Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s “Ends Justify The Means” Presidency + What’s Broken In Congress & How To Fix It

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Full Episode - Trump’s “Ends Justify The Means” Presidency + What’s Broken In Congress & How To Fix It · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: day returns quints dot com slash chuck. Well, hello there,
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Speaker 1: Happy Monday, Happy March. We made it to March. Not
1:37
Speaker 1: not everybody can say that, so I you know, it's
1:42
Speaker 1: one day at a time, right, So happy March. We
1:45
Speaker 1: are here here at the podcast. I'm always in this
1:50
Speaker 1: month looking around for my eyes. We're always looking for
1:53
Speaker 1: the eyes. I'm half teasing. Well, I guess it was
1:58
Speaker 1: an impactful weekend. Obviously, I already checked in with an
2:01
Speaker 1: initial response on Iran and what's happening. I've got to
2:07
Speaker 1: a bit more to say and try to put it
2:09
Speaker 1: in context. Look at this is less this is going
2:12
Speaker 1: to do. This is a monologue that is less about
2:14
Speaker 1: my opinion on what we did, more about my analysis
2:19
Speaker 1: on where I think this is headed, what is the
2:21
Speaker 1: unintended consequences? Where are they hearing? And basically I want
2:25
Speaker 1: to leave you with a lot of questions to think about, because,
2:28
Speaker 1: let's be honest, we don't have definitive answers on what
2:31
Speaker 1: the fallout from this is going to be. I mean,
2:34
Speaker 1: one of the things I think I've learned in my
2:36
Speaker 1: fifty three years on this earth, and certainly my thirty
2:39
Speaker 1: plus years professionally, is that when it comes to things
2:45
Speaker 1: like kinetic action, whether it's a piece of a war, airstrikes, whatever,
2:50
Speaker 1: you want to talk about these things, the initial response
2:55
Speaker 1: and where eventually this lands politically often change and change
3:00
Speaker 1: in ways that you don't expect. So the point is
3:04
Speaker 1: is that you know, we're going down a road that
3:07
Speaker 1: may seem familiar to those of us, to those of
3:10
Speaker 1: you that were around during Iraq and Afghanistan. But just
3:14
Speaker 1: because it looks familiar doesn't mean we're going to be
3:17
Speaker 1: traveling the exact same road politically. So I do want
3:21
Speaker 1: to get into that, I'll be honest. There were a
3:23
Speaker 1: couple other stories I was going to get deeper into
3:26
Speaker 1: that we're not going to get into specifically. I think
3:29
Speaker 1: you know, and I still think this is something I
3:31
Speaker 1: want to tackle a little bit later. But there is
3:33
Speaker 1: something about the fact that Anthropic and Netflix, we had
3:36
Speaker 1: our first two major companies say no to the president,
3:40
Speaker 1: say no to coersion efforts by the government. Clearly, Netflix
3:46
Speaker 1: walked away deciding that the coersion that the that the
3:50
Speaker 1: government was using, whether it was forcing them to fire
3:52
Speaker 1: board members or whatever it was, it was a bridge
3:55
Speaker 1: too far. Ditto with Anthropic, whatever deal it is it is.
4:00
Speaker 1: And I think our friends over at open Ai are
4:02
Speaker 1: probably having a bit of a staffer revolt over the
4:05
Speaker 1: decision by them to essentially take the same contract that
4:08
Speaker 1: Anthropic couldn't sign and then claiming that they have the
4:11
Speaker 1: same red lines that Anthropic did. So the point being is,
4:18
Speaker 1: I think it's a significant step that you've seen some
4:21
Speaker 1: companies for the first time publicly traded that not ever
4:27
Speaker 1: that to say no to the government in government coersion,
4:32
Speaker 1: we have seen pretty much every other major publicly traded
4:35
Speaker 1: company essentially cave in. We are not seeing that there,
4:40
Speaker 1: but that is not my focus for this episode. By
4:43
Speaker 1: the way, let me give you a quick rundown all
4:46
Speaker 1: of the Iran fallout is coming up here in a minute.
4:48
Speaker 1: My interview is with Democratic Congressman Sean Caston, and I'll
4:51
Speaker 1: tell you why I booked him. I booked him a
4:53
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago because he's the first member of
4:55
Speaker 1: Congress I've seen in some time who took a public
4:57
Speaker 1: hearing and decided not to be a p normative jackass.
5:02
Speaker 1: That we know this, that this is what these members
5:03
Speaker 1: of Congress do. They just want to perform to just
5:06
Speaker 1: make an algorithm feel good. They actually he actually asked
5:10
Speaker 1: some substantive questions that were very difficult for the Treasury
5:12
Speaker 1: Secretary to answer, and the Treasury Secretary had no answers,
5:16
Speaker 1: And I just it was it was an example of
5:18
Speaker 1: how a member of Congress should be doing their job
5:22
Speaker 1: versus how we see so many of these members of
5:24
Speaker 1: Congress now who have have no clue of what the
5:28
Speaker 1: job is, let alone do they have any clue about
5:30
Speaker 1: the actual Constitution, since none of them apparently realized that
5:36
Speaker 1: Congress's Article one. So that's the guest my time machine today.
5:41
Speaker 1: Let's just say it couldn't be more timely. Obviously, in
5:45
Speaker 1: twenty four hours the midterm election season kicks off. I
5:49
Speaker 1: spent a lot of my Thursday podcast sort of previewing
5:53
Speaker 1: that I'm going to have a lot more on Wednesday,
5:55
Speaker 1: And of course I want to alert you we're going
5:57
Speaker 1: to do in a live stream in partnership with my
6:00
Speaker 1: how Chrystal Isit Decision Desk HQ, we are going to
6:02
Speaker 1: be the first place you can see results in Texas,
6:06
Speaker 1: North Carolina and Arkansas. The Decision Desk folks are the
6:11
Speaker 1: best in the business when it comes to calling elections
6:15
Speaker 1: and projecting which way things are going. They are faster
6:18
Speaker 1: than everybody out there, including all of the legacy media.
6:23
Speaker 1: And so you know where to turn. And we'll be everywhere.
6:25
Speaker 1: I'll be on my live streams, We'll be on the
6:27
Speaker 1: Decision Desk, live streams will be on crystalizis live streams,
6:30
Speaker 1: that includes Twitter, that includes substack, that includes YouTube. I
6:35
Speaker 1: should say X instead of Twitter, so algorithm doesn't screw
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Speaker 1: us up there, right, But you'll be able to find
6:40
Speaker 1: us in a ton of places. And as you know,
6:43
Speaker 1: this is everything's bigger in Texas, right, And this is
6:50
Speaker 1: a big one. And these two primaries are something else.
6:53
Speaker 1: And I'm going to get to a little bit of
6:54
Speaker 1: fallo up from that. But my time machine, let's just say,
6:57
Speaker 1: is well timed. History aligned really well when it comes
7:03
Speaker 1: to the state of Texas and my preview there. But
7:08
Speaker 1: all that aside, there's your quick preview. Let's dive in.
7:14
Speaker 1: I would say the title for this monologue that I
7:16
Speaker 1: would put in here is ends, means and the precedent.
7:21
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Iran, but this isn't just about Iran.
7:25
Speaker 1: I want to talk about credibility, executive power, and something
7:29
Speaker 1: bigger than a single strike. Because if you zoom out
7:32
Speaker 1: from the battlefield details from the political spin, from all
7:36
Speaker 1: the media framing of this, whether on cable news or
7:42
Speaker 1: other legacy media, or even here in the independent space,
7:45
Speaker 1: there's a pattern. And the pattern can be summed up
7:47
Speaker 1: in one phrase. The ends justify the means In many ways,
7:53
Speaker 1: this is the mantra of the Trump presidency, of the
7:56
Speaker 1: Trump era. Everything Donald Trump seems to do, who involves
8:03
Speaker 1: an outcome first and not caring about the process in
8:08
Speaker 1: Iran maybe the clearest test yet for that premise. So
8:13
Speaker 1: let's start with the basics. According to the administration, and look,
8:18
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put this up here up top, this administration's
8:22
Speaker 1: credibility with telling honest information that the public is quite low.
8:28
Speaker 1: They do not always tell the truth. We know it.
8:31
Speaker 1: They lie a lot, they lie regularly. I think the
8:34
Speaker 1: Pentagon lies less than other aspects of the administration. We
8:38
Speaker 1: know if you see a White House spokesperson speaking, that
8:41
Speaker 1: is the lowest level of credibility. I don't mean to
8:45
Speaker 1: rag on this, but it's really problematic when you're dealing
8:48
Speaker 1: with war and peace. Okay, But all we have is
8:52
Speaker 1: the administration on this, and in this case, I think
8:55
Speaker 1: military and intelligence sources are less likely to lie to
9:00
Speaker 1: reporters and lie to us then some. I'm not saying
9:04
Speaker 1: that they're not capable of it. I'm not naive, but
9:07
Speaker 1: the ones without political skin in the game are usually
9:09
Speaker 1: the ones that lie the least. So it is, it
9:14
Speaker 1: is important. So here's what we think we know the strike.
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Speaker 1: The US parts of the strikes targeted three categories of assets,
9:21
Speaker 1: the nuclear enrichment facilities, related infrastructure, more missile and weapons
9:25
Speaker 1: production sites, select Islamic Revolutionary Guard, core command and control nodes,
9:31
Speaker 1: and then of course Israel. We know struck many of
9:33
Speaker 1: the regime and may have been the ones that actually
9:36
Speaker 1: took out the Ayatola. Now what was the stated objective?
9:42
Speaker 1: This has been a moving target to degrade around nuclear
9:46
Speaker 1: breakout capability, re establish de terrence, and prevent what officials
9:49
Speaker 1: describe as a narrowing window before we across the threshold.
9:52
Speaker 1: That was the rationale for those July strikes, right, and
9:58
Speaker 1: so we don't know what the real rationale is. In fact,
10:02
Speaker 1: it changed a bit. Right at the State of the Union,
10:05
Speaker 1: we got a rationale. First we completely obliterated their nuclear program. Then,
10:09
Speaker 1: of course they've said we're fearing them trying to still
10:12
Speaker 1: re establishment, and they had some red lines in negotiations.
10:17
Speaker 1: Second we added Marco Rubio. Did this added fear of
10:21
Speaker 1: ballistic missiles reaching the United States. Now, the intelligence assessment
10:24
Speaker 1: says that was probably ten years away from being true.
10:27
Speaker 1: It certainly was true that Iran ballistic missiles could hit Europe.
10:33
Speaker 1: So maybe we do care about the security of Europe
10:36
Speaker 1: at the moment. But the bottom line is, in this
10:39
Speaker 1: decision to go, there was really no smoking gun, right.
10:43
Speaker 1: There was no drone strike on US soil, There was
10:45
Speaker 1: no Pearl Harbor moment, there was no dramatic in sighting
10:48
Speaker 1: incident laid before the American people. Instead, in some ways,
10:54
Speaker 1: officials described it as a strategic clock that ran out.
10:57
Speaker 1: And this matters because when a president who ran for
11:02
Speaker 1: three different presidential cycles. As a quote, peacemaker launches preemptive strikes,
11:08
Speaker 1: preemptive strikes. This was not retaliation preemptive strikes. The first
11:12
Speaker 1: question voters are asking, and all of us are asking,
11:15
Speaker 1: is why now, why this moment now? The answer officially
11:20
Speaker 1: was urgency having to do with their military program and
11:24
Speaker 1: the bad faith negotiations. You know, this was sort of
11:27
Speaker 1: Iran was on the clock. They didn't they The Americans
11:31
Speaker 1: have said that they think the Iranians were negotiating and
11:34
Speaker 1: bad faith in Geneva. I'm going to get to that
11:37
Speaker 1: more in a minute. It's interesting the skepticism that Steve
11:40
Speaker 1: Woodcuff has for the Iranians versus his lack of skepticism
11:43
Speaker 1: that he has for the Russians. But again, we're going
11:45
Speaker 1: to get to that. But here's the thing. When you
11:46
Speaker 1: strike both the nuclear spine and parts of the security apparatus,
11:49
Speaker 1: you are operating in a grey zone between non proliferation
11:52
Speaker 1: and destabilization. And that's where the bigger questions begin. Right
11:58
Speaker 1: There was always you were always going to get bipartisan
12:00
Speaker 1: support to get rid of the nuclear ambition, and you
12:05
Speaker 1: could have gotten a vote in Congress for that regime
12:08
Speaker 1: change that was a taller order, and if this is
12:14
Speaker 1: now the stated goal, this likely means we have a
12:18
Speaker 1: lot more responsibility. So let's talk about the uncomfortable truth
12:23
Speaker 1: that history teaches us. Air power can remove leaders. We
12:29
Speaker 1: just did it with Kamani, but it almost never by
12:33
Speaker 1: itself produces stable regime change. Toppling is the easy part.
12:38
Speaker 1: The vacuum is the hard part. We learned that in
12:41
Speaker 1: Iraq the hard way. Remember the celebrations getting Saddam Hussein
12:45
Speaker 1: felt like a big moment, and it was a temporary,
12:47
Speaker 1: big moment, you know, it led to mission accomplished. Man,
12:52
Speaker 1: the vacuum was the hard part, and in some ways
12:55
Speaker 1: we're still dealing with it. It's still not resolved, it's
12:58
Speaker 1: still unstable. Okay, that vacuum is a is still not
13:04
Speaker 1: filled in Iraq, and here we are with a new
13:06
Speaker 1: one in Iran. Of course, one of the mistakes we
13:09
Speaker 1: now say that we learned from Iraq was was not
13:14
Speaker 1: about removing Saddam. It was failing to anticipate the fragmentation
13:17
Speaker 1: that followed. So now when you listen to the president's rhetoric,
13:21
Speaker 1: he at least at least rhetorically understands that lesson from
13:25
Speaker 1: Iraq because he's called on the Iranian military forces to
13:28
Speaker 1: lay down their weapons and surrender and in some ways
13:32
Speaker 1: help help with help the keep the peace, help defend
13:38
Speaker 1: the people. But who are they supposed to surrender to?
13:41
Speaker 1: To whom? The civil what's the civil society activists? By
13:46
Speaker 1: the way, we've done, We've we we've stripped away all
13:49
Speaker 1: funding from our US media agency that was designed to
13:54
Speaker 1: essentially support the civil society activist community in Iran. We
14:00
Speaker 1: got rid of Voice of America in Iran and all
14:03
Speaker 1: of these things. So we've done. We have sort of
14:06
Speaker 1: less resources for a moment like this, Right if you knew,
14:10
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump knew a year ago that he was
14:12
Speaker 1: going to do this, then it makes the cuts of
14:16
Speaker 1: the US agency when it comes to that runs information
14:20
Speaker 1: agency that essentially oversees Voice of America, that this was
14:24
Speaker 1: an incredibly shortsighted and terrible mistake. So who are they
14:30
Speaker 1: supposed to surrender to? It's not clear who the civil
14:33
Speaker 1: society activist, Kurdish or the Balucci autonomy movements that are
14:38
Speaker 1: sitting there. How about the monarchists that are loyal to
14:41
Speaker 1: raise a Pahlavi. He wants to sort of be reinstall
14:45
Speaker 1: the Iranian monarchy, breakaway factions of the Iranian Guard. And
14:53
Speaker 1: here's what complicates all of this. Iran is not politically frozen.
14:57
Speaker 1: The protests in twenty two and twenty twenty three showed
14:59
Speaker 1: genuine went popular dissatisfaction with the regime right, the economy astrained,
15:03
Speaker 1: the regime had plenty of fissures, so there was real
15:06
Speaker 1: pressure inside of Iran. There was this idea that Iran
15:09
Speaker 1: could crumble with maybe without the system of the military.
15:12
Speaker 1: But given what the Iranian regime did to the protesters,
15:17
Speaker 1: there was a humanitarian case to make to help those protesters.
15:21
Speaker 1: But should we have done that a month ago? But
15:24
Speaker 1: I digress. That said, all of all of these protest
15:28
Speaker 1: movements are fragmented in their leaderless right. Unlike Venezuela, who
15:33
Speaker 1: actually had an opposition movement, we could have that that
15:36
Speaker 1: was elected. There was an actual opposition elected in a
15:40
Speaker 1: in An that we believe was elected far and square
15:43
Speaker 1: in an election that Maduro claimed went another way. But there
15:48
Speaker 1: is no unified opposition structure waiting in the wings. So
15:54
Speaker 1: what what? What? What's going to happen next? The question
15:57
Speaker 1: of whether anger can consolidate into governance. Right, That's what
16:01
Speaker 1: makes this what comes next so unpredictable. Who are we
16:04
Speaker 1: working with? There's been some talk that the current president
16:07
Speaker 1: of Iran he thinks he sees in my title. Source
16:09
Speaker 1: tell me that he may see himself as sort of
16:12
Speaker 1: the Gorbachev of Iran, helping to transition from a theocracy
16:16
Speaker 1: to some form of a democracy. Right, we don't know
16:21
Speaker 1: quite what it's going to look like, but that he
16:23
Speaker 1: can be a transitional figure. Does Trump find his own
16:27
Speaker 1: delce Rodriguez? Right, the vice president of Maduro who basically
16:31
Speaker 1: has agreed to be a leader in name only of
16:35
Speaker 1: Venezuela as long as she pays pays the boss in
16:39
Speaker 1: this case, Donald Trump, a certain amount of money and
16:44
Speaker 1: or control of the oil assets, and then suddenly he's okay.
16:49
Speaker 1: So is there that person that exists? That's unclear. Now,
16:55
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Israeli factor. Was the United States
16:58
Speaker 1: tagging along? Was Israel leading this or was this the
17:02
Speaker 1: United States decision? I think that's up in the air.
17:05
Speaker 1: The administration's briefing reportedly suggested Israel was going to strike regardless,
17:11
Speaker 1: and the only question was whether the United States would
17:12
Speaker 1: go along. Would go alongside them or wait till Iran
17:17
Speaker 1: retaliated and then jump in. So it raises a deeper issue.
17:21
Speaker 1: Did the United States get boxed in by net Yahu's timetable?
17:24
Speaker 1: Or did the White House use Israel's momentum as the
17:27
Speaker 1: convenient means to achieve its own end. That's the difference
17:32
Speaker 1: between tag and a law and providing the shield the
17:35
Speaker 1: detern umbrella that allows Israel to strike harder. So was
17:39
Speaker 1: the tail wagon the dog? It's an open question. I
17:43
Speaker 1: know some people believe they know the answer, but they
17:46
Speaker 1: don't know the answer for sure. Did Washington decide that
17:52
Speaker 1: aligning publicly with Israel strengthened deterrence and projected strength. That
17:56
Speaker 1: distinction also matters because this was a provocative strategic choice.
18:01
Speaker 1: This is a war of choice, not a war of necessity.
18:04
Speaker 1: Famous Tim Russer question to George W. Bush back in
18:06
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. I believe it was was a
18:08
Speaker 1: rack of war of choice or a war of necessity.
18:11
Speaker 1: That answer is infamous in presidential rhetoric war because if
18:19
Speaker 1: this was a provocative, proactive strategic choice, that's one debate.
18:24
Speaker 1: If it was reactive to Israeli action, that's a different
18:27
Speaker 1: War Powers debate entirely. This episode of the Chuck Toddcast
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21:19
Speaker 1: the code chuck toodcast. Now let's lean into something even
21:28
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable. So we went back, and I went back
21:33
Speaker 1: and looked at the tape for three election cycles twenty sixteen,
21:36
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and twenty twenty four, Donald Trump and his
21:39
Speaker 1: surrogates warned that Democrats were going to drag America into
21:42
Speaker 1: war with Iran, and Trump regularly said it would lead
21:46
Speaker 1: to World War three. He used the phrase repeated, and
21:50
Speaker 1: it goes way back, folks. Twenty eleven, Trump predicted Obama
21:54
Speaker 1: would start a war with Iron to get reelected. Project
21:58
Speaker 1: much Donnie. In twenty twelve, he warned against playing the
22:02
Speaker 1: Iran card again. One thing that Donald Trump does is
22:09
Speaker 1: that he reveals his own thinking with his criticisms, doesn't
22:12
Speaker 1: he In twenty twenty four, he said Kamala Harris would
22:15
Speaker 1: cause World War three, and on inauguration Day twenty twenty five,
22:19
Speaker 1: he said, my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker.
22:23
Speaker 1: He has now killed two world leaders in a little
22:28
Speaker 1: over a year in office in a second term. Excuse
22:30
Speaker 1: me one world leader, and he's put one in captivity. J. D.
22:34
Speaker 1: Van said the Democrats were sleep walking us into war.
22:39
Speaker 1: Tulsi Gabbard warned of regime change war. By the way,
22:44
Speaker 1: has she resigned yet? Just asking because she was adamant
22:50
Speaker 1: that there is no One of the worst military decisions
22:54
Speaker 1: in any president could make would be launching an attack
22:57
Speaker 1: on a run. So we're waiting for her resignation. Pete
23:00
Speaker 1: Egseth argue. Democratic weakness created endless wars. So the message
23:06
Speaker 1: was clear, They'll meaning the Democrats, they'll start wars. We
23:12
Speaker 1: the Republicans won't. Now, the same movement must reconcile, combat
23:17
Speaker 1: strikes and regime change rhetoric to what they told the
23:22
Speaker 1: American people. And this is where they've created themselves a
23:24
Speaker 1: massive political problem here. This is not a small one.
23:27
Speaker 1: This is why I am very skeptical this has any
23:31
Speaker 1: domestic political benefit to Donald Trump. It may help his legacy,
23:35
Speaker 1: and I'll get to that, and it may be all
23:37
Speaker 1: he cares about anymore. He may have written off his
23:39
Speaker 1: domestic political career, and this discis he is no longer
23:45
Speaker 1: interested in helping rebuild America domestically. He is almost solely
23:50
Speaker 1: focused on playing this rudimentary game of risk and just
23:56
Speaker 1: going forward. Here, you know a man who's gone through
24:01
Speaker 1: so many bankruptcies, who seems to you know, be willing
24:08
Speaker 1: to live on a credit card for a while to
24:11
Speaker 1: keep up appearances in order to find more suckers to
24:15
Speaker 1: essentially do business with him, where he just extracts the
24:18
Speaker 1: cash and leaves them holding the bag. He's pretty This
24:23
Speaker 1: is a guy who's you know, thinks he can't lose
24:26
Speaker 1: at the moment, and that should be of a small
24:29
Speaker 1: concern to a lot of people. So is this going
24:35
Speaker 1: to be a pivot? You know, I've always said Donald
24:38
Speaker 1: Trump was you know, one of the things somebody once
24:40
Speaker 1: said to me is Donald Trump's the least mega person
24:42
Speaker 1: in any room of MAGA people. I think that was
24:45
Speaker 1: a more polite way of saying he has no core beliefs.
