Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - The Worst Presidential Corruption Scandal In American History + Can Democrats Finally Unseat Lindsey Graham?

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Full Episode - The Worst Presidential Corruption Scandal In American History + Can Democrats Finally Unseat Lindsey Graham? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the check podcast. It is February second, which means rising, shine, campers,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and shine, and don't forget your booties because it's cold
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out there today. You know it's cold out there every day,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: especially here in Washington. It's February second. And for those
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and if those lines are already dancing in your head, congratulations.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You've also reenacted the opening scene of Groundhog Day, a
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: movie that I've always been obsessed with I love, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'll get to it in a minute. In the movie,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of Course, Bill Murray wakes up to the same cheery
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: voice on the clock radio, same song, same forced optimism,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: same greeting, over and over and over again. At first
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: it's funny, then it's annoying, and then it becomes something
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: else entirely because let's just say, I think a lot
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of us in Washington feel like we've been living groundhog
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Day in quite a few scenarios. But I'll get to that,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: because the truly unsettling part about the movie Groundhog Day
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: isn't that the day were peace. It's that nothing changes
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: just because you know it's coming. Right. Phil Connors knows
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: everybody of the day, He knows who's going to say what,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: he knows when the puddle's going to splash him, he
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: knows how the conversations will end. And yet knowing it
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't fix it, right, you know, before nineteen ninety three,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with this fact. In fact, I'm so
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: obsessed with this fact that every year when I was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the anchor of Meet the Press Now Daily on MSNBC
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and then Meet the Press Now in NBC News Now,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: every Groundhog Day, I ran the same two minute segment
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: about the following phenomenon. And it was this before nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety three Groundhog Day men exactly one thing in America,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a quirky weather ritual involving a groundhog in western Pennsylvania.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: After the movie, it became a metaphor a shorthand for
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: repetition without progress, systems, stuck in a loop, reliving the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: same arguments with the same outcomes. It's extraordinary cultural power.
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  Speaker 1: Or for a movie that really wasn't a box office
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: smash at the time, think about it. And this was
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: always every year. I issued the exact same we ran
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: it the exact same script every year, and nobody ever
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: seemed to notice that we were doing this every single year.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It was part of the gag, right, We made ourselves
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: laugh in the control room. So shout out to all
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of my all of my colleagues that have been in
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on this joke. Evan Hirsch originally helped me conceive the segment.
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  Speaker 1: Melissa Frankel and John Reeves both championed over the years,
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  Speaker 1: And so I know we're all thinking of each other
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: today because we used to do this. But the point
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  Speaker 1: of the I just thought it was fascinating that you
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: can't they give me a movie that doesn't just add
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a phrase to the language, but actually replaces the meaning
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of an existing phrase. Right, So when we say this
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: feels like groundhog Day, we're not talking about the weather.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: We're talking about exhaustion. And here it's why the movie
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: continue used to age so well, and why the metaphor
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: keeps showing up in politics more and more lately, because
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: it does feel like we are spinning our wheels, right,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: that every day is the same. Some things change, but
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the outcomes seem to remain the same. You know, Phil
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Connors in the movie, he doesn't escape the loop by
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: exposing a villain, finding a loophole overpowering the system. He
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: escapes only when he changes how he behaves inside the loop,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: even though the loop itself doesn't explain itself or apologize.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And that's the uncomfortable lesson of the movie, and it's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: an important lesson that we all digest when we complain
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  Speaker 1: about our current politics. Recognition isn't enough, Cynicism isn't enough,
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  Speaker 1: and intelligence isn't enough. Something has to actually change, and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you have to be the change. You can't hope something
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  Speaker 1: else changes. You have to do it because guess what,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: when you popped on my podcast, you thought, boy, that
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: something about this morning feels familiar, right, because it's politics,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and there's a reason. Let's run my clock radio again.
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  Speaker 1: There's a government shutdown looming again, same brinksmanship, same speech is,
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  Speaker 1: same damage, just a new calendar day. But here we
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: go again. Eyes are rolling about it, aren't they. Donald
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Trump's businesses are intersecting with foreign policy decisions again, same
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: pay to play questions, same ethical fog, same refusal to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: draw clean lines. Democrats want another special election in a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: deep red area again, same analysis, same wake up call language,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: same partisan denial. I'm referring to the Texas State Senate
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning special that in some ways just fits the pattern.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: If you're wondering if a category three or four blue
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: wave is forming out there in the political oceans, the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, and I still forecast it to be
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a category three, four and possibly a five. It is
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  Speaker 1: still out there. Texas is just another reminder that the
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  Speaker 1: wave is building. The Epstein files reminding us how forgiving
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  Speaker 1: rich people are to each other, especially if they're rich people. Again,
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  Speaker 1: same names, same silence, same selective accountability. Different headlines, same rhythms.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like deja vu. That's because structurally it is
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: welcome to groundhog Day, Washington style. So here's the real
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: groundhog Day problem. It's the danger of living in a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: groundhog Day moment politically. Think about how we've all dealt
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: with the Trump era. At first, repetition produces outrage first
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  Speaker 1: part of the movie, then it produces fatigue second part
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  Speaker 1: of the movie, and eventually it produces normalization, the uncomfortable
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: part of the movie. Right, the scandal isn't shocking anymore.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: The dysfunction becomes background noise, the alarm clock keeps going off,
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  Speaker 1: and people stop reacting. That's the real threat, not chaos complacency.
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  Speaker 1: So look, I'm having a little fun with groundhog Day,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: but there's a lesson here, especially when it comes to
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: how we're dealing with what seems like, you know, and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to it to me a gigantic story,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a scandal among scandals and presidential political history, and yet
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it feels like it's going to get treated like the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: scene of the drunk guy wanting flapjacks on Groundhog Day.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So the good news is in the movie the day
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't repeat forever. Eventually something does change. The question politically
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is what it takes. What is it going to take
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  Speaker 1: to change things this time? And with that, I want
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to go deeper into said story. It's a huge story.
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  Speaker 1: Some of you may know about it. It was in
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  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal of the weekend. Some of you don't.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm going to do a pretty thorough dive on this,
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  Speaker 1: giving you the details, what's verified, what isn't verified, and
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  Speaker 1: questions that should be asked right now by Congress. But
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: as you know, and I've said this multiple times, Congress
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: is the problem. Right if you don't like our politics.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily who we're electing as president. It's the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: inability of Congress to function as the legislative branch and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the body of government that the founders intended it to be.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to start with the following question, which
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: maybe would have sounded absurd ten years ago. At what
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: point does a policy decision become a product that's simply
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: for sale? So as you hear this story about Donald Trump,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the crypto business, the UAE chips, AI important AI chips
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: that may now have a back channel to China, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: how policy in the United States changed after a private
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sector deal. That's the question here, did the policy chain
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  Speaker 1: did the pot was the policy? Was the policy itself
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  Speaker 1: purchased or was it a quid pro quo or just
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a tip? I Elect, thank you appreciate the help in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the private sector, because that's the question raised not by
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: activists and not by partisan critics, but by the Wall
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  Speaker 1: Street Journal. Okay, this is not This is not some
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: left wing outlet that's putting together a story that you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: maybe factually correct, but wordd aggressively. Wall Street Journal didn't
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: do this. This has been This is a publication that's
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: already been sued by Donald Trump. Okay, so you know
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: every single word in this story was scrutinized by a lawyer,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and I think it's important for you to know that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: before you hear the facts that the Wall Street Journal
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: laid out. Trust me, I'm well aware of they have
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a legendary copy editor desk as it is. But more importantly,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: trust me, I went through this at NBC in late
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: stages when Trump was getting litigious. The amount of legal
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: scrutiny every story about the Trump White House alleged corruption
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: gets from mainstream news organizations is a very high level.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So the fact this made it through legal scrutiny tells
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you a lot. So here's the picture there, reporting lays out,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and I think it's going to be hard to unsee
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: once everybody has seen it. But I'm going to be honest,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it's easier to tell you about it, it's hard to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: show you. I don't know if this is going to
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: be a shock and awe story on television because frankly,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: he's done so much of this transactional pay to play business.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yes that I fear this is a groundhog day story
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  Speaker 1: to too many people, But that doesn't mean we shouldn't
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: scrutinize it, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: about what may have happened, because this story suggests that
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: in this second Trump term, the old lines between public
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: policy and private profit aren't just blurred, they've completely dissolved.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And I've told people this. I'm teaching a class called
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: how Washington Works. And I'll be honest. Look, Washington's always
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: operated on money. It is the only way it operates.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Right now everything is a financial transaction. Now, every piece
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of everything is for sale in Washington. I don't say
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that hyperbolically. It's just a fact. You talk to anybody
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that covers the lobbying industry, the amount of money going in,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in particular two entities, the Silicon Valley huge, right. Anybody
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: who ties to AI and anybody who ties to crypto
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: have flooded DC with money to essentially warp public policy,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to allow their speculative investments to become more valuable than
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: maybe they deserve to be. The irony of what's happening
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the second term is that the controversies this time, this
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: is some real money, right. It's making the controversies of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Trump's first term seem quaint. Right. In the first term,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: foreign officials were staying at the Trump Hotel mar Alago.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Memberships were used to get access to Trump golf outings.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It all felt transactional, but they operated on a relatively
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: small scale, hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a couple
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of million. Term two, it's a lot different. The stakes
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: are bigger, The money is huge. The policies involved touch
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: national security, artificial intelligence, and global finance, and the sums
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: are talking about are not measured in thousands or even millions.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: All of it is being measured in billions, with a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: capital B. So let me tell you about the deal
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to know about until the Wall Street
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Journal went digging. And the timing here is very meaningful.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Four days before Donald Trump was inaugurated in January of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, something quietly happened. According to their journal,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: an entity tied to Shikh Tawnoon bin Zayed al Nayan,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he is one of the most powerful figures in the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: small golf country called the United Arab Emirates, he signed
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a deal to purchase forty nine percent of a fledgling
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Trump family cryptocurrency venture called World Liberty Financial. And how
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: much did that forty nine percent stake cost? A half
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars. And what that meant is that immediately
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it came in two chunks of money. Immediately, one hundred
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and eighty seven million dollars in actual cash was slated
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to flow to Trump affiliated entities, and then another thirty
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: one million to entities linked to the family of Steve Witkoff,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a longtime Trump confidant who a few weeks later would
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: be named the US Envoy to the Middle East. The
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: deal was signed by Eric Trump. At the time, the
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: buyer wasn't just some foreign investor kicking the tires on crypto.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about Shaik Tanun. He's not merely
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a wealthy businessman based in Abu Dhabi. He's the brother
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: of the president of the United Arab Emirates and he
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: also serves as the country's national security advisor. Look, they
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: mix the public and the private, all right. This is
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: why the Middle East loves Donald Trump because he does
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: business the way they want to do business. That if
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you write a big enough check, you can get what
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: you want. Doesn't matter what your beliefs are, doesn't matter
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: what you look like, doesn't matter who you know. It's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: all about how much cash you have. And he effectively
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: sits at the center of the ruling Al Naryan bloodline.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: It's a family that controls the UAE's military intelligence services,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Sovereign Wealth Fund, and strategic investment arms. So he is
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: his job is to be at the center of using
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the sovereign Wealth Fund to help their national security. Now,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I know what some of you Trump supporters are going
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to say, What if they're doing it, why shouldn't America
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: do this? Why shouldn't Donald Trump do this? If his
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: counterparts are doing this there's always this sort of Hey,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: somebody else is doing something unethical and illegal, so why
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: shouldn't we. Tanoon personally oversees a vast empire spanning oil,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, surveillance technology, and global finance. It's an empire
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: that's funded by a mix of state power and personal income,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and it's estimate to be well over a trillion dollars.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: In other words, this wasn't some foreign investor taking a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: flyer on a fledgling crypto country company. This was a
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: senior member of the ruling royal family, a man who's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: authority flows directly from bloodline to state power. He's the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: national security advisor to the president. In UAE taking a
