Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Republican Party Is Infected With Intellectual Rot + The Best Polling Issues Favor Democrats

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Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Republican Party Is Infected With Intellectual Rot + The Best Polling Issues Favor Democrats · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
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  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
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  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
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  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
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  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
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  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
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  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
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  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
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  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
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  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
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  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
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  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Three, nine, eight, five. Surprise.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: It's October. Happy October 1st. The October surprises now can
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: officially be unveiled. All of you campaigns that have been
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: waiting and holding back that magic bullet that is going
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to absolutely torture opponent and get you to the finish line.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it is now the month that you're supposed to release
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. I half kid. I don't think, I'm
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: not saying there aren't things that are probably being held back,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: maybe key advertisements. I mean, we've already seen some surprising
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: ads during this campaign season, including the January 6th commercial,
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  Speaker 1: the January 6th rally goer who is doing an endorsement
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  Speaker 1: ad for Gina Hosa in Texas. So could call that
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a surprise, certainly was a curveball, if
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  Speaker 1: you will. So those are the type of planned surprises
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  Speaker 1: I would expect. Of course, it's the unknown, right? And
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to quote the late, great Don Rumsfeld, it's the unknown unknowns.
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  Speaker 1: And one thing is for sure, it's the unexpected that
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  Speaker 1: could have a huge impact on where things happen. And
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  Speaker 1: let's say we dodged one of those unexpected potential early
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  Speaker 1: October surprises in the Middle East early on Wednesday morning.
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  Speaker 1: But before I get to that, I want to give
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  Speaker 1: you a quick rundown of what to expect from this episode.
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  Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of stuff, including about Paxton and
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  Speaker 1: Schmidt and about, I don't know how else to put this,
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  Speaker 1: because it's going to come across as a partisan statement,
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  Speaker 1: and it's not meant to be a partisan statement. But
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  Speaker 1: the rot, the intellectual rot inside the Republican Party, Trump's
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  Speaker 1: Republican Party. And it's important that I want to isolate
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  Speaker 1: it there because the conservative movement is not rotten. There's intellectual.
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  Speaker 1: There is plenty of consistent conservatives that exist, like my
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  Speaker 1: friend Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes and with the work
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  Speaker 1: that's being done at the dispatcher. you know, plenty of
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  Speaker 1: scholars at AEI, sort of the, you know, people like
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  Speaker 1: George Will. So this is, this is, this is not,
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  Speaker 1: it's not an attempt to quote unquote be a biased
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  Speaker 1: statement about left versus right. Trump's Republican party has rot
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  Speaker 1: in it. And I think both the Eric Schmidt and
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  Speaker 1: the Ken Paxton episodes in the last 48 hours help,
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  Speaker 1: I think, tell that story. I'm going to get into
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that a little bit. I want to talk about what
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I think is a hidden issue that I think is
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  Speaker 1: going to have is certainly going to have an impact
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  Speaker 1: on independent voters and why it looks like they're so
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  Speaker 1: decidedly moving in one direction. And then I want to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: share an interesting observation by my friend Doug Sosnick. He's
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: been a guest on this podcast a long time. He
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: was the White House political director back in the Bill
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Clinton days. He had a very interesting column about what
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the next two to three years and really sort of
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the paralysis, political paralysis that I think we should expect
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: as we transition from the Trump era to whatever the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: hell we're about to enter, right? And I think that's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: what we're, we know we're not going backwards. Whatever we're
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: going is not going to be familiar. It may, you know,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: it may have a few ingredients that we're used to,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: but it feels like we're headed somewhere else, not necessarily
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a return to anything. There's a new Wall Street Journal
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: poll that I want to share with you as well,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: because the issue matrix right now, it just is, it's
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: in a huge lopsided favor for the Democrats at this moment.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And these polling numbers will show that. We'll do some questions,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: of course, and I will have a good college football preview. Look,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: this is not a week like last week. Last week
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was one hell of a week, and we've got a
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  Speaker 1: couple of great Saturdays coming up. But hey, this isn't
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a bad Saturday. Don't get me wrong. And certainly for Miami,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: they're going to one of the two Death Valleys. the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: one in South Carolina. So it is something that I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: have tickets to. We will see if I can make
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it down there. I will let you know on Monday
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: whether I did make it down there because I've got
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a little travel myself. In fact, I'll give you a little,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: a few highlights there. I'm headed out to Kansas City
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: with the Pointer Institute, one of the great media watchdogs
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and media training and purveyors of, you know, of, of,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of independent journalism and media out there, um, be joining
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: them in Kansas city. And, uh, oh, by the way,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I got a sneak preview of Musk, the movie, uh,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the new Alex Gibney documentary, and also sat down with
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Alex for my new sphere show that you will catch
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: on Sunday. Um, it's, it's a, it's a fascinating portrait.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And I think this is one of those with Elon Musk,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he's a Rorschach test. Some people think he's this incredible
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: genius and there's a cult-like obsession about him. And some
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: think he is a Bond villain in real life. I'm
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: not sure he's going to love this documentary, but I
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: don't know if he would disagree with some of the
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  Speaker 1: conclusions that are in it. So there's your set of
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: teases for there. But look, before I get into... my
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  Speaker 1: larger sort of political point for this episode that I
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  Speaker 1: want to leave you with. I got up pretty early
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday morning. And, you know, when I say early,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a middle-aged guy. So you know what
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  Speaker 1: that means. It's somewhere in the four to five hour,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: four to 5 a.m. hour here on the East Coast.
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  Speaker 1: And I made the mistake of checking my phone and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: saw this was following the breaking news that was taking place.
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  Speaker 1: In real time, what was happening aboard that flight from
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  Speaker 1: Dubai to Tel Aviv, that attempted hijacking, the attack of
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  Speaker 1: the cockpit, the plane plunging suddenly some 20,000 feet, and
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  Speaker 1: ultimately the passengers and crew preventing this from becoming something much,
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  Speaker 1: much worse. And look, I'm going to resist doing the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: sort of old-fashioned cable news thing here and just walking
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  Speaker 1: you through every imaginable nightmare scenario had this been a
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  Speaker 1: successful flight. hijacking. But you can use your imagination. I
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  Speaker 1: certainly did. Because think about the moment we're in and
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  Speaker 1: the geographic region this was taking place. Israel and Iran
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  Speaker 1: are already at war. The United States is involved. The
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  Speaker 1: entire region is a tinderbox at the moment, right? You've
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  Speaker 1: got Iranian proxies in the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia. Russia's
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: war in Ukraine continues. There is some serious people who
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: have worried for some time about whether the two different
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  Speaker 1: conflicts will somehow merge. We tend to cover them as
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: separate stories, but there's definitely some overlap. We know Iranian
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  Speaker 1: technology is being used, drone technology has been used by
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  Speaker 1: the Russians, and then vice versa now, the Russians helping
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  Speaker 1: the Iranians, Ukrainians helping the Israelis, Ukrainians helping the UAE.
