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Chuck’s Commentary - The Susan Collins Story Is An Indictment Of The System + Top 5 WORST Issues To Support · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Chuck Todd cast
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  Speaker 1: where I try to present politics for the rest of us.
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, today's episode has a top five list
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  Speaker 1: that actually is aimed just at you, that voter that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: sort of isn't is sort of tired of being hijacked
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: by the extremes. It's the five top Worst things you
• 2:41
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• 2:44
  Speaker 1: some recent polling. And when you hear the set of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: five issues, like the five issues you should not be for,
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  Speaker 1: really is where the normies are, where most of us live.
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  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate. You know, when I hear the words populism,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: how about majoritarianism? as a form of populism, because this
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: would be the ultimate in majoritarianism. So anyway, uh, I
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to rant and rave about the politics for the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: rest of us a little bit and connected with there.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a great top five list. I highly recommend it, uh,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: as well, but I want to kick off look with
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a story and it's a, look, this is a, this
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: is the Susan Collins pro publica story. And look, I, I,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I will, this is not, um, The point of this
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is not the Susan Collins part of the story that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to. Although I will tell you,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: this is it. I think if you are looking for
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a time of death on this political career, we may
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: say it's September 22nd, 2026, when this story went public
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and went live. Because what it paints Susan Collins as
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in the best light you can come up with is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: she's gone to Washington, right? She's, and that's the worst
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: thing I think you can be for this cycle in particular,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: but particularly in Maine. Like the one thing she had
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: going for with people that didn't agree with her was,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: she seems to not always, you know, kowtow to the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: MAGA right in one way or the other. I don't
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: think anybody thought she was a corrupt individual. Like the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: one thing Susan Collins, I don't think people thought the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: general sense was, you may disagree with Susan Collins. You
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: may think she doesn't have a thick enough spine. to
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: go after Trump, that she's, you know, wrings her hand
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: too much, but she didn't think she was corrupt. And
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: this story paints her as corrupt. But I'll accept the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: premise that she's not here in a few minutes and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that. But it's that, this is, when you're,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: when you've been in office since 1996, right? This becomes
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: an easy story. I mean, this is just an easy
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: story to say, hey, she's gone to Washington. She's now
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: caring about what defense contractors in Hawaii think rather than
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: what you hear in Maine think. And in fact, she's
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: using the status that she has earned in her seniority
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: not to help the state of Maine, but to line
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: her own campaign's pockets and to help out defense contractors.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That is just a devastating story. And that's the thing, the-
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the parts of this story you can't deny, even if
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: you make the claim you did nothing illegal, is a terror,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: it's an impossible story to spin out of if you're
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a four term, if you've been in, like I said,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: if you've been an incumbent member of the Senate for
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: as long as she has, it just reinforces that story
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: on that front. So I do think this is, I know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: She's been counted out before, but this one feels like
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the nail, if you will, the proverbial nail. But it
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: gets to a larger issue that I've been talking about
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: quite a bit on this podcast. I've brought it up before.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I think one of the most underrated issues in this election,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and I do think it's an issue that could be
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: very decisive among independent voters, is how corrupt Trump's Washington
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: has become. Right. And here's the thing. Like, this is
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: an electorate that already believes Washington was corrupt before Donald
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Trump got there. But Trump is in some ways supercharged. Right.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: He didn't drain the swamp. He monetized it in ways
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: people didn't think was possible anymore. So and that's why
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it's it's this is what I mean by the larger
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: issue of corruption. I don't mean it in a narrow sense,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: in a criminal sense. I'm talking about convincing voters that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the party currently in power has become corrupted by that power.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: That they're serving themselves, serving their donors, serving the industries
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and interests that finance politics and not serving you. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: this is why this story was such a gift for
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Democrats who are looking to make that argument. Because here's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: ProPublica publishing a story in this extraordinary investigation into Susan
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Collins that the FBI was conducting and then suddenly was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: called off. But even if everything about it is not criminal,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it paints this larger corruption story that I've been talking about.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So what the story's about is Susan Collins in a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: relationship with a defense contractor called Navitek. And there's a
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: lot in this story, millions of dollars in government contracts,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: campaign contributions, lobbyists serving as intermediaries, a super PAC, a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: shell company, a convicted defense contractor who eventually began talking
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to the FBI, and an FBI public corruption investigation that
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: agents wanted to expand think abscam here a little bit,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: before the Trump administration completely dismantled much of the public
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: corruption apparatus that had been investigating these kinds of cases. Remember,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump does not believe that you can commit crimes politically, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That a donation is not a crime, right? He just
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't see it that way. This is why he, if
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: you notice, all of his pardons always fit underneath the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: guys that he believes all's fair in anything you're doing
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: for politics and campaigns, so therefore nothing is illegal. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that's why he's willing to just pardon any official, Democrat
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: or Republican who claims, hey, I was prosecuted for practicing politics.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has the larger, he believes in what Roy
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Cohn essentially taught him, right? Which is it's all corrupt,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: so you're just getting yours. But I will tell you,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: this story, I think, like I said, lands pretty hard
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: on Susan Collins. And there's a reason why it went
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: so viral over a 24-hour period. Democrats are excited about
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: this story. But I do think Democrats need to be
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: careful about getting too excited. Because there's another story that
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: sits underneath this Susan Collins story. And it's actually the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: much bigger story that Washington hasn't addressed. It's how normal
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: so much of this is. So let me conduct a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: thought experiment. Let's assume Susan Collins, let's take her at
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: her word that she didn't break the law. Whatever the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: law is, you wouldn't believe what's legal in this town, right?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: But let me stipulate it. Let's assume she didn't break
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the law. Let's accept the premise. And in fact, Collins
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: vigorously denies the bribery and pay to play charges that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: are implied in this story. Now, nobody working for Collins
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: was charged. Her office says they cooperated with the FBI,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: an acknowledgement that they knew the FBI was investigating. The
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: FBI says an earlier investigation found nothing implicating Collins or
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: her campaign. And Martin Kao, who is the defense contractor
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: at the center of the story, who's making many of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: these allegations, is a convicted felon. And he had plenty
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of incentive to cooperate with federal prosecutors, right? So again,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: let's assume Susan Collins committed no crime. And in some ways,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: if that's true, I think this story becomes more interesting
