Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Closing Message Couldn’t Be Worse + Trump’s Politics Receives International Rejection

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Closing Message Couldn’t Be Worse + Trump’s Politics Receives International Rejection · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: Hello there. Welcome to the Wednesday episode of the Chuck
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Todd cast. We are now under a week and wow,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we've got a lot of elections already to unpack. None
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of them though are in the United States at the moment,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to get to that in a few minutes.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I'm also going to do an extended mailbag. We've kind
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of been truncating that a little bit, but We're getting
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: close to Election Day, and I don't want to suddenly
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of questions that were about the campaign
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that I don't get to until the Wednesday after the election.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think that would stink. And it's the last thing
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I want to do to you, my incredibly loyal listeners.
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• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I know in these polarizing times and, you know, everybody
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: has an opinion about everything. You know, I'm here just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: trying to make help you, I hope. make sense of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: our crazy politics. As I like to say, I view
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: this feed as politics for the rest of us, trying
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to explain what is, and yes, occasionally tell you what
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: should be. So with that, let's dive right in. As
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I said, I think the big news over the last
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: 24 hours, frankly, over the last 72 hours has been,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: we already know that association with Donald Trump is a
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: net negative in American politics. Well, Is it possible that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: association with all things Donald Trump is also a net
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  Speaker 1: negative in Brazil, is also a net negative in Israel,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is also a net negative in Syria? So here we are.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: We're less than a week away from the midterms. And
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's a fair question. I mean, I think
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: one of the things we learned about Brexit and Trump
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in 16 is that don't ignore global trends and don't
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: assume we're immune from trends that are happening internationally. If
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you're seeing higher turnout, if you're seeing more participation among
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: among young voters in places like Brazil and Israel don't assume,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: given that we are much more so in a global
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: conversation on politics. But the fact is, it's an interesting,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: consistent mini trend that we've observed over the last few
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  Speaker 1: days in a variety of countries. So let's start with turnout.
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  Speaker 1: So Brazil just had its highest presidential runoff turnout in
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  Speaker 1: 20 years. Serbia had its highest parliamentary turnout in more
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: than three decades. Hungary, which of course was election a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: few months ago, another person who went down, another world
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  Speaker 1: leader that your closeness to Donald Trump might've been a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: net negative. Hungary had its highest turnout since the restoration
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of democracy. And now Israel has experienced extraordinary high participation
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: in an election that appears to have cost Benjamin Netanyahu's
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: governing coalition. It's parliamentary majority. There's still a long way
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to go. Still actual vote counts where the data I'm
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: seeing is still more exit data, exit poll data than
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: anything else. But the turnout is real and those raw
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: numbers are real. So here you have four very different countries,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: four very different political systems and four electorates that were
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: unusually motivated to participate. If there was a common denominator,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it was that Donald Trump cared and was on one side.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And in this case, potentially, he was associated with the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: losing side or the trailing side in all of these cases.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Can't declare Bibi gone yet. Bibi has not, he burned
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: through his nine lives, I think, in the early part
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of the 21st century. He's on his second round of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: nine lives, I think, politically at this point. But I
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: don't think we should underestimate play this factoid, right? That
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the Bolsonaro movement in Brazil, Bucic in Serbia, Orban in Hungary,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and Bibi in Israel, all of them, all of those
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: leaders tried to forge very close ties with Trump. What
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: was interesting, though, tail end of the Brazil campaign, Bolsonaro
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, don't say too many things about me. Meanwhile,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Bibi was desperate for more help from Trump, but we'll
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: get to that. But look, I think that Easy question,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to sit here and give you
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: a declarative answer on this, is what does this mean
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for the midterms, right? I don't think this stuff's unrelated,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: but I am going to be a little bit cautious
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: about saying it's totally related. But it's still, I think,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: more than just symbolic that you have four international politicians
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: who happen to share some of the same conservative political
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: beliefs as Donald Trump, and Beliefs that Trump has embraced, cultivated,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: or celebrated in different ways. They've even been part of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: an international political network that has looked to Trump's success
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: in the United States as both inspiration and validation. And
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: now several of those movements are now struggling at the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: ballot box. So I do think we should take that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: seriously because for much of the last decade– Trump was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: something of a model for nationalist, populist politicians around the world.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: The United States, you know, what happens here doesn't stay here.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: What happens in our politics always exports itself around the globe.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So his early success suggested that the conventional political rules
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: had changed, that attacking established institutions, challenging traditional media, presenting
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: yourself as an enemy of an entrenched political class could
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: be a really effective way to build a political majority.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: The problem is it's not an effective way to build
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a durable political majority. So it did work for a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: time in some places, but I'm wondering if we're beginning
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: to see the political limits of this approach. And perhaps
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: more importantly, the fact that Trump's association was less of
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: an asset to his political allies internationally, what do you
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: think it means here in the United States? And that,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of course, is the question I keep asking myself. Brazil
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: was particularly interesting because it complicates the idea, by the way,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that this was simply an anti-incumbent backlash, right? What three
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of them had in common is they were in power.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So this is not about just incumbency. This is about
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a certain set of ideological political beliefs. Yes, Lula was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: an incumbent. He had his own political baggage, his own
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: economic problems. Plenty of voters were ready for change. But
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: when the choice came down to Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Almost 3 million more Brazilians participated in the runoff than
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in that first round. The fear of Bolsonaro getting back
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: in there was enough to drive Lula skeptics to the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: polls to support Lula. It's a remarkable comeback for him.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And it says more. This was not a pro-Lula vote.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: This was anti-Bolsonaro and essentially this anti-nationalist movement. Some of
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you want to say it's fascism. I'll let political scientists
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: debate that. Now, what's worth remembering here is that the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro family has been very closely associated with Trump in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: mega politics for years. By the way, I think it's
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: absurd that the United States as a democracy is trying
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to take sides in any of these things. It is
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: really bad form, bad leadership, bad politics, bad international leadership,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: bad for democracy when the supposed leading democracy around the world,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the United States, decides that we like this person, we
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: don't like this one person, and we sort of hint
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that we might not respect the outcome, right? Making it
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: seem we're giving Bolsonaro asylum, I think is is just
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the wrong type of message for the supposed leading democracy
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: in the world to send. But still, for what it's worth,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: for those of you that haven't followed closely in Serbia,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the story was less about a conventional left versus right
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: politics and it was more about corruption. student-led movement that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: defeated Vucic wasn't organized around a traditional progressive ideology. It
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: was organized around accountability and dissatisfaction with an entrenched political machine,
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  Speaker 1: very similar to what we saw a few months ago
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in Hungary. The big thing was turnout increased roughly 10
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: percentage points from the previous parliamentary election in Serbia, right?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And we saw the same dynamic in Hungary a few
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: months ago. And again, the relationship with Trump was part
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of Orban's international political identity. So, Meanwhile, for some odd reason,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the United States, Donald Trump thinks the U.S. should be
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: in some sort of axis of power with the Russian
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and the Chinese to elevate Orban to head of the U.N. Thankfully,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the U.N. is is is not the most useful body
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: in the world. So Orban can't do much damage, but
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: talk about a way to help. I don't want to
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: say destroy the credibility of the U.N.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: The U.N.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: 's credibility is off and on, depending on the topic.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but it certainly will make it less credible to many
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: around the world. So look, I don't want to suggest
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: directly that Trump was the cause of these defeats, okay?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: That's not what I'm saying. These countries have their own cultures,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: their own controversies, and there was plenty of their own
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: reasons for these people to be voted out. But the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: association with Trump wasn't a help, okay? It wasn't irrelevant.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: These leaders certainly didn't treat it as irrelevant, and they
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: had believed the association was helping them. Because normally- the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: perception that the American president is with you is a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: good thing in a democracy. Problem is not this American
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: president who hasn't been very pro-democracy. And I would be
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: careful assuming this is some sort of leftist comeback, okay?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: That I'm not seeing. If you look at Spain, where
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Pedro Sanchez faces a very difficult election of his own,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: if you look at France, where the political right remains
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a significant force. So I don't think You can sit
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: here and say that this is a leftist movement. What
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I really think this is, is this sort of an
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: anti-illiberal democracy movement, right? Bolsonaro, the Bolsonaro family wasn't very pro-democracy.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Bibi is advocating a style of politics that would lock
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: certain Israelis out of the political system. Hungary, same thing.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump, he wants to pick and choose who
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: gets to participate in this democracy and who doesn't. So
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I do think this is not about an ideological movement.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: This really is about a pro-liberal, small L democracy movement
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: against this authoritarian, illiberal democracy movement that Trump has clearly
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: aligned himself. But then people like Peter Thiel and J.D.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Vance in their own ways kind of advocate. But that's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: this big global trend. I do want to get into
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Israel here for a bit, right? We still got a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: long way to go to find out which of these
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: two sides are going to be able to get to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the 60 necessary votes to get the parliamentary majority. But
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I do think this Israeli election deserves a bit of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: attention because, look, if there's no Bibi there, I do
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: think it's an incredible chance for the American Jewish community
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and Israel in general to have a bit of a reset,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: if you will. But this, you know, this was a pretty,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: it's not, like I said, not a defeat yet. I'm
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: going to get into that. But his governing coalition entered
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: this election with 68 seats in the Knesset. And the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: exit polls suggest that he lost 18 of those seats,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that he's down to just 50. Now, the opposition blocked
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: which was led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, is
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: projected to win about 52 seats. So they're both going
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to be short the 60 votes they need. Now, Eisenkot
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: can get his majority if he agrees to have the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Israeli Arab parties as part of his coalition, because right
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: now the Arab parties hold another 18 seats or a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: total of 120 seats in the Knesset. You need 61
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: for a majority. So while a majority of the projected
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: seats belong to parties outside of Netanyahu's governing coalition, doesn't
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: automatically mean there's a governing majority prepared to replace it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And there are two things I'm going to be watching
