Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - The U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Why The Biden Economy Felt Bad & Why Trump’s Is Even WORSE

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Full Episode - The U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Why The Biden Economy Felt Bad & Why Trump’s Is Even WORSE · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: Use that code. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to
1:52
Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Of course, I have
1:54
Speaker 1: to open up to do a little representing here to
1:59
Speaker 1: say I'm relieved and surprised at the committee's decision with
2:03
Speaker 1: the University of Miami and football is an understatement. I
2:07
Speaker 1: don't think any of the sins that I've been identifying
2:09
Speaker 1: of this committee should somehow be washed away. What they
2:15
Speaker 1: have done with the SEC in Alabama is as suspicious
2:17
Speaker 1: as ever, and I do not blame anger out of
2:22
Speaker 1: the folks at Notre Dame. I think the strangest decision
2:26
Speaker 1: was including Alabama. Actually the strangest decision was including Oklahoma.
2:33
Speaker 1: We can have a longer discussion about that, and I
2:35
Speaker 1: have still have a bunch of stuff to say about this.
2:39
Speaker 1: I love the fact that now all these ESPN personalities
2:42
Speaker 1: at CURTA. Herdstreet are saying we should get rid of
2:44
Speaker 1: this TV show. Good luck getting your bosses to agree
2:47
Speaker 1: to do the TV show. But you are correct. The
2:50
Speaker 1: college football ranking shows created this antagonism of fan bases, suspicion, conspiracy, theory, ease,
3:00
Speaker 1: all of that, the behavior of the committee, the lack
3:05
Speaker 1: of sort of consistency, the decision, all that business it.
3:09
Speaker 1: You know, they have nobody to blame but themselves. I
3:13
Speaker 1: had a friend of mine quickly text he said, well
3:16
Speaker 1: all your whining worked, and I'm like, hey, don't encourage me.
3:20
Speaker 1: There's a I hope that's not the case in a
3:23
Speaker 1: weird way. I hope it wasn't outside agitators like myself
3:27
Speaker 1: and others pointing out facts that they were unaware of.
3:30
Speaker 1: I should hope they were. That they didn't need people
3:34
Speaker 1: to point these things out, but to say that how
3:39
Speaker 1: this went down and the it is going to do
3:44
Speaker 1: nothing but encourage more activity like the activity a bunch
3:48
Speaker 1: of US University of Miami partisans participate in over the
3:51
Speaker 1: last few weeks. There will be more of that come
3:56
Speaker 1: next year, until they finally get rid of this committee
3:58
Speaker 1: and allow basics what happens on the field dictates everything
4:03
Speaker 1: hard stop. But like I said, I'll have more to
4:06
Speaker 1: say about college football. And for those of you who
4:08
Speaker 1: don't care about sports or college football, or have written
4:11
Speaker 1: off college football because you don't like how they've been
4:14
Speaker 1: doing this for frankly one hundred years, they have never
4:17
Speaker 1: gotten their postseason, right, I get it, I understand, and
4:21
Speaker 1: I will put this at the end of this podcast.
4:24
Speaker 1: Let me give you a rundown of what I got
4:25
Speaker 1: going on today. We of course have got sort of
4:29
Speaker 1: I want to go through a little bit of the
4:31
Speaker 1: National of the of the new National Strategic Security Strategy
4:37
Speaker 1: Memo that gets updated every year by whoever's in the presidency,
4:42
Speaker 1: and to say there's a departure not surprising, but a
4:45
Speaker 1: departure of of what role America should play in the
4:50
Speaker 1: world is an understatement. Bottom line, the president of the
4:54
Speaker 1: United States does not want to be the leader of
4:57
Speaker 1: the free world, if you take the National Security Strategy
5:04
Speaker 1: update seriously, I want to get into that a little
5:08
Speaker 1: bit on this Trump pardon anger at Henry Quaar and
5:11
Speaker 1: what it really tells us about how the pardon system works.
5:14
Speaker 1: On the Trump White House, I have an interview with
5:16
Speaker 1: Jared Bernstein. He was Joe Biden's chief economic advisor when
5:21
Speaker 1: he was Vice president and essentially played the same role
5:23
Speaker 1: when he was president. He's got some interesting takes on
5:26
Speaker 1: what he thinks that FED will do and ought to do.
5:30
Speaker 1: That decision is going to happen later this week, so
5:32
Speaker 1: I think this is a very timely interview. But it's
5:36
Speaker 1: not a partisan You will not hear he's got ideological
5:42
Speaker 1: points of view on what to do about this economy.
5:46
Speaker 1: But when you hear this interview, this is not a
5:47
Speaker 1: partisan conversation. This is a conversation with an economist who
5:52
Speaker 1: has a more liberal point of view and I think
5:54
Speaker 1: if you're curious about what's happening in this economy, you
5:58
Speaker 1: will enjoy this conversation. I'll do some Q and A
6:02
Speaker 1: after the interview, and of course, what so many have
6:05
Speaker 1: you been waiting for all of my hot, medium, well
6:09
Speaker 1: medium and cold takes when it comes to college football,
6:14
Speaker 1: and including maybe analyzing Miami's path to the national title game,
6:19
Speaker 1: which shall we say, is extraordinarily difficult. But I want
6:24
Speaker 1: to start with sort of the news that wasn't. That
6:30
Speaker 1: wasn't the headline, but I think it's something that I
6:34
Speaker 1: wanted to spend a few minutes focused on before I
6:37
Speaker 1: get to some of the sort of you know, hot
6:39
Speaker 1: take headlines that I know I want to dabble in.
6:43
Speaker 1: I've got a few things, just sort of what I
6:45
Speaker 1: would call a notebook item of news events that I
6:49
Speaker 1: think folks need to be following more closely. But finally,
6:52
Speaker 1: earlier this week, the Trump White House put out the
6:55
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five National Security Strategy Memo, and here's what
6:59
Speaker 1: it signals. Signaled to a significant and explicit departure from
7:04
Speaker 1: the long standing US foreign policy goal of actively spreading
7:07
Speaker 1: and supporting democracy abroad. Here on the eve you know,
7:13
Speaker 1: of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our founding
7:18
Speaker 1: as a small d democratic country as the sort of
7:23
Speaker 1: beacon of democracy for the world. This is not the
7:26
Speaker 1: role Donald Trump and the MAGA movement wants the United
7:30
Speaker 1: States to play. The America First ideology is strewn all
7:35
Speaker 1: through this document. It reorients US policy away from what's
7:41
Speaker 1: been a values based interventionism and toward a more strictly
7:45
Speaker 1: pragmatic America First approach, defining core national security interests as sovereignty,
7:51
Speaker 1: homeland defense, economic strength, and self reliance. No longer do
7:56
Speaker 1: we believe in spreading our value, supporting our values, supporting
7:59
Speaker 1: small de democracy when it's necessary. In fact, non interventionism.
8:04
Speaker 1: The strategy explicitly criticizes past efforts to impose quote democratic
8:09
Speaker 1: or other social change that differs widely from their traditions
8:13
Speaker 1: and histories. It's just a clear rejection of the post
8:16
Speaker 1: Cold War consensus on democracy promotion in nation building. Right.
8:20
Speaker 1: This is where there was a strong, sort of broad
8:23
Speaker 1: bipartisan consensus that the United States should always first and
8:29
Speaker 1: foremost support freedom, support democracy when it is obviously how
8:35
Speaker 1: much do you use military to do it? Look, those
8:38
Speaker 1: are fair debates but to no longer be in the
8:41
Speaker 1: business of supporting it or promoting it seems to be
8:43
Speaker 1: a big mistake. The strategy memo also generally favors accepting
8:47
Speaker 1: countries as they are, which of course is a cherry
8:50
Speaker 1: picked thing. I'll get to that in a minute. As
8:52
Speaker 1: their leaders quote as they are in regions like the
8:54
Speaker 1: Middle East, prioritizing stability and transactional cooperation over shared interests
9:00
Speaker 1: on shared interest rather than talking about internal political reform.
9:04
Speaker 1: Of course, we've seen the Vice President lecture Europe and
9:10
Speaker 1: not accepting Europe at face value. We've seen the President
9:13
Speaker 1: of United States lecture Brazil and how it decided to
9:16
Speaker 1: deal with Bolsonaro, not accepting Brazil at face value. So
9:20
Speaker 1: this is this is clearly a philosophy that they will
9:29
Speaker 1: only sometimes follow depending on their personal relationships with said
9:33
Speaker 1: country or said leader. But for the most part, real
9:37
Speaker 1: politic is not something that you hear me criticize. I
9:41
Speaker 1: think sometimes you have to deal with the countries that
9:44
Speaker 1: you have. You have to deal with the leaders that
9:46
Speaker 1: you have, not necessarily the leaders that you want. But
9:49
Speaker 1: there's a fine line, right So, for as far as
9:53
Speaker 1: this administration is concerned, they believe foreign policy to be
9:55
Speaker 1: judged by what makes the United States more powerful and
9:58
Speaker 1: prosperous period, not by the for of government of its partners.
10:02
Speaker 1: So it means we'll have closer cooperation with essentially undemocratic
10:07
Speaker 1: regimes dictators. It is there is no more value judgment
10:12
Speaker 1: on who the United States does business with or allies with,
10:17
Speaker 1: unless we've decided there's a value judgment on who the
10:19
Speaker 1: US so right, it's like, under that scenario, why are
10:23
Speaker 1: we why are we blockading Cuba?
10:26
Speaker 2: Right?
10:26
Speaker 1: Why why aren't we just dealing with Cuba as it is? Right?
10:30
Speaker 1: It's great, we have select this is there's there's a
10:34
Speaker 1: clearly not this is. This is a an aspirational document,
10:41
Speaker 1: not one that they plan on following when it's inconvenient
10:44
Speaker 1: to their own beliefs. On this one, what's interesting is
10:50
Speaker 1: that the document also took a shot at Europe. It
10:52
Speaker 1: criticizes European Union and e integration efforts, claiming they have
10:56
Speaker 1: suppressed political liberty, prevented innovation, and fostered europe to clim Basically,
11:02
Speaker 1: they're on the side of the Brigsteers and they're on
11:05
Speaker 1: the side of everybody that and on mister Orbon, who's
11:08
Speaker 1: all anti EU. This is a document even though these
11:12
Speaker 1: many of these countries are choosing to do this. So
11:15
Speaker 1: out of one mouth they're saying, we've got We've got
11:20
Speaker 1: to judge by what the United States makes a more
11:23
Speaker 1: powerful and prosperous not by the form of government of
11:26
Speaker 1: its partners. And then the next prep hey, you Europe,
11:29
Speaker 1: don't try to get together and have a powerful EU.
11:33
Speaker 1: So obviously there is a political dynamic to this, which
11:37
Speaker 1: is this administration is going to support other nationalist movements, right,
11:41
Speaker 1: whether it's a nationalist movement with Nigel Faraj in the UK,
11:44
Speaker 1: a nationalist movement in Hungary that is pretty clear, and
11:49
Speaker 1: with the controversial political party and the political movement in
11:52
Speaker 1: Germany that AfD. It explicitly signals support for quote patriotic
11:57
Speaker 1: European parties often interpreted is far right nowtionallest parties calls
12:01
Speaker 1: for the US to cultivate resistance to Europe's current trajectory.
12:05
Speaker 1: So again on one side of their mouth, this National
12:08
Speaker 1: Security Strategy memo says, hey, the United States is going
12:11
Speaker 1: to accept countries as it is. Then in its next breath,
12:13
Speaker 1: when it comes to Europe, they're saying, we're going to
12:16
Speaker 1: get involved in the internal politics of European countries on
12:19
Speaker 1: the side of nationalists. Sorry, if you were looking for consistency,
12:24
Speaker 1: you know, the Trump administration is not a place to go.
12:27
Speaker 1: This would be a dramatic intervention into the internal politics
12:30
Speaker 1: of key allies, and we would be disrupting NATO, disrupting
12:34
Speaker 1: the EU, essentially America's most important cultural as well as
12:42
Speaker 1: sort of traditional allies for the last one hundred years.
12:47
Speaker 1: I mean to do this to Europe feels like just frankly,
12:51
Speaker 1: a little bit of a troll rather than anything that
12:55
Speaker 1: is in the best interests of the national security of
12:57
Speaker 1: the United States. Now, there's still some soft power that
13:03
Speaker 1: this memo that this strategy memo does support. When discussing democracy,
13:09
Speaker 1: the strategy member primarily focuses on defending and renewing American
13:12
Speaker 1: principles at home, like limited government, the rule of law,
13:15
Speaker 1: constitutional fidelity, and calling that the foundation of US strength.
13:20
Speaker 1: And then it calls for respectful influence, stating that the
13:23
Speaker 1: US will maintain its quote unrivaled soft power through which
13:26
Speaker 1: we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests,
13:30
Speaker 1: but adds that the US will be quote respectful of
13:33
Speaker 1: other countries, differing religions, cultures, and governing systems, apparently except
13:37
Speaker 1: when it comes to Europe. In the EU, it's a
13:39
Speaker 1: key line that minimizes the impetus to push for political
13:42
Speaker 1: change abroad. But the bottom line is this, This twenty
13:46
Speaker 1: twenty five National Security Strategy memo effectively ends the era
13:50
Speaker 1: of America wanting to be the leader of the free world.
13:55
Speaker 1: You know, I've always said the presidency of the United
13:57
Speaker 1: States is really three jobs in one. When you're running
14:01
Speaker 1: as a political candidate, you're running to be leader of
14:04
Speaker 1: your party. You're running to be the actual president of
14:09
Speaker 1: the United States and of the three hundred and thirty
14:11
Speaker 1: million people. So that's sort of job too to essentially
14:15
Speaker 1: actually execute the office. And then the third job is
14:19
Speaker 1: leader of the free world. But as far as Donald
14:22
Speaker 1: Trump's concerned, that is no longer a job. We know
14:26
Speaker 1: he has never saw him See, he does not believe
14:29
Speaker 1: he should be the promoter of democracy around the world,
14:33
Speaker 1: the promoter of freedom around the world. He is. This
14:36
Speaker 1: is not as if he says one thing and does
14:38
Speaker 1: another on that issue. He has never said he wants
14:42
Speaker 1: to do. That's what's been inconsistent is he says Hey,
14:45
Speaker 1: we should be just dealing with countries as they are. Right,
14:48
Speaker 1: this is what the decision we've made about China and Russia,
14:52
Speaker 1: rather than hope we can make change subtly with soft
14:55
Speaker 1: power or at times hard power, except of course, when
14:58
Speaker 1: he decides he doesn't like somebody or he doesn't like
15:01
Speaker 1: a political movement. So it is like many an ideological
15:08
Speaker 1: declaration that Donald Trump has made. There are so many
15:11
Speaker 1: holes that there is Swiss that it's sort of like
15:15
Speaker 1: a declaration of Swiss cheese. And this National Security Strategy
15:19
Speaker 1: memo in many ways does echo the broad sort of
15:25
Speaker 1: definition of what somebody would describe as an isolationist of America,
15:29
Speaker 1: first of sort of detaching the United States from the world,
15:34
Speaker 1: very much articulating what the philosophy of the Republican Party
15:38
Speaker 1: was before World War Two. The problem is that is
15:41
Speaker 1: not how he actually executes the presidency, right. It is
15:45
Speaker 1: really there is no ideologe. There is no Trump doctrine
15:48
Speaker 1: beyond what's good for Trump. Right. He gets involved in
15:52
Speaker 1: a country if somebody asks him to get involved, he
15:54
Speaker 1: wants to be you know, if he thinks there's some
15:56
Speaker 1: benefit to him, he'll get involved. I mean, you know,
16:00
Speaker 1: there's when you look at the deal he cut with
16:03
Speaker 1: Cutter to give them this NATO like defense agreement. Does
16:08
Speaker 1: that happen without the airplane? I think we all know
16:11
Speaker 1: the likely answer to that. And I just put that
16:15
Speaker 1: out there because this is a huge departure, and I
16:17
Speaker 1: know that there is This is not something that a
16:19
Speaker 1: lot of people are going to vote on, but I
16:21
Speaker 1: will tell you this, this makes us weaker, and this
16:24
Speaker 1: makes us less safe. There's going to be a lot
16:28
Speaker 1: of people who feel let down by the United States.
16:30
Speaker 1: Feels as if the United States doesn't ever really care
16:33
Speaker 1: about freedom and democracy, no longer cares about human rights.
16:38
Speaker 1: And there's always been a look, we've we've always been
16:43
Speaker 1: better on human rights rhetoric than we've been on trying
16:46
Speaker 1: to use our influence to improve a situation. Because there's
16:51
Speaker 1: you know, you know, just what should our military be
16:56
Speaker 1: used for? Okay, I think those are those are bare debates,
16:59
Speaker 1: but this is a total sort of washing our hands
17:03
Speaker 1: of the debate about what, you know, should would the
17:07
Speaker 1: world be better off if we all lived under a democracy?
17:13
Speaker 1: And if you, as leader, as president of the United States,
17:16
Speaker 1: don't believe that, I don't think you should represent America.
17:21
Speaker 1: We're an idea. We are not an ethnic based anything.
17:26
Speaker 1: I know that the president would like us to be,
17:28
Speaker 1: but we are not. The whole point of this country
17:31
Speaker 1: was an idea that anybody could be an American if
17:36
Speaker 1: they believed in the idea of America, the idea of freedom,
17:40
Speaker 1: the idea of democracy, didn't matter what ethnicity you were,
17:45
Speaker 1: what religion you practiced. That ultimately, do you believe in
17:48
Speaker 1: that core idea of individual liberty? And what this memo
17:55
Speaker 1: sadly does is sort of reject that and isn't interested
17:59
Speaker 1: in promoting it, which should make us, should make you
18:03
Speaker 1: feel concerned that if we're not interested in promoting it,
18:06
Speaker 1: then are we really interested in having it here at home?
18:11
Speaker 1: So look, I'm not going to sit here and be
18:13
Speaker 1: one of these folks that the democracy is about to crumble.
18:17
Speaker 1: I don't think it is. I think our democracy is
18:19
Speaker 1: pretty well embedded in society, and I just think it's
18:21
Speaker 1: going to be a lot harder to destroy our democracy
18:24
Speaker 1: than some fear. But this weekens the democracy, This erodes
18:29
Speaker 1: our credibility around the world in ways that isn't going
18:32
Speaker 1: to get repaired with the next president. This is generational damage,
18:37
Speaker 1: and this retreat. And that's what make no mistake. This
18:40
Speaker 1: National Security Strategy Memo is just a full retreat. Guess
18:45
Speaker 1: who loves this memo? Vladimir Putin, He's ecstatic and in fact,
18:55
Speaker 1: Donald Trump Junior was in Cutter along with his buddy
18:58
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson earlier this week. He was asked during an
19:01
Speaker 1: event in Cutter Donald Trump Junior if the US president
19:04
Speaker 1: could walk away from Ukraine, and Junior said, I think
19:08
Speaker 1: he may, and then he adds this, what's good about
19:10
Speaker 1: my father, and what's unique about my father is you
19:13
Speaker 1: don't know what he's going to do. The fact that
19:15
Speaker 1: he's not predictable forces everyone to actually deal in an
19:18
Speaker 1: intellectually honest capacity. There's a few things where Trump's unpredictability
19:26
Speaker 1: is helpful. In the Middle East it has been, and
19:28
Speaker 1: I think in dealing with some of those countries that's
19:32
Speaker 1: kind of the way it goes. But guess who was
19:34
Speaker 1: happy about the new National security memom. The Kremlin lauded this,
19:41
Speaker 1: saying that the new directive stopped calling Russia a direct
19:44
Speaker 1: threat and calling that a positive step. According to Reuter's
19:49
Speaker 1: so there you go, we now have a new national
19:53
Speaker 1: security strategy philosophy. That's governing this executive branch and the
19:58
Speaker 1: decisions that are going to be made at the State Departmartment,
20:00
Speaker 1: at embassies around the world, the CIA, the Pentagon, that
20:08
Speaker 1: make two countries happier above all others, Russia and China.
20:14
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Speaker 1: but trust me, life insurance is something you should really
21:59
Speaker 1: think about it, especially if you've got a growing family.
22:05
Speaker 1: I want to pivot a little bit here, and that
22:07
Speaker 1: is too the fascinating anger of Donald Trump at Henry Quaar,
22:15
Speaker 1: the Democratic congressman who last week decided who got a
22:19
Speaker 1: pardon from President Trump? And I told you on that
22:23
Speaker 1: last episode, boy, nothing is done for free. So the
22:26
Speaker 1: question is where did this come from? And what is
22:29
Speaker 1: what is Quaar going to be giving in return? Well,
22:32
Speaker 1: apparently Donald Trump expected something in return. So let me
22:36
Speaker 1: give you a quick summary of sort of everything you
22:39
Speaker 1: need to know about this Trump Quayar pardon controversy, because
22:44
Speaker 1: I actually think this shows that that basically Donald Trump
22:48
Speaker 1: is confessing a crime right here, and it's and the
22:51
Speaker 1: crime is that he is selling these pardons. Sometimes he's
22:55
Speaker 1: selling them for actual money, and sometimes he's selling them
22:57
Speaker 1: for some sort of political support. Well, let me go
23:00
Speaker 1: through this. So here's the actual charges that Kuaire and
23:06
Speaker 1: his wife were facing. They were indicted in twenty twenty
23:08
Speaker 1: four on a dozen federal charges that included bribery, money laundering,
23:12
Speaker 1: and conspiracy. The charges basically alleged that the couple accepted
23:17
Speaker 1: six hundred thousand dollars in bribes from a Mexican bank
23:20
Speaker 1: and an Azerbaijani oil and gas company in exchange for
23:23
Speaker 1: advancing interests. So I told you that these are the
23:26
Speaker 1: types of crimes Trump has been pardoning left and right right.
23:30
Speaker 1: Anybody that's been accused of essentially using their having being
23:36
Speaker 1: bought off for their influence is something Trump doesn't think
23:39
Speaker 1: is a crime tells you something right there.
23:42
Speaker 2: Right.
23:43
Speaker 1: So on December third, he granted a full and unconditional
23:45
Speaker 1: pardon to both Henry and Emmelda Kwar, both both the
23:49
Speaker 1: congressman and his wife, and it effectively ended the federal
23:53
Speaker 1: prosecution before the schedule April twenty, twenty sixth trial, which
23:56
Speaker 1: could have been a huge problem for his reel lift.
