Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Trade Wars Are Directly Impacting The Battleground States… & The Midterms + Why Do Moderates Keep Losing The Argument?

Transcript

Full Episode - Trump’s Trade Wars Are Directly Impacting The Battleground States… & The Midterms + Why Do Moderates Keep Losing The Argument? · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about medicare is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere, and you're skeptical
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of that, as you should be.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 0:50
  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 needs, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: then compares them to every single plan available to find
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the best one. That will work for you and hopefully
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: send save you a couple of dollars too. And here's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the part that sets Chapter apart. They don't disappear once
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you've been in a role. They will keep advocating for you.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: They're kind of like almost like a concierge service. You're
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just there. I need help. You're like customer service. You
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: know the plan, you know, help me navigate this again.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So you ever get hit with a wrongful medical bill,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: they'll help you fight it. They want to stay an
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: advocate for you even after you've done this.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: 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: When I like about these Chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: 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. Okay, so look, take this cup deicism
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: you already have in all of this, pointed out your
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: own plan for twenty minutes. It's free, there's no pressure,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and then call Chapter today at nine eight zero seven
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five, Hello Aaron, Welcome to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the Monday edition of the Chuck Podcast. We are still
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in our summer schedule, so let me give you a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: bit of a promotional rundown both of this episode and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of the week of course, this episode of my interview
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: for today's my old friend John Kasik, former governor of Ohio.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We as we always do, we meander all over the place.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time on sort of democracy repair, though,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: which is something I think we both care a lot about.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: He is very focused on spiritual repair that he and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I were just exchanging text on Sunday again, this is
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: after we'd already conducted our interview, and he just talked
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: about how he just thinks that people who have who
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: have lost their own personal faith or spirituality are searching
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: for it in politics, and at the end of the day,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you're never going to find it in politics. And I
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: think that's a fair thing that politics shouldn't become a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: religion to people. Once politics feels like an article of
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: faith or religion, then that's when people a get carried
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: away with politics become sort of ideological, you know, almost
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: rabbit ideologues. But it's just it's not very fulfilling, and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the point he's going to want
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to make. So again, Plus, we talk a little politics,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: little politics of Ohio.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Ohio.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: He you know, he had never accepted the premise that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: it had become a red state, I think, as much
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: as other people have. And we discuss how both that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: governor's race and that Senate race are definitely up for grabs.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: A few other programming notes my Newsphare show this week,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: If you're curious about something called the China Shock, I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: did a deep dive on the on the China Shock
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and what do I mean by the China shock the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: fact that China was actually an oil shock absorber. One
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: of the biggest stories that didn't happen so far in
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the fallout of the Iran War is a huge surge
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: in the price of oil. We've certainly seen a rise
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: in the price of oil, we have seen a rise
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in energy prices, but it has not been a trigger
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: for a global recession that many folks feared. And the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: question is why while we've apparently we've all underestimated two
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: things about China, One how much oil they have had
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: in reserve and to its capacity to absorb this shock.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: They basically didn't purchase, have not purchased the amount of oil,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and they have not consumed the amount of oil that
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: they normally consume. China, being the closed society that it is,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: does not share a lot of economic data that most
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of the rest of the world does. So we've always
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: had to sort of estimate exactly how much oil, you know,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you sort of you do it by subtraction. You sort
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of see where everybody else is reported, and then essentially
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: estimate what's missing and assume that that's China share. But
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: apparently what they've been doing one is their transition to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: alternative energy sources have allowed them to absorb this too.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: They have clearly stored a lot more oil, and they
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: their stockpile is a lot greater because they used a
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: lot of their stockpile. But they did it for an
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: interesting reason, right They you know, as essentially the world's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: exporter of things. You know, the last thing they wanted
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: was their two biggest markets, North America and Europe in
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a massive recession. So they tried to minimize the economic
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: toll of the energy markets in order to prop up
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: their own economy and their own exports. Anyway, it's a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: fascinating reminder of a couple things. One, this is what
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you know, an interconnected globe does have country. You know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: they could easily decide to punish the rest of the world.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: They chose not to because punishing the rest of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: world would have also punished themselves. So I wanted to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: understand this. But the bottom line is this, and this
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is what you'll take away from news Fair. China is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: now more a bigger essentially can have more impact on
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the energy markets than Opek. Just sit with that. China
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: is now that big. They they are, their economy is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that big, and their ability to essentially alter the energy
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: markets is as influential as Opek was. Anyway, that is
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: my deep dive with Newsphere this week. I definitely would
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: like you to check you out, and of course, in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: my sports history podcast with my pal Jay Adonde at
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Dynastic Pod. Please go over to that YouTube page at
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Dynastic Pod, please go like and subscribe. We have incredible
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: deep dive on the history of the Alabama football program.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: You know, each one of these is is like a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: new child to me. I just love every one of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: our episodes, so you know, don't get me wrong, but
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a huge college football fan, a huge
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: college football amateur historian JAA is also a huge college
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: football fan. All comes through in this episode. Look, I'll
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: just give you one incredible factoid that will, I hope
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: make you want to come. You know, there's a lot.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I always want to have a little g whiz facts
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that I that we drop into this And my favorite nugget,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Bear Bryant got plastic surgery in the last two years
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: as coach of Alabama.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Just sit with that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Bear Bryant got plastic surgery in the late seventies, early eighties.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I just found that to be one of the more
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: fascinating things that well, I did not know that as
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: an old comedian used to imitate there anyway, So please
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: go check that out. It's a terrific episode. And later
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this week I'm interviewing Jay and I are going to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: be interviewing legendary Alabama talk radio meister and journalist extraordinaire
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: back in his old days of covering all things SEC football,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: none other than mister Paul Finebaum. And we're here to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Celebratelabama football. Got a great compliment from somebody who said,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: who's a listener of the of this podcast and knows
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it figures you know, as a Miami guy, I assume
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you don't like the SEC, which probably means you don't
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like Alabama. And I could not tell when listening to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that podcast you really did. You really made a podcast
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: that even US Alabama fans will learn something and enjoy.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So shout out to that listener. Appreciate you sending me
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that note. And look, I can compartmentalize, and I'm well
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: aware that when Miami had its run in the eighties,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: all we could say was Miami was the next Alabama.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And as I've told my son, I said before Alabama,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the second round of Alabama. Miami was Alabama before Nick
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Saban's Alabama. So I'm well aware of Miami's place in
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: college football history. It's up there, it's high, does not
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: surpass Alabama, and I think that our our special reflects that. Look,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I spent the last four days moving my son back
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: into school, and I want to give a couple of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: just I guess call them life life hacks for you.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: One man, kudos to you, haul. I'm not Look, everybody
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I'm shouting out here does not a sponsor and doesn't
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: ay me. And I did not make any agreement. I'm
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: just here to share some I know many of you
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: are in a similar position as I am. You've got
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: kids either getting ready to go to college or in college,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and you're doing moves maybe second or third year, you're
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: going to an apartment, all this stuff. God love it, man,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you Hall's got this great just sort of a few
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hours if you need to rent a cargo van, because
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I went out of my way to avoid
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Ikea furniture. We were another shout out to my friends
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: at the World Market, which, of course the prices are
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: only going to go up thanks to tariffs, but it
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: is a very affordable way place to furnish a first
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: apartment without one being gouged in prices and two having
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to sit for hours to put together furniture. So just
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: wanted to shout those two things out. And then my
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: meal of the weekend. I just think I've discovered the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: greatest fried chicken of all time, at least fast food
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: fried chicken. I was a gas station grocery store fried
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: chicken guy. I always thought the best fried chicken in
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: America is at gas stations in the South. I still
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: think some of the best fried chicken in America is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: at gas stations in the South. But if you're looking
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: for fast food fried chicken, I think I found the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: best fried chicken I've ever had. It's for a fast
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: food chain, and it surpasses grocery store fried chicken, which
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: here in the DMB, Giant has always been the number
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: one grocery store fried chicken here in the DMB. But
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I want you, guys, I know it's a chain these days,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it's all over it's apparently a Filipino recipe. Jolly be
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: oh my god, it's not greasy, and it's outstanding. Anyway,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to give a few of those shoutouts
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a few life path And if you're out wondering about
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: my kidney stones, great news I have too.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: The good news is that I've.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Now gotten through the pain portions of both of them.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And now we just wait. And for those of you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that had stones, you know what that means. We just wait,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: all right. I want to get to my main sort
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: of points of the day here. And look, there's a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's bouncing around my political notebook from
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the weekend. There's this argument over polling. We've got some
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: interesting new analysis out of Florida that I want to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: share with you. The mess at the Pentagon. You know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the credit. Look, it's not new that Pete Haigseth is
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: running the Pentagon into the ground, but man, the credibility
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: gets worse and worse with what's happened with Stars and Stripes.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Republicans have found religion on AI. That's fascinating to me.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: We got a few updates on Michigan and APAC. I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: want to get into that, and that very interesting Jared
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Kushner Akeem Jeffreys meeting that has lit the extremes of
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the internet on fire. The rights pissed off about the meeting,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and the leftised off that the meeting exit. And then
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: we're going to close things out before I get to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Kisik with a little update on the Mark Walter story,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: because I've spent some more time reporting on that story,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and if anything, I feel even better about the special
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: report we did, and I was glad you guys really
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: consumed a lot more of it than even I expected.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: It's I think, a very important story because this is
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: not about the Lakers. This is not about sports. This
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: is about how do we know we're not seeing the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: beginnings of the next major financial crisis. But we've got
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to start with Canada. Oh Canada, because I don't think
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: what happened this weekend is merely another Trump tariff story.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: This is a lot bigger than that. The trade talks
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: between the US and Canada collapsed. A fifty percent American
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: tariffs have kicked in. Canada is preparing a dollar for
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: dollar retaliation timing of this. Could it get any worse?
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: If you're a Republican running for office less than eighty
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: days to election day, Good job, good job administration. You
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: are the single greatest ally to Chuck Schumer, and I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: came Jeffreys at this point, but still here we are.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: America's oldest, closest and most integrated allies is now publicly
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: saying something extraordinary, Mark Carney. He said the United States
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: cannot necessarily be trusted to keep its work. He said
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: this quote we recognize from the start that America has changed.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: He said the United States was using economic integration quote
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: as a weapon, and then he said this the United
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: States its signature was written in pencil. That's an incredible
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: thing for a Canadian Prime minister to say about an
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: American government. Is an American citizen it's gut it's a
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: gut punch. It's embarrassing. You can't trust an agreement with
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the United States. Maybe it's an agreement. Maybe somebody gets
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: out the eraser tomorrow is essentially what Carney is saying.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Carney said Canada was looking for a deal that respected
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: its sovereignty, obviously something Trump does not respect. He says
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it all the time with that fifty first state garbage.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: He summed up the failed negotiations pretty simply, quote, we
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: cannot accept what they've offered, and we will not give
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: what they've asked. And asked whether Canada was now in
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: a trade war with the United States, Carney's answer was essentially, well,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you're at war when you get attacked. So he basically said, yeah,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Canada is at war, is in a trade war with
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the United States, and the United States fired the first shot.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Sit with that for a second, and then remember Davos,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: because if this sounds familiar, it should remember Carney's speech
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: at Davos back in January, because we are now watching
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: what is essentially now the second half of that speech
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: play out in real time. Carney said the world wasn't
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: going through a transition, it was going through a rupture.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: He talked about great powers increasingly using economic integration as coercion,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: you know, behaving like mob bosses. And he warned the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: middle powers right about the temptation to commodate. Don't make trouble,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: keep your head down, give the big country what it wants,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: hope that compliance buys you safety. And then Carney said, well,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: guess what it won't. That was the whole middle power
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: argument when he said these middle powers need to band together.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And when he's thinking middle powers, you know, basically at
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the top edge, he's you know, thinking India, Japan, basically
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: all of Western Europe. He says, essentially leaving out China,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the United States, and I guess whatever you want to
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: call Russia, which is still more of a gas station
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: with nuclear weapons than anything else, but still it obviously
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: behaves in a similar way. Countries such as Canada cannot
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: individually out muscle the United States, and he knows it.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So he's decided that the answer for Canada is diversification.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: He's got to build other trade relationships, he's going to
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: have to build other security relationships. He's going to have
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to reduce the leverage that a great power can use
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: against you. He does not want to be subservient to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the United States. Maybe the maybe the United States of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century was worth being subservient to because maybe
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: we had trustworthy leadership. But with this administration, right, I mean,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: this is the damage Donald Trump has done to America. Folks.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: This is not and I know some will hear this
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: on the right and think it's a partisan argument. Look,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you know, by now you should know no great fan
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic leadership that we have in this country.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But there's poor leadership, and then there's Unamerican leadership. The
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Democrats are pro America.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And just bad at this.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's on American and that's a whole level of problem.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And the Republicans that just sit there quietly and essentially
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: take this punishment and have allowed the hijacking of this.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Your silence is complicity, and that's a huge issue. But
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: when you negotiate one on one with this big, giant
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: country like this, you're negotiating from weakness. And Carne knew it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Carney's warning was it simply giving in while pretending you're
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: still sovereign isn't really sovereignty at all. So now's his
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: words have been put to the test by Donald Trump.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Because Donald Trump kept pushing, Carney decided he'd rather absorb
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: economic pain than accept the terms. He's got public support
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: behind him for now. Right. Trade wars at first can
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: feel patriotic, and then you know the public could get
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: tired of it because they're having to pay the price.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: But this does make Canada different, and there's a distinction
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: here worth making. Because Europe complained about what Trump was doing.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: European leaders pushed back some, Macron has pushed back Merz
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and Germany has pushed back, and there's been considerably more
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: resistance to Trump than there was six months ago. But ultimately,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the European Union took the coercive trade deal. Individual European
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: governments accepted the Trump tariff structure rather than risk the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: alternative of total rupture with the United States. But Canada
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: decided to make the opposite calculation. And I have to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: tell you, the whole world is rooting for this guy.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Don't think they're not. That's why Carney interests me so much.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling to think of another Democratic leader in the
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Western Alliance who is currently challenging Trump this comprehensively and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: is willing to absorb this much economic risk in order
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to do it. It's noble and for those of us
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that care about freedom around the world and care about
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: free markets and fair trade, we should all be thankful
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: for Mark Carney. Mark Karney is the guide working harder
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to save democracy, perhaps right now, around the world than
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: any other leader in the world outside of Zelenski, who's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in the middle of fighting a war for it. So
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: if I'm sitting in Paris or Berlin or London or
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Tokyo or Canberra, you're watching, and I'm watching very closely
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: from those places, because Carney is testing whether saying no
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: actually works.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: We've always thought Trump's kind of a bully, and like
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: most bullies, if you punch him in the nose, he
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: can back down. Right. We don't have the Taco acronym
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: for nothing. Trump always chickens out. He'd already chicken out
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: once with this Canada threat. It doesn't go into effect
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: for another week, folks, another couple of weeks. Technically, does
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: he chicken out after this? Does he come back with
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a better deal for Canada. I'll get into that in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a minute, but I can tell you a whole bunch
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of America's allies are cheering Canada because CARNEYE has that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you know, what's that the European Union did not have
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: at a minimum. There certainly have an enormous interest in
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: this outcome. So if Canada can demonstrate that a middle
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: power can withstand American economic coersion here, everybody else will
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: learn from this. Hey, this episode of the Chuck Podcast
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Ethos. Look, let me tell
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you about life insurance. As you know, Ethos is an
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: incredible portal for helping you find the right life insurance policy.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge believer in life insurance. I wouldn't have
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: gotten to college in Washington, d C. Without life insurance.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: My father had a policy buried somewhere that we discovered
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't a lot of money, but it was
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: an important bucket of money at a time that my
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: mother newly widowed, single mom me I'm sixteen. It was
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of enormous enormous help at that time. And this is
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: why I believe in life insurance. You don't know what
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: could happen to you on any given day. This is
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: literally an insurance policy for that. So let me tell
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: you a little bit about Ethos. Ethos makes getting life
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: insurance fast and easy. It's one hundred percent online. You
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: get a quote in seconds, you apply in minutes, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you can get coverage the same day you begin this process.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: health questions. You can get up to three million dollars
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: in coverage some policies, or as low as thirty dollars
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a month, and you'll get your lowest rate from their
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: network of trusted carriers. Ethos has gotten four point nine
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: out of five starts on Trust Pilot with over fifty
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: five hundred reviews. So ten minutes to get covered today
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck. That is e Thos dot com
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: slash chuck. Application times may vary, the rates may vary.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: That Trust Pilot rating was as of August of twenty
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: twenty six. What should make even crazier. We were really
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: close to having a deal, Jamison Greer, Trump's own trade
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: rep reportedly had already negotiated what was basically a wall
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to wall deal. It was basically a done deal over
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the last week. They were really close, close enough that
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: there was a framework, and then it blew up within hours. Now,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: part of it was apparently new American demands that Canada
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: decided crossed a line on sovereignty, culture and its ability
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to negotiate trade agreements with other countries. But what's interesting here,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and this is true of so much of the Trumpet
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: years and the Trump administration, there's not unity inside the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Trumpet minutstration on the steel. Our friends of political reports
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: that the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik, who of course has
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: been mister He's been the biggest promoter of this tariff nonsense,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and he has been he has created all sorts of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: problems in the past on this tariff nonsense. Well he
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: did it again. Apparently he believed that the framework that
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: was negotiated by the actual America negotiator, the US Trade
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: rep career, had essentially been sprung on him at Commerce.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: He didn't like it. He didn't get to And I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: have no doubt I know how the Trump administration works.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: People were trying to keep Lutnik out of the room.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Lutnick is a comes in there and damages things. He
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: screwed up a whole bunch of stuff previously. And there
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is an entire network of folks in the Trump administration
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: that tries to work around him a little bit, kind
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of like Peter Navarro, how people try to work around
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Peter Navarro, frankly, kind of like what's happening with this
