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Full Episode - Trump Is The Biggest Wildcard Of The 2026 Midterms + The Democratic Party's Credibility Problem — And How to Fix It · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello there, Happy Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: am the namesake of the show, Chuck Todd, where I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: like to say, I try to present politics for the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: rest of us. Give you the quick rundown of the day.
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  Speaker 1: This weekend we will hit the one hundred days to
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  Speaker 1: election day marker. And what does that mean? Well, you're
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  Speaker 1: going to see a whole bunch of network polls. We've
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  Speaker 1: already seen a bunch of those. You're gonna see a
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  Speaker 1: whole bunch of write ups where things stand. So why
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: not beat folks to the writing crutch punch? And I'll
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  Speaker 1: do sort of my lay of the land with one
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  Speaker 1: hundred days to go, just sort of more from sixty
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  Speaker 1: thousand feet because I think what's interesting is what hasn't changed.
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  Speaker 1: It's fascinating all the minutia we've been living with. And
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the minutia, of course, but
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  Speaker 1: I think what's been remarkable is actually how incredibly stable
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: things have been over the last eighteen months. And we
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  Speaker 1: will get into that. Other topics I'm going to hit
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: on in this episode the Congress's attempt to try to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fix college sports. That bill is going to come to
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  Speaker 1: a head. I might pass the Senate. I'm skeptical that
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it does, but I want to explain why it is
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  Speaker 1: a useless piece of legislation because they have left out
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: one giant issue that they have just not dealt with,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and if anything, they're actually trying to punish one entity
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: more than any other. Plus we'll deal with the latest
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: sec Greg Santi, Greg Sanky temper tantrum on that and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: three other notes, a little bit on Mondani's speech to
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  Speaker 1: the city about bb Net Yahoo. There's also a fascinating
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: new lawsuit about closed primaries in Oregon that it's a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: bit of a follow up of the interview we did
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with the head of open Primaries. They're essentially pursuing the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: legal strategy that I believe is going to permanently open
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  Speaker 1: up primaries in every state in this country. So we
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  Speaker 1: will have that and a very very disturbing update on Measles.
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  Speaker 1: My guest today is near at Tandon. If you are
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a political junkie, you know exactly who she is. She
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: is the president of the Center for American Progress. Lately,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: if you are on social media, she is essentially debating
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: every democratic, socialist or progressive there is on the direction
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: in future of where should the party go Michigan Senate.
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  Speaker 1: She is clearly on the Hailey Stephens side of things.
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  Speaker 1: She knows worked with her. But we talk a lot
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  Speaker 1: about where is this party now, where is this fight going?
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  Speaker 1: And it matters a lot, as you'll hear in my
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  Speaker 1: preview of where this campaign is with one hundred days
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  Speaker 1: to go, because everything is looking fairly good for the
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  Speaker 1: Blue team except for one giant issue, this intra party
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  Speaker 1: few that could create essentially unelectable nominees, just like what
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: happened to the Tea Party in twenty ten and twenty
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  Speaker 1: fourteen in a handful of races, and just like what
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: happened to Donald Trump's slative candidates back in twenty twenty two.
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  Speaker 1: I'll have my top five lists. I'm tackling governor's races.
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  Speaker 1: Seems like all my friends have been doing that this week,
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  Speaker 1: but it's about time my top five governor's races that
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  Speaker 1: are most likely to flip parties. And speaking of that,
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  Speaker 1: I want to start off, and of course I'll take
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: some questions. I want to start off, though I spent
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  Speaker 1: my day on Wednesday, As you know, I am my
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: summer home base. Has been here in northwest Florida. It's
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: given me an opportunity to spend a little bit of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: time both covering Florida politics and Alabama politics. So last
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: week for my Newsphere show, and if you haven't checked
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: out Newsphere, go download the Newspare app sign up for
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a free trial. Please check it out. Really quality journalism
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: from around the world, as a special emphasis on war
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: zones from around the world. So you really, I think
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: we'll get allowed out of it, but I do this
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  Speaker 1: weekly show for them. Last week it was Byron Donald's
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  Speaker 1: front runner for governor on the Republican side of the aisle.
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  Speaker 1: This week it's Doug Jones. You may remember Doug Jones,
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  Speaker 1: Democratic senator who defeated Roy Moore in Alabama, the last
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  Speaker 1: Democrat to win a statewide race in Alabama. He is
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  Speaker 1: running in a rematch against Tommy Tupperville. He lost to
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  Speaker 1: Tommy Tupperville on that Senate race in twenty twenty. They
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  Speaker 1: are facing off again for an open race for governor.
