Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - We’ve Entered End-Stage Trump + What Should Democrats Do With The Majority?

Transcript

Full Episode - We’ve Entered End-Stage Trump + What Should Democrats Do With The Majority? · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: happy Monday for those of you that are listening after
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you have finished your fast. I hope you had an
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: easy fast. I hope you were able to atone. I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: know every year I always have a lot to atone for.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I am doing this recording before, and actually most of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: it is about what the current president and frankly, what
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: all of us have to atone for when it comes
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to the future of this country and future of the Republic.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: But I will wait to get into that. So at
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a minimum, though, I hope you have an E. For
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: those of you fasting, I hope it was an easy fast.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: But I come to you. I have a terrific lineup today.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go through sort of this numbness to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the crazy that I, uh, constantly fear that we're in. Uh,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I've got some more data to support what appears to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: be a wave that is building, right? It's like watching
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the tropical depression form in the Atlantic. And now you're like, Whoa,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: this is, this might be bigger than we think. Oh,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: this isn't going to be a category one hurricane could
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: be category two could be category three here this far out.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And we're under 50 days, right? Uh, The likelihood of
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this being a category three or worse for the Republicans
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is using taking my weather metaphor and beating it to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: death with apologies to my daughter, the meteorologist. It's what
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: it looks like right now. But as we know, 44
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: days is a long time to go in politics. But anyway,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: we will have a I think you will enjoy this
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: package that I put together here. My guest for today's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: episode is Troy Carter. He is a Democratic congressman from Louisiana,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and he is the vice chair of the Congressional Black
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Caucus and will be the next chair of the Congressional
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Black Caucus. And we have a fascinating conversation about the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, what happened there. We talk about Medicaid, Medicare,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and because he's from Louisiana, he's a Democrat from New Orleans.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: We talk a little bit about the politics of LSU
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and how involved the governor has gotten in LSU's football
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: program and, and really how politically uncomfortable, um, that may
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: be making a lot of folks. It's the timing, of course,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: in some ways is perfect, uh, given, um, uh, the,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the man who's wearing the black hat in college football lost, uh,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: over the weekend, uh, lame Kiffin, I think, uh, or what,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: what are the various nicknames folks want to give to him? But, uh, boy, did, uh, Boy,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: did the Ole Miss fans enjoy that. I was genuinely
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: impressed with the Ole Miss football team, more so in
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the second half than in the first half. It's one
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: thing to get off to a strong start. It's another
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: to withstand what was the inevitable comeback by LSU. I've
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: been skeptical that Ole Miss could match what it was
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: last year. I'm no longer skeptical about that. But That said,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I'd be very nervous if I were an Ole Miss
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: fan because guess your reward for defeating LSU at home
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is to play the Florida Gators on the road in
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  Speaker 1: the swamp. And it is a very good Florida Gator
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: football team with some electric stars on offense. And for
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: those of you that know me well, if I am
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: singing the praises of the Florida Gators, they must be
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: really good because I can never, uh, praise the Florida Gators.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is just, it is against my constitution
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to say nice things about the Gators. I kid sort of, um,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: but I'll have a whole bunch of more things to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: say about college football, including, um, my take on what
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: happened on Friday night with the university of Miami. It
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: was a tale of two halves. I will get into
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: that and the brutal reality that depth and injuries are
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: going to determine who's the, who is going to survive, uh,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And make it into the college football playoff.
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  Speaker 2: But.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, and one more thing. One more thing. I unfortunately
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: am dealing with yet another kidney stone. And I was
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: on Saturday night. It was in Frederick, Maryland, to tape
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a program with an old friend of mine, Russ. Russ Hodge.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: He has a program that's on Maryland Public Television called
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Intellectual Property. And we did an hour-long conversation at the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Weinberg Theater in downtown Frederick, Maryland. Just a terrific theater.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I love, you know, when I get out to Frederick,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it is just a wonderful town out there. And it
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was a terrific crowd. And I felt terrible because I literally,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the stone started to make its presence known to me
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: about 10 minutes before I went on stage. So I'm
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: sitting in this chair and I'm doing this, when you've
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: got it, anybody who's ever experienced it, you just start,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you know, when you just have a pain you can't
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: get rid of and you're having to be in public
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: so you can't exactly just start pounding away pain medication.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, I was an hour's drive
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: away and I had to drive home. So let's just
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: say I don't remember what I said. I know some
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: things that I said. You'll be able to catch a
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: pain altered Chuck Todd on the Intellectual Property Show, Russ
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: uh tells me i uh that it was it was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a great program i hope he's correct um but i
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: want to apologize in advance for uh my kidney stone
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: deciding to pop up when it did and for those
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: of you that are listening to this podcast for the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: first time because i saw you in frederick maryland on
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: saturday night welcome and thank you for being here and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: i'm sorry that uh i was uh I was a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: bit distracted when I would answer certain certain questions. There
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: is nothing like just dealing with constant sharp pain as
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: you're trying to ask, answer a question about whether the
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  Speaker 1: republic will still stand. All right. So with all of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: that out of the way, let's let's begin with what
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I'm what I'm focused on in the moment. We are
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: 44 days from Election Day and Donald Trump is worried
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: about turning his triumphal arch into a weapons depot. Snipers, drones, ammunition.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, right? You know, sometimes I feel like
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I shit you not. Apologies for
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the cursing on this, but sometimes you feel like you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: have no choice but to use an expletive for dealing
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: with all the expletives that go inside our head when
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: we see this crazy stuff that Trump will actually utter
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  Speaker 1: out loud. But seriously, put this in context. 44 days
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: before an election, With the economy struggling, diesel's going to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: hit $ 7 a gallon maybe this week, probably next. An
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Iran war that the public increasingly doesn't support. Republicans are
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: beginning to panic about races they didn't think they'd have
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to worry about. And what is Donald Trump focused on?
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: On putting snipers in his arch. That is actually what
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: he announced on Sunday morning. Think about he's consumed with this.
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  Speaker 1: What can he do with this arch? And he knows
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  Speaker 1: nobody likes it. Nobody's going to give him permission to
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  Speaker 1: do it. He hides it behind some bizarre national security
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: idea that somehow it will get the funding. It's like
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: he's going to look. The last thing we need is
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to steal more funding from the Pentagon. He keeps stealing
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: money from the Pentagon. Remember, he stole it from the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Pentagon last time to help build his wall. Maybe that's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: why we're short on munitions in fighting a war, because
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: we keep taking money that belongs to the Pentagon and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: putting it for his vanity ideas and vanity projects, like
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a wall or this bizarre arch that he's obsessed with.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: But there is something pretty revealing about all this. And
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I think this is the important point. When Donald Trump
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: feels as if he's losing control of a situation, he
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: grabs for something he thinks he can control, right? The
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the press and access for the press.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Who gets into the White House? Who gets access to
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon, right? What gets built in Washington, DC? And
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: now his arch. So when his reality is being challenged
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: by actual reality, which is the world we're living in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: at the moment, he lashes out, right? It's kind of
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a pattern. And it's weirdly predictable. And we do need
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about his behavior. I mean, it's just a
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: given now. We know, man, we've got a crackpot president
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: who is so consumed with his own id that he
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't know how to govern the country anymore. And we're
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: just hoping that there are enough people around him to
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: keep him from doing the truly crazy shit.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Trust me, there's a whole bunch of people in Washington going, oh,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Susie Wiles, thank Please don't leave the White House. Because
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I know there is a lot more he would be
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: doing or trying to do if there weren't some people.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And look, there are fewer people that are willing to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: stop him from his crazy than ever before. But there's
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: still some people in that White House that do try
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to do this. Now, I'll be honest. I vacillated on
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: how much to zero in on Trump's personality and his
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: clear behavioral problems. Because I'm not his doctor. And I
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: don't know what personality disorder he has or doesn't have.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: but he certainly behaves like somebody with a massive personality disorder.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: But frankly, I don't have to diagnose him to describe
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: what we can all see, right? If somebody in your
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: life behaved this way, if every person who told them
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: no became an enemy, if every criticism became an attack,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: if every setback required somebody to blame, every institution that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: challenged them had to be punished, every person who disagreed
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: with them became disloyal or treasonous, you'd be alarmed. You'd
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: be like, you'd probably avoid that person. And if it
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: were a family member, you'd be reaching out to people
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that you think could influence him and say, hey, I
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: think he needs help. He or she needs help. You
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't think, you know what this person needs? More authority.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Trump's behavior. Because sometimes it's irrational,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: but it's consistently irrational. It's like he's always inauthentic, but
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: he's authentically inauthentic. In this case, he's consistently irrational. So
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it's weirdly predictable, his irrationality. And when the irrational behavior
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: becomes this predictable, when you know exactly what's going to happen,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: every time this person is challenged, that's when it becomes
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: actually quite scary. Look what happened with the press. Trump
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: decided he didn't like CNN, MSNOW, and Politico's coverage. So
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: he banned them from the White House. And yesterday, actually Sunday,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I'm taping on Saturday, I'm taping on Sunday before the fast.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Their reporters actually showed up and had their press passes
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: confiscated and were turned away. It's childlike, right? I mean,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you're not nice to me. You can't come in. except
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: we're not at a 10-year-old's birthday party. It's the White House.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: It's not his house. It does not belong to him.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And we've seen this behavior with him before, especially when
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: he knows that something's turning against him. In 2020, when
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he realized the election was going against him, he decided
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to create this fantasy that somehow mail-in ballots were going
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to rig the election against him because he knew the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: election was against him. So he had to come up
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: with a rationale for why he lost because he knew
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: he was going to lose. This is what happens when
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you have the broken personality disorder that he probably has.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But think back in 2018, right? Remember the caravan? Republicans
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: were in trouble in the midterms and suddenly Donald Trump
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: manufactured and even like got Fox News and others to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: cover this supposedly a caravan of migrants who were going
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to invade the country at the southern border. It kind
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: of worked, right? It helped him with his own voters
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: enough that it saved a couple of Senate seats and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: kept the Senate from flipping to Democratic hands in 2018.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: They still got wiped out in the House, but it
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: did have some impact. But here's what's different now. In 2018,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Trump could turn to his voters and say, hey, they're coming.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: They're going to do this. Democrats are going to do that.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: But we're at the end stages of Trump, right? And
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the It is both– it's obvious like we're all sort
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of done with him. Even people that have voted for
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: him are just like exhausted from all of this garbage
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and this or that. But it's at this end point
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that he could be the most dangerous and that is something.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But he's having to defend his own government. This is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: his economy, his tariffs, his Iran war, his immigration policies.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: All of these are his decisions. And there's only so
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: much Jedi mind tricking he can do when people are
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: living inside the reality you're trying to convince them isn't real.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to a new NBC News poll that
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: hit over the weekend. And I always want to spend
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: a little time on this NBC poll. They have two
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: different pollsters. And I always want to spend a lot
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: more time when they have my old friends Bill McInturff
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and Jeff Horat put one of their surveys together for NBC.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: They only do a couple of them a year now
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: for budget reasons at NBC. But I know this poll
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: really well. I trust these guys. I know it inside
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and out. The way this poll is conducted today is
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: something I feel like I had a hand in. So
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I care about it a lot. I know how these
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: guys work. I know how hard they work to keep
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: their survey grounded in the reality of the electorate we
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: live in, not the one partisans may hope exists. They
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: don't let the NBC poll bounce around all over the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: place because one demographic group suddenly answers at a higher
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: rate or another group becomes harder to reach. Right. There's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of like there's some Idaho poll that's out
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: that showed Todd Achilles, the independent candidate, up double digits
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: on Jim Rich. And you're like, oh, then you look
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: at the methodology and 90 percent of the voters surveyed
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: were text to web. Well, text to web methodology skews
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: very democratically. So if you want to put out a
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: poll that looks really good for Democrats, you do a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: text-to-web poll, and you don't modify it with other weights
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: or modify it with other methodologies. My point is that
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Jeff Horwitz and Bill McInturff are constantly concerned about essentially
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: methodology bias, meaning how you conduct the poll can end
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: up skewing which part of the electorate gets over-indexed or under-indexed.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So that's what I mean when they don't let their
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: poll bounce around. They really try to have a rigidity
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to it, just like what Nate Cohn's trying to do
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: at the New York Times with the Siena poll. He's
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: vastly improved New York Times polling over the last couple
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of cycles. Essentially, I think following the model that my
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: friends at both POS and Heart Research have been working
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: on for over a decade. So when their numbers move
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: even a little, You need to pay attention. For instance,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: they have Trump's job rating at 41%. And you think, oh, 41,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that must be good. In this poll, it's the lowest
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: they've recorded all year, right? It was 42 in June,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: 44 in March, 47 in March of last year. So
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a consistent trend line pointing in a downward direction. But
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that's not actually what makes this poll interesting to me.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: You can get Trump's approval rating anywhere and the trend
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: line is consistent. You know, the numbers may be slightly different,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: which is why averaging is such a weirdly bad idea,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: even with this, because different methodologies, you know, produce. But
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the fact is the trend lines are the same. But
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: here's a part I want you to pay attention to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: in this poll. Bill and Jeff gave voters a series
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of things you could learn about candidates running for office
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: this year, basically message testing. And then they ask, does
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: learning this make you more likely or less likely to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: vote for that candidate? What it really tests is which
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: issues are popping. What has voter attention? Essentially, they created
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a little laboratory for the political environment we're about to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: live through for the next six weeks. What works in
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: an attack ad? What doesn't? What would you want voters
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to learn about you in these last six weeks? What
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: would you desperately hope your opponent doesn't tell them? And
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the results are both reinforcing of what I believe this
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: political environment is shaping up to be. But at the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: end of the day, they're, I think, matter for you
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: to understand. The best performing item in the entire survey,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the thing that makes people more likely to vote for
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a candidate than any other issue they tested, a candidate
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: who supports raising taxes on billionaires. 58% said that makes
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: them more likely to vote for a candidate, only 24%
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: say less likely.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: If you wanted to know, are people pissed off at
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the super rich? The answer is yes. Number two, The
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: second best performing? a candidate who supports Medicare for all,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a single-payer healthcare system, 53% more likely, 36% less likely.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: The fact that this is a main, this is becoming
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: more of a mainstream idea, even when, and they did
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it as a split sample, they even, even when you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: put Medicare for all, which would include taxes, new tax increases,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: support still is almost right, it's at 49%, but it's
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: still double digit, more likely over less likely. That's how
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: frustrated the public is with the healthcare system as it stands.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: They want, they are willing to have something different, and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that's how strong, by the way, the Medicare brand is.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: When you put Medicare in front of anything, there's automatically
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: more trust. Hey, this episode of the Chuck Todd cast
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  Speaker 1: was as of August of 2026. Number three, third best
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: performing message. A candidate who supports essentially the DACA policy,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: who supports allowing young adults who were brought here illegally
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: by their parents when they were children to stay here
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: legally and attend college or work. 51% say they're more
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: likely to support a candidate who does that. 31% less likely.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So it's a reminder that many Americans think what he's
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: done with ICE and immigration has gone too far. The
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: three best performing things, though, in this entire battery are
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: taxing billionaires, Medicare for all, and let the dreamers stay.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: That's shaping up to be quite the issue environment and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: what's favorable, right? These are all three positions much more
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: associated with Democrats and Republicans. And that tells you a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: lot about this current political environment. Now, there's another side
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to this that Democrats shouldn't miss. The Democratic Party itself,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: still unpopular, really unpopular. Only 29% of a positive view
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. 50% of a negative view. Now,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: part of that is driven by Democrats who don't like
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party at the moment. There's no doubt that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: some of that, but it still means the Democratic Party
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is more unpopular than the Republican Party. Republican Party is
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: not popular. Only 36% are positive, 49% are negative, but
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: it's technically slightly less unpopular than the Democratic Party. By
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the way, Trump's positive, negative, 37% positive, 55% negative. And
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: MAGA and Democratic Socialists are both unpopular. MAGA is at
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: 30 positive, 52% negative. The DSA is at 22 positive, 50% negative.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: So this is why I'm more confident about Democrats doing
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: well this year and less confident about Democrats doing well
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: in 2028. This is not an election about the Democratic Party.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: This is a referendum on Donald Trump and his policies.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: pure and simple. And so in that sense, I don't
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: think the concerns that maybe independents have with Democrats, even
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: some whether it's progressive Democrats not liking the leadership or
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: center-left Democrats not liking the progressive shift, however you want
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to describe it, in some ways, that fracture isn't animating
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: this election. Now, Republicans are going to try to make
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a big deal out of this. You saw it. If
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you watched your college football this weekend, you saw a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of, you've seen this big money that's been
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: dropped on the heads of a bunch of Democrats in
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: some of these key states, and they all kind of
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: have the same theme. I saw one hitting Sherrod Brown Essentially,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they're saying, you may like him, but remember, he's with
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: these extremists on the left. I mean, that was essentially
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the message of the ad. But I think that's a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: problem for another day, right? For this election, this is
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: more referendum than anything else. Now, let me keep going
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: back through the poll. A candidate who supports deporting undocumented
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: immigrants is more popular than than not, but not at 50%. 45%
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: are more likely to support a candidate who supports deporting
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants, 39% less likely. Now, how about this? A
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama endorsement, 43% more likely, 37% less likely. The
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: candidate that supported Trump's tax bill, that's upside down. 36%
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: said it makes it more likely, 42% less likely. The
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill is a net negative, according to this
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: NBC poll. Let me repeat, the Big Beautiful Bill is
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a net negative as far, talk about your messaging problem
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: right there. And you know, Republicans only have their leader
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to blame. Donald Trump is more focused on the Kennedy Center,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: his arch, his ego, his fragile feelings. He doesn't know
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: how to sell an agenda on behalf of congressional Republicans.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: It is an unpopular agenda and he doesn't even try
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to sell it. Abolish it. Now, A little word of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: warning here, abolish ICE. Well, that goes the other way.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: A majority would be less likely to support a candidate
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: that's for abolish ICE. So it is a reminder here,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: like when you go through these things, you realize there
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is a left skew to where the country is, but
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: they don't want to go too far to the left.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Abolishing ICE is something that is considered a bit too
