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Chuck’s Commentary - Why Democrats Are Breathing A Sigh Of Relief After Wisconsin + Iran Is Giving Trump The Jimmy Carter Treatment · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: eight zero seven three four three nine eight five. Hello, Ared,
2:17
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Chuck Podcast. And
2:21
Speaker 1: to say that I got a lot to get out
2:25
Speaker 1: there is an understatement. I think we just experience the
2:29
Speaker 1: most consequential statewide primary that wasn't a presidential primary. I
2:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it's certainly in my adult lifetime
2:38
Speaker 1: this and it is because of the road not traveled
2:43
Speaker 1: and the what if had things gone a different way
2:47
Speaker 1: that I think in hindsight, and we'll see come November,
2:50
Speaker 1: but I think we are going to look back and
2:52
Speaker 1: we're going to say that the Democratic primary and Crawley's
2:56
Speaker 1: upset victory over Francesco Hong might have been the single
3:00
Speaker 1: most important results for the Democrats since losing the twenty
3:05
Speaker 1: four election. That it is that consequential, The fallout is
3:08
Speaker 1: that consequential. The lessons that, frankly, that there is to
3:12
Speaker 1: learn on the progressive side of things and in the
3:14
Speaker 1: establishment side of things is that big looks. As a
3:20
Speaker 1: political junkie and history junkie. Later with my top five lists,
3:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to put this Crawley upset in some perspective.
3:29
Speaker 1: I've put together what I think are the five greatest
3:31
Speaker 1: shockers in primary history and I've got my own definition
3:35
Speaker 1: of what shocker will be, and we'll discuss that, and
3:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to save it for the top five lists.
3:38
Speaker 1: So from all my for you history junkies out there,
3:41
Speaker 1: my true sort of diehards that love that stuff. When
3:44
Speaker 1: I go through and say here are the five greatest upsets, this, this,
3:47
Speaker 1: and this, I want to put this in some context
3:51
Speaker 1: for you, but we'll do that later. But I think
3:54
Speaker 1: we need to spend more than just a few minutes
3:57
Speaker 1: about what happened on Tuesday night. I mean, here we are. Look,
4:02
Speaker 1: we got the near all nighter. I think we took
4:04
Speaker 1: our live stream to three am. For those of you
4:06
Speaker 1: that are on it, thank you, thank you for watching.
4:08
Speaker 1: We're just astonished and how many people hung with us
4:11
Speaker 1: till the bitter end. But this is no small feat
4:19
Speaker 1: because if you had told most people who follow Wisconsin
4:21
Speaker 1: politics closely a couple of weeks ago that this was
4:24
Speaker 1: going to happen, they wouldn't have necessarily told you it
4:28
Speaker 1: was impossible, but improbable. Absolutely. In fact, I had that experience. Look,
4:36
Speaker 1: let's unpack this a little bit more, because you know,
4:39
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of people are poking at a lot
4:41
Speaker 1: of things Francisco Hong. She led in all the polling
4:45
Speaker 1: heading into this race. It is notable that her eventual
4:48
Speaker 1: number right around forty one percent. She never polled anywhere
4:52
Speaker 1: north of sort of the high thirties, low forties. You
4:55
Speaker 1: could make a case that the polling wasn't totally off
4:58
Speaker 1: the mark, and that it knew what the Hong number was.
5:01
Speaker 1: It just didn't you know, and and you had you
5:04
Speaker 1: saw that there was potential for consolidation. But let's just
5:08
Speaker 1: be realistic. No, you don't see consolidation happen the way
5:13
Speaker 1: it happened as quickly as this gotten happened. I mean,
5:17
Speaker 1: let me remind you Crawley had just gotten out of
5:20
Speaker 1: the race. Then he gets back into the race. The
5:24
Speaker 1: establishment lane, if you want to call it, that democratic
5:27
Speaker 1: field had basically blown itself up around him, and somehow
5:31
Speaker 1: he ends up winning this thing by about four tenths
5:34
Speaker 1: of one percentage point. So yeah, I do think this
5:37
Speaker 1: qualifies as one of the great statewide primary upsets in history. So,
5:40
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm going to put that into some context.
5:44
Speaker 1: But before I get into the political trivia side of this,
5:48
Speaker 1: there is this bigger story here, because, as I've said before,
5:52
Speaker 1: sometimes what doesn't happen in politics can be every bit
5:56
Speaker 1: as important as what does you know. I love the
5:58
Speaker 1: what ifs, the alternative histories. Change one thing in history
6:02
Speaker 1: and ask how many other things change behind it. And
6:05
Speaker 1: that's how I want to begin this conversation about Wisconsin,
6:08
Speaker 1: because let's imagine the alternative.
6:10
Speaker 2: Here.
6:11
Speaker 1: As we're talking, I'm taping late Wednesday. You're listening to this.
6:14
Speaker 1: I assume sometime on Thursday or Friday. Let's imagine the
6:19
Speaker 1: alternative and France, Jessica Houng had held on and won,
6:24
Speaker 1: she would not simply have become the Democratic nominee for
6:26
Speaker 1: governor of Wisconsin, fairly or unfairly. She was about to
6:29
Speaker 1: become one of the national faces of this new progressive
6:33
Speaker 1: and democratic socialist movement inside the Democratic Party, and that
6:37
Speaker 1: would have had consequences far beyond Wisconsin. Hung had a
6:42
Speaker 1: collection of old statements that were almost perfectly designed, if
6:47
Speaker 1: you will, to become national political shorthand to otherising her
6:52
Speaker 1: or other rising the movement, abolishing the police, cancel thanksgiving
6:56
Speaker 1: other cultural positions. That's just to be generous fire quite
7:00
Speaker 1: a bit of explanation before you ever get to the
7:03
Speaker 1: economic agenda. She actually said she wanted to run on
7:08
Speaker 1: and look, we can. People can debate the context of
7:10
Speaker 1: her Thanksgiving post a few years ago, but go ahead,
7:13
Speaker 1: explain away, have a debate about it. But let me
7:16
Speaker 1: tell you what politics is. It's also about understanding which
7:18
Speaker 1: arguments are worth spending your time on, which arguments are
7:22
Speaker 1: worth explaining because you get and which ones aren't. Because
7:26
Speaker 1: you can introduce voters to new ideas. Voters are not
7:29
Speaker 1: inherently opposed to new ways of thinking. But there are
7:33
Speaker 1: also some things that simply set off an alarm in
7:36
Speaker 1: the heads of a large number of Americans that says, wait,
7:39
Speaker 1: what right? And once you're explaining why cancel Thanksgiving doesn't
7:44
Speaker 1: really mean what people think, Cancel Thanksgiving means congratulations. You're
7:49
Speaker 1: no longer talking about childcare, housing, healthcare, or the cost
7:52
Speaker 1: of groceries. You're somehow talking about Thanksgiving. That's not a
7:56
Speaker 1: political problem, or that excuse me, that becomes a political problem.
8:00
Speaker 1: So what a Hong win would have meant? And this
8:03
Speaker 1: is why I think the outcome matters so much Nationally.
8:06
Speaker 1: We spent the last couple of weeks talking about Abdul
8:08
Speaker 1: Sayat winning right next door in Michigan, and this larger
8:13
Speaker 1: question of whether democratic socialism or the socialist a chase
8:16
Speaker 1: and progressivism is becoming something much bigger. Inside the Democratic Party.
8:21
Speaker 1: El Saietta had defeated Haley Stevens in Michigan last week,
8:24
Speaker 1: and another race that scrambled assumptions about where Democratic voters
8:27
Speaker 1: were headed. So imagine now following that with a Hong
8:32
Speaker 1: victory in Wisconsin. Suddenly you have l Sayeta Michigan next
8:35
Speaker 1: door Hong and Wisconsin, two of the most important battleground
8:38
Speaker 1: states in America, right next to each other, and Republicans
8:42
Speaker 1: have a very easy national story to tell and a
8:46
Speaker 1: narrative to create about what is happening inside the Democratic Party.
8:50
Speaker 1: Now you may sit there and say, well, that story
8:51
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been entirely fair. Of course not, this is politics.
8:55
Speaker 1: It's never fair. But would it have been politically potent? Unquestionably,
9:01
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't have stopped at the Wisconsin border, right
9:04
Speaker 1: He would have created an immediate problem for Democrats in Michigan.
9:07
Speaker 1: In fact, I think the biggest, the second biggest victor
9:10
Speaker 1: after David Crawley on Tuesday night, is Abdul elsie out
9:15
Speaker 1: in Michigan because Abdul Saeta had been gone out of
9:18
Speaker 1: his way in this first week as the nominee to
9:21
Speaker 1: desperately try to distinguish himself away from democratic socialism, right
9:27
Speaker 1: even as he shares some of the movement's policy priorities,
9:30
Speaker 1: like I'm not a socialist. It would have potentially created
9:34
Speaker 1: a problem in Iowa, also a state Wisconsin borders where
9:38
Speaker 1: Rob sand is building an entirely different brand of what
9:42
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party is in Iowa. And if you were
9:45
Speaker 1: Rob Sand, and I'm not suggesting I have insider information here,
9:48
Speaker 1: but I have no doubt he walks away, you'd be like, hey,
9:52
Speaker 1: that is not that I am not that kind of democrat,
9:55
Speaker 1: Like he would have thrown her away under the bus
9:59
Speaker 1: because her brand of socialism. It would have been toxic
10:04
Speaker 1: for his campaign. He has got to win over not
10:07
Speaker 1: just independence to win, he's got to win over some
10:09
Speaker 1: soft Republicans, and that would have just been a nightmare
10:14
Speaker 1: for Rob Sand because it again he would have tried
10:17
Speaker 1: his best to ignore it. But it is right next door, right,
10:21
Speaker 1: So contagion was very possible. So instead of making you know,
10:25
Speaker 1: talking about Iowa and being a different kind of democrat,
10:28
Speaker 1: one that you don't normally see in national TV, you're
10:30
Speaker 1: being asked about somebody else's old tweet about Thanksgiving, right,
10:35
Speaker 1: And that's how political contagion can take over. And it's
10:38
Speaker 1: why I think Democrats nationally are probably more relieved about
10:41
Speaker 1: this result than they will publicly admit at all. I'm
10:45
Speaker 1: not saying Hong winning automatically would have caused Democrats Wisconsin,
10:49
Speaker 1: Michigan or Ile, you know, possibly not right. Trump is
10:52
Speaker 1: doing everything he can to hand Democrats a huge opportunity
10:56
Speaker 1: here in the mid terms, but it would have changed
11:01
Speaker 1: the conversation and it would have made life a lot
11:04
Speaker 1: harder for all of those candidates. And in an election
11:08
Speaker 1: where independence are once again extraordinarily important, they're totally turned
11:13
Speaker 1: off by Trump. You might have had voters saying, wait, wait,
11:17
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on at the Democratic Party?
11:20
Speaker 1: And now those same independence it's something different, right, those
11:25
Speaker 1: same independence go oh okay, Democrats looks like they're fighting
11:30
Speaker 1: the socialism. Right, it's a big difference. Republicans didn't do
11:34
Speaker 1: a good job of fighting their natives nationalist wing from
11:37
Speaker 1: taking over. They failed to push that wing back. So
11:41
Speaker 1: if you're an independent wondering, well, which party is trying
11:44
Speaker 1: not to let its extremes take over, you at least
11:48
Speaker 1: are see some evidence that the Democrats were trying to
11:51
Speaker 1: fight back. So look, that's what happened, and that's a
11:56
Speaker 1: huge story, a whole bunch of Democratic primary voters and
11:59
Speaker 1: at the time it's remember Wisconsin's partisan primary system does
12:02
Speaker 1: not require party registration, so the electorate can be very broad.
12:08
Speaker 1: It was not a closed party primary. Had it been
12:10
Speaker 1: closed primary, no chance Crawley would have had On would
12:14
Speaker 1: have won. But you had one of the largest turnouts
12:17
Speaker 1: in the history of Democratic primary politics in Wisconsin. Now
12:25
Speaker 1: here's what I'm curious about. I'm interested in what Democratic
12:28
Speaker 1: leaders do with this outcome because it will become an
12:31
Speaker 1: interesting little political litmus test. Who's going to look at
12:34
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin result and just simply say, explicitly, not round
12:38
Speaker 1: the edges, that there is a distinction between the Democratic
12:41
Speaker 1: Party and socialism, and Democratic voters just demonstrated that distinction.
12:48
Speaker 2: Right.
12:49
Speaker 1: If you want to basically make the case that there's
12:51
Speaker 1: no room for socialism in the Democratic Party, you have
12:54
Speaker 1: an opportunity to do so, and you can say it
12:56
Speaker 1: that cleanly like I just said it. So which Democrat
12:59
Speaker 1: does that? Who says nothing, who tries to blur it.
13:04
Speaker 1: The reason I think this is going to be interesting
13:07
Speaker 1: is if you're thinking about running for president, you probably
13:11
Speaker 1: have your own theory the case I'm going to try
13:14
Speaker 1: to be a prog you know, I want to make
13:16
Speaker 1: progressives not hate me, or I want to make progressives,
13:19
Speaker 1: I want to be the progressive candidate, or I want
13:22
Speaker 1: you know, I think my path is over here. I
13:24
Speaker 1: think I'm on the electability path. I think it will
13:28
Speaker 1: be revealing as national democrats react to what happens. So
13:32
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention this weekend to those that
13:35
Speaker 1: you see, you know, being floated for president, to see
13:38
Speaker 1: what they have to say, because elected Democrats eventually have
13:41
Speaker 1: to decide whether they believe that there should be an
13:45
Speaker 1: ideological line in the sand inside the party between socialism
13:50
Speaker 1: and capitalism. What's interesting is the voters appear to think
13:54
Speaker 1: some distinctions matter. But before if I turn this into
14:00
Speaker 1: what you might think is just oh, look, the progressives
14:03
Speaker 1: blew it. They didn't. Let's not overlook Minnesota. So you
14:10
Speaker 1: can't just look at Wisconsin and say, ooh, progressive progressive
14:13
Speaker 1: hit a wall. They can't win Minnesota is a big deal.
14:16
Speaker 1: Peggy flying again one in Minnesota on the very same
14:19
Speaker 1: night she won pretty substantially by twenty points. Right, she
14:24
Speaker 1: didn't have to sneak through some five way primary. She
14:27
Speaker 1: be and Angie Craig had to head. So if your
14:29
Speaker 1: takeaway from Wisconsin is see Democratic voters rejected the left,
14:33
Speaker 1: it's not that clean because Minnesota just ruin that segment
14:36
Speaker 1: if you're trying to build it. But I actually think
14:39
Speaker 1: this makes it a lot more interesting because it's these
14:41
Speaker 1: distinctions and nuances and how some progressives can win and
14:45
Speaker 1: some can't. That I think means these are the lessons
14:48
Speaker 1: that you can draw from.
14:49
Speaker 2: So let's keep going.
14:50
Speaker 1: Here because we have enough races that we can begin
14:54
Speaker 1: asking not simply whether progressives are winning, but under what
14:58
Speaker 1: conditions progressives can win. And I think right now that's
15:02
Speaker 1: the best way to tell this story. So Michigan else
15:04
Speaker 1: I had, wins Minnesota, Flannagan wins Wisconsin, Houn loses by
15:08
Speaker 1: a hair. These are three Midwestern states. They're all slightly
15:12
Speaker 1: different makeups.
15:14
Speaker 2: Right by the.
15:15
Speaker 1: Way, Minnesota a little bit wider of a state. I
15:19
Speaker 1: think that explains why Flannagan was able to win by
15:21
Speaker 1: a bigger margin. But all these electorates are similar, but
15:24
Speaker 1: they're not identical. The candidates are not identical, and the
15:29
Speaker 1: brand of progressivism they were selling not quite identical. So
15:33
Speaker 1: what are we learning less than one? There's still a
15:35
Speaker 1: coalition problem. The first things progresses now continue have to
15:40
Speaker 1: grapple with is something Bernie Sanders has dealt with since
15:42
Speaker 1: he started running for president. African American Democratic voters remain
15:47
Speaker 1: a major obstacle to a certain brand of progressive politician.