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  Speaker 1: I caught up with him in Dothan, Alabama, which is
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  Speaker 1: basically just over the Florida Alabama line, probably about forty
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  Speaker 1: five minutes north of Tallahassee, if you're trying to picture
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  Speaker 1: it in your map as you're listening to this, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, Doug Jones has the challenge that many a
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  Speaker 1: Democrat in a deep red state has that wants to
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  Speaker 1: be competitive, which is the Democratic brand is not the
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  Speaker 1: easiest thing to run on in places like Alabama. We've
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  Speaker 1: discussed this before, places like Nebraska, places like Kansas, places
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  Speaker 1: like Montana where we're already seeing some eye names. And
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  Speaker 1: I think what was interesting, And I'll let you wait
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  Speaker 1: until the interview comes out this weekend on the Newsphere app.
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  Speaker 1: But I asked him why he was running as a
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  Speaker 1: d and not as an independent and he gave and
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  Speaker 1: incredibly I think, thoughtful, sober and intellectually honest answer that
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  Speaker 1: I found quite refreshing. But and oh, by this time
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  Speaker 1: in twenty four hours, I hopefully will have also seen
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the odyssey. We will see if missus toddcast and I
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  Speaker 1: can pull that off before the weekend comes. But let's
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  Speaker 1: begin with like I said, this weekend, we will hit
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  Speaker 1: the official one hundred days until election day, where all
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like, oh boy, it's getting late
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  Speaker 1: early to beat up a yogi bearasm and look, I'm
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  Speaker 1: getting this a lot right now in summer as people
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  Speaker 1: sort of check in in my own circles that are
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  Speaker 1: not huge political day to day followers, but are starting
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to check in wondering, hey, what's going on? Where do
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  Speaker 1: things stand? So under day's out, what's changed? And my
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  Speaker 1: honest answer is it's much less than you think. Right
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  Speaker 1: if you've actually been watching politics over the last fifteen months,
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  Speaker 1: and we look at it through sort of that aerial
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: view that I use this metaphor all the time, you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: look at it from you know, sixty thousand feet rather
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  Speaker 1: than doom scrolling the minutia every day, and the battle
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  Speaker 1: for control of Congress looks quite stable. Frankly, nothing is
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  Speaker 1: really moved in the last four months, even though there's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of action. It's like watching a duck underneath.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of paddling going on, but
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't look like there's a lot of movement. There's motion,
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  Speaker 1: not movement. Because you could argue that Donald Trump's approval
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  Speaker 1: rating went underwater permanently about fifteen months ago, specifically, I
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  Speaker 1: believe April ninth, twenty twenty five, if you want to
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  Speaker 1: put a date to it. That was so called Liberation Day.
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  Speaker 1: Ever since that tariff announcement disaster, he has been underwater
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  Speaker 1: and it's been this sort of gradual for him. I
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  Speaker 1: said it at the time, I said this may come back,
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  Speaker 1: and we may say this is Trump's Afghanistan moment. It
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  Speaker 1: is now crystal clear that that was Trump's Afghanistan moment.
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  Speaker 1: In the same way with Joe Biden, the Afghanistan withdrawal
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  Speaker 1: went poorly, His numbers went down, and he never recovered.
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  Speaker 1: His entire presidency was bogged down. Well, we don't know
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  Speaker 1: if the entire second term of Trump's presidency is going
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  Speaker 1: to be He's going to be underwater like this, but
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  Speaker 1: certainly it appears he's going to be underwater. And it's
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  Speaker 1: been this sort of gradual. This has not been a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: sharp drop, right. You know, he started out, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he never he's never gotten over fifty. But he was
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: in the mid to high forties at the very beginning.
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  Speaker 1: That's his version of a honeymoon, sort of a honeymoon period,
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  Speaker 1: if you will. Liberation Day hits, he drops below forty five.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a gradual sort of erosion of his job rating. Right,
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  Speaker 1: Liberation Day drops him below forty five, right, and then
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  Speaker 1: you started to see it that declines. You know. By
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  Speaker 1: a year later he's in the low forty. By May
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: he's getting down even more. And now in July he's
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: now in the low thirties. And it's just in this
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: gradual descent, not huge spikes, if you will, but a
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  Speaker 1: gradual descent on this and it's you know, look, everything
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  Speaker 1: is accumulated. That's what happened to Biden, right, It's sort
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of well, terriffs were a bad idea. Then it made
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: it so that he owned the economy. Then as prices
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: went up and his inflation remained stubborn, then what does
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: he go and do? He keeps this tariff business going.