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: far as far as these folks are concerned. Bernie Sanders'
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: endorsement is a slight negative. In this survey, 33% said
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: it's more likely, 43% less likely. A candidate who supports
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: many of the DSA's policies, 31% more likely, 50% less likely.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Now that corresponds with a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump, 30%
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: more likely, 52% less likely. So think about that one, right?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: House Republicans apparently have decided that socialist isn't scary enough anymore.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And that sort of proves it. A Trump endorsement is scary.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: worse than being associated with socialism. So Lisa McClain, who's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: chair of the House Republican Conference, actually has said this
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: out loud. She's seen similar polling. And she says, socialist
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. Socialism doesn't really scare voters the way Republicans
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: are hoping it does. And she admitted it. She said
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in an interview with Axios that socialism doesn't really resonate.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So she thinks Republicans should not ever say the word socialism,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that instead talk about communism. It's interesting. The poll kind
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of support this. But there's a few other things. There's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: a few other things that I think matter here a lot,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: because Trump is in this message testing. Listen to this one.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: A candidate supports providing funding and weapons to Israel, 25%
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: more likely, 55% less likely. What did Donald Trump agree
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to do two weeks ago? Just that, provide more funding
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and weapons to Israel. A candidate who supports the war
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: in Iran, 57% say that makes them less likely to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: support that. In fact, that in some ways is the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: second best performing issue and better performing than even tax
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: on billionaires. That's how unpopular this war with Iran is. 57%
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: said it makes them less likely. By the way, the
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: $ 5, 000 promise or bribe, whatever you want to call it,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: vote Republican, keep Republicans in control of Congress, and he'll
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: send every adult a $ 5, 000 check. Only 21% said somebody
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: supporting that idea makes them more likely to vote for
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the candidate. 46% said somebody supporting that idea would make
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: them less likely. So the bribe's not even playing very
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: well either, right? But here's the one that I think
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: floored me because I thought Iran war would be the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: worst performing issue. So it wasn't Iran, Israel, Trump, abolishing
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: high socialism. The single worst thing to be for is
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: data centers. A candidate who supports building a data center
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: in your community, only 11% says that makes them more
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: likely to support them. 64% said it makes them less likely.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: So the worst thing you could be for this election
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: cycle is for data centers. When you go through this
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: battery of tests, It is worse to be for a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: data center than to be for socialism. It is worse
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to be for a data center than to be MAGA.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: It is worse to be for data centers than to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: support Donald Trump. That's how unpopular data centers become. How
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: about that? And all of these are Donald Trump-supported ideas, right?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: He wants more data centers. He's supporting the war with Iran.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Everything he supports is unpopular. Hard stop. Even his big,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: beautiful bill. It is all unpopular. So for all the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: talk from Washington and Silicon Valley about the AI race
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and how we've got to build, build, build, and everybody
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: better get out of the way because China, China, China. Well,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the public apparently has a message. Not in my backyard.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it's a strange week for Trump
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to be promoting his relationship with China and Xi Jinping
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: while telling the country that everything we're doing on AI
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: has to be justified by beating China. I think this
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: is But it's like, can you imagine a worse, you know,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: less than 45 days for the election? The boogeyman that
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Republicans have been running against for a long time, if
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the country collectively is concerned about, he's going to be
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: essentially a lapdog too. He's going to be, you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: he's decided to go meet Xi Jinping when he lands
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at the airport. Not something every, not every world leader
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: gets that kind of presidential welcome. I'm not sure this
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: is good politics for his party to be essentially drinking
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and hanging out and celebrating China at this moment. And
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: at the same time, he's telling you they're a threat. Anyway,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: so put all these messages together. Tax billionaires, very popular.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Medicare for all, popular. Dreamers staying popular. Iran war, very unpopular.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Weapons for Israel, very unpopular. A Trump endorsement, unpopular. data centers,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: astonishingly unpopular. That is the environment Republicans are campaigning in.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: And now look at their behavior. Because this is what
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I've been telling you. Sometimes politicians tell you more about
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: their political environment by what they do than what they say.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Suddenly you had two Republicans, as I noted last week,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in Iowa joining Democrats on the War Powers Resolution. You
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: have Maria Salazar in South Florida looking into the camera
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and directly rebuking Trump's immigration policies. And now you even
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: have one of the leaders in the House Republicans, Lisa McClain,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: telling Republican candidates two things. Don't gaslight voters on inflation.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And if your district tells you to deviate from Donald Trump,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: trust your district. She actually said, I have to trust
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the members to do what they think is right in
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: their district. This is now going to be open season.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: This is now a permission slip. I think the next
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, you're going to see more Republicans who
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: are feeling desperate, in these swing districts, in these swing states,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: try to actively find ways to oppose Trump on something.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: The permission structure has been built. Even a member of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the House Republican leadership is saying it out loud. If
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you need to run away from Trump, run away from Trump.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: We're not going to pull your funding. That's what they're saying.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Do what you have to do. And why is she
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: doing it? Because they know. They know the Jedi mind
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: tricks aren't working. You can't tell people the economy is
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: great when they don't think it's great. You can't blame
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden for the Iran war. Everything about the rise
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: in gas prices, inflation is now all his policies. You
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: can't tell somebody Donald Trump has nothing to do with
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: what's happening when Donald Trump is president. And apparently you
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: can't tell somebody they're going to love the giant data
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: center you're putting next door when 64% say, please don't.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So this wave is showing up in the polls. But
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: more importantly, it's showing up in the behavior of Republican politicians.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And every week it feels like another race that looked
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: like an outlier suddenly doesn't look like an outlier anymore.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Texas governor, this is a real race. Greg Abbott is
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: in serious trouble. We see why. Isn't it obvious now
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: why he flip-flopped on data centers? Just look at this polling, right?
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: He may survive, but Republicans having to worry about the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Texas governor's race tells you something all by itself. And
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: if Abbott is struggling, Ken Paxton has a much bigger problem.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: And keep an eye on the money that so far
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Republicans have spent and have promised to Paxton. They haven't
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: committed that kind of money in the month of October
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: just yet. And I have to tell you, I have
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: a feeling that now that you have other races that
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: are coming onto the scene that probably are winnable with
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit of extra money, Paxton's race looks more
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: unwinnable all the time. I'm not saying they're going to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: walk completely away. but I don't think they're going to.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: It's just like with Georgia, North Carolina. They're going to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: start to prioritize Kansas, Iowa. They may even prioritize a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Minnesota or a New Hampshire to see if they can
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: catch Democrats off guard. They're going to do anything they
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: can to try to mitigate what is turning into a
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: huge problem, particularly in the Sun Belt for them. So
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if Paxton is just going to
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: end up not totally going it alone in the month
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: of October, but that he doesn't have the reinforcements that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: he appears to have at the moment. Because look, Kansas
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Senate is real. It's real enough that Republicans are having
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to it. And Roger Marshall just seems
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: lost about what to do. And it's funny, you see
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: this every once in a while in a wave years
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that somebody who you never expected to lose is gets
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: a taste of, you know, gets punched in the mouth
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: for the first time and suddenly he realizes, oh, they
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: got a glass jaw. And he's not sure, you could tell,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: he doesn't know what to do. He's never been a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: really good political athlete. And I think he's making a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: huge mistake already. He keeps, he's bringing in national Republicans
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: to rescue him. John Kennedy was most recently there and
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: he might be a cheerier person to bring onto the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: campaign trail than vice president like was last week. But
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: if the national political environment is your problem, I'm not
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: sure nationalizing your race is the solution. Kansas agriculture is
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: being hurt by Trump's policies directly. Kansas manufacturing is being
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: hurt by Trump's tariffs with Canada and trade war with
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Canada directly. Marshall ought to be trying to figure out
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: some way to demonstrate independence from Washington. And instead, he's
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: demonstrating over-reliance on it. But the problem he's got is
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have much of a record of independence to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: work with. I mean, Jerry Moran is a Republican. He's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: a And he's constantly done that. It's why Jerry Moran
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: has been in the Senate and been in the House
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for as long as he has. And look, but it's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: what happens in wave environments. They expose the bad political athletes, right?
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Every wave election can do this. You suddenly you're like, oh, wow,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: they can't handle it. Totally unprepared, totally off guard. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: he strikes me as a candidate, totally unprepared, completely caught
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: off guard. And then he just doesn't have the personality
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: for this. He doesn't have– Dr. Marshall doesn't have the
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: bedside manner for this as we're finding out. We'll see.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: He could survive. But to say doubt is creeping in
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: my head more and more, I believe Kansas is more
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: likely to flip now than Iowa. Look at an Ashley Hinson.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall wants to be seen with the vice president.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson comes to– J.D. Vance comes to Iowa and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson, no, I can't quite make it. She's trying
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to demonstrate some independence. She is somebody who's been in
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: a swing district her entire congressional career and knows what
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: swing voters want to hear and don't want to hear.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Her political instincts tell me she at least knows how
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: to survive in a political environment like this. If she does,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: it also tells me a lot about what kind of
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: formidable senator she could become and formidable leader in the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Republican Party she could become. Now, maybe she doesn't survive either,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: but she's got a better chance than Roger Marshall does,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in my opinion. So, but there's this other piece of
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: all this that I don't want us to lose. And
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: it goes back to what I said at the top,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: because Trump's lashing out as his political situation deteriorates. And
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: it isn't merely a campaign story. There's a cost to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the country every time he does this. And I do
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: worry we become numb. And we talk about this all
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the time, particularly the press. A president deciding which news
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: organizations deserve access based on whether they're nice to him.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: or the Justice Department, his personal lawyer becoming attorney general
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and openly participating in partisan politics. The Pentagon, less transparency,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: less independent press access, information about military operations and casualties
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: are being hidden, increasingly controlled. I mean, this is, you know, hey,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth, Bob McNamara wants his Pentagon back. I mean,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you really are, you're trying to become the worst defense
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: secretary in American history. Congratulations. The McNamara family is probably
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: ecstatic that they're no longer going to be seen as
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the bottom. The Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the president trying
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to exert control of the country's arts and history, that's
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: propaganda shit. And that's something that we would absolutely criticize
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: another country for trying to do this. Birthright citizenship, a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: president trying to overturn one of the basic constitutional understandings
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: of who gets to be an American, his political opponents
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: when he regularly calls them fellow Americans, traitors, treasonous criminals,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: people who ought to be arrested or deported or eliminated
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: from public life simply because they don't share his perverted ideology.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Look what he's done to public health. Scientific institutions increasingly
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: subjected to ideological and political control. And he's got a
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: guy who he may be mentally unstable. He has admitted
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: a worm might have eaten part of his brain. Either
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that is the case or he's made it up. Either way,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: that should scare the bejesus out of us that he's
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: in charge of public health. And the abuse of emergency
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: powers used as substitutes for Congress. He's illegally stolen money
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: from American taxpayers through tariffs and then cried and whined
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: about it when the courts say you have to give
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the taxpayers back their money. Look what he's done to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: the civil service. He has this assumption that government employees
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: work for him, not the United States. Inspectors General, independent
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: watchdogs pushed aside. He's tried to use government funding to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: pressure universities. to changing ideologies, not changing behavior, changing ideologies.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: He's abused the line between civilian and military with the Pentagon,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: nevermind allowing some religious zealot to become head of the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Pentagon and pervert our military by infusing some weird religious
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: tests into it. I could keep going. And that's the point.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: It's the totality of the damage that Trump has created here.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Imagine if I read you that list and told you
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: it was happening in Hungary or Turkey. Oh, wait, it did.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Small democracy somewhere else in the world. What would we say? Well,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: we'll say what we actually did say about Hungary and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: what we do believe about Turkey. That democracy was in trouble.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And then the people finally said enough is enough in Hungary.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: But in Turkey, we'd say the institutions are being weakened
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: because they have been. We'd say its leader is behaving
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: like somebody who wants fewer restraints on his power. Again,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: what we've said about Turkey. We'd use the word authoritarianism.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: So I don't think the interesting question is, has Donald
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Trump successfully become an authoritarian? Obviously, there are things he
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: wants to do that our system still prevents him from doing.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: The courts still can stop him. Congress sometimes stops him.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: States have had the ability to stop him. The Constitution
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: serves as the instruction manual for how to restrain him.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: The question, though, is whether he wants any of those restraints.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty clear. I mean, it's scary that we
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: elected a president who does not believe in our Constitution.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Just think about that. If I told you we elected
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: a president that doesn't believe in our Constitution, and I
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: said we were going to do this before 2016, you'd
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: say I was crazy. And yet we did exactly that.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: And then we elected this guy a second time. But
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I do think his behavior answers this question over and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: over again. He doesn't want any restraints. He has no
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: interest in advancing the success of this constitutional republic. And
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: this is where the scale of the repair project post-Trump
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: begins to hit me. Because eventually somebody is going to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: have to repair all of this. And repairing a policy
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: is relatively easy. A future president can change tariffs. Congress
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: can quickly change immigration policy. Another HHS secretary can change
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: public health policy. But norms are much harder to repair
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: because Trump now has taught every future president something. A
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: lot of the things we thought presidents couldn't do weren't
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: things presidents couldn't do. They were things presidents had simply
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: decided they shouldn't do. And that's a gigantic difference. Maybe
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: there wasn't actually a guardrail. Maybe there was simply a
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: president who thought, you know what, you just shouldn't do that.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And once one president discovers the difference between can't and shouldn't,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: every future president knows it too. Which means some of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: these things are going to have to be codified. What
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: independence should the Justice Department have? We probably have to
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: change the appointment process here. Presidents can't be allowed unilateral
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: control over who gets to be attorney general, let alone
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: acting attorney general. What protection should inspectors generals have? What
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: constitutes retaliation against the press? How much power should presidents
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: have over money Congress has appropriated? What are the real
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: limits of emergency authority? Now, a lot of this would
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: be solved if we had a series of speakers of
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: the House who understood that the legislative branch was Article I.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: But since Newt Gingrich, every speaker of the House has
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: decided to succumb to the executive branch. Yes, Nancy Pelosi, too.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: She did not change the crappy arrangement that Newt Gingrich created,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: bringing all power to leadership and taking away all power
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: from individual members of Congress and committee chairs. That decision
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: by Newt Gingrich and then the decision by Nancy Pelosi
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to keep that system is what has weakened Congress to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the point that has allowed Donald Trump to run roughshod
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: over the republic. Keep that in mind. This was bipartisan atrophy.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: of congressional leaders. But look, we've got a lot of
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: work to do. What conflict of interest laws should apply
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: to presidents? Where are the lines and domestic use of
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: military power? What protections does the civil service need? We
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: have to rethink all of this because we are not
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: simply going to have to undo Donald Trump's nutty policies.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to have to rebuild some of the architecture
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that prevented presidents from behaving this way in the first place. Now,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I know some of my friends on the right might
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: hear this laundry list and say, you know, this just,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: you know, you're What's with this diatribe against Trump? This
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: is not partisan. And criticizing him doesn't make you a partisan.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the one that has partisanized the Constitution.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: He's partisanized criticism.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: That's on him.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Standing up for the First Amendment shouldn't be partisan. Standing
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: up for an independent justice department is not a partisan act.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Standing up for the idea that your political opponent isn't
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: a traitor shouldn't be a partisan decision. There's a really
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: simple test for all of this. Go through this list
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I've done and substitute the words Trump with Barack Obama.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: President Obama bans Fox News from the White House because
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: he doesn't like its coverage. President Obama takes control of
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center and wants to put his name on it.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: President Obama pressures the Smithsonian to change how it presents
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: American history. President Obama uses the Justice Department to investigate
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: his personal political enemies. President Obama regularly calls Republican opponents
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: traitors and talks about arresting them. How would the right
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: have reacted? We actually know something about this. During the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Obama administration, somebody in the Obama White House tried to
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: exclude Fox from a network pool interview of Treasury officials.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Myself and others representing the other news organizations and members
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: of the pool said, we're not participating in this if
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: you're going to exclude a member of the pool. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: we said, if Fox doesn't get the same access, we're
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: not going to participate in this event. I didn't do
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: it because I agreed with Fox. I did it because
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: their First Amendment rights were my First Amendment rights. And
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I did it. I'm disappointed that some of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the people whose rights I stood up for and whose
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: credibility I handed to them, you know who I'm talking about, Brad,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: that they haven't reciprocated as forcefully as they could. Now,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I understand he's got pressures, he's got bosses, and he's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: got a president who will go to his bosses and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: his bosses will never stand up for him. We know this, unfortunately.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm still not sorry I stood up for him
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: or that news organization. Because that's what pluralism requires, folks.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: You don't defend somebody's rights because you like them. You
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: defend them because they're rights. John Adams taught us all this, folks,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a long time ago. And that brings us back to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: where we started. 44 days. Trump knows things aren't going well.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans on the ballot know things aren't going well. The
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: NBC message tests show you just how difficult this environment
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: has become. for many of the things Trump wants Republicans
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: campaigning on. So he's reached for the things he thinks
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: he can control, press access to the White House, the
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, his arch, and he's searching for
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: the next culture war boogeyman that might somehow change the subject.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I think he's hoping that somehow this becomes a debate
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: about the liberal media and that it will Jedi mind
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: trick his supporters and that they'll somehow forget that the
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: massive tax, the Trump tax on their everyday lives is
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: not there anymore. Maybe he does find one. He did
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: it before the caravan sort of worked. It certainly cost
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Claire McCaskill her reelection. But this time he's got a
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: much bigger problem. He's not running against a hypothetical Democratic presidency.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: He's running against people's own experience with his own presidency.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: You can try to Jedi mind trick voters about a
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: lot of things. But eventually, reality gets a vote. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: reality is coming for Donald Trump and the Republicans on
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: this one. All right. Let's sneak in a break. And
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: when we come back, my conversation with Troy Carter, the
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: next chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. And then after that,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I got my time machine. It's a good one, folks.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: It's a good one. Can't wait for you to It's
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: about a moment where a human being stood up to technology.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: All right, let's sneak in the break. This episode of
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Soul.