15:52
Speaker 1: That was the wall Sanders hit in South Carolina multiple
15:55
Speaker 1: times in his candidacies for president, and more broadly, there's
15:58
Speaker 1: always been this cultural gap between the highly educated progressive
16:03
Speaker 1: activist electorate and many of the working class Democratic voters
16:08
Speaker 1: that largely are African American voters but also Latino voters
16:13
Speaker 1: in some states. And it's not necessarily on economics, it's
16:16
Speaker 1: on culture. And I think that distinction matters because I
16:20
Speaker 1: think if these candidates stick to economic issues, they can
16:24
Speaker 1: get more of a they can have more of a
16:26
Speaker 1: potential opening here with some voters. But the rhetoric of
16:29
Speaker 1: the progressive movement is built around the working class, right,
16:32
Speaker 1: That's what they say, We're fighting for working people. Okay,
16:36
Speaker 1: But sometimes this coalition itself can look almost inverted. From
16:41
Speaker 1: the rhetoric they're spewing. Right, the most enthusiastic support for
16:45
Speaker 1: progressives comes from highly educated voters who are explaining what
16:50
Speaker 1: they believe working class voters need, while a meaningful number
16:56
Speaker 1: of those actual working class voters themselves remain skeptical of
17:00
Speaker 1: what these folks are selling. And I think it's something
17:03
Speaker 1: progressive need to spend more time thinking about, because if
17:07
Speaker 1: the people you say your movement is designed to empower
17:12
Speaker 1: are among the voters most reluctant to join your movement,
17:15
Speaker 1: And I would argue, inside these democratic primaries, the entire
17:19
Speaker 1: economic message apparently is geared towards working class democrats, those
17:24
Speaker 1: that actually are working class democrats are the ones most
17:26
Speaker 1: allergic to these candidates. So I would say to progressives,
17:31
Speaker 1: if you're trying to figure out what's wrong here, I
17:33
Speaker 1: know my friend Adam Green thinks about these things. My
17:36
Speaker 1: fen Faz Shakur runs Bernie's World thinks about these things.
17:39
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I have a feeling I know why
17:43
Speaker 1: Bernie didn't endorse Pong, because I know how Faz Chakor
17:46
Speaker 1: thinks about these things. If you're not talking economics, you're
17:48
Speaker 1: wasting your time. But I do think the progressive movement
17:53
Speaker 1: needs ask itself. Why are the voters that they say
17:57
Speaker 1: they're trying to help the most with their economic post
18:00
Speaker 1: policies the ones that are having the hardest.
18:02
Speaker 2: Time joining their movement.
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Speaker 1: community in the isthmus of Dade County, and completely foreign
20:50
Speaker 1: outside of it. It doesn't mean the policy agenda's unpopular, right,
20:56
Speaker 1: The ideas may be popular, but it means the cultural
21:00
Speaker 1: virtue signaling that's coming from progressive can frankly just swallow
21:04
Speaker 1: the policy ideas completely and people don't even see the
21:07
Speaker 1: policy ideas, They just see the weird now. Second, lesson
21:14
Speaker 1: the structure of your primary matters enormously in the likelihood
21:19
Speaker 1: of success of a progressive candidate. Look at where progressive
21:23
Speaker 1: candidates have succeeded crowded primaries. Right, if you don't need
21:27
Speaker 1: fifty percent, look at the Michigan seven Democratic primary one
21:31
Speaker 1: progressive two establishment. The establishment splits a majority of the
21:35
Speaker 1: vote forty percent of winning number. Fragmented opposition helps enormously.
21:41
Speaker 1: We saw that Hang had a big lead when there
21:43
Speaker 1: was multiple people running against her. Low turnout electorate's help. Right,
21:49
Speaker 1: These massive turnouts have also brought out the occasional primary voter,
21:54
Speaker 1: the occasional primary voter not nearly as far left as
21:59
Speaker 1: the every day primary voter. Wisconsin, massive primary turnout, and
22:05
Speaker 1: because when the electorate broadens, progressives run into trouble. So
22:11
Speaker 1: this is why I'm a big advocate of open primaries.
22:16
Speaker 1: And I say this not to say that, you know,
22:19
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like the far right and far left.
22:22
Speaker 1: I don't think that is politics that can work. That
22:24
Speaker 1: doesn't mean your ideas shouldn't be part of the conversation.
22:27
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they shouldn't help influence the larger debate.
22:31
Speaker 1: But I could tell you it is, you know, it
22:33
Speaker 1: is it is tough to get a majority for you
22:36
Speaker 1: to support that open primaries, though allow for the majority
22:41
Speaker 1: to have their voice heard inside a primary, and Wisconsin
22:45
Speaker 1: effectively allows a voter to choose which parties primary to
22:48
Speaker 1: participate in without having a register to that party. You
22:52
Speaker 1: cannot vote in both party primaries. Right, It's very similar
22:55
Speaker 1: to what we have in Virginia, but you have considerably
22:58
Speaker 1: more freedom than in a closed primary state. And I
23:01
Speaker 1: find it fascinating that party establishments, right, You know, the
23:04
Speaker 1: biggest opponents of open primaries in the state by state
23:07
Speaker 1: efforts to open them up are so frequently the actual
23:10
Speaker 1: political parties themselves and the and they oppose it, and
23:13
Speaker 1: yet they don't want to. They don't they're afraid of
23:15
Speaker 1: more voters into their primaries when those very systems sometimes right,
23:21
Speaker 1: the more open the system is, they can actually save
23:23
Speaker 1: the establishment from an insurgency. But anyway, Republicans have been
23:28
Speaker 1: experiencing this too. Right, the smaller, more ideological self selecting
23:31
Speaker 1: you make the electorate, the easier it becomes for the
23:35
Speaker 1: highly motivated faction to capture a nomination. If you want
23:40
Speaker 1: fewer extremist candidates, let more voters vote more democracy keeps
23:47
Speaker 1: you away from extremism. Sit with that, It's just not
23:53
Speaker 1: that complicated in Wisconsin. Another case study. Let's go to
23:57
Speaker 1: lesson three, the attention to can eat your campaign?
24:01
Speaker 2: What do I mean?
24:04
Speaker 1: Then let's talk about what I think was Hong's biggest
24:06
Speaker 1: unforced air Nobody forced her to spend the final stretch
24:10
Speaker 1: of her campaign doing a national media tour. So you
24:13
Speaker 1: might say, yeah, why the hell did you do that?
24:15
Speaker 2: Like that seems.
24:16
Speaker 1: Stupid, Well, there was a tactical reason.
24:18
Speaker 2: She had to do it.
24:19
Speaker 1: Money. This is where the structure of progressive politics becomes important,
24:25
Speaker 1: and I think it's a problem progresses have got to
24:27
Speaker 1: figure out how to solve. Progressive candidates, on one hand,
24:32
Speaker 1: have a very effective national fundraising network. It's a very
24:38
Speaker 1: effective grassroots network, maybe semi elite grassroots, but it is grassroots. Nonetheless,
24:45
Speaker 1: there isn't, like, you know, a couple of offices that
24:48
Speaker 1: they could go to in downtown Chicago or downtown New
24:51
Speaker 1: York where twenty people sit around writing giant checks and deciding.
24:55
Speaker 2: Which campaigns get funded.
24:56
Speaker 1: Right, the progressive movement doesn't have doesn't have a donor
24:59
Speaker 1: network life that you have to activate thousands and thousands
25:03
Speaker 1: of people. So how do you activate them? Attention, You
25:07
Speaker 1: go viral, you get the cable clip. Right, this is
25:11
Speaker 1: what cable news hits are about. Now they're almost all
25:12
Speaker 1: fundraising hits. You get a podcast clip, you get an
25:14
Speaker 1: influencer clip, right, it gets shared, and suddenly you raise
25:18
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars in six hours. Now it's not
25:21
Speaker 1: exclusively a left wing phenomenon. By the way, the right
25:24
Speaker 1: has built the same machine. A Republican politician goes on
25:28
Speaker 1: Fox or Newsmax, produces a viral confrontation. Maybe they even
25:32
Speaker 1: go on a Sunday show, try to have a viral
25:34
Speaker 1: confrontation with the host, simply to watch the fundraising meter
25:39
Speaker 1: move right. Sadly, most media appearances by elected officials now
25:44
Speaker 1: increasingly function as simply fundraising appearances. It's why they don't
25:49
Speaker 1: want to you know, they'll either go They either want
25:51
Speaker 1: to go into the lions den and force a fight. Look,
25:54
Speaker 1: my candidate went on Fox, or my candidate went on
25:57
Speaker 1: MS right, if they're on the right or the left,
25:59
Speaker 1: whatever it is, or they go to the friendliest environments
26:02
Speaker 1: because they want that audience to get money too. Right,
26:05
Speaker 1: So the incentives are obvious, but the danger is also obvious.
26:10
Speaker 1: The thing that raises you half a million dollars nationally
26:14
Speaker 1: may cost you the ten thousand votes you need at
26:17
Speaker 1: the very end locally, your national online audience and your
26:20
Speaker 1: statewide electorate are not necessarily the same people. Hong needed money.
26:26
Speaker 1: She didn't have the same kind of established Wisconsin financial
26:30
Speaker 1: network Crawley eventually had behind him. So the national intention
26:34
Speaker 1: machine made sense until it didn't. And once the conversation
26:40
Speaker 1: became let me explain what I meant by canceled Thanksgiving.
26:44
Speaker 2: It was already over.
26:46
Speaker 1: The machine was feeding on her rather than feeding her campaign.
26:52
Speaker 1: That's politics. Everything can matter. Now, let's talk about the
26:56
Speaker 1: Mom Donnie comparison for a moment. This is where I
26:59
Speaker 1: think it becomes quite used, because if I were advising
27:02
Speaker 1: people trying to understand why Mom Nonni succeeded and Hong didn't,
27:07
Speaker 1: I would not begin with socialism. I'd simply begin with discipline.
27:12
Speaker 1: Mom Donnie's message was very disciplined. Your life costs too much.
27:17
Speaker 1: Your rent costs too much, groceries cost too much, transportation
27:22
Speaker 1: costs too much. That falafel you eat cost too much.
27:26
Speaker 1: Here's how I'm going to make it cheaper. Now, you
27:28
Speaker 1: could disagree with some of his solutions, but he was
27:32
Speaker 1: focused on one thing. How do I make life a
27:34
Speaker 1: little bit easier for you to navigate in New York City.
27:37
Speaker 1: You understood the argument. He didn't spend the campaign explaining
27:41
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or someone. I mean, imagine, right, he's doing that
27:44
Speaker 1: in New York City. What are you gonna do about
27:46
Speaker 1: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade?
27:47
Speaker 2: Right?
27:47
Speaker 1: I know that sounds glib, but it's actually an important
27:51
Speaker 1: point here. Right, Very ideological candidates can win when they
27:56
Speaker 1: spend most of their time talking about things the electorate,
28:00
Speaker 1: the larger electorate already agrees our problems. The moment the
28:04
Speaker 1: campaign becomes a seminar and a candidate's most culturally exotic beliefs, well,
28:10
Speaker 1: the relationship changes. The voter stop hearing, Oh this person
28:14
Speaker 1: wants to fight for me. That's a little aggressive, but
28:17
Speaker 1: you know, I appreciate the sentiment. But then they hear
28:20
Speaker 1: this other garbage and they say, is this person even
28:23
Speaker 1: like me? Do they understand the Do we live in
28:25
Speaker 1: the same world. That's a dangerous transformation, you know, on
28:29
Speaker 1: the right, I see this with this flirtation with Christian nationalism.
28:34
Speaker 1: Does the same thing. You know, you start explaining why
28:38
Speaker 1: America needs to adopt your particular theological understanding of government
28:43
Speaker 1: and suddenly a voter who agreed with you about taxes
28:45
Speaker 1: being too high as.
28:45
Speaker 2: Thinking, oh wait a minute.
28:49
Speaker 1: So it's amazing to me how ideological movements forget this
28:54
Speaker 1: just constantly. And I think part of it is they
28:56
Speaker 1: just hang out with each other, and so what sounds
28:59
Speaker 1: normal to them, they don't fully appreciate how weird it
29:02
Speaker 1: sounds to literally somebody who lives in the next county. Now,
29:08
Speaker 1: let's talk about the establishment, because the establishment here, whatever
29:12
Speaker 1: you want, the governing wing of the Democratic Party needs
29:14
Speaker 1: to be very careful about spiking the football about Wisconsin
29:18
Speaker 1: too much, because, let's be honest, they almost screwed this
29:20
Speaker 1: thing up. How the hell do they get in this position?
29:24
Speaker 1: Tony Evers, the outgoing governor, was getting dangerous, really close
29:28
Speaker 1: to becoming the other definition of goat. Not greatest of
29:31
Speaker 1: all time, right, the goat, the guy everybody points to
29:36
Speaker 1: afterward and asks, how the hell did you let this happen?
29:40
Speaker 1: The Wisconsin Democratic gubatatorial primary is man. I hope there's
29:44
Speaker 1: a documentary on this. It's been It's one of the
29:46
Speaker 1: strangest slow motion political train wrecks I can remember. Evers
29:52
Speaker 1: took his time to first, let's go back to the
29:54
Speaker 1: beginning here, and we got a lot of this on
29:56
Speaker 1: our live stream from a terrific the General Central reporter
30:01
Speaker 1: Molly Beck and my friend Charles Benson, also from NBC
30:06
Speaker 1: four Matt in Milwaukee. You know, when you sort of say,
30:11
Speaker 1: how did the establishment wag of the party get into
30:14
Speaker 1: this mess in the first place? And so I'll give
30:17
Speaker 1: you a little bit of the backstory they share. Evers
30:19
Speaker 1: took his time, first of all, deciding whether to seek
30:21
Speaker 1: a third term. There was no term limits in Wisconsin.
30:23
Speaker 1: If you wanted to seek a third term, you could have,
30:25
Speaker 1: so that already froze the field early. Then you had
30:29
Speaker 1: to then, you know, then there was a little bit of,
30:32
Speaker 1: you know, a whisper campaign. You know, maybe you need
30:34
Speaker 1: to move on, Governor Evers. You've been here a while,
30:37
Speaker 1: you're getting up there in years, you've been terrific, But
30:39
Speaker 1: why didn't you move for the next generation? And so,
30:43
Speaker 1: you know it it sort of still was a frozenness
30:47
Speaker 1: to the field. Then you had a series of potential
30:49
Speaker 1: establishment alternatives emerge and disappear. You know, the city Attorney
30:55
Speaker 1: General most people thought would have been the traditional front runner,
30:58
Speaker 1: he chose not to get in progressives weren't too thrilled
31:01
Speaker 1: with him, So maybe he feared getting involved in a
31:04
Speaker 1: primary where he may get challenged from the left. The
31:06
Speaker 1: sitting Lieutenant governor, Sarah Rodriguez. You know, she was initially
31:09
Speaker 1: the candidate that everybody was rallying around us. Who Crawley
31:13
Speaker 1: got out of the race to endorse. Well, she had
31:16
Speaker 1: a drop out because she had some sort of campaign
31:19
Speaker 1: finance embezzlement scandal where the amount of money she thought
31:22
Speaker 1: she had and what she actually had was like the
31:24
Speaker 1: ten x difference and not in a good direction. Bendela Barnes,
31:29
Speaker 1: you may remember him from narrowly losing the Senate race
31:32
Speaker 1: to Ron Johnson in twenty twenty two. Well, he was
31:35
Speaker 1: also running for governor. He's the first term lieutenant governor
31:38
Speaker 1: for Tony Evers. He withdrew about an hour after Milwaukee
31:42
Speaker 1: Journal sevenel began asking him about allegations of inappropriate behavior
31:46
Speaker 1: that had been raised with state Democratic officials involving younger women.
