we had
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: to go. We had to go find them.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: And, you know, We went into Iraq the first time
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: because we were kicking them out of Kuwait. We weren't
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: really going into Iraq. We were justified. It's a reminder.
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: When you truly are justified, you usually make good decisions.
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: When you're trying to be preemptive, that's usually when you
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: make bad decisions.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no question. You know, I... you mentioned Vietnam because
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: we're at the, we were at the 50 year anniversary
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: of the fall of Saigon last year. And we did
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: a little, uh, we did a piece on that. Um, and, uh,
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: you know, another, another person that we interviewed here is, uh,
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: on the wind, uh, whose father was in Vietnam and
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: fled Vietnam in 1975 with the fall with that fall. So, um,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: and when you look at those, um, images of South
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: Vietnamese who'd worked with the Americans desperately trying to escape
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 2: as Saigon fell, running towards planes, trying to board helicopters.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are some of the most famous images
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: in all of photojournalism.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: And what do we do? We recreate it in 2021.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: Compare them with those images in the final days in
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: Kabul airport. The echoes are just impossible to ignore. You
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: get another sense of this with the responsibility on to
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: help end this war, right? To take these final steps
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: to get everybody out. And yeah, they weren't born yet.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: Some of them were three or four years old, way
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: too young to remember the events of 9-11. And they're
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: fighting and working with and at odds with occasionally Taliban
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 2: soldiers who are the same, too young to remember the events.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: This is a new generation finishing off this war. war
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: that started right after, in the days after 9-11. And
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: so in 50 years, where will we be at the
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: 50-year anniversary?
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: Well, but it's interesting. But think about it, Brian. You know,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: 50 years after the fall of Saigon, we're comfortable saying
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: we lost the Vietnam War.
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: We were not comfortable saying that at the 25-year anniversary.
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: We were still, there were too many Vietnam vets in
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: our politics, too many Vietnam vets, you know, in leadership positions,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: who I think were never going to accept the premise
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: that yeah that they were involved in a failure.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: Right yeah i want yeah that's a really good point
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: i wonder about the because you talk to some of
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 2: these marines that were there at abbey gate and i
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: i get a sense of that they're they're conflicted right
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 2: i mean they really wanted to serve i mean i
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: have so much respect for them first of all um
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: but you know they they wanted to um, to help.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: They wanted, they thought they were doing something, you know, important. Um, they,
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 2: you know, um, one of them got involved, not because of, um,
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: Al Qaeda at 9-11 necessarily, but because of ISIS, some
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: of the things that he saw online with ISIS. And
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 2: so he was motivated to go kind of solve that.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I really kind of respect the instinct, um,
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 2: in general, You know, they're questioning some of not just
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 2: why they were there, but what about Iraq? What happened?
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 2: I sense a real kind of deep thinking about that.
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, you know, as we talk to
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: young people, so often when people get older, not that
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: you and I are old, but once you get older,
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 2: so many people say, oh, you know, people don't get
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: it nowadays.
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: Well, sometimes they ask the simpler question that we're like
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: ducking too often.
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I, man, I feel like they, that a
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 2: lot of people do get it and do understand it
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: and do are starting to.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to ask you a question that you
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: don't have the answer for because neither do I, but.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about the fact that we're
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: at the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And every year, we've
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: passed a defense budget that pretty much gave the Pentagon
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: whatever they asked for. And it hasn't mattered, Democratic Congress,
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: Republican Congress. Sometimes it's always waving the bloody shirt, right?
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: Don't forget 9-11, right? A little bit of that, right?
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: And yet we're running out of munitions. We can barely
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: fight a war against Iran and then also be prepared
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: for a second. The United States of America is suddenly
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: being humbled by Iran. And what have we done with
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: 25 years of Pentagon budgets? How is it that 25
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: years of some of the most sophisticated war planning supposedly
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: that had been done has left us in a position
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: like this? I mean, it's a question. That's why I
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: said I'm asking you a question you can't answer, but
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: it's a I kind of think that this is a
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: time to lift up and ask ourselves, we're at the
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: 25th anniversary of 9-11, we're still mired in the Middle East,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: and we seem less prepared for another 9-11 than we
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: were on 9-11. Yeah, I agree with you.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: And I think that just to sort of take that
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 2: back to the AUMF to some degree, I mean, You know,
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: this was a huge this idea that the authorization to
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: use military force. This is a this is a shift
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 2: in how it's supposed to work in the United States. Right.