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• 51:03
  Speaker 1: am a customer. Well, joining me now is the first
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and also a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Democratic member of Congress representing Pretty much the best place
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to get a bite to eat on this planet. It
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: is Troy Carter of Louisiana, of New Orleans, Louisiana. Congressman Carter,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: it's good to see you.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Good to be with you always. Thank you. And you're right.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Come on down. Have a bite with us.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, there's just I mean, let's just be honest.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Plenty of good places to get food all over the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: country these days. But it's, you know, you know, my
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: favorite cities that aren't New Orleans to eat are places
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: like Charleston or Savannah. And I always say it's almost
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: like New Orleans. But it ain't New Orleans.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Almost like New Orleans, but not New Orleans. Right. And
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: you kind of get, you get something else in New Orleans.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: You get a spirit. You get a spirit that you
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: can't find in most places.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: No, it's just unique. And let me start there, actually,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: just on this sort of, you know, we're pretty polarized.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: You live, we were just talking about, you know, yes,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Louisiana is considered a very red state. But it's really
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: just a very polarized state. It's not red per se
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: on economic ideology. It's a pretty left-leaning populism. Whether you're
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: on the right or the left, I think that there
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: certainly isn't ideology. This isn't a Paul Ryan conservative Republican
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: state type of thing. And New Orleans is one of
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the few places where I feel like everybody understands there's
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: divisive politics, but politics can be set aside for a
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: few minutes. I don't sense that in a lot of
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: other political communities, but Louisiana has always been a little
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: bit different. Is it still that way, or do you
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: feel the tension nationally has even broken up? I mean,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I think of friendships that I know happen a lot
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: more in Louisiana across the aisle than in other places.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, the Trump era has challenged most relationships across
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: the country. But Louisiana, as you mentioned, is a very
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: unique We're a bit of an anomaly in that our cultures,
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: our food, our music, our sports intertwine so much that
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: even in those heated political discussions, there remain relationships that
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: transcend that. So Louisiana, while I'd be the first to
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: tell you, has experienced some strain because of the divisiveness
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: of this administration that seems to punish people who want
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: to be bipartisan, seems to ridicule those who want to
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: work together. You know, in Louisiana, we've always worked together.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: You know, before coming to Congress, I served in the
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: House of Representatives and the State Senate. I served in
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: the New Orleans City Council. When I was in the legislature,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I worked under Edwin Edwards when he was governor. I
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: worked under... under John Bell when he was governor, but
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: both houses were ruled by Republicans. And we were still
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: able to get things done. I was the minority leader
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: in the state Senate, and we were 12 members strong
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: of a 39-member body, but we still got things done.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Because we were able to build relationships and we were
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: able to put issues ahead of politics, That's that's a
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: challenge under this administration, because President Trump has made it
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: very clear he doesn't want to work with Democrats. And
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: in Louisiana, what different place?
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Well, and, you know, just just the fact I was surprised.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't. I wasn't shocked, but I was
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: surprised that the legislature went out of its way to
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: target Bill Cassidy the way he was targeted, meaning it
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: was sort of like, OK. The only way we're going
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to be able to beat this guy is force him
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: into a Republican primary, because if he does the traditional
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: all party primary, you know, Cassidy might be able to
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: appeal to different constituencies and he might have been able
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: to survive that Senate seat. And it was really important
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to the White House that, you know, it was proved
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: that if you vote again, if you voted to convict
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the president or impeach the president, you need to be
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: kicked out of the party in some form or another.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: And they changed the election rules for one election, right?
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: It's just once. I mean, When that happened, it told me, wow,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: because what was interesting, your career very much mirrors sort
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: of how in Louisiana these relationships have always been able
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: to stick, right? I think Cedric Richmond and Scalise served
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: locally together before they served nationally together, right? I think
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: they had some interaction.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson and I served locally together before we served
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: nationally together. I was in the Senate when Mike was
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: in the State House.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: And what was that relationship like back then?
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Just fine. And the same with Steve. Listen, Steve and
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: I have worked together for many, many years. Mike and
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: I have worked together for many, many years. And Conversationally, personally,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: we're still perfectly fine. Politically, policy-wise, could not be further apart.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't interfere with the personal relationship, but it
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: certainly does on the policy side. Because we are worlds
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: apart when it comes to Medicaid, Medicare. hospitals, healthcare for individuals, jobs,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: economic opportunity for the poor, SNAP benefits. We're in different worlds.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Environmental justice, making sure that EPA enforces the rules so
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: people can breathe clean air, drink clean water. Different worlds.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: You brought up Medicaid. Let me ask a cynical question
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: on the expansion of Medicaid. If it weren't connected to
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: something called Obamacare, Would there be a Medicaid expansion in Louisiana?
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Chuck, I think it's very clear that if it were
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: not Obamacare, Bobby Jindal would have expanded Medicaid before John
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Bel Edwards did. The reality is President Trump has a
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: real problem with this piece of legislation. Not necessarily what
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: it does, but who brought it to bear. And has
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: made it very clear all the way to that very
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: infamous time when John McCain went to the well of
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: the Senate and voted against getting rid of it. And
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: this president has been trying ever since. It's a symbol
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: for him.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: He does it like the irony is that he get
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: rid of it. It's sort of like NAFTA.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think somebody even proposes just call it
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Trump care.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Fine.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: If you want to call it Trump care and expand
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Medicaid and you call it Trump care, would you support
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: it then?
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: He may be watching this at some point, and that
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: may be the next move, Chuck. It'll be your fault.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: But that may be not your fault. It may be
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: your credit.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Well, but it's like these Trump accounts. I actually think
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: these are good ideas, unfortunately, because the name Trump is
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: so polarizing. Some people see it and immediately don't want
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: anything to do with it. And you're like- Look, I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: know they put his name on it, but this is
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: actually a pretty good idea for your kid if you've
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: got a young grandchild or something like that.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: The irony of the Obamacare issue and the Medicaid issue
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: is this big, ugly law, which threatens to remove some
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: 17 million people from the voter polls, from the opportunities
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: to be served. If you go and look at members
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: of Congress, start with the speaker himself. in Louisiana and
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: look at the nearly 50% of the people, I think
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: 39 or 40 some odd percent of the people in
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: the Speaker's district are Medicaid dependent. Right.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: You've got one of the biggest ones.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: One of the biggest ones. You've got Valadao up in California.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: He's got 70% of his district that's Medicaid dependent. I
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: don't know. Forget party. Forget all of that. How do
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: you look at the constituents that you represent and tell
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: them this isn't going to impact them? There was a
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: story that just came out in our local newspaper just
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: last week on SNAP benefits and the people that are
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: falling off And in those statistics from LDH and from
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: the federal government, it was determined that those people that
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: were coming off the rolls were procedural, not waste, fraud,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: or abuse. It's people falling through the cracks for owner's paperwork,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: for fraud. Every six, this new policy that you've got
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: to reapply every six months. Chuck, if you had to
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: apply for your driver's license every six months, I dare
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: say you'd be driving without.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: No, that is designed. You know, it's sort of like,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the way a parking ticket late fees just
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: kick in like within three days or whatever.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: It's like some systems are designed to have you not.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: use them, right?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: It's like the old call in for this rebate. It's
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: going to be a $ 10 rebate. And you get to
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: say that, but no one ever calls in.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Because remember, when you get the rebate, you got to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: cut out this proof of purchase. And then you got
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: to find the receipt. Like you got to go through
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: this whole rigmarole for 30 bucks. And then you say
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: to yourself, I don't know. My time is worth more
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: than that.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: And most people don't do it. So they get the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: benefit of offering it, but never paying it. And it's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: the same situation where you hide the ball. Listen, working
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: people are busy trying to live. They're trying to take
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: care of their families. They're trying to educate and feed
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: their kids in the grocery store, trying to afford these
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: exorbitant prices in the grocery store, in the gas line.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: And now you're telling me I got to keep reapplying.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: And each time it's almost as if we'll get you
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: next time. You're going to forget to cross a T
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: or dot an I. You're going to put a comma
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: in the wrong place. And we're going to reject you.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: And then you've got to redo it. And, you know,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: for working moms, dads, grandmas out there, that's that. We
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: as government. should always seek to root out ways fraud abuse.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing. When you're living on the edge.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: To get people services that they need. That's what government does.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: When you're living on the edge, when you're paycheck to paycheck,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you don't you're exhausted all the time. And it's like
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you just you're you're you're anyway, like we we're we're on.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: And it's strange because the Trump brand is he wants
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to look out for working people.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: And this is the working class that is trying desperately.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Nobody likes to be on welfare. I've never met anybody
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: who says, oh, I love being. And this is like
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: one of the you know, I mean, the irony is,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: what do you make of this new welfare policy that
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration is pushing for stay at home moms?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, it's all smoke and mirror. You know, this
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: whole notion that Trump. cares about or wants to help
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: working class people, I think those of us who know
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: better know that Trump has no use for poor people.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: He has no use for people that are living on
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: the edge. He's got no use for people. Here's a
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: man who says he loves inflation. Here's a man who
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: says that he was going to keep us out of war.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: And then when he got us in war, he said
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: we'd be out of war in six weeks. Now it's
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: six months. Here's a guy who says in day one,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: The price of eggs, the price of rice, the price
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: of bread, milk, and household goods will go down. Chuck,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: they've gone up. He said the prices for gas will
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: go down. It's gone up. So to suggest in any
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: way that Trump cares about poor people, be they white, black, poor, Democrat,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: East Bank, West Bank, whatever part of the world, East, North, South,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: he doesn't. And words are one thing. But look at
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: the facts. Just like, for example, all of a sudden
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Trump has gotten off on this new task of calling
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats communists. Well, he's the only one that publicly shares
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: his admiration for despots, not Democrats. He's the one who
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: says Putin's a really smart guy. He's the one that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: says all these other guys are great leaders. Well, no,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: they're not. They're despots and they don't care about America
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: or Americans. All right.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: But let's talk about one of the elephants in the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: room on this issue, which is White working people trust
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Trump more than Democrats.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Why? I think because Trump says things that others think.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Trump pulls the scab off of the challenges that people feel,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: and he does a real good job of pitting one
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: group against the other. So If he goes to a
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: poor white community and he says the reason you're poor
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: is because of affluent black people, because they had X
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: and Y to get to where they are. And he
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: paints a picture that somehow your plight is this way
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: because their plight isn't. or because they are getting SNAP benefits. Well,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: go and look at the statistics, Chuck. There are more
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: white people getting SNAP benefits across the board than there
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: are black people. But the average person doesn't see that
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: or doesn't believe that when in fact the reality is
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: there are more people in the white community on SNAP
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: benefits than there are black community across the country. That's
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: just a reality. But Trump likes to poke the bear
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: and to cause people to be against each other while
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: he sits back and pilfers the country. So when you
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: have this notion of white's poor whites believing him is
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: because he's saying things that they say back home, that
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: he's giving them license to hate again. But when you
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: go up the ratchet a little and you find the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: more affluent, educated people, they don't buy into it at
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: the same rate.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about a few examples of white male
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats who seem to bridge this divide. better. Bill Clinton,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Edwin Edwards, you talked about Edwin Edwards. There's no doubt
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: in my mind, Edwin Edwards was a good talker because
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: you don't get away with half the stuff he got
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: away with if he couldn't be a good talker. John
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Bel Edwards, Edwin Edwards, Bill Clinton was able to break
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that racial polarization on working people and would get white
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: working class people and black working class people to sort
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: of sing from the same songbook. What do they do
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: right that you think today's Democratic Party is struggling with?
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: Talking directly to the people. Kitchen table conversation. Edwin Edwards,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Bill Clinton, talk right to the people. You felt like
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: you were the only one in the room. They both
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: had a certain amount of charisma that disarmed you. You
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: felt like they really got where you were, where you
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: are and understand your plight.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: And they probably helped that Bill Clinton was he grew
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: up poor. He grew up in a poor white community.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: And so did Edwin Edwards. And when you're thinking of
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Edwin Edwards growing up in in rural Louisiana. Cajun boy
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: with a strong accent Bill Clinton with a country accent
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Just one of the guys And I think The problem
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: that Democrats And or others have And one of the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: ones that I will Criticize our party with is Sometimes
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: we're guilty of Of Trying to make the simple Complex
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Instead of making the complex simple talking to people in
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: a language that they understand, that they appreciate.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I always call it, I say, don't, I always say,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: speak American to me. Don't speak English. Speak American.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Just be real. You know, just talk to
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: me about what, you know, if, listen, it's expensive to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: feed your children. We don't really talk about, say, affordability.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: Just say, shit, man, I can't afford to pay for
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: these groceries.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Right, right. You know, we don't even use these fancy words.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: You want to make it one word? No, make it 10.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: I can't afford to pay for my groceries. I need help.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: You know, and when you talk to people to say,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: Somebody's got to care about the rest of us. Right.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: Somebody's got to be fighting for the rest of us.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Who are the rest of us? The rest of us
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: are all those people who feel like no one cares.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: The rest of us are the ones that's working two jobs,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: trying to take care of the kids, the rest of us.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: are the ones that's challenged with mental health issues, and
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: they get up every day and they're still struggling. The
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: rest of us are those who are not. The rich
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: is rich, the poor is poor, but somewhere in the middle,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: somewhere to up the middle bottom, and no one's talking
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: about them. Those guys and gals that every day are
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: struggling to survive. And you know what? Quite frankly, like
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: Katrina Waters, they don't give a shit who pulls them
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: out of the drowning, out of the waters. They don't
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: care if it's a white head, a black head, a Republican,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: a Democrat, other. They need help. That's where I think
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: we missed the boat. Speaking plain American to the people,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: letting them know we get it. We would not. We
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: would not you don't get elected to Congress or to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: the presidency and automatically get a box of wisdom or
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: a magic wand. We still have to communicate with the people.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: And when we lose touch with that, we lose the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: whole process.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: You know, if Democrats don't win control of the House.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: in this midterm, what does that say about your party?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: It says, it would say, first of all, I'm not
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: in any way conceding that I think we're going to absolutely.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't either. I mean, I think it's about a,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: you know, but look, I mean, I don't think LSU
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: is going to lose more than two games all year,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: but if they lost four, right, we'd be shocked.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: It's possible. But I will tell you, if we did,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: it would mean that we, we dropped an incredible pass.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: We blew an incredible play. We blew an incredible opportunity.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: We totally lost the messaging.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Do you see any seeds here that concern you? It's
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: sort of like, this feels like a given. It's hard
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: to imagine it's not. But there's always the counterfactual. You're like,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: am I ignoring something I shouldn't be ignoring? Is there
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: something over here that I'm missing?