24:49
Speaker 1: He is a unilateralist, meaning what's in his gut in
24:52
Speaker 1: the moment he acts unilaterally. He does not think about
24:55
Speaker 1: consequences beyond what's good for him. Is this a legacy
25:01
Speaker 1: defining moment for him? Is this a political help in
25:04
Speaker 1: the moment? That's about the only two things he debates,
25:07
Speaker 1: It appears when he makes these decisions. But this was
25:09
Speaker 1: a unilateral decision. Is this going to turn into an
25:14
Speaker 1: identic crisis for the America First coalition? I think it's
25:17
Speaker 1: pretty clear Donald Trump's no America First guy anymore. I
25:20
Speaker 1: don't think he ever was. But has he left an
25:23
Speaker 1: opening for your rand Pauls of the world, who are
25:26
Speaker 1: genuine in their belief of isolationism on this, who are
25:31
Speaker 1: very skeptical of trying to dictate outcomes in other countries.
25:36
Speaker 1: The anti Neocon wing of the Republican Party has to
25:39
Speaker 1: justify what looks structurally like simple intervention, no different than
25:43
Speaker 1: anything the Bush Chainey administration advocated. That's not just a
25:50
Speaker 1: rhetorical adjustment, that's ideological gymnastics, and it doesn't automamatically make
25:57
Speaker 1: the strike wrong. But it's a credibility issue, and that's
26:03
Speaker 1: going to be the political fallout here. This may turn
26:06
Speaker 1: out to be one of the best things to ever
26:08
Speaker 1: happen in the Middle East. I'm not ruling that out
26:11
Speaker 1: getting rid of Komen's I mean, just the quick aside here.
26:22
Speaker 1: There's still an open question about whether Iran greenlit the
26:25
Speaker 1: Hamas attack on Israel in October seventh. Supposedly, the Iranians
26:32
Speaker 1: were skeptical of the idea and Hamas pushed it. Iran
26:39
Speaker 1: could have stopped it if they wanted to, and they
26:40
Speaker 1: chose not to. That I think we know it is
26:44
Speaker 1: the greatest strategic blunder that they made, because at that
26:48
Speaker 1: point there was no more there was no more restraining
26:52
Speaker 1: Israel when it came to Hesbelo. They've essentially decapitated Hesbelo
26:58
Speaker 1: when it came to the Hoodies. They're in a slightly
27:01
Speaker 1: stronger position than husbital Love, but not much. And then
27:04
Speaker 1: of course Hamas is basically mostly demilitarized, and that is
27:12
Speaker 1: why Iran is so vulnerable and weak at the moment.
27:14
Speaker 1: And that's why a bib Nan Yahu and the IDF
27:17
Speaker 1: is saying, hey, there, let's not let them reconstitute this theocracy.
27:22
Speaker 1: They're a scourge, frankly for the entire region. And looks
27:26
Speaker 1: like the Sunni States all agree with this. And in fact,
27:29
Speaker 1: you want to talk about a huge strategic mistake that
27:32
Speaker 1: the Iranians made launching attacks on all these Gulf state
27:37
Speaker 1: countries that happened to house either US or other Western
27:42
Speaker 1: military bases, because they just whatever neutrality the Gulf States
27:48
Speaker 1: might have publicly wanted to have, they don't have anymore.
27:52
Speaker 1: And now we're learning via the Washington Post that in fact,
27:54
Speaker 1: it was the Saudis that were the It was MBS
28:00
Speaker 1: that was could working Trump the hardest on making on
28:04
Speaker 1: doing this, on not backing down. Not Israel that talked
28:08
Speaker 1: Trump into this, but the Saudi's. And we know how
28:11
Speaker 1: much business, you know, how important the business relationships that
28:15
Speaker 1: Trump has with the Gulf States which means they're going
28:18
Speaker 1: to have a lot more influence than your average world leader.
28:26
Speaker 1: But one will just to button up this little aside
28:29
Speaker 1: here on Israel in Iran, so Iran makes that strategic mistake.
28:35
Speaker 1: I think what we've learned about Iran is they're conventional
28:37
Speaker 1: military as a joke, and they've been humiliated easily whenever,
28:42
Speaker 1: I mean they were a paid they've been a paper tiger.
28:44
Speaker 1: What gave them perceived strength was their asymmetrical terrorist sort
28:50
Speaker 1: of contractors, right Hesbalah and Hamas and the Hutis were
28:56
Speaker 1: much more effective as a military arm of the arrange
29:00
Speaker 1: then the actual Iranian military itself. And when October seventh happens,
29:06
Speaker 1: what Israel essentially systematically taking out all of these proxy
29:12
Speaker 1: organizations that the Iranians were funding. It left the Iranians exposed,
29:18
Speaker 1: which is why they're now in the position that they're
29:23
Speaker 1: in now. And also, make no mistake, Israel is now
29:27
Speaker 1: the military power of the Middle East without question. There
29:29
Speaker 1: was always this idea that Iran had some hidden military strength.
29:34
Speaker 1: This is clearly not it's it's let's just say it's
29:39
Speaker 1: a huge mismatch with or without the United States, but
29:42
Speaker 1: with the United States it's a massive mismatch. And the
29:45
Speaker 1: biggest development over the last twenty five years since the
29:48
Speaker 1: Iraq War is the alignment of all the Sunni states
29:52
Speaker 1: with Israel and against Iran. And that is why Iran
29:58
Speaker 1: is in the situation that they're in today. But let's
30:01
Speaker 1: not you know, there's still an economic gamble to all this,
30:05
Speaker 1: and we have to be aware of. Strikes on iron
30:07
Speaker 1: traditionally send oil prices higher, which of course has all
30:10
Speaker 1: sorts of economic impact. You know, if gas it's five
30:13
Speaker 1: dollars a gallon, that doesn't make it an abstract issue
30:17
Speaker 1: on geopolitics. It makes it a domestic issue, creates inflation,
30:20
Speaker 1: hurts consumer confidence, impacts re election politics for everybody on
30:24
Speaker 1: the ballot in twenty twenty six. Now, look, we are,
30:28
Speaker 1: i think, at a situation where first of all, we're
30:30
Speaker 1: not as dependent on foreign oil as we used to be. Yes,
30:34
Speaker 1: it's going to have some impact, but may not have
30:36
Speaker 1: as much impact as it would have, say even ten
30:39
Speaker 1: years ago, fifteen years ago, or twenty years ago. In fact,
30:42
Speaker 1: some of the biggest reasons not to do not to
30:46
Speaker 1: attack Iran, say fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, was
30:52
Speaker 1: the economic fallout that could come from it, and I
30:56
Speaker 1: think the entire energy industry is in a more diversified
31:00
Speaker 1: situation where knocking Iran out isn't going to have the
31:04
Speaker 1: same impact as it would have had a while ago.
31:08
Speaker 1: But it's still a gamble. Now here's something that I
31:13
Speaker 1: think has gotten lost a little bit in the and
31:16
Speaker 1: we're getting all sorts of tiktoks and all sorts of
31:18
Speaker 1: stuff coming out. But one of the rationales that the
31:23
Speaker 1: administration is hanging its hat on is that the Iranians
31:26
Speaker 1: during these negotiations with wit Coffin Kushner in Geneva over
31:30
Speaker 1: the last two weeks, and I'm I'm going to I
31:36
Speaker 1: accept the premise that had the Iranians completely capitulated to
31:40
Speaker 1: every demand the United States had, that Trump would have
31:42
Speaker 1: cut the deal. I do believe that. And why do
31:45
Speaker 1: we know this, because look, he's kept Delsi Rodriguez in
31:47
Speaker 1: power as long as she gives him everything he asks for,
31:50
Speaker 1: So I think there's something to that. Still, they're hanging
31:56
Speaker 1: their hat on the idea that the Iranians were negotiating
31:59
Speaker 1: in bad faith. Remember, these are the same two gentlemen
32:01
Speaker 1: negotiating with the Russians with Guffin and Kushner. But here's
32:06
Speaker 1: some questions. Why is the skepticism that's applied to Iran
32:09
Speaker 1: not applied equally to Russia. Russia is repeatedly lied in
32:13
Speaker 1: negotiations with the Ukraine, more so than the Iranians have lied.
32:17
Speaker 1: The Iranians are actually upfront that they had some civil
32:20
Speaker 1: nuclear ambition. Russia lies with all the time in these negotiations.
32:32
Speaker 1: What's interesting here is the way Trump is bullying any
32:36
Speaker 1: country that is smaller than US, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran. But
32:41
Speaker 1: he's certainly nervous about alienating Russia, so he accepts the
32:45
Speaker 1: lies from them and negotiations, and he just he is
32:50
Speaker 1: pausing the congressionally approved sales of billions of dollars of
32:54
Speaker 1: new weapons to Taiwan because he doesn't want to mess
32:59
Speaker 1: up his meeting in China with She next month. So
33:04
Speaker 1: he will capitulate to big powers. We're going to get
33:09
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. Maybe this is about strategic calculus,
33:15
Speaker 1: but the idea that we accept the lies of Russia,
33:21
Speaker 1: but we slam the door in the Iranians as something else. Now,
33:26
Speaker 1: maybe Iran is weak enough to strike decisively. Russia is
33:29
Speaker 1: obviously too dangerous. China is too economically entangled. In other words,
33:37
Speaker 1: the fights chosen by the president are the ones where
33:39
Speaker 1: visible dominance is achievable rules of the jungle, and it
33:44
Speaker 1: fits the ends justifies the means framework, which seems to
33:48
Speaker 1: be essentially what I would probably make the title of
33:52
Speaker 1: his presidential memoirs, because it's the only positive case you
33:57
Speaker 1: can make. First presidency being a success is if the
34:01
Speaker 1: ends justify all the terrible means that he went about,
34:06
Speaker 1: battles you can win, use the win to validate an
34:09
Speaker 1: expanded executive power. It's not moral commentary, it's just pattern recognition.
34:18
Speaker 1: So here's where Congress only has itself to blame. So
34:22
Speaker 1: in twenty h two Congress voted on Iraq. You can
34:24
Speaker 1: argue it was mistaken, but there was at least a
34:26
Speaker 1: vote here. There wasn't even an attempt. And if Congress
34:29
Speaker 1: does not try to reassert its authority over war powers
34:32
Speaker 1: in general, this is going to become precedent, not just
34:36
Speaker 1: for Trump but for the next president. Power rarely contracts voluntarily.
34:41
Speaker 1: It simply accumulates. And I have no idea why this
34:47
Speaker 1: Congress has any It doesn't see this, but you know
34:50
Speaker 1: this is now I will argue, this is nearly seventy
34:54
Speaker 1: years of congressional dysfunction of shitty speakers of the House,
34:59
Speaker 1: every one of them, who are more worried about protecting
35:02
Speaker 1: their majority than protecting the Constitution. So I'm going to
35:10
Speaker 1: close it this. Here's a real question if the outcome
35:12
Speaker 1: in Iran is it tolerable? It's not perfect, it's not democratic,
35:15
Speaker 1: but tolerable. Right, we get rid of the theocracy, there
35:20
Speaker 1: is more freedom in Iran, women have rights. Will Americans
35:24
Speaker 1: decide that the process itself never really mattered? This is
35:29
Speaker 1: the scariest moment of all for US constitutionalists. Well, we
35:34
Speaker 1: decide that Congress is optional, that persuasion is unnecessary. Right,
35:39
Speaker 1: this president did not persuade the American public. This was
35:42
Speaker 1: an action that we had to take. Nor did he
35:45
Speaker 1: ask Congress for permission. Are we gonna decide that campaign lies?
35:52
Speaker 1: Campaign rhetoric is all disposable, So we're not supposed to
35:55
Speaker 1: believe anything they say anymore, so long as the strike
36:00
Speaker 1: worked and justifies the means. Because let's be honest here,
36:06
Speaker 1: you cannot spend a decade warning voters about World War
36:09
Speaker 1: III under your opponents and then initiate military action yourself
36:12
Speaker 1: without that contradiction meaning something. It doesn't automatically make the
36:18
Speaker 1: policy decision wrong, but it makes the credibility part of
36:21
Speaker 1: the story. And this administration's credibility was already near the bottom.
36:26
Speaker 1: My goodness, I don't know how far much lower you
36:28
Speaker 1: can get on credibility, but they have very very little.
36:32
Speaker 1: And of course once you spend your credibility, you don't
36:36
Speaker 1: get a chance. You don't replenish it very easily. Now,
36:41
Speaker 1: maybe voters will decide consistency doesn't matter anymore. Ends justify
36:45
Speaker 1: the means. They may decide constitutional guardrails or secondary to results,
36:49
Speaker 1: ends justify the means. Then they're not just validating though
36:53
Speaker 1: one decision. They're going to be validating a new method
36:56
Speaker 1: to governing this country. It's how you become an authoritarian state,
37:03
Speaker 1: to be honest. Once that method becomes precedent, and that's
37:06
Speaker 1: the word here, precedent, the next president inherits it and
37:11
Speaker 1: the one after that, So it's not just the strikes,
37:13
Speaker 1: it's the precedent because of executive action first and congressional
37:17
Speaker 1: consult consultation later becomes normal. Then we've just made a
37:22
Speaker 1: change in our own constitutional republic, not quite regime change.
37:28
Speaker 1: But it's a constitutional change and that one won't be
37:32
Speaker 1: confined to Iran, and that, unfortunately, that's the debate we
37:37
Speaker 1: should be having. We're not going to have it. And
37:42
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I am I am, I am skeptical
37:47
Speaker 1: that this is going to you know, not those sideways
37:50
Speaker 1: in some form. That doesn't means it's not recoverable. But
37:54
Speaker 1: we have so many unknowns here. And we now have
38:00
Speaker 1: a president who's essentially agreed to rebuild Venezuela. He's openly
38:07
Speaker 1: said he's ready to go rebuild Cuba, he's trying to
38:11
Speaker 1: put together a coalition to rebuild Gaza. And now we've
38:15
Speaker 1: helped break I mean, my goodness, we've got to if
38:18
Speaker 1: we're gonna regime change, are we're not going to be
38:20
Speaker 1: there to help rebuild them? Wrong? What's the American voter?
38:24
Speaker 3: Hear in.
38:28
Speaker 1: Those are all places that are not in the United
38:31
Speaker 1: States of America. And you don't have to be a
38:37
Speaker 1: well credentialed political scientist to know that foreign affairs success
38:46
Speaker 1: overseas rarely translates to votes at the ballot box. The
38:51
Speaker 1: only time overseas incidents matter is when they're negatives. The
38:56
Speaker 1: positives go away quickly just as George hw bus that
39:02
Speaker 1: stuff rarely matters in domestic politics, and if anything, what
39:06
Speaker 1: may matter more here and why this is possibly a big,
39:11
Speaker 1: a much bigger political problem than this White House fully
39:15
Speaker 1: realizes yet, is that they may feel good in the
39:18
Speaker 1: moment they've got all sorts of allies, and it's exciting
39:20
Speaker 1: for Iranians in the diaspora who might get their freedom
39:24
Speaker 1: and get their country back. I don't know if that's
39:28
Speaker 1: going to translate into any new votes for Republicans in
39:31
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, especially if the price of electricity keeps
39:37
Speaker 1: going on, the price of grocery keeps going on. So
39:42
Speaker 1: this is much riskier politically than I think he fully realizes,
39:47
Speaker 1: even as if it may turn out to be much
39:49
Speaker 1: less riskier in geopolitical strategy. That said, we got a
39:56
Speaker 1: long way to go. Iraq is still a mess, Afghanistan
40:00
Speaker 1: is still a mess. We intervened more than twenty years ago.
40:07
Speaker 1: Ran is going to be suddenly now. It's if you
40:12
Speaker 1: believe in the pottery barn rule. If you break it,
40:14
Speaker 1: you own it. Iran is now going to be an
40:18
Speaker 1: issue that we're going to be dealing with in the
40:20
Speaker 1: near term for some time. The question is how much
40:23
Speaker 1: patience with the American public half for that? All? Right,
40:29
Speaker 1: Like I said, I have, it's a hugely consequential week
40:34
Speaker 1: in campaign politics. I've gone a huge deep dive. I
40:38
Speaker 1: just want to give you a quick little thing of
40:40
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing in this final weekend in Texas one.
40:45
Speaker 1: It looks like Tallerico has a little bit of momentum.
40:47
Speaker 1: All the internal polling I'm hearing about seems to have
40:50
Speaker 1: him with a little more menium than Crockett. We shall see.
40:53
Speaker 1: Cornin's folks are already trying to pre spin the idea
40:56
Speaker 1: they're not going to be the leading vote getter. Donald
40:59
Speaker 1: try Trump once again did an event right before he
41:02
Speaker 1: launched the strike officially launched the strikes against Iran, where
41:05
Speaker 1: he seemed to say I love all of you and
41:07
Speaker 1: he refused to endorse. Let's see if we are in
41:11
Speaker 1: two runoffs, Let's see who the Democratic nominee is. All
41:15
Speaker 1: of that could have some impact on Trump. There's a
41:18
Speaker 1: few other primaries worth watching. Tony Gonzalez, who's got the
41:23
Speaker 1: who had the affair with the woman who killed herself
41:25
Speaker 1: by lighting herself on fire. He seems to be in
41:29
Speaker 1: a very precarious position, somebody pretty far to his right
41:33
Speaker 1: challenging him in a primary. But he appears to be
41:36
Speaker 1: in trouble no matter what. Either he survives his primary
41:39
Speaker 1: or he doesn't, and that seat becomes, I think, pretty
41:43
Speaker 1: vulnerable because you'll have, either way, somebody who will be
41:46
Speaker 1: hard who have a hard time winning a general election.
41:53
Speaker 1: The underrated primary of the weekend is Dan Crenshaw. He
41:57
Speaker 1: is the only sitting incumbent Republican member of Congress and
42:01
Speaker 1: the Texas delegation who does not have Donald Trump support.
42:06
Speaker 1: That's going to be interesting one of the first tests. Right,
42:10
Speaker 1: we know Massey and his primary is coming up in May,
42:14
Speaker 1: but we're gonna get an early taste of what does
42:17
Speaker 1: it mean when you're when you're when you're fairly well
42:21
Speaker 1: known to be a conservative, which Dan Crenshaw is pretty
42:25
Speaker 1: consistent conservative, just not a Trump secka fan. Is that now?
42:32
Speaker 1: Is that enough to survive or is that a bridge
42:36
Speaker 1: too far for the MAGA base? Are they going to
42:39
Speaker 1: show up? How intense? And here's one more thing to
42:42
Speaker 1: watch in Texas. I've had numerous strategists left and right
42:47
Speaker 1: say the same thing to me, there could be more
42:50
Speaker 1: Democratic voters because in Texas, the biggest number to watch
42:57
Speaker 1: if you're trying to understand who's got momentum going into
43:00
Speaker 1: the general election in November, is total turnout in a
43:05
Speaker 1: primary in Texas. Right, will the Republicans have more voters
43:08
Speaker 1: and their statewide primaries or will the Democrats? In Texas,
43:11
Speaker 1: you get to pick which ballot when you go in there,
43:14
Speaker 1: any vote registered voter, they get told you pick a ballot.
43:18
Speaker 1: So it's my understanding that there are a lot of
43:20
Speaker 1: what I would call Cornin tallar Rico voters. If you
43:27
Speaker 1: and if you're a Cornin supporter who doesn't believe Cornn
43:30
Speaker 1: can win, and you don't want to vote for Paxton
43:32
Speaker 1: or Crockett, then you may pick a Democratic ballot and
43:35
Speaker 1: vote for tall Rico. So it is we've seen this
43:40
Speaker 1: phenomenon before New Hampshire presidential primaries in two thousand. I
43:45
Speaker 1: remember it was McCain and the Republican primary, Bradley and
43:47
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary. They were both fighting for the same voters,
43:50
Speaker 1: and these independent voters which ballot were they going to pick?
43:53
Speaker 1: It was independent voters who could pick either ballot, and
43:56
Speaker 1: more of them pick the Republican ballot and McCain wins.
43:59
Speaker 1: Had a chunk of more of them picked the Democratic ballot,
44:02
Speaker 1: Bradley would have won that primary. So Cornin is in
44:08
Speaker 1: competition not just with Paxton anymore, but with tall Ico.
44:13
Speaker 1: For those that don't like Crockett or Paxton, right, does
44:18
Speaker 1: it motivate them to jump into the Democratic primary to
44:22
Speaker 1: pick tallar Rico or does it motivate them to go
44:24
Speaker 1: in the Republican primary to pick Cornyn. It's just one
44:28
Speaker 1: of the various ways and one of the sort of
44:31
Speaker 1: under the radar ways to look at this race, and
44:33
Speaker 1: certainly one that you know when you're following us in
44:35
Speaker 1: live on election night, and we're going to be going
44:38
Speaker 1: starting before the polls close, going all the way till
44:41
Speaker 1: we've called all the major races in Texas, North Carolina,
44:44
Speaker 1: and Arkansas. That's going to be among the things to
44:48
Speaker 1: follow because if more democratic, if more voters pick a
44:52
Speaker 1: Democratic ballot than a Republican ballot, then I think it's
44:56
Speaker 1: fair to say Texas is in play in November. So
45:00
Speaker 1: it's the under the radar stat to watch on Tuesday.
45:05
Speaker 1: At this point, not a lot of not enough people
45:08
Speaker 1: are talking about all right, So there you have it.
45:11
Speaker 1: Like I said, a lot of stuff going on. Would
45:13
Speaker 1: have more to say about Anthropic and more to say
45:16
Speaker 1: about you know, legacy media of the future of CNN.
45:19
Speaker 1: I'll save that if you have some questions, but I'll
45:21
Speaker 1: probably save most of this for my podcast on next Wednesday.