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: The Constitution is pretty clear. Congress has the power to
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: declare war.
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: Right. I keep wondering if the members of Congress, do
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: any of them read the Constitution?
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I kind of think that they have to
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: read the they won't. I understand that most people don't
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: read the owner's manuals to things, but I think my
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: members of Congress ought to.
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if they did, it's unambiguous. There was a real
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 2: reason why after the American Revolution, these founders made it clear,
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: we don't want a king deciding that we're just going
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: to go to war. The ability to go to war
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: is in the hands of Congress. Also, the ability to
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: fund the war is in the hands of Congress. Congress
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: has a huge amount of power here. Post Probably argue
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 2: Cold War stuff here, too. I mean, but in the
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: modern era, especially post 9-11, Congress has relinquished that power.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: Been a blank check both in money to the Pentagon
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: and in power to the presidency on this stuff. And
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: are we better off for it?
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 2: Definitely not. I think you see this in attacks on
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: Venezuelan boats, in international waters. You see this in the
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 2: Iran war.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that you included that. Why
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: did you include it?
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: Just emphasizing this shift of power to the executive that
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: we don't question. And you clearly see that in Iran...
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't feel like he even needs to explain why
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: we're going. It's deteriorated so far. It's not just that
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 2: there seems to be no congressional oversight of any kind or,
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: you know, congressional, you know, no discussion with Congress. But
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: but no, no discussion with the American people.
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 2: We're just they're just doing it. And so that that's
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: we've slipped pretty far since 9-11 and certainly since the
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: beginning of this country and the founding of this country,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: that basic idea that people themselves have to have some
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: say who they go to war with.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: All right, well, let's land this plane, the series Turning Point.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: What's what are some you hinted to me that this
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: is kind of a season two. So what's a few
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: other projects coming?
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. This is kind of the end
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: of this one, I think, unless we return to it later. But, yeah,
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 2: we're continuing to be just really fascinated with how things
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: are shifting right now technologically. You know, what technology is
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: doing to us.
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: Taylor shared in one of his shows, I think it's Lioness.
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: had a line that I thought was terrific about Ukraine.
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: He said, it's as if World War I and Star
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: Wars merged, that that's the Ukraine war, right? Because we're
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: having this, you know, we're radically changing warfare, right? In
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: real time watching this, it feels like we're only a
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: few years from some drone swarm showing up on the
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: coasts of one of our major cities. And we're going
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: to be like, what the hell is that, right? Like
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: it feels inevitable. Yeah, it is. Is the superpower mindset
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: going to get punctured even more so in the next
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: 10 years?
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think it absolutely will. I mean, in all
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: those sorts of ways, right? Technology is shifting, changing what
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: it means to be vulnerable. You can't help, but if
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: you're thinking about 9-11 and the decisions that we made
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 2: after 9-11, you can't help but kind of fast forward.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: What would they do now? They wouldn't use airplanes. They'd
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: use some drone swarm or something, right? Like, I don't
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: know if they'd even bother with commercial aircraft.
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 2: Totally. I mean, we're getting, the world is weird. The
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 2: world is getting AI and other sorts of things is
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 2: just a different battlefield. And yet some of these, you know,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 2: what is also the war Ukraine is refighting the boundaries of,
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 2: you know, World War II in some ways, right? This
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 2: is Putin reclaiming what he thinks is an initial, you know...
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 2: back to that kind of soviet era right this is
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 2: where there are these these undercurrents uh these historical undercurrents
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: are meeting this bizarre you know futuristic moment with ai
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 2: and with all sorts of new tools and you know
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 2: it's going to create all sorts of challenges it's going
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 2: to create all sorts of new vulnerabilities for terrorists and
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 2: i just hope that like I guess part of this
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: effort really is, can we remind ourselves of this trauma
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 2: that we went through? These days in which we were
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: just seized with this fear and this suspicion and the
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: decisions that we made after that were driven in a
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 2: lot of ways by that fear and suspicion that led
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 2: to these kind of adverse outcomes so many years, decades later.