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: Right. What's going through your head on this? Like, everything
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: seems like it's going in the right direction for your party. But,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: you know, you just, you know, is there some storm
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't know was on the radar?
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: You know, we're always concerned about that. That possible unknown,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: that one church visit you missed. that one group you
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: thought you had solidified. There's always that nagging part in
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: the back of your mind of what could we have
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: done more of at 801 when the elections are now done?
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: I think we're in a very good place. I think
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: we're at this point, I'm less concerned about the ones
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: we may drop or concerned about these ones that no
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: one's counting us on that we may actually catch. There
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: are some red to blues out there that can really
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: shock some folk on election night. I also think if
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: I'm reading my tea leaves correct, Chuck, when I talk
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: to Republicans and Democrats alike and I talk to my
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: Republican friends who share with me their disdain for what's
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: happening with not necessarily their party, but where Trump is
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: taking their party. There are a lot of Republicans who
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: are going to vote blue. There are a lot of
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: Republicans that are not going to vote at all. So
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: I think there lies where I think pundits should be
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: watching election night for the upset. And the upset is
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: going to be in areas where Republicans are going to
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: send a message that they do not agree with what
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is doing. And to go back to Bill
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Cassidy for a minute, if Bill Cassidy had stayed on
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: course and maintained his position on the impeachment, explained why
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: he did it, and did not roll over and confirm RFK.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: I think it would have been next to impossible to
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: beat him if he'd run as independent.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I, so I was a huge advocate of that idea.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: It's my understanding they looked into it. And it's my
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: understanding they didn't see a path to victory. And I
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: don't know if Louisiana makes it a little bit harder
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: for ballot access. I'm not quite sure. But either that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: that's mine. But I'm with you. I to me. But
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think it was the Kennedy
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: confirmation alienated a whole bunch of voters that might have
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: been with him. It wasn't for that.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: The the people that would have come to his rescue.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: And listen, you hit it on the head. This changing
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: from a jungle primary to a close primary, that was
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: about as intentional a hit as you can.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: It is literally a hit.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, a political assassination.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: He fell for the okey-doke. Had he switched and become independent,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: I think he would have inoculated himself even from that hit. But,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: you know, listen, I didn't look at the numbers. I
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: suspect they looked clearly different. but the Kennedy thing didn't
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: work because, I mean, he finished third in a three-man
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: race or whatever, but he was odd man out. Even
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: with all the money, I think he had $ 11 to
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: $ 12 million in the bank.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: So let's assume you're right about what we're going to
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: see with Republican turnout. I have a suspicion that there's
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: something to it. And look, this is, I think, what
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: this MAGA convention's about. I mean, I'm not sure it's
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: a good way to talk to independent voters, but they're
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: not talking to independent voters, right? They're trying to get
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: their base out because they know they got a problem.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: But let's assume you get this majority and you get
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: it with the A governing, you get a governing majority.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, we could make fun of Mike
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Johnson all we want. I'd be like, you try being
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: speaker with a three seat majority, right? I think it's a, yeah,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: it's a near impossibility. So let's assume you have a
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: governing majority and you just said there's a message being
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: sent here. And you was, I'm guessing you think it's
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: an accountability message. Is that what you assume?
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: That's the message that's being sent.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: So what does that look like? Right. We've heard the
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: I word being thrown around and oversight. And look, I
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: think the weakness of Congress is the most damaging thing
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: that's happened this century. I think as just as a chamber.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: We've had too many speakers capitulate to their own party's
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: president on executive branch powers. And I think this is
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: why I think a lot of people feel as if
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Congress has neutered itself.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: You know, with tariff authority and all of this business.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: What's the focus? What should be the focus and how
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: do you not sort of get drawn into the Trump
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: swamp where sometimes you think you're doing something that works,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: but suddenly you're just bogged down in it and voters think, hey,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: you're not paying attention to what we asked you to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: pay attention to.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: And we should be able to walk into bubble gum
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: at the same time. And we can't. And so part
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: of what we have to do, we have to advance
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: good policy for the American people At the same time, simultaneously.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: And hope that Donald Trump signs it?
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: Well, no. Well, he's not going to sign it.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean we don't continue to advance. Listen,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: we've been in the minority for the last two years,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: and we have not conceded our policy efforts. We have
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: used discharge petitions to advance policy. bills to the floor
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: when the leadership didn't want it to get there, knowing
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: the president will probably not sign it. But that doesn't
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: mean we can sit back and just not do anything
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: because we have a president that won't sign it. So
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: hence my comment, walking and chewing bubble gum. We've got
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: to continue to advance good policy, even if he doesn't
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: sign it, because the public's still watching and the public's
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: seeing good policy that can change the price of rice,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: that can come up with cures with National Institute of
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: Health Research dollars that this president doesn't want to have,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: while on the other hand, holding them accountable. There has
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: to be a restoration of the checks and balances, the
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: guardrails of our government. The rule of law has to matter.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: The Constitution has to matter. So we have to continue
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: to exercise oversight. We have to demonstrate to the American
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: people that we will not give in to a country
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: of lawlessness or a president and his minions who think
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: they're above the law. We have to do these things simultaneously.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: And Chuck, guess what? Republicans and Democrats alike want to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: see this. I'm not talking about MAGA. I'm not talking
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: about those zealots who will... support Trump even if he
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: killed someone on Main Street, as he once said. But
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about the reasonable people who happen to be
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: of a different philosophical view, Republican or Democrat, but are
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: not anti-American, who are not anti-constitution, who are not anti-rule
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: of law. That's a pocket of people that may be Republican,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: but they're very reachable. if you bring them the way
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: I suggest, and that is keep it pure. Let's talk
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: about the Constitution. Let's talk about the rule of law.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Is it, look, you can make a strong case that
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: he's done impeachable offenses. And we know a third impeachment
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: might feel like the parents on Charlie Brown, you know, wah, wah, wah, wah, right?
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Like the public might not hear it, despite, you know,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: on one hand, you're like, well, if you're not gonna
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: hold him accountable, what's the point of having... the provision
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: in the constitution. And yet I'm not sure it's worth
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the time to do it. Would you focus your energy
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: on the impeachment of a Kennedy or a Hegseth first?
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: Is that where you'd go? Or is it not impeachment
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: at all? Is it instead, we got to figure out
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: how to prevent this sort of selling of regulation capture, right?
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Like the tech industry clearly has attempted to do with AI. What,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: in the accountability space, prioritize it for me. Is it
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: individuals and the damage being done to these individual agencies,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: HHS and the Pentagon, to me seem on fire at
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: the moment? Or is it more of what's happening with
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: the private sector and the buying off of the administration?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: Chuck, I think it's simultaneous. I think all of those
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: things are meritorious to review. I think the notion that
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: the country, that some think we should hang our hat
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: on singularly impeachment, Listen, we've impeached him twice. You have
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: to also have a Senate that will convict. So you
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: need those components together.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: If you don't have the vote in that sense, if
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: you don't have the votes, it's not worth doing.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Then what you're doing is you're offering people false hope.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: You're all sizzling no stakes. The American people deserve steak.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: They might have the votes for Kennedy. You might have
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: the votes for Hegseth. And frankly, my guess is they'd
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: resign before they ever went through it.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: And listen, and that's that's my hope is that they
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: will recognize or even the president himself will recognize like
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: he did with with Kristi Noem, that these people are
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: toxic and that they are doing things and that that's
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: just beyond the pale. But all of the oversight, it's
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: so much more than just the I word. There's every level.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: You've got Holman, who was under investigation for taking $ 50, 000
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: in cash. No one's talking about that anymore. Now he's
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: head of Border Patrol. How is that possible that you
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: can just let this be swept under the rug? I
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: would tell you, Chuck, if that were Democrat, I think
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: the press would be talking every single day.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: I'm aware of a Democrat from Louisiana who had cash
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: in a freezer that we had that became a running
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: gag for for plenty of political comics. I mean, you know,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not I don't want to belabor that. But yes,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this lunch bag of brown bag of cash,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: which is like right out of like a bad movie script.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: It's like the old what was the that? ab scam.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: You remember where the FBI wore the dummy mustaches and
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: made these congressmen fall for bribes? That's what it felt like.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Homan fell for it was like the simplest of of scams.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: You're like, I'm sorry if you're that dumb to fall
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: for it, you shouldn't be in government, let alone crooked.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: And then not only are you not brought to justice
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: for it, you're brought back in and promoted to a
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: high profile position. My God, what what are we doing?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: So All of those things and so many others. When
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: you look at the Bitcoin and the relationships between who
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: owns what when they get who's buying this stock, who
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: owns stock in this business is doing work with with
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: the White House. The president's made an estimated reportedly two
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: point five billion dollars since taking office again. There's a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: lot of work to be done, and the American people
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: want answers. And you have the feel-good conversation of let's
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: do an impeachment, but if you don't have a conviction
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: on the Senate side, you're just offering false hope. What
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: I think the American people want to see more than
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: anything else is an accountability factor where there's real oversight.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: One of the most substantial powers of the United States
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: Congress is the power of oversight, the foundation of checks
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: and balances. three separate but co-equal branches of government. This
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: president brags.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Congressman, they're not co-equal.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Hang on, Congressman. These are not co-equal branches. There's a reason.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but when I make a list,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: when I make a list, one, two, three, I don't
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: put the most important branch two, or I don't put
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: the most important thing on my grocery list at two
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: or three, right? The number one thing on my list
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: is the number one thing I care about getting from
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: that grocery store. All right, the founders put it number
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: one for a reason. This co-equal branch business is nonsense.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: If it were co-equal branches, they'd all be able to
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: fund agencies and they'd all be able to do things.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: Article one, you guys are not the co-equal branch. You
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: are the supreme branch of government. And it bugs the
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: bejesus out of me that we have gone, it's really
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: since 9-11. I mean, we're at an anniversary and that
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: is where this accelerated. this where Congress went and became
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: parliamentary and treated the president as if they were a
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: prime minister.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And listen.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't mean to go on a rant, but
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: I think the co-equal branch business is hogwash.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: Listen, I totally appreciate your commentary, but I will tell
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: you this. Even if we assume for the sake of
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: discussion that we were and are supposed to be a
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: co-equal branch, this president has totally blown that to smithereens
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: when he stands next to Mike Johnson and says that
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, and says, I am
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: the President of the United States and the Speaker of
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: the House. You're standing next to the third.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: There's some truthiness to that, you know.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: I understand. But it hurts, you know, because what it is,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: it is a admission that you're running everything. When he
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: says that I control the House, the Senate. And what
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: was always, even at worst of times, Chuck, the backstop
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: was the courts. I saw an interview, and I'll digress
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: for half a second if you allow me. Andy Young,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: former mayor of Atlanta, New Orleans native, former U.N. ambassador
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: to the U.N., former member of Congress, say when he
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: was being interviewed that these times are worse now than
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: they've ever been. And I thought, how could that be?
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to this.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: By the way, when Andy Young is saying that, this
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: is the most optimistic member of that generation. More optimistic
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: at times than John Lewis, right? Like, just always saw, no, no, no,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: I can work with anybody, right? That's amazing that he's
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: saying that.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: Who was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when Dr.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: King was killed. Who was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Who was spat at, beat on, dogs biting and hoses.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: And I said, how could that possibly be? And as
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: I'm saying this to the television, because I was looking
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: at it, I wasn't with him. He answered it. He said,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: because we always had the courts. We had the federal marshals.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: We had the federal government to come in and to
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: make sure that. Those young girls going into the segregated
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: schools as they desegregated them, they had federal marshals. As
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: they marched Edwin Pettus Bridge, they had federal marshals that
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: kept the sheriffs and the dogs. We don't have that anymore.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: We don't have the federal government anymore. Trump has usurped
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: the authority of the Supreme Court, of the entire federal government,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: of the FBI, the CIA, and all of his agencies
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: that are supposed to be nonpolitical. and have made them
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: political machines.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: Let me move into a few more, a little bit
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: of CBC politics.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: The flirtation with socialism, whether it's the socialist adjacent or
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: fully DSA membership, we have seen with the large exception
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: of the state of Florida, these candidates struggle in African-American communities, right?
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: You know, we saw it with Abdul El-Sayed, we saw
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: it with Francesca Hong, who lost to David Crawley in Wisconsin.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: And really the outlier was Angie Nixon, though, knowing the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: way I know the state of Florida and her activism,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: you know, her defining characteristic wasn't DSA. She was a
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: well-known activist in the Jacksonville community in particular, in Tallahassee.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: And so I think the fact that she was already
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: well known in the African-American community allowed that not to
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: be an issue. But what is that divide? And do
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: you sense that this is going to be a growing
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: potential wedge inside the CBC itself?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: No, I don't. I think that as our numbers increase,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we started with a small number, 12, 13.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: Now we're 60 plus. There'll be growing pains. And we're
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: looking at a country where, you know, Democrats are not
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: a monolith. Congressional Black Caucus members, Black folk are not
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: a monolith. And the notion that we have to be
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: is a trick that someone else is trying to promote.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: The reality is, rather, it's progressive, moderate, liberal, DSA, whatever
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: you want to call us, we're Democrats, right? And I
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: will tell you, I will reject and fight against this
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: notion that that there's trouble in paradise, if you will,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: with some who say, oh, what is it going to
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: mean for the National Black Caucus? We have DSA members. Listen,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: we have Democrats and we have different ideas and different philosophies.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that we are going to be against
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: each other. Doesn't mean we're going to be tethered. It
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: just means that we're going to broaden our thinking. We're
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: going to bring more people into the tent. We're going
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: to find better, stronger solutions to our issues. And yes,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: some of them may be different. Some of them may
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: be provocative. Some of them may be very bold. But
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: I see it as a strength, not a weakness.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: So is there any litmus test to be a member
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: of the CBC?
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: On policy? Yeah, yeah. The policy, your ability to align
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: with the philosophical views of, you know, fairness, equality, working
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: for people that have been historically left out. The conscience
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: of the Congress is not something that we've adopted a happenstance.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: It's over years and years and years of fighting for
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: those people that have been left behind. And that means
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: not just African-Americans. That means Americans that have found themselves
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: on the short end of the stick as well. So
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: the Congressional Black Caucus has a very firm mission. of
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: showing up, showing out, and fighting for those people that
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: have been marginalized, those people that have been on the
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: other side of equality. And so that means fighting for
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: health care, fighting for education, fighting for environmental justice, fighting
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: for economic parity so people have an opportunity to to
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: really live the American dream, not a handout, a handout.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: If you're an African-American Republican that gets elected to Congress,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: but you share that philosophy, you're welcome.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, we've had African-American Republicans a part of the
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: caucus before. And they had to demonstrate that they share
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: those views. and they share those views. They're welcome to
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: offer themselves as a member, but then they've got to demonstrate.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: You don't just get automatic membership because it's more than
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: just the color of your skin, and it's more than
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: just what you say you will do. You've got to
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: demonstrate that you share the views, that you share the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: ideological views, that you share the passion and the mission
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: for fighting for the issues that I just mentioned. If
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: you don't, then you don't get a chance to be
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: a part of this organization, much like any other caucus.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: You've got to demonstrate that there's some like-mindedness.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about the there was a
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: little dust up last week. Jared Golden, Marie Glussen, Cam
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: Perez essentially sided with Republican leadership to get a bill
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: on the floor that Jared Golden cared a lot about.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: And every every member of Congress has that bill.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: That is a that is. Hey, this really matters to
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: my district and I care about it. And some Democrats
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: really upset with him on this. What's your line on this?