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  Speaker 1: So it's been like these two wars have been dancing
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  Speaker 1: near each other, and just one match could have exploded this,
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  Speaker 1: but into that environment and attempted hijacking of an Israeli-bound
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  Speaker 1: passenger plane? We don't know what the intended endgame was
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  Speaker 1: just yet. We don't know where the plane might have gone,
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  Speaker 1: what the hijacker intended to do with it, or what
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  Speaker 1: governments might have believed in those first chaotic minutes if
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  Speaker 1: the attempt had succeeded, and whether there was any government
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  Speaker 1: behind this. But luckily it didn't succeed. And thankfully we
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  Speaker 1: don't have to find out and think about the various
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  Speaker 1: nightmare scenarios. But that's the part of this story I
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  Speaker 1: don't want us to skip over because sometimes history turns
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  Speaker 1: on things, on the thing that happens, and sometimes it
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  Speaker 1: turns on the thing that almost happened but didn't. There
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  Speaker 1: are moments when a handful of people without realizing the
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  Speaker 1: larger stakes, prevent an event that might have set off
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  Speaker 1: a chain reaction nobody could control. And given the state
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  Speaker 1: of the world right now, given the state of the
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  Speaker 1: Middle East in particular, this one feels like we had
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  Speaker 1: one of those moments. I don't know exactly what we avoided,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm pretty goddamn sure we did avoid it. And
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  Speaker 1: thank God we did. All right. So I just leave
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  Speaker 1: that out there because it's a reminder, frankly, right? There's
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  Speaker 1: my old friend, Tom Brokaw, he had his own expression
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  Speaker 1: about October surprises. He used to call them UFOs. And
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I never thought the acronym worked that great because he
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was big. UFO, the unforeseen will occur. I don't know
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: where the W goes, right, in his U-F-W-O aspect, but
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you get, right? The point is, is that there's going
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to be something we're not talking about. It's going to,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and it's, you know, maybe it only roils one race.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is, you know, something that's concentrated that just
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  Speaker 1: impacts one race that might impact the balance of power
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: or something that's as scary as the what if scenario
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that I hinted at with that. But the point is,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is that this is, we are now inside, you know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: we are inside that window where everything is going to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: feel like it has potentially the potential to have an
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: outsized impact. All right, let's get into the midterms a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: little bit and get into politics. We're essentially, what is it,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: October 1. So let's just do the math. We're 33 days.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: By the time some of you listen to this, we're
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: going to be under 30 days. So next time I
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: come on the air, we're going to be less than
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a month out. And I think it's fitting that we
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: start with Ken Paxton because I think it actually helps
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: us tell a larger story about where the Republican Party
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: is at this particular moment. Paxton got caught either on
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a hot mic, you want to call it, or more accurately,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a recording of a private fundraiser. It's amazing. These private
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: fundraising recordings are the best, right? You know, it was
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: private fundraising recordings that we got the 47% on Romney.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: It was a private fundraising recording that we got Barack
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Obama clings to their guns and Bibles, right? You know,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it's funny, even at fundraisers with donors, right, the principals,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: they want to make the donors feel like they're getting
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: some insider information. And sometimes the candidates, you know, commit
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: what many of us now call as a Michael Kinsley gaffe,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: meaning when a politician accidentally speaks the truth. Paxton got caught,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you know, apparently on this mic or in this Q &
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  Speaker 1: A with the donors here in Washington. It's a small fundraiser.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Apparently there's only 12 or 13 people because who's excited
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: about giving money to Ken Paxton in Washington? Trust me.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: They loved John Cornyn. These people do not like Ken Paxton.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: The people that were showed up for those fundraisers were
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the ones that felt like they didn't want the White
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: House to know that they wouldn't show up, right? That's
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: who's there. And Paxton knows he needed those folks. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: he felt like he had to give them something. So
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: apparently he acknowledged what some Republicans have been whispering privately
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: for a while. Donald Trump's big midterm convention in Dallas
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: did not help a thing. And if anything, it did harm.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And you can see some people put together some graphs.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: You can There does seem as if after that midterm convention,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: polling even got worse for Republicans. Now, is it a
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: cause and effect? Does it correlate it? I happen to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: think that we were already in that direction. The midterm
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: convention did nothing to stop that momentum. And here's what
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: we got. But to be very accurate about this recording,
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  Speaker 1: Paxton was asked whether he, and the assumption was Trump
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: is the he in this case, was becoming a drag. Now,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the audio is apparently a bit muffled enough that you
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: can't definitively tell who the he is here. But Paxton
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: responds by saying, essentially, look, after the convention, everybody's numbers
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: went down. Of course, this gets out. Times makes a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: big deal of it. And then the then the cleanup happens.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And it's the way a cleanup happens that kind of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: tells you the level of panic. inside Paxton world. So
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: his campaign now says the story is manipulated nonsense, but
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they're not denying it was his voice. Paxton starts reminding
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: people about how much he loves Donald Trump. And here's
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the picture of me and Trump. Can't wait to campaign
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: with Trump. Everything's wonderful. Nothing to see in here. And
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: what's funny is we've just seen this movie about two
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: weeks ago. Remember what happened with Byron Donalds? When material
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: disappeared from his website, the Miami Herald reported it. And
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: suddenly everybody was pretending nobody had ever thought anything differently.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: And then somebody must have called up Byron Donalds and said, hey,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the big guy's ticked off that you're scrubbing your website
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of Trump and letting political reporters know that you did it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And suddenly, Byron Donalds tweets out a photo. No, what
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: do you mean? I'm glad you're interested in my website.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And I love Donald Trump. And here you go. But
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: so clearly, Paxton was nervous that if he ticked off Trump,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that would be it. But there was another reason this
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: episode was interesting to me. Because Look, it's not news
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that a Republican candidate thinks Trump is hurting them. Trump's
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: hurting the entire Republican Party, right? But if there's one
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: candidate where Trump's not the main issue, it's this guy.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: What kind of delusional world does Ken Paxton live in,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: where he apparently thinks Trump is the bigger problem for
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton than Ken Paxton? I mean, come on. Look,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of states where Donald Trump is clearly
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a problem for Republican candidates. Kansas is in play because
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and his policies. Iowa is looking really
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: good for the blue team because of Donald Trump and
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: his policies. There are plenty of places where the national
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: environment is the problem and it's Donald Trump's policies. Republican
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: governance generally is a problem for all Republicans on the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: ballot right now. Don't get me wrong. But if Ken
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Paxton loses Texas, Ken Paxton is going to have played
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty significant role in Ken Paxton losing Texas. This
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: ain't a Donald Trump problem. And by the way, same
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: thing applies to Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: are not in trouble because Donald Trump is unpopular in America.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Trump is an ingredient. He certainly makes it a little
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: bit harder. But he's not the main ingredient. For Paxton,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it's Paxton's ethics and low character that's the main ingredient.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And with Abbott, it's data centers and more importantly, school
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: vouchers that is the main ingredient. Neither one of which
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you could tag Trump a little bit on data centers.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And you could certainly tag Trump on the fact that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a guy like Paxton even gets elected in the first
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: place because somehow character went out the window. This episode
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Kalshi.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It's an exchange where you can trade on what you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: actually think is going to happen. Sports, politics, culture, whatever's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: on your mind. For example, one market, of course, that
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I'm monitoring very closely is the U.S. Senate and control
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of the U.S. Senate. As recently as September 10th, Republicans
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: were favored to retain control. Fifty two percent right to
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: to to buy a share of Republicans retain control is
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: going to cost you fifty two cents. would have only
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: cost you 48 cents to buy essentially a share of
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the prediction that Democrats would win control. But boy, have
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: things changed in two weeks, right? Democrats are now favored,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: according to the markets, the market to buy Democratic control
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: is up to 62 cents. The market for Republican control
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: is 38 cents. So it's the Democrats' high watermark so
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: far of the cycle. And so far, the number is
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: growing by the day. And so you know what that means.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: If you're confident, you think this number is only going
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to grow, then you better hurry up and get in
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: now if you believe the Democrats are going to do this.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And if you look at this and go, hey, I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: think the Republicans are going to retain. And in fact,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: whether they retain or not, I think we're going to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: see some polls. There'll be the natural tightening of October.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I better get in on this, get a piece of
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: this Republican number before it goes back up. And, you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: either way, you can make a couple of bucks. So
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it's fascinating. And depending on how you view the next
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: three weeks are going to go, not necessarily election day,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: but the narrative of the next three weeks may impact
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: which side of that equation you want to purchase. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: here's what you need to know about Kalshi. You're going
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: up against other traders directly. There's no house setting the odds.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It's just people putting their own opinions and predictions on
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the line. So if you trade $ 25 and you use