31:51
Speaker 1: And of course, as I noted, David Crawley, the Milwaukee
31:54
Speaker 1: County execu had already gotten out in order to help
31:56
Speaker 1: clear the field to stop Hong, and he endorsed Rodriguez.
32:00
Speaker 1: So Rodriguez exits, Crawley gets back in, Evers, who had
32:04
Speaker 1: been sitting on the sideline, decides to endorse them, and
32:08
Speaker 1: suddenly you had what amounted to an emergency rescue operation. Right.
32:12
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a bad movie plot.
32:14
Speaker 1: It was like, let's get the let's you know, let's
32:16
Speaker 1: get the replacements, let's get the old guys together. It's
32:19
Speaker 1: sliced alone. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger. What whatever bad movie metaphor
32:23
Speaker 1: you want to come up with, the dirty doesn't. Meanwhile,
32:25
Speaker 1: Hank is sitting there with an organized progressive base out
32:28
Speaker 1: of Madison, while the rest of the party looks like
32:31
Speaker 1: somebody dropped a grenade into the filing cabinets. It was crazy.
32:36
Speaker 1: And if somebody like I said, please make a documentary
32:38
Speaker 1: about this primary, it's the rare documentary in which the
32:42
Speaker 1: establishment gets to be the underdog, you know. But the
32:45
Speaker 1: establishment had to mount this last minute insurgency in order
32:49
Speaker 1: to stop an insurgent, which is why we were all
32:53
Speaker 1: skeptical it was going to work. But somehow it worked.
32:58
Speaker 1: Now there's some one more thing here I don't want
32:59
Speaker 1: to lose, and that is this idea that David Crawley
33:02
Speaker 1: is an established it's sort of you know, he got
33:05
Speaker 1: his back up, but he was referred to as establishment,
33:08
Speaker 1: and I understand it. Let me tell you a little
33:10
Speaker 1: bit about David Crawley, right, because he's going to be described,
33:13
Speaker 1: he's being described nationally all over the place as the
33:15
Speaker 1: establishment candidate.
33:16
Speaker 2: Right.
33:19
Speaker 1: Here's why David Crawley cringes a little bit at that label.
33:21
Speaker 2: All right.
33:22
Speaker 1: He's forty years old. He became Milwaukee County Executive after
33:26
Speaker 1: serving in the State Assembly. He's got a personal biography
33:29
Speaker 1: that looks very little like the caricature of somebody groomed
33:32
Speaker 1: by an elite political class. He grew up amid poverty,
33:36
Speaker 1: one of the poorest zip codes in Milwaukee, one of
33:38
Speaker 1: the most dangerous up codes in Milwaukee, family instability, spent
33:43
Speaker 1: part of his youth in foster care. You know, this
33:48
Speaker 1: is nobody that was born on third Place Silver Spoon.
33:51
Speaker 2: Right.
33:52
Speaker 1: Frankly, both Crawley and Hong have biographies that are much
33:56
Speaker 1: more interesting than the standard story of two Ivy League
33:59
Speaker 1: lawyers deciding they out a run for something. It is
34:03
Speaker 1: these are two people who actually lived lives before politics,
34:07
Speaker 1: who had struggles like you and me. Like a lot
34:10
Speaker 1: of people, they worked, they came into politics through very
34:14
Speaker 1: different routes. That's worth remembering amid all this ideological labeling.
34:21
Speaker 1: Let me also give Tony Evers a little bit of
34:23
Speaker 1: credit for something here. He didn't issue an endorsement and disappear,
34:31
Speaker 1: and this could have some recriminations next door in Michigan,
34:33
Speaker 1: he campaigned and heart he put his own political capital
34:36
Speaker 1: behind Crawley. Crawley had some outside spending helping him, but
34:40
Speaker 1: the outgoing governor effectively said, nope, bib oppressmen's here, get
34:44
Speaker 1: on my back, let's go. Let's try to move some voters.
34:49
Speaker 1: And boy at work by the skin of his teeth. Now,
34:53
Speaker 1: I want to ponder a few more what ifs, and
34:55
Speaker 1: I'm going to aim this in both directions, because the
34:59
Speaker 1: establishment isn't going to the only side that is going
35:01
Speaker 1: to have some hindsight conversations with himself. It's worth noting
35:07
Speaker 1: some Hong supporters. When you lose, Look, when you lose
35:10
Speaker 1: by as close of a margin as she lost by,
35:13
Speaker 1: you can point to one hundred things that you would
35:15
Speaker 1: have done differently. Obviously, the big one is not to
35:17
Speaker 1: debate whether Thanksgiving should be a holiday.
35:19
Speaker 2: Or not.
35:20
Speaker 1: Probably number one, number two, and number three in the list.
35:23
Speaker 1: But it's notable that AOC and Bernie Sanders and many
35:26
Speaker 1: of the national progressives declined to endorse her, and she
35:30
Speaker 1: worked really hard in the last week to try to
35:32
Speaker 1: get she and it all goes back to what I
35:34
Speaker 1: was telling you before. Why did she start doing national television.
35:37
Speaker 1: She didn't do it because she thought it was a
35:38
Speaker 1: good idea to win votes. They needed money and if
35:41
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and AOC weren't going to use their donor
35:44
Speaker 1: lists to help her, and they decided to not do it, which,
35:47
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm trying to does this make them
35:49
Speaker 1: look prescient or will some progressive say it's your fault
35:53
Speaker 1: she came up short. That's going to be something I'm
35:56
Speaker 1: very curious to watch over this weekend and over the
35:58
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks what happens there. You know, AOC
36:02
Speaker 1: just simply said she didn't get involved in that race
36:04
Speaker 1: because she's just focused on Congress. Okay, maybe, but she
36:08
Speaker 1: didn't have the two biggest names in the movement, and
36:13
Speaker 1: so there's there's something there. And the question is did
36:17
Speaker 1: they see something?
36:18
Speaker 2: You know?
36:18
Speaker 1: Is this I think it's look some of the people
36:23
Speaker 1: advising Bernie and AOC, and these things are very shrewd.
36:27
Speaker 1: They very much have a north star on keeping this
36:31
Speaker 1: focused on economic anxiety. That that's how you can have
36:34
Speaker 1: the broadest conversation with the broadest electorate. The minute you
36:37
Speaker 1: start getting into these boutique cultural debates that maybe feel
36:41
Speaker 1: good in a dorm room, it's a problem.
36:45
Speaker 2: Now.
36:46
Speaker 1: Compare that to Michigan. Right the weekend before the primary,
36:49
Speaker 1: abdul Elsie had campaign in Michigan's largest cities with Bernie Sanders,
36:53
Speaker 1: with Elizabeth Warren, with AOC all in person. And it's
36:57
Speaker 1: a good thing he had him there, right because he
36:59
Speaker 1: only won by a point. This episode of the Chuck
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Speaker 1: the pattern that nobody has said out loud. Here two
38:55
Speaker 1: primaries one week apart, both decided by roughly a point.
38:58
Speaker 1: In Michigan, the progressive cavalry out on a plane and
39:01
Speaker 1: the establishment governor mailed in a video. Eleven days out.
39:05
Speaker 1: In Wisconsin, the establishment governor got in the car and
39:07
Speaker 1: drove to Oshkosh and the progressive cavalry stayed in Washington.
39:12
Speaker 1: And in both states the side that physically showed up
39:14
Speaker 1: won by a point. I'm not saying, I'm just showing,
39:20
Speaker 1: which brings me to the question back around to Michigan,
39:23
Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer and Alyssa Slockin, could they have done what
39:26
Speaker 1: Evers did? Whitmer endorsed Slockett actually never endorsed Haley Stevens,
39:33
Speaker 1: because remember Evers didn't just endorse, he talked to candidate
39:36
Speaker 1: who had quit back into the race, and then endorsed.
39:40
Speaker 1: Whitmer had eight years of political capital, just like Evers.
39:43
Speaker 1: She had a fifty two percent job approval rating, Slockin
39:45
Speaker 1: had the organization that beat Mike Rogers twenty months ago.
39:49
Speaker 1: Neither one of them lacked that disability. What they lacked,
39:54
Speaker 1: arguably in hindsight, was urgency and maybe if there, if
39:57
Speaker 1: we're being fair here, a reasonable leave it was necessary.
40:00
Speaker 1: Perhaps they saw abdul Lsied as electable enough, while Evers
40:05
Speaker 1: looked at Hang and thought this is a disaster. So look,
40:10
Speaker 1: everybody had a defensible reason in this AOC and Bernie
40:13
Speaker 1: were focused on flipping Congress. They didn't want to get
40:15
Speaker 1: involved in governor's races. Okay, it's an explanation. Slotkin has
40:19
Speaker 1: to serve with whoever wins.
40:21
Speaker 2: It's an explanation.
40:22
Speaker 1: Whitmer might be thinking about twenty twenty eight, not wanting
40:25
Speaker 1: to take a side just yet, right, or maybe she's
40:28
Speaker 1: not running in twenty twenty eight and wants.
40:29
Speaker 2: To keep her powder dry.
40:31
Speaker 1: Evers is retiring, and even he said he might have gone,
40:35
Speaker 1: he said he might have gone a week or two earlier.
40:38
Speaker 1: Every one of these was a rational call at the time,
40:42
Speaker 1: but none of these decisions are going to be judged
40:44
Speaker 1: on whether they were rational. They're going to be judged
40:46
Speaker 1: and the results in November. If elsi Had wins Michigan,
40:51
Speaker 1: Whitmer's caution will be read as respect for the voters
40:55
Speaker 1: and Slatkin's neutrality will be read as statementship. But if
40:59
Speaker 1: elsa Had loses and Crawley wins in Wisconsin next door
41:03
Speaker 1: on the same night, then the entire Democratic Party wakes
41:06
Speaker 1: up on November fourth with one data point in one story,
41:10
Speaker 1: the state where the governor showed up held and the
41:12
Speaker 1: state where the governor sent a video did not. Nobody's
41:17
Speaker 1: decision will have changed, Only the verdict will have still.
41:20
Speaker 1: If you're Haley Stevens today, do you wonder what happens
41:23
Speaker 1: if Gretchen Whitmer does for you what Tony Evers did
41:26
Speaker 1: for David Crawley. Do you wonder what happens if Alissa
41:29
Speaker 1: Slotkin had spent the last week stumping with you in
41:33
Speaker 1: the state. Look, there has been enormous sensitivity among Democratic
41:40
Speaker 1: elected officials about making candidates look two establishment if they
41:43
Speaker 1: endorse right. Nobody wants to be the person telling voters
41:47
Speaker 1: whom they should nominate. Fine, but primaries are about a
41:52
Speaker 1: time for choosing. It's on the calendar. You can't vote
41:57
Speaker 1: for both, you have to pick one. And one lesson
41:59
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin is that there are moments when straddling the
42:01
Speaker 1: fence is not really a position. If you choose, if
42:06
Speaker 1: you choose not to decide, you've made a choice, but
42:08
Speaker 1: it may not.
42:08
Speaker 2: Be a good one.
42:10
Speaker 1: And if you think there is an important distinction between
42:12
Speaker 1: the socialist wing of the party and the rest of
42:14
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, eventually you're going to have to be
42:16
Speaker 1: willing to say so. Otherwise voters are entitled to wonder
42:19
Speaker 1: whether you actually believe the distinction exists. And it's pretty
42:23
Speaker 1: important for Democrats nationally who are trying to say they're
42:26
Speaker 1: not socialists, to have evidence that others are trying to
42:30
Speaker 1: make this distinction clear. So, look, I want to watch
42:33
Speaker 1: what happens next. As I said earlier, I want to
42:36
Speaker 1: see because Wisconsin has created a fascinating opportunity for those
42:41
Speaker 1: with national ambition inside the Democratic Party who do not
42:44
Speaker 1: consider themselves democratic socialists to finally say so without sounding
42:48
Speaker 1: like they're simply lecturing the left. Tony Evers picked a
42:52
Speaker 1: side he didn't say. Francesca Hong is a perfectly fine democrat,
42:58
Speaker 1: but David Crawley happens to be my guy. He put
43:01
Speaker 1: his political capital into stopping her and making it clear,
43:05
Speaker 1: and it worked. So I'm curious does Andy Basheer use
43:10
Speaker 1: this moment. He's the DGA chair, real fascinating opportunity for
43:14
Speaker 1: him to draw a bright line. Wes Moore, another governor,
43:18
Speaker 1: Mark Kelly, Gavin Newsom, Right, Who's going to use Wisconsin
43:23
Speaker 1: to draw a bright line? Because that there is an
43:26
Speaker 1: incentive question here that mainstream Democrats have been ducking. If
43:30
Speaker 1: you're if you're only kind of progressive, the progressive movement
43:34
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily going to reward you for it. There's no
43:39
Speaker 1: look at all the ones that tried to straddle the
43:41
Speaker 1: left in the establishment. Mally McMorrow bombed Kamala Harris, I
43:46
Speaker 1: would argue in twenty nineteen tried to do this and
43:48
Speaker 1: it bombed. Right, You're either on one side of the
43:52
Speaker 1: line or you're on the other on this one. So
43:55
Speaker 1: perhaps the smarter political identity is not to spend your
43:58
Speaker 1: time proving that your progressive adjacent make the distinction a virtue.
44:04
Speaker 1: I'm a democrat, I'm not a democratic socialist. And here's
44:07
Speaker 1: what I believe and then defend it, because one lesson
44:10
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin is that picking aside did not kill Tony
44:13
Speaker 1: Eavers politically doesn't appear to kill Tony. And now look,
44:16
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if Madison doesn't show up in November,
44:19
Speaker 1: then maybe you'll say it was a mistake. We'll say
44:21
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen. But Tony Eavers
44:25
Speaker 1: may have saved his party from a nomination it badly feared.
44:29
Speaker 1: There could be something liberating about that, if Democrats are
44:33
Speaker 1: willing to learn it. Now, let's go back to Minnesota
44:36
Speaker 1: for a second, because Peggy Flanagan gives progresses an answer
44:39
Speaker 1: to anyone trying to turn Wisconsin into some sweeping repudiation
44:43
Speaker 1: of the left.
44:43
Speaker 2: It isn't.
44:44
Speaker 1: Flannagan beat Angie Craig solidly. She had support and she
44:49
Speaker 1: had some institutional sports. Flannagan, unlike Hung, had the support
44:53
Speaker 1: of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the retiring Senator Tina Smith.
44:58
Speaker 1: Then you had immigration become a come a significant issue
45:01
Speaker 1: in this race due to the ice killings of two
45:04
Speaker 1: Minnesota residents. And then it made Craig's vote for the
45:09
Speaker 1: Lake and Riley Act, which clearly was calculated at the
45:13
Speaker 1: time as somebody who represents a very swing district and
45:17
Speaker 1: she just guessed wrong on the politics of immigration, right,
45:22
Speaker 1: And if that vote doesn't happens, this race closer. Maybe,
45:26
Speaker 1: but I still think planning and wins. But still Minnesota
45:29
Speaker 1: has always struck me as one of the better environments
45:31
Speaker 1: for a progressive victory. And you've seen it, right, They've
45:35
Speaker 1: had some select because the Democrat electorate is different, the
45:37
Speaker 1: ideological geography is different, and Flannagan herself was different. She
45:42
Speaker 1: wasn't some outsider who showed up from an activist organization
45:46
Speaker 1: and announced that everybody currently running the Democratic parties corrupt. Right,
45:50
Speaker 1: she was the lieutenant governor. She was kind of already
45:53
Speaker 1: an insider and a progressive, and oddly that mattered, right.