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: near half ownership stake and a company tied to the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: incoming president of the United States, that alone should make
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you set up and take notice. This makes Watergate look
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: like what a third rate burglary. But the timing and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: what followed is where the story gets even more uncomfortable. Yes,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in the old axiom, but wait, there's more so. For years,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: under the Biden administration, the United States had blocked the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: UAE from gaining access to the most advanced American AI
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: chips computer chips for artificial intelligence. The concern was straightforward.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: The sensitive technology could leak to China, and there was
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: always extra scrutiny given to any country or company that
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: had both business in the United States tech industry and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: business in the Chinese tech industry. And one company raised
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: some arm bells to the Biden administration. G forty two,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: an Amorati AI firm with documented ties to Chinese tech
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: companies including wawwet basically their verizon. US intelligence officials and
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: lawmakers had warned repeatedly about it. And by the way,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: this was bipartisan. Just I'm old enough to remember when
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Marco Rubio would worry about these things.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So that was the status quo. Then Donald Trump won
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a second term. So after the World Financial Liberty Deal assigned,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: or excuse me, the World Liberty Financial Deal assigned days
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: before the inauguration, suddenly the American government's tone changed. In
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the months that followed, Shaik Tannun met repeatedly with Trump
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: administration officials. He visited the White House, pledged vast investments
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in the US economy, and two months later, the administration
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: committed to granting the OAE access to roughly five hundred
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: thousand of the most advanced AI chip per year, enough
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to build one of the world's largest AI data center clusters,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: which was Sheikkan Yun's goal to build one of the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: largest AI data centers in the world, basically an Abu dabi.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Now here's another detail that matters. About one fifth of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: those chips were earmarked for this company that Biden officials
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: had raised questions about G forty two. This is the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: same company whose executives manage the entity that bought into
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the Trump family's crypto venture, the same executives who now
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: sit on the board of World Liberty Financial. All right,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is this proof of a quid pro quo? No circumstantial?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: But wow is the pattern and timing questionable. It is
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a pattern of proximity that would make any ethics lawyer
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: deeply uneasy. So to understand why this matters, you also
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: have to understand what World Liberty Financial actually is. This
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: isn't just another mean coin. This is the real engine
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of the company is a stable coin called USD one.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: It's a digital token backed one to one by US
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: dollars parked largely in treasury securities. It matters because whoever
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: controls the reserves, controls the yield, and when you're holding
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: billions in treasuries, the interest alone can generate tens of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars a year, quietly, predictably, and with minimal risks.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: And this was just handed to the Trump administration. Do
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• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Now here's where the circle typens even more. Earlier this year,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a Tanun led investment firm called MGX used World Liberty's
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: stable coin to complete a two billion dollar investment into Binance,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the world's largest crypto exchange. If Binance sounds familiar, it's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: because if you recall, its founder was recently pardoned by
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. This all comes into play here. That single
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: move instantly vaulted USD one, this Trump invented crypto company
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: into the top tier of global stable coins, and it
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: gave world liberty roughly two billion dollars in actual real money. Right,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: crypto's fake money, but the money behind the crypto is
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the actual cash, and that is generating an estimated seventy
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to eight million dollars a year and just pure interests.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So if you're into crypto, you're buying and selling what
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: it is that Trump's make money either way because they're
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: not trading crypto, they're only making money off of the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: actual cash. Not bad for a company that barely existed
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: months earlier. So it was shortly after that investment President
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Trump issues a pardon to the Binance founder, Chang Panjao,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: who lives in Abu Dhabii by the way, who had
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: previously pled guilty to violating US anti money laundering charges. Well,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the Binance co founder is close to Guestsu Shake Tanoon,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and a pardon opened the door for Binance's return to
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the US market. Again, no document is proving coordination. I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: don't know if you need a secret document. It is
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: all out here in plain sight. This happens, then this happens,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: then this happens, then this happened. Bits. If this were
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: an isolated case, maybe you could chalk it up to
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: coincidence or a couple of business executives that went a
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: bit over their skis not respecting American government ethics rules,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: but it isn't. Since January of twenty twenty five, Trump
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: family business ventures have repeatedly advanced alongside major diplomatic or
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: policy decisions. In cutter, the Trump organization announced a massive
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: golf and hotel project with a state link partner, while
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the President accepted a luxury aircraft valued at roughly four
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: hundred million dollars as a gift of the Katari government.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: By the way, they've now got a NATO like security
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: agreement with the United States since giving that plane. I'm
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: sure none of it's connected. In Saudi Arabia, a new
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Trump real estate deals have moved forward as the administration
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: revived advanced arms discussions. Back home, Donald Trump Junior joined
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a venture capital firm called seventeen eighty nine Capital. Since then,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: companies tied to that firm have secured hundreds of millions
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of dollars in federal defense contracts and loans, including one
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: deal reportedly described as the largest in history of a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Pentagon financing office. Now, each case on its own has
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a viable defense. Okay, together, all of this described something
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: else entirely. This is a governing environment where business and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: diplomacy aren't just adjacent, they're intertwined. Again. This is how
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: UAE Saudi's cutter. This is how they do business. This
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is how the Russians do this is how non democracies
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: do business. It's how King George the Third Dead business.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the King, there's a reason the founders obsessed
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: over foreign corruption. They had just fought award to free
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: themselves from monarchies that used money, titles, and favors to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: buy influence. So they wrote something very specific into the Constitution,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the foreign Emolument's Clause. And I know it's being laughed
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: at now. It's a real shame. It's a real shame,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: because God love our founders, they did a Look, they
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: were flawed. They only thought white men set should have rights.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: But when it came to structuring a government that was ethical, moral,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and responsive to the people, they thought of a lot
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: of fail safees, including this emiliument's clause. It bars any
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: person holding office from accepting any present, amolument, office, or
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: title of any kind whatsoever from a foreign state without
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Congress's consent of any kind whatsoever. So this applies to bribe, cash,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: anything that creates financial dependence or influence. Legal experts that
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: have looked at this World Liberty deal have used some
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: stark language in the Wall Street Journal pages. One called
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it a five alarm fire. Another set it looks like
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a bribe. And our old friend Ty Cobb, who was
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: one time Donald Trump's lawyer in the first impeachment, warned
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that doing business with the families of foreign leaders quote
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: taints American foreign policy. The Administration's response has been consistent,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: President isn't operationally involved. These aren't adult children. Excuse me,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: these are adult children private business matters. Remember, So let's see,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: are we talking about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden? Here?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Are we talking about Donald Trump and Eric Trump and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump? You see where I'm going. So the argument
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: can hold up technically in court, but it does miss
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the deeper issue. This isn't about crypto. It's about whether
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: America policy is still being made on behalf of the country,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: or whether it's being shaped subtly and structurally by the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: financial interests of the First family and the First family
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: alone or its friends. The Whitcoffs. Remember Steve Whitcouff's kid
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump's kid are in business together, all part
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of this world Liberty Crypto company. So when foreign governments
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: can invest hundreds of millions into enterprises tied to a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: sitting president's family, they suddenly have leverage and influence over
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: said sitting president's family when the same people negotiating US
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: national security policy are also sitting on the boards of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: those companies. When pardons, chips, and capital all start moving
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: in parallel, the distinction between public service and private gain
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: isn't just blurred, it's gone completely erased. And once that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: line goes with it, so it's all trust. All trust
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: is gone. So this is not about a partisan concern.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: This is a constitutional one elected Republican that is sitting
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: in Congress right now, who last year and the year
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: before had serious concerns about people buying paintings from Hunter Biden,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: about whether Joe Biden was on a phone call with
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: private Chinese businessmen or Ukrainian businessman when Hunter Biden was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in the room. If any of those things concerned you,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and assume this would concern you no matter what. So
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: James Comer, I certainly am not. I'm not going I'm
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: assuming that your Comber's of the world, your Jim Jordan's
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of the world, are just going to look the other way.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: But you know what, I'm hoping we don't have a
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: groundhog Day response to this, because this is I have
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: said that the worst financial scandal in American history was Teapot.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Don't this right here alone because of the national security
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: concerns that we all have, and if losing the AI
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: race to China is literally our country's life or death,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: is it gets framed by many of our political leaders,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans, then Donald Trump just signed our
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: death warrant in order to get rich off of it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: At a minimum. If Congress wants any credibility ever again,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and they don't have any credibility because of how feckless
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: they've been for forty years, and they are at the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: heart of essentially screwing up this country, polarizing it. It
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: is on Congress more than any other body. A lot
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: of other people contributed. Congress is at the center of
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the shit storm we've all had been dealing with. Right
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: their inability to even deal with regular legislation, punting stuff
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: to the executive you know, giving too much power to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the executive branch, forcing the courts to be the place
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to decide legislation. This goes back to desegregation. This is
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fifty years. This is seventy years now of fecklessness, and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: some of you know I do. I think it goes
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: back to Congress's decision to no longer be as responsive
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to the public, meaning congressional districts are too big and
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they're not as responsive to the public. But this is
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: if Congress, if the Oversight Committee is not investigating this
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: with real rigor, honestly, the FBI should open up an investigation.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Yesterday they won't. I I said to myself, I wasn't
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: going to assume the worst. I want to believe that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: this is so alarming to people, and I know, I'm
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: sorry this doesn't have pedophilia involved in it, and maybe
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: more people would pay attention if it did. And I'm
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: not dismissing the Epstein files. This is undermining the sovereignty
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: of the United States. This is allowing everything to be
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: put up for sale. It is you don't need a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: beautiful mind or clear danes in homeland to put together
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: this board of people that are all connected to each other.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It's all laid out, it's all there, it's all simple.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's not even that they don't even they don't
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: even try that hard to hide it. It's corruption right
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in front of your face. So remember with Groundhog Day,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: nothing's going to change unless you are determined to change it.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna sneak in a break and when
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: we come back my conversation, another candidate running for office.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: As you know, i'd love to meet these statewide candidates.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I speaking with doctor Annie Andrews. She is a doctor
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: who has run for Congress. Ran for a Charleston House
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: seat in twenty twenty two against Nancy May. She came
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: up short there, and now she is running against Lindsey
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Graham for the US Senate. It's not peel battle. You know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I'm a skeptic in general, but South Carolina with the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: right amount of investment, you never know. But we spent
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of time talking about health because that's why
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: she decided to run. She wasn't a political person until basically,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the COVID debacle, and you know South Carolina
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: is home to the largest measles outbreak since we supposedly
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: declared measles eradicated. So this I am I'm not. You know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: it's an uphill battle for her. But boy, all of
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the current issuees impacting South Carolinians at the moment are
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: certainly playing against a Republican incumbent and winning reelection. So
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: we'll sneaking a break and we'll come back. Get to know,
• 34:22
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• 34:30
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• 34:33
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• 34:45
  Speaker 1: had one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
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  Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's why
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• 34:59
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• 36:01
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• 36:04
  Speaker 1: if you've got a growing family. Well. As many of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I like to get as many candidates running
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: for office as possible, particularly for governor or Senate in general,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: especially in states that I think are sort of under
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: a bit overlooked, underrated in their competitiveness, and that is
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the focus today. I've got doctor Annie Andrews. She is
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the likely Democratic nominee, say likely because nothing's official yet
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: they haven't had their primary, but the likely Democratic nominee
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: to challenge Senator Lindsay Graham this campaign year. When last