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the code Chuck Todd, they'll throw in another $ 25 instantly.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: As always, please remember to trade responsibly. But this gets
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: me to something else that happened this week. You know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the whole the whole dog Schmidt episode, if you will,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: or the Hawkeye Schmidt episode, because I actually I want
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to connect the two. Right. The whole this whole, you know,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt basically. living in a conspiracy fever dream and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: thinking he's going to nail Jack Smith and become a
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: hero of the right. So confident was this hack from Missouri.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know what else to call him because I
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: think this is clearly a hack move, right? That he
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: clearly had some friendly person whisper to Axios that, hey, J.D.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Vance loves Eric Schmidt, right? It was clear that Schmidt
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: had told all of this sort of Trump ecosystem and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: this MAGA influencer world, I've got the goods, I'm going
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to be doing it, right? It was all pre-wired. And
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious now in hindsight that That wasn't an accidental,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that wasn't just a happenstance leak in Axios about, oh yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Schmidt's gonna be one of the people J.D. Vance thinks
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of as a running mate. And then lo and behold,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: he would have this incredible moment proving that Jack Smith
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: was part of this grand conspiracy to work with Fannie
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Willis and all this business, right? And it blows up
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: in their face and it all looks ridiculous. I mean,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I'd love to know who the clown that was behind
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that nugget to my friends at Axios because I don't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: doubt that it was, you know, I'm not saying it
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: was a manufactured nugget. That's not the thing. But now
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: you sort of see that it was, there was an
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: attempt to boost up Eric Schmidt's profile. He saw this
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: as an opportunity. Well, congratulations, buddy. We all know who
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: you are now. And this is one, this is one
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you're not going to beat. Think about, we had Tommy
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Topperville doing, Speeches on the Senate floor claiming that like
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: all airline pilots are like furry people or something. The
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: conspiracy is so whacked, I don't quite understand it because
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I'm almost afraid of allowing my algorithm to go down
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: some of these roads. But what dark dystopian world does
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: this current Republican Party live in? Right. Because think about
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the number of people. That the Eric Schmidt, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this is where he thought he had Jack Smith in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Atlanta and he thought him nailed, right? Think about the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: number of people that Schmidt, Schmidt didn't do this research himself, okay?
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: If he did, it's even more damning, right? But he
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: had some staff obviously do this. Think about the number
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of people, something like that presumably passes through before a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: United States Senator says it into a microphone at a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: nationally televised congressional hearing, right? Somebody researched this. They wrote
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it up. They created a big poster board of the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of the supposed texts, if you will. He got briefed
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: by it. He got shown all the supposed evidence. I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: am curious. I wonder, you know, where where they manufactured
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: this or was this was this some, you know, brought
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to them by some, you know, some sort of Joe
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: DeGeneva dropout, you know, if you will, clerk dropout or something.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Because there wasn't any adult apparently in Eric Schmidt's office
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: who said, hey, do we have all the facts here?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Have we double checked this? Are we, you know, are
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: we at all? You know, that expression, the higher you
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: up climb on the ladder, the more your ass starts
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to hang out, right? Because Eric Schmidt decided to climb
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: up that thing and reveal his bare ass to all
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of us. And boy, was it a reveal, right? And
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I think we now know. But there's something larger going
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: on here. What happens to an institution when loyalty becomes
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: more valuable than competence? You know, when you watch a
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: dictatorship unravel, it unravels because loyalty is prioritized over competence.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And over time, right, you may have the first, you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: wave of the dictators. There usually are some competent people.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And then eventually, the paranoia of the dictator or the authoritarian,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, starts to purge people out. Oh no, you're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: not sufficiently loyal enough, right? So the competent, whatever competent
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: people existed, get pushed out. Trump 1.0 had a lot
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of competent people trying to prevent Trump from doing dumb shit. Well,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump figured that out. And in Trump 2.0, loyalty
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was prioritized. But this has been true up and down
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the Republican ballot, right? A clown like Eric Schmidt never
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: is a United States Senator on earth too. On Earth 2,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Missouri is still a place where a Republican Party is
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: headed with people with the character of John Ashcroft or
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Jack Danforth or Kit Bond. And instead, right, I have
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to tell you, look, Josh Hawley wouldn't have put himself
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: in this position. Josh Hawley has a much bigger brain
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: on that head of his than his Senate colleague from Missouri.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Because this Schmidt episode isn't simply a senator making a mistake.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Senators make mistakes. I make mistakes. Journalists, everybody makes mistakes.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It's how does a mistake this obvious, this elementary, survive
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a process, right? Well, it's because it's what happens when
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you no longer operate in a political culture where facts
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and competency are prioritized. Right. You know, literally before Trump
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: came down that escalator, essentially congressional staffers, for the most part,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: left and right, highly competent. Many of them understood that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: part of the job was to prevent the boss from
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: saying something embarrassing. And you want staffers, the smart senators,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: made sure they had staffers who knew what the hell
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: they were doing. Now, what I'm wondering is whether too
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: many people in Washington are hiring staffers whose job is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: simply to salute the flag, be loyal, or on some
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: approved loyalty list that the White House says you're allowed
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to hire from. that it's more important to virtue signal
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to MAGA than to actually be a competent. And what
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: has happened to the Missouri Republican Party? There's this clown
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: that got elected secretary of state that is literally probably
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: put the entire state's congressional delegation on ice. I don't
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: think this is a legal election that they're about to hold.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And it is the singular fault of this secretary of state.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: The Missouri Republican Party is rotten. What has happened to it?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: This was one of the most competent Republican state parties
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: when I started covering politics in the 90s. St. Louis
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: was the second or third most important fundraising stop for
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a Republican in national office. It was a different type
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of Republican party. And the Missouri Republican Party has gone
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: off the deep end. The state's pretty conservative, but the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: party has gone really extreme. It's frankly, I think the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: further it moves to the right, it's actually why it's
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: driven some suburbanites in Kansas City, Missouri, to move to
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Kansas City, Kansas. The growth of Kansas City, Kansas is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: is is happened sort of in conjunction with the hard
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: right maga turn of Missouri politics and Missouri governance. And
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I think we just saw an example. And I'm old
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: enough to remember when Eric Schmidt was actually the higher
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: character guy that you had to get behind because you
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: had Eric Greitens, the former governor, who had to resign
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: in disgrace because he essentially was sexually assaulting a woman
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: or was accused of it. That's how Eric Schmidt became
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a senator, because he was lucky enough to have somebody
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: else in the race who was a pretty low character person.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But we are now seeing what happens when loyalty becomes
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the primary vetting that takes place when a party has
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: sort of become what it is, this sort of cult
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of Trump. And I mean, we saw it in plain
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: sight during this hearing, right? They've reached their conclusion. Jack
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Smith was part of an enormous conspiracy against Donald Trump.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And now the staffer's job was to go find the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: evidence to prove it. so that the boss could look
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: good to the MAGA public. And so when you begin
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: with a conclusion, eventually an Atlanta hawk becomes an Iowa
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: hawkeye because the information isn't being used to determine the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: conclusion anymore. It's just simply being used to validate it.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: That's this confirmation bias virus that is running deep. Look,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about it in both political parties. I'm worried
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: about it in a lot of folks. There's a presumption
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: of guilt all the time that some people have on
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the left of anybody in Congress that is a Republican.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But in this case, Eric Schmidt told us who he was.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: We now know who he is. And he's obviously not
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: somebody that you can take at face value, no matter
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: what comes out of his mouth, period. And he's not
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the only senator. Which brings me to artificial intelligence, because
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: we also had this extraordinary gathering earlier this week at
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the White House. The leaders of the most powerful AI
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: companies in the world came together with the president, and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: they signed what the White House is calling an accord
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: on superintelligence. Trump's narcissism knows no bounds, and he's decided
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he wants to rename artificial intelligence superintelligence. I don't know why.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: It just makes me want to go Rewatch the movie
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Team America World Police. Intelligence. Remember, that was the name
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of the computer. It was something like it was an acronym. Intelligence.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see Claymation Trump in that movie in
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: some form. But Trump called this accord morally binding. Morally binding.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's a legal term. Did you know that? We've invented
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the regulatory equivalent of pinky swear. So to be fair,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: there is more in this document than nothing. He called
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it an executive order that says the word superintelligence, but
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really do anything. The companies are essentially pledging
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to have internal controls. They're pledging to have internal safety teams.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: They're pledging to allow for outside audits and that there
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: would be board oversight. But the entire structure is voluntary.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Trump himself praised these companies for self-policing. What if they policed?