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and actually more impactful. Because look at what apparently is legal.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Because that may be the real corruption story here in Washington.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is what's allowed. A company wants federal money. It hires
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: lobbyists who know which members of Congress control the money.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: It identifies states where powerful appropriators might be helpful. It
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: establishes a presence in those states. Maybe they start a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: nonprofit of some sort. Its executives become political donors, maybe
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: not directly to their own super PAC, but maybe to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: this nonprofit. The politicians help bring federal dollars back home.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: The company keeps giving political money. The lobbyists keep lobbying
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: for making sure that the descriptions that would qualify them
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: for a government contract make it into the legislation word
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: for word so that there is no other entity that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: could win government, because it's technically illegal to specifically guarantee
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a government contract. But what you do is you come
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: up with these incredibly specific definitions where only one company
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: bidding is even qualified to meet. the specific language that
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the member of Congress puts into the legislation to help
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: said defense contract, right? And everybody understands the incentives. Somewhere
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: in there, of course, is a legal line. If somebody says,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: here's $ 150, 000, now give me my government contract, you've actually
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: made life considerably easier for a federal prosecutor to claim bribery.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But that's not generally how Washington works. Most people understand
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the letter of the law. Nobody in Washington follows the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: spirit of a single campaign finance law, but there's plenty
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of lawyers who get paid to follow the letter of
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the law. This is why we have a distinction between
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: letter and spirit. The violation of spirit of the law
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in the campaign finance world has been happening the second
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the laws were written down on paper. So now you
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: don't need to say the quiet part out loud. And
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: over the years, between the courts, Congress, and the campaign
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: finance system itself, We have constructed a political influence system
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in which an awful lot can happen without anybody crossing
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that very specific criminal line. And the incentives do the work.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: There's one amazing detail in the ProPublica story that I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: think captures the whole culture perfectly. So Martin Cowell, the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: defense contractor, wanted to give $ 150, 000 to the super PAC
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that was supporting Collins. But Navitek was a government contractor
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and federal contractors aren't allowed to make federal political contributions.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Federal law also prohibits making a contribution in somebody else's name.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So what did Cal do? He created an LLC with
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: this wonderfully benign sounding name, the Society of Young Women
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Scientists and Engineers. And he misspelled the word scientist. He
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: left off an S. The $ 150, 000 was laundered through that LLC. Now, eventually,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: somebody noticed. The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint. A
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: reporter in Hawaii connected this supposedly independent organization back to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Cal and Navitek, the defense contractor. So now everybody has
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a problem. But ProPublica has this delicious detail. Enter Cleta Mitchell. Now,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: who's Cleta Mitchell? Cleta Mitchell was somebody who got involved
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: with Trump's crazy 2020 was stolen election scheme. She has been,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I've known her 30 years. She has been an elections
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: lawyer and she is, some would say, gone off the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: deep end in different ways. But she is somebody who
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: many an organization hires to make sure they're following the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: letter of the law. And Cleta Mitchell was a lawyer
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: for the Collins Super PAC. It's amazing to me that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins, who's not an election denier, still kept an
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: election denier as part of her Super PAC. That's something
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the story didn't put out, but it's just sort of
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: keep that in mind. I mean, this is not painting
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: a pretty picture here of Susan Collins for anybody. It
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: makes me wonder if Joe Manchin is gonna rethink his
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: endorsement of her when you read this story, but that's
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: another story. According to emails that were obtained by ProPublica,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Cleta Mitchell suggested that this organization better start doing some
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: actual charitable work so that it doesn't just look like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: what it actually is, a dummy LLC, trying to get
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: around campaign finance laws for federal contractors. So Cleta Mitchell
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: suggested giving out a scholarship or two, recognize a couple
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: of women in engineering, and preferably do some of it
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: in the actual state of Maine. She actually wrote this
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: in an email. I want to be sure that the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: LLC proceeds with the ideas we discussed, giving scholarships and
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: recognition to women in engineering, et cetera. And then she adds,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that would help both of us, I think. That's legal
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: speak for it's a way you can say you followed
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the letter of the law, even though clearly we are
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: breaking the spirit of the law here. Now, think about
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. The contribution has already been made.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: People have started asking whether this supposedly independent organization is
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: actually what it says it is. And the response is essentially, well,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: let's make it look more like what it says it is.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Let's hurry up. Let's give some scholarships. Let's create some
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: activity like this LLC is not some bony front. Let's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: build ourselves a record that we can hand over to
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice so they don't pursue criminal charges.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Welcome to how Washington works in 2026, America. It is
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: legalized corruption because there's an entire industry in this town
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: whose job is figuring out how to accomplish what somebody
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: wants to accomplish while staying technically on the legal side
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: of the line. What does the statute technically allow? What
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: kind of entity should we create? Which part of the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: tax code works in this situation? What specific paperwork do
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: we need to file? And sometimes you can file it
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: after the fact and everybody looks the other way. What
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: language should we use? How do we satisfy the letter
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of the law? The spirit of the law, that's somebody
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: else's problem. That's why I'm increasingly less interested in the question,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: is this politician corrupt? I'm more interested in the question is,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: has the system become corrupt? And that's what we have here.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: We have a broken and corrupt system because we've essentially
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: created an enormous influence marketplace in Washington and then drawn
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a very narrow legal box around the tiny portion of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: it we're willing to call bribery. Everybody learns where that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: box lives. and where it exists. And then everybody learns
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: how to operate around it. I'm not trying to make
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: an excuse for Susan Collins, not at all. I'm saying
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: she's become a swamp creature and she's got a whole
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of advisors and she's hired lawyers to let her
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: These allegations are very serious. Voters should read the story
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and make their own judgment. And again, let's assume it's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: all legal. Is it right? Is it ethical? That's a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: question you need to ask yourself. Hey, this episode of
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  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. The Democrats shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: kid themselves that the Washington ecosystem described in this story
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  Speaker 1: is somehow unique to Susan Collins. It isn't. As I
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  Speaker 1: keep saying, this is how Washington works in This is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's Washington. Industries need things from Washington. Politicians need
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  Speaker 1: money to stay in Washington. And we've created an enormous
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: professional class of lobbyists, fundraisers, lawyers, consultants, and political operatives,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: both sides of the aisle, mind you, whose job is
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it to make sure those two groups find each other.