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Week checked on Lindsay Graham's Senate campaign was back in
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I think some people in South Carolina might
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: be mildly surprised he's running again. Then again, the Lindsay
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Graham I know, I don't know if he's ever going
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to leave his Senate seat voluntarily. Some entity or somebody
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: is will will decide when the end of his relationship
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: with that Senate seed happens. Doctor Andrews hopes it is
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: her and the voters of South Carolina in twenty twenty six.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: So we're going to do a little get to know you,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: doctor Andrews. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you suck.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Let me just start with what I like to know
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: about anybody running for office is when's the first time
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you ever thought about it.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: My on ramp into politics was pretty quick. I decided
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: to be a doctor when I was four so my
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: whole life was built around this goal.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: When you were a kid and you guys were you know,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and everybody, you know, I think, you know, some people
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: want to be police officers, some people want to be
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. That might have
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: been me. You know, you wanted to be the doctor,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: that's right, like it was.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: It was my dream from a very very young age.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: I told my preschool teacher one day, I want to
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: grow up and be a doctor and a mommy with
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: three kids, which is exactly what I am. So I
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: never had political aspirations, never really felt connected to politics.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I was in my twenties when Obama was first elected,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: and that was my first real political memory where I
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: felt like, oh, I understand how this is impacting my life,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: and I realize I'm saying that from a position of
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: privilege in the way that I was raised. But then
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: the more time I spent working in children's hospitals, the
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: more I started to understand the nitty gritty of the
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: relationship between policies and the well being of kids and families.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: And then I started to understand I can advocate all
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: day long until I'm blue in the face to the
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: legislators in Columbia, South Carolina. But until we start winning elections,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: and until we start electing people who inherently care about kids,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: the advocacy is only going to get us so far.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: So once I realized politics was the answer, then I
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: started to look around the room and I thought, you
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: know what, I am qualified to run for office. And
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: so the moment that seed was planted, it was a
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: matter of weeks before I launched my first campaign, which
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: of course was back in twenty twenty one when I
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: ran against Nancy Mace for Congress.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I want to go to something in your medical education,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: because this is something that I've been advocating in journalism schools,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: which is that more upstart reporters need to understand the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: business of media and need to understand the different ways
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that you know, you can get journalism paid for and
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: things like that, because there's in some ways been that
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: naivete has sort of led to I think that the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: disaster we're dealing with in the information ecosystem. When you're studying,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: when you're in med school, you know, do you remember
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: taking a class about sort of you know, how healthcare
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: is paid for in this country? Who pays who doesn't
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: what's covered? What isn't? I see you shaking your head.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to me because I find I've asked this
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: of other doctors too, and it's always the same answer.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: We could talk for an entire hour about this and
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: how it has led us to the moment we find
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: ourselves in with this coordinated attack on our healthcare system,
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: doctors and medical organizations being caught totally flat footed, with
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: RFK Junior ascending to lead HHS. You know, there's not
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of time, honestly, in medical school to learn
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: anything other than how to be an effective safe.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Physical science is everything, right, That's ninety five percent of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: your focus is learning everything you can about the science
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of medicine right.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly right.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: And the other five percent is working on your communication skills,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: because if you don't know how to communicate with other
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: human beings, then you're going to be a terrible physician.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: But I hope that folks who are in charge of
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: medical school curricula, residency curricula, you know, graduate medical education
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: and continuing medical education, that we're starting to understand what
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: happens when we abdicate our seat at the table. When
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: we abdicate any responsibility in the policymaking process or in
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: the political process. Travel all around this country and talk
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: to audiences of medical students and pediatric residents about the
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: need to engage in politics on behalf of America's children.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, it's it's like brand new
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: news every time I say it, and it is a
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: it has done, you know, great discredit to where we
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: are as a country in regards to our healthcare system
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: and our health care policy.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I've spoken at quite a few of the associations over
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the years, whether it's you know, maybe I'll have your
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: pediatric association, just the different specialties in the medical field
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that will have a DC meaning and I will have
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I will engage in this conversation. And it really is
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: self selecting, right. You have you have the physicians like
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: yourself who sort of realize, hey, we kind of have
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: to be whether you want to be or not, it
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You kind of have to be because this
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is the system. And then there are others who just
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and I get this. I think it's people who really know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: they're really know the science, who think it's absurd that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: they have to listen to a bunch of civilians you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: know nothing about healthcare, telling them protocol.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and you know, pediatricians really should be leading the
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: way because kids are not inherently politically powerful. They can't vote,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: they don't have four oh one k's, they can't write
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: checks to candidates. So really, pediatricians should have been doing
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: this for decades, engaging in politics on behalf of America's children.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: But it may surprise you to learn that the pediatric organization,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: the American Academy of Pediatrics, is really the only large
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: national medical organization that represents a medical specialty that does
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: not have a political action committee. So they've actually explicitly
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: chosen not to engage in politics in ways that other
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: specialists like orthopedic surgeons, radiologists, ante caesiologists, they all have
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: political action committees.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Pediatricians don't.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that's because of some naive notion that
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: no matter their party, lawmakers do inherently care about kids
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: and will take votes in the best interest of children.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: But you know, now we find ourselves in a moment
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: where the Medicaid program has been gutted by Trump's budget bill,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: which is you know, medicated is the largest insurer of
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: children in this country. Our routine immunization schedule has been
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: thrown out the window. And so this is an incredibly
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: urgent moment for America's children.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons we find.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Ourselves in this place is because pediatricians have not collectively
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: effectively engaged in politics.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Speaking of pediatricians, the said organization you just talked to,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: actually just made a big proclamation. We're taping on Monday,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: January twenty sixth. This may era in a couple of days,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: but they just came out and recommended, essentially in this
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable position to have to essentially disagree with the government
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: regulation and wreck you know, the recommending, I believe vaccination
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: against at least eleven diseases, including polio, which I didn't
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: know we were done. You know that suddenly people decided
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: that we shouldn't vaccinate for that anymore? Do you think
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: you know there's there's no there is no debate like
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the new mom debate and the new parent debate that
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: can take place right And you know, look, Mike both
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I'm an empty nester for the first time this year,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and my back is paying the price since I had
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: no helpers for shoveling snow, But I remember that new
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: parenting feel and the empowerment. No, no, no, no, I'm going
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to I'm going to go make these decisions. I couldn't
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: think of a worse time and a worse moment to
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: mess with parents' heads than when they're right at the
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: start of this and you have the government saying one thing,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you're pediatrician saying another. The pediatrician maybe association and the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: pediatrician aren't one hundred percent on the same page. I mean,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this feels like a nightmare that
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: we won't realize how bad it is for what about
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: five years, ten years, when these diseases make their way
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: into the the system.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I have so much empathy and sympathy for
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: new parents right now because they're navigating, as you just described,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: this moment where we can't trust medical recommendations coming from
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: our federal government, and we also can't trust the information
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: we're consuming online. And as you know, like new parents,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: they're up all night, they're scrolling on their phones, they're
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: watching reels on Instagram, and they can't tell the difference
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: between a board certified pediatrician and some wellness influencer who's
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: trying to sell them something. And so what I urge
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: parents to do is go to talk to your pediatrician,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: that is your trusted source of information. And as you
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: just said, the AAP made a big announcement today releasing
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: their own vaccination schedule, which is pretty much exactly the
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: pre RFK Junior CDC vaccination schedule, just to say that
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: we disagree with the recommendations coming from RFK Junior and HHS,
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: and here are the vaccines that we recommend. And this
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: schedule they released has been endorsed by I think eleven
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: or twelve other major national medical organizations. So this is
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: the one that parents need to follow because this is
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: the evidence based vaccine recommendation schedule that is following the science,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: unlike what we're hearing from RFK Junior and AHHS.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: There anything that Kennedy and his supporters have complained about
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: with the federal government that has merit in your review.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: So this is what's so insidious about what he's doing,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: is he's making these big broad statements about, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: we need healthier food, we need to get artificial dies
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: out of our food, we need, you know, children to
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: be more active, and pediatricians have been shouting these things
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: from the rooftops forever, but he's combining that and then
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: like laundering these anti science, anti intellectual concepts into that,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: like this anti vaccine movement, and so it becomes very
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: difficult for people to piece apart what we should be
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: listening to and what we shouldn't. But this campaign that
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: we heard him announce a week or so ago, this
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: eat real food. First of all, that's a terrible motto.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: But second of all, there are systemic barriers to so
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: many kids and families in this country accessing real food.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: So many children in my state of South Carolina live
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: in food deserts, Grocery prices are through the roof, and
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: so yes, we all want kids to eat more whole foods,
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: fruits and vegetables, whole grains. All of that sounds amazing,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: but we need policy solutions to address the barriers to
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: achieve these, like you know slogans that they come up with,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: like eat real food.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: How did you deal with doctor Internet with your patients,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: because I know a lot of doctors, I mean there's
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: nothing like doctor Internet. Well doctor Internet told me this, right,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: And I think you know, I'm being for those wondering
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: why do I keep referring who's doctor Internet. What I'm
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: being is the whole You know, you search something, whether
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: it's WebMD or whatever. Well, I read this on the
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Internet about this drug, right, you know, how did you
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: handle doctor Internet?
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: So it goes back to what I was saying before,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: which is the other thing aside from science you have
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: to learn in your medical training is communication skills. It's
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: sitting down and meeting parents where they are looking them
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: eye to eye, understanding that they, of course are trying
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: to do what's in the best interest of their children,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: and meeting them in that place and then slowly finding compromise.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: And you know, it is not difficult navigating these conversations
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: with vaccine hesitant parents.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: It is a challenge, but it is a challenge that
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: pediatricians all across this country have risen up to meet.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: And you know, we're going to have to keep doing this.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: And the other thing we have to do to combat
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: the doctor Internet phenomenon is pediatricians like me need to
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: take up space on the Internet. We need to use
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: our own social media profiles to push back against this disinformation.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, I appreciate that you're willing to do that, But
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: why should you have to do that? Like you know
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: I and this is where you know the information ecosystem.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, look, I've this is the obligation
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I feel as a journalist, and you feel this obligation.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: You know, we don't want to see people end up
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in self harm when it could be have been prevented.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: And yet you know you can't chase every squirrel.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, we shouldn't have to do it, but we
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: see every day in real life in our clinics, in
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: our hospital rooms, than negative downstream consequences if we don't
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: You know, kids who.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Have preventable infectious diseases, things as simple as you know
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: the flu and RSV that are causing children to be
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: critically ill when if they had been vaccinated, they might
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: not have gotten sick when they got that virus. So,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: you know, it's the reality of working in a clinical
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: setting every day that drives us to find whatever solutions
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: we can to prevent unnecessary illness and suffering in kids.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Are you still practicing while you're running for office or
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: if you had to suspend your practice?