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: They keep releasing these models. But what was weird about
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: this is this is something I don't get the politics
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: of this. Let's forget for a moment whether you believe
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: light touch regulation is substantively the right approach. Make the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: strongest argument for it if you want. Fine. America is
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: in a race with China. This technology is moving incredibly fast.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Washington shouldn't smother innovation before we understand what we're regulating.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: All right. That's an argument. It's a legitimate argument. But politically,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: what did this invent at the White House solve for
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans on the ballot? Because if you're running for office
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: right now as a Republican, you are looking for some
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: evidence you can take home and say, hey, Washington, we
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: understand that people are nervous about AI. We understand you're
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: nervous about the data center that's going up down the street.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And we understand you're nervous about your job. We understand
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you're nervous about what your kids are interacting with. Oh,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: there was none of that, right? Instead, what did you
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: get out of this? A voluntary agreement signed by the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: companies themselves. Companies none of us trust in the first place.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Companies that have already poisoned the minds of our kids
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: with this social media shit and how all of this
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: happened to us, happened to our kids without any of
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: us having any say over this. But we're supposed to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: trust them with super intelligence. This brings me to this
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal poll. Very revealing. And again, you know
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: why I love There's only a handful of national polls
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I like. NBC, the national poll that they use when
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it's Hart, McInturf. Wall Street Journal, when NBC and Wall
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Street Journal broke up, they formed a polling team that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: is very similar to how Al Hunt and Tim Russert
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: formed the original polling team back in the day. The
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal polling team is Joe Biden's former pollster,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: John Anzalone, and Donald Trump's and J.D. Vance's pollster, Tony Fabrizio.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And we got an extra sort of release of the poll.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I told you a little something about it before, but
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they released the generic ballot and sort of what policies
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: were popping with voters. By the way, another eight point,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: this is, again, the president's polling firm is involved with
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: this poll. So when the president says it's fake news
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: or whatever he will with the Wall Street Journal, he's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: got to yell at his own pollster for this. But
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: when you look at the issue set that polls the best,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: It's not an issue set that Donald Trump and the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Republican Party are talking about right now. So for instance, 90%
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in this poll support banning surprise medical bills. U.S. Senate
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: pass anything like that this week? Yeah, I didn't think so. 87%
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: support capping prescription drug prices. Anybody see a vote on
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that bill? 79% support stopping illegal immigration at the border.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: That's the one right-leaning issue that polls extraordinarily well. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: also another 79% support capping credit card interest rates at 10%.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: That is a Bernie Sanders, Josh Hawley proposal where the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: ends are meeting, folks. 75% want restrictions on giant institutional
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: investors buying up single-family homes. 75%. This is not just
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the left that wants this. When you're getting in the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: 70s for support of this stuff, what it really is
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: telling you that there are huge chunks in both parties.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And 75%, by the way, support a pathway to citizenship
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: for immigrants who've been here for years and contributed to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: their community. So think about that. You're 75, 75, 79, 79, 87.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Let me read you those issues again. Surprise, banning surprise
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: medical bills, capping prescription drug prices, stopping illegal immigration at
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the border, capping credit card interest rates, preventing restrictions on
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: private equity from buying single family homes, pathway for citizenship
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: for the dreamers. That's like, 6-1, right? There's like one
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: issue that sort of favors team right, where Democrats don't
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: have a lot of credibility, the border security. Everything else
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: sounds like a Bernie Sanders proposal. But the point is,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: this was popular left and right. The pitchforks are sharpening
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: on the left and the pitchforks are being sharpened on
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the right. And they seem to be pointed at the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: same institutions. When you ask about artificial intelligence, 63% support
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: pausing the development of AI. Again, it's not a majority
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of Republicans, but to get to 63%, you're getting a
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: huge chunk of them. 62% support pausing the development of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: data centers. I don't need to go over this, how
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: bad the data center issue is. I mean, I'm half
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: expecting now after that meeting about AI that he's gonna
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: just promote data centers when he goes on the stump.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, this would be what I would fear If
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I were John Huston, if I were Ken Paxton, we
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: know Trump's going to bully his way into going on
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: these trips. He's trying to throw largesse at states and
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: hope that it sticks. But this is not a country.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: This is why this AI meeting couldn't have been more
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: tone deaf considering where the country is. Because when you
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: look at those numbers about data centers, about pausing AI,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: those numbers are screaming something. The American people, they want
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: somebody representing them in this conversation. Look at the picture
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: from the White House. It was Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, XAI,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and NVIDIA, and the president. You know who wasn't represented
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: in that meeting? The consumer, the parent, the teacher, anybody
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: from labor, anybody from communities being asked to absorb these
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: enormous data centers. Where was somebody at that meeting sitting
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: at that table and saying, OK, but who's looking out
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: for the rest of it? In theory, it should be
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States. But he has no
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: interest in showing any empathy or any concern about what
• 37:05
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  Speaker 1: green shoot that happened this week when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: big tech and AI. The Federal Trade Commission has opened
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a broad investigation of OpenAI Anthropic and other AI companies
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: using its existing consumer protection authority. And I've been arguing
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: for months that Washington doesn't have to wait around for
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  Speaker 1: some grand new AI regulatory architecture before it begins using
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  Speaker 1: the powers that already exist. The FTC, you're there to
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  Speaker 1: protect consumers. AI is going to use surveillance pricing, use
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: all sorts of, you know, digging up data on us
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and then repurposing it as marketing material. trying to sell
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: us stuff. This is where the FTC, they have authority now.