45:27
Speaker 1: From there, though, we've got a busy next twenty four
45:31
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours. You got this podcast, you got
45:33
Speaker 1: our live election I covered. So I hope you're not
45:35
Speaker 1: sick of me because you have an opportunity to see
45:37
Speaker 1: a lot of me over the next twenty four, forty
45:40
Speaker 1: eight and seventy two hours. With that, I'll sneak in
45:43
Speaker 1: a break when we come back. My conversation with Illinois
45:45
Speaker 1: Democratic Congressman Sean Caston somebody who did more in a
45:51
Speaker 1: committee hearing by not being a performative a whole. Sorry
45:55
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45:58
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Speaker 1: is something you should really think about, especially if you've
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Speaker 1: got a growing family. Well, joining me now is someone
49:10
Speaker 1: anybody elected after twenty sixteen I still call a new
49:12
Speaker 1: member of Congress, but he's been there a few terms now,
49:16
Speaker 1: so it's hard to call him a new member. And
49:18
Speaker 1: we're going to get to that in a minute. But
49:20
Speaker 1: it's Sean Caston. He is abl Democratic, sees me from
49:25
Speaker 1: suburban Chicago, and we're going to make him describe his
49:29
Speaker 1: district a little bit. He did the original district he won.
49:33
Speaker 1: He flipped a Republican seat it has gotten after the
49:37
Speaker 1: normal redistricting. I have to say normal redistricting now considering
49:41
Speaker 1: all the different ways iterations that take place these days.
49:44
Speaker 1: But he got I think a slightly less competitive district
49:48
Speaker 1: these days. But I booked the Congressman because he did
49:53
Speaker 1: something that I've been dying for somebody to do at
49:55
Speaker 1: one of these open committee hearings. He asked detailed questions,
50:01
Speaker 1: looking for a response, without being theatrical, without trying to
50:07
Speaker 1: dunk on a person. He was just trying to get information,
50:11
Speaker 1: and it went viral because the person that didn't answer
50:15
Speaker 1: the question. In this case, it was the Treasury Secretary
50:17
Speaker 1: didn't have an answer to what was a fairly simple question.
50:22
Speaker 1: Though it was fraught with how he answered. It was
50:25
Speaker 1: fraught with some political peril there. But it was a
50:29
Speaker 1: reminder that you don't have to yell, you don't have
50:32
Speaker 1: to perform for something to go viral if you just
50:34
Speaker 1: have a really good question and you stump the cabinet member.
50:40
Speaker 1: So Congressman, is good to see you.
50:41
Speaker 3: Thank you, and it's nice to be recognized for not
50:46
Speaker 3: doing this job just so that I can become an influencer.
50:49
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, that's it is you know, I
50:53
Speaker 1: used to joke and part of it is the way
50:55
Speaker 1: leadership has sort of hijacked Congress. And I say that
50:58
Speaker 1: I use that term intentionally because when I first started
51:02
Speaker 1: doing this in the early nineties, committee chairs meant something,
51:06
Speaker 1: subcommittee chairs meant something, and leadership would be deferential to
51:10
Speaker 1: committees and to subcommittees and things like that. Now you know,
51:14
Speaker 1: they're four hundred and thirty one excuse me, five hundred
51:16
Speaker 1: and thirty one elected pundits and four people that make decisions.
51:18
Speaker 1: And it's and and when you do that, eventually you'll
51:22
Speaker 1: stop having legislators and you'll start having more political pundits
51:26
Speaker 1: as elected officials. You know. I I remember I interviewed
51:33
Speaker 1: Jake Laturner. I don't know if you remember him.
51:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's left. He had no reason to leave other
51:39
Speaker 3: than Bob's big boys body double by the.
51:41
Speaker 1: Way, Yeah he is a but he he essentially left
51:47
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to be an influencer that seemed
51:51
Speaker 1: to be what it is he was. Look, he's more
51:53
Speaker 1: of a Paul Ryan conservative and that's out of vogue
51:55
Speaker 1: these days in the Republican Party. But he saw that,
51:59
Speaker 1: you know, if he did something thing that meant that
52:01
Speaker 1: was good for his district. On the Egg Committee, nobody
52:05
Speaker 1: was going to cover it, and he figured that that
52:08
Speaker 1: Congress was, you know, more Marjorie Taylor Green and Alexandria
52:13
Speaker 1: Casio Cortez than it is, you know, the grinders.
52:18
Speaker 3: Do you feel that well, so I have a more
52:22
Speaker 3: I have maybe a more boy scouted view of Congress.
52:25
Speaker 3: I think hearings. Hearings have always been really important. There
52:28
Speaker 3: are places to get information. It's also not lost that
52:33
Speaker 3: in the age we're in, for better or for worse,
52:35
Speaker 3: they're all on TV, and so there's always going to
52:37
Speaker 3: be some theater too.
52:38
Speaker 1: Now I blame TV for a lot of problems. I mean,
52:40
Speaker 1: I think the minute the cameras got come came on.
52:43
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why I'm not for cameras in
52:45
Speaker 1: the courtroom generally. I'm for audio. I'm for live audio.
52:48
Speaker 1: I think the transparency matters. But I think that there's
52:51
Speaker 1: something that triggers human beings to behave differently when they
52:54
Speaker 1: know it care.
52:54
Speaker 3: There definitely is, and I guess the only thing that
52:57
Speaker 3: I'd say in their defense is that, particularly when you're
52:59
Speaker 3: in the minority and you can't control the legislative calendar,
53:04
Speaker 3: the only tool you really have in the minority is
53:06
Speaker 3: to move public opinion. And so there is a value
53:09
Speaker 3: in the televised hearings the extent that you can inject
53:12
Speaker 3: something in. I mean, look, as you said, I'm on
53:13
Speaker 3: your show today because I injected something into the public
53:16
Speaker 3: conversation about what was going on in Venezuela and some
53:19
Speaker 3: of the legal authority that wouldn't have happened if this
53:22
Speaker 3: was a closed door hearing. And so there's there's there's
53:25
Speaker 3: value within that. And you know, but you.
53:27
Speaker 1: Also showed that you can you could do something that
53:33
Speaker 1: may I don't believe you were trying to be performative.
53:36
Speaker 3: Okay, no, well, I mean I'll tell you candidly because
53:40
Speaker 3: there was a there was a political reporter who was
53:42
Speaker 3: asking all of us the day before, what are you
53:44
Speaker 3: going to ask persent? And I said, what I know
53:46
Speaker 3: is that he is going to be filled with talking
53:52
Speaker 3: points from the Trump administration. He's going there's going to
53:54
Speaker 3: be a lot of theatrics because that's his style. And therefore,
53:58
Speaker 3: I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to
53:59
Speaker 3: ask him because I'm working on some things that I
54:03
Speaker 3: don't want him to be prepared for. Because I want
54:05
Speaker 3: him to be engaged in this. And this report came
54:08
Speaker 3: to me afterwards, and he said, I understand why didn't
54:10
Speaker 3: tell me now, But what we were trying to do
54:12
Speaker 3: was to say I had earlier written a letter to
54:16
Speaker 3: the oil majors pointing out to them that because the
54:20
Speaker 3: Trump White House has not outlined any legal authority for
54:23
Speaker 3: seizing Venezuelan and oil, any investments they might make to
54:28
Speaker 3: refine distribute that oil, they're going to be exposed to
54:31
Speaker 3: Venezuela's creditors, the largest of which is China, because this
54:34
Speaker 3: is a fraudulent conveyance. And I had wanted to go
54:38
Speaker 3: in with that, and we got the good fortune the
54:41
Speaker 3: bad fortune that a day or two before, Marco Rubio
54:45
Speaker 3: had been before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and had
54:49
Speaker 3: made some suggestions about things that we knew were legally
54:51
Speaker 3: not true. And so it was just an opportunity to
54:54
Speaker 3: go and frame those conversations with percent to say, Okay,
54:58
Speaker 3: you either have to you either have to agree with Rubio,
55:01
Speaker 3: in which case you're in a problem, or clarify. Clarifying
55:04
Speaker 3: which is going to put you in a pickle. And
55:06
Speaker 3: I didn't want him to be prepared and we had
55:08
Speaker 3: to and we had to keep our tone down because
55:10
Speaker 3: if he got on the defensive of starting to throw
55:12
Speaker 3: out all of the you know, the Pam BONDI burn
55:14
Speaker 3: book stuff, five minutes goes pretty quick in that situation.
55:18
Speaker 1: Well, what what I found interesting is that Besson didn't
55:21
Speaker 1: react sort of as as a you know, the the
55:25
Speaker 1: you know, he's you know, at first, he was sort
55:28
Speaker 1: of tried to be an adult when he first took
55:30
Speaker 1: the job, and now he you know, you see him.
55:34
Speaker 1: I guess he's an adult behind the scenes now, But
55:37
Speaker 1: you do, you know, because I think he look, I
55:39
Speaker 1: think he does talk Trump off off of some ledges
55:42
Speaker 1: that are even worse than the ledges that Trump uh
55:45
Speaker 1: that we see Trump go out on. But I've noticed
55:49
Speaker 1: that Besson is clearly trying to get on the President's
55:56
Speaker 1: good side by by being performative in public against the
56:00
Speaker 1: quote unquote owning the Libs or whatever it is that
56:02
Speaker 1: that Scott Besson thinks he has to do to keep
56:04
Speaker 1: his job. But he didn't do that with you. Why
56:08
Speaker 1: do you think that is? You think he was embarrassed
56:10
Speaker 1: that he didn't know the answer.
56:14
Speaker 3: I'm not sure he understood the question to be honest.
56:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if he did it either.
56:17
Speaker 3: Right, because and this was where we get into it,
56:19
Speaker 3: because Rubio had said that Treasury was managing these funds
56:23
Speaker 3: under their authority, and we knew that Treasury didn't actually
56:27
Speaker 3: kept saying what authority, yeah and so and so, you know,
56:32
Speaker 3: at least framing the question that way, you can't say, well,
56:34
Speaker 3: this is just because you know you're some will liberal.
56:38
Speaker 3: You either have to point to the specific one of
56:40
Speaker 3: the you know, Congress has given Treasury ninety one separate
56:43
Speaker 3: authorities to manage ninety one different types of trust accounts.
56:46
Speaker 3: If if the Treasury Department had done what Rubio said
56:49
Speaker 3: they it had done, the Treasury Secretary would know which
56:51
Speaker 3: of those trust accounts applied. And when you read those
56:54
Speaker 3: ninety one trust accounts, and noe of them actually fit
56:56
Speaker 3: the bill. So, I you know, I think I think
56:59
Speaker 3: he is trying to well, let me not expect that
57:02
Speaker 3: what I was trying to do. I think there was
57:04
Speaker 3: no way for him to answer that question in ways
57:06
Speaker 3: that just sort of made Trump happy that he went
57:08
Speaker 3: viral and made a Democrat look bad.
57:12
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I fear something worse. I fear
57:16
Speaker 1: that they haven't thought about this yet.
57:19
Speaker 3: Well, look, and I don't want to. It's dangerous to
57:24
Speaker 3: go down too many conspiracy rabbit holes if we If
57:30
Speaker 3: you agree with my point that they have not well,
57:33
Speaker 3: this isn't just this isn't even that's something I'm agree with.
57:36
Speaker 3: The Trump administration has not given any indication that they
57:39
Speaker 3: have any legal authority to take Title de Vendenzwael and
57:42
Speaker 3: oil or to distribute Venezuelan and oil. As a result
57:46
Speaker 3: of that, you now have this account that we're taking.
57:51
Speaker 3: They've moved it to Cutter, which is a whole other
57:54
Speaker 3: set of problems because there are superios where Treasury takes
57:57
Speaker 3: custody to accounts, but we keep them in US banks
58:00
Speaker 3: where we can monitor. This is now in a place
58:02
Speaker 3: that's notorious for hiding money, right, and then said that
58:07
Speaker 3: they have no auditor in place to monitor the inflows
58:10
Speaker 3: and the outflows. Well, if you were doing all that,
58:13
Speaker 3: and you take Trump in his face that there are
58:15
Speaker 3: a lot of bad people in Venezuela who are using
58:17
Speaker 3: money to funnel drugs and run these narco terrorism empires,
58:21
Speaker 3: how do you possibly know that the money you're distributing
58:23
Speaker 3: back to Venezuela isn't going to those bad actors. And
58:27
Speaker 3: as I was asking the questions, what I was trying
58:29
Speaker 3: to get them to acknowledge is, I'll stipulate for the
58:33
Speaker 3: purpose of the hearing that Maduro is a bad guy.
58:37
Speaker 3: You didn't want them to go through there. Why wouldn't
58:39
Speaker 3: you have an audit regime in place to monitor that?
58:42
Speaker 3: Rubio said they did have an audit regime regime. Bessen
58:46
Speaker 3: said they didn't have one yet, but would set them up,
58:49
Speaker 3: which suggests that the two of them didn't coordinate their story.
58:53
Speaker 3: And so now this raises this is where the conspiracy starts.
58:56
Speaker 3: Is it not being audited because it's going to shady
58:59
Speaker 3: characters Venezuela or is it not being honored because it's
59:02
Speaker 3: going to shady characters in the United States?
59:05
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know if they want to.
59:08
Speaker 3: Time, would you even know how to answer that question? Right?
59:13
Speaker 1: Well, it gets into this administration, and I think you know,
59:19
Speaker 1: and I'm curious if you now see this trickling down
59:21
Speaker 1: to the cabinet secretaries. Look, if the president doesn't believe
59:25
Speaker 1: that some of these rules don't apply to him, separation
59:28
Speaker 1: of powers doesn't apply, you know, all these little things,
59:30
Speaker 1: and it takes the Supreme Court rebuke that he got
59:35
Speaker 1: last late last week on tariffs, and even then, he's
59:37
Speaker 1: not really accepting the rebuke the way normal presidents would.
59:41
Speaker 1: A normal president would do one of two things, find
59:45
Speaker 1: another you know, find another way, or ask Congress to
59:48
Speaker 1: give him the authority whatever. You know. They they he's
59:52
Speaker 1: just attacking the institution itself. Do you get the sense
59:59
Speaker 1: now that many of these cabin agencies that come before
1:00:01
Speaker 1: you guys in these hearings, when they do these testimonies,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: they feel as if they don't really have to abide
1:00:07
Speaker 1: by the rules of Congress. They just have to do
1:00:10
Speaker 1: just enough performance and they'll be protected by the majority.
1:00:19
Speaker 3: Sadly, that's true, and frankly that's probably been true for
1:00:22
Speaker 3: a long time. I mean, you remember, you know, Jim
1:00:24
Speaker 3: Jordan denied au sub poena to come and testify before
1:00:26
Speaker 3: January sixth, and he was never really prosecuted for that.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: And so I think there is a sense that if
1:00:32
Speaker 3: you know, a government based on the rule of law
1:00:35
Speaker 3: is predicated on the idea that the people enforcing the
1:00:37
Speaker 3: rule of law will comply with the rule of law.
1:00:40
Speaker 3: That's that falls apart pretty quickly.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: A constitution becomes a piece of paper if you don't
1:00:45
Speaker 1: use it.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I think there's a I think there's a
1:00:49
Speaker 3: separate issue in this Trump administration, and I certainly don't
1:00:52
Speaker 3: want to, you know, be here praising Jeff Sessions. But
1:00:58
Speaker 3: in the first Trump administration, he was constrained because there
1:01:01
Speaker 3: were a number of people in his administration, people like
1:01:05
Speaker 3: John Bolton, people like Jeff Sessions who understood the independence
1:01:10
Speaker 3: of what they had to do and you know, respected
1:01:15
Speaker 3: the president, were there to carry out his orders, but
1:01:17
Speaker 3: took took their oath to the constitution. Seriously, the people
1:01:21
Speaker 3: who Trump nominated for cabinet secretaries, virtually to a person,
1:01:26
Speaker 3: where nominated because they'll take orders, and anybody who was
1:01:31
Speaker 3: going to stand ups has been merged from the party.
1:01:33
Speaker 3: I mean, Adam Kinsinger and I did not agree on
1:01:36
Speaker 3: very much. That Adam Kinsinger was dangerous because he challenged
1:01:40
Speaker 3: the president. I agree with Marjorie Taylor Green on virtually nothing.
1:01:44
Speaker 3: She's dangerous because she challenges the president. And so the
1:01:47
Speaker 3: people who are left there. I mean, think of all
1:01:50
Speaker 3: the criticisms Trump had of Marco Rubio back in the
1:01:53
Speaker 3: presidential race. Those criticism stung because Marco Rubio He's a
1:01:58
Speaker 3: beta dog, right, that's who.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: Well, I joke. You know what Marco, Marco needs to
1:02:03
Speaker 1: know and understand that when when Venezuela go south, or
1:02:10
Speaker 1: Cuba go south, or Irongo south, whichever one of these adventures,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: that either we're about to embark on or have embarked
1:02:19
Speaker 1: on and we haven't and it sort of had some
1:02:23
Speaker 1: either becomes unpopular for some reason or whatever. It's Rubio
1:02:27
Speaker 1: that's getting thrown under the bus. Yeah, and you know
1:02:31
Speaker 1: this is how he operates. He does not It is
1:02:33
Speaker 1: never his fault, no matter what happens, but it is.
1:02:37
Speaker 1: It also explains Congressman, you know what you've never heard
1:02:41
Speaker 1: ever out of this White House. Donald Trump had a
1:02:44
Speaker 1: meeting today with one of his business partners from thirty
1:02:46
Speaker 1: years ago. Donald Trump had a meeting today with an
1:02:48
Speaker 1: old college roommate. Donald Trump had a meeting today with
1:02:51
Speaker 1: some he has no friends or colleagues or acquaintances that
1:02:56
Speaker 1: will do business with him who did business with him
1:02:59
Speaker 1: in the seventies, eight nineties, or the first at.
1:03:03
Speaker 3: Least not since I've stained died.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: Right, I mean every but he went through. It's a
1:03:09
Speaker 1: pattern about it. I mean you look at it from
1:03:11
Speaker 1: first term to second term, you basically have Steven Miller. Yeah,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it's basically it. And so because
1:03:20
Speaker 1: when he loyalty is one way with him, and when
1:03:23
Speaker 1: he throws somebody away and they you know, that's it
1:03:28
Speaker 1: and they won't come back. You know, most of them
1:03:30
Speaker 1: don't come back into the fold unless they're kind of
1:03:32
Speaker 1: like Lindsey Grant, right, who were just desperate for it.
1:03:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I mean it's like it's a certain type
1:03:38
Speaker 3: of person I was. I was a CEO for sixteen
1:03:42
Speaker 3: years in the energy industry before I came to cons
1:03:44
Speaker 3: and there is a certain type of person who is
1:03:48
Speaker 3: who is transactional and always wants to make sure they
1:03:50
Speaker 3: get the best end of the deal. And you never
1:03:52
Speaker 3: do a deal with that person twice.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: Right.
1:03:54
Speaker 3: The people who.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: That's been the view of that's basically Donald Trump in
1:03:58
Speaker 1: his life. Nobody's ever done it second deal with him.
1:04:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the parable of Giuliani.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Right, let me ask you about why you're in Congress. Congress.
1:04:12
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at our problems today, it
1:04:14
Speaker 1: is ultimately Congress's fault. Like this is, and I go
1:04:18
Speaker 1: back forty years. Congress's inability to do things is put
1:04:21
Speaker 1: pressure on the courts. Congress's inability to do things is
1:04:24
Speaker 1: put pressure on the presidency's Congress's decisions to to not
1:04:29
Speaker 1: make tough decisions, to let the executive branch do it.
1:04:32
Speaker 1: And it's been sort of a slow thing, right, It's
1:04:35
Speaker 1: it's an emergency here, trade authority there. You know, it's
1:04:39
Speaker 1: been it's been over time. But here you are running.
1:04:44
Speaker 1: You're a CEO. Here you are and I so I'm
1:04:50
Speaker 1: glad somebody who's had a real career, meta pay role
1:04:55
Speaker 1: wants to come to Congress. But it is not a fun,
1:05:01
Speaker 1: small d democratic institution these days, particularly when you join
1:05:05
Speaker 1: starting in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. What keeps you there?
1:05:11
Speaker 3: Well, so let me let me give you what I
1:05:14
Speaker 3: take a lot of inspiration from. There's a lot of
1:05:15
Speaker 3: beauty in the story. So I twenty eighteen. We sold
1:05:18
Speaker 3: our company in twenty sixteen. I was trying to figure
1:05:20
Speaker 3: out what to do next. I had a one year
1:05:23
Speaker 3: non compete, so I couldn't work in the industry that
1:05:24
Speaker 3: I was in for a year. And I started going
1:05:27
Speaker 3: around because I was frustrated that my representative wasn't standing
1:05:31
Speaker 3: up to Trump, and I felt like what we needed
1:05:33
Speaker 3: in this era, someone was standing up to Trump and
1:05:34
Speaker 3: my my big issue for my whole life has been
1:05:37
Speaker 3: trying to do something about climate change that the businesses
1:05:39
Speaker 3: I ran and most of what the legislating I've done.
1:05:43
Speaker 3: And a good friend of mine, Katie McGuinty, who had
1:05:47
Speaker 3: been the head of the Council of Environmental Quality and
1:05:48
Speaker 3: the Clinton White House, she said, I'm not going to
1:05:51
Speaker 3: encourage you to run, but I will tell you that
1:05:54
Speaker 3: this is if you know what you want to I
1:05:57
Speaker 3: want to have written on your tombstone about what you
1:05:59
Speaker 3: can try to the Earth during your time on it.
1:06:02
Speaker 3: There's no better job than being a member of Congress.
1:06:05
Speaker 3: And if you don't know what you want written on
1:06:06
Speaker 3: your tombstone, there's no worst job, because you have such
1:06:10
Speaker 3: enormous levers that you can pull on. And so you know,
1:06:14
Speaker 3: in my private sector life, we deployed a couple hundred
1:06:16
Speaker 3: million dollars I'm worth the capital projects, made some money
1:06:19
Speaker 3: for various investors. It looks good in a resume. My
1:06:22
Speaker 3: first year in Congress, cint a billion dollars of legislation
1:06:25
Speaker 3: passed specifically to deploy clean energy technologies. Not that not
1:06:28
Speaker 3: that things are measured in dollars. But this was a
1:06:30
Speaker 3: fresh number of Congress and movement in different ways. And
1:06:34
Speaker 3: the part of it that I think is sort of
1:06:36
Speaker 3: beautiful and inspiring is that the I flipped a seat
1:06:40
Speaker 3: that had been Republican for fifty years. There were forty
1:06:44
Speaker 3: of us in that class of eighteen who flipped seats.