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: For me, right now, I'm working very part time and
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: I'm a hospital based pediatrician. So I work in a hospital,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: a children's hospital setting really a few days a month,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: and then towards the end of the campaign, I'll take
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: a full leave of absence from that job. But I
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: find it keeps me very tethered to the reasons I'm
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: engaging in this political world to begin with, to be
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: able to walk into a hospital and talk to real
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: kids and families who are struggling.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: One more question on the and the sort of the
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: business of medicine. And I was talking with somebody because
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I find one of the head scratchers to me is
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: why it's more profitable to run a not for profit
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: hospital system than it is to run a for profit
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: hospital system. And you're maybe your tax code's messed up
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: if that's how this works out. But I had somebody
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: else say that a lot of times with these not
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for profits, that we're we're building the wrong hospitals, and
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that some of these children's hospitals, while good and well intended,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: are a misuse of resources. Have you found that to
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: be the case in some not in every case, but
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: in some cases.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: I think really the root of the problem is we're
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: still driven by the more you do the more you
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: get paid in healthcare. We don't have a quality driven
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: healthcare system. So the more surgical procedures you do, the
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: more radiolized.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You're not rewarded for keeping people from getting sick. You're
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: just rewarded from treating people who already are.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Sicked, right, exactly, exactly.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: And until we adopt something akin to universal health care,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: we're never going to have each individual payer and health
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: care system engaging in this movement to have quality driven
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: health care metrics, and so we're going to keep chasing
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: our own tail. And that's that's really at the core
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: of the problem in our healthcare system.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: So your motivation to run is to speak out on
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: health care issues.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it really yeah, I mean it started
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: as you know, we clearly need a voice for children.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: There's never been a pediatrician senator. There's one pediatrician member
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: of the US House, doctor Kim Schreier from Washington eight.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: It became really clear to me that children don't have
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: a seat at the table, and that was my original
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: motivation to engage in politics, to advocate for all the
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: policies that benefit kids, whether it's an expanded child tax credit,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: whether it's you know, addressing these food deserts. We talked
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: about whether it's addressing gun violence, the leading cause of
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: death for children in this country, whether it's addressing climate change,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: which is the greatest existential crisis our kids face, or
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: addressing our healthcare system. But of course that was back
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: in the early twenty twenties, and now here we find
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: ourselves in a moment where our healthcare system is being
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: led by RFK Junior, who's a grifter and conspiracy theorist.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: And then we've got doctor Oz, a TV doctor heading CMS,
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: and we are seeing this unprecedented and coordinated attack on
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: all aspects of our healthcare system. So now, yes, I
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: find my calling to stay engaged in politics, to run
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: against Lindsey Graham, to be to fix America's broken healthcare system.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: So now I want to get into a little raw politics.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: What have you learned about the state of the Democratic
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Party in South Carolina over your now five years being
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: sort of an active participant as a candidate. You said
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: you started in twenty one, so you're on your fifth
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: year and it's the year after the Jamie Harrison debacle.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know what else to call it, because when
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you have that much money and you still lose by
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: the same amount that no money would have gotten. That's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: a debacle, that's a misuse of resources. Who knows, you know,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: whether it was wasted money or just misspent whatever we
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: want to look at it, but it was clearly money
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: did not translate into votes. What have you learned about
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the state of the Democratic Party in South Carolina both
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: as an organization and as a brand.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: So as an organization, I would say, you know, to
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: use your word overlooked and under resourced, and those two
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: things go hand in hand. And it has been frustrating
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: for me as a candidate who in a different state
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: would be able to rely on the state party for
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: various you know, infrastructure aspects that could really help build
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: a statewide campaign.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: But I see that as a challenge.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm a child advocate and a gun violence
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: prevention advocate from southeast I love a good challenge. I
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: am scrappy, So I see my campaign's role in helping
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: to build that infrastructure across the state, along with some
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: of the you know, great Democratic leaders that we do
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: have in the state of South Carolina. But also to
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: your question about the brand, is we have a huge
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: brand problem for the Democratic Party in South Carolina. When
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: people ask the easiest way for me to win, the
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: answer is to erase the D behind my head.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was going to be my next question.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll be honest with you. I wouldn't have
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: advised you to run as a Democratic. Run as an independent.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody trusts an institutional controlled media, right shareholders. Independent is
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: a halo. And I think and look at what more
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: people are registering today as no party than as any
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: other you know, unaffiliated, whatever you want to call it.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: So there's clearly a distrust of both parties. So independent
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: would certainly align you with where voters under forty five are.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean as from a pragmatic standpoint, though there's
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: so many challenges to running as an independent. And you know,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: despite maybe some differences in strategy and frustrations with strategy
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: from the party, you know where the Democratic Party stands
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: on the issues that I care so deeply about.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: I am very much aligned.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: And I think that me running as you know, a
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: political outsider, as a pediatrician, as a mom, as you know,
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: an active member of my community, I can help rebuild
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: the brand of Democrat here in South Carolina and one
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: of the biggest systemic barriers, systematic barriers we face, Chuck,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: that I'm sure you're aware of. You know, we still
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: have party you know, single party voting. You can walk
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: into the voting booth and get Republican button, straight ticket
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: thank you, straight ticket voting, and that is a huge barrier.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: But as you.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Said, so many people under the age of forty forty
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: five are independent minded, and I'm optimistic that more of
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: them are going to walk into the voting booth in
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: November twenty twenty in South Carolina and not just align
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: themselves with a party, but go through every single race
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: and pick the candidate that they find is most aligned
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: with their values.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: When I look one of the things being a sort
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: of data doorc as I always look at sort of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: like which states, especially from either side of the aisle,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: could be states that the other party could have success
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: in if they spend a little time organizing and this
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: or that. In the Deep South, the two states that
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: have always stood out to me are Mississippi and South Carolina,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and they both have one similarity in common. There's a
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: under activated rural African American voter that for a variety
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of reasons hasn't felt very either engaged by the party.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I think my thesis is, you know, when Democrats wrote
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: off rural America in the Midwest, they kind of It's
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: not an accident to me that the first Latino voters
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: they lost were the rural Latinos in South Texas, the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: first African Americans they lost were rural African Americans and
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: joy and in the Deep South. That it really is
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: a geographic disconnect more than it is identity politics. I
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: you know, watching you know, the South Carolina Party, They've
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: just never you know, and I know Jamie Harrison will
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: text me and say that's not true. I threw money
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: at this, and I did this, and I did this,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure he tried. I'm not. I don't want
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: to discount that he didn't. But there's always seems to
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: be this. There's a huge under registrated vote in the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: state of South Carolina. What have you learned over the
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: last five years as to why it's They've been hard
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to activate, hard to build trust with.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: Because we show up and ask for their vote, and
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: objectively speaking, nothing has gotten better for them in South
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: Carolina for decades, and Democrats find ourselves in a really
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: difficult position because we have, you know, a deeply jerrymandered
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: state legislature that is, you know, a super majority Republicans.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: So even when a Democrat is elected to serve in
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: the congressional delegation, things at the state House are not
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: going well. And so life for rural black South Carolinians
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: is not going well. So it takes sort of decades
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: of building to show real progress and show real results
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: from any given election. And so I don't blame someone
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: for saying, why would I.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Bother to vote?
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: You know, you asked me for my vote. I show
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: up and vote, and you know, nothing has gotten better.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: My kids' school isn't any better, my access to food
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: isn't any better, my healthcare is getting worse.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: So you know, the answer to that is not glamorous.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: You know, this is the really unglamorous part of politics,
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: which is just showing up in rural communities not a
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: month before the election, eighteen months before the election, and
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: three months after the election, and making connections, listening first.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, then when you are able to.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: Deliver results, you have to come back and close that
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: loop and tell people what it is you did to
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: help to make their lives better. But it is a
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: huge challenge and one that is you know, it's one
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: of the reasons my campaign needs the resources to overcome
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: that challenge, because there's enough voters in the state who
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: are aligned with the things I'm fighting for, but they
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: just are very difficult and expensive to reach.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, South Carolina is surrounded by swing states right Georgia
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: to the south, North Carolina to the north, and here
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: they are. So it's it's like, you know, this isn't
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: like somehow there's some magical aspect in South Carolina that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: those voters aren't swinging either. I just it just feels
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: as if they're not treated as swing voters. They're not,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: they're votes not. Let me ask it this way, what
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: did you observe in the Jamie Harrison campaign that you
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: don't want to replicate?
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, a global pandemic? I mean really, at the
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: end of.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: The day, although that is why he raised thirty why
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: he raised nearly one hundred million dollars, right and.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm sure he would say until he's blue
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: in the face that he would have been better off
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: with twenty million dollars in no pandemic, because you cannot
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: those voters.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: We were just talking about.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: If you can't knock on people's doors, and his campaign
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: had really no field operation because of the pandemic. He
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: also had Donald Trump on the ballot, and Donald Trump
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: is ten points more popular than Lindsay Graham in the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: state of South Carolina. So there's two like really objective
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: things that make twenty twenty six so much different than
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty And I think if we overcome, you know,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: because of that, this is a totally different landscape.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: So let's go to the Let's talk about the voter
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: you've got to win over, which is a voter that
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: supported Donald Trump. You got to win a chunk of them.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: We can you know, we can play the math game.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Is a ten percent of your final vote fifteen percent?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: You know, at a point you got to win a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: chunk of them. Who is there a you know, how
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: are you trying to talk to that voter? And who
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: is that voter in your head?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: I like how you just tried to like avoid the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: conversation about math that I was definitely going to go
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: down if you.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Didn't do that.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: So that voter is actually very similar to my own dad,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: who lives down the street from me, he never voted
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump, but he was a lifelong Republican and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: still would look at you and say, he's a Republican.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: He's never going to be a Democrat. But he is
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: appalled by several things. First, Lindsey Graham wearing a Trump
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight hat. You know, these blatantly unconstitutional things
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: that Lindsay Graham is promoting, because Trump wants him to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: really fly in the face of these, you know, more
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: serious minded center right Mitt Romney, John McCain type Republicans,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: of which there are very many here in South Carolina,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: particularly in our urban centers and Charleston, Colombia.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Graham would associate himself with that description, or he would
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: have at one time.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: He absolutely would have. And I say in my stump speech,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: if Lindsay Graham was the same man he was twenty
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: three years ago when first elected to the US Senate,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: I would not be in this race because I would say,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: you know what, that's probably a pretty good representative for
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: the state of South Carolina. But that is not who
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: he is. Because Lindsay Graham is a follower, not a leader.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: He used to follow John McCain, and now unfortunately he's
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: following the loudest, most dangerous voice in the room, which
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: is Donald Trump. So between the Trump twenty twenty eight,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: between the ridiculous war mongering that Lindsay Graham is doing
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: that turns off so many of these more traditional Mitt
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Romney type Republicans, not to mention everything we're seeing in
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: Minneapolis with DHS and Ice and so there are so
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: many like serious minded former Republicans, former Trump Republicans, who
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: are deeply offended by Lindsay Graham. And Lindsay Graham is
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: really Trump's lapdog. Like no one has tied themselves tighter
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump, I would argue than Lindsay Graham has.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: So if you're appalled by this Trump two point zero administration,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: chances are you're appalled by Lindsay Graham. And there are
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: enough of those people who then see me as number
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: one and outsider number two, an intelligent person who can
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: communicate clearly, and a reasonable alternative to yet another six
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: years of Lindsay Graham.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting to me that Nicky Haley, whose
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: politics I would have assumed we're closer to Trump's than
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham's. And it's Nicki Haley that's seen as less
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: sort of close to Trump, and it's Lindsay Graham that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: is seen as more close to Trump. Is that surprise you?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, I had so much hope there. There was a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: moment where it's so much hope that Nicki Haley was
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: going to be the one was going to be the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: one to stand up to Trump.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Until for that I think she did speaking of a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: math problem. She had a math.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Problem, that's right.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: And I'm just still a Pollyanna because I'm a pediatrician,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: not a politician. But I just had so much hope
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: that she was going to be the one with the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: moral clarity to stand up. And if she had done that,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: I really think she could be, you know, the leader
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: of whatever the Republican Party becomes once we're done with
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: this Maga era of Republican Party.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I think she didn't do enough. You think she should
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: have been more out spoken? Yes, man, No, I look,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: it's well no for sure whether she was right or
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: wrong about that, whether we're right or wrong about that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: in a few more years. But I get what kind
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: of let me let me ask you this. You know,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: it's you're not wrong in identifying South Carolina in many ways,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: is always looking for a form of disruptor. Mark Sandford
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and Nicki Haley were not of the establishment. In fact,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: they were both right, there's this weird Columbia establishment that
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: is somehow very hard to break through. It can be
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: a little uniparty even at times. And then there's this
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: outside And Sandford was an outsider and Niki Haley was
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: an outsider. You might argue Jim Hodges was an insider ironically,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, I don't, I mean, I you know,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: So what what do you make of the fact that
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: a Nikki Haley and a and a Mark Sandford were
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: able to win statewide races as Republicans running as outsiders
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: and that was a real appeal although it was a
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: divided Republican party in both instances.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right, you know, I hear a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: lot of people describe South Carolina is having like a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: very strong libertarian streak as well.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: There have been some libertarians that have been wanting to
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: make South Carolina they're the avatar for libertarian living. You know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: we're gonna all move to side that There was a
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: movement I think about twenty years ago when the Internet