45:58
Speaker 1: Minnesota is kind of an instant progressive state, but it's also,
46:01
Speaker 1: you know, it's also a rules base state.
46:03
Speaker 2: Right.
46:04
Speaker 1: There's also a pretty important difference in tone, And neither
46:07
Speaker 1: Flannagan nor Craig went as nuclear on the other as
46:10
Speaker 1: they theoretically could have. You know, by Minnesota standards, was
46:14
Speaker 1: it negative? Yes, By normal American political standards, it was
46:18
Speaker 1: patty Cake. Craig certainly could have run a much explicit
46:22
Speaker 1: electability campaign against Flanagan, tying her to the unpopular side
46:26
Speaker 1: of Tim Walls and all of that. She could have
46:30
Speaker 1: turned her entire campaign into the if you nominate her,
46:34
Speaker 1: you risk you might lose this senency. But that argument
46:38
Speaker 1: was going to be harder to make when this Tina Smith,
46:42
Speaker 1: the sitting senator who seats you're trying to fill, was
46:44
Speaker 1: supporting your opponent who you just said was unelectable. Flannagan
46:48
Speaker 1: had some establishment validators in addition to progressive support that
46:53
Speaker 1: allowed her to be progressive without being defined as some
46:56
Speaker 1: sort of alien to the party, and I think that's
46:59
Speaker 1: a big difference from home. So now, big picture, how
47:05
Speaker 1: well are progressives actually doing? And this is why I
47:07
Speaker 1: don't think the scorecard is progressives are winning or progressives
47:11
Speaker 1: are losing. The bottom line is they're doing better. They're
47:14
Speaker 1: doing better this cycle than they did last cycle. They're
47:17
Speaker 1: doing a lot better. And you know me, I'm going
47:19
Speaker 1: to do a sports analogy. So if you don't like it, well,
47:22
Speaker 1: tough shit. I'm gonna If I were describing them the
47:27
Speaker 1: way I talk about a college football rebuild, I would
47:31
Speaker 1: say this movement has gone from being a six and
47:33
Speaker 1: six team to maybe an eight and four team with
47:35
Speaker 1: the possibility of getting better. It's progress. The question is
47:40
Speaker 1: whether they can become a playoff team, and one answer
47:43
Speaker 1: may come in November with a dual Lsia and Michigan.
47:47
Speaker 1: But regardless of what happens there, one thing is almost
47:51
Speaker 1: certainly true. The Democratic caucus that comes back to Washington
47:57
Speaker 1: next year is likely to be somewhat younger and somewhat
48:02
Speaker 1: further left than the Democratic caucus sitting there today. That's
48:05
Speaker 1: true in the House, and it will be true of
48:07
Speaker 1: the Senate. Right the collective Democratic House of twenty twenty
48:11
Speaker 1: seven will collectively be slightly further than the left than
48:15
Speaker 1: the current Democratic caucus in the House right now, and
48:19
Speaker 1: the same holds true with the Senate. So when you
48:22
Speaker 1: look at it through that prism, that's a long term
48:25
Speaker 1: trajectory win for progressive that they can point to. They
48:30
Speaker 1: are changing the personnel of the party slowly but surely,
48:34
Speaker 1: they are moving the conversation. They are winning enough races
48:38
Speaker 1: that nobody can simply dismiss them as a Twitter phenomenon anymore. Right,
48:43
Speaker 1: Wisconsin doesn't erase Michigan, and Wisconsin doesn't erase Minnesota. But
48:48
Speaker 1: Michigan and Minnesota don't erase Wisconsin either. We just have
48:53
Speaker 1: more evidence. Let's go back to the establishment. They still
48:57
Speaker 1: have a pretty big problem. Because here's the part mainstream
49:00
Speaker 1: Democrats should not miss and should not overlook about how
49:05
Speaker 1: lucky they got. Francesca Hong gave David Crawley an enormous
49:10
Speaker 1: political gift. She gave him a very easy answer to
49:15
Speaker 1: the question why shouldn't she be the nominee? Right, But
49:19
Speaker 1: Crawley's campaign was still largely about what he wasn't right.
49:24
Speaker 1: He wasn't Hong, he wasn't socialist, he wasn't anti Thanksgiving. Okay,
49:32
Speaker 1: but tell me.
49:32
Speaker 2: What he is.
49:34
Speaker 1: And that remains. You know, this was the Hailey Stephens problem,
49:36
Speaker 1: that remains the central problem for this governing wing of
49:39
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. We know what the Democrats aren't. They
49:43
Speaker 1: aren't Trump, they aren't Magot, they aren't socialists, they aren't DSA.
49:48
Speaker 2: Okay, what are you?
49:51
Speaker 1: What is this governing project? What is the larger economic idea?
49:55
Speaker 1: What is the role of government? What is your plan?
50:00
Speaker 1: What is the thing an ordinary voter can't explain to
50:04
Speaker 1: a neighbor in ten words, not why they're not for
50:07
Speaker 1: the other guy, But why should they be a Democrat?
50:12
Speaker 1: Progresses have an answer. You may think it's a bad answer,
50:17
Speaker 1: but they have an answer. The establishment too often simply
50:21
Speaker 1: points to resumes, and that isn't the same thing. So
50:27
Speaker 1: Wisconsin may have been a successful rescue mission, but it
50:32
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily a renewal just yet. And those are two
50:35
Speaker 1: different things. Can we step back.
50:42
Speaker 2: And look at the big picture?
50:43
Speaker 1: Here about some pretty big barriers that are going to
50:46
Speaker 1: get broken this year? You know me, I like to
50:49
Speaker 1: talk about some of those historic firsts. We have a
50:52
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable thing happening underneath all of this that I
50:55
Speaker 1: don't think we've paid enough attention to look at the
50:57
Speaker 1: potential class of governors emerging around the country. Keisha Lance
51:00
Speaker 1: Bottom so the Democratic nominee in Georgia. If she wins
51:04
Speaker 1: right now, it's a total toss up race. She would
51:06
Speaker 1: become the first black woman elected governor of Georgia. Wisconsin
51:10
Speaker 1: could elect David Crawlett, who would become the state's first
51:12
Speaker 1: black governor. Ohio is going to choose between Democrat Amy
51:16
Speaker 1: Acton and Republican Vivick Ramaswamy, meaning either they will elect
51:20
Speaker 1: the state's first woman governor, they've had one that assumed
51:25
Speaker 1: the office but never directly elected. Or they will elect
51:28
Speaker 1: their first governor of color Rumaswamy, an Indian American. Deb
51:34
Speaker 1: Holland is the Democratic nominee and heavy favored to be
51:36
Speaker 1: the next governor of New Mexico. If elected, she becomes
51:39
Speaker 1: the country's first Native American woman governor. If you're wondering
51:44
Speaker 1: who was the first Native American governor, it's actually the
51:47
Speaker 1: current governor of Oklahoma right now, Kevin Stitt, who is Cherokee.
51:51
Speaker 1: All of this is happening kind of quietly, you know,
51:54
Speaker 1: which is I think that in itself right that that
51:58
Speaker 1: isn't the lead here you in some ways that's its
52:01
Speaker 1: own type of progress. Crawley, by the way, is forty,
52:05
Speaker 1: so he's young, which brings me to one of my
52:08
Speaker 1: favorite ridiculous Washington rituals. If Crawley gets elected governor at
52:12
Speaker 1: the age of forty, you, David Crawley, are going to
52:16
Speaker 1: get invited to the club Shortlist. It's an exclusive club.
52:21
Speaker 1: It's got velvet ropes, it's got fast tracks to South
52:24
Speaker 1: Carolina and New Hampshire. What am I talking about, Well,
52:28
Speaker 1: the minute you become a governor or senator of either
52:31
Speaker 1: party from one of the handful of states that everybody
52:34
Speaker 1: obsesses over for presidential politics, a new question begins appearing.
52:40
Speaker 1: Could that person be on a national ticket someday? Now,
52:44
Speaker 1: David Crawley's got to win the general election first before
52:46
Speaker 1: we get completely carried away with his membership to club shortlist.
52:51
Speaker 1: But if he does, mister Crawley, your membership card, your
52:55
Speaker 1: invitation to club shortlist will be in the mail. I
52:59
Speaker 1: obviously and very hopeful I can make club shortlist a
53:02
Speaker 1: thing and make it a recurring segment. Right, there really
53:06
Speaker 1: is a whole category of American politician who is not
53:08
Speaker 1: necessarily running for president, may have no intention of ever
53:11
Speaker 1: running for president, but has reached the point where every
53:13
Speaker 1: reporter in America is legally required to put their name
53:17
Speaker 1: into a vice presidential story. Right, you get a membership card.
53:21
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get to keep that card for years. You know,
53:24
Speaker 1: Gretchen Wimer's had that card since twenty eighteen. I think
53:27
Speaker 1: she still gets to keep it. Sometimes you get thrown
53:30
Speaker 1: out of the club. Sometimes you can get readmitted. I
53:34
Speaker 1: think Ruben Diego, I think he may have his membership
53:38
Speaker 1: card rescinded. But you know, we'll see, there's some rules,
53:41
Speaker 1: there's some bylaws. You may not know him. We've got
53:44
Speaker 1: a committee that we will consult who gets to get
53:46
Speaker 1: in and out. But in all seriousness, this is probably
53:50
Speaker 1: a segment I'm going to have some fun with. But
53:53
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. Tell me who you
53:54
Speaker 1: think is my governor or senator going to get an
53:57
Speaker 1: invitation to club shortlist, Because honestly, the larger takeaway from
54:01
Speaker 1: Tuesday is it that the progressive insurgency won. And it
54:05
Speaker 1: isn't that the establishment won. It's that Democratic voters are
54:10
Speaker 1: becoming much more discriminating about how they want change. And
54:14
Speaker 1: it has to do with what I said earlier on
54:16
Speaker 1: my previous podcast, We know voters want change. Michigan showed
54:20
Speaker 1: us that Minnesota showed us at Wisconsin has showed us
54:23
Speaker 1: at two. The progressive movement is stronger than it was.
54:27
Speaker 1: It is winning races it would not have won a
54:29
Speaker 1: few years ago. But it is not in charge of
54:32
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. It is not one control of the
54:35
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And perhaps the most important thing that watching
54:38
Speaker 1: Wisconsin demonstrated is that Democratic voters can be furious with
54:43
Speaker 1: the status quo without becoming indiscriminate about the alternative for
54:49
Speaker 1: a lot of National Democrats. Abdul Lsied's victory has caused
54:53
Speaker 1: a bit of heartburn this week. David Crawley's victory may
54:58
Speaker 1: feel like the best bottle of thumbs the Democratic establishment
55:01
Speaker 1: has ever swallowed. That's how much better the party feels today.
55:06
Speaker 1: And it is a huge look. This means that control
55:10
Speaker 1: of the legislature is realistic in Wisconsin. Moving to the Democrats,
55:14
Speaker 1: this takes Like I said, this makes Abdul l say
55:16
Speaker 1: Ed's life a lot easier rather than having to have
55:19
Speaker 1: the Hong stuff bleed over into his state. It is
55:25
Speaker 1: a way to blunt this narrative that the somehow the
55:29
Speaker 1: socialists have taken over. The socialists may want to take over,
55:35
Speaker 1: but the Democratic establishment fought back successfully. It's something in
55:39
Speaker 1: the Trump era we've never seen from the Republican establishment.
55:42
Speaker 2: For what it's worth, all right, let me move on
55:53
Speaker 2: to a few other things.
55:54
Speaker 1: Speaking of mister Trump, we've had three primaries in six days. Actually,
55:59
Speaker 1: if you go back to we could go Thursday in Tennessee,
56:02
Speaker 1: where Trump endorsed candidates lost primaries August Sith, Tennessee's fifth district.
56:11
Speaker 1: Trump re upped his endorsement of Andyagles the morning of
56:15
Speaker 1: the election, complete and total, you know, the whole bullshit.
56:18
Speaker 1: Ogle's lost by about six and a half points to
56:21
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Charlie Hatcher, the former state had commissioner,
56:25
Speaker 1: had helped from the sitting governor, had helped from a
56:27
Speaker 1: couple of outside groups that are pretty anti Freedom Caucus
56:31
Speaker 1: a bit of a black mark on Trump Tuesday, Minnesota,
56:35
Speaker 1: Trump endorsed mister my pillowman Mike Lindell for governor. Lindell
56:40
Speaker 1: got thirty one percent. Lisa Damouth, the state House speaker,
56:44
Speaker 1: won the primary, to the absolute relief of the Republican establishment.
56:48
Speaker 1: By the way, in that state, because Democrats are with
56:51
Speaker 1: Amy Clobishar at the top of the ticket, they'd like
56:53
Speaker 1: to get total control.
56:54
Speaker 2: Of the state legislature.
56:54
Speaker 1: They don't have it now, and Mike Lindell as Republican
56:58
Speaker 1: nominee would have made.
56:59
Speaker 2: It a kekewak.
57:00
Speaker 1: Now it won't be a kkewalk and it may not
57:02
Speaker 1: happen at least literally. The Republicans lucked into the one
57:07
Speaker 1: candidate of the three that we're running that isn't Looney Tunes.
57:11
Speaker 1: And that's a big deal. So, but presidential endorsement number two.
57:18
Speaker 1: Lindell right finished the second. Now let's go over to
57:21
Speaker 1: South Carolina the special primary election to replace the late
57:28
Speaker 1: now late Senator Lindsay Graham. Trump personally encouraged Darlene Graham
57:31
Speaker 1: to run for her late brother's seat, and then he
57:33
Speaker 1: endorsed her. There were ten candidates on the ballot. She
57:38
Speaker 1: didn't even get a third of the vote. That's how
57:41
Speaker 1: that's how effective the Trump endorsement is. He can't even
57:44
Speaker 1: help a candidate get thirty three percent. She got thirty
57:46
Speaker 1: two point seven percent. Ralph Norman retiring member of Congress
57:51
Speaker 1: who ran for governor instead of running for reelection. He
57:55
Speaker 1: got stuck into Senate place. There's going to be a
57:58
Speaker 1: runoff now twenty fifth. And I have to tell you
58:04
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't think Graham's a shoeing here. Runoffs
58:07
Speaker 1: are quirky. This is going to be you know, this
58:10
Speaker 1: is literally the fourth statewide Republican election in three months
58:15
Speaker 1: that we're going to see there. And it began we
58:17
Speaker 1: had the regular primary in June, then a runoff at
58:20
Speaker 1: the end of June, then the special primary last Tuesday,
58:24
Speaker 1: and then we're going a runoff, right, I mean it's
58:25
Speaker 1: within two and a half months four statewide Republican primaries.
58:30
Speaker 1: Turnout it's gone down a little bit and a little bit,
58:33
Speaker 1: so this is going to be a super low turnout.
58:37
Speaker 1: The base South Carolina voter was no Lindsey Graham fan.
58:43
Speaker 2: I'm just saying she's no shoeing.
58:48
Speaker 1: What'll be interesting to see is whether Trump does any
58:51
Speaker 1: actually helps her, actually spends money on her behalf, tries
58:55
Speaker 1: to get over the finish line, or does he he
59:00
Speaker 1: already saw he already sort of hint. You could see
59:02
Speaker 1: he's not going to expend too much capital on her behalf.