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: this Natalie Harp story where it's clearly somebody inside the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: West Wing desperately wants to get Harp out of that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: West wing, and she sees her as a problem because
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all do you think these leaks are coming from any
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, all of those leaks are coming from inside
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the house. But I digress. So Greer almost had a deal,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and then another part of the administration, Lutnik, comes in
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and says, oh, nobody ran this by us, so we
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: need to know more about this. But it certainly looks
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: like is Pastor's prologue here Lutnick torpedoed the deal and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: it made it look like I mean, now, did Lutnik
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: do this on his own? Did Trump want Lutnik to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: do this and to move the goalpost? Is a commerce
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that added all these late demands via Trump? Did Trump
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: not go to Greer and went to Lutnik who decided
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: this framework wasn't enough because this wasn't simply Canada and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: America negotiated and couldn't get there. It increasingly looks like
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the United States may not have been negotiating with one voice,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: which frankly is typical in the Trump years, and why
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the world doesn't trust America at the moment.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: So if you're carning.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: This issue, reinforces your entire point. America is a signs
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: its deals in pencil, and you don't know who has
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the eraser. Now here's the thing. Let's talk about the
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: political fallout for this. Let's bring this home, because the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: political timing on this is just astonishing. And again I
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: go back, if you're Chuck Schumer, Nachem, Jeffish, you're like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: thank you, Howard Lutnik, MVP award to Howard Lutnik here
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: if you indeed a the one that blew this up,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: because here are some of the Senate races that I'm
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: watching come all over, right, all of them are impacted
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: by this. Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, Georgia, Texas. Those are that's that's her Senate battleground, right,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that's the large Senate playing field I left at Alaska
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and Alaska. Sorry, Now, how many of those states have
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Canada as one of their most important foreign markets? Almost
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: all of them? Ready for this. Canada is the number
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: one export market for Maine, number one for Michigan, number
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: one for Ohio, number one for Minnesota, number one for Iowa,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: number one for South Dakota, North Carolina and Georgia. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: it's number two for New Hampshire, number two for Kansas,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and number two for Texas. So eleven of these twelve
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Senate races, Canada is either number one or number two
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: for a trading partner with the states. These aren't trivial relationships, folks.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: More than forty percent of Mainz goods that are exported
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: go to Canada. Nearly forty percent of Michigan's exports go
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: to Canada, about a third of Ohio's, roughly thirty percent
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of Iowa's, nearly half of South Dakota's.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: This isn't some.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Distant foreign policy disputes that Senate candidates can safely ignore.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has dropped a trade war to directly into
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the economies of some of the most important states on
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six map, likeck of a Job, Trumpy
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and Susan Collins may be the cleanest example of this,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and she's vocal, she has to be, she better fight this,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and she's trying sort of. She's wanting the administration that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: this creates massive uncertainty for main businesses, higher costs for
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: main families. Canada is Main's most important foreign customer, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: politically this puts Collins in just a terrible box. And
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: she's not the only one, but she's the best. She's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the cleanest example at the moment, because part of the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins proposition has always been, Hey, you may not
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: like this Republican president. You may not like everything my
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: party is doing right now, but hey, I'm Susan Collins.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I've been here forever. I'm i'm I'm in charge of approbes,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I have access, I have influence. I'll mitigate this damage.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I can protect mains intr I've done this over the years. Whoops,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: No you can't. Donald Trump just picked a huge economic
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: fight with Maine's biggest foreign customer, and Collins, of course
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: is troubled. Go ahead, cue the meme.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: We know how.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Troubled she gets. It's a lot of troubling things over
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the years that she's been troubled by and the fact
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: that it's become a meme in Maine is really a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: political problem for her gover forward, So her opponent now
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: gets to ask, what exactly is all this access getting made. Now, Look,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: it's like, maybe it's not necessarily Collins's fault. This is happening,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and that's precisely the problem. Her own present is undermining
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: one of the rationales she uses to be for keeping
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: her seat. And then there's beef. Okay, as if Republicans
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: needed another trade headache, Trump has simultaneously created a fight
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: with the cattle industry in this country. Now, we've been
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: told for more than a year, by the way that hey,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: tariffs don't raise prices, foreign countries pay them. Okay, obviously
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: we all know that's been just a bunch of dumb,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: just idiotic rhetoric that was backed up by no facts.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But what's ironic here is that's, you know, the Trump
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: administration have been claiming that, but now they're admitting with
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: their actions here on beef, that hey, this is a problem.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Suddenly beef prices are too high and the administration wants
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: more inexpensive foreign beef entering the country to lower grocery prices. Wait,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: if cheaper imports lower the price Americans pay, huh, then
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: what exactly do tariffs do? Gee? Hmmm, I mean literally,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: they're pissing on our leg and telling us it's raining.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite old Southern expressions, but this
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: is one where it is as appropriate of use as
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: you can come up with anyway. So now you've got
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Republican cattle. State senators immediately got pissed off about this deal.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Deb Fisher of Nebraska said she was extremely disappointed, you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: not using quite the same language as Susan Collins. And
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: her argument, though, is pretty straightforward. Everybody wants cheaper groceries,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: but you can't solve the problem by simultaneously hurting American
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: cattle producers, which is what he's doing. So I want
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: to give you a sense of how big is cattle
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: country here in America. Well, cattle on feed doesn't mean
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: every cow walking around in America, just so you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it's what it is is. It's a us DA measurement
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of cattle currently in feed lots that are being prepared
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: for slaughter. In other words, this is the immediate commercial
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: beef production pipeline and at the beginning of the year,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: there were about fourteen million cattle on fee nationally. Now
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I want to lay that out there because I'm going
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to make this a senate race story. Now take five
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: senate states. These are five states that have Senate races
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: that are in some form of competitiveness Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Iowa,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: South Dakota.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Ready for this.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Together, they roughly account for nine point four million of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the cattle on feed right thirteen point nine So basically
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: two thirds of the entire inventory of cattle for feed
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: is in these five senate states, these five states who
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: have Senate races on the ballot in November competitive ones,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and about two thirds of the cattle headed through America's
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: commercial feed lines. So we're dealing with enormous scale here.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Kansas and Nebraska are among the biggest beef exporting states
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: in America. By the way, I mentionine this double whammy.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: On one hand, you've got the trade war with Canada, right,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that's hurting because a lot of these exports in cattle
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: go to Canada. And then simultaneously you're you're lowering tariffs
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: on imports of beef, mostly from South America, which is
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I mean just it's a double whammy on these guys.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So look, I'm not going to sit here and predict
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: that Democrats are going to sweep the planes all of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: a sudden because Trump irritated cattle producers. But what I
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: am saying is this is how races that aren't supposed
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to be competitive become a lot more competitive. And this
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: is why number one, why I think Iowa is going
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to be where the blue blue wave crests one way
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: or the other. Either the blue wave stops at the east,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: at the east end of Iowa, or it just consumes Iowa.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And it is all I mean, the triple whammy of
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Trump policies on the Midwestern states and on the cattle
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: states and all the bag industry, between the aggressive deportations
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that have that have targeted more than criminals, that have
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: hurt them on the labor front, the terraf wars have
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: hurt them, and now this decision. But if you start
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: making the dominant economic constituencies in your own states angry,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: that's how voters end up staying home. Okay, this is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats aren't going to win over some of these voters,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: but those voters may stay home that are impacted directly
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: by Trump's just erratic and crazy economic policies. And that's
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: really the big political headline here. The Trump administration is
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: basically working against the interests of Republicans trying to preserve
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: their Senate majority period. Heard stop Canada hurts them in
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: those northern states that I pointed out, Beef hurts them
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: on the planes, ag gets hit throughout the Midwest, and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the aggressive immigration strategy is backfiring right he It's upside
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: on an immigration that doesn't help you in these sun
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: belt states. So Republican candidates are now being forced to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: run against pieces of the President's economic policy while peneously
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: trying to defend the absurdity of the president's economic policies.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: That's a lousy place to be less than three months
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: before election there, I mean. And if you want to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: watch how ridiculous it is when you try to actually
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: spin this nonsense, there's no more pathetic soul to watch
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: than the Treasury Secretary of the United States, Scott besson.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: We know Scott Bessett knows better. He's supposedly one of
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the adults in the room, but he increasingly has to
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: be performed for an audience of one and he now
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: is on the record with some of the dumbest things
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: any Treasury secretary has said in the history of the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: existence of a Treasury secretary. Okay, Besson is increasingly become
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: forced to defend this administration's horrendous economic record, and his
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: sales job is obviously hard, extraordinarily hard. The terriffs, he said,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: weren't going to hurt American consumers, except now we're dealing
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: with refunds because the tariffs were found to be unconstitutional.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: And then Besson's response is that the terror our free
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: funds have turned into corporate welfare. Just one so dumb.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So wait, how is it corporate welfare? Who collected the money,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: who imposed the tariffs? You don't get to take somebody's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: money under an illegal policy and then call returning at welfare.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And the irony is that the argument tacitly acknowledges the thing.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: The administration spent a year denying that Americans paid the tariffs. Otherwise,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: whom exactly are we refunding? And then we get a
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: lousy jobs report and suddenly the argument becomes he really
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: said this, Well, because we've deported so many people and
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: reduced immigration, we don't actually need to produce as many
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: jobs anymore. How about that Trump administration bragging about fewer jobs.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, good luck try that message in the campaign trail. Meanwhile,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Bessett is trying to increasingly is increasingly using aggressive maneuvers
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to essentially get borrowing costs down temporarily. He's just trying
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: to buy time till November. Right, So he's been essentially
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: trying to manipulate the bond market, but he's sort of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: doing it by it's essentially like paying your mortgage with
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: your credit card statement. You're now paying interest twice, if
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you will, the interest on your mortgage itself, and then
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the interest on the money you use to pay anyway,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you see where I'm going here. That's how you quickly
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: quickly get into a spiral of debt. Well, you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: so he manipulated the bond market for a few hours
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and the market then said sorry. And that's the thing.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: That's where Bessett has been embarrassed here because the problem
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: reality stops cooperating with a political message when it comes
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to numbers, right, math is math. You can only spend
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it so much. You can only spend a bad jobs
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: report so much. You can only rename a tariff refund.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I guess you could tell people inflation isn't really inflation,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: but you can't command the bond market to believe you.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And yes, eventually we're gonna have to deal with the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: debt and I'm gonna save that for another monologue down
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the road. But both parties are lying the themselves about
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the debt solution. I know that everybody got worked up
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: over the weekend that we hit the forty trillion mark.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: And there's this, you know, spider man meme. Right, everybody's
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: pointing at the other as who to do this? Folks,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: This has been a collective disaster. Bill Clinton's presidency is
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the only one that did meaningful things. Here my friend
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: John Kasick, who's who's my interview today. Basically he and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, that's who gets credit for this. And when
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you realize the character of a guy like John Kasick
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and sort of how Trump how Clinton politically used to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: see things, you know, these were two responsible stewards when
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: it came to the economy and they understood that. Guess what,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you may have certain ideological beliefs, but ultimately you've got
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to sort of work together in some of these things.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: If you're going to pull it off. So when you
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: hear this bullshit rhetoric the right wants to say it's
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: all spending, Well it was, then why they vote for
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the big beautiful bill. The left wants to pretend only
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: taxes can raising taxes. Look, you're going to have to
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: do both. It's probably going to have to be you know,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: three percent spending cut, three percent tax hikes, you know,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: something like that. But it's going to be one to
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: one folks. It's the only way to tame this. But
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: at some point, the markets are going to make us
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: do it all right. Lawmakers are never going to do
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: it themselves probably, and these two parties aren't ever going
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to take ownership of this. It's either going to take
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a third party, outside force or our economic crash for
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: us to do this. But again that's for another monologue
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: on another day. Speaking of numbers that people misuse, I
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: want to transition to this fun little social media debate
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that's been taking place about polling and all these bad
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: polls that suddenly got into circulation. But I kind of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: want to remind people of an old axiom that we
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: operated at at the Hotline back in the nineties that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: most pollsters operated about forever that suddenly people have forgotten,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and that is you don't poll in August. Frankly, you
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: don't poll between the fourth of July and Labor Day.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: That was just it's a waste of money to poll
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: between July fourth and Labor Day, particularly general election polling. Obviously,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: we have primaries now in July and August, and if
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out the primary electorate for those
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: specific things, that's one thing. But you cannot believe general
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: election polling in July and August. It is a waste
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: of time. And posters have known this for decades, all right,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: The polling industry understood it. August polling has never been
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: particularly predictive. It doesn't mean every August poll is bad.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: It just means the electorate in August hasn't fully become
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the electorate we're going to see in November. People aren't
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: fully paying attention yet. Yes, there are some states where
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: schools starts super early now in August. Florida is one
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of those. There's a few states in the South that
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: have done it. They sort of changed their calendar. Used
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to be we all started basically at Labor Day. That's
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: all moved up because of standardized tests and the scheduling
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: of the standardized test. But you know, here in Virginia
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: we still operate essentially is a labor day school starting state.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: It's called the old King's Dominion law. Is what people
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: used to joke about it that somehow the folks that
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: own King's Dominion had to strangle old over the legislature
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: never let schools start, you know, And then over time
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: counties started getting waivers and schools. Various counties have creeped
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: up into August, but for the most part you still
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: have people on vacation. Campaign advertising hasn't fully penetrated yet.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Some voters barely know who the candidates are in August.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Likely voter models are useless in August, very speculative, and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: historically the serious campaigns always understood this. August polling at
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: best might be useful for establishing a baseline. Maybe maybe
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: it helps you test a messager too, Maybe you can
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: look for weaknesses, maybe you can figure out But it
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't Oh my god, somebody is up two point three points.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Take that to the bank.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But we now are seeing a lot of August polling.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Not good polling, by the way, but we are seeing
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: august polling. So what changed? Polling got cheaper and what's change?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: It's got much cheaper. We have tech spased polling, online panels, automation,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: less live calling. Now, look, there were some benefits to that.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Some excellent polsters are doing some innovative work with some
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of these tools. But cheaper polling also lowered the barrier
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to entry for polsters. We don't have the best statisticians
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: running these cheap polls, trust me. And when you lower
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the barrier to entry, you don't simply get more good polls.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You get more poles, and you get a lot more
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: crappy poles. And somewhere along the line, we've confused more
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: data with more information and those aren't necessarily the same thing.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And those of.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: You you know what's coming. Those of you who've followed
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: me for years know my problem with indiscriminate polling averages.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And I've always thought the decision to try to average
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: poles and sort of diminish the polster themselves has actually cheapened, right,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: has flattened all of this. And so let me give you,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you why I don't believe in poll averages.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Imagine you've got an incredible piece of Filet mignon that
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you got at the butcher, and you've got a pile
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: of dog shit, and you throw both of them into
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: a blender. You have not improved the taste or the
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: smell of the dog shit, but you have ruined the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: filet mignon. Now everything tastes like shit. Well, that's my
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: problem with averaging polling, Simply because the poles exist. An
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: average doesn't purify bad data. It gives bad data legitimacy.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And this becomes especially ridiculous in the state based races
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: presidential approval. Maybe the averaging over time works itself out
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and the bad data doesn't, and you might be able
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: to at least get rid of the smell of the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: dog shit on the bad poles, right, because there's hundreds
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: of poles measuring presidential job approval, and so maybe over
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a time you start to see the curve and it
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: kind of works. This episode of the Check podcast is
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: brought to you by fand OL Baseball Fans. Think you
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: know who's hitting a homer today, Well, Fandel is giving
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: you a free chance to call your shot with daily Dingers.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Joining the action is easy. You just make your free
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: pick on who's hitting a home run in their game,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and if you're right, you'll get a profit boost to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: use on your next bet for a chance at extra winnings.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: You've got nothing to lose and you get a lot
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to gain. And don't forget you can make a free
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: pick every day during the MLB season. It's just another
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: reason why fandel is the home for home runs. So
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: are you ready to play your game today? Join all
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the action at FanDuel dot com. That's fandel dot com
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to play daily dingers and make your free pick on
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: who's hitting a homer. Playball and swing for the fences
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: on fandle, an official partner of the MLB. Twenty one
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: plus in select states. For Kansas and affiliation with the
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Kansas Star Casino, It's eighteen plus in DC, Kentucky, Wyoming.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: If you have a gambling problem, call one eight hundred
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Gambler or one eight hundred MI Reset or call one
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: You can also visit CCPG dot org slash chat. In Connecticut,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: you can visit the MD Gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: for help, you can visit Gambling Helplinema dot org. You
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: can call eight hundred three two seven five zero five zero.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: In Massachusetts, you can call one eight seven seven eight
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Hope and Why, or you can simply text Hope and
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Why New York in order to get some help with
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: any gambling concerns. Finally, you can also call one eight
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven zero seven eight sixty seven if
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you're in Louisiana. But the Arkansas Senate race, how many
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: quality independent polls are my friends who do the polling averages,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm I'm not going to single out you know
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: who the you know who the who biggest enities are
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and I don't because I like the guys behind them.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I think they're smart guys. They're trying to do good
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: things with them. They're just wrong about how they use
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this data. And I am the stubborn old guy yelling
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: at Cloud about this, and I'm going to stay this
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and this is why some of you probably are here
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to get this sort of clearer perspective on how to
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: use this data. But take the Arkansas center race. How
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: many quality independent poles are we really talking about five
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: at best throughout this cycle six, So imagine two of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: them are from the same polster, two are partisan and
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: one uses questionable methodology, and one is genuinely well done
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and excellent. You really want to throw all six in
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a blender. And suddenly somebody announces, Hey, the Arkansas polling
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: average is Cotton forty seven point three in the Democrat
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: forty four point two. No, that's not precision. That's false precision.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: By the way, anytime I see a decimal point in
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a poll, I automatically assume that polster's full of shit
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: because you already have a margin of marya. So there's
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: no precision to the decimal point if you also include
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: a margin of air. And never mind, don't get me
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: started at margin of air. Most reporters don't know what
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: it means. Many of them write that somehow there's an
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: equal chance that the air rate applies across the board.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: It's not how margin of air works. It's a bell curve.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: If you don't know, go back to math class. There's
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: a reason I used Arkansas as my example, by the way,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: because there's an Arkansas poll that's been circulating over the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: last week that many of you have pointed out to me.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: And been asking me about.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: So I thought, well, this is a nice time for