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: very closely as the negotiations begin in Israel. And I'm
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: not going to pretend I am not an expert on
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Israeli politics. All I can tell you is that you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: think our system is polarized and anachronistic and all of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: those things. You ain't seen nothing like the Knesset. OK,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you know. polarization in Israel is a feature of politics
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: these days, even more so than the United States. I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: often joke, I don't know whether the U.S. has exported
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: its polarization to Israel or we've imported Israel's polarization to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the United States. But here's what I'm watching. The first
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: is whether the parties opposed to Netanyahu are willing to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: include Arab political parties in a governing coalition. I think
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: this is a much bigger question than simply parliamentary arithmetic.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Israel has spent years defending its reputation as a democracy
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: while facing growing international criticism over the treatment of Palestinians,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the war in Gaza, and the expansion of settlements in
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the West Bank. One of the most meaningful things Israel
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: could do to strengthen its small-b democratic credentials would be
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to demonstrate that Jewish and Arab citizens can share meaningful
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: political power in the same government.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Think about that symbolism, particularly after everything that's happened since
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: October 7th. A governing coalition that includes both Jewish and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Arab political representatives, it's not going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: conflict overnight. And it doesn't suddenly produce a two-state solution.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: But it demonstrates that political cooperation across one of the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: deepest divisions in Israeli society is possible. It only strengthens
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the image of democracy in Israel. It would matter both
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: domestically and internationally. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, made
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: an interesting point in an interview with Politico before the election.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: He argued that neither Bibi nor Eisenkot would have much
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: political room to pursue serious peace negotiations with Palestinians. In fact,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Olmert suggested that a breakthrough might require outside intervention from
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: one of two people. It was interesting who he thought
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: it could be. One was Donald Trump and the other
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: was the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, MBS. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: he even invoked Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: which helped create the conditions for peace between Egypt and Israel. Now, look,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting we're on the verge of anything close
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to that. We're a long way away from that. But
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: it does raise the question of whether a different governing
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: coalition could begin to change the political atmosphere in Israel,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: even if it couldn't immediately change the underlying policy. This
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  Speaker 1: Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. You
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: get free shipping on your order, 365-day returns. Now available
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: where you heard about them, please let them know it
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: was the Chuck Todd cast. It's the best way to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: support the show and the best way to make sure
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you're getting every discount.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Now, the second thing I'm watching is the Likud party itself,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: because there may be another route to a government that
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: doesn't depend on the entire anti-Netanyahu opposition coming together.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: What if Likud decides Netanyahu has become the obstacle to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: it remaining in power? Likud is still projected to be
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the largest individual political party in the Knesset with the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: most seats. And there are some moderate and center-right parties
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: currently aligned against Bibi that might be unwilling to serve
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: in another government led by him, but could be open
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to governing with Likud under different leadership. Now, that's a
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: very different scenario. You know, it's not the opium that
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I was just smoking about Israelis and Arabs governing together,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: peace and love, right? You know, I'm not that naive, okay?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But this wouldn't be the worst outcome either, I think,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: for Israel's reputation. It would require a substantial break inside
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of Likud, and there's no indication yet that its leadership
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: is prepared to make one. Netanyahu has survived plenty of
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: political crises before. And so the idea that he will
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: wriggle out of this is, you know, it's like why
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: so many people are assuming, oh, maybe there's going to
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: be pulling air in the midterms, right? If it's happened
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: too many times in the past, you assume it's only
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: going to happen again. But that scenario is still worth watching.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And it raises a question that extends beyond Israel. What
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: happens to a political movement when the leader who built
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it becomes an obstacle to maintaining power, right? Sounds familiar,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't it? And there's one more part of the Israeli
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: election I don't want to overlook. Bibi reportedly spent weeks
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: pressing for another round of strikes against Iran before the election.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: According to New York Times, there were concerns that renewed
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: fighting could disrupt or even delay the vote. That was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: not considered a negative as far as Bibi concerned. He
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: saw that as a feature, right? That would have been
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary backdrop for the election. And what it really
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was is it looks like one more gambit that Bibi
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was trying to do to essentially avoid the accountability that
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: was coming at the ballot box on Tuesday. But it
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: reminds us of how much of this campaign was fought
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: over national security, the consequences of October 7th and Bibi's
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: stewardship of Israel during multiple military conflicts. So the election
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't simply a referendum on Trump or on Bibi's relationship
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: with Washington. Remember, Trump's very popular in Israel. But there
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: was a lot. Beebe's the divisive one. Beebe's and his
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: essentially neglect on October 7th. I think a lot more
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: people believe he was asleep at the switch on October 7th.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: And there was enough of that that likely sent the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: message that voters did send him on Tuesday. Which brings
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: me back to a larger question. If political movements associated
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: with Trump are struggling to motivate enough voters to maintain power,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: In several countries, what does that tell us about what
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the GOP's challenge is here at home? We're already seeing
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: plenty of evidence. Republican turnout is down in the early vote.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Republican participation is down so far in the mail vote. Yes,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: we know Trump has been telling his people to wait
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: until Election Day to vote, so we shall see. But
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: so far, all the evidence points to an elevated turnout,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: among key constituency groups that Democrats are counting on, and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a lower than expected turnout among the constituency groups that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Republicans are counting on. Let's move to domestic. I got
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a little update on the Senate map, and I want
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to sort of walk through a scenario for you that
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I think illustrates sort of how fluid the Senate political
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: map is at the moment. What if I told you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: that Democrats could lose both Maine and Michigan and still
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: win control of the Senate. You'd be like, really? It's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: actually not that far fetched. And I say this because
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the two weakest Democratic candidates in competitive states right now
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: are Abdul El-Sayed and Troy Jackson. for different reasons, but
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: they're both, you know, we can make the larger ideological
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: issue that if they were ideologically a little less connected
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to the base and a little bit more sort of non-traditional,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: kind of like how Tallarico and Turek and some of
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: these other Senate candidates are portraying themselves, I think both
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Maine would be done deals by then. But
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they are what they are. It is what it is.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So what's the math if Democrats lose both Maine and Michigan? Well,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: here it is. Democrats flip North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Texas,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and Alaska, and Republicans hold Maine and flip Michigan. It's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: still a net four gain of seats for Democrats. It
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: would be five Republican-held seats changing hands, offset by one
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Democratic-held seat going Republican. It would give Democrats their 51-49 majority.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: And we're not even getting to South Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: any of these longer shot race, Nebraska, Montana, Florida, you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: name it, right? Now, I'm not saying this is how
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the election is going to turn out, but I wanted
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to paint, because that's one of the scenarios that, you know,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it isn't a given. If Collins holds Maine, it doesn't
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: mean that Republicans have held the Senate. And if Abdul
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: El-Sayed loses Michigan, it doesn't mean Republicans have held the Senate.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the important thing about this map.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: This is how remarkable, remarkable remarkably competitive, this very red-leaning map.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: This was a map that, you know, if I had
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: said that 18 months ago, you know, Democrats can lose
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Maine and Michigan and still find a way to gain
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: four seats. You'd be like, how the hell are they
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: going to do that? But that is how much the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: political environment has soured on Trump and on the Republicans.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: So look, it is.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You know, that's when this is why I'm in some
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: ways a bit more bullish that. Democrats are likely to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: win both the House and the Senate, because the second
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you have a variety of ways to get to your
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Senate majority is always when you're in. Now, is it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: possible they end up with one more seat than they need,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: two more seats than they need? It's more possible than not.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats have done a good job putting more seats on
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the board. Donald Trump's done a good job putting more
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: seats on the board for Democrats, right, with the Darlene
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Graham situation down in South Carolina. But it does show
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you that the center of gravity of this campaign really
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: has moved and the broader Senate map. It's amazing that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: essentially the geographic center of this country, which has been
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: leaning Republican for a couple of decades now, Donald Trump
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: uniquely made those states more competitive with his unnecessary trade
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: war with Canada, which impacted all of those states and,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of course, the war in Iran. The other... A quick
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Senate map update I wanted to do is South Carolina
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: is becoming a lot more interesting. Annie Andrews, of course,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: is the Democratic nominee challenging Darlene Graham. And we've seen
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: an interesting development. Former Republican Governor David Beasley, former Democratic
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Governor Jim Hodges. Hodges beat Beasley, by the way, 1998,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: did a joint ad, both endorsing Andrews. It's not something
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you see every day. And it's a bit of a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Republican permission slip, if you will, to support Annie Andrews.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: But as Democrats feel more bullish about their chances in
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, they feel a little more bearish about their
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: chances in Kansas a little bit. Um, and I think
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: there's a difference of why Kansas might've, you know, this
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was always a question about Kansas, um, was, you know,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: is there, is there a sort of a hard ceiling
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of 46, 47%, right? And I think there is, um,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's– there are a lot of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Republicans in western Kansas that Hamilton has to figure out
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: how to win over or a lot of those Republicans
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: have to stay home or a handful of those– or
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: he's got to make a winning number, 47 or 48.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: And it does feel as if he stalled a little bit.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It's not that Marshall has become a better candidate, but
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you could just feel there just might not be enough
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: swing independent voters, moderate Republicans coupled with– coupled with a
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: lower turnout among Republicans to do this, still going to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: be very competitive and anything can happen. But I think
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: what's interesting about South Carolina is what you're seeing. It's the,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you know, why do Democrats feel a little bit better
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: about South Carolina? Well, look, their African-American turnout in the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: early vote, when you've looked at Florida, Georgia, Virginia, been
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: through the roof, blowing the doors off. We saw this
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: during the primary season. And trust me, whenever you see
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: an elevated turnout among specific demographic groups in primaries, it
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: always translates to generals. People who choose to vote in
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: primaries always make time to vote in the general, right?