1:06:47
Speaker 3: Of the forty of us, Jennifer Wexton, Ben mccadams, and
1:06:52
Speaker 3: Anthony Brindec had held prior elected office. The other thirty
1:06:57
Speaker 3: seven had never held any elected office before coming.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: No, it's what made it a really good class.
1:07:01
Speaker 3: And you know, and it was you know, me and
1:07:03
Speaker 3: Dean Phillips had been CEOs. Lauren Underwood with a nurse.
1:07:06
Speaker 3: Alissa and Abigail were spies. Tom Melanowski and Andy Kim
1:07:11
Speaker 3: were in the State Department. JOHNA. Hayes was a teacher.
1:07:14
Speaker 3: You had all these people who you know, the single
1:07:19
Speaker 3: greatest thing that Donald Trump has ever done is he
1:07:22
Speaker 3: made people feel like they wanted to contribute to society. Right.
1:07:28
Speaker 3: And yes, you know, the I think everything that you
1:07:31
Speaker 3: say to criticize Congress is fair. I think it goes
1:07:34
Speaker 3: back way more than twenty years. I went forty founders,
1:07:38
Speaker 3: our founders created a Congress that was the Article one branch.
1:07:41
Speaker 3: It was where all the people were, it was where
1:07:43
Speaker 3: all the budget was. Congress is now less than one
1:07:47
Speaker 3: half of one percent of the total federal budget because
1:07:50
Speaker 3: every time we identify a problem, we basically create an
1:07:53
Speaker 3: executive branch agency to fix it, and we gradually, you know,
1:07:57
Speaker 3: make ourselves weaker and weaker. And I, you know, I think,
1:08:02
Speaker 3: other than other than the War Powers Act, I'm hard
1:08:07
Speaker 3: pressed to think of a time where Congress took power
1:08:09
Speaker 3: back from the other agencies or the other branches. But
1:08:12
Speaker 3: I can think of lots of time, starting with Marborie
1:08:15
Speaker 3: versus Madison, where the judicial branch took power from the
1:08:17
Speaker 3: legislative branch, lots of times where the executive has taken
1:08:21
Speaker 3: power from the legislative. And I think we're vastly overdue.
1:08:24
Speaker 3: You know, if we still believe that it's important to
1:08:27
Speaker 3: have a government with three co equal branches, we got
1:08:30
Speaker 3: to be a little more equal. And I think we
1:08:32
Speaker 3: need to sort of push for some structural reforms and
1:08:36
Speaker 3: the while I'm not naive about how long it's going
1:08:40
Speaker 3: to take, what other job could I possibly get where
1:08:43
Speaker 3: I could actually have a role in fixing that.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: You have made the case for why you should be there,
1:08:59
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that attitude. I fear that not many
1:09:02
Speaker 1: have the same attitude that you have. You know, some
1:09:05
Speaker 1: wanted as a stepping stone as well. Some are you know,
1:09:09
Speaker 1: some are some actually want it on their resume so
1:09:12
Speaker 1: they can say they did it on that front. But
1:09:16
Speaker 1: let's talk about so one of the way. One of
1:09:18
Speaker 1: the ways I describe myself as I always say, I'm
1:09:20
Speaker 1: short term pessimistic, but long term optimistic. That history shows
1:09:23
Speaker 1: that when we are in these moments, we do the
1:09:29
Speaker 1: structural changes or updatings that are needed, and the only
1:09:36
Speaker 1: question is whether how much violence it takes before we
1:09:39
Speaker 1: get to that point. And I know that sounds harsh.
1:09:42
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound dumer gloom, but when you
1:09:45
Speaker 1: look at the we've really only had about four periods
1:09:47
Speaker 1: where we've made serious changes to the constitution to try
1:09:50
Speaker 1: to update the democracy, right at the start, during and
1:09:54
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, UH and the period that I'm
1:09:58
Speaker 1: currently obsessed with theasically the first twenty five years of
1:10:01
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, where we had where we had three
1:10:06
Speaker 1: of the most important reforms that were added to the constitution,
1:10:10
Speaker 1: women the right to vote, income tax, and direct election
1:10:13
Speaker 1: of senators, and all three were really direct responses to
1:10:19
Speaker 1: what felt like a crisis in the moment. It felt
1:10:21
Speaker 1: like income inequality was out of control with the industrialists
1:10:25
Speaker 1: and they weren't paying their fair share. Tariffs were not
1:10:27
Speaker 1: the way to fund a government. People realize this. The
1:10:32
Speaker 1: democracy felt like it wasn't really responsive to the people.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: I think we now feel that same that same thing.
1:10:39
Speaker 1: Now I've got my own theories as to why that is.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: I think Congress is too damn small, but we'll get
1:10:44
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. And of course, with the
1:10:50
Speaker 1: feeling that hey, the Senate's rigged, and it was a
1:10:54
Speaker 1: bribery scandal, by the way, in the great state of
1:10:56
Speaker 1: Illinois that helped accelerate the direct election for senators. Illinois,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: of course has its fair share of scandals political scandals
1:11:07
Speaker 1: over the century.
1:11:08
Speaker 3: But you say a bribery scandal involving an Illinois senator,
1:11:10
Speaker 3: I have to ask which one you refer to.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: I know, I know, you know, I knew my five
1:11:15
Speaker 1: governors had served time. I was like, oh wow, so
1:11:17
Speaker 1: they also were the cause of the direct election of
1:11:19
Speaker 1: senators too. Yeah, apparently votes went for thirty five grand
1:11:24
Speaker 1: in today's dollars was what a vote for a US
1:11:27
Speaker 1: senator was in the state ledge back in nineteen oh nine.
1:11:31
Speaker 1: But you know, a couple of weeks ago, there's a
1:11:36
Speaker 1: there was a constitutional amendment that was introduced in Congress
1:11:41
Speaker 1: to give Congress nullification powers on pardons if if enough
1:11:47
Speaker 1: members decided it was yes. Well it was actually I
1:11:51
Speaker 1: think Johnny Olewinsky he introduced it, and Bacon became the
1:11:57
Speaker 1: first Republican to sign on to it. What's the appetite?
1:12:02
Speaker 1: You sound like you're a reformer. You sound like you'd
1:12:05
Speaker 1: like to get involved in some of the updating of
1:12:08
Speaker 1: the American democracy, reforming the institution. Maybe it's a constitutional amendment,
1:12:13
Speaker 1: some stuff you can do just with an Act of Congress.
1:12:16
Speaker 1: What are the reforms that you'd like to focus on
1:12:18
Speaker 1: for the rest of this decade?
1:12:22
Speaker 3: So, Number one, I think you are spot on that
1:12:24
Speaker 3: there are so many echoes both to the reconstruction era
1:12:28
Speaker 3: and the twenties, and I think trying to not repeat
1:12:32
Speaker 3: their mistakes of reconstruction, but also to recognize, like we
1:12:36
Speaker 3: I think we appropriately lionized Teddy Roosevelt because he was
1:12:39
Speaker 3: someone who came in and said I'm not going to
1:12:42
Speaker 3: burn the institutions down, but I'm not going to praise
1:12:46
Speaker 3: them as being perfect either. We have to make some
1:12:48
Speaker 3: significant structural reforms to fix this, and it's, you know,
1:12:52
Speaker 3: the whole trust busting era. I think that, arguably, you know,
1:12:55
Speaker 3: is what set us up for such a booming century.
1:13:00
Speaker 3: I think if you look at the reforms we've made
1:13:02
Speaker 3: over time, everything we're really proud of in our history
1:13:04
Speaker 3: has made democracy more inclusive, whether that was expanding the
1:13:09
Speaker 3: franchise to women, to minorities, to Native Americans, direct election
1:13:13
Speaker 3: of senators. The most anti democratic institutions in the United
1:13:20
Speaker 3: States are still the ones that hold us back. The Senate,
1:13:23
Speaker 3: the Electoral College, and the structure of the Supreme Court.
1:13:27
Speaker 3: The Senate sort of has a self destruct button that
1:13:31
Speaker 3: Article five of the Constitution says that you can't you're
1:13:33
Speaker 3: not even allowed to amend the Constitution in a way
1:13:36
Speaker 3: that would reduce the proportional power of the states. Because
1:13:39
Speaker 3: I think our founders understood how deeply anti democratic the
1:13:42
Speaker 3: Senate was and what the problem is. We've introduced a
1:13:45
Speaker 3: bill to get around that in a sort of a
1:13:47
Speaker 3: sideways way by saying, let's create twelve nationally elected at
1:13:51
Speaker 3: large senators, so that the Senate would actually have a
1:13:54
Speaker 3: significant block of senators who had to be responsive to
1:13:56
Speaker 3: national public will as a way to fix that. The
1:14:03
Speaker 3: Supreme Court, i think, on any objective analysis, has always
1:14:08
Speaker 3: been political and has always been lowercase C conservative. I mean,
1:14:13
Speaker 3: with the exception of the war in court, they have
1:14:15
Speaker 3: always protected the power of incumbents over expansions of democracy.
1:14:22
Speaker 3: And there's nothing particularly wrong with them being political, other
1:14:26
Speaker 3: than the fact that they tell themselves a story that
1:14:27
Speaker 3: they are just gods on high who live in a
1:14:29
Speaker 3: temple and dispense wisdom and they're not political actors, and
1:14:33
Speaker 3: yet we all know they are. And so we've introduced
1:14:37
Speaker 3: some legislation that would basically take advantage of the fact
1:14:41
Speaker 3: that Article three of the Constitution specifically says that the
1:14:44
Speaker 3: jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is limited to disputes between
1:14:48
Speaker 3: the States, admiralty law, maritime law, matters related to ambassadors,
1:14:53
Speaker 3: and such a pullet jurisdiction, as the Congress provides. So
1:14:57
Speaker 3: Congress has the ability, if we choose, to strip all
1:14:59
Speaker 3: the pellet jurisdiction from the Supreme Court. And so what
1:15:02
Speaker 3: we've done is introduced legislation that would say the Senior
1:15:05
Speaker 3: Appellate Court would now be a separate court and judges
1:15:09
Speaker 3: would be randomly assigned from the seventy or eighty Senior
1:15:13
Speaker 3: Circuit Court judges, so that you couldn't you couldn't choose
1:15:17
Speaker 3: your docket, right, and that would go through to set
1:15:21
Speaker 3: that case, so that we would actually have you wouldn't
1:15:23
Speaker 3: have a way to politicize the court and do that.
1:15:25
Speaker 3: We can do that, you know, and I for one
1:15:28
Speaker 3: think that Clarce Thomas and Samuel Ldo are really good
1:15:31
Speaker 3: at maritime law and admiralty law and they could continue
1:15:35
Speaker 3: to do that. Matters relating to ambassadors, Fine, you can
1:15:37
Speaker 3: have your lifetime appointment. I think beyond that though, on
1:15:42
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court, prior to nineteen twenty five, the Supreme
1:15:48
Speaker 3: Court didn't get to set there on docket. Congress gave
1:15:51
Speaker 3: them the power to set their docket and grant cert
1:15:53
Speaker 3: in the Judges Act of nineteen twenty five. We could
1:15:56
Speaker 3: take that away, right and all of a sudden you
1:15:59
Speaker 3: wouldn't have the situation where Thomas makes a footnote in
1:16:03
Speaker 3: a dissent and somebody says, Okay, I see what you're saying.
1:16:06
Speaker 3: If I bring this case, we can go in and
1:16:08
Speaker 3: bring this down. We can take that away. We could
1:16:13
Speaker 3: we have the power of the purse. Why don't we
1:16:16
Speaker 3: always give the Supreme Court one hundred percent of the
1:16:18
Speaker 3: appropriation they ask for. We could go back and say
1:16:21
Speaker 3: we're going to give you less next year unless you
1:16:24
Speaker 3: institute the following ethics reforms. Right, let's make people trust
1:16:28
Speaker 3: the court. So these are all things that we could
1:16:30
Speaker 3: do within our power. And I know there are a
1:16:33
Speaker 3: lot of conversations.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm one of those who thinks incentives.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: You got to fix incentive structures, meaning you can have
1:16:44
Speaker 1: a good person with bad incentives, they'll do bad things. Yeah, agree, right,
1:16:48
Speaker 1: And a bad person with good incentives can end up
1:16:50
Speaker 1: doing good things. You know what if it took seventy
1:16:55
Speaker 1: five votes to confirm a Supreme Court justice, I promise
1:16:59
Speaker 1: you would get people that were the least partisan people
1:17:02
Speaker 1: you could find, no matter who the president was.
1:17:05
Speaker 3: True, although I would remind you of that Hamilton's line
1:17:09
Speaker 3: that supermajorities create the problems they're designed to solve.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: I understand that he argues that, but he also argues
1:17:15
Speaker 1: in Federal seventy eight that the goal should be to
1:17:19
Speaker 1: find the least if the goal in finding a judge
1:17:23
Speaker 1: is whatever it takes to get the least, you know,
1:17:25
Speaker 1: sort of the most neutral person you can get. That
1:17:28
Speaker 1: was the point of lifetime appointments. I mean, look, imagine
1:17:30
Speaker 1: if we didn't have lifetime appointments, Donald Trump would have
1:17:33
Speaker 1: fired Neil Gorsicch this weekend. Yeah, okay, right, I think
1:17:37
Speaker 1: that's a We do know that he probably does that
1:17:39
Speaker 1: and probably would have fired Amy Coney Barrett after, you know,
1:17:42
Speaker 1: a couple of times ago. So it is I take
1:17:49
Speaker 1: your point on supermajorities, but if you so. I had
1:17:56
Speaker 1: a source of mine who worked in the Bush Justice
1:17:58
Speaker 1: Bush Council office in the in the Bush w forty
1:18:01
Speaker 1: threes and back then it took sixty votes essentially to
1:18:05
Speaker 1: get a judge through, and he said if it had
1:18:09
Speaker 1: been fifty that they wouldn't have nominated any of the
1:18:13
Speaker 1: people they nominated.
1:18:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what, Kevin, I got what fifty one votes? Like? Right?
1:18:19
Speaker 1: So the point is is that we haven't had you
1:18:22
Speaker 1: would you'll nominate a partisan, You'll nominate a partisan warrior.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: I think the three liberals are you know, I mean,
1:18:29
Speaker 1: I think Kagan's the least of the least partisan of
1:18:32
Speaker 1: the three liberals. But I think all of them are
1:18:34
Speaker 1: more partisan warriors than Stephen Bryer was or Ruth Bader
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Ginsburg was. And you certainly see that with Alito in particular.
1:18:43
Speaker 1: I mean, he certainly is a partisan warrior. Canically he
1:18:47
Speaker 1: came through during the sixty the sixty zone.
1:18:50
Speaker 3: Just I mean, and I don't have a way legislator
1:18:53
Speaker 3: to fix this because of Article five. But it's worth
1:18:56
Speaker 3: noting that for every state in every country that's copied
1:18:59
Speaker 3: the US form of democracy, none of them copied the
1:19:02
Speaker 3: structure of the Senate's true, you know, the the over representation.
1:19:06
Speaker 1: By the way, we don't when we export a democracy,
1:19:09
Speaker 1: we also recommend multi member districts.
1:19:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny so many this was probably three
1:19:17
Speaker 3: or four years ago. We run a bipartisan b cameral
1:19:21
Speaker 3: trip to Iceland. Iceland has had they have the longest
1:19:25
Speaker 3: continuously active parliamentary form of government. They first met in
1:19:28
Speaker 3: like the year nine hundred. There's all this fascinating history,
1:19:31
Speaker 3: and so we're meeting with them and they're showing us
1:19:33
Speaker 3: their chambers and they described how sometime in the last
1:19:38
Speaker 3: century they essentially adopted the US form of government, and
1:19:42
Speaker 3: they went through and he said, after twenty years, we
1:19:45
Speaker 3: got rid of what you would call the Senate because
1:19:47
Speaker 3: it just come things up. And they're sitting there and
1:19:49
Speaker 3: Tom Carper gets this big frown in his face and
1:19:51
Speaker 3: all of us House members starting But there's sort of
1:19:56
Speaker 3: an acknowledgment that that that structure. And I say this
1:19:59
Speaker 3: on the because the Senate always is going to skew
1:20:05
Speaker 3: you know, conservative and again in the lowercase ce sense,
1:20:08
Speaker 3: because it always overly represents rural areas, people closer, and
1:20:14
Speaker 3: you know, we're sort of you know, you know, traditional,
1:20:16
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff. And maybe that made sense
1:20:19
Speaker 3: in seventeen eighty nine, but it means that, you know,
1:20:23
Speaker 3: the the swing vote in the Senate is always very
1:20:27
Speaker 3: far to the right of the median American voter.
1:20:31
Speaker 1: Look, the national senators aren't because I have a founding,
1:20:37
Speaker 1: founding father historian and she's she runs the George Washington
1:20:41
Speaker 1: Library right now at Mount Vernet, and her fix for
1:20:45
Speaker 1: the Senate is to essentially carve out you know, you
1:20:52
Speaker 1: basically you take the top six, get five senators. The
1:20:55
Speaker 1: top six most populous state gets five senators. The next
1:20:58
Speaker 1: say six, get for senators. The next five or six
1:21:03
Speaker 1: get three, and then everybody else gets two. I don't
1:21:09
Speaker 1: know if that passes Article five muster.
1:21:12
Speaker 3: Only it does because it says that you can't you
1:21:14
Speaker 3: can't amend the Constitution in any way that would change
1:21:16
Speaker 3: the proportional representation in the Senate.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: But it's a but in some ways, what you're describing
1:21:22
Speaker 1: a twelve national Senators is potentially one thing. Let me
1:21:28
Speaker 1: get something that I'm obsessed with because I think it
1:21:31
Speaker 1: solves a couple of problems without touching the Constitution, and
1:21:35
Speaker 1: that is and that is uncapping the House.
1:21:40
Speaker 3: I'm going to able to do that too.
1:21:42
Speaker 1: It is we are you know, when we shut it
1:21:45
Speaker 1: down in nineteen thirty when they when they locked it
1:21:48
Speaker 1: in at four thirty five, we were at about one
1:21:50
Speaker 1: per three hundred and fifty thousand each district. We're now
1:21:53
Speaker 1: one per eight hundred and as I like to remind people,
1:21:56
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand is the population of the fifteenth largest
1:21:59
Speaker 1: city America. I don't think the founders meant for four
1:22:03
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five congressional districts to be all the
1:22:06
Speaker 1: size population wise of one of the fifteen largest cities
1:22:10
Speaker 1: in America. So if you go back to what it
1:22:14
Speaker 1: was in nineteen thirty because we were doing it every decade,
1:22:17
Speaker 1: expanding the House with the size of the population. I
1:22:21
Speaker 1: think you might need a constitutional amendment to put a
1:22:23
Speaker 1: put a numerator in there and say that no congressional
1:22:26
Speaker 1: district can be bigger than point oh three percent of
1:22:28
Speaker 1: the Right. Now, that would make it point oh three
1:22:31
Speaker 1: percent of the population. If we went to one, say
1:22:34
Speaker 1: three point fifty one per four hundred right around there,
1:22:38
Speaker 1: we'd have about eight hundred and fifty eight hundred and
1:22:41
Speaker 1: seventy members of Congress. But what it really does is
1:22:44
Speaker 1: that it allows the electoral College to level, basically become
1:22:48
Speaker 1: a level playing field. Wyoming goes from being six six
1:22:52
Speaker 1: times more more an advantage of a presidential vote over
1:22:57
Speaker 1: a Californian. They still have an advantage, but it's two
1:23:00
Speaker 1: and a half. So it's it's what I would argue
1:23:04
Speaker 1: it keeps and what the founders always wanted, which is
1:23:07
Speaker 1: at the small stage should get a little more influenced,
1:23:10
Speaker 1: but not a lot more influence. Right, two and a
1:23:12
Speaker 1: half to one feels better than six to one, and
1:23:16
Speaker 1: I think it would make jerrymandering just less necessary. You're
1:23:19
Speaker 1: going to have it in some places, but it's it's
1:23:23
Speaker 1: less and somebody's harder to do, and you probably lower
1:23:27
Speaker 1: you probably diversify Congress just by sheer numbers in ways,
1:23:32
Speaker 1: and you'll get different walks of life and and it
1:23:35
Speaker 1: will be the people's House again. But try telling, try
1:23:41
Speaker 1: making the case that the problem in Washington is not
1:23:43
Speaker 1: enough politicians.
1:23:45
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's number one. It's worth reminding people that
1:23:47
Speaker 3: for all the people who work in Washington, only five
1:23:49
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty seven of them won an election. If
1:23:52
Speaker 3: you're concerned about size of government, the elected folks are
1:23:55
Speaker 3: not the problem. So we've we've got we've got legislation
1:23:59
Speaker 3: to do that. We we the way we did ours
1:24:02
Speaker 3: is say we will on every going forward census, you
1:24:07
Speaker 3: expand the members of the You expand the number of
1:24:09
Speaker 3: members in the House, rather than expanding the number of
1:24:11
Speaker 3: people we represent. And you lack a district at five
1:24:14
Speaker 3: hundred thousand. We picked five hundred thousand for sort of
1:24:18
Speaker 3: arbitrary reasons. But there's been a number of political scientists
1:24:22
Speaker 3: who look at this cube root law that if you
1:24:24
Speaker 3: look at all the parliamentary democracies of the world, you
1:24:26
Speaker 3: put population on one access how many members. It kind
1:24:30
Speaker 3: of follows a cube root and it's about five hundred.
1:24:33
Speaker 3: So at least just say, well, we know this works
1:24:35
Speaker 3: because other governments kind of run on this Formut.