59:05
Speaker 1: He just said, well, I endorsed her because of my
59:07
Speaker 1: friendship with Lindsey, which has the if you're her campaign
59:12
Speaker 1: that should make you nervous. The dreaded dual endorsement, a
59:16
Speaker 1: mega can't lose type of endorsement where he duel endorses
59:20
Speaker 1: could be although NICKI remember what's interuing about Ralph Norman
59:24
Speaker 1: is Norman didn't endorse Trump in twenty twenty four endorsed
59:26
Speaker 1: Nicki Haley. Nikki Haley has said she's going all in
59:30
Speaker 1: to help Norman to repay him. Maybe that motivates Trump
59:34
Speaker 1: to help Graham. I don't know, But let's look at
59:37
Speaker 1: this big picture here, this is three it is. There's
59:41
Speaker 1: no ambiguity here. Trump endorsed candidates have a worse track
59:45
Speaker 1: record this cycle than any cycle since he showed up
59:48
Speaker 1: on the scene and started doing this. And I think
59:53
Speaker 1: the question is is Trump losing his grip on the
59:56
Speaker 1: party or is the endorsement losing its power. I'm not
1:00:00
Speaker 1: sure it's quite it. I think what's happening is a
1:00:03
Speaker 1: bit more structural. I think the endorsement isn't failing, it's
1:00:06
Speaker 1: sort of it's kind of like inflating. It's like inflation, right,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: He's you know because even the candidates that defeat the
1:00:20
Speaker 1: people Trump endorses, they all go out of their way
1:00:23
Speaker 1: to say that they want to be a Trump candidate
1:00:25
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So you know, it's not a
1:00:28
Speaker 1: you can't say it's a full rebuke of Trump, but
1:00:30
Speaker 1: the fact that Trump doesn't have this grip over the
1:00:32
Speaker 1: electorate is worth noting. And that's what happens when a
1:00:35
Speaker 1: president gets into lane duck territory. That's what happens when
1:00:38
Speaker 1: you're unpopular. So you know, it's and it's also possible
1:00:44
Speaker 1: that the endorsement is just meaningless now to most voters,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: right because the endorsements stopped, it's not really information anymore.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: It doesn't separate anybody from anybody other than who's his
1:00:52
Speaker 1: personal preference. So it's you know, I kind of think
1:00:58
Speaker 1: that it's just he's made the endorsement meaningless in some ways.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: He gives it out too easily, so it's diluted. Yes,
1:01:05
Speaker 1: he's also losing his grip, So all of it is that.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: I think it's all that, But I think the bigger
1:01:14
Speaker 1: you know, if she can't win a runoff with Trump's
1:01:17
Speaker 1: endorsement in his in sort of in a state that
1:01:21
Speaker 1: is as important to the Republican Party sort of identity
1:01:25
Speaker 1: as South Carolina is, and then I think it's it's,
1:01:29
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how many different times we
1:01:31
Speaker 1: have to say, hey, he's officially a lame duck, but
1:01:34
Speaker 1: it's she had another way and another instance to be
1:01:36
Speaker 1: able to say, hey, look he's a lame duck. A
1:01:41
Speaker 1: few other things from Tuesday night, We lost another member
1:01:46
Speaker 1: of Congress to a primary defeat. John Larson lost Tuesday
1:01:50
Speaker 1: night fourteen terms. You know, he actually had some old
1:01:54
Speaker 1: school establishment people behind him, including Nancy Pelosi, Nakim Jeffries.
1:01:58
Speaker 1: He had some labor unions as well, but he lost
1:02:01
Speaker 1: to somebody who had Frankly younger didn't lose to somebody
1:02:06
Speaker 1: that was running to his left, lost to a gentleman
1:02:08
Speaker 1: by the name of Luke Bronham, who was the former
1:02:10
Speaker 1: mayor of Hartford. He actually had his own constituency. And
1:02:13
Speaker 1: I think this was about general this was about generation.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: This was not about ideology, so I wouldn't file it
1:02:20
Speaker 1: into that one. But it is worth noting when you
1:02:25
Speaker 1: add up everything so far that we have seen the
1:02:28
Speaker 1: most incumbent House members lose primaries in a non redistricting year,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: the most we've had since nineteen seventy. Now is it
1:02:38
Speaker 1: a non redistricting year anymore? Right, This mid cycle redistricting
1:02:41
Speaker 1: certainly has made it there, if you will, But we
1:02:46
Speaker 1: already have larcense. Defeat means we are guaranteed to have
1:02:49
Speaker 1: at least seventy three new members of Congress if no
1:02:55
Speaker 1: other member loses, and we have even gotten to November.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: If this is a wave, the likelihood of twenty five
1:03:01
Speaker 1: to forty incumbents losing from both sides of the aisle, Right,
1:03:05
Speaker 1: that's not the net, right, just a total of another
1:03:08
Speaker 1: twenty five to forty incumbents losing is not unrealistic in
1:03:11
Speaker 1: wave elections, It's about the norm it would put. It
1:03:16
Speaker 1: would mean that we would be right around pretty close
1:03:19
Speaker 1: to twenty five percent turnover of the House of Representatives,
1:03:23
Speaker 1: which would be one of the largest turnovers in the
1:03:26
Speaker 1: post World War two era. What's interesting is, pre World
1:03:29
Speaker 1: War One, it was consistently you'd have turnover in the
1:03:33
Speaker 1: House of forty percent, forty five percent, things like that.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: But in the post World War two environment, it's very
1:03:40
Speaker 1: very rare. Basically, it's nineteen ninety two, nineteen forty eight,
1:03:46
Speaker 1: and nineteen forty six are when we had at least
1:03:48
Speaker 1: one hundred new members in those congresses, and those are
1:03:51
Speaker 1: the only times it's gotten over one hundred since World
1:03:54
Speaker 1: War Two. We I think the likelihood of getting there
1:03:58
Speaker 1: with this cycle is as high as ever, that's for sure.
1:04:03
Speaker 2: All Right.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: Two other quick stories I want to touch on that
1:04:05
Speaker 1: I normally would spend a lot more time on.
1:04:08
Speaker 2: And it is.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: It is this Chris Christy went on the was on
1:04:13
Speaker 1: one of the Sunday shows ABC, I believe it was,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: and said the thing that will bother Donald Trump more
1:04:18
Speaker 1: than anything anyone has said about him so far in
1:04:21
Speaker 1: the last couple of months, he said the Iran war
1:04:24
Speaker 1: was quote an adventure without a plan, and then he
1:04:27
Speaker 1: said Trump is about to become the one person he
1:04:31
Speaker 1: never wanted to be. Jimmy Carter held hostage by Iran,
1:04:36
Speaker 1: and Christy added the knife. All of it was voluntary, right.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: Carter didn't do this, He didn't choose to have the
1:04:44
Speaker 1: Iranians humiliate him. Donald Trump made the choice.
1:04:48
Speaker 2: Obviously.
1:04:49
Speaker 1: Christy has known Trump right quarter century. He knows what
1:04:54
Speaker 1: he's doing. He picked that comparison on purpose. He knows
1:04:56
Speaker 1: this is going to drive Trump's crazy right. But it lands,
1:05:00
Speaker 1: and I know it landed hard. But Christy's even more
1:05:03
Speaker 1: right than he's arguing. And he's more right for a
1:05:06
Speaker 1: different reason than everybody's assuming. Because here's what's happened over
1:05:10
Speaker 1: the last few days with Iran. Iran Supreme National Security
1:05:13
Speaker 1: Council put out its list of conditions right for reopening
1:05:16
Speaker 1: the Straight of Horn moves, lift the naval broadcain in sanctions,
1:05:19
Speaker 1: with draw forces, release frozen assets, you know, commit to
1:05:23
Speaker 1: never threatening Iran again, and pay reparations for the war.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: That is not They're not negotiating with the United States
1:05:30
Speaker 1: at the moment, they just sent a ransom note. This
1:05:32
Speaker 1: was like a big f you. And the timing here,
1:05:37
Speaker 1: to me is fascinating because the Iranians put out this
1:05:41
Speaker 1: wish list days after White House officials were telling reporters, Oh, no, no, no, no,
1:05:45
Speaker 1: they've got a deal is close, deal is close. Oh
1:05:48
Speaker 1: the deal is any day now. Oh no, no, no, no,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: we're close. So here's the question nobody's asking if Iran
1:05:57
Speaker 1: is broke. I believe that their own officials are saying
1:05:59
Speaker 1: it out loud. The blockade has going to creator their economy. Fine,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: they need sanctions relief. This is not sustainable, Floyan. So
1:06:06
Speaker 1: why on earth would a country in that position escalate
1:06:08
Speaker 1: its demands. Well, I think the answer is simple, and
1:06:12
Speaker 1: it's the most dangerous thing on this list. They're reading
1:06:15
Speaker 1: our political calendar. Every month that the straight stays closed
1:06:20
Speaker 1: is a month of oil prices and shipping costs and
1:06:22
Speaker 1: empty shelves, and all of those months are running into
1:06:26
Speaker 1: November third. The Iranians don't have to win this. They
1:06:29
Speaker 1: don't have to beat the United States militarily, they don't
1:06:32
Speaker 1: have to hold a position. They just have to be
1:06:34
Speaker 1: more patient than an American president who's eighty something days
1:06:38
Speaker 1: from a midterm election that's about and is hand them
1:06:41
Speaker 1: a pretty big defeat. And that's the real Jimmy Carter parallel.
1:06:47
Speaker 1: It's not the hostages, it's the clock. Go back and
1:06:50
Speaker 1: look at what actually happened in nineteen eighty. The Iranians
1:06:53
Speaker 1: understood the American electoral time better than the American president
1:06:57
Speaker 1: at that time did They held on through the campaign,
1:07:00
Speaker 1: and then they timed the release to the minute. Ronald
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Reagan put his hand on the Bible. Because the humiliation
1:07:06
Speaker 1: of Carter was the point, and the calendar was the weapon.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that they were humiliating Carter because they
1:07:13
Speaker 1: like Reagan. They were humiliating Carter to send a message
1:07:17
Speaker 1: of other American presidents. Trump's problem right now is not
1:07:21
Speaker 1: that Iran is strong. We know Iran is not strong.
1:07:24
Speaker 1: Iran is broke, it's bombed, it's isolated. Trump's problem is
1:07:28
Speaker 1: that Iran is correctly identified that he is the one
1:07:31
Speaker 1: on a deadline and they are not. Trump has the watches,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: Iran has the time. It's why his bluster's not working.
1:07:40
Speaker 1: His response to the reparations demand this week was essentially, fine,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: we'll bill you too fifty years of damage. Okay, I
1:07:48
Speaker 1: guess that's what I would have retorted if I were
1:07:49
Speaker 1: in his shoes. It's a line that works when the
1:07:52
Speaker 1: other guy needs something from you this week, but they
1:07:55
Speaker 1: don't need anything from you this week. They need November.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: He got trapped by an adversary who understood American attention spans.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Trump is getting trapped by one that understands American election calendar.
1:08:10
Speaker 1: Same trap, more savvy. All right, let me close with
1:08:17
Speaker 1: this before I get to the interview with Ben Wickler.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: I want to do something I don't think I've ever done,
1:08:23
Speaker 1: and I'm going to give Mark Zuckerberg some credit. I
1:08:26
Speaker 1: want to be careful here because frankly, he's earned a
1:08:29
Speaker 1: lot of the grief he gets, Cambridge Analytica, the Team
1:08:32
Speaker 1: Mental Health, hearings, the rebrand and run when the heat
1:08:36
Speaker 1: got bad. There's a reason people are super skeptical when
1:08:39
Speaker 1: he publishes a manifesto, and the skepticism that people have
1:08:43
Speaker 1: of anything he has to say is not irrational. But
1:08:46
Speaker 1: he published one this week and it says something that
1:08:49
Speaker 1: the other guys in the big tech world, in the
1:08:51
Speaker 1: air world aren't saying. And I think he deserves an
1:08:54
Speaker 1: adda boy here a little bit. The argument that the
1:08:56
Speaker 1: AI labs have been making, some of them explicitly, most
1:09:00
Speaker 1: of them implicitly, is that this technology is so dangerous
1:09:04
Speaker 1: that the only responsible thing to do is to keep
1:09:07
Speaker 1: it in the hands.
1:09:07
Speaker 2: Of the very few.
1:09:09
Speaker 1: Their hands generally right well, to Zuckerbert's credit is peace.
1:09:12
Speaker 1: Says the opposite. He says, concentration of power is the
1:09:16
Speaker 1: danger here here. Man, it's ironic that the CEO of
1:09:21
Speaker 1: Meta is saying is coming out against concentration of power,
1:09:24
Speaker 1: as he has his own set of power concentrations. But look,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: I want to give him credit for what he wrote down.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: Zuckerbert also said there's no such thing as a benevolent
1:09:34
Speaker 1: superintelligence held by one company, because there's no such thing
1:09:38
Speaker 1: as a set of values that's benevolent to everybody at once.
1:09:42
Speaker 1: And he says, the way you get safety is the
1:09:44
Speaker 1: way we've always gotten safety in a liberal society. You
1:09:48
Speaker 1: distribute the power and you let the competing interest check
1:09:52
Speaker 1: each other. Very Madisonian of him. Good for you, Zuck.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: And he's also committing to have an independent board sign
1:10:01
Speaker 1: off on release criteria rather than making that call himself,
1:10:05
Speaker 1: and he's staying with open models when the AI industry
1:10:09
Speaker 1: has been drifting the other direction. Now some of you
1:10:14
Speaker 1: are going you can argue that this is all a
1:10:16
Speaker 1: pretty convenient position for Zuck to take. Metta is behind
1:10:21
Speaker 1: Openness is what you're for when you're not the lead dog.
1:10:25
Speaker 1: Right if their model was the model everybody wanted their
1:10:28
Speaker 1: hands on, he might want to build a gated community.
1:10:32
Speaker 1: Fine noted, But honestly, I'd rather have somebody out there
1:10:36
Speaker 1: making the argument for transparency, and then it's being made
1:10:39
Speaker 1: by a self interested party. Then if it's not being
1:10:42
Speaker 1: made at all, openness and disclosure is a better place
1:10:45
Speaker 1: to stand than the alternative period. And right now he's
1:10:50
Speaker 1: more or less standing there by himself in the big
1:10:53
Speaker 1: tech world. So that's a step forward. But this manifesto
1:10:57
Speaker 1: also took two steps back. Buried in the back half
1:11:02
Speaker 1: of this thing, after the philosophy, after his thought experiment
1:11:07
Speaker 1: about the super intelligent lawyer, after the section on the
1:11:11
Speaker 1: recursive self improvement that was a little creepy at times,
1:11:15
Speaker 1: is the part of his manifesto that I think actually
1:11:18
Speaker 1: mattered politically, ed should have been at the start, at
1:11:22
Speaker 1: the very beginning meta is calling it a community compact.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: In Richland, Paris, Louisiana, teachers got a fifty thousand dollars
1:11:32
Speaker 1: bonus this year because of the tax revenue from the
1:11:34
Speaker 1: data center. There's also a free training academy for electricians
1:11:39
Speaker 1: and carpenters and welders with a job guaranteed at the end.
1:11:44
Speaker 1: Zuck claims they're building their own generation so that they're
1:11:47
Speaker 1: not eating capacity that would have gone to the town,
1:11:51
Speaker 1: and Meta committed to putting more water back in the
1:11:54
Speaker 1: watershed than they take out, and he's establishing a billionllion
1:12:00
Speaker 1: dollar fund for police and fire departments in the towns
1:12:03
Speaker 1: hosting these data centers. That's not a footnote. He kind
1:12:09
Speaker 1: of used it as a footnote, but it's not. That's
1:12:11
Speaker 1: the whole ballgame, because here's what's actually happening in this
1:12:14
Speaker 1: country right now. Data centers are becoming the zoning fight
1:12:17
Speaker 1: of the next three years. They're getting voted down in
1:12:21
Speaker 1: New York, they're getting fought over in Texas. It is
1:12:23
Speaker 1: one of the very few issues we have where the
1:12:25
Speaker 1: left and the right are showing up in the same
1:12:27
Speaker 1: kind of commission meetings on the same side and may
1:12:31
Speaker 1: be there for completely different reasons, but they're all against
1:12:34
Speaker 1: this expansion. And Zuckerberg, who's more to offer than fight,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: you know, than anybody led with a debate he's having.