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: me to go in a little bit of a rant
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: about polling, but also I was intrigued about Arkansas. I'll
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: get to in a minute, but it is a perfect
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: example this poll of what I'm talking about. The Hendrix
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: College Talk Business and Politics survey got everybody's attention because
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: it showed Tom Cotton in much more trouble than anybody expected.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And basically I dismissed the top line not because I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: know the result is wrong. I don't it might be right.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I dismissed it because I don't trust the methodology enough
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to let this particular poll change my overall assessment of
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Arkansas or Red State or this race specifically, because it
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: was an entirely a text based survey. They only used
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: one mode, and at this point there is no one
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: mode that's usable anymore. You've got to have multiple mode
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: modes to make sure you truly have a representative sample
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of people to talk to so that you don't get
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: stuck over waiting polls. Now, this one was a text
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: only survey, and these can have a real problem. A
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: lot of these progressive polling firms, I think, intentionally only
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: do text only polling because they know it will always
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: over index on younger voters, and it will always create
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a larger perception of a likely voter electorate that somehow
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: is younger than it actually will be. And that's what
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: these text based poles end up doing, and then you
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: under index the more reliable voters that normally you know,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: particularly older voters, and you're just waiting an enormous Now,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean I think the polster cheated on how
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: they got their numbers. I just think they made a
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: mistake only using one mode to their methodology. I'm not
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: saying the numbers are made up. I'm not leveling that charge.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean the pole can and it doesn't
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: mean the pole can't accidentally be accurate. And a pole
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: can use legitimate statistical techniques and still have a what
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I would call a mode problem. And what worries me
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: is when somebody takes that result, tosses it into an average,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and suddenly the average gives the result more credibility simply
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: because it's now sitting next to several other numbers. And
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that's exactly backward. So anyway, just particularly don't pay attention
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: to a single average of any state based poll. I'm sorry,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: just don't There are good polls out there. If you
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: want to know which ones they are, I'm happy to
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: point them out. I can always tell you this. Give
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: me a good ar P pole, I'm going to be happy.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Different states have a few polsters that are pretty good.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: But even then paying more attention to trend lines and
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: direction between two dip poles done by the same polster
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: rather than the hard numbers themselves. So that's my polling
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: tip for the day. Now, let me spend a few
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: minutes on Arkansas. Here a minute. Now, here's the other
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: half of the story. I don't want to make the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: opposite mistake either, because while I don't buy the poll,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by the possibility that Tom Cotton may be
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: more vulnerable than we're paying attention to. First of all,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: it's a huge ag state, and we've already shown right
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the farmers. Nobody has been harder on farmers of a
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: president in my lifetime, I think than Donald Trump, even
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: as he says he wants to be the best friend
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: of farmers and this is an important constituency group for him,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and he has screwed them left and right, particularly on
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: immigration and trade. But there's another issue that I'm curious
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: about and if this is impacting Cotton more than I think.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Cotton is an old fashioned Republican hawk man. He is
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a neo conservative, if you want to label him as that.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: He's much more John Bolton than he is JD.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Vance.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: He's much more Rubio than the Vance wing of the
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. By the way, APB for Marco Rubien on
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the Iran War, it is astonishing to me how much
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: distance he has gotten himself from this war. The sick
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: day state somehow is not involved in the day to
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: day mess that is around. But I digress. Tom Cotton
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: has been a huge champion of not just this Iran war,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: but if the idea of going to war with Iran right,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: and he's this is not a popular war, and it
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: never really was. Now he knows it isn't popular, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: he may end up describing the problem with this Iran
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: war as execution rather than policy, because crossing Trump is
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a different political decision, right, He can't do that in Arkansas.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Trump probably has more personal loyalty to him in Arkansas
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: than conton Dost. The problems sitting there for him, and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: like I said, throwing the ag issues, you know, throwing
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the trade problems. Trump's trade agenda has been brutal some
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: of the very constituencies that Cotton depends on. So I'm
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: not here telling you Tom Cotton is going to lose
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the Arkansas center race. That's not going to happen. I'm
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: not even telling you he's seriously endangered at the moment.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: But I am a little more curious about his margin
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: than I was six months ago, because if Tom Cotton
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: only wins by eight, maybe nine, we get to election nine,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: everybody look at Arkansas. Whoa wait a minute, Tom Cotton
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: won by what that'll tell us something? Arkansas's early poll
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: closing state. By the way, if he's in single digits,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Katie barrowed the door of what's happening in Kansas, Nebraska,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, Montana, as we move across the country anyway,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: could tell us something about the Republican coalition that matters
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: well beyond the state of Arkansas. So what I don't
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: want to do is use one questionable methodology from a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: August Pole as proof of anything that's happening. You're going
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to want a real poll, a good one, all right,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And if that poll starts to tell me Cotton is
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: underperforming you'll have my attention, maybe with both my eyes
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: instead of just one eye until then. I am intrigued
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: by the dynamics of this race, but I'm not necessarily.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I will say this. The pole forced me to think
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: about this race a little bit, and I dove into
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: it a little bit. And you're like, hmm, the contours
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: here are intriguing. Anyway, Speaking of hidden information inside election results,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Michael McDonald from the University of Florida had an interesting
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: analysis of the Florida Republican primary. Those of you who
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: don't know Michael McDonald, he's basically the best guru of
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: sort of analyzing turnout in the country, understanding raw voter turnout,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: sort of in the nonpartisan space. And I know you're thinking,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I can't believe Chuck's praising the University of Florida. Well,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: school's good. Just there thought program sucks, you know that,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: But I tease. Anyway, McDonald looked at the Byron Donald's
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: primary performance and he noted that he thought he saw
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: some red flags for the general election. And there are
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: red flags that I told Jew about earlier, and he
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: found these red flags specifically in the data that there
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: is a larger Republican resistance to Donald's than folks may realize,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: and it is not evenly distributed throughout the state. Some
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of Donald's weakest performances came guests north of Orlando, folks
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: in North Florida, in the rural, culturally more deep South counties.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: It's been a question many of us have had and
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: an African American Republican succeed in the South. We are
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: testing that premise with Byron Donald's in places like Dixie
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and Lafayette Counties in the northern part of the state.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Donald actually finished third in the Republican primary. And what
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I found particularly interesting was McDonald's analysis of the turnout.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Get this, in some of the places with the highest
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Republican turnout, the counties that reported were in the higher
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: end of turnout. By county, Donald's did worse. So think
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: about that distinction. These weren't simply Republicans who didn't like
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Donald's in state home. Some of them appeared motivated enough
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to turn out to vote for somebody else, even though
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: they knew he was probably not going to win, that
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: somebody else wasn't going to win. So if Donald's has
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: a vulnerability, I don't think it's a huge number of
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Republicans crossing over to vote for David Jolly, the former Republican.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: What Donald's has to worry about it is the undervote,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Republican underperformance going, Eh, forget it. I'm going to stay home,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: not as something that makes me considerably angrier as a man,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: as both a journalist and as an American. Stars and
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Stripes what the Pentagon is doing, because the fight over
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the USS Abraham Lincoln has turned into something more important
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: than one difficult deployment. It's become a credibility problem for
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the entire US military. Stars and Stripes reported what sailors
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: were experiencing. That's what they do, That's what they've done
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: for decades. It's been an extraordinary long deployment. Thankfully they're
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: on their way home. There have been mental health problems,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: food issues, supply issues, communications issues. It's been enormous strain
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: on sailors and their families. And instead of asking why
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: did this happen, the political leadership at the Pentagon appears
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: obsessed with attacking the people reporting that had happened. Let's
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: remember why Stars and Stripes exists. It exists for a reason.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: The military and learned generations ago that troops need access
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: to reporting that isn't simply here's what command wants you
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: to know today. Eisenhower understood it. Independent reporting inside the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: military is not disloyalty. It's one of the protections against
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: bullshit flowing up and down the chain of command. And
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: if Pete Hagseth and the circle around him regard accurate
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: reporting about sailor's conditions as an attack on the Secretary Jesus,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: that's disturbing. And look, I've outlined so many ways that
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Pete Hagseth is one of just a serious problem for
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the US military. Everything people worried about that might happen
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: if hag Seth were put in charge appears to be happen.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: A fixation on his own personal image, a political communications
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: operation that's built apparently to start running for president, rather
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: than actually worrying about the troops, punishing dissent, punishing the
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: reporting of bad news. Pentagon increasingly organized around protecting whatever
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: legitimacy Hagseth thinks he has. And when somebody isn't confident
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: enough in their own performance, one of the temptations is
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to blame everybody reporting on that performance. So apparently stars
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: and stripes. Now is the problem. Not The sailors aren't
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the problem. The deployment isn't the problem. The reporting is
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the problem.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: That is upside down. And here's where this connects to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: something I talked about last week. We now have two
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: enormous institutions of the federal government where I personally do
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: not automatically trust the political leadership's public version of events
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: on anything they say. One is the Justice Department and
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: the others the Defensive Department. I know I'm not alone here.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: This is not a parisan statement. This has unfortunately earned
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: lack of credibility. You know, I'm not a big alarmist.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not one of these that just tries to write
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: an algorithm just to play caate an audience.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: That's for these other sort of partisan publications, and you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the touches and the bros and all of
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: that bullshit. But in these two institutions, there are thousands
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: of serious career people inside both of these departments, and
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I continue to believe they will be there when the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: country needs them. I do. But the institutional credibility, man,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: it's going to take us decades to rebuild it. And
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: political leadership. Boy, they've burned it down really fast. When
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the chips are down, Americans need to believe what the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Pentagon has to say. Americans need to believe what the
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Justice Department has to say. You cannot spend years teaching
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: the public that every official statement is a political messaging
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly announce, oh, okay, this time, you've got
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to believe us. Where the hell is congress man, This
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: is where Congress just This is why Republicans are probably
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: going to both the House and the Senate, is that
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of independence going. You guys suck at this.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the Democrats are any better, but
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: we know you suck at this and we need some
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: check on this nonsense. But Jesus, come on, let's get
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: some real. I mean, think about all the crap at
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon between the Lincoln, the mental health problems, terrible
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: war planning, ammunition shortage, who the hell is managing this place?
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: The legal justification for these boat attacks they likely are
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: all unconstitutional. Congressional oversight is supposed to tackle that all right, now,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: let me hit data centers. As I told you, man,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: there's a lot happening this weekend and I felt like
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I needed to touch a little bit of all of them.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I want to welcome the rest of the political world
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: for discovering this story. We hear at the Chuck Podcast
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: and those of you that are subscribers to newsphere. We've
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: been on this for weeks, if not months, because those
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: of you who have been listening here, No, we've been
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: talking about this a while. But I don't want to
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: overlook this fascinating memo that the National Republican Senatorial Committee
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: put out late last week. They put it a memo
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: blaring memo to quote unquote interested parties, and they might
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: as well have just put an SOS message. Help let
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: me read you this one chariot said. This is about
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: data centers from the NRSC to quote interested parties, and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: they were focused a specifically in the Ohio Center. Race
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: campaigns or party committees cannot fix the toxic brand of
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: an entire segment of the economy. That's the words of
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: the NRSC, Tim Scott's organization, that's the Senate Republican Campaign
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: arm telling the tech industry, guys, you've got a major
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: political problem. We're not going to be able to fix
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: it for you. And what's fascinating about the NRC's own
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: testing is that the strongest Republican argument is not build
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: them everywhere. It's let communities decide, make the data centers
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: pay for their own power, their own water, their own infrastructure.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Now you contrast that with somebody who wants to stop
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: data center construction completely and say America will lose the
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: AI race to China. Think about what that tells you.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: The Republican message itself starts from the premise that voters
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: distrust the industry. They know this, and this is what
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I've been telling you. This is bigger. This is not
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: about data centers. This is backlash to all of tech. Okay,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: this is the beginning of an entire political backlash against
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: tech and AI. Big money skepticism, the electricity bills, the water,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the land, all of it. Who's benefiting? Who pays? Why
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: should my community want this? Why am I once again
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: enhancing the portfolio value of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Look,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the tech industry, as I said before, spent enormous amounts
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of time and money capturing Washington. It's considerably less time
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: winning over the public, and it's now discovering that Washington
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: can't give you permission to build something if every local
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: community hates it. It's still interesting to me that apparently
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the only tech ceo that gets it is Mark Zuckerberg.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I know, sit with that a minute, right,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: But he understands that the public buying is going to matter.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: And the fact that he understands this and the NRC
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: is not begging. But what's interesting to me is that
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: basically saying hey, and they're begging industry to step in
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: here because they're saying, hey, look, we're all going to
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: be against you, but the Democrats going to be harder
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: against you. You know, we'll be better against you if
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you rescue our majority. Now, I mean, that's what the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: memo said between the lines, but it was begging for
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the industry itself to step in because they're basically saying,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: we can't if you, We're going to lose Ohio over
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: data centers, pure and simple.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Staying in the Midwest.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Another Michigan story worth watching, Mike Rodgers an Apeck, I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: just thought i'd give you a few seconds on this
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: fascinating thing. Isn't merely that Rogers apparently doesn't want a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: pack publicly involved. It's that we know he doesn't want
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: APEC publicly involved. Who wanted that fact out, presumably not APACK.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: So it sure looks like somebody around Rogers wanted Michigan
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: voters to know, Hey, we're keeping our distance from APAC.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Now you gotta ask yourself why are you doing that.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: APEX spent an enormous money trying to defeat up Do
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Lsaied and the Democratic primary, and they failed. And l
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Saed used the outside spending itself as part of his argument.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: And here's where I'm not sure Rogers gets the benefit
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: he thinks he's going to get from this, because l.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Sai Ed's argument has been outside interests shouldn't purchase Michigan politics,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and Rogers' allies essentially say this particular outside organization is
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: politically problematic enough that we don't want it's help advertised.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Isn't Rogers now reinforcing El Sayed's point? Now I'll say this,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I think APAK has a much larger strategic problem here.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Supporting Israel cannot require supporting every policy of every Israeli government,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: and APAC has to figure out how to give some
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: space to people that would like to support Israel's right
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: to exist. There are large numbers of American Jews who
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: strongly support Israel and strongly oppose net Yahoo strongly oppose
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: his settlement policy. By the way, there are large numbers
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: of Israelis who oppose BB the settlement. The settlement policy
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: in particular has done enormous damage to Israel, standing enormous damage.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: And if APAK allows itself to become identified more with
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: BB and that wing of thinking inside of Israel rather
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: than Israel as a whole, it's going to make its
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: own coalition smaller. And that is a strategic problem they
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: need to come to grips with. They have got to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: figure out how to how to have some space here.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe the problem they've got is too many donors.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe they have some donors that are pretty pro BB,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: but this absoluteness they've got to allow for a middle
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: ground or they're going to lose. And Mike Rogers walking
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: away is to me a phrase you're going to hear
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of Canary and the Colma. All right, Finally,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: let me close with the Akim Jeffries Kushner's story, if
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: you will, that sort of blew up the Sunday New
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: York Times that Jeffries has meant privately with Jared Kushner,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: and apparently they've been maintaining a relationship that goes back
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: to the criminal justice bill that they worked on together
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: during Trump's first term, and according to the Times, they
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: discussed housing, immigration affordability, and then Kushner apparently suggested that
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Jeffries talk with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Now, predictably,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: everybody online hates this, right, the online left, why the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: hell's alkkeeen Jeffers secretly meeting with Jared Kushner? The online right,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: why the hell is Jared Kushner secretly meeting with Akiem Jeffries? Right,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Everybody gets their own betrayal narrative on this one. But
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: here's what I think this story actually means. The White
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: House is preparing for speaker Jeffries, pure and symbol right,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: This is the Trump White House admitting that can read
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a poll and Jeffries can count seat. So if Democrats
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: take the House, something happens that the political basis on
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: both sides often hate to acknowledge government still less to function. Now,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Jeffreys is going to be in an almost impossible position
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: if he speaker in twenty twenty seven. Is Democratic base
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: is going to want confrontation, aggressive oversight, subpoenas, investigations, maybe
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: even impeachment. They're going to want the Democratic House to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: be the check on Trump, and especially if the Democrats
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: don't win the Senate, and then if the House is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: the only bulwark that exists, puts even more pressure on Jeffreys.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Right now, the only reason Jeffries isn't hated by the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: rank and file right now is because he gets to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: stand next to Juck Schumer, who takes all the arrows.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: But remember, Jeffries will simultaneously have to keep the government open,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: deal with the debt ceiling, respond to disasters, potentially negotiate
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: on immigration, potentially negotiate on housing, past defense funding, do
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: all of the boring governing that doesn't stop simply because
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: everybody hates each other. Trump also understands the trap. Every
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: time Jeffries compromises, Trump's gets to say, see, even a
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: chem agrees with me. And every time Jeffries compromises, somebody
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: in the Democratic left gets to say sell out.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: It's a box.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: And it's fascinating that Kushner apparently recognizes it. According to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: the Times, Kushner has told people Jeffries is the most
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: serious person among Democratic leaders is something bipartisan actually has
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: to get done. Okay, Susie Wallas is a pretty serious
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: counterpart inside the White House. And here's where I may
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: annoy everybody here. They should be talking. You don't have
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: to like Kushner and you don't have to like Jeffries.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: You don't have to trust the either party. But guess
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: what it'd be malpracticed if there was no backchannel between
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: these two. The disturbing thing isn't what they're speaking privately.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: The disturbing thing would be if our politics becomes so
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: tribal that private communication itself is considered betrayal. Because if
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Democrats win the House, Jeffries is going to have to
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: confront the fundamental tension of governing in the Trump era.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: How do you resist a president when you believe he
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: is abusing his power while simultaneously governing with that same
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: president when the constitution requires you. It's going to be
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the defining question of Hakim Jeffreys speakership. All right, there's
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: my political notebook. Now I want to spend my last
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: ten minutes on a little bit of a coda. Here.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to play assignment editor to the Mark
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Walter story. And the point is this. When I left
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: you in this two part episode of that, I left
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: you with a question, is Mark Walter an outlier or
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: see the canary in the coal mine. Well, I've been
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: digging in some more on this whole connection between life
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: insurance companies, private credit and whether this has the chance
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: of becoming our next economic crisis. Well, we do know this.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: This is not Mark Walter is not an outlier. This
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: thing is bigger than him. And I want to remind
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: you what the story is about. After the two thousand