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: first started to try to create movements, all Libertarians moved
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: to South Carolina. We will elect the first real you
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: know ininn Ron dream government, right, and never quite happened.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, we like to be to our own drum
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: down here. We like to do things differently. But I think,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: you know, that's why Lindsay Graham's in so much trouble,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: because he is like the poster child of a DC
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: swamp creature. You know, he's a twenty three year incumbent senator,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: he was in the House before that. He is just
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: like so deeply entrenched in the DC establishment now and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: the establishment of the Republican Party. And South Carolinians don't
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: stand for that. And they also see that he's just
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: never here. He's never talking about South Carolina when he
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: should be talking about South Carolina. He's talking about Greenlands.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: Like he's said into a microphone, he doesn't need to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: come back to South Carolina because he's in DC to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: do what Trump tells him to do.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: And that's because he thinks he's.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: Invincible because of what we just talked about with twenty
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty twenty six people, is not a normal political
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: moment like that is the most you know underselling way
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: to say that, but Lindsay Graham knows he's in real trouble.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: He's already on TV in his primary because he is
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: a competitive primary before he has to deal with me
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: in the general.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: And I want to pick up something that you acknowledge,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: which is Donald Trump's more popular than Lindsay Grant. So
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: it keeps coming back to you've got to win over
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: somebody that likes Trump, even though you're outlining an agenda
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: that's very much confrontational to the Trump administration.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I remember reading those articles about
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: the Trump AOC voter.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: You know, it's people who who.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: Want to be you know, individual thinkers who want to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: think for themselves, not aligned to a specific party. And
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: you know, with every passing day, this Trump administration grows
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: more extreme. And it might be the measles outbreak that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: sets someone off. It might be what we're seeing in Minneapolis,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: it might be what we're seeing in Greenland. It might
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: be the tariffs and grocery prices. But more and more people,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: as we get closer to election day, are going to
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: have something that has like personally offended them or personally
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: negatively impacted their lives. And it's going to make them
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: rethink the way they vote, and then they're going to
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: have an option, which is a refreshing, much younger professional
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: pediatrician who's offering something different than they're used to.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I always say that it's like everybody's got
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: their line, you know, and you don't know what who
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: when that person's line is crossed with Liz Cheney. Turned
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: out it was January sixth. She was fine with everything
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: before then, then after that she's like, I'm out the
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: day Lindsay Graham told us he was out for a
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: couple of days. It's a speech that I will never
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: forget because of how emphatic it turned out not to be.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: You ran against Nancy Mays. I think everybody's trying to
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: figure out Nancy Mays. She has been a staple in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: South Carolina outsider politics. I'd argue for over a decade, right,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm old enough to remember when she was
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: the chief primary challenger to Lindsey Graham circa twenty fourteen.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I want to say, I think, yeah, you've run against her.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people underestimator, and then there's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: others that overestimator for different reasons. But as a campaigner.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Why do you think You know that nobody likes Nancy
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Mace except the voters at.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Times at times, and I think.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: That that her matters.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, her welcome is wearing thin, and I hope that
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: that's what we'll see happen in this GOP governor's primary race.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: The worst thing, you don't want to see her win
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: that primary. You'd like to see anybody but her. Interesting, Yes, the.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Worst thing that could happen is she's an unseerious person
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: who is not tied to any sort of moral or
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: ethical code. She is just in it for herself. It's
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: all about her and like frankly, human being to human being,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: I'm worried about her mental health. You know, to be
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: a leader, to lead a state, to serve in the House,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: to serve in the Senate, you have to have your
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: wherewithal about you, like you have to be able to
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: function in society. And I think Nancy Mace is sadly
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: really sort of devolving in front of our eyes. You know,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: it was not that long ago I ran against her,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: but she was a more serious person than she is now.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: We've seen these public displays, you know, at the Ulta
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: store where she was cussing out a constituent. The thing
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: at the airport where she was just degrading and yelling
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: and cussing at the TSA agents and airport security, and
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: it's it's a cry for help. You know, I am
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: a healthcare professional. This is a cry for help. She
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: has no business being anywhere near the governor's mansion. She
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: is quite difficult to figure out.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: It was interesting running against her, woman versus woman in
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: that you know electiontion cycle after row Fell, and I
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: really thought, you know, here's a pro choice woman running
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: against an anti choice woman. What woman in this state
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: would vote for her? But of course I lost that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: race by double digits, and so it is interesting, as
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: you said, voters tend to show up and vote for her.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: But I do think that people's patients with her here
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: in South Carolina is wearing quite thin. And I also
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: think her appeal beyond the first district here in the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: low Country is not what she thinks it is. She
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: confuses her social media profile with real life.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Would you, if you were elected to the Senate, how
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: do you feel about Chuck Schumer's leader?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's important today to say that
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: I am really happy to hear that they are not
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: going to support a budget that would include fur their
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: funding for DHS and ICE. So that to me is
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: a glimmer of hope, a sign of strong leadership. But
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: I see myself as you know, a new generation of leader.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: You know, I am significantly younger than the average US senator,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: and I know that younger leaders.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: I feel like ninety percent of America can say that.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: Sorry, yes, I mean, I'm very excited to be in
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: a workplace where I'm like the young person.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I mean, you know, it's the only place
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: that if you're in your fifties, you're there.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: The So I mean, I think it's time that we need,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: you know, younger leaders with fresh ideas, with bold ideas
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: about how to lead, how to communicate. And you know,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: it's been very distressing to sit to be on the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: sidelines of all of this and to wait for that
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: moment where the party really gets it together and we
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: see these bold signs of leadership. We're certainly seeing it
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: from some individual members of Congress. But I do think
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: it's time as a party. You know, we've got to
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: win elections again, and if we just keep doing the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: same thing over and over again. Why would we expect
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: a different result than we saw in twenty twenty four.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Who impresses you right now? In the Democratic Party? Who
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: do you like, say, oh, I want to I want
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: to call that person up. I want to. They seem
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: to share my vision of where I'd like to see
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: the party go, you.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Know, being down here in the Southeast, I think a
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: lot about my neighbors in Georgia, about Senators Warnock and
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: Ossoff and their ability to lead both like very pragmatically
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: understanding that you know, they do need to get re
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: elected in a state like Georgia, but not really compromising
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: any of their progressive ideals.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Like they seem like two.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Examples, excellent point. It's a very swingy state, and you
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: know they they try to find a way to stick
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: to their progressive bona fides well as you say, vote
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: where they have to vote.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: Every once in a while, right, And you know, I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: think they both have different but very strong communication skills,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: and I think that's why they're able to vote the
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: way that is true to them but also maintain the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: relationships with the moderate Republicans who they need to support
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: them to get re elected.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: So if you get there, it will probably mean there
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: was a nice sized wave right and you know, we'll
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: see You know, this is I've seen many a political
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: cycle where the wave just gets bigger and bigger, and
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: every time you think it's not going to get bigger,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: it gets bigger. Two thousand and six was like that
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: for the Democrats, twenty ten and nineteen eighty four. It's
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: like that for the Republicans. But if you get here,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a democratic majority. Donald Trump's still
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: going to be in office for two years. How much
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: do you believe the job for a democratic Congress is
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: to work with Trump and how much of it is
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to confront him and try to stop his administration.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: I like the way you frame that question. I think
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: it's got to be both.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, if we win in twenty twenty six, that
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: can effectively cut this destruction of our democracy in half.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: And that's what's most important.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: People who are leading dhs and hhs, Donald Trump and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: everyone must be held accountable for the lawlessness we're seeing,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: for the you know, countless constitutional crises we face every
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: day when we open up the news. But we also
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: have to get the job done and deliver results for constituents.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: So you know, I'll work with anybody who's willing to
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: work with me to deliver solutions that help South Carolinians.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: I think Representative Lauren Underwood is a great example of this.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: She just quietly just gets the job done and continues
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: to deliver results. And I like to think that we
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: share qualities because she is also a healthcare professional. She
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: is a scientist, she is data driven. She's not all
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: about like the flashiness of being in office. She's about
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: getting the job done. So when it comes time to
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: deliver results, I will work with anyone, including Donald Trump,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: to do that because my allegiance is to the people
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: of South Carolina. But Democrats can't, you know, take the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: House and take the Senate and then be meek in
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: our leadership, Like it's going to be a time to
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: be bold, and we have to take advantage of any moment.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: We have to pass our agenda, the agenda that will
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: help so many people in this country who are struggling,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: and that includes on healthcare and many other issues.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: If you guys get power, there's going to be some
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: pressure to impeach them. And I remember in five and
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: six Nancy Pelosi took it off the table about Bush.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, there are people upset about the Iraq War,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: and you know you could have you know, look, as
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: I always remind people, what's an impeachable offense? Anything a
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: majority of the House decides is impeachable. Right, that's the
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: way the Constitution actually reads. But we all have it
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: in our head of what's impeachable or not. I they're
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: going to run on if Democrats get powered that you know,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: that's all they're going to focus on, is impeachment. Would
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: you take it off the table or do you think
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't take it off the table.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: I don't think we should take it off the table.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, we have armed, masked federal agents murdering American
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: citizens in broad daylight for the entire world to This
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: is really nothing like the Bush era of politics. And
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: you know, the word in peach has really sort of,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: I think for probably for many young Americans, kind of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: lost its meaning because we've seen impeachments that have really
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: led to absolutely no change.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: They become no different than censures or strongly worded press releases,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: you know, right, right, So.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: It just it feels so dystopian to talk about it
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: in that way. But no, we absolutely should not take
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: that off the table.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: We don't.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: We can't take anything off the table. We have to
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: We have to fight fire with fire. And I hope
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: that's a lesson that Democratic Party leaders have learned. I
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: know it's a lesson that so many of us who
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: are stepping up and raising our hands and running for
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: office this cycle feel very driven to see through.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: So I want to One of the divide that I
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: feel like captures the Democratic debate best is fighter versus uniter,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: meaning it's sort of your political instinct. And I would
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: argue twenty eighteen, twenty twenty, the uniters won the debate
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: inside these primaries. Right, that's Joe Biden. You know, that's
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: you know, Uralissa Slotkins. You know I could, I could
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: make different, different comparisons that way. I get this sense
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: now that you have an electorate that is looking for fighter.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Right that that explains why Gavin Newsom has gone from
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: sort of nowhere to front runner if you want to
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: believe any of these early polls about twenty eight because
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: he's been fighting the president. You strike me as like
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: enough is enough. You know, I'm I'm it's time to
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: fight back. You know, we're a weird we're a strange
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of US Americans. We want fighters and uniters at
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: the same time. How do you do both? Because ultimately
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: that's what this middle wants. We want some stability, we
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: want some certainty, and we want some empathy.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, then you need a pediatrician. Like, I'm not
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: trying to be quaranie, You're not wrong.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know you'd have me at pediatrician. I
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: do think it's easy for you to make the case
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: that you give a darn about somebody else other than
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: yourself compared to the average politician. That I think is
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: probably an advantage that you just walk into the.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: Door with yes.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: And you know, I think you know, when you work
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: in a hospital, as I do, you talk to parents.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: You're the one who tells parents their kid has cancer.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: You're the one who takes care of their kid that's
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: been in a car accident. You're the one who tells them, oh,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: we're gonna have to sort of breathing tube and send
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: them to the ICU. So you see, like real people
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: facing real problems, and all of a sudden, a lot
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: of this noise doesn't matter so much. You become very pragmatic.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: You have to be a fighter because you have to
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: advocate for your patients, but you also have to just
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: get the job done and.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: Work with whoever you need to work with.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: You know, just because the surgeon on call is someone
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: I can't stand doesn't mean I'm not going to consult
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: the surgeon for my patient who needs surgery. So it's
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: this combination of being like really scrappy, really smart, understanding
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: that no matter what, the job just has to get done,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: and then also just you know, working.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: With anybody who you need to work with to make
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: that happen.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: So the problem with so many DC politicians is like
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: they live in La la land.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: They are not connected to the real world.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: They haven't had a job where they actually had to, like,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: you know, show results for their work for a really
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: long time. And Lindsay Graham is a perfect example of that.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: So many of us work in the real world, whether
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: we're teachers or nurses or doctors or whatever.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: We just get the job done. And that's what we
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: need more of in Washington, d C. And less of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: these games.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: What I want to get very specific about AI regulation.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: As a medical professional, I imagine you have some strong
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: feelings about how AI should be regulated. In information. There's
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: look in the healthcare space, there's the most optimistic people
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: about AI are usually associated with healthcare, right, this idea
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: that you know, my god, look we just mapped every
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: protein in the human body, right, you know, there's this
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: excitement that we're going to have some huge leap scientifically,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and yet there's at the same time a lot of
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: this dystopian distrust that we have. Congress is playing very
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: little role right now in AI, and you know about
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: about the same amount of role they played at social media.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: We all know how well that went. Yeah, so what
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: what should Congress be doing? And if Democrats get control
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: and you're winning there, what do you what what does
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: AI regulation look like? When people ask you this question.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting to think about healthcare potentially being
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: like the frontier of AI, because I kid you not,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: we still use fax machines at pretty much every hospital
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: in this country. So, you know, the like the future
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: and what could be is very disconnected from how the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: healthcare system actually works.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Is the default of the system. Is the system antiquated?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're trying to tell me?