24:00
Speaker 1: And at the time, Trump justified his pardon by saying
24:05
Speaker 1: he was reversing a quote politically motivated prosecution, he claimed,
24:09
Speaker 1: and he claimed that the Justice Department and President Biden
24:11
Speaker 1: had weaponized the system against Quaar simply because the congressman
24:14
Speaker 1: had been a vocal critic of Biden's border policies. He
24:18
Speaker 1: called Quaar beloved and said he was speaking the truth
24:21
Speaker 1: against open borders. Well after receiving the pardon, Quaar publicly
24:27
Speaker 1: thanked Trump but firmly stated he would not be switching
24:29
Speaker 1: parties and he would run for reelection as a Democrat
24:32
Speaker 1: in the twenty eighth congressional district in Texas. Well, that's
24:36
Speaker 1: exactly what he did. Earlier or just before the weekend.
24:40
Speaker 1: He filed the paperwork for his reelection bid as a
24:42
Speaker 1: Democrat on the same day the pardon was announced, and
24:47
Speaker 1: then Trump went off right. He was really angry. He
24:51
Speaker 1: reacted to the strong public criticism just a few days
24:53
Speaker 1: after the pardon, specifically lashing out at Quaar for running
24:56
Speaker 1: as a Democrat. The core of his complaint was perceived
24:59
Speaker 1: as a quote lack of loyalty. Let me read you
25:03
Speaker 1: the full truth Social Post. Only a short time after
25:07
Speaker 1: signing the pardon, This is Trump's truth, Social Post, Congressman
25:10
Speaker 1: Henry Quair announced that he will be running for Congress again.
25:12
Speaker 1: He put running in quotes in the great state of
25:15
Speaker 1: Texas parenthesesis state where I received the highest number of
25:17
Speaker 1: votes ever recorded. He loves to throw these sort of
25:22
Speaker 1: sort of statistics that are kind of meaningless pretty much
25:26
Speaker 1: because our population always grows, particularly in the Sunbelt. Whoever
25:28
Speaker 1: wins these states each time is getting the most number
25:30
Speaker 1: of votes that anybody's ever gotten. But anyway, but I digress.
25:35
Speaker 1: He's complaining that Quaer fil for office as a Democrat,
25:38
Speaker 1: continuing to work with the same radical left scum that
25:40
Speaker 1: just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend
25:42
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives in prison. Such a lack
25:44
Speaker 1: of loyalty. Loyalty is in all caps, something that Texas
25:48
Speaker 1: voters and Henry's daughters will not like. Oh well, next time,
25:53
Speaker 1: no more, mister nice guy. I never spoke to the congressman,
25:55
Speaker 1: his wife, or his daughters, but felt very good about
25:57
Speaker 1: fighting for a family that was tormented by very sick
25:59
Speaker 1: and arrange p people. They were treated so badly. So
26:06
Speaker 1: I don't This is clear to me that there's a
26:09
Speaker 1: lot more reporting that we all need to do on
26:12
Speaker 1: this one. Do we really think there was very little
26:17
Speaker 1: conversation between members of Choir's family and the White House.
26:22
Speaker 1: There was obviously some conversation. The President cited a letter
26:26
Speaker 1: from his daughters. He said he was moved by the
26:28
Speaker 1: letter from his daughters. But Trump, certainly it sounds like
26:34
Speaker 1: thought he was doing this in exchange for something, and
26:37
Speaker 1: he's angry when the something that he expected sounds like
26:40
Speaker 1: he expected either Choir to switch parties, filed a run
26:43
Speaker 1: as a Republican or whatever. Right, he did it just
26:47
Speaker 1: before the filing deadline. So you know, if you're looking
26:50
Speaker 1: for fishy smells here, that like, okay, is you know,
26:55
Speaker 1: is there something here we're not being told?
26:57
Speaker 2: Right?
26:58
Speaker 1: The timing of the pardon is a tell, right, just
27:00
Speaker 1: before the Texas filing deadline, and then he lashes out
27:05
Speaker 1: after Quaar files as a Democrat. Methinks, we don't have
27:11
Speaker 1: all the details of this story, but the most important
27:15
Speaker 1: part of this is Trump's public reaction, because again we
27:20
Speaker 1: sort of are shrugging our shoulders right now collectively about
27:24
Speaker 1: what is happening nearly once a week, which is Trump
27:29
Speaker 1: does a major pardon of somebody that has no business
27:31
Speaker 1: getting a pardon, but who magically has a connection to
27:35
Speaker 1: somebody close to the president former president of Honduras, magically
27:39
Speaker 1: is close to Roger Stone, right, the guy with the
27:42
Speaker 1: crypto binance. He's magically in business with the President's sons,
27:47
Speaker 1: and we Quaar with somebody. You know, this is part
27:50
Speaker 1: of Remember, he is already ordered Texas Republicans to do
27:54
Speaker 1: the redistricting business. One of the places they think they're
27:58
Speaker 1: going to make up ground is in South Texas. He
28:01
Speaker 1: pardons Henry Quayar just days before the filing deadline. Quaar
28:05
Speaker 1: decides to stick and run as a Democrat, perhaps looking
28:09
Speaker 1: at the polls and realizing that being a Republican at
28:12
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six might not be the best decision, even
28:15
Speaker 1: in South Texas. Next cycle and Trump goes crazy. Let's
28:21
Speaker 1: just say I think we know that he uses the
28:26
Speaker 1: pardon power to try to get what he wants. Maybe
28:30
Speaker 1: it's business deals for his kids, maybe it's political support,
28:34
Speaker 1: maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just simply to help
28:38
Speaker 1: a friend get a payday, whether it's a Pollmanniford or
28:42
Speaker 1: Roger Stone or whatever. By the way, it's it's very
28:44
Speaker 1: funny today Roger Stone has other people out there trying
28:47
Speaker 1: to claim he didn't He didn't. They're not saying he
28:51
Speaker 1: didn't make money off the pardon, but he wasn't paid
28:54
Speaker 1: to represent the president. I have a feeling we know
28:57
Speaker 1: that there's some specificity and these denials in order for
29:02
Speaker 1: them to not look totally crooked in all of this.
29:08
Speaker 1: But anyway, I am, I am just. I do not
29:13
Speaker 1: get why there's not more outrage about the weekly sales
29:19
Speaker 1: Weekly go look at this list of pardons, uh, and
29:26
Speaker 1: it's it's it's uh. It ain't making America great again,
29:30
Speaker 1: that's for sure, but it is making crime easy again,
29:35
Speaker 1: and that especially white collar crime, that alarm a lot
29:40
Speaker 1: of people. And if you're going to wonder why the
29:42
Speaker 1: pitchforks may come out for Left and right. You know,
29:45
Speaker 1: this is Donald Trump being on the side of the elites,
29:48
Speaker 1: being on the side that rip off everyday.
29:50
Speaker 2: People.
29:50
Speaker 1: Just remember that, Just remember that of those that thought
29:54
Speaker 1: Trump was going to be on your side, that he
29:57
Speaker 1: was going to go get those elites, instead, he pardons
30:01
Speaker 1: those elites. Few other things before we get to the
30:05
Speaker 1: interview with Jared Bernstein. I am fascinated by the sixty
30:11
Speaker 1: minutes interview that Marjorie Taylor Green gave on Sunday. I
30:16
Speaker 1: think the quote that is making the rounds is fascinating,
30:19
Speaker 1: which let me just read it. I watched many of
30:22
Speaker 1: my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun
30:25
Speaker 1: of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for
30:27
Speaker 1: supporting him, to when he won the primary in twenty
30:29
Speaker 1: twenty four, they all started, excuse my language, Leslie referring
30:33
Speaker 1: to Leslie Stall kissing his ass and decided to put
30:36
Speaker 1: on a MAGA hat for the first time. Here's the thing,
30:41
Speaker 1: I am convinced that Marjorie Taylor Green is coming about
30:45
Speaker 1: all of this not as some sort of act or
30:47
Speaker 1: as some sort of pivot. I think this is somebody
30:51
Speaker 1: who was naive to how politics were. She owned a Jim,
30:55
Speaker 1: she lived in her own world, didn't like what she saw,
31:00
Speaker 1: got caught up in the Trump movement, maybe believed that
31:03
Speaker 1: he wasn't a bullshitter, believed this bullshit, and then is
31:08
Speaker 1: like realizing sort of it and it's taken. You know,
31:11
Speaker 1: it's sort of a little bit at a time because
31:14
Speaker 1: you know, she doesn't she does. You know, it's almost
31:17
Speaker 1: as at first she thought, you know, this is where
31:20
Speaker 1: I'm wondering. Did she think political theater was the way
31:24
Speaker 1: you were supposed to do this? And then she realized,
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, she just got the wrong introduction to what
31:29
Speaker 1: politics was. She only got the introduction through the prism
31:32
Speaker 1: of Trump. But she actually thought these folks believed in something,
31:39
Speaker 1: and she's found out the hard way that they don't
31:41
Speaker 1: really believe what they say. Let's just say I think
31:45
Speaker 1: she's I think she is somebody that if she chooses
31:51
Speaker 1: to run for something, like I said this before, John
31:54
Speaker 1: as Suffer, should be relieved she's not running for the Senate.
31:58
Speaker 1: But I you know, I don't know whether she has
32:01
Speaker 1: this ambition. She may not. She may just view this
32:05
Speaker 1: but maybe you don't do a sixty minutes interview if
32:07
Speaker 1: you don't have if you're not trying to preserve yourself
32:10
Speaker 1: a place in the future somewhere. But what if she's
32:13
Speaker 1: the pure, the real MAGA candidate in twenty eight primary
32:18
Speaker 1: vance and that becomes the split. Does it open the
32:23
Speaker 1: door for a third item too? Anyway, just something to
32:27
Speaker 1: think about a few other things that I wanted to
32:32
Speaker 1: that I wanted, one other aspect that I wanted to
32:34
Speaker 1: get to, and then we'll get to the interview with
32:35
Speaker 1: Jed Burnstein. The other story that's sort of roiling Washington
32:41
Speaker 1: is the shocking unpopularity of all four congressional leaders right now.
32:45
Speaker 1: And we've been in periods like this before. After sort
32:50
Speaker 1: of the fall of Jim Wright in the late eighties,
32:54
Speaker 1: there was a period between sort of the Right speakership
32:57
Speaker 1: and the Gingrit speakership where just felt like there was
33:00
Speaker 1: just not a lot of uh, a lot of great
33:04
Speaker 1: leadership on Capitol Hill and both parties were going through
33:07
Speaker 1: a transition. And then you sort of got you know,
33:10
Speaker 1: you got that's that's when sort of got parting. Gingridg
33:12
Speaker 1: stepped in and then they created some stability and you
33:14
Speaker 1: had Mitchell and Dole for a little bit. We went
33:18
Speaker 1: through a period I think where when Dashel lost and
33:21
Speaker 1: you had like a lot and frist and there was
33:24
Speaker 1: a lot of unsteadiness congressional leadership there and sort of
33:27
Speaker 1: the mid Ats and then you got uh sort of
33:31
Speaker 1: some stability again, the rise of Pelosi on the left,
33:34
Speaker 1: the rise of Bayner and the right, Mitch McConnell getting UH,
33:38
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, and they sort of created
33:40
Speaker 1: and now I think we're in another one those right
33:42
Speaker 1: where we're sort of the the Senate leaders have really
33:45
Speaker 1: not you know, McConnell and and uh read have been replaced,
33:49
Speaker 1: but they but they're but neither Schumer nor Thune has
33:53
Speaker 1: the same level of credibility that either one of those
33:55
Speaker 1: two leaders had. UH and Jeffreys and Johnson clearly don't
33:58
Speaker 1: have the same level of credibility that their predecessors had
34:01
Speaker 1: Pelosi or McCarthy. And I'm not sure any of these
34:05
Speaker 1: four are going to gain it, right, I think we're
34:06
Speaker 1: going to have to go through this cycle and you're
34:09
Speaker 1: going to see, right, if Republicans lose the House, there's
34:11
Speaker 1: going to be a new House leader. And I'll be honest,
34:12
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a free for all,
34:14
Speaker 1: and that might be healthy they kind of need, you know,
34:18
Speaker 1: they're sort of in some ways. Johnson was an outsider,
34:21
Speaker 1: but he was an outsider sort of helped by insiders.
34:24
Speaker 1: I think if you have a loss of control of
34:27
Speaker 1: the House, that maybe you'll have a true ground swell
34:30
Speaker 1: and it'll be interesting to see, you know, maybe there's
34:33
Speaker 1: maybe it's an institutionalist like Tom Cole, who's sort of
34:37
Speaker 1: of a transitional figure, kind of the way John Thune
34:39
Speaker 1: is I think right now in center Republicans, but you
34:42
Speaker 1: have House Democrats not crazy about you know, Jeffries really
34:48
Speaker 1: feels very uncomfortable in this position right now. I mean,
34:51
Speaker 1: I think what's happening with New York City politics has
34:54
Speaker 1: him looking over his left shoulder constantly. Chuck Schumer seems
34:58
Speaker 1: to be worried about his left shoulder all the time.
35:00
Speaker 1: I'm as well. He feels like he's kind of lost
35:03
Speaker 1: his touch as sort of that electability guy. The point is,
35:07
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to see the reason. I think you have
35:09
Speaker 1: such anger on Capitol Hill right now. And also I
35:14
Speaker 1: think some unpredictability. I think this sort of weak leadership
35:18
Speaker 1: that you have right now collectively means that there are
35:21
Speaker 1: more potential free agents on issues out there than I
35:25
Speaker 1: think folks realize. We'll see what happened. I mean, we've
35:28
Speaker 1: already had We've already had more discharge petitions this House
35:32
Speaker 1: that I've seen in I think the previous twenty years,
35:35
Speaker 1: and that you know, the more discharge petitions you have,
35:39
Speaker 1: the more you have a leader that doesn't have control
35:42
Speaker 1: of their own party. So you know, if you told
35:45
Speaker 1: me you get some strange bedfellows getting together on healthcare subsidies,
35:48
Speaker 1: strange bedfellows getting together on tariff policy, I think all
35:52
Speaker 1: of that is possible because you have right now Thune, Schumer, Jefferies,
35:57
Speaker 1: and Johnson do not have. You know, they can't rule
36:01
Speaker 1: by fear, right, none of them can. I guess Trump
36:04
Speaker 1: can put some fear into some of these folks, but
36:07
Speaker 1: I think the fear of Trump is starting to fade,
36:09
Speaker 1: as we've seen with Marjorie Taylor Green and others. And
36:12
Speaker 1: there isn't a lot of respect for the political acumen
36:17
Speaker 1: of the quartet that I've just talked about. So it
36:20
Speaker 1: is I'll just say, I feel like I haven't seen
36:23
Speaker 1: this kind of collective congressional leader weakness really since that
36:30
Speaker 1: sort of period in between Right and Gangridge and then
36:34
Speaker 1: I think the period in between sort of the fall
36:37
Speaker 1: of Hastert and delay before sort of Pelosi took over,
36:43
Speaker 1: and that whole sort of period of lot and frist
36:46
Speaker 1: really before McConnell took over. So we're in a we're
36:48
Speaker 1: definitely in a transition. I will be if you told
36:53
Speaker 1: me we have four brand new leaders in January twenty
36:56
Speaker 1: twenty seven, I wouldn't fully be surprised, but I definitely
37:00
Speaker 1: expect that the four we have today that I think
37:04
Speaker 1: there's a good chance none of the four are there
37:06
Speaker 1: by January of twenty twenty nine. Part of it is
37:09
Speaker 1: I think the shelf life of congressional leader this day
37:12
Speaker 1: is getting shorter and shorter, the impatience of political leaders,
37:17
Speaker 1: especially if we're electing a different type of member of
37:19
Speaker 1: Congress and a different type of senator who are more
37:21
Speaker 1: worried about communicating with the base, communicating with the public
37:25
Speaker 1: than they are with legislating. And if we sort of
37:29
Speaker 1: are our Congress gets reoriented to more sort of media
37:34
Speaker 1: savvy elected members rather than legislative savy members. It means
37:39
Speaker 1: I think we're going to go through us You know,
37:41
Speaker 1: we may cycle through quite a few congressional leaders, because
37:46
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of their own political leader and a political
37:48
Speaker 1: party at this point, right with how we're transitioning, particularly
37:53
Speaker 1: this new generation of elected officials, and I think that's translated,
37:57
Speaker 1: and it probably explains why the leaders themselves know that
38:01
Speaker 1: they you know, they don't control the bully pulpit, They
38:04
Speaker 1: don't really control the They don't they don't have that
38:08
Speaker 1: much ability to prevent donors from giving money to some
38:12
Speaker 1: of these folks, you know. The weakness of the political parties,
38:15
Speaker 1: the weakness of the congressional leaders, it's all led to it.
38:18
Speaker 1: It feels like a bit of instability in Congress right now.
38:24
Speaker 1: And like I said, the possibility, I think we have
38:27
Speaker 1: some we could see some strange runaway legislative compromises show
38:34
Speaker 1: up in the next six months, simply due to this
38:37
Speaker 1: weak leadership that we're all experiencing. All right, with that
38:42
Speaker 1: good conversation, as we preview the I think the economy
38:45
Speaker 1: is going to be the big news of the week
38:46
Speaker 1: when we find out what is the Federal Reserve going
38:49
Speaker 1: to do? What do they care about more stubborn inflation
38:54
Speaker 1: or a weakening job market. And that's essentially how Jared
38:58
Speaker 1: Bernstein and I start our conversation with what concerns him,
39:02
Speaker 1: and you'll be surprised he's changed his mind about what
39:06
Speaker 1: concerns him the most about this economy as we go forward.
39:09
Speaker 1: So with that, we'll sneak at a break and we
39:11
Speaker 1: come back my conversation with Jared Bernstein, and then on
39:13
Speaker 1: the other side we'll sneak in some questions and then
39:16
Speaker 1: of course my long awaited sports rant on all things
39:20
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40:27
Speaker 1: So joining me now is the former chair of the
40:31
Speaker 1: Council of Economic Advisors during the Biden presidency has been
40:35
Speaker 1: he was part of the Obama presidency. He was sort
40:37
Speaker 1: of correct me if I'm wrong, Jared, But you were
40:40
Speaker 1: Vice President Biden's economic advisor during a period of time
40:46
Speaker 1: in the Obama presidency.
40:47
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, right, Yeah.
40:49
Speaker 1: And you were in I mean, it's sort of like
40:51
Speaker 1: you've been in this world, but you were. Were you
40:55
Speaker 1: always more in Biden's world?
40:57
Speaker 2: Yeah? More so. I mean I was Biden's chief economist
40:59
Speaker 2: whinning as vice president, basically moved over to that role
41:02
Speaker 2: when he was president. I started as a member of
41:05
Speaker 2: the Council of Economic Advisors and then I became chair
41:08
Speaker 2: a couple of years in.
41:10
Speaker 1: What was your did you do anything in the Clinton presidency.
41:14
Speaker 2: Yes I did. I worked in the Labor Department in
41:16
Speaker 2: the Chief Economist's office.
41:18
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've been on this sort of this in
41:21
Speaker 1: this role of moving up the governmental ladders, if you will.
41:28
Speaker 2: For Frank, I think if you made a list of
41:30
Speaker 2: Democrat economists in the DC area, I would be right.
41:37
Speaker 1: That's one hundred th'ts that you're very funny? And which
41:40
Speaker 1: economist are you? Are you on the one hand or
41:43
Speaker 1: are you on the other hand?
41:45
Speaker 2: I am, I am. I try not to be that
41:50
Speaker 2: that economist. I'll tell you what kind of economists I am.
41:52
Speaker 2: In that sense.
41:55
Speaker 3: The the most economists are problematic for politicians because they
42:02
Speaker 3: explain to them why why they can't do what they
42:05
Speaker 3: want to do.
42:06
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah.
42:09
Speaker 2: The economist says, sir, I understand where you're coming from, ma'am,
42:12
Speaker 2: I understand, but you can't do that for these reasons.
42:15
Speaker 2: So I'm not that kind of economist. I try to
42:19
Speaker 2: figure out, if not, you know, the optimal, let's look
42:22
Speaker 2: at third, second, third, fourth, best ways to get where
42:27
Speaker 2: we want to go.
42:28
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like you've got a north star,
42:31
Speaker 1: how can you get Maybe this isn't the best way
42:33
Speaker 1: to do it via economic policy. But you really want
42:36
Speaker 1: to do it, well, here's the least damaging way to
42:38
Speaker 1: do it is that do you sometimes see your job exactly?
42:41
Speaker 2: So you know, let's be concrete. You want to raise
42:43
Speaker 2: the minimum wage, right, So there is a level to
42:47
Speaker 2: which you could raise the minimum wage that would be
42:49
Speaker 2: hugely problematic, and there's a level to which you could
42:53
Speaker 2: raise it that would help low wage workers a lot
42:55
Speaker 2: more than it would hurt them. So let's go to
42:57
Speaker 2: the second level, not the first one.
43:01
Speaker 1: That's totally totally makes sense. Well, let's just start with
43:05
Speaker 1: the near term and then we're going to go I
43:08
Speaker 1: was intrigued. I obviously read your substack. I'm a subscriber.
43:12
Speaker 1: I follow been reading what you've been writing lately, and
43:17
Speaker 1: it is this. You noted that it seems like the
43:21
Speaker 1: Trump white House is stumbling into the same problem you
43:24
Speaker 1: guys had in the Biden White House, where you want
43:27
Speaker 1: to focus on the positive data, but the feeling and
43:31
Speaker 1: perception of the economy is not what the data shows.
43:35
Speaker 1: And I guess what would you be doing if you
43:39
Speaker 1: were in the Trump white House now asked to defend
43:41
Speaker 1: this economy.
43:43
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I wouldn't be lying. And I
43:47
Speaker 2: actually think that's really kind of foundational. I mean, the
43:49
Speaker 2: way we used to talk about this when we were
43:52
Speaker 2: in the White House, as we would say, correctly, we
43:56
Speaker 2: just got a great GDP report. We just got a
43:59
Speaker 2: great jobs report, two hundred thousand jobs, three percent growth.
44:03
Speaker 2: That would be part one. Part two would be, but
44:05
Speaker 2: we know you're still hurting and prices are too high.
