Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s “To The Victor Goes The Spoils” Diplomacy + Republicans Know How Bad The Midterms Will Be
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
- 0:02Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
- 0:06Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
- 0:11Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
- 0:14Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
- 0:17Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
- 0:21Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
- 0:25Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
- 0:28Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
- 0:31Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
- 0:34Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
- 0:37Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
- 0:41Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
- 0:45Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
- 0:47Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
- 0:51Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
- 0:52Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
- 0:56Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
- 1:01Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
- 1:04Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
- 1:06Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
- 1:09Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
- 1:14Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
- 1:17Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
- 1:19Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
- 1:22Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
- 1:24Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
- 1:28Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
- 1:31Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
- 1:35Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
- 1:38Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
- 1:41Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
- 1:44Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
- 1:48Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
- 1:53Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
- 1:56Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
- 2:00Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
- 2:02Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
- 2:06Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. three, nine, eight, five.
- 2:17Speaker 1: Hello there. And welcome to the Thursday episode of the
- 2:20Speaker 1: Chuck Todd cast. We've got the long weekend episode coming up.
- 2:23Speaker 1: So you know what that means? It means it ends
- 2:25Speaker 1: with a great college football preview. And trust me, I
- 2:29Speaker 1: don't have the most uplifting. One of my segments, is
- 2:32Speaker 1: it going to be the most uplifting? It's sort of
- 2:33Speaker 1: the disaster that is America's role in the world. Um,
- 2:38Speaker 1: So it's good to end the podcast on what is
- 2:40Speaker 1: going to be an incredible slate of college football games.
- 2:44Speaker 1: When I went through it to prepare my preview for
- 2:48Speaker 1: this weekend, I was like, whoa, there are a couple
- 2:54Speaker 1: of playoff elimination games already. I'll get to that. We've
- 2:57Speaker 1: got some just key matchups. I think every conference features
- 3:02Speaker 1: something that could be quite consequential. And then, of course,
- 3:06Speaker 1: it's the stuff we don't expect. college football usually delivers
- 3:09Speaker 1: as well. So that's the uplifting note. Let me give
- 3:11Speaker 1: you a full rundown of what to expect. I do,
- 3:14Speaker 1: before I get into a couple of the, a couple
- 3:18Speaker 1: of things I want to get sort of set the table,
- 3:22Speaker 1: if you will. One is sort of a little update
- 3:25Speaker 1: on the midterms. The other is sort of the future
- 3:27Speaker 1: of American foreign policy. I am coming to you after
- 3:31Speaker 1: just landing from a day trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan,
- 3:35Speaker 1: where I sat down with the Democratic nominee for U.S.
- 3:38Speaker 1: Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. It's an interview that will
- 3:42Speaker 1: air on my Newsphere show this weekend. Sign up for
- 3:46Speaker 1: Newsphere if you haven't. Get your free trial so you
- 3:48Speaker 1: can catch this interview. And I focused my interview on
- 3:51Speaker 1: a topic that most people haven't asked him about, right?
- 3:53Speaker 1: He's done a ton of interviews and he gets a
- 3:57Speaker 1: lot of the same questions over and over. And I
- 3:58Speaker 1: wanted to, instead of finding, I think we all know
- 4:02Speaker 1: what he believes, right? The question is, what kind of
- 4:05Speaker 1: senator is he going to be? And so I spent
- 4:07Speaker 1: a lot of time with him on that. How can
- 4:11Speaker 1: he translate his activism into the United States Senate? Because
- 4:16Speaker 1: he's not the first outsider candidate who has promised to
- 4:20Speaker 1: really shake up that institution only to see the institution
- 4:25Speaker 1: essentially unshake it, if you will, right? Um, and you know,
- 4:32Speaker 1: he's not the first one that thought, Oh, you know,
- 4:35Speaker 1: we're going to bring some youthful energy to this place.
- 4:38Speaker 1: And the institution has a way of, of, of reigning
- 4:43Speaker 1: that in. Um, and I've, you know, I've watched left
- 4:47Speaker 1: and right. Try it. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz on the right,
- 4:50Speaker 1: Cory Booker, Michael Bennett on the left. And it's, it is,
- 4:54Speaker 1: I understand the desire. The institution makes it hard. But
- 5:00Speaker 1: I really think it focusing on that aspect of things.
- 5:05Speaker 1: I mean, look, we got into a lot of stuff,
- 5:06Speaker 1: some of it predictable, some of it unpredictable, but really
- 5:09Speaker 1: focusing on what's realistic. How how is he going to
- 5:13Speaker 1: use the platform of a United States senator? How much
- 5:17Speaker 1: of it is he going to be a big legislator?
- 5:19Speaker 1: Is he going to be a deliberator? And let's just
- 5:23Speaker 1: say if you've spent some time listening to him, watching
- 5:28Speaker 1: him on the trail, And the first thing he said
- 5:31Speaker 1: to me, I'll give you my one little sneak preview.
- 5:32Speaker 1: He says, look, I want it to be the world's
- 5:35Speaker 1: most deliberative body. He's ready to debate. And it'll be
- 5:40Speaker 1: interesting to see how many folks are really up for
- 5:44Speaker 1: having a senator that comes in and wants to sort
- 5:50Speaker 1: of reinvigorate that process. Look, this century, that's kind of died, right?
- 5:57Speaker 1: Great Senate debates. feel like they belong in an era
- 6:02Speaker 1: before even I started covering American politics. So, but I
- 6:08Speaker 1: found the conversation fascinating, informative, and I think you will too.
- 6:13Speaker 1: All right. So let's talk a little bit about where
- 6:18Speaker 1: we are less than five weeks before, what are we
- 6:22Speaker 1: at now? Less than, yeah, we're now at that five week,
- 6:25Speaker 1: basically getting closer to the five week mark. before Election Day.
- 6:29Speaker 1: And we're close enough to Election Day that I don't
- 6:30Speaker 1: think I need to tell you about another poll to
- 6:34Speaker 1: tell you how the midterms are going. And these days,
- 6:37Speaker 1: you don't need a poll. I always say there's a
- 6:40Speaker 1: lot of nervousness. Are the polls accurate? Could they be,
- 6:44Speaker 1: you know, is this one of those, you know, is
- 6:46Speaker 1: this just Democratic momentum? Are the polls off? Is there
- 6:50Speaker 1: going to be significant polling error that is underestimating the
- 6:53Speaker 1: Republican vote? And a lot of times what I've been
- 6:56Speaker 1: telling you and how often I think you've heard me
- 6:58Speaker 1: say it recently is you don't have to just look
- 7:00Speaker 1: at the polls. Listen to what the candidates themselves are
- 7:04Speaker 1: saying and watch some of the behavior of some of
- 7:06Speaker 1: the candidates. Right. And we've been chronicling right here on
- 7:09Speaker 1: the podcast over the last few weeks how you could
- 7:12Speaker 1: see the beginning of Republicans looking for a way to
- 7:16Speaker 1: escape Trump in one way or the other, whether it's
- 7:19Speaker 1: pushing back on him formally. And now you've gotten a
- 7:22Speaker 1: parade of Senate candidates in vulnerable Senate seats, suddenly saying
- 7:26Speaker 1: they want to end the Iran war, right? We heard
- 7:27Speaker 1: it from Mike Rogers. We heard it from Ashley Hinson.
- 7:30Speaker 1: We heard it from John Huston. It is, so sometimes
- 7:36Speaker 1: the actions let you know whether the polls we've been
- 7:41Speaker 1: seeing are correct. But there's three leaders recently, J.D. Vance,
- 7:46Speaker 1: the vice president, John Thune, the Senate Republican leader, and
- 7:50Speaker 1: Tim Scott, who is running the NRSC, the campaign arm
- 7:54Speaker 1: for Senate Republicans. And they all made comments this week
- 7:58Speaker 1: that were some form of, just give us more time.
- 8:03Speaker 1: It's not over yet. Nobody was talking about the polls
- 8:08Speaker 1: are wrong. There's nothing to see here. Things are going swimmingly.
- 8:14Speaker 1: And it's, in some ways, the talk, The chatter you're
- 8:19Speaker 1: getting out of Scott, Vance, and Thune actually is a
- 8:24Speaker 1: form of desperation. Let me get into the details a
- 8:26Speaker 1: little bit. So J.D. Vance earlier this week is out
- 8:29Speaker 1: there telling voters that, look, there's more work to do.
- 8:33Speaker 1: It's going to take more time to recover. I've heard
- 8:36Speaker 1: this messaging before. And that Republicans need the support of
- 8:40Speaker 1: the American people to, quote, finish the job. So think about,
- 8:45Speaker 1: and his words here were more work to do. Take
- 8:49Speaker 1: more time. Finish the job. Now, on one hand, it's
- 8:54Speaker 1: a form of humility, right? It's admitting this isn't Trump, right?
- 8:58Speaker 1: Trump could not accept the premise that things aren't working
- 9:01Speaker 1: at the moment. Vance, in his own way, is accepting
- 9:04Speaker 1: the premise. He gets it. Hey, people aren't feeling good.
- 9:06Speaker 1: They don't like this economy. He's trying to say, hey,
- 9:09Speaker 1: we're trying to fix it. And this was a couple
- 9:15Speaker 1: of weeks ago, he was directly trying to say, this
- 9:17Speaker 1: is still Biden's economy. Nobody's buying that anymore. Now everybody understands, no,
- 9:21Speaker 1: the Iran war is what has really accelerated what is
- 9:25Speaker 1: this inflationary environment. But it's the closest form of humility
- 9:31Speaker 1: you're going to get out of the Trump West Wing,
- 9:34Speaker 1: is what Vance is doing. But it is also an admission.
- 9:37Speaker 1: If voters were already feeling the benefits of the Trump agenda,
- 9:40Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to tell Voters to give it more time.
- 9:44Speaker 1: You'd be saying, look around, look at what we did.
- 9:47Speaker 1: You're better off. Instead, Vance's argument is essentially, we know
- 9:52Speaker 1: you're not feeling it yet. Just give us another chance.
- 9:55Speaker 1: And he's not alone, right? John Thune talked about the
- 9:58Speaker 1: Trump agenda and the big, beautiful bill. as, you know,
- 10:01Speaker 1: Republicans have set us up for success. That's future tense.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Doesn't mean we're feeling the success yet. And this was
- 10:14Speaker 1: with Sean Hannity. He's talking to the base and he
- 10:18Speaker 1: cannot bring himself to essentially pretend things are better than
- 10:22Speaker 1: they actually are. Tim Scott was earlier this week telling
- 10:27Speaker 1: Republican senators before they left, before they, you know, apparently
- 10:31Speaker 1: the only thing they seem to try to care about
- 10:32Speaker 1: to get done is to protect college sports bill. I mean,
- 10:36Speaker 1: of all things, if that's the last thing, you came
- 10:39Speaker 1: back to Washington, not to lower the price of groceries,
- 10:42Speaker 1: not to lower the price of gas, but to somehow
- 10:47Speaker 1: take money away from college athletes. I know that's my
- 10:51Speaker 1: spin to it, but you get my point, right? You're
- 10:53Speaker 1: more worried about appeasing Nick Saban than you are about
- 10:56Speaker 1: lowering the price of groceries. You're more worried about helping
- 10:59Speaker 1: out the SEC and the Big Ten than you are
- 11:02Speaker 1: about lowering the cost of diesel. Not the best look
- 11:06Speaker 1: right now for a Republican Party tried to justify their
- 11:09Speaker 1: congressional majorities less than five weeks before going into the election.