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: Can this next generation um, not fall into that same
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 2: fear and suspicion that led us such down such a
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 2: dark place in the first place. Can we use our
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 2: tools as media and as historians?
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: And this is the most important thing you're doing, right?
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: This is the most important thing you're doing. Cause I,
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I weirdly do believe that, you know, look,
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: we've got a bunch of scar tissue from this 25 years,
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: nine 11 going forward. And yes, um, we pretty much,
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: you know, we rehab the wrong part of our knee
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: and we, we got everything we've gotten wrong, but, but
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: my God, when it hit, when something similar happens again,
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: I I'd like to think now we have, Hey, here's
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: one way not to handle it.
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: In fairness to us, we hadn't experienced an attack on
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: our homeland like that.
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: Never experienced. And frankly, no offense to Pearl Harbor, but,
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: But that was not on, that was like on an island, literally.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: That was different. It was the closest thing we had
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: experienced as a country, but we still had to tell every,
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: the president had to tell everybody this happened back then, right?
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: Like this was, you know, we, none of us had ever,
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Oklahoma, people in Oklahoma City had experienced something
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: like this, but nothing like this, right? So that's the
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: hope is that what you're doing constantly reminding people, frankly,
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: what we got wrong, how much of this we got wrong,
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: how really bad it looks now, 25 years later, I
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: hope provides at least a blueprint of what not to do, right?
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it means we'll do it right the
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: next time, but hopefully we make different mistakes.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I mean, look, this was this was
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 2: brand new. This this this shocked us in all sorts
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 2: of ways. It reoriented everybody's just changed everybody's vision of
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: who we are as a country and our place in
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 2: the world and what was possible in this country. We
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 2: didn't think we were vulnerable to this and we are.
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: And it was brand new. But there will be, as
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, with technology and all the kind of stuff
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: that's coming and the shifting ground beneath us and all that.
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 2: There's going to be new brand, brand new things, too.
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 2: And you wonder, you know, what is that percentage of
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: us that's able to to sort of step back and say,
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 2: can we call more emotions and make smart decisions? On 9-11,
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 2: it was one person in the entire Congress, Barbara Lee.
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 2: Next time, see if you can get those numbers up
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 2: a little bit, you know.
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance? Let me get you out
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: of here on this. How do you balance? Trying to
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: step back and look at things from 60,000 feet with
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: our nonstop amount of information getting shoved at you all
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I think there's a real benefit.
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 2: And I think honestly, I think there's some hunger for
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 2: that with with people. I think, you know, we we
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: are we are we are we've been hit with a
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 2: tsunami of information and a social media environment that we
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 2: just still don't understand. And we still don't know what's happening.
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I basically said we're social media has been a
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: great experiment on the human brain and it's been a failure.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: But we just stuck with it. Yeah.
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 2: And not just a failure. We don't, you know, we
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 2: haven't even begun to solve it yet. And we're getting
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 2: hit with this other thing, AI now, which is further
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 2: shifting our perception of what is reality. real and what isn't.
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 2: I actually think there's a real hunger for basic, longer
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 2: form explanation, a deeper dive in which sources are clear
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: and the perspective is clear, the process is more transparent.
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 2: I think there's a kind of hunger for that.
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: Well, Brian, I don't know how numb you become when
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: you work on something like this. At what point did
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: you compartmentalize it, where you stopped reacting emotionally?
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: You can't look at 9-11 and not be... And not
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 2: be still affected by it. You just can't. It doesn't,
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, the more you look at it, the more
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 2: it's still there. And those days after are still there.
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: And then some of the anger and stuff that happened,
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the decisions later. one of those
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 2: people who says how young people today don't get it
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 2: i don't.
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: Oh no i don't agree i think they're asking better
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: questions exactly.
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly which is hopeful so you you dig into this
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 2: this dark day and this dark and these dark this
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 2: decades of engagement and all these wars and all all
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 2: the pain that's caused and what it's cost us but
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 2: but um i i think i mean I emerged somewhat
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 2: hopeful from all this that, you know, the right questions
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: are being asked and that there's a, there's an instinct
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 2: and a willingness to, to think about it.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: This debut on nine 11 itself or the, or the
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: Monday before the second. So it's this is Wednesday.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: Coming up this week. All right.
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: Brian, this was great. Appreciate the time. Congratulations.