44:08
Speaker 2: Part three would be We're going to do everything we
44:11
Speaker 2: can to help on that. Maybe a three part message
44:14
Speaker 2: is way too complicated. Maybe all people cared about was
44:17
Speaker 2: that part two. They're hurting, their prices are too high,
44:21
Speaker 2: But we didn't tell them your prices aren't too high,
44:24
Speaker 2: and that things are affordable, and that affordability is a
44:27
Speaker 2: democratic con job, which is what Trump said yesterday. So
44:32
Speaker 2: we tried to meet people where they were, I don't
44:35
Speaker 2: think particularly successfully, and I do think we talked past them,
44:39
Speaker 2: but we never gas lit them. And I would argue
44:41
Speaker 2: that that's what these folks are doing. B they're making
44:44
Speaker 2: affordability a lot worse with all the tariffs, and of
44:49
Speaker 2: course we weren't doing that.
44:51
Speaker 1: So you know, one of my theories as to why
44:54
Speaker 1: you guys and why the former president struggled to talk
44:57
Speaker 1: about the economy and understand. And I'm curious what you
45:01
Speaker 1: think of this thesis. Is that particularly Joe Biden, he
45:04
Speaker 1: spent a majority of his professional career in politics believing
45:10
Speaker 1: that for the American public, the barometer for a healthy
45:14
Speaker 1: economy was the unemployment rate, right, And frankly, he you know,
45:20
Speaker 1: it had been forty years since inflation was had bitten
45:24
Speaker 1: us as a country, had bitten us as political leaders. Yes,
45:28
Speaker 1: he was certainly was there at the early you know,
45:31
Speaker 1: in his first term in the US Senate, during inflation,
45:35
Speaker 1: during that horrible period of inflation. But that in some
45:40
Speaker 1: ways when you're and I hate to say that that
45:42
Speaker 1: you know, but we're all human beings, You're creatures of habit, right,
45:46
Speaker 1: For the longest time, it is what the public saw
45:49
Speaker 1: is the unemployment. Right. Is that fair to say that
45:51
Speaker 1: that maybe there was just that there was that Biden
45:57
Speaker 1: and maybe the wider world of Biden. And I'm curious
46:00
Speaker 1: you're whether you've thought you might have fallen into this trap,
46:03
Speaker 1: whether you were focused too much on the good news
46:07
Speaker 1: on unemployment and not fully appreciating the inflation situation.
46:11
Speaker 2: Well, I there's a lot in there, so let's unpack it. So,
46:14
Speaker 2: first of all, on President Biden, I think you're spot on.
46:19
Speaker 2: I think he came up in terms of an economic
46:22
Speaker 2: world where if the job market is strong and you're
46:26
Speaker 2: at full employment, that is the most important thing you
46:31
Speaker 2: can do for working class people because if the job
46:35
Speaker 2: market is tight, they have bargaining cloud, bargaining power that
46:38
Speaker 2: they wouldn't otherwise have, and they can Thereby, Unions are
46:42
Speaker 2: obviously important to him too, but you know, unions are
46:45
Speaker 2: a relatively small share of our workforce. If you get
46:48
Speaker 2: the unemployment rate down, you know, below four percent, and
46:51
Speaker 2: you hold it there, that's going to be fantastic for workers.
46:54
Speaker 2: And that was absolutely the world he came up in.
46:58
Speaker 2: And I believe he thought that if we have the jobs,
47:02
Speaker 2: that if we have the tailwind of a strong job
47:04
Speaker 2: market behind us, you know, economically, we should generally be
47:08
Speaker 2: pretty fine, and especially if growth is strong as well.
47:12
Speaker 2: Of course, we hadn't seen all that thinking evolved over
47:16
Speaker 2: a period when the average inflation rate was you know,
47:18
Speaker 2: between one and two percent, and so when the pandemic
47:23
Speaker 2: came and you had the collision of constrained supply chains
47:28
Speaker 2: and strong demand, partly juiced by fiscal policy. I will
47:31
Speaker 2: admit that that led to an inflation we hadn't seen
47:35
Speaker 2: in forty years. And yeah, sure, I mean I think
47:37
Speaker 2: it's kind of acceptably not acceptable as the wrong way.
47:40
Speaker 2: I think it's intellectually understandable that, you know, a forty
47:45
Speaker 2: you might not be quite have a forty year problem
47:48
Speaker 2: in your worldview relative to one that has been, you know,
47:53
Speaker 2: really foundational fundamental to your to your understanding through most
47:58
Speaker 2: of your career.
48:01
Speaker 1: Take me through your convers back when you were in
48:04
Speaker 1: the administration about the inflation issue. I mean, you know,
48:08
Speaker 1: we heard that phrase transitory a lot early on in
48:12
Speaker 1: the first part. And you know, as a it's sort
48:16
Speaker 1: of my own armchair, you know, economist, I would say,
48:19
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an economist, but I've
48:20
Speaker 1: had to play one on TV for a long time, right,
48:22
Speaker 1: or certainly I've got to be just smart enough about
48:25
Speaker 1: it to ask the right questions. I hope, and I
48:27
Speaker 1: understood what you guys are trying to communicate, which is, hey, look,
48:30
Speaker 1: this is a unique this is this inflation issue isn't
48:34
Speaker 1: all just because we've handed out too much money. This
48:37
Speaker 1: inflation issue we've kinked a hose, and all of a
48:41
Speaker 1: sudden we unkink the hose, and here comes to supplies
48:43
Speaker 1: and then and it's just doing all sorts of haywire things,
48:47
Speaker 1: and it's like a bouncing ball. It's eventually going to
48:50
Speaker 1: stop being hugely bouncing and eventually it's going to get there.
48:58
Speaker 1: But it was pretty stubborn, and it's still been pretty stubborn.
49:01
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm curious everything you guys applied to it.
49:05
Speaker 1: Did you think the inflation rate would be better than
49:07
Speaker 1: it is today, better than it was even before tariff
49:11
Speaker 1: liberation day? I mean, I totally accept the premise that
49:14
Speaker 1: once he put tariffs into the economy, we no longer
49:18
Speaker 1: can talk about the Biden economy. It is his economy.
49:21
Speaker 1: But pre tariff that inflation rate was still stubbornly high.
49:25
Speaker 1: How long did you assume, discounting the tariff situation, that
49:29
Speaker 1: we were going to have this stubborn high inflation rate?
49:31
Speaker 1: Because I think about the seventies, Jared, and it's like, man,
49:34
Speaker 1: Tariff's destroyed three presidencies. I could argue, right Nixon is
49:39
Speaker 1: you know, he survives Watergate. If it's a better economy,
49:42
Speaker 1: Ford wins if it's a better economy, Garter wins reelection.
49:45
Speaker 1: If it's a better economy.
49:47
Speaker 2: You mean inflation, you said, teriff Yeah, No, I'm.
49:49
Speaker 1: At inflation, Yeah, inflation. What I'm trying to get at is,
49:52
Speaker 1: you know, sort of disc I don't want to I know,
49:55
Speaker 1: the minute he put all these tariffs on there, it
49:57
Speaker 1: sort of it sort of could screw with forecasting. But
50:02
Speaker 1: three April first there of this year, it was still
50:06
Speaker 1: stubbornly high. How long do you think it's going to
50:10
Speaker 1: take to get that inflation rate down? And again this
50:13
Speaker 1: is assuming we had a normal tariff policy.
50:17
Speaker 2: Without tariff policy, I think inflation by the end of
50:21
Speaker 2: this year, which we're now at the end of this year,
50:24
Speaker 2: would instead of being I think the last scene the
50:28
Speaker 2: core inflationary measures that the FED looks at were closer
50:32
Speaker 2: to three than to two. I think they'd be a
50:34
Speaker 2: lot closer to two than to three. I think you'd
50:37
Speaker 2: be looking at inflation. I think the core was last
50:39
Speaker 2: seen at two seven. I think it would be around
50:41
Speaker 2: two to two two two.
50:43
Speaker 1: Think this is a half percentage point that's the teriffs
50:45
Speaker 1: have at it.
50:46
Speaker 2: I know I've seen point seven, I've seen point five.
50:48
Speaker 2: I think point five is a good conservative estimate. So frankly,
50:53
Speaker 2: I actually think that inflation was behaving in a way
50:56
Speaker 2: that made sense to me. Starting in twenty twenty three.
51:00
Speaker 2: It was coming down. I mean, just if you look
51:02
Speaker 2: at the graphic of year over year inflation, it goes
51:05
Speaker 2: up a mountain, and that, you know, that was a
51:07
Speaker 2: traumatic mountain for us. Let me tell you, I vividly
51:10
Speaker 2: remember the night. You know, we get the data a
51:13
Speaker 2: day before it comes out. I remember the night when
51:15
Speaker 2: we got the inflation report. It was June of twenty two,
51:17
Speaker 2: and it was nine percent, and you know, we lost
51:20
Speaker 2: our you know what. But the other side of the
51:23
Speaker 2: mountain it came down justice, justice, just as quickly. And
51:27
Speaker 2: and really what you said earlier is completely accurate, which
51:31
Speaker 2: is that it was the collision of a supply shortfall
51:36
Speaker 2: and very strong demand, particularly for manufactured goods. I mean,
51:39
Speaker 2: we were we were tracing numbers that showed that the
51:42
Speaker 2: consumer spending share of manufacturing was higher than it had
51:46
Speaker 2: ever been. And of course people weren't interacting with services.
51:50
Speaker 2: They couldn't, so they wanted to build out the new
51:52
Speaker 2: home office and get exercise equipment. At the same time,
51:55
Speaker 2: all that stuff was jammed, and at the same time
51:58
Speaker 2: they had both excess savings so they were flush, and
52:01
Speaker 2: a lot of fiscal support so they were flush. So
52:04
Speaker 2: by twenty twenty two, I would argue that I had
52:08
Speaker 2: a very good understanding of where inflation was. I thought
52:11
Speaker 2: it was transitory in the sense of long transitory. You know,
52:15
Speaker 2: it wasn't going to come down as quickly as we
52:17
Speaker 2: wanted it to. But I knew it was going to
52:18
Speaker 2: come down. And one reason for that, which is very
52:20
Speaker 2: distinctly different than the nineteen seventies, is that this mysterious
52:25
Speaker 2: calculation called inflation expectations were well anchored. In the nineteen seventies,
52:31
Speaker 2: key setters of prices and wages didn't believe inflation was
52:35
Speaker 2: going to go back down, whereas in the COVID inflation
52:39
Speaker 2: they did. Everybody saw that this was a shock. The
52:41
Speaker 2: FED was still in charge, inflation expectations were still well anchored,
52:46
Speaker 2: so I knew we'd get back down to target. At
52:48
Speaker 2: least I thought we would before the tariffs came on.
52:51
Speaker 1: Well, that brings me to now in this decision of
52:54
Speaker 1: the Fed, and you actually framed it pretty well in
52:57
Speaker 1: one of your substecks, which is, you know, the FED
53:00
Speaker 1: has a dual mandate, and it's in contradiction. Right, we
53:03
Speaker 1: have a stubborn inflation rate, but we now have a
53:06
Speaker 1: weakening jobs market. What should be the focus of the Fed?
53:11
Speaker 2: Well, when I wrote that piece about four days ago,
53:15
Speaker 2: I said, I said, I think it's fifty two forty
53:18
Speaker 2: eight inflation. That is the FED, I argued, very close call,
53:23
Speaker 2: but that at their meeting in December ninth and tenth,
53:26
Speaker 2: I'm a little more worried about how sticky and high
53:29
Speaker 2: inflation is, in no small part because I'm looking at
53:32
Speaker 2: services inflation, which is sticky and high, about a point
53:36
Speaker 2: above where you'd like it to be, and that's not
53:38
Speaker 2: really directly connected to the tariffs. And you know a
53:43
Speaker 2: number of people are like, well, aren't you worried about
53:45
Speaker 2: the job market and the fact that the unemployment rate
53:47
Speaker 2: has climbed. It's a point above where it was in
53:50
Speaker 2: April of twenty three. It's four point four percent. It
53:53
Speaker 2: was three point four percent in April of twenty three.
53:56
Speaker 2: People say, well, four point four isn't that high. Well,
53:58
Speaker 2: it's pretty high. I but it used to be three
54:00
Speaker 2: point four. So you know, this morning we learned that
54:04
Speaker 2: the ADP the payroll processing, private payroll people. You know that,
54:10
Speaker 2: according to them, payroll employment had a negative handle. In
54:14
Speaker 2: November it fell by forty thousand. So now I'm really
54:18
Speaker 2: at a coin flip. But you know, I think probably
54:22
Speaker 2: i'd want to sit at that table and hear what
54:23
Speaker 2: people said. I think I probably am a little more
54:27
Speaker 2: worried about sticky inflation than the average person right now.
54:33
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you have, I mean, what is your
54:36
Speaker 1: understanding of why we have a job market that is
54:40
Speaker 1: that is potentially going negative? I mean, is it? I mean,
54:45
Speaker 1: what it appears to me is you have a lot
54:47
Speaker 1: of big companies who are trying to figure out what
54:51
Speaker 1: kind of efficiencies AI is going to bring in. Right now,
54:54
Speaker 1: they're not filling heads. They're not cutting jobs, but they're
54:57
Speaker 1: not filling heads until they figure out how many heads
55:01
Speaker 1: can they avoid having to fill? How good is this
55:04
Speaker 1: AI transition? I am? I am? I sort of summarized.
55:07
Speaker 2: Here again, I think you're you're spat on And I'm
55:10
Speaker 2: going to tell you something that I think is really
55:13
Speaker 2: worrisome that I haven't had enough of a chance to
55:15
Speaker 2: talk about. So I'll get into that in a second,
55:17
Speaker 2: which is related to what you just said, Look, this
55:20
Speaker 2: job market is often described as low high or low fire,
55:24
Speaker 2: which is what you just said. We have a very
55:27
Speaker 2: low hiring rate. It's very difficult for people coming into
55:30
Speaker 2: the job market to get work. We're seeing unemployment to rate.
55:33
Speaker 1: I got a graduating senior in college. Trust me, she's
55:37
Speaker 1: already stressed. She's got keep telling her you got another
55:40
Speaker 1: six months relaxed. Yeah, pretty stressed out.
55:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should tell her that the you know, the
55:46
Speaker 2: unemployment rate for college graduates is still you know, a
55:49
Speaker 2: lot lower than for non college gradh although for the
55:51
Speaker 2: newly minted ones it is. It is too high for
55:54
Speaker 2: exactly the reasons we're saying. We haven't seen big layoffs yet,
55:58
Speaker 2: and you can't have a recession with layoffs. So I
56:02
Speaker 2: think that the uncertainty around both the tariffs, the impact
56:06
Speaker 2: of AI, and also deportations are all one reason we're
56:10
Speaker 2: stuck in a low, higher, low fire labor market. It
56:15
Speaker 2: is the case that when you have fewer people coming
56:18
Speaker 2: into the job market because of diminished immigration, you actually
56:21
Speaker 2: don't need as many jobs to keep the unemployment rate
56:24
Speaker 2: from going up. That's called the break even rate. And
56:27
Speaker 2: when I was in the White House, the break even
56:28
Speaker 2: rate was, you know, one hundred and fifty thousand. Now
56:31
Speaker 2: it's half of that because the immigration impacts and aging
56:35
Speaker 2: boomers are reducing labor supply, but we still have labor
56:42
Speaker 2: demand weaker than labor supply, and that's why unemployment has
56:45
Speaker 2: been going up. Now on the AI point, here's the
56:48
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to say, because of exactly what you
56:52
Speaker 2: just said, employers are trying to figure out how many
56:55
Speaker 2: people they can reduce, what kind of their headcount they
56:59
Speaker 2: can reduce because of the work that AI can do,
57:02
Speaker 2: which they're confused about, and they haven't really been able
57:04
Speaker 2: to figure it out. The worst thing that could happen
57:07
Speaker 2: right now would be a recession with a lot of layoffs.
57:11
Speaker 2: And the reason is is that when we've seen this
57:15
Speaker 2: is an historical observation, when we've seen technology displacing workers
57:22
Speaker 2: technology is that it's most disemploying when you're in a
57:26
Speaker 2: downturn because because employers lay off a big chunk of
57:32
Speaker 2: their workforce and the question becomes how few can I
57:36
Speaker 2: hire back? Right right right now, they're stuck with what
57:40
Speaker 2: they've got and they don't want to lay a bunch
57:41
Speaker 2: of people off because they just don't know where it's going.
57:44
Speaker 2: But man, if the demand falls out from this situation
57:49
Speaker 2: and they're in a situation where they lay off twenty
57:51
Speaker 2: five percent of the workforce, they're going to be thinking
57:53
Speaker 2: I might only be to I might just be able
57:55
Speaker 2: to bring back five percent. You know, just a few
57:58
Speaker 2: of those workers and get a.
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Speaker 1: percent off. Look, I'm pretty convinced that twenty twenty eight.
59:26
Speaker 1: I don't think we're it's going to be. I think
59:28
Speaker 1: we're going to see it percolate in twenty twenty six.
59:30
Speaker 1: But I think twenty twenty eight as a campaign conversation,
59:34
Speaker 1: as a narrative, is sort of what voters fear of
59:38
Speaker 1: AI displacement is going to be A is going to
59:44
Speaker 1: be a demand on candidates to have a plan. Look,
59:48
Speaker 1: we can debate whether this is going to happen the
59:51
Speaker 1: next three years or we're still ten years away from this.
59:54
Speaker 1: And I devour every bit of forecasting I can find
1:00:00
Speaker 1: on this. And you know, you have these different AI
1:00:03
Speaker 1: you know, sort of doom, the doom, the doom and
1:00:07
Speaker 1: gloom folks ais. You know, I sort of I'm pro
1:00:10
Speaker 1: human race, meaning I think we are not going to
1:00:13
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to be replaced by robots like we're we're
1:00:16
Speaker 1: going to We're We're a pretty impressive species. We survive
1:00:21
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, we're not going to let robots
1:00:24
Speaker 1: displace us. But the fear of this, I think is going.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: So Look, you probably already are talking to potential presidential candidates,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: people wanting to just get your advice of you know,
1:00:37
Speaker 1: what's a feasible way. I mean, what did we do
1:00:40
Speaker 1: wrong during the transition to all these free trade agreements
1:00:46
Speaker 1: in the in the late eighties and early nineties with
1:00:49
Speaker 1: and all of them included promises of money for job
1:00:52
Speaker 1: retraining and all of this. It didn't really work.
1:00:55
Speaker 2: I can answer this question for you. It's a great question.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: Is that where AI is going? I mean, yeah, I
1:01:00
Speaker 1: assume you know I've already heard Mark Kelly went out
1:01:03
Speaker 1: there and said recently, I guess we ought to have
1:01:05
Speaker 1: a fund where these AI companies ought to be taxed.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: Maybe you tax the data centers and there's a special
1:01:13
Speaker 1: tax of the data centers that just goes to job
1:01:16
Speaker 1: displacement issues. But what does this policy look like? What
1:01:21
Speaker 1: do you think is feasible here?
1:01:22
Speaker 2: So I have an answer to question. I have an
1:01:25
Speaker 2: answer to this question. First of all, let me say
1:01:28
Speaker 2: the following, which you would know better than me. But
1:01:29
Speaker 2: I'll bet I'm right about this. If you talk to
1:01:34
Speaker 2: the average economists. I spend two months of the year
1:01:38
Speaker 2: now at Stanford. So if you're out, if you're in
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley, if you talk to a lot of people
1:01:44
Speaker 2: in the Beltway about AI, they're a lot more excited
1:01:48
Speaker 2: than the average voter is.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: So that's one assertion, Jared, It's remarkable. I find it
1:01:53
Speaker 1: remark we as a country, we are the most negative
1:01:57
Speaker 1: about AI collectively then other First world countries. I've watched this.
1:02:03
Speaker 1: It's fascinating how negative we are about it. So I
1:02:06
Speaker 1: think it's because social media destroyed us, and I think
1:02:10
Speaker 1: people fear the same geniuses that brought us social media
1:02:15
Speaker 1: are being allowed to run amuck on AI.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: Good luck, By the way you're speaking, to someone who
1:02:20
Speaker 2: just finished watching the Netflix show Adolescens last night, So,
1:02:25
Speaker 2: oh my god, talk about social media and its distortions.
1:02:28
Speaker 2: But but I'm with you. So we are on you know,
1:02:33
Speaker 2: we are. We are shoulder to shoulder on this. And
1:02:35
Speaker 2: one of the things I tell people is UH members
1:02:39
Speaker 2: who are thinking of working on the figuring out trying
1:02:42
Speaker 2: to figure out how to run on this is precisely
1:02:44
Speaker 2: that that. Don't think everybody out there thinks AI is
1:02:48
Speaker 2: as cool as you do. They're threatened by it. And
1:02:51
Speaker 2: you just mentioned two things. You mentioned the lack of
1:02:55
Speaker 2: preparation for people who were hurt by expanded globalization in
1:03:00
Speaker 2: the nineties when China and the two thousands, when China,
1:03:05
Speaker 2: you know, at Bill Clinton's beets, China joins the WTO
1:03:09
Speaker 2: and we get our buds kicked and no one was
1:03:11
Speaker 2: ready for that. And then the ignoring of the impact
1:03:15
Speaker 2: of social media to two incredibly portentious existential examples of
1:03:23
Speaker 2: politicians failing to create guard rails to protect people from
1:03:29
Speaker 2: a massive shock. And so you know, won't be tied
1:03:34
Speaker 2: us if we make that mistake again.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: Now I think Jared, we already have. I'm sorry, I
1:03:42
Speaker 1: look at it. This hands off you know, I, you know,
1:03:47
Speaker 1: we were, well, what you imagine can you imagine if
1:03:51
Speaker 1: we had outsourced the Manhattan Project?
1:03:55
Speaker 2: Yeah?
1:03:55
Speaker 1: But what this crazy woman?
1:03:57
Speaker 2: What do you said yourself minute ago? Correctly that we
1:04:01
Speaker 2: do not yet know the extent to which AI is
1:04:05
Speaker 2: going to displace people in the workforce. What you do
1:04:08
Speaker 2: in that situation is you hope for the best and
1:04:11
Speaker 2: you plan for the worst. Now, what we didn't do
1:04:14
Speaker 2: in the globalization era when globalization was taking off. We
1:04:18
Speaker 2: hoped for the best and we didn't plan for the worst.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: And in fact, we did the thing that economists always do.