- 11:14Speaker 1: But let me get into a few more details of
- 11:16Speaker 1: what Scott told his colleagues, according to Semaphore. Tim Scott said,
- 11:20Speaker 1: we're in the fight for our lives with a record
- 11:22Speaker 1: number of toss-up races. So this is Tim Scott being
- 11:26Speaker 1: truthful about the environment. And his message was essentially, hey,
- 11:29Speaker 1: remember 2022? Joe Biden was unpopular. Everybody thought Democrats were
- 11:34Speaker 1: headed for disaster. The country didn't like that economy. And
- 11:38Speaker 1: Democrats actually gained a Senate seat. So this was Scott's way,
- 11:43Speaker 1: you know, it reminded me there was a time, and
- 11:46Speaker 1: Democrats have Stop doing this. But it wasn't just Democrats.
- 11:49Speaker 1: There was a time when a candidate was down in
- 11:52Speaker 1: the polls in the last week. They would invoke Harry Truman. Oh,
- 11:56Speaker 1: you know, Harry Truman, 1948. You know, everybody wrote him off,
- 12:00Speaker 1: said he couldn't win reelection. And lo and behold, he
- 12:02Speaker 1: made a comeback and he won. So you never know, right?
- 12:06Speaker 1: This was Tim Scott's attempt at the Harry Truman, the
- 12:11Speaker 1: Harry Truman motivated speech. Hey, look what Democrats pulled off
- 12:14Speaker 1: in 2022. They turned the red wave into a red mirage.
- 12:20Speaker 1: It's possible. Maybe the blue wave gets turned into a
- 12:22Speaker 1: blue mirage. But let's talk about 2022 for a minute
- 12:26Speaker 1: because Democrats had something in 2022 that Republicans don't appear
- 12:29Speaker 1: to have right now, the Dobbs decision. Dobbs is what
- 12:34Speaker 1: changed that election. Dobbs gave Democrats who didn't like their
- 12:39Speaker 1: own president, didn't love what was happening in the country,
- 12:42Speaker 1: a reason to show up to the polls, right? And
- 12:45Speaker 1: there was a sense of urgency. Oh my God, abortion
- 12:48Speaker 1: rights is now, this is, there is something bigger than
- 12:55Speaker 1: ignoring a bad presidency, right? It gave swing voters a
- 12:59Speaker 1: reason to vote against Republicans, even if they weren't particularly
- 13:02Speaker 1: happy with the Democratic Party's governance. What is the Republican
- 13:07Speaker 1: equivalent right now of that? What's sitting out there that
- 13:12Speaker 1: changes the trajectory of this election in the final few weeks?
- 13:17Speaker 1: There's really nothing equivalent, right? They're trying some culture war issues.
- 13:20Speaker 1: They're trying trans athletes in sports and their gender reassignment
- 13:26Speaker 1: surgery stuff, right? You see they're trying so hard to
- 13:30Speaker 1: bubble this up into the zeitgeist and throw it out there.
- 13:34Speaker 1: You see it in the ads. Elon Musk is creating
- 13:36Speaker 1: all sorts of just BS ads about it, but he's
- 13:41Speaker 1: trying so hard, right? He's got his own sort of
- 13:45Speaker 1: personal reason that he's obsessed with the trans issue. He's
- 13:49Speaker 1: still upset that he has a trans kid and he
- 13:51Speaker 1: doesn't want to look in the mirror and he just
- 13:54Speaker 1: sort of wants to blame society for this issue. But
- 14:00Speaker 1: I'm not sure that creates a Dobbs level of enthusiasm
- 14:07Speaker 1: to show up to the polls to vote for the
- 14:10Speaker 1: MAGA base. In some way. So it doesn't exist. But
- 14:17Speaker 1: what's interesting about all three together, right? Take what Vance, Thune,
- 14:21Speaker 1: and Scott are all saying. All these comments have been
- 14:23Speaker 1: said in the last 36 hours. This is essentially what
- 14:28Speaker 1: a football coach says at halftime when his team is
- 14:30Speaker 1: down four scores. Basically, hey, guys, just don't quit. Don't
- 14:35Speaker 1: walk away. Don't lay down arms. You know, let's give
- 14:38Speaker 1: it the good fight. You never know what could happen.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Maybe there's a turnover. Maybe there's this. And sure, about
- 14:43Speaker 1: one out of 50 times, a team down four scores
- 14:47Speaker 1: comes back and win. Doesn't happen very often, but it
- 14:51Speaker 1: can happen. So sure. And obviously, if you quit now,
- 14:56Speaker 1: bad can get worse in a hurry, right? And to me,
- 15:02Speaker 1: what Scott, Vance, and Thune were trying to do is
- 15:04Speaker 1: prevent a tsunami. They're basically saying, hey, don't give up yet.
- 15:08Speaker 1: Please continue to give money. Please continue to show up.
- 15:14Speaker 1: because if you just walk away now, if you sort
- 15:16Speaker 1: of throw in the towel, well, then it's not just
- 15:19Speaker 1: five Senate seats that you could lose. It's seven or eight, right?
- 15:22Speaker 1: You know, don't let the bottom, right? The bottom falling
- 15:25Speaker 1: out would mean South Carolina, Mississippi, maybe even South Dakota, right? Unlikely,
- 15:31Speaker 1: completely unlikely, but that's what a tsunami does. It creates
- 15:35Speaker 1: political damage you had no idea was coming. But really what,
- 15:41Speaker 1: what this Republican messaging is all about is, hey, there's
- 15:43Speaker 1: still a little bit of time left. They have more money.
- 15:49Speaker 1: If they can spend that money, talk to their voters,
- 15:53Speaker 1: bring out their base, maybe they can mitigate the damage, right?
- 16:00Speaker 1: Who knows? Maybe you have some success. Maybe you get
- 16:04Speaker 1: lucky in New Hampshire and you flip a seat and
- 16:06Speaker 1: you change the math. Maybe you get lucky in Minnesota.
- 16:09Speaker 1: Maybe you get lucky in Michigan. Those seem to be
- 16:12Speaker 1: the three Democratic-held seats that Republicans have a realistic shot
- 16:16Speaker 1: at making competitive. North Carolina and Georgia, by the way,
- 16:20Speaker 1: looks like they've been completely written off. But the thing is,
- 16:24Speaker 1: is when you hear comments like this, just like when
- 16:27Speaker 1: you're hearing a football coach trying to tell a team
- 16:30Speaker 1: losing by four scores that all hope is not lost,
- 16:35Speaker 1: what it does say is When a coach is having
- 16:38Speaker 1: to do that, a coach knows his players are starting
- 16:39Speaker 1: to wonder whether actually all hope is lost. And that's
- 16:43Speaker 1: what these Republican messages sound like to me. It's getting
- 16:46Speaker 1: late early. Early voting has already begun in a handful
- 16:49Speaker 1: of states. And there's, you know, just start changing the
- 16:54Speaker 1: trajectory of a race. You need a couple weeks. Well,
- 16:58Speaker 1: if we're down to five weeks, right, if we're down
- 17:01Speaker 1: to less than six weeks here, right, and we're sitting
- 17:04Speaker 1: in there, how much time do you really have? I've
- 17:08Speaker 1: said that basically the end of this month, we're kind
- 17:11Speaker 1: of going to know where everything is. We'll have an
- 17:13Speaker 1: idea by the 1st of October whether any of this
- 17:20Speaker 1: late TV advertising that has certainly saturated your Ohio's, your Iowa's,
- 17:26Speaker 1: and your Texas's, whether it has had any meaningful impact. Now,
- 17:34Speaker 1: I do think we may see more people voting later,
- 17:37Speaker 1: by the way. I know one I know I said
- 17:39Speaker 1: it's getting late early, you know, using a Yogi Berra ism.
- 17:43Speaker 1: But these days, because of the early vote, it is.
- 17:46Speaker 1: But I do think because of the shenanigans Trump has
- 17:50Speaker 1: attempted to do with mail in voting, we're seeing some
- 17:54Speaker 1: evidence in polling that a lot of Democrats may wait
- 17:57Speaker 1: later to vote, may decide to vote in person or
- 18:00Speaker 1: early in person rather than just through the mail. So
- 18:05Speaker 1: I guess perhaps you could say there might be a
- 18:08Speaker 1: little more runway for Republicans and that Democrats might not
- 18:11Speaker 1: bank as many votes early here. But I do promise
- 18:14Speaker 1: you this, any votes that get banked early are likely
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- 20:24Speaker 1: me to Donald Trump. If Trump is going to try
- 20:29Speaker 1: to change the political environment over the next few weeks,
- 20:32Speaker 1: there is one place where he clearly understands he has
- 20:34Speaker 1: to do it, and it's prices, which brings us to diesel.
- 20:39Speaker 1: The White House is now preparing to respond to all
- 20:42Speaker 1: of the Republicans in swing states, particularly in the Midwest,
- 20:45Speaker 1: who are panicked about the price of diesel. They are
- 20:47Speaker 1: preparing a proposal for what is a 90-day ban on
- 20:51Speaker 1: diesel exports. But apparently there's a fight inside the administration
- 20:56Speaker 1: over whether to actually do it, because not everybody thinks
- 21:00Speaker 1: this is a good idea. And in fact, it may
- 21:02Speaker 1: be like pretty much most of Trump's financial ideas, right?
- 21:06Speaker 1: He's borrowing from the future to try to get something now.
- 21:10Speaker 1: And instead, when he mortgages the future, he's making it
- 21:14Speaker 1: more costly down the road. I get why Trump's desperate
- 21:18Speaker 1: to do it, right? Diesel is north of six bucks
- 21:21Speaker 1: a gallon and probably more likely to get to seven
- 21:25Speaker 1: than it is to get below six. And we know
- 21:29Speaker 1: diesel just doesn't affect somebody driving a diesel truck. It's farmers.
- 21:33Speaker 1: It is the fuel for our ag economy. Hard stop, right?
- 21:38Speaker 1: It's how the food gets to your grocery store. Diesel
- 21:41Speaker 1: is what powers food to get to your grocery store.