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 2: Great. Great to chat again.
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: All right, as I promised, all that energy I put
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: into researching the midterms for the entire 21st century and
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: the impact of governor's races means I have updated my
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: top five list. And I will tell you this, I've
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: got five slots, I've got six races, and there is
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: no number seven, meaning I think there is now a
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: huge gap between the six races that made my top
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: five list, because I have one tie, and then the
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: next level of races. So number one, North Carolina, it
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: is still there. Roy Cooper has got the luxury of
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: being able to start running attack ads that really are
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: about inoculating his weaknesses. As I saw in the college
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: football games that we saw in week zero, the North
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: Carolina and North Carolina State games both featured quite a
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: bit of anti-Michael Watley stuff. anti-Michael Whatley TV ads. And
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: there's an enormous financial gap. And given how much resources
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans now need, potentially for Texas, but also with an
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: opportunity in Michigan, Ohio's still winnable. I think Mr. Whatley's
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: in deep, deep trouble. And so North Carolina is still
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: number one with a bullet. Number two on my list
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: now is Alaska. I'm sorry, the first round on Alaska,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: her getting up to 49 and Sullivan, the incumbent president,
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: not able to crack 45, let alone 43. I don't
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: see it. I mean, you know, she is in, you know,
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: when you start to compare Alaska to Maine, to Ohio,
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: to Michigan, to Texas, and suddenly you're like, wait a minute,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: Alaska's now the second most likely flip. And I think
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: it is. When you look at things, so Alaska and
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: Mary Patella in the number two slot. Number three for me,
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, I'm going to say Texas. I
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: think the can't, I think when I, when you sort
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: of put numbers to all this and you see the
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: scandal penalty that does exist with whether it's Todd Aiken,
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: whether it's Herschel Walker, whether it's Jay Jones, you know,
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: it is a minimum of four points and it is,
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: and it could be as high as eight or nine, uh,
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: Missouri got as high as eight on the sort of, uh,
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: sort of underperforming the top of the ticket. Um, toss
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: in the fact that John Thune has basically said, we
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: don't want Paxton in our caucus. If somebody else wants him,
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump can go spend the money to do it. Um,
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: I think you throw all those factors in. I think
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: I'm suddenly, I'm suddenly a Tallarico truther. And I was,
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: I was, uh, I was a skeptic. I've made it clear.
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: I was a skeptic, but you start looking at these numbers.
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: You start looking at the Abbott situation. I think now Texas, I, I, I,
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: My friend Quinn McCord, who does a lot of this analysis,
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: he was my Senate editor back at the hotline in 2006,
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: I think, if I'm not mistaken, before I left for NBC.
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: And he kind of compared Texas to Virginia in 2006.
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: In 2006, the idea of Democrats flipping Virginia seemed like
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: a long shot. Well, they could get close. I don't know.
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: Virginia hasn't done that. It's kind of a Republican-leaning state, yada, yada, yada.
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: And now what does Virginia look like 20 years later, right?
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: It's light blue. It's not even purple anymore, let alone
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: red or light red. It may be what I'm thinking
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: on Texas now. Number four on my list, Ohio. Look,
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a coin flip race.
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: I really do believe that Ramaswamy is now a huge
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: problem for the Republican Party in Ohio. And what I
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: thought was a problem before is sort of he's kind
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: of polarizing. and the Doge thing didn't go well, connection
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: to Elon Musk. But I think that him being such
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: a cheerleader for the tech industry and the anger that
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: voters have right now at data centers, tech industry in general,
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: he can't run. I don't think he can run away
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: from it. I think it's impossible to run away from.
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: He's trying to, which actually I think could make things worse.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to screw up the entire
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: Republican ticket. I think Ramaswamy could be could end up
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: being a gigantic anvil, you know, that just sort of
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: drags down everybody. And it's simply because he's just an
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: avatar for the tech industry. And, you know, it's inevitable
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: to me that it's almost a, it's a fairly, when
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: you see this environment and this sort of rage in
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: tech in general, data center specifically, I think it's a
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: I think this you're not going to contain this to
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: the governor's race. I think this whole thing's, you know,
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: so I'm I am I think that is the, you know,
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like Sherrod Brown needs one one more
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: little extra bit of help there. And I think, oddly enough,
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: the Ramaswamy problem for Republicans in general is going to
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: be that. And then at five, I have a tie
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: for Maine and Michigan. One other thing I left out
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: of my Michigan analysis in the opening that I'll save
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: for here. So if Benson gets 54%, it's the best.