1:12:45
Speaker 1: He What was frustrating here is that Zuckerberg decided to
1:12:51
Speaker 1: make his manifesto at first a retort to sam Oltman,
1:12:55
Speaker 1: like he's in a debate with him, and he buried
1:12:59
Speaker 1: the stuff that I think the public would want to
1:13:02
Speaker 1: know more. Nobody at that County Commission meeting is litigating
1:13:06
Speaker 1: whether super intelligence should be centralized or distributed. They're litigating
1:13:11
Speaker 1: whether their power bill goes up and whether their kids'
1:13:14
Speaker 1: school gets anything out of it. Zuckerberg is credit has
1:13:18
Speaker 1: a real answer to that question. The problem is he
1:13:22
Speaker 1: spent eight thousand words of his manifesto and all the
1:13:24
Speaker 1: other questions first before he got to it. If the
1:13:29
Speaker 1: Community Compact is the strongest thing you've got, Zuck, and
1:13:33
Speaker 1: I think it is, then put it in the first paragraph. Brother,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: don't put it in the last paragraph. You don't win
1:13:41
Speaker 1: a zoning fight by winning a philosophy seminar with sam Oltman.
1:13:46
Speaker 2: Anyway.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Look, I threw it out there because it's really easy
1:13:50
Speaker 1: to dunk on these big tech CEOs who were very
1:13:53
Speaker 1: out of touch with this country. And there is no
1:13:57
Speaker 1: doubt that there is a business incentive for Zuckerberg taking
1:14:03
Speaker 1: the position that he did good. I hope more tech
1:14:08
Speaker 1: CEOs share his philosophy on this.
1:14:12
Speaker 2: You need it.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: The community needs to win on these They have to win.
1:14:17
Speaker 2: Two.
1:14:18
Speaker 1: That's number one and two. Yes, this thing needs to
1:14:23
Speaker 1: be open, accessible to everybody. Right now, this entire AI
1:14:29
Speaker 1: stuff feels like it's an insider trading scheme somehow, being
1:14:32
Speaker 1: run by Trump and a handful of these tech bandits.
1:14:36
Speaker 1: And that's a bad look into Zuckerberg's credit. He came
1:14:41
Speaker 1: out against it to Top five top jest. All right,
1:14:57
Speaker 1: it is Top five list time. As you know, my
1:14:59
Speaker 1: Top five list every week, brought to you by my
1:15:01
Speaker 1: friends at FanDuel, And as I promised at the start
1:15:04
Speaker 1: of my monologue, these this is my I want to
1:15:06
Speaker 1: put this Wisconsin Democratic primary in its proper historic place.
1:15:12
Speaker 1: I think it's the uh. It is one of the
1:15:16
Speaker 1: biggest upsets, frankly in my lifetime in a non presidential primary.
1:15:21
Speaker 1: So look, here's the rule. Everybody's list of biggest upsets
1:15:25
Speaker 1: is really a list of races where somebody raised less
1:15:28
Speaker 1: money than somebody else. And that's not always an upset,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: it's just math.
1:15:32
Speaker 2: Right.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: But the test here, here's my test. It's a bit narrow,
1:15:36
Speaker 1: a bit harder that the winner. You know, I look
1:15:38
Speaker 1: at this. My sort of rule here is the winner
1:15:40
Speaker 1: had to be behind the week of the primary, right,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: not behind three months before, and they make their comeback,
1:15:46
Speaker 1: not behind in the abstract, but truly behind going in.
1:15:51
Speaker 1: So that that rule ruled out a lot of famous names.
1:15:54
Speaker 1: You might be thinking of famous primary upsets that sort
1:15:56
Speaker 1: of we're shocking Christine O'Donnell over my castle. Well, Christine
1:16:00
Speaker 1: o'donald actually led Mike Castle in the last couple of poles.
1:16:03
Speaker 1: The shock was to Washington. It wasn't a shock to
1:16:06
Speaker 1: the data. Right, Ned Lamont led Joe Lieberman in that primary,
1:16:09
Speaker 1: Joe Sestak led Arlen Spector Murdoch, Richard Murdoch led Dick Lueger.
1:16:17
Speaker 1: Gray Davis was ahead in the final field poll in
1:16:19
Speaker 1: ninety eight. All of those were incredible stories and thought
1:16:22
Speaker 1: to be incredible upsets, but they actually weren't surprises by
1:16:26
Speaker 1: the final week of the campaign. Rights. It's when you're
1:16:31
Speaker 1: it's where you're like, wait, what happened? You had no
1:16:34
Speaker 1: idea that morning of the prime of election day itself
1:16:39
Speaker 1: that it was going to turn out the way it
1:16:41
Speaker 1: turned out. So after I threw all that, you know,
1:16:46
Speaker 1: all those rules in there, and I have five races
1:16:51
Speaker 1: that I've come up with my five non presidential primary
1:16:55
Speaker 1: all time upsets. Number five, Oh Crawley, New York fourteen
1:17:02
Speaker 1: Democratic Primary twenty eighteen. Fourth ranking member of leadership in
1:17:07
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. He's also the Queens County party boss.
1:17:13
Speaker 1: He's the presumed successor to Nancy Pelosi. He hadn't faced
1:17:18
Speaker 1: a primary in fourteen years. An internal poll had him
1:17:22
Speaker 1: up thirty five. He lost by fifteen points, so why
1:17:27
Speaker 1: is this one consequential? Didn't change his seat, but it
1:17:32
Speaker 1: did change the party internal clock. Every House Democrat over
1:17:38
Speaker 1: sixty spent the next six years running like they were forty.
1:17:41
Speaker 1: By the way, who did do you remember who? Joe
1:17:42
Speaker 1: Crowley lost to Alexandria Cassia Cortes. So that's number five
1:17:48
Speaker 1: in the list. Number four, Carol Mosey Brawn, Illinois Senate,
1:17:53
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. It's probably the most underrated result in
1:17:57
Speaker 1: modern American politics. You had Alan Dixon had not lost
1:18:01
Speaker 1: an election in roughly forty years of Illinois politics, thousands
1:18:05
Speaker 1: of votes cast, never beaten. He voted to confirm Clarence Thomas.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: Six months later, a Cook County recorder of deeds with
1:18:13
Speaker 1: almost no money beats him in a three way race
1:18:16
Speaker 1: and becomes the first black woman ever elected to the
1:18:19
Speaker 1: United States Senate. This is the race where the Anita
1:18:23
Speaker 1: Hill ring stopped being a media story and became an
1:18:26
Speaker 1: electoral story. Everything called the Year of the Woman runs
1:18:30
Speaker 1: through this March primary of nineteen ninety two. Number three
1:18:35
Speaker 1: on my list Andrew Gillam Florida Governor Democratic Primary twenty eighteen.
1:18:40
Speaker 1: Gwen Graham, who, by the way, is now the running
1:18:42
Speaker 1: mate for David Jolly for governor this cycle, Gwen Graham,
1:18:46
Speaker 1: daughter of the late governor and Senator Bob Graham, led
1:18:49
Speaker 1: in all the final public polling. In fact, there was
1:18:53
Speaker 1: a third candidate, Philip Levine, who had spent enormous sums
1:18:55
Speaker 1: on television, and a fourth candidate that spent a bunch
1:18:58
Speaker 1: of extra money on TV. Gillam was running third in
1:19:01
Speaker 1: most of the primaries, who was funded largely from outside
1:19:04
Speaker 1: the state. Bernie Sanders came in with a late endorsement.
1:19:08
Speaker 1: George Soros came in with a late check and Gillian
1:19:12
Speaker 1: pulls an upset. He ended up losing the general election
1:19:17
Speaker 1: by just thirty two thousand votes after more than eight
1:19:20
Speaker 1: million casts. As you know, though, his victory sent the
1:19:24
Speaker 1: Florida Democratic Party basically into purgatory. It has not recovered since.
1:19:29
Speaker 1: But it was a massive upset engineered by Bernie Sanders,
1:19:33
Speaker 1: number two on the Great Shocks of the last thirty
1:19:38
Speaker 1: eight years.
1:19:38
Speaker 2: I guess you could call it.
1:19:40
Speaker 1: Eric Canner Virginia seventh Republican Congressional District at the time
1:19:45
Speaker 1: Republican Primary twenty fourteen. He's the sitting House majority leader,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: number two on the list, the only one to lose
1:19:54
Speaker 1: a primary since the position was created in eighteen ninety nine.
1:19:58
Speaker 1: His own polster had him up four points. A guy
1:20:02
Speaker 1: named Dave Bratt spent somewhere around two hundred thousand dollars.
1:20:07
Speaker 1: Paulling just didn't even miss it. Wasn't even just wrong,
1:20:11
Speaker 1: it missed the direction, just totally missed it. And it
1:20:13
Speaker 1: was turned out it was the beginning of a realization
1:20:16
Speaker 1: where Republicans were like, we don't know who our voters
1:20:18
Speaker 1: are anymore, because a whole new Republican electorate was developing.
1:20:22
Speaker 1: Dave Bratt took advantage of that, and the Eric Canner
1:20:25
Speaker 1: Wing Paul Ryan Wing has been in retreat ever since,
1:20:30
Speaker 1: and you know, largely for a decade. It was probably
1:20:32
Speaker 1: the number one shocker of all time. This was one
1:20:34
Speaker 1: nobody saw coming on that one. And now number one
1:20:37
Speaker 1: David Crawley. I mean it is I know this can
1:20:42
Speaker 1: come across this recency bias, but you know, let me
1:20:47
Speaker 1: put it. Let me let me make the case here
1:20:48
Speaker 1: on the Merits, every other race on that list that
1:20:51
Speaker 1: I included required one improbable thing to happen. For David Crawley,
1:20:55
Speaker 1: he needed like five improbable things in sequence, like five
1:21:00
Speaker 1: weeks in a row. Right, Crawley suspends his campaign July eighth,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: campaign traction endorses the sitting Lieutenant governor, Sarah Rodriguez. Sarah Rodriguez,
1:21:08
Speaker 1: who a week earlier looked like the mainstream front runner.
1:21:10
Speaker 1: Her campaign had to collapse over campaign finance problems. Right,
1:21:14
Speaker 1: You then had to have the Mandela scandal to get
1:21:16
Speaker 1: Mandela Barnes out of the race. Crawley re enters on
1:21:18
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, somehow gets the governor to endorse this time,
1:21:23
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, he somehow finds the way to win.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: So if you remove any of those things from that
1:21:30
Speaker 1: chain of events, he's not the nominee. Right, Cannor lost
1:21:34
Speaker 1: because his electorate changed underneath him. That was a shock,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: and it was a big one. This is a candidate
1:21:40
Speaker 1: to quit became the nominee of a battle around state. Anyway,
1:21:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't find any precedent for that,
1:21:47
Speaker 1: not at all. So it is and is, and if
1:21:51
Speaker 1: he wins this governor's mansion, and right now I think
1:21:54
Speaker 1: he is the favorite boy. That puts him in some
1:21:57
Speaker 1: rare are. And yes, it also means membership in the
1:22:01
Speaker 1: club shortlist, but that will be I can't wait to
1:22:05
Speaker 1: save that one. I just want to put up a
1:22:07
Speaker 1: few honorable mentions. I came up here for this top
1:22:09
Speaker 1: five list, so honorable. My favorite presidential upset primary upsets,
1:22:14
Speaker 1: the big one. Henry Cabot Lodge a writing campaign in
1:22:16
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, the New Hampshire primary. Right, he won
1:22:19
Speaker 1: a writing campaign while serving in Saigon. Folks, he wasn't
1:22:24
Speaker 1: a candidate. Didn't ask My old mentor Doug Bailey ran
1:22:27
Speaker 1: this campaign, so I know a little bit extra about
1:22:29
Speaker 1: it than most people. He never set foot in the state.
1:22:32
Speaker 1: It is easily the most improbable primary result ever recorded,
1:22:36
Speaker 1: and it was the beginning of sort of what you
1:22:38
Speaker 1: realized this was when you eventually Barry Goldwater into phenomenee.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: But the Republican Party was a mess in sixty four.
1:22:44
Speaker 1: And this was the fact that the New Hampshire primary
1:22:46
Speaker 1: began with a write in winning only only reinforced that
1:22:52
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson the Michigan caucuses in eighty eight. It was
1:22:56
Speaker 1: the biggest upset at the time that any black candidate
1:22:59
Speaker 1: had in a presidential primary. He run fifty five percent
1:23:02
Speaker 1: in an industrial state. He briefly led the delegate count.
1:23:06
Speaker 1: There's Hillary Clinton New Hampshire eight. Every final poll had
1:23:10
Speaker 1: Obama up by high single digits. I think that was
1:23:12
Speaker 1: more polling air than anything else. And then Rick Santorum
1:23:16
Speaker 1: Iowa twenty twelve. You know, no public poll ever showed
1:23:18
Speaker 1: him winning. And Selzer's final poll, she said, you know,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: the last two nights Santorum seemed to be surging. Lo
1:23:25
Speaker 1: and behold, there was definitely something there. It took an
1:23:28
Speaker 1: extra two weeks, but eventually Santorum was declared the winner.
1:23:33
Speaker 1: On this there were a few others that I could
1:23:35
Speaker 1: have included you had Larushi. Democrats in Illinois in eighty
1:23:38
Speaker 1: six out of nowhere winning crazy primaries. There was this
1:23:42
Speaker 1: Victor Morales who wonted Texas Senate runoff of ninety six.
1:23:46
Speaker 1: He was a high school civics teacher who had a
1:23:48
Speaker 1: pickup truck and no money. The entire Democratic establishment was
1:23:52
Speaker 1: behind his opponent, and he.
1:23:53
Speaker 2: Won the runoff anyway.
1:23:56
Speaker 1: It was sort of the It was the first time
1:23:57
Speaker 1: Democrats realized, boy, Hispanic surnames must matter to voters. Huh,
1:24:03
Speaker 1: you had Al Green, those of you. I think he's
1:24:06
Speaker 1: now the late Al Green. He shockingly won a Senate
1:24:10
Speaker 1: Democratic primary in twenty ten out of nowhere, had no campaign,
1:24:13
Speaker 1: no website, no yard signs, did have one felony pending
1:24:16
Speaker 1: felony charge any sign my one, and Joe Miller's out
1:24:19
Speaker 1: of nowhere upset of Lisa Murkowski, which led to her
1:24:22
Speaker 1: running as a write in is also on my honorable
1:24:24
Speaker 1: mention list there, but there you go. I put Wisconsin
1:24:31
Speaker 1: Democratic gubernatorial primary twenty twenty six. I think it is
1:24:35
Speaker 1: my number one all time shocking primary upset, over and
1:24:43
Speaker 1: above any presidential primary I could come up with. On
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Speaker 1: you're in Louisiana. As Chuck, all right, let's do a
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Speaker 1: little last Chuck. First question comes from Nick Michigan's second
1:26:38
Speaker 1: congressional district, and he's got a.
1:26:40
Speaker 2: Little bit of concern about.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: I think the the election administration. And he writes recent
1:26:48
Speaker 1: pollings suggests James Talerico is genuinely competitive with Ken Paxton
1:26:51
Speaker 1: and Texas If Taalerico would have win by one to
1:26:53
Speaker 1: two points, how confident should we be that the certified
1:26:55
Speaker 1: result would accurately reflect the vote? Is Texas's decentralized elections
1:26:59
Speaker 1: system robust and night to prevent partisan officials from altering
1:27:02
Speaker 1: the outcome of a close state wide race.
1:27:04
Speaker 2: Thanks.
1:27:04
Speaker 1: Well, look, I understand your skepticism. After all, Packson's the
1:27:10
Speaker 1: sitting attorney general. God only knows how he would abuse.