- 21:43Speaker 1: It's how the stuff you order gets to your house. Eventually,
- 21:47Speaker 1: the price of diesel shows up in the price of
- 21:49Speaker 1: almost everything. So here comes the idea that sounds great
- 21:53Speaker 1: on a bumper sticker. Stop exporting American diesel. Let's keep
- 21:56Speaker 1: as much supply as we can here to keep costs down. OK,
- 22:01Speaker 1: sounds reasonable, except there's a reason even Trump's own energy
- 22:04Speaker 1: secretary reportedly is fighting the idea. And here's why. Refineries
- 22:09Speaker 1: don't make gasoline over here and diesel over there. It
- 22:14Speaker 1: isn't two separate products in two separate refineries. These products
- 22:18Speaker 1: are actually produced together, gas for your car and the
- 22:20Speaker 1: diesel for the products that need diesel fuel, like tractors,
- 22:27Speaker 1: et cetera. If refiners suddenly can't sell all that excess
- 22:31Speaker 1: diesel overseas, they'll start to cut refinery production. Well, what
- 22:37Speaker 1: does that do? Well, then you end up producing less gasoline.
- 22:42Speaker 1: So you may lower diesel's price temporarily and simultaneously raise
- 22:48Speaker 1: the cost of a gallon of gas. Literally robbing Peter
- 22:53Speaker 1: to pay Paul. And this gets the predicament Trump is in, right?
- 22:57Speaker 1: He needs something voters can feel in a matter of weeks, right?
- 23:01Speaker 1: He's desperate for something, anything. He doesn't have time to
- 23:05Speaker 1: announce some grand economic policy that might produce benefits in
- 23:08Speaker 1: 18 months. Although he tried that, I'll send you a
- 23:12Speaker 1: $ 5, 000 check if you keep Republicans in power. He's desperate
- 23:16Speaker 1: to bring down prices or to get put money in
- 23:19Speaker 1: or be perceived to be trying to put money in
- 23:22Speaker 1: the pocket of his voters. And I expect we're going
- 23:26Speaker 1: to actually have a lot of attempts at Iranian diplomacy
- 23:30Speaker 1: over the next few weeks. Because I have a feeling
- 23:32Speaker 1: he's going to use Iran. opportunities for diplomacy simply to
- 23:37Speaker 1: try to jawbone down prices. One day it will be
- 23:40Speaker 1: Iran better watch out. The next day, hey, we had
- 23:43Speaker 1: a great conversation. And then he hopes somehow the price
- 23:45Speaker 1: of gas goes down. We're close to a deal, he
- 23:48Speaker 1: may tell us. Although regret it if they don't make
- 23:51Speaker 1: a deal because he realizes the Iranians are not blind
- 23:55Speaker 1: to our political calendar, folks. And they know they have
- 23:59Speaker 1: a lot more leverage over Trump after the election than
- 24:03Speaker 1: they do at the moment. How do we know this?
- 24:06Speaker 1: Trump himself said it during his speech to the U.N.
- 24:09Speaker 1: He goes, they think they're going to have more leverage
- 24:11Speaker 1: over me. Well, they won't. The narrator, this is the
- 24:15Speaker 1: part where the narrator jumps in, in the voice of
- 24:18Speaker 1: Ron Howard and says, oh, yes, they do. And so
- 24:24Speaker 1: I suspect over the next couple of weeks, you're going
- 24:26Speaker 1: to be hearing about how close we are to a deal.
- 24:29Speaker 1: We've had some great conversations. We just heard it over
- 24:32Speaker 1: during this U.N. week, right? the objective is obvious. Anything
- 24:36Speaker 1: to convince the markets to bring energy prices down, right?
- 24:40Speaker 1: He will say, we've got oil moving through the strait.
- 24:44Speaker 1: All the independent reporting has indicated, no, you don't. But again,
- 24:48Speaker 1: it's about job owning, buying time, et cetera. I don't
- 24:51Speaker 1: know if markets are going to listen, right? The more
- 24:55Speaker 1: he does this, and he's kind of done this crying
- 24:58Speaker 1: wolf with a deal with Iran now for pretty much
- 25:01Speaker 1: the entire time that he started this war. And so
- 25:05Speaker 1: your credibility with everybody wears over time. And more and more,
- 25:11Speaker 1: fewer will believe it. So markets may not believe it.
- 25:15Speaker 1: And at this point, are voters going to believe it?
- 25:17Speaker 1: And that's the most important question. Ultimately, you can't job
- 25:21Speaker 1: own somebody's grocery bill then. And that's the problem Republicans
- 25:24Speaker 1: are trying to solve with very little time left to
- 25:27Speaker 1: solve it. Now let's go to the Democratic side of
- 25:30Speaker 1: the aisle, because there's another fascinating problem developing on that side.
- 25:34Speaker 1: It's money. And specifically, it's the inability of the party
- 25:38Speaker 1: at the moment to suddenly invest in races that many
- 25:41Speaker 1: people thought would not be that competitive six months ago,
- 25:45Speaker 1: but suddenly are now. But this is where the finance
- 25:50Speaker 1: problem that Democrats have been facing all cycle long, going
- 25:53Speaker 1: back to going into deep debt for the 2024 campaign,
- 26:00Speaker 1: is this money problem was gonna show up somewhere. And
- 26:04Speaker 1: the question was, was it gonna cost them a shot
- 26:06Speaker 1: at control of Congress or was it gonna cost them
- 26:09Speaker 1: an opportunity to turn a blue wave into a blue tsunami?
- 26:12Speaker 1: At this point, it looks like at a minimum, it's
- 26:15Speaker 1: gonna cost them an opportunity to turn a blue wave
- 26:18Speaker 1: into a blue tsunami. There are three races in particular
- 26:22Speaker 1: where the Democratic Party's money problems are, preventing them from
- 26:27Speaker 1: having a real opportunity at flipping these long-shot races. Mississippi Senate,
- 26:32Speaker 1: South Carolina Senate, and Florida governor. And Mississippi and South
- 26:37Speaker 1: Carolina are particularly interesting to me because these aren't very
- 26:40Speaker 1: expensive states in the grand scheme of things. Scott Cullum
- 26:46Speaker 1: in Mississippi has Democratic officials in the state publicly pleading
- 26:49Speaker 1: with the national party to invest. Annie Andrews, the Democratic
- 26:53Speaker 1: nominee in South Carolina, You would think now that South
- 26:57Speaker 1: Carolina is first in line for the Democratic presidential race,
- 27:01Speaker 1: that there'd be a lot of presidential candidates that would
- 27:03Speaker 1: be motivated to help her. And I've been, I have
- 27:07Speaker 1: to say, I think that there's so many Democrats running
- 27:10Speaker 1: around who would like to be considered presidential candidates in 2028.
- 27:15Speaker 1: I think they've missed two incredible opportunities here. to essentially
- 27:21Speaker 1: prove that they know how to be a party leader
- 27:23Speaker 1: and prove that they can marshal resources on behalf of
- 27:26Speaker 1: a candidate in one state. You want to demonstrate leadership
- 27:29Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party? Pick one. Pick Mississippi. Pick South Carolina.
- 27:33Speaker 1: Bring your own fundraising network to the state. Bring your
- 27:36Speaker 1: own donors. Bring attention. Raise money for your own super
- 27:39Speaker 1: PAC on their behalf. Show that you want to be
- 27:43Speaker 1: leader of the party as well as leader of the
- 27:45Speaker 1: free world.
- 27:48Speaker 2: I am.
- 27:49Speaker 1: It is this opportunity has been sitting there, whether you're
- 27:52Speaker 1: Andy Beshear, whether you're Rahm Emanuel, whether you're J.B. Pritzker,
- 27:56Speaker 1: whether you're Wes Moore. Now, I know some folks have
- 27:58Speaker 1: their own races to worry about. OK, there's plenty that don't.
- 28:04Speaker 3: Right.
- 28:04Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom could have done. There's a lot of folks
- 28:07Speaker 1: that could have done this. And they've, you know, they've
- 28:10Speaker 1: shown up in Mississippi to do, you know, a few
- 28:13Speaker 1: people have shown up to Mississippi to to do an
- 28:15Speaker 1: event or two with with with the candidates. Ditto in
- 28:20Speaker 1: South Carolina. But none of them have said, you know what,
- 28:24Speaker 1: instead of just trying to hopscotch around the country, I'm
- 28:29Speaker 1: going to do everything I can to turn a red
- 28:33Speaker 1: state blue. Anyway, it's a it's with all these ambitious
- 28:39Speaker 1: people wanting to be president. It's amazing to me that
- 28:42Speaker 1: none of them saw this opportunity to demonstrate some leadership
- 28:47Speaker 1: that would have been unique. And something we hadn't, it
- 28:50Speaker 1: would have allowed them to stand out, particularly with the
- 28:53Speaker 1: single most important constituency in a Democratic presidential primary, African-American voters.
- 29:00Speaker 1: But look, the other issue is, it's just, this is
- 29:03Speaker 1: welcome to the Democratic Party's money problem. Now, the big
- 29:06Speaker 1: one is Florida. And Florida's different. Florida is entering the
- 29:10Speaker 1: category Texas had occupied for Democrats for a couple of cycles.
- 29:14Speaker 1: By the time everybody looks up now in Florida and says,
- 29:17Speaker 1: wait a minute, This race might be competitive. It's too
- 29:20Speaker 1: late to invest because it's such an expensive state. Florida
- 29:26Speaker 1: is enormous. It's not as enormous as Texas, but it's
- 29:29Speaker 1: a lot closer than you think. The media markets are expensive.
- 29:33Speaker 1: And it is just like in Texas. You can't decide
- 29:36Speaker 1: in late September that you're going to dump an extra
- 29:38Speaker 1: 20 to 30 million dollars. into a state if you
- 29:41Speaker 1: didn't budget for it. And frankly, to just suddenly show
- 29:44Speaker 1: up and do this from scratch. So, look, I don't
- 29:49Speaker 1: think the Democratic Party's money problems are going to cost
- 29:53Speaker 1: them an opportunity to win the House or the Senate.
- 29:55Speaker 1: Money is not going to be the reason why if
- 29:57Speaker 1: they come up short in the House or come up
- 29:59Speaker 1: short in the Senate, That is not going to be
- 30:01Speaker 1: the reason. But if this doesn't turn, if they have
- 30:05Speaker 1: a blue wave that could have been turned into a
- 30:07Speaker 1: blue tsunami and they come less than three points short
- 30:10Speaker 1: in Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, those three are as good
- 30:14Speaker 1: of a test as any. That's where you can point
- 30:18Speaker 1: the finger at the Democratic Party's money woes as being
- 30:22Speaker 1: the explanation of why they came up, why they couldn't
- 30:25Speaker 1: take advantage of an opportunity that is just sitting there.
- 30:29Speaker 1: Mississippi is just sitting there. South Carolina is just sitting there.
- 30:33Speaker 1: Florida governor is a lot more expensive, but it's also possible.