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: The hardest thing to do is to get people who
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: didn't vote in a primary to remember to vote in
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the general. But once you've got them in the primary,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: you know they're coming in the general. And if suddenly
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you have a higher than expected black turnout, right? Here's
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the South Carolina math. It starts this way. Lindsey Graham
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: in 2020, which was a lean, look, nationally, you could
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: say it was slightly a Democratic lean, but it was
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: sort of, you know, like in the 52, 53. range, right?
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham gets just under 55%, right? So that to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: me was Darlene Graham's ceiling. Well, she's an appointed senator.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Appointed senators always perform a couple of points below whatever
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the normal ceiling is. So let's take her from 54
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: down to 52. Now you throw in there was a
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: competitive primary. There was a cranky runoff. You had a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: runoff loser who was pretty cranky. You have two third-party
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: candidates that are from traditionally right-leaning third parties. I think
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: it's a constitutional party candidate and a libertarian party candidate.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: So if she's down to 52 and then you peel away, say,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a collective two or three more points for her, suddenly
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: she's sitting at 49. You get an elevated African-American vote
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that helps Annie Andrews. A couple of, you know, just
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: enough crossover votes. We've seen independent numbers are up. That's
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly how you see, say, 48.8, 48.2, everything else going
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to third parties. I mean, if Annie Andrews wins this,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: that's probably what it's going to look like. But the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter is there's a path to there.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And the elevated surge and turnout among African-American voters also
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: means Annie Andrews has a high floor. In fact, in
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: some ways, her floor is higher than Adam Hamilton's is
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in Kansas. There's not a distinctive demographic group that you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: can 100 percent count on. There's certainly suburban voters in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Kansas three, but it's not quite the same as as
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the anger that's in the black community that we're seeing
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: evidence of in the South, particularly over the gutting. of
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act. One more little Senate nugget. It
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: brings me to a fascinating piece by Chris Smith in
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Vanity Fair. And it was about Susan Collins and the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: main Senate race. And what was interesting in it was
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: this Bannon. There was a Steve Bannon quote that I
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: thought was worth sharing with you guys, because he makes
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: an argument in the piece that probably gets at the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: fundamental divide between Senate Republicans as we know it and
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in general. So Bannon
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in this piece is arguing that Republican leaders have spent
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: so much time protecting senators like Collins that they have
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: failed to advance legislation that might have motivated lower propensity
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: MAGA voters to participate in the midterms. That because Collins
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: had some objections to some of the things that Republicans
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to do, that somehow Senate Republican leadership has moderated
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: those things and that served to somehow demotivate MAGA voters.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: In fact, Bannon specifically points to Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: states where that decision could be hurting Republicans. Now, obviously,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: he has his own agenda. He's been trying to rid
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: any sort of Anybody from the sort of center right,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: you know, semi-pro business sort of chamber of commerce Republicans,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Bannon has been trying to kick out of the party.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But he's also reminding people of this tension. You know,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans need Susan Collins in order to keep a Senate majority.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, Bannon hates the fact that
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: they need Susan Collins and wishes that they didn't need
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins. And in there in this piece, it goes
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: further how much Trump doesn't like her and the type
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of personality that Trump hates and all of this stuff.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It's exactly the type of things that Susan Collins would
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: want everybody in Maine to see. Hey, Donald Trump doesn't
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: like me, see? But I think it's a reminder of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: while she has some influence, she really is not. I,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: you know, this is what the Republican Party is. I'm
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: surprised she isn't pulled a Murkowski. And that was the
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: one thing I thought she might do was say, look,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to run as an independent, but caucus with
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the Republicans. Anyway, it's an interesting political challenge that he
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: pointed out. But obviously, it's important to note Democrats do
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: have a path without Maine. And look, when you've seen
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I can tell that the Senate Democrats are not pleased
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with Troy Jackson because pretty much the last month of
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: this election has just been about Susan Collins. There has
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: been very little attempt at promoting Jackson, and it's been
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: all about trying to make this a referendum on Susan Collins.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And honestly, if she wins, it's because somehow enough independents
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: have decided, you know what, she's not a Trump Republican,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and that's enough for me. So we shall see. By
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the way, one other cautionary note, a little interesting stat
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I caught from, I think it was our friends at
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Punchbowl that noted this. According to their analysis since 2018,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats have not flipped a Republican-held House seat that was
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: added to the DCCC's Red to Blue program in September
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: or October of an election year, right? Whenever Democrats or
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Republicans add people to their competitive lists after Labor Day,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: It usually means they're going after a reach state. Maybe
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: they have a really good candidate on their side. Maybe
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: there's a really weak candidate on the other side. But
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I thought since 2018, this was an amazing analysis. So
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you may have seen, you'll see some reports over the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: last couple of days, Democrats are expanding the map. Well,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: according to Punchbowl, of all 28 candidates since 2018 that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: have been added in the final two months of the
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: previous four cycles, only three won, and all three were
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: running in Democratic-held open seats. So it's a reminder this
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: late map expansion doesn't automatically translate into victories. Campaign committees
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: have plenty of incentives to create a sense of momentum.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: They want donors to believe new opportunities are emerging. And
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes those opportunities are real. But I thought that history
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: suggests we should distinguish between races that have become genuinely
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: competitive and races that are being promoted as competitive in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the final days. And of course, the same principle applies
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to Senate races. Larger map doesn't mean every race has
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: become equally winnable, but it does mean the arithmetic can
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: change in ways that aren't obvious if we're looking at
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the map we had six months ago. All right, now
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about Trump's closing argument.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I had a little fun with it in
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: what candidate Trump would say about President Trump. But man,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday in Corpus Christi, the guy couldn't be more
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: off message. And I think ultimately, if Republicans do as
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: poorly as the polls are indicating, There is nobody that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: has been a worse messenger for the party than Donald Trump.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: So here you have Republicans trying to navigate an increasingly
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: complicated Senate map, protect their House majority. And what's Donald
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Trump doing in his closing days? Well, because the contrast
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: between Trump's political instincts when he's running for himself and
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: what he's doing now is becoming more pronounced, right? As
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I said, in 2016 and 2024, Trump knew how to
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: make himself the center of the campaign in ways that
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: helped him politically. He knew how to dominate that attention,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the McDonald's appearance, all of that. Now look at what
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: he's talking about, right? In Corpus Christi on Tuesday, he
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: suggested that Venezuela, spent a long time on this, might
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: become the 51st state. I know he's mused about this before,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: but this is part of the closing argument, right? He
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: mused about 51st state. He was standing near a tanker
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: carrying Venezuelan oil, celebrating the administration's military intervention, calling it,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: we won our war with Venezuela. I bet you you
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: didn't know we had a war with Venezuela. I thought
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: this was a law enforcement action because if it was
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a war, then they did it illegally and didn't go
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to Congress and get permission. So the president called it
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a war in Corpus Christi. I thought it was a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: law enforcement because if it's not a law enforcement action,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: then what he did was illegal. But anyway, he was
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: celebrating all this.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Oil, right?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: He even said, did the victor come to spoils? And
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: he floated the idea that Venezuela could become an American
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: state with a governor rather than a president. Now, I
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: know we'll say it's Trump being Trump, right? But think
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: about the broader context here, right? Because he also was
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: discussing the economic consequences of the war in Iran. And
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: he sort of talked about it as if he had
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. You know, And what's great
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is what's happening in the Middle East is helping Texas
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and helping people make more money over here. So he's
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: acknowledging that the war, that he knew that oil prices
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: would rise, but he decided to proceed anyway because he said,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: they didn't rise as much as I thought they would.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And then he's out there celebrating the benefits of the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: conflict for the American oil industry. Okay, so maybe the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: oil industry is making money. Maybe Exxon is making money,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: but they're making money off of you and me. And
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: higher gas prices. It's the craziest thing. Hey, look, all
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of that inflation, all of that extra money you're paying,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: it's helping our American oil companies make money. Woo! Cheer away,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: everybody in Corpus Christi. It's quite a closing argument in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: this midterm election about cost of living. I mean, sure,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: we want to improve American energy production, but that is
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: not what the president was advocating. He was trying to
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: create victories the way he defined them. And of course,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: he was saying all this in Texas, where Republicans are
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: trying to hold that Senate seat. And there was another
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: thing about this Corpus Christi rally that caught my eye. attention.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio was there, the sitting secretary of state. Now,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: we've had a tradition in this country where our chief
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: diplomat does not participate in partisan campaign events. It's one
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: of those norms that, you know, just one of many
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: norms that Donald Trump has destroyed. used to be taken
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: very seriously. Hillary Clinton, while Secretary of State, did not
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: do any domestic politics. It was Mike Pompeo who broke
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the tradition first. He was sitting Secretary of State, and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: during Trump's first term, he addressed the Republican convention in 2020.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I remember when that happened, and it was like, oh,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: this is unusual. We've never had a sitting Secretary of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: State do this. Now, according to Politico, Republicans have been
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: trying to get Rubio on the campaign trail for months
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: because they see him as pretty much one of their
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: one of the only effective surrogates that's connected to Trump
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: that doesn't turn off non-mega Republicans. He is one of
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: their more effective political messengers, particularly with Latino voters where
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: they're struggling mightily and some of the more moderate voters
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: in the party as well. But Rubio, to his credit,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was resisting. He skipped the Republican midterm convention. You know,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: this is this part of Rubio you could tell he
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: really is sort of I think he walks around constantly
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: with the devil and the angel. And the devil usually wins, right?