1:24:37
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you my math. When I went to
1:24:39
Speaker 1: I went to the fiftieth largest city in America, which
1:24:42
Speaker 1: happens to be Arlington, Texas. They have a population of
1:24:45
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand. Fair enough, I thought, you know what,
1:24:49
Speaker 1: that's pretty that they are one community of interest, right,
1:24:54
Speaker 1: A suburban you know, small city from Dallas is a
1:24:57
Speaker 1: community of interest, And I thought so felt fair. But
1:25:00
Speaker 1: I take your point at five hundred. I mean, I
1:25:02
Speaker 1: think at this point four to five hundred isn't a
1:25:04
Speaker 1: huge Yeah.
1:25:05
Speaker 3: The distinction there's there are people smarter than me who
1:25:10
Speaker 3: have argued that you increase the odds that the chance
1:25:13
Speaker 3: for gerrymandering Shenanigan's if you expand, and I can't argue
1:25:18
Speaker 3: either side of that. I think, broadly speaking, you are
1:25:22
Speaker 3: going to get more districts where there are more people,
1:25:25
Speaker 3: which means that I think you counter some of the
1:25:27
Speaker 3: reason why the electoral college stuff works out is that
1:25:29
Speaker 3: essentially large rural areas are overrepresented. Urban areas are underrepresented.
1:25:33
Speaker 3: Since the people are in the right that levels that out,
1:25:35
Speaker 3: you're going to skew more votes that way. We added
1:25:39
Speaker 3: a provision that said if any state has more than
1:25:42
Speaker 3: two districts allocated, they can at their choice go to
1:25:47
Speaker 3: multi member districts with rank choice voting, because there's there's
1:25:52
Speaker 3: some really interesting analysis that if you have a multi
1:25:56
Speaker 3: member district, it's really hard to jerry mander so that
1:26:01
Speaker 3: the top two are of the same race and same
1:26:04
Speaker 3: party all the time. You can do that for the
1:26:06
Speaker 3: top one, but it's hard to do it for the
1:26:08
Speaker 3: top two. And so if you get a situation where
1:26:11
Speaker 3: you know, me and whoever comes in second are representing
1:26:15
Speaker 3: the same communities, you should in theory get rid of
1:26:19
Speaker 3: some of the polarization in Washington. But put it that way,
1:26:23
Speaker 3: and we're with other ideas, but that's the way that
1:26:25
Speaker 3: we've structured it.
1:26:36
Speaker 1: Look, you're one of the few members that engages in
1:26:38
Speaker 1: this conversation. There aren't many members that are thinking about this.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: You know, is it a caucus of twenty thirty who's
1:26:47
Speaker 1: the group that you're working with that are animated on this.
1:26:50
Speaker 3: So I would say there have always been a number
1:26:52
Speaker 3: of members, you know, Don Byer from Virginia is very
1:26:55
Speaker 3: thoughtful on this. Earl Bloomen Hour was great, still is,
1:26:58
Speaker 3: but not a member of Congress anymore. Me rasking is
1:27:00
Speaker 3: very thoughtful. I think. I think the challenge that all
1:27:03
Speaker 3: of us get in you know, we're elected every two years.
1:27:06
Speaker 3: We got to stay focused on things that the public
1:27:08
Speaker 3: cares about. And I think the number of members who
1:27:12
Speaker 3: think about this stuff and care about it is much
1:27:15
Speaker 3: higher than the number of members who are willing to
1:27:16
Speaker 3: say I'm going to prioritize this over all the things
1:27:19
Speaker 3: that voters are telling me to prioritize at any given time.
1:27:22
Speaker 3: And so I was. I did a thing about this
1:27:25
Speaker 3: with some various other podcasters recently, and when everybody said,
1:27:28
Speaker 3: what's the most important thing we can do to drive
1:27:30
Speaker 3: this forward is just make noise about it. You know,
1:27:34
Speaker 3: the more that voters care, the more that those of
1:27:36
Speaker 3: us in elected office have to do something about it.
1:27:38
Speaker 1: Now I've made it a huge part of any time
1:27:40
Speaker 1: I do a speaking gig. I talk about this all
1:27:42
Speaker 1: the time, like there are things that we can do
1:27:45
Speaker 1: and you don't even have the pass constitutional amendment and this,
1:27:47
Speaker 1: this to me, is one of the biggest small de
1:27:50
Speaker 1: democracy reforms you can make without a constitutional amendment, because
1:27:54
Speaker 1: then there's a bunch of it, there's a bunch of
1:27:57
Speaker 1: after on effects that are that are interesting.
1:28:02
Speaker 3: And I would also say that whether it's you know,
1:28:03
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand or four hundred thousand, the barriers are
1:28:08
Speaker 3: more construction. Like we've probably need another office. We could
1:28:11
Speaker 3: do that. There's space on the mall.
1:28:12
Speaker 1: You know what I'd love to do. You know what,
1:28:14
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that we flip the script and
1:28:19
Speaker 1: a majority of all staff is in the district and
1:28:22
Speaker 1: only a small handful of staff is in Washington. I
1:28:27
Speaker 1: could argue that you could you could do that. I'd
1:28:30
Speaker 1: also allow for remote voting. I think that with eight
1:28:35
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty members of Congress, maybe that is something
1:28:39
Speaker 1: because here's the thing, you know, if you make it
1:28:42
Speaker 1: just a little bit harder for the lobbyist to find
1:28:44
Speaker 1: the member of Congress, maybe that's not so bad.
1:28:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna sound like an old fuddy duddy.
1:28:48
Speaker 1: Who I know you're gonna last to see.
1:28:50
Speaker 3: Well, I was, you know, the last time I was
1:28:52
Speaker 3: a CEO was before COVID. I'm still a firm believer
1:28:55
Speaker 3: in the water cooler.
1:28:57
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that isn't look. I'd love to see that.
1:29:00
Speaker 1: I'd love to see all of the members of Congress
1:29:01
Speaker 1: move here with their families. I think that, you know,
1:29:05
Speaker 1: if you want to. There's I teach a class called
1:29:09
Speaker 1: How Washington Works to college students, and I was doing
1:29:11
Speaker 1: a whole thing on Congress last week and I said,
1:29:14
Speaker 1: we've had these various moments where it just got worse
1:29:19
Speaker 1: for a specific reason, and this current era it began basically,
1:29:26
Speaker 1: it began with the rise of Ingridge and the rise
1:29:28
Speaker 1: of Gingrich happened because of partisan of a partisan decision
1:29:33
Speaker 1: by Democrats back in eighty six in an Indiana congressional district.
1:29:37
Speaker 1: It's known as the Bloody eighth. It's a it's got
1:29:39
Speaker 1: sort of this this there's a sort of mythical status
1:29:42
Speaker 1: to it. But it gave rise to Newt, and then
1:29:45
Speaker 1: Newt when he became the leader, basically got rid of
1:29:50
Speaker 1: he didn't want any more. He wanted all his members
1:29:52
Speaker 1: to be in the you know, he stopped people working
1:29:54
Speaker 1: Mondays and Fridays, and everything became about, you know, only
1:30:00
Speaker 1: be in Washington Tuesday through Thursday and be in the district.
1:30:03
Speaker 1: And that prioritize, not bring in your family, and then
1:30:07
Speaker 1: you know that had all sorts of and frankly both
1:30:09
Speaker 1: parties now have accepted that schedule. And so yeah, I'd
1:30:14
Speaker 1: love to see you guys two months here, one month
1:30:17
Speaker 1: not here, two months here, you know, something like that.
1:30:21
Speaker 3: But I'm curious, Chuck, does you think through that I've
1:30:23
Speaker 3: only served obviously in the post ging Gridge era. There
1:30:26
Speaker 3: are members who stay in DC through the weekends and
1:30:30
Speaker 3: there are those of us who go home. Broadly speaking,
1:30:34
Speaker 3: you don't stay in DC over the weekend if you're
1:30:38
Speaker 3: not in a really safe seat. And so I would
1:30:42
Speaker 3: I would worry a little bit about that because since
1:30:44
Speaker 3: so much of this job as relationships, wouldn't that concentrate
1:30:49
Speaker 3: power in sort of the senior safest seat members who
1:30:52
Speaker 3: could stick around because you got to go back to
1:30:55
Speaker 3: your district if you don't know whether you're going to
1:30:57
Speaker 3: win your next election.
1:30:58
Speaker 1: Well, it could, But if you're changing the way Congress works, right,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: and it's sort of everybody has to work two months on, right,
1:31:04
Speaker 1: and it's sort of, then that's that's evening out a
1:31:08
Speaker 1: little bit. Look, I think the fact that you know
1:31:12
Speaker 1: you could the other idea that sits out there is
1:31:18
Speaker 1: if you're going to do term limits for House members.
1:31:20
Speaker 1: And I'm not a huge fan of term limits. I
1:31:23
Speaker 1: don't think they've worked in the state legislative level. I
1:31:26
Speaker 1: think they've only made lobbyists more powerful. They've made governors
1:31:29
Speaker 1: more powerful, they've made state legislatures less powerful, just generally.
1:31:33
Speaker 1: I mean, I could doing a broad stroke. But the
1:31:37
Speaker 1: best idea I've heard if you do institute term limits,
1:31:41
Speaker 1: which would need a constitutional amendment, is to make the
1:31:43
Speaker 1: House four year terms. And if you had the House
1:31:47
Speaker 1: at four year terms, would you at least maybe for
1:31:51
Speaker 1: the first you know, And and by the way, if
1:31:54
Speaker 1: you end up doubling the size of the House, you
1:31:56
Speaker 1: might actually want to have half the house up to years,
1:32:00
Speaker 1: the other half up the other two years, and go
1:32:01
Speaker 1: with four years. There might be some logistical reasons to
1:32:06
Speaker 1: do that. But if you did four year terms, would
1:32:08
Speaker 1: it would it encourage what it discourage? Because right now
1:32:12
Speaker 1: you're running for reelection. The day you get sworn in
1:32:15
Speaker 1: on January third, you're dialing for dollars.
1:32:19
Speaker 3: And I again, I'm gonna sound boy scouty, but I
1:32:22
Speaker 3: had this conversation with Timmy Duckworth at one point you
1:32:24
Speaker 3: know who, of course was in the House before, and
1:32:26
Speaker 3: she made the observation that the one thing she missed
1:32:28
Speaker 3: about the House, like she didn't miss not having to
1:32:30
Speaker 3: run every two years, right, what she missed was that
1:32:33
Speaker 3: in the House you you have to be right on
1:32:35
Speaker 3: the pulse of where Americans are all the time. And
1:32:39
Speaker 3: in a six year term, you know, you can the
1:32:42
Speaker 3: first couple of years just working on things like dictated
1:32:45
Speaker 3: by your own wisdom, and there's a value in that
1:32:48
Speaker 3: in the Senate, but you do that, there's you know,
1:32:51
Speaker 3: none of us like dialing for dollars. Some of us
1:32:54
Speaker 3: like kissing babies for weird reasons, and.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: That in the Epstein files, be careful, sorry, think, but
1:33:03
Speaker 1: there is.
1:33:03
Speaker 3: A value in being out there and saying, Okay, where's
1:33:06
Speaker 3: the pulse of the country right now? And I have
1:33:08
Speaker 3: to respond because I'm going to be on the ballot
1:33:10
Speaker 3: again shortly. I think our founder's got that right, even
1:33:15
Speaker 3: though the consequences of that have for a little goofy.
1:33:19
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Democratic Party brand.
1:33:23
Speaker 1: There's a poll over the weekend that if you just
1:33:27
Speaker 1: looked at Trump's numbers, you'd be like, oh, this has
1:33:30
Speaker 1: got to be good news for Democrats, right, He's sixty
1:33:33
Speaker 1: percent disapproved upside down in every issue. But then when
1:33:37
Speaker 1: given the choice of you have the main problems, who
1:33:39
Speaker 1: do you trust? Democrats are Trump? They were both in
1:33:42
Speaker 1: the low thirties, and neither was also in the thirties.
1:33:49
Speaker 1: The Democratic brand has really taken a beating. Do you
1:33:53
Speaker 1: think the four years of Biden were a successful four
1:33:58
Speaker 1: years and it's just been bad messaging? Or is this
1:34:03
Speaker 1: a is this a much bigger problem than Democrats want
1:34:06
Speaker 1: to face.
1:34:09
Speaker 3: So I never quite know what to make of those
1:34:12
Speaker 3: studies because are those polls, because named members always perform
1:34:18
Speaker 3: well ahead of what the party idea is.
1:34:20
Speaker 1: Like.
1:34:20
Speaker 3: You know, Congress broadly is unfavorable, the Democratic Party is
1:34:23
Speaker 3: broadly unfavorable, the Republican Party is broadly unfavorable. Sean Caston
1:34:28
Speaker 3: is popular, right at least in our district, you know,
1:34:33
Speaker 3: you know, go on down the list, and I think
1:34:36
Speaker 3: the I think depending on the question we're asking. You know,
1:34:41
Speaker 3: we for all sorts of reasons that you are well
1:34:43
Speaker 3: aware of, we have political parties. If you ask people
1:34:48
Speaker 3: what are the things that you want government to do
1:34:50
Speaker 3: and where your values are, those those things are very
1:34:54
Speaker 3: popular across broad bipartisan swaths of the economy. We want
1:34:59
Speaker 3: we want to get shot when we go to school.
1:35:01
Speaker 3: We think all people should have equal rights. We you know,
1:35:03
Speaker 3: we want a peaceful transfer of elections. You know, those
1:35:06
Speaker 3: things tend to skew Democratic in this moment. The brand
1:35:09
Speaker 3: isn't so good. But it's sort of like saying, do
1:35:10
Speaker 3: you like do you like Jerry flavored kolas? That's one question.
1:35:15
Speaker 3: What is the brand status of mister Pip that's a
1:35:18
Speaker 3: different question, right, even though even though they're synonyms. So so,
1:35:25
Speaker 3: all that really says to me is Okay, maybe don't
1:35:27
Speaker 3: hang your don't hang your party after your idea and
1:35:31
Speaker 3: get votes. But that doesn't necessarily mean whether or not
1:35:35
Speaker 3: Democrats or Republicans are going to win the next election.
1:35:37
Speaker 3: I think ultimately that's a race by race.
1:35:40
Speaker 1: No, I I guess what I'm I mean, do you
1:35:43
Speaker 1: think the the party has a leadership problem or a
1:35:47
Speaker 1: brand problem or is it just you know, a better
1:35:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at look, I think a better
1:35:54
Speaker 1: leader if Biden and I don't know, if maybe he
1:35:57
Speaker 1: had fifteen years younger, he could have done the job better,
1:36:00
Speaker 1: could have traveled the country more or whatever. But I look,
1:36:04
Speaker 1: I look at the Biden term, and I think a
1:36:07
Speaker 1: better leader keeps the country from looking to Trump again. Like,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: I think that a better leader turns and figures out
1:36:14
Speaker 1: how to help the country turn the page. And he
1:36:15
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. Is that all on him? Was it circumstances?
1:36:20
Speaker 1: Was it starting the presidency with an impeachment trial and
1:36:24
Speaker 1: create an impossible situation? Maybe I'm not like, but you know,
1:36:33
Speaker 1: I do think that the Democrats are being punished by
1:36:37
Speaker 1: some voters for somehow not putting Trump away.
1:36:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I don't know.
1:36:43
Speaker 1: What that means in their head, right, It doesn't mean
1:36:46
Speaker 1: putting him in jail, just means, you know, how is
1:36:48
Speaker 1: it that we did not how did we end up
1:36:50
Speaker 1: with him still here?
1:36:51
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I think, look, everybody knows who the voice
1:36:56
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party is. Nobody knows who the voice
1:36:58
Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party is right now. And that's not
1:37:00
Speaker 3: a criticism of the Democratic Party. That's just the reality
1:37:02
Speaker 3: of when you're out of power in all three chambers ways,
1:37:06
Speaker 3: nobody is. Nobody's going to look to the Senate Majority
1:37:08
Speaker 3: leader or Senate Minority leader to be the worst of
1:37:10
Speaker 3: the party, you know, or that you know etcetera, etcetera.
1:37:13
Speaker 3: I think at the same time, Biden's great strength and
1:37:16
Speaker 3: his great weakness was that he was a senator. Trump's
1:37:20
Speaker 3: great strength and.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: Way, by the way, you really don't like the Senate.
1:37:23
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I'm not saying true. But that's not why
1:37:25
Speaker 3: I'm making a point. Trump's great strength and his great
1:37:29
Speaker 3: weakness is that he's always been a CEO, right. And
1:37:32
Speaker 3: I think, and I say that that because Biden was
1:37:36
Speaker 3: an extremely effective president in terms of the infrastructure bills
1:37:40
Speaker 3: that we passed, the climate bills, we passed, the recovery
1:37:42
Speaker 3: from COVID, the way the economy turns around. He got
1:37:45
Speaker 3: that done because he had a masterful understanding of how
1:37:49
Speaker 3: to get things through the Senate. And I think that
1:37:53
Speaker 3: reads to the American people as being way down in
1:37:56
Speaker 3: process that I don't care about. Why are we Why
1:37:59
Speaker 3: am I having to talk about what we did to
1:38:00
Speaker 3: make a compromise with Joe Manchin in order to get
1:38:03
Speaker 3: this thing through. Compare that to Trump, who says, look,
1:38:06
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do. I don't care
1:38:07
Speaker 3: what happens. I don't care where my favorability is. This
1:38:09
Speaker 3: is where it's going. And I think there's a I
1:38:12
Speaker 3: think there's a forceful executive that we need in the
1:38:15
Speaker 3: White House that you just don't get there if all
1:38:18
Speaker 3: of your formative years are crafted in a legislative body
1:38:20
Speaker 3: with an houseource in it. We haven't had a leader
1:38:26
Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party with executive experience. It's Bill Clinton, right,
1:38:32
Speaker 3: and the Republicans consistently nominate people with executive experience. And
1:38:38
Speaker 3: you know, when you look back, go back to your
1:38:41
Speaker 3: period in the twenties, you know, Roosevelt, Teddy. Roosevelt walks
1:38:47
Speaker 3: into a room. You are not under any confusion of
1:38:50
Speaker 3: who the top dog in this room is. Donald Trump
1:38:53
Speaker 3: walks into a room. You're nder no confusion about who
1:38:55
Speaker 3: the top dog is. Joe Biden walks into a room.
1:38:57
Speaker 3: He's a nice guy, right, and and like morally, I
1:39:01
Speaker 3: like him. I think he was extremely effective for what
1:39:03
Speaker 3: he did. But I think we need to you know,
1:39:06
Speaker 3: as we get to our nomination process, we need we
1:39:10
Speaker 3: need to get people who, you know, make it very
1:39:14
Speaker 3: clear that this is where the buck stops.
1:39:15
Speaker 1: You want an alpha dog, whatever that means in the moment.
1:39:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, look like, look we're at a moment that demands,
1:39:25
Speaker 3: you know, I want a Churchill I want somebody who says,
1:39:27
Speaker 3: I have nothing to promise you but blood, sweat and tears.
1:39:29
Speaker 3: I can't guarantee will win, but I can guarantee we'll
1:39:31
Speaker 3: lose if we don't fight. So once more to the
1:39:33
Speaker 3: Battlement's my dear friend, Like, that's that's what we need
1:39:36
Speaker 3: in this moment, right, Well, I don't particularly want someone
1:39:40
Speaker 3: who's going to talk about the reconciliation process.
1:39:46
Speaker 1: What have you seen out there that you like?
1:39:50
Speaker 3: I mean for the people who are running or look,
1:39:56
Speaker 3: I'm gonna My prediction is that whoever we nominate is
1:39:59
Speaker 3: not going to be someone who has that executive experience.
1:40:03
Speaker 3: Does that mean a governor? Does that mean someone who
1:40:05
Speaker 3: haven't named yet? I think it's a I don't think
1:40:07
Speaker 3: the leading candidate at this point in the cycle has
1:40:09
Speaker 3: ever emerged. I mean, scout.
1:40:11
Speaker 1: Walkers, that is one hundred percent true. I didn't become president, right,
1:40:14
Speaker 1: I remind people of this all the time. Well, just
1:40:17
Speaker 1: the three Democratic presidents of my lifetime. I guess Biden
1:40:22
Speaker 1: is the outlier because he was kind of always pulled
1:40:26
Speaker 1: well early on, and I've look, I've always viewed his
1:40:29
Speaker 1: nomination as sort of a COVID accident. I don't think
1:40:32
Speaker 1: he earned it. I just think it the band, you know,
1:40:35
Speaker 1: the music stopped and everybody agreed to just give it
1:40:38
Speaker 1: to him. But if you look at the other three Obama, Clinton,
1:40:41
Speaker 1: and Carter at this point in time and all of
1:40:43
Speaker 1: those presidential cycles that they ended up president, they were
1:40:46
Speaker 1: not the front runner at this point, and they were
1:40:49
Speaker 1: not even being they were they were barely registering as candidates.
1:40:53
Speaker 1: And the Carter and Clinton, and you know, Obama was
1:40:56
Speaker 1: seen as somebody that was going to be four years
1:40:58
Speaker 1: down the road, you know, he wasn't necessarily right away.
1:41:01
Speaker 1: So I tend to agree with that. Do you think
1:41:04
Speaker 1: this is a party that would nominate somebody with a
1:41:09
Speaker 1: CEO background? And I'm not, you know, or it's unusual
1:41:14
Speaker 1: for the Democrats to do something like that, like a
1:41:15
Speaker 1: Mark Cuban or or you know.
1:41:19
Speaker 3: You know, or a governor. I mean, I think we
1:41:22
Speaker 3: we lionize the business sector a little bit too much.
1:41:24
Speaker 3: Government's a fundamentally different job. I think it's important to
1:41:29
Speaker 3: have somebody who's led a large organization, you know, who
1:41:31
Speaker 3: has been who has been the decider in that. George
1:41:34
Speaker 3: Bush is and you know, you could get that in
1:41:36
Speaker 3: the private sector. You can get that in a governor's mansion.
1:41:39
Speaker 3: You know, you could get that, you know, you know,
1:41:42
Speaker 3: major cabinet secretary, you know it kind of. But I
1:41:45
Speaker 3: think I think it needs to be someone with those
1:41:47
Speaker 3: kind of backgrounds. I also think, you know, I think
1:41:53
Speaker 3: you want somebody who's who's who's authentic. I think, without
1:41:58
Speaker 3: naming names, there are some people who are in the
1:42:00
Speaker 3: mix right now who are very different people when the
1:42:03
Speaker 3: curtain is down and when the curtain comes up, and
1:42:06
Speaker 3: it becomes very clear as they go through, right, you know.