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll be honest. I had a lot of
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: empathy there for Golden and, you know, Glusenkamp-Perez, especially a
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: guy like Golden who's retiring. And he knows this might
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: be the last shot he has at a bill that
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: he cares about. And then this idea, you know, it is...
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: Is this what makes Congress feel broken that this rules
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: committee operates the way it does and that members should
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: be able to just bring a bill to the floor
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: once a year that they care about? Or what's the
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: right way to do this? And should they be punished?
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: Should parties enforce this type of strict procedural voting?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: Listen, I came from the state Senate where regardless of
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: who was the president, the senator, who the governor was,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: my bill got to the floor. I got here. I
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: got a hearing on the floor. I got a hearing
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: in committee.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: And how did you do that?
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: It was just automatic. We didn't have a rules committee.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: So if you've got a bill, you author your bill,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: you throw it in the hopper, it's read into the record,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: and then it's assigned a committee.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: And then- Why doesn't Congress work that way?
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: And listen, one of the most frustrating things I got
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: to when I got to Congress is, what the hell?
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: You mean I got to just sit here and wait?
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: I was with a group of member of Congress who
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: said to me, do you realize that I can't even
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: bring one bill to the floor without it going through
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: a process. He's like, shouldn't every member of Congress every
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: two years get at least one free bill onto the
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: floor that they want to get passed? And I thought,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: how is that not a rule already?
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: Listen, it was one of the most frustrating things. I
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: came from the state Senate where I was minority leader.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: I was chair of a committee. I was at every
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: discussion on the budget, every discussion. But we were not
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: in charge. But no one, my bill still got at
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: least introduced in its first hearing in a committee. Now,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: you can kill it in committee, then it's over. But
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: at least you had an opportunity to advance it. I
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: get to Congress five years ago, five and a half
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: years ago, and it's like, hurry up and wait. You're
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: a freshman member. If you're not on a committee in jurisdiction,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: you don't get a whole opportunity to really weigh in.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: Thank God I am now on one of the most
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: powerful committees, Energy and Commerce, so you can really start
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: to move and affect legislation.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: The most important committee on Capitol Hill. I say this
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: about on both sides of the House and the Senate,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, because Fritz Hollings used to say this, you
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: know what the purview of the Commerce Committee is?
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Right. And when Chairman Dingell was chairman, he has
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: a globe in the anteroom of energy and commerce. And
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: he'd take people back there and they asked, what's the jurisdiction?
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: He said, what do you see in that globe? So everything,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: energy and commerce, everything. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead. I just
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: I'll go to go back to your comment about gold and.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: Those two votes.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: They everyone has a right to vote how they want to.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: and they have a right to vote the conscience of
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: the people back home, but you also have to be strategic.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: That bill is not going to pass when it gets
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: to the Senate. It's just not. I mean, I think
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: everyone knows.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a Susan Collins problem, by the way.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: But it's not going to pass when it gets to
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: the Senate. But here, one part... one part in that
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: bill that was important to him. But we see that
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: all the time, Chuck, where they have these great names
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: for a piece of legislation, but they're not really demonstrative
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: of what the bill does. And people say, well, why
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: did you vote against that? Because what you didn't see
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: were all the poison pills that are embedded in the bill.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: You might like one component. As thoughtful legislators, as thoughtful policymakers,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: We have a responsibility to not just look for that
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: one piece that's important to us, but to look at
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: it globally of how it affects the American people and
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: the overall mission of the Democratic Party. Therein lies where
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: I think my two colleagues missed the boat. But it
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: is not for me to chastise them for voting what
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: they think was right. I have my own barometer, my
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: own battery of tests I run through to make sure
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: that I'm voting not just for this one component, But
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: to look at all the others, because you may think
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: you're winning, but all these other components mean you're really losing.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's what happened last week. They may have
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: thought they were winning, but we ultimately lost.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: Well, but here's the thing that I learned about house rules.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: On January 3rd, you have a blank piece of paper.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: On January 3rd, 2027, you guys got a blank piece
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: of paper. And you can make the rules anything you
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: want when it comes to how bills get to the floor,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: how they don't get to the floor. You could set
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: up new committees. You could do all sorts of things.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: So I say this. If you had a wish list
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: to a potential Speaker Jeffries on a rules change, given
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: your experience in other legislatures, give me one rules change
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: that you would think off the bat would help the
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: reputation of Congress.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: Being able to move and have substantive discussion on the
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: House floor, being able to offer amendments. If you're not
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: on a committee of jurisdiction, you will not get a
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: chance to weigh in other than your final vote. I
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: think we should have more debates. I come from a
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: former body where I can go to the floor anytime
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: there's something going up and I can opine and I
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: can make a compelling argument. You can't do this if
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: you're not on the committee. One of the rule changes
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: I would want is to have more of a true
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: legislative process where people can see, feel, and have input.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: Members of Congress will have the opportunity, even if you're
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: not a part of a committee of jurisdiction, will have
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to be heard on the floor.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: I think you actually, we're talking on September 9th here.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: Is today the day that the Rules Committee has like
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: open rules? Isn't that, I think we're this week, right?
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: Where if you want to make some suggestions for rules
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: changes for the next rules package, I think it's like
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: the open houses this week.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I look forward to see if we could make
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: some changes here. Let me get you out of here
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: on something that we both love, I think, but at
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: the same time is falling as a congressional issue. And
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: that is, The role Congress now feels it needs to
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: play in college sports. What is it that you think
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Congress should be doing in the college sports space? I mean, look,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: we're getting bombarded with these ads. Nick Saban and Deion
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: Sanders are the face of these ad campaigns to try to.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: get this Frankenstein of a college sports bill passed. And
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: I call it that because I can't believe this bill
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: is about to go through Congress without anybody from the
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: labor side of things having a seat at the table.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: But why is Congress involved in this?
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: Because it's gotten unwieldy, because the the the. the SEC
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: and all these guys have become so big. And because
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: now we're looking at the gravity of what these athletes
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: bring and you're changing the, the dynamics of what used
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: to be pure college sports to now name, image, and
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: likeness being paid. And the whole issue with LSU and SEC,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: can you take someone that was even on a practice
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: squad with, with NFL and now take them back for
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: an extra year of eligibility within the college reign. It's
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: all become big, big, big, big, big business. And so
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: now the, It's commerce. It's commerce. And it's before energy
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: and commerce. The sanctity of college sports I think is
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: at risk. And it needs to be.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't mean to pick on
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: a word here. I hear this. Well, the Look, there's
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: been money in college sports. Instead of under the table,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: it's now above the table.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not opposed to a kid having name, image, and
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: likeness opportunities. I'm not opposed at all. In fact, I
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: support it. What I don't want to see is a
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: melding between the the NCAA, and the NFL. They're separate entities.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: And when I say the sanctity, I mean the purity
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: of watching a good college game versus an NFL game
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: where the rules are different. Watching these kids still have
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: in their foreground, the reason they're in college is to, yes,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: play ball, but to get an education. That's being lost
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: where you're just taking kids in and all they're doing
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: is playing football and their academics are thrown to the side.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's a huge mistake. The academics of an
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: athlete should still be important. They should play college ball.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: If they want to leave college ball prematurely, go to
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: the NFL, but don't blend the two. And as it
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: relates to Congress being a part of the whole image, name, image,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: and likeness or the SCORE Act is one of making
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: sure that we, in my estimation, that we're protecting HBCUs,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: that we're protecting smaller universities, not just the SEC, but
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: MEAC and some of the others, making sure that these
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: kids are being protected in some cases from those who
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: want to maximize their profits on them, even in the
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: notion of them giving them an opportunity to, to.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: Let me play labor lawyer here.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: You got to protect.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: How do you, how do you impose this bill would
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: essentially impose a salary cap. I don't know of any
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: instance where, uh, a salary cap essentially was imposed without
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: some form of collective bargaining. And right now there is no,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: and I, and honestly, I have no idea whether this
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: is going to be done by conference or by division.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: You know, but it seems to me that there needs
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: to be a players association here. You need to be
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: labor this entire bill. This is what I, and I
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: think this is why the NCAA loses every single court
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: case because there's never sort of, it is about limiting the,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: The the, you know, sort of limiting what the player
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: can do or say, and that's usually why they lose
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: these court cases. This legislation feels like it's going to
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: get thrown out in the courts because it does not
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: have any provision here where players get to say at all.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: Chuck, the SCORE Act is flawed. And that's why it
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: hasn't moved. That's why I've been opposed to it. You are, okay.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: CBCA is opposed, right?
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: The CBCA is opposed to it, as it's written. And
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: most of the Democrats, if not all of the Democrats
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: on Energy and Commerce, are opposed to it as written.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: And we're not of the mind that some are, that
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: we just want to not ever have any regulation. We
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: just want to be done right. We want to make
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: sure that labor's at the table. We want to make
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: sure these young athletes are protected and not prostituted, if
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: you will, to make sure that we're creating a fair system.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: And a fair system is not often done fast.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: This notion that they were trying to rush this through.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: We got to get this done.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: That's the Trump era. I was like, here, man, pump
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: the brakes. Pump the brakes.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: This is far too deep, far too great for the
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: overall system. We've got to be very thoughtful, very deliberate,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: and we need more people at the table, not fewer.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: So this bill is not passing. There's no way that
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: passes the House, does it?
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: I don't see it passing. I don't see it passing
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: the House. If it passed the House, I don't see
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: it passing the Senate. In its current form, every form
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: that I've seen thus far is significantly flawed.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: Why does your governor seem to care more about LSU
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: football than this? I can't believe how much he's gotten himself.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: embedded into the LSU football program. And I say this,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: the last time I saw a sitting governor get involved
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: in a football program, that football program got the death penalty.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: That's what happened to SMU back in the 80s. And
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: it was the sitting governor who was sort of involved
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: with basically embedding himself too much in it. And in
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: some ways, it really harmed SMU because it politicized the
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: whole thing and it made them even a bigger target.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: I You must know this, Governor Lewis. Why is he
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: so embedded into this program, and why do LSU leaders
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: think that's a good idea?
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think they think it's a good idea. I
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: think the governor is ruling with an iron fist. and
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: to the chagrin of many of the leaders within the
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: LSU structure who can't say this out loud.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: Didn't he negotiate these contracts at the governor's mansion? It
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: was just crazy.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: But even all of the fans, and this is where
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: the real danger is going to come in, Because LSU
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: is a cultish following. We love our LSU.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, you do.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: And when you start to see the fan base, the
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: donors from the Alumni Association who are starting to rumble
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: about this political overreach into what is, going back to
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: my word before, purist sanctity of college sports, it's a
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: real slippery slope. And I think it's a dangerous place
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: for the governor to be. And I think it has
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: the potential to be very upsetting, not only for him
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: as governor, but for the entire LSU family, if you will,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: who are very protective, very protective of the image and
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: the rights and the love and the passion of LSU.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: And we don't like politics in our football. We don't
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: like politics in the face of this great team, this
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: great state, Louisiana. This governor hadn't figured that out yet.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: I think he will.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: I look, I mean, I think it's high risk. I mean,
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: you know that, you know, people will pick football over
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: a politician any day of the week.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: And we saw Bobby Jindal when he was running for president.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: Bobby Jindal tried to to corral, if you will, the
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: power of LSU sports and it backfired on him. And
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: I suspect this will probably backfire, too, because Republicans, Democrats, independents,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: we all love LSU and we don't want to see
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: it politicized.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: Well, that ship that ship may have sailed. This is
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: a crazy this is a crazy way for me to
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: leave you with a question like this, but are you
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: scared of A.I. or are you excited about A.I.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: I'm a little bit of both. I have dealt very deeply,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: and that's an area that energy and commerce that I'm
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: intimately involved with and recently met with Anthropic and met
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: with all of the various players to start talking about
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: how we get our arms around AI. AI has the
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: potential to be an incredibly powerful tool. But like anything
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: along these lines, it has the potential to be very,
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: very dangerous. We policymakers have to learn from what we
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: missed with Facebook and Instagram and social media. It happened
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: so fast. And now all of a sudden it's a
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: monster with 27 heads. We have to, from a policy standpoint,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: get our arms around AI to extract the best and
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: create guardrails for the potential worse. Just like we see
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: drones are very powerful and popular, we also know that
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: they can be very negative and dangerous. We have to
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: look at AI, artificial intelligence, and recognize I'm working on
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: currently legislation that would create, for lack of a better term,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: a watermark. A watermark. So when you go on social
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: media and you see Chuck Todd playing a violin and
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: singing operetta, you say, I don't remember Chuck being able
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: to sing operetta. Maybe you can. But I use that
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: as an example. There should be something that denotes this
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: is satire.
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: Well, have you seen this AI TV ad business that
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: we're seeing? I mean, it's everywhere.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: Crazy.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: But it's pharmaceutical ads. It's not even just politics, right? Like,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: I think the world is going to suddenly not believe
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: anything they see in about six months if.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: We're not careful. Remember that joke? I don't know if
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: it was Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy who said, you're
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: going to believe me or your lying eyes. Yeah. And
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: that's what we're getting to.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's an Eddie Murphy. I know where you're referring to.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: When you are too.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that wasn't me, baby. Wasn't me, baby.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: But when we were growing up, If it was on
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: a commercial, it had to be true because FCC wouldn't
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: let you put a lie on. If it was in
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: a magazine, if it was in a periodical, if it
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: was in a newspaper, it was true.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: That's why we have the FTC. Now you don't have
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: any of.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: That anymore because Trump has made them political. And when
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: they come before our committee, they have, and they essentially say,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: This is not an independent agency. We report to the president. No,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: that's not what it was designed to do. When Chuck
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: Todd can be threatened because to have your license taken
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: away because you said something that the president didn't like, man,
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: that is a blow to our democracy. 100%. We must
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: have a free independent press. We must have a fully
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: functioning government with guardrails. And Chuck, the 120th Congress will
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: be the beginning of- bringing back some semblance of true
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: governance for all the people, not for Democrats, not for Republicans,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: but for all Americans.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: Hey, just make Congress great again. Let's do it.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's do it together.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Congressman Carter, it's good to talk with you.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: Likewise. Look forward to doing it again soon.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: I'll have a lot more to say as you saw
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of fun to talk a
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: little bit about college sports and sort of the politic
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: politicizing of college sports by the way I hope you
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: catch a I reposted it on my X feed if
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: you want to take a look at it Chris Sims
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: who I know does some or has done some that
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: works for NBC sports a rant of his about sort
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: of Ted Cruz and the protect college sports bill has
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: gone viral, at least with us sports fans. And he
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: just nailed it. He's like, this idea that college sports
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: is in trouble doesn't actually match what the data says, right?
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: More people are watching college football than ever. It's making
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: more money. More people are attending games. It seems as
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: if the only people upset about what's happening to college
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: sports are those that are upset that the players are
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: getting paid. That was basically his point. And he said
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: this whole collective corporate support in this attempt to try
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: to create this idea that college football is way too
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: chaotic are just people trying to protect old turf. And
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: he called out the SEC and the Big Ten in
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: particular because they don't want, what they want is they
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: want congressional protection so that they don't have fair market
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: value for TV rights, fair market value for players. They
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: don't want a fair market. That's what the conferences don't want.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: And you know who else doesn't want it? ESPN and Fox.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: Because they are underpaying for college football. And they know it.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: They are making a killing on college football. The NFL is,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: you know, does, you know, because you don't negotiate with
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: a conference, you don't negotiate with a division. You know,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: they have it. The NFL, if you want some of it,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: you got to take the Jacksonville Jaguars every once in
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: a while. If college football ever creates a system like
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: that where the TV fees are negotiated for the entire
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: Division I as one, the supremacy of the SEC and
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten get challenged. And ESPN and Fox stop
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: getting a discount on their rights on that. Look, this
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: is not about protecting college sports. This is about protecting
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: the profits of conferences and TV networks. Anyway. I just
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: thought I would highlight that Chris Sims diatribe. It was
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: pretty good. You can go on my XFeed. All right,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: let's go to the time machine. Like I said, I
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: have my own, I'll give you my on the field
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: takes at the end of the podcast. Cause I know
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: not all of you love my love are as obsessed
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: with college football as I am, which by the way,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: another weekend, another amazing weekend that college football is just
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: always gonna, it always surprises, which is what makes it
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: such a great sport. But, Let's go to the time machine.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: Where are we going? We're going back to September 26, 1983.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: That's the anniversary that we will hit later this week.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting anniversary. Just after midnight outside of Moscow
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: and somewhere inside a secret Soviet military installation called Serpapikov 15,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: I hope I said that right, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: is beginning an overnight shift. His job is to help
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: answer perhaps the most consequential question anyone could be asked
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: during the Cold War. Has the United States launched a
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: nuclear attack on the Soviet Union? And before I tell
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: you what happened that night, you need to understand what
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: the world felt like in September of 1983, because this
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: was actually a pretty dangerous period in the Cold War.