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: But the angel is always telling him what he should
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: be doing. And he kind of knows it. And he
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: listens to the angel for a while, right? So he
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: skipped the midterm convention. So what did he do in
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Corpus Christi? So he was backstage. He was accompanying Trump
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in his capacity as national security advisor. Remember, he's got multiple.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I think he's also the chief archivist as well. But basically,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: he's got two jobs, secretary of state, like Kissinger did
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: with Nixon. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. So
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: in this case, I guess you could say it was
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: National Security Advisor Marco Rubio participating in this political event
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: and not the Secretary of State. I'm sure that's what
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the ethics lawyers are trying to say. Now, what was
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: interesting is how uncomfortable Rubio really was being at this event.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Rubio spoke for all of a few seconds. He praised
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the president, told the crown it was an honor to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: serve the country. We love you, Texas. And that was it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: And he walked away. Now, I can't crawl in his
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: head and know for sure that he did it was
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that short because he was uncomfortable. But the brevity was striking,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: especially when you consider how badly Republicans wanted Rubio on
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the trail. But he knows how just, you know, nothing
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: diminishes the office of secretary of state more than if
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: he continues to politicize it like this. And it's always
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me to watch Rubio try so hard
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: in this, you know, administration with a president that just
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't give two rats asses about any of this stuff.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: He's trying to hold up a fig leaf of tradition.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I know he gets it. I'm sorry that the spine
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: isn't strong enough to stand there. But then again, if
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: he didn't cave, he wouldn't be there. And maybe he's
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: decided he'd rather preserve his ability to be a member
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: in good standing of Donald Trump's Republican Party than to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: be on the outside looking That's the decision he made. Okay.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: That's what we are. One other irony here. Rubio spent
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: much of his tenure trying to maintain the separation politically,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and he ends up on stage in a rally. It's just,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it's another example of how the presidency and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the president's political operation increasingly overlaps, sometimes without much apparent
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: consideration of where one should end and the other begins.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: But again, Trump doesn't care about these images. He views
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: it all as one thing. He views it all that way,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't care if he delegitimizes the Justice Department,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the State Department, the Treasury Department. He wants them all
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: acting politically when he needs them to act politically. There's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: one more thing on Donald Trump that I'd be loathe
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: not to bring up, and that was his weird obsession
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: over Bill Maher. He posted what is apparently the longest
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: post social media post of his career, more than 1,300 words,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: essentially relitigating two dinners he had with Bill Maher at
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the White House.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: It was the strangest thing, right? He spent time, and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: of course, Trump spent time talking about all of his
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: incredible ratings with The Apprentice and all of those things.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: And he even compared his own popularity among Republicans with
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. And he and he was
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: just angry that Maher happened to do a few just
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: light love tap jokes on Trump. Right. It wasn't even that.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Maher just sort of, you know,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: did a shit interview with Catherine Leavitt.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: You know, he loves to be like he claims he's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: a tough guy interview. But look, Maher just wanted to
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: be in the good graces of Trump. He did it
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: in his Caroline Leavitt interview. And it still wasn't enough
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: for Trump. Trump got all angry because Maher made jokes
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: about his approval ratings and Republican candidates not wanting. To
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: feature him prominently in their campaign advertising. I mean, you
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: want to we knew his skin was thin, but apparently
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: there's no skin left with Donald Trump.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Literally, Bill Maher turned his program over to promoting and
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: making Catherine Levitt seem like a semi-serious individual. Not many
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: people take her that seriously in the public forum. And
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it still wasn't enough for Trump. And he's so focused
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: on the midterm elections that he spent 1,300 words ranting
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: and raving about a show he claims he doesn't really
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: watch anymore. But clearly, he watched every second of it
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: on what he still calls TiVo. And then there's Barack Obama.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: This has been a revealing response by Trump with Obama. Look,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I've long believed you can't fully understand Trump's political identity
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: without understanding his relationship with Obama. Right. Over the weekend,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Obama made a joke comparing Trump's White House renovations to
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein and the Cheesecake Factory. Now, the online right
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: immediately tried to turn it into some sort of deplorables moment,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: as though Obama had insulted ordinary Americans who enjoy eating
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: at the Cheesecake Factory. That is not what the punchline was.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And perhaps he could have landed the joke better. But, hey,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you know, he could get up. Come on, John Lovett.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I know you can write him a better line than that,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: but that's OK.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: But what was fascinating to me was Trump's reaction. He
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: devoted time at the Mississippi rally to responding to Obama
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and say, for you to say it's a cheesecake factory
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: just shows you why you are a lousy president. So,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you have one part of the MAGA right
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: was trying to turn it into a deplorables moment as
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: if Obama was was insulting the cheesecake factory. Trump correctly realized, no,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: he's not insulting the cheesecake factory. He's insulting Donald Trump.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: But there's another part of this that's all gotten lost,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: and it made me laugh more. Bill Clinton, on the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: same day that Obama insulted the renovations of the White
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: House and compared it to like a Saddam Hussein palace
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: meets the Cheesecake Factory, Bill Clinton described Trump's Rose Garden
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: renovation as looking like something out of Liberace's bathroom. I
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: thought that was a pretty good line. That's a little old.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You have to remember who Liberace was. And so Probably
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: people under 45 didn't laugh, but I guaranteed you people
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: over 50. What's interesting is that Trump didn't seem offended
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: by that one. He was only offended that Obama criticized
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: his renovation. Not that Bill Clinton mocked him on Liberace,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: but actually knowing Trump comparing it to Liberace is not
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: a critique. He may have taken that as a compliment. Um,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Who knows? But I do think it tells you something,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: how differently Trump responds to Obama, right? He didn't bother
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: to respond to Bill Clinton and his dig at Trump's renovations,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: but he sort of, he loses his shit when it
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: comes to Obama, right? You know, Clinton can apparently make
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: fun of the renovations, nothing. Obama does it, and suddenly
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: we're having a national debate about whether the former president
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: has insulted middle America. So look, Trump's political, this little
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: history lesson here, Trump's political relationship with Obama goes back
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to the birther conspiracy. Trump promoted it. Then came the
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner where Obama famously mocked Trump
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and humiliated him in person in front of 2000 people.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Trump doesn't handle criticism, right? Bill Maher does a light
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: joke and he does a 1300 word post, right? So
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: we know He doesn't handle criticism well. But that moment
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: in 2011, it's become part of the mythology surrounding Trump's
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: eventual decision to run for president. Then Trump wins in
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: 2016 and almost immediately becomes preoccupied with comparing everything he
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: did to Obama, right? And it started with the size
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of the inaugural crowd. He didn't like it that Obama
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: had a big crowd and Trump had a less big crowd.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that There's a compelling
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: case that some of Trump's obsession with his historical significance,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: with his attempt to put his name on buildings, build arches,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: it's all tied to his obsession over Obama. He doesn't
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: simply want to be remembered as a consequential president who
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: nearly destroyed the democracy. He repeatedly compares his popularity, his accomplishments,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: even the physical appearance of the White House with those
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: of his predecessor. He's obsessed with making it seem different
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: than Obama. I don't know how much of that is
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: personal resentment. I don't know if some of it's racism.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I know some people think it's racism. Might be. I
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: think he's just angry that Obama is liked and he's not.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: But the pattern's remarkably persistent, right? In the same way,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: you could argue the left gets a little too preoccupied
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: with all things Trump. Donald Trump just loses his shit
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: whenever Obama enters the chat. Um, it is amazing how
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: easily Obama can still draw a response from him. A
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: joke about the cheesecake factory becomes a presidential campaign rally
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: talking point and Democrats say, thank you. Then there's the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: other part of this, right? The deplorables, the online, right.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Trying to manufacture a cultural grievance out of it. I look, I,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I understood the grievance about deplorables. Um, Obama wasn't making
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: fun of people at Cheesecake Factory. Obama was making fun
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and his terrible taste. Those are fundamentally
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: different things. But still, once again, instead of keeping the
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: focus on trying to fix your messaging or put the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: focus on Republican candidates and the closing arguments, he's spending
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: time debating Barack Obama about decorating and criticizing Bill Maher.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: whatever any of you thinks of those disputes. It's an
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: unusual way to close for the president to come up
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: with a closing argument. And again, it's why it is hard.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I don't like the group think that's all headed to here,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: what we think is going to happen on Tuesday. But
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: there is hard to find any counter evidence here. And
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the more Trump puts himself front and center, the more
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: this is about him, the worse this is going to
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: get for the GOP. A few other notes. The president's
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: retribution campaign got dealt a serious blow over the last
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: 24 hours. There were two Justice Department developments this week.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: The department attempted to bring another criminal case against former
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: FBI Director James Comey. This time, it accuses him of
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: leaking classified information to the New York Times back in 2016.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Comey denies wrongdoing. And then, of course, Cassidy Hutchinson, she's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the former Trump White House aide whose testimony about January
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: 6th became one of the most memorable moments of the
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: congressional investigation into January 6th. Now, according to the Post,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: federal prosecutors tried to persuade a grand jury to indict
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Hutchinson over her testimony, and the grand jury refused. I mean,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: is there a dumber Justice Department than this one? I mean,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: they keep trying. And look, I don't I could sit
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: here and say, oh, the Justice Department are a bunch
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of morons. And and, you know, this is just an
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: idiotic thing being run by Todd Blanche. But it's Trump
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: driving this. Right. It's driving Trump crazy that he can't
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: get Comey. It's driving Trump crazy that they can't get Hutchinson.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: It's and he and he's desperate to do these things.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And Blanche, you know, who doesn't really care about destroying
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the reputation of the Justice Department, is trying so hard.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: To appease Trump on all of these, he filed the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: ridiculous Alaska lawsuit, which is getting tossed. They tried to
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: challenge what's going on in California. Courts everywhere are basically
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: saying it's a bunch of BS. And remember, supposedly you
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: can indict a grand jury, you can indict a ham sandwich. Well,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: the ham sandwich probably had a better chance of being
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: indicted than Cassidy Hutchinson did. It's just remarkable. when you
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: can't get an indictment from your own grand jury. And