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  Speaker 1: Then he launches the Iran War, which only reinforces the
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  Speaker 1: inflation problem. Then he loses the court fight and tariffs,
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  Speaker 1: and rather than essentially accept the Supreme Court rescuing him
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  Speaker 1: from a disastrous economic policy, he says no, no, no, no no,
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  Speaker 1: And he then decides, no, I want to bring them
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: all back. And in fact, over the next thirty days
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: he's going to We're going to hear more and more
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: headlines of Donald Trump announcing new tax increases on American
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  Speaker 1: consumers as he reimposes these tariffs, which may or may
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: not even be constitutional. He's now going back, I think,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to a law that was first passed in nineteen thirty
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: eight in order to justify this latest tariff regime. And
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: part of the problem they've got to keep this tariff's
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: up is that the federal government is suddenly relying on
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the money that's been coming in on these tariffs. So
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: this has been a This is why it's sort of
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  Speaker 1: like a lot's happened. Republicans this summer are starting to
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  Speaker 1: feel better, and yet you sit here and go, boyd
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  Speaker 1: has much changed And in fact, not only has the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: fundamentals not changed here, in some ways they've hardened. So
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: let's break this down in sort of each of the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: big chambers. Let's talk about the House. I think obviously
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the House is I think the easier chamber to handicap. Here.
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  Speaker 1: Democrats were the favorite this year when basically the day
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump took the oath of office, they were
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: favored to pick up the House. I mean, they only
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: need a handful of seats. I think we're down to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: three that they have to pick up in order to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: take control. The joke has been, they might get control
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: before election day given what we've seen, and I think
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are still the favor because the fundamentals have
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it changed. Right, The overall political environment is bad for
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the party in power right now, and which should accrue
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to the benefit of the party out of powers. Not
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: as if Democrats very popular right now, but what's more
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: unpopular and what the pattern of our elections have been
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: over the last decade, which is we have been voting
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: against We've gotten necessarily voting four now if you look
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: at it race by race, Republicans certainly have gotten a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: lot of favorable court rulings over the last three months, right,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and the redistricting wars clearly ended up favoring the Republicans
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: after the Democrats lost their opportunity to redistrict in Virginia.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Then you throw in the voting based the near scrapping
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of the Voting Rights Act, which allowed for the elimination
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of some majority African American seats in the South, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so the floor for Republicans is much higher. It's about
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: probably eight to ten seats higher than it was when
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: this campaign cycle began. So instead of looking at a oh,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a mini wave year that could go from anywhere from
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: twenty to thirty five seats. I think realistically the ranges
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: ten to twenty five, right, and probably ten, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: probably something in the teens. Anything north of twenty I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: think we would call a true wave environment, because I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: think twenty is the new forty seats, if you will, Right,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Democrats basically picked up about forty seats in twenty eighteen,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the first Trump midterm, picking up twenty to twenty five
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: is the equivalent of what forty would have looked like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: back then. So in that sense, you know, I think
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans believe they have a puncher's chance here. Right, That's
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a few these court rulings have gone their way, a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: few of these sort of the overall messaging climate with
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the Democratic brand has certainly at least given Republicans something
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to run on. But I'll tell you my confidence level
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in Democrats winning the House. I'll compare it to this
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: year's favorite to win the World Series, which of course
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is the Dodgers. I am probably more comfortable betting on
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the Democrats winning control of the House than I am
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: on the Dodgers winning the World Series? Do I think? Actually,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I'd probably put it this way just the Dodgers being
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: in the World Series. Right, there is enough randomness in
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the baseball playoffs that I actually think it means the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: safer bet if you had to pick between those betting
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: on the Dodgers to get to the World Series versus
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: betting on Democrats to pick up the house, I actually
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: think the safer bets is Democrats picking up the house.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: On the Senate side, I think this is where the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats have had the better year than the Republicans. Right,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: You've seen some poor nominations go their way. Right, Texas
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Georgia are probably two that are are front and center
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: on that front. Meanwhile, Democrats keep expanding the map. They
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: may have put Kansas in play. Nebraska's clearly in play,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Iowa was now clearly in play. Yes, things in Michigan
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: look shakier now for Democrats than they did six months ago.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: But six months ago we were still wondering if Georgia
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was going to be a toss up race. Now that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: looks like that is not going to be a toss