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  Speaker 1: So they should investigate. But here's the test. What happens
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: if they find something that they believe is nefarious? Does
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the investigation go wherever the facts take it? Does the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: public get to see what they find or what they're
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: worried about? Or does somebody decide that enforcement might interfere
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: with the great race against China and that it gets... stymied,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: brushed aside, gets put, you know, whatever the investigation, whatever
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: they do is going to be put next to the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: arc from Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you remember
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the last scene of that movie where they put it
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: in some massive government storage facility. Maybe it's next to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files. All of this is happening against an
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: economic backdrop that is getting increasingly difficult for Republicans to ignore.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: So The conference board, this isn't the Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: but it's very similar. The conference board reports its own
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: consumer confidence number, and they report that it has fallen
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: nearly seven points in September to 81.9 on their 200 scale.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: It is the lowest level they've recorded since 2014 when
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: it comes to consumer confidence. Consumers are increasingly worried about
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: prices and the labor market. So 2014, what happened in 2014? Well,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: it ought to get the attention of anybody who works
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: in politics because 2014, midterm election year. Democrats were seen
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: as the party in power. They controlled the Senate. They
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: controlled the White House. They didn't have the House. Well,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: what happened in 2014 with that crappy consumer confidence number?
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Republicans expanded an already existing House majority and they took
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate. Look, history doesn't have to repeat
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: itself because one consumer confidence number happens to resemble another
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: consumer confidence number. But you don't have to be James
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Carville to understand that a governing party heading into a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: midterm with consumers feeling this lousy about the economy, the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: party in power is a huge problem on their hands.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And it's why I'm skeptical, like Trump's trying it, right?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: New steel, you know, they're going to build a new
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: steel mill in Iowa. You know, he tried that yesterday. Apparently,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: he's going to go to Alaska to announce a $ 54
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: billion South Korean investment into a natural gas project. in Alaska,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: thinking that that'll help Dan Sullivan. I'm sure Dan Sullivan
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: wishes Trump wouldn't come. But you can't say no to him.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Good luck saying no. I mean, look, Ken Paxton accidentally
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: told the truth. Although, again, I think Ken Paxton is
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: a bigger drag on the Republican ticket in Texas than
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is. But Donald Trump is a problem. And
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that midterm convention not only wasn't a help, it probably
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: was adding an anchor to everybody. But Trump clearly sent
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: a message. They all knew. If I were John Thune,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: you have your excuse to stop wasting money, putting good
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: money after bad. Jackson's not winning this race. And I
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: think the Senate Republicans are going to piss away $ 200
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: million having to prove that to themselves. We'll see. But
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the other thing that I don't get, if I were
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: a Republican on the ballot, there'd be a like a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: small part of me that would wonder, is Donald Trump
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: want the Democrats to win Congress? Because Trump is avoiding
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: things that actually could help in the short term, right?
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Announcing these big investments, they're going to do nothing. People
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: have lived experience, but he could do some things, right?
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: There are things Trump could do right now that might
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: create just enough of a fig leaf of attention to
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the problem and sort of admitting that he knows he's
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: got to provide some relief. then maybe some of his
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: voters come home, right? He could pursue this diplomatic off-ramp
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: with Iran, who basically handed him a ceasefire talking point
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: if he wanted to take it. This is the man
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: that ends all these wars, he tells us. And yet
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: when somebody was willing to offer a ceasefire, again, not
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: all the terms were great, but it was an easy
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: opportunity to start that process and at least give a
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: jolt of confidence to the oil markets, but he didn't
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: do it. He could reduce some of the trade uncertainty
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: with Canada, He could lower some tariffs on the ag sector.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That would have to admit that his policies are the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: reason that the Republicans are so unpopular at the moment.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: So he can't bring himself to do that. And it's
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: certainly not where his attention is. And it brings me
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: finally to something I wrote about this week, both in,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: some of you may have seen it on my Newsphere's website.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I also wrote it on my Substack. And it's about
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: sort of the hidden tax of Trump. I call it
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the Trump anxiety tax. And, you know, we used to
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: have something called the misery index, which I think was
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: like consumer confidence plus unemployment or something like that. But
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time trying to measure inflation
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and unemployment and wages and consumer confidence. But how do
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: you measure the cumulative cost of never knowing whether today's
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: rules are going to be tomorrow's rules? How do you
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: measure exhaustion? And I'm not talking about just the basic
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Trump outrage. We know we're all exhausted from that. I'm
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: talking about the small business owner who doesn't know what
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the tariff will be six months from now. How about
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the farmer who doesn't know which export market is going
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to be open next month and whether that market's open
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: in six months and what should they plant at this
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: moment if they have to start planning? How about the
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: military family wondering what the next deployment means and how
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: long they're going to be gone? How about the parent
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out which public health guidance to trust?
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: How about the person approaching retirement wondering what another war
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: does to oil prices and interest rates in their own
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: retirement account, right? The uncertainty that Trump has given us
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: for 10 years is in itself a cost. It's a tax.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a tax that people know they're
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: paying and they're tired of paying it, right? I think
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: this is why independents in a large chunk, who don't
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: like either party. Remember, the Democratic Party is the most
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: unpopular political party in America. More unpopular than the Republican Party.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: But Trump is exhausting everybody. And the uncertainty is the cost.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: So people aren't saying, because, you know, this is where
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I think Charlie Cook's got it right. This is not a,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: we should probably not, it's not a blue wave, it's
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a massive red undertow. Right? Nobody's, They're not necessarily saying
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I want the Democratic Party's agenda, although voters seem to
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: be supporting the Bernie Sanders agenda, which isn't necessarily the
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party agenda. But I do think they're saying something
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: much simpler. Can we just make some of this stop?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Can we turn down the volume? Can we make government
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a little more predictable? You know, we don't have to
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: live this way. Donald Trump chooses to create this instability, right?
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: He's like the guy who intentionally gets into a boat
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and rocks it. The rest of us vomit and he's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: having a hell of a time. Can we change things
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that aren't working without living in a permanent state of disruption, right?
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Whether it's, you know, Kennedy Center is like a perfect
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: sort of metaphor for this, right? He just decided he
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: wanted his name on it. He wanted to control it.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: So he literally trashed the place. The place was fine.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: It was flush with cash. Yes, it had some COVID issues,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but it was raising money. It had artists performing, just
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: had a renovation. The complex is fantastic. They had a
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: board chair, David Rubenstein, who was always willing to spend
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: money out of his own pocket to better the Kennedy Center.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And Trump comes in and just eviscerates the place. And
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: now it's a shit show. And he kicks out the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Washington Opera and kicks out the National Symphony. Man, really
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: is offensive. This is not your cultural arts center. That
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: sucker belongs to everybody. This is the music major in
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: me coming out. And Trump supposedly likes opera and the arts.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks for ruining it. But that's what he did. If
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: he couldn't have his way, he just wanted to ruin it.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: And this is sort of the state. Imagine being a
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: member of the National Symphony. Donald Trump, I mean, that's
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the thing. He put thousands of people who actually make
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: a living connected to that Kennedy Center into this world
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: of uncertainty, all because of his massive ego. I want
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: to talk about one other column besides my own. This morning,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I read a column from my friend, Doug Sosnick. He's
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: been on this program before in the Washington Post. And
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I actually think it pairs pretty well with the column
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I wrote the day before. Doug's argument is essentially, don't
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: assume the end of the Trump era means we're going
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: to return to something. We're not. We're headed somewhere else.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: But we don't know where we're headed. He thinks, his
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: theory is this, that the next two years could actually
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: become more politically volatile, believe it or not, because both
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: parties are about to have enormous internal fights over what
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: comes next and who comes next. On the Republican side,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: he posits, he asks, what survives Trumpism when Trump is
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: no longer the organizing principle of the party? Is there
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a coherent ideology at all? On the Democratic side, how
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: much power does the progressive populist wing accumulate in these midterms,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: and what do they do with it? if they do?
