Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - We’ve Entered End-Stage Trump + Voters Are Aligning With Democratic Policies

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Chuck’s Commentary - We’ve Entered End-Stage Trump + Voters Are Aligning With Democratic Policies · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
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  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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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: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
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  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
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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: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
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  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
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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.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
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  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. 3-9-8-5. Hello there
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and happy Monday for those of you that are listening
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: after you have finished your fast. I hope you had
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: an easy fast. I hope you were able to atone.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I know every year I always have a lot to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: atone for. I am doing this recording before and actually
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  Speaker 1: most of it is about What the current president and frankly,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: what all of us have to atone for when it
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: comes to the future of this country and future of
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  Speaker 1: the republic. But I will wait to get into that.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So at a minimum, though, I hope you have an E.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: For those of you fasting, I hope it was an
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  Speaker 1: easy fast. But I come to you. I have a
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  Speaker 1: terrific lineup. Today, I'm going to go through sort of
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: this numbness to the crazy that I constantly fear that
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  Speaker 1: we're in. I've got some more data to support what
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  Speaker 1: appears to be a wave that is building, right? It's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: like watching the tropical depression form in the Atlantic. And
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: now you're like, whoa, this might be bigger than we think. Oh,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: this isn't going to be a category one hurricane. Could
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: be category two, could be category three. here this far
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: out and we're under 50 days right uh the likelihood
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of this being a category three or worse for the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: republicans uh it's using taking my weather metaphor and beating
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it to death with apologies to my daughter the meteorologist
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: um i it's what it looks like right now but
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: as we know 44 days is a long time to
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: go in politics but anyway we will have a uh
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  Speaker 1: uh i think you will enjoy this package that I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: put together here. Oh, and one more thing. One more thing. I, unfortunately,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: am dealing with yet another kidney stone. And I was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: on Saturday night, I was in Frederick, Maryland, to tape
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a program with an old friend of mine, Russ Hodge.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: He has a program that's on Maryland Public Television called
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Intellectual Property. And we did an hour-long conversation at the
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  Speaker 1: Weinberg Theater in downtown Frederick, Maryland, just a terrific theater.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I love, you know, when I get out to Frederick,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: it is just a wonderful town out there. And it
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: was a terrific crowd. And I felt terrible because I literally,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the stone started to make its presence known to me
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: about 10 minutes before I went on stage. So I'm
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: sitting in this chair and I'm doing this. When you've
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: got anybody who's ever experienced it, you just start, you know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: when you just have a pain you can't get rid
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: of and you're having to be in public so you
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: can't exactly just start pounding away at pain. pain medication.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, I was an hour's drive
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: away and I had to drive home. So let's just say,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what I said. I know some things
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that I said, you'll be able to catch a pain
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: altered Chuck Todd on, on the intellectual property show. Russ
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: tells me that it was, it was a great program.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I hope he's correct. But I want to apologize in
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: advance for my kidney stone deciding to pop up when
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: it did. And for those of you that are listening
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to this podcast for the first time, because I saw
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  Speaker 1: you in Frederick, Maryland on Saturday night, welcome. And thank
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you for being here. And I'm sorry that I was
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: a bit distracted when I would answer certain questions. There
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: is nothing like just dealing with constant sharp pain as
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you're trying to ask a answer a question about whether
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  Speaker 1: the republic will still stand. All right. So with all
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  Speaker 1: of that out of the way, let's let's begin with
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: what I'm what I'm focused on in the moment. We
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  Speaker 1: are 44 days from Election Day and Donald Trump is
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: worried about turning his triumphal arch into a weapons depot. Snipers, drones, ammunition.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, right? You know, sometimes I feel like
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I shit you not. Apologies for
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the cursing on this, but sometimes you feel like you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: have no choice but to use an expletive for dealing
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: with all the expletives that go inside our head when
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: we see this crazy stuff that Trump will actually utter
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  Speaker 1: out loud. But seriously, put this in context. 44 days
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: before an election, with the economy struggling, diesel's going to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: hit $ 7 a gallon, maybe this week, probably next. An
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Iran war that the public increasingly doesn't support. Republicans are
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: beginning to panic about races they didn't think they'd have
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  Speaker 1: to worry about. And what is Donald Trump focused on?
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  Speaker 1: On putting snipers in his arch. That is actually what
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  Speaker 1: he announced on Sunday morning. Think about he's consumed with this.
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  Speaker 1: What can he do with this arch? And he knows
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  Speaker 1: nobody likes it. Nobody's going to give him permission to
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  Speaker 1: do it. And if he hides it behind some... bizarre
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  Speaker 1: national security idea that somehow it will get the funding.
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  Speaker 1: It's like he's going to look. The last thing we
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: need is to steal more funding from the Pentagon. He
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: keeps stealing money from the Pentagon. Remember, he stole it
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: from the Pentagon last time to help build his wall.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe that's why we're short on munitions in fighting a war,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: because we keep taking money that belongs to the Pentagon
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  Speaker 1: and putting it for his vanity ideas and vanity projects
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: like a wall or this bizarre arch that he's obsessed with.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But there is something pretty revealing about all this. And
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  Speaker 1: I think this is the important point. When Donald Trump
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: feels as if he's losing control of a situation, he
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: grabs for something he thinks he can control, right? The
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  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the press and access for the press.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Who gets into the White House? Who gets access to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon, right? What gets built in Washington, D.C.? And
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: now his art. So when his reality is being challenged
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: by actual reality, which is the world we're living in
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: at the moment, he lashes out, right? It's kind of
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a pattern and it's weirdly predictable. And we do need
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to talk about his behavior. I mean, it's just a
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: given now we know, man, we've got a crackpot president
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  Speaker 1: who is so consumed with his own id that he
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't know how to govern the country anymore. And we're
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: just hoping that there are enough people around him to
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  Speaker 1: keep him from doing the truly crazy shit. Right? Trust me,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people in Washington going, oh,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Susie Wiles, please don't leave the White House. Because I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: know there is a lot more he would be doing
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or trying to do if there weren't some people. And look,
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  Speaker 1: there are fewer people that are willing to stop him
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  Speaker 1: from his crazy than ever before. But there's still some
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: people in that White House that do try to do this. Now,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I vacillated on how much to zero
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: in on Trump's personality and his clear behavioral problems. because
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not his doctor and I don't know what personality
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: disorder he has or doesn't have, but he certainly behaves
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like somebody with a massive personality disorder. But frankly, I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: don't have to diagnose him to describe what we can
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  Speaker 1: all see, right? If somebody in your life behaved this way,
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  Speaker 1: if every person who told them no became an enemy,
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  Speaker 1: if every criticism became an attack, if every setback required
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  Speaker 1: somebody to blame, every institution that challenged them had to
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: be punished, every person who disagreed with them became disloyal
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  Speaker 1: or treasonous, you'd be alarmed. You'd be like, you'd probably
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: avoid that person. And if it were a family member,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: you'd be reaching out to people that you think could
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: influence him and say, hey, I think he needs help.
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  Speaker 1: He or she needs help. You certainly wouldn't think, you
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: know what this person needs? More authority. And that's the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: thing about Trump's behavior. Because sometimes it's irrational, but it's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: consistently irrational. It's like he's always inauthentic, but he's authentically inauthentic.
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  Speaker 1: In this case, he's consistently irrational. So it's weirdly predictable,
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  Speaker 1: his irrationality. And when the irrational behavior becomes this predictable,
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  Speaker 1: when you know exactly what's going to happen, every time
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  Speaker 1: this person is challenged, that's when it becomes actually quite scary.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Look what happened with the press. Trump decided he didn't
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like CNN, MSNOW, and Politico's coverage. So he banned them
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: from the White House. And yesterday, actually Sunday, I'm taping
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: on Saturday, I'm taping on Sunday before the fast. Their
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: reporters actually showed up and had their press passes confiscated
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and were turned away. It's childlike, right? I mean, you're
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: not nice to me. You can't come in. except we're
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: not at a 10-year-old's birthday party. It's the White House.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: It's not his house. It does not belong to him.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And we've seen this behavior with him before, especially when
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  Speaker 1: he knows that something's turning against him. In 2020, when
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: he realized the election was going against him, he decided
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to create this fantasy that somehow mail-in ballots were going
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to rig the election against him because he knew the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: election was against him. So he had to come up
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with a rationale for why he lost because he knew
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: he was going to lose. This is what happens when
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you have the broken personality disorder that he probably has.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: But think back in 2018, right? Remember the caravan? Republicans
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: were in trouble in the midterms and suddenly Donald Trump
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: manufactured and even like got Fox News and others to
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: cover this supposedly a caravan of migrants who were going
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to invade the country at the southern border. It kind
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of worked, right? It helped him with his own voters
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: enough that it saved a couple of Senate seats and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: kept the Senate from flipping to Democratic hands in 2018.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: They still got wiped out in the House, but it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: did have some impact. But here's what's different now. In 2018,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Trump could turn to his voters and say, hey, they're coming.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: They're going to do this. Democrats are going to do that.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: But we're at the end stages of Trump, right? And
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the It is both– it's obvious like we're all sort
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of done with him. Even people that have voted for
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: him are just like exhausted from all of this garbage
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and this or that. But it's at this end point
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: that he could be the most dangerous and that is something.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: But he's having to defend his own government. This is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: his economy, his tariffs, his Iran war, his immigration policies.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: All of these are his decisions. And there's only so
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: much Jedi mind tricking he can do when people are
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: living inside the reality you're trying to convince them isn't real.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to a new NBC News poll that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: hit over the weekend. And I always want to spend
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a little time on this NBC poll. They have two
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: different pollsters. And I always want to spend a lot
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: more time when they have my old friends Bill McInturff
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: and Jeff Horat put one of their surveys together for NBC.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: They only do a couple of them a year now
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: for budget reasons at NBC. But I know this poll
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: really well. I trust these guys. I know it inside
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and out. The way this poll is conducted today is
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: something I feel like I had a hand in. So
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I care about it a lot. I know how these
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: guys work. I know how hard they work to keep
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: their survey grounded in the reality of the electorate we
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: live in, not the one partisans may hope exists. They
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: don't let the NBC poll bounce around all over the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: place because one demographic group suddenly answers at a higher
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: rate or another group becomes harder to reach. Right. There's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of like there's some Idaho poll that's out