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: up race. That said, it's still a tough map for Democrats.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But I put it this way nine months ago, Republicans,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I think we're the clear favorites to hold the Senate.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I think now they're a just a very small favorite, right,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And we've seen it in some of the betting markets,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and you've seen some of my little social posts on
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: sort of the prediction markets on this. The odds have
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: certainly have certainly narrowed, and I think you basically we're
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: somewhere in about a fifty five to forty five split here.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Democrats being considered have about a forty percent chance of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: winning the Senate, Republicans having in about a fifty five
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: percent chance. But you know, this has been pretty volatile.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Right two weeks ago the Graham Platinir debacle coupled with
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: what we were watching with the DSA in Michigan, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: there was suddenly, I think Republicans got bullish there for
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: a few days. Oh, things are going to go well,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins may survive, perhaps Michigan goes the other way.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And then suddenly the path to four. Democrats need four
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: seats to gain control. And I'll talk about the Fetterman
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: situation here in a second. And if you'd taken Maine
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: off the board, it really just meant that they had
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to sweep those red leaning states, right, the Nebraska's, the Iowa,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was the Alaskas, the Ohios, that if they were going
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to pull that off, if they're going to both not
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: be able to win Maine and potentially lose Michigan. But
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: if you look at the last ten days, I mean,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this is where Donald Trump has been such an important
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: ally to the Senate Democrats here right, I mean, if
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you're Susan Collins, things looked great three weeks ago. Now
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: not only are Democrats united around a good enough nominee,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and he may end up proving to be a better
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: challenger against her because he's not as polarizing and it
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: becomes more of a referendum on her. Number two, you
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: have the Ice killing that took place in Maine, in
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins's backyard. That is essentially turn the page locally
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: on all the grand Platner stuff rather than the entire
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: sort of focus on what were the Democrats going to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: do to place Platner is just going to upset the party?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Is there going to be all these divides? Ice goes
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and pulls their nonsense. Somebody gets killed, and that is
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: honestly about the only story that people are died, and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: then the icing on the cake. If you're Susan Collins
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: is Donald Trump announces massive tariffs, threatens massive tariffs on Canada,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: which actually supposedly don't take effect for about another twenty
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: eight days. I'm sure in twenty eight days taco that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: probably will end up being a Taco Tuesday. But still
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it put her in a bind because Maine does a lot.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Maine's economy is very reliant on Canadian trade. This episode
• 19:58
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  Speaker 1: may vary. I think when you now look at the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: last you know, six months, it is the battle for
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the Senate has taken a decided turn towards the Democrats.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Republics are so favorite because of this map. But Maine
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: is in better shit today than it was six weeks ago.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Alaska for Democrats better shape today than it was six
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: weeks ago. Kansas, now that primary is coming up, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it looks like the candidate they recruited, the pastor Hamilton,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: He's going to be a formidable opponent. And as you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I think Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, those three races in particular,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: all three states are agg states. All three states have
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: been hammered by Trump's tariffs. I think if this is
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a semi wave year, Democrats pick up two of those
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: three seats, and it's all on the backs of the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: economy in tariffs. At a minimum, the got to win
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: one of those three in order to make their math
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: work to get the four. And I'll get to that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: in a minute, but that's my point. Kansas has gotten
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: better for Democrats and it was six months ago. Nebraska
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: has gotten better than it was six months ago. Ohio's
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: gotten better than it was six months ago. Texas Texas
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: is Look, I've been skeptical not just of Tallarika, but
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Republicans quote unquote coming home. We're seeing more evidence of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that in the polling. I still think this is a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: reach state. But the amount of money and effort and
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: resources that it's going to take to essentially salvage this
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: race for Ken Paxton may cost Republicans. The ability to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: hold Ohio may cost Republicans the ability to put Georgia
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or North Carolina back in place. So even if they
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: survived Texas, it has done damage to the Senate Republican
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: campaign strategy. And obviously I said with Iowa there we
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: saw that. So the Senate picture in general, and then
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: right Republicans sort of shot the bed on Georgia. North
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Carolina is just looking like a harder and harder hill
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: for Michael Wattley the Republican nominita climb. Had it been
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a better national environment for Republicans, I might be slightly
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: more bullish on Republican chances in New Hampshire and in Minnesota,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: where I think in both cases Republicans have quality candidates
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: for the general election Michelle Tafoya and Minnesota Johnsonunu, brother
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of Chris Sununu, former senator himself. But frankly, I don't