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: and eight crash, we did something that made a ton
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: of sense. We cracked down on banks. Higher capital requirements,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: stressed federal bear examiners, made it harder and more expensive
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: for banks to make risky loans.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Banks got safer, But the borrows never disappeared. The lending
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: just moved. It moved out of banks where we could
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: see it and into a business called private credit, a
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: fancy term for a simple thing lending money to companies
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: outside the banking system. Here's how much of it moved.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: In two thousand, private credit in this country was about
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: forty six billion dollars, which was a rounding error. Today
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: it's somewhere north of a trillion and a half. You know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: trillion dollars is actually a lot of money now, And
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: to give you a sense of scale, the European Central
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Bank ran the comparison. US private credit at the end
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four was roughly one point four trillion dollars.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Guess how much the subprime mortgage market was in two
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: thousand and six, just before the crash one point five trillion,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: So in raw dollars they're about the same size now,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I'll be fair, because the economy is much bigger now,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: so we're talking raw dollars. So it's sub private twoh
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: six was nearly twice as large a share of the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: economy as private credit is today. And these are different
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: products with different plumbing, so it's not two thousand and
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: seven yet with a new hat. But that money has
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: to come from somewhere, and it turns out an enormous
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: amount of it is coming from your life insurance policy.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: That's the bigger story here, and this is where I
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: think more of the financial press, and frankly the mainstream
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: press speaking American needs to cover this part of the story.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: Life insurance companies have quietly become the new banks for
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the super wealthy, and private equity for this other economy
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: that none of us really gave a lot of access to.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Let me make this contra pret If you're sixty years old,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you've saved some money, you put one hundred thousand dollars
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: into an annuity. You're making a trade. You give an
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: insurance company your money today. They promised to pay you later.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Now what happens to your one hundred thousand dollars while
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: they have it? Well, they don't put in a vault,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: They invest it. And there are seven over seven hundred
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: life insurance companies in America. Now they don't all work
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: the same one. If you buy from New York Life,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with a mutual company. It's owned by the policyholders.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: There's no billionaire above it, no buyout firm above it,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: no shareholders demanding a number every three months to see
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: if you're performing. When in invests, well, that strengthens the
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: company and pays claims. Right. It is the purest form
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: of a life insurance company. Congratulations in New York Life.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: There's your advertisement from me on this one. Now walk
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: down the street and buy the same annuity from a theme.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: A theme is also an insurance company. A theene is
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: also owned by Apollo, one of the biggest private equity
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: firms in the world. A Theme takes you one hundred
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars and promises to pay you later. As well,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Apollo gets to manage the money, so your premium isn't
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: just money an insurance company invests. It's fuel for an
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: entire investment portfolio. Apollo gets a giant pool of cash
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to put to work. It can make private loans with it,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: It collects fees for managing it. And before you ask, no,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: none of this is illegal. There are perfectly good reasons
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: to do it. But you should want to know why
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: an investment firm wanted an insurance company in the first place.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: The answer is the most important thing I'm going to
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: tell you today. Think about the difference between a bank
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: and a life insurance company. You can walk into a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: bank tomorrow and take all of your money out no penalties.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: You can't do that with a thirty year life insurance policy.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: If you try to pull that money out early, there's
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: a penalty, right and they design that penalty to stop
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: you from doing that.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: That's the whole game.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Banks hold money that can run if you will, life
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: insurers hold money that cannot go away. And money that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: can't run is the most valuable raw material in finance,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: because if you don't owe your money for you don't
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: owe the person your money for twenty years. I don't
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: have to buy things I can sell tomorrow. I could
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: make loans that don't trade. I can may own things
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: nobody prices every day, and things that are hard to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: sell have to pay more to get you to hold them.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: It's more return, more risk. Potentially, a thirty year promise
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: arguably should be backed by long term investments. So that's
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: not a scam. But here's the question I can't answer,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and I want to be honest that I can't answer.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: When Apollo makes a loan using Athene's money, who's that
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: loan for. Is it there because it's the best safest
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: investment to make sure the seventy eight year old and
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: Toledo gets her check in twenty forty one, or is
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: it there because it's a deal Apollo wanted to get done,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: and maybe they're more worried about the financing of said
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: company than they are paying that annuity. Some usually they're pointed.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: You know, the incentives are aligned, but at some point
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: they may not be. Someday there's a deal that's good
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: for the investment firm and just not so good for
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: the policy holder. Someday there's a loan that needs to
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: be refinanced to protect a bigger relationship, and on that day,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: whose interest comes first. So this is much bigger than
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Walter, as you can see every This is every
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: firm now And the honest answer is from the outside,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: we just don't see it. And this isn't just Apollo.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: KKR owns Global Atlantic. They have three and a half
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: million policy holders, same architecture, customer provides this cash. Insurance
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: company makes the promise, investment firm managed the pile and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: charges for it. So how big has this gotten? State
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: regulators have identified at one hundred and thirty seven out
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: of my seven hundred insurance companies I told you about
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: of all types that are owned by private equities, and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: ninety six percent of the amount of money that these
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: companies hold was inside of life insurance companies. Ninety six percent.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: It is all life insurance, folks, all of it. American
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: life insures now hold nearly nine hundred billion dollars in
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: private credit debt. Roughly fourteen percent of everything on their
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: books is in these life insurance companies. Okay, now that
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: brings me back to Mark Walter. Inside his world. His
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: two insurers, Delaware Life in clear Spring held billions in
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: these private investments. Many of them were connected to companies
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: at Walter and Walter's own empire, all those LLCs of
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers, et cetera. And then he lied to the regulators.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: He claimed it was unaffiliated because of these days he
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: had ll seed everything and it looked like those unaffiliated
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Oh well, then this sub penis came and people figured
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: this out. But the point is Walter's not an outlier here.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: He didn't invent this machine. He was simply running an
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: ordinary machine that everybody in private equity runs. Now, he
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: may have pushed it further than others, and that's what
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: we're investigators are going to try to figure out. But
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: this is a this is this is a feature of
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: this machine, not the bug. And so what happens in
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: none of these companies fails. It's not what you think.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Insurance companies don't go to federal bankruptcy court. They're carved out,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: insurance commissioner of the company's home state goes to a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: state judge takes control. And here's what this means for you.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: The regulator can freeze your money withdrawals completely stopped. Now
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: you get told your money is safe, and simultaneously you're
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: told you can't have it. Doesn't work like the FDIC does,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: where you're guaranteed on your deposits. So if you're living
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: on that annuity, wooh, that's a problem. And if the
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: company can't get saved and it gets liquidated, there is
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a safety net. But again, there
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: is no FDIC for life insurance. What exists is a
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: state by state system called guarantee associations. Now they're paid
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: for by assessments on other insurance companies in that state.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: It's like everybody has to pay this fee. It's protection
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: fee in case one of them goes under. But there's cats.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: So in most states, three hundred thousand dollars on a
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: life insurance death benefit two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: on an annuity per person, per company, not per policy.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: So folks, if you have the following, if you have
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: three separate one hundred thousand dollars annuities at the same company.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Those aren't all those are Those aren't separately protected. In
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: most states, it gets combined and you essentially you don't
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: have each one hundred thousand dollars annuity completely protected. You
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: only have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of your
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: total three hundred thousand dollars protected. Maybe you get it back,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: maybe you don't. By the way, we've actually run this
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: experiment once. In nineteen ninety one, there was a California
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: ensure that's the state of California seized a company called
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Executive Life. It was the biggest life insurance failure in
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: American history at the time. Four hundred thousand policy holders
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: sold high yield annuities and back them with junk bonds,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: remember the junk bond era. When the junk bond market collapsed,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: so did the company. People above the caps, including people
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: living on injury settlements, had to take permanent losses because
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: of the cap that I just told you about. Here's
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: a fun little footnote though that nobody remembers. The man
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: who won the auction for Executive Life's junk bond portfolio
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: was Leon Black, who had just started a new firm
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: out of the wreckage of Drexel Burnham. That firm Apollo.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: The Executive Life Bonds helped make Apollo, and Apollo now
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: owns one of the largest annuity companies in America. Now
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Apollo will tell you they learn their lesson. Perhaps they did.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: They say Athene's investments are higher quality and better matched
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: than anything Executive Life ever had. Maybe they're right, But
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: we've never had a test. Nobody's tested at this size.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: And this part is what keeps me up at night.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: The more I dig into this, the more I wish
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: I sometimes adding, you know, sometimes stick in your head
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: in the end makes you feel better. We spent the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: last fifteen years learning to watch banks. The FED can
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: look across the whole banking system at once. Nobody does
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: that for life insurance. Insurance is regulated by the states.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Every company has a home state that watches it. They
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: coordinate through a national association. Some federal agencies c pieces.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: So it isn't the wild West. But I want to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: be precise about the problem because it isn't the one
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: people assume. The problem is not that state regulators are
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: lazy or bought off. The problem is that they're doing
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: exactly the job we gave them. So an Iowa and Insurance
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: commissioner is responsible for whether an Iowa insurance company can
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: pay its claims, not the parent company of that insurance company,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: not the investment firm managing the money, not the offshore reinsure,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: say in Bermuda, not the private loan on the other end.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: So the commissioner can examine the company thoroughly, competently by
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the book, with a whole bunch of blinders on, and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: they still might not see the bigger thing that matters.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: The insurer is in one state, the parent company might
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: be in another, the investment manager in a yet another,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: the company making the loan in another. You see where
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going here. The loan is private, no market price,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: it's just a model, and a chunk of the obligations
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: may have been shipped to an affiliate reinsuring Bermuda. You
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: see where this is going. So every regulator in this
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: chain can do the job perfectly, and nobody gets to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: see what the entire machine looks like. And this should
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: sound familiar to people. After nine to eleven, we concluded
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: the intelligence failure wasn't because we didn't have the intelligence
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: about the nine to eleven attacks. It was that the
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: FBI knew one piece, the CIA knew another, and nobody
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: was allowed or even required to put them on the
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: same table so that we could see the whole thing. Silos.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: Remember that we spent a decade and an enormous amount
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: of money trying to get rid of those intelligence silos. Well,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: we have now rebuilt those in American finance after nine
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: to eleven. Nobody designed the silos on purpose, But the
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: fragmentation is the selling point. You choose your home state,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: you choose your reinsurance company country. You can structure things
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: so that no single regulator has both the authority and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the view to see the whole machine. It's legal. Every
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: industry shopped for friendlier regulators. Why do you think the
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: state of Delaware exists? But in most industries that when
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: that goes wrong, shareholders lose money. In this one, a
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: widow is going to lose her income. Now, look, you
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: want to push back against me on this, I'll make
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: my own I'll make my own case against it.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: One.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: When these firms bought into life insurance, they were often
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: buying obligations nobody else wanted, so somebody had to hold
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: them okay, two. Not one private equity owned life insurer
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: has failed yet, not one, So my worry is a projection.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: Their record is a record. Three state regulators are to
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: sleep here, and we see in this case with Mark Walter,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: there is at least some acknowledgment, and perhaps this will
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: get more regulators looking at other private equity owned life
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: insurance companies. But notice what all three of these pushbacks
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: have in common. They're about whether any single company is sound.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: But that's not my worry. My worry is that we
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: have nine hundred billion dollars of hard to sell loans
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: sitting inside of life insurance companies, that a lot of
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: it was made by the same firms managing those books
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: of the life insurance company, and that the value is
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: set by a model instead of a market inflated valuations.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: So if the credit cycle turns, it turns for everybody
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: at the same time, fifty regulators each looking at their
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: own slice. So as an outlier, is it a canary?
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Mark Walter may end up being an outlier. Investigators are
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: going to decide this. But the system that let his
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: insurance companies get tangled up with his own empire, that
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: is not the outlier, folks. The canary doesn't create the gas.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: The canary tells you the gas is there, all right.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: All right with that, let's get to John kase.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: Joining me now is somebody who's should be a familiar
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: face to you, because I think I've had him on
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: my hype. I'd like to think we regularly now do
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: this about once a quarter. It's my friend John Kasik.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: You may know him as the former governor of Ohio.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: You may know him as a former member of Congress,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: former whatever we're all about. We're a couple of guys
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: with a lot of formers, and we're a lot of
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: and we're but neither one of us believe we're formally
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: doing anything. We're just trying to do And I think
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: as you, as I share all the time about our conversations,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I always say, you know, at the end of the day,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: both I think John and I are in the same
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: place by trying to figure out how can we.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Get people speaking again.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: And John, I got to tell you about an organization
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: I was just at earlier this month, and you would
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: love it if the organizations called Recenter Indiana, and it's
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: all about civic engagement, depolarization and the whole point is
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: not centrism. I love their focus, which is saying, we
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: just want every local politician to put Indiana's priorities before
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: their ideology. And that's what they mean by recenter. And
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you now Indiana. You know Indiana well,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: obviously as a border state of yours, they've always had
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: a culture. It may be a conservative state, but they
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: are not a what I call a pugilistic state.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like Utah. They don't like this style
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: of politics.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: And this group really revolted over the redistricting, you know,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: basically the outside.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: I was really impressed with this group.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: They got a great turnout, and they're really trying to
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: It's about trying to help educate young voters, increase participation
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: with young voters, but really try to improve civic conversation.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: And it strikes me that there's a lot of desire
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: out there for this. I know, you hear this, I
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: hear this, and yet all the coverage is about how
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: divided we are.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I'm not so sure that I agree
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't share that optimism right now.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: Well, here's the problem, Chuck, I mean, it's in my opinion,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: it's like, if you're a Republican and you go you
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: want to really have a good conversation, Well, then would
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: you vote for a Democrat? Oh, I wouldn't do that,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding? And vice versa. So we hear people
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: say this, but at the end, when the bell goes off,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: people go to their corners. And I don't want to
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: be I don't want to be pessimistic, but I also
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: don't want to be you know, pie in this and
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of work to be done,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: which you're trying to do and I'm trying to do.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: In mind well, I agree that there's a ton of work,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: and I think, you know, the voters keep rejecting both parties,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: and neither party sees it yet as an indictment. They
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: just see it as an opportunity to win the next time.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: And that's what I don't know how we change that mindset.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: Well, how do you say they're rejecting both parties.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: Every election cycle they vote out the party that's in power.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: And they've done it every we have, not every single
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: every two years john this century, but two four and
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: twelve were reelected. Everything in on the federal level. But
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: if you go now, I can get right you go,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: we can go back twenty fourteen, New Senate, twenty sixteen,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: New White House, twenty eighteen, New House, twenty twenty, new
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: White House, new new Senate, twenty twenty two, New House,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, new presidents.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: You see what like?
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: We're voters, I say we the voters only have one
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: tool to express themselves, the elected to the American people,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: and it's they're voting. And if you don't like your options,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: then you just vote out right, and we keep voting out.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to have over one hundred new members of
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: Congress this cycle, jump only for the third time. Ninety
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: two was the last time we had over one hundred
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: new members of Congress.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: That voter.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this though, for something new, they
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: just don't necessarily know what they want.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: They want a bout a leadership. Let's let's drill down
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: a little deeper on that. Is that because people who
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: are Republicans are voting for Democrats and Democrats voting for
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: Republicans or is it about turnout? In other words, you
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: know you're going to see the Democrats all fired up
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: this time and the Republicans are going to sit at home.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: But I would argue there's door number three that we
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: always leave out in this conversation. And I totally agree
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: with you about the ebbs and flows of base turnout,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: and there's no doubt this cycle it's the left that's
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: exciting and they're going to show up. And I doubt
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: the Trump voter shows up. I think we all see
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: that coming. But it's the forty to growing of forty
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: percent who won't, who are uncomfortable identifying in either party.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: And you know this, right, you know independence Essentially in
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: twenty four they looked Republican. This cycle, they look democrat
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: to me. They're not waffling, they're essentially voting against. The
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: independent voter doesn't vote for, they vote against these days,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: and that's where that's the difference I think between Look,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: we've always had the ebbs and flows of base turnout.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: That hasn't changed. But you have this larger chunk of
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: voters that's growing in and that's the question. Are they
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: in the middle or are they just rejecting these institutions?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: But maybe ideologically they're all over the place. And I
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: think that is why this forty percent has been so
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: hard to organize if you will.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: Well, look, you said something that I can't. I keep
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: repeating it, and I hope it's right. And that is
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: it took six presidential elections to get beyond Lincoln. Yeah, okay,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: well it didn't take one, it didn't take two, it
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: took six. Now, I know the country's not as divided
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: today as it was, but that's that. See, you're you're
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: getting me convoluted here because on one hand, you're telling
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: me something about how long it took for people to wait. Well,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: I agree that we do.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll give you another fun little you know
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: how long it took from the first meeting in Seneca
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: Falls for the women to get the right to vote
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty, right, Like, that's
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: seventy two years. So not every project happens overnight in
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: this country.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: Well, look, we would both love for people to Well,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: here's another thing, Chuck, and I hope you will with this.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: I wrote something about this, and that is the socialists,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: the Democrats, socialists are actually talking about things that people
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: care about. I don't mean the prisons or that other craft.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: But when they start talking about affordability and they start
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: talking about the gap between the reach and poor, and
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't get a fair shot all that
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: kind of rhetoric. Okay, all that stuff that's touching voters.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: And what's more interesting than just the fact that they're
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: resonating with voters, They are electrifying their supporters who are
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: now out there doing something that I used to do,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: that we used to do in this country. And you
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: know what it is. It's door to door campaigning. It's
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: face to face. It's face to face. And so you don't, yeah,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: let me finish so the moderates what I say about
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: the Democrat moderates. In fact, I talked to a Democrat
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: governor about this. I said, why are you people being silent?