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that showed Todd Achilles, the independent candidate, up double digits
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: on Jim Rich. And you're like, oh, then you look
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: at the methodology and 90 percent of the voters surveyed
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: were text to web. Well, text to web methodology skews
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: very democratically. So if you want to put out a
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: poll that looks really good for Democrats, you do a
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: text-to-web poll, and you don't modify it with other weights
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: or modify it with other methodologies. My point is that
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Jeff Horwitz and Bill McInturff are constantly concerned about essentially
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: methodology bias, meaning how you conduct the poll can end
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: up skewing which part of the electorate gets over-indexed or under-indexed.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So that's what I mean when they don't let their
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: poll bounce around. They really try to have a rigidity
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to it, just like what Nate Cohn's trying to do
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: at the New York Times with the Siena poll. He's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: vastly improved New York Times polling over the last couple
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of cycles. Essentially, I think following the model that my
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: friends at both POS and Heart Research have been working
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: on for over a decade. So when their numbers move
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: even a little, you need to pay attention. For instance,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: they have Trump's job rating at 41%. And you think, oh, 41,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that must be good. In this poll, it's the lowest
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: they've recorded all year, right? It was 42 in June,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: 44 in March, 47 in March of last year. So
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a consistent trend line pointing in a downward direction. But
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that's not actually what makes this poll interesting to me.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You can get Trump's approval rating anywhere and the trend
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: line is consistent. You know, the numbers may be slightly different,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: which is why averaging is such a weirdly bad idea
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: even with this because different methodologies, you know, produce. But
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the fact is the trend lines are the same. But
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: here's a part I want you to pay attention to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: in this poll. Bill and Jeff gave voters a series
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: of things you could learn about candidates running for office
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: this year, basically message testing. And then they ask, does
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: learning this make you more likely or less likely to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: vote for that candidate? What it really tests is which
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: issues are popping. What has what has voter attention? Essentially,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they created a little laboratory for the political environment we're
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: about to live through for the next six weeks. What
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: works in an attack ad? What doesn't? What would you
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: want voters to learn about you in these last six weeks?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: What would you desperately hope your opponent doesn't tell them?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And the results are both reinforcing of what I believe
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this political environment is shaping up to be. But. But
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, they're, I think, matter
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: for you to understand. The best performing item in the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: entire survey, the thing that makes people more likely to
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: vote for a candidate than any other issue they tested,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a candidate who supports raising taxes on billionaires. 58% said
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that makes them more likely to vote for a candidate.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Only 24% say less likely. All right. If you wanted
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to know, are people pissed off at the super rich?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The answer is yes. Number two. The second best performing,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a candidate who supports Medicare for all, a single-payer healthcare system, 53%
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: more likely, 36% less likely. The fact that this is
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: becoming more of a mainstream idea, and they did it
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: as a split sample, even when you put Medicare for all,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: which would include taxes, New tax increases. Support still is
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: almost right. It's at 49%. But it's still double digit,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: more likely over less likely. That's how frustrated the public
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: is with the health care system as it stands. They want,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: they are willing to have something different. And that's how strong,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, the Medicare brand is. When you put
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Medicare in front of anything, there's automatically more trust. Hey,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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• 19:39
  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. Number three, third
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: best performing message. A candidate who supports essentially the DACA policy,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: who supports allowing young adults who were brought here illegally
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: by their parents when they were children to stay here
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: legally and attend college or work. 51% say they're more
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: likely to support a candidate who does that. 31% less likely. So,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It's a reminder that many Americans think what he's done
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: with ICE and immigration has gone too far. The three
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: best performing things, though, in this entire battery are taxing billionaires,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Medicare for all, and let the dreamers stay. That's shaping
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: up to be quite the issue environment and what's favorable, right?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: These are all three positions much more associated with Democrats
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and Republicans. And that tells you a lot about this
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: current political environment. Now, there's another side to this that Democrats...
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: shouldn't miss. The Democratic Party itself, still unpopular, really unpopular.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Only 29% of a positive view of the Democratic Party, 50%
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of a negative view. Now, part of that is driven
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: by Democrats who don't like the Democratic Party at the moment.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt that some of that, but it still
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: means the Democratic Party is more unpopular than the Republican Party.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Republican Party is not popular. Only 36% are positive, 49%
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: are negative. but it's technically slightly less unpopular than the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. By the way, Trump's positive negative, 37% positive, 55% negative.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And MAGA and Democratic Socialists are both unpopular. MAGA's at
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: 30 positive, 52% negative. The DSA is at 22 positive, 50% negative.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So this is why I'm more confident about Democrats doing
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: well this year and less confident about Democrats doing well
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: in 2028, right? This is not an election about the
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. This is a referendum on Donald Trump and
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: his policies, pure and simple. And so in that sense,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think the concerns that maybe independents have with Democrats,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: even some– whether it's progressive Democrats not liking the leadership
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: or center-left Democrats not liking the progressive shift, however you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: want to describe it. in some ways that fracture isn't
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: animating this election. Now, Republicans are going to try to
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: make a big deal out of this. You saw it.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: If you watched your college football this weekend, you saw
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of, you've seen this big money that's
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: been dropped on the heads of, of a bunch of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Democrats in some of these key States. And they all
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: kind of have the same theme. You know, like I
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: saw one hitting Jared Brown, essentially they're saying you may
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like him, but remember he's with these extremists on the left.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was essentially the message of the ad. Um,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: But I think that's a problem for another day, right?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: For this election, this is more referendum than anything else. Now,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: let me keep going back through the poll. A candidate
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: who supports deporting undocumented immigrants is more popular than not,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: but not at 50%. 45% are more likely to support
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a candidate who supports deporting undocumented immigrants, 39% less likely. Now,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: how about this? A Barack Obama endorsement, 43% more likely, 37%
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: less likely. The candidate that supported Trump's tax bill, that's
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: upside down. 36% said it makes it more likely, 42%
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: less likely. The Big Beautiful Bill is a net negative,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: according to this NBC poll. Let me repeat, the Big
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Bill is a net negative as far, talk about
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: your messaging problem right there. And you know, Republicans only
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: have their leader to blame. Donald Trump is more focused
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: on the Kennedy Center, his arch, his ego, his fragile feelings.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: He doesn't know how to sell an agenda on behalf
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of congressional Republicans. It is an unpopular agenda, and he
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't even try to sell it. Now, a little word
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of warning here, abolish ICE. Well, that goes the other way.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: A majority would be less likely to support a candidate.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: That's for abolish ICE. So it is a reminder here.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Like when you go through these things, you realize there
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is a left skew to where the country is, but
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: they don't want to go too far to the left.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Abolishing ICE is something that is considered a bit too
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: far as far as this folks are concerned. Bernie Sanders
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: endorsement is a slight net negative in this survey. 33%
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: said it's more likely, 43% less likely. A candidate who
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: supports many of the DSA's policies, 31% more likely, 50%
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: less likely Now, that corresponds with a candidate endorsed by
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, 30% more likely, 52% less likely. So think
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: about that one, right? House Republicans apparently have decided that
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: socialist isn't scary enough anymore. And that sort of proves it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: A Trump endorsement is worse than being associated with socialism.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So Lisa McClain, who's chair of the House Republican Conference,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: actually has said this out loud. She's seen similar polling.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And she says, socialist doesn't work. Socialism doesn't really scare
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: voters the way Republicans are hoping it does. And she
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: admitted it. She said in an interview with Axios that
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: socialism doesn't really resonate. So she thinks Republicans should not
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: ever say the word socialism, that instead talk about communism.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. And the poll kind of support this. But
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: there's a few other things. There's a few other things
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that I think matter here a lot. because Trump is
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in this message testing. Listen to this one. A candidate
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: who supports providing funding and weapons to Israel, 25% more likely, 55%
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: less likely. What did Donald Trump agree to do two
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: weeks ago? Just that, provide more funding and weapons to Israel.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: A candidate who supports the war in Iran, 57% say
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that makes them less likely to support that. In fact,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that in some ways is the second best performing issue
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and better performing than even tax on billionaires. That's how
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: unpopular this war with Iran is. 57% said it makes
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: them less likely. By the way, the $ 5, 000 promise or bribe,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, vote Republican, keep Republicans
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: in control of Congress, and he'll send every adult a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: $ 5, 000 check. Only 21% said somebody supporting that idea makes
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: them more likely to vote for the candidate. 46% said
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: somebody supporting that idea would make them less likely. So
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the bribe is not even playing very well either, right?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: But here's the one that I think floored me because
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I thought Iran war would be the worst performing issue.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't Iran, Israel, Trump, abolishing high socialism. The
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: single worst thing to be for is data centers. A
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: candidate who supports building a data center in your community
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Only 11% says that makes them more likely to support them. 64%
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: said it makes them less likely. So the worst thing
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you could be for this election cycle is for data centers.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: When you go through this battery of tests, it is
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: worse to be for a data center than to be
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: for socialism. It is worse to be for a data
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: center than to be MAGA. It is worse to be
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for data centers than to support Donald Trump. That's how
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: unpopular data centers become. How about that? It is, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: all of these are Donald Trump supported ideas, right? He
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: wants more data centers. He's supporting the war with Iran.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Everything he supports is unpopular. Hard stop. Even his big,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: beautiful bill. It is all unpopular. So, whoo. So for
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: all the talk from Washington and Silicon Valley about the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: AI race and how we've got to build, build, build,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and everybody better get out of the way because China, China, China. Well,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the public apparently has a message, not in my backyard.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it's a strange week for Trump
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to be promoting his relationship with China and Xi Jinping
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: while telling the country that everything we're doing on AI
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: has to be justified by beating China. I think this is,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: it's like, can you imagine a worse, you know, less
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: than 45 days for the election? the boogeyman that Republicans
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have been running against for a long time, that the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: country collectively is concerned about, he's going to be essentially
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a lapdog to. He's going to be, you know, he's
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: decided to go meet Xi Jinping when he lands at
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the airport. Not something every, not every world leader gets
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of presidential welcome. I'm not sure this is
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: good politics for his party to be essentially drinking and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: hanging out and celebrating China at this moment. And at