- 30:40Speaker 1: But like I said, like what used to happen to Texas, right?
- 30:44Speaker 1: This is the first cycle where Democrats actually planned to
- 30:49Speaker 1: put Texas in play more than a year out. They
- 30:53Speaker 1: were not thinking that at all in the state of Florida.
- 30:56Speaker 1: And now that the opportunity stares them in the face,
- 31:00Speaker 1: it's probably too late. Maybe it's not, you never know,
- 31:03Speaker 1: bottom could fall out, but it might be too late.
- 31:07Speaker 1: All right, now I wanna shift gears because I wanna
- 31:08Speaker 1: talk about something that I know isn't gonna decide very
- 31:12Speaker 1: many votes in November, which is why I'm not leading
- 31:14Speaker 1: with this. But it may matter a hell of a
- 31:18Speaker 1: lot longer than whatever happens this November or frankly in
- 31:20Speaker 1: November of 2028. Donald Trump went to the United Nations
- 31:24Speaker 1: earlier this week and gave another one of those speeches
- 31:27Speaker 1: That I think Americans hear one way and the rest
- 31:29Speaker 1: of the world hears very differently. We kind of shrug
- 31:33Speaker 1: our shoulders to his gobbledygook and move on. But there
- 31:37Speaker 1: was one line that stopped me. And I gave you
- 31:40Speaker 1: a preview with it in the previous episode. Trump was
- 31:43Speaker 1: bragging about Venezuela. The oil agreement administration, it struck with
- 31:48Speaker 1: the government now running the country. Although, again, it's an
- 31:52Speaker 1: illegitimate government. At least we used to claim it was
- 31:54Speaker 1: an illegitimate government, right? It's the Maduro crime family, essentially,
- 31:57Speaker 1: still running Venezuela. Except they now, instead of reporting to Maduro,
- 32:04Speaker 1: Delcy Rodriguez reports to Trump. But he said the line,
- 32:08Speaker 1: to the victor belong the spoils. At the United Nations,
- 32:15Speaker 1: the president of the United States of America, the country
- 32:18Speaker 1: that was one time a beacon for freedom and democracy.
- 32:24Speaker 1: Think about the message that sends because everybody else gets
- 32:28Speaker 1: to hear it too. And this gets at what I
- 32:32Speaker 1: think has become a fundamental problem with Trump's foreign policy.
- 32:37Speaker 1: People sometimes say it's incoherent. I don't think it's fully incoherent.
- 32:41Speaker 1: There's some consistencies to it, right? There is a coherency.
- 32:45Speaker 1: The coherency is Donald Trump, right? It revolves around him,
- 32:49Speaker 1: his instincts, his relationships, his grievances and whims. You know,
- 32:54Speaker 1: he doesn't like multilateralism, right? That's a consistent policy. He
- 32:58Speaker 1: wants to deal with everybody one-on-one. I've always said the
- 33:00Speaker 1: real reason he loves tariffs is control. You know, he
- 33:04Speaker 1: doesn't really care up or down. He just wants control.
- 33:07Speaker 1: And tariffs give him a perception of control in a relationship.
- 33:13Speaker 1: He loves the bilateral relationships, right? Because he somehow thinks
- 33:17Speaker 1: it gives him more leverage. All right. But you know what?
- 33:21Speaker 1: United States is a Does it unilaterally decide how the
- 33:24Speaker 1: world works? We used to be pretty influential to help
- 33:29Speaker 1: decide how the world works because we had credibility. Now,
- 33:34Speaker 1: we may very well suddenly start being not quite a
- 33:40Speaker 1: shining city on a hill, but a shiny metal object
- 33:46Speaker 1: that people start to emulate in all the wrong ways.
- 33:52Speaker 1: And that's the concern. And that's the damage that Donald
- 33:55Speaker 1: Trump has done. And we're now seeing the consequences of
- 33:58Speaker 1: what happens when you create this sort of America first
- 34:03Speaker 1: foreign policy. If everything is America first and you don't
- 34:09Speaker 1: give a damn about what happens to the rest of
- 34:11Speaker 1: the world, guess what? Everybody else is going to follow suit.
- 34:16Speaker 1: Let's start. I think one of the great consequences of
- 34:19Speaker 1: of lost trust and lost credibility is actually with Saudi Arabia,
- 34:23Speaker 1: who I'm sure Donald Trump thinks is an incredible ally.
- 34:27Speaker 1: He's certainly an incredible business partner to some members of
- 34:30Speaker 1: his family. So the United States and Israel went to
- 34:33Speaker 1: war with Iran. Seven months later, that war is still going.
- 34:38Speaker 1: Iran's proxies have expanded the conflict. The Houthis are attacking
- 34:42Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia again. The Saudis are asking the United States
- 34:45Speaker 1: for help since, well, It was the United States' decision
- 34:50Speaker 1: to go to war with Iran that has caused Saudi
- 34:52Speaker 1: Arabia to suddenly be fighting with the Houthis again. And
- 34:56Speaker 1: the United States is hesitating.
- 35:00Speaker 3: Now, why?
- 35:01Speaker 1: Well, one obvious reason is we're pretty stretched. We're not
- 35:05Speaker 1: ready to, frankly, we were uncomfortable opening a one-front war,
- 35:09Speaker 1: let alone having a two-front war. We've spent enormous amounts
- 35:13Speaker 1: of money and munitions on this war with Iran. And
- 35:16Speaker 1: we clearly were not, we never had planned for it,
- 35:20Speaker 1: which is why we're scrambling constantly all over the place.
- 35:24Speaker 1: The Pentagon's own audit of the cost of this war
- 35:27Speaker 1: is somewhere in 40 to 50 billion. It's likely more
- 35:31Speaker 1: than that. And we have had repeated reports and leaks
- 35:36Speaker 1: out of the Pentagon that we have a massive munition problem.
- 35:39Speaker 1: And part of it is we've been essentially giving Israel
- 35:43Speaker 1: and Ukraine our munitions for self-defense. And the idea, when
- 35:51Speaker 1: we sell arms, a lot of times, essentially, we buy
- 35:55Speaker 1: the new stuff from our manufacturers and our defense contractors.
- 36:00Speaker 1: And what's in our stockpiles, we give, we sell, or
- 36:05Speaker 1: we give, depending on what we decide to do, to
- 36:08Speaker 1: our key allies. Right. Well, we've been doing this a while,
- 36:12Speaker 1: particularly with Ukraine and Israel, and it is really drawn
- 36:16Speaker 1: down our inventories. Then we start a war, which we
- 36:19Speaker 1: did not plan for. And it's clear the Pentagon had
- 36:22Speaker 1: no preparation for this war. Because look at how we've
- 36:27Speaker 1: had to move carrier groups and, you know, we've had
- 36:29Speaker 1: to weaken ourselves in one area while we strengthen ourselves
- 36:32Speaker 1: in another.
- 36:36Speaker 2: And so.
- 36:37Speaker 1: But imagine you're Saudi Arabia. And I'm not endorsing whether, look,
- 36:41Speaker 1: we started this war. We have an important ally and
- 36:44Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia is suddenly asking for our help and we're
- 36:46Speaker 1: choking in the moment, right? And this has real consequences.
- 36:51Speaker 1: Trump apparently has gone back and forth about whether to
- 36:53Speaker 1: open another front and help the Saudis out with the Houthis.
- 36:57Speaker 1: Put yourself in the shoes of the Saudis for a
- 36:59Speaker 1: second and forget whether you like the Saudis. You may
- 37:06Speaker 1: not want to have them as an ally, but they are.
- 37:08Speaker 1: We've made security agreements with them, okay? If you're running
- 37:12Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia at the moment, you have to answer a
- 37:14Speaker 1: very simple question. Can I count on the United States
- 37:17Speaker 1: as my security partner and my security umbrella? What's your
- 37:22Speaker 1: answer today? Now, that's the same question in Europe. Can
- 37:27Speaker 1: Europe assume that the United States will always be there?
- 37:31Speaker 1: It's a question Ukraine's asking. It's a question Taiwan's asking.
- 37:35Speaker 1: How about Japan? How about Canada? Canada is particularly important
- 37:38Speaker 1: here because Mark Carney isn't just complaining about Donald Trump.
- 37:41Speaker 1: He's trying to do something about it. Canada is actively
- 37:44Speaker 1: trying to build a much deeper relationship with Europe unilaterally
- 37:48Speaker 1: because he can't trust the United States. Carney is talking
- 37:52Speaker 1: about an alliance of what he calls middle powers, basically
- 37:54Speaker 1: anybody but China, the United States and Russia. Canada is
- 37:58Speaker 1: pursuing closer economic defense and strategic ties with the European
- 38:02Speaker 1: Union precisely because He has concluded he can no longer
- 38:06Speaker 1: count on the United States. Think about that. Canada, our
- 38:11Speaker 1: next door neighbor. If you had asked me 10 years
- 38:15Speaker 1: ago to name the country that had the least reason
- 38:17Speaker 1: on earth to hedge against the United States, Canada would
- 38:20Speaker 1: probably have been number one on the list. But Canada
- 38:25Speaker 1: feels like it has to hedge. Our allies still want
- 38:28Speaker 1: us as an ally. What they increasingly don't want to
- 38:32Speaker 1: do is build a system that requires America to always
- 38:36Speaker 1: be in charge because of how poorly this president has
- 38:40Speaker 1: led the world. Look at what happened when this guy
- 38:44Speaker 1: got put in charge. And this is the part that
- 38:48Speaker 1: I think people underestimate. Again, I know foreign policy isn't
- 38:52Speaker 1: a voting issue unless it's impacting cost of living at home,
- 38:57Speaker 1: a la Iran war. The next president can't simply walk
- 39:02Speaker 1: into the Oval Office and say, okay, everybody, America's back.
- 39:05Speaker 1: Forget the last eight of the last 12 years. We
- 39:09Speaker 1: tried that once already with our allies, and then Trump
- 39:12Speaker 1: came back. And that is what's changed the calculation for everybody,
- 39:17Speaker 1: whether you're Saudi Arabia or Canada. The first Trump presidency
- 39:22Speaker 1: could be viewed overseas as an aberration. The second Trump
- 39:26Speaker 1: presidency tells every government on earth that this is something
- 39:30Speaker 1: the American political system can produce again. So now if
- 39:35Speaker 1: you're an ally, you have to hedge. What choice do
- 39:37Speaker 1: you have at the moment? You have to build another
- 39:39Speaker 1: supply chain. You got to build other military relationships, maybe
- 39:43Speaker 1: other security relationships. You might need another, find another source
- 39:48Speaker 1: of energy. You have to ask whether American intelligence cooperation
- 39:53Speaker 1: will still exist four years from now. Whether you can
- 39:56Speaker 1: trust the American intelligence operation. You have to ask whether
- 40:00Speaker 1: the treaty will mean the same thing under another president.