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what's happened here. But it just shows you this,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump has spent these two years focused on everything,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: but what voters asked him to focus on. And ultimately, right,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: he's obsessed with getting his enemies from the first turn.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: He's obsessed with, you know, he's still obsessed with the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: wrong part of Ukraine because it has to do with
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: his first impeachment. Everything is in service of something that
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: is not about what voters are concerned about. And ultimately,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: if the reckoning is coming on Tuesday, it's pretty obvious
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: how we got here. Donald Trump made promises, and he's
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: yet to fulfill most of them. And ultimately, that's politics,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: pure and simple. Now, before I finish today, I want
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: to turn to something a little different. One of the
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: things I said I was going to do with these
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Wednesday episodes is spend a little bit of time on
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: a single policy question that isn't necessarily getting the attention
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it deserves. And this week, I want to do a
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: little something on prediction markets, because there was an interesting
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: new report from the Council on Foreign Relations. that actually
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: offers a pretty good intellectual view of how to understand
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: both the promise of prediction markets and the potential problems
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: with it. And I want to start with Brazil because
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: the election there provides a pretty good illustration of one
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: of the most misunderstood aspects about prediction markets. Going into
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Sunday's presidential runoff, the prediction markets were giving Lula roughly
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: a 20% chance of winning. He ended up winning by
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: 4 million votes. And predictably, this produced a lot of
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: criticism of the prediction markets. How could these supposedly sophisticated
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: markets have been so wrong? Weren't we told that people
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: putting actual money on election outcomes would produce more accurate
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: forecasts than conventional polling? Well, here's the thing. A candidate
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: with a 20% chance of winning is supposed to win
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: about one out of every five times. That's what 20% means.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: If every candidate assigned a 20% chance lost, the market
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be accurately measuring probabilities. It would actually be systematically
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: underestimating those candidates. And it's an incredibly important distinction. And
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: it's just part of the math lesson that I think
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: prediction markets are forcing upon a lot of people. Because
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: we've become accustomed to treating election forecasts as though they're
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: supposed to be predictions of a single individual outcome. So
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: it drives me crazy about people claiming that in a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: poll that shows one person leading by two points, if
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the final outcome is the other person winning by a point,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: that somehow the poll was wrong. No, it wasn't. The
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: poll wasn't wrong. It was within the margin of error.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: It told you exactly it was going to be a
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: close race. One, you know, one estimate had it two
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: points one way. The actual result had one point the
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: other way. It does not mean the poll was wrong.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: It means the poll was accurate. Which brings me to
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations called
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Betting on Democracy. The Promise and Peril of Election Markets.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: It was written by Samuel Lazarus. And I think it's
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: an important contribution to the debate because it doesn't simply
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: embrace prediction markets as the future of political forecasting, and
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't dismiss them as nothing more than gambling. This
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: was a very well-balanced analysis of the current situation. It
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: examines the evidence about how well these markets work, the
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: economic value they could provide, and the regulatory problems they create.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: And one of the central findings is that over time,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: prediction markets have actually been remarkably well calibrated. The report
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: cites research that examines millions of contracts, including thousands of
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: election markets, showing that outcomes assigned a particular probability tend
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: to occur at approximately that frequency, meaning the markets are accurate.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: In other words, candidates given a 60% chance of winning
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: generally win about 60% of the time. That's actually pretty
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: useful information. And there's a fun little historical dimension that
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: this piece had that I particularly enjoyed, and I think
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: it's one I wanted to share with you, which is
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: why I'm spending a little time on it. Betting on
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: elections is not a new American phenomenon. In fact, organized
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: election betting was once a major part of the American
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: political culture. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Wall Street betting markets were followed closely by newspapers and
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: political professionals. During the 1916 presidential election, there was roughly
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: $ 10 million wagered on the outcome, the equivalent of $ 300
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: million today. For a long time, those markets had a
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: pretty impressive forecasting record. In fact, in the 15 presidential
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: elections between 1884 and 1940, the mid-October betting favorite lost
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: only once. So eventually, scientific polling largely displaced election betting
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: as the preferred way to measure confidence. what people were wondering,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: which way the political winds were blowing. George Gallup's success
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: in forecasting FDR's 1936 landslide helped establish polling as the
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: dominant tool rather than betting markets. But the underlying idea
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: of using markets to aggregate political information never entirely disappeared.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: University of Iowa revived it in 1988 with the Iowa
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: electronics markets, which allowed people to trade small amounts of
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: money on election outcome. Now, of course, the industry has exploded,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: according to the Council on Foreign Relations report. Trading volume
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: on markets tied to the 2026 midterms had already reached
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: approximately $ 1. 4 billion by early October. So that's a lot
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: of money. I know, $ 1 billion here, $ 1 billion there,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: but that's still a lot of money. And it raises
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: a basic question, what exactly are these markets providing that
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: we don't get from Poland? Well, I think the answer
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: is they provide a different kind of information. So polls
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: measure public opinion at a particular moment. Prediction markets attempt
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: to price the probability of an outcome, incorporating polling, campaign developments,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: economic conditions, political expectations, historical results, and whatever other information
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: traders believe is relevant at that time. And because they're
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: continuously trading, they can immediately react to new information. The
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: candidate withdraws, scandal breaks, a major economic report is released,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: a court issues a consequential ruling, you name it. the
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: market can adjust before the next poll is conducted. That's
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: potentially valuable, particularly for people trying to understand rapidly changing
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: political circumstances, right? Like take the death of Lindsey Graham
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: and how quickly that just shook all things up in
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. In some ways, things were moving faster than
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: polling could keep up, right? And there's also a legitimate
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: economic argument for these markets. Businesses face real financial risks
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: from elections. A changing government, can mean changes in taxes, regulation,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: trade policy, or government spending. Prediction markets can allow companies
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to hedge against some of those risks. You have a
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: big defense contract that Democrats like, and you think the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Republicans are going to win, you might hedge against that, right?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And vice versa. In fact, the report gave an interesting
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: example involving California goat herding, a business of California goat
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: herding that faced a potentially enormous increase in labor costs
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: because of a change in the way the state ruled
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: on how wages for goat herders were. The owner used
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: a prediction market contract to hedge against the possibility that
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: the state would not restore an exemption. That's not simply
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: gambling on politics for entertainment. That's a business trying to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: manage financial risk created by a government policy that may
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: result due to an election. So that's the legitimate case
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: that these markets can serve as a useful purpose. But
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: here's where the report gets pretty interesting. The regulatory framework
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: has not yet kept pace with the industry. This was
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: something that I talked about at this prediction markets conference
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: last week. This is the issue that we've got to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: worry about. And the most obvious problem right now is
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: insider trading, right? How many people in American politics have
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: access to information right now that could materially impact an
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: election market, right? Candidates have them, campaign managers, pollsters, consultants,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: election officials, people with access to unreleased polling, opposition research,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: internal campaign decisions, right? Unlike securities markets where trading on material,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: non-public information can violate well-established rules, commodities law has a
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: much narrower approach to insider trading. And remember, this is
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: being regulated by the commodities CFTC, not by the SEC.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: So it can create some strange regulatory situations, right? According
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: to this report, campaign aid who trades on confidential internal
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: polling may be violating the law because the aid has
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: misappropriated information belonging to the campaign. But a candidate trading
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: on that same information may not necessarily violate the same
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: rule because the information belongs to the candidate's campaign. That's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: a pretty significant loophole. So the campaign aid can't do it,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: but the candidate can? Do we want candidates trading on
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: themselves like this? Obviously, it's a loophole that needs to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: be closed. In fact, I was talking to a lot,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not clear insider trading is illegal on
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the prediction markets yet. There needs to have to be
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: codified law for this. So the report recommends prohibiting election
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: market trading by candidates, campaign staff, pollsters, election officials, and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: others with privileged access to information and that could affect
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: election outcomes. Look, figuring out how to draw that line
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and define it is not going to be easy, but
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: it seems that this is a basic change that needs
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: to be made. This report also recommends greater disclosure of
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: large trading positions, improving oversight of offshore exchanges, and giving
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission more resources to enforce
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: the rules. And there's another aspect that deserves attention, right?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump Jr., has financial interests in the prediction market industry.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: He's an investor in Polymarket through 1789 Capital, and he's
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: an advisor to Kalshi. By the way, Kalshi is a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: sponsor of a couple of my podcasting programs. Meanwhile, the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Trump administration has taken a considerably more accommodating regulatory approach
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to the industry than the previous administration. Now, you can't
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: automatically assume that's because of juniors' investments and relationships, but
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: it certainly looks like a problem. And if it looks
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: like a problem, perception can become reality. And then, of course,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: you've got the institutional problem. Donald Trump has sort of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: eviscerated all these semi-independent agencies that belong in the executive branch.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: For instance, the CFTC was designed to have five commissioners.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: According to this report right now, it's been operating with
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: just one since December of 2025. At the same time,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the agency has lost a substantial portion of its staff,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: while the industry it's supposed to regulate has expanded dramatically.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: So prediction markets have exploded this year, and the CFTC
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: has one commissioner and a short staff. Not the ideal combination.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: So if Congress believes these markets should be allowed to operate,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: then Congress also has a responsibility to make sure the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: regulator has the capacity to oversee them. And ultimately, that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: was what was the most persuasive argument about this report.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: As I've said, I am pro-wisdom of crowds. I think
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: long-term these things are going to be very helpful and
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: very useful. But it needs oversight. And Congress needs to
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: get its act together and figure out how to do this.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Congress has been extraordinarily slow on all these technological changes
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: that have taken place over the last 20 years. And
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: this is just the latest. We don't have to decide
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: whether prediction markets are either the salvation of election forecasting
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: or a dangerous form of gambling that should be prohibited.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: but we can make sure that the system is fair