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the same time, he's telling you they're a threat. Anyway,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: so put all these messages together. Tax billionaires, very popular.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Medicare for all, popular. Dreamers staying popular. Iran war, very unpopular.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Weapons for Israel, very unpopular. A Trump endorsement, unpopular. Data centers,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: astonishingly unpopular. That is the environment Republicans are campaigning in.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And now look at their behavior. Because this is what
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I've been telling you. Sometimes politicians tell you more about
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: their political environment by what they do than what they say. Suddenly,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you had two Republicans, as I noted last week, in
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Iowa joining Democrats on the War Powers Resolution. You have
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Maria Salazar in South Florida looking into the camera and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: directly rebuking Trump's immigration policies. And now you even have
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: one of the leaders in the House Republicans, Lisa McClain,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Telling Republican candidates two things. Don't gaslight voters on inflation.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: And if your district tells you you to deviate from
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, trust your district. She actually said, I have
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to trust the members to do what they think is
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: right in their district. This is now going to be
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: open season. This is now a permission slip. I think
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks, you're going to see more
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans who are feeling desperate, in these swing districts, in
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: these swing states, try to actively find ways to oppose
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Trump on something. The permission structure has been built. Even
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a member of the House Republican leadership is saying it
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: out loud. If you need to run away from Trump,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: run away from Trump. We're not going to pull your funding.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: That's what they're saying. Do what you have to do.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And why is she doing it? Because they know. They
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: know the Jedi mind tricks aren't working. You can't tell
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: people the economy is great when they don't think it's great.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: You can't blame Joe Biden for the Iran war. Everything
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: about the rise in gas prices, inflation is now all
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: his policies. You can't tell somebody Donald Trump has nothing
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to do with what's happening when Donald Trump is president.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: And apparently you can't tell somebody they're going to love
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the giant data center you're putting next door when 64% say,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: please don't. So this wave is showing up in the polls.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: But more importantly, it's showing up in the behavior of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians. And every week it feels like another race
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that looked like an outlier suddenly doesn't look like an
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: outlier anymore. Texas governor, this is a real race. Greg
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Abbott is in serious trouble. We see why. Isn't it
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: obvious now why he flip-flopped on data centers? Just look
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: at this polling, right? He may survive, but Republicans having
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to worry about the Texas governor's race tells you something
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: all by itself. And if Abbott is struggling, Ken Paxton
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: has a much bigger problem. And keep an eye on
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the money that so far Republicans have spent and have
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: promised to Paxton. They haven't committed that kind of money
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: in the month of October just yet. And I have
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to tell you, I have a feeling that now that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you have other races that are coming onto the scene
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that probably are winnable with a little bit of extra money,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Paxton's race looks more unwinnable all the time. I'm not
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: saying they're going to walk completely away. but I don't
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: think they're going to... It's just like with Georgia, North Carolina.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: They're going to start to prioritize Kansas, Iowa. They may
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: even prioritize a Minnesota or a New Hampshire to see
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: if they can catch Democrats off guard. They're going to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: do anything they can to try to mitigate what is
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: turning into a huge problem, particularly in the Sun Belt
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: for them. So I wouldn't be surprised if Paxton is
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: just going to end up not totally going it alone
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in the month of October, but that he doesn't have
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the reinforcements that he appears to have at the moment.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Because look, Kansas Senate is real. It's real enough that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Republicans are having to pay attention to it. And Roger
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Marshall just seems lost about what to do. And it's funny,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you see this every once in a while in a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: wave years that somebody who you never expected to lose
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: gets a taste of you know, gets punched in the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: mouth for the first time and suddenly you realize, oh,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: they got a glass jaw. And he's not sure, you
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: could tell, he doesn't know what to do. He's never
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: been a really good political athlete. And I think he's
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: making a huge mistake already. He keeps, he's bringing in
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: national Republicans to rescue him. John Kennedy was most recently
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: there and he might be a cheerier person to bring
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: onto the campaign trail than vice president like was last week.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: But if the national political environment is your problem, I'm
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: not sure nationalizing your race is the solution. Kansas agriculture
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: is being hurt by Trump's policies directly. Kansas manufacturing is
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: being hurt by Trump's tariffs with Canada and trade war
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: with Canada directly. Marshall ought to be trying to figure
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: out some way to demonstrate independence from Washington. And instead,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: he's demonstrating over-reliance on it. But the problem he's got
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: is he doesn't have much of a record of independence
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: to work with. I mean, Jerry Moran is a Republican.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: He's a conservative. But he puts Kansas before his politics.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And he's constantly done that. It's why Jerry Moran has
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: been in the Senate and been in the House for
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: as long as he has. And look, but it's what
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: happens in wave environments. They expose the bad political athletes, right?
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Every wave election can do this. You suddenly you're like, oh, wow,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: they can't handle it. Totally unprepared, totally off guard. And
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: he strikes me as a candidate, totally unprepared, completely caught
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: off guard. And then he just doesn't have the personality
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: for this. He doesn't have– Dr. Marshall doesn't have the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: bedside manner for this as we're finding out. We'll see.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: He could survive. But to say doubt is creeping in
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: my head more and more, I believe Kansas is more
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: likely to flip now than Iowa. Look at an Ashley Hinson.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall wants to be seen with the vice president.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson comes to– J.D. Vance comes to Iowa and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson, no, I can't quite make it. She's trying
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to demonstrate some independence. She is somebody who's been in
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: a swing district her entire congressional career and knows what
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: swing voters want to hear and don't want to hear.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Her political instincts tell me she at least knows how
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to survive in a political environment like this. If she does,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it also tells me a lot about what kind of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: formidable senator she could become and formidable leader in the
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Republican Party she could become. Now, maybe she doesn't survive either,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: but she's got a better chance than Roger Marshall does,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: in my opinion. So, but there's this other piece of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: all this that I don't want us to lose. And
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: it goes back to what I said at the top,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: because Trump's lashing out as his political situation deteriorates. And
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it isn't merely a campaign story. There's a cost to
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the country every time he does this. And I do
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: worry we've become numb. And we talk about this all
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the time, particularly the press. A president deciding which news
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: organizations deserve access based on whether they're nice to him.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: or the Justice Department, his personal lawyer becoming attorney general
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and openly participating in partisan politics. The Pentagon, less transparency,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: less independent press access, information about military operations and casualties
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: are being hidden, increasingly controlled. I mean, this is, you know, hey,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth, Bob McNamara wants his Pentagon back. I mean,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you really are, you're trying to become the worst defense
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: secretary in American history. Congratulations. The McNamara family is probably
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: ecstatic that they're no longer going to be seen as
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the bottom. The Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the president trying
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to exert control of the country's arts and history, that's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: propaganda shit. And that's something that we would absolutely criticize
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: another country for trying to do this. Birthright citizenship, a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: president trying to overturn one of the basic constitutional understandings
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: of who gets to be an American, his political opponents
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: when he regularly calls them fellow Americans, traitors, treasonous criminals,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: people who ought to be arrested or deported or eliminated
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: from public life simply because they don't share his perverted ideology.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Look what he's done to public health. Scientific institutions increasingly
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: subjected to ideological and political control. And he's got a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: guy who himself may be mentally unstable. He has admitted
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a worm might have eaten part of his brain. Either
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: that is the case or he's made it up. Either way,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that should scare the bejesus out of us that he's
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: in charge of public health. And the abuse of emergency
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: powers used as substitutes for Congress, right? He's illegally stolen
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: money from American taxpayers through tariffs and then cried and
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: whined about it when the courts say you have to
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: give the taxpayers back their money. Look what he's done
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: to the civil service. He has this assumption that government
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: employees work work for him, not the United States. Inspectors General,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: independent watchdogs pushed aside. He's tried to use government funding
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: to pressure universities, to changing ideologies, not changing behavior, changing ideologies.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: He's abused the line between civilian and military with the Pentagon,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: nevermind allowing some religious zealot to become head of the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Pentagon and pervert our military by infusing some weird religious
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: tests into it. I could keep going. And that's the point.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: It's the totality of the damage that Trump has created here.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Imagine if I read you that list and told you
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: it was happening in Hungary or Turkey. Oh, wait, it did.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Small democracy somewhere else in the world. What would we say? Well,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: we'll say what we actually did say about Hungary. And
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: what we do believe about Turkey, that democracy was in trouble.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And then the people finally said enough is enough and hungry.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: But in Turkey, we'd say the institutions are being weakened
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: because they have been. We'd say its leader is behaving
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: like somebody who wants fewer restraints on his power. Again,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: what we've said about Turkey, we'd use the word authoritarianism.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: So I don't think the interesting question is, has Donald
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Trump successfully become an authoritarian? Obviously, there are things he
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: wants to do. That our system still prevents him from doing.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: The courts still can stop him. Congress sometimes stops him.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: States have had the ability to stop him. The Constitution
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: serves as the instruction manual for how to restrain him.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: The question, though, is whether he wants any of those restraints.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty clear. I mean, it's scary that we
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: elected a president who does not believe in our constitution.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Just think about that. If I told you we elected
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a president that doesn't believe in our constitution, and I
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: said we were gonna do this before 2016, you'd say
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I was crazy. And yet we did exactly that. And
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: then we elected this guy a second time. But I
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: do think his behavior answers this question over and over again.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: He doesn't want any restraints. He has no interest in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: advancing the success of this constitutional republic. And this is
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: where the scale of the repair project post-Trump begins to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: hit me. Because eventually somebody is going to have to
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: repair all of this. And repairing a policy is relatively easy.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: A future president can change tariffs. Congress can quickly change
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: immigration policy. Another HHS secretary can change public health policy.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: But norms are much harder to repair because Trump now
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: has taught every future president something. A lot of the
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: things we thought presidents couldn't do weren't things presidents couldn't do.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: They were things presidents had simply decided they shouldn't do.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: And that's a gigantic difference. Maybe there wasn't actually a guardrail.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe there was simply a president who thought, you know what,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: you just shouldn't do that. And once one president discovers
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the difference between can't and shouldn't, every future president knows
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: it too. Which means some of these things are going
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: to have to be codified. What independence should the Justice
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Department have? We probably have to change the appointment process here.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Presidents can't be allowed unilateral control over who gets to
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: be attorney general, let alone acting attorney general. What protection
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: should inspectors generals have? What constitutes retaliation against the press?