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: Why don't you say that what the socialists are saying
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: makes sense. It's just their solutions are crazy. Let me
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: tell you what I would do. But you don't hear them.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: They're quiet. It's just like the anti mega crowd. We
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: know that. Okay, Trump hit a nerve. Let me finish
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: this thought for our listeners. Trump hit a nerve. I
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: warned them about this in twenty sixteen. It's it's negative populism.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: But yet the normal Republicans didn't say anything to say, no,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: that's just nonsense, right, like we're going to balance the
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: budget through waste, fat and abuse. You know, well, I
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: look at it this way.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: If you if you see two if you're not feeling well,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: and you go and you see two doctors, yeah, and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: one doctor says, yeah, I think there's something wrong here,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: and the other doctor says, I can't find anything wrong. Well,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: which doctor are you going to go back to the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: one that like? Now, that's it? They may end up
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: prescribing some cuckoo bird cure, right.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: Beaches on George Washington, Right, yeah, right, But you're good
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: at but you trust the person that's shares the diagnosis.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: So here's here's where I come down on that socialism issue.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Take Grand Rapids. I'm obsessed with what happened in Grand Rapids.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Abdul El sayed.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know what happened there. You mean in the primary,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: the primary.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: First of all, it was this highest turnout ever that
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: Democrats got in Kent County, which is Grand Rapids. They
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: got over and they just crushed. This is of course
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: Gerald Ford's home. This was a county that met Romney carried,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: county that Trump still carried by sixteen doesn't carry it
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: by twenty.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: We know that in the.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: Michigan primary in twenty twenty, Biden narrowly defeated Sanders. The
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: so called you know, sort of pragmatism versus versus socialists.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: Abdul l Saied won it by over thirty points. And
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: so the question is do you believe that the people
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: in Grand Rapids want to be are embracing socialism or
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: are they looking at Hailey State even and lsied and
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: one said I can make the system work, which is
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: essentially was her message, and the other said, this.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: System is broken. Well, if you're a.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: Moderate Republican in Kent County that now has decided the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Republican Party's crazy, you left them right you were. This
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: was a This was one of those the the the
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: high education Republican counties. There's there's one near you in
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: Columbus that a lot of people like to talk Delaware County.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: Is this Delaware County reliably Republican? Trump has lost, you knows,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: the Trump era has made it fade. It's a it's
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: a sort of a some one could argue it's got
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: some similarities to to Kent. I don't believe that people
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: that live in Grand Rapids want socialism. I do believe
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: that people in Grand Rapids are going well. One guy
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: agrees with my diagnosis. This thing is just aft up.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: The other person thinks the system is still fixable.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go with the socialist, even though I'm
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: not sure about the solutions. At least he's going in
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: there to do something different. And that's what Trump tapped into.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: I agree. That's why we love doing this truck. Had
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: so much fun talking about this stuff. Let's for a
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: second talk about Mondami. Yeah. Now you and I both
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: know that rent control doesn't work right, But I know this.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: If I'm living in an apartment up there, somebody's got
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: to do something to keep my rent from going up.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: Here's the question, why did the traditionalists not recognize the
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: problem and then come up with a solution that was
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: like bold? Right? I mean, do they have no capability
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: to think differently? By the way, I saw a bumper
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: sticker on the car. Sounds like I'm talking about deadhead sticker, right,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: But here's what it said. I took a picture. It
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: said both democratic, We're not perfect, but they're nuts.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: But back to but isn't there the way our entire
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: election cycles have gone over the last twenty years, which
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: who's the nuttier, who's got the nutty.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: Out of handles? He was trying to say that for
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: the traditionalists, Yeah, what is your sizzle? Yeah, you don't
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. That's what I
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: think Sinatra said. And I'm saying to you, they're boring.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, why is it, Why is it that if
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: you're first of all, the healthcare system is ridiculous what
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: we've done with the by taking away those subsidies, you
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: realize what we have left are the sickest people and
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: the healthiest people left the system. Why doesn't somebody say
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: we're going to convene everybody involved in healthcare and we're
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: going to lock them in a room and we're not
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: going to let them out until they come up with
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: something that encourages us to stay healthy rather than treating
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: us when we're sick where they make a ton of money.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: They're worried about the rhetoric too, Chuck, Yeah, I mean,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: where's the bold statements, where's the bold ideas from the establishment.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: They don't exist.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: By the way, I could make the same I just
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: same argument about the public school system or our education system.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: I should call it that because it's no longer a
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: public school system. It's a it's a it's very uh.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: But what you just described, which is we've allowed our
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: healthcare care system is sort of two classes, right, the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: haves and the have nots. And our education system is
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: a two class system, haves and the have nots, which
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: of course means our economy is is sort of divvying
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: up the same way. I mean, ultimately, that's what we're
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: dealing with here, is it. We have we have, we
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: have we have and I think I think the school
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: system and the healthcare system are the two biggest drivers
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: of this because that's what we all touch and feel
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: every day as young families or is as you know what,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: what do you interact most with? That government has a
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: hand in health care and education, right and and and
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: and we have we have let these two systems atrophy
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: over the health care no question.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: No innovation. And it's except in the private space in
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: education we have.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: But there's only so far can go. And I would
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: argue that the innovation in the private space is actually
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: harmed the public space unintentionally, right, But it does do that.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: It is because it's a binary thing. The more kids
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: you take out of the system, the more you just
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: you see what you do, you just create what you
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: just described in the healthcare system, where all of a sudden,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: the public school system only deals.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: With those that don't have that.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it becomes self reinforcing in a negative way,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: and we have not You know what made us powerful
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: as a as a country one hundred years ago was
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: that our our school system was everybody went to the
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: same school system, rich and poor, right, and then over time,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: you know, first it was the only the ultra rich
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: kept their kids out. Then it is kept you know,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: chopping its way down, and now we've got.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well here's the thing.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: The time system.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: Well, you go to the poorest communities and you have
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: a lottery to allow parents to have choice.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: The line is so long, of course parents, But why
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: don't we make there, Why can't we make their neighborhood
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: school a great school?
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: Why do we have to shadow why? Because you know
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: what really is gets down to with no competition. Yeah,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: the pizza in Miami is no good unless there's a
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: pizza place down the sidewalk. Competition is what drives change. Interestingly,
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: my problem with the union is that they don't want change.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: You know, frankly, most people don't want change.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody's in preservation mode now, and that's where, yes, we're
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: in preservation mode. Let me go to a topic because
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: I'm very curious how you would handle this as a
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: if you were on the ballot this year, and that
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: is data centers. It's interesting to me. First of all,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I was in I did interviews. I did back to
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: back interviews, one with Byron Donald's Conservative Republic in Florida,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: one with Doug Jones, you could call them sort of
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: center left Democrat and Dothan Alabama.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, both of them.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: The number one issue they're both talking about is data
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: centers in different even different ways and all this stuff.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I think this public concern about data centers ain't about
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: data centers.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: It's just about tech. It's about big.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: Tech, and it's I think larger than just what's happening
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: in the communities. How would you be tackling this one
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: as an elected official? And then two, what would you
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: be saying to these tech companies who I think have
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: spent too much time capturing politicians and not enough time
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: capturing communities.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's why we need to have public financing of campaigns.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: Oh no, we need to have Yeah, let me get
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: to public find Let me start on the first thing,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: data center. If you're going to build a data center,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: you have to bring power with you. This cannot be
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: put on the on the rate payers. You want to
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: bring a data center, you bring the power. If you
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: can't bring the power, you don't have a data center,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: plain and simple. And that is not anti data center.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: That's I'm actually pro data center, but I'm not having
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: pro cent a data center paid for by the peoples
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: whose utility bills go up. I can tell you this
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: in the state of Ohio. We are paying for data
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: centers in Virginia because we're in the same little area.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: And it's nonsense. So that's how I would handle that
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: now in terms of big tech, in terms of these companies,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, there's too much suck up, and
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: you know, I think chuck. You know, we have newtered
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: the political parties. They play very little role in screening candidates,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: they don't have any money, and all the elections now
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: are decided by special interest groups. I was telling somebody
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: that I thought would agree with me on that, and
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: they disagreed. Who was it, Uh, it was Chris Matthews.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: Chris said, no, I don't think the public would go
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: for public financing for their money to go to some politician.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: Look, public financing. I think we want big money out
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: of politics. But you're not using taxpayer money to run
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: like I think we're I think we I think you
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: can hold both positions at the same time.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: Well, my feeling about it is, if you're going to
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: be a candidate, you're just like you're going to have
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: a small business, You've got to reach a threshold of
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: the factory are qualified petitions, and then then I think
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: you could publicly finance. Look, I think a lot of
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: these people go to Washington and they're beholden before they
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: even get sworn in.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: Completely agree.
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: So I can't tell you how I think we can
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: fix that. What we're going to you know, whether you say, oh, well,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: just transparency, that'll fix it all, No, won't. And the
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: problem we have is the court, and the court has
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: ruled that, you know, you can't limit speech and all that,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: and I understand it, and but there's ways to deal
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: with that. But I've become a public finance guy. And
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: you know what, Chuck, here's the thing. Okay, when I
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: say that, you're like, oh wow, Okay.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, because that's not you know, but you know,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: many conservative Republicans would be advocating for taxpayer dollars in
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: the campaigns.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: You know what. That's why I'm fun honestly with No,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: you're not wrong. I mean, this is why you're interesting.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: You're not a You're you're not are You're not a
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: cookie cutter.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: There is no place where I'm going to get my
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: instructions from the political party to tell me what to do. Blooney.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: See that's what I keep What I don't understand is
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: in an era and now when meeting the voter face
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: the matters, Yeah, why aren't there more people with do
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: you see the socialists doing it? But where are the
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: normal Democrats? Where are the Republicans? They don't like MAGA,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: they're just going crazy, they hate Mega. Well, what you
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: what do you want to do? And what's your rhetoric
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: and what's your examples and what's your ideas?
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: This is the problem. You know you we identified it
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: on the left, but you're right, the center right and
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: the center left of the two parties. They don't have
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: a compelling counter to MAGA in the socialist problem, and
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: you boring.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: They follow a script and they can't I mean can't
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: they think? I mean, what can't they create something interesting?
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: Well, give me an idea that you think the center
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: right or the center left could do that would acknowledge
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: the angst and at the same time save capitalism.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the ideas, as I said,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: is that if King Jeffries becomes the speaker, I've got
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: a commitment out of Penetta to go down and see him.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: I want him to convene a healthcare group that can
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: sit down who people who go into a room, unbiased,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: whether they're pharma, whether they're doctors, whether they're trial lawyers, whatever,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: come out with a plan that encourages the ability of
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: people to be rewarded for doing things to keep them healthy,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: rather than continuing to run this treadmill. I mean I
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: think that. And the fact is I would extend the
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: subsidies until we get an answer, because you cannot cut
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: people out of this stuff. That would be one thing. Well,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you my other one. This is you're gonna
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: think this is crazy. I favor a Trump Amendment, And
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: people are like, what the Trump Amendment says that we
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: shall have a balanced budget except in cases of war
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: or you know, any depression, any of that other stuff.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: And people say, a Trump amendment. Why a Trump amendment?
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: I said, because it's got his name on it, and
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: we don't get on top of this debt. It's going
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: to cripple everybody, you know. I mean, so I've been
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: talking about that. People laugh. No, I'm going to get
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: to Trump on this at some point. Think about that.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: It would have his name and he hasn'tenough to do anything.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to ask you about It's funny, and
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: this is why I love talking with you, because we're
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: going to go in different directions. I didn't plan on going,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: but I'm watching us mismanager war right now.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: Oh all right, and I.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: And we and I just want to let's I want
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: to separate out the policy here for a minute, because
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: that's one debate. But let's talk about the operational aspect
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: of things. And I'm just going to ask you this
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: question as a concerned citizen. For the last twenty five years,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: basically since nine to eleven, all we have done is
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: invested money in the Pentagon in new systems to do this.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: We've got to modernize this, We've got to do this.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: We've got to do that, and we are more unprepared
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: for this war.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: I think this goes that Trump Trump didn't plan if
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: we were if we knew we were going to war,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: or that going to war with Iran was a possibility,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: I'd like to think we'd have improved our logistics for
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: the USS.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: Lincoln.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I think I'd like to think we would have set
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: something up. But let's set that. But that's my point here.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: What have we been spending our money? We're finding out
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: that the Iranians are this sort of asymmetric warfare, which
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: of course has been a problem for the United States
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: going back to Vietnam. We continue to spend all this money.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: What are we getting for our money?
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: Chuck? Sometimes I used to I think of them as
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: the Uniform Public Works Committee. Let me tell you about
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I'm getting very you were one of
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: the committee. I'm tee you up here on purpose very well, though,
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: you were one of the first Republicans actually want to
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: audit the goddamn Pentagon.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: Well not just that, but you know, look, we did
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: go Oldwater Nichols. There was I mean there were Goldwater
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: Nickels said that the people that fight the war ought
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: to have the power. We created special forces. You know,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: but the problem you have, Chuck, is the Pentagon is
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: extremely resistant to any change. Yes, that's what I talked
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: to Panetta about. He goes John. It was just so
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: hard to get any change in there.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: That's why they all hated Rumsfeld. He you know, whether
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: you think of Rumsfeld Rumsfeld pre nine to eleven, the
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: first eight months he had this I remember it. He
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: had Bill Clinton's support for it, like he wanted he
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: really wanted to redo procurement. It was very and there
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: it was this revolt against Rumsfeld from the uniform and
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: from the defense contractors. Nine to eleven happens and he
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: gets bulldozed on his reform efforts.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: I have a sort of a Rumsfeld was a friend
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: of mine and I spent a lot of time with him.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: And actually after nine to eleven, I took a group
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: of people from the Silicon Valley and to introduce technology,
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: and Rumsfeld loved that. We met on a regular basis.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: But he was always wanting to be an innovator in
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: that area. I just think he is an innovator. What happened,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: the politics didn't allow it for it to happen.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: Right. Part of it chuck with Rumsfeld in my opinion,
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: and I don't know that anybody else will agree with me,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: is that when he was trying to tell the military,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: I want to have a big role in managing this war.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: He was so popular, remember those press conferences. He was
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: like a matinee idol for a while.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: He sort of got like Andrew Cuomo COVID status right
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: that that brief period before it.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: But I think where he went too far is he
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: didn't pull the military in to say, look, what do
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: you think? But I think they laid in wait for him,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: and then they kind of did him in. But back
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: to the Pentagon, you see you said something. They keep
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: saying we have new systems, new weapons. No we don't. No.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: If you look at Ukraine, Okay, the power of you
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: is the commanders out there in the field have the
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: ability to design their own weapons. The Pentagon is a
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: giant bureaucracy. And so what what's happening now is there
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: are these new systems run by these tech companies that
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: hold real promise. But the difficulty is I think I
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: read somewhere the other day they talk a big game
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: in the Pentagon, but only like one percent of the
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: money goes to new systems. Why because the old systems?
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: Ron Dellams, remember Ron Ellams? Yeah? He and I. Look,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: he was an anti war guy.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: He was. Was he a black panther or just black?
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: But he was involved in the right. He was part
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: of the movement. This is Oakland and Ron Dellams. I've
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: heard this from others. Everybody thought he's going to be
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: Chairman of Armed Services, this is going to be you know,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: piece nick, And it was never that he was.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: He was.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: I have heard nothing great things of how he managed
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: that committee. He understood. He understood something that I wish
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: more Americans understood. It's called pluralism, which means we're going
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: to have a group of people that disagree, but we're
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: going to figure out how to solve problems. Anyway.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: Sorry, so spenting and he and I went after the
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: beat the B two bomber. Yeah, he and I wanted
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: to build thirteen. The Pentagon wanted one hundred and thirty two.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: And how did we get together? Well, I sat in
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: the briefing and they were telling me that we were
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: going to fly the B two over the Soviet Union
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: in the middle of a nuclear war and look for targets.
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, how many how
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: many weapons do you need? One's going to ruin your
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: whole day.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, I don't We're worried
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: about the number. The second the response, what are we
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: going to do after it begins?
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: Chuck? It took us, but we ended up. The Pentagon
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: ended up. I reached an agreement with Cheney, who hated
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: me for it, that we would build twenty We went
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: from one hundred and thirty two down to twenty. You
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: know what, It took ten years to get this agreement.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: Ten years so, and I said, we don't need to
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: kill the system. We need to have standoff weapons, new
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: things to think about. Not that I was a genius
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: in this. I had good staff, But the fact is,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: trying to change that building is very difficult. I understand
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: that there are some people in there who were good
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: and we have to see where it all goes. But
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: I can tell you this is a and you're I mean,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: how many tanks do we need to build now? And
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: here's the problem. Let me go back to B two.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: This is why I was telling them not to promote myself.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: The windshield was was built in one city, the wings
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: were built in another state, the tires were built in
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: another state. They loaded all these systems up so they
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: all had a constituency that supported them.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: What if I told you, though, that both Boeing and
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: Northrop grumm and now have their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia,
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: What does that tell you about.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: How the Pentagon?
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you want to talk about corporate capture, You
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: want to talk about sort of that pipeline, and you
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: want to know why you can't You can't. You can't
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: reform the Pentagon because what happens to people that are
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: running today's Pentagon?
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: Where do they go work? John? They need to work
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: sentence companies, I know exactly.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: And then so and all of it is designed to
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: preserve the system that exists, rather than say how do
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: we innovate and how do we think about the wars
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: of tomorrow? My goodness, we've been exposed, that's my point.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: What the hell have we been spending all this money on?
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: And we're getting our at We lost the straight of
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: horror moves. I'm sorry what did we do? No, But
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: here here's the thing I would tell you. And I
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: was not as optimistic as you about the moderates and
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: all that other stuff, or people are rejecting whatever we
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: I am an optimist that we have leaders who have
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: good intentions, and I think it is possible for the
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: whole Pentagon to be reformed with a group of people
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: who say this is what we're going to do. And
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: I do. I think it's very possible. I've seen it done.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: I saw it done back in the old days. I
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: think it can happen again. But what we have to
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: what people have to ask themselves. And we're kind of
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: back to this whole thing. You and I kibbots about
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: who are you answering to? Are you answering to the pocketbook?
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: Are you answering or are you answering to your family?
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: And are you answering to a higher power? Because that
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: way your intentions will be the right intentions in my opinion,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: not in all cases and not in all ways. But
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: it's called leadership. It's called having character and saying I'm
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: here for a short period of time, let's improve this,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: and I don't give up the fact that we can
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: get that done. I'll dismissed the notion that we could
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: get people in the media in television who begin to
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: say to get together and say, look, can we call
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: off the message just to our base. I mean, I'm
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: an optimist, you are an optimist. We got to know.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: That's why we got to keep doing our thing. Give
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: people the hope. It's interesting you say that.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, the I think the legacy media business,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: there's not a market for that right, and I don't
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: I wish there were. I think the market for people
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: that I think kind of agree where you and I
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: come from, are a bunch of people who like I
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: just I'm turning off the noise. Yeah, and what you
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: hate is that they can't disengage. And that's been the
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: issue they've got to. It goes back to why aren't
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: they fighting back? What is your proactive I know what
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: you're against, Like there's this you know you saw Look
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: what happened in Wisconsin. It turned out there's a majority
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: that don't want whoa whoa whoa whoa. Well, we like Thanksgiving,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: but if she never says cancel Thanksgiving, she wins that
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: primary right. That turned into the shiny metal object going WHOA, Well,
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: that's a little bit too much. But I can't tell
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: you what David Crawley is for John. Yeah, you know,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: he succeeded by being against that.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: And that's been how that's that's how the center right
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: or the center left has survived. They've just been a
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: bulwark against there's no Now, maybe they would argue those
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: that are in that space, whether you're Lisa Murkowski or
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: or who's left in the center left, in the in
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: the Democrats. Let's say, Mark Kelly, Hey, you gotta you know,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: you gotta wait till there's a moment. You know, you
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: gotta wait right now, we're just to retreat. You know.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: That's why I agree with that. But you know, Chuck,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: you you are so good at history too. Let me
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: ask you this question. Throughout American political history, who have
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: been the ones that and I mean this rows above
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: the den and every every every generation has a din
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: that you need to rise above. Who are the ones
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: that electrified the country in a positive way, the ones
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: that really came out of nowhere or you know who
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: were they?