1:42:09
Speaker 3: And I think there are some people who are just
1:42:10
Speaker 3: sort of consistent in who they are at all in
1:42:12
Speaker 3: all moments. And I think that's again, like for all
1:42:16
Speaker 3: of Trump's faults, people appreciate that that he is who he.
1:42:21
Speaker 1: Is all the time.
1:42:22
Speaker 3: Right.
1:42:23
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting, let me and you may have already
1:42:25
Speaker 1: kind of answered this question with your Churchill response, with
1:42:28
Speaker 1: your Churchill remark that you're really looking for Churchill, which
1:42:32
Speaker 1: because one of the things that I like, tok, I
1:42:36
Speaker 1: look at the divide inside the party right now is
1:42:38
Speaker 1: less left versus center, and that exists. I think that's
1:42:43
Speaker 1: more of a tactical debate. What I the real divide
1:42:47
Speaker 1: I'm sensing and I think the Texas primary really sort
1:42:50
Speaker 1: of shows this one pretty well. Is and even in
1:42:56
Speaker 1: the presidential I could I could compare Gavin to Rob
1:43:00
Speaker 1: which is do you want a fighter or do you
1:43:02
Speaker 1: want a united Are you looking? Are we looking for?
1:43:06
Speaker 1: Is the next president need to be somebody who's going
1:43:09
Speaker 1: to take the fight and one you know you're to
1:43:13
Speaker 1: or is the next president going to be tough but
1:43:16
Speaker 1: try to bring the country together? And I think it's
1:43:21
Speaker 1: a fun of Mike. I think there are some Democrats
1:43:22
Speaker 1: who say, hey, we tried the united stuff with Biden.
1:43:25
Speaker 1: It didn't work. It's time to It's time to you know,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: get somebody who's not afraid to throw a punch, somebody
1:43:32
Speaker 1: more like Bill Clinton. I mean, you could argue, do
1:43:35
Speaker 1: you want Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? Right?
1:43:37
Speaker 3: You know that?
1:43:38
Speaker 1: And there's are distinctively they were two different types of presidents.
1:43:42
Speaker 1: Where do you fall?
1:43:46
Speaker 3: So I had this conversation with Pelosi after January sixth
1:43:49
Speaker 3: that I said, this moment calls on us to figure
1:43:54
Speaker 3: out how to be better politicians than Abraham Lincoln, because
1:43:57
Speaker 3: in Abraham Lincoln second inaugur al. And he said it
1:43:59
Speaker 3: may seem ste range to you know, for any just
1:44:02
Speaker 3: God to bless a man forarning his spread from the
1:44:04
Speaker 3: sweat of another man's face. But let us not judge
1:44:05
Speaker 3: less we judged ourselves. And the butt was Lincoln saying,
1:44:09
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know how to unite the country
1:44:12
Speaker 3: and be morally clear about what just happened. And and
1:44:16
Speaker 3: I think that tension has always been in our politics,
1:44:19
Speaker 3: doesn't you know? To be a uniter is to is
1:44:22
Speaker 3: to forgive some sins. To not forgive the sins is
1:44:27
Speaker 3: to not be a uniter. I see the divide as
1:44:30
Speaker 3: being a little bit different than you going into the
1:44:32
Speaker 3: cycle that I think the particularly with the wealth inequality
1:44:37
Speaker 3: and with the huge disruptions and unemployment. My daughter's a
1:44:41
Speaker 3: freshman in college right now. When we were looking at colleges,
1:44:45
Speaker 3: one of her comments was that every college she looks
1:44:47
Speaker 3: at is sixty sixty five percent female. The you know,
1:44:53
Speaker 3: you've you've got a whole lot of young men who's
1:44:56
Speaker 3: who's who's forward forward expectation is different than what they
1:45:01
Speaker 3: thought it was going to be. And AI is making
1:45:03
Speaker 3: that worse because the jobs that are being displaced are
1:45:06
Speaker 3: jobs that historically skewed very male people who analyze large
1:45:10
Speaker 3: sets of data, identified trends, and prepared memos for their bosses.
1:45:12
Speaker 3: Right whether that was a bank or a law firm
1:45:14
Speaker 3: or an engineering firm, there's a lot of uncertainty there.
1:45:17
Speaker 3: And I think the I think the person who gets
1:45:21
Speaker 3: really energized at at Bernie Sanders Rally is not that
1:45:24
Speaker 3: much different than the person who gets really energized at
1:45:27
Speaker 3: Charlie Kirk Rally. The institutions are terrible, and I'm going
1:45:31
Speaker 3: to support them and burns them down. Yeah, And I
1:45:33
Speaker 3: think the I think there's sort of a nihilism at
1:45:39
Speaker 3: the fringes that's really dangerous. If you come forward as
1:45:44
Speaker 3: a politician and say, trust me, the institutions are going
1:45:47
Speaker 3: to be fine, you're not very credible. I think there
1:45:52
Speaker 3: are very few politicians I've seen, but I think this
1:45:55
Speaker 3: is what we want. And I keep going back to
1:45:56
Speaker 3: Teddy Roosevelt, who says, I love the institutions and they
1:45:59
Speaker 3: are desperately in need of repair, and this is what
1:46:01
Speaker 3: we're going to do right And that I think is
1:46:05
Speaker 3: the more interesting divide right now. Not uniers of dividers,
1:46:09
Speaker 3: but who's the person out there who can say I
1:46:10
Speaker 3: can I understand your pain. I understand that the system
1:46:13
Speaker 3: did not work for you in the way that you
1:46:15
Speaker 3: thought it was going to go for it. But we're
1:46:17
Speaker 3: not going to burn it down. We're going to work
1:46:19
Speaker 3: together and make it better and make it more inclusive.
1:46:22
Speaker 3: Right Ah. You know, I keep going back to the twenties.
1:46:29
Speaker 3: There was that There was that Louis Brandeis line when
1:46:32
Speaker 3: he said, when you have great concentrations of wealth, you
1:46:34
Speaker 3: only have three choices. You can let the wealth take
1:46:36
Speaker 3: over the government, which is to embrace fascism. You can
1:46:38
Speaker 3: have the government take over the wealth and embrace communism,
1:46:40
Speaker 3: or you can break up the wealth and embrace capitalism.
1:46:44
Speaker 3: Right there, you go, That's that's kind of where we are,
1:46:47
Speaker 3: right But.
1:46:48
Speaker 1: That well, you're you're you're not wrong, I mean, I am.
1:46:50
Speaker 1: You know, if if if Trump supporters decide to prioritize
1:47:00
Speaker 1: their economic concerns over their cultural concerns, there is a
1:47:05
Speaker 1: majority that will burn this place down.
1:47:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:47:09
Speaker 1: I have often I I you know, I it's sort
1:47:12
Speaker 1: of like there's a you know, the the you know,
1:47:15
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders talk very similarly at times.
1:47:19
Speaker 1: They have a lot more in common. They burning would
1:47:22
Speaker 1: hate neither one of them would accept that premise, though
1:47:26
Speaker 1: they may agree in a couple of acknowledge that they
1:47:29
Speaker 1: agree on some of this stuff. But the distrust of
1:47:32
Speaker 1: big corporations in particular, I mean, you know, and I
1:47:38
Speaker 1: think that moment is coming. And I think the question
1:47:40
Speaker 1: is is the person who puts that coalition together a
1:47:44
Speaker 1: responsible actor or an irresponsible actor? I mean FDR was
1:47:48
Speaker 1: did that FDR put that coalition together? And he was
1:47:51
Speaker 1: a responsible actor.
1:47:53
Speaker 3: I find myself thinking that there's almost an exact parallel,
1:47:58
Speaker 3: but exactly inverted to the Reconstruction era time it was,
1:48:02
Speaker 3: you know, the Democrats were the party of essentially the
1:48:04
Speaker 3: oligarchs and the white working class. The Republicans were everybody else.
1:48:09
Speaker 3: And if you're the oligarchs in the white working class,
1:48:11
Speaker 3: you have plenty of room for the klan, right. But
1:48:15
Speaker 3: in that era, the Republicans who said we need to
1:48:19
Speaker 3: hold people account for their sins, they were the radical Republicans, right,
1:48:24
Speaker 3: And they had that same sort of like they were
1:48:27
Speaker 3: defined not by who they were but who they weren't.
1:48:30
Speaker 3: And I feel like we're flopped on that right now,
1:48:32
Speaker 3: and a lot of the same issues, and I don't
1:48:35
Speaker 3: know what lessons we learned from that era because ultimately
1:48:39
Speaker 3: the radical Republicans didn't you know, we got we got
1:48:42
Speaker 3: three solid amendments out of it, and one hundred years
1:48:46
Speaker 3: later we actually started enforcing those amendments.
1:48:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and that's the I guess that's why I'm
1:48:55
Speaker 1: long term optimistic. I know we're going to make these changes.
1:48:58
Speaker 1: I just wondered, do we have to do we have
1:49:00
Speaker 1: to run into more roadblocks? Do we have to have
1:49:02
Speaker 1: more people die? I go back to this, You know
1:49:05
Speaker 1: we didn't you know, we had to see you know,
1:49:09
Speaker 1: child labor laws didn't pass overnight. We had to see
1:49:13
Speaker 1: kids getting you know, abused and die from from these
1:49:19
Speaker 1: terrible workplaces before we made the changes that were necessary
1:49:22
Speaker 1: because we were letting the industrialists were running a Monck right,
1:49:25
Speaker 1: AIS kind of may end up running a moock. So
1:49:28
Speaker 1: we'll get there. It just how much damage has to
1:49:32
Speaker 1: be done before we before we collectively decide to act, right?
1:49:36
Speaker 3: Yeah?
1:49:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, to quote Churchill, Right, you can trust the Americans
1:49:42
Speaker 1: to eventually do the right thing after they've exhausted every
1:49:44
Speaker 1: other what is it, every other path that doesn't work?
1:49:48
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't want to throw this member
1:49:50
Speaker 3: under the bus. But at one point we were voting
1:49:52
Speaker 3: on one of these dumb gotcha votes.
1:49:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:49:55
Speaker 3: He came up to me on the floor. I saiday,
1:49:56
Speaker 3: you voted on this one. And I said, well, you know,
1:49:58
Speaker 3: Churchill said, you can always kunt of Americans do right
1:50:00
Speaker 3: thing after maybe exhausted all the other options. So if
1:50:02
Speaker 3: you just always do the right thing, history will view
1:50:05
Speaker 3: you as being very precient. And I've voted one way,
1:50:08
Speaker 3: and he sticks his card in the machine boats the
1:50:09
Speaker 3: other wain and says, yeah, I can't do that.
1:50:15
Speaker 1: Well, maybe his districts is slightly more purple than yours.
1:50:21
Speaker 3: It isn't, but that's another story.
1:50:24
Speaker 1: Well, look, I didn't know where our conversation was going
1:50:27
Speaker 1: to go. We went deep in the reform rabbit hole,
1:50:29
Speaker 1: which I I I will jump right in when that
1:50:33
Speaker 1: will take place. We uh, Look, you you are the
1:50:38
Speaker 1: type of member of Congress that I'm glad to know
1:50:40
Speaker 1: is there. You're thinking about these things, You're thinking about
1:50:42
Speaker 1: the institution. You're thinking about what what are you going to?
1:50:45
Speaker 1: What's the institution going to look like when you leave?
1:50:49
Speaker 1: I hope there are more members like you.
1:50:52
Speaker 3: We'll look there. Congress is better than you think there
1:50:56
Speaker 3: are a lot line.
1:50:57
Speaker 1: Look, and I used to tell people this too. I'd say,
1:50:59
Speaker 1: you know, ninety percent of the stuff that that Congress does,
1:51:04
Speaker 1: they you know they do without dug debate because we
1:51:07
Speaker 1: agree on ninety percent. Ten percent we disagree on, we
1:51:10
Speaker 1: disagree on vehemently.
1:51:11
Speaker 3: One of the things I like to point out to
1:51:13
Speaker 3: people is if you think through all the members of Congress,
1:51:16
Speaker 3: come up with a list of the members that you
1:51:18
Speaker 3: think are bona fide knuckleheads, and just come up with
1:51:21
Speaker 3: your list and count them, divide that by five thirty five.
1:51:24
Speaker 3: That's the congressional knucklehead ratio. Then then go to your
1:51:28
Speaker 3: own office. Your own office probably has the same knucklehead ratio.
1:51:31
Speaker 3: We are a representative body, and you know, and it's
1:51:33
Speaker 3: and you know, is it is it ten to fifteen percent? Maybe,
1:51:36
Speaker 3: but it's it's not ninety percent.
1:51:38
Speaker 1: Is there a let me ask you this for I
1:51:40
Speaker 1: let you go. Is there a reform caucus that has
1:51:42
Speaker 1: developed that people where this stuff's being incubated, whether it's oh,
1:51:47
Speaker 1: should we uncap the House, should we do this constitutional amendment?
1:51:50
Speaker 1: Should we do this? Or is it just certain members
1:51:52
Speaker 1: doing it?
1:51:53
Speaker 3: Sort of it it's certain members and you and you.
1:51:56
Speaker 3: You raise the good question that maybe we should start
1:51:57
Speaker 3: a caucus, but.
1:51:58
Speaker 1: I think i'd like to see that. Bet you you
1:52:01
Speaker 1: get a biparty, I bet you'd be quickly become a
1:52:03
Speaker 1: bipartisan caucus, you know, sort of how to remodel the democracy.
1:52:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Derek Kilmer had his Modernization Caucus that was very
1:52:12
Speaker 3: bipartisan last term. They tended to focus on some smaller
1:52:15
Speaker 3: boar issues, you know. And one of the things that
1:52:17
Speaker 3: sort of makes it partisan that you wish it wasn't,
1:52:20
Speaker 3: And I've had conversation with my Republican colleagues, is that
1:52:23
Speaker 3: the Republican Party today has a has a strategy that
1:52:28
Speaker 3: can win the control of the minoritarian institutions. The Democratic
1:52:31
Speaker 3: Party has a strategy that can win the minoritary institutions.
1:52:35
Speaker 3: So the democratic policy agenda is much better at winning
1:52:38
Speaker 3: the House than winning the state in the electoral college.
1:52:41
Speaker 3: And to really make democratic reforms is partisan because of that.
1:52:46
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be, But it's just sort of the way
1:52:47
Speaker 3: we're skewed right now.
1:52:49
Speaker 1: No, it's a that's a that's a I totally understand
1:52:56
Speaker 1: how that works out to be the case.
1:52:59
Speaker 3: But yeah, we appreciate you having me on you give
1:53:03
Speaker 3: me more.
1:53:04
Speaker 1: No, this was great. I want to you know, the
1:53:07
Speaker 1: next time, if you've got a new thing, you're to
1:53:09
Speaker 1: do any if you get this caucus started, whatever it is,
1:53:12
Speaker 1: I want to do this again.
1:53:14
Speaker 3: Sounds great.
1:53:20
Speaker 1: It's all right. It is time to travel into the
1:53:30
Speaker 1: time machine and guess what it is. If you're listening
1:53:34
Speaker 1: to this on March second, rather than having delayed listening
1:53:38
Speaker 1: to this podcast, shame on you if you couldn't get
1:53:41
Speaker 1: to it on March second. But today, March second is
1:53:45
Speaker 1: the anniversary of a very important revolution in American history,
1:53:50
Speaker 1: March second, eighteen thirty six, Texas Revolution and the story
1:53:54
Speaker 1: it still tells. So we know Texans head to the
1:53:58
Speaker 1: polls or at least finish going to the holes on
1:54:00
Speaker 1: March third. And it makes this week in history especially
1:54:04
Speaker 1: resident because on March second, eighteen thirty six, delegates meeting
1:54:09
Speaker 1: at Washington on the Brazos adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence.
1:54:15
Speaker 1: Texas formally declared independence from Mexico March second, eighteen thirty six.
1:54:20
Speaker 1: It's a foundational date in Texas political culture. But if
1:54:23
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what that moment meant and
1:54:25
Speaker 1: what it still means, we have to tell the story
1:54:27
Speaker 1: in full, not just the Alamo, not just the Anglo settlers,
1:54:31
Speaker 1: and not just defiance, the entire thing. So let's start
1:54:34
Speaker 1: with Washington on the Brazos. The declaration was signed at
1:54:38
Speaker 1: Washington on the Brazos. This was a small settlement alongside
1:54:41
Speaker 1: the Brazos River in what is now east central Texas,
1:54:44
Speaker 1: near modern Brenham. Obviously named for George Washington. It was
1:54:49
Speaker 1: a modest frontier town Texas. Independence was not proclaimed in
1:54:53
Speaker 1: a capital city. It was declared in a wooden settlement
1:54:57
Speaker 1: at the edge of competing sovereignties. The setting matters here
1:55:01
Speaker 1: a little bit. The colonization project that led to the
1:55:05
Speaker 1: revolution began with a gentleman by the name of Moses Austin,
1:55:09
Speaker 1: who secured Spanish permission in eighteen twenty to bring settlers
1:55:15
Speaker 1: to the territory called Texas now. Moses died shortly thereafter
1:55:21
Speaker 1: getting that permission, and his son, Stephen F. Austin renegotiated
1:55:26
Speaker 1: the agreement with Mexico after independence in eighteen twenty one,
1:55:30
Speaker 1: and he became the central organizing and it became the
1:55:34
Speaker 1: central impresario organizing Anglos settlement. So this was not an invasion.
1:55:41
Speaker 1: It was a government authorized settlement program Texas. From Mexico's perspective,
1:55:47
Speaker 1: it was practical stagecraft. They wanted to populate and stabilize
1:55:52
Speaker 1: essentially their northern frontier, and from the settler's perspective, independence
1:55:58
Speaker 1: was an opportunity. But Texas in eighteen thirty six was
1:56:02
Speaker 1: not just Anglo settlers versus Mexico. There was a substantial
1:56:07
Speaker 1: Mexican origin population called Tahanas already rooted in the region,
1:56:13
Speaker 1: essentially native to Texas. Some Teanos supported the revolution and
1:56:18
Speaker 1: fought alongside Anglo Texans. Lorenzo da Zavalla actually signed the
1:56:23
Speaker 1: Texas Declaration of Independence and he became the first vice
1:56:26
Speaker 1: president of the Republic of Texas. Juan Segeen fought at
1:56:31
Speaker 1: San Jacinto, helped organized resistance, and later served as mayor
1:56:36
Speaker 1: of San Antonio. In fact, Segeine eulogized the dead at
1:56:41
Speaker 1: the Alamo, and then after independence he was driven out
1:56:45
Speaker 1: of Texas by Anglo settlers who accused him of disloyalty.
1:56:50
Speaker 1: That arc tells you something. The revolution was not a
1:56:53
Speaker 1: simple Anglo liberation story. It was multiethnic, layered in a
1:56:58
Speaker 1: bit uneven. In its aftermath, many Tehanos who supported independence
1:57:02
Speaker 1: later lost land, political influence, and security. And you can't
1:57:08
Speaker 1: omit the Tehanos from this story because then you flatten
1:57:10
Speaker 1: Texas history. Now, let's talk about slavery. Mexico abolished slavery
1:57:17
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty nine, though Texas initially received exemptions and
1:57:21
Speaker 1: workarounds allowed which allowed slavery to persist under indentured structures.
1:57:28
Speaker 1: But there was tension that the Texas territory was allowed
1:57:32
Speaker 1: to have slavery. So and it's notable that in the
1:57:37
Speaker 1: Texas Declaration of Independence, it explicitly cited Mexico's emancipation policies
1:57:43
Speaker 1: as a grievance. This is not an interpretation of the declaration.
1:57:48
Speaker 1: It was written into this founding document. Slavery was not incidental.
1:57:53
Speaker 1: It was central to the decision to declare independence from Mexico. Now,
1:57:58
Speaker 1: the story of the Alamo and how it became a symbol.
1:58:01
Speaker 1: The Siege of the Alamo began February twenty third, eighteen
1:58:04
Speaker 1: thirty six. The Mexican forces had generally estimated at the
1:58:08
Speaker 1: time between fifteen hundred and two thousand soldiers. There were
1:58:11
Speaker 1: fewer than two hundred defenders that held this mission and
1:58:15
Speaker 1: Among them were two nationally known famous people, Davy Crockett
1:58:20
Speaker 1: and Jim Bwett, and their presence at this fight helped
1:58:24
Speaker 1: nationalize the story, which in turn would help create the
1:58:27
Speaker 1: myth the Alamo was a military defeat. Traditionally, historians argue
1:58:33
Speaker 1: it delayed the Mexican forces and gave Sam Houston, who
1:58:37
Speaker 1: was in charge of the of the Texas forces, time
1:58:41
Speaker 1: to regroup. Now, there is a debate about whether that
1:58:45
Speaker 1: was a strategic delay or just sort of happenstance, But
1:58:48
Speaker 1: what is undeniable is the symbolic impact. Remember, the Alamo
1:58:53
Speaker 1: was important as a rallying cry, and it did help
1:58:57
Speaker 1: rally troops. And yet there was an even larger massacre
1:59:03
Speaker 1: that took place at Goliad, where roughly three hundred and
1:59:06
Speaker 1: forty Texas prisoners were executed after surrendering. In fact, remember
1:59:12
Speaker 1: the Alamo, and remember Goliad was all part of the
1:59:15
Speaker 1: original cry. But Goliad faded in the mythology. Alamo endured.
1:59:20
Speaker 1: And you have to ask yourself, why, Oh, Davy Crockett
1:59:23
Speaker 1: is really why? Right identity chooses the cleaner narrative, A
1:59:28
Speaker 1: heroic last stand with Davy Crockett travels better than the
1:59:32
Speaker 1: grim reality of a mass execution of already captured soldiers.
1:59:37
Speaker 1: The selection of symbols is always itself part of political storytelling.
1:59:44
Speaker 1: Then there's Sam Houston, who was, of course in charge
1:59:46
Speaker 1: of the troops during the independence after the Alamo and Goliad.