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: You know, that was Gretchen Whitmer's two victories. The first
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: time she ran, she got 53. The second time she
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: got 54. And she only got that 54 against a
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: Republican that the party kind of abandoned in the state.
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: Point is, is that there's a pretty hard ceiling for
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: statewide Democrats. It's in that 54-55 range. So, you know,
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: I made it clear Benson needs 54 to probably drag
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed for sure. When you get to 52 or 53,
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: which is probably the most likely range she ends up in,
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: it really does put it at coin flip. And I'm
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: putting Maine there. I'm more bullish for Democrats on Maine,
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: but I respect the fact that Boyd Collins always overperforms
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: the polling and all of that. But I tell you,
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: her conversation with my pal Jay Mart this week, the
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: fact that she went down, you know, going after Troy
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: Jackson for having kids with his second cousins, Just felt
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: like a little beneath Susan Collins. And I say this
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: because it tells me it's sort of like a tell
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: at a poker game. She's kind of showing you she's
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: out of juice here. She doesn't have a affirmative case
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: for reelection. All she can do is try to disqualify
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: Troy Jackson. That's a tough place for a 30-year incumbent
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: to be in. So I certainly think it's uphill for her.
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to put it at fifth because we
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: do know she overperforms. There certainly was enough problems earlier
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: in the summer. But I put Maine and Michigan tied
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: for the fifth slot. And I put it there. And
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: then I think there's a huge jump. I actually think
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: I would actually put an empty slot. And then you
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: get to New Hampshire, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Carolina, Mississippi.
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: All of these will be places the winner doesn't break 55.
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: The question is whether any of them slip into accidental places.
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: pick up territory. Most of those are Democratic seats. New
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: Hampshire is a Republican seat. We'll learn a lot more
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: about New Hampshire next week. And with that, that's my
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: top five list for the week. Let's do some questions.
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: The Toddcast top five list is brought to you by FanDuel.
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  Speaker 1: gambling concerns. Finally, you can also call 1-877-770-7867 if you're
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: in Louisiana. All right, let's do some questions. Ah, Kelly X, Aubrey, Texas. Yes,
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: member of the Five Timer Club, Texas 26th Congressional District.
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: Here's the question. Poll is showing the statewide race is
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: virtually tied. Do you think some version of the Bradley
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: effect could be in play? Republicans telling pollsters they'll support
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: the GOP because they don't want to be seen as
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: backing Democrats, but ultimately voting differently or staying home. Thanks
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: for your insightful analysis and fins up. We'll see nine
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: win season in 2026.
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: You are smoking the hopium on the Miami dolphins. I
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: do think they're going to be weirdly like the triple
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: option NFL team, like, like a pain in the ass
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: to play because Malik Willis and a chain are just
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: going to run all over teams. Um, but I don't
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: know if they have a defense to prevent other teams
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: from scoring. Uh, That's an interesting thought. I thought you
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: were going to actually go the other way. Are some
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans saying they're not going to vote for Paxton, but
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: quietly will, and they're kind of embarrassed, right? Like that
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: is to me more where I was thinking of the
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: Bradley effect. But all I will say is, Callie, can
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: I point you back to my top five list and
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: back to the intro of this episode? I'm pretty bullish
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: on Tallarico now. I think Paxton is, especially now that
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: the NRSC- the Senate Republicans don't want to help him.
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: I think they've decided. I think there's enough anger there.