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  Speaker 1: raise enough money to win. I have to keep up.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: This is how I protect my seat. This is how
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I bring jobs back to the state or the district.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: This is how I get heard. I have no choice.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: The system's corrupt. I can't tie one arm behind my back.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: How am I supposed to compete? And eventually, you arrive
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: at the most powerful rationalization of them all. If I
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: don't do it, somebody else will. And at least I'm
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: more honest than the average person might be. And if
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you think the Collins story is some artifact of Washington
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: politics from 2019, take a look at what just happened
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks in Washington. The crypto
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: industry wanted the Clarity Act, didn't get it. And now
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: its biggest political operation, Fair Shake, is putting $ 30 million
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: extra dollars into the Ohio Senate race against Sherrod Brown.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: $ 30 million. Does somebody from the crypto industry now need
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to walk into another senator's office and say, vote our
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: way next time or we'll spend $ 30 million trying to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: defeat you? It's a mighty fine Senate campaign you have there.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Be ashamed if something happened to it. Of course not.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Everybody sees it. It's in plain sight. The money makes
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the threat. And now we're hearing something similar around artificial intelligence.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: This was an unbelievable story. Democratic consultants are privately right
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: now warning candidates in competitive races to be careful how
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: they talk about regulating AI at the moment because they're
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: worried that taking the wrong position could provoke enormous spending
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: by the tech industry. Think about that incentive. And Democrats
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: cannot respond to this by saying, okay, let's not talk
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: too much about crypto. Let's be careful about AI. Let's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: not make Silicon Valley mad. Because if the possibility that
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: an industry might spend $ 20 to $ 30 million against you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: prevents you from dealing honestly with how that industry should
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: be regulated, the money's already done its job. Nobody had
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: to bribe you. Nobody had to threaten you. You basically
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: accepted the threat without even challenging it. They didn't even
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: have to spend the money in some cases. You anticipated
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the threat and changed your behavior yourself. That's what Chuck
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Schumer has done with crypto. That's what so many in
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the leadership have. It's called political capture. So here's the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: question Democrats ought to have to answer if they're going
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to campaign on corruption. So I think it's viable. It
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: sits out there. What are you going to do about this?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Because the we're going to elect better people isn't an answer.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Human beings are going to, money finds a way. Our
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: incentives are broken. Politicians are human beings and human beings
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: are ambitious and insecure and They want to keep their
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: jobs and they want power and they want approval. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: they'll decide, well, you're good money and I'll deal with you.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: You're a good donor. You and I share the right values.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So the things you're looking for in a government contract,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you must be a good person. Be careful here. When
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: confronted with enough political pressure, just about every single elected
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: official I've come across gets turned into weak jellyfish if
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: enough money is at stake. What we have to do
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: You stop designing a political system that depends upon finding
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: heroic politicians. They don't really exist. And even when one
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: or two do, they don't have enough. They can't do
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it themselves. The system has to change. We can't design
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a system for saints. We actually have to design it
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: for the weak, spineless jellyfish that are going to get
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: elected to Congress. So we have to change the incentives.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: And maybe that means we need to turn our entire
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: approach to campaign finance upside down. We've spent decades trying
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to regulate the amount of money people can give. And
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: all that's happened is that it's moved to other places.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: And I mean, it's monstrous amount. Somehow we keep trying
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to limit money in politics and all we do is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: increase the amount of money in politics. We've created an
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: endless series of structures that make it easier to obscure
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the source of political money. It's so anonymous. So maybe
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: we've got it all backwards. Maybe the answer is give
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: whatever you want, but you don't get to hide. You
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: don't get to make it an LLC. You have speech rights.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Corporations have speech rights. Fine. That's what you want to decide.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You want to spend a fortune trying to elect somebody
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to help you with regulation in Washington? Speak. But you
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: don't get to hide it behind some obscure LLC that
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: claims to be giving women in engineering scholarships. When you
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: decide to spend millions of dollars trying to determine who
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: holds public power, the public gets to know who's paying
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: for that speech. That should be the trade, pure and simple.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: You get to speak, fine. Money is speech rights. I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: have the right to know who's speaking. We get to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: know it, who it is. And you need to make
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it immediate, not six months later, not nine months later.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: We could ban anything with an LLC after it. No nonprofit.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: You can come up with all sorts of ways to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: just force it all. You can give an unlimited amount
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of money if you say who you are. The minute
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you put it into an LLC or a nonprofit, boom,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: then there are limitations. You want to give a candidate
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: $ 10 million? Fine, but you wear it. And the candidate
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: wears you. NASCAR rules, baby. Everybody gets to see your sponsors.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: You're the senator for defense contractors in the state of Maine? Fine,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: then let's see Lockheed Martin. Let's see it all upfront,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Navitek upfront and center. It's not our current system. For
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the 2025-26 cycle, an individual supposedly can only give a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: federal candidate $ 3, 500 per election. So it's $ 7, 000 if it's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: both primary and general. But a super PAC can give
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: an unlimited contribution can accept unlimited contributions and can give
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: unlimited contributions. Unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, unions, other PACs,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: provided it spends its money independent of the candidate. So
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: think about the incentive we've created. We tell the wealthy donor, no,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: you can't give the candidate an enormous check directly, but
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you can give an enormous check to this outside organization
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and you could do so through a nonprofit. So nobody
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: even knows you are giving the money. that's going to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: end up spending millions trying to elect the candidate. Why?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Why are we so committed to maintaining this anonymity and fiction?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I've heard this. Donors have a right to privacy. Fuck you.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I can't stand that argument. You choose to spend an
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: enormous amount of money influencing our democracy. Everybody gets to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: know who you are. I apologize for that F word.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I know it probably struck some of you. But man,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the arrogance of wealthy people to think that they get
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to anonymously influence politics because they have so much money.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Good grief. Your vote is no better or worse than
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: anybody else's. And you get to have extra influence and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you get to hide that? No. You could spend all
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the money you want. It's a free country. But it
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: needs to be above board. I'd rather know exactly who
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: is financing every campaign. And I'd rather the candidate have
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to own it. You took $ 10 million from this person, fine.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Now I know. And anybody that gives you more than
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of money, you have to name them
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in your ads. I'd go that far. Maybe that'll be
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a harder one to get these spineless jellyfish to pass.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: That's accountability. I promise you. The irony here is that
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I think many of these big donors and corporations would
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: probably prefer to save their money. But we've created this
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: engine that can only be fueled with this influential money.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: This idea of anonymous sourced political money is absolutely corrosive
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to American politics. You don't know if it's foreign influence money.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: You don't know if it's coming from a foreign entity.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: You don't know if it's coming from a convicted felon.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: You just don't know where it's coming. There is no
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: way this should ever be legal in our democracy. Innocuous
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sounding organizations where you can't determine who supplied the money, right?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't have Russian nesting dolls as a way to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: try to figure out where this money comes from, to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: figure out who's financing ads in Ohio or anywhere else.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: If you're financing efforts to elect or defeat somebody, your
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: identity travels with your money. Period. You don't get to
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: wash your identity out of a political contribution. If you
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: don't want the heat, then get out of politics. Get
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: out of it. Or be more honest. Everybody has speech rights.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: But anonymous speech? No, not with money. American law recognizes
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: circumstances where disclosures can threaten legitimate associational rights and those
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: protections matter, but it's very different from building an entire
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: politically financed architecture whose practical effect can be to make
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it very difficult for voters to find out who is
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the source of all these millions of dollars running a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: campaign on a specific issue and an influence operation. And
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: we've had this transparency revolution once before, it was called Watergate.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Post-Watergate reforms were intended to strengthen contribution limits, disclosure requirements,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and create an enforcement structure surrounding federal campaigns. The theory
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't particularly complicated. It was simply sunlight. We just need
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to see it. Everybody needs to be identified. Voters ought
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: to know where the money's coming from, pure and simple.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: But then look what happened. We spent the next 50
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: years building ways around the structure. New organizations, new legal theories,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: new tax code vehicles. We used to call it 527s, 501c3s, 501c4s,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: all this garbage. Independent expenditure campaigns, super PACs, lawyers fingering
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: out precisely what each entity could do without technically becoming
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: something else. The system was an arms race between regulation
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and circumvention. And the circumvention changed. one every single time.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So maybe let's simplify the whole darn thing. Either you
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: need a constitutional amendment that allows Congress to construct an
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: entirely different campaign finance system with massive limitations in it,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: spending caps and all of those things. Okay, this version
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of our courts won't allow Congress to do that. They
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: say it's a violation of First Amendment rights. All right,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: if you accept that premise, then let's do radical transparency.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: They did not, Citizens United did not prevent the ability
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: of Congress to go as far as they wanted to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: go on transparency. We know money is gonna be in politics,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: accept the premise, but let's make the money visible, period.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Every single dollar, every single donor, as close to real
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: time as technology allows. make the original source of money,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: follow the money all the way to the voter. I
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: call it my NASCAR approach, put the sponsors on the car.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And that's another reason why I think this matters politically
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: beyond Susan Collins. Remember one of Donald Trump's most effective
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: promises in 2016? And it kind of worked because of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: who he was running against, right? The Clinton last name
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was just synonymous with being involved with politics for a
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: long time. Certainly Bill Clinton had his share of money
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: in politics issues. And he came up with drain the swamp.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: He understood that the idea that Washington was corrupt would
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: resonate with voters. You know, he already knew that people
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: believed the place was for sale. And he knew the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: public already believed politicians served donors and lobbyists more than
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: they would serve the average voter. And they also already
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: believed that powerful people had figured out ways to play
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: by a different set of rules. Trump told them, I'm
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: going to break that system. Well, whatever one whatever judgment
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you want to make about Trump's record, the system of
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: large donors, super PACs, corporate interests, and political access didn't
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: disappear in the Trump era. It's been supercharged. It's been
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: weaponized and monetized. And the fact is there's a whole
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: bunch of, if you can't beat them, join them mindsets
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: that have taken place. That's why Democrats need to be
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: careful with this story. They need to be the, if
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: they want, They want credibility on this story of Susan Collins.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: They need to be the party that wants to fix
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: this system and end it, not be the party that
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: hides because they're afraid of certain money people or tries
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: to kowtow to certain groups to appease big money donors.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Look at what is already acceptable in our political system.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Look at what we've decided is legal and ask yourself
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: whether legal and healthly are remotely the same thing. Because
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: change who's in power and sometimes you just change the donors.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't even change the donors. The incentives are
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: going to remain in place. And this also explains something
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Washington never seems to understand about the public. So why
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: do voters keep throwing out these people here in Washington?