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: and isn't gamed by insiders. Which brings me back one
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: last time to Brazil. The prediction markets gave Lula about
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: a one in five chance of winning any one. It
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: does not prove that markets are useless, but it does
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: remind us that a probability is not a certainty and
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: that elections remain fundamentally uncertain events. And it's probably a
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: pretty good place to end before we get to speaking
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: of uncertainty. Can an independent candidate win in a place
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: like Montana where there's a Democratic nominee and a Republican nominee? Well,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: the probability is apparently, I think, at 15, maybe 10, 5,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: 10 percent. But it ain't zero. And one thing that
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: I hope everybody has learned when it comes to probability
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: is the biggest leap you make is from zero to one.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: And after that, everything becomes more, more possible than you
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: could possibly imagine. Don't forget the election night live stream
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Cal sheet and new sphere. Myself,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Chris Eliza, DDHQ. We are the only place you get
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: to see DDHQs calls live. And so, please join us
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: for our live stream on election night. We'll start at
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: 5 p.m. Eastern. We'll go to at least 3 a.m.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: If we haven't called the Senate by 3 a.m., that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: in itself is a fascinating story. All right, let's get
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: to some Ask Chuck. All righty. Assuming Republicans, this comes
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: from Mike in Honolulu. All right. Assuming Republicans suffer significant
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: losses in both the House and Senate, could they use
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: impeachment proceedings as an opportunity to clean up the party's
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: image and position themselves as Champions of reform, even if
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: it risks short-term backlash from their base. Could they frame
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: it as a necessary reset under Democratic leadership? Thanks, as always,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: for a great pod. Boy, that's hard to imagine. And
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: I want to remind you of the following. The next Congress,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: if Democrats have a huge night, the Republicans that get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: swept out aren't going to be a lot of MAGA Republicans. Yes,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: those are your Ken Paxtons of the world that won't
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: get there, etc., But it's actually a lot of the
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: more normie Republicans that lose in these swing states. John Husted,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: maybe Susan Collins, maybe Ashley Hinson, maybe Dan Sullivan. These
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: aren't super MAGA people. These aren't people that have loved
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: how Donald Trump has conducted himself in office. The Republicans
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: that are left. The Republicans that are left in a
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: big in a in a scenario that you're painting are
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: actually going to be more. You know, those that are
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: left will probably be closer to Trump politically, closer to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Trump ideologically, and probably less interested in that. Now, the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: real question is, does Mitch McConnell have regrets about his
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: decision in February of 2021? But that's something that maybe
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: someday he'll admit. But who knows? All right. Kelly X
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: in Aubrey, Texas, writes in. Kelly from Texas's 26th District. Five-timer.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: And in fact, wants to be the secretary of the
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: five-timers club. You don't want to be president. You don't
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: want to be the treasurer. You don't want to be
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: vice president. You want to be the secretary here, in
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: this case, the one keeping track of everything. You're going
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: to be in charge of who's in and who's out.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's what you want anyway. As more Democrats adopt
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: language like Boys and girls sports, no gender surgeries for kids,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and fairness in sports. do you think they're deliberately leaving
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: room to walk back those positions, or are they preparing
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: to abandon transgender rights to appeal to moderates? While Democrats
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: like Sarah Jacobs and Ed Markey remain supportive, I worry
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: the party could follow the UK's Labour Party in conceding
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: too much on this issue. Thanks for continuing to discuss
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: a topic that affects not only transgender Americans, but also
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: their families and allies. Fins up. All right. Look at that.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Dolphins fan stuck in Aubrey, Texas. Look, I you know,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: I if you notice the language many of the Democrats use,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I think. I think they are there. I think what
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: they're trying to carve is a position that says. I
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's fair to have trans women competing
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: with biological women in either youth sports or competition. That
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're somehow against human rights for trans
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: women and trans men, et cetera. So I think that's
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the distinction. But I can tell from your question, and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: I've heard from others, those that are advocates for trans
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: rights do not see it that way uh and i
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: i think this is going to be a divide that
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: isn't bridged right away um but i do think the
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: fact that you know i i and it's interesting with
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: this you know i think about uh gay marriage in
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the 80s and 90s and how it was viewed and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: how it was seen as sort of oh you know
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: bridge too far this isn't going to happen so I
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: think we always underestimate the American public on many of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: these cultural issues. I think a lot of times the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: public gets more comfortable than politicians do. And I think
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: that's something that the speed with which same-sex marriage was
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: accepted is a reminder of that. But I do think this,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: you know, because women's sports is having a moment, right?
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: It's only growing in popularity, only growing in significance, only
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: growing in importance, only growing as a business. And so
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: I think that there is going to be this tension.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, take a a strong progressive like Martina Navratilova.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: I follow her on my I follow her on social
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: media and she is, you know, as progressive as they come.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: but she's pretty, I don't think you would call her
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: an advocate for trans Americans. Now, I think she would
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: say she's just simply somebody who doesn't believe that, that biological,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: you know, that trans women should be able to compete
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: against biological women in sports. And that's where she thinks
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: the line needs to be drawn. So I think that's,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: maybe it's, We're paralyzed on there for a moment, but
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's where public opinion is. And if it
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: weren't there, you'd hear different rhetoric from Democratic candidates. It
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: is fascinating how much Republicans are running on this issue here.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it has the impact that it
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: might have had in 24, but there are plenty of
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans Strategists who think it will And it's part of
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: the Basically there are three issues That you hear Republicans
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: using in their closing argument Not counting Donald Trump And
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: all of his various bizarreness One is hey don't you
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: remember What the border looked like when Biden was president
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Two was Law and order issues, weak on crime That
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: sort of thing And three is being supportive Of Surgeries
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: for Trans kids etc So they certainly see it as
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: a potent political tool. And I think as long as
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: it's viewed that way, this is probably the line you're
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: going to see a lot of purple and red state
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats draw. But I guess what I would say to you, Kelly,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: is don't underestimate the American public.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from James P. Longtime listener, first time
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: caller from New York's 18th congressional district, having worked in
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: sports and media communications for nearly 20 years with some
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: of the industry's biggest names. I'm always curious about the
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: PR side of politics, especially with so many politicians seem
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: to receive terrible messaging advice. Do you think political gaffes
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: and poor messaging are more a reflection of the candidates themselves?
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Or are their communications teams filled with yes men and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: yes women, more interested in writing coattails than offering honest advice? P.S.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Big Pat Ryan fan here and hoping there are more
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: like him in the pipeline. James P. I agree. Pat Ryan,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's funny how Democrats from a military background
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: have become some of their more effective swing state candidates.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: And I think Pat Ryan is emblematic of that. I
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: think the reason why it seems so off, it's because
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: the politicians themselves usually insist on being their own messengers.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of times politicians don't listen to PR consultants
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: very much. You know, it's... we've come accustomed. And I think,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I probably have done this too often where
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I'll blame advisors when ultimately nine times out of 10,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: it's the candidate. Nine times out of 10, it's the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: principal who thinks they're their own best messenger, who thinks
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: they know this and who will say, my name's on
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the ballot. I'm the one who figured out how to
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: do this. Not you. Have you ever run for office?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: I've heard plenty of politicians. It's I've had them say
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: it to me when I've questioned certain decisions they've made. So, no,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a case where there's a whole
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of– in fact, some of the smartest political crisis
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: PR people I know all started in politics. And you
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: know the candidates who do listen to advice. They're the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: ones who usually have more success. So, no, I don't
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: think it really is– It really is more of a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: candidate issue than anything else. And I would say you
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: show me the bad moment and I'll show you a
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: candidate who ignored smart advice and instead decided to do
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: something other. Adam B., West Virginia's second congressional district chimes in.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: If Republicans suffer the midterm shellacking that polls are suggesting,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: how much could that hurt J.D. Vance's chances of securing
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: the 2028 presidential nomination could such a defeat also give
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans an opportunity to make a clean break from Trumpism
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: and take the party in a different direction. Most sincerely,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: Adam B. Well, look, I've not thought that this is
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: going to be that somehow things get so bad it
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: costs Vance that much. That said, I think his behavior
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: in Ohio these last two weeks is His decision to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: support Ramaswami's disgusting exploitation of childhood trauma isn't going to
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: go away very quickly. If Ohio is the debacle for
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Republicans that I expect it to be, thanks to the Ramaswami,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what else to call it,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: you know, decision to go pond scum. I think it
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: could leave a mark.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: This is his home state. I think J.D. Vance is
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: just a weak potential nominee. I said this. I say,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at his own electoral track record. He's
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: run for office once and he underperformed bigly. He had
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: to get bailed out of his own. He wasn't going
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: to win that primary until Peter Thiel and Donald Trump.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: came in at the last minute and rescued him both
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: financially and with the endorsement. He had to be dragged
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: across the finish line in that campaign against Ryan. So
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Tim Ryan, we had Pat Ryan on the brain. I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: was worried about to say Pat Ryan, which is why
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: I just said Ryan. So it's Tim Ryan. My apologies there.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: So I just don't think he's that good of a
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: political athlete.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: I think. And so I do think he's vulnerable to.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: a dynamic challenger in the Republican Party. But, you know, look,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: George H.W. Bush, when he was running in 87 and 88,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: was a pretty, at the time, thought of as a
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: weak vice president. He had two really strong opponents, Jack
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: Kemp and Bob Dole, and neither one of them could
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: prevent the sitting vice president, right? Because at the end
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: of the day, as unpopular, as a second-term president might
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: be with swing voters, they're usually still pretty popular with
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: the base. And as long as Donald Trump says he's
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: for J.D. Vance, then J.D. Vance is going to be fine.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: I think the real wild card, and I think there
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: are plenty of Republicans that would like to turn the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: page on Trump, but as long as Trump's sitting in
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the Oval Office, they can't. He's not going to let them.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: He's made that crystal clear. He won't even let any Republicans,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: other than Susan Collins, who's he really allowing to distance
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: themselves when they need to distance themselves?