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was president. Yuri Andropov, for the 10 minutes
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: he was leader of the Soviet Union, was currently leader
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. Reagan had just called the Soviet
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: Union an evil empire. The United States was preparing to
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: deploy a new generation of nuclear missiles in Europe, and
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: the Soviet leadership was genuinely worried that the United States
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: might someday attempt a nuclear first strike. We know that now.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: Declassified records show that Soviet intelligence is had been instructed
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: to look for signs that the West was preparing a
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: surprise nuclear attack. So this wasn't simply Cold War rhetoric.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: They were looking for it. They were searching for it.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: And then, just three weeks before Petrov went to work
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: that night, the Soviets shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: after it strayed into Soviet airspace. All 269 people were killed,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: including an American congressman. The Soviets were defensive and deeply suspicious.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: Each side was assuming some of the worst things about
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: the other. This is the atmosphere Stanislav Petrov walks into
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: on the evening of September 26. And then the alarm
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: goes off. The Soviet Union had developed a satellite-based early
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: warning system designed to detect American intercontinental ballistic missiles as
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: they were launched. The satellites were watching. Computers analyzed what
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: the satellites saw. And suddenly Petrov is staring at a
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: large red screen with one word on it, launch. The
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: system has detected an American missile, then another, and another. Eventually,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: according to the warning system, five American nuclear missiles have
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: been launched toward the Soviet Union. And the system isn't
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: presenting this as some random blip that somebody ought to
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: check out. It's telling the people in that bunker that
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: it has detected an attack. Now put yourself in Petrov's chair.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: The machine sitting in front of you exists for essentially
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: one reason, to detect an American nuclear attack. And it
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: is telling you this is it. But Petrov doesn't quite
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: buy it. Five missiles? Why would the United States start
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: a nuclear war against the Soviet Union with just five missiles?
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: Everything Petrov had been trained over and understood about nuclear
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: strategy told him that an actual American first strike would
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: be enormous, hundreds of missiles, perhaps even more than hundreds.
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: And there was no independent confirmation yet from the Soviet
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: Union's ground radar. It didn't prove that the satellites were
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: wrong because the detection system, the satellites were designed to
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: see launches before ground radar could see the missiles approaching
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: Soviet airspace. So Petrov did not know the answer. That's important.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: He would later describe his own confidence in his judgment
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: as something close to 50-50. So think about that. This
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't an heroic human being who somehow possessed information the
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: stupid computer didn't have. In some respects, the computer had
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: more information than Petrov did because it could see something
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: he could not see. But Petrov had something the computer didn't.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: He had context, he had judgment, and he had doubt.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: He concluded the warning was a false alarm. And then
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: they waited. Because if those missiles were actually coming, eventually
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: Soviet radar would see them. Soviet radar never did. There
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: were no missiles. The United States had not attacked the
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. The machine was wrong. And what made it
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: wrong is almost as extraordinary as what happened inside that bunker.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: The Soviet satellites were looking down at American missile fields.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: The system had been designed to recognize the infrared signature
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: associated with a missile launch. But that night, an unusual
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: alignment involving the satellite, the sun, and high-altitude clouds produced
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: something the designers had not adequately anticipated. Sunlight reflected off
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: the clouds, the sensors detected it, the computer processed it,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: and then the systems concluded American missiles are launching. So
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: this wasn't a sabotage or a hacking of any kind.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: This wasn't, you know, a malevolent computer in the movie
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: War Games trying to start World War III. It was
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: simply a machine built by human beings encountered circumstances its
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: human designers had not sufficiently anticipated. It saw the pattern
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: it had been designed to recognize and reached the wrong conclusion. Now,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: over the years, Stanislav Petrov has become known as, quote,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: The man who saved the world. It's a pretty good epitaph, huh?
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: It's also more than we can actually prove. Petrov couldn't
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: launch Soviet nuclear weapons. He was one person inside a
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: much larger command and control system. Had he retreated, right?
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: Had he treated the warning as genuine, the information would
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: have moved farther up that chain. Other human beings would
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: have become involved. Eventually, ground radar would have provided additional information.
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: We simply don't know what would have happened. So I'm
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: not going to tell you that Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: World War III. But we don't need the legend, because
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: the truth is interesting enough, isn't it? One of the
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: two most powerful countries on Earth had spent enormous amounts
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: of money building a sophisticated technological system to answer an
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: existential question, are we under attack? And on September 26, 1983,
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: that system answered yes, when the correct answer was no.
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: And between the machine producing its answer and human beings
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: potentially acting upon it, there was still a human being
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: in the chain who could say, Hold on. Does this
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: make sense? And that's why I wanted to tell you
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: about this story this week. Because 43 years later, we're
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: once again spending an enormous amount of time thinking about
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: what happens when human beings build extraordinarily powerful machines. Artificial intelligence.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: And I keep hearing this debate framed around how intelligent
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: these machines are going to become. Will they become smarter
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: than us? Are they going to replace us? Will they
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: eventually become so powerful that we can't control them? And
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: they may determine that we human beings are the problem?
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: Who knows? There are questions worth asking. But on September 26, 1983,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: it suggests a much more immediate question. What happens when
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: the machine is simply wrong? Because guess who machines are
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: built by? Humans. Machines are trained by humans. Their parameters
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: are established by humans. Their inputs are selected by, you
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: guessed it, humans. Which means machines don't merely have the
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: capacity to inherit human error. They can magnify it. They
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: can systemize it. They can take an assumption that one
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: human being might make and apply it a million times over.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: And because a computer did it, we can become tempted
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: to treat the conclusion as somehow more objective. more scientific,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: somehow more accurate. But a machine finding a pattern is
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: not the same thing as a machine understanding what the
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: pattern means. So another part of this story I've been
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: thinking about lately. There's a very fine line between probability
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: and stereotyping. Human beings have struggled with that line forever.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: We see patterns. We categorize people. We make assumptions about
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: individuals because of something we think we know about a group.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes probability can contain very useful information. Sometimes it's prejudice
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: wearing the clothes of probability, though. And that's what all
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: of us are fearing about AI. And now we're building
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: machines whose extraordinary power comes in part from their ability
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: to find patterns across quantities of information no human being
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: could possibly absorb in the same amount of time. And
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: that raises an important question that I don't think we're
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: talking about enough. What happens when the patterns those machines
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: discover reflect us, reflect our history, our preconceived notions, our
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: blind spots? And that's where another conversation I had this
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: week comes in. This week's Time Machine episode happens to
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: connect remarkably well with a conversation I did that's airing
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: right now on my new Sphere show. My guest is
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: Ashley Judd. And yes, you know Ashley as an actor.
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: But she's also spent decades advocating on issues involving women,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: gender-based violence, and exploitation. She was in Washington last week
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: for a gathering focused on AI and humanity. And I'll
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: tell you, I found her amazingly blunt about all of this.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: She wasn't quite sure where I was going to come from,
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: so she was sort of ready for a battle that
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: I wasn't interested in debating her about. I simply said, yes,
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: tell me more. She's clearly tired of having to prove
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: the premise before she's allowed to argue about the consequence.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: And the premise is pretty straightforward. For most of recorded
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: human history, men overwhelmingly controlled the institutions that decided what
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: got written down, who governed, who published, who got to teach,
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: who was considered an authority, whose experience, mattered enough to
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: become part of the record? I'm not saying it in
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: an accusatory way. This is history. And Ashley's question is,
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: if artificial intelligence learns from that historical record, what exactly
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: is it learning? Because there's an enormous difference between teaching
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: a machine how the world has been and teaching a
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: machine how the world ought to be. And suddenly that
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: line between probability and stereotyping becomes awfully important, doesn't it?
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: Imagine a machine processes thousands of years of recorded human
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: history and discovers that positions of political power have overwhelmingly
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: been held by men. Well, that's a pattern. And it's
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: also true. But what happens if a machine begins using
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: that historical pattern to make a prediction about which individual
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: is more likely to be a successful leader? At what
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: point has the machine stopped describing and historical inequality and
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: started perpetrating it. It's a question that I think is
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: not being dealt with enough by the folks building these machines.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: Because a probability about a group is not necessarily a
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: truth about an individual. And if we forget that distinction,
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: prejudice doesn't disappear because we've handed the decision to a machine. Jesus,
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: it's worse. What if we automated prejudice? That's what I
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: found so provocative about my conversation with Ashley. And it's
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: where her argument and Stanislav Petrov's story unexpectedly meet. They're
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: both warnings against something human beings are very susceptible to.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: Mistaking a machine's answer for an objective answer. In Petrov's case,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: the machine saw something that fit the pattern for an
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: American missile launch, and it was wrong. In the world
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: Ashley is worried about, a machine may discover patterns in
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: thousands of years in human history and human behavior. The
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: pattern may even be statistically real. That doesn't mean we
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: want the machine using that pattern to decide what an
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: individual woman is capable of, or who deserves an opportunity,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: or who represents a risk, or whose version of events
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: is more credible. Again, There's a fine line between probability
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: and stereotyping. And one of Ashley Judge's questions is whether
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: we're about to automate that line, which brings me back
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: to the story about Petroff in 1983. Because keep humans
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: in the chain can become one of those phrases everybody
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: agrees with without thinking very hard about what it actually means.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: It can't simply mean putting a human being at the
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: end of the process to click a proof, If the
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: human's job is to rubber stamp whatever the machine recommends, well,
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: then the human isn't really in the chain now, is it?
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: You need humans deciding what information goes in. Humans asking
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: whose experience is missing. Humans questioning what the machine thinks
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: it has learned. And when the consequences become serious enough,
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: humans with the actual authority to say, no, we're not
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: acting on this yet. Petrov couldn't see everything the Soviet
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: satellite could see. The satellite couldn't understand everything Petrov understood.
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: Neither was infallible. That's the point. The choice is in
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: between fallible human beings and infallible machines. There are no
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: infallible machines. We made them. In fact, Petrov's reward for
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: all of this actually wasn't exactly a parade. Accounts of
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: what happened afterward vary, but Petrov said that while he
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: was initially praised, he was later questioned extensively and reprimanded
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: over how he documented the incident in his logbook. The
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: whole episode, by the way, remained secret for years. The
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: world didn't know the name Stanislav Petrov for a long time.
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: It didn't know what had happened inside Serpekhov 15. It
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: didn't know that one night in September 1983, a machine
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: built to warn of nuclear Armageddon had confidently mistaken reflected
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: sunlight for an American missile attack. And maybe that's why
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: the story is worth remembering now. Not because humans don't
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: make mistakes. We do. And it's not because machines aren't useful.
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of good use they give. But because the
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: more powerful our machines become, the more consequential their mistakes
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: can become. And the more dangerous it is for us
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: to confuse a machine's confidence with certainty. 43 years ago
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: this week, Stanilov Petrov couldn't know that the machine was wrong.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: He simply understood that it could be wrong. And there
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: was still a human being in the chain with enough
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: skepticism and enough authority to act accordingly. So as we
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: race into this AI era, we'd better make sure there
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: still are human beings that can say no. And if
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: you want to hear my full conversation with Ashley Judd
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: about who is building these systems, whose history they're learning from,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: and what that could mean, particularly for women It's airing
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: right now, Sunday night on Newsphere. Take a look. Get
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: your trial. Sign up. Some great stuff on there every day.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: Her conversation, it's remarkably blunt. And after spending some time
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: this week with the story of Petrov, I think the
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: two conversations belong together more than I would have expected.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: when I was first doing my research about this week
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: in history. And with that, there's your history lesson for
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: the week that applies to today. All right, first question. Man, you're... Kevin...
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: When you start with Lebowski, you're always going to be
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: a winner with me. Anyway, Kevin, a former Floridian now
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: living in Colorado, writes, Hey, Chuck, as a fellow big
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: Lebowski fan, I have to lead with careful man. There's
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: a full beverage here. But your real question is whether
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: there is a method to John Fetterman's madness or is
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: it simply madness?
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: Fetterman as the dude. That's an interesting. I see where
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: you're going a little bit. You know, I have these
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: weird brainstorms about shows that would be a lot of fun,
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: but I just know politicians probably wouldn't get involved after
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: one or two attempts. Like my friend Craig Crawford always
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to do a cooking show. First of all, he's
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: doing some fun stuff on YouTube now. You should check
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: him out. But he always wanted to do a cooking
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: show with politicians saying every politician has to pretend they
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: have like a great recipe. And he said it'd be
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: fun to do a political talk show where you make
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: their favorite dish. And you're in the kitchen and while
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: you're making it, you're asking political questions. Well, the minute
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: you're saying this here, I would love to do, to
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: watch the movie Big Lebowski with Fetterman and just to
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: see his reactions to various scenes and what he likes,
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: what he doesn't, all that stuff. Anyway, it might be
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: a fun, like, you know, sort of doing a mystery
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: science theater 3000, but with a politician where you're like,
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: you know, reacting to the movie and applying it to
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: now again, These are these fantasy TV shows that I'll
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: never create. Maybe one time you could do a special
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: or something. Maybe Solis and I will do a Super
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: Tuesday screening of Big Lebowski and we'll have a big
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: political watch party or something with it. Look, I can't
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: crawl inside John Fetterman's head. None of us can. Those
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: that have covered him longer than I have say that
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: he's always– that this is– he's never been a conventional thinker,
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: conventional behavior. Whatever you– however you– whatever you think– we
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: just got through talking about stereotypes in the time machine, right?
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: Whatever you think the stereotype is of a politician or whatever,
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: he just never has met it. His health challenges and
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: his stroke and what happened after it, I think– push
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: people to make assumptions. And that's what I want to
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: be careful of, is not conflating all of this together
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: and assuming stroke leads to depression, leads to suddenly he's
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: anti this or anti that. I do think voters and supporters,
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, they project their own beliefs onto
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: other people. And then when they don't behave exactly how
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: you thought they were going to behave, you think they've
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: changed when maybe they were never what you thought they
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: were in the first place. I get this as a journalist.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: I'll have people who say, you used to be really fair,
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: but now you're this. And it's like, no, I haven't changed.
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: The facts have changed or you're judging me through your
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: own politics. I used to say, you know, Anybody, the
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: people that scream bias in the media are usually the
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: most biased people. What do I mean? If you come
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: from a liberal perspective, you may think I'm biased against liberals.
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: You come from a conservative perspective, you may think I'm
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: biased against conservatives. Or you may think if you're from,
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: you may think your views are mainstream. And even if
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: a majority don't think they're mainstream, but you believe they
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: are and you look for any sort of validators and
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: that conform to your view of what mainstream is. The
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: point is, is that I would, this is what I
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: would ask folks to do is how much of Fetterman
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: and their belief that Fetterman has changed or is based
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: on your presumptions about what he was for versus the
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: facts of whatever he said. And I think that, you know, he's,
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: I think he's always marched a little bit I think
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: he and he's a reminder, right, that there were certainly
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: plenty of people who liked Bernie to shake things up,
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: who aren't, you know, conforming liberals. They were looking to
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: shake things up. And you can believe in one thing
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: over here. You could believe in another on, you know,
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: plenty of of people may want more government action on
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: health care and child care. And have a different point
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: of view on what's happening in the Middle East. But
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: I do think a lot of people just make some
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: presumptions based on their own– again, I go back to–
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: we all put people in categories and we all– politics
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: has become so binary that when somebody gets the Bernie
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: Sanders endorsement like he did early on and then– so
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: there's a presumption– He's not just a Democrat. He's this
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: progressive Democrat. So anytime he doesn't behave like a progressive Democrat,
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: what's going on? Has something changed? You know, all this.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm not saying that's the answer. And maybe
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: it is what some others speculate that it might be too.