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And I do think he's right about this larger transition.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: The political system that existed before Donald Trump is not
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: coming back. Just like the media ecosystem that existed before
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the iPhone is not coming back. We're going to have
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: a new everything. And when it comes, I don't know
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: if voters even want either of those systems back. They
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: clearly don't want to revert to the old politics. That's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: why they handed us Donald Trump. It was their message. Hey, look,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: we don't like what you're doing. We'll even send this
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: buffoon to Washington. But the fact that people don't want
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: the old system doesn't mean they're happy living permanently inside
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: this unstable demolition moment that Trump's created. Because eventually change
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: has got to lead to something. You've got to build something.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the larger question sitting underneath this election,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: not simply whether voters are tired of Trump or whether
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: they're open to Democrats or whether they think Republicans know
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: what they're doing. It's whether they believe all of this
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: disruption is actually taking us anywhere. Because you'll tolerate contractors
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: in your house when you think eventually you're getting a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: new kitchen. But if you've been tearing up your house
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: for years, the bills keep getting larger. Nobody can tell
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: when you're leaving. And now they're talking about knocking down
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: another wall. Eventually, you have to ask a pretty basic question.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: What exactly is this renovation supposed to be finished? Trump
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: just demolishes things for demolishment's sake. And it feels like
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: that's where American politics is right now. There's been a
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: destruction of the old era, but we have not been
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: able to figure out what to build in its place.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I think they're done with Trump, but they're not ready
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: to pick a side just yet. And I think what
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Sosnick's point was is that, hey, Look, buckle up, because
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: 27 and 28 are going to be super volatile. And,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: you know, remember, we're going to have a lame duck
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: president who's not going to like not being the center
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: of attention. And that is going to lead to its
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: own kind of chaos and its own kind of disruption,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: exhaustive disruption. And whatever happens on November 3rd is going
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to have an outsized impact on how some of these
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Republicans behave immediately. I think it's there are two things
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: that I think are interesting. You know, the Senate punted
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: trying to do anything and they took off a day early.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: They're just rolling the dice. Well, they know they're unpopular.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: But the agenda and the lame duck. If it's a wipeout,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: how many Republicans who have lost in November are going
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: to be willing to carry Trump's water on unpopular legislation
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: that they want to jam through via reconciliation? Now, the
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: chaos could be immediate. We could have a government shutdown
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: very quickly. They've got to agree on government funding. And
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: if you recall what happened after the 2018 midterms, we
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: ended up with a government shutdown where it started with
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: all Republican control and we got the new Congress in
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the middle of a shutdown. You know, the chaos may
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: just be beginning. Ask Chuck. Let's do, I'm doing my
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Todd dance for the Ask Chuck. We're not going to
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: call it a Trump dance here. All right. This question
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: comes from Michael T. Chicago, Illinois. And he writes, Dear Chuck,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: during your interview with Dana Bash, you mentioned you're looking
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: for good history books about China. So I have one
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: for you. 1434, the year a magnificent Chinese fleet sailed
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: to Italy and ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies. It'll
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: blow your mind. And if you want to talk about
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: butterfly effects, just imagine if that ship never sailed. Well,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: that's a really good teaser. Michael, you need to get
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: into like the marketing business. I'm guessing you might already be.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: That is a terrific tease. I am taking, not only
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: taking the advice, I'm finding it right now. This is
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: one of those things. One of those, I don't do
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: it literally in the moment. So I'm going to find
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: this right now. I'm like, I'm, I get, I do
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: virtual libraries, in case you're wondering. I do Apple Books
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: when I can. 1434. There it is. There it is.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: All right. And not super. I could do it as
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: an audio book. I'm not going to do it as
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: an audio book. I'm a fan of doing it as
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: a hard to cover. But all right. Thank you for
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: that recommendation. And I am officially an owner of said book. Michael,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: they should throw you, you should get a couple of
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: bucks from Apple for that, right? Anyway, appreciate, because yes,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: I think, look, this goes to history curriculums in general,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: but man, we do a terrible job educating our high
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: schoolers on China. Our next question comes from Adam B.,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: formerly Pennsylvania's first district, but currently resides in West Virginia's
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: second district. All right. As a recently retired third grade
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: teacher and former reading specialist, I really appreciated your thoughtful
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: discussion of the American education system, especially your emphasis on
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the whole child from pre-K through third grade. You were
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: spot on that children grow academically at different rates, just
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: as they do physically. And in my experience, getting a
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: child excited about school and their classroom community is It's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: one of the most important things an educator can do.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: When you get that right, the sky's the limit. Keep
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: up the great work, Adam B. I appreciate you saying that.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I am, you know, it's just about, we got it.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like, we know that these things we
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: all agree work. So let's get this part right. and
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: everything else will build to it, right? Because if you
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: get that part right, in some ways, then you will
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: have the market kicking in because there'll be a student
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: market who are ready to go and want more. And
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: then you can start, and this is where I do
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: think AI comes in, where we can start to have,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say necessarily personalized curriculums, but the
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: public school system can be more responsive, different rates and
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. And I just, there's, You know, it's
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: just like what we're learning. We're learning in the medical industry, right?
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Nobody takes this. Nobody's taking the exact same cancer treatment drugs, right?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: You find out what works specifically well for your physiology, right?
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: We're getting better at being able to almost personally designing
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: these treatments depending on your physiology. Well, there's no reason
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: why education can't be done in the same way. Gina C.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: writes in, she goes, I'm a teacher in Texas and
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: longtime listener. I used to watch you at Meet the
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Press while coaching UIL. All right. Current events. I understand
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Republicans have more money, which may explain why I'm seeing
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: so many Abbott and Paxton ads in East Texas. But
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you've also talked about Beshear's influence over DNC spending. It's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: actually DGA spending. So why aren't Democrats putting more into Texas?
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: I've heard about the OSA ad featuring a January 6th
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: participant and think it could resonate here. but I haven't
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: actually seen it on air. Thanks, Gina C. Well, that's
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: interesting that you're not seeing it. Now, it may be
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that if their data people know where they're going, maybe
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: they know you don't need to see the ad and
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: perhaps it's airing on the Fox News channel, right? And
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: things like that. And I will say that I do
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: think you do see, it's not quite asymmetrical, But in
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: a mid, particularly in a midterm, Republicans are spending a
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: little bit more, you know, so, and this used to
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: be reversed, right? The non-college educated voter who used to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: be a Democratic, usually a Democratic voter has become primarily
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: a Republican voter. And it is, you're, Legacy and mainstream
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: television advertising is still the best way to reach that voter.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: The voter, the Democratic coalition is more fragmented. And so
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: you see it's they they're they're targeting of ads is
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: much more analytics driven. I'm not saying that the right
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: side analytics driven. It's just that one of the bigger
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: chunks of voting groups that they want to talk to
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: just happen to be easier to reach. in sort of
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the old broadcast and affiliate scenario, which if you watch
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: local news, you're going to probably see more of it there.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I suspect that in the month of October, you'll start
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: to see more of it. But I know why there's
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: always been this hesitance. Democrats feel as if throwing money
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: at Texas is a waste, given how much it takes
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: to have an impact. But something's happening here this time.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: And the opportunity is huge. And I go with Bashir.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's wasted money even if Hinojosa comes
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: up short. Because even if she comes up short, she's
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: going to be a power player in Texas Democratic politics.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: And I think that she's doing well not because Donald
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Trump's unpopular. She's doing well because Republican governance in Texas
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: is unpopular, particularly when it comes to schools and the vouchers.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: you know, so you can go on anywhere. And that's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: why I think look, it's still early. It's October 1st.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: But I'd be surprised if, I mean, I'm just, I
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm surprised Bashir hasn't done something more significant here.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Because I think if he really wants to run for
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: president in 28, I think it's really good presidential politics
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: for him. All right, Amanda chimes in with a question. Mr. Todd,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: you and Mr. Saliza are becoming my Waldorf and Statler. Well,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: thanks for telling us about a couple of old guys.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. The duo I didn't know I wanted,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: but now I know I need it. Thanks. Would you
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: consider having a former FBI agent, maybe someone like Andrew McCabe,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: on the podcast to talk about the FBI's role, independence,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and how the institution has changed in recent years? Loved
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: a refresher on what the FBI has historically stood for.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: And where it may be headed, because lately I feel
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: like I'm losing sight of both. Thanks for always educating
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: me Monday through Thursday. Well, I appreciate you saying that, Amanda.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: The answer is it's a great idea. I know Andrew
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit, both when he was a source for
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: me and since his retirement. And it's a great idea.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: We'll see if our friends at CNN will let him
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: do some independent media sometimes. But hey, we just had
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Dan Abash, right? So there's no reason why they shouldn't. But...