- 40:05Speaker 1: This is the enormous damage Donald Trump has done to
- 40:08Speaker 1: all of us. He's made us all less safe, folks.
- 40:11Speaker 1: This doesn't get repaired with one election. It's going to
- 40:14Speaker 1: take multiple presidents from multiple parties. to win back the
- 40:21Speaker 1: trust and credibility of some of our closest allies, never
- 40:24Speaker 1: mind skeptics we already had around the world. It's going
- 40:29Speaker 1: to take administrations honoring agreements made by previous administrations of
- 40:32Speaker 1: other political ideologies for us to get some credibility back.
- 40:40Speaker 1: Because that's how you rebuild trust. It takes time. You
- 40:45Speaker 1: can destroy trust in a single presidential term. It takes
- 40:50Speaker 1: you multiple terms to get it back. And then look
- 40:54Speaker 1: at the weird signals we're sending now as leader, supposedly
- 40:58Speaker 1: leader of the free world. We're rolling out the red
- 41:00Speaker 1: carpet for Xi Jinping. I thought this guy was one of,
- 41:05Speaker 1: was America's chief rival. Now look, I want to be
- 41:09Speaker 1: clear about something. I have no problem with the president
- 41:11Speaker 1: of the United States having summits and sitting down with
- 41:15Speaker 1: the leader of China and the leader of Russia, talking
- 41:18Speaker 1: on the phone, We should always be talking with our adversaries.
- 41:22Speaker 1: We should always be open to talk. Talk to Kim Jong-un.
- 41:25Speaker 1: Talk to Putin. Talk to Xi. It's one of the
- 41:28Speaker 1: few things that I think Trump, I'm glad he's gotten
- 41:31Speaker 1: rid of that sort of ridiculous protocol. You should always
- 41:35Speaker 1: be opening, open to talking, including with crazy-ass ideologues you
- 41:40Speaker 1: don't agree with. The question's not whether you sit down
- 41:46Speaker 1: with them. The question is, what you stand for when
- 41:49Speaker 1: you sit down with them. Do you defend democracy? Do
- 41:52Speaker 1: you defend your allies? Do you defend Western values? Do
- 42:00Speaker 1: you talk about human rights? Do you have the credibility
- 42:04Speaker 1: to talk about human rights? Do you actually advocate for democracy?
- 42:09Speaker 1: I mean, The Chinese government censors the press vigorously. And
- 42:21Speaker 1: what is this president trying to do in the week
- 42:24Speaker 1: he hosts Xi at the White House? Censor the press.
- 42:29Speaker 1: He's jealous of the power Xi has. Every other American
- 42:34Speaker 1: president looked at the Chinese system and said, that's terrible.
- 42:38Speaker 1: This president looks at the Chinese system and wishes it
- 42:43Speaker 1: was the one he could run. Sit with that a minute.
- 42:49Speaker 1: He weirdly respects and loves the fact that what she
- 42:53Speaker 1: says goes. It's interesting to me that Trump's alone here
- 43:02Speaker 1: in celebrating. I mean, you want to talk about a
- 43:04Speaker 1: politically terrible timing to vet the leading communist in the
- 43:10Speaker 1: world at the White House. It's less than six weeks
- 43:13Speaker 1: before a midterm election. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of
- 43:17Speaker 1: the Senate Armed Services Committee, was so uncomfortable with this
- 43:21Speaker 1: lavish welcome. Trump is dragging his ass out to Andrews
- 43:25Speaker 1: to welcome she. Roger Wicker took to the Senate floor
- 43:29Speaker 1: to say how uncomfortable he was. Meanwhile, what is Marco
- 43:34Speaker 1: Rubio report out this week that Donald Trump, he's confirmed
- 43:38Speaker 1: that Vladimir Putin has officially been invited to to the
- 43:41Speaker 1: G20 meeting in Miami in December at his Doral Country Club.
- 43:48Speaker 1: By the way, nobody in the G20 wants Putin there.
- 43:50Speaker 1: Putin is a menace to the world. Putin is trying
- 43:54Speaker 1: to destroy a country. And he's killed hundreds of thousands
- 43:58Speaker 1: of people, kidnapped children. And Donald Trump wants his sidekick
- 44:05Speaker 1: hanging out with him at Doral? Look, talking to Putin, though,
- 44:10Speaker 1: isn't the problem. But what are you telling the world
- 44:15Speaker 1: that America stands for that you want him there when
- 44:18Speaker 1: other members of the G20 don't? It brings me back
- 44:24Speaker 1: to the Victor go the spoils bullshit that Trump said
- 44:27Speaker 1: at the UN. If that's America's principle, well, guess what?
- 44:34Speaker 1: It only reinforces Putin's worldview. It only reinforces when Putin thinks, hey,
- 44:40Speaker 1: Ukraine belongs to us, to the victor go the spoils,
- 44:43Speaker 1: although he can't win that war. Or China looks at Taiwan,
- 44:48Speaker 1: to the victor go the spoils, going to take all
- 44:50Speaker 1: the chips. Meanwhile, you're going to have middle powers. Why
- 44:55Speaker 1: shouldn't India think this way? Why shouldn't Brazil think this way? Nigeria,
- 45:00Speaker 1: South Africa. Why wouldn't every aspiring regional power look around
- 45:06Speaker 1: at a weaker neighbor and say, you know what? To
- 45:08Speaker 1: the victor belong the spoils. That's the permission slip Donald
- 45:13Speaker 1: Trump just handed out at the United Nations this week.
- 45:17Speaker 1: If the United States announces that its foreign policy is
- 45:20Speaker 1: simply going to be in the pursuit of American self-interest,
- 45:25Speaker 1: not shared interests, not shared alliances or values, but simply
- 45:30Speaker 1: our interests, then everybody else is going to do exactly
- 45:34Speaker 1: the same thing. And you may think you're going to
- 45:38Speaker 1: like that world in theory, but I promise you all
- 45:43Speaker 1: that does is create the conditions for a lot more war.
- 45:48Speaker 1: The more unilateral things are, the more trade wars that exist,
- 45:52Speaker 1: the higher tariff walls are, the more fight we have
- 45:56Speaker 1: over whose resources belong to who, it only increases the
- 46:01Speaker 1: likelihood of war. America built this post-war system for a reason.
- 46:10Speaker 1: It wasn't charity. It was security for us. And it
- 46:13Speaker 1: was security for free people. We didn't build NATO because
- 46:17Speaker 1: we felt sorry for Europe. We didn't create these economic
- 46:20Speaker 1: alliances because we're nice people. We did it because an
- 46:24Speaker 1: interconnected system in which America had dependable allies actually made
- 46:29Speaker 1: America richer and safer. And now we're dismantling these pieces
- 46:35Speaker 1: with astonishing quickness. And that's the thing about Hurricane Trump.
- 46:41Speaker 1: The storm eventually passes, but the damage sits. Sometimes it
- 46:46Speaker 1: takes years to recover from a storm. And Hurricane Trump,
- 46:49Speaker 1: when it comes to our foreign policy, this is going
- 46:51Speaker 1: to take decades. And I think we're only beginning to
- 46:54Speaker 1: understand the damage that's accumulated here. Trump didn't blow all
- 46:58Speaker 1: this up in his first term the way some people
- 47:00Speaker 1: feared he might. But the second coming of Trump has
- 47:03Speaker 1: changed things. Our allies now know this wasn't a one-time accident.
- 47:08Speaker 1: This can happen again and again. So they're now preparing
- 47:11Speaker 1: for a world in which America is less reliable, a
- 47:15Speaker 1: world in which America has less influence, a world in
- 47:19Speaker 1: which America is less safe because we have less influence,
- 47:25Speaker 1: because we've become less reliable. And this doesn't show up
- 47:29Speaker 1: neatly in a midterm poll. Diesel prices does, right? The
- 47:34Speaker 1: grocery bill does. But foreign alliances and our personal security don't.
- 47:39Speaker 1: until suddenly you need one. And you discover that the
- 47:42Speaker 1: country you've spent decades telling to trust you decided it
- 47:45Speaker 1: needed a backup plan. So this isn't going to be
- 47:49Speaker 1: repaired on January 20th, 2029 by somebody different sitting behind
- 47:53Speaker 1: the resolute desk. It took decades to build up this credibility,
- 47:58Speaker 1: and it's going to take years to rebuild it. Multiple
- 48:02Speaker 1: presidents and multiple parties. And every time an American president
- 48:08Speaker 1: goes before the United Nations and tells the world to
- 48:12Speaker 1: the victor go along the spoils, the clock starts over again.
- 48:20Speaker 1: I know we shrug away what he's done to our
- 48:23Speaker 1: relationships around the world. But all of them, what he's
- 48:28Speaker 1: done is made us poorer and made us less secure.
- 48:33Speaker 1: We've never been more vulnerable than to the outside world
- 48:37Speaker 1: attacking us than we have during this last two years.
- 48:40Speaker 1: And there's only one person's foreign policy you have to
- 48:42Speaker 1: thank for that. Hey, this episode of the Chuck Toddcast
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- 50:17Speaker 1: August of 2026. Dear Chuck, first, hello to Mrs. Todd.
- 50:25Speaker 1: I hope she's having a beautiful September. Well, she's glad
- 50:29Speaker 1: to hear that. This comes from Douglas, a Ravens fan
- 50:31Speaker 1: living in PG County, Maryland's 4th District. During your Super
- 50:35Speaker 1: Tuesday discussion about Kamala Harris's 2028 chances, you mentioned the
- 50:39Speaker 1: limited examples of candidates successfully running for president multiple times,
- 50:42Speaker 1: including Trump and Grover Cleveland. What about Richard Nixon? Are
- 50:45Speaker 1: there any parallels or lessons from Nixon's political career that
- 50:48Speaker 1: Harris could take if she decides to run again in
- 50:50Speaker 1: 28 or 2032? You know, it does, right? I mean,
- 50:55Speaker 1: you want to talk about your parallels, right? She was
- 50:57Speaker 1: There was a whole bunch of people trying to get
- 50:58Speaker 1: her to run for governor, right? Because the field and she... Look,
- 51:02Speaker 1: had she chosen to run for governor, she'd have walked
- 51:04Speaker 1: into the governor's mansion. I think Richard Nixon thought he
- 51:08Speaker 1: was going to rock into the governor's mansion after he
- 51:09Speaker 1: lost the presidency in 60. And he ran into a
- 51:12Speaker 1: juggernaut that was Pat Brown. And that doesn't happen. Instead,
- 51:16Speaker 1: it was a guy named Ronald Reagan that was able
- 51:17Speaker 1: to defeat a guy named Pat Brown, something Richard Nixon
- 51:21Speaker 1: could not do. But yes, I think... So this is where,
- 51:29Speaker 1: you know, what did Nixon, why was Nixon able to
- 51:32Speaker 1: come back in 68? Because of what happened in 64, right?