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: How much power should presidents have over money Congress has appropriated?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: What are the real limits of emergency authority? Now, a
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: lot of this would be solved if we had a
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: series of speakers of the House who understood that the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: legislative branch was Article I. But since Newt Gingrich, every
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: speaker of the House has decided to succumb to the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: executive branch. Yes, Nancy Pelosi, too. She did not change
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the crappy arrangement that Newt Gingrich created, bringing all power
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to leadership and taking away all power from individual members
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: of Congress and committee chairs. That decision by Newt Gingrich
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and then the decision by Nancy Pelosi to keep that
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: system is what has weakened Congress to the point that
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: has allowed Donald Trump to run roughshod over the republic.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Keep that in mind. This was bipartisan atrophy. congressional leaders.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: But look, we've got a lot of work to do.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: What conflict of interest laws should apply to presidents? Where
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: are the lines and domestic use of military power? What
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: protections does the civil service need? We have to rethink
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: all of this because we are not simply going to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: have to undo Donald Trump's nutty policies. We're going to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: have to rebuild some of the architecture that prevented presidents
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: from behaving this way in the first place. Now, I
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: know some of my friends on the right might hear
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: this laundry list and say, you know, this just, you know,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: you're What's with this diatribe against Trump? This is not partisan.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And criticizing him doesn't make you a partisan. Donald Trump
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: is the one that has partisanized the Constitution. He's partisanized criticism.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: That's on him. Standing up for the First Amendment shouldn't
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: be partisan. Standing up for an independent justice department is
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: not a partisan act. Standing up for the idea that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: your political opponent isn't a traitor shouldn't be a partisan decision.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: There's a really simple test for all of this. Go
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: through this list I've done and substitute the words Trump
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: with Barack Obama. President Obama bans Fox News from the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: White House because he doesn't like its coverage. President Obama
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: takes control of the Kennedy Center and wants to put
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: his name on it. President Obama pressures the Smithsonian to
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: change how it presents American history. President Obama uses the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Justice Department to investigate his personal political enemies. President Obama
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: regularly calls Republican opponents traitors and talks about arresting them.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: How would the right have reacted? We actually know something
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: about this. During the Obama administration, somebody in the Obama
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: White House tried to exclude Fox from a network pool
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: interview of Treasury officials. Myself and others representing the other
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: news organizations and members of the pool said, we're not
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: participating in this if you're going to exclude a member
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: of the pool. And we said, if Fox doesn't get
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the same access, we're not going to participate in this event.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't do it because I agreed with Fox. I
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: did it because their First Amendment rights were my First
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Amendment rights. And I'm glad I did it. I'm disappointed
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that some of the people whose rights I stood up
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: for and whose credibility I handed to them, you know
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: who I'm talking about, Brad, that they haven't reciprocated as
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: forcefully as they could. Now, I understand he's got pressures,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: he's got bosses, and he's got a president who will
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: go to his bosses and his bosses will never stand
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: up for him. We know this, unfortunately. But I'm still
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: not sorry I stood up for him or that news organization.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Because that's what pluralism requires, folks. You don't defend somebody's
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: rights because you like them. You defend them because they're rights.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: John Adams taught us all this, folks, a long time ago.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And that brings us back to where we started. 44 days.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Trump knows things aren't going well. Republicans on the ballot
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: know things aren't going well. The NBC message tests show
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you just how difficult this environment has become. for many
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: of the things Trump wants Republicans campaigning on. So he's
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: reached for the things he thinks he can control, press
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: access to the White House, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: his arch, and he's searching for the next culture war
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: boogeyman that might somehow change the subject. I think he's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: hoping that somehow this becomes a debate about the liberal
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: media and that it will Jedi mind trick his supporters
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and that they'll somehow forget that the massive tax, the
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Trump tax on their everyday lives is not there anymore.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe he does find one. He did it before the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: caravan sort of worked. It certainly cost Claire McCaskill her reelection.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: But this time he's got a much bigger problem. He's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: not running against a hypothetical Democratic presidency. He's running against
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: people's own experience with his own presidency. You can try
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to Jedi mind trick voters about a lot of things.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: But eventually, reality gets about. This episode of the Chuck
• 46:33
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• 48:04
  Speaker 1: am a customer. By the way, I hope you catch a,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I reposted it on my X feed. If you want
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to take a look at it, Chris Sims, who I
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: know does some or has done some that works for
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: NBC sports. A rant of his about sort of Ted
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Cruz and the protect college sports bill has gone viral,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: at least with us sports fans. And he just nailed it.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, he's like, this idea that college
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: sports is in trouble doesn't actually match what the data says, right?
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: More people are watching college football than ever. It's making
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: more money. More people are attending games. It seems as
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: if the only people upset about what's happening to college
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: sports are those that are upset that the players are
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: getting paid. That was basically his point. And he said
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: this whole collective corporate support in this attempt to try
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: to create this idea that college football is way too
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: chaotic are just people trying to protect old turf. And
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: he called out the SEC and the Big Ten in
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: particular because they don't want, what they want is they
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: want congressional protection so that they don't have fair market
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: value for TV rights, fair market value for players. They
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: don't want a fair market. That's what the conferences don't want.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: And you know who else doesn't want it? ESPN and Fox,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: because they are underpaying for college football and they know it.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: They are making a killing on college football. The NFL,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Because you don't negotiate with a conference, you don't negotiate
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: with a division. The NFL, if you want some of it,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: you got to take the Jacksonville Jaguars every once in
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: a while. If college football ever creates a system like
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that where the TV fees are negotiated for the entire
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Division I as one, the supremacy of the SEC and
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten get challenged and ESPN and Fox stop
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: getting a discount. on their rights on that. Look, this
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: is not about protecting college sports. This is about protecting
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: the profits of conferences and TV networks. Anyway, I just
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: thought I would highlight that Chris Sims diatribe. It was
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: pretty good. You can go on my X-Feed event. All right,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: let's go to the time machine. Like I said, I
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: have my own, I'll give you my on the field
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: takes at the end of the podcast because I know
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: not all of you love my, are as obsessed with
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: college football as I am. Which, by the way, another weekend,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: another amazing weekend. College football is just always going to,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: it always surprises, which is what makes it such a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: great sport. But let's go to the time machine. Where
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: are we going? We're going back to September 26, 1983.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: That's the anniversary that we will hit later this week.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting anniversary. Just after midnight outside of Moscow
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and somewhere inside a secret Soviet military installation called Serpapikov-15,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I hope I said that right, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: is beginning an overnight shift. His job is to help
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: answer perhaps the most consequential question anyone could be asked
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: during the Cold War. Has the United States launched a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: nuclear attack on the Soviet Union? And before I tell
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: you what happened that night, You need to understand what
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: the world felt like in September of 1983, because this
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was actually a pretty dangerous period in the Cold War.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was president. Yuri Andropov, for the 10 minutes
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: he was leader of the Soviet Union, was currently leader
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. Reagan had just called the Soviet
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Union an evil empire. The United States was preparing to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: deploy a new generation of nuclear missiles in Europe, and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the Soviet leadership was genuinely worried that the United States
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: might someday attempt a nuclear first strike. We know that now.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Declassified records show that Soviet intelligence had been instructed to
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: look for signs that the West was preparing a surprise
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: nuclear attack. So this wasn't simply Cold War rhetoric. They
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: were looking for it. They were searching for it. And then,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: just three weeks before Petrov went to work that night,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the Soviets shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 after it
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: strayed into Soviet airspace. All 269 people were killed, including
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: an American congressman. The United States was furious. The Soviets
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: were defensive and deeply suspicious. Each side was assuming some
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: of the worst things about the other. This is the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: atmosphere Stanislav Petrov walks into on the evening of September 26.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: And then the alarm goes off. The Soviet Union had
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: developed a satellite-based early warning system designed to detect American
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: intercontinental ballistic missiles as they were launched. The satellites were watching.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Computers analyzed what the satellites saw. And suddenly Petrov is
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: staring at a large red screen with one word on it. Launch.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: The system has detected an American missile. Then another. And another. Eventually,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: according to the warning system, five American nuclear missiles have
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: been launched toward the Soviet Union. And the system isn't
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: presenting this as some random blip that somebody ought to
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: check out. It's telling the people in that bunker that
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: it has detected an attack. Now put yourself in Petrov's chair.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: The machine sitting in front of you exists for essentially
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: one reason, to detect an American nuclear attack. And it
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: is telling you this is it. But Petrov doesn't quite
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: buy it. Five missiles? Why would the United States start
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: a nuclear war against the Soviet Union with just five missiles?
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Everything Petrov had been trained over and understood about nuclear
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: strategy told him that an actual American first strike would
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: be enormous, hundreds of missiles, perhaps even more than hundreds.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: And there was no independent confirmation yet from the Soviet
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Union's ground radar. It didn't prove that the satellites were wrong.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: because the detection system. The satellites were designed to see
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: launches before ground radar could see the missiles approaching Soviet airspace.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: So Petrov did not know the answer. That's important. He
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: would later describe his own confidence in his judgment as
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: something close to 50-50. So think about that. This wasn't
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: an heroic human being who somehow possessed information the stupid
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: computer didn't have. In some respects, the computer had more
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: information than Petrov did. Because it could see something he
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: could not see. But Petrov had something the computer didn't.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: He had context, he had judgment, and he had doubt.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: He concluded the warning was a false alarm. And then
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: they waited. Because if those missiles were actually coming, eventually
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Soviet radar would see them. Soviet radar never did. There
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: were no missiles. The United States had not attacked the
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. The machine was wrong. And what made it
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: wrong is almost as extraordinary as what happened inside that bunker.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: The Soviet satellites were looking down at American missile fields.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: The system had been designed to recognize the infrared signature
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: associated with a missile launch. But that night, an unusual
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: alignment involving the satellite, the sun, and high altitude clouds
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: produced something the designers had not adequately anticipated. Sunlight reflected
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: off the clouds, the sensors detected it, the computer processed it,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and then the systems concluded American missiles are launching. So
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: this wasn't a sabotage or a hacking of any kind.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a malevolent computer in the movie War Games
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: trying to start World War III. It was simply a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: machine built by human beings encountered circumstances its human designers
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: had not sufficiently anticipated. It saw the pattern. It had
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: been designed to recognize and reach the wrong conclusion. Now,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: over the years, Stanislav Petrov has become known as, quote,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the man who saved the world. It's a pretty good epitaph, huh?