1:04:25
Speaker 2: Here's a here's a curse word that economists use all
1:04:28
Speaker 2: the time. Transition.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: They'll be a transition, well transitions to it a lot
1:04:33
Speaker 1: of work there. Transition means mister pop are going to
1:04:37
Speaker 1: lose their entire livelihood, but.
1:04:40
Speaker 2: They'll be a transition every period. But we'll be fun.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: So when you hear an economist Blase talk about transition,
1:04:47
Speaker 2: run for the hill. So so you don't so what
1:04:51
Speaker 2: we need here in my So here's the policy that
1:04:53
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get people interested in. It may sound
1:04:56
Speaker 2: a little radical, but I don't think it is a
1:04:58
Speaker 2: job's guarantee, a federal jobs guarantee if you were displaced
1:05:04
Speaker 2: from your job because of AI. There's actually a lot
1:05:07
Speaker 2: of stuff that needs to get done in this country,
1:05:09
Speaker 2: and I can't do a lot of it. There's building infrastructure,
1:05:13
Speaker 2: there's human care, there's helping in the healthcare sector. There
1:05:18
Speaker 2: is a lot of work that needs to be done.
1:05:20
Speaker 2: Many of these sectors are underfunded, in part because so
1:05:23
Speaker 2: much is going into AI and data centers. We need
1:05:27
Speaker 2: to have a job guarantee program wherein if you're displaced
1:05:31
Speaker 2: to AI, we can quickly get you back up and
1:05:34
Speaker 2: running with remunerative, dignity inducing employment. So it's easier said
1:05:42
Speaker 2: than done. But we've had programs like that in the past.
1:05:46
Speaker 2: We've just never really implemented them.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: It was just gonna well, I mean that was the
1:05:51
Speaker 1: New Deal.
1:05:51
Speaker 2: No exactly, that was the New Deal, and that actually
1:05:55
Speaker 2: worked out well. Now, we tried something in the eighties
1:05:58
Speaker 2: called SITA that was a much scaleback version of that.
1:06:00
Speaker 2: And you know, if you go to the Center. I'm
1:06:02
Speaker 2: also a policy fellow at the Center for American Progress,
1:06:05
Speaker 2: you know, numerous years ago they were talking about a
1:06:08
Speaker 2: jobs guarantee and have documents about how to do it.
1:06:11
Speaker 2: So it's not something no one's ever thought about before,
1:06:13
Speaker 2: and I'd like to dust that policy off and to
1:06:16
Speaker 2: get people thinking about it.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: Would you do a jobs guarantee before you would do
1:06:20
Speaker 1: universal basic income?
1:06:21
Speaker 2: Yes? I think universal basic income pales beside a job
1:06:26
Speaker 2: guarantee because people don't just want income. They want to
1:06:28
Speaker 2: be productive, they want to work, they want to contribute.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: They want community. I mean, in some ways, work is
1:06:35
Speaker 1: another community. And I think one of the things were
1:06:39
Speaker 1: consistently and constantly crave is community. I want to tackle
1:06:44
Speaker 1: something else that you spend.
1:06:46
Speaker 2: By the way, just aside, I think we're getting way
1:06:48
Speaker 2: too much of our community online.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: Of course, well you know, it gets it something. You know,
1:06:53
Speaker 1: it's funny to go back to the social media metaphor
1:06:57
Speaker 1: that I was using about AI. You know, we don't
1:07:01
Speaker 1: agree collectively on a lot of things in America these days,
1:07:05
Speaker 1: but there is one issue that is united left and right.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: It hasn't mattered if it was a very red state
1:07:12
Speaker 1: legislature or a very blue state legislature. They have all
1:07:16
Speaker 1: instituted the cell phone bandoned schools in some form or another. Right.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: And you know, the Libertarians have been convinced right those
1:07:26
Speaker 1: that are worried about, you know, single moms and single
1:07:28
Speaker 1: parents having access to everybody's realizing, hey, this has been terrible,
1:07:33
Speaker 1: and we don't often. So that tells me something here
1:07:38
Speaker 1: that in some ways the public is wiser about this,
1:07:42
Speaker 1: and they usually are. I always say, the electorate, the voters,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: you know, voters have that voters are telling you something.
1:07:47
Speaker 1: Listen to them. Just because you don't like the outcome,
1:07:49
Speaker 1: they're telling you something, Listen to what they're saying. Of course,
1:07:54
Speaker 1: so they it is. It makes me think that actually
1:08:00
Speaker 1: getting tough on tech and putting guardrails on AI, I
1:08:05
Speaker 1: think is going to be a necessity for any successful
1:08:08
Speaker 1: candidate for office in twenty eight And I don't think
1:08:11
Speaker 1: it's and I don't think it is. This is something
1:08:15
Speaker 1: that's just a d side thing or an our side thing.
1:08:17
Speaker 1: I think this the fact that you have this collective
1:08:21
Speaker 1: concern about what phones and social media has done to
1:08:23
Speaker 1: our kids means we realize these technological changes have huge
1:08:29
Speaker 1: impacts on our lives. And I don't think we fully
1:08:35
Speaker 1: you know, we as you said we in this case,
1:08:38
Speaker 1: we're so excited about what's happening that we're you know,
1:08:43
Speaker 1: and I guess this is exactly what life was like
1:08:45
Speaker 1: in the nineteen teens, in the nineteen twenty.
1:08:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think all of that's correct. I mean, I
1:08:50
Speaker 2: think there's another side of the issue that you have
1:08:53
Speaker 2: to think about if you're advising politicians or you're thinking
1:08:56
Speaker 2: about twenty six or twenty eight, which is that if
1:09:00
Speaker 2: you talk to the companies themselves, even if you're saying, hey,
1:09:05
Speaker 2: and you you mentioned Mark Kelly before, I'm in Virginia.
1:09:09
Speaker 2: At this point, thirty nine percent of the energy in
1:09:12
Speaker 2: Virginia that's being produced the electricity is being used by
1:09:16
Speaker 2: data centers.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: Oh, and don't think that they're not going to get demonized,
1:09:19
Speaker 1: yes on cost issues. Yeah.
1:09:22
Speaker 2: So you know the thing is, you go to the
1:09:24
Speaker 2: AI companies, you go to the data centers, and you
1:09:27
Speaker 2: tell them you're going to have to pair back, You're
1:09:29
Speaker 2: going to have to have guardrails, You're going to have
1:09:31
Speaker 2: to compensate the innocent bystanders who electricity bills are getting
1:09:36
Speaker 2: whacked by you. And some of them are going to
1:09:38
Speaker 2: say to you, fine, I'll go to Saudi Arabia. And
1:09:40
Speaker 2: you know that's the political challenge that I was dealing
1:09:43
Speaker 2: with in the White House. You know, we were we
1:09:45
Speaker 2: were thinking about these issues, and you know, these companies
1:09:48
Speaker 2: were threatening us with you know, with exits. Frankly, I'll
1:09:51
Speaker 2: take that threat because of what you're describing is so
1:09:54
Speaker 2: important to put those guardrails in place.
1:10:00
Speaker 1: Well, let's see. I mean, I keep you know, I
1:10:03
Speaker 1: keep thinking there is a left right coalition here that
1:10:06
Speaker 1: does want to put some guardrails on tech, right when
1:10:09
Speaker 1: you get people like Lena Khan and Steve Bannon both
1:10:12
Speaker 1: concerned about this concentration of power. But it hasn't translated.
1:10:16
Speaker 1: I mean this, this is just such an effectless Congress,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: and frankly it hasn't mattered the last ten years. Congress
1:10:25
Speaker 1: has been hesitant to get into the regulatory Well, they'll
1:10:31
Speaker 1: do oversight, but they won't do the regulatory change.
1:10:33
Speaker 2: I mean, Crypto is a good analogy. I mean, I
1:10:35
Speaker 2: think crypto is largely an accident going out to happen
1:10:38
Speaker 2: in terms of systemic risk to the economy. But what
1:10:42
Speaker 2: did the crypto bros do? They lobbied up faster than
1:10:45
Speaker 2: any industry I've ever seen. So, you know, these data
1:10:49
Speaker 2: centers are the MAG seven. I just looked this up.
1:10:52
Speaker 2: The market capitalization of the MAG seven is twenty two
1:10:55
Speaker 2: trillion dollars, so you know, they have all the resources
1:10:59
Speaker 2: they need to purchase all the all the deregulation they want.
1:11:06
Speaker 1: If you strip out the Magnificent Seven, it's the rest
1:11:09
Speaker 1: of our is the is the rest of the publicly
1:11:13
Speaker 1: traded companies. I mean, I've seen some analysis that say,
1:11:17
Speaker 1: you know what, we're no companies. Companies aren't doing that well,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: So I got but the Big seven is propping everything up.
1:11:24
Speaker 2: So I've got a great It's funny you should ask
1:11:26
Speaker 2: that because I recently backed out a number that I
1:11:28
Speaker 2: thought was really really compelling answer to that question, unless
1:11:33
Speaker 2: it's too obscure, So I'll test it on you and
1:11:36
Speaker 2: see if it works. Now this is a few days old,
1:11:38
Speaker 2: but I'm sure it doesn't matter. If you look at
1:11:42
Speaker 2: the year over year increase in the S and P
1:11:45
Speaker 2: five hundred, it's eleven percent. If you then that's that
1:11:51
Speaker 2: that's weighted, meaning that you waited by market capitalization. So
1:11:54
Speaker 2: that's how the S and P is measured every day,
1:11:58
Speaker 2: waited the.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: Biggest cap companies. I mean, you know, I have this
1:12:02
Speaker 1: thesis that that the reason we've seen crypto prices plummet
1:12:06
Speaker 1: is that you know, the crypto folks realize that this
1:12:10
Speaker 1: is probably not a real asset, they hurry up and
1:12:12
Speaker 1: sell it and then buy the Magnificent seven.
1:12:15
Speaker 2: Right, So the Magnificent seven get a huge weight. I
1:12:18
Speaker 2: mean they're not old public like AI is obviously still
1:12:20
Speaker 2: a private company. But all I'm saying is that that
1:12:22
Speaker 2: eleven percent increase in the S and P is a
1:12:26
Speaker 2: weighted measure weighted by market capitalization. You can also look
1:12:30
Speaker 2: at an unweighted measure of the S and P that's
1:12:33
Speaker 2: up point eight percent over the last year. Eleven percent weighted,
1:12:39
Speaker 2: point eight unweighted. We have an S and P seven
1:12:42
Speaker 2: and an SMB four ninety three, and the SNB four
1:12:45
Speaker 2: ninety three is pretty flat.
1:12:48
Speaker 1: Well, that tells you it's flatter, actually negative.
1:12:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think I think it's uh, I
1:12:55
Speaker 2: think it's flat. I mean I've looked at the I've
1:12:57
Speaker 2: actually looked at the four ninety three whatever it is,
1:13:00
Speaker 2: because again not every one of the seven. But yeah,
1:13:03
Speaker 2: it's flat. It's pretty flat.
1:13:07
Speaker 1: Let me get into a couple other issues. That one
1:13:10
Speaker 1: that you wrote about and talks about healthcare, and look,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: we this is such the weirdest issue because it's it's
1:13:21
Speaker 1: not a private sector. You know, it's not a private enterprise.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: It's a huge part of the economy, but it's it's
1:13:29
Speaker 1: super regulated. But at the same time, it's this sort
1:13:31
Speaker 1: of public private and it's a mess, right And you know,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: I look yeah, I look at I'll just take my
1:13:39
Speaker 1: little observation, which act actually is going to be through
1:13:42
Speaker 1: the prism of college football. But the University of Miami
1:13:47
Speaker 1: is able to spend a lot more money on football
1:13:50
Speaker 1: now because they're making so much money. And they're not alone.
1:13:55
Speaker 1: This is a lot of universities. A lot of universities
1:13:58
Speaker 1: are funding some of their high priced outlays, whether it's sports, building,
1:14:03
Speaker 1: new buildings, et cetera, because they have health systems that
1:14:06
Speaker 1: are nonprofits, Jared, who are making money hand over fist.
1:14:11
Speaker 1: Because it's a nonprofit, you got to immediately take whatever
1:14:14
Speaker 1: profits you make and put it back into the institution.
1:14:16
Speaker 1: In this case, it's in university athletics, the Longhorns, USC Miami.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: There's quite a few that have done this. But what
1:14:24
Speaker 1: it tells me is if we have a system and
1:14:27
Speaker 1: our healthcare system, and if they just take hospitals where
1:14:30
Speaker 1: there's more money to be made, being a nonprofit hospital system,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: than it is to be a for profit hospital system.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: What are we doing here? Like something seems off. This
1:14:42
Speaker 1: is a jerry rigged economy. This isn't a real free
1:14:46
Speaker 1: market exactly right.
1:14:49
Speaker 2: I mean the way I always say it. I mean,
1:14:51
Speaker 2: your analogy is really interesting. It's fairly complex. Here's a
1:14:55
Speaker 2: simple way to say, I think a similar thing. If
1:14:59
Speaker 2: I show up to the supermarket hungry, they don't have
1:15:02
Speaker 2: to feed me. If I show up to the hospital sick,
1:15:04
Speaker 2: they have to treat me. That takes it out of
1:15:07
Speaker 2: the market right away. And every single other advanced economy
1:15:12
Speaker 2: has figured it out that this that trying to make
1:15:15
Speaker 2: this a for profit or a kind of weirdly structured
1:15:21
Speaker 2: nonprofit sector of the type you just described, is going
1:15:27
Speaker 2: to mean an economy that spends you know, eighteen percent
1:15:32
Speaker 2: of its GDP on healthcare. That's US versus ten or
1:15:36
Speaker 2: eleven percent, which is the average for every other advanced economy.
1:15:39
Speaker 2: And you might say, well, surely they have worst outcomes
1:15:42
Speaker 2: than we do, given that they're spending eight percent nine
1:15:44
Speaker 2: percent of GDP less they do not. They have as good,
1:15:48
Speaker 2: if not better outcomes than we do. What they don't
1:15:50
Speaker 2: have is you know, five miles from where I live,
1:15:54
Speaker 2: massive houses on the Potomac that are owned by you know, lobbyists,
1:16:00
Speaker 2: big pharma. So, by dint of making this an inelastically
1:16:04
Speaker 2: demanded good, if you need health care, you need it.
1:16:06
Speaker 2: It's not shoppable. You can't get in the hospital, you
1:16:09
Speaker 2: can't go in the ambulance and say, wait a second,
1:16:11
Speaker 2: I'm going to call a cheaper ambulance. You know, it's
1:16:13
Speaker 2: not shoppable. It's inelastically demanded, and the prices are completely
1:16:19
Speaker 2: non transparent. You never really know what you're paying for anything.
1:16:23
Speaker 2: And you know, expect people not to have their hands
1:16:26
Speaker 2: in the healthcare cookie jar, which of course they do.
1:16:29
Speaker 2: So there is a ton of work to be done there.
1:16:32
Speaker 2: You know, I myself, along with Neil Mahoney, just wrote
1:16:35
Speaker 2: a piece on how to make health you know, ideas
1:16:38
Speaker 2: that would make healthcare a lot more affordable. They're out there.
1:16:41
Speaker 2: We've seen other other countries do them.
1:16:43
Speaker 1: We should do them too, because, look, I have empathy
1:16:46
Speaker 1: for those members of Congress are going, why are we
1:16:48
Speaker 1: subsidizing insurance companies?
1:16:50
Speaker 2: Right?
1:16:50
Speaker 1: So I have empathy for that. At the same time,
1:16:53
Speaker 1: you know, look, we don't want to we don't have
1:16:56
Speaker 1: time to transition, and these folks need mortable healthcare. So
1:17:00
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those where you're like, boy, this
1:17:03
Speaker 1: sub what are we doing this? You know, why don't
1:17:07
Speaker 1: we reform the insurance industry, Why don't we reform hospital
1:17:10
Speaker 1: payment systems? Why don't we reform you know, before we
1:17:13
Speaker 1: figure out what the right right structure is to guarantee
1:17:18
Speaker 1: healthcare access for the public. And it feels as if,
1:17:23
Speaker 1: you know, because we can't do the one, we're almost
1:17:26
Speaker 1: stuck just trying to well, let's limit the damage to
1:17:30
Speaker 1: the average American, but we are only handing more money
1:17:35
Speaker 1: to a couple of big industries.
1:17:38
Speaker 2: You're so right. I mean, I'll push back a little
1:17:40
Speaker 2: bit on some of the things you said, but broadly speaking,
1:17:42
Speaker 2: you're exactly right. And you know, I actually I think
1:17:45
Speaker 2: like you when Republicans were saying during the shutdown debate
1:17:48
Speaker 2: about you know, giving you know, tens of billions of
1:17:51
Speaker 2: dollars to in these premium tax credits to people so
1:17:56
Speaker 2: that they could buy so that they're premiums in the
1:18:00
Speaker 2: affordable character exchanges, don't double Republics. Well, that's just throwing
1:18:05
Speaker 2: good money after bad and I don't disagree with that. However,
1:18:09
Speaker 2: if you don't do it. Those premiums are gonna double.
1:18:11
Speaker 1: No, right like it. It feels like we're being we're
1:18:14
Speaker 1: all being held hostage here by the insurance companies.
1:18:16
Speaker 2: Okay, so so here's what I want to push back
1:18:19
Speaker 2: a little bit.
1:18:20
Speaker 1: Okay, it's not.
1:18:21
Speaker 2: You know, the Affordable Care Act did more to control
1:18:26
Speaker 2: health care spending than your wrap a second ago would
1:18:30
Speaker 2: have you think. Now, if it solved the problem, we
1:18:32
Speaker 2: wouldn't be having this conversation. Far from solved the problem,
1:18:36
Speaker 2: but it did institute a number of things that led,
1:18:40
Speaker 2: especially Medicare, costs to grow considerably more slowly, which actually
1:18:45
Speaker 2: has helped us in the fiscal front. Some of those things,
1:18:48
Speaker 2: and almost all of those had to do with controlling costs.
1:18:53
Speaker 2: The problem is that there are, relative to all these
1:18:56
Speaker 2: other economies that spend half of what we do on
1:18:59
Speaker 2: healthcare as share of the economy, we have very few
1:19:02
Speaker 2: cost controls. The ones that we do have actually work,
1:19:05
Speaker 2: giving Medicare the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices.
1:19:09
Speaker 2: That's worked, But there's fifteen drugs on that formulary, and
1:19:13
Speaker 2: you need to have hundreds restricting what the insurance. Restricting
1:19:18
Speaker 2: the profitability of insurance companies if they're not using enough
1:19:22
Speaker 2: of their of their profits to pay out that that
1:19:25
Speaker 2: was a cap that was put in in Obamacare. You know,
1:19:27
Speaker 2: that's been helpful as well. So that's the way forward,
1:19:31
Speaker 2: and it means a huge political fight, but that's the
1:19:34
Speaker 2: fight we have to have.
1:19:43
Speaker 1: So I get Look, I get the fight part and
1:19:46
Speaker 1: all this, but you know, let's let's say you get
1:19:49
Speaker 1: a fresh administration and a fresh Congress. What's the simplest
1:19:55
Speaker 1: thing we could do first as a as a as
1:19:58
Speaker 1: a federal government to you know, chip away at this.
1:20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the simplest thing is Medicare for more. If
1:20:06
Speaker 2: you were talking to Bernie Sanders, it would be Medicare
1:20:08
Speaker 2: for all, you know, but you're talking to me, and
1:20:11
Speaker 2: so it's Medicare for more. And what that means is
1:20:14
Speaker 2: is lowering the age of medicare.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: I've heard it fifty. Would you go down to fifty?
1:20:20
Speaker 1: Has been the number I've always seen.
1:20:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so you know, because it's you might hear
1:20:25
Speaker 2: people talk about a public option that's really very similar
1:20:28
Speaker 2: to what I'm talking about. And this is the idea
1:20:31
Speaker 2: that whether you're in your workplace looking at what you
1:20:33
Speaker 2: can choose, or you're going into the Obamacare exchanges, you
1:20:37
Speaker 2: can you know, if you're of a certain age, you
1:20:40
Speaker 2: can choose Medicare, which is you know, a less expensive
1:20:44
Speaker 2: form of care because of the kinds of cost controls
1:20:46
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier. And you know, as someone who's on
1:20:49
Speaker 2: it now, it works well.
1:20:51
Speaker 1: Right, let me ask this why you know it's interesting.
1:20:55
Speaker 1: Did did you expect when the Affordable Care Act happened
1:20:59
Speaker 1: and the idea was there was there was a hope
1:21:01
Speaker 1: that you'd have more insurance companies come into the marketplace.
1:21:06
Speaker 1: Did you think we would have the big you know,
1:21:09
Speaker 1: the progressives US A, A, Geico. I don't think they
1:21:11
Speaker 1: really did get into the marketplace. Did you assume more
1:21:16
Speaker 1: would have jumped into this?
1:21:19
Speaker 2: I did, and I do think that competition has been
1:21:24
Speaker 2: somewhat insufficient, uh in that space.
1:21:29
Speaker 1: You know, every day is a United Healthcare buying up
1:21:32
Speaker 1: another company.
1:21:33
Speaker 2: Exactly, there's vertical, there's vertical integration, there's horizontal vertical meaning
1:21:39
Speaker 2: up and you know, up and down through the hospital systems,
1:21:42
Speaker 2: and then there's far so so there's there's that kind
1:21:47
Speaker 2: of integration, particularly in some of our larger cities, is
1:21:50
Speaker 2: putting upward pressure on costs and in the piece that
1:21:52
Speaker 2: Neil Mahoney and I just wrote. We went after that,
1:21:55
Speaker 2: we said we have to we have to block that.
1:21:57
Speaker 2: You know, you have a lot of investors supporting that
1:22:00
Speaker 2: kind of integration. But on the insurance point, remember when
1:22:04
Speaker 2: we did the ACA, we made a political because I
1:22:06
Speaker 2: was in the Obama administration, that we made a political
1:22:09
Speaker 2: calculation that we were going to go you know, through
1:22:13
Speaker 2: the insurance companies, not around them. We were going to
1:22:16
Speaker 2: adapt them as allies.
1:22:17
Speaker 3: No.
1:22:17
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the mistake that Clinton the Clinton's made, right,
1:22:20
Speaker 1: which was trying to go after the insurance companies and
1:22:23
Speaker 1: Thelman Leewe wasn't thelm and Louis, Harry and Louise, sorry
1:22:25
Speaker 1: them and Louise was the movie. Harry and Louise became
1:22:28
Speaker 1: the faces of the opposition, you know, and that it
1:22:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I understood the you're right, you guys made
1:22:34
Speaker 1: a political toa, hey, we're going to have Harry and
1:22:37
Speaker 1: Louise on our side, which they if I remember they
1:22:39
Speaker 1: actually re upped the ad and work correct.