- 51:37Speaker 1: And so in that sense, yes, this is why Harris
- 51:41Speaker 1: shouldn't run in 28. Now, the question is, what makes
- 51:44Speaker 1: her viable in 2032? A the Democratic nominee, I'm making
- 51:52Speaker 1: the assumption it'll come further to the left than where
- 51:55Speaker 1: Harris is, farther to the progressive side. But what it
- 51:59Speaker 1: would take is what happened to the Republicans, right? Barry
- 52:01Speaker 1: Goldwater took the Republicans to one of its worst performances
- 52:06Speaker 1: in the 20th century. And suddenly it made, it was
- 52:11Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, whoa, well, Nixon almost won in 60s.
- 52:15Speaker 1: Goldwater got trounced in 60. Maybe we ought to take
- 52:18Speaker 1: a second look at Nixon come 68, right? And there
- 52:21Speaker 1: was a little bit of the Rockefeller wing and all
- 52:23Speaker 1: this stuff. And then Nixon presented himself. He was the
- 52:26Speaker 1: candidate that conservatives didn't hate, but that the Rockefeller Republicans
- 52:32Speaker 1: thought they could tolerate. In fact, one of the most
- 52:34Speaker 1: important Rockefeller Republicans to join the Nixon movement was Henry Kissinger,
- 52:40Speaker 1: who had begun that campaign. He was a Rockefeller guy.
- 52:44Speaker 1: And then he ended up And a big critic of Nixon's.
- 52:48Speaker 1: Then he ended up in the Nixon camp. So if
- 52:51Speaker 1: you were looking for that parallel, it sits there, right?
- 52:54Speaker 1: So what are the ingredients? A shellacking in.
- 52:58Speaker 3: 28 that suddenly makes Kamala Harris's performance in 24 look.
- 53:10Speaker 1: A lot better come 2032, which is essentially now. Can
- 53:14Speaker 1: she position herself as this person that can bridge the
- 53:17Speaker 1: divide between the progressives and the sort of the business left,
- 53:22Speaker 1: if you will? That would be the open question I
- 53:26Speaker 1: would have. But I think that if you're asking for
- 53:28Speaker 1: the Nixon parallel, Nixon doesn't come back in 68 if
- 53:34Speaker 1: Republicans are more competitive in 64, even if they lose, right?
- 53:38Speaker 1: What gave Nixon an entree in 68 was the shellacking
- 53:42Speaker 1: in 64. That's one theory of the case. That's at
- 53:45Speaker 1: least my theory of the case. All right. Next question
- 53:48Speaker 1: comes from Nan from Sacramento's California's 6th District, where she
- 53:55Speaker 1: says we're going to send Kevin Kiley packing. All right.
- 53:58Speaker 1: Dream big. Assume Democrats take both the House and Senate
- 54:01Speaker 1: and you're suddenly majority leader and speaker. What are the
- 54:04Speaker 1: five most important issues you'd want Congress to tackle when
- 54:07Speaker 1: the new majority takes over in January? And what legislation
- 54:09Speaker 1: would you want to send to Trump's desk first? Love
- 54:11Speaker 1: the show. Well, you know, this was a conversation I
- 54:14Speaker 1: actually had with Abdul El-Sayed. So I hope you will
- 54:16Speaker 1: take a listen. He had an idea. I think if
- 54:18Speaker 1: Democrats win the House and the Senate, they need to,
- 54:22Speaker 1: you said your five things. I think you have to
- 54:25Speaker 1: decide what's the mandate, right? Why did voters send you there, right?
- 54:28Speaker 1: Number one, to put you a check on Trump. So
- 54:30Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. Can't be the only thing. but
- 54:33Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. So I think you have aggressive oversight.
- 54:37Speaker 1: Maybe you start with the pardons. Maybe you start with
- 54:41Speaker 1: the donors to the East Wing building or something like that.
- 54:47Speaker 1: So there's an accountability piece. I think the most egregious
- 54:53Speaker 1: stuff is the pay-for-play pardons, but that's where I come down.
- 54:57Speaker 1: Other people may think it's other stuff, but either way,
- 54:59Speaker 1: there's an accountability piece. Then there is... You know, can
- 55:03Speaker 1: you put together, can you get legislation passed in the
- 55:09Speaker 1: House and the Senate that you send it to Trump
- 55:10Speaker 1: for a signature? And maybe he vetoes it. In some ways,
- 55:16Speaker 1: you might be happier if he vetoes it. I don't
- 55:19Speaker 1: think Trump's going to, is going to quickly veto stuff.
- 55:25Speaker 1: And this is what's an interesting game of chicken that
- 55:29Speaker 1: these congressional Democratic majorities have. Do they send them legislation
- 55:34Speaker 1: that they want them to sign or do they send
- 55:36Speaker 1: them legislation that they hope he vetoes in order to
- 55:40Speaker 1: rile up the country, build their movement and things like this?
- 55:47Speaker 1: So that's a political decision. That's a tactical decision. What
- 55:51Speaker 1: I would say is I think you got to sort
- 55:54Speaker 1: of do both. I think you got to be– I
- 55:58Speaker 1: think the first thing I would do is get rid
- 55:59Speaker 1: of all the Canadian tariffs. And send that to him.
- 56:03Speaker 2: Right.
- 56:03Speaker 1: Restore the relationship with Canada. That's like a near term thing.
- 56:08Speaker 1: There's sort of universal agreement on that. If you look
- 56:11Speaker 1: at if Democrats do as well as you're outlining here,
- 56:15Speaker 1: you know, in large part, it is because of our
- 56:18Speaker 1: trade war with Canada that will have helped Democrats in Maine,
- 56:22Speaker 1: helped Democrats in Michigan, probably, you know, kept probably helped
- 56:26Speaker 1: Democrats in Minnesota and in a place like Kansas or Iowa.
- 56:30Speaker 1: which also has important trade relationship there. And you, because
- 56:35Speaker 1: I think you want to send a symbolic message to
- 56:38Speaker 1: the world that, hey, America's open for business again. This
- 56:41Speaker 1: is not a one-sided argument. And you see what Trump
- 56:43Speaker 1: does with it. He might veto it. But it's like,
- 56:51Speaker 1: we all know the way Trump, I mean, look at
- 56:52Speaker 1: the way Trump sidles up to Mamdani, right? In fact,
- 56:56Speaker 1: I promise you, he's going to have a meeting with
- 56:59Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed. You just know he will if he wins
- 57:02Speaker 1: a Senate seat. Anybody who's considered a new rising star,
- 57:08Speaker 1: Trump always wants to be close to. He's like the
- 57:11Speaker 1: influencer that wants to hang with another influencer and if
- 57:14Speaker 1: they don't agree, so they could somehow collaborate together and
- 57:18Speaker 1: dominate the algorithms, if you will. So I'd probably, like
- 57:26Speaker 1: I said, I'd probably focus on, I think that actual
- 57:30Speaker 1: Because you're trying to lower costs. You're trying to increase,
- 57:33Speaker 1: you know, you have a tourism problem because Canadians won't
- 57:35Speaker 1: come over. Repair the Canadian relationship first. And it is
- 57:40Speaker 1: focused on costs and all of those things. I think
- 57:43Speaker 1: you do an immediate war powers resolution on Iran. My
- 57:47Speaker 1: guess is you'll get a whole bunch of Republicans to
- 57:49Speaker 1: sign on to that as well. So that's the, but
- 57:54Speaker 1: I do think you got to do meaningful, you know,
- 57:57Speaker 1: start the meaningful oversight process. But you got to, you know,
- 58:01Speaker 1: the one thing that I think Democrats ought to be
- 58:03Speaker 1: careful of on the oversight stuff is that you're going
- 58:06Speaker 1: to have quite a few people like, I want to
- 58:07Speaker 1: do oversight and I want to do this one and
- 58:09Speaker 1: I want to go after this. Have a plan. Have
- 58:13Speaker 1: some sort of agreement what you're going to go one, two, three, four.
- 58:17Speaker 2: Right.
- 58:18Speaker 1: And be careful chasing a shiny metal object story. Do
- 58:22Speaker 1: try to get at substantive graft first. And the pay
- 58:27Speaker 1: to play pardon system is to me the most egregious
- 58:30Speaker 1: thing he does because it undermines the rule of law.
- 58:33Speaker 1: And once the rule of law goes, man, Katie, bar
- 58:36Speaker 1: the door. I start worrying about whether the republic itself
- 58:40Speaker 1: can stand under those circumstances. But those would be the
- 58:43Speaker 1: places I would begin first. All right. Eric R. in
- 58:46Speaker 1: Minnesota 4 writes in. He says, hey, I'm responding to
- 58:49Speaker 1: the Chris Sims rant and your support of it. While
- 58:55Speaker 1: college football has a lot going for it in its favor.
- 58:58Speaker 1: I struggle to see how the current model is sustainable.
- 59:00Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's not. When programs within the same
- 59:03Speaker 1: conference operate on vastly different financial levels and players are
- 59:06Speaker 1: effectively free agents every year as a Minnesota alum whose
- 59:10Speaker 1: realistic hope is an occasional playoff in appearance, what I
- 59:14Speaker 1: am missing, what am I missing? Why should fans outside
- 59:17Speaker 1: the handful of powerhouse programs believe this version of college
- 59:20Speaker 1: football is sustainable long term? Look, it's not. The point, though,
- 59:24Speaker 1: is this bill is the wrong way to go about
- 59:27Speaker 1: it because, again, it seems to be that the response is, well,
- 59:31Speaker 1: the players are making too much money and we've got
- 59:33Speaker 1: to stop that. Look, there's no doubt you need to
- 59:36Speaker 1: have some sanity on the player side of things. And
- 59:39Speaker 1: what is the– and I think we don't have an agreement.
- 59:43Speaker 1: I was having this conversation with a college basketball coach
- 59:47Speaker 1: about this issue, which is what constitutes employment? Um, and
- 59:54Speaker 1: you know, is a student athlete and employee, and if
- 59:57Speaker 1: they're not employees, can they collectively bargain? And I brought
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: up the screen actors guild, right? Like not every actor
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: is an employee at the moment, but, but they're a
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: member of the guild. And then when they get hired, right.
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: And I think that, I think there's, this could be
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: sort of a blueprint, but If you're going to keep
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: the cost side down, you're going to have to collectively bargain.
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: And in order to have some sort of, I mean,
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: it's what the NFL did to try to rein in
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: costs for how much quarterbacks are being paid in the
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: first two years. And they put in a system to
- 1:00:36Speaker 1: try to essentially give teams more control over their QB
- 1:00:43Speaker 1: costs over time. It doesn't mean over time they weren't
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: going to spend an enormous amount of money on a quarterback.
- 1:00:49Speaker 1: but it allowed them to sort of budget for it, right?