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: It's also more than we can actually prove. Petrov couldn't
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: launch Soviet nuclear weapons. He was one person inside a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: much larger command and control system. Had he retreated, right,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: had he treated the warning as genuine, the information would
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: have moved farther up that chain. Other human beings would
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: have become involved. Eventually, ground radar would have provided additional information.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: We simply don't know what would have happened. So I'm
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: not going to tell you that Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: World War III. But we don't need the legend. Because
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the truth is interesting enough, isn't it? One of the
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: two most powerful countries on Earth had spent enormous amounts
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: of money building a sophisticated technological system to answer an
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: existential question. Are we under attack? And on September 26, 1983,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: that system answered yes, when the correct answer was no.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: And between the machine producing its answer and human beings
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: potentially acting upon it, there was still a human being
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: in the chain who could say, hold on, does this
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: make sense? And that's why I wanted to tell you
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: about this story this week. Because 43 years ago, or
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: 43 years later, We're once again spending an enormous amount
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: of time thinking about what happens when human beings build
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: extraordinarily powerful machines, artificial intelligence. And I keep hearing this
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: debate framed around how intelligent these machines are going to become.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Will they become smarter than us? Are they going to
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: replace us, right? Will they eventually become so powerful that
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: we can't control them? And they may determine that we
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: human beings are the problem. Who knows? There are questions
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: worth asking. But on September 26, 1983, it suggests a
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: much more immediate question. What happens when the machine is
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: simply wrong? Because guess who machines are built by? Humans.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Machines are trained by humans. Their parameters are established by humans.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Their inputs are selected by, you guessed it, humans. Which
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: means machines don't merely have the capacity to inherit human error.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: They can magnify it. They can systemize it. They can
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: take an assumption that one human being might make and
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: apply it a million times over. And because a computer
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: did it, we can become tempted to treat the conclusion
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: as somehow more objective, more scientific, somehow more accurate. But
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: a machine finding a pattern is not the same thing
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: as a machine understanding what the pattern means. So another
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: part of this story I've been thinking about lately. There's
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: a very fine line between probability and stereotyping. Human beings
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: have struggled with that line forever. We see patterns. We
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: categorize people. We make assumptions about individuals because of something
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: we think we know about a group. Sometimes probability can
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: contain very useful information. Sometimes it's prejudice wearing the clothes
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: of probability, though. And that's what all of us are
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: fearing about AI. And now we're building machines whose extraordinary
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: power comes in part from their ability to find patterns
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: across quantities of information no human being could possibly absorb
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: in the same amount of time. And that raises an
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: important question that I don't think we're talking about enough.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: What happens when the patterns those machines discover reflect us,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: reflect our history, our preconceived notions, our blind spots? And
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: that's where another conversation I had this week comes in.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: This week's Time Machine episode happens to connect remarkably well
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: with a conversation I did that's airing right now in
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: my new Sphere show. My guest is Ashley Judd. And yes,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: you know Ashley as an actor. But she's also spent
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: decades advocating on issues involving women, gender-based violence, and exploitation.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: She was in Washington last week for a gathering focused
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: on AI and humanity. And I'll tell you, I found
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: her amazingly blunt about all of this. She wasn't quite
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: sure where I was gonna come from, so she was
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: sort of ready for a battle that I wasn't interested
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: in debating her about. I simply said, yes, tell me more.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: She's clearly tired of having to prove the premise before
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: she's allowed to argue about the consequence. And the premise
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: is pretty straightforward. For most of recorded human history, men
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: overwhelmingly controlled the institutions that decided what got written down.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Who governed? Who published? Who got to teach? Who was
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: considered an authority? Whose experience mattered enough to become part
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: of the record? I'm not saying it in an accusatory way.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: This is history. And Ashley's question is, if artificial intelligence
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: learns from that historical record, what exactly is it learning?
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Because there's an enormous difference between teaching a machine how
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the world has been and teaching a machine how the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: world ought to be. And suddenly that line between probability
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: and stereotyping becomes awfully important, doesn't it? Imagine a machine
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: processes thousands of years of recorded human history and discovers
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: that positions of political power have overwhelmingly been held by men. Well,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: that's a pattern. And it's also true. But what happens
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: if a machine begins using that historical pattern to make
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: a prediction about which individual is more likely to be
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: a successful leader? At what point has the machine stopped
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: describing an historical inequality and started perpetrating it? It's a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: question that I think is not being dealt with enough
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: by the folks building these machines. Because a probability about
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: a group is not necessarily a truth about an individual.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: And if we forget that distinction, prejudice doesn't disappear because
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: we've handed the decision to a machine. Jesus, it's worse.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: What if we automated prejudice? That's what I found so
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: provocative about my conversation with Ashley. And it's where her
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: argument and Stanislav Petrov's story unexpectedly meet. They're both warnings
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: against something human beings are very susceptible to, mistaking a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: machine's answer for an objective answer. In Petrov's case, the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: machine saw something that fit the pattern for an American
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: missile launch, and it was wrong. In the world Ashley
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: is worried about, a machine may discover patterns in thousands
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: of years in human history and human behavior. The pattern
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: may even be statistically real. That doesn't mean we want
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: the machine using that pattern to decide what an individual
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: woman is capable of, or who deserves an opportunity, or
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: who represents a risk, or whose version of events is
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: more credible. Again, there's a fine line between probability and stereotyping.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: And one of Ashley Judge's questions is whether we're about
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: to automate that line. which brings me back to the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: story about Petrov in 1983. Because keep humans in the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: chain can become one of those phrases everybody agrees with
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: without thinking very hard about what it actually means. It
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: can't simply mean putting a human being at the end
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: of the process to click a proof. If the human's
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: job is to rubber stamp whatever the machine recommends, well,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: then the human isn't really in the chain now, is it?
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: You need humans deciding what information goes in. Humans asking
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: whose experience is missing. Humans questioning what the machine thinks
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: it has learned. And when the consequences become serious enough,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: humans with the actual authority to say, no. We're not
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: acting on this yet. Petrov couldn't see everything the Soviet
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: satellite could see. The satellite couldn't understand everything Petrov understood.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Neither was infallible. That's the point. The choice is in
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: between Fallible human beings and infallible machines. There are no
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: infallible machines. We made them. In fact, Petrov's reward for
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: all of this actually wasn't exactly a parade. Accounts of
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: what happened afterward vary, but Petrov said that while he
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: was initially praised, he was later questioned extensively and reprimanded
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: over how he documented the incident in his logbook. The
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: whole episode, by the way, remained secret for years. The
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: world didn't know the name Stanislav Petrov for a long time.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: It didn't know what had happened inside Sir Peckhoff 15.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: It didn't know that one night in September 1983, a
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: machine built to warn of nuclear Armageddon had confidently mistaken
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: reflected sunlight for an American missile attack. And maybe that's
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: why the story is worth remembering now. Not because humans
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: don't make mistakes. We do. And it's not because machines
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: aren't useful. There's plenty of good use they get. But
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: because the more powerful our machines become, the more consequential
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: their mistakes can become. And the more dangerous it is
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: for us to confuse a machine's confidence with certainty. 43
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: years ago this week, Stanilov Petrov couldn't know that the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: machine was wrong. He simply understood that it could be wrong.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: And there was still a human being in the chain
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: with enough skepticism and enough authority to act accordingly. So
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: as we race into this AI era, we'd better make
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: sure there still are human beings that can say no.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my full conversation with
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Ashley Judd about who is building these systems, whose history
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: they're learning from, and what that could mean, particularly for women,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: it's airing right now, Sunday night on Newsphere. Take a look,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: get your trial, sign up. Some great stuff on there
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: every day. Her conversation, it's remarkably blunt. And after spending
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: some time this week with the story of Petrov, I
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: think the two conversations belong together more than more than
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: I would have expected when I was first doing my
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: research about this week in history. And with that, there's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: your history lesson for the week that applies to today.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: All right, first question. Man, Kevin, when you start with Lebowski,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: you're always going to be a winner with me. Anyway, Kevin,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: a former Floridian now living in Colorado, writes, Hey Chuck,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: as a fellow big Lebowski fan, I have to lead
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: with careful man, there's a full beverage here. But your
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: real question is whether there is a method to John
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: Fetterman's madness or is it simply madness? It's interesting, Fetterman
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: as the dude, that's an interesting, I see where you're
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: going a little bit. You know, I have these weird
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: brainstorms about shows that would be a lot of fun,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: But I just know politicians probably wouldn't get involved after
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: one or two attempts. Like my friend Craig Crawford always
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: wanted to do a cooking show. First of all, he's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: doing some fun stuff on YouTube now. You should check
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: him out. But he always wanted to do a cooking
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: show with politicians saying every politician has to pretend they
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: have like a great recipe. And he said it'd be
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: fun to do a political talk show where you make
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: their favorite dish and you're in the kitchen. And while
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: you're making it, you're asking political questions. Well, the minute
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: you're saying this here, I would love to do to
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: watch the movie Big Lebowski with Fetterman and just to
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: see his reactions to various scenes and what he likes,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: what he doesn't know that stuff. Anyway, it might be
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a fun like, you know, what sort of doing a
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: mystery science theater three. but with a politician where you're like,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: you know, reacting to the movie and applying it to now, again,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: these are these fantasy TV shows that I'll never create fantasy,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: but you know, you know, maybe, maybe one time you
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: can do a special or something. Maybe Saliz and I
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: will do a super Tuesday screening, a big Lebowski and
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: we'll have a, a big, um, a big political watch
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: party or something with it. Look, I can't crawl inside
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman's head. None of us can. Those that have
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: covered him longer than I have say that he's always,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: that this is, you know, he's never been a conventional person. thinker,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: conventional behavior, whatever you, however you, whatever you think the,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: we just got through talking about stereotypes in the time machine, right?
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Whatever you think the stereotype is of a politician or whatever,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: he just never has met it. His health challenges and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: his stroke and what he happened after it, I think
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: push people to make assumptions. And that's what I, that's
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: what I want to be careful of is not conflating
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: all of this together and And assuming stroke leads to depression,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: leads to suddenly he's anti this or anti that. I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: do think voters and supporters, a lot of times, you know,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: they project their own beliefs onto other people. And then
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: when they don't behave exactly how you thought they were
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: going to behave, you think they've changed when maybe they
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: were never what you thought they were in the first place.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: I get this as a journalist. I'll have people who say,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: you used to be really fair, but now you're this.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: And it's like, no, I haven't changed. The facts have
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: changed or your own, you're, you're judging me through your
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: own politics. I used to say, you know, anybody, the
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: people that scream bias in the media are usually the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: most biased people. What do I mean? Um, If you
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: come from a liberal perspective, you may think I'm biased
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: against liberals. You come from a conservative perspective, you may
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: think I'm biased against conservatives. Or you may think your
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: views are mainstream, and even if a majority don't think
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: they're mainstream, but you believe they are, and you look
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: for any sort of validators that conform to your view
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: of what mainstream is. The point is that I would...