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, it's we're not exactly like keen
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: on innovation in healthcare, there's so many systemic barriers to
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: adopting innovations.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Everything system there is no individualism I feel like in
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: medical care.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, right right, and it's and it's incredibly fragmented. So
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: just you know, so maybe maybe DC Medicaid stops using
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: fax machines, but Virginia Medicaid still does, so now they
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: can't talk.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: To each other. I mean, it's just our healthcare system
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: is deeply fragmented.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: I am excited about the potential even like simple AI
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: innovations that can help doctors with the burden of all
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: the charting we have to do. You know, the amount
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: of time we spend actually talking to people versus clicking
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: on our little keyboards is ridiculous, and it's it's not
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: a job satisfier for us, and it's certainly not a
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: satisfier for patients. So there's some like really simple low
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: level AI and innovations that could improve the delivery of
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: healthcare to Americans in a pragmatic fashion. But I think
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: your analogy to Congress being asleep at the wheel with
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: social media regulation is perfect. And I just worry that
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: you know, in this, in this capitalist driven society, that
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: we're always thinking about profits.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: Profit.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: It's profits before we think about the long term negative consequences.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: You know, I have my oldest daughter just turned fourteen yesterday,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: and she texted me out of the blue.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, ready, good luck with that. That was an interesting age. Yes,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: you age, my mom and daughter stuff are awesome at
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: that age. Good luck.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: So far, so good. But she said, when can I
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: get Instagram? And I'm thinking, like, why don't we do?
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, you made it to fourteen, You're you should get
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: a prize.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: Come on, trampolines.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: There's no social media. There's bike helmets everywhere. I'm a
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: pediatrician mom. But we've got to think about our kids first.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: We've got to think about the long term negative consequences
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: of these innovations. But I you know, I just worry
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: that so much is there's so much dark money in politics,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: and so that's like driving how people vote. And we've
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: just got to get the corruption out of the system
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: so we can pass laws to regulate AI and social media.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let me have a little lighter fare here.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Best TV doctors, best TV doctor show, that gets it right.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, so, you know, I decided to be a
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: doctor when I was four, and then I was in
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: eighth grade when Er came out with George. Yes, I
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: love R. But now the Pit is like perfect, you know,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: I just I don't.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: Tell Michael Crichton's errors, but yes, the Pit is the
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: natural heir to Er.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right, that's right.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: And I just it's so realistic in the way that
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: it portrays like all of societal's ills showing up in
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: an emergency department and all of the things that make
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: being a healthcare provider so difficult.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly validating.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: Especially the first season when they have those flashbacks to COVID,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: because if you live online, if you live even in
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: this political world where I live, you start to forget
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: how real COVID was and how devastating it was, and
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: all of the people who died and the doctors who
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: put their lives on the line to care for these
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: patients before we understood anything about this virus, and you
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: get gaslit into like thinking it wasn't a big deal.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: But I think the PIT does such a good job
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: of like really showing what reality is.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: Like. I have a friend of mine who runs hospital
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: in Pensacola, and the most frustrating aspect was people that
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: didn't believe him when he said no, no, no, no,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: let me. Would you like to take a tour of
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: my ICU because I don't have a single open bed
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: and the lack I mean, I am not advocating cameras
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: in hospital surgical wards and all this stuff, but we
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Americans truly understood what happened in
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: emergency rooms, and ICUs.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: They don't, and the ones who maybe did for a
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: minute have forgotten it and consumed all of the disinformation
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: about it. It's really quite devastating when you think about
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: the millions of Americans who died, or if you think
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: about all the healthcare providers who risked their lives. It
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: was such a scary time as a hospital based position.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: All Right, So I asked your favorite hospital show, what's
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: your favorite political show or movie that you've seen?
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: In the West Wing?
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: You're a super optimist. You don't any of the dystopian stuff.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: You did all the good stuff right the er dot
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: There was no like, it's not a house of cards.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: You didn't go dark, you went light. I mean, look,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: I love to me Samaronzorkid, but my god, he paints
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: a fantasy world that does not exist, but God was.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: I'm hopeful and wistful of of said era, but I
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: love her optimism.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: You can ask me that.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: Question again, like halfway through my first term in the
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: US sentence.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: See if your mind changes on that. Well, how much
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: is this?
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: Look, when you run for office, you're always a candidate,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: You always on record, et cetera, et cetera. Is this
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: seven days a week? Is it five days a week? Like,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: what's your rhythm as a candidate right now?
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, it certainly is like one hundred and ten
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: percent job, it's seven days a week. But I'm also
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: a mom of three school age children, very busy season
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: of my all kids with the fourteen, eleven, and nine.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: My fourteen year old had you know, about eighteen of
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: her friends over here. On Saturday morning. We hosted like
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: a breakfast birthday party. And was after I got home
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: at about midnight Friday night after going to a huge
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: AKA gala in Columbia, South Carolina. So it's really just
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: And that was after I worked for a few days
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: in the hospital where I work, which is actually in Washington,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: d C.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: So I'm doing three different, very big jobs all at once.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: There absolutely is no rhythm other than I try to
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: get as much sleep as I can. And I look
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: forward to, you know, Midsummer when I really can focus
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: fully on the campaign and my kids as I take
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: a step back from the hospital job because the South
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: Carolina deserves a full time Senate candidates, and I look
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: forward to that.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: All right, last question clem Center, South Carolina.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Oh jeez, trying to get me in trouble.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's you got to take a stand, right, everybody
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: does so sports?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: How about that?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, look, not getting into that at all. What's
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I mean? It's tough, right. Columbia is the state capital,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: so that's in one. You know, Clemson's more successful, so
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: it's probably not an easy answer.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: Is and Clemson is you know, like Lindsay Ram's backyard.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: And I gotta tell you, I see, I've been filling up.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: Rooms in the upstate of South Carolina, right in Lindsay
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: Graham's hometown.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: So he's he's in trouble.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: There's a fun diner in Greenville that I liked up there.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it, but it's like
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: where everybody goes right before the Clemson football games. Okay, yeah,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: but anyway, Uh, doctor Andrews. Was great to get to
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: know you. I appreciate you coming up.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having each other.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: One more quick follow up on the intro with this,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: with this scandal that I think it probably needs a
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: better name, right teapot Dome. We had Watergate, So what
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: are you gonna call the Abu Dhabi World? Liberty Financial? So,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: in fact, I think that's what you know. It's I
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: know this is crazy, but you know, if you have
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: a if you have a sharp enough name it, it
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: can stick. And so if you're trying to get people
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to what may be the worst scandal
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: in presidential history when you look at the amount of
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: money here, well it needs itself a name, right, And
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: so your key words are Trump, Crypto, AI shake. You know,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: maybe we call it the Trump shakedown and you spell
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: it as shake. That would certainly you could. You could
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: have fun there, But that's it may not come off
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: the tongue very well. But I'm being a little snarky here.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: But the reason I say that is, as you saw,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: it took twenty minutes to explain the story. A minute
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: thirty on a network ninely news isn't going to explain it.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: It took a long time for the Wall Street Journal
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: to litigate the story and get it through and make
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: it through. It's it's legal, So just realize that it's
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: it's not an easy story to explain. It's not an
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: story you can go in the elevator or go to
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: the bar and say, just see this one, you know,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: although you could boil it down. So basically, this country
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: and the golf wanted AI chips and they want to
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: be able to probably sell some of them to some
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: Chinese business partners. So basically they they bought the president's
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: fledgling crypto. They bought half of a steak and the
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: president's fledgling crypto company to rescue it and make it relevant,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: give him some money, and then they got the US
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: to change the policy to sell him the chips. So
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: that's I guess the best version I could to sell
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: it in an elevator pitch. But so send me a
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: few questions, send me a few thoughts. Ashchuk and Dchuck
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: toodcast dot com. If you've got any ideas that what
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: you'd name this right teapot Dome was a great name, right,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: great name? You just say it. You don't always remember, Okay,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: why was it teapot Dome? All right, you know, but
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: still right, it was unique Watergate the hotel itself, right,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: So I think Trump shakedown. That's where I'm going, right,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: where you spell shake since his first since since that
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: title fits there. All right, It's Monday, which means time
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: for a little toodcast time machine. So we're going to
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: go back in time. This week, of course, takes us.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: We're in the first week of February, so we're going
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: to go back to February fourth, nineteen forty five. World
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: War Two in Europe was nearing its end. Nazi Germany
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: was collapsing, but not collapsed yet. Hitler was still alive.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: Victory was no longer in doubt, though. What was in
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: doubt was what kind of peace would follow. So three
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: men met at the Livadia Palace in Crimea, Franklin, Delano Roosevelt,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: just two months before he would die, mind you, Winston
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The meeting, of course, became known
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: as the Alta Conference. And here's the argument I want
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: to wrestle with tonight. Yalta was a mistake. But it
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: may have been mistake. The Allies felt they couldn't avoid.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: So what did Yalta actually do. So, if you strip
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: away the diplomatic language, Yelta did one core thing. It
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: legitimized spheres of influence. It's a phrase we've been using
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: a lot lately. Eastern Europe would fall under Soviet dominance.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: Western Europe would remain aligned with the United States in
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Great Britain, Germany would be divided, borders would be redrawn,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: populations would be moved. Elections were promised, especially in Poland,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: but enforcement was vague and the leverage was thin. And
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: in fact, the Great Powers agreed that stability mattered a
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: lot more than sovereignty, that choice stability over sovereignty would
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: define the next half century. So it's easy to say
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: now that Yelta was a mistake. It doesn't mean it
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: was avoidable. So but here's why. It's obviously you cannot
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: call it a success. You have to call it a mistake.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: And here's why. Y Alta abandoned millions of people to
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: authoritarian rule for decades. It normalized the idea that small
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: nations do not get a seat at the table, and
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: it froze injustice in place under the banner of order.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: Taught the world the dangerous lesson if you're powerful enough,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: you get to decide the fate of others, and then
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: you get to call it peace. Eastern Europe paid the price,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: not just politically, but culturally, economically, and morally, from Hungary
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: to Poland to Czechoslovakia. The post war settlement wasn't liberation.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: It was substitutional from the Nazis to the Soviets. That matters.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: Then again, what was the alternative? This is where the
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: easy moral clarity breaks down. And as much as I
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: could say Yalta was a mistake, could it have gone
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: any differently? Because here's the reality of February nineteen forty five.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: The Red Army occupied most of Eastern Europe. They were
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: the allied part of the allies that occupied Eastern Europe,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: not the US Army, not the Brits, not the French.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: The Soviets had lost more than twenty million people. Stalin
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: was obsessed with security and buffer states. The United States
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: was exhausted and already was looking towards the Pacific and
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: finishing off Japan. So the uncomfortable truth is this, Yalta