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: If you will. So I think that that's, the point
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: is this bill doesn't solve this problem. And, you know,
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: now look, with Sims going on, you know, he was
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: basically saying, you know, this idea that college football is dying. Look,
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: my issue is with, there's all sorts of way this
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: is screwed up, right? Minnesota doesn't, is lucky to be
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: in the Big Ten on one hand. On the other hand,
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: you're kind of at the whims of what Michigan and
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: Ohio State decide, right? And I guess USC and Michigan
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: have played outsized roles in how private equity works and
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: all of that. I think the conference structure doesn't work
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: and it creates an unfairness. And then if you're going
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: to This is where I think you've got to treat
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: all of the teams equally. That's how the NFL has
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: become this powerhouse, right? Why does Green Bay have as
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: much power as Dallas, as much power as the Giants?
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: Because of the way the TV revenue is shared and
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: how it's distributed. And so I think that ultimately to get, to,
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: to make, an alum at Minnesota feel as if they,
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: that the playing field is leveled, not level, but it's level,
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: it's closer to being level. I think that it's the
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: structure of how TV rights are negotiated, right? And that's
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: what's so frustrating about this bill, right? The Big Ten
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: and the SEC are both trying to create, keep their
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: velvet rope. And with the support of ESPN and Fox,
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: actually keep the costs, keep the rights deals down. If
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: these were on the open market and in order to
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: get an Ohio State game, you also had to negotiate
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: with Washington State and Oregon State. Again, if the NFL
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: negotiated its TV rights the way college sports does, the
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: Jacksonville Jaguars would always be in the seat of you.
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: And yet the NFL is enormously successful and enormously popular
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: because everybody thinks they have a fair shot. And I
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: guess that's where I'm hoping. I want college sports to
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: feel fair again. And I say this as somebody who
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: I know, I'm a fan of a program who has
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: bought their way into the being in the powerhouse. I
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: get it, but they're just playing by the rules that
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: that have been established by Georgia, Alabama, the SEC, and
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: the Big Ten. This bill doesn't solve the problem. This
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: bill entrenches what's left of those powers at the expense
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: of the players. I get it. We need rules. You
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: need to have this stuff. They ought to abide by contracts.
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: You agree to all those things. And you're going to
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: need You're probably going to need Congress to give them
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: antitrust exemptions in some cases. But you need to create
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: a system that allows for Oregon State and Ohio State,
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: Minnesota and Central Florida to feel as if this system
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: is accessible to them. And this bill doesn't do that.
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: All right.
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: This comes from Jay. Greetings from California's 24th district. With
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: recent high-profile AI security incidents and conflicts over data centers,
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: public concerns about AI seem to be growing. Do you
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: think Congress could turn those concerns into meaningful legislation, either
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: now or in the next Congress? And could an AI
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: Bill of Rights addressing personal data, copyright protections, and practices
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: like personalized pricing become a larger political issue heading into 2028? Look,
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: I hope so. I've been waiting for my Privacy Bill
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: of Rights. For 20 years now. John Tester talked about
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: this in his 2006 Montana Senate race. And, you know,
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: when we were talking about a privacy bill of rights,
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: it was more than just about the internet. It was also,
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: you know, there were plenty of people on the right
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: that were concerned about it when it came to, you know,
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: if they wanted to purchase a gun and who could
- 1:05:39Speaker 1: find out that information. But I've been waiting for this
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: privacy bill of rights for 20 years now, if not longer.
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: especially right after the 9-11 legislation that sort of took
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: away a bunch of our rights. And I went off
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: on a rant about this a couple of weeks ago
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: where I said, I really do think that we got
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: way too comfortable right after 9-11 giving up privacy in
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: exchange for security. And then we morphed right into handing
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: it all over to big tech, right? Europe never did
- 1:06:09Speaker 1: it as much as we did. And what's the difference? 9-11.
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: So I do think, and I think things like surveillance pricing,
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: The whole idea that I have, you want to use
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: my app, you've got to update it, you've got to
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: hand over your data, and you get to use the app.
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: It's like, remember, for those of you old enough, you
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: went to RadioShack, you had to somehow fill out a
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: form in order to buy batteries, and you're like, why
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: am I handing you my data just to buy a
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: goddamn pack of batteries? Why, if I want to use
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: your app, I got to hand you all this data?
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, maybe even hand you money
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: for the app too. So I do think this is
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: a really popular thing to do. And I would focus
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: it on privacy. And I would focus it on protecting people's...
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: This is consumer protection. And I think that this stuff
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: sells better when it's consumer protection. And I would be
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: putting it under consumer protection. It's about protecting consumers from
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: being exploited by... large language models, from being exploited by
- 1:07:19Speaker 1: the big tech companies. But that's where, and if you, look,
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: it's not about being anti-tech. We can be pro-tech and pro-technology,
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: but it's about being pro-consumer. And so I would be
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: framing it as that. But I absolutely, if this moment
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: doesn't trigger this focus of the next Congress to worry
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: about privacy, to worry about who owns our data, And
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: what kind of control can we have over our own data?
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: If that does not have salience now, then, man, we
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: are all in trouble. So I anticipate that we're going
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: to finally see some movement on this. And I do
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: think the best way in and the broadest coalition you
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: can build on this is through consumer protection and privacy rights.
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: All right, last question comes from Ray, and he says, hey, Chuck,
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: it's Ray again from Florida's 21st District. If Democrats take
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: control of Congress this fall, what could they realistically do
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: to change the direction of the administration at home and
- 1:08:26Speaker 1: restore America's relationships abroad? Could we see efforts involving officials
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: like Patel or Hegseth, a change in the approach to Iran,
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: or a reset with allies like Canada, or would major
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: changes largely have to wait until 2028? Love your insight, balance,
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: and honesty. Well, as you kind of ask a similar
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: question that we got earlier, sort of, you know, imagine
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: these big majorities, what, what could be done and where
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: would you focus your priorities? And so in some ways,
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: I think, like I said, I think, I think there's
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: some meaningful, if the majorities are big enough, because I
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: think Republicans will be there on some of this trade
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: war situation. with Canada and all this stuff. So I
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: think there's real opportunity to start the reset with Canada
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: before the next president comes into office in 2029. And
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: I think that's an important reset. I mean, I hope
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: all of us are better informed of how important our
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: relationship with this Canada economically is. I know my friends
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: in the state of Florida realize this. I know my
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: friends in Las Vegas realize this. And there's a whole
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: bunch of people in the Midwest who realize this, right?
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: Canada is an incredibly important customer to the United States
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: and maybe America's most important customer. So I think, and
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: I do think some reset on that can be done.
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: As for personnel, look, I, you know, remember after 2006, Trump, Trump,
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: After 2006 and Democrats winning both the House and the Senate,
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: Bush fired Rumsfeld. He made a dramatic decision to change it.
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: And he basically sort of accepted the premise that the
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: management of the war was a disaster. He had to
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: change directions, hires a new defense secretary. It's Bob Gates
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: who ends up being the same Obama's first defense secretary.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: So I do think that, like I said in the
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: previous episode, I think that The fact that articles of
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: impeachment are sitting there for a lame duck Congress and
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: egg Seth, egg Seth days, somebody has got to take
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: the fall for the mistake of Iran. And Trump's never
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: going to be the one to do it. Right. It's
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: not going to be his fault. Rubio has done a
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: pretty good Homer Simpson into the bushes on this one.
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: I think America is going to blame BB. And I
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: certainly think Trump's going to start blaming BB, but you've
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: got like the Pentagon wasn't ready for this war. Now
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: is that, Is that a Trump problem or is that
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: a Hegseth problem? Well, you probably make an argument for both.
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: So I do think Hegseth could, that that's something. And Patel,
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're, you know, let's see. This
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: is where I think oversight has to be strategic and
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: has to be sort of, look, I think you say
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: to yourself, like, whose lives are being hurt right now
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: by this bad leadership? Well, look, Kennedy is literally Right.
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: This measles outbreak. Right. There are deaths directly connected to
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: Kennedy's irresponsible leadership. So I think you would I think,
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: you know, that I think that issue, although I think
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: there's a lot of Democrats afraid of going after him.
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: But I certainly would be prioritizing that there are literally
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: people dying in Pennsylvania due to due to Bobby Kennedy Jr.
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: 's irresponsible rhetoric and leadership on on being a vax,
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: an anti-vaxxer. I think Patel and an FBI that isn't
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: trusted at the moment, that's a very dangerous thing. That's
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: not good for the country. But you better have the goods, right?
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: And I certainly think exit. So, but I wouldn't underestimate,
- 1:11:57Speaker 1: you know, Trump is, Trump doesn't like to be dealt
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: out and Trump wants to let other people take the
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: fall for his problems. And this is where, look, some
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: of it will depend on whether Democrats get both the
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: house and the Senate and whether they are governing majorities
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: or if they're narrow majorities, but if they're governing majorities, um,
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: there might be things Trump goes ahead and let's happen.
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: And in that sense, I think that, you know, Democrats
- 1:12:33Speaker 1: have to be prepared for that. I know that's it.
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: And I, I don't know if they are, um, And
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: that's why I'm curious. Will they create legislation that they
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: hope he signs? Or are they going to send over
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: legislation that he hope he vetoes? All right, let me do,
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: when I went through the schedule this week in college football,
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, this is a, you know, okay.
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: Ohio State, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, right? We've in some
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: ways they had been hyped up even before the season began.
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: But now that we're in the middle of this season, right?
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: You know, we are at the end of the beginning.
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: We are now the beginning. We are now, I think
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: this is the first week of the heart of the
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: schedule and the heart of the season. So look, the two,
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: probably the most consequential game for playoff purposes, uh, is Texas,
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: Tennessee with, uh, and it's Texas at Tennessee. I think
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: this is a real test, by the way, Arch Manning
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: versus Peyton Manning's alma mater. I'm sure. Right. We've got
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: to see a bunch of Manning show up for that game. Um,
- 1:14:02Speaker 1: Do you believe Texas is one of the top teams,
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: or do you believe Texas just sort of took advantage
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: of Ohio State kind of playing with their food in
- 1:14:13Speaker 1: the last quarter and a half of that game? Well,
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: we're going to find out. So I think this is
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: a huge— for me, it's a huge test for Texas. I
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: think you talk to some of my friends who are
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: Tennessee fans. They're hopeful about this year. But they're kind
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: of realistic. They know they have a brand new quarterback.
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: And the assumption was, hey, they'll be competitive. But really,
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: it's next year that they hope to make a run
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: at the playoff. So everything here for Tennessee might be gravy.
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: But one thing Josh Heupel is, is a really good
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: game planner. I think this is going to be a
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: terrific game. And like I said, I think we're going
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: to learn a lot more about Texas than we are Tennessee. Florida, Mississippi.