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Byron Donald's tried to erase Trump images off his website
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: and Trump lost his shit. And Donald's had to immediately
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: apologize and showcase a photo on social media. I know
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: that's not the version of events they want to say like, oh, no,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: that isn't. It's exactly what happened. And somebody warned Donald's,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: you just don't want to pick a fight with him
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: on this. He'll he'll screw you. which is true. So
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: I just don't think the party can move on from
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Trump while Trump sits in that Oval Office. So I
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: don't think the Republican Party is going to be able
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: to move on until Trump is no longer head of
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: the party. And at least through the 2028 election, it's
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: still Donald Trump's Republican Party. But I think Vance is
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: quite weak. And there is, and this is, this If
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: he shows weakness, Trump could easily bail on him. And
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: if Trump bails on him, Bantz is toast. Bill S., Newburgh, Oregon, writes, Hey,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: I'm heartened by your disgust with Ramaswamy's latest ad campaign,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: which echoes how many of us have felt since November 2016.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: I know you're reluctant to blame voters. Yeah, I don't
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: blame voters. Voters are always right. Even when you think
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: they're wrong, they're right. But I'll digress. But anyway, but
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: if he wins despite what I see as an attempt
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: to smear a victim, how should we think about fellow
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: citizens who are willing to overlook that? What troubles me
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: most is that millions of Americans see Trump and Ramaswamy
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: as the best people to lead us despite their character concerns.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: How do we rebuild trust in our fellow voters? when
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: it feels like some aren't just overlooking bad behavior, but
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: celebrating it. Go Brew Crew and the U from Oregon's Fightin' Six. Thanks,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: Bill S. Well, Bill, I'm just, here's the thing. I
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: don't want to entertain this question yet because I actually
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: have a tad more faith in the voters. But just remember,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: it's never, I think you have to stop hoping that
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: it's an 80-20 response. It's going to be a 53-47 response.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Remember what Ohio's never done. Elected a woman governor. They've
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: had a woman governor, but she assumed office. They've never
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: elected a woman governor. It's a state that's been trending Republican,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: and she's a Democrat. She was the face of the
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: COVID response, which we know in and itself can be polarizing.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: She wins with 52, 53, or 54% of the vote.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: It's enormously impressive. The point is, is that in a democracy,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: when you get 52, 53, 54%, celebrate it. Don't lament
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that a near majority wanted to go the other way.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: I hear you. I will be absolutely, look, if somehow
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: this is seen as working, then yeah. I will lose
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: some faith, but I'm not ready to lose faith in that.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: I always believe the voters eventually get it right. They
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: just don't always do it at the speed with which
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: you and I wish they would. But I really think
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: lived experience matters here. So let's see what happens on
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night. All right. Next question comes from Emma from Melbourne.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: I'm curious if it's Melbourne, Australia or Melbourne, Florida. But anyways.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: What's behind the shocking Islamophobia and bigotry we're seeing from Republicans?
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: From Tim Scott's reported training anti-remark to Roger Marshall's comments
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: about Islam's, Trump's, and Mike Rogers' rhetoric about Al-Sayed and
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: the constant attacks on Somalis and Ilhan Omar. Does this
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: kind of rhetoric actually resonate with voters? And why do
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: Democrats in the media seem to let so much of
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: it slide if similar language were directed at Jewish or
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Catholic Americans? narrator jumps in here and says they have.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't the backlash be enormous? Thanks, Emma from Melbourne, where
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: we got state elections next month. So this is Melbourne, Australia,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: on a Saturday with barbecues, rank choice voting and paper ballots.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Imagine that. By the way, I love the idea that
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: elections should be parties, should be celebrations, should be festivals.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge believer in that. I'd love to see,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: you know, make it the last, you know, make it
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: a four day event, you know, our election season should
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: be a celebration of our freedom, celebration of our democracy,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: there should be a county fair, all these things. I
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: love that concept of essentially celebrating election day, not dreading
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: election day. Look, Donald Trump has poisoned this period. I'm
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: not saying Donald Trump invented Islamophobia, but Donald Trump mainstreamed Islamophobia.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: Guess who fought to try to stop Islamophobia? You had
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. They did not
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: go out of their way to exploit it. They both
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: in their own ways tried to remind people that America
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: is an idea and there is no litmus test, there
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: is no religious test, et cetera. One of the most
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: important comments The most impactful things any political leader in
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: this country has said on a television show for me
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: was Colin Powell. He was on Meet the Press in,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: I want to say, probably September of 2008. And he
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: went on Meet the Press. It was being moderated by
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: Tom Brokaw at the time. And he went on Meet
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: the Press to announce that he was going to vote
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: for Barack Obama. And it was a big deal. First
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: time at the time, it was the first time he
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: had ever supported a Democrat. But he brought up something
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: more important. He said, look, you know, and it was
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: at the time there were all these rumors that Obama,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: you know, that the right was trying to, like, he's
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: a secret Muslim and this or that. And Colin Powell
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: said something that I thought deserves a lot more attention
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: and is a reminder all the time. It was sort
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: of like, Look, Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: so what if he was? In the United States of America,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: there is no religious test. And General Powell went on
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: to say how much it bothered him that the idea
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: that Obama was Muslim itself was somehow the problem, right?
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: So what if he is? Now, look, you can look
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: at the possibility of America electing Abdul El-Sayed to the
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: United States Senate and say, boy, there's a lot of Islamophobia.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Or you can say, he's got a pretty good chance
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: of winning. And we're about to elect our, one of
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: our states is going to elect, a swing state no less,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: is going to be comfortable sending a Muslim American to
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: the United States Senate. But you ask, why is this?
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: It is, this is the culture, our culture is shaped
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: by our presidents. It always has been. And Donald Trump–
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: and this is why– this is where I do agree
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: with Steve Bannon on one concept, which is culture is
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: downstream from politics or politics is downstream from culture, depending
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: on how you want to form that sentence. But essentially,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: you could argue it's one and the same. But our
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: presidents are– do sort of give a green light or
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: put up a red light on certain things. And Donald
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: Trump has given a permission slip for bigotry. He's given
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: a permission slip for grievance. I mean, you know, this
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: is a separate, but, you know, look at how all these,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: a variety of sort of MAGA men have been behaving
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: and how snowflakey they are, right? Whether it's a Pete Hanks,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right? Donald Trump has sort of created this market,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Pat McAfee, like, lost his shit because somebody
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: made fun of him on an Instagram video. And he, like,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: suddenly got all, you know, snowflakey. And it's just like,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: you know, first of all, it's like, man, you're getting
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: high on your own supply, dude. Get your head out
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: of your ass. You know, there are going to be
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: people that love you and people that hate you. Just
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: suck it up and deal with it. You're enjoying your fame.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: Your fame is your fame. And when you're a well-known person,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: I promise you, you're not going to have a 100%
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: approval rating. Deal with it. It's called life. This is
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: what it is. You're making a ton of money because
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: there are enough people that do like you. But this
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: weird sort of to be whiny all the time that
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: somebody might criticize you and yet at the same time
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: proclaim that you're a tough guy. But I think about it.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: It's like, where did these supposedly strong men get so weak?
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: And I realized it's Donald Trump. Donald Trump is sort
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: of He is the poster child for fake toughness, but
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: actually really weak, right? But he's also greenlit bigotry. He's
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: greenlit this bullying nature of our politics. And it's the
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: language of our politics right now. It shouldn't be. Right.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: it's going to take another president setting a different tone
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: and a different culture. And I know you think, well,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: how come others? Look, plenty of people deride this. Plenty
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: of people criticize this. But, you know, there's only so
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: many times you can say the sky is falling. before
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: people stop listening to you, that the sky is falling.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: So I think these days, many of us pick our spots.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm careful. I try to, I try not to,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I do, I try to focus on the most egregious.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: You know, the ones that I know there's going to
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: be a 70% approval to remind people that, you know,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: this is not who we are. It's embarrassing. The picture
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: of America that the world has, thanks to Donald Trump.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: He has humiliated so many of us. He has embarrassed us.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: There's a reason why many people have bought Maple Leaf
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: backpacks so they can go to Europe and not have
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: to feel like they have to defend, have to sit
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: here and answer for Donald Trump. But you're asking, where
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: did all this come from? It came from him. He's
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: created this. He gave the permission slip. plenty of people
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: didn't behave this way before Donald Trump, because they kind
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: of knew, you know, they'd be shamed out of it.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has introduced this idea that, um, you should
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: be able to get away with it. We over, look,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: we overcorrected in one way on political correctness, and now
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: we're overcorrecting the other way. We'll, we'll, we're kind of
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: like the bowling ball that bounces back and forth between
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: the guardrails. I think we'll eventually hit the center pin. Um,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: but we need a new recalibration and it isn't going
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: to change until Trump leaves. But I do think, for instance, what,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like what we've seen with the immigration
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: debate in this country. We didn't want chaos at the
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: border and we don't want people profiled and harshly treated.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: And so I think lived experience is telling the voters that,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't, you know, They're tired of living
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: this way. So I do think we're, you know, it
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: goes back to, you know, a quote that I used
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: to attribute to Churchill that I know is not a
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Churchill quote. But it is, you can always count on
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: the Americans to do the right thing after they've exhausted
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: every other path. Some other diplomat who said it. But
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of those cases where
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: the quote is appropriate. Our next question comes from Vince,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: Maryland's eighth district. That's Montgomery County. I've been following you
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: since your television debut on NBC years ago. And I
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: once heard that Tim Russert was the one who advocated
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: for you to become a regular fixture on TV. Is
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: that true? And what do you remember about his influence
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: on your career? Election night is always exciting and your
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: coverage is consistently great, but it's also a reminder of
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: how much I miss a giant like Tim Russert.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Hey, Vince, I appreciate the question. I actually did a
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: fun little interview, long form interview with over on LinkedIn
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: where I go through a lot of this. Actually, it
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: was it was with Andrew Murphitt over at LinkedIn. So
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: take a look at it. I actually there's some detail
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: in there that you might find interesting. Yeah. No. When Tim,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you know, Tim was looking for a new political director
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: at NBC. And he said he was just sort of–
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: he knew that as the 08 campaign was beginning, he said, well, look,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: I can't do every cable hit. But I was mostly
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: being hired for off-air stuff to help with the coverage
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: of the campaign. NBC that year was the second cycle
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: that they were doing embeds. Uh, and the political director
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: was managing, uh, was to manage that program as well.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: And I had actually been working with another news organization
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: that was partnering with NBC at the time with the
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: embed program. Um, but yeah, you know, I'll never forget
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: when I, uh, accepted the job. I first turned it down, um, because, uh,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed, I was editor in chief of the
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: hotline and I, and I was in the middle of, uh,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: of helping with a massive redesign and re-imagination of the Atlantic.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic you know and see today, at the time
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: I was in the factory there, we were helping to
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: re-imagine how you could take an incredible magazine with incredible
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: history and re-imagine it for the 21st century. And I
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: thought that was the path I was on. I was
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: not really sort of thinking of a TV career for
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: what it's worth. And I accepted the job on February 10th, 2007.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Why do I remember I accepted the job on February 10th, 2007?