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: One party wins by promising to clean up the mess
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: created by the other guys. Then they get power. The
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: lobbyists arrive. bipartisan. Some of the political consultants that help
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: these folks win are also lobbyists on the side or
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: become lobbyists after they succeed. And then they connect the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: donors with the folks in power to get what they want.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: And then the cycle starts all over again. And pretty soon,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: voters will decide these guys have been captured by the system.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Time to throw them out. We'll try the other guys again.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: While Washington looks at this and says, boy, voters are angry.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Voters are irrational. Voters hate everybody. Maybe voters are onto
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: something and they're noticing something. Maybe they're watching a system
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that repeatedly tells them behavior is perfectly legal when to them,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: this looks an awful lot like legalized influence peddling. Let's
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: bring it back to Susan Collins. Assume she broke no law.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Then ask yourself this harder question. Are you comfortable with
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: what doesn't break the law? Because if your defense of
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the political system is, don't worry, everything you just read
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: is legal, I'm not sure that's much of a defense.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe what we've made legal is the problem. Maybe that's
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the scandal. And maybe draining the swamp was never about
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: finding better people to put in it. We're not going
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to find better people. We're all humans. We're all flawed.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: We're weak. We're ambitious. We're scared of losing. We're susceptible
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: to pressure. We're jellyfish. So build a system for jellyfish.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Build incentives that make transparency easier than concealment. Make politicians
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: wear the donors. Trust me, they might be embarrassed to
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: have certain donors. Make donors wear their spending. You have
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the right to speak. You have the right to participate.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But when you're spending millions of dollars trying to decide
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: who governs the rest of us, we have the right
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: to know who you are. Period. So yeah, I think
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: this is a... Campaign death blow to Collins. Because the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: defense is a terrible answer. To basically say, well, there
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: was no wrongdoing proven. Go ahead. Put that on a
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: bumper sticker. Never convicted. Try it. This episode of the
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  Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of a few items. I want
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  Speaker 1: to fly through here that happened in the last, I'd
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: say 24 to 48 hours. that I just think you
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have in case you missed it and I thought
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I'd give you you know call them I don't want
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to say they're hot takes I'm going to say they're
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: well some of them will be sizzling of course but
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: what I mean by it is I think it's more
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: of just where my head is at at these stories
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: without going down various rabbit holes and making myself digress
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: too much since I know that's a favorite phrase of
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: some of you that I say quite a bit. I'm
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: going to have a lot more to say about Trump's
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: speech to the UN in my next episode, because I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: think what his rationalization on Venezuela is probably the most
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: destructive thing a president's ever said, the United Nations. But
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I think this Susan Collins corruption story deserved more of
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: my time. But he did say something else. It was interesting,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: his take on the Iranians. I want to quote Trump directly.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: He says, they're waiting to see how I do in
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: not running. The Republican Party is running and I'll be
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: helping them, but I'm not running. It's very interesting. Trump is,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: remember he was pretend I'm on the ballot and now
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: he's trying to send a message to the Iranians. No, no, no, no.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Whatever you think, I'm not going to change. And what's
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: funny is he says the quiet stuff out loud, right?
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: This is the, this is what makes Trump one of the,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: one of the, He's a conundrum sometimes, right? We say,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you know, he never wants to tell the truth, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: yet he sometimes tells you everything he's thinking. It's clear
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the Iranians are waiting to see if the Iran war
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: is basically an anvil around Republicans, and they figure that
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Trump will be in a weakened position. He's trying to say, hey,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that's not going to matter. But the fact that he
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: said it out loud only reinforces to the Iranians that
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: this strategy of, well, let's wait till after the midterms
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to sit down and talk. We're not going to agree
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to anything until we see how painful politically this is
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: for the Republican Party. So it's just amusing to me
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: that he actually decided to say this out loud, which again,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: he literally has signaled to the Iranians, your strategy is right,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: even though I'm trying to tell you that it's not.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Trump, I got to give a shout out
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to my friends at Playbook and Politico. They had a
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: terrific lead this morning. And it was this. Six weeks
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: before an election, Republicans portray as a referendum on socialism
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and communism. Donald Trump started the week praising a socialist
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and will end it fetting a communist. I brought this
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: up to you in the last episode. Of all things
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to do with the campaign scene, hold a state dinner
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and toast Xi less than six weeks before the election.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, as you've seen, right, Laura Loomer
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: lost her you know what over this. But Trump, who
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: just You know, he's like the influencer is just hoping
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: to to get the to somehow that slightly up close
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: to Mamdani will give him a piece of the Mamdani
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: glow at the moment. Or maybe he gets to share
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in some of his influencers or whatever it is that
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: he thought. But Trump was. practically gushing over Mamdani, who,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: of course, Republicans are trying at the moment to villainize
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: in all these ads and trying to use Mamdani as
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: somehow a way to paint another Democrat in Kansas or
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Iowa as some sort of extremist. And what's Donald Trump doing? Man,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you can be a star. You're going to be a star.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: So that's one. And then if China is such a boogeyman,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: why is he kowtowing to China? Which he will be
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: doing at the end of this week, because China, I mean,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: this has been the, they've got a lot of problems
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: with their own economy. And if we had stronger leadership
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: in the United States, China would be in big trouble.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: But instead we've had this incredibly weak leadership and China
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: is having an amazing run internationally. They are seen as
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the stable superpower while we are seen as the unreliable
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and unstable superpower. But again, Less than six weeks before
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: the election, Donald Trump starts the week praising a socialist
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and he'll end it celebrating a communist. Way to help
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Republican Party messaging quite a bit. A new Pew poll
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: came out about data centers. And look, you don't need,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I know you won't be shocked to see how unpopular
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: they are. But what's amazing is just how much this
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: has changed since January of 2026. In January of 2026,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Americans were still showing some concern about this, but it
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't nearly at the level. So for instance, since January,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Americans have now become more likely to say that data
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: centers will have a negative impact on the environment. It
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: goes from 39%. In January, 2026, thought this, now it's 54%.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: On home energy costs, it was 38% in January. It's
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: now 50%. You think this. People's quality of life nearby, right?