1:22:42
Speaker 2: Well they we never would have legislated that if we had,
1:22:46
Speaker 2: I think if we had gone with the you know,
1:22:49
Speaker 2: trying to crowd them out and you know, I think
1:22:52
Speaker 2: that's why Medicare for More is going to be a
1:22:56
Speaker 2: tough sell, because they recognized that that kind of competition.
1:22:58
Speaker 2: They don't want to compete with the government. They recognize
1:23:01
Speaker 2: that Medicare can provide less expensive health care for people,
1:23:05
Speaker 2: and you know, they kind of are resigned to assigning
1:23:08
Speaker 2: that to seniors. But if you take that down to fifty,
1:23:10
Speaker 2: they're going to fight you tooth and nail for those
1:23:12
Speaker 2: mansion reasons I said before. But we still have to
1:23:16
Speaker 2: go there.
1:23:17
Speaker 1: Well, it seems especially if we're living longer. I mean,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: it just I guess that's got to be the fear.
1:23:26
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be the argument against bringing the
1:23:28
Speaker 1: age down. Medicare is only going to get more stressed
1:23:33
Speaker 1: because people are going to be living longer and on
1:23:36
Speaker 1: Medicare longer.
1:23:37
Speaker 2: Well, not necessarily because we're not getting into the policy weeds.
1:23:41
Speaker 2: So it's not that this is going to be free
1:23:44
Speaker 2: for people. I mean, Medicare is not free for anybody.
1:23:46
Speaker 2: Now you're still you know, part B premiums and all that. No,
1:23:49
Speaker 2: they would have to pay an actually fair premium rate
1:23:54
Speaker 2: if you're on Medicare. It's not free. It's not like Medicaid,
1:23:57
Speaker 2: which is, you know, kind of free healthcare, but that
1:24:00
Speaker 2: premium is going to be considerably lower than what you're
1:24:03
Speaker 2: paying to the private sector.
1:24:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. Future of work, not just AI, but the length
1:24:13
Speaker 1: of the work week. Ye, there's been chatter about this
1:24:19
Speaker 1: for multiple generations, right, and what the work week is
1:24:23
Speaker 1: going to be. You're starting to see I think Bernie
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Sanders is advocating a thirty two hour work week, but
1:24:29
Speaker 1: it really all goes back to what's full time. And
1:24:32
Speaker 1: because what full time, what the definition of full time is,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: then of course triggers whether you get benefits or not.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: And so that's why this is I think an important issue.
1:24:44
Speaker 1: Where are you on that issue and is that something
1:24:47
Speaker 1: that you think is coming.
1:24:51
Speaker 2: Well, First of all, the way Senator Sanders talks about
1:24:55
Speaker 2: it is he wants people to work eight hours less
1:24:59
Speaker 2: per week but not take a cut and pay. And
1:25:03
Speaker 2: that strikes me as you know, unrealistic. I don't see
1:25:06
Speaker 2: how that works. I think that leads to lots of
1:25:11
Speaker 2: unintended consequences that would be detrimental to to workers. If
1:25:16
Speaker 2: you wanted to have a for the option of a
1:25:19
Speaker 2: four hour week, a four day week, and you know,
1:25:23
Speaker 2: people could still be considered working full time and get
1:25:26
Speaker 2: those same sorts of benefits. You know, that's the conversation
1:25:28
Speaker 2: worth having. But you know output would go down and
1:25:31
Speaker 2: so we you know, we'd have less we'd have less
1:25:34
Speaker 2: growth presumably, and that's kind of a trade off. It's
1:25:38
Speaker 2: interesting because for economists a lot of time, social welfare
1:25:42
Speaker 2: well being is too easily analogized to GDP. But if
1:25:46
Speaker 2: I told you we can have less GDP but we
1:25:48
Speaker 2: can work less hard, you might say Europe, And.
1:25:52
Speaker 1: You know that is what somebody would say, Europe. Look
1:25:54
Speaker 1: at them and you might say, that's right. And we
1:25:58
Speaker 1: we we we drove right past them in our GDP
1:26:01
Speaker 1: over the way we drove right past.
1:26:02
Speaker 2: From the GDP. But when it comes to if you
1:26:04
Speaker 2: actually look at measures of happiness, you know they actually
1:26:06
Speaker 2: kick our butts in a lot of ways, especially around
1:26:09
Speaker 2: this issue of work. So the problem I have with
1:26:12
Speaker 2: the conversation is when it sounds like there's no trade off.
1:26:15
Speaker 2: If you accept that there's a growth trade off, but
1:26:17
Speaker 2: maybe you improve social welfare, fine, I'd be willing to,
1:26:21
Speaker 2: you know, entertain that idea. It's not something I think
1:26:24
Speaker 2: about a lot though these days, And it's not even
1:26:26
Speaker 2: really on my list of policy ideas. Why Because affordability
1:26:31
Speaker 2: is such a huge issue right now, and I think
1:26:34
Speaker 2: it's been for a while, it's going to be going forward,
1:26:37
Speaker 2: and if you're working one day less, you're going to
1:26:39
Speaker 2: make less and life is going to be you know,
1:26:41
Speaker 2: presumably even less affordable. So I think that that's a
1:26:44
Speaker 2: real challenge right now.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: No, in fact, I think the more like I think
1:26:48
Speaker 1: the near term future of work, certainly for my kids
1:26:53
Speaker 1: is I assume and frankly that I look at the
1:26:57
Speaker 1: situation I've put together for myself, it's probably similar to
1:27:00
Speaker 1: what you've put together. Is you don't have one job,
1:27:02
Speaker 1: you have four or five jobs, and that that is
1:27:06
Speaker 1: going there is going to be a larger and larger
1:27:08
Speaker 1: segment of the population that is going to have multiple
1:27:11
Speaker 1: income streams. How does what does federal how does federal
1:27:15
Speaker 1: policy have to change to support uh an economy that's
1:27:20
Speaker 1: going to have more essentially more people in the I
1:27:26
Speaker 1: don't like to use gig work because I think people
1:27:29
Speaker 1: immediately assume, oh, uber driver. I don't think that's going
1:27:31
Speaker 1: to you know, you know, it could be just all
1:27:33
Speaker 1: sorts of things could be part of the service economy
1:27:35
Speaker 1: of professional economy, et cetera.
1:27:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in two major ways. One we've actually
1:27:40
Speaker 2: talked about, which is healthcare. Of course, most working age
1:27:44
Speaker 2: people get their healthcare not just for them, but for
1:27:47
Speaker 2: their family through their employer. So if we move to
1:27:50
Speaker 2: a situation where you're not as connected to one employer
1:27:55
Speaker 2: such that you have employer sponsored insurance, we're going to
1:27:58
Speaker 2: need a system like Medicare for more. The Obamacare exchanges,
1:28:02
Speaker 2: by the way, were invented to help solve that problem,
1:28:05
Speaker 2: but they're you know, they're kind of clue gy, and
1:28:07
Speaker 2: they're kind of expensive, and you and I already talked
1:28:09
Speaker 2: about that. So we have to make sure that you know,
1:28:12
Speaker 2: we have a very uniquely weird and kind of dumb
1:28:16
Speaker 2: system in this country where we we have most working
1:28:21
Speaker 2: age people getting their healthcare through work. You know, that's
1:28:23
Speaker 2: a huge burden on companies that would rather make cars
1:28:26
Speaker 2: and not provide health insurance. So breaking that asunder, you know,
1:28:32
Speaker 2: it has historical roots that we can get into After
1:28:34
Speaker 2: World War Two when there were wage freezes in place.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: You have to figure out a way to give people
1:28:38
Speaker 2: more benefits, but that would be a great place to start.
1:28:41
Speaker 2: And secondly, labor standards the umbrella of labor standards, you know,
1:28:45
Speaker 2: wage protections, unemployment insurance, over time pay. That's all connected
1:28:50
Speaker 2: to traditional work at traditional schedules. So you'd want that
1:28:54
Speaker 2: umbrella to be reshaped to protect people who didn't necessarily
1:28:58
Speaker 2: have traditional work arrangements.
1:29:00
Speaker 1: Well, you're right. I remember that was one of the
1:29:02
Speaker 1: art pro one of the arguments that the Obama administration
1:29:06
Speaker 1: was using to sell the Affordable Care Act, that hey, portability,
1:29:10
Speaker 1: you don't have to you know, you can, you can
1:29:13
Speaker 1: work part time at a company without worrying that. You know,
1:29:16
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you can leave. You know that
1:29:17
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You're not stuck in a job, right
1:29:20
Speaker 1: job because of healthcare. At the same time, I do
1:29:25
Speaker 1: worry about companies offering a lot of contract work, which
1:29:29
Speaker 1: is code for I ain't giving you any benefits.
1:29:31
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you know that's another reason why healthcare form
1:29:36
Speaker 2: is so vital. And again, those a lot of those
1:29:40
Speaker 2: folks are getting healthcare in the exchanges right now, and
1:29:42
Speaker 2: you know, it's better than it's better than not being covered,
1:29:45
Speaker 2: but they don't love it.
1:29:47
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about two Trump policies and what
1:29:50
Speaker 1: you make of them. In the If you were part
1:29:53
Speaker 1: of the next administration, would you try to scrap it
1:29:58
Speaker 1: or enhance it? One is no tax on tips. I
1:30:02
Speaker 1: was amused the other day by an article that IRS
1:30:05
Speaker 1: agents have to figure out, is this pornography? I saw?
1:30:09
Speaker 1: Not pornography. I mean I just sort of like, oh wow, well,
1:30:13
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of
1:30:15
Speaker 1: sixteen year old boys might volunteer to work at the
1:30:17
Speaker 1: I R S or intern Sorry, yeah, no, I.
1:30:20
Speaker 2: Think that's really about Do you want to say the
1:30:24
Speaker 2: second one again? Well?
1:30:25
Speaker 1: The second The second one is that is the these
1:30:29
Speaker 1: new essentially baby bonds that you know, they're calling them
1:30:32
Speaker 1: Trump accounts. The but the Michael Dell, you know that,
1:30:36
Speaker 1: who just actually added to to sort of expand the pool.
1:30:38
Speaker 1: I want to get into that a minute, but let's
1:30:40
Speaker 1: start with no tax on tips, because you know, my
1:30:42
Speaker 1: joke has been I'd like to be paid all in tips, now,
1:30:45
Speaker 1: please exactly.
1:30:46
Speaker 2: So, the first thing we worried about, Literally thirty seconds
1:30:49
Speaker 2: after somebody told me about that, I said, you're gonna
1:30:52
Speaker 2: have a lot of you know, stockbrokers who are saying,
1:30:55
Speaker 2: you know, I tron a dollar a year and the
1:30:59
Speaker 2: rest is tips. Now, they did try to structure the
1:31:04
Speaker 2: policy to block that, and that just adds a level
1:31:08
Speaker 2: of complexity that is really the antithesis of smart tax policy.
1:31:13
Speaker 2: The minute you have eighty occupations that are okay and
1:31:17
Speaker 2: a bunch that aren't, you can imagine what's going to
1:31:19
Speaker 2: go on in tax court.
1:31:21
Speaker 1: And what's a good thing you're getting rid of IRS
1:31:24
Speaker 1: agents because you know.
1:31:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So the first problem is is that it's
1:31:30
Speaker 2: easy to game, and I suspect that their guardrails are insufficient.
1:31:34
Speaker 2: The second problem is that there are a lot of
1:31:37
Speaker 2: low wage workers who get tips and don't pay any
1:31:43
Speaker 2: federal income tax, so this doesn't help them at all.
1:31:47
Speaker 2: You know, most lowage workers simply don't have a federal
1:31:50
Speaker 2: tax liability, so it means nothing to them. And then
1:31:55
Speaker 2: you know, the third problem is, you know, we actually
1:32:00
Speaker 2: have a very significant revenue problem in this country, and
1:32:03
Speaker 2: so tax cuts are one reason why we are looking
1:32:09
Speaker 2: at a really unsustainable fiscal path. So I think it's complex,
1:32:13
Speaker 2: I think it's poorly targeted, and I think it's a waste.
1:32:17
Speaker 1: But it was like I was just going to say,
1:32:20
Speaker 1: the problem you have is it sort of strikes me
1:32:23
Speaker 1: as what she said, like, look, well we had to
1:32:25
Speaker 1: work through the insurance companies, even though we didn't want to.
1:32:29
Speaker 1: This feels like a policy that that nobody's going to
1:32:32
Speaker 1: be wanting to be the member of Congress that says no, no, no,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: no no, let's bring taxing. Let's put dips back into
1:32:38
Speaker 1: income taxable income.
1:32:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably right, and so you know the minute
1:32:42
Speaker 2: you open it's so much easier to grant a tax
1:32:46
Speaker 2: cut than to take it back. Obviously. I mean, I
1:32:49
Speaker 2: think if we start seeing a lot of fraud, which
1:32:52
Speaker 2: I predict we will, at least we might be in
1:32:55
Speaker 2: a market where we can put up more guardrails.
1:32:59
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the the Trump baby bonds or you know,
1:33:03
Speaker 1: the the the birth and I guess this is their
1:33:07
Speaker 1: way of encouraging trying to encourage uh more families, let's
1:33:13
Speaker 1: be you know which. And you guys were fighting for
1:33:16
Speaker 1: the child the childcare tax credit. Yeah, I sort of
1:33:20
Speaker 1: believe that. Frankly, I think you guys should have died
1:33:24
Speaker 1: on that hill. And I don't know why you didn't politically,
1:33:26
Speaker 1: but in terms of what do you mean like fight,
1:33:29
Speaker 1: never have given it up on it. I mean, I
1:33:31
Speaker 1: think that was that was something worth losing an election,
1:33:33
Speaker 1: you know, taking it to the ballot box. I just
1:33:36
Speaker 1: you know, never never giving up on it. I understand why.
1:33:41
Speaker 1: You know, you thought, well, we have a bigger deal
1:33:43
Speaker 1: to make here, and it's possible to do this, and
1:33:45
Speaker 1: you certainly look that's the old legislator in Joe Biden.
1:33:49
Speaker 1: I get it. But the childcare tax credit, that was
1:33:53
Speaker 1: that was it mattered to people, it has bipartisan interest,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: like it just felt like it felt like a political
1:34:01
Speaker 1: It felt like a policy hill worth dying on because
1:34:04
Speaker 1: there's going to be something for this, right it. You know,
1:34:07
Speaker 1: right now it's baby bonds. I don't think this quite
1:34:10
Speaker 1: cuts it, although I can imagine now people will say, hey,
1:34:13
Speaker 1: you can use that money for childcare. Well you can't
1:34:16
Speaker 1: use it so you can't use it for a team yet,
1:34:19
Speaker 1: but you know it's coming.
1:34:20
Speaker 2: You can't. Yeah, maybe, But so on your childcare tax
1:34:23
Speaker 2: credit point, you know, we didn't have the votes on
1:34:25
Speaker 2: the Democratic caucus. You know, Mansion with against it. So
1:34:29
Speaker 2: and I think Cinema is too, So you know, we
1:34:31
Speaker 2: didn't have the votes. But I take you know, I
1:34:33
Speaker 2: take your point. It was real. I think that many
1:34:35
Speaker 2: of us were a little surprised by how little the
1:34:41
Speaker 2: public seemed to fight for it. You know, a lot
1:34:43
Speaker 2: of times when you get what I said a minute ago,
1:34:45
Speaker 2: when you provide people with a benefit like that, a
1:34:48
Speaker 2: lot of times taking it away.
1:34:49
Speaker 1: Is let me let me positive theory on that there. Sure,
1:34:54
Speaker 1: the childcare tax credit came just when the government was
1:34:57
Speaker 1: shoveling out other money too. Yeah, so people, and I
1:35:00
Speaker 1: don't know if they fully appreciated what was it probably.
1:35:03
Speaker 2: Became viewed as like another pandemic era things. So you're yeh,
1:35:08
Speaker 2: So look, I think giving one thousand dollars of seed
1:35:12
Speaker 2: money for what really is like an IRA account is
1:35:18
Speaker 2: a fine thing to do. I think the problem is
1:35:22
Speaker 2: that it's not at all targeted and that it will
1:35:26
Speaker 2: exacerbate intergenerational inequality. You're allowed to contribute, your family members
1:35:32
Speaker 2: are allowed to contribute five thousand dollars a year, tax
1:35:35
Speaker 2: free to to these funds. I think it's tax free. Obviously,
1:35:40
Speaker 2: the seed money you don't pay taxes on until you
1:35:42
Speaker 2: take it out. You can't touch it for eighteen years,
1:35:46
Speaker 2: and so who's going to be able to make those
1:35:48
Speaker 2: contributions Not low income people, high income people. So it's
1:35:52
Speaker 2: going to exacerbate inequality over the long run. And I
1:35:55
Speaker 2: think that's problematic. I would have targeted in a different way,
1:36:00
Speaker 2: so that instead of giving money to savers who are
1:36:02
Speaker 2: gonna save anyway, which you know, my kids are, your
1:36:06
Speaker 2: kids probably are, I'm targeted to families that don't have
1:36:09
Speaker 2: the resources to make that saving and add to it
1:36:12
Speaker 2: over time so that it can build.
1:36:16
Speaker 3: Uh.
1:36:16
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting to me. What the what the what
1:36:19
Speaker 1: the Dells did? They concentrated the donation by zip code.
1:36:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that is a much more targeted approach, and
1:36:27
Speaker 2: you know, I think a better one. I don't know
1:36:29
Speaker 2: that we can kind of you know, philanthropy to get
1:36:31
Speaker 2: us where we need to go on this.
1:36:32
Speaker 1: But well, and I'm curious of that. I find this
1:36:36
Speaker 1: to be really I'm gonna I can't. I'm really uncomfortable
1:36:40
Speaker 1: with the idea of government spending becoming a charitable gift.
1:36:45
Speaker 1: And I don't know how else to put it. I'm
1:36:48
Speaker 1: not I don't really. I can't sit here and say, well, jeezus,
1:36:52
Speaker 1: it's bad what the Dells are doing, or it was bad?
1:36:55
Speaker 1: What Who was it was it? Who who threw a
1:36:59
Speaker 1: money to pay the pay the military or to help contribute. Yeah,
1:37:05
Speaker 1: I think it was one of the melons. One of
1:37:08
Speaker 1: the melons did that, and you're like, well, I appreciate
1:37:11
Speaker 1: your patriotism, right, Like, I think that's great, But is
1:37:15
Speaker 1: that a habit the government should get into that day? Well,
1:37:18
Speaker 1: maybe they need a chair, they need a foundation to
1:37:21
Speaker 1: raise money for.
1:37:22
Speaker 2: So I mean, this is why we have a progressive
1:37:25
Speaker 2: income tax. So you can say, boy, cross my fingers.
1:37:29
Speaker 2: I hope there's some really generous patriots out there who
1:37:32
Speaker 2: will provide us help where we need it, like fund
1:37:34
Speaker 2: the military. Or you can say we're going to progressively
1:37:39
Speaker 2: tax people. If this economy delivered you billions hundreds of
1:37:43
Speaker 2: billions trillions, we're gonna, you know, definitely take some of
1:37:46
Speaker 2: that back and we're going to use it for things
1:37:48
Speaker 2: that the electric decides are uh, you know, the electric
1:37:53
Speaker 2: decides to they're elected officials, is what we want to
1:37:55
Speaker 2: spend money on. And you know that's how democracy works.
1:37:59
Speaker 2: So I don't like the idea of leaving it to
1:38:03
Speaker 2: the kindness of strange of stranger trillionaires to make up
1:38:08
Speaker 2: the difference. I think that's why we have taxes.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: Is if you're understanding that Dell's are going to get it,
1:38:13
Speaker 1: is this tax free their charitable donation.
1:38:16
Speaker 2: Is charitable deduction. Yeah, so this is it's a deduction
1:38:20
Speaker 2: that you deducted at your your time.
1:38:22
Speaker 1: Right fact, so how much? I mean, so that means
1:38:24
Speaker 1: you and I are subsidizing this charitable giving already.
1:38:27
Speaker 2: Correct, that's a great point, I mean, and you know
1:38:33
Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah, it's a lot of savings there for them.
1:38:36
Speaker 2: And look, you know a lot of people have come
1:38:38
Speaker 2: after the charitable deduction as a way to raise more revenue,
1:38:43
Speaker 2: and it never really seems to get anywhere. You know,
1:38:47
Speaker 2: maybe for good reason.
1:38:48
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a lot of but I thought Obama
1:38:50
Speaker 1: lowered it. Then he lowered the rate from down to
1:38:55
Speaker 1: I thought he lowered how much. You definitely remember trying
1:38:57
Speaker 1: to do so, okay, and it never happened. I didn't
1:39:00
Speaker 1: think we got there, but I could be misrememory. For
1:39:03
Speaker 1: some reason. I thought it went down from you know,
1:39:05
Speaker 1: twenty went to twenty you know, twenty eight set of three.
1:39:07
Speaker 2: Whenever we used to have revenue meetings, which we had
1:39:10
Speaker 2: all the time because we're desperately nu more, somebody would
1:39:13
Speaker 2: say can we move that? And you know, the next
1:39:16
Speaker 2: meeting higher up would come the answer, no, we can't.
1:39:19
Speaker 1: No, you can't. That's funny. Let me get you out
1:39:21
Speaker 1: of here. On the Chobcare tax credit, what would it
1:39:25
Speaker 1: take to make it permanent? And how would you pay
1:39:27
Speaker 1: for it?
1:39:28
Speaker 2: It's not it's not cheap. I think, yeah, I think
1:39:33
Speaker 2: if you're talking ten years, you're in the I think
1:39:37
Speaker 2: in the seven eight hundred billion range. I I know
1:39:41
Speaker 2: these numbers when I'm working on that stuff or not,
1:39:44
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna We're not gonna hold it you. I
1:39:45
Speaker 2: think that's the range. And when we obviously when we
1:39:52
Speaker 2: did it, it was deficit financed. And I don't know
1:39:56
Speaker 2: if you've seen any of my work on this, but
1:39:58
Speaker 2: I am a pretty much such a lifetime fiscal dove
1:40:02
Speaker 2: who's lately become a bit hawkish.