1:59:50
Speaker 1: Sam Houston did retreaties, he trained forces, he resisted calls
1:59:54
Speaker 1: for premature battle, and ultimately defeated the Mexican forces at
1:59:58
Speaker 1: San Jacindo. But Houston's story is a bit complicated, and
2:00:04
Speaker 1: it complicates Texas identity further because it's worth noting that
2:00:07
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one, when Texas voted to secede from
2:00:10
Speaker 1: the Union, Houston, then the governor of Texas, refused to
2:00:15
Speaker 1: swear loyalty to the Confederacy. He was removed from office.
2:00:20
Speaker 1: The man who led Texas independence from Mexico refused texas
2:00:24
Speaker 1: secession from the United States. It's just a reminder that
2:00:28
Speaker 1: Texas has always contained internal argument. So Texas was an
2:00:35
Speaker 1: independent republic from eighteen thirty six to eighteen forty five.
2:00:39
Speaker 1: Anneccessation into the United States was controversial, especially because Texas
2:00:43
Speaker 1: was a slaveholding republic. President John Tyler signed the annexation
2:00:48
Speaker 1: resolution on March first eighteen forty five, just before he
2:00:51
Speaker 1: was leaving office, President James Polk followed through annexation, though
2:00:56
Speaker 1: did set the table for the war with Mexico. But
2:01:00
Speaker 1: here's the fuller picture. Mexico claimed the border at the
2:01:04
Speaker 1: Neusis River, which runs through what is now South Texas
2:01:09
Speaker 1: near Corpus Christi. Texas and the United States claimed the
2:01:13
Speaker 1: Rio Grande as the border roughly one hundred and fifty
2:01:16
Speaker 1: miles farther south. Well. The disputed land one hundred and
2:01:20
Speaker 1: fifty miles between those rivers became the flashpoint for war.
2:01:26
Speaker 1: So when US troops entered the contested zone, skirmishes broke out.
2:01:30
Speaker 1: War followed. But it's also true that President Polk was
2:01:33
Speaker 1: expansionist and he prepared to use the conflict to secure
2:01:36
Speaker 1: territorial goals. Let's just say the disputed border was pretext.
2:01:43
Speaker 1: It provided the immediate trigger, and then, of course the
2:01:46
Speaker 1: expansionist ambition provided the context. Both things can be true
2:01:50
Speaker 1: at the same time. It's worth noting that Texas actually
2:01:54
Speaker 1: entered the Union Differently, Texas retained control over its own
2:01:59
Speaker 1: public land, they didn't hand that over to the federal government,
2:02:02
Speaker 1: and the annexation resolution included language allowing Texas, with its
2:02:07
Speaker 1: own consent and Congress's consent, to divide itself into as
2:02:11
Speaker 1: many as five states. That still exists, by the way,
2:02:15
Speaker 1: that's still on the books. Now Texas can't unilaterally subdivide itself,
2:02:21
Speaker 1: but it's already there. They just have to go to
2:02:23
Speaker 1: Congress to agree to. But the provision reinforced a sense
2:02:27
Speaker 1: of negotiated entry, and it wasn't a simple absorption. Right.
2:02:32
Speaker 1: Add nine years of independent nationhood, and now you understand
2:02:36
Speaker 1: the durable identity that is rooted in sovereigoranty that gives
2:02:40
Speaker 1: Texas this lone star identity. Right, It is different than
2:02:45
Speaker 1: every other state in that respect. So March second, eighteen
2:02:49
Speaker 1: thirty six was not just a declaration of independence. It
2:02:52
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a layered identity, multi ethnic and contested,
2:02:55
Speaker 1: entangled with slavery mythologized through the Alamo, complicated by goaliead
2:03:01
Speaker 1: reinforced by annexation, challenged again when their own governor refused
2:03:05
Speaker 1: to pledge loyalty the Confederacy in eighteen sixty one. And
2:03:08
Speaker 1: it's all still being debated today. How I frame this
2:03:12
Speaker 1: conversation in this podcast. Time Machine will have partisans on
2:03:17
Speaker 1: both sides of the argument in Texas disputing certain things.
2:03:20
Speaker 1: I said, So, look, Texas doesn't just have an origin story,
2:03:25
Speaker 1: it has an argument with its own past, and that
2:03:29
Speaker 1: argument still shapes how Texans see power, sovereignty, and union. Right,
2:03:34
Speaker 1: they have their own power grid. They're off the grid
2:03:38
Speaker 1: compared to everybody else. Right, everything is bigger in Texas,
2:03:44
Speaker 1: but everything is also different, and there's a reason for it.
2:03:46
Speaker 1: It's part of their origin story. So there you go.
2:03:50
Speaker 1: There's my history.
2:03:51
Speaker 3: Lesson for the week.
2:04:03
Speaker 1: All right. The first question for the day comes from
2:04:06
Speaker 1: Jay in New York. Jay with an initial not JY,
2:04:09
Speaker 1: and he writes, I'm seeing a lot of comparisons between
2:04:12
Speaker 1: Iraq and Iran, but one major difference is that after
2:04:14
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, there was an eighteen month campaign to
2:04:16
Speaker 1: convince Americans that regime change in Iraq was necessary. That
2:04:20
Speaker 1: checked true. Despite the fear mongering and dishonesty of that campaign,
2:04:23
Speaker 1: the Bush administration made a strategic pr decision, and I
2:04:26
Speaker 1: believe it bought them time with the American people long
2:04:29
Speaker 1: after Iraq turned into a quagmire. What is the political
2:04:32
Speaker 1: risk for Trump in doing none of the same prep work,
2:04:34
Speaker 1: or are we simply in a different era where that
2:04:37
Speaker 1: kind of thing no longer matters. No, Look, I mean
2:04:39
Speaker 1: this is to me among the open questions. I think
2:04:42
Speaker 1: it here's a tangible way, and it's just in hardcore politics.
2:04:48
Speaker 1: I think he did have a there's a coalition of
2:04:51
Speaker 1: Trump's right. You know, just because you voted for Trump
2:04:54
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're a member of MAGA. Right, there is
2:04:57
Speaker 1: a deep MAGA group. Look, the fact is Trump got
2:05:03
Speaker 1: controlled the Republican Party by making common cause with the
2:05:07
Speaker 1: isolationist wing. I don't think he ever was a true isolationist.
2:05:11
Speaker 1: He was always you know, the the I think he
2:05:14
Speaker 1: was attracted more to the nationalism translation xenophobia. That is
2:05:20
Speaker 1: where why he made such common cause. I think he
2:05:22
Speaker 1: was less engaged in the in the isolation and isolationist
2:05:29
Speaker 1: aspect of things. Though he does like the binary way
2:05:32
Speaker 1: of having relationships with other countries, and it's the it's
2:05:35
Speaker 1: using tariffs and having bilateral trade deals. Right, He's really
2:05:39
Speaker 1: a unilateralist in that sense. But you know, you're you're
2:05:45
Speaker 1: embedded in your question is what I think the risk
2:05:48
Speaker 1: is just for this November, he's already got to turn
2:05:52
Speaker 1: out problem among his base, right, they're already kind of
2:05:54
Speaker 1: demoralized by the lies about Epstein. They're demoralized by the
2:05:58
Speaker 1: fact that these tariffs have rayed prices, not lowered them.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: They're demoralized by the electric prices with his AI buddies
2:06:05
Speaker 1: that he's gotten with. And if you really were concerned
2:06:09
Speaker 1: about Democrats like Hunter Biden using his father to make
2:06:14
Speaker 1: money off of politics, then you're probably really grossed out
2:06:17
Speaker 1: by what the Trump family is doing. And now let's
2:06:21
Speaker 1: say you're a Marjorie Taylor Green or you were an
2:06:24
Speaker 1: ally of Telsea Gabbard who was drawn to them because
2:06:28
Speaker 1: of the no more wars, you know, no more military interventions.
2:06:33
Speaker 1: How motivator are you going to be to go to
2:06:34
Speaker 1: the polls? So I think you. I think this is
2:06:39
Speaker 1: the political risk that he is now so consumed with
2:06:43
Speaker 1: his own legacy. I'm the one that saved Iran, I'm
2:06:46
Speaker 1: the one that saved Venezuela. I'm the one that saved Cuba.
2:06:51
Speaker 1: That he is forgetting about why he was elected and
2:06:54
Speaker 1: what he campaigned on. I think that stuff matters, and
2:06:58
Speaker 1: I think voters votevoters again, I go back to what
2:07:01
Speaker 1: his voters do. Not reward presidents for incredible foreign policy decisions.
2:07:09
Speaker 1: Maybe over time they will, but never in the moment again.
2:07:13
Speaker 1: Just gott to see anybody involved with George HW Bush's
2:07:17
Speaker 1: campaign in nineteen ninety two. Jake from California rights Hey,
2:07:22
Speaker 1: longtime listener, reader and viewer hotline days. All right, old
2:07:25
Speaker 1: old school, I love it. Tough loss for your canes, yes,
2:07:29
Speaker 1: but hey, as Washington Husky, at least we'll always have
2:07:30
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. Yeah, okay, I would love the battle
2:07:36
Speaker 1: of two undefeateds that never happened. In nineteen ninety one
2:07:39
Speaker 1: we had a split national title basically East coast West coast,
2:07:42
Speaker 1: right anyway, But I digress. He says this in your
2:07:47
Speaker 1: emergency pot about the US Israel launching what feels more
2:07:49
Speaker 1: like a preventive war. You rightly noted that Trump may
2:07:52
Speaker 1: back off if things get messy. So why is the
2:07:54
Speaker 1: media so quick to echo the administration's framing? Seem little
2:07:56
Speaker 1: pushback or demand for evidence, even on claims like Commane
2:08:00
Speaker 1: being killed. Thanks for pushing for a more independent, fact
2:08:03
Speaker 1: based approach to news. Haven't missed podcast yet. I think, look,
2:08:06
Speaker 1: this is this is one of the look we have
2:08:10
Speaker 1: No there's no press score in the Pentagon, right, There's
2:08:13
Speaker 1: just the the the propagandists that have agreed to to
2:08:17
Speaker 1: the to the to the rules of the Pentagon, which
2:08:20
Speaker 1: indicate that you're not allowed to report news anything that
2:08:24
Speaker 1: is that is not pre approved by the by the Pentagon.
2:08:27
Speaker 1: I'm being slightly facetious, but not too much. So you
2:08:32
Speaker 1: have that issue that was not an issue during Iraq,
2:08:34
Speaker 1: where whatever you want to think of the decision by
2:08:37
Speaker 1: the Bush Chainey administration, they were constantly trying to keep
2:08:42
Speaker 1: the press as informed as possible. Certainly they were massaging
2:08:46
Speaker 1: the facts, but they weren't in not at all compared
2:08:52
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration. Everybody's forthcoming these days, right, And
2:08:55
Speaker 1: you know, I before Trump, I'd say every presidential administration
2:08:57
Speaker 1: you have to drag facts out of. You can't drag
2:09:00
Speaker 1: facts out of this administration because they don't. They lie
2:09:03
Speaker 1: so much at times, you don't even they don't even
2:09:05
Speaker 1: know what the facts are on this front. And I do.
2:09:10
Speaker 1: Look you, you imply correctly. You know, I think the
2:09:13
Speaker 1: biggest thing that Iranians who want freedom should fear is
2:09:17
Speaker 1: that Trump's going to walk away. You know, He's going
2:09:19
Speaker 1: to make a massive walk away. You know, I have this,
2:09:22
Speaker 1: I have this slightly dystopian fear that come January twenty,
2:09:27
Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine, all Donald Trump's legacy will be is destruction. Right,
2:09:34
Speaker 1: whether you're in Washington, d c. And like half the
2:09:37
Speaker 1: White House is still in rubble, You're and Kennedy Center
2:09:41
Speaker 1: is gutted, right, and you'll have Venezuela still not a
2:09:46
Speaker 1: democracy or rebuilt. You'll have Cuba in some sort of
2:09:50
Speaker 1: half being rebuilt, half not the rubble of Tehran that
2:09:54
Speaker 1: will have had a lot to do with. But he'll
2:09:58
Speaker 1: want to walk away from that that it really is
2:10:00
Speaker 1: just sort of you know that he leaves the country
2:10:04
Speaker 1: with just a mess everywhere, actual mess at the White
2:10:08
Speaker 1: House itself, rubble, the Constitution kind of metaphorically crumbled. I mean,
2:10:15
Speaker 1: it's not, as you know, my fear is less him
2:10:19
Speaker 1: trying to get a third term than more just leaving
2:10:23
Speaker 1: such a giant pile of rubble, both literally and figuratively
2:10:30
Speaker 1: all over the presidency. And you know, that's honestly, I
2:10:39
Speaker 1: think it's the most likely scenario at this point going
2:10:44
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty nine.
2:10:46
Speaker 2: It is.
2:10:47
Speaker 1: You know, if you were to ask me, you know,
2:10:49
Speaker 1: there's four or five paths to get to twenty twenty
2:10:51
Speaker 1: nine that we'll get to. That's the one that I
2:10:53
Speaker 1: think is the most likely that we're in some sort
2:10:55
Speaker 1: of that It's not just a presidency unfit, it's a
2:11:00
Speaker 1: presidency that's been based on destruction and whether physical destruction
2:11:06
Speaker 1: of buildings. Right. He claims he's a builder, but right
2:11:08
Speaker 1: now he seems to knock stuff down a hell of
2:11:10
Speaker 1: a lot better than he does building anything these days.
2:11:16
Speaker 1: So I do think you'll see some pushback, but you know,
2:11:20
Speaker 1: this is what happens when you clear the press out
2:11:21
Speaker 1: of the Pentagon. So we're going to have very little.
2:11:25
Speaker 1: You know, we'll probably get more out of israel I
2:11:27
Speaker 1: know as a reporter, Israeli sources in some cases are
2:11:30
Speaker 1: going to be more trustworthy and at least on some
2:11:32
Speaker 1: of the military aspects and some of the truth about
2:11:34
Speaker 1: Iran than what we're going to get out of the
2:11:36
Speaker 1: Trump administration. Because the Trump administration, even those that want
2:11:40
Speaker 1: to be truthful to the press fear getting in trouble
2:11:44
Speaker 1: for being truthful to the press. So it really has
2:11:46
Speaker 1: created a very questionable atmosphere forgetting the truth particularly. I mean,
2:11:54
Speaker 1: you know, the truth is usually the first victim, right
2:11:58
Speaker 1: in war, It's been the first victim of the Trump era,
2:12:04
Speaker 1: that's for sure, all right. Next question comes from Mark
2:12:07
Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, can you speak to the scope
2:12:09
Speaker 1: of President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran? There's been a
2:12:11
Speaker 1: lot of talking about Trump tearing it up, his failure
2:12:13
Speaker 1: or unwillingness to secure a deal, and obviously now bombing Iran.
2:12:16
Speaker 1: How strong was the deal that Obama got and how
2:12:18
Speaker 1: big a mistake was it for Trump to tear it up.
2:12:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure there is nuanced here. Thanks well, Mark, First
2:12:23
Speaker 1: thing you need to know is the only person that
2:12:25
Speaker 1: was advocating for tearing up the nuclear deal in the
2:12:27
Speaker 1: Trump's first administration was Donald Trump. Mike Pompeo. As much
2:12:31
Speaker 1: as that he was not in favor, there were a
2:12:34
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people in Trump's orbit that were never
2:12:37
Speaker 1: in favor of doing the agreement in the first place. Well,
2:12:40
Speaker 1: once the agreement was in, a whole bunch of folks,
2:12:43
Speaker 1: including Mike Pompeo, were you know, and Jim Mattis and
2:12:50
Speaker 1: many in positions of influence and power at the time
2:12:54
Speaker 1: at State, CIA, and Defense were like, don't get out
2:12:59
Speaker 1: of it, because you it gives it was giving us
2:13:03
Speaker 1: some insight on their technology we had more information about
2:13:08
Speaker 1: what they were up to. It gave some stability to
2:13:13
Speaker 1: the region. Now, the downside of that deal was releasing
2:13:18
Speaker 1: a set of funds that ended up being used for
2:13:21
Speaker 1: a lot of Iran's proxy terrorist contractors. And I think
2:13:25
Speaker 1: that's the fairest critique is that it gave the Iranians
2:13:28
Speaker 1: a bit too much on that front, or that we
2:13:30
Speaker 1: didn't you know, there should have if there should have
2:13:35
Speaker 1: been a bit more guardrails on how the money. And
2:13:38
Speaker 1: you remember Trump talking about the palettes of cash and
2:13:41
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, frozen assets that belonged to the
2:13:43
Speaker 1: Iranians that were frozen when the theocracy revolution took place
2:13:48
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine. So look, I think the debate,
2:13:57
Speaker 1: I think we're going to debate the Iran deal for
2:13:59
Speaker 1: a long time. And this is a case where I
2:14:03
Speaker 1: don't want it to get lost. And an ends justifies
2:14:05
Speaker 1: the means scenario here where Okay, if Iran isn't a
2:14:09
Speaker 1: you know, if Iran is able to become a fledgling democracy,
2:14:13
Speaker 1: say by twenty thirty five, maybe by twenty thirty right,
2:14:18
Speaker 1: and it's starting to be a flourishing country, well we
2:14:22
Speaker 1: say the nuclear dea was a bad idea or not,
2:14:28
Speaker 1: you know, should we have pursued it earlier? Now one
2:14:30
Speaker 1: could argue, you know, look around, more of a paper
2:14:35
Speaker 1: tiger than I think anybody feared. But how much of
2:14:38
Speaker 1: that you know, you didn't fully know they were a
2:14:43
Speaker 1: paper tiger and took you until you took away their
2:14:46
Speaker 1: their proxy warriors in Hesblahamas, and so you know, I
2:14:54
Speaker 1: think I think there'll be a real debate, and I
2:14:58
Speaker 1: think there was a you know, we didn't know. There
2:15:01
Speaker 1: was always some hope maybe. And that's the thing, right,
2:15:06
Speaker 1: if you want to lead a rules based order and
2:15:09
Speaker 1: you want something to be durable, and you want credibility
2:15:11
Speaker 1: once it gets once they violate the terms, then you
2:15:15
Speaker 1: can argue having a durable deal. That wasn't just the
2:15:19
Speaker 1: United States that cut this deal. Remember it was it
2:15:22
Speaker 1: was Russia, right, they were involved. It was China. It
2:15:28
Speaker 1: was so called the P five plus one, So it
2:15:31
Speaker 1: was it was. It was. It had the potential to
2:15:37
Speaker 1: be durable, but it was giving Iran an opportunity to
2:15:43
Speaker 1: become a to prove that its sovereignty should be respected
2:15:48
Speaker 1: and that you know that they were not the evil
2:15:53
Speaker 1: incarnate that many of us thought that regime actually was,
2:15:56
Speaker 1: and it's turned out to be on that front. So
2:16:06
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be hard to judge whether
2:16:08
Speaker 1: tearing up the deal is going to be viewed as
2:16:11
Speaker 1: a catastrophic mistake because it did lead it, it accelerated
2:16:16
Speaker 1: this moment. Right, If this moment leads to a better Iran,
2:16:22
Speaker 1: then I think you know where the debate's going to settle.
2:16:25
Speaker 1: If this moment leads to a vacuum that looks more
2:16:27
Speaker 1: like a rock over the next twenty years, I think
2:16:32
Speaker 1: that that debate about getting out of of the deal
2:16:35
Speaker 1: will be will be still a pretty highly relevant debate.
2:16:42
Speaker 1: Michael T from Chicago, Right, Hey, I enjoyed your thoughts
2:16:44
Speaker 1: on who exactly should be considered a founding father, but
2:16:47
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but notice you completely ignored the Articles
2:16:50
Speaker 1: of Confederation. I don't mean to ignore it, but yes
2:16:52
Speaker 1: I did. While that constitution didn't last terribly long, it
2:16:55
Speaker 1: was still the governing document of our nation, and everyone
2:16:58
Speaker 1: seems to forget it existed. What say you should we
2:17:00
Speaker 1: work harder not to forget its accomplishments as well as
2:17:02
Speaker 1: its failures. Look, it's a fair critique that I haven't
2:17:07
Speaker 1: delved into it. And I think it's a reminder it
2:17:12
Speaker 1: is why you know, I think I've shared with you before.
2:17:15
Speaker 1: One of my favorite founding father scholars is her name's
2:17:21
Speaker 1: Lindsay Schravinsky over at she runs the George Washington Library
2:17:27
Speaker 1: at Mount Vernon here in Virginia. And when I've always
2:17:31
Speaker 1: asked her this question, you know, how the founders, you know,
2:17:34
Speaker 1: what would what would they say today, you know, coming
2:17:36
Speaker 1: back in the constitution? What would surprise them? And one
2:17:38
Speaker 1: of the first things she says is, well, it was
2:17:40
Speaker 1: surprised them that this constitution is still is still intact.
2:17:43
Speaker 3: Right.
2:17:44
Speaker 1: That the lesson that the lesson they took away from
2:17:47
Speaker 1: the failure of the Articles of Confederation was that, you know, hey,
2:17:51
Speaker 1: if this constitution can last twenty five years, that's a
2:17:53
Speaker 1: success that there was, you know. And by the way,
2:17:58
Speaker 1: other countries have re written their constitutions, have had different
2:18:01
Speaker 1: constitutions over the years. The fact that we've had the
2:18:04
Speaker 1: same one for as long as we have is actually
2:18:06
Speaker 1: quite impressive. But no, I think, look, there's still lessons
2:18:10
Speaker 1: from the Articles and Confederation. Right, this goes to how
2:18:13
Speaker 1: strong of a republic did we want to be? Right,
2:18:15
Speaker 1: how strong of a federal government? Of a centralized government
2:18:17
Speaker 1: that we want to be and I think the importance
2:18:21
Speaker 1: of and you're right, why you know why we can't
2:18:24
Speaker 1: forget on the Articles of Confederation. The importance of its
2:18:28
Speaker 1: existence in our history is that it's a reminder that
2:18:30
Speaker 1: we've always had this tension between rights of the states
2:18:34
Speaker 1: and rights of the central government. How centralized of a
2:18:36
Speaker 1: government do we want? Our founders always feared too strong
2:18:40
Speaker 1: of a central government. And that's why when you've fast
2:18:43
Speaker 1: forward and you realize what the hell are we doing
2:18:45
Speaker 1: with this imperial presidency that we've basically created over the
2:18:49
Speaker 1: last fifty years and you know, like fifty seventy years,
2:18:52
Speaker 1: I mean, we can you know, I do this? This
2:18:55
Speaker 1: is one of those you want to talk about an
2:18:56
Speaker 1: undertended consequence and sort of I'm going to age myself here.