1:27:12
Speaker 1: You know, he's he doesn't seem to have too many
1:27:14
Speaker 1: ethical or moral lines he won't cross. So if you're
1:27:16
Speaker 1: one assuming he would be willing to use his office
1:27:19
Speaker 1: to try to gain an advantage, he's probably willing to
1:27:22
Speaker 1: do that. But do realize that whether some of the
1:27:26
Speaker 1: largest counties are run by Democrats in Texas, Harris County,
1:27:29
Speaker 1: Dallas County, Beyer County, Travis County, and you know that's
1:27:35
Speaker 1: that that's where you know, that's where the big vote
1:27:38
Speaker 1: chunks that Democrats are going to need to come from.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: So I'm I am, I am. Look, I think our
1:27:44
Speaker 1: decentralized system is a feature the fact this is run
1:27:48
Speaker 1: by locals. It's precincts, it's counties, it's it's it's different municipalities.
1:27:55
Speaker 1: You know, you look at what the work I'm doing
1:27:58
Speaker 1: with my friends at DDHKE you and my partnership with them.
1:28:03
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways we're a public check on this,
1:28:07
Speaker 1: right you know, that is why we don't trust them
1:28:10
Speaker 1: to report. We do the count, we go and get it,
1:28:13
Speaker 1: they do account. We basically double check their count in
1:28:16
Speaker 1: real time. We've got people down there and doing that.
1:28:21
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that it isn't possible to screw
1:28:25
Speaker 1: around with this stuff. I'm just saying it's really hard
1:28:28
Speaker 1: to get away with it. And that's probably the best
1:28:31
Speaker 1: way I could It's probably the most realistic way I
1:28:34
Speaker 1: could reassure you on this. But if tall Rico gets
1:28:37
Speaker 1: more votes in packs and I'm confident Tall Rico is
1:28:40
Speaker 1: going to be the US Senator from Texas, all right,
1:28:43
Speaker 1: I am fully confident in that. Is it going to
1:28:45
Speaker 1: be a fight. Might there be a court fight or
1:28:48
Speaker 1: two maybe, But if that's the honest vote count, I'm
1:28:53
Speaker 1: confident that vote count is going to get certified. As
1:28:58
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not an alarmist, but I am. I'm
1:29:02
Speaker 1: but I'm not. I'm not naive either.
1:29:05
Speaker 2: I hope that helps.
1:29:08
Speaker 1: What do we got here? It's John B. Bellingham, Washington
1:29:11
Speaker 1: second Congressional District. He's working. He wants to work his
1:29:15
Speaker 1: way to the five timer club. He's hoping this becomes
1:29:17
Speaker 1: number two. He says, sorry to hear about the Nationals
1:29:20
Speaker 1: yard sale.
1:29:20
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, you and me both. It is I.
1:29:22
Speaker 1: Fail your pain as a Mariners fan. Honestly, you have
1:29:25
Speaker 1: more pain. I got a World Series out of the
1:29:28
Speaker 1: Nationals and you guys haven't. So you have you, my friend,
1:29:31
Speaker 1: have felt more pain as a Mariners fan.
1:29:33
Speaker 2: I am. I am convinced of that, all right.
1:29:36
Speaker 1: The vice president, he's often called the least powerful elected office,
1:29:39
Speaker 1: but some vps have had enormous influence behind the scenes.
1:29:42
Speaker 1: What do you think makes a vice presidency successful? And
1:29:45
Speaker 1: who would make your top five list?
1:29:47
Speaker 2: All the best? John B.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: But that's a fun item.
1:29:50
Speaker 2: I think.
1:29:52
Speaker 1: Look, it's the vice presidents that that are and that
1:30:02
Speaker 1: that presidents want to use as as an asset that
1:30:06
Speaker 1: end up becoming assets.
1:30:08
Speaker 2: Right.
1:30:08
Speaker 1: If the president doesn't want the vice president to be
1:30:11
Speaker 1: anything but a representative at funerals, then it's a shitty job.
1:30:18
Speaker 1: But ultimately, you know, the list I'll come up with
1:30:23
Speaker 1: of sitting vice presidents, you know, only as effective. And
1:30:28
Speaker 1: it's really only been in the twentieth century did presidents
1:30:30
Speaker 1: start start thinking about their vice presidents using them more
1:30:36
Speaker 1: than just than just in ceremonial roles, you know, and look,
1:30:44
Speaker 1: the vice presidents you know, most of them in the
1:30:47
Speaker 1: pre sort of the pre World War two going per
1:30:50
Speaker 1: World War Two, were really just you know, you know,
1:30:54
Speaker 1: basically they had to s right in order to keep
1:30:57
Speaker 1: a coalition. I mean, if you if you watch by
1:31:00
Speaker 1: Lightning about Garfield and Chester Arthur, you know that was
1:31:03
Speaker 1: a forced marriage. It wasn't as if Garfield wasn't thinking
1:31:07
Speaker 1: he was getting a partner in Chester Arthur. In fact,
1:31:09
Speaker 1: he just assumed Chester Arthur was going to be a
1:31:11
Speaker 1: problem to deal with. And that's in some ways many
1:31:14
Speaker 1: a president dealt with their vice presidents that way. I
1:31:17
Speaker 1: think it's really more of a of a modern a
1:31:23
Speaker 1: little bit more of the modern era where you had
1:31:25
Speaker 1: this and I guess you could say it starts with
1:31:28
Speaker 1: with Harry Truman, the decision to dump Henry Wallace and
1:31:31
Speaker 1: get Harry Truman right that you know, the essentially the
1:31:34
Speaker 1: team behind FDR realized, hey, he's going to he may
1:31:38
Speaker 1: die in office. We need a more legitimate, we need
1:31:41
Speaker 1: somebody that can handle this job type of thing. And
1:31:44
Speaker 1: they were worried about Henry Wallace taking going too far
1:31:48
Speaker 1: to the left. Remember he was the progressive inside the
1:31:50
Speaker 1: movement more so than FDR. I know, in hindsight, FDR
1:31:54
Speaker 1: looks like the progressive, but back then Henry Wallace was Iowa.
1:31:59
Speaker 1: By the way, there's a terrific Henry Waller's biography of
1:32:03
Speaker 1: those of you that would love to study sort of
1:32:05
Speaker 1: the progressive, the progressive, the history of the progressive movement.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: Henry Wallace a very important player. Great biography written by
1:32:14
Speaker 1: a former senator from Iowa named John Culver, whose son
1:32:19
Speaker 1: served a one term as governor. Anyway, enough Iowa trivia
1:32:22
Speaker 1: for you there, let's my quick of sort of and
1:32:26
Speaker 1: I guess the question. It's consequential effective, right, you know,
1:32:30
Speaker 1: there's different ways to handle it. I think there's no doubt,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: you know, Dick Cheney is sort of he was a partner.
1:32:40
Speaker 1: He was almost like a chief of staff as much
1:32:43
Speaker 1: as he was a sitting vice president. And I think,
1:32:47
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. One of the reasons w trusted
1:32:50
Speaker 1: him so much and I think gave him is that
1:32:52
Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't view Cheney as somebody who had
1:32:56
Speaker 1: one eye on the top job.
1:32:57
Speaker 2: Right.
1:32:58
Speaker 1: A lot of presidents look at their vice president senence
1:33:00
Speaker 1: and assume that they're you know, constantly looking at them
1:33:03
Speaker 1: as saying, you know, how's your health? You know, you
1:33:06
Speaker 1: sure you want to finish this term? You know, can
1:33:07
Speaker 1: I finish this term for you? Right? So I think
1:33:11
Speaker 1: you have to put Cheney one. You may not like
1:33:14
Speaker 1: what Cheney did, but I think as consequential, effective, you know,
1:33:19
Speaker 1: running policy, you name it. You know, he's certainly he
1:33:24
Speaker 1: certainly created a few political enemies inside of Bush world,
1:33:28
Speaker 1: namely the former First Lady herself, Laura Bush. You go
1:33:31
Speaker 1: to the Bush Library where Laura Bush had a heavy
1:33:34
Speaker 1: hand in the design, and note how well Condi Rice
1:33:39
Speaker 1: is treated.
1:33:39
Speaker 2: And how not so well Dictaney is treated. But anyway,
1:33:42
Speaker 2: but I digress.
1:33:44
Speaker 1: But if you're going to ask me my top five list,
1:33:47
Speaker 1: definitely Cheney, al Gore was I think al Gore certainly
1:33:55
Speaker 1: was was seen as a as a asset, though he
1:33:59
Speaker 1: was still a little bit of decorative furniture, if you will.
1:34:04
Speaker 1: Biden in the first term, in particular, was an extraordinarily
1:34:07
Speaker 1: important partner for Obama because Obama hated the Capitol Hill
1:34:11
Speaker 1: glad handing and Biden loved the Capitol Hill gland hate.
1:34:14
Speaker 1: So he was actually a nice partner for him. So
1:34:16
Speaker 1: I think you'd have to put him on the list.
1:34:19
Speaker 1: So I got Cheney, I got. You know, I'm not
1:34:22
Speaker 1: quite there on Vance just yet.
1:34:24
Speaker 2: I'm not.
1:34:25
Speaker 1: I don't buy that Vance has has that size.
1:34:28
Speaker 2: You know, I don't.
1:34:29
Speaker 1: There's no proof yet that he's you know, I guess
1:34:33
Speaker 1: it's it's I'm incomplete on Vance. Let's let's let the
1:34:37
Speaker 1: whole term play out. Let's get a little better under
1:34:39
Speaker 1: Let's see if he actually, you know, lands the plane
1:34:42
Speaker 1: with Iran. You know, let's let's see what happens here.
1:34:45
Speaker 1: He certainly is being treated more than more than decorated,
1:34:49
Speaker 1: more than decoration.
1:34:50
Speaker 2: But it's there.
1:34:51
Speaker 1: You know, I think because of James Baker's important role
1:34:59
Speaker 1: in the rap and presidency, that H. W. Bush deserves
1:35:04
Speaker 1: to be on that list as an effective and consequential
1:35:06
Speaker 1: vice president because while it was hot or cold, it
1:35:10
Speaker 1: was hot and cold sometimes. HW's relationship with Reagan personally,
1:35:16
Speaker 1: the fact that Jim Baker was such an important player
1:35:18
Speaker 1: there in Jim Baker and HW. I mean essentially, you know,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: the number one advisor to George H. W. Bush was
1:35:25
Speaker 1: chief of Staff and then in Secretary of Treasury. I mean,
1:35:28
Speaker 1: that's that allows you to be very consequential as a
1:35:31
Speaker 1: vice president. So look, Lee, I feel bad that this
1:35:35
Speaker 1: list is very modern. But my argument, but my defense
1:35:41
Speaker 1: of keeping it modern is it really it really wasn't
1:35:45
Speaker 1: until the selection of Harry Truman did I think presidents
1:35:48
Speaker 1: view a vice president as more than just decoration or
1:35:52
Speaker 1: constituency management, right, you know, dealing with some sort of
1:35:56
Speaker 1: constituency that.
1:35:57
Speaker 2: They wanted to appease.
1:36:00
Speaker 1: But you know, Eisenhower, you know, famously, in an ad
1:36:04
Speaker 1: that Kennedy used effectively, would ask you know, what important
1:36:07
Speaker 1: decisions was Nixon involved with? He says, give me a
1:36:09
Speaker 1: little bit, I'll get back to you, in some form
1:36:11
Speaker 1: of that famous line. Look, he picked Nixon. That was
1:36:15
Speaker 1: that was that was constituenty, right, that was to appease
1:36:18
Speaker 1: the right way who were very skeptical that Eisenhower was
1:36:21
Speaker 1: a was a real conservative. Kennedy right, picks Johnson more
1:36:26
Speaker 1: to just win the election, and there's actually they keep
1:36:28
Speaker 1: him at arm's length. You know, nobody thought agnew was
1:36:33
Speaker 1: was was an effect of anything for for Nixon and
1:36:36
Speaker 1: even the selection of Ford. So it was an important
1:36:39
Speaker 1: vice president. That was that was. It felt like in
1:36:43
Speaker 1: some ways that actually cemented Nixon's eventual resignation. You know,
1:36:49
Speaker 1: the best protection Nixon would have had from being forced
1:36:51
Speaker 1: out of office would have been if he kept Sparrow Agnew,
1:36:53
Speaker 1: but that scandal forced Agnew out of office. If Agnew
1:36:58
Speaker 1: stays it, one of my what if that I'm working
1:37:00
Speaker 1: on for my holiday what if series coming up is
1:37:04
Speaker 1: what if Agnew doesn't go? Because if Agnew doesn't go,
1:37:10
Speaker 1: Nixon serves the full two terms, Republicans don't get rid
1:37:13
Speaker 1: of them because there's no way they would have hated
1:37:15
Speaker 1: the presidency to Agnew anyway. Just something to think about.
1:37:22
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Dennis g. He writes from Connecticut's
1:37:26
Speaker 1: first congressional district. Just talked about that. You've got a
1:37:29
Speaker 1: new member of Congress, Luke Bronan anyway, Uh, Dennis Wrights.
1:37:34
Speaker 1: After Trump's second election, do we have to come to
1:37:37
Speaker 1: terms the fact that many voters knew exactly who he
1:37:39
Speaker 1: was and still chose him.
1:37:40
Speaker 2: That's true?
1:37:41
Speaker 1: What does it say about the country and how do
1:37:43
Speaker 1: we begin to bridge those differences moving forward? Well? Look,
1:37:47
Speaker 1: I think it's it's that's the question Democrats have to
1:37:50
Speaker 1: ask themselves, right, And I do believe if you look
1:37:54
Speaker 1: at the twenty first century, I don't believe anybody has
1:37:56
Speaker 1: been proactively elected to office. I think every single election
1:38:00
Speaker 1: and has been more about who we didn't want. It's
1:38:03
Speaker 1: been more about a firing or about a prevention strategy.
1:38:07
Speaker 1: You know, did the country want Joe Biden or do
1:38:10
Speaker 1: they wanted it to stop the madness of Trump? Did
1:38:13
Speaker 1: the country want Trump? Or do they not want Hillary Clinton?
1:38:16
Speaker 1: Did the country? You know, I think Obama was proactively
1:38:19
Speaker 1: elected I think in the eight election, But by twenty twelve,
1:38:23
Speaker 1: was the country really want to re elect Obama.
1:38:25
Speaker 2: Or they just no way? They were handing the keys
1:38:27
Speaker 2: to Romney.
1:38:29
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, if you every single election,
1:38:33
Speaker 1: are you know, even though four Bush was not super popular,
1:38:37
Speaker 1: but Carrie did not make the case to be a
1:38:39
Speaker 1: compelling alternative. So I think we've been much. I really
1:38:45
Speaker 1: think this entire century has been voting against, not voting
1:38:48
Speaker 1: for anybody. So, you know, I think that that's why
1:38:57
Speaker 1: I think it's the Democrats that have to look in
1:38:58
Speaker 1: the mirror that because it's not as if the public
1:39:01
Speaker 1: has decided Trump's okay, Trump's ethical and moral now that
1:39:06
Speaker 1: somehow we've changed our own mores to adjust to trump Ism, No,
1:39:14
Speaker 1: we still don't like it. We don't like the corruption,
1:39:16
Speaker 1: we don't like the self dealing, but we chose it anyway.
1:39:20
Speaker 2: We chose it because the.
1:39:22
Speaker 1: Voters seemed to not have enough trust that Harris was
1:39:26
Speaker 1: up to the task. And I think the biggest thing
1:39:29
Speaker 1: was was she strong enough to stand up to the left.