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Because that was the day Barack Obama announced his candidacy
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: for president. And I remember I called him up. It
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: was a Saturday. And we had agreed to talk that
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: day where we had one more back and forth on salary,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: if you really want to know some of the details.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: But I accepted on the phone and then we watched
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: the speech together on the phone. That was my first
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: sort of work interaction with Tim. And, you know, as
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: I said, it was sort of like, it was like
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: I was being, it was like he was the, it's
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: like we were at a buddy cop movie or whatever.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: And I was the new trainee and he was bringing
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: in and he was taking me around on all his
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: beats and stuff. And that's how I got to spend
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: 18 months with him. I remember about 15 months with
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: him until he passed in June of, uh, 2008. Um,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: it was a short time, but particularly the last six months,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: I really felt like, uh, we really got to know
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: each other and I learned a lot from him. Uh,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: and yeah, his enthusiasm for elections. I mean, super Tuesday
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: night in, in 2008. I mean, that was, that was
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: a big night, uh, uh, for, for me, it was
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: the first time I was on the network. Um, and
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: I was in charge of the delegate count. And I
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: went out on a limb and I said, hey, according
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: to my math, Obama's gonna win Super Tuesday on the
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: delegate front. Hillary Clinton had won more states. We at
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: NBC decided, who quote unquote wins Super Tuesday? Well, the
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: person with the most delegates. That was my argument. Tim
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: agreed with that argument. And we were the one network
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: that basically said Obama won the night, while the Clinton
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: campaign was spinning other networks, said, hey, we won more states.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: We won Super Tuesday, but you didn't win more delegates.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: And the name of the game is delegates. And my
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: numbers held up. I was sort of like, you know,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: had my own little ass showing there. But the numbers
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: held up. And I remember the night that he declared
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: Clinton's candidacy over. It was the night of the Indiana
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: and North Carolina primary. And it was basically the math
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: that Mark Murray, who was my partner at the political unit,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: It was the math Mark Murray and myself were doing.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: We said, hey, is it the fact that, you know,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: Obama got close in Indiana, didn't quite win Indiana, but
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: it didn't matter. He'd won enough delegates both in Indiana
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: and he'd won and he blew her out in North
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: Carolina that the math was done. You know, the only
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: way she could win the nomination is a bunch of
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: superdelegates basically over decided to support her despite. Obama's lead
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: from delegates earned in primaries and caucuses, which we knew
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to happen. And so he went out there
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: and declared it, declared her candidacy that, hey, she can't win.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: This is over. And when Tim Russert said it, it
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: was a big deal. It was sort of the, I
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: remember it was blaring headline on the judge report. Clinton
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: campaign was very upset, but we were just reporting the math,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: pure and simple. It was not personal. For a while,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: they took it personally, but I think they, over time,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: they realized the math was the math. But yeah, it
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: was a short time, but it was an amazing 15
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: months being able to sort of ride shotgun with Sheriff Russert.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: All right. Last question for this episode. Matthew K., Rock Island.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: Hoping to get my second question on the air. How
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: do you think Trump's foreign policy will change after the midterms,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: especially if his current approach towards Russia and Iran is
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: partly driven by a desire to keep oil prices down
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: before Election Day with no reelection ahead and his foreign
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: policy legacy on the line? Will he take a tougher
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: stance against Russia and pursue military action in Iran? Will
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: he continue favoring appeasement in negotiations? Also, How will you
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: be covering election night? I'd love to follow your analysis
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: of the results. Roll in. Thanks again, Rock, for Mark
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Allen and Matthew K. Well, Matthew K, we're doing an
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: election night live stream. You can, it's myself, Decision Desk HQ,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast, Chris Saliza, on all of our
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: YouTube streams, our X streams. So if you follow me
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: on X or YouTube, it's going to be live streamed
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: right there. You can watch our, and it's a serious production.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: I was just looking at the graphics that we're making.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, essentially, We're doing a full-fledged competitive network You know,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: if you, you know, sort of what some of you
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: might say is an old school network coverage, except we're,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: you know, we're doing it for streaming. And we're going
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: to have, we're the official, we're the official broadcast for DDHQs,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: decision desk HQs. projections. And in fact, that's the name
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: of the program. We are joint owners of the program.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: We're calling it The Projection. And yes, we don't plan
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: on only having one episode on election night, but we'll
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: be starting at 5 p.m. Eastern. You can find us
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: on all your, right, X, Substack, YouTube, whether my feed,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: Decision Desk HQ's feed, DDHQ's feed, Chris Eliza's feeds, you
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: name it. It'll be in all these places, Facebook, wherever.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: You tell us where you want to watch this live stream.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: I promise you we'll be able to get you that.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: So we will have continuous coverage, 5 p.m. to at
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: least 3 a.m. Hopefully, if we've called both the House
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: and the Senate by then, you know, I need about
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: a two-hour nap, but then I'll be doing post-election analysis
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: throughout that Wednesday and Thursday. So that's where you can
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: find me, myself, Chris Eliza, DDHQ's analysis. We'll be doing
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: all of this. Election Night Livestream, only live. It is
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: it will be different and more unique, but it will
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: be data driven. And I think you'll enjoy it. As
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: for what Trump might do. I appreciate your optimism that
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: somehow he might get tougher on Russia. He's never been
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: able to find himself get tougher on Russia. Yeah. I
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: think it's an open question whether he decides to, you know,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: most presidents in those final two years, once they've lost
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: any ability to influence Congress, usually do turn their attention overseas.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: But he's got to figure out how to resolve this
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: Iran war. I think he's I don't know what he
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: plans to do here with Russia and Ukraine. I think
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: if he loses, he's going to continue to blame Ukraine
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: somehow for this, even though instead of his decision to
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: go to war in Iran. I do think he still
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: thinks there's an opportunity for expanding the Abraham Accords to
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: include Saudi Arabia, recognizing Israel. I think that is a
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: feather in his cap that he would like to have.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: I do assume he turns his attention to Cuba, which he,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I think, will think is easy. I'm not sure it's
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: going to be as easy as he thinks it is,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: but I could imagine that. But he'll be looking for
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: what I would call the easy foreign policy wins. Things
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: that he thinks might give him some sort of legacy.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: Cuba would be a big one, I think, in his head.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel would be a big one. Those
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: are the type of things I think he focuses on.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: He's not going to somehow get tougher on Russia. There's
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: no evidence that he ever has. And I don't think
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: there's any evidence that he ever will in that. My
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: concern is I think that Russia is going to try
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: to test the resolve of NATO and see what happens
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: if they encroach on a NATO country. How will the
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: United States led by Donald Trump react? So I fear
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of foreign policy crises that he doesn't respond
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: to in the way any other American president would respond to.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: 2027 is also the year that supposedly China was ready
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: to find a way to bring Taiwan into its orbit. Well,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: what does that look like? Are we prepared for that?
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: So no, I worry that the next two years are
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: going to bring a lot of instability in the foreign
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: affairs space. I do think Trump's going to try to
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: find some legacy achievements, Cuba and Saudi Arabia being the
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: two that I pointed out. But I'm a little bearish
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: on how things are going to go, because I think
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: that if you're Putin and Xi, you see that Trump's
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: days are numbered. Trump's been a huge boon for Putin
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: and Xi, right? I mean, this has been the best
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: 10 years China's had around the world. So I think
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to extract any... And Putin, right?
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: He's been able to weaken NATO in his head, weaken
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: the Western alliance. So my concern is that the next
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: two years are filled with attempts by Putin and Xi
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: to sort of take advantage of Trump for for every
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: second that he's still the american president before somebody who's
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: a bit more pro-american becomes the american president regardless of
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: party uh i can't imagine that we will ever have
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: a president who is more that is somehow more pro-russia
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: more pro-authoritarian than this guy so um on that upbeat
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: note uh i will leave it there all right um
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: Coming Thursday, I got a big deep dive preview of
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: state legislatures and where governorships are going in the battle
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: for the states with my longtime and old colleague of mine,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: good friend Reed Wilson. That's coming in the Thursday episode.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: So we'll have all those updates coming there. Plus, of course,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: if it's Thursday, it's a big college football preview. Halloween, Saturday,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: that is scaring the bejesus out of me when it
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: comes to college football. It's look ahead Saturday for my
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: beloved Miami hurricane. So I am to say that I'm
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: nervous about playing a night game on Halloween night, the
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: week before the biggest game of the year. Yeah, I'm
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: already getting a little nervous about that. So with that,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: I'll stick a fork in this episode and I'll see
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: you in 24 hours. Thanks for listening. And until we
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: upload again.