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: But we don't know. And I would just say, let's
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: always remember our own sort of projections that we put
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: on people sometimes. And just ask yourself, am I doing that?
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: Both things could be true. You could be doing that
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: and he's gotten a little haywire. So I don't want
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: to rule that out either. But I will say this.
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident that come January 2029, John Fetterman is
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: going to be a former U.S. senator. Either he doesn't
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: like the job and he doesn't run again or he
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: tries to run as an independent and it probably doesn't
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: work out in a presidential year. All right. By the way,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping to have Fetterman back. I want to have
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: this conversation.
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: If he wants to have this conversation. You know, I
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: I think you've got to just, you know. The more
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: people talk, the more maybe we can learn. All right.
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Greg P. Houston, Texas District Congressional
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: District 18. And he said, hey, Chuck, love the show.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: Keep up the great work. We're constantly under the deluge
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: of Trump and Bannon's flood the zone strategy. I think
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: my monologue kind of hit that pretty well today, right?
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: So why can't opponents of Trump's policies use a similar
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: strategy in response, whether through lawsuits or other challenges? There
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: are plenty of legal challenges already, but they still seem
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: few compared to the sheer number of actions coming from
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: the administration. Thanks for your time. Greg P. in Houston, Texas.
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: He has a PS. Thanks for the Deep dive on
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: Texas turning purple. It's nice to hear people try to
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: explain what a complicated state we live in. Well, that's
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: why you go to a Texan in my friend Abby Livingston.
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: I know you are not alone in thanking me for
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: that episode. I know she was terrific, and I think
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: she helped explain things based on somebody who actually lives
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: in Texas and has covered the state quite thoroughly. Well,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: there's two things going on here. One is there's a
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: lot more what I'd call organized resistance than gets covered.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: I think I mean, think about all the lawsuits. They
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: get filed immediately. There was a massive protest in the
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center and there's been sit ins over where the
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: arch is being put in. Some of that stuff just
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't get covered on a day to day basis in
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: the same way. And I think the day you're right,
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: the day loser Trump. But I would remind you there's
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: a reason we we call the presidency the bully pulpit.
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: What the president does and says just has outsized influence,
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: outsized coverage, and because he's been willing to use even
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: unchecked power that he may or may not even have,
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: we're sort of forced to pay attention, whether you think
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: that we're being Jedi mind-tricked or not. I think our
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: job is to put it in context and do what
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: we've been doing. But I hear what you're saying on this.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: And I think that this is my curiosity about whether
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: if Democrats get control of Congress, do they have this
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: in them? Or are they going to essentially spend more
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: time fighting with each other about what they should focus on?
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: And I don't know the answer to that. When I
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: look at it, I laid it out here. I think
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: we've got this massive, you know, the one good that
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: Trump did is he was the black light for what's
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: for for how how we could be hijacked by an authoritarian. Thankfully,
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: he's too lazy to be one. It doesn't mean he
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't want it, wish it, but he is too lazy, right?
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: January 6th, I always say January 6th is a reminder
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: how lazy he is. He could have ordered, you know,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: he could have fired his attorney general, the acting attorney
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: general and put in Jeffrey Clark. He could have tried
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: all these things, but he didn't. because then he would
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: have had to own it and he never wants to
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: actually own the hard work he won't do the hard
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: work but he has provided a blueprint for somebody who
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: is less lazy to hijack the country and turn it
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: into a quasi-authoritarian republic and that is something should we
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: should use this opportunity to treat it as he's been
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: the ultimate black light to find all the gross loopholes
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: that exist. And we've got to fix it. I'm not
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: sure the Democratic Party is ever going to behave that way.
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: It's probably going to take an individual candidate or a
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: movement of reformers outside the two parties. If you look
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: at the history of reform in this country, it's never
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: come from inside a major political party. It's always come
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: from the outside. So in that sense, I think it
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: has to come from the outside on this one. I
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of confidence in the Democrats to
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: sort of be as strategic. In some ways, right, the
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: Republicans could never pull off what they did. They had
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: essentially Bannon and Trump hijacked the party and took it
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: in another direction. Next question comes from Bob. Hey, I
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: heard there is a brief period of time before a
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: new Congress begins that the speaker could refuse to swear
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: in Democrats. Is that true and how could it happen? Well,
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: you can't refuse to swear in Democrats. You get sworn in.
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: And we had this conversation, I hope, with the reporter
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: from Lawfare. The vulnerability is in the period... Look, our
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: most vulnerable period in our Constitution is the period after
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: the election and before the new government gets sworn in,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: whether it's a new president or a new Congress. So
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: if the margins are really, really close and what you
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: could have is... an attempt to challenge the, you know,
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: before they elect a new speaker, there could be challenges
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: to certification process, or you could have an attempt to
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: bully a state or a county not to certify an election,
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: which would then call the numbers into question. If this
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: is a blue mirage election, right? And what I mean
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: by blue mirage, where we're in that 50-50 territory, Maybe
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: Democrats have picked up five or six seats, which in
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: theory would give them control. But that's the situation where
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: there is vulnerability. But they certainly would need some legal backup.
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: They certainly would need some cooperative secretaries of state. It's
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: not just unilateral, but there is. And again, I would
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: go back to my interview with the reporter from Lawfare
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago on this very topic. I hope
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: you caught it. And if you didn't, go back in
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: the feed and check it out. Appreciate it. Thanks, Bob.
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from David P., recent five-timer. Congratulations, David.
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: He's from North Scottsdale with Wilbon in Arizona's first congressional district. Hey,
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: you recently shared some great ideas for reforming political debates,
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: and I wonder whether moderators could also use graphics to
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: give viewers more context. For example, charts could illustrate where
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: federal spending actually goes. put issues like trans athletes or
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: third trimester abortions in proportions to their broader numbers, or
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: help viewers visualize the enormous difference between millions and trillions?
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: Do you think incorporating visuals like this would lead to
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: more substantive debates and help audiences better understand the issues? Yes.
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: Love the show, David. That's a terrific idea. I mean,
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I remember we contemplated doing sort of pop-up
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: video fact checks during some of our debates. Like, and,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: you know, when you negotiate, it's interesting when you negotiate
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: with candidates for debates, they're always petrified of what visuals
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: are going to be used and who decides what visuals
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: and how many, and literally you go through a debate, um,
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: agreement between candidates and a, and a sponsoring organ sponsor organization,
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: whether it's an organization or a news organization, you you'd
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: be amazed at the details that get litigated, including what
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: graphics get shown. Can candidates bring props, right? Um, I
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: love your idea. Um, and I absolutely agree that, that
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: visuals are my infographics and visuals are much better than
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: words in many cases.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, if especially look, Hey, I look at it
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: as this, um, we live in a V we, we,
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: you know, the visual mediums Trump, the written medium and
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: the audio medium more than ever.
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: I trust me. I wish I need to, And I
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: know I can. I've got to get better at incorporating
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: more visuals into this podcast. As you see, Chris and
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: I are trying to do better at putting more visuals
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: because I completely agree. I think it makes it just
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: suddenly what you hear is more clarifying when you see
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: that less than 1% of folks identify as trans in sports.
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: All the points you're trying to make there, which I
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: just think it's here. The answer is yes. So let's
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: add it to the ways to make our debates better.
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially, like I said, I would be sponsoring,
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: put up, look at this graphic, this is what does it,
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: and then get candidates to respond to it. And then
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: if they don't or they challenge it, in some ways,
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: all the better for the viewer or voter to be
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: able to go, well, okay, I see this, I see this,
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: let me see who's wrong. And maybe they'll do their
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: own research. Hey, Chuck, Lindsay here from Everett, Washington, a
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: politics junkie and religious listener who's very happy we're back
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: to four episodes a week. All right. I recently saw
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: that Nate Silver joined the Pod Save America crew, and
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think about the partnership, Dan Pfeiffer's
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: interpretations of polling and how Nate might fit into what
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: they're doing. More broadly, what do you make of their
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: efforts to counter the right-wing media ecosystem? You're the best
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: to ever do it. Oh, you're very kind, Lindsay. Sent
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: with good intentions. I believe you. Look, I mean, I...
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, they're, I think that's exactly what they're trying
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: to build. They want to, they want to try to build, um, a,
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: a place for mainstream liberals to go in the same
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: way that, you know, you have, uh, a lot of, uh,
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: conservative influencers, whether it's a Tucker Carlson or a Joe
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: Rogan or, um, uh, the, the, uh, I'm drawing a
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: blank on my, the, the ex McConnell staffers, um, that
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: have their podcast, uh, as well, that's kind of the
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: conservative version of what Pod Save America is and all that. Look,
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: I think I'm a big fan of Jane Koston, by
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: the way. In fact, we didn't do our annual college
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: football preview. We meant to, and just things got away
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: from us, both of us. It's just too much going
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: on in an election year. So it's interesting. Look, I
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: think that anytime you join any organization that is ideologically
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: got a point of view or whatever, the assumption is
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: you must share all of their same politics and all
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: of that stuff. And so some people are going to
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: look at it, might look at it differently, but hey,
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: we all have original biases in some ways. And as
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: long as you know them upfront, then you weigh the information,
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: you weigh the perceive biases and, you know, you make
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: your own probability assumption about what you believe and what
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: you don't. And to me, track record matters more than
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: anything else. So look, I see what they're trying to do.
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: And they're having, they're wildly successful financially. You know, it
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: all depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying,
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: you know, they've tried to take, I found it interesting
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: when they've tried to take their listenership and tried to
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: activate them. And I don't spend enough time inside their
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: organization to find out how well has their attempts to
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: turn their audience into activists, how well has that gone?
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: More and more of them have gotten more involved in
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: getting involved in races and endorsing and all of that.
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: But look, I'm teaching a class on the history of
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: media and political polarization. And the biggest point I'm trying
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: to get across to the students is today's media is
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: is the norm of American history, right? The outlier is
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: what I've been saying to these kids. What your parents
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: and grandparents think the media should be is the media
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: they experienced. And that period, including the period I grew
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: up in, and I, look, I want there to be
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: journalists who are always skeptical, who are always, you know,
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: don't take anything on face value until it's proven, until there's,
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of facts that you can, that
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: you can, use to reinforce your assumptions and things like
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: that if it's or explain your assumptions excuse me not
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: reinforce and so in many ways the ecosystem that's being
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: built is very similar to the penny to what we
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: had with penny press you know merging with the political
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: party press that existed and all of that so You know,
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: everything old is new again. And, you know, I love
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: what they're doing. I'm good for them. I love what
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: the bulwark is doing. You know, you love what Ben
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: Shapiro is doing. Like, I think all of these entities,
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: I don't have to agree with what they're producing, but
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: I think building these competitive and alternative places only potentially
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: give us the better, you know, give us the opportunity
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: to understand pluralism better in America. This is why I
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: look at everything that's developing online in the information ecospace
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: and how actually nuanced it is in its fragmentation. And
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: it really reminds– it just reinforces my belief that our
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: two parties are just out of date and are too
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: big to connect with the country anymore. And we would
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: be better– the popularity of our fragmented ecosystem, meaning our
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: that more people are comfortable getting information and news from
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: social media than any other source these days, means that
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: they actually like, you know, knowing the values and everything
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: they can about the individual and then getting their information
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: through that prism. You know, there's an argument to be
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: made that the more we have, the better off we'll be, right?
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: If you have too few opinions breaking through, you know,
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: that's when you, you know, that is, you know, what
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: Trump is trying to do, which is cancel alternative opinions
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: and try to push out anything that challenges his narrative.
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: That's why I say things like it's totally un-American. What's
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: developing right now, whether it's Podsafe America, whether it's Daily Wire,
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: whether it's, is actually what the founders hoped would happen, right?
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: That a way, even if, if the public were producing
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: and participating and pay attention, and the more we have,
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: that the better off we would be as a democracy.
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: So count me as, yay, good, celebrate. Every individual is
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: going to make their own decision about where they want
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: to associate and all of that. I enjoy my independence.
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: I enjoy being able to say without having a corporation
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: or Or executives say, well, if you say this, then
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: we won't be able to book this person anymore. I
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: don't want to be totally trapped by that. And that's
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: why I enjoy where I am today and in many
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: ways prefer the position I've been able to put myself
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: into now. But I couldn't have gotten here without what
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: I did in Legacy Media either. So I'm very mindful
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: of that and very thankful of that. Um, anyway, it's
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: kind of a meandering answer. Lindsay, I would love to
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: know whether, uh, whether you enjoyed the spirit.
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 2: Of the answer. All right.
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: Final question before I get into my, uh, breakdown of
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: the week in college football. Greetings from Texas is sometimes
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: fighting forth. Is there something particularly personal about the tension
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Mark Carney beyond Trump's usual political disagreements,
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: given their very different educational business and political backgrounds and
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: Carney's approach to international trade? Do you think that dynamic
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: plays any role in their relationship? Also, I agree with
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: you that the 2003 Fiesta Bowl was poorly officiated. Take that,
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: Terry Porter. Love the show. Thanks for teaching us about
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: the dirty underbelly of Washington politics. John in Frisco. You know,
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. Trump's anger at Canada is not about Mark Carney.
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: It's about Justin Trudeau. And I think he was there
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: was something about Trudeau. It bothered him that Trudeau was
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: more popular than he was in America for a brief
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: period of time. It bothered him. I think that Justin
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: Trudeau is better looking than he is, I guess. I
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. Or maybe he thought he was better looking. Remember,
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: Trump is very looks obsessed. And I think that he
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: had some sort of, you know, either anger. I'm not
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: sure whether he had a crush on Trudeau, whether he
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: was jealous of Trudeau or whatever it was. But all
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: of his obsessions, you know, this sort of derogatory nature
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: towards Canada was all Trudeau focused. And Trudeau was pretty
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: aggressive at clapping back at Trump a lot more.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: Carney. has been more technocratic about it. He's not coming
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: into American media to do trollish interviews of Trump. He's
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: instead building new relationships with new members of the West
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: to counter the unreliability of the United States. He's just
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: going about his business. I actually think, well, we'll see,
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: but I think there's a lesson to be learned here,
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: which is sort of accepting the premise of the crazy
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: and just preparing your situation for the reality that exists,
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: not the reality that you wish existed, to me has
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: been pretty smart politics, right? Mark Carney looks at the
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: situation and he's decided to act in the best interest
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: of Canada. And he's acting and he's making decisions without
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: deciding to get into rhetorical debates with him. So I
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: think there's just an asymmetric warfare that Carney has engaged
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: in that has been, to me, much more effective, right?
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: It has been, you know, his strength in standing up
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: to Trump has earned admirers here. His strength in standing
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: up to Trump has united Canada left and right on this,
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 1: where Trudeau wasn't having that same success. So I do
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: think the tactics Carney has used have proved to be
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: far more successful. in challenging Trump and dealing with the
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: bully than Trudeau's tactics have been. Um, and again, I,
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: you know, we can, you know, I, it's always been,
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's, it, you know, it's like Gavin
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: Newsom versus, um, Hmm. It's like Gavin Newsom versus, uh, uh, Well,
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: there's really, I don't know. I'm trying to think of
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: another governor. Maybe you would put a Shapiro in the
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: technocratic category that maybe you would put a Westmore more technocratic.
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe a Gretchen Whitmer, right? It's sort of, you know,
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: Whitmer has handled Trump one way, Newsom another. I don't know.
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: There's probably not. I was probably trying to make a
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: comparison that doesn't quite work. But I think that would
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: be my explanation of why I think Carney And I
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: just think that Trump does not handle technocrats very well, right?
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: He just doesn't. Because Trump is, every decision is emotional
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: for him, where somebody who's a very logic, more Dr. Spock-like, right?
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: Like Carney is just a technocrat. And I say that
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: as a compliment, sort of view myself as ultimately a technocrat,
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: which is let the data do the talking. Um, and
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's just something that, that Trump can't stand.
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: You know, he can't stand accountants, can't stand anybody that
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: gives him reality checks. So in that sense, I think
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: Carney is the epitome of everything Trump isn't. And so
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: that's probably where his, some of his anger comes from.