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good idea. I think we have
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: to totally rethink, norms aren't going to be enough to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: make the Justice Department and the FBI follow the rule
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: of law. We're probably going to have to. We have
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: to come up with more barriers to minimize political interference.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: The possibility of political interference is always going to be there.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: The question is, how do you come up with new
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: ways to safeguard it? And it's clear that the attorney
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: general can't be this, you know, can't, can't be this
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: connected to the presidency because what we're doing is we're,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: if we get to the point where you just assume
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: the FBI is politically motivated, you assume anything the justice
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: department is doing is politically motivated. And eventually people will
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: stop believing anything that's coming out of arguably the two
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: agencies that have to be, can be the most trusted
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: by the public, not the least. So it's a pretty ugly,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: but it's a good idea. And, uh, But you should
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: realize that, look, the FBI, unfortunately, has a history of
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: ebbing and flowing from being sort of independent to being partisan,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: to being independent, to being partisan. So sadly, it's not new.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: All right, last question. All right. Howdy. There's a growing
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: discussion about AOC as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. By
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: the way, the person writing this one in here is...
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Hilmar M. He's a professor of political science, Western Norway
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: University of Applied Sciences in Hordaland Electoral District for the
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Storting Elections. Hey, you didn't say it had to be
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: an American electoral district. That's very good. Okay. So he's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: chiming in for a professor from Norway and he goes, howdy.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: There's a growing discussion about AOC as a potential 2028
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate, but as a foreign observer, who has spent
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in the U.S., I wonder whether
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a self-described democratic socialist could actually win nationally in a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: country historically skeptical of socialism. Separately, when King Harold's funeral
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: drew numerous heads of state, the U.S. sent State Department
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: official Alison Hooker rather than a high-profile representative. Do you
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: think there was any political significance to that decision? For
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: the record, Trump will never get the Nobel Prize either.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: That I can tell you. And he was using his
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Trump voice. Well, first of all, 100%, it was a
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: political statement. He absolutely holds the entire country and the
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: monarchy and the government. He blames them for not giving
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: him the Nobel Peace Prize. I know what many people
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: are rooting for. Mark Carney getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Now,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you could say he's done for peace,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: although I guess you could say trying to create a
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: middle powers check on the both authoritarian and wannabe authoritarian
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: superpowers is an attempt at creating sort of a bulwark
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: of sorts. But, you know, I think it's a reach
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: to give that. But you want to talk about a
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: political statement? That would be quite the political statement by
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: our friends in Norway. But the question itself on AOC, look,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: you're exactly right. I always use the example, Hilmar, where
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: I grew up. I grew up in Miami, Florida. And
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: Miami is home to a lot of dissidents who escaped
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: socialism in Latin America. And you grow up down there
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: and it is socialism and authoritarianism are synonyms. And so-
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I've always said it's a real geographic divide in this
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: country and the perception of socialism. The more... The further
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: south you go, the more skeptical of socialism. You get
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: the further north you go, the more open it is, right?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is a northern New England progressive. And so
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: democratic socialism seems perfectly normal to him. And So I think, look,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: I do think, look, that socialism is not as much
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of a negative as even I thought it would be
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: at this point. It is less of a negative today
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: than I ever would have thought it would be if
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: you'd asked me that three years ago. And I think
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: part of it is our skepticism about all of this
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: wealth that's been created in Silicon Valley that doesn't seem
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to be on the up and up and the weird valuation. So,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: you know, capitalism is a PR problem. And so the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: openness to other ideas, if they're socialistic ideas, fine. I think,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: so I think what you have here is a hybrid,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: but I do believe that if somebody with a lot of,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: that shares a lot of beliefs of somebody who's a
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: democratic socialist, they're not going to win if their answer is,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I want to pursue socialism, but they could win with
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: ideas that one might say is socialist ideas if they
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: call it an attempt to save capitalism, right? FDR did
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: not bring socialism to America. FDR was trying to save capitalism.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that if you're, that's the, that's the
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: frame with which you could sell it. And I think
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: there are certain things, right? On retirement security, we've decided
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: we're more in favor of democratic socialism. What's social security
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: but that? And I think increasingly on healthcare, we're more
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: open to a democratic socialist framework rather than a full
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: private capitalistic framework on that. So I think the population
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: itself is showing in specific areas, places where they're more
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: open to it. I forgot your PS because it fits
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: right into my college football. He goes, PS, I've been visiting.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I've been a visiting scholar at Texas A & M
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: since 2013. My first time there was right after Johnny
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Manziel won the Heisen. Gig him. Well, hey, good for you.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: But as you know, it's tough times for the old
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Aggies there. Things aren't looking well. So, look, the most
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: important game, obviously, on my calendar is Clemson. It's Miami
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: versus Clemson. I am, you know, Clemson beat Miami. One
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: of the more embarrassing beatdowns Miami got was, I think
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: it was in 2016. I want to say we lost,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of peak, it was peak Clemson at
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: that time. And I think they beat us at home
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: like 63 to zero or 63 to seven, something humiliating.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: And it was so bad and donors and boosters were
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: so angry that The administration correctly decided they had to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: fire Al Golden immediately. They did. And then that's when
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: we got Mark Richt, who was about to be pushed
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: out of Georgia. We were the soft landing. Mark Richt then,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: you know, basically the rebuilding of the Miami football program,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you know, as much as Mario Cristobal deserves a ton
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: of credit here, he did begin with Mark Richt, who
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: famously was one of the backup quarterbacks to Jim Kelly.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: for those of you keeping score at home. So Mark
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Rick always has a soft spot in my heart on
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: that front. I know I have a lot of Northwestern
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: grads that listen to this podcast, a lot of journalism pals,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: including my friend J.A. Donde, who I do Dynastic with.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: They're opening their new stadium. It's pretty exciting. And they're
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: hosting Penn State. You know, Northwestern has been kind of sneaky.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe they win seven or eight games. If
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: they do, it begins with knocking off Penn State. And
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Penn State's reeling a little bit, right? The first tough team,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: first power forward team they face, they lose. Last week
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: with Wisconsin. So I think the best game on the board,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: that isn't Miami Clemson. And I hope it's not a
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: good game. I don't want it to be a good game.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I would like to see Miami send a few messages
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: to Dabo. Dabo has not been a very great friend
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: of the program. He has used Miami as a punching bag,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: used our little brother up in Tallahassee as a punching bag.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: He hasn't been the friendliest guy. You know, we're all
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: in this together, Dabo, and trying to stop this SEC nonsense.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: And yet I think he was always just trying to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: get himself into the SEC. So I'd like to leave
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: a mark. I hope we're super focused. I think the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: last time we played Clemson, it was the first time