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: This is such a local issue, 30%, 49% now have
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that as concern. Local jobs, that it will negatively impact
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: local jobs. That was a 15% concern. Now it's a 24% concern.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And then local tax revenue disappearing, 12% before now 21%.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: It's just, and Pew points out, the growing negativity is
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: in both parties with Democrats more likely than Republicans to
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: view the impacts of data centers negatively, but Republican views
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: on this have turned more negative as well. 42% of
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Republicans now say data centers are mostly bad for the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: quality of people near them, not good. So it is
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: this Democratic, this The data center campaign has worked and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: it is benefiting Democrats more than Republicans. Look at Greg Abbott. First,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: he flip-flopped a couple of weeks ago in data centers.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Now he's using, it's so funny, he's suddenly pro-environment. He's
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: using an environmental regulation to essentially extend a moratorium on
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: data centers. The 180 by Abbott is quite striking. And
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I think it tells you just how much this has
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: turned everywhere in the country, but especially in the state
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: of Texas and why the Texas governor's race might qualify
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: to be more toss-up than even lean Republican at this point.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: It is right on the edge of that. It was
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: interesting that they, how about the fact, so George W.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Bush and John Cornyn headlined a fundraiser in Dallas earlier
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: this week, and it was for an independent entity helping
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Republicans called Maintain the Majority. And the money, listen to
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the states that maintain the majority is targeted for. So
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: what it is, this is a way to, frankly, double
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: dip or triple dip. I mean, it's yet another way
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: to find more money into the system, even though there's
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: supposed to be a limit in how much money any
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: individual can give to a campaign. But it's interesting which
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Senate races that Bush and Cornyn were raising money for
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and which they weren't. This entity called Maintain the Majority
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: splits money specifically to Republican Senate nominees in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire, and Ohio. So Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Ohio
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: are defenses. New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan are on offenses.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: What's the biggest omission? The state of Texas, right? There
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: was no way Cornyn or Bush were willing to raise
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: money in Texas on It's something called maintain the majority
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: to help Ken Paxton. If you're wondering why I am
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: pretty bearish now on Paxton's ability to win this race,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: it's just more of this. You see it everywhere. And
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I promise you, I think by October 1, you will
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: actually see a pullback of resources, of money going into Texas.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: It is a huge... If anybody gets extra money, it's
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: going to be Abbott. I don't know if he needs it.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: He's got a ton of money, but he's got to spend...
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: This is one where the Abbott war chest, he had
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: been sort of building and building. He never had to
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: spend it down. He's going to have to spend it down,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: spend it down this time. By the way, if you're
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: somebody that's hoping that we're going to break the duopoly
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: of the two parties, it's interesting this year how many
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: high profile cross party endorsements we're seeing in different ways.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: So Joe Manchin is going up to, support Susan Collins.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden decided to support Mike Lawler. Karl Rove is
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: supporting the Democrat in the Railroad Commission race. And the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: outgoing Republican Secretary of State in South Dakota is supporting
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the Democrat because the Republican wants to hand count ballots.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: So I don't know whether this is a quirky phenomenon
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: or really a response to sort of how far to
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the right or left certain people in both parties think
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: things have gone. And they want to try to prop
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: up the moderate versions on the other side, right? Both
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: punish the extremes in their own party and try to
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: change who's got power in the other party and hope
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: that the moderates do. Now, I don't know if this
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: is just a one-time Trump era phenomenon or if we'll
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: start to see more and more of this. It really
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: depends on how far, how much the bases are perceived
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to have control of both parties. But You know, we
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: had a rule. There always was this, you know, sort
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: of unofficial rule in journalism, right? One is interesting. Two is,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: could be a coincidence. Three is a trend. Well, this
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: is four. So it's more than a trend at this point.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: So I tell it to you today. The New York
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Times will write this story in a couple of days,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: maybe another week. AOC, what are we supposed to read
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: into that? Once again, AOC is not hiding. any of
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: her ambition. And I think it's interesting when the quote
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: she said about whether she runs for Senate, runs for president,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: runs for reelection. And she said, oftentimes in politics, you
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: do only get one shot. Life doesn't wait for you
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to be ready for things. That sounds like somebody who's
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about running for president, who realizes that even if
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you look and say, boy, I don't know if a
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: woman can win the presidency given what's happened to Hillary
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Clinton and Kamala Harris, your time is your time. And
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: if Abdul El-Sayed wins this Michigan Senate race, there may
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: not be more openness for a progressive than at that
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: moment in time, right? So the fact that she said
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: it out loud, what many others have thought about her situation,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: which is you know, one of the great lessons of politics,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and for me, I learned it early on in 92,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: when a whole bunch of people in the spring of
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: 91 looked at George H.W. Bush's approval rating and said, oh,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: he's guaranteed reelection. I'm going to wait to run for
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: president until 96. Well, Bill Clinton didn't wait, and he
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: ended up. And a whole bunch of people lost their
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: shot at the presidency. The people that were in that
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: boat who chose not to run in 92 because they
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: misread the tea leaves about the American voter, Al Gore,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Bill Bradley, Dick Gephardt, Jay Rockefeller, Sam Nunn. I think
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: there was at that time, I think even Chuck Robb
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: was considered a presidential material at that time. But there's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: just a laundry list of. candidates who all thought about
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: running and chose not to, thinking Bush wasn't going to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: be the incumbent to beat, and decided to bide their time.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: You know, Hillary Clinton, I think I've always said, I
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: think her best window to win the presidency was 04.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And she chose not to run it. She wanted to
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: wait for an open seat in 08, when 04 might
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: have been her best chance. I think Gavin Newsom blew
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: his best opportunity. I think his best opportunity was primary Biden.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I really do. And he might be president today because
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: of it. The point being is it may not be
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: the best, you know, a Democrat might win in 28,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: but he might not be best positioned to win in 28, right?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Your time is your time. And, you know, one thing
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: that you, if it isn't clear now, it should be,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: she's really thinking about it. She's dead serious as AOC.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And she's done her homework. She's done her history homework
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: on this. She sees what we see. is that if
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: she's ever going to, you know, this moment may not
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: be there in 2032, may not be there in 2036.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: She may be young enough to wait, but the moment
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: that the electorate is waiting for her, ready for her,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: may be sooner. And the fact that that's how she's
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: saying that out loud as part of her calculation makes me,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: you know, I've, I go back and forth, right? She
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: has spent the fall, to me, behaving as someone running
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: statewide in New York in 2028. She's been spending her
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: political capital in New York. She's been campaigning in New York.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: She's been traveling the state. But I could make the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: case that if you're traveling outside the city, but you're
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: staying in New York, you are visiting Ohio. I mean,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: that's always been the joke. Outside of New York City,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: New York is, you know, the rest of New York
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: is Ohio, meaning it's kind of swing slash Republican leaning.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: So you could in theory argue that she's learning how
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to talk to the swing voters in the industrial Midwest
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: by campaigning upstate as well. And then finally, I want
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: to close with the enormous amount of money and the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: folks at Punchbowl put together just the giant spending advantages
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: at the moment, eight of the nine biggest Senate races
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: where Republicans have the spending advantage. This is, I've said
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: it to you before, right? This period will determine whether any,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: how impactful will this money be? If they can't stop
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the bleeding now, if they can't turn their poll numbers
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: around after all of this, you know, it may be
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: that there is something bigger than just a blue wave forming.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: It could be turning into something bigger than that. But
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: right now, Here is the gaps. In Ohio, Republicans have
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: a $ 70 million spending advantage. This assumes reservations. They could
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: pull back. In Texas, it's a $ 65 million advantage. These
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: are just Senate races. In Michigan, $ 33 million advantage. In Maine,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: $ 24 million advantage. In Iowa, 21. Alaska, 15. Even in
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, eight. In New Hampshire, six. Georgia's the lone
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: exception where Democrats are outspending. Republicans. Democrats have a $ 17
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: million advantage. Combined, the Republican advantage in those eight Senate