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: This is what I would ask folks to do is
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: how much of Fetterman and their belief that Fetterman has
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: changed or is based on your presumptions about what he
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: was for versus the facts of whatever he said. And
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, he's, I think he's always
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: marched a little bit differently. I think he, and he's
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: a reminder, right? That there were certainly plenty of people
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: who liked Bernie to shake things up, who aren't, you know,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: conforming liberals. They were looking to shake things up. And
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: you can believe in one thing over here. You could
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: believe in another on, you know, plenty of people may
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: want more government action on health care and child care
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: and have a different point of view on what's happening
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East. And that But I do think
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of people just make some presumptions based on
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: their own– again, I go back to we all put
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: people in categories and we all– politics has become so
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: binary that when somebody gets the Bernie Sanders endorsement like
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: he did early on and then so there's a presumption.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: He's not just a Democrat. He's this progressive Democrat. So
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: anytime he doesn't behave like a progressive Democrat, what's going on?
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: Has something changed? All this. And so I'm not saying
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: that's the answer. And maybe it is what some others
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: speculate that it might be too. But we don't know.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: And I would just say, let's always remember our own
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: sort of projections that we put on people sometimes. And
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: just ask yourself, am I doing that? Both things could
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: be true. You could be doing that and he's gotten
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: a little haywire. So I don't want to rule that
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: out either. But I will say this. I'm pretty confident
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: that come January 2029, John Fetterman is going to be
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: a former U.S. senator. Either he doesn't like the job
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't run again or he tries to run
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: as an independent and it probably doesn't work out in
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: a presidential year. All right. By the way, I'm hoping
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: to have Fetterman back. I want to have this conversation,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I think, if he wants to have this conversation. You know,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I I think you've got to just, you know. The
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: more people talk, the more maybe we can learn. All right.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Greg P. Houston, Texas District Congressional
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: District 18. And he said, hey, Chuck, love the show.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: Keep up the great work. We're constantly under the deluge
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: of Trump and Bannon's flood the zone strategy. I think
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: my monologue kind of hit that pretty well today, right?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: So why can't opponents of Trump's policies use a similar
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: strategy in response, whether through lawsuits or other challenges? There
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: are plenty of legal challenges already, but they still seem
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: few compared to the sheer number of actions coming from
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: the administration. Thanks for your time. Greg P. in Houston, Texas.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: He has a PS. Thanks for the deep dive on
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Texas turning purple. It's nice to hear people try to
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: explain what a complicated state we live in. Well, that's
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: why you go to a Texan And my friend Abby Livingston,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: I know you are not alone in thanking me for
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: that episode. I know she was terrific, and I think
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: she helped explain things based on somebody who actually lives
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: in Texas and has covered the state quite thoroughly. Well,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: there's two things going on here. One is there's a
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: lot more what I'd call organized resistance than gets covered. right?
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: I think, I mean, think about all the lawsuits. They
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: get filed immediately. There was a massive protest in the
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, and there's been sit-ins over where the arch
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: is being put in. Some of that stuff just doesn't
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: get covered on a day-to-day basis in the same way.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: And I think you're right, that they lose to Trump.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: But I would remind you, there's a reason we call
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: the presidency the bully pulpit. It can, you know, what
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: the president does and says and just has outsized influence,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: outsized coverage. And because he's he's been willing to use
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: even unchecked power that he may or may not even have,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: we're sort of forced to pay attention, whether you think
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: that we're being Jedi mind tricked or not. I think
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: our job is to put it in context and do
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: what we've been doing. But I hear what you're saying
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: on this. And I think that this is my curiosity
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: about whether If Democrats get control of Congress, do they
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: have this in them or are they going to essentially
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: spend more time fighting with each other about what they
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: should focus on? And I don't know the answer to that.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: When I look at it, I laid it out here.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: I think we've got this massive– the one good that
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: Trump did is he was the black light for what's–
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: for how we could be hijacked by an authoritarian. Thankfully,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: he's too lazy to be one. It doesn't mean he
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't want it, wish it, but he is too lazy, right?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: January 6th. I always say January 6th is a reminder
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: how lazy he is. He could have ordered, you know,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: he could have fired his attorney general, the acting attorney general,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: and put in Jeffrey Clark. He could have tried all
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: these things, but he didn't because then he would have
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: had to own it. And he never wants to actually
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: own the hard work. He won't do the hard work.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: But he has provided a blueprint for somebody who is
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: less lazy to hijack the country and turn it into
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: a quasi-authoritarian republic. And that is something we should use
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: this opportunity to treat it as he's been the ultimate
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: blacklight to find all the gross loopholes that exist. And
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: we've got to fix it. I'm not sure the Democratic
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: Party is ever going to behave that. It's probably going
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: to take an individual candidate or a movement of reformers
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: outside the two parties. If you look at the history
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: of reform in this country, it's never come from inside
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: a major political party. It's always come from the outside.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: So in that sense, I think it has to come
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: from the outside on this one. I don't have a
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: lot of confidence in the Democrats to sort of be
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: as strategic. In some ways, right, the Republicans could never
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: pull off what they did. They had a Essentially, Bannon
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: and Trump hijacked the party and took it in another direction.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Bob. Hey, I heard there is
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: a brief period of time before a new Congress begins
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: that the speaker could refuse to swear in Democrats. Is
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: that true and how could it happen? Well, you can't
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: refuse to swear in Democrats. You get sworn in. And
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: we had this conversation, I hope, with the reporter from Lawfare.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: The vulnerability is in the period. Look, our most vulnerable
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: period in our Constitution is the period after the election
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and before the new government gets sworn in, whether it's
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: a new president or a new Congress. So if the
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: margins are really, really close and what you could have
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: is an attempt to challenge the, you know, before they
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: elect a new speaker, there could be challenges to certification process,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: or you could have an attempt to not to, to,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: to bully a state or a County, not, not, not
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: to a certify an election, which would then call the
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: numbers into question. If this is a blue Mirage election, right.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by blue Mirage, where it's a,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: we're in that 50, 50 territory, maybe Democrats have picked
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: up five or six seats, which in theory would give
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: them control. But you know, it's, that's the situation where
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: there is vulnerability. Um, But they certainly would need some
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: legal backup. They certainly would need some cooperative secretaries of state.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: It's not just unilateral, but there is. And again, I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: go I would go back to my interview with the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: reporter from Lawfare a couple of weeks ago on this
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: very topic. I hope you caught it. And if you
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: didn't go back to the feed and check it out.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Thanks, Bob. Next question. Comes from David P.,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: recent five-timer. Congratulations, David. He's from North Scottsdale with Wilbon
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: in Arizona's first congressional district. Hey, you recently shared some
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: great ideas for reforming political debates, and I wonder whether
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: moderators could also use graphics to give viewers more context.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: For example, charts could illustrate where federal spending actually goes,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: put issues like trans athletes or third trimester abortions in
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: proportions to their broader numbers, or help viewers visualize the
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: enormous difference between millions and trillions. Do you think incorporating
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: visuals like this would lead to more substantive debates and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: help audiences better understand the issues? Yes. Love the show.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: That's a terrific idea. I mean, I remember we contemplated
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: doing sort of pop-up video fact checks during some of
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: our debates. And when you negotiate, it's interesting. When you
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: negotiate with candidates for debates, they're always petrified of well,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: what visuals are going to be used and who decides
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: what visuals and how many, and literally you go through
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: a debate agreement between candidates and a, and a sponsoring
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: organ sponsor organization, whether it's an organization or a news organization,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: you'd be amazed at the details that get litigated, including
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: what graphics get shown. Can candidates bring props, right? I
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: love your idea. And I absolutely agree that, that, Visuals
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: or infographics and visuals are much better than words in
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: many cases, right? I mean, especially, look, I look at
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: it as this. We live in a, you know, the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: visual mediums trump the written medium and the audio medium
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: more than ever, right? Trust me, I wish, I need to,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: and I know I can, I've got to get better
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: at incorporating more visuals into this podcast. As you see,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: Chris and I are trying to do better at putting
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: more visuals because I completely agree. I think it makes
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: it just suddenly– what you hear is more clarifying when
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: you see that less than 1% of folks identify as
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: trans in sports. All the points you're trying to make there,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: which I just think it's– the answer is yes. So
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: let's add it to the ways to make our debates better.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially, like I said, I would be sponsoring,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: put up, look at this graphic, this is what does it,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: and then get candidates to respond to it. And then
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: if they don't or they challenge it, in some ways,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: all the better for the viewer or voter to be
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: able to go, well, okay, I see this, I see this,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: let me see who's wrong. And maybe they'll do their
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: own research. Hey, Chuck, Lindsay here from Everett, Washington, a
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: politics junkie and religious listener who's very happy we're back
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: to four episodes a week. All right. I recently saw
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: that Nate Silver joined the Pod Save America crew, and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think about the partnership, Dan Pfeiffer's
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: interpretations of polling and how Nate might fit into what
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: they're doing. More broadly, what do you make of their
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: efforts to counter the right-wing media ecosystem? You're the best
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: to ever do it. Oh, you're very kind, Lindsay. Sent
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: with good intentions. I believe you. Look, I mean, I...
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: you know, they're, I think that's exactly what they're trying
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: to build. They want to, they want to try to build, um, a,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: a place for mainstream liberals to go in the same
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: way that, you know, you have, uh, a lot of, uh,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: conservative influencers, whether it's a Tucker Carlson or a Joe
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: Rogan or, um, uh, the, the, uh, I'm drawing a
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: blank on my, the, the ex McConnell staffers, um, that
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: have their podcast, uh, As well, that's kind of the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: conservative version of what Pod Save America is and all that. Look,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: I think I'm a big fan of Jane Koston, by
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: the way. In fact, we didn't do our annual college
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: football preview. We meant to and just things got away
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: from us, both of us. It's just too much going
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: on in an election year. So it's interesting. Look, I
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: think that anytime you join any organization that is ideologically
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: got a point of view or whatever, the assumption is
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: you must share all of their same politics and all
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: of that stuff. And so some people are going to
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: look at it, might look at it differently, but hey,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: we all have original biases in some ways. And as
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: long as you know them upfront, then you weigh the information,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: you weigh the perceive biases and, you know, you make
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: your own probability assumption about what you believe and what
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: you don't. And to me, track record matters more than
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: anything else. So look, I see what they're trying to do.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: And they're having, they're wildly successful financially. You know, it
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: all depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: you know, they've tried to take, I found it interesting
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: when they've tried to take their listenership and tried to
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: activate them. And I don't spend enough time inside their
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: organization to find out how well has their attempts to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: turn their audience into activists, how well has that gone?