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I thought Cristobal was building something that I could believe in.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: It was the year before Cam Ward. We had a
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: backup quarterback. Things weren't great. But we basically, he knew
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: he didn't have the offensive firepower to beat Clemson. So
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: we just grinded it out. We forced it overtime game.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: And we just, we were physically tougher than Clemson. And
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: at that time, I think this is 20, right? So
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: what do we have here? 2023. And Clemson was still
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: sort of getting some of this benefit of doubt. And
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: we just physically beat them up in the fourth quarter.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: And it was like, oh, Mario is building the Miami
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: team that he had envisioned, that he grew up with,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: that he was a part of, where you better be
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: the stronger team at the end of the fourth quarter.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: And those Miami teams of the 80s and 90s always were.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: And I think you saw, particularly in the college football
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: playoff last year, that Miami was in there. But look,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: there are two games on the board that I think
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: are probably the most interesting games to me that do
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: not involve Miami. One is Alabama's trip to Stark, Vegas.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: I pointed this out to you a couple weeks ago.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Mississippi State's the fun story of September so far. So
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: this is now September has moved to October. Can Mississippi State,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: you know, is Cinderella still wearing the slipper on this one?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: The Cowbells are going to be out. This could be
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: a super high scoring game because while Mississippi State has
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: a quarterback that's just got a great nickname, Super Camario.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: His name's Camario Taylor, I believe. But what a cool nickname,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Super Camario. Alabama's can score some points with Keelan Russell.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, they put up a 50 burger on Florida State,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: even as Florida State scored 36 of their own. Point is,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: is that this could be just a highly entertaining game.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: And scheduling wise, I love it. It's a noon game.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: So that's a bummer for Mississippi State because Stark Vegas
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: in primetime, cowbells and booze, you know, a noon kick,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: which is really 11 a.m. kick in Stark Vegas. I'm
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: not saying they won't be primed and ready to go,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: but it isn't going to be the same level of Cowbell,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: I think, that you would have gotten if this had
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: been a night game. So Alabama's breathing a sigh. This
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: just should be a highly entertaining game. And obviously, if
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Mississippi State pulls this upset, you have to start thinking
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: about them as a playoff team. I don't think they
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: have the defense. I think they're an 8-9 win team
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: when all's said and done. My guess is Alabama will
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: outscore them and they'll end up pulling away late. But
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: that's why you play the game, right? The other intriguing
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: matchup is in the Big Ten. And it's Ohio State
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: traveling to Iowa. This is one of those on-paper games,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: neutral side. Ohio State should win this quite handily, right?
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: Yet Iowa does Iowa things, right? Iowa, you know, they
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of one or two stars that Kirk
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Ferentz figures out how to put in the right place
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: at the right time. They'll end up with some quirky
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: punt return, or they'll have the best punter in the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: league or the keep down in the, you know, what
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you got to love about Iowa. And, you know, I,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: I was one of my adopted home States. That's where
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: my dad grew up. So I claim it. A lot
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: of Todd's are buried in Iowa. So Iowa, I'm, I'm,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I'm partial to both Iowa schools. My grandparents went to
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Iowa state. My family grew up in the Eastern part
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: of the state. So, plenty of black and gold in
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: the Todd family as well. Iowa just plays smart, right?
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: They just out-discipline teams. They don't have the athletes. They
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: never have the athletes. You know, occasionally they find one
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: like a Cooper Djejin, right, who is super fast and,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: you know, doing pretty well in the NFL these days,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Eagles. But, you know, this is one of
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: those weird games where That if Ohio State isn't– look,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: if they can get to 20 points by halftime, they're
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: going to win the game and probably cover a double-digit spread.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: But if this is one of those 10-7 games at halftime, oh, man,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: it got– and they aisle it up. And then, you know,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Ryan Day in a close game in the fourth quarter,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: how confident are you, my friends in Ohio State land? Mr. Kasich,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: how confident are you in Mr. Day? In Iowa City,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, if it's a three-point game. So
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: it's possible Ohio State just steps on the gas and
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Iowa just doesn't have the athletes to keep up. It's possible.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: There is one other ranked versus ranked matchup, technically, because
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: for some, you know, the SEC bias, if you count AP,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: apparently they don't think there are other conferences. I don't
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: know why Missouri's ranked and Wake Forest isn't, right? Because
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Wake Forest has beaten teams. Missouri has not. Yes, they're 3-1,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: but the first tough team they play, they lose. They
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: lost to Mississippi State, but they still stayed at 25.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: They host Florida, and I will say this about Mizzou.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: And I got Mizzou in my family, too, so I
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: can't be totally over-trashing Mizzou, especially against the hated Gators.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Mizzou's a lot better at home than they are on
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: the road. They are, like, super Jekyll and Hyde on this, too.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: It feels like ever since they joined the SEC, they
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: can never win on the road, but nobody likes going...
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: to Columbia to try to beat them. And Florida is
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: riding high. This is one of those, if the market
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: is super high on Florida, super low on Missouri. So
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: if you care about those things, and some of us
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: are hobbyists that care about those things, that's the most
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: interesting part of this, is Mizzou getting too many points
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: at home. Other than that, those are my favorite games
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: of the weekend. Let me see anything else that is
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: totally jumping out at me. BYU, TCU. BYU, they sort
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: of pull rabbits out of their hat, but this is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: a road game. This one's in Fort Worth. TCU is
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: a pretty, this is a night game. And it's kind
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: of a, TCU was supposed to be better than this. This,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: you should get their best effort. Um, if BYU is
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: going to lose a game that isn't, you know, isn't
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: Texas tech or something like that, this is one I
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: would keep an eye on. Um, so that's of, of, of,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: of small interest to me. And then boy, that is.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: Indiana is going to blow out Rutgers, right? They struggled
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: with Northwestern. They're not going to struggle with Rutgers, right?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: At Rutgers USC struggle, but they're not right. Right. Indiana. Right.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: I think I think that, but after watching, Indiana did
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: not look very disciplined against Northwestern last week. That did
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: not look like the Cignetti's teams that we've gotten used to.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of weird, small mistakes. Part of me assumes
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: that Cignetti isn't going to let his team do that
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: two weeks in a row. So I have a feeling
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to be Greg Sciano's Rutgers Scarlet Knights
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: this week when Cignetti's just Google me. Indiana Hoosiers show up.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: So we'll see. All right. With that, um, I should
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: be talking about it. It's Packers bears week. And you
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: know how bad the Packers bears matchup has gotten to
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: the NFL. It's already been flexed back into the one
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: o'clock time slot. That's what's happened to both the Packers
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: and the bears. Nobody apparently wants to see, uh, Jordan
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: love gets sacked every down. And, um, Chicago and Green
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Bay playing some sort of 17-16 game. That makes nobody happy.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: But with that, I will enjoy the college football weekend.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: I am headed to Kansas City. If I see some
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: of you at the Pointer event, I look forward to that.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: And if not, I will see you back here on Monday.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for liking. Thanks
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: for caring. about what we're doing here. I'm just trying
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: to offer up politics for the rest of us. See you, Mike.