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: I think they don't want to help him. They know
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: that Paxton himself is sort of a cancer on politics
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: in general. He's, you know, he's not just unqualified to
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: be a senator. He's unqualified to be an elected official. Arguably,
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: he's done enough. He deserves some sort of legal scrutiny,
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: whether it's whether it's criminal or not is up to
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: somebody else. But I know where he doesn't belong in
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: a position of trust from the public. I mean, he
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: really And he seems to also just be lazy. You know,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: he's not trying very hard. He doesn't, he really just
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: seems to sort of think that he's got away with
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: it like this for so long. He just assumes it's
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: going to happen. And that's usually, you know, so anyway,
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: when you first did Bradley Effect, I thought, you know,
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: because that would be what I'd worry about, that people
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: are saying they're going to vote for Tallarico, but they
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: don't want to tell their friends that, yeah, they cared
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: about the Jersey color enough that they even voted for
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: that crook Ken Paxton. That would be, I'd be more
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: concerned about that. All right, Heather from Georgia's 5th District here,
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: longtime listener, and I love hearing you with more freedom
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: on this platform. Thank you for saying that. I would
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: tell you that I used softer words, but I would
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: argue I was saying the same thing, but I take
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: your point. Given the recent Postal Service whistleblower news, shouldn't
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: Congress be doing more to protect the mail-in ballot process,
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: especially since there's no clear evidence the mail voting inherently
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: benefits one party or the other? Am I being too
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: optimistic and expecting bipartisan participation? Pushback against executive actions that
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: could undermine the process. Thanks for being a voice of
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: reason in this polarized world. Heather, well, you probably sadly
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: are too optimistic on that. Congress should be doing this.
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: You know, on our live stream on Tuesday night, Nathaniel Rakich,
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: he runs an organization called VoteBeat. And I would encourage
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: you to take a look at it. This is all
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: they focus on, which is the administration side of elections
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: and And, you know, you're asking a question that Mrs.
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: Todd keeps asking me and keeps, um, trying to find
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: more answers herself, which is how concerned should we be
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: about this? And I put that question to Nathaniel and
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: he's like, look, the concern is real. It's not clear.
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: It helps or hurts one part of the other. In fact,
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: evidence suggests that if all of these rules were implemented,
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: it probably hurts Republicans more than it hurts Democrats. And
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: he explained, you know, for instance, you know, if you're a,
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: if you have to like suddenly, uh, drive 50 miles
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: to drop off a ballot, you know, well, who's more
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: likely to be 50 miles from a ballot drop location,
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: a rural voter, not an urban voter. Well, that's somebody
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 1: that leans red, not somebody that leans blue generally in
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: the way we're, we're sort of segregated. Um, I do
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: think the courts aren't going to let this get implemented
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: this cycle. Um, and we're going to see this litigated,
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, throughout 27 and then we'll see
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: what happens. But that's where I think you're right. Congress
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 1: needs to get more involved here. Um, And who knows,
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: maybe this attempt to sort of hijack the Postal Service,
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: which is really what Trump's trying to do, and it
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: really is supposed to sort of not be hijackable like this.
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: This is where I think if there's a– I do
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: think Congress after this election will have a little more
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: guts to question things on this, and maybe they'll have
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: partisan motivation to this. But I imagine there's a possibility–
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I represent a rural district in Utah–
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 1: or Oregon, two states that are all male voting, or Arizona.
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want these hurdles. I want to make it
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: easier for my constituents to vote. I know there's bipartisan
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: pain from these decisions that Trump's making. So in theory,
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: there should be bipartisan support to sort of some oversight
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: over it, but I'm a bit skeptical. All right. Last
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: question before I get to my college. You know, this
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: is really why you're with me. It's for the big
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: college football previews that I do every week, starting with
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: week one. Steve Frank, a fellow two first name. Steve Frank,
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: he calls himself a fellow two first namer. And he's
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: from California's 47th.
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: Nothing like having two first names, right? People love to
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: talk about it. You could argue that I have two
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: last names, too. I have met people with the last
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: name of Charles. If I really want five-timer status, he goes,
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: I guess I need to stop asking questions only in
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: my head and actually write in. He goes, I love
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: the idea of a podcast series on political reforms and
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: recently heard a proposal to add 12 at-large senators. I've
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: heard this proposal. You've made me a strong proponent of
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: expanding the House, but what do you think of the
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: idea of reforming the Senate? Take care. So here's the thing.
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: I go back to the point I made earlier on
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: the podcast, which is we got to fix the House first,
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: and then let's see how the other institutions– naturally respond
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: after the house is functional again right after the house
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: expands and all this stuff um i do think if
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: you're going to create at-large senators and i've heard this
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: idea that maybe you would do it um maybe you
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: would do it by you know the 10 largest states
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: you know maybe they get you get some extra senators
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: but you need constitutional amendments for that expanding the house
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: you don't so that would be my um my pushback.