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: states is nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Ohio
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: alone has $ 307 million in total ad spending and reservations,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: according to Punchbowl. Now, we know a dollar isn't the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: same as a dollar. Candidate advertising gets the lowest rates.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Super PAC advertising goes, you know, so it isn't necessarily,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it isn't It isn't quite dollar for dollar,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: but just the amount of excess spending here. Like I said,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: if this doesn't have an impact, then this cake was
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: baked a while ago. And it may be baked because
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of diesel fuel. We know now Chuck Grassley over the
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: weekend was begging for a version of a gas tax
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: holiday for diesel fuel to create an export embargo. which
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: of course will do really nothing. It might have a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: short-term impact in slowing down the rise of the cost
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of diesel, but it actually has, it does damage to
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the industry. They end up, you know, there's less investment,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: less money to be made. So, but there's so much
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: political pressure on Trump to do this now. Now he's
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: in favor of it, but pretty much any Republican in
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a tough race has come out for this export embargo
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: on diesel because they just want to look like they're
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: calling for something. And a gas tax holiday doesn't really
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: have any credibility with them at all. And then one
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: final thing about the Paramount. I had one point I
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to make about the Paramount settlement with the California
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Attorney General and this so-called Independence Board. Look, I'm not
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: crazy about... You know, we've seen corporate publicly traded companies
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: being in charge of news organizations isn't going well. And
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: if you've got business before the government, you're not going
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: to be a very good steward of a news organization
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: who wants to say that they'll report on anything without
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: fear or favor. But when you start to talk, when
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: the government says, well, we want to make you create
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: this independence board and all of this. you know, well,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: who's on this board? Who decides? What's government's role? What's not?
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: It is, I fear this makes it sound like it's independence.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: The board itself doesn't look like it's much of an
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: independence thing. And, you know, when you're putting in rules
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: for journalism, you're immediately like this, you're immediately getting really
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: close to violating the First Amendment. And And I think
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: you're bordering on censorship if you're not careful. It's sort
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: of like fear of an entity going too far. It
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that sort of trying to create your own
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: board to decide what's independent and what isn't. I mean,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: that's all subjective too. So look, I don't love the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: system we're in. But I don't want any other entity
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: saying you're in, you're out. I mean, that also, I think,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: is a slippery slope. And if the board is appointed
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: by the corporation whose management of the journalists they may
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: be fighting with, I don't even see how the board's
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: even independent. And the fact that government agreed to it
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: or demanded it makes it seem as if government's a part. Anyway,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: I understand the good intention, I think. What came out
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of it is something that, A, isn't going to work,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: and B, sort of gives credibility where none has been
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: earned in this case. But look, the larger point I'm
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: making is about incentives anyway, right? And we've kind of
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: blown that up. All right, my top five list this week.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I'm borrowing from the NBC News poll because I thought
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: this was a terrific exercise. And it's a simple exercise.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: What are the five worst things to be for this
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: year when running for office? The five most unpopular issues.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: to be associated with in this year's campaign season. And
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to count down five to one on this one. Now,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: those of you that might think, I think I heard
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: a version of this on Monday. Yeah, maybe you did.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: But this is the cleaner way to do it. Top five,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: and we'll start with number five. The fifth worst thing
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: to be for, according to the NBC News poll, is
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: to be a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump. 52% said
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: that would make them less likely to support a candidate
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: who bragged about being endorsed by Donald Trump. Number four,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: being a candidate who wants to abolish ICE, the Immigration
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and Customs Enforcement Agency. So I throw this in there.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: This was a 53% said they would be less likely
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to support a candidate who simply wants to abolish ICE.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: This is a reminder that there is nuance to this immigration.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: A majority didn't like the chaos at the border. And
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: a majority doesn't like the chaos that ISIS is creating.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean a majority doesn't believe we should have
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: some form of enforcement and border security. Number three on
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: the list of the worst things you can be for.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: A candidate who supports providing funding and weapons to Israel. 55%
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: said that would make them less likely to support any
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: candidate for office this year that was advocating more funding
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: and weapons to Israel. Number two on the list. to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: be a candidate that supports the war in Iran. Fifty
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: seven percent. Fifty seven percent said they would be less
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: likely for any candidate supports the war in Iran. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: you wonder why so many Republicans are trying to move
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: away from this war. And number one, And with a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: bullet on this one, a candidate who supports building a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: data center in your community, 64% of voters told NBC
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: that would make them less likely to support. So basically,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: let's flip the script here, right? The five best things
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: to be If you wanna be a majoritarian in Congress,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: the five best things are to be against data centers
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: in your community, against the Iran war, against sending money
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and weapons to Israel, against abolishing ICE, and against being
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: supported by Donald Trump. It's a pretty simple premise. Democrats
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: feel really good about four of those five issues. It's
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the fifth issue. abolishing ICE, that might be some trouble there.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: But you can see here, this is why it is,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: if Democrats can get out of being trapped by their
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: base and by what people on the farthest left side
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: of the spectrum believe, most of their candidates in these,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: whether you're Josh Turek or James Tallarico, they're all sitting
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: in that space right there. And what the NBC poll
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: is saying, This ain't rocket science, folks. Don't be for
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: data centers. Don't be for the Iran war. Don't be
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: for sending more weapons to Israel. Don't be for abolishing ICE.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: And don't be for Donald Trump. There's your, that is like,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: how do you run for office in 2026? There you go, America,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: right there. All right. I thought I'd make it a nice,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: clean and easy top five list. Let's get to your questions.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do a few questions. We got a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: little Ask Chuck here. We're going to start with Eric R.,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Minnesota's fourth congressional district. And he writes, hey, I'm looking
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: for a little inside baseball and political interviewing. Watching Kristen
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Welker press Mike Johnson on AR regulation recently, I found
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: myself yelling at the TV for her to pivot and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: challenge the premise of his answer rather than keep trying
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: to get a direct response to the original question. From
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: your time in that chair, what prevents an interviewer from
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: changing directions in the moment? Is it the show's structure,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: producer guidance, time constraints, specific journalistic objective? Or does it
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: simply look much easier from my recliner than it is
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: in real time? All of those things are true. Okay.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: And they all can matter at any moment in time.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: And what I, you know, I'm always hesitant of, this
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: is why I hate the short interviews because you have
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: time constraints. That's the biggest thing. And it's sort of like,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: I totally get what you want to do. And suddenly
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: that's an extra five minutes. And if the structure of
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the show is suddenly at risk, You know, you screw
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: up a whole bunch of other things. Now, I used
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: to be like, ah, screw it. We'll apologize to the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: guests and go. Yeah, that works once or twice, but
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: you really can do harm to your ability to book
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: and things like this. You'll have issues with your commercial breaks,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: which actually hurt the ad sales team and all this stuff.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: So there is a lot that goes into that. per se.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: And I totally, this is why I'm so frustrated by
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: the format itself. And it's not, this is not about
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: any individual's format. It's sort of how it's evolved into
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: these shorter segments, because then it sort of forces to
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: be yes or no, when really what we want are
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: these 30, right? You know, these 15 to 20 to
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: 25 minute conversations that allow you know, for nuanced answers.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: And I think that we have just not made room
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: for them. And this is why I'm here. It's why
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: I'm in a podcast space where I think you have
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: a bit more time for this to get it saying, okay,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: you're saying this, but let me go over here, right?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: And again, there's plenty of times, I know Kristen wants
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: to do that, but there are, you have structure, show
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: structure constraints, time constraints. And I, you know, I don't,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I know the interview you're talking about, but I don't
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: know where it fell in the show and all of
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: that stuff as well. But it is everything. I mean,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I got to give you credit, Eric. You sort of