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: But if you've noticed, he never gets nearly as personal
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: with Carney as he does with Trudeau because Carney's never
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: made it personal. He's just been very professional and just
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: continues to act in the best interest of Canada. And
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: if that means standing up to Donald Trump to do
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: what's in the best interest of Canada and the West,
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: he just does it. He doesn't telegraph it. He just
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: does it. It's a form of leadership that I admire.
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little college football. Obviously, the big deal
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: was Ole Miss winning– But let's be realistic. They won
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: at home in the game that mattered the most more
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: than any other game all year. And the real test
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: for Ole Miss is now this coming Saturday in the
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 1: swamp against a Florida Gator team that suddenly looks like
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: there's something. Now, I'm not quite sure they have the
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: depth to keep up with Ole Miss, so we'll see.
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: And they still, but they have some offensive firepower and
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: they have a very competent coaching staff. Things that you
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have associated with the university of Florida's football program
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: over the last few years. So I think, and, and
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: plus talk about your letdown, right? Everything has been about
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: this LSU game for Ole Miss. And, and so here
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: we are, by the way, I thought I would do.
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: So each week I will give you what, who I
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: think just based on what we've seen on the field,
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: what my top five would be at the moment. And
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: I think you have to give Texas credit for beat for,
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: for their win over Ohio State. But be mindful it
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: was a road game, right? But you would put them
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: as still number one. I'm putting Georgia at two. I
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: think what they did– I know it's just Arkansas, but
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: I think you can't– again, I think winning conference road
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: games matter a lot. I think they're much harder to
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: do no matter what conference you're in. That's why I
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: feel pretty good about Miami. I've got a lot to
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: say about the Miami game. in a few minutes and
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: I'll get to it. I'll close with that. But, you know,
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: the fact is we've got two of our road games
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: out of the way. And so far, if you can
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: be undefeated on the road, you're usually going to have
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: an incredibly good year. And I don't know if we'll
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: be undefeated on the road. If we are, it means
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: we beat Notre Dame. And it means, you know, but
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: it's good. When teams get upset, it's usually on the road.
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: Although last year, Miami was upset once on the road
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: and once at home. But I think if you were to,
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: based on what we've seen in the performance on the field,
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: I think you would put, I would put things at
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: Texas one. I'd put Georgia two. I'd give Ole Miss
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: credit for this win. I mean, it's a top 10 win.
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: Plus Ole Miss's, you know, victory over Louisville. who had
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: another great victory. So I think right now you would,
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: I could argue that Ole Miss is, right now, let's
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: see what Texas does next week with Tennessee. If they
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: beat Tennessee, then you might say that Texas has the
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: better resume. But so far, I think Ole Miss has
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: the best resume, right, with their wins against Louisville, which
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: was a neutral site game. Oh, now they have a
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: one on the road. That's why this Florida, to me,
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: they beat Florida on the road in the swamp. You know,
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: and they could have an argument. I'd probably put Notre
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: Dame four and Miami five. Um, I think Miami deserves
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: credit for two of their wins being on the road
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: and they're being conference road games. Uh, and especially like
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: the atmospheres they've been forced in, right. These Friday night
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: games that ES that the ACC commissioner has allowed ESPN
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: to force upon the ACC. God, I just, the ACC
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: is such a weak set of leaders, unbelievable weak leaders,
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: but I digress. Um, Look, those Friday night games are
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: trap games. It was a huge deal for Wake Forest.
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: And it was a good thing that Miami got off
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: to a fast start because I think it made what
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: happened in the second half less troublesome than it could
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 1: have been had they gotten off to a slow start.
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: And I guess I'd probably put Ohio State 6 in there.
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: But then what do you do with Indiana?
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 2: Right? Indiana.
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: I think they deserve credit for being the defending champs,
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: but they haven't beaten anybody yet, right? So I don't
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: know where you put Indiana. And maybe you should say
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: they get the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they should
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: be sitting ahead of Miami and Notre Dame. It really
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: is interchangeable. I think right now, Indiana, Miami, Notre Dame.
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: And if you want to give Indiana credit for having
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: beaten a version of the Miami team that exists today, uh,
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 1: on their home field last at the end of last season.
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: And you want to put them five and put Miami
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: six and then you put Ohio state seven. I think
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: that's right. Question is how far do you drop LSU?
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: You know, we'll see. That's a, that's an open question. Um,
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: I think LSU is going to probably be a 10
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: and two team. You can see the success. You could
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: see what Levitt brings them. Um, They just got off
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: to a slow start. They get off to a faster start.
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: They probably win that game. Obviously, Texas A & M
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: is going to drop out of the top 10, and
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: I think we are now going to start seeing more
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: and more questions about whether Marcel Reed is a good
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: enough quarterback to win you a national title. I think
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: there are times he's limited, and it does seem as
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: if when they need Somebody to take over a game.
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: They don't have somebody that can take over a game.
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: And in that sense, Kentucky was able to able to
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: expose them. And Arizona State kind of exposed them last week,
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: which is why I think I think I was was
• 2:41:31
  Speaker 1: leaning into this outcome last week. I know my friend, Mr. Saliz,
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: is not going to be happy about this since his
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: in-laws are big A & M fans. And we'll we'll
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: spend some time on Super Tuesday talking about it for
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: as long as he's willing to talk about it. Uh,
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: but A & M is probably now feels like, like,
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: I think we kind of know who they are. Um, yes,
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: I know there's still a lot more games where they can,
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: they can make another case for themselves. And it is
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: that the SEC certainly has perceived schedule strength that can
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: help them out. But, um, uh, but we shall see, uh,
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: quick little SMU Louisville, um, My son's obviously very upset
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: that SMU lost. And, you know, he said something to me.
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: He said, you know, Kevin Jennings is better than Darian Mensah.
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: And I said, Kevin Jennings can be better than Darian Mensah.
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: I didn't disagree on a pure ability, an athletic ability.
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: But the difference is Darian Mensah doesn't turn the ball over.
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: And Kevin Jennings just always seems to turn the ball
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: over a couple of times in these big games because
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: he's trying to do everything. And he will force something
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: every now and then. And you felt like you saw
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: the best version of him and the worst version of
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: him all at the same time in that Louisville game.
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: But look, SMU season is not over. They get to
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: play at Notre Dame. And that's going to be, you know,
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: the one thing about mobile quarterbacks is I think they
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: can give Notre Dame's defense a little bit of trouble.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: We shall see. All right, let me get to the
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: Miami game. Because the biggest issue in the Miami game
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: was injuries. Now, there's two ways I could look at
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: this Miami game. We were always nervous about this weird
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: Friday night wake game on the road. When the schedule
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: first came out, we Miami fans circled a couple of traps.
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: This was a big one. This was the trap, the bear.
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: My buddy, Chris Felica, a big Hurricane fan, you may
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: know him as the bear, he was also keyed in
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: on this. I was a little less concerned because it
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: was early in the season. In some ways- a game
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: against Wake could have been a trap game if it came, say,
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: the week after Notre Dame. Or the game against Wake
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: could be a trap game if it came the week
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: after playing Florida State or somebody or even at Virginia Tech.
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: A team that you expect to challenge you and then
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: you're not quite prepared. In the case of Wake, Wake's
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: actually the best team we've played so far, right? Wake's
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: better than Stanford. So, and that, you know, I think
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: in preparation, you're going to keep the focus of your players.
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: You're like, this is the best team we've faced so
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: far and you're not bullshitting them, right? It is a fact.
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: So that's why I felt cautious confidence about this Wake game.
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: I also knew Wake's got a good coach and they
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 1: know how to, you know, they know how to havoc
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: things up a little bit. Gio Lopez has the ability
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: to havoc things up as a quarterback. Clearly he was
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: hurt and not as mobile. A more mobile quarterback for
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: Wake if Gio Lopez hadn't gotten dinged up as much
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: as he did in the previous week against Purdue. That
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: might have been a six-point Miami win instead of a
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: 13-point Miami win, which really should have been bigger than that.
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: But we learned a lot about Miami's depth. Miami lost
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: their two top running backs to injuries in that game.
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: Mark Fletcher went out. I think he's going to be
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: back in the next week or two. But we lost
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: Marty Brown, who's been our sort of backup, just he's
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: a massive human being. And he made this terrific catch
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: and run and then just an awful knee injury that
• 2:45:15
  Speaker 1: ESPN chose not to show the replay because it was
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: that awful. Look, I know it, maybe he's back in
• 2:45:21
  Speaker 1: time for the second or third round of the playoffs.
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: If Miami gets that far. But I think it means
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: as a red shirt junior, he won't be turning pro. He'll,
• 2:45:32
  Speaker 1: I think he will be back next year. I love
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: the kid. I feel terrible for him. These, these need,
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: I know we've gotten better and better with it. So
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: I hope he's, but it, you know, that was, to
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: lose your two top running backs. Uh, our third running
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: back was still sort of kind of in the doghouse
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 1: for a, a misdemeanor violation that he, that he had. Um,
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: so Jordan Lyle, they haven't played him yet. So we're basically,
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: we were using a fourth string running back from, for
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: most of the second half. And we also have an
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: inexperienced offensive line. They're getting better every week, but, um,
• 2:46:10
  Speaker 1: They're not a great run blocking unit yet. And I
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: know what Cristobal, you know, he did the turtle strategy
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: in the second half, which drove me crazy. I think
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: he realized he had all these injuries and he says,
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: let's just get out of here. Doesn't matter what we
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: win by. Let's just get out of here. And the
• 2:46:29
  Speaker 1: play calling got super conservative, right? When Tony got hurt
• 2:46:32
  Speaker 1: with that stretch play, which Good for ESPN's cameras, by
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: the way. They found it. I thought the broadcast was
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: terrific because they were on top of it. They had information.
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: As a fan, sometimes you're wondering, what happened to Mark Fletcher?
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: What happened to here? And every time they had the information.
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: I give the executives and the network ownership a lot
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 1: of grief all the time. That doesn't mean the people
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: that work at ESPN aren't fantastic. And that crew was terrific.
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: The editorial side of that, I just can't... You answered
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: every question I had without me going on Hurricane's Twitter.
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: Which is which is what I appreciate. But, you know,
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: he turtled up. And it essentially. And so the question is,
• 2:47:19
  Speaker 1: did they not? because all of a sudden we just,
• 2:47:22
  Speaker 1: they want, I know what he wanted to do. He
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: was hoping he would have Mark Fletcher take the game over. Well,
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: then he gets hurt and he just wanted to just
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: grind the game out, you know, just slow the game
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 1: down and just get out of there. And in fact,
• 2:47:35
  Speaker 1: that mindset was so clear, you know, throughout that you saw.
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, cause Shannon Dawson's play calling was weird. He
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: just was not. And the, and the whole use of Tony,
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 1: if you're only going to bring them in on third downs, you've,
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: you've just either don't use them at all and, and
• 2:47:57
  Speaker 1: keep the same and keep, keep the same game plan. Anyway,
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: it just, I hope they learn from this. I thought the,
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: you know, if I were to grade the three main coaches,
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: crystal ball, Shannon Dawson, and Corey Heatherman. Corey Heatherman was
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: the coach. He did a tremendous job. Miami had huge
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: injuries in the secondary, and he knew they were vulnerable
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: in the secondary, so he just created havoc. It was Flores-esque,
• 2:48:22
  Speaker 1: referring to Brian Flores, the Vikings defensive coordinator. That guy
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: has figured out how to make a defense filled with
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: a bunch of guys that have no business being in
• 2:48:31
  Speaker 1: the NFL anymore and turning it into a havoc defense
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: that can give an offense a lot of problems. And
• 2:48:38
  Speaker 1: his blitzing packages can cover up vulnerabilities in the secondary.
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: And man, Corey Heatherman was just terrific. And because Gio
• 2:48:46
  Speaker 1: Lopez didn't have the scrambling ability that he normally has,
• 2:48:50
  Speaker 1: Heatherman made sure that game didn't get close. I really
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: hope we figure out how to continue to keep him.
• 2:48:57
  Speaker 1: I love this guy. He's just a terrific D coordinator.
• 2:49:01
  Speaker 1: And I fear we're going to lose him to an
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: NFL team. I think he's that smart about schemes and
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: defensive strategy. But I think both Dawson and Cristobal get
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: a B minus C plus. And Mario made a terrible mistake.
• 2:49:16
  Speaker 1: And Buddy, I don't, I really, here's what I'm hoping.
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping somebody lets him know that this was a mistake.
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 1: Miami's at fourth and four. And they chose to kick
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 1: an attempt at 56-yard field goal. They're up 13. And
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: they attempted to kick a 56-yard field goal or a
• 2:49:32
  Speaker 1: 54-yard field goal. With a kicker who has not been
• 2:49:36
  Speaker 1: known to be reliable yet from that far away, just
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: because he has the ability, we hadn't tried it.
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 2: Yet.
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: There was about six minutes left in the game, five
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 1: and a half minutes left in the game. You're up
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: by 13 points. So this field goal is only going
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: to put you up 16. So you go from being
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: up two scores to being up two scores. But if
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 1: you go for it on fourth and four and you
• 2:49:57
  Speaker 1: make it, then you grind out more clock. And for
• 2:50:01
  Speaker 1: some bizarre reason, he chose to try the field goal.
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: Field goal wasn't good. It was tipped. All of a sudden,
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: they get the ball near midfield. It was a massive
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: coaching blunder. This is one of those, you know, I
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: spent last week defending Mario Cristobal from all my favorite
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: college betting podcasts that all insist that, you know, there's
• 2:50:22
  Speaker 1: going to be a, you know, Mario will Mario up
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: a game. And this is what they refer to when
• 2:50:26
  Speaker 1: they say that. A bizarre decision that makes no sense,
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: that lowers your win probability, let alone your ability to
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: cover a spread. And that decision basically kept Wake Forest
• 2:50:38
  Speaker 1: in the game. Now, we're lucky either one of two things.
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: Miami's defense was able to stop Lopez and two, that
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: maybe Wake wasn't good enough to take advantage of this mistake.
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 1: You make that mistake against a better team. So there's
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 1: two ways I look at this Wake Forest game. The
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: last time we had a game like this with all
• 2:50:56
  Speaker 1: these injuries, we lost it. It was the game against SMU.
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: We were down all sorts of starters in that game.
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: And eventually it caught up with us. We almost won it,
• 2:51:03
  Speaker 1: but eventually caught up with us. So maybe it shows
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: you that we have a huge amount of depth, but
• 2:51:08
  Speaker 1: it also might be that Wake wasn't quite good enough
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: to take advantages of the mistakes and the opportunities that
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: we hand at them in the second half. So look,
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just happy to survive a road game. These road
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: conference games, especially these stupid Friday night games are trap
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 1: games like crazy. But, you know, and look, I think
• 2:51:28
  Speaker 1: most of everybody sort of, if, To me, week three
• 2:51:33
  Speaker 1: should remind people, right? Notre Dame struggled with Michigan State
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: until they didn't. Miami had a little bit of a
• 2:51:38
  Speaker 1: test there for about a quarter. It's healthy to get
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: tested and it's good that you survive. The more important
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: things do you learn from the mistakes you made, even
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: when you win. And I certainly hope that when it
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: comes to things like, you know, deciding when to kick
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: a field goal or when to go for it, that
• 2:51:58
  Speaker 1: Coach Cristobal is open to the criticism on this one.
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: This was a... This wasn't a 50-50 call. This was
• 2:52:06
  Speaker 1: not a 50-50 call. So I hope somebody was able
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: to constructively let him know this and that he doesn't
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: just take it as noise from the outside. Thankfully, we
• 2:52:18
  Speaker 1: got Central Michigan this weekend. Miami gets to play their
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: first game on a Saturday. Game four is finally played
• 2:52:23
  Speaker 1: on a Saturday. Hallelujah. But next week, the big game's
• 2:52:30
  Speaker 1: There's going to be some interesting ones. Like I said,
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss, Florida is the undercard. Tennessee, Texas. We're going
• 2:52:39
  Speaker 1: to find out a lot about Texas. They've earned the
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: right to be seen as number one. I'm not sure
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 1: they're the best team in the country. I'm not sure
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: they're one of the five best teams in the country.
• 2:52:49
  Speaker 1: But they have the best resume going in right now.
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: And Knoxville's a tough place to win. All right, with that,
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: I'll see you in 24 hours. Thanks as always. Like
• 2:53:00
  Speaker 1: and subscribe. And I made it this entire podcast without
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: my kidney stone reminding me it was there. So with that,
• 2:53:10
  Speaker 1: I am thankful as well. I hope you had an
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: easy fast. See you tomorrow.