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: think Scott Brown would be a disastrous candidate the other
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: This is our primary with two former senators running against
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: each other in New Hampshire. But Chris Pappis is run
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a pretty solid campaign up there, and because he's from
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that swing district in New Hampshire, he's been through so
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: many of these races, so I think he is prepared
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: for this. And again you start attacking Canada, that hurts
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of the economy in New England in general.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So the same issues that Susan Collins has with Trump's
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: policies on tariffs harming the main economy. Honestly, it's the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: same concerns that folks in New Hampshire have. There a
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: few historical nuggets here to understand the battle for the Senate.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Whenever the out party gains Senate seats in a midterm,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the average gain in the modern era has been four seats,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: so Democrats need four to get control. That is the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: average pickup when the out party picks up seats in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the midterm. So now I happen to think if the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Democrats win the Senate, they're more likely to net six
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: seats than they are to be right at the number four,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and obviously they're right at four. Then you have the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Fetterman thing You've got to worry about, right, could he caucus,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you know, go become an independent caucus with the Republicans.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: But I wouldn't rule out Leasta Murkowski potentially doing the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: same thing, So you know, I happen to think Fetterman
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and Murkowski may end up canceling each other out if
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: this is where this is headed in twenty eight. Obviously,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I think the better idea would be a Feederman and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Murkowski with held their support from either of the conferences,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and those independent candidates could actually negotiate from a position
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to strength. But I don't think we have enough truly
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: independent thinking senators yet ready to go down that road.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So I do think it's important though that you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats don't need an historic wave in order to pick
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: up the Senate. They just need like a category two
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: right now, they do have to knock off a lot
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: of incumbents, and knocking off incumbents is much harder than
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: winning open seats. Right, They've got to knock off an
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: incumbent in Ohio, but that's an appointed senator and they're
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: kind of running their own incumbent. And Shared Brown they've
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: got to knock off of coment in Alaska. Knocking off
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: incumbents in Alaska are quite difficult there, but because Mary
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Ptello was the statewide elected member of the US House,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: so you can say, and similar to Shared Brown that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it's sort of and are on par situation there. Kansas
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Nebraska are both challenges to an incumbent, so you know
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that can but you know, look, Democrats won six netted
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: six Senate seats in two thousand and six, and in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: every case they're challengers knocked off sitting incumbents. So it
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: isn't as much of a necessity to flip a seat
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that it has to be opened in Senate races than
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: it is, say, in House races or more likely in
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: gubernatorial races. Now, I do want to sort of point
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: out to why the arguments that many Republicans I'm talking
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to are making to me about why they're a bit
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: more bullish than they were four months ago. They can
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: see Trump's not stronger, if anything, he's weaker, but The
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: reason why the Republican strategist I'm talking to feel at
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: least like it's they're not they're not in a fetal position,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: is because they feel like Democrats have gave them something
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to run against, right, the DSSA, the Socialists, the Democratic
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Socialist of America, this rise of the DSA or the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: DSA adjacent progresses, Mom, Donnie, socialism, all of that stuff.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: It is something Republicans are comfortable doing, right. It's a
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: messaging that they've kind of been, They've already been sort
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of seating, you know, fertilizing the fields here on this front.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: So it's something they know how to do. And all
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, right they've been sort of crying, they've
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: been kind of chicken little when it comes to the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: S word with socialism, and lo and behold, suddenly quite
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a few Democrats are publicly embracing it. So suddenly their
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: attacks on Democrats for embracing socialism has more credibility this
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: summer than it did that summer. But there was another
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: important news update on the Republican side of things that
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: told me both that was a bit of a tea
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: leaf that I took to mean that the White House
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: political team is at least conceding they're behind and they're
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: more likely to have a bad midterm than a good midterm.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Tony Fabrizio Chris Lasovita basically the president's you know, chief
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: political campaign architects for Brezio has been the president's bolster
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: now going back to twenty sixteen. Chris Lasovita was brought
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: on starting in starting in late twenty nineteen and twenty twenty,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and has been an important strategist to the president. They
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: did a briefing in DC earlier this week that some
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of it leaked out where they made the pitch to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: those in their audience. It was some donors, House and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Senate staffers, lobbyists essentially, some of their friendly allies, but