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: came up with all the different potential explanations and you
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: hit versions of all of them. And I promise you,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: she has somebody in her ear going, no, no, you
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: got to move. And maybe there was some other question
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that they really wanted to make sure to get them
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: on the record on. And this is, like I said,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: the tyranny of the short interview. And And what you
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: what I hate is I think the interviewee sort of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: knows that time is on their side and they can
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: kind of filibuster until you sort of have to keep moving.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: And this is again, this is why I fought. I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: used to fight so hard against three guest shows in particular.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I really, you know, one and two guest shows. And look,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: I understand we live in a little shorter attention span,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: attention economy. And is what I wanted didn't always wouldn't
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: always rate as well. The longer episodes, although it was
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: always they always made more news and they always. Didn't
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: they always aged better, the longer interviews, but usually the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: viewer tolerance for longer interviews was reserved for about two
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: or three, two or three guests a year, and usually
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: they were people that either had the words president in
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: front of them or maybe secretary of defense or something
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, but, um, it's, you know, this is
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: where I, I'm frustrated by how the incentives of television
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and the incentives of the audience have sort of screwed,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: screwed this whole thing up a little bit. All right.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Kevin O writes, I was in the lithotripsy business years
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: ago and an old World War II Navy guy once
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: told me they had sailors jump rope to help move
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: kidney stones along. Yeah, I know this trick. Check with
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: your doc first, of course, based on the survey you
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: cited on today's show, maybe It's all in the name.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Instead of calling it socialized medicine, why not just call
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: it Medicare for all? Easy peasy, Kevin O. That's interesting
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: on that. Yes, I take your point on the earlier
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: poll question. But yes, jumping is definitely, you know, it's
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: interesting with a kidney stone. All the advice that expected
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: mothers who go into labor are given breathing exercises, walking
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: around a room, right? It's the same advice you get
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: for dealing with a kidney stone that you're trying to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: get to move along. And let's just say all of
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the breathing exercises that I learned with Mrs. Todd back
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: when we were we were expected parents have come in
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: sadly quite handy for my for the attempt I've had
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: to birth these kidney stones. But, Kevin, I appreciate the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: concern and the advice. Matthew in Evanston, Illinois, the fight
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: ninth congressional district. Oh, we know this one quite well.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: We had a lot of fun with it. Second timer here,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: and he says, what do you make of the circumstances
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: making Kansas competitive into the 2026 midterm? Is it the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: growth of the Kansas City suburbs, younger people seeking cheaper housing,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: the long-running division within the state Republican Party, or economic
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: factors like fuel prices and challenges in the ag sector?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: I've followed politics closely since 0406, and Kansas feels like
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: one of those states where if politics do shift, we
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: may look back and say, yeah, it was pretty obvious.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Love your insight and analysis, Matthew Nevinson. Buddy, I've been
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: sort of waiting for this move for a while. It
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: reminds me of Colorado in the 90s, where you were like,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: Democrats should do better in these national elections, and they don't.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: But you sort of saw a lot of Californians were
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: moving there. Something's happening here. I think it's two things
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: that have turned Kansas from red to reddish purple, right?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: It's still red-leaning. And what I find interesting is, is
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: when I first got into politics, Missouri was considered the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: swingiest of swing states. It had one of the longest
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: streaks of, of voting with the winning presidential candidate going back.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I think, I think they went with Adlai Stevenson once
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: and that kept its streak. And then after that, it was,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: it was, uh, the winner every time, uh, until 2000 when, um,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: The caveat of, well, not with the popular vote, but
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: with the Electoral College winner. And then 04, I think,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: was the first time or excuse me, 08 when Obama
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: came up short, was the first time Missouri Street got broken.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: But you've seen this sort of transition from Missouri to Kansas.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So your list of things, there's a lot there. The
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: biggest thing is the explosion of the Kansas City suburbs,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: because it's been the third congressional district up there that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: we've seen the biggest shift been moving over time. And
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: it all started in the 90s, the suburban shift from
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: red to purple, and now in the Trump era, from
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: purple to blue, right? The Kansas City suburbs are now,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: it's now the base of the Democratic vote, right? And
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: it was the swing area, and it's moved from swing
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: to almost base Democratic vote at this point. So it's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the explosion of the Kansas City, Kansas side of the suburbs.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: It's the conservative shift in Missouri that is chase some
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: people in Kansas City, Missouri to move to Kansas City, Kansas.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: The Kansas side schools have always been considered better than
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the Kansas City, Missouri side of schools. So there's that aspect.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: So I think there's sort of domestic migration is an
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: explanation here from the Missouri side to the Kansas side.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: You've had this divide inside the Republican Party that's similar
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: to what we're seeing in Texas, where you have sort
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: of the moderate Republicans splitting from the cultural conservative Republicans.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: I would say there was definitely always a pretty strong
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: religious conservative base in Kansas that has pushed the party
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and the legislature has pushed the perception of the party
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: much further to the right than when it was Bob
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Dole and Nancy Kassebaum sort of representing Kansas for what
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: seemed like a couple of decades in the United States Senate.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: And so I think it was a hard right shift right. And,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it was the Sam Brown back, sort of the, the,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: the pullback from there, um, the relative success of these
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: democratic governors, right. They, they, you know, after they had
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: their Kathleen Sebelius for two terms, they got enough and then,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: and then that was rejected. So it is, I think
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: it's the, um, it's, it's, and then this year, I
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: think you have the added aspect of the current, um,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: trade war with Canada. That's, um, Bombardier, which is an
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: airplane manufacturer, it's a Canadian-owned company, but they have a
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: huge manufacturing plant in Kansas. So the trade war there,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: throw in what's happening in the ag space. These tariffs
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: have been terrible for the Kansas economy. Ag exports are
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: a huge part of the Kansas economy, so that's hurt.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: So you throw all that in there. And then I
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: think the The added ingredient is that Roger Marshall is
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: not very good as a candidate, as I've expressed before.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: So do I think this means Kansas is going to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: be a swing state in 2028? Probably we're still another
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: cycle or two away from that. But I think a
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: victory in the Senate race here for Democrats, if Hamilton
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: gets over 50, you might see. This is why I
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: thought Democrats should have made Kansas their first their first
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Midwestern state. I think if they spent more time in
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Kansas organizing the place, because that's the other thing. When
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: we've watched red states move to blue, having multiple college
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: towns matters. They have multiple college towns. Having three urban
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: markets matters. Well, Wichita, Topeka, and Kansas City. So Kansas
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: has a lot of the ingredients. for the modern, for
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: what's helped move states from red to blue in the
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: 21st century, right? The big movements have been Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: are probably the biggest four shifts that we've seen from
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: red to blue. You know, just like the biggest shifts
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: we've seen from blue to red, were states that had
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: large union populations, lower college education scores. Kansas has a
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: high education rate. Kansas also has a sneaky high Latino population.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: And I don't underestimate that flip either and the immigration
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: issue playing negatively in Kansas as well, especially in the
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: ag sector. So that would be my explanation. And yes,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: if Kansas does flip to me, it's not like, oh,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: where did that come from? It's been a very slow,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: gradual move where the Kansas Republicans had to sort of
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: make some errors to accelerate it in certain places. I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: don't think Jerry Moran would lose in this environment. But
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: I think Roger Marshall is just a bad candidate and
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: not very good at this. So that that's probably if
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: he ends up losing. I do think you can't. You
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: got to pay a little bit more attention to the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: candidate quality as well. All right. Next question comes from
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Max W. right here in Virginia's 8th Congressional District. Obi
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Chuck Kenobi. I appreciate it. Since you liked my last
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Star Wars reference, here's another. If you could use the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Jedi mind trick to get President Trump to answer one
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: question completely honestly, what would you ask? Something about the war,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: his real feelings about J.D. Vance. why he trolls online
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: so often or something else entirely, I'll hang up and listen. Max,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you the question and I'm still waiting for
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: somebody to ask this question. Why'd you choke on January 6th?