2:19:01
Speaker 1: But one of my favorite old SNL skits was Coffee Talk.
2:19:03
Speaker 1: And it wasn't really a skit, but it was just
2:19:04
Speaker 1: sort of it was basically the best part of coffee
2:19:07
Speaker 1: Talk where Mike Mike Michael Mike Myers played played I
2:19:14
Speaker 1: Forget her Name. But it was like it was like
2:19:16
Speaker 1: coffee talk. You know, it's like you'd throw out like
2:19:21
Speaker 1: a silly topic and it's like, okay, and discuss and
2:19:23
Speaker 1: then that would be the end of the segment. But
2:19:24
Speaker 1: it would be you know, television killed the Constitution discuss. Right,
2:19:30
Speaker 1: That's sort of the most provocative, simplified headline I could do.
2:19:35
Speaker 1: But ever since the era, right TV made the presidency
2:19:39
Speaker 1: and the president a singular celebrity in American society, and
2:19:43
Speaker 1: in some ways that celebrity seemed to help over time
2:19:48
Speaker 1: garner the position of the presidency more and more power,
2:19:50
Speaker 1: and you serve more and more power from Congress. So
2:19:54
Speaker 1: let's say thesis. I'm not saying that's that's a fact,
2:19:57
Speaker 1: but that's a thesis that you could potentially defender or not.
2:20:04
Speaker 1: But Michael, what you really is, I'm going to find
2:20:06
Speaker 1: an excuse to do a deeper dive on the Articles
2:20:08
Speaker 1: of Confederation when I can soon. Nick from Michigan, Right, Hey, Chuck, Thanks,
2:20:12
Speaker 1: I find it regrettable to entertain such thoughts. But do
2:20:14
Speaker 1: you surmise that a component of Trump's strategic considerations for
2:20:17
Speaker 1: military intervention in Iran is to elicitate rally around the
2:20:20
Speaker 1: flag phenomenon that might favorably influence the midterm elections. Look,
2:20:25
Speaker 1: I understand you asking. I mean, you know, it's he
2:20:28
Speaker 1: wouldn't if he was thinking about that. He wouldn't be
2:20:31
Speaker 1: the first president to think about that. We've had a
2:20:33
Speaker 1: movie called Wag the Dog that is of some infamy,
2:20:36
Speaker 1: and it's about twenty odd years old these days, but
2:20:39
Speaker 1: it's a it's a movie that's worth your time with
2:20:44
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman. By the way, if you've never seen it,
2:20:48
Speaker 1: if you're in your forties and that film's new to you,
2:20:51
Speaker 1: go check it out. It's I don't think it'll feel
2:20:54
Speaker 1: too dated. But we manufacture a war with Albania, which,
2:20:58
Speaker 1: of course, if you're my age, when you hear the
2:21:01
Speaker 1: words Albania, you think of the TV show Cheers, because
2:21:03
Speaker 1: Albania Albania, it borders on the adri Attic. It's an
2:21:10
Speaker 1: old it's from the first season. You know, I'm going
2:21:13
Speaker 1: to digress here. The first season of Cheers was so
2:21:16
Speaker 1: impactful because I think Coach was only on it for
2:21:19
Speaker 1: one season, and yet Coach is the guy who played Coach.
2:21:24
Speaker 1: You know, he died after the season one, but he
2:21:25
Speaker 1: was the sort of the old pal of Ted Danson's
2:21:30
Speaker 1: there ted Danson's character, but he was the His one
2:21:34
Speaker 1: liners were the best. Woody Hearson was good, but nobody
2:21:37
Speaker 1: could top Coach. And what was amazing was like, how
2:21:39
Speaker 1: Coach sort of that show was on forever and Coach
2:21:43
Speaker 1: was only on it one season, and yet it felt
2:21:44
Speaker 1: like he always was sort of hovering over the show
2:21:48
Speaker 1: and it gave it part of its DNA. So yes,
2:21:51
Speaker 1: so wag the dog, Albania, see how my mind works.
2:21:55
Speaker 1: It got me to cheers Coach and all of that.
2:21:58
Speaker 1: This is I think why you subscribe, or maybe why
2:22:00
Speaker 1: you're about to unsubscribe right now. But but I tease,
2:22:04
Speaker 1: I just don't see how this helps his base. You know,
2:22:07
Speaker 1: I sort of would say, if you've listened this far,
2:22:10
Speaker 1: you probably heard a version of the answer I'm about
2:22:13
Speaker 1: to give now. It's I think you put together a
2:22:15
Speaker 1: coalition that's suspect of this. And again, my goodness, you
2:22:19
Speaker 1: know how short attention span this is March the elections
2:22:24
Speaker 1: are how many I mean, just look at this last
2:22:27
Speaker 1: week of things that happen, from the Clinton's being deposed,
2:22:33
Speaker 1: you know, for the Epstein situation, to Anthropic and Netflix
2:22:38
Speaker 1: and that sort of government intervention into the business community.
2:22:42
Speaker 1: We had the tariff ruling last week. I mean, you
2:22:44
Speaker 1: see where I'm going here, right, So I just think
2:22:47
Speaker 1: this is that's another the more more, you know, more
2:22:52
Speaker 1: likely to me. Iran is probably a neutral at best
2:22:56
Speaker 1: politically and only negative. Like I do not see a
2:23:00
Speaker 1: positive political impact here for Trump at all, because again
2:23:05
Speaker 1: I go back to George H. W. Bush couldn't have
2:23:08
Speaker 1: had a better outcome in liberating Kuwait. The man almost
2:23:12
Speaker 1: finished in third place for the presidency within a year
2:23:17
Speaker 1: and a half. So I think we know you know
2:23:20
Speaker 1: it is in that sense as American voters, we never
2:23:24
Speaker 1: look backwards. We only look in our wallet and a
2:23:27
Speaker 1: tiny bit forward. Corey from Southern California Rights, Hey, I
2:23:35
Speaker 1: hope you picked this question because I haven't heard anyone
2:23:37
Speaker 1: talking about this. Well I've picked this question. Well, my
2:23:40
Speaker 1: producer Lisa helped pick this question. But what's to stop
2:23:44
Speaker 1: Trump from reinstating the tariffs every one hundred and fifty days.
2:23:47
Speaker 1: It's the same tactic he used for Halligan's appointment before
2:23:49
Speaker 1: she was removed by the courts? Are there any guardrails?
2:23:51
Speaker 1: And do you think this is something he will consider? Thanks? Roy,
2:23:54
Speaker 1: you do much respect from Southern California. The answers, of course,
2:23:57
Speaker 1: he's going to either do it within the same statute
2:24:01
Speaker 1: or use the other ones. There's all about five or
2:24:03
Speaker 1: six different emergency authorities that he can do. And one
2:24:07
Speaker 1: of the things that Stephen Miller has taught him is essentially,
2:24:13
Speaker 1: don't just because you think the courts may stop you,
2:24:17
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Make the courts stop you,
2:24:21
Speaker 1: make them meaning even if you know you're gonna lose,
2:24:25
Speaker 1: you may be able to force your way through. I mean,
2:24:28
Speaker 1: everybody knew he was going to lose this terriff argument,
2:24:31
Speaker 1: but they proceeded anyway. And what did they do? They
2:24:34
Speaker 1: bought so much time right that now it's gonna, i think,
2:24:39
Speaker 1: take a new court fight in order to get this
2:24:41
Speaker 1: administration to return the stolen money from the American consumers
2:24:45
Speaker 1: and the small businesses of America, who all rightfully should
2:24:48
Speaker 1: get their money back. And if they don't give the
2:24:51
Speaker 1: money back, then it's just is the government just taken
2:24:54
Speaker 1: money taken. I mean, you want to talk talk about
2:24:56
Speaker 1: the ultimate liberty moment, sons of liberty, the United States government?
2:25:01
Speaker 1: This is the tea Party. Shit, not the tea Party
2:25:05
Speaker 1: of the last fifteen years. I'm talking about the original
2:25:07
Speaker 1: Boston Tea Party. This is taxation right, that just they
2:25:12
Speaker 1: grabbed money and we had no say over it whatsoever.
2:25:15
Speaker 1: It was taxation literally without representation, because they did not
2:25:19
Speaker 1: go to Congress to get the ability to tax you.
2:25:22
Speaker 1: They took your money. Now they're refusing to give it
2:25:25
Speaker 1: back again. We've started a revolution over a monarch that
2:25:30
Speaker 1: did this. So yes, of course he's going to keep
2:25:34
Speaker 1: doing it because what he's learned is that make the
2:25:38
Speaker 1: court stop you, you'll continue to buy time. There's always
2:25:41
Speaker 1: another way, another this, And this is where you know,
2:25:45
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller is a incredibly smart and well informed guy
2:25:50
Speaker 1: about how the different aspects of the government works. It's
2:25:54
Speaker 1: too bad we can't put that intelligence for the betterment
2:25:57
Speaker 1: of the American Republic. Instead, it is used and it's
2:26:01
Speaker 1: been weaponized to essentially create a partisan agenda or realignment
2:26:08
Speaker 1: that is frankly not very popular with the country. So,
2:26:12
Speaker 1: by the way, the reason I lost, I got a
2:26:15
Speaker 1: little fired up there on this because that's yet another
2:26:18
Speaker 1: story that this Iran situation is overshadowed over the last week.
2:26:22
Speaker 1: But it's also another reminder why I don't suspect Iran's
2:26:25
Speaker 1: going to have any positive impact on Donald Trump and
2:26:28
Speaker 1: the Republicans at all, and if anything, it has negative
2:26:31
Speaker 1: impact because it comes to quagmire, or no impact because
2:26:34
Speaker 1: everything else matters a lot more to the American voter
2:26:39
Speaker 1: than the regime in Iran. And by the way, there's
2:26:41
Speaker 1: one other thing that I did not discuss in more detail.
2:26:46
Speaker 1: The greatest fear I have of what we're doing with
2:26:49
Speaker 1: Iran is not their conventional military response. It's their ability
2:26:54
Speaker 1: to potentially have an asymmetrical response. And I don't think
2:26:58
Speaker 1: the President has done it enough to warn Americans that, Hey,
2:27:04
Speaker 1: I don't care where you are, whether it's Los Angeles,
2:27:06
Speaker 1: New York, DC, Miami, Chicago, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, Paris,
2:27:17
Speaker 1: the possibility of of you know, you think everybody in
2:27:22
Speaker 1: the regime is going away quietly. You think they'll all
2:27:24
Speaker 1: want to lay down their arms and cut a deal
2:27:26
Speaker 1: to survive, or do you think some of them want
2:27:28
Speaker 1: their power back and might try terrorist attacks as a
2:27:32
Speaker 1: way to flex their muscles. I just think that this
2:27:35
Speaker 1: has opened up a vulnerability for US Americans that our
2:27:38
Speaker 1: president has not prepared the country for on that front.
2:27:45
Speaker 1: All right, next question comes from David P. And Scottsdale.
2:27:48
Speaker 1: My first question David p that I know. My friend
2:27:51
Speaker 1: Tony Corneizer asked, are you from North Scottsdale anyway? But I,
2:27:55
Speaker 1: by the way, if you know you know, Hey, Jack,
2:27:57
Speaker 1: I believe you want independent. Yeah you went independent about
2:28:00
Speaker 1: a year ago. Yeah, okay, Yeah, that's probably the way
2:28:02
Speaker 1: to do it. I'm a big fan. Just curious about
2:28:04
Speaker 1: how the career change has gone. Are you spending more
2:28:06
Speaker 1: or less time on your substack podcast each week then
2:28:08
Speaker 1: you spend on an average doing your most recent job
2:28:10
Speaker 1: at NBC with almost a year of experience under your belt.
2:28:13
Speaker 1: What would you have advised yourself in twenty twenty four
2:28:15
Speaker 1: going into twenty twenty five. Love the show as it is,
2:28:17
Speaker 1: please don't change much? Well, David, Thanks appreciate it. Look,
2:28:23
Speaker 1: I have committed the sin that everybody warned me of
2:28:25
Speaker 1: is be careful saying yes too often too quickly. That
2:28:29
Speaker 1: a lot of I've been blessed with a lot of
2:28:32
Speaker 1: interesting opportunities, and I've probably said yes to quite a bit.
2:28:36
Speaker 1: I joke that I have no full time job, but
2:28:38
Speaker 1: like seventeen part time jobs. But I love this podcast
2:28:42
Speaker 1: the most. This is where I feel energize, This is
2:28:47
Speaker 1: where I feel like, Look, I I what I've tried
2:28:52
Speaker 1: to do with this podcast is sort of recreate the
2:28:56
Speaker 1: two hours a day that was my favorite two hours
2:28:58
Speaker 1: a day every day at NBC and all my colleagues
2:29:01
Speaker 1: that worked with me in NBC or no, we want
2:29:02
Speaker 1: to say, which is our our morning meeting? And it
2:29:05
Speaker 1: was for two shows, right, We had our planning the
2:29:08
Speaker 1: Sunday Show and planning the Daily Show. And I had
2:29:10
Speaker 1: two stabs of people at times in there. I mean
2:29:13
Speaker 1: a collection of what I think are the brightest and
2:29:15
Speaker 1: smartest people. I would love to start a news organization
2:29:18
Speaker 1: with that group of people. I miss all of you
2:29:21
Speaker 1: guys more than you realize. I'm tempted to name check
2:29:24
Speaker 1: some of you on how much I miss. Whether it's
2:29:27
Speaker 1: Sarah and Jesse who just who just we all three
2:29:31
Speaker 1: shared a brain, Melissa, John and David we visual We
2:29:36
Speaker 1: had visions that were very similar and we certainly knew
2:29:39
Speaker 1: how to and there's so many other folks in there.
2:29:41
Speaker 1: But I miss that. I miss that collaboration. But I've
2:29:47
Speaker 1: in some ways try to recreate sort of sort of
2:29:50
Speaker 1: like you know, how I always you know, I always
2:29:52
Speaker 1: said I wanted to always think about the day two
2:29:56
Speaker 1: and three story on day one rather than just living
2:29:59
Speaker 1: in the day one story, because I think we're here
2:30:01
Speaker 1: to educate and when I feel like I've able to
2:30:04
Speaker 1: do better here than I ever was in NBC. And
2:30:07
Speaker 1: it was more about a constraint, you know, I could.
2:30:09
Speaker 1: It's not about executive oversight or anything like that. It
2:30:11
Speaker 1: was just about the time constraints, the sort of stuck
2:30:15
Speaker 1: in old ways, right. It was no one individual it was,
2:30:18
Speaker 1: But I feel like I can. I feel like with
2:30:22
Speaker 1: less that I'm that I'm able to sort of both
2:30:26
Speaker 1: inform and educate. I think we in the news business
2:30:30
Speaker 1: don't educate enough. We do a lot of informing of
2:30:33
Speaker 1: what's happening, new information, you know, all that stuff, but
2:30:38
Speaker 1: we're terrible about the context, right, We don't explain. I mean,
2:30:42
Speaker 1: you know, I'm pretty proud of the fact, and you know,
2:30:44
Speaker 1: some of it's by happenstance. But one of my favorite
2:30:47
Speaker 1: subsets that I've started with the podcast is our podcast
2:30:51
Speaker 1: time Machine segment, which is basically this week in history,
2:30:54
Speaker 1: and I always try to pick something that's obviously relevant
2:30:57
Speaker 1: to the moment we're living in in some form or another.
2:30:59
Speaker 1: In a few weeks back, the Iranian Revolution, which was
2:31:04
Speaker 1: really more of a history of sort of America and
2:31:06
Speaker 1: its relationship with Iran over the years when we've gotten involved,
2:31:09
Speaker 1: and it was glad to have that already. You know,
2:31:12
Speaker 1: we had already published it. We reposted it over the
2:31:14
Speaker 1: weekend on YouTube. It's a good sort of you know,
2:31:18
Speaker 1: we're now suddenly this matters again. I still haven't seen
2:31:23
Speaker 1: anything like that on so called legacy television or on
2:31:27
Speaker 1: whatever you want to refer to it. I'm loath to
2:31:31
Speaker 1: just say, oh, the mainstream media is dead. Well, look,
2:31:33
Speaker 1: we're we're in the middle of building mainstream a new
2:31:36
Speaker 1: mainstream media. Meaning if mainstream media is the definition of
2:31:39
Speaker 1: fact based, well informed information, then yeah, accuse me of
2:31:45
Speaker 1: being part of the main new mainstream media. I think
2:31:48
Speaker 1: we're building something new here, something that is essentially truly
2:31:51
Speaker 1: for the mainstream, truly fact based, not trying to sort
2:31:56
Speaker 1: of get caught up too much in the performative. And
2:32:00
Speaker 1: so you know, I've I look, I feel energized. I
2:32:06
Speaker 1: loved my time at NBC. I have said, you know,
2:32:10
Speaker 1: didn't love the decision making that was taking place over
2:32:13
Speaker 1: the last eighteen months. But I know it wasn't that
2:32:16
Speaker 1: these were this was above their pay grades. They were
2:32:20
Speaker 1: executing a strategy that the corporation decided it wanted out
2:32:24
Speaker 1: of the news business. And I, like I said, we've
2:32:27
Speaker 1: seen it, whether it's Disney, whether it's Comcast, whether it's Paramount,
2:32:30
Speaker 1: whether it's Warner Brothers. Donald Trump has made it very
2:32:35
Speaker 1: difficult on publicly traded companies to get treated fairly in
2:32:40
Speaker 1: the regulatory process. If they have a news division that
2:32:43
Speaker 1: tries to practice distributing and reporting on the news honestly,
2:32:48
Speaker 1: and that's that's you know, that presents all sorts of challenge.
2:32:51
Speaker 1: They have a fetish irresponsibility the shareholders. I'm disappointed that
2:32:54
Speaker 1: they've all given up on having robust news divisions. That's
2:32:58
Speaker 1: a bummer, But you know what, there's enough demand for
2:33:01
Speaker 1: one that we're gonna and in some ways we're better
2:33:03
Speaker 1: off building one that's truly independent. Having one that is
2:33:08
Speaker 1: blessed by you know, that still is at the whims
2:33:10
Speaker 1: of a CEO and shareholders is probably quite dangerous and
2:33:14
Speaker 1: probably one that we ought to not have.
2:33:16
Speaker 3: Right.
2:33:16
Speaker 1: There shouldn't be a news organization where you say, well,
2:33:19
Speaker 1: that's a Murdoch news organization, that's an Ellison news organization,
2:33:21
Speaker 1: that's a Soros news organization or that new We need
2:33:25
Speaker 1: something that's truly independent, that doesn't feel like it owes
2:33:28
Speaker 1: anybody anything. And so in that respect, I feel like,
2:33:32
Speaker 1: you know, some of you're gonna say, boy, did did
2:33:36
Speaker 1: David just? Is he a planted question from Scottsdale? No,
2:33:39
Speaker 1: you're not a planted question, but she did allow me
2:33:41
Speaker 1: to advertise what I think is the best part of
2:33:43
Speaker 1: what we're doing. And in fact, I'm going to go
2:33:46
Speaker 1: ahead and use this as the last question and turn
2:33:48
Speaker 1: it into speaking of independent media. It'll be us independent
2:33:51
Speaker 1: media types that will have all the information you want
2:33:55
Speaker 1: on campaign twenty twenty six, starting in Texas on Tuesday
2:33:58
Speaker 1: night right here. My live streams, whether it's on YouTube
2:34:02
Speaker 1: or x Crystalizes live streams either on YouTube or Substack
2:34:06
Speaker 1: Decision TOST live stream whether on YouTube or x. We're
2:34:10
Speaker 1: going to try to get in some other areas as
2:34:11
Speaker 1: many as we can get to to do our live
2:34:15
Speaker 1: streams to make it as accessible as possible. And you
2:34:18
Speaker 1: know what we're not going to do. We're not going
2:34:19
Speaker 1: to make you pay a cable TV fee in order
2:34:22
Speaker 1: to hear our commentary. We're not going to make you
2:34:25
Speaker 1: join something, you know, pay a fee. It is all.
2:34:30
Speaker 1: It is all there for you as long as you've
2:34:32
Speaker 1: got access to the internet. So with that, I will
2:34:37
Speaker 1: put a pin on this episode. We or it's been
2:34:39
Speaker 1: an incredibly busied last ten days, and we're going to
2:34:42
Speaker 1: have an incredibly busy rest of twenty twenty six, that
2:34:45
Speaker 1: I promise you. So I'm gonna pause here, I will.
2:34:51
Speaker 1: I thought about a quick sports report, but this felt
2:34:53
Speaker 1: like a good place to end. I did spend my
2:34:56
Speaker 1: weekend watching GW lose an oh so close game against Dayton.
2:34:59
Speaker 1: You know, I have and spent a lot of time
2:35:01
Speaker 1: on college basketball yet, but guess what, I Am going
2:35:04
Speaker 1: to give you a little taste of college basketball because
2:35:05
Speaker 1: we're entering what might be the next four weeks of basketball.
2:35:11
Speaker 1: College basketball sort of euphoria. All right. It is unbelievable.
2:35:16
Speaker 1: And if I had a complete sports report, I'd also
2:35:18
Speaker 1: be bragging about how Carson Beck we stood booze at
2:35:21
Speaker 1: the Combine to show himself to be the most impressive
2:35:24
Speaker 1: quarterback at the Combine. So kudos to mister Carson Beck
2:35:29
Speaker 1: for doing great even while being the only quarterback booed
2:35:32
Speaker 1: when you're just trying to to your workouts. I'm excited
2:35:36
Speaker 1: to see that Carson Beck is going to be a
2:35:38
Speaker 1: Day two draft yet at minimum, and who knows, maybe
2:35:41
Speaker 1: he sneaks into the bottom of the first round. All
2:35:43
Speaker 1: right now, I'm gonna shut up. I'll see you in
2:35:47
Speaker 1: twenty four hours.