1:40:05
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're like, Okay, now you've everybody
1:40:08
Speaker 1: is that? You know, I've my entire adult life has
1:40:11
Speaker 1: you know? The sky's been falling when it comes to
1:40:13
Speaker 1: the debt. The guy's been falling. And it's people I trust,
1:40:17
Speaker 1: not just ideologues. Right, the guy's been falling. And somehow
1:40:20
Speaker 1: it turns out the Paul Krugman's of the world, and
1:40:24
Speaker 1: you know, those the fiscal doves like yourself, Well, no,
1:40:27
Speaker 1: our debt to GDP ratio can be higher, and we
1:40:29
Speaker 1: can do this, and we can do that, but you
1:40:33
Speaker 1: think we might be at the breaking point.
1:40:35
Speaker 2: I think I don't think we're at the breaking point,
1:40:37
Speaker 2: but I think we're at a level bun sustainability that
1:40:41
Speaker 2: is dangerously tempting a breaking point. And it's not even
1:40:43
Speaker 2: clear what a breaking point is. We have a sovereign
1:40:47
Speaker 2: currency that we print, so you know, it's not like
1:40:50
Speaker 2: we're going to have a list trust moment because our
1:40:53
Speaker 2: our our debt markets are so large and so liquid,
1:40:56
Speaker 2: and we have the dominant global currency and all that
1:40:59
Speaker 2: and the but the reason I flipped, and I've written
1:41:03
Speaker 2: extensively about this, including a New York Times bed that
1:41:07
Speaker 2: had a graphic in it that kind of explains this,
1:41:10
Speaker 2: is because interest rates are higher now. And I think
1:41:12
Speaker 2: the thing that people missed ol over all those years
1:41:14
Speaker 2: where they had their hair on fire is they just
1:41:16
Speaker 2: didn't recognize them. It's kind of right in front of you,
1:41:19
Speaker 2: how the real interest rate was so low, even negative
1:41:21
Speaker 2: in some cases, that we could HANDI le service our
1:41:24
Speaker 2: debt without breaking a sweat. But now the interest rate
1:41:26
Speaker 2: is higher, and my priors or that it's going to
1:41:29
Speaker 2: stay up. You don't know. That's an impossible variable to forecast.
1:41:33
Speaker 2: But this is again a hope for the best plan
1:41:35
Speaker 2: for the worst moment. So I wouldn't support a full
1:41:39
Speaker 2: out ten year expenditure six seven hundred billion for an
1:41:43
Speaker 2: extended child tax credit without a pay for. But those
1:41:47
Speaker 2: pay fors are readily available if you're willing to raise taxes,
1:41:51
Speaker 2: especially at the higher end. And in fact, in our
1:41:54
Speaker 2: budgets we did that, so you can actually go back
1:41:58
Speaker 2: and read how we finance a prominent extension of the
1:42:02
Speaker 2: childcare tax. And it may not have been quite as
1:42:04
Speaker 2: generous as what we had in the in the pandemic recession,
1:42:08
Speaker 2: but it was it was plenty generous.
1:42:10
Speaker 1: Is there any worry as an economist that, uh, that
1:42:15
Speaker 1: in some ways that it in the same way that
1:42:18
Speaker 1: the insurance companies, because they know as government subsidy is coming,
1:42:21
Speaker 1: they kind of frankly mess with the prices so they're
1:42:24
Speaker 1: able to, you know, make sure they get some profit
1:42:27
Speaker 1: and they know people are going to have a certain
1:42:28
Speaker 1: amount of money. Do you worry that that happens to
1:42:31
Speaker 1: the to the that basically child childcare becomes an industry
1:42:36
Speaker 1: if you will.
1:42:39
Speaker 2: Not so much with childcare. I just think that the
1:42:44
Speaker 2: this is all get slightly technical. For a second, childcare
1:42:48
Speaker 2: has a very high supply elasticity, meaning that if people
1:42:54
Speaker 2: wanted and they have the resources to get it, you
1:42:57
Speaker 2: start seeing childcare centers pop up. So the responsiveness of
1:43:01
Speaker 2: childcare production to demand is quite strong. And you know,
1:43:08
Speaker 2: so that flexible elasticity there is helpful such that if
1:43:12
Speaker 2: we were able to provide people the subsidies they need,
1:43:15
Speaker 2: and when we have in the past, we've seen this.
1:43:18
Speaker 2: I don't think you see, you know, particularly even medium
1:43:21
Speaker 2: term pressures on costs.
1:43:23
Speaker 1: Do you end up I'm going to get you out
1:43:24
Speaker 1: of here, but do you end up imagining that instead
1:43:27
Speaker 1: of a childcare tax credit, it becomes a what I
1:43:30
Speaker 1: would call a home care tax credit, because maybe you're
1:43:33
Speaker 1: taken care of an elderly parent.
1:43:36
Speaker 2: Well, that's certainly something Biden was interested in. You know.
1:43:38
Speaker 2: I tend to like the idea of not even a
1:43:41
Speaker 2: childcare tax credit, but a child tax credit. If you're
1:43:45
Speaker 2: raising kids, your life is you've done this. I've done
1:43:49
Speaker 2: If you're raising kids, even if you've got a decent income,
1:43:52
Speaker 2: your life is a lot more expensive. Childcare can cost.
1:43:56
Speaker 2: You know, twenty five hundred dollars a month easily. In
1:43:58
Speaker 2: an area like this, you.
1:44:00
Speaker 1: Be in favor of a tax code that essentially played
1:44:03
Speaker 1: favorites with for parents with kids at home.
1:44:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of those parents probably are in a
1:44:08
Speaker 2: Sandwich generation and if they want to use it for
1:44:10
Speaker 2: childcare or elder care, they could. But you know, I
1:44:13
Speaker 2: think a generous child tax credit that was targeted by
1:44:16
Speaker 2: the Way, which also helps keep the price down. I
1:44:18
Speaker 2: don't think we need to give it to you know,
1:44:20
Speaker 2: millionaires and billionaires.
1:44:22
Speaker 1: Jared, I'm gonna let you go. Where can people find
1:44:24
Speaker 1: your work? I know you've got a substack. Tell them
1:44:26
Speaker 1: where you're also, I think you're involved in a couple
1:44:28
Speaker 1: of things, so pitch away.
1:44:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I write. I write basically in three different places.
1:44:35
Speaker 2: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research seeper You can see
1:44:38
Speaker 2: my work up there. So I think Center for American Progress.
1:44:41
Speaker 2: We've recently put a housing report on housing affordability. You
1:44:44
Speaker 2: can find that up there. It's called Build Baby Build.
1:44:47
Speaker 2: But then almost you know, every couple of days, I
1:44:49
Speaker 2: write something on my substack, which is called Jared substack,
1:44:52
Speaker 2: and it's easy to find. So that's where you can
1:44:55
Speaker 2: read my stuff.
1:44:56
Speaker 1: Excellent. It's great to catch up. I miss a. You know,
1:44:59
Speaker 1: we're ah. We joked to we used to occasionally be
1:45:03
Speaker 1: in the same pick up basketball game, but yeah, you know,
1:45:06
Speaker 1: I think that's behind both of us. My friend, Yeah,
1:45:08
Speaker 1: father time. Father time has scared us away on that.
1:45:11
Speaker 1: That and you know, fear of middle aged injuries at
1:45:15
Speaker 1: this point.
1:45:16
Speaker 2: Good to catch up.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: Theared appreciate it well. Of course, in promoting my Monday podcast,
1:45:28
Speaker 1: I forgot about my favorite segment, which no, it's not
1:45:31
Speaker 1: ranting about the college football playoff. My favorite segment every Mondays.
1:45:34
Speaker 1: Of course, it's the podcast time Machine. My time machine
1:45:45
Speaker 1: actually takes me. It's fascinating. This week in December is
1:45:50
Speaker 1: the anniversary of two key events that triggered two things,
1:45:56
Speaker 1: the growth of China and massive political realignment in the
1:46:01
Speaker 1: United States. So let's go through it. We're gonna step
1:46:04
Speaker 1: in the times that we're traveling through three different Decembers
1:46:07
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, two thousand and one, and the December
1:46:11
Speaker 1: we're living in right now, December twenty twenty five. And
1:46:14
Speaker 1: it's three moments that, when you take them all together,
1:46:17
Speaker 1: tell the story of how the United States made a
1:46:18
Speaker 1: monumental bet on China, and how we are now quietly
1:46:21
Speaker 1: admitting that the bet didn't pay off the way we expected.
1:46:25
Speaker 1: And believe it or not, it's a story that begins
1:46:27
Speaker 1: with optimism, it passes through triumpolism, and ends with realism
1:46:32
Speaker 1: and maybe even resignation. Let's start in December nineteen seventy eight,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: this week where Jimmy Carter and Dng Chaoping announced the
1:46:40
Speaker 1: normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the
1:46:43
Speaker 1: People's Republic of China. The formal switch from Taipei to
1:46:47
Speaker 1: Beijing became official on January first of that year, but
1:46:51
Speaker 1: we announced it in this week in December nineteen seventy eight.
1:46:57
Speaker 1: On paper, this was a Cold war realignment decision practice,
1:47:01
Speaker 1: it was the moment the United States decided it could
1:47:03
Speaker 1: shape China's future by opening the door. But it was
1:47:08
Speaker 1: not some Kumbaya moment. The reactions at the time were
1:47:11
Speaker 1: all over the political map. The Republican realists the kit
1:47:14
Speaker 1: at that time. It was the Kissinger Scowcroft branch of
1:47:17
Speaker 1: the Republican Party applauded the move. Kissinger called the normalization
1:47:21
Speaker 1: quote an historic step toward a stable war. This wing
1:47:26
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party sought as a three dimensional chess
1:47:28
Speaker 1: play bring China closer to Washington as a way to
1:47:31
Speaker 1: check Moscow. Meanwhile, the Conservative Hawks were furious. Barry Goldwater
1:47:38
Speaker 1: said Carter had quote abandoned a trusted ally in Taiwan
1:47:41
Speaker 1: with hardly a second thought. Ronald Reagan, who was not
1:47:44
Speaker 1: yet the nominee for the Republican Party but already the
1:47:46
Speaker 1: ideological leader of this part of the conservative movement, accused
1:47:50
Speaker 1: Carter of quote selling out our friends for a theory
1:47:53
Speaker 1: of diplomacy. Then you had the democratic left, especially the
1:47:57
Speaker 1: human rights advocates, and Carter's own human rights chief privately
1:48:02
Speaker 1: warned that the move sent a message that quote human
1:48:04
Speaker 1: rights is negotiable when great powers are involved. The Congressional
1:48:08
Speaker 1: Black Caucus publicly asked why human rights were the centerpiece
1:48:11
Speaker 1: of US policy towards Latin America and South Africa, but
1:48:14
Speaker 1: not Beijing. And then there was the business community. How
1:48:17
Speaker 1: do you think they reacted? They were ecstatic. GM, Boeing
1:48:22
Speaker 1: and ge all launched internal studies immediately. Executive memos from
1:48:26
Speaker 1: the time read like prospectuses for the next gold rush.
1:48:30
Speaker 1: One Fortune five hundred CEO told The Washington Post at
1:48:32
Speaker 1: that time, China is the last great untapped market on Earth.
1:48:35
Speaker 1: We need to be there before the Europeans get there again.
1:48:38
Speaker 1: This was America December nineteen seventy eight, So in nineteen
1:48:43
Speaker 1: seventy eight you can already see the outlines of the
1:48:44
Speaker 1: emerging coalition foreign policy realists plus Wall Street plus ex
1:48:49
Speaker 1: borders on one side, ideologues, human rights actiatists, activists and
1:48:53
Speaker 1: manufacturing workers on the other. The beginning of a realignment
1:48:57
Speaker 1: right normalization wasn't the beginning of a debate about China, though.
1:49:01
Speaker 1: It was the beginning of an American consensus about China.
1:49:04
Speaker 1: And this was the consensus that was wrong. We now
1:49:08
Speaker 1: admit that we were wrong, but everybody seemed to believe
1:49:11
Speaker 1: it at the time, and the consensus was that engagement
1:49:14
Speaker 1: would moderate Beijing, reform its economy, and eventually soften its politics. Essentially,
1:49:20
Speaker 1: democracy would come with economic freedom. It's a great theory,
1:49:24
Speaker 1: and for a while it seemed like it could work.
1:49:29
Speaker 1: Then let's fast forward to another December Anniversary, twenty three
1:49:33
Speaker 1: years later. This is December eleventh, two thousand and one,
1:49:36
Speaker 1: China officially joins the World Trade Organization. This is probably
1:49:40
Speaker 1: the biggest hinge moment of modern globalization, and it's backed
1:49:44
Speaker 1: by another wave of bipartisan optimism. Bill Clinton, who negotiated
1:49:48
Speaker 1: the terms in his final year in office, had said
1:49:50
Speaker 1: earlier about China joining the WTO. Quote. By joining the WTO,
1:49:55
Speaker 1: China's agreed to play by the same global rules. This
1:49:59
Speaker 1: is a win for America. George W. Bush, who inherited
1:50:02
Speaker 1: the process, echoed the thought. He said, quote, A China
1:50:06
Speaker 1: that plays by the rules is a China that contributes
1:50:08
Speaker 1: to stability. So when you hear people talk about the uniparty,
1:50:13
Speaker 1: it was on topics like this that there was kind
1:50:16
Speaker 1: of a unified theory from the center left in the
1:50:19
Speaker 1: center right on all things China. Even Al Gore made
1:50:22
Speaker 1: the argument on the two thousand campaign trail. He said
1:50:25
Speaker 1: trade with China encourages openess, transparency, and reform. Well, in retrospect,
1:50:30
Speaker 1: what's striking isn't that Democrats and Republicans agreed on China
1:50:33
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one. It's how completely they agreed.
1:50:36
Speaker 1: There was really no there wasn't there was no debate
1:50:40
Speaker 1: about this. This is were a lot of things Bush
1:50:43
Speaker 1: and Gore agreed upon. Right, it was always the funniest election,
1:50:46
Speaker 1: Like there was a reason I always thought that election
1:50:48
Speaker 1: was essentially a tie because neither one of them made
1:50:52
Speaker 1: the case for why the other was wrong, because they
1:50:54
Speaker 1: kind of said, hey, I agree with him, so vote
1:50:57
Speaker 1: for May anyway. There are still some politics over this.
1:51:01
Speaker 1: The two thousand debate over Permanent Normal Trade Relations P
1:51:04
Speaker 1: and TR was a pretty fierce domestic fight during the
1:51:07
Speaker 1: Clinton years. A Flcio accused the administration of giving away
1:51:10
Speaker 1: the future of American manufacturing. Pap Ucanan called the wto
1:51:14
Speaker 1: vote the greatest surrender of American economic sovereignty in our history.
1:51:18
Speaker 1: So again, it's almost like the Sanders wing and the
1:51:20
Speaker 1: Trump wing. Right. Nancy Pelosi, she wasn't speaker at the
1:51:24
Speaker 1: time she voted against China P and TR. Bertie Sanders
1:51:27
Speaker 1: warned he was then just a house member, a socialist,
1:51:32
Speaker 1: but a house member from Vermont. He said, corporate America
1:51:34
Speaker 1: may profit, but American workers will suffer. He wasn't alone,
1:51:38
Speaker 1: Dick Epart then the Congressional Democratic leader Jesse Jackson. Much
1:51:42
Speaker 1: of the Democratic base did oppose it, so did a
1:51:45
Speaker 1: chunk of the Republican populous wing, very much more of
1:51:47
Speaker 1: the pap Buchanan crowd, But the corporate coalition was overwhelming
1:51:51
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Big AG, big retail manufacturers were
1:51:56
Speaker 1: looking for low cost labor. Everybody saw China as an
1:51:58
Speaker 1: economic accelerate. And here's where hindsight is pretty clarifying. We
1:52:03
Speaker 1: often talked about China Shock, the wave of job losses
1:52:06
Speaker 1: that hit industrial communities into two thousands, But what we
1:52:08
Speaker 1: don't talk about enough is how bipartisan this decision was
1:52:11
Speaker 1: that allowed that shock to happen. It was left and right.
1:52:15
Speaker 1: When China joined the WTO, the United States entered the
1:52:18
Speaker 1: era of the China Price, the idea that everything steel, electronics, furniture, toys,
1:52:22
Speaker 1: clothing would be cheaper if it came from China. Consumers
1:52:26
Speaker 1: loved it, investors loved it, retailers loved it. But the
1:52:32
Speaker 1: political bill that would come due about a decade later.
1:52:38
Speaker 1: And this is where the two thousand election becomes such
1:52:40
Speaker 1: an important pivot point. I think in this story because
1:52:43
Speaker 1: it's the last time both presidential nominees fully embraced the
1:52:46
Speaker 1: same form policy worldview. George W. Bush and al Gore.
1:52:50
Speaker 1: They disagreed on taxes on the Social Security lock box.
1:52:55
Speaker 1: That's the best Al Go or I can do in
1:52:57
Speaker 1: a lock box. And they disagreed on a few other things,
1:53:02
Speaker 1: but on China, they spoke with the same vocabulary. Bush
1:53:05
Speaker 1: said during the campaign, the best way to encourage freedom
1:53:07
Speaker 1: in China has to engaged China. Gore said, we benefit
1:53:10
Speaker 1: when China follows global rules and trade. Both supported normalization,
1:53:14
Speaker 1: both supported P and TR, both supported China and the
1:53:16
Speaker 1: wto Now. Bush took a tougher rhetorical line on China,
1:53:21
Speaker 1: called China quote a strategic competitor, not a strategic partner. Ah,
1:53:25
Speaker 1: but that was tone now policy. Bush backed the same
1:53:28
Speaker 1: trade approach that Clinton did, and Gore paid a political
1:53:31
Speaker 1: price for embracing that consensus. Union leaders told them directly
1:53:34
Speaker 1: China P and TR was the final betrayal of Clintonism.
1:53:38
Speaker 1: Midwestern workers didn't hear rules based trade system. They simply
1:53:41
Speaker 1: heard factory moving to Guangzhou. The irony is at the
1:53:46
Speaker 1: political base that would later revolt against globalization. The Trump
1:53:50
Speaker 1: burning populist alignment was warning about it in real time,
1:53:53
Speaker 1: but in two thousand, neither movement was big enough in
1:53:57
Speaker 1: either party to make either one of them. A little
1:54:00
Speaker 1: bit of Nator talking about it as a third party candidate,
1:54:02
Speaker 1: a little bit of Buchanan talking about it as a
1:54:04
Speaker 1: third party candidate, but they got about one or two
1:54:06
Speaker 1: percent total. So when China joined the WTO in December
1:54:10
Speaker 1: twenty one, it wasn't a partisan victory. It was the
1:54:13
Speaker 1: last gas, but the uniparty consensus unfeigned policy, the belief
1:54:17
Speaker 1: that engaging China will liberalize China, not transform America. History,
1:54:22
Speaker 1: of course, had other plans. So I this is the
1:54:27
Speaker 1: point of our story where we ought to talk about
1:54:29
Speaker 1: the thought experiment here, what if the United States had
1:54:32
Speaker 1: blocked China's WTO and tree? Okay, Well, economists who studied
1:54:37
Speaker 1: the counterfactor'll say two things. China still probably becomes a
1:54:40
Speaker 1: manufacturing superpower, just more gradually and probably more dependent on
1:54:44
Speaker 1: Europe and Japan. The United States still loses industrial jobs
1:54:47
Speaker 1: because that trend began in the nineteen nineties, five years
1:54:50
Speaker 1: before the WTO extension for China. So what probably changes
1:54:58
Speaker 1: simply pace, not trajectory. I have twenty ten factory to
1:55:01
Speaker 1: the world probably still exists. The political shockwaves in places
1:55:05
Speaker 1: like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Maybe they're softened a little, or
1:55:08
Speaker 1: they're delayed, but they land, and maybe the populist backlash
1:55:13
Speaker 1: arrives in say the midterms of twenty eighteen rather than
1:55:18
Speaker 1: in twenty ten, or maybe the backlash happens anyway, because
1:55:21
Speaker 1: globalization was going to be bigger than any single vote.
1:55:24
Speaker 1: The point is is that it's probably not clear that
1:55:30
Speaker 1: anything was going to stop the rise of China, which
1:55:33
Speaker 1: is always the argument the realists make. So the question
1:55:37
Speaker 1: was can we shape China? So here we are in
1:55:40
Speaker 1: the present moment. I opened this podcast talking about the
1:55:45
Speaker 1: National Security Strategy Memo that was just released by this administration.
1:55:50
Speaker 1: And this is the first US government document that clearly
1:55:55
Speaker 1: admits the fifty year bet on China didn't work out
1:55:58
Speaker 1: as expected. Does not call for a new Cold War,
1:56:01
Speaker 1: It does not frame China as an ideological enemy. It
1:56:04
Speaker 1: does not talk about containing China or transforming China. Instead,
1:56:08
Speaker 1: the through line of this Trump Security Strategy Memo is simple,
1:56:12
Speaker 1: China's a permanent strategic rival. We are not trying to
1:56:16
Speaker 1: hold China back anymore. We are going to try to
1:56:19
Speaker 1: strengthen ourselves and compete with China. The seventy eight bet
1:56:24
Speaker 1: was that opening China will shape China. The two thousand
1:56:27
Speaker 1: and one bet was that integrating China will moderate China.
1:56:31
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty five memo now basically says China is
1:56:34
Speaker 1: now fully integrated, fully powerful, fully assertive, and the task
1:56:38
Speaker 1: is now to compete with it, not to change it. Essentially,
1:56:42
Speaker 1: we're surrendering. So you see these themes throughout the document itself.
1:56:46
Speaker 1: Rebuilding the US industrial base, securing supply chains, investing in
1:56:49
Speaker 1: American technology, the decoupling, if you will, stabilizing relations without illusions,
1:56:54
Speaker 1: preparing for long term competition. It's not full disengagement. It
1:56:59
Speaker 1: seems to be just simply acceptance, strategic acceptance. The United
1:57:05
Speaker 1: States finally acknowledging the reality shaped by decisions made in
1:57:08
Speaker 1: those two earlier decembers. Carter in nineteen seventy eight, which
1:57:14
Speaker 1: of course was preceded by Nixon going to China right again,
1:57:17
Speaker 1: a bipartisan move, and then China and the wto begun
1:57:23
Speaker 1: by Clinton, executed and finished by Bush. So in seventy eight,
1:57:29
Speaker 1: the US made a geopolitical bet that engaging China will
1:57:31
Speaker 1: help win the Cold War and encourage reform in Beijing.