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: Ole Miss... Its reward for knocking off LSU at home
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: is to travel to the swamp. Florida just beat Auburn
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: on the road, quite handily, mind you. What's amazing here
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: is Ole Miss, who has defeated two ranked teams, Louisville,
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: who's ranked, and LSU. In fact, they may be the
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: only undefeated team who's got victories over two ranked teams already.
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: They've had three games. Two of their wins are ranked teams.
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: And they're the underdog to Florida in the swamp. And
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: I understand why they're the underdog. There's a little bit
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: of assumption that there's a, you know, there might've been
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: a little bit of a hangover, you know, a celebration
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: hangover from defeating LSU. You know, were they, how, you know,
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: how much did they focus their time and energy in
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: preparing for the LSU game? And now all of a
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: sudden they got to prepare for Florida. Florida's got a
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: ton of skilled position players. This guy, Jaden Bowe. First
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: of all, I'm very happy. I sold a $ 350, PSA
- 1:16:01Speaker 1: 10 of a Jaden Baugh auto out of 50. So
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: I was happy about that. I actually listed it. I
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: didn't think it would go for that, but then suddenly
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: he's just been on fire and got to love my
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: Florida fan. If only that guy found out I was
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: a Hurricane fan telling him a Florida Gator thing, right?
- 1:16:18Speaker 1: But I'm just telling you about my side hustle. A
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: little bit probably told you too much, but that's all right.
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: In many ways, I think Ole Miss can lose this
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: game and they're still fine for the playoff. But what
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: this game is going to tell us is how seriously
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: should we be taking Florida as a contender? I'm skeptical
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: that John Summerall somehow turned this around that quickly. Um,
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: so I'm, I'm a little bit of a skeptic here
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: and I kind of think that the, uh, I, I,
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: I understand all the love for Florida and all the
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: assumption that, that Ole Miss could be, this could be
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: a sleepy spot for them. Um, But if Florida wins
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: this game, are we suddenly asking? And remember, we're asking ourselves,
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: are they a playoff contender? The biggest game in the
- 1:17:08Speaker 1: Big Ten is Oregon at USA. This is a playoff
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: game for Oregon. Losing to Oklahoma State means they can't
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: lose another game. A two-loss Oregon team where one of
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: the losses is Oklahoma State. I don't know if they're
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: on the edge, right? So they can't afford a second
- 1:17:32Speaker 1: loss as much as maybe other teams could. Now, look,
- 1:17:37Speaker 1: Miami made it by losing at Louisville and SMU, but
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: both Louisville and SMU were better than what Oklahoma State. Now,
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: maybe Oklahoma State ends up being better than we think.
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: And if you're Oregon, you better hope Oklahoma State goes
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: into West Virginia this weekend and beats West Virginia in Morgantown,
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: making your loss to them look a little better. But boy,
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: is there a lot to learn about Oregon. As for USC,
- 1:17:59Speaker 1: this is an important game for them. This is a
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: prove-it game for Lincoln Riley. He's been on the outside
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: looking in with this playoff business. This is at the Coliseum.
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: If not now, when, right? USC clearly has the skill
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: position players to be a top contender. The question I
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: have is whether they have the depth. It's been interesting
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: as they build a big lead when they bring in
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: their second and third team. Their second and third hadn't
- 1:18:26Speaker 1: been so great. I think they're a little thin. And
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: I think one of the things we're all learning in
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: this college, you know, you got to survive 16 games
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: now to win the national title. Right? That's what Indiana
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: went 16-0 and even had a bye. Right? Because you're
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: either playing an extra game in the conference championship or
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: you're playing three games in the playoff like Miami did.
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: But if you play two games in the playoff, it
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: probably means you had– played your conference championship game. So
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: either way, it's a minimum 15 games and to win
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: the title, it's 16. That's a long season. You got
- 1:19:00Speaker 1: to have depth to handle that. Miami's depth is being
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: tested right now. We're already on a, you know, we
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: were on our fourth string running back. in that wake
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: forest game. And I think the, I think there's a
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: reason the play calling got as conservative as it did
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: because of that. And that's, that's the open question I
- 1:19:19Speaker 1: have about USA, but it's a huge game and Texas
- 1:19:23Speaker 1: A & M at LSU. This is a playoff elimination game, period.
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: Loser leaves town. Losers season is over, right? A &
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: M losing back to back to Kentucky and LSU. Yeah,
- 1:19:37Speaker 1: I guess you could say they could run the table
- 1:19:39Speaker 1: and 10-2 A & M could get in. I believe it.
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: But it's hard to imagine if you've lost to Kentucky
- 1:19:46Speaker 1: by double digits and then you go in to Baton
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: Rouge and let's say you lose, it's hard to see
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: how you become a contender again. And there's going to
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: be all sorts of hand-wringing about that if that's the case.
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: Then if you're LSU and you blow this game, the
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: assumption is, oh, you let Ole Miss beat you twice, right?
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: Your head wasn't in the game. It's a home game.
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: So It's a big game for both teams. And like
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: I said, I think the loser might be out of it.
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: And by the way, I told you to watch out
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: for A & M in that Kentucky game. So with
- 1:20:18Speaker 1: that said, let me tell you who I think is
- 1:20:19Speaker 1: on upset watch this week. This is what I mean
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: when this cards. You have these three marquee games that
- 1:20:23Speaker 1: are going to have playoff implications and a fourth if
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: you throw in A & M and LSU. Then there's
- 1:20:28Speaker 1: a bunch of sort of secondary games that I think
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: one of them is going to be more meaningful than
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: we expect. UCLA travels to Maryland. UCLA feels like they're
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: riding high. Then they're going to go across three time zones.
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: Look what USC almost blew it against Rutgers. Maryland's licking
- 1:20:48Speaker 1: their wounds after losing to Virginia Tech. You know, on paper,
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: UCLA should come into Maryland and have no problems. I'm
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: a little suspicious of that one. How about Notre Dame
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: traveling to West Lafayette and playing Purdue? Purdue's had some
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: competitive games. They were competitive with UCLA. They lost an
- 1:21:09Speaker 1: overtime game to Wake Forest. They may be sitting at
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: the bottom of the standings in the Big Ten, but
- 1:21:18Speaker 1: they're not a cellar dweller this year. They're pretty competitive.
- 1:21:23Speaker 1: They've got some pretty good running backs.
- 1:21:25Speaker 2: This is one of those, if Michigan State gave Notre
- 1:21:30Speaker 2: Dame trouble at home, I wouldn't be surprised if this
- 1:21:35Speaker 2: is a one-score game at.
- 1:21:36Speaker 1: Halftime, just like the Michigan State Notre Dame game was.
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: Oklahoma at Georgia. Oklahoma, their season's on the line here.
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: They lay another egg. Maybe losing close at Georgia keeps
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: them in the conversation. Losing by double digits at Georgia
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: eliminates them. Utah at Iowa State. Utah's running this crazy offense.
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: You've got to take a look at it. It's like
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: two quarterbacks that go back and forth. It's a lot
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: of fun to watch. If you've got 10 minutes and
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: you see this on your YouTube TV or ESPN or whatever,
- 1:22:09Speaker 1: spend a few minutes watching Utah play football this year.
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: It's a fun offense, man. It is crazy. It's a
- 1:22:14Speaker 1: little bit different. It's a lot of fun. Iowa State's
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: been a little stronger than I expected, and Ames is
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: always a tough place to play. Iowa at Michigan, will
- 1:22:27Speaker 1: either team score 21 points? I think that's a fair question.
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: Wisconsin's at Penn State. How good is Penn State? I
- 1:22:34Speaker 1: think Wisconsin's not going to be a walkover. South Carolina's
- 1:22:37Speaker 1: at Alabama. You see where I'm going here. It's sort
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: of like, okay, there's not these super marquee games, but
- 1:22:44Speaker 1: there's a lot of really good games. And I promise you,
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: we're going to... I mean, I left out Missouri at
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: Mississippi State. They're both undefeated. Mississippi State might have the
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: most exciting quarterback in the country, not named Trinidad Chambliss
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: or Darian Mensah. So it's an.
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: I will just tell you this. I think it's an
- 1:23:03Speaker 1: incredible week. I didn't even talk about my hurricanes. We're
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: playing central Michigan. I think they have their triple option team.
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: All I care about the good news from my, my
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: Miami hurricanes. They're playing on a Saturday for the very
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: first time. They actually get to play a football game
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: on a Saturday. Well, the Todd family will be well
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: represented there. I'm not making it to that game. Um,
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: but I have offspring that will be there. And, uh,
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: All I care about is no injuries and a little
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: more offensive line competency. That's how I'll be watching the game.
- 1:23:39Speaker 1: Like I said, I think they're triple option. I got
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in the coaching on the defensive
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: side of the ball. I get a little nervous about
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: the micromanaging of the offense at times. Sometimes the play
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: calling is fantastic and they're in a rhythm, but it's
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: pretty clear that Dawson is a rhythm play caller. And
- 1:23:57Speaker 1: sometimes it's, You know, it's like somebody at a craps
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: table that can't roll the wrong number. And sometimes it
- 1:24:07Speaker 1: doesn't matter what he calls, nothing works. And that was
- 1:24:10Speaker 1: sort of his excuse. He claims he didn't change his
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: play calling in the second half of the Wake Forest game.
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: Certainly seemed to us that they didn't go down the
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: field as much as they should have or could have
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: on that front. I hope some lessons were learned by
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: the coaching. I know the coaching staff was upset with
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: some of the players. But a massive– I mean, I'm
- 1:24:32Speaker 1: still upset at my Miami Hurricane beat writers who have
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: not brought up what could have been the catastrophic coaching
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: decision going for that meaningless field goal when they should
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: have gone for it and not handed the ball back
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: to Wake Forest on that. I kind of wish there
- 1:24:50Speaker 1: had been more public coverage of that. I really, really, really,
- 1:24:53Speaker 1: really hope the coaching staff accepts the criticism on this
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: one that they blew that one. And that they don't
- 1:25:01Speaker 1: make that same mistake again.
- 1:25:03Speaker 3: All right.
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: So with that, like I said, do check out Newsphere
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: this week. Abdul El-Sayed's my exclusive guest. It's a terrific interview.
- 1:25:12Speaker 1: And we spend a lot more time on what is
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: he going to do as a senator if he gets
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: the chance to be a senator? Like I said, it's
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: a conversation. He's had a lot of conversations out there,
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: but I don't think he's had an extensive conversation about this.
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: If you could check into the interview, you'll find out.
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: Is he going to move his entire family to Washington
- 1:25:30Speaker 1: or not? I'll let you check in with Newsphere to
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: find out. With that, enjoy the weekend. And I want
- 1:25:37Speaker 1: to give a special shout out to my cousin who's
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: going to be getting married this weekend. I'm looking forward
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: to it. Congrats, guys. And we'll see you at the wedding.
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: And with that, I'll see all of you on Monday.