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: I just think that if you have a more functioning House,
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: you'll have a Senate that behaves better. I think our
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: 100 senators, look, it was never meant to be a
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: small d democratic institution. And so at the end of
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: the day, I think you make these reforms based on
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: founders intent, founders intended for the House to be the
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: more democratic institution. Well, let's make it a more democratic
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: institution and then figure out what we need to do
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: after that with the Senate. I wouldn't simultaneously do all
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: of this at once, right? I think The House, you
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: do on its own because it does fix the Electoral
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: College and it does sort of fix a few things
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: all at once if you do that expansion correctly. I
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: think it just triggers a better functioning Senate if you
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: have a House that's functioning that way. So that's my
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: only thing with adding the at-large senators. I don't know. Again,
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment, and I don't know if it would pass
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: because you're asking– 38 state, you need 38 state legislatures
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: to approve it. And if you're adding 12 at-large senators,
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: it's really only going to benefit maybe 10 states. What's
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: in it for the other 28 states? So I just
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: think you might have a math problem adding that constitutional
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: amendment of that. All right. I am going to now
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: rant and rave for 10 minutes about sports because this
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: is why some of you, what you want to do
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: is first, My Hurricanes, they play Friday night at Stanford.
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: If I didn't know it was our first game of
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: the season, I'd be petrified as hell about this game.
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: Friday night, road game, across the country, all the makings
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: of a problem, except it's our first game of the season.
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: So the schedule makers at the ACC– did them did
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: miami a huge favor by making this the first game
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: right they could they could leave earlier they had time
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: to acclimate they've been you know all they've been doing
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: you know they had the fall practices so uh there's
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: no excuse and in fact miami now has an advantage
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: because stanford played a game last week and week zero
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: gets to why look pretty confident um so, but, uh, look,
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: I have pretty high expectations for this team. Uh, and
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: I think we, we have a, the healthiest quarterback situation
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: we've had in three years. And that includes cam ward, right?
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, cam ward was a bit unknown. Um, Carson
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: Beck clearly was hurt until the playoff. Um, He certainly
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: did a good job playing, trying to build his strength back.
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: And you could tell he became the quarterback everybody thought
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: he could be starting in the playoff. And I think
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: we're seeing already, he's going to be the starter in
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: Arizona before the end of the season. I think that's
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: for sure. But, you know, Miami got better everywhere. The
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: only question marks about Miami is the youth of their
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: offensive line and the youth of their defensive line, particularly
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: on the ends on defense. But, you know, On paper,
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: they're loaded. On paper, I think they're the best team
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: in the country. I know there's a lot of skeptics
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: about Miami still. A lot of my favorite gambling podcasters
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: have assumed Mario Cristobal is going to blow a game
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: that he shouldn't blow because every season he seems to
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: lose a game he shouldn't, whether he was at Oregon,
• 2:38:37
  Speaker 1: whether he was Miami, et cetera. There's just such competency
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: in this coaching staff. And I think that Credit is
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: not given enough to Coach Christobal for, frankly, he's evolved
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: as a coach. He's matured as a coach. He gets
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: this team as tougher. It's more prepared. The outside noise
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: isn't there. And look, I think Malachi Toney is the
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: cheat code of college football. And if you're looking to
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: make a long shot Heisman bet, go grab Malachi Toney now.
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: Because I think by week five or six, it won't
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: be as easy to get. Miami's got a couple of
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 1: tough games this year. Big one is November 7th at
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame. I am stunned at the benefit of the
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: doubt Notre Dame is getting in comparison to the lack
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: of benefit of the doubt that Miami is getting. Notre
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: Dame arguably lost a more important player than Miami did
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: in Jeremiah Love and Prince, I think is his name.