1:57:35
Speaker 1: Arguably it might have done that right. We might have
1:57:38
Speaker 1: helping separate China might have made Russia's the Soviets life
1:57:44
Speaker 1: a little more challenging, so that we can't say That
1:57:47
Speaker 1: bet didn't work, since we did win the Cold War
1:57:51
Speaker 1: against the Soviets. But by two thousand and one, the
1:57:54
Speaker 1: United States made an economic bet that integrating China into
1:57:57
Speaker 1: the global trading system would expand global prosperity and lock
1:58:00
Speaker 1: China in to a rules based world where they might
1:58:06
Speaker 1: start to become small d democratic. Well, both bets did
1:58:10
Speaker 1: reshape China, but boy did they reshape the United States.
1:58:14
Speaker 1: They reshaped us economically, politically, and socially. And here we
1:58:18
Speaker 1: are in December of twenty twenty five. The question now
1:58:21
Speaker 1: is not how we are going to change China confront China.
1:58:25
Speaker 1: It is simply, now, how do we compete with China?
1:58:28
Speaker 1: So we helped create China, we helped bring upon this competitor,
1:58:34
Speaker 1: and now we're surrendering and hoping we can just stay
1:58:38
Speaker 1: competitive with the new manufacturing King of a Hill, China.
1:58:46
Speaker 1: There's your time machine time capsule of the week. All right,
1:59:00
Speaker 1: let me sneak at a few questions before I get
1:59:01
Speaker 1: to college football. Ask Chuck all right, first question comes
1:59:08
Speaker 1: from Shane H from Des Moines. I always says, hey, Chuck,
1:59:11
Speaker 1: congrats and Miami making the CFP head to head should
1:59:13
Speaker 1: always count. I'm curious about the Iowa Democrats hesitancy to
1:59:16
Speaker 1: push for first in the Nation status again, give them
1:59:19
Speaker 1: the state's accessibility and engaged voters. Wouldn't it make more
1:59:21
Speaker 1: sense for both parties to go along, go all in
1:59:23
Speaker 1: together rather than play it safe. Also, could you someday
1:59:26
Speaker 1: explain how Obama's influence reshaped or damaged the DNC beyond
1:59:29
Speaker 1: just backing Hillary. Shane H. Des moines, Iowa, Look, it is,
1:59:34
Speaker 1: there is this. I don't have a good answer on why. Well,
1:59:43
Speaker 1: I could tell you why the National Democrats don't want
1:59:45
Speaker 1: to be in Iowa. Right. There's first of all, one
1:59:48
Speaker 1: is they don't they believe the base of the party
1:59:51
Speaker 1: is not there's no parts of the base of the
1:59:54
Speaker 1: party in Iowa. You know, Well, that's a choice, right,
2:00:00
Speaker 1: choose to believe that. But there is a sense that
2:00:03
Speaker 1: Iowa doesn't look like what Democratic leaders think the Democratic
2:00:06
Speaker 1: Party looks like. But I would argue that's been part
2:00:09
Speaker 1: of the problem is that the Democrats have been looking
2:00:12
Speaker 1: at organizing their party through the through the prism of
2:00:17
Speaker 1: identity rather than the prism of ideology or policy or
2:00:24
Speaker 1: frankly realism. Given you know, if I were looking at
2:00:30
Speaker 1: the problem the Democratic Party as it's communicating with rural America.
2:00:34
Speaker 1: I'd look around and say, what's the best way to
2:00:36
Speaker 1: do that. When's the last time Democrats did well in
2:00:39
Speaker 1: the industrial Midwest and the agriculture Midwest. Oh, when Iowa
2:00:42
Speaker 1: was first in the nation and a guy named Barack
2:00:44
Speaker 1: Obama who was from the Midwest. Mind you always thought
2:00:48
Speaker 1: that people underestimated the fact that being from the Midwest
2:00:51
Speaker 1: was such an asset to him. You know, it's not
2:00:55
Speaker 1: lost on me that the coastal nominees have been have
2:00:58
Speaker 1: been the losers right right Delaware on the Atlantic coast.
2:01:03
Speaker 1: You know, he won, but then it couldn't survive. Kamala
2:01:06
Speaker 1: Harris coastal, John Kerry coastal. Hillary Clinton identifying as a
2:01:11
Speaker 1: New Yorker coastal she'd have been better off going to
2:01:15
Speaker 1: Illinois to run for office in which is her original
2:01:19
Speaker 1: home state. So I think the whole coastal elite issue,
2:01:24
Speaker 1: I think is a real issue. You know, you look
2:01:27
Speaker 1: at Bill Clinton deep south Arkansas. You look at Barack
2:01:30
Speaker 1: Obama right in the middle of the country in the
2:01:32
Speaker 1: Midwest in Illinois. Look at a Jimmy Carter deep South Georgia.
2:01:39
Speaker 1: I don't think those things are accidents. You look at
2:01:42
Speaker 1: a guy like Pete Bootage getting traction again a Midwesterner.
2:01:45
Speaker 1: So I don't if you don't want to do Iowa
2:01:52
Speaker 1: because you don't like the caucus process. And I do
2:01:54
Speaker 1: think this is a tactical and mechanical critique, if you will,
2:01:58
Speaker 1: Because to psychic in a row, the Iowa Democrats couldn't
2:02:01
Speaker 1: tell us who won the Iowa caucuses. So I do
2:02:04
Speaker 1: think that was a fair demerit. But just abandoning the
2:02:07
Speaker 1: Midwest as first in the nation, I think it's been
2:02:09
Speaker 1: a mistake. So if you're not going to do Iowa, fine,
2:02:12
Speaker 1: do Nebraska, do Kansas, but pick a small rural state
2:02:15
Speaker 1: in the Midwest. Just if you can't figure that out,
2:02:18
Speaker 1: you're not going to be competitive long term for the presidency.
2:02:24
Speaker 1: I don't think rural southern voters are the way in.
2:02:26
Speaker 1: I think you begin in the rural Midwest. That's where
2:02:30
Speaker 1: you're not going to fully get rejected. And ask for
2:02:34
Speaker 1: your question about the DNC. They didn't prop up the
2:02:38
Speaker 1: DNC at all when they first came in. This is yes,
2:02:40
Speaker 1: you are referring to what I think the original sin
2:02:44
Speaker 1: of Obama endorsing Hillary in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,
2:02:48
Speaker 1: which was sort of not realizing that that isn't where
2:02:50
Speaker 1: half the party wanted to go. But when it comes
2:02:53
Speaker 1: to the DNC and the sort of party in general,
2:02:56
Speaker 1: you know, they refuse to sort of build the DNC
2:02:58
Speaker 1: at first. They sort of built an alternative to the
2:03:01
Speaker 1: DNC called Organizing for America, and you know, and I
2:03:05
Speaker 1: think it was unfortunately. I think he was surrounded by
2:03:08
Speaker 1: advisors who were who weren't big fans of the DNC,
2:03:11
Speaker 1: and the DNC in O eight was quietly helping Hillary right,
2:03:16
Speaker 1: she was sort of more of the party stalwart. Obama
2:03:19
Speaker 1: and his team were the outsiders. And I think the
2:03:23
Speaker 1: and I think the belief and the brand of outsider
2:03:30
Speaker 1: that team Obama wanted to keep even while they got
2:03:33
Speaker 1: to the White House, seemed to convince them that they
2:03:37
Speaker 1: ought to build their own national political organization. And they
2:03:43
Speaker 1: basically what was ofa right, what was Obama for America
2:03:46
Speaker 1: became Organizing for America and it was housed within the DNC.
2:03:50
Speaker 1: But all of the resources, all of the efforts went
2:03:53
Speaker 1: to that it didn't really work, It didn't become the
2:03:56
Speaker 1: powerful political organization to help support his agenda, which is
2:03:59
Speaker 1: what it was pitched as that this was going to
2:04:02
Speaker 1: be the continuation of the Obama movement and these people
2:04:05
Speaker 1: would get engaged when he was trying to, you know,
2:04:07
Speaker 1: do big things past big pieces of legislation, whether it's healthcare,
2:04:11
Speaker 1: whether it has to do the environment, etc. That didn't
2:04:14
Speaker 1: really work out so well. And then by the time,
2:04:17
Speaker 1: you know, the problem was the DNC is just a vehicle.
2:04:22
Speaker 1: They kind of starved that vehicle, and of course starving
2:04:26
Speaker 1: that vehicle meant very few resources to the states. Well
2:04:30
Speaker 1: what happened by twenty ten? They get wiped out of
2:04:32
Speaker 1: the state legislatures by twenty What does that mean? Republicans
2:04:36
Speaker 1: basically control redistricting for a decade and a half. Only
2:04:41
Speaker 1: recently have Democrats started to make up ground back in
2:04:45
Speaker 1: these state legislatures. So I do think that the Obama
2:04:48
Speaker 1: folks that came into the first term of that Obama
2:04:51
Speaker 1: White House were determined to build their own political structure,
2:04:54
Speaker 1: their own organization sort of push aside the DNC, and
2:04:58
Speaker 1: it just turned out to be a logistic mistake. Look,
2:05:01
Speaker 1: the DNC, you make it whatever you are. But this
2:05:03
Speaker 1: idea they thought they were going to be elected president
2:05:05
Speaker 1: and be an outsider in the Democratic Party. Once you've
2:05:08
Speaker 1: become president, you've become leader of the party. You need
2:05:13
Speaker 1: to accept that role. And I would argue for a
2:05:15
Speaker 1: couple of years they didn't accept that role. They accept
2:05:17
Speaker 1: that they were leader of the free world. They accept
2:05:19
Speaker 1: that they were president of the United States, and they
2:05:20
Speaker 1: accepted that they were the biggest brand inside the Democratic coalition.
2:05:26
Speaker 1: But there were a lot of people whispering in Obama's
2:05:28
Speaker 1: ear that, hey, your brand and coalition's bigger than one party,
2:05:31
Speaker 1: So don't get too caught up in the DNC politics.
2:05:36
Speaker 1: And there's certainly some bureaucracy that comes with that, But
2:05:40
Speaker 1: that's what I mean when I you know, and sort
2:05:42
Speaker 1: of that attitude just sort of gutted the sort of
2:05:46
Speaker 1: infrastructure of the Democratic Party, both on the state level
2:05:49
Speaker 1: and on the national level, and it allowed it to
2:05:51
Speaker 1: atrophy for a good cycle or two. And it really
2:05:55
Speaker 1: you know, Hillary Clinton threw more money at it in sixteen,
2:05:58
Speaker 1: Joe Biden tried to throw more money at it in twenty.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: But I would argue that the reason it feels like
2:06:04
Speaker 1: a weak link even today goes back to that initial
2:06:08
Speaker 1: decision in twenty oh nine, when the team Obama came
2:06:10
Speaker 1: in on this big frankly now looks like a landslide
2:06:14
Speaker 1: compared to presidential elections. The couple we had before and
2:06:17
Speaker 1: quite a few that we've had after, and they didn't
2:06:21
Speaker 1: They didn't decide to build rebuild the Democratic Party in
2:06:25
Speaker 1: their image. They instead wanted to build their own sort
2:06:28
Speaker 1: of alternative independent committee in their own image. But by
2:06:33
Speaker 1: doing that they starved the party itself of resources. All right,
2:06:39
Speaker 1: let me sneak in. I give you it was not
2:06:42
Speaker 1: a long question, but I gave you a couple of
2:06:44
Speaker 1: long answers there. Next question comes from Patrick from the
2:06:46
Speaker 1: Hague by way of Hertford, Connecticut. He says, and he says, Chuck,
2:06:50
Speaker 1: really appreciate the clarity and sharp analysis you bring to
2:06:52
Speaker 1: every episode. It's become my go to listen. Excellent. Hopefully
2:06:55
Speaker 1: I've got you worried about college football, not too. I've
2:06:58
Speaker 1: heard people say that Kamala Harris might actually make a
2:07:00
Speaker 1: stronger Supreme Court justice than President. I've been one of
2:07:03
Speaker 1: those people, and it got me thinking if one branch
2:07:05
Speaker 1: of government could draft a member from another, who would
2:07:08
Speaker 1: be the best fit, Which current justice would make a
2:07:10
Speaker 1: great member of Congress and while plenty of members of
2:07:12
Speaker 1: Congress move into the executive branch, what about the reverse
2:07:15
Speaker 1: one are Elizabeth Warren's path to elected office? Curious to
2:07:18
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts. I think that's a fun exercise of
2:07:23
Speaker 1: who would be a good you know. I think John
2:07:27
Speaker 1: Roberts might be a pretty good Senate leader. He seems
2:07:32
Speaker 1: to be pretty good at sort of dealing with you know,
2:07:35
Speaker 1: probably a Senate Republican leader, pretty good at dealing with
2:07:38
Speaker 1: the ideological diversity of the rights, tries to create a consensus, right,
2:07:44
Speaker 1: if you know. I think I think in some ways
2:07:47
Speaker 1: he might be better as Senate Republican leader than he
2:07:49
Speaker 1: is as Chief Justice on that front, but I think
2:07:52
Speaker 1: he's definitely got a little bit of that skill set.
2:07:57
Speaker 1: I think Sonya Sotomayor would be a pretty good party leader.
2:08:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if she would be a good legislative leader.
2:08:03
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference, right, but I think she
2:08:06
Speaker 1: speaks with a lot of clarity, she speaks with a
2:08:09
Speaker 1: lot of passion, So I think sort of almost as
2:08:14
Speaker 1: a in that sense, I think you would see that
2:08:19
Speaker 1: the reason I'll tell you my theory of why I've
2:08:21
Speaker 1: always thought Kamala Harris won't. Frankly, probably, I think the
2:08:25
Speaker 1: first dream job. You know, if you talk about you
2:08:27
Speaker 1: get into politics, what are your dream jobs. I'm convinced
2:08:31
Speaker 1: her first dream job was not president, that it was
2:08:33
Speaker 1: either attorney general or Supreme Court. Why do I say
2:08:35
Speaker 1: that because the first office she chose to run for
2:08:38
Speaker 1: was prosecutor. You know, usually our want to be presidents.
2:08:42
Speaker 1: They're running, they're trying to fast track their way to Congress.
2:08:45
Speaker 1: Running for DA in San Francisco is not a fast
2:08:48
Speaker 1: track to Congress. That wasn't somebody that was her where
2:08:52
Speaker 1: whose first goal was to get to Washington. Usually my
2:08:56
Speaker 1: presidential wanta be is their first goal is to kit
2:08:58
Speaker 1: to Washington. However, long at Dates right, and that wasn't
2:09:02
Speaker 1: her first goal, even as she went to school here
2:09:04
Speaker 1: in DC at Howard Right. So I've always looked at
2:09:07
Speaker 1: that and wondered, huh, I think and I buy it.
2:09:10
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think it's it's BS. I do
2:09:12
Speaker 1: think she's animated by the law. I think she's animated
2:09:14
Speaker 1: by these things. And I think somebody whispered in her
2:09:19
Speaker 1: ear sometime, you know, when she got talked into it,
2:09:21
Speaker 1: because look at the next office she runs for. It
2:09:23
Speaker 1: from DA. She runs for attorney General, right, she doesn't
2:09:26
Speaker 1: immediately go to US Senate or something like that, and
2:09:29
Speaker 1: then she gets you know, she runs for the Senate
2:09:31
Speaker 1: seat when it opens up, and somebody whispers in her ear,
2:09:35
Speaker 1: you know, you could be the first woman president. And
2:09:36
Speaker 1: I don't think, look, anybody, any human being, we all
2:09:40
Speaker 1: have a little bit of ego. Somebody whispers that in
2:09:42
Speaker 1: your ear, and it's plausible. Maybe you don't stop hearing it. Right,
2:09:47
Speaker 1: So that's where I've always come down on that. But look,
2:09:53
Speaker 1: I think I think James Langford would make a really
2:09:55
Speaker 1: good you know, if you're looking at like and I'll
2:09:58
Speaker 1: be honest, I think we need an a life that
2:10:00
Speaker 1: somebody who's run for office before ought to be in
2:10:03
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, I think it's terrible that we haven't
2:10:05
Speaker 1: had anybody. I think you need that diversity of understanding
2:10:09
Speaker 1: that your rulings are going to play in the campaign trail.
2:10:12
Speaker 1: Sandrade O'Connor, I believe the last Supreme Court justice that
2:10:16
Speaker 1: ever ran that ever ran for office for anything, she
2:10:19
Speaker 1: ran for a state Senate seat in Arizona. I think
2:10:23
Speaker 1: that you know, what used to be fairly common for
2:10:26
Speaker 1: elected officials to get appointed to the Supreme Court, Bill Clinton,
2:10:32
Speaker 1: I think with semi serious in putting Mario Cuomo in
2:10:35
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, I think I don't. I think in
2:10:38
Speaker 1: my guess is Mario Cuomo wished to see had said yes,
2:10:41
Speaker 1: considering he said no, ran for re election and loss,
2:10:44
Speaker 1: but that would have been interesting. Bruce Babbitt was another
2:10:48
Speaker 1: one that he wanted to put there. The point is
2:10:50
Speaker 1: is that there's only so much you understand about how
2:10:53
Speaker 1: illegal ruling impacts their everyday lives of Americans. I think
2:10:58
Speaker 1: too many of these justices go from law school to
2:11:02
Speaker 1: a corporate you know, maybe law firm, maybe a clerkship,
2:11:06
Speaker 1: a judge's chambers, but they don't sort of interact with
2:11:10
Speaker 1: people as much. And I think having somebody on that
2:11:16
Speaker 1: court that has done that, I think would be I'd
2:11:20
Speaker 1: like more than just one person. But we don't even
2:11:22
Speaker 1: have one person on that and that's something that I
2:11:26
Speaker 1: think is missing. But I look at some of these
2:11:28
Speaker 1: elected officials, like I said, on the conservative side of
2:11:31
Speaker 1: the O, I think James Langford would make a fascinating
2:11:33
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. But I look for I'm looking for people
2:11:36
Speaker 1: who are intellects with a little bit of personal humility.
2:11:39
Speaker 1: So I want people like Jack Reid, Jim Langford, right,
2:11:43
Speaker 1: people like that, not the loud mouse. If you will,
2:11:47
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't, I don't think. I think Ted Cruz
2:11:49
Speaker 1: intellectually would be interesting on the Supreme Court, but I
2:11:52
Speaker 1: think he would feel I think he would hate the
2:11:54
Speaker 1: job because of his inability to speak out right. I
2:11:57
Speaker 1: think that used to bother Skille a little bit. I
2:11:59
Speaker 1: think to speak out more, I think it bothers so
2:12:01
Speaker 1: to my or, she strikes me as somebody that would
2:12:04
Speaker 1: love to be speaking out more, but feels that the
2:12:07
Speaker 1: pageantry of the office itself doesn't call for I'd love
2:12:12
Speaker 1: to do a little bit more on your question down
2:12:14
Speaker 1: the road. Maybe you can come back with me with
2:12:16
Speaker 1: a few more of the fantasy sort of fantasy football
2:12:19
Speaker 1: politics questions like that. All right, one last question and
2:12:23
Speaker 1: then we'll get to my college football round up. Long
2:12:25
Speaker 1: time listener here in your podcast always reminds me of
2:12:27
Speaker 1: how much I enjoyed political science classes. Well great In
2:12:30
Speaker 1: New Jersey, the party controlled county line was eliminated in
2:12:33
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four after a lawsuit by now Senator Andy Kim,
2:12:36
Speaker 1: aiming to reduce the influence of party bosses. Given the
2:12:39
Speaker 1: lack of an open Democratic primary in twenty twenty four,
2:12:41
Speaker 1: do you think this could mark the beginning of a
2:12:42
Speaker 1: broader shift towards fair, less party driven primary voting. Ghost
2:12:45
Speaker 1: Scarlett Knights, John Feldman, Well, John, I have a conversation
2:12:50
Speaker 1: coming up here with the a gentleman named Nick Troyano.
2:12:54
Speaker 1: It's not this Episode's coming up in the next couple
2:12:55
Speaker 1: of episodes, and he's working on essentially get he believes.
2:12:59
Speaker 1: He wrote a book called The Primary Problem, and he
2:13:02
Speaker 1: believes that partisan primaries are at the root or the
2:13:05
Speaker 1: root cause of our polarization. They're the root cause of
2:13:07
Speaker 1: our inability for Congress to get anything done, and that
2:13:11
Speaker 1: if we can eliminate the partisan primary in general, forget
2:13:14
Speaker 1: this counting line business and all this stuff, we would
2:13:17
Speaker 1: be in better shape. I can. I am very empathetic
2:13:21
Speaker 1: to this. I would love to get rid of partisan primaries.
2:13:23
Speaker 1: I would like all party primaries. I'd like to see
2:13:26
Speaker 1: that now I want to see I think parties should
2:13:28
Speaker 1: still identify themselves. But I think it's weird that the
2:13:33
Speaker 1: taxpayers pay for an election that the only way I
2:13:35
Speaker 1: can participate in that election in a certain in some
2:13:38
Speaker 1: states is to join some private organization that to me
2:13:41
Speaker 1: strikes me as a poll tax and a violation of
2:13:44
Speaker 1: equal protection. I'd like to see some better lawyering, if
2:13:48
Speaker 1: you will, on some of these issues when it comes
2:13:50
Speaker 1: to ballot access and these partisan primaries. But you know, given,
2:13:57
Speaker 1: I do think we're headed in that direction, and I
2:13:59
Speaker 1: think part of it is because millennials and gen z
2:14:03
Speaker 1: do not like these old institutions that are called the
2:14:06
Speaker 1: Republican Party and the Democratic Party. And so the more
2:14:10
Speaker 1: those two sort of carcasses, if you will, semi dead
2:14:15
Speaker 1: carcasses on the side of the road, the donkey and
2:14:17
Speaker 1: the elephant there, the more they fight these changes to
2:14:20
Speaker 1: the process, I think, the more you'll see growing support
2:14:25
Speaker 1: to sort of blow up the party, the power of
2:14:28
Speaker 1: the political parties wherever, wherever it still exists, like Alah,
2:14:33
Speaker 1: New Jersey. All right, So with that's let's talk some
2:14:44
Speaker 1: college football. Look, Minami got it. I think Miami deserved
2:14:50
Speaker 1: to be it. But this entire process was a mess.