1:39:32
Speaker 1: I think that's the lesson I'm taking away here from
1:39:34
Speaker 1: some of these voters. There's a huge constituency culture that
1:39:38
Speaker 1: has decided it's culturally more uncomfortable with the left than
1:39:41
Speaker 1: it is culturally uncomfortable with the right. That's that sucks
1:39:47
Speaker 1: to say for some of you out loud. I'm not
1:39:49
Speaker 1: going to say that makes me excited or comfortable. I
1:39:52
Speaker 1: don't love that, but I think the answers true. You know,
1:39:55
Speaker 1: just welcome to America, welcome to pluralism. I think it's
1:40:01
Speaker 1: why he sometimes you, you know, you can't get into
1:40:05
Speaker 1: a debate about Thanksgiving. I'm not saying that Kamala Harris
1:40:09
Speaker 1: got a debate about Thanksgiving, but it was other cultural
1:40:11
Speaker 1: issues that got her dumb dumb a little bit. So
1:40:15
Speaker 1: I don't I don't buy that we made a choice
1:40:18
Speaker 1: to go back to Trump. I buy that voters felt
1:40:21
Speaker 1: they were given too bad options and they actually went
1:40:23
Speaker 1: with the one that they were more familiar with.
1:40:27
Speaker 2: You know.
1:40:27
Speaker 1: The thing that we that's underrated the most is you
1:40:31
Speaker 1: know you, Dennis, I think you know. I think you'd
1:40:39
Speaker 1: be classified as a pretty well informed voter.
1:40:41
Speaker 2: And so you clearly are voting on character. I'm voting
1:40:44
Speaker 2: on character.
1:40:45
Speaker 1: Not everybody has the luxury to vote on character, right,
1:40:49
Speaker 1: And if you just look at the management of the economy,
1:40:51
Speaker 1: you got nervous. So you know, careful judging your fellow.
1:40:58
Speaker 2: American on one.
1:41:00
Speaker 1: They voted on the motive for their vote, because we
1:41:05
Speaker 1: all have different challenges, we all have different problems. I
1:41:08
Speaker 1: vote character, but I have the luxury to vote on character.
1:41:12
Speaker 1: Not everybody views their choice that way. And I think
1:41:17
Speaker 1: that's why it's the Democrats that have to look in
1:41:19
Speaker 1: them and ask themselves, how the hell did you lose
1:41:23
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump?
1:41:25
Speaker 2: All right?
1:41:26
Speaker 1: Next question, Henry in New Orleans rights, to what extent
1:41:28
Speaker 1: can Governor Pritzker and Senator ASoft campaign for ABDUELLLSIED while
1:41:32
Speaker 1: also helping themselves politically, Particularly given the concerns you and
1:41:34
Speaker 1: Chris discussed about Jewish voters, could their relationships with Jewish
1:41:38
Speaker 1: and African American communities make them uniquely effective surrogates. The
1:41:42
Speaker 1: answer is yes. I agree with you on Asoff and Pritzker.
1:41:46
Speaker 1: I think they've tried to distinguish themselves a little bit
1:41:50
Speaker 1: from I think they are supporters of Zionism while separating
1:41:58
Speaker 1: their skepticism of net Nyahu's government and of the policy.
1:42:04
Speaker 1: I think if you robustly stand for a two state solution,
1:42:10
Speaker 1: that you can do that. But I'll be curious to
1:42:13
Speaker 1: see if you know if Pritzker and Asof do that.
1:42:16
Speaker 1: I'll be curious does abdul l said want Asof to
1:42:19
Speaker 1: do that? Is it smart for ASoft to get off
1:42:21
Speaker 1: his own reelection campaign and dabble up there? I might
1:42:25
Speaker 1: if I were advising Asoff, I'd be like as tempting
1:42:28
Speaker 1: as it is, you know, to quote the monotone voice
1:42:33
Speaker 1: in the first Star Wars, stay on target, Stay on target,
1:42:38
Speaker 1: Stay on target. I might not do it. If I
1:42:43
Speaker 1: were in as Off shoes, I'd stick to making sure
1:42:45
Speaker 1: I successfully one in Georgia, and maybe one by enough
1:42:51
Speaker 1: vote to drag keish Land's bottoms over the finish line.
1:42:54
Speaker 1: That is going to have a bigger impact on his
1:42:57
Speaker 1: future as a presidential candidate, then whether or not he
1:43:00
Speaker 1: helps up to a LSI.
1:43:01
Speaker 2: Ed Kerry a senency.
1:43:06
Speaker 1: But I do think Pritzker. I think Pritzker and Osoff
1:43:09
Speaker 1: are both in a better position to bridge uh, this
1:43:14
Speaker 1: growing divide inside the Democratic Party, more so probably than
1:43:19
Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro or Rob Emmanuel of the of the four
1:43:23
Speaker 1: Jewish presidential candidates. If you're saying you know that, you
1:43:27
Speaker 1: know I'd probably put Pritzker andsof on one on one category,
1:43:31
Speaker 1: and and and Ram and Shapiro and another. All Right,
1:43:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save these next two questions for my next
1:43:42
Speaker 1: episode because I.
1:43:43
Speaker 2: Have one more.
1:43:44
Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a sports story, believe
1:43:47
Speaker 1: it or not. But it's not any old sports story.
1:43:51
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating little story that broke uh Wednesday morning
1:43:58
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. The Lakers got sold again. They got
1:44:03
Speaker 1: sold for twelve and a half billion dollars, most money
1:44:06
Speaker 1: ever paid for an American sports franchise. The buyers Bob Iger,
1:44:12
Speaker 1: who ran Disney, and Josh Kushner, a venture capitalist and yes,
1:44:17
Speaker 1: brother of Jared Kushner, who of course is the President's
1:44:20
Speaker 1: son in law. Now you may say Josh Kushner, wasn't
1:44:24
Speaker 1: he just in the news. Stay with me here for
1:44:27
Speaker 1: a minute. Let me just say here this entire Lakers transaction.
1:44:33
Speaker 1: The old managing editor in me. I've run a couple
1:44:36
Speaker 1: of newsrooms and there's I love you know, love story
1:44:41
Speaker 1: pitches and sort of both back and forth, that conversation
1:44:44
Speaker 1: with reporters.
1:44:45
Speaker 2: What are you working on?
1:44:46
Speaker 1: What you got? Hey? Have you thought about this story?
1:44:49
Speaker 1: I think we need to dig into this. Well, let
1:44:50
Speaker 1: me just tell you, the managing editor in me, there's
1:44:53
Speaker 1: a lot of flashing little yellow flags on this story
1:44:57
Speaker 1: that I think are worth some digging. And I know
1:44:59
Speaker 1: there's going to be some investigative reporters on this because
1:45:05
Speaker 1: here's the part that got my attention. Mark Walter bought
1:45:08
Speaker 1: the Lakers fourteen months ago for ten billion dollars. So
1:45:12
Speaker 1: fourteen months ago and he's out, by the way two
1:45:15
Speaker 1: and a half billion dollar profit to the good Hey man,
1:45:18
Speaker 1: that's quite the flip, you know. I mean, if I
1:45:21
Speaker 1: spent one thousand dollars on a baseball card and sold.
1:45:24
Speaker 2: It for.
1:45:28
Speaker 1: Fifty dollars, I'd be somewhat happy. I'd be a hell
1:45:31
Speaker 1: of a lot more happy if I were bought it
1:45:33
Speaker 1: for a billion ten billion and sold her for twelve
1:45:35
Speaker 1: and a half billion.
1:45:35
Speaker 2: But that's another story.
1:45:39
Speaker 1: But let me start where an honest person has to start,
1:45:41
Speaker 1: which is, maybe this is nothing, Okay, maybe this is
1:45:48
Speaker 1: Mark Walter deciding he didn't want to own both the
1:45:50
Speaker 1: Lakers and the Dodgers. Here's what we know by the reporting,
1:45:53
Speaker 1: says Iiger and Kushner called Walter on a Sunday, and
1:45:57
Speaker 1: he had a day or two to decide. Now, let's
1:46:01
Speaker 1: think about what they were all looking at. The NBA
1:46:03
Speaker 1: is talking expansion. They're taking bids already for a franchise
1:46:07
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas and a franchise in Seattle. And those
1:46:10
Speaker 1: franchises are going to go for somewhere between seven and.
1:46:13
Speaker 2: Ten billion dollars.
1:46:17
Speaker 1: Seven and ten billion for a team that does not exist,
1:46:19
Speaker 1: no history, no banners, no magic, no Kareem, no Kobe. Right,
1:46:25
Speaker 1: So two guys with that kind of money look at
1:46:27
Speaker 1: each other and ask the obvious question, why are we
1:46:29
Speaker 1: paying eight billion dollars for nothing? When the Lakers are
1:46:32
Speaker 1: sitting right there? So that's not a scandal, that's just math, right,
1:46:38
Speaker 1: And maybe that's the whole story. And maybe they just
1:46:41
Speaker 1: made Mark Walter this great and he just needed cash
1:46:43
Speaker 1: in a moment, right, But like I told you, I
1:46:46
Speaker 1: ran newsrooms for a long time, and when a story
1:46:49
Speaker 1: lands this fast, you don't assigned the obvious thing. Everybody's
1:46:52
Speaker 1: going to chase the buyer this week, the Kushner name
1:46:56
Speaker 1: is right there. It's easy, it writes itself. But I
1:46:58
Speaker 1: just signed the seller. Because here's what most people covering
1:47:03
Speaker 1: the story don't have in front of them. Mark Walter's
1:47:06
Speaker 1: businesses are under federal investigation right now. The US Attorney
1:47:12
Speaker 1: in Manhattan and the SEC are looking at two insurance
1:47:16
Speaker 1: companies that he controls. Grand jury subpoenas went out in February.
1:47:21
Speaker 1: It started with a whistleblower inside Guggenheim Partners, that's his
1:47:25
Speaker 1: asset management company. The Wall Street Journal reports that investigators
1:47:28
Speaker 1: are examining something like sixteen billion dollars in loans made
1:47:33
Speaker 1: to companies that were connected to Walter. And there's one
1:47:38
Speaker 1: number in all this that should make any editor sit up.
1:47:41
Speaker 1: One of those insurers had told regulators that it's related
1:47:45
Speaker 1: party exposure. What does that mean? It means it's money
1:47:48
Speaker 1: loan to entities tied to its own owner. That it
1:47:53
Speaker 1: was about three percent of the investments. So after the
1:47:56
Speaker 1: subpoenas arrived, that number was restated, went from three percent
1:48:00
Speaker 1: to somewhere between thirty nine and forty two percent. It's
1:48:04
Speaker 1: a big deal. How much money does Walter own his
1:48:10
Speaker 1: own investors? Here?
1:48:11
Speaker 2: Did he need cash? Now?
1:48:13
Speaker 1: Fair is fair? Nobody's been charged, nobody has been accused
1:48:18
Speaker 1: of anything in a courtroom. Investigations like this, frankly often
1:48:21
Speaker 1: end in a settlement because they're complicated, or sometimes a
1:48:24
Speaker 1: simple correction, or maybe it's nothing at all. Walter's holding
1:48:28
Speaker 1: company says it is cooperating and expects this to resolve favorably. Sure,
1:48:35
Speaker 1: the teams themselves, the Dodgers and the Lakers, are not targets,
1:48:38
Speaker 1: and he's keeping the Dodgers, which, if you were, if
1:48:41
Speaker 1: you were in genuine financial distress, would be a strange
1:48:45
Speaker 1: asset to hold on to. Right, So I'm not telling
1:48:48
Speaker 1: you the probe itself caused the sale. I'm telling you
1:48:53
Speaker 1: that why did he sell so fast? Is not a
1:48:57
Speaker 1: rhetorical question anymore. It's a reportable one, and the reporting
1:49:02
Speaker 1: path is right there, the disclosure filings, the ratings agencies,
1:49:07
Speaker 1: the deal structure. Is he all the way out or
1:49:10
Speaker 1: is he keeping a piece? Did anybody have a rite
1:49:13
Speaker 1: of first refusal? And did they really wave it over
1:49:16
Speaker 1: a weekend nobody waves this away casually. Now let's deal
1:49:21
Speaker 1: with the Kushner part because I'm going to be careful here.
1:49:24
Speaker 1: It's easy to go down conspiracy rabbit holes. Josh Kushner
1:49:28
Speaker 1: is not Jared Kushner. His firm says flatly that he
1:49:31
Speaker 1: has no links to the administration. Okay, but he does
1:49:36
Speaker 1: not get to be surprised by what's coming because it
1:49:39
Speaker 1: already happened to him. Two weeks ago, FIFA had a
1:49:44
Speaker 1: plan to sell a minority stake in the World Cup
1:49:47
Speaker 1: to an investor group led by Kushner's firm. Every major
1:49:52
Speaker 1: European soccer federation threatened to boycott FIFA. The plan was scrapped.
1:50:00
Speaker 1: YUIFA has since written to Kushner and the bank saying
1:50:03
Speaker 1: it's considering legal action and it's now trying to push
1:50:07
Speaker 1: the head of FIFA out of his job Inpentino, maybe
1:50:11
Speaker 1: out of there. That's the pattern, and it's the actual
1:50:16
Speaker 1: point of this segment, because, by the way, if Kushner
1:50:19
Speaker 1: had been involved in the FIFA deal, would he still
1:50:21
Speaker 1: be involved with Eiger here? Look fair or not? In
1:50:27
Speaker 1: this era? If your last name is adjacent to the
1:50:29
Speaker 1: president's family and you're his business partner, or his kids, investor.
1:50:35
Speaker 1: The deal's going to get a second look every time,
1:50:38
Speaker 1: not because of anything you did, because of where you're standing.
1:50:42
Speaker 2: Right.
1:50:43
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is corruptible and has practiced corrupt business corrupt
1:50:50
Speaker 1: business practices, and so anybody adjacent to him is going
1:50:54
Speaker 1: to be seen fair or not as guilty.
1:50:57
Speaker 2: Until proven innocent.
1:51:00
Speaker 1: Fair, And there's a legal argument that it is unfair,
1:51:06
Speaker 1: But welcome to politics. It's not a claim about anybody's character.
1:51:11
Speaker 1: It's a structural fact about doing business in twenty twenty six,
1:51:16
Speaker 1: and it's the price of association with the Trumps. Hell,
1:51:19
Speaker 1: there were protests and riots in Albania when Jared Kushner
1:51:24
Speaker 1: tried to do a land deal there. So if you
1:51:28
Speaker 1: want this access, you're going to get audited like this.
1:51:32
Speaker 1: So look, all I know is that there's a lot
1:51:35
Speaker 1: more to this story. A record sale, a fourteen month flip,
1:51:40
Speaker 1: a grand jury on one side of the table, a
1:51:42
Speaker 1: Kushner on the other, two weeks removed from some weird
1:51:46
Speaker 1: backroom feef, a deal. Maybe it's all unrelated in nothing.
1:51:53
Speaker 1: Maybe a guy just got handed to and a half
1:51:55
Speaker 1: billion dollars and said yes, and who among us wouldn't.
1:52:00
Speaker 1: But the Lakers just changed hands twice in two years.
1:52:08
Speaker 2: That was shocking.
1:52:08
Speaker 1: Actually both times it was shocking, and what was shocking
1:52:11
Speaker 1: was not who was buying, it was who was leaving.
1:52:14
Speaker 1: None of us ever saw the buses leaving, and certainly
1:52:19
Speaker 1: the guy who controls the Dodgers and then the Lakers
1:52:22
Speaker 1: voluntarily gives that up. A lot of people are going
1:52:30
Speaker 1: to be digging on this one, and I too will
1:52:34
Speaker 1: be among them, and with that a little more of
1:52:39
Speaker 1: a serious sports quarter that I normally have, right, But
1:52:43
Speaker 1: I love me a good sports business story. My friends
1:52:45
Speaker 1: of the Sports Business Daily, I think this is the
1:52:47
Speaker 1: beginning of a wild wild ride. I can't wait to
1:52:52
Speaker 1: see what my friends at the Wall Street Journal do
1:52:54
Speaker 1: with this one as well. And with that, I will
1:52:57
Speaker 1: take about a seventy two hour break and see you
1:53:00
Speaker 1: when we upload again.
1:53:04
Speaker 2: M