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: Let's start thinking about them because I have a theory.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: I have it.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: This is why I'm an advocate of If you look
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: at most of our change movements, John, in our history,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: they were outsiders. They weren't necessarily either major party. Right
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: reform movements don't get adopted by major parties. They get
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: co opted, meaning, oh, all right, it's inevitable, so now
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and be for it. Right, you just
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: sort of accept you're like, you fight it, you fight it. Like,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: take the small thing of open primaries, right, Neither political
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: party wants open primaries until they feel like it's their
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: only way to win, and then suddenly, right it becomes
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: a necessity. Okay, we'll be for open primaries in state acts,
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: but we're still going to fight open primaries in state
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: why because we think close primaries helped us here, open
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: primaries help us there. So it's a little bit of
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: transactionalism on that. But for the most part, Abe Lincoln,
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: third party guy, people forget this right went to joined
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: a brand new party. Left, the Whigs joined a brand
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: new party in order to get something done. Teddy Roosevelt
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: left his party in order to get something done. You know, FDR.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: It took frankly, it took an economic collapse before there
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: was and it really took FDR second term that he
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: really sort of galvanized the country for change and things
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: like this. So I look at some of those examples
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: and think that I don't think you're going to find
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: the next great sort of leader from one of the
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: two parties. It's either going to be somebody that leaves
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: one of the two parties to say, look, I need
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: to be unshackled here, because the only way the public's
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: going to trust me is if I'm not part of
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: that part of that party anymore, part of that brand.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: But I look at our history and the biggest changes
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: we've made were started by outside entities. The right to
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: get women, the right to vote, direct election of senators
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: was an outsider thing. The idea of the income tax
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: came from the outside. That's why I keep searching for
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: the great outsider hope the end of prohibition. The end
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: of prohibition would have been another one, right. I mean, yeah,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: that's really really that's a really interesting point that maybe
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: the change has to come from the outside. You remember
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: in modern time, you know Ross Perro, I think he
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: made Do you think Bill Clinton's a budget balancer without
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: Ross Paro?
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: Nope? Me, neither or not.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean that to denigrate Bill Clinton. I
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: think Bill Clinton's a smart politician. He went, oh, there's
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: votes over here for it. Oh, by the way, there's
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: Then he had Bob Ruben tells him how it makes
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: financial sense, and.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: Then he's all in. Right.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: But it took the voters threatening him. Essentially, Look what
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans over time have become to question free trade? That
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: on you know, do we do?
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: I would argue Perole also started to introduce that mindset
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: of hey, you know, so he was this outsider agitator
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: that was tapping into constituencies in both parties, and I
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: do think both parties tried to tried to respond in
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: a defensive posture, but it did have an impact. So
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: I do I view Ross Perot as a very successful independent.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: He was an amazing guy. He come to see me
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: and he would walk in my office, no no security,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: no nothing. Yeah, it was hi, Ross Perot's John. Here.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you another guy that we should that we
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: never hold up. Ralph Nader.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, another one outside agitator that did it great. By
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: the way you read the Today's Times, We're we're talking
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: on a Monday, August seventeenth did a terrific sort of
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: Ralph Nader's still around, and it's like I'm aware of this.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: I get these notes from him and everyone. So I've
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: had a relationship with him on and off for good
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: thirty years, and you know, he's still all there, and
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: he's still you know, he's trying to get a Wall
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: Street tax and all.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: But he I mean, like, you know, God bless him.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, but if Ralph Nader didn't exist, we'd all
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: half of us would be you know, would be maimed
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: by big companies. You know.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I had a bill At one point, Chuck tried
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: to form a little group to in corporate welfare, and
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: he came to the Hill and talked about it, and
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: of course I couldn't get anybody to sign up to
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: The constator was for it, right, It was for no.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: It was because they had to go against their own constituency.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: You didn't want to do that, right, I mean, he wasn't.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: But that's a really interesting thing to change.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you one thing about Ralph Nader that
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: people under us. You know, Ralph Nader tried to always
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: he was an outsider who tried to change with use
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: the system itself to create change, meaning he didn't you know,
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: he doesn't. He wasn't mister like, let's abolish the Senate. Yeah, okay,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: there's You're not getting anything done by just saying abolish
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the Senate.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: It's realistic, it's bold, but realistic, and saying about these
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: people in the middle, be bold.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: Actually though that was Nader Nator worked within the system,
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: start a new organization, but it was designed to influence
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: the system that existed, not some pie in the sky
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: idea of a system that's never going to exist.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think you're going to get a group of
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: people on the outside. They're going to start turning against
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: these tech companies and whys tech companies? You know, I
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: think that's going to happen at some point.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you I just spent I spent about five
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: days going down the rabbit hole of I got obsessed
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: with this Lakers sale and sort of with Mark Walter
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: and why did he have to sell so fast? It's
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: such a strange thing. Fourteen months after buying and he
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: flips it and this is not who he is. And
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: then you start to dig in and what his businesses are,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: and then I started to understand private credit. You were
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: in this space, so I want to ask you, and
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: I understand how private credit became such a big thing.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: Basically as banks had to raise their standards and raise
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: their capitalization it you know that there they were going
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: to become more restrictive in how much money they lent.
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: And so I could see how private credit ended up lunch.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: Funds and private equity, and right, well, it turns out
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: this Mark Walter, you know what he was doing, and
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: what apparently a lot of private equity does, which is
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: they buy an insurance company, life insurance company and life
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: insurance companies in particular, because they have constant flows of
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 2: cash coming in, you borrow against that capital in order
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: to essentially have more money.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: For instance, that was as essentially as collateral to buy
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers. And I'm absolutely shorthanding this to I.
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: Spent a big chunk of time explaining it.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: But the more I read into this, the more it
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: was like, John, this feels like we're so blind. There's
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: a entire other eco financial ecosystem that exists that is
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: outside the public markets and outside the banking sector, and
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: that strikes me as very dangerous for the future of capitalism.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you think, you know what I
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: read saw the other day that kids' sports, They're like,
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: what did I hear? Forty million? What was that number,
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 2: Chevy that they said they were spending forty billion, fathers
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: and fathers spending money, spending money on kids' sports. Yeah,
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: private equities now is trying to buy all that stuff. Yeah,
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: I'll always worried about private equity. You know where they're
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: they're they're buying every dentist, dental practice there is, and
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: you know, you wonder what is the impact of that.
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: And that's something that is another issue that that you know, how.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: Would you begin Let me ask you this. You strike
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: me as sort of you've got a lot of Teddy
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt in you. I'm getting I know, I'm guessing he's
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: got to be one of your favorite, uh favorite presidents.
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: How would Teddy Roosevelt tackle private equity?
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: Do you think? Well? I think I think chuck on
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 2: any of these issues, You've got to get people who
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: are really knowledgeable. You and I cannot design the plan
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: to fix private equity. I could agree, I mean, you
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: and I. It scares me. Yeah, you and I can
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: convene the best and figure out what the guardrails are.
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: It's the same with AI. What are the guardrails? The
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: thing I worry about on AI, for example, is there
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: are no people who can make the laws, who understand
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: enough about it. And have they called other people in
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: who are experts, who aren't biased? Who are you know
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: of the public good? The same thing would be true
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: in this You would have to you know, when I
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 2: became governor, I said that I was going when I
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: was running, I said, I'm going to get rid of
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: economic development in the state of Ohio, and I created
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: an independent, not for profit entity called Jobs Ohio. We've
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: gone from forty seven in the country to number one.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 2: We are now the number one job creator in America.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: And it's because we created a system that was privatized,
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: but we also put guardrails around it. Now, over time,
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: I think in some ways it's been weakened, but we're
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: still doing really well. And can you get into the
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: details of that.
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: Can you explain, because you're right, like every community has
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: this economic development right program of sorts. Yeah, that we
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: work with those public private What was it that that
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: didn't work that yours? What did you do differently just
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: no public money? What what would you. How would you
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: say is the biggest difference in what you created.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: What we did, Chuck, is you're a control state, and
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: so we get money from liquor, right, And we created
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: this entity, and we went to Wall Street and we
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: went up there looking for bonds, which we got at
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: a good price because because when times are good, people drink.
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: When times are bad, they drink more, So the bonds
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: were really well placed there. And then I took that money,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: the proceeds from the bonds, and I hired private sector
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: people who were experts in about five or six different categories.
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: How did you afford them?
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: Were they willing to take lesser salaries than what would
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: get that word a private economy because did you compete
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: in the market.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we could. We could do that. We could pay
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: enough to get them. And it's been a fantastic thing.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: We had a board made up of business people. Now
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: they've had some hiccups lately, which I've pointed out publicly,
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: but we went from forty seven to number one in
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: the country today because we've got people in business dealing
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 2: with people in business. I always like to tell the
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: story in the old days in the Department of Development
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: in the State when somebody got off the phone. Somebody said,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: who were you talking to? Well, I was talking to
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: Jamie Diamond. Oh what did she want? Do you get
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: the joke? You aren't listening. No, I just got off
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: the phone with Jamie Diamond. Well what did she want?
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: Jamie Diamond is not annoying?
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: So in our job's Ohio. In the private sector, the
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 2: board is there to regulate. So what do they do.
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: They go out and they search for companies and they
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: gives incentives. But the incentives are based on a return
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: on investment. So I mean, this is I don't want
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: to get any too deep here, but what I'm saying
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 2: to you is it was a new, big, bold idea
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: that some people thought was crazy. It's been a great success,
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: and I didn't do it on my own. I had
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 2: a half x That's my point. I had to have
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of people who were experts, bond counts, consolors
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: and lawyers and everybody to help me fix it. So
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: when you're asking me about private equity, I think the
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: answer to that is you've got to get the best
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 2: people in to say what are the limits that should
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 2: be placed on it?
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: Well, look, what's been interesting and digging into this is
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: is what you figure out. You know, if the financial
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: crisis was an indictment of the regulators that they were
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: asleep at the switch private credit, this isn't that issue there.
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: It just turns out that the regulators, there's almost these
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: private equity funds are able to pick the regulator they
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: want to deal with. So if you are, for instance,
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: using life insurance money, well you get to deal with
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: state regulators, and that's a different group of entities.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: If you're in one.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: Another space, maybe you're dealing with the SEC or you're
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: dealing with another federal regulator. But the fact that so
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: many different entities are involved, it actually puts the advantage
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: in the private equity fund to sort of cherry pick
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: where wherever they think they can get the best, the
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: most favorable, the most favorable oversight.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: That's probably the way to do it. But Chuck, here's
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 2: the thing. The private equity money comes from. It's volunt
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: We give up to them, sure, and we take the
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: risk that it will go bad because a lot of
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: times the private equity doesn't make returns and you'd be
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 2: better putting your money in the bank or put your
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 2: money in a mutual fund. So let's not get carried away.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: Although I am carried away by the fact that these
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 2: small market teams can't compete anymore. The Dodgers have all
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 2: the money and the pirates can't win squat because they
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: don't have any revenue.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what's going to end up having is
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: that Then what happens these owners decide all right, UAE
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: sovereign fund, do you want ten percent? And then they
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: get the valuation and they borrow the money. I mean,
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: I do think that you know, these these these leagues
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: are addicted to raising the valuation of their franchises. What's
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: the best way to do it? Bring in more private
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: equity or bring in outside sovereign funds. I don't know
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: if we're going to like that in twenty years, but
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: we'll see.
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 2: Can you believe all that we've been covering today?
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get out. Let me get you out
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: on this. It's an electioneer. You know Ohio as well
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: as anybody. Is Ohio purple again? Or is this just
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: a bad year for Republicans?
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, look, your opinion matters as much as mine
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: because you've studied it for so long. I don't think
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: we're a red state. I think. You know, when you
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: take a look at Youngstown and Cleveland and Toledo and
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: those are not those are not republican areas basically, but
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: they have become Republican areas. What do I think will
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: happen over time? I think many of them will drift
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: back to what they naturally have been, which is a
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: split state, you know, one of these contested states. That's
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: what I think over time. What do you maybe not yet,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: but I think that.
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, look you're well, let me all right,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: let's take both races here. I was a skeptic that
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: Sharon Brown could win a Senate seed back because it's
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: a tough year to be because I'd rather run from
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: the outside, like how does he is he running his
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: is he running for reelection or is it?
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: And I just thought it would be difficult. It's proving
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: not to be, I think, But I mean, we'll see
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: maybe the polls. You know, he definitely is being you know,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: there's been a consistent lead there. What do you attribute
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: it to? How much of it is name I d
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: and houstage is not well known yet, and how much
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: of it is it Buyer's remorse on Trump.
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 2: I think I think you've you've hit on it. I
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: think that that what name I d and the fact
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: that Eustad has none of the advantages of incumbency and
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: all the disadvantages of not having been elected in his
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 2: own right, and I don't I think it's just too
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: close to call. And Shared shared's tough campaign or I mean,
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: he's just a tough you know, he's not quite Howard Metzenbaum.
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: But he said, well, people wouldn't even know who that is.
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: But I just there's all you need to know about
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: Howard Metzenbomb.
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: The guy beat John Glenn in a primary, all right,
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, if you can beat an American hero
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: in a primary, you're one tough SLB. Right.
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: I still don't understand how he did it. I did either.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: It was a historical o'dominies. Yeah, you're like, it's an
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: unlikable guy beat the American hero in a primary.
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 2: How did that happen? That's exactly right. So I think
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: that when you think about like Youngstown, it was like, yeah,
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: we're going to go after the system, and then Youngstown,
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: you know, the things are struggling. So it I think
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: it's going to tend to change to kind of move back.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: What what do you think.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this. I look, I think
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: I think Ohio strikes me as a it is a
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: transition state. Right if before you got there, I'd say,
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: in your first term, the assumption was Ohio was shrinking,
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: you know, just like every northern state, every industrial state,
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: that it was no longer a growth state.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: I do feel like over the.
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: Last ten to fifteen years, Ohio has done it, particularly
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: in central Ohio. Right. You look at Columbus and the
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: Greater Columbus area. It's huge, it is huge and even.
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: But you also see it in northern Kentucky, which has
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: had a which which has helped with Cincinnati. You know,
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: to me, like it's really just Cleveland needs a little
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: more help. Although even the Cleveland downtown is better today than.
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: It has been. You know, there's no doubt.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: I am pretty bullish like Ohio is going to be
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, as people realize, I think domestic
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: migration is going to benefit Ohio right when people look
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: for affordable places to live where they.
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 2: Can raise their family.
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's I think, you know, everybody's
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: moved to the sun belt for a quick period of
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: time because of COVID, but now inflation is going to
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: drive them back, right, Like it is really expensive to
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: live in South Florida, whether to be Florida Southwest Florida.
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: I do think. But let me ask you this, it.
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: The next governor of Ohio is either going to be
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: the first non white person elected or the first woman
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: elected in her own right.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 2: I know that there was a.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the harder barrier to break,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: the one that vivik Ramaswami's trying to break, or the
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: one that Amy Acting is trying to break.
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's that the Republican has a big ton
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 2: of money, and I think that probably at the end
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: of the day is what's going to make the difference.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 2: He's going to spend it. And but I mean again,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: it's I'm surprised, but I think it's very close. I
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 2: thought he would win going away.
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that he's struggling here. And I'll just
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: be honest, I've got one is I I look, I
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: think he's kind of pro polarizing, right. I do think
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: the Doge thing, the Elon Musk, there's a little bit
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: of he doesn't. He's not Mike DeWine and John Kasik, Right,
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: there isn't this Midwestern I don't know how to else
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: to put it, but this sort of can't we all
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: just take a step back here a second?
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: That doesn't feel like that's a Vivik Ramaswamy type of instinct,
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: right that he doesn't strike me as a convener you
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: and the wine. You know, Ted Strickley, you know, there's
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: that just a temperament, and he strikes me as not
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: having the temperament that Ohioans want in a governor, which
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: is why if you, if he loses, I will believe
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: it's less about just a red versus blue. Democratic turnout
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: was upper. I think there's a slice of voter that
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: that will be turned off by his personality.
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe also, Chuck, I hate to say this, but I
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 2: think there is some race.
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: Well you saw it happened in Michigan to the Republican
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: They had Trump's endorsement. His name is Amir Hassan, and
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: and that is something I'm wondering about too, the spillover effect.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: You're going to have a Republican party nationally pour all this. Frankly,
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: let's call it what it is Islamic phobic, islamophobic messaging
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. Does that inadvertently hurt I'm a swammy.
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. No, I don't think. I
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't think it spills over here. We've
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: got we've got big walls between Ohio and Michigan. You know,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 2: we don't well, I don't think so. I don't know.
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's and I just saw you
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: see what happened to this This congressional candidate literally loses
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: to somebody who dropped out whose name was as lily
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: white as you could have. I think it was like
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: Tom Rice or something right, it was like very was
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: or Tom Smith. It was like very innoculous.
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 2: I think fundamentally that you you've hit the nail on
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 2: the head. Is is the Republican candidate for governor appealing
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 2: enough to people and make them feel comfortable, and but
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 2: their messages there's there's no message. I mean, it's that's
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: the problem. Well, the other thing, it sounds like we're betting.
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 2: I would bet he'll win, Yeah, I would be.
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: I am curious, though, do you think his plan to
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: potentially consolidate some Ohio university. He's pissed off enough communities
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: that he's going to get blowback in areas he didn't
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: expect to get blowback.
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: Well, you know that's that's a that is a in
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 2: order to do that, Chuck, and look, the problem we
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: have today is these private institutions are barely making it
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: and the idea that you're going to put them together
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 2: like has happened here at Atterbuying where they work with
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 2: Antioch to try to share things they wanted to do.