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: didn't give Stalin Eastern Europe. The Red Army already had
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: it The real question isn't why did Roosevelt agree, it's
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: what leverage did he actually have? So could y'alt have
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: been avoided? All right, let's go through a factual. It's
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: worth talking about seriously. There were alternatives, but they carried
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: some great risk. Option one confront Stalin militarily. The Allies
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: could have drawn a hard line, demanded real elections in
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: all of Eastern Europe, threatened force if they didn't comply,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: but that likely meant the potential of a new hot war,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: potentially millions more dying, and of course even nuclear escalation
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: down the road, though at the time of that. Those
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: guys wouldn't have known that at the time, But the
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: reality was in the two of the three guys sitting
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: there were heading democracies and their publics had no appetite
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: for that. So Option two could have been delay, stall,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: or refused to formalize said spheres. So nobody would sign
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: off on this split, nobody would bless the arrangement. We'd
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: have just sort of ambiguity lingering. It might have made
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: us feel better about preserving moral clarity even if we
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: didn't have practical control, But then ambiguity in that moment
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: could have led to miscalculation and might have also led
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: to another hot war. So Roosevelt made a bet with
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: option three. And this is what actually happened, because Roosevelt
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: believed the following personal diplomacy could moderate Stalin. Of course,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt would be dead in two months and Stalin wouldn't
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: be there that much longer. The United Nations could restrain
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: future conflict, Okay, putting a lot of faith in something
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: that hadn't really been tested yet. Cooperation now would buy
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: goodwill later. In hindsight, of course, the Roosevelt bet was failure,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't an interrational bet at the time. And
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: that's you know, that's a reminder sometimes, right that decisions,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: historic decisions, get made not with a long view in mind,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: but with short term mitigation in mind. The core tragedy
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: of Yalta, it traded long term legitimacy for short term stability.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: Understandable after losing millions of people. Okay, Europe was exhausted,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: the world was exhausted. But once you accept that trade off,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: it's very hard to undo. Because spheres of influence don't
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: just manage power, they teach great powers that morality is optional,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: that lesson didn't end with the Cold War, and that
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: lesson didn't end when the Cold War ended. So this
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: is where Yalta stops being academic. When modern leaders talk
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: explicitly or implicitly about dividing the world into zones. Russia
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: dominates its neighbors, China controls its region, America pulls back
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: to its interests in Latin America South America. It's not realism,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: but it is Yelta logic, and it comes with the
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: same flaw. It assumes that the people inside these spheres
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: don't get a vote. This is where I'm going to
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: say it again and say it plainly. Donald Trump doesn't
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: speak the language of alliances or international norms. He speaks
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: the language of deals, leverage, and strong men. The implicit
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: worldview is big powers make arrangements, smaller countries adjust. Stability
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: matters more than values. It's not a new line of thinking.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: It's pre nineteen forty five thinking. It's Yelta without the paperwork.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: So is Yalta avoidable, Well, it was not inevitable, but
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: avoiding it it would have required a willingness to risk war,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: a public prepared for continued sacrifice, and leaders ready to
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: exit up enormous uncertainty. The Allies chose certainty over justice,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: order over autonomy, and maps over people. How's that gone?
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Every time? By the way, these great powers do this.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: They did it after World War One in the Middle East.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: That went well. We did it after World War II
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: with Eastern Europe. It avoided immediate catastrophe. But boy hasn't
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: planted seeds for the future catastrophe. So history doesn't just
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: ask whether leaders made the best choice. It also asked
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: what kinds of choices become realistic When fear dominates the imagination,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: the alta reminds us that what feels unavoidable in the
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: moment often reflects our limits, not histories. When leaders today
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: flirt with sphere of influence, thinking history offers a warning.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: May feel stabilizing, may feel pragmatic, It may even feel inevitable,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: but it always comes at a cost, and someone else
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: always pays it first. Arguably say the same when we
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: make some uncomfortable compromises in our politics, right the Republicans,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: the flight the what is it the flight ninety seventh idea?
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: Whatever that bizarre mindset that said, you know, for the
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: guys in Pennsylvania during nine to eleven. You know they
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: knew they had to bring that play down no matter what.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: So avert your eyes or the corruption of Trump. You
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: cannot let Hillary Clinton have power, and that matters more
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: than anything else. Right, This type of thinking, this sort
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: of doom thinking, doom loop thinking, right, fear dominating your
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: imagination that if some other entity that you've got to
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: support a corrupt individual, You've got to support a flawed individual,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: You've got to support a morally questionable individual because something
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: greater is at stake. All I'll say is his destiny.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: That's what we end up learning more than anything else.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: All Right, there's your there's your toodcast time machine. Let's
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: get back into the present and let's take some questions
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: ask Chuck. All right, first question comes from Anthony Davis.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's that Anthony Davis or not,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: So it could be. Right, he's injured right now, he's recuperating,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: so he may be, you know, filling the time doing
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: some deep does on the podcast. He says, Hey, Chuck,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Ralph Nader turns ninety two years old in February. What
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: are your best Ralph Natter stories? Would you please consider
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: having him on as a guest. He's still as sharp
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: as attack. Thanks Anthony Davis. I talked to Ralph semi regularly.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: When I say semi regularly, a couple times a year.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: I worked for an organization in college that was kind
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: of founded by Nator, but I never worked for Nader.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if any if I know, some the
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: internet will lay some claims here or there at all.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, he had founded like half of these sort
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: of public interest groups around the country, you know, So
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: if you're a young college student that was trying to
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: argue for a reform either in government, local, state or nationally,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: there's a chance that's he basically founded citizen lobbying, if
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: you will, that he was involved in it. You know.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: I actually spoke with him about three or four months
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: ago because he'd been listening to a podcast about local
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: news and he was telling me he was really proud
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: of this local news operation that he supports in Connecticut
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: and he was telling me all about it. So, you know,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: I had wanted I try to get him. I wanted
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: to do I think we had had the fiftieth anniversary
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: of Unsafe at any the book about the General motors car,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: the Chevrolet COVERIR that sort of basically got a seatbelts
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to see if I could get Nater
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: and Mary Barrow, chairman of gm on together. Anyway, we anyway,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: you try certain things you try. I thought it would
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: be fun. I thought, you know, but booking Ralph for
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: the pod, let me see what I can do. It's
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: a good idea. He's he's you never know. I don't.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: I don't have the story. The Ralph stories I've heard
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: from others, Like I've got a lot of second and
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: third sort of hand stories of Ralph cats, something about
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: cats and then something you know. Now, I do know this.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: Whenever we'd have on meet the press, he would never
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: let us pick him up at his house. We have
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: no idea where he lived. He didn't want anybody to
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: know where lived. So there was always an agreed upon
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: corner where our car service would pick them up. But
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: you know, that's that's about it. That's my best confirmed story.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: But I you know there's some, there's some. But you
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: know what I'll say about Ralph is he never he
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: is who he is. He absolutely is a public advocate
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: to the extreme. And I say that, you know, hot
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: like he just ultimately believed you had to have the
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: public involved in everything or there would be corruption. They're
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: always whether it was sunshine laws transfer, that's essentially would
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: be I think the best I could describe as north Star.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: All right, Next question. I've long admired your thoughtful approach
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: to American history. Do you see any meaningful parallels between
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy Kent State shootings and what's happening now
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: in Minneapolis? As a Hispanic retired Air Force officer who
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: travels the country weekly, I found myself asking questions I
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: never thought i'd have to, like whether I should carry
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: my passport just to walk through in a American city.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: Could this moment be a Ken State level inflection point
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: for our generation? Respectfully? Gr you know, it's interesting with
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: Ken State. I was listening to Bill Simmons just doing
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: his sports podcast, and at the end he was apologizing,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: and I didn't think he owed anybody an apology, but
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: he was apologizing for not mentioning the incident in Minneapolis
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: at the end of his podcast, and he made a
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: Ken State reference and he says, you know, I remember
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: as a kid hearing about Ken State and never quite
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: understanding it, and then now you sort of imply the
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: same thing that you are. I think Ken State's probably
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: the best historical comparison because it was like, whoa, they
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: did that? Where what? And you know, Ken State, this
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: is you know, this wasn't the Harvard campus, right, This
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't it. Also, it signified that this issue was everywhere.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: This issue was not just some elite issue with Ivy
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: League students or students in New York City and Washington,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: d C. Right, This was across the board. Right when
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: you look at the protests, like over the weekend, there
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: were a bunch of ice protests in places like Pensacola.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: You know obviously, you know, I keep a heavy track
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: of stuff in Pensacola. I spent a lot of time there,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: and they had a large turnout for them, larger than
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: the last time they had one of these anti ice demonstrations.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: So I do think the ice issue has hit a
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: tipping point. And in fact, i'd actually compare it. I
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: think you're getting greater. This protest movement already is so
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: much bigger than the gods of protest movement. Gods of
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: process movement was intense in a handful of places. This
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: is across the board, and it's it's everywhere. Obviously, it's
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: most intents in Minneapolis and in some of the major cities,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: but it's everywhere, and so I had also invoke Ken
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: State that way, right, Kent State. Ken State felt I
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: think historically is that tipping point, because it was like, oh, whoa,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: this is happening everywhere. Every college campus is on fire,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: and these guys are out of control. Who somebody who
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: is emailing? Who went to my speech at Florida Atlanta
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: University and this person rights? I really appreciated your perspective
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: on the state of our country. I agree that Congress
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: is a major source of dysfunction, but I also believe
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: accountability under the law is just as critical. Project twenty
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: twenty five years his concerns about executive overreach and recent
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: events in Minnesota reminding me remind me of troubling historical parallels.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: You've said change can happen at the ballot box, but
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: will there even be an election or could Trump declare
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: a state of emergency and postponent FAA invent Eddy Look.
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: One of my two talks at FAU, I tried to
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: address this question directly. He cannot. I do not think
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: he can. He can talk about screwing with the election.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: But I do not think he can cancel it. He
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: didn't have this stuff is so diffuse, and our system
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: is so diffuse. It is not a top down system,
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: and it is not right. I mean, this is this
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: is the best argument against federalizing our elections in general
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: and our entire system in general, is to not let
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: any you know, singular power. What makes it hard to
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: hack our elections, It makes it hard to do these
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: things is that you know, every county is its own
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: election administrator, and then the states have their own system
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: and that, you know, so everything is slightly different. It
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: is not uniform, and that is a feature, not a bug.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: So and it's also I you know, you're not gonna
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: if you would have to, all the states would have
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: to go along, all the counties would have to go along.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: So I just I I understand. And I go back
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: to something a friend of mine said, Hey, our biggest
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: mistake with Trump has been failure of imagination. Yes, but
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: there's also there are things he knows he can't do,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: or he'll lose support in his or you know, or
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: his own party will break from him in Congress. Maybe
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: you don't believe it will happen, Right, Mitch McConnell didn't
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: do what he did and all this stuff. I understand
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: some of your skepticism out there, but I think there's
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: a you know, there's a reason he didn't invoke the
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: Insurrection Act on January six? Right? He is? He is?