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: those that are some decision makers, and their basic pitch was,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Republicans have to create a contrast. Right, don't allow yourself
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to become the issue. Make the Democrat unacceptable in some way.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It's exactly what the party in power usually does when
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a midterm starts moving the other way. They want to
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: try to disqualify the challengers. Right. It's what Democrats did
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: with some success in twenty twenty two. Right, Biden didn't
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: have as bad of a midterm as most presidents have
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: this century in their first midterm, still had a bad midterm,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: but he didn't have as bad of a midterm on
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that front. So it's what Democrats did in twenty ten,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and they were able at least to save the Senate
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: even if they lost the House. And in twenty eighteen,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans were able to save the Senate on their end,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: even as they lost the House. This strategy does will
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: work in a handful of races where Republican a Republican
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: incumbent somewhere, a handful of them in the House, one
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: or two in state white races will survive not because
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of anything they're running for, but because they were successfully
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: able to disqualify for their Democratic opponent. Right, that's obviously
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: what what Republicans think would be a gift if they
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: got it in Abdul lsied in Michigan. And it's what
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: they think, for instance, the gift that they might get
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: if the socialist sens at the Democratic nominee for governor
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. Right there, But what's the what was left
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: unsaid by that briefing by las Avita and Fabrizio to
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the sort of the Washington smart set. They weren't trying
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: to defend their record, and they weren't trying to run
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: on anything. They can run on some of the tax
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: cuts and no tax on tip. But you know the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: real problem they have is they don't have a messenger
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: in the White House that knows how to stand message right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't follow campaign strategy. He just follows his
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: own whims and his own perceived instinct. My old friend
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: David Winston, a longtime Republican polster, and I worked together
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: way back when when we invented news coverage on the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: internet for politics Now. In his Roll Call column, he
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: had this great line, and I just want to repeat
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: it here, but I think he was speaking for a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: lot of not yet depressed Republican strategists, but they're getting
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: close to feeling depressed. And here's what he wrote. He goes,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: with all due respect, my advice to the president is
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: to make the voter's number one issue, the economy, his
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: number one issue. Right, essentially wins and saying, hey, buddy,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the issue that voters care about the economy, maybe you
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: ought to pretend to care about the economy, and then
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: he continues, the base alone won't win the election for
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you this year any more than it did in twenty
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: eighteen or even twenty twenty. More to the point, he writes,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the base is already with you, and then he continues,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: women in independence are not the president. Now, Winston believes
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the president has a positive economic story to tell if
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: he would just tell it. And then he closes his
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: column with a great line, the bully pulpit is a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: terrible thing to waste. My friend David Winston is always
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: he always tries to have a smile on his face. Now,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: some of fellow Republicans will say he's always mister dooman
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: gloom about his side of things. But I do think
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: what he was saying brings up the sort of the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: It's not even really a wild card, right. It is
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: probably the one thing that Republicans desperately need, which is
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a president that's on message, and it's one thing that
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: they're not going to have, and every candidate has to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: realize that that's not going to happen. Look, Winston wasn't
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: advocating that he should change policy. He was just saying
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: change your emphasis. Right. He's like the problem that the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: president doesn't seem to understand is that the persuadable voters
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: aren't interested in election denialism, The persuadable voters hate this
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: war with Iran, the persuadable voters hate what he's done
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: with the economy, And yet what is Trump spent his
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: week talking about election denialism, terrifiights with Canada and restarting
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and re threatening sort of all sort of saber rattling
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: with the run. Let me just tell you this, those
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: are all stories that make Republican Senate candidates lives that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: much harder. As I told you, right, I mean, can
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: it get any worse for Susan Collins as she's trying
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to seek reelection to what Trump has done to her
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: on this front between Ice and these tariffs. As I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: said earlier. So this is and ultimately one thing you
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: have to remember here. As much as candidates matter in
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a midterm election, the most important lesson I took away
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: with working with my friends at the NBC News poll,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Bill mcinturf from the Republican side, Jeff Horwitt and Peter
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: hard on the Democratic side over the last nearly twenty years,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: is that they drilled one lesson into my head during midterms.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: There is no better predictor of a midterm than presidential
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: job approval, and that you know essentially, and I think