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 2: Even more than that, that's kind of the wave of
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 2: the future. But it's all the way you introduce it
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: and bring it out. And I have to tell you
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: that the university is there there. That's another one that's
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: so hard to change, and it's it's tough now. I actually,
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you the funny story is back we had
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 2: money that would go into capital budgets and I had
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 2: Gordon Gee, who you know is an amazing guy, former
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 2: president of every school, and he and I created it
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: so that we said, if you need money, we'll give
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: it to you, and if you don't need money, we're
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 2: not giving it to you, and you need to work
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 2: with us and cooperator we will have no money so
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 2: you got you sort of. You got to have leverage,
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 2: you got to have you got to be able to smile.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's complicated to be a good leader. There's
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: a mixture of things you have to do. You have
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 2: to be affable, you have to be tough, You've got
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 2: to know when to you know, it's being a leader
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: is a hard thing. A big leader there takes a
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 2: certain amount. It's a formula that allows you to to
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 2: really overcome a lot of hurdles. Let me, let's let's leave.
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell me. I want to tell you
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 2: one other thing here if we can't. I went down
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 2: to West Virginia to a place called the Pete Die
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 2: Club to play golf with a friend of mine who's
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 2: been a member forever. And it's right because famous famous
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 2: golf course designer. Right. And and there's a little town
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 2: down there that that is really Clarksburg. And they had
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 2: part of the road closed off and we had a detour,
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: and Chuck, I got to tell you, I my hometown
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 2: of mckey's Rocks has been very tough place. I mean,
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 2: a couple of years ago it was the number one
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 2: per capita murder rate in the state of Pennsylvania. I mean, okay, tough.
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: That's where I grew up, Clarksburg. The poverty that I saw, Chuck,
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 2: it's it's haunting me. I mean, holmes put together by
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 2: a string. I talked to a guy who is a
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 2: Klarksburgh resident, actually a big one, but I don't want
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 2: to mention him, get him in trouble. He said. In
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 2: that part of Clarksburg, it's either drugs, homelessness. He said,
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 2: it's it's just terrible.
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, how do you give up on a
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: part of what I don't get is these communities because
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: I've seen it in my own hometown in Miami. If
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: you neglect the community, it's going to be terrible. If
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: you show up and say, hey, we want to help,
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: you can make a community better. To know, that's local leadership.
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I left a message for a big time official
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 2: in West Virginia and I said, you know, when I
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 2: looked at this, it makes me want to cry when
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 2: I see abject poverty in your state. Sure, and we
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: know what we can do to improve conditions. Please let's
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: do it. Yeah, you know, poverty, Chuck, right, I remember?
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: Remember, Well, how about the fact that Bobby Kennedy Junior
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: does not Junior see me, Bobby Kennedy Senior does this
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: appellation tour about highlighting poverty And I'm sorry that was
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: fifty eight years ago and we're.
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 2: Still to that must have been, right, What a tour
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 2: that must have been.
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: You could do the same. John Edwards did it similar
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: to I remember he did it No. Seven and sadly,
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, people did a bunch of stories how it
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: was sort of like, oh great, so every generation somebody's
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: going to notice, but doesn't mean do anything about it.
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 2: It means people there have got it. It's like you
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 2: were talking about leaders. Somebody on the outside has to
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 2: say this is not this is intolerable. But you know, Chuck,
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 2: I know that it exists. I know a lot. I've
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 2: seen a lot of poor people, but this thing just
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 2: rocked me.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: You know, this is why I'm like, Then that's on
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: that note. Then let me end on this one, which is,
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: who's a couple of young leaders that you've been impressed
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: with over the last year or two that you've watched
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: that you're just kid, whether you know them or not,
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: and that maybe you saw them in your thought. I
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: want to give that person a call I want to
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: get to know them. They strike me as maybe they're
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: going to be one of the good change agents.
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, one of the guys I like, And
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 2: I'd have to really give that a lot more thought.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 2: But I like this Brian Fitzpatrick over in Pennsylvania. I mean,
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 2: he's he's a stand up guy. He's a he's a
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 2: pretty tough guy.
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: He's the guy that the Republican that pushes back against MAGA.
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, but I mean he's just is no, he's like,
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 2: has no fear and I and I look at him
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 2: and I like him, and he and I know each other,
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 2: and I like them a lot. Let me, I'd have
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 2: to think more about who it is that I don't know.
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 2: I'd have to give it, to give it some more thought,
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 2: like who jumps out? Because there are people that I
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 2: notice are significant and I think it's I think it's
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 2: men and women who really want to make a difference.
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 2: By the way, I read this story here recently about
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 2: Hayden Paneteer who wrote that book about the struggles in
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 2: her life, and they've found out at a very young age,
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 2: they found her dead. And there's another one that kind
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 2: of breaks your heart. I mean, it's so funny at
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 2: what we do when we talk, because we cover so
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 2: many things, and when people see us doing this, they're like,
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, these guys have a rapport that and I
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: love it. It's just it's because it stretches our brains
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 2: in a way, don't you think.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: Well, it's I think at the end of the day,
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I know that people sometimes
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: view politician a journalist that we're supposed to not be human,
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: that were these sort of cookie cutter figures. And I
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: think that, you know, I know, you rejected. I rejected.
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: I hate any Yeah, but that's the problem, isn't That's right?
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: Like I have to, like I always have to overcome
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: the assumption that, well, you were on TV, so you
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: weren't really you don't really know, you don't go deep
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: on anything, and it's like, no, I am a history junkie,
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I do like to go you know, but
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: there's this quote perception of the TV people, right, just
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: like the politicians. Oh you guys just you know, you're
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: just caring about the next donor and stuff. And I
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: think sort of you and I have both been you know,
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: it's almost like we we hate that stereotype so much,
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: we're looking to always poke the finger in right.
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 2: What about what about Miami this year? Are they going
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 2: to have any kind of a football team?
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: I feel pretty good. I am a I am way
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: too bullish like I have. I think they're on a
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: I think they're on a mission. I am, but I
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: think they could be on a mission. I think they're
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: built the right way. They lost the right way. We
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: got a better quarterback this time. I'm curious, do you
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: think Miami broke? Julian saying, do you think we broke?
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: Julian saying, no, I definitely, I will find out.
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 2: I will tell you this. It's amazing exposed.
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: We exposed that offense US in Indiana exposed that offensive line,
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: didn't we?
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, the whole thing I always think about
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 2: with Ohio State is why is it we're being outstrengthed.
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 2: You know, why? Why are we not tough enough?
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you should be tougher than the Indiana Yeah exactly,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: you're right, damn it.
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know the rate number one this year
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 2: again and they keep getting these recruits. It's unbelievable.
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it's big budgets, man, it's amazing. It is I'm
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: going to I get you going to Ohio State Texas.
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 2: You gotta go down to Austin. No, No, I'm not
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 2: sure much of a fan as you are, but that's
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: a great you know why you should go because I
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 2: think you'd enjoy that atmosphere.
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a great stadium.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 2: You'd enjoy it.
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: You'd probably get I'm sure you'd know people that would
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: give you a nice seat.
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know, chun, there's nothing more X than an X.
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 2: First of all, there's nothing more X than an ex congressman.
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 2: And there's really nothing more X than an ex governor, Yeah,
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: or governor. It just doesn't know all those perks and everything. No,
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 2: you know, I tell you I went to get my
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 2: I had a nail in my tire. Yeah, and I
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 2: go to the tire store. I'm going to save this
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 2: for for my Uh Hey, by the way, can people
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 2: know that I have told me show?
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: Yes? Please go tell them.
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's called the John Kasik Show. It's
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 2: on serious XM, and I I would I think they'd
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: enjoy it. It's it's you know, it's not heavy political,
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: but it's it's interesting show. It's easy to listen to,
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 2: so I hope they'll they'll tune into it. But I
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 2: went to this tire store, Chuck with a nail. I
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 2: was into that Tower tire store for six hours. And
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 2: you might say to me, and so I was on
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 2: with Matt Bye, the journalist. I said, I'm not telling
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 2: anybody what I used to. He goes, why don't you
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 2: tell them who you are? I said, no, I'm not
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 2: going to do that, and I don't think they care anyway.
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: They might make me wait seven hours. Here's what I
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 2: want to tell you. Six hours tire. Here's what I
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 2: want to tell you. Have you not heard of these
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 2: mobile tire people. I just got a nail and Mike, No, no, no,
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 2: they came to my house. I bought the tire, they
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 2: replaced it. They do Tesla's No, well, I don't know
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 2: about this, mate. Do anything about a mobile tire place
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 2: that comes to your house? No? Wait, never, I mean
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 2: I got people that I got people. Oh, buddy, go
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 2: check it out. I can't believe neither one, neither.
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: One of us have tied people as our sponsors.
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 2: But all right, we'll see you soon. I'm good to
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 2: see you, brother.
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: It is time to go back into the time machine.
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: Where am I going, Well, I'm going to nineteen fifty,
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: but I have a feeling it's something that may repeat
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: itself in the future.
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 2: Stick with me here.
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: It's the day the President sees the railroads. It was
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: this week in nineteen fifty, the President of the United
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: States sees the American railroad system. And I mean that
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: almost literally. Harry Truman signed in an executive order directing
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: the United States Army to take possession of the nation's railroads. Now,
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: before you hear railroads and picture Amtrak, you have to
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: put yourself in nineteen fifty. There's no interstate highway system.
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: That does not exist yet. The commercial jet age has
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: yet to begin. Private railroad companies are carrying passengers, freight, mail, coal, food,
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: industrial materials, military equipment across the country. It is the
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: primary transportation system we have at that time. So imagine, basically,
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: imagine a president today taking control of the airlines and
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: then add FedEx and ups and a significant chunk of
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: long haul trucking. Right, that's closer to what taking possessions
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: of the railroads meant in nineteen fifty, all right, And
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: Truman did it because he believed he had an emergency.
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: But there's something important to understand right up front. Harry
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: Truman didn't simply wake up one morning and invent the
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: power to seize americans transportation system. Congress had given the
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: president a tool, and Truman had gotten very comfortable using
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: said tool. And that's where this story gets interesting. If
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: you go back to World War One. In nineteen sixteen,
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: Congress included a provision in the Army Appropriations Act giving
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: the president authority in time of war to take possession
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: and assume control of transportation systems for military purposes.
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: Remember the Defense Production Act during COVID, Right, it's basically
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: a precursor to that. So a provision buried inside a
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: defense funding bill becomes the legal foundation for presidential seizures
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: more than thirty years later. It's pretty ironic. We've never
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: seen that before. Woodrow Wilson uses the authority during World One,
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelt uses the federal seizure authority during World War II,
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: and then Harry Truman arrives. And here's the part I
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: didn't fully appreciate until I started digging into this anniversary.
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty wasn't even Truman's first railroad seizure. He'd already
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: done it twice. In May of forty six, a nationwide
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: railroad labor crisis is building. Truman takes possession of the
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: railroads on May seventeenth. Six days later, the engineers and
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: trainmen walk out anyway, and Truman is furious. He goes
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: to Capitol Hill asks Congress for authority to draft striking
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: railroad workers into the US Army. And here's the scene.
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: Truman is standing in the House Chamber delivering the speech.
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: The President of the United States is asking Congress to
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: give him the power to put striking railroad workers into
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: military service. And while he's speaking, somebody hands him a
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: note the strike has been settled. Truman reads the news
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: aloud from the podium. The House goes ahead and overwhelmingly
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: passes the legislation Truman wants anyway, but the Senate never
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: does because you had conservatives like Robert Taft and others
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: resisting it. The authority died there. Congress said no, but
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: remember that, because we're going to seem the same basic
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: constitutional problem six years later. So then in nineteen forty eight,
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: another railroad dispute, Truman takes possession again and then comes
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. So by the time we get to the
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: anniversary that we're marking this week, the railroad seizure isn't
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: some extraordinarily new idea Inside the Truman White House, It's
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: become almost routine. That's important because president doesn't merely accumulate
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: across presidencies. Sometimes it accumulates inside of one presidency. You
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: use an extraordinarily extraordinary tool once, then again by the
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: third time not so extraordinary. In August nineteen fifty, the
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: Korean War is barely two months old. North Korea invaded
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: South Korea in June. American troops are now fighting and moving.
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: In American military nineteen fifty requires railroads. Troops have to
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: reach bases and ports. Weapons have to move, raw materials
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: have to reach factories, coal has to reach power plants.
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: So at the same time Trump Trump Truman is dealing
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: with a labor dispute involving the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: and the Order of Railway Conductors. The unions have rejected
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: recommendations from an emergency board created under the Railway Labor Act.
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: They call a nationwide strike for August twenty eight. Truman
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: decides the country just can't risk that. On August twenty fifth,
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: he signs Executive Order ten one fifty five, and at
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: four o'clock in the afternoon on August twenty seventh, the
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: Army formally takes possession of the railroads. The strike is
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: supposed to begin the next morning, and America basically keeps moving.
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: There aren't generals driving locomotives. The Army doesn't replace the
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: existing railroad management. The companies remain privately owned, but operational
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: control now rests with the federal government. And the legal
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: basis matters enormously here. Trump Truman isn't simply saying I'm president.
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: There's an emergency. By the way, I kept writing Trump
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: instead of Truman, you know, sort of habit here tru anyway,
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: you can see why. That's why it showed have been
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: by notes a few times. Brodian slipped much right, But
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: he saw it as an emergency. Therefore he thought he
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: could see the railroads. Congress had given presidents explicit authority
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: over transportation systems in time of war in that nineteen
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: sixteen law. Now there's an honest constitutional wrinkle here. The
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: Korean War was never never formally declared by Congress, So
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: whether Korea actually satisfied the statute's time of war language
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: could have become a very interesting legal question, but nobody
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: tested that. The railroads never challenged the seize you're in court,
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: so Truman's authority in nineteen fifty was never actually tested.
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: But compared with what he's going to do two years
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: later with steel, he's standing on considerably firmer statutory ground.
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: Keep that in mind, because two years later, Hermy Truman
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: does it. Government possession prevents the immediate nationwide shutdown, but
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: it doesn't solve the labor dispute. In nineteen fifty one,
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: railroad yardmen began walking off the jobs, and this isn't
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: even an authorized national union strike. It was actually a
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: wildcat union leadership couldn't control it. The army technically controls
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: the railroad system. Still, the unions can't fully control their
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: own workers, and trains still stop moving. There's something almost
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: perfect about all this. The president is taking control of
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: an industry partly to ensure the country can control its
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: transportation system, and then discovers that neither the government nor
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: the union leadership can command thousands of workers to cooperate.
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: Possession is not the same thing as control. And the
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: dispute drags on. Federal possession of the railroads continued until
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: May nineteen fifty two, nearly two years later, and by
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: then Truman is confronting another labor crisis, this time steel.
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: So it's April fifty two. The Korean War is still going,
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: steel workers are preparing to strike, and steel is obviously
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: indispensable in an war effort. Tanks needed weapons.
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 2: You know it.
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: So Harry Truman reaches for what by now has become
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: a familiar presidential instinct. It's kind of like Trump right
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: with his tariffs. An essential industry is threatened during a war,
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: the national interest requires uninterrupted production, president has to act.
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: So on April eighth, Truman orders Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: to take possession of America's steel mills. Except this time
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: there's a problem. Congress never gave him this power, and
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: that's the whole story. The railroads seizure and the steel
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: seizure can look almost identical an emergency war labor dispute essential,
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: but constitutionally they were very different. With the railroads, Congress
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: had passed a law giving the president wartime authority over
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: transportation systems. With steel, there was no comparable statue. And
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: when Congress passed the Taft Hartley Act, it ad considered
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: giving the president seizure authority in labor emergencies, but they
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: chose not to. So Truman isn't filling some obvious whole
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: Congress forgot about. He took an action Congress had declined
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: to authorize. So Truman asked Congress for extraordinary power over
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: striking railroad workers. House said yes, Senate said no back
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: in forty six. Right, Well, Truman had encountered this problem before,
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: and the steel companies, unlike the railroad companies, decided to sue.
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: The case got to the Supreme Court quickly and lessen
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: too much later, the Court ruled six to three against Truman.
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 2: Hugo.
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: Black wrote in the majority opinion, presidential power has to
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: come from the Constitution or from an Act of Congress.
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 2: Period.
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: An emergency doesn't create a power that isn't there. But
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: the opinion that ends up having perhaps the longest life
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: comes from Justice Robert Jackson. And Jackson gives us the
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: framework that lawyers still use today when a president acts
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: with congressional authorization. Presidential power is at its strongest when
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: Congress hasn't clearly spoken. There's what Jackson calls a zone
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: of twilight. But when a president acts against the expressed
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: or implied will of Congress, presidential power is at its
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: lowest level. And look at Truman's two seizures through the
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: Jackson framework railroads. Congress had actually given him a tool.
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: We can debate whether there was a war declared or not,
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: but it was a it was accepted, it was a
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: wartime Steele. Congress hadn't given him that tool, and that
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: was the difference. Now, look, there's a subtle lesson here
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: about power. The railroad seizure didn't teach Erry Truman that
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: presidents inherently had the power to seize essential industries. Legally,
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: it couldn't. He was relying on an authority Congress had
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: given the presidency. But politically it taught him a habit.
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: Three railroad seizures forty six, forty eight, and fifty each
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: time there's a crisis, each time the federal government takes possession,
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: each time the country keeps going. And then steel came along.
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: Truman reached for the same kind of a solution, except
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: this time the law isn't underneath them. He had gotten
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: accustomed to using the power, which is why he went
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: and grabbed for it. And he may have mistook the
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: habit of authority, and it's something presidents mistakes. Presidents make often,
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: and presidents have spent seventy plus years since that steel
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: seizure failed steel seizure testing variations of the same question.
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: Congress passes a law for one problem, the law stays
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: on the books. Another president confronts a different problem years
• 2:35:39
  Speaker 1: or decades later and says, maybe this gives me the
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: authority I need. Right, Joe Biden tried it with student debt.
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: That didn't work. We've seen wars with Iraq and Afghanistan
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: get sort of misused for other things in Syria. Right, So,
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: whatever you think of the policy itself, this pattern is fascinating.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: The emergency that produces the law is gone, but the
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: law isn't. This is again yet another problem with Congress.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: When you give president's power, you got to remember to
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: take it back. Presidents take advantage when power is given
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: to them. The crisis is over, but the law stays
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: on the books. Right, And we've just time and time
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: again the underlying question doesn't ever seem to get answered.
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: Where did the president get the authority did Congress give it,
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: did Congress remain silent? Did Congress effectively say no? Which
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: brings us back to nineteen fifty for another moment, because
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: two weeks after Truman signs the order seizing the railroads,
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: Truman signs another law on September eighth, the Defense Production Act,
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: same president, same summer, same emergency, but this time Congress
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 1: did explicitly give executive branch authority and an enormous toolbox
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: for mobilizing private industry in the interest of national defense,
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: prioritizing contracts, allocation authority, tools for expanding productive capacity if necessary.