2:14:56
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that there is there is it is
2:15:00
Speaker 1: not clear what this This whole committee is so subjective.
2:15:05
Speaker 1: The ridiculous TV show they put on every week, which
2:15:07
Speaker 1: is which creates content.
2:15:10
Speaker 3: I know.
2:15:10
Speaker 1: I'm in the content creation business myself. It's created plenty
2:15:13
Speaker 1: of content for me to be and moan about, right,
2:15:17
Speaker 1: But it misled a lot of schools, That misled a
2:15:20
Speaker 1: lot of coaches, and there's some anger there. I saw
2:15:22
Speaker 1: that the athletic director of Notre Dame is really angry.
2:15:25
Speaker 1: They've decided not to be in a bowl game over this.
2:15:28
Speaker 1: I wonder if cooler heads will prevail after they get
2:15:31
Speaker 1: a night's sleep. But we'll see. I'm tapping on Sunday evening,
2:15:34
Speaker 1: so that's why I say a night's sleep. If you
2:15:37
Speaker 1: tell me Notre Dame changes, it's mine in the next
2:15:38
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. It wouldn't surprise me because remember, Notre
2:15:42
Speaker 1: Dame gets to keep all that bowl money themselves. Are
2:15:43
Speaker 1: they really going to leave a couple million dollars on
2:15:45
Speaker 1: the table, even though you know a couple million pop tarts,
2:15:48
Speaker 1: right is what they'd be leaving on the table, because
2:15:50
Speaker 1: I guess it would have been Notre Dame in BYU
2:15:52
Speaker 1: and the pop Tarts Bowl. So I'll be you know,
2:15:56
Speaker 1: every dollar counts, right, every dollar matters. I know that's
2:15:58
Speaker 1: a wealthy school, but in the days of nil everybody's
2:16:02
Speaker 1: cash poor these days, so cooler heads could prevail there.
2:16:07
Speaker 1: But I understand their frustration. They were led to believe
2:16:09
Speaker 1: that that their metrics, you know, they were going to
2:16:11
Speaker 1: be kept ahead of Miami. But this consistently. The real
2:16:16
Speaker 1: outrage is how it's the bias that ESPN and this
2:16:20
Speaker 1: committee has with the SEC. Now, my brother in law,
2:16:24
Speaker 1: who's a big SEC fan, will say, it's not a bias.
2:16:28
Speaker 1: The SEC is the best. They should have an advantage,
2:16:30
Speaker 1: they should be able to call the shots. I have
2:16:34
Speaker 1: no doubt that the SEC is going to have more
2:16:36
Speaker 1: teams in the College Football Playoff this year than the
2:16:39
Speaker 1: Big Ten or the a SEC of the Big twelve.
2:16:42
Speaker 1: The problem is sort of this idea that a conference
2:16:45
Speaker 1: game in the SEC is hard, but a conference game
2:16:47
Speaker 1: anywhere else isn't. It's the sort of those lines of
2:16:50
Speaker 1: arrogance that trigger me on this conversation. Right, Oh my god,
2:16:55
Speaker 1: Alabama toughening it out in the Iron Bowl to a
2:16:57
Speaker 1: five and seven Auburn team. Well, Miami had to go
2:17:01
Speaker 1: to a thirty five year old, thirty five thirty five
2:17:03
Speaker 1: degree weather in Pittsburgh, something that's always very difficult for Miami.
2:17:07
Speaker 1: They go up there and open the can of you
2:17:09
Speaker 1: know what on the pitt Panthers. The point is, and
2:17:14
Speaker 1: wherever Miami goes on the road in the ACC, when
2:17:17
Speaker 1: they beat Miami, they storm the field. The point being
2:17:20
Speaker 1: is every conference road game for a big brand is difficult. Right.
2:17:24
Speaker 1: It was difficult when Notre Dame went to Louisville and
2:17:26
Speaker 1: Louisville beats them, and they storm the field for that, Right,
2:17:30
Speaker 1: that same thing happens to Alabama, right when they lose
2:17:32
Speaker 1: to one of their you know, to a Missouri or
2:17:35
Speaker 1: anybody other than really Georgia or LSU, there's a storming
2:17:39
Speaker 1: of the field, right. You know, you're to me, there's
2:17:43
Speaker 1: too much storming of the field. You know, you should
2:17:46
Speaker 1: preserve storming of the field for two things, winning a
2:17:49
Speaker 1: title and knocking off number one. Period, Like we should
2:17:52
Speaker 1: have a rule we will not find you if you
2:17:55
Speaker 1: storm the court or the field when you knock off
2:17:56
Speaker 1: number one in your home. Other than that, there's no
2:18:01
Speaker 1: more storming of the courts. I mean, I've seen, you know,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: when Miami was in its low period in the ACC,
2:18:08
Speaker 1: there would still be these like storming of the fields,
2:18:10
Speaker 1: and like you know Raleigh or Blacksburg or you know,
2:18:16
Speaker 1: like oh, we beat Miami. It's like, come on, we
2:18:18
Speaker 1: were down at the time. It's notable that every single
2:18:25
Speaker 1: team that lost a conference championship game dropped in the
2:18:28
Speaker 1: rankings except one, Alabama. What I don't get is Alabama
2:18:33
Speaker 1: played eight quarters of football against Georgia. They played well
2:18:36
Speaker 1: for the first quarter and a half of the first game,
2:18:40
Speaker 1: and then they survived that game and were able to
2:18:42
Speaker 1: eke out a win, and then they got pummeled and
2:18:47
Speaker 1: the next time they played them. To me, you got
2:18:48
Speaker 1: to look at all eight quarters. There was a pattern there, right.
2:18:52
Speaker 1: They figured it out, you know, they as soon as
2:18:55
Speaker 1: they figured out Alabama's game plan, they shut them down.
2:18:58
Speaker 1: And how did Alibabama pivot the next time they played Georgia?
2:19:03
Speaker 1: They didn't, and they and and then they lose two
2:19:06
Speaker 1: of their last four. They accumulated a third loss. And
2:19:10
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't see it as punishment that getting
2:19:14
Speaker 1: into the conference championship game and then losing. First of all,
2:19:16
Speaker 1: Alabama had one had an easy way to get into
2:19:19
Speaker 1: the playoff winning get in. That was not an option
2:19:22
Speaker 1: for Notre Dame, that was not an option for Miami.
2:19:24
Speaker 1: We can talk to the ACC and their ridiculous tiebreaker situations. Now,
2:19:28
Speaker 1: as for Notre Dame, I see that there's some reporting
2:19:31
Speaker 1: that indicates that that Notre Dame partisans think that this
2:19:36
Speaker 1: was the Committee sending a message to Notre Dame that hey,
2:19:39
Speaker 1: you're not a member of a conference, and look, uh,
2:19:42
Speaker 1: I don't think Notre dames wins over Navy and Pitt
2:19:45
Speaker 1: should should count as much as Miami's went over Pitt,
2:19:49
Speaker 1: simply because Pitt said it wasn't taking that game as
2:19:52
Speaker 1: seriously against Notre Dame because it didn't count. Navy said
2:19:55
Speaker 1: the same thing, because it didn't count. They were fighting
2:19:57
Speaker 1: for a potential spot in the in the AAC Conference
2:20:00
Speaker 1: Championship Game, or don't call me the AAC, the American
2:20:03
Speaker 1: Conference Championship Game. So I do think the resentment of
2:20:07
Speaker 1: them not being a conference, them not having a face
2:20:09
Speaker 1: a very tough schedule, was part of this, and at
2:20:13
Speaker 1: some point they were going to send a message. As
2:20:14
Speaker 1: much as I think that committee hates the ACC, I
2:20:17
Speaker 1: think they hate Notre Dame in the special treatment that
2:20:19
Speaker 1: they get more and in fact we end up discovering
2:20:21
Speaker 1: Notre Dames. Now we've got to guarantee going forward if
2:20:26
Speaker 1: they are in the top twelve no matter what number
2:20:29
Speaker 1: they are. But if they're ranked in the top twelve
2:20:32
Speaker 1: in a twelve team playoff, they get into the playoff
2:20:34
Speaker 1: no matter what. They have to automatically get in. Apparently
2:20:37
Speaker 1: they signed some memo understanding with the CFP. Are you
2:20:41
Speaker 1: fing kidding me? They have their own legal side deal
2:20:46
Speaker 1: to guarantee participation in the College Football Playoff in a
2:20:49
Speaker 1: way that no other conference has. Come On, Notre Dame,
2:20:53
Speaker 1: come join a conference, Come join the ACC. You'll still dominate,
2:20:57
Speaker 1: and you literally will get into the College Football Playoff
2:20:59
Speaker 1: every year. The extra gab will help you. You still
2:21:02
Speaker 1: get to play Stanford every year. It's a conference game. Okay, Yes,
2:21:07
Speaker 1: you're gonna be stuck playing Miami once in a while.
2:21:09
Speaker 1: That's good, not bad for both schools. The fact of
2:21:13
Speaker 1: the matter is the last time Notre Dame was truly
2:21:16
Speaker 1: a power was when Miami was truly a power. Mimi,
2:21:19
Speaker 1: Notre Dame are good for each other, and they ought to.
2:21:22
Speaker 1: If I were Notre Dame, I'd embrace that. Come on in. Look,
2:21:25
Speaker 1: I don't love the AEC myself. I think that the
2:21:28
Speaker 1: leadership here they dodged a bullet. Do I think I
2:21:34
Speaker 1: know that the the chair of this committee, the temporary
2:21:38
Speaker 1: chair of this committee, the Arkansas d said that the
2:21:41
Speaker 1: fact that the AEC could have been shut out was
2:21:44
Speaker 1: not a factor in putting Miami over Notre Dame. I
2:21:47
Speaker 1: think it was an intangible I'm not going to be
2:21:49
Speaker 1: that naive I think they I think if I were
2:21:53
Speaker 1: the CFP, i'd be worried about lawsuits. And if you're
2:21:56
Speaker 1: wondering why the group of five gets this slot and
2:21:58
Speaker 1: why they've worded it the way they did, why it's
2:22:00
Speaker 1: top five conference champions that they don't specify which conferences
2:22:04
Speaker 1: because they don't want an anti trust lawsuit. They don't
2:22:07
Speaker 1: want a lawsuit coming from the non Power four conferences,
2:22:11
Speaker 1: and so that's called lawsuit prevention. They're like, no, no, no, no,
2:22:13
Speaker 1: We'll provide you a path to the playoff, and this
2:22:17
Speaker 1: is the path that they created. Is there a better
2:22:19
Speaker 1: way to do this? My god, there's probably seventy five
2:22:22
Speaker 1: thousand better ways to do this. I could. You know.
2:22:27
Speaker 1: There's a part of me that says, go to an
2:22:28
Speaker 1: eighteen playoff, but let the power Let the Power four
2:22:33
Speaker 1: conferences run their own four team tournaments. Have the group
2:22:37
Speaker 1: of five have their own the top four champions play
2:22:40
Speaker 1: and you know you get one representative there, but it's
2:22:42
Speaker 1: kind of you play your way in, and you know
2:22:45
Speaker 1: the Power four conferences, you play your way in, and
2:22:49
Speaker 1: you just do this as playing your way in. You've
2:22:52
Speaker 1: got to take the human beings out of this. You've
2:22:55
Speaker 1: got to take ESPN executives out of this. You've got
2:22:57
Speaker 1: to take athletic directors out of this. You've got to
2:23:00
Speaker 1: take conference folks out of this. Is it is fraud.
2:23:06
Speaker 1: There's too much money at stake and lawsuits glory coming,
2:23:09
Speaker 1: and you know it'll come congressional. You're gonna have federal intervention,
2:23:13
Speaker 1: and maybe there should be. But this is this committee
2:23:18
Speaker 1: as it's structured. Now, you've got to get the human
2:23:21
Speaker 1: element out of this. There is no committee to decide
2:23:24
Speaker 1: who makes the NFL playoffs. There's no committee who decides
2:23:27
Speaker 1: who makes the MLB playoffs. There's no committee who decides
2:23:29
Speaker 1: who makes the NBA playoffs. There's no Yes, there's a
2:23:33
Speaker 1: committee who decides the seating and the last sort of
2:23:37
Speaker 1: couple of teams in a sixty eight soon to be
2:23:41
Speaker 1: seventy six team thing. If you want to, you know,
2:23:45
Speaker 1: I'm fine for a committee to decide seating. But I'm
2:23:49
Speaker 1: not fine for a committee to decide who gets in
2:23:51
Speaker 1: and who gets out. I will I have plenty of
2:23:55
Speaker 1: complaints about how ESPN is a terrible business partner for
2:23:59
Speaker 1: the ACC. I still think all of the issues at
2:24:01
Speaker 1: the ACC. They dodged a bullet here. This would have
2:24:04
Speaker 1: cost millions of dollars for everybody across the board without
2:24:08
Speaker 1: getting any piece of the CFP PI. The leadership of
2:24:12
Speaker 1: the ACEC still needs to be held account and university
2:24:15
Speaker 1: presence in the ACC. Those that are serious about spending
2:24:18
Speaker 1: all this money in football need to have a come
2:24:20
Speaker 1: to you know what meeting about the leadership of the ACEC.
2:24:23
Speaker 1: Because this was a debacle. They dodged a catastrophe, okay,
2:24:29
Speaker 1: thanks to their own the other politics that sort of
2:24:32
Speaker 1: were all over the map with this committee, but was
2:24:37
Speaker 1: There's so many there's like seventeen thousand other ways to
2:24:41
Speaker 1: do this, and yet they chose this way to do this, right,
2:24:48
Speaker 1: I'd like to see Notre dame men. I honestly, I
2:24:51
Speaker 1: think it's Oklahoma that doesn't belong if you were to
2:24:53
Speaker 1: ask me which one of these teams doesn't belong Oklahoma.
2:24:56
Speaker 1: But this is because of the stupid weekly rate rankings
2:24:59
Speaker 1: show they came out and after Oklahoma beat Alabama, they
2:25:02
Speaker 1: did this, But if you looked at Oklahoma's body of work,
2:25:06
Speaker 1: I don't think you'd have Oklahoma in this in this
2:25:08
Speaker 1: I think they'd have been left out certainly, would you know, Yes,
2:25:12
Speaker 1: they've got the Alabama win. But that Alabama win is
2:25:15
Speaker 1: I think way overvalued. And if you look at Alabama's
2:25:18
Speaker 1: body of work, it's not the most impressive team. And
2:25:23
Speaker 1: then what do they do for Alabama? They hand them
2:25:25
Speaker 1: the rematch with Oklahoma and Norman. I'm sorry, what a
2:25:29
Speaker 1: ridiculous gift. Now, let's quickly talk about the bracket. I'm
2:25:34
Speaker 1: gonna be parochial here and talk about Miami's path. Uh,
2:25:37
Speaker 1: it's let's just say Miami's got the Miami. This is
2:25:44
Speaker 1: the way, you know, you talk to old school Miami
2:25:47
Speaker 1: football players. I'm friends with a few of them, or
2:25:50
Speaker 1: you know, sort of acquaintances with a few of them.
2:25:52
Speaker 1: Let me let me not oversell it. And they would say, hey,
2:25:56
Speaker 1: if you're gonna you know, be tested, be tested all
2:25:59
Speaker 1: the way, tested by the best. Right, So they started
2:26:02
Speaker 1: Texas A and M and if they win that, they
2:26:05
Speaker 1: get to play Ohio State and the Cotton Bowl, and
2:26:07
Speaker 1: if they win that, they likely play the winner of
2:26:12
Speaker 1: Georgia and Ole Miss, with the assumption being that Old
2:26:15
Speaker 1: Miss is going to play too Lane. So in theory,
2:26:19
Speaker 1: Miami's path to a national championship game, which is would
2:26:21
Speaker 1: be in their home stadium by the way, it's at
2:26:24
Speaker 1: hard Rock, would be in their home stadium. It would
2:26:27
Speaker 1: begin in College Station with Texas A and M. Then
2:26:30
Speaker 1: it's Ohio State on December thirty first, then it would
2:26:33
Speaker 1: be Georgia in the Fiesta Bowl. Miami is oh for
2:26:37
Speaker 1: the State of Arizona. So once we get there, I'm
2:26:40
Speaker 1: going to be really skeptical of our chances just because
2:26:44
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, we're OH. Like I said, we're O
2:26:46
Speaker 1: for the State of Arizona. But the reward if we
2:26:50
Speaker 1: survive that would be a national title game against either
2:26:54
Speaker 1: Indian or a Texas Tech. I would say this, man,
2:26:59
Speaker 1: you look at the various paths. I think both Ohio
2:27:02
Speaker 1: State and Georgia are jealous of Indiana and Texas Tech.
2:27:06
Speaker 1: I think I think Texas Tech. Boy, did they get
2:27:09
Speaker 1: a break? I'm not. I don't get a look. Oregon's
2:27:12
Speaker 1: got a good record and they're in a good conference.
2:27:16
Speaker 1: I don't buy it, and then they get the easy
2:27:18
Speaker 1: game against James Madison. I think this is one it'll
2:27:24
Speaker 1: be interesting if But I love Texas Tech. Here I
2:27:28
Speaker 1: may or may not have taken a future in Texas Tech.
2:27:30
Speaker 1: I think they are totally undervalued going through this. But
2:27:34
Speaker 1: you gotta love the Texas Tech path for as tough
2:27:38
Speaker 1: as the path is for Georgia and Ohio State, I think,
2:27:42
Speaker 1: I mean, even Indiana didn't get the greatest path they
2:27:44
Speaker 1: have to. They're going to get Alabama. Although if I'm
2:27:48
Speaker 1: right about Alabama, then maybe Indiana's getting a catching a break.
2:27:54
Speaker 1: But it is a the path for Georgia, Ohio State, yes,
2:27:59
Speaker 1: Miami me in Texas, A and m that feels like
2:28:04
Speaker 1: the brutal side of this bracket. Indiana, Texas Tech a
2:28:10
Speaker 1: little a little less where you get sort of a
2:28:13
Speaker 1: one dimensional Oklahoma team if you end up having to
2:28:16
Speaker 1: play them, an Alabama team that just doesn't strike any
2:28:19
Speaker 1: fear into anybody, and an Oregon team that does seems
2:28:22
Speaker 1: a little bit softer. It just doesn't. I can't put
2:28:27
Speaker 1: my finger on it, but there's doesn't quite Maybe I'm wrong.
2:28:30
Speaker 1: Never mind, And by the way, one of the stats
2:28:32
Speaker 1: that blew me away. It's apparently half of the college
2:28:35
Speaker 1: football playoff teams have some have a coach either leaving,
2:28:39
Speaker 1: either a head coach leaving or a coordinator leaving. That's astonishing.
2:28:43
Speaker 1: That's going to have an impact. So hopefully that's another
2:28:46
Speaker 1: thing that needs to happen here. Do they need to
2:28:48
Speaker 1: fix this calendar if you will, sort of do what
2:28:51
Speaker 1: the NFL does, try to not allow coaching change, you know,
2:28:55
Speaker 1: try to create some gap between the playoff and coaching changes,
2:28:59
Speaker 1: because this is uh, this, this part of it is
2:29:03
Speaker 1: also kind of messy as well, and that's why you
2:29:05
Speaker 1: gotta look. I think Miami's not gonna Miami has very
2:29:09
Speaker 1: few changes in their coaching staff, so I feel pretty
2:29:11
Speaker 1: good about that. I think Texas A and M has
2:29:13
Speaker 1: very few changes. Did it with Georgia. But Ohio State,
2:29:16
Speaker 1: I think they're losing an offensive coordinator to USF ole Miss,
2:29:20
Speaker 1: you know, the ole Miss situation. So it's going to
2:29:24
Speaker 1: be after all this drama. I'm excited that that Miami
2:29:31
Speaker 1: if they if they whatever, however far they go, they'll
2:29:34
Speaker 1: have had to earn it. Right. They do not have
2:29:38
Speaker 1: a soft path to the national title game, but hey,
2:29:41
Speaker 1: just four more games, guys, four more games. Look, I
2:29:46
Speaker 1: think Miami will be competitive in every game they're in.
2:29:49
Speaker 1: They will have a chance in the fourth quarter will
2:29:50
Speaker 1: win the game. The real question is what kind of
2:29:53
Speaker 1: fourth quarter decision making is going to be made by
2:29:57
Speaker 1: the offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, by the head coach Rio
2:30:00
Speaker 1: Crystal Paul, and by the quarterback Carson Beck. If there
2:30:03
Speaker 1: is a question mark about Miami, it is going to
2:30:06
Speaker 1: be their decision making when a game is on the line,
2:30:09
Speaker 1: all three of those gentlemen. So that they Miami goes
2:30:13
Speaker 1: as far as their ability to make key decisions, timely
2:30:18
Speaker 1: decisions in the fourth quarter. I'm looking forward to my
2:30:26
Speaker 1: first trip to College Station. Yes, I'm figuring this out.
2:30:30
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. I've been wanting an excuse
2:30:33
Speaker 1: to get the Bush forty ones library as well. So
2:30:35
Speaker 1: it's a two for a political and sports junkie, right,
2:30:38
Speaker 1: I get to go see the field that hosts the
2:30:42
Speaker 1: so called twelfth Man. Sorry, Seattle, I think Texas, A
2:30:46
Speaker 1: and M did it first. The Bush forty one library
2:30:49
Speaker 1: down there is a nice little consolation prize too with
2:30:53
Speaker 1: our visit. All right, with that, I will continue my
2:30:57
Speaker 1: little sports updates. I promise you we got more college
2:30:59
Speaker 1: for that'll be fun. I'll start to turn my focus
2:31:03
Speaker 1: to my packers. That could start a knowing some of you,
2:31:07
Speaker 1: especially if you're Bears fans or Cowboys fans. But we'll see.
2:31:13
Speaker 1: And I'm weirdly really happy about a tiny little trade
2:31:16
Speaker 1: that the Nats did for a prospect catcher who I
2:31:20
Speaker 1: think is a really good prospect, a guy named Harry Ford.
2:31:25
Speaker 1: So I might even sneak a little bit of a
2:31:27
Speaker 1: hot stovely into some of these sports updates. So with that,
2:31:33
Speaker 1: I'll see it forty eight hours. Thanks for listening, and
2:31:35
Speaker 1: until I upload again