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: More and more of them have gotten more involved in
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: getting involved in races and endorsing and all of that.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: But look, I'm teaching a class on the history of
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: media and political polarization. And the biggest point I'm trying
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: to get across to the students is today's media is
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: is the norm of American history, right? The outlier is
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: what you're, what I've been saying to these kids, what
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: your parents and grandparents think the media should be is
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: the media they experienced. And that period, including the period
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: I grew up in, and I, look, I want there
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: to be journalists who are always skeptical, who are always,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: you know, don't take anything on face value until it's proven,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: until there's, you know, a bunch of facts that you can,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: that you can use to reinforce your assumptions and things
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: like that if it's or or or explain your assumptions
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: excuse me not reinforce um and so in many ways
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: the ecosystem that's being built is very similar to the
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: penny to to to what we had with penny press
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: you know merging with the political party press that existed
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: and all of that so You know, everything old is
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: new again. And, you know, I love what they're doing.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: I'm good for them. I love what the bulwark is doing.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: You know, you love what Ben Shapiro is doing. Like,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I think all of these entities, I don't have to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: agree with what they're producing, but I think building these
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: competitive and alternative places only potentially give us the better
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, give us the opportunity to understand pluralism better
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: in America. You know, this is, this is why I
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: look at everything that's developing online in the information ecospace
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: and how actually nuanced it is and its fragmentation. And
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: it really reminds, it just reinforces my belief that our
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: two parties are just out of, out of date and
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: are too big to connect with the country anymore. And
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: we would be better, you know, our, our, the, the,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: the popularity of of our fragmented ecosystem, meaning that more
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: people are comfortable getting information and news from social media
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: than any other source these days, means that they actually like,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: you know, knowing the values and everything they can about
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: the individual and then getting their information through that prism.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: You know, there's an argument to be made that the
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: more we have, the better off we'll be, right? If
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: you have too few opinions breaking through, you know, that's
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: when you, you know, that is, you know, what Trump
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: is trying to do, which is cancel alternative opinions and
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: try to push out anything that challenges his narrative. That's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: why I say things like it's totally un-American. What's developing
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: right now, whether it's Podsafe America, whether it's Daily Wire,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: whether it's what is actually what the founders hoped would happen, right?
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: That a way, even if, the public were producing and
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: participating and pay attention, and the more we have, that
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: the better off we would be as a democracy. So
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: count me as, yay, good, celebrate. Every individual is going
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: to make their own decision about where they want to
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: associate and all of that. I enjoy my independence. I
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: enjoy being able to say without having a corporation or
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: executive say, well, if you say this, then we won't
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: be able to book this person anymore. I don't want
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to be totally trapped by that. And that's why I
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: enjoy where I am today and in many ways prefer
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: the position I've been able to put myself into now. Um,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't have gotten here without what I did
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: in legacy media either. So I'm very mindful of that
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: and very thankful of that. Um, anyway, it's kind of
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: a meandering answer. Lindsay, I would love to know whether, uh,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: whether you enjoyed the spirit of the answer. All right.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: Final question before I get into my, uh, breakdown of
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: the week in college football. Greetings from Texas is sometimes
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: fighting forth. Is there something particularly personal about the tension
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Mark Carney beyond Trump's usual political disagreements,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: given their very different educational business and political backgrounds and
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Carney's approach to international trade? Do you think that dynamic
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: plays any role in their relationship? Also, I agree with
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: you that the 2003 Fiesta Bowl was poorly officiated. Take that,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Terry Porter. Love the show. Thanks for teaching us about
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: the dirty underbelly of Washington politics. John in Frisco. You know,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. Trump's anger at Canada is not about Mark Carney.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: It's about Justin Trudeau. And I think he was there
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: was something about Trudeau. It bothered him that Trudeau was
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: more popular than he was in America for a brief
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: period of time. It bothered him. I think that Justin
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: Trudeau is better looking than he is, I guess. I
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: don't know. Or maybe he thought he was better looking. Remember,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: Trump is very looks obsessed. And I think that he
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: had some sort of, you know, either anger. I'm not
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: sure whether he had a crush on Trudeau, whether he
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: was jealous of Trudeau or whatever it was. But all
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: of his obsessions, you know, this sort of derogatory nature
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: towards Canada was all Trudeau focused. And Trudeau was pretty
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: aggressive at clapping back at Trump a lot more. Right. Carney.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: has been more technocratic about it. He's not coming into
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: American media to do trollish interviews of Trump. He's instead
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: building new relationships with new members of the West to
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: counter the unreliability of the United States. He's just going
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: about his business. I actually think, well, we'll see, but
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lesson to be learned here, which
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: is sort of accepting the premise of the crazy and
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: just preparing your situation for the reality that exists, not
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: the reality that you wish existed, to me has been
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: pretty smart politics, right? Mark Carney looks at the situation
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: and he's decided to act in the best interest of Canada.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: And he's acting and he's making decisions without deciding to
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: get into rhetorical debates with him. So I think there's
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: just an asymmetric warfare that Carney has engaged in that
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: has been, to me, much more effective, right? It has been,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: you know, his strength in standing up to Trump has
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: earned admirers here. His strength in standing up to Trump
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: has united Canada left and right on this, where Trudeau
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't having that same success. So I do think the
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: tactics Carney has used have proved to be far more successful.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: in challenging Trump and dealing with the bully than Trudeau's
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: tactics have been. Um, and again, I, you know, we can,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I, it's always been, I feel like it's, it,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like Gavin Newsom versus, um, Hmm. It's
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: like Gavin Newsom versus, uh, uh, Well, there's really, I
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm trying to think of another governor. Maybe
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: you would put a Shapiro in the technocratic category that
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: maybe you would put a Westmore more technocratic. Maybe a
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer, right? It's sort of, you know, Whitmer has
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: handled Trump one way, Newsom another. I don't know. There's
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: probably not. I was probably trying to make a comparison
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: that doesn't quite work. But I think that would be
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: my explanation of why I think Carney And I just
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: think that Trump does not handle technocrats very well. He
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: just doesn't. Because Trump is– every decision is emotional for him.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: Where somebody who's a very logic, more Dr. Spock-like, like Carney,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: is just a technocrat. And I say that as a compliment.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Sort of view myself as ultimately a technocrat, which is
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: let the data do the talking. Um, and I think
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: that's just something that, that Trump can't stand. You know,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: he can't stand accountants, can't stand anybody that gives him
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: reality checks. So in that sense, I think Carney is
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: the epitome of everything Trump isn't. And so that's probably
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: where his, some of his anger comes from. But if
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: you've noticed, he never gets nearly as personal with Carney
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: as he does with Trudeau because Carney's never made it personal.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: He's just been very professional and just continues to act
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: in the best interest of Canada. And if that means
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: standing up to Donald Trump to do what's in the
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: best interest of Canada and the West, he just does it.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: He doesn't telegraph it. He just does it. It's a
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: form of leadership that I admire. All right. Let's talk
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: a little college football. Um, obviously the big, the big
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: deal was Ole Miss winning, uh, But let's be realistic.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: They won at home in the game that mattered the
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: most more than any other game all year. And the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: real test for Ole Miss is now this coming Saturday
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: in the swamp against a Florida Gator team that suddenly
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: looks like they're something. Now, I'm not quite sure they
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: have the depth to keep up with Ole Miss, so
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: we'll see. And they still, but they have some offensive
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: firepower and they have a very competent coaching staff. things
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have associated with the University of Florida's
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: football program over the last few years. So I think,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: and plus talk about your letdown, right? Everything has been
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: about this LSU game for Ole Miss. And so here
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: we are. By the way, I thought I would do,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: so each week I will give you who I think,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: just based on what we've seen on the field, what
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: my top five would be at the moment. And I
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: think you have to give Texas credit for being, For
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: their win over Ohio State. But be mindful it was
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: a road game, right? But you would put them as
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: still number one. I'm putting Georgia at two. I think
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: what they did– I know it's just Arkansas. But I
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: think you can't– again, I think winning conference road games
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: matter a lot. I think they're much harder to do
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: no matter what conference you're in. That's why I feel
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: pretty good about Miami. I've got a lot to say
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: about the Miami game in a few minutes and I'll
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: get to it. I'll close with that. But, you know,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: the fact is we've got two of our road games
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: out of the way. And so far, if you can
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: be undefeated on the road, you're usually going to have
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: an incredibly good year. And I don't know if we'll
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: be undefeated on the road. If we are, it means
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: we beat Notre Dame. And it means, you know, but
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: it's good. When teams get upsets, it's usually on the road.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: Although last year, Miami was upset once on the road
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: and once at home. But I think if you were
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: to Based on what we've seen in the performance on
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: the field, I think you would put, I would put
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: things at Texas one. I'd put Georgia two. I'd give
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: Ole Miss credit for this win. I mean, it's a
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: top 10 win. Plus Ole Miss is, you know, victory
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: over Louisville, who had another great victory. So I think
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: right now you would, I could argue that Ole Miss
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: is right now. Let's see what Texas does next week
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: with Tennessee. If they beat Tennessee, then you might say
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: that Texas has the better resume. But so far, I
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: think Ole Miss has the best resume, right, with their
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: wins against Louisville, which was a neutral site game. Oh,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: now they have a one on the road. That's why
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: this Florida– to me, they beat Florida on the road
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: in the swamp. And they could have an argument. I'd
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: probably put Notre Dame four and Miami five. I think
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Miami deserves credit for two of their wins being on
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: the road and there being conference road games. And especially
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: like the atmospheres they've been forced in, right? These Friday
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: night games that the ACC commissioner has allowed ESPN to
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: force upon the ACC. God, I just... The ACC is such...