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm seventy five twenty five confident. How's that can't
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: say it with ninety nine percent? Certainly? Next question comes
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: from yes, I hope I got that right from Raleigh,
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. He says, with Trump putting so much focus
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: on foreign entanglements, do you think future presidents might focus
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: more on domestic issues if the filibuster is removed, Since
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: a simple majority could get things done without needing opposition support,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: isn't at the point of elections that the winning party
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: should be able to govern. If both parties always need
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: by partisan backing to pass the legislation, does that start
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: to resemble single party control as we see in countries
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: like China. It's an interesting way of putting it. Look,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: if we were a parliamentary system, then you would have
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for, right, the coalition that wins, that governs,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: and they can sort of do everything on a party
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: line vote. Our founders created a system to try to
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: make single party dominance very difficult or single They didn't
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: have political parties. They were hoping there wouldn't be political parties,
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: but they didn't want single factions. Right, That's why the
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: Senate elections are not held at the same time. Right,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: Those were staggered for a reason, in order to if
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: the public wanted radical change, they couldn't quite get it all, right.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: They actually the system was designed not to speed up governing.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: And this is where this may surprise you, But you know,
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: I think it should be hard to pass the law,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: not easy to pass a lit right when you when
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: we live in a country that is as evenly divided
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: as we are, moving everybody an inch is hard, but
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: you should you know, if you can find sixty forty
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: consensus to move an inch, maybe you can find fifty
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: one forty nine consensus to move a foot. But if
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: you do that, you can actually create bigger backlash the
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: other way. So, I I take your point on what
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: you're looking for out of elections, but I think regardless
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: of whether the filibuster is there or not, and I
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you'd still have There are some
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: senators that are addicted to being the decisive votes. So
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: no matter what, you'd still have some of this, I
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: think in the Senate, regardless of whether the filibuster was
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: there or not. But I think it should be. I
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: think it's supposed to be. I think I put it.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: I think it should be hard to move things along
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: like that, it should be difficult. And that was actually
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: the intent. That was a feature of the system, not
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: necessarily a bug. But as for focus on foreign versus domestic,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: honestly vs. This is something that has been that is
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: a bugaboo of this is Trump behaving very normally as
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: a president. All presidents run on domestic issues, and all
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: presidents get more interested in foreign policy issues once they
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: become president. And there's a simple reason for that. Their
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: domestic agenda, as your point out very well, is only
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: as successful as what can get through Congress, and that's
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: very difficult. Most of your foreign policy issues can be
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: done without Congress. So I think presidents love the unilateral.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: They feel more important, they feel more historic, they feel
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: more relevant when they're dealing leader, the leader having to
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: grovel the people that are of lesser elected status than you,
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: which is everybody in Congress. Compared to the presidency is
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: a turn off for presidents of both parties. I mean
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: Obama used to joke about it all the time. He's like, oh, yeah,
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I love doing this. I hate dealing with Congress.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: You know. Bill Clinton would make those jokes. George W.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: Bush would make those jokes. Donald Trump makes them and
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: sometimes doesn't sound like he's even joking. But the point
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: is is that in that sense, he's This is a
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: very common thing with presidents. They run on domestic issues
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: because that's what the public decides elections on. Rarely is
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: a foreign policy issue decisive unless we literally have Americans
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: getting killed in a war and so. But it is
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: sort of a phenomenon, and I think it's going to do.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to make the messaging for Democrats
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: so easy in twenty twenty six, as he's more more
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: worried about making money for his firms with his business
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: partners in Abu Dhabi than he is lowering the price
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: of groceries for you. Next question comes from Alex from Carborough.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: This is our fifth one today. Hey love the show.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: Never missed an episode right on brother. Given Trump's visible
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: hand bruises, reported sleepiness sleepiness and meetings and what sounds
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: like occasional slurring or incoherence. Curious. Is it normal for
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: a president to have so many cognitive exams unless something
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: is wrong? And more broadly, in today's media environment, isn't
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: even possible to hide a president's declining health? Thanks so much. Well,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: that's the thing, Like, it's fascinating, and it goes back
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: to you know, I think it's obvious Trump's health is
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: declining and he's been aging before our eyes. And all
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: you have to do is just look at Donald Trump
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen first year candidate and Donald Trump at his
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: Iowa rally. Right, Yeah, they're the same guy. But you're like, wow,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: kind of like how I felt watching Hugh Jackman in
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: Song Sung Blue. Hugh Jackman's guy old by the way,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: he was terrific in that movie. But it is. But
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: but Trump is smart. Trump's doing something that I was.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: I would scream from the rooftops for the White House
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: to do, which made me even when Joe Biden was president,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: let the country get used to Grandpa was my argument,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: meaning the more they hid Biden from the public, the
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: more that when he actually did go into public, it
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: was stri Oh my god, what happened to Joe Biden?
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Where Donald Trump is in our face every day, He's
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: getting worse all the time. His health is syntaxes, you know,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: I think his vocabulary shrinks every day, all those things.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: But it's we see him all the time. So it's
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: like watching a river eroad. You don't see the erosion
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: unless you don't unless you literally watch a time lapse camera.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: You know that somebody else took to years earlier, and
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: then you compare the two and you go, holy cow,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: that riverbed really eroded, you know. But and I think
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: that's the So I think it's visible. I think it's obvious.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: But oddly, the smartest thing Trump does is he doesn't hide.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: He's every He's always out there, so you think, well,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: he's out there, so he must be feeling okay enough
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: to do that, right, And this is where why hiding,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: you know, among the now, because I think it's one
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: of those things that the more Biden had been out there,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: even if he had sort of been, it had kind
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: of been normalized. But they never wanted it normalized. They
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: were always hiding it, which made I, frankly, it made
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: me assume that it was much worse than they were
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: letting out that they were afraid of even letting it
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: be normalized. All right. Last question comes from David F.
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: And BALTIMORENY. Right. Hey, good morning, Chuck. I'm a public
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: school teacher who has worked in both traditional and non
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: union charter schools. What charter schools? Uh? While schools were
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: originally intended as niche Nietzsche institutions niche institutions, many now
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: compete directly with public schools, despite showing limited academic gains
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: and test scorts. Do you think charters of a future
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: if they return to their roots, perhaps by adopting hybrid
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: or AI drone models. Well, that's the thing, David, and
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: I you know, let me ask you this, and I'd
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: love this is one of those where maybe even I
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: should just have a back and forth. But frankly, if
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: you want to respond, I will do your response in
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: the next round of questions or the next time we
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: deal with this, which is what do you think there
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: should is there just there is a technical distinction between
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: a charter school and a magnet school, But should there be?
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: And one and two? I think the magnet school idea
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: And so for those of you wondering so you know,
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: charter schools are literally the entire school is set up
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: in a different way and then there's enrollment. Magnet school
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: has a few specialty programs it's only available at that school.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: So you know, I went to a Magnet school for
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: junior high in Miami and it was one of the
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: early magnet schools. It was an early thing. And I
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: went there for the arts, and I went for music,
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: and I went to in Southwood. Was was a school
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: that was the type of junior high that bringing in
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: the Magnet school raised the entire level of the school.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: So it was the perfect way, right it was to
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: take a school in a in a good community, but
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: it was a mixed socioeconomic diverse community in a good way,
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: and the Magnet school lifted lifted all boats, you know,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: making it a magnet. So putting some of these specialty
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: programs in neighborhoods that didn't have the wealthiest families in it,
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: and then it brought it sort of created the socio
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: economic diversity that that I think we all want our
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: schools to have, Like in theory though we never wanted
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: if it's not close to where our kids grow. So
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: I think the magnet I don't understand why we have
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: a separate I think you could, especially Charter. You can
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: talk me into just creating a middle school. That's a
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: great you know, if you're going to do alternative curriculums,
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: we'll try it as a magnet, right and use it
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: within the within the structure that exists. What's what would
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: be the downside of that? So, David, I'd love to
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on magnets and whether you think there's
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: a munch of a Charters. I and in Miami, where
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: I grew up, there is a big difference, as I said,
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: In fact, Miami has this four tiered school system, right,
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: you have your the private school world, which I throw
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: in the parochials in there as well. You have Charter,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: which is separate but there, and then you have the magnet.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of the schools now Miami, they have a
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: magnet for something. And then you have the handful of
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: schools that don't have a magnet program and they're just
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're usually the failing schools. So I
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: think we know what the answer is. Every school should
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: have a specialty in something, So figure it out, school
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: board administrators. Uh, with that, I'll wrap up that I
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: don't have a huge sports report this weekend. I've been
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm doing what every football fan does,
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: discovering college basketball and uh a bummer for my GW Revolutionaries.
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: You know, most of you know I didn't go to
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: the University of Miami, but I went to GW. Uh
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: Gina doesn't have a football team, so I've always felt
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: that I could be loyal to both GW basketball and
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: University Miami football. By the way, to my University Miami friends,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: That's why I don't respond to your basketball asks. I'm
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: a GW man for basketball through and through. Not a
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: good loss for my boys yesterday. We were down our
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: best player, Castro was out out. But tough loss at
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: home against Fordham, the home of Insulambardy. It's always I
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: just see Fordham and I think Bence Lombardi. That's the
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: Packer fan of me. But as a bummer loss, especially
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: after GW gave Saint Louis. We was the number one
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: team in the A ten and a Top twenty team
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: and probably one of the few mid majors that will
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: have a chance at the final four come tournament time.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: They're terrific. GW game, my hell of a game in
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis only lost by three. GW has A can
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: play with anybody, but they need Castro and and being
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: out was a was a rough one. And you know,
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: I'm still I pulled for the Hurricanes. I pulled for
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: SMU basketball. Both of them lost key games yesterday. Both
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: of them are bubble teams for the NCAA Tournament. It's
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: good to see the ACC get a little bit better
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: in basketball. I am. I am happy about that. But
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: with the limited sports, I thought i'd close with this.
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: The missus and I thought, hey, we should watch a movie.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: So you know, I start. That's the other thing I
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: do at the end of football season. I'm like, oh,
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: let me see what Oscar tells me the movies I'm
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: supposed to care about. So first of all, all the
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: movies are all of them feel that they're very heavy, right,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm very and I'll admit I usually don't want
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: to be putting a bad mood, a grumpy mood, or
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: a fearful mood with some of my movie selections on
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: some Saturday nights. So we went the easy round and
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: did Song Sung Blue, And all I'll say is it's
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: a movie that's about Neil Diamond that has nothing to
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: do with Neil Diamond, and it's terrific. Hugh Jackman and
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: Kate Hudson are fantastic. Michael Imperiolo, a i e. Christopher
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: from The Sopranos as Buddy Holly might impersonator might be
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite sort of small easter eggs. So yeah,
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: small spoiler alert on that one, but it's fantastic to
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: see Christopher from The Sopranos doing Buddy Holly. But this
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: movie was terrific, and it's based out a real life story.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: There's a documentary I've gone I'm going down the rabbit
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: Hole as we speak, and it's a movie that I
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: never thought i'd enjoy, and I really enjoyed it, and
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: it's a reminder. I'm glad, you know not. I joked
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: with you guys the other day, I said, I wish
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: all these streamers would put in the button that would
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: turn every movie into like a five episode mini series,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: so that in case I fall asleep, you know, so
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: I know where to where I should pause, what would
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: be the good things. But it's nice to see not
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: everything should be divvied up into eight episodes. Sometimes you
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: just need one meal, one just terrific three or four
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: course meal. And this was a nice meal, So I
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: know it was sort of targeted. I'm now a target
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: of movies again, right, You're only targeted in the movie
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: industry as if you're a teenager or if you're an
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: empty nester. And it's clear song Sung Blue is for
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: us empty nesters. But you know what, it was a
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot of fun. All right with that,
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: enjoy your groundhog Day. Remember if everything feels the same,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: the only way to change things is for you to change.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: Talked to you forty eight ashs.