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: I got to get to know him because I may
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: need to draft him at my fantasy NFL league since
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: he's the starting running back for the defending Super Bowl
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: champion Seattle Price. Excuse me, Price is his name. Seattle Seahawks. So,
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: you know, look, I want both. I want Miami to
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 1: beat Notre Dame and I want both Miami and Notre
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: Dame in the playoff and I hope they get to
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: meet again in the playoff on this front. But I
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: am really bullish and maybe I'm making a mistake, but
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: My expectations are through the roof, but I have a
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: lot of– look, we're bringing back both our coordinators. I
• 2:40:08
  Speaker 1: think Corey Heatherman on defense and Shannon Dawson, that guy
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: is a quarterback whisperer. He knows how to design an
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 1: offense around the strength of a quarterback, and he's done
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: it different ways for different– we've got– Mark Fletcher might
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: be the toughest running back in the country. He may
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: not be the fastest running back, but he sure might
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: be the toughest. So I am full of optimism. And
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's warranted. You know, look, Miami is seen
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: as sort of one of the realistic teams that has
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: a shot at winning the whole thing. But the ACC
• 2:40:42
  Speaker 1: appears to be weak this year. And so they can't
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: make many, they can't drop two games. You know, if
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: you're looking for a game that Miami, two games worry
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: me the most on our schedule. One is November 14th.
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: It's the week after Notre Dame. It's a home game,
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: but we play Duke. I think Duke's going to be
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: pissed that we took their lunch money. They're quarterback, they're starting,
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's a former University of Miami coach,
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: Manny Diaz. Manny's a friend. I love Manny. Love coach Cristobal.
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a little bit of, there's a
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: little bit of a rivalry there. Manny's cares about this
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: game a lot. That game just, that game, especially if
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: Miami comes off beating Notre Dame at Notre Dame, the
• 2:41:22
  Speaker 1: entire college football world will say Miami's the best team
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: in the country. And then they go, I can see them,
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: you know, Duke doing trick play after trick play and
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: somehow we lose a stupid game like that. So that
• 2:41:33
  Speaker 1: game scares me. And then Clemson, we play at Clemson
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: and Dabo Sweeney's going to be in desperation mode, right?
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: And whenever you're playing a team that's desperate and I'm,
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm a little worried about our North
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: Carolina game now, if Belichick has finally figured out how
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: to coach college football defense. I have one other hot
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: take about college football, Lane Kiffin. There's a new Vanity
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: Fair piece.
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 2: Not good.
• 2:41:57
  Speaker 1: Nick Saban saying that you had to keep him away
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: from the college girls. I have to tell you, Lane
• 2:42:03
  Speaker 1: Kiffin is now the bad, it's one thing to be
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: the bad boy, like Mike Leach was the bad boy
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: of college football, but a bad boy you kind of love,
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: like a rogue, like Mike Leach was the rogue we
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: all loved. I loved Mike Leach. We all, you know,
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: he was just sort of, He was countercultural. There was
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: something weird about him. Sometimes you may think he was
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: kind of an a-hole, but he was sort of a rogue,
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 1: kind of a lovable rogue. Lane Kiffin's not lovable. And now,
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: between this fight over bringing in NFL players with literally
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: the rest of the college football world, including the normally
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: acquiescing SEC is like, no, we got to draw a
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: line somewhere. Then you throw this Pete out there. I
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: have to say, Here's a hot take. Lane Kiffin doesn't
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: finish the season as the head ball coach of LSU. Realistically,
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: do I think, is it likely to happen?
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:43:02
  Speaker 1: Is it impossible?
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: This is not going well so far. And here's what
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: will happen. Look, if he wins, LSU will accept anything.
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: But if he loses to Ole Miss, if he's suddenly 5-2, 4-3,
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: and then more stories come out and more crap comes out, Kiffin,
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: I think, is the most hated man in college football
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: right now. And I don't think it's a good thing
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: to be the most hated man in college football. Let
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: me leave you with this. If the Angels are worth
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: $ 4 billion, then please, Lerner family, Put the team back
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: for sale. Let's get, if the Nationals are going to
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: be worth, if Anaheim's team is worth $ 4 billion, Washington's
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: team is worth at least $ 4 billion. You apparently didn't
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: like the $ 2 billion valuation a couple of years ago. Great.
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: It's now doubled. Please sell the team before you trade
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: these young good done players. And the fact that there
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: is a value that you can get $ 4 billion, great.
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: Sell the team. Please, let's go. I don't want to
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: watch an off-season. where we suddenly trade more of our
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: good all-stars in order for potential we may never see.
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: All right. With that, enjoy your weekend. Enjoy week one
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: of college football. Hopefully, I'll be in a good mood
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: based on how Miami does on Friday, and I'll see
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: you Monday morning.