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: a weak set of leaders, unbelievable weak leaders, but I digress. Look,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: those Friday night games are trap games. It was a
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: huge deal for Wake Forest. And it was a good
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: thing that Miami got off to a fast start because
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: I think it made what happened in the second half
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: less troublesome than it could have been had they gotten
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: off to a slow start. And I guess I'd probably
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: put Ohio State six in there. But then what do
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: you do with Indiana? Right. Indiana, I think they deserve
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: credit for being the defending champs, but they haven't beat
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: anybody yet. Right. So I don't know where you put Indiana.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: And maybe you should say they get the benefit of
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: the doubt. Maybe they should be sitting ahead of Miami
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: and Notre Dame. It really is interchangeable. I think right now, Indiana, Miami,
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame. And if you want to give Indiana credit
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: for having beaten a version of the Miami team that
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: exists today on their home field last at the end
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: of last season. OK, you want to put them five
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: and put Miami six and then you put Ohio State seven.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's right. Question is, how far do you
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: drop LSU? We'll see. That's an open question. I think
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: LSU is going to probably be a 10-2 team. You
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: can see the success. You can see what Levitt brings them.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: They just got off to a slow start. They get
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: off to a faster start. They probably win that game. Um,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: obviously Texas A & M is going to drop out
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: of the top 10. And I think we are now
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: going to start seeing more and more questions about whether
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: Marcel Reed is a good enough quarterback to win you
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: national title. Um, I think there are times he's limited
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: and it does seem as if when they need somebody
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: to take over a game, they don't have somebody that
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: can take over a game. And in that sense, Kentucky, uh,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: was able to, able to expose them and, Arizona state
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: kind of exposed them last week, which is why I
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: think I've, I think I was, was leaning into this
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: outcome last week. I know my friend, Mr. Saliz is
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: not going to be happy about this since his in-laws
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: are big A & M fans. And we'll, we'll spend
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: some time on two super Tuesday talking about it for
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: as long as he's willing to talk about it. Um, uh,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: but A & M is probably now feels like, like,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: I think we kind of know who they are. Um, Yes,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: I know there's still a lot more games where they
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: can make another case for themselves. And it is that
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: the SEC certainly has perceived schedule strength that can help
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: them out. But we shall see. Quick little SMU Louisville.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: My son's obviously very upset that SMU lost. And, you know,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: he said something to me. He said, you know, Kevin
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Jennings is better than Darian Mensah. And I said, Kevin
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: Jennings can be better than Darian Mensah. I didn't disagree
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: on a pure ability, an athletic ability. But the difference
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: is Darian Mensah doesn't turn the ball over. And Kevin
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: Jennings just always seems to turn the ball over a
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: couple of times in these big games because he's trying
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: to do everything. And he will force something every now
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: and then. And you felt like you saw the best
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: version of him and the worst version of him all
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: at the same time in that Louisville game. But look,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: SMU season is not over. They get to play at
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame, and that's going to be, you know, the
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: one thing about mobile quarterbacks is I think they can
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: give Notre Dame's defense a little bit of trouble. We
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: shall see. All right, let me get to the Miami game.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: Because the biggest issue in the Miami game was injuries. Now,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: there's two ways I could look at this Miami game.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: We were always nervous about this weird Friday night wake
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: game on the road. When the schedule first came out,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: we Miami fans circled a couple of traps. This was
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: a big one. This was the trap, the bear. My buddy,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: Chris Felica, a big Hurricane fan, you may know him
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: as the bear, he was also keyed in on this.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: I was a little less concerned because it was early
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: in the season. In some ways, a game against wake
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: could have been a trap game if it came, say,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: the week after Notre Dame. Or the game against Wake
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: could be a trap game that came the week after
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: playing Florida State or somebody or even at Virginia Tech,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: a team that you expect to challenge you and then
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: you're not quite prepared. In the case of Wake, Wake's
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: actually the best team we've played so far, right? Wake's
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: better than Stanford. And I think in preparation, you're going
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: to keep the focus of your players. You're like, this
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: is the best team we've faced so far. And you're
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: not bullshitting them, right? It is a fact. So that's
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: why I felt cautious confidence about this Wake game. I
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: also knew Wake's got a good coach and they know
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: how to, you know, they know how to havoc things
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: up a little bit. Gio Lopez has the ability to
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: havoc things up as a quarterback. Clearly he was hurt
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: and not as mobile, a more mobile quarterback for Wake.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: If Gio Lopez hadn't gotten dinged up as much as
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: he did in the previous week against Purdue, that might've
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: been a six point Miami win instead of a 13
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: point Miami win, which really should have been bigger than that. Yeah.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: But we learned a lot about Miami's depth. Miami lost
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: their two top running backs to injuries in that game.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: Mark Fletcher went out. I think he's going to be
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: back in the next week or two. But we lost
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: Marty Brown, who's been our sort of backup, just he's
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: a massive human being. And he made this terrific catch
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: and run and then just an awful knee injury that
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: ESPN chose not to show the replay because it was
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: that awful. Look, I know maybe he's back in time
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: for the second or third round of the playoffs if
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: Miami gets that far. But I think it means as
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: a redshirt junior, he won't be turning pro. I think
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: he will be back next year. I love the kid.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: I feel terrible for him. I know we've gotten better
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: and better with it. So I hope he's– but that was–
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: to lose your two top running backs. Uh, our third
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: running back was still sort of kind of in the
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: doghouse for a, a misdemeanor violation that he, that he had. Um,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: so Jordan Lyle, they haven't played him yet. So we're basically,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: we were using a fourth string running back from, for
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: most of the second half. And we also have an
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: inexperienced offensive line. They're getting better every week, but, um,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: They're not a great run blocking unit yet. And I
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: know what Cristobal, you know, he did the turtle strategy
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: in the second half, which drove me crazy. I think
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: he realized he had all these injuries and he says,
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: let's just get out of here. Doesn't matter what we
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: win by. Let's just get out of here. And the
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: play calling got super conservative. When Tony got hurt with
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: that stretch play, which is good for ESPN's cameras, by
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: the way, they found it. I thought the broadcast was
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: terrific because they were on top of it. They had information.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: As a fan, sometimes you're wondering, what happened to Mark Fletcher?
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: What happened to here? And every time they had the information.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: I give the executives and the network ownership a lot
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: of grief all the time. That doesn't mean the people
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: that work at ESPN aren't fantastic. And that crew was terrific.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: The editorial side of that, I just can't, you know,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: you answered every question I had without me going on
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: Hurricane's Twitter, right? Which is what I appreciate. But, you know,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: he turtled up and it essentially, and so the question is,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: did they not, because all of a sudden we just,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: I know what he wanted to do. He was hoping
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: he would have Mark Fletcher take the game over. Well,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: then he gets hurt. And he just wanted to just
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: grind the game out, you know, just slow the game
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: down and just get out of there. And in fact,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: that mindset was so clear, you know, throughout that you saw.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, because Shannon Dawson's play calling was weird. He
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: just was not. And the whole use of Tony, if
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: you're only going to bring him in on third downs,
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: you've you've. Just either don't use them at all and
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: keep the same game plan. Anyway, I hope they learn
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: from this. I thought if I were to grade the
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: three main coaches, Cristobal, Shannon Dawson, and Corey Heatherman. Corey
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: Heatherman was the coach. He did a tremendous job. Miami
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: had huge injuries in the secondary, and he knew they
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: were vulnerable in the secondary. So he just created havoc.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: It was Flores-esque, referring to Brian Flores, the Vikings defensive coordinator.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: You know, that guy has figured out how to make
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: a defense filled with a bunch of guys that have
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: no business being in the NFL anymore and turning it
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: into a havoc defense that can give an offense a
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: lot of problems. And his blitzing packages can cover up
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: vulnerabilities in the secondary. And man, Corey Heatherman was just terrific.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: And he, you know, Because Gio Lopez didn't have the
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: scrambling ability that he normally has, Heatherman made sure that
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: game didn't get close. I really hope we figure out
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: how to continue to keep him. I love this guy.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: He's just a terrific D coordinator. And, you know, I
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: fear we're going to lose him to an NFL team.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: I think he's that smart about schemes and defensive strategy.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: But I think both Dawson and Cristobal get a B
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: minus C plus. And Mario made a terrible mistake. And, buddy,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: I don't... I really... Here's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping somebody...
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: lets him know that this was a mistake. Miami's at
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: fourth and four, and they chose to kick an attempt
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: at 56-yard field goal. They're up 13, and they attempted
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: to kick a 56-yard field goal or a 54-yard field
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: goal with a kicker who has not been known to
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: be reliable yet from that far away, just because he
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: has the ability. We hadn't tried it yet. There was
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: about six minutes left in the game, five and a
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: half minutes left in the game. You're up by 13 points.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: So this field goal is only going to put you
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: up 16. So you go from being up two scores
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: to being up two scores. But if you go for
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: it on fourth and four and you make it, then
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: you grind out more clock. And for some bizarre reason,
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: he chose to try the field goal. Field goal wasn't good.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: It was tipped. All of a sudden they get the
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: ball near midfield. It was massive coaching blunder. This is
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: one of those, you know, I spent last week defending
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: Mario Cristobal from all my favorite college betting podcasts that
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: that all insist that, you know, there's going to be a,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: you know, Mario will Mario up a game. And this
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: is what they refer to when they say that. A
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: bizarre decision that makes no sense, that lowers your win probability,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: let alone your ability to cover a spread. And that
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: decision basically kept Wake Forest in the game. Now, we're
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: lucky either one of two things. Miami's defense was able
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: to stop Lopez, and two, that maybe Wake wasn't good
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: enough to take advantage of this mistake. You make that
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: mistake against a better team. So there's two ways I
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: look at this Wake Forest game. The last time we
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: had a game like this with all these injuries, we
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: lost it. It was the game against SMU. We were
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: down all sorts of starters in that game. And eventually
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: it caught up with us. We almost won it, but
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: eventually caught up with us. So maybe it shows you
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: that we have a huge amount of depth. But it
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: also might be that Wake wasn't quite good enough to
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: take advantages of the mistakes and the opportunities that we
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: hand at them in the secondary. So look, I'm just
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: happy to survive a road game. These road conference games,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: especially these stupid Friday night games are trap games like crazy. But,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: you know, and look, I think most of everybody sort of,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: if to me, week three should remind people, right? Notre
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: Dame struggled with Michigan State until they didn't. Miami had
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a test there for about a quarter.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: It's healthy to get tested and it's good that you survive.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: The more important things do you learn from the mistakes
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: you made even when you win. And I certainly hope
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: that when it comes to things like deciding when to
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: kick a field goal or when to go for it,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: that Coach Cristobal is open to the criticism on this one.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a 50-50 call. This was not a 50-50 call.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: So I hope somebody was able to constructively let him
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: know this and that he doesn't just take it as
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: noise from the outside. Thankfully, we got Central Michigan this weekend.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Miami gets to play their first game on a Saturday.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: Game four is finally played on a Saturday. Hallelujah. But
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: next week, the big games, there's going to be some
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: interesting ones. Like I said, Ole Miss, Florida is the undercard. Tennessee, Texas.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: We're going to find out a lot about Texas. They've
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: earned the right to be seen as number one. I'm
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: not sure they're the best team in the country. I'm
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: not sure they're... One of the five best teams in
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: the country. But they have the best resume going in
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: right now. And Knoxville's a tough place to win. All right,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: with that, I'll see you in 24 hours. Thanks as always.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: Like and subscribe. And I made it this entire podcast
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: without my kidney stone reminding me it was there. So
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: with that, I am thankful as well. I hope you
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: had an easy fast. See you tomorrow.