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting. I mean, this is in some ways
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: a proper response to the full on seizure. The sequence
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: is interesting. Right on August twenty fifth, Trump reaches for
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: an old power Congress had put into a defense bill
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. A few weeks later, he signs a
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: new law giving presidents another set of emergency powers. The
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: railroad seizure eventually ends. Truman eventually leaves office, but these
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: Production Act stays and presidents are still using that sucker
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: to this day. So let's come and give you a hypothetical,
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: and I want it to sound a tiny bit far fetched.
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: Imagine there's a war five years from now, or a
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: massive cyber attack, or some national security emergency we haven't
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: thought of yet, and the President decides, artificial intelligence has
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: become as essentially the United States as the railroad system
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: was in nineteen fifty. Maybe it's the AI companies themselves,
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: maybe it's the data centers, maybe it's the advanced chips,
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: enormous amount of electricity required to keep it all running,
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: And the President says, we cannot allow this infrastructure to
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: operate entirely according to private priorities. During a national emergency.
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: Could the president take control of all of the tech companies? Well,
• 2:38:13
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman learned the hard way that it's an emergency
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: is not enough. The first question is what is Congress authorized?
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: And a future president already has something. Harry Truman himself
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: signed into law, the Defense Production Act, So a president
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: might not have to send the army into the AI
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: company's headquarters, but the federal government could potentially exercise enormous
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: influence over chips, data center capacity, contracts, all sorts of stuff.
• 2:38:37
  Speaker 1: And if a president tried to go beyond whatever Congress
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: had authorized, somebody would sue. And when the case reached
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: the court. Somewhere in the arguments you'll find the steel
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: argument that was made, and you'll find Justice Robert Jackson.
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: And behind all that you'll find the railroad, the railroad story.
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: So I like this anniversary, Harmon, Harry Truman. Take possession
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: of America's railroads sounds bizarre today, but to understand the
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: scale of it, forget Amtrak, think airlines, fed xups, long
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: haul freight, the infrastructure which the American economy and military
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: simply cannot function without. Then imagine a president saying for
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: the duration of this emergency, the federal government is taking control.
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 1: That actually happened. And the larger lesson isn't that presidents
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: can seize whatever they want during an emergency. We learn
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: that through the Steel seizure. The lesson is how presidential
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: power actually accumulates. Congress is a president a tool because
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: there's a real problem, the president uses it. The problem
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: eventually changes, but the tool remains. Another president sees the
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: unused tool. Sometimes the new use is legal, sometimes it isn't.
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: He's been screwing around with it with the tariffs. This
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: president has right. So what's today's railroad? What part of
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: American life has become so essential that during the right emergency,
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: a president could plausibly argue that the national interest requires
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: Washington to take control of it AI chips data centers.
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but if and when that argument comes,
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: it won't be a new argument. It'll just be a
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: new technology. The constitutional argument is all going to sound
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit like we're having a throwback to the
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman years. There's your time machine, Lesten today, ask Chuck,
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: all right, let's do a little last Chuck, greetings once
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: again from Michigan's third Congressional district. This is more of
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: an observation than a question, but the recent revelation of
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: Natalie Harp's letters to President Trump reminded me eerily of
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: Isabelle Lyon's relationship with Mark Twain, as described in Sureness Biography.
• 2:40:46
  Speaker 1: Things didn't end particularly well for Lyon, and given what
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: we've seen happen in many people in Trump's orbit, I
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: wonder if Harp could ultimately find herself in a similar position.
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: Thanks Brad, Oh wow, yeah, you know. That was the
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: most uncomfortable part of a churn out biography of Twain.
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 2: Is Twain.
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: Is reading about sort of the late in life relationship
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: tween had with so many young women that stayed at
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: his place and all of that, and it's it's yes,
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: we could say it's a different arrow, its a different time,
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 1: but man, you are you were getting your It's an
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: interesting comparative. I thought you were going to go down
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: down the road of Monica Lewinsky a little bit too,
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: where there were staffers trying to trying to stop that. Look,
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: I'll go back to say what I said before about
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: Natalie Harp. You know, I think this is a troubled
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: young woman and I'm just sort of exhausted from you know,
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: our politics. A lot of people use politics as a
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: substitute for therapy. I think we see it. There's a
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: retiring member of Congress who clearly is screaming for, you know,
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: for some therapeutic help, and it's chosen other ways.
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 2: To do it.
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: And you know that YouTube's filled with people who are
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: trying to be influencers rather than dealing with their problems
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: at home or whatever it is, and or trying to
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: run for office or thinking politics is going to be
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: the distraction that heals them from their own troubled issues
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And so it's it's what look, I just
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: the Harps. I'm troubled by the Harp story for so
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: many reasons. I'm sorry that the President isn't grown up
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: enough to see the damage he could be in it,
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: perhaps inadvertently doing to her. It's clear to me that
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people in the West wing are
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: very concerned about what this relationship is, perhaps concerned about
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: her in general. Perhaps they're very concerned about her own
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: mental health. Whatever it is, it's all troubling, it's all
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: it's like, I just it's an ick story on a
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: num of levels, and it's funny.
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 2: I just don't I don't.
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: You know, this is the type of stuff that doesn't
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: show up in a focus group. Voters will never bring
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: it up as a reason. But I think as you
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: see the erosion of you know, Trump's job rating is
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: only going in one direction, right he is, it's just
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: a you know, his political health and his mental health
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: are deteriorating almost at the same rate. And it feels
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: like at times, and this entire hard episode, it does
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, you actually bring up that was also
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: a very fragile point in Twain's life. We're at a
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: fragile point and Trump's life. Here's a man who's had
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: self esteem issues his whole life. He's had poser complex
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 1: his whole life, and he's a massive narcissist, right you
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: throw all that together. He's at late stage of life.
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: He's obviously his doctors have told him about all these
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: extra health problems, and he's not shared with us. So
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: it's plain and obvious for all of us that he's
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: not the same guy as he was two years ago,
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: let alone six years ago. He's losing political control, his
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: grip on it, you know, So this is this, this
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 1: whole but anyway, I just it's eerie you brought up
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 1: you brought up the part of the Twain biography, like
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I just I hated it. I hated that
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 1: part of it. I appreciate you gotta. I want the
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: whole picture, you know, and I love Ron and his work.
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: But that was a that's an interesting comparison, And in
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: that sense, I think that's where there is some you know,
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: there might be some some comparisons, and your I am.
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 1: I am quite concerned about this woman's health. Next question
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: comes from Julie. She writes an unaffiliated North Carolina voter
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: looking towards twenty twenty eight. Mark Kelly is the Democrat
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: who most catches my eye, all right, Julie. He seems disciplined, patriotic,
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: and modern enough to peel to the center. What gives
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: you pause about Kelly as a potential nominee and why
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't his name come up more often on the Republican side.
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: Do you see a similar center leaning candidate emerging or
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: as Maga made, that increasingly unlikely. I think in the
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight cycle, it's hard to see how anybody
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: associated with Trump somehow will make common ground with say
• 2:45:21
  Speaker 1: a guy like you know, I'm trying to think of
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: who could come from the center right, that might be
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: Pass Muster in a Republican primary, Spencer Cox and Utah,
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: Dave McCormick from Pennsylvania, Glenn Youngkin, Nikki Haley, Right, I
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: just don't think any of them. I don't think they.
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think the lane is big enough to build
• 2:45:42
  Speaker 1: to build from. And you know, is it possible if
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 1: if twenty twenty eight is just a Republican wipe twenty
• 2:45:52
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six is a Republican wipeout, maybe that wing
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: of the party gets more animated and gets more traction.
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: But you're talking six to seven and Senate seats and
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: thirty five House seats, which seems unrealistic. But if something
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: on that scale happened, right, you know, let's say what
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: I talked about earlier in this episode about what the
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: tariffs and trade are doing. Two Republican chances and all
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 1: those Senate races. Let's say Democrats win seventy five percent
• 2:46:18
  Speaker 1: of those races, right, they pick up six seven seats.
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe that sobers up that wing of the party and
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: they get some traction. But I'm skeptical on there. I'm
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: just as skeptical that the center left can can be
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: progressive enough for the progressive I think the base of
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: this party fee feels feels as if they don't have
• 2:46:38
  Speaker 1: to compromise like they've compromised in the past. And I
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: think that that's that's where I'm skeptical Kelly can can
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: be that it can be that bridge at the top
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 1: of the ticket. Now, maybe he joins a more progress
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a more progressive leaning nominee is the number two,
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 1: and he is the he is the person that say,
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: the more liberal nominee decides to pick to try to
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: reach out to the center. So that's my skepticism about
• 2:47:16
  Speaker 1: his ability to win over primary voters. But you know,
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: I go back to something you've probably heard me say before.
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, if the if you got rid of primaries
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: and this were done in a Dancy back room, I
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: think I think it would be you know, I might
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: do Kelly and Warnock or Warnock and Kelly. I might
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: do Kelly and Wes Moore and Wes Moore and Kelly,
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 2: But.
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: Those would be two of the three candidates I would
• 2:47:46
  Speaker 1: be focused on the most. By the way, very intrigued
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: by Mikey Cheryl going to New Hampshire trying to be
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: and try explicitly getting involved in some of these center
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 1: versus left primaries. She's supporting Seth Molten overhead Mark. Very
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: curious to see, you know in New Jersey. You know,
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: New Jersey is a democratic state, but it's not a
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: liberal state. And she's been very careful to govern the
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: government that Democrats that govern New Jersey to liberally. That's
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: who loses to your Chris Christie's and your Tom Kaynes
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: and things like that. Shane are here and he writes
• 2:48:28
  Speaker 1: I've been a fan since the Highline arrived by facts,
• 2:48:30
  Speaker 1: all right, and we definitely didn't photocopy any pages.
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 2: Wink wink uh.
• 2:48:34
  Speaker 1: Shane says he runs Voter Force, which focuses on local
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: campaign data. And I'm curious how far down the ballot
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: do national political trends actually reach in a place like
• 2:48:41
  Speaker 1: the Bay Area, could depress Republican enthusiasm or Democratic overperformance
• 2:48:45
  Speaker 1: nationally actually change the electorate enough to determine something at
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: a local or school you know, as local as a
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: school parcel tax or a bond measure. You're the man,
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: Chuck all the best, Shane, Well, I will take any
• 2:48:57
  Speaker 1: compliments you want to throw my way. Please, thank you,
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: thank you, No, no, no, please, yes. I mean, the
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: biggest impact is just on basic turnout, right. And so look,
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of things that happen down the as
• 2:49:12
  Speaker 1: as voters go down a ballot, fewer and fewer them vote, right,
• 2:49:15
  Speaker 1: there's this sort of the top of the ticket gets
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 1: the most voters, and there's a slow drop off. Maybe
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: people feel uncomfortable making a choice about a race they
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: don't know anything about. So in this case, I usually
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 1: think that you know, if you're looking, you know, in
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: this case, you're you're what you're looking at is correct.
• 2:49:33
  Speaker 1: You're going to have an electorate that's likely going to
• 2:49:38
  Speaker 1: just over index to the left than the right. Right,
• 2:49:40
  Speaker 1: because there's more enthusiasm on the left than there is
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: on the right, There'll be more voters staying home, so
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: you you have fewer on the right, more on the left,
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: and then you have this trickle down effect where fewer
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: and fewer jump off. Well, you know, usually education attainment
• 2:49:57
  Speaker 1: core correlates with how much of the ballot you're going
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: to fill out. So if you if you just sort
• 2:50:02
  Speaker 1: of use all of those metrics, yes, I think it has.
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: I think it when it comes to just simple turnout
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 1: and the makeup of the electorate, the top of the
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: ticket and the national forces have a huge impact all
• 2:50:19
  Speaker 1: the way down to the bottom because of this slow
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: erosion effect as you go down the ballot. Right, But
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is you're going to start with,
• 2:50:27
  Speaker 1: say on what you're describing here, you know, on a
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: local school parcel tax. If maybe you're worried that the tax,
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: you know that the farther down you go, the more
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the more informed the voter is that's going
• 2:50:41
  Speaker 1: to vote in that ballot. Right, So if you're starting
• 2:50:43
  Speaker 1: with a group of voters that you think is more
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 1: likely to be inclined with you, and you have the
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: larger share at the top, even if you have this
• 2:50:49
  Speaker 1: slow fade and this slow erosion of voters who just
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 1: sort of drop off because they're just not going to
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: vote in every race. You know, you see where you
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: have that accumulated impact there, So absolutely I think it
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: goes off. You know, the national mood shapes both the
• 2:51:08
  Speaker 1: raw number of turnout and the makeup of the electorate itself,
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: and that absolutely will have an impact all the way
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: down the ballot. Jeremy writes Missouri's third Desk district here
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: via mail in ballot from Japan. Oh right on, and
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 1: hopefully he thinks this is his third time writing in
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: and he writes, what do you think is motivating Darling
• 2:51:27
  Speaker 1: Graham to seek a full term after initially stepping in
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: to compete to complete Lindsay's especially given her lack of
• 2:51:32
  Speaker 1: political experience in recent debate performances. In Historically often has
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: a spouser family member successfully continue to de cease politician's
• 2:51:39
  Speaker 1: career beyond simply finishing their term. Thanks, Jeremy, Well, look,
• 2:51:43
  Speaker 1: you have a lot more instances of widows succeeding spouses
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: in house races. It is I mean, you know, I'll
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: give you the Probably the most famous name is Mary Bono.
• 2:51:58
  Speaker 1: Sonny Bono dies, Bono ran to replace him, and then
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: she had a ten year career. Kokie Roberts parents. You know,
• 2:52:06
  Speaker 1: her father, Hail Bogs dies in a plane crash, her mother,
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: Lindy Boggs, runs to replace him, and she has a
• 2:52:12
  Speaker 1: distinguished career in Congress. So there's there's quite a few
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: examples of that. It's a little less successful on the
• 2:52:17
  Speaker 1: state wide level, and it's not tried as often on
• 2:52:22
  Speaker 1: the state wide level. By the way, the new US
• 2:52:25
  Speaker 1: Senator from Louisiana, the most likely US center from Louisiana,
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 1: Julia Letlow. She remember, her husband died of COVID after
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 1: he won election, but before he ever took the oath,
• 2:52:35
  Speaker 1: and then she won a special and she's now going
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: to have her own separate career. So most of this
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: stuff is usually more successful in the house level. It's
• 2:52:45
  Speaker 1: just you know, familiar name, the name you know, if
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: you've ever seen the movie Distinguished Gentleman, the phrase I'm
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: Jeff Jackson, the name you know by the way. It's
• 2:52:56
  Speaker 1: an oldly but a goodie. If you're looking for an
• 2:52:58
  Speaker 1: old political movie to make you laugh, Eddie Murphy and
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: distinguished Gentleman, it's a classic. Please, please please, if you've
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: never seen it, do yourself a favor and.
• 2:53:07
  Speaker 2: Go see it.
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's streaming somewhere. But as for for the
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: Senate race, I'm I'm high.
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 1: Look, Darling Graham has all the organization, and you know,
• 2:53:20
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure of the Republican Party is trying to drag
• 2:53:24
  Speaker 1: her across the finish line. Tim Scott at the NSC
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: and being a South Carolina politician, right, he's got to
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: He's got to come through here. I think she's you know,
• 2:53:35
  Speaker 1: I've you know, I know the prediction markets put this
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: at more of a seventy thirty. I think this is
• 2:53:39
  Speaker 1: closer to a fifty five to forty five percentage chance.
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be awfully close. I think the
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: debate plub flub is likely did penetrate coupled with Trump's
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: script on the party is slipping anyway, right, so, you know,
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: to be interesting, if she loses Trump's They're all going
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 1: to blame the Debate Club you're asking me something I
• 2:54:05
  Speaker 1: can't get inside her head.
• 2:54:06
  Speaker 2: Why did she do it?
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: You know, Lindsay had sort of made Darlene his political spouse.
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: Every political campaign yere, when he do his family ad,
• 2:54:17
  Speaker 1: it was always with Darlene and her family. So she's
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: kind of been at the periphery of his career. So
• 2:54:24
  Speaker 1: this isn't like she just jumped in now, right, And
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: she's had a few She's been on a couple of
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 1: boards and commissions. I don't want to say they're ceremonial.
• 2:54:33
  Speaker 1: I think they were. There were real work that went
• 2:54:35
  Speaker 1: into them. So I don't want to be dismissive and
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 1: just say she got ceremonial posts. But she got the
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: type of post that is patronage post, right that you
• 2:54:42
  Speaker 1: know she got it because she was the senator's sister.
• 2:54:45
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say she got it on her own merits.
• 2:54:48
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean she didn't do a good job, okay,
• 2:54:50
  Speaker 1: and she wouldn't be the first person to do that.
• 2:54:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm you know, but I'm a Look, I'm in
• 2:55:01
  Speaker 1: a bit of a role here. I told you, I'm
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: not sure I buy Vinman. I think Ganjie Nixon has
• 2:55:05
  Speaker 1: a real shot here. To win that thing. I feel
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: the same way about Ralph Norman on this one. I
• 2:55:10
  Speaker 1: think he has a real shot to win this thing.
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: And we'll see it Tuesday night for live election results.
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 1: And with that, I'm going to wrap up the Monday podcast.
• 2:55:17
  Speaker 1: I know I gave you a lot to chew on
• 2:55:20
  Speaker 1: that That's why you come here for the Chuck Podcast.
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not just going to give you one or two things.
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the full meal of everything
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: you need to understand about politics for the rest of
• 2:55:31
  Speaker 1: us and what the hell this means for you. That's
• 2:55:33
  Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do here. So with that, I
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: will see you Tuesday for my Super Tuesday episode with
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: Chris Salizza. We've got election results in South Carolina that's
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: going to be exciting, and then we'll have and we've
• 2:55:47
  Speaker 1: got more. Check out Dynastic Pod. Please go take a
• 2:55:49
  Speaker 1: look at that terrific episode. This month, I'll ab have
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: my football and that, by the way, you're going to
• 2:55:58
  Speaker 1: hear me talking more college football, so wee gets out.
• 2:56:00
  Speaker 1: Guess what happens next weekend? Week zero is here? Yes,
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: I care about Week zero two, all right, I'll see
• 2:56:08
  Speaker 1: in twenty four hours