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Why didn't you go through with it? Why didn't you
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: fire the attorney general? He had all the power in
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the world to keep pushing and he didn't, he choked.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: He's never been asked that direct question. He chose not to.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: Fire the acting attorney general and replace him with Jeffrey Clark.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: He backed down after the threat of wholesale resignations in
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department. If he was so convinced he was right,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: why'd he choke? Why didn't he do it? We've never
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: heard his explanation. And you could see why I want
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: to ask it that way. Why'd you choke? You didn't
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: do it. You didn't go. Your people went. You didn't. Why?
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes, I will tell you this about interviewing Trump.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: The best way to interview him is to give him rope.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: It's not to try to fact check him. I've made
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: the mistake of playing fact checker. And I've done the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: give him rope. And my best interviews with him have
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: been the ones where you hand him more rope. So
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: that's what I would do. I have given, just so
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: you know, anybody that has had Trump as an interview
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: and has asked me, I've said, here's a question. It'll
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: make a bunch of news. It's amazing to me how
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: many people I've given this question to won't do it.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: But I'd love to see that question asked. All right,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: last question for this episode. from Rhode Island's first congressional district. Hey, Chuck,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: I continue to loyally enjoy your perspectives since the MTP days,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: probably because we're the same age with similar outlooks. Given
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: the legal protections available to presidents and the possibility of
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: pardons for administration officials, could a future Congress instead pursue
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: financial penalties or taxes aimed at money earned while serving
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: in an administration? Could something like that realistically become part
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: of a future Democratic campaign platform? Cheers, Judd in Montreal.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: but voting in Rhode Island's first congressional district. Judd, what
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: a brilliant, unique idea. Again, it goes to, do you
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: try to eradicate a practice or do you try to
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: change incentive structures? Whatever money, you get double taxed, you
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: serve in Washington, any money you earn is double taxed.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting idea. Uh, essentially it's a, nobody's saying
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: you can't earn money on the side, but if you
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: earn money with the government now, you know, then, um,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: any outside income is, uh, is taxed at a 50%
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: rate or something like that. Cause you know what that
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: would mean? You wouldn't have, you would have a bunch
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: of people who would choose not to serve rather than
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: have to pay that extra. that extra tax on money
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: that they earn on that. I want to simmer on
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: this idea, but I think you're in the place that
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: I'd like to, where I think Congress needs to get
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this money issue and do essentially,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: how do we stop the grift, right? How do we
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: stop the incentive for the grip? So can you create
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: incentives that just make it too expensive, right? Shame isn't
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: going to work. You hit people where it counts. Money
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: and freedom, right, would be prison terms and money. Well,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the money stuff's an interesting way to go. I say
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: I love this. I'm lingering on it because I hope
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: some of my friends who are in Congress who listen
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: ponder this idea. This is a fascinating idea. And one
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see my reformed friends stew on and
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: think about. Hey, before I go, I need to give
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: a shout out to my Washington Nationals. I've been whiny
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: and moany about the fact that I thought all of
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: a sudden after what started off so promising that, you know,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: what if we didn't have a better record than we
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: had the last two years? Well, the Nats have surpassed
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: 71 wins. We are going to, we're going to have
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: fewer than 90 losses. That's progress. It's going to be
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: the best record the Nats have had since winning the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: world series in 2019. And now the question is what's
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: going to happen, right? What's going to happen with the lockout?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: You know, how badly is that going to go? um
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: what's you know what what how united will the players
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: stay how uh how emphatic are the owners here about
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: a salary cap does the financial problems of the owner
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: of the dodgers change the calculus of all this suddenly
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: um that's something that i don't know what the impact
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: is but whatever whatever we've got in store for the
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: off season. And I'm nervous about it. And by the way,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: I'll have more to say about the baseball playoffs, but
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to give you a hint now. With no, with,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: with we, it is the white socks will be the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd cast team, but I'm afraid of saying it
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: too much out loud because it's not guaranteed that they're
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: going to get that either division or last wildcard spot,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: but it's looking like they're going to be, but we
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: are going to be my mom's side of the family,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: her brother, Huge White Sox fan. They're all Southsiders. So
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: we will be, it'll be us and the Pope pulling
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: for the White Sox. And this will be the first
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: time the White Sox are in the playoffs with the
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: help of the Pope, right? This could, we don't know
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: what this is going to be for the chances of
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: the White Sox getting out of the, at least getting
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: out of the wildcard round, right? But who knows what happens,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: but here's what I hope Nat's ownership thinks about, which is,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: Let's go get some pitching. Let's actually invest. And let's
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: try to make the playoffs next year. We're not that
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: far from being a playoff team. Make the effort. Don't
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: make me go seven straight years of handing you a
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: bunch of money for season tickets. And I've already signed
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: back up because you guys are real quick to make
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: sure you don't know when the deadline is. But that's
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: all right. I was always going to keep my tickets
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: this year. I feel like enough of an effort was made.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: But please, either spend some money to win or sell
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: the team. That's all we fans are asking. Do one
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: or the other. But don't give us another year where
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: you won't spend money. All right. With that, I will
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: see you in 24 hours for the Thursday episode. In
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: the meantime, thanks for liking. Thanks for subscribing. And thanks
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: for listening.