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: now we know forty five percent is the new fifty.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: President's job approval under forty five guarantees his party is
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: going to lose seats. Doesn't mean they'll lose chambers, but
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: they definitely lose seats. A president under forty means they're
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: going to lose chambers. The question is how bad is it?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: How big is the wave going to be? Now, there's
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: another way, So we already know, I've already, we've already,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: we already know where the president's job aready. Two things
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: need to happen for a wave. For a political wave
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: to hit in a mid term. One is, you need
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: one party to be unpopular the party empower to be unpopular. Okay,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: that's check. But what turns a one sided election into
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: a wave like election is when one party is can't
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: wait to vote and the other party is willing to
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: skip the election. And probably the best way to measure
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: that issue is also in presidential job approval. But it's
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: not the overall rating. It is what is the sitting
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: president's job approval rating with members of his own party
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and so I went through and I just used Gallup
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: so that there would just be one set of apples,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: if you will, and sort of polster speak, one set
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of apples to look at. So I just used Gallup,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: going all the way back to nineteen ninety four. And
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the reason I went all the way back to nineteen
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: ninety four is that I think it the Bill in
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that sense these questions, you know, that hasn't even though
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: our politics have changed a lot between nineteen ninety four
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and today, in some ways, the impact of a presidential
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: job rating on the midterms hasn't changed. So let me
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: run through some stuff. When I went through what because
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton is such a great example, he had one
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: disastrous midterm and he had one incredible midterm. So Bill
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Clinton's jobrating in nineteen ninety four among Democrats in July
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety four, so I did July for all
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: of this, so we were staying in our current president
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: was just sixty eight percent among Democrats. And guess what
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: happened that November huge wave benefiting the Republicans. Nineteen ninety eight,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: his jobrating among Democrats was eighty nine percent. That was
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the impeachment election. If you will and what happened. Democrats
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: had an historically they didn't lose seats, right, that was
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: what made it incredible. I think they I think they.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I think the Senate was dead even and I think
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: maybe Democrats netted four or five seats. It was something
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: like that historic over performance. George W. Bush sort of
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the mirror image in two thousand and two. His job
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: rating among Republicans in July of two thousand and two
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: eighty eight percent. Fast forward to November of two thousand
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and two, Republicans had a banner year. They win the Senate,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: get clean control of Congress. That was sort of the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: post nine to eleven hangover by two thousand and six.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush's approval rating among Republicans going into that
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: in July two thousand and six unpopular war in the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Middle East sixty nine percent. Democrats do something nobody thought
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: they could do. Not just pick up the House, but
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: they knocked off six incumbent Republican senators six incumbent Republican
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: senators and took control of the Senate. Barack Obama was
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: at eighty percent among Democrats with job approval July of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: twenty ten, and he was it's seventy six percent among
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Democrats in July twenty fourteen. Now what's interesting is in
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: twenty ten, Democrats, while they lost seats in both the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: House and the Senate, they hung on to the Senate.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: They lost the House. In twenty fourteen they lost seats
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: in both chambers, and by that time they indeed also
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: lost the Senate. So kind of a mixed back. Donald Trump.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval rating among Republicans in twenty eighteen was
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: actually eighty eight percent, and most recently it is now
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: seventy eight percent. Was one of the most recent that
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I looked at with Gallup. I don't want to sit
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: here and say that there is a that you see.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I think there is certainly correlation here. It is not
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: necessarily definitive, But I think it's fair to say the following,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: which is anything below seventy wave, anything above above eighty,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: certainly above eighty five into the eighties, the party in
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: power is going to do well when you're sitting in
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: the seventies with your own party, right, And we've seen
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Trump is now dipping below eighty among his own party
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: for the first time. We saw that with Obama twenty fourteen,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and so I think it's because what that does is
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that it's sort of an enthusiasm measurement. And I think
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: this is what I would remind my friends on the
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Blue team, of which is Republicans do have a fairly
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: high floor here. Right. The President's popularity among his base
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: is holding up better than you might think given everything
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: he's been doing with this economy. Now, look, it's possible
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the bottom falls out here if this war with a
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: run just has no end in sight. I think that
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the direction of this war could creator And that is
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: something that you saw this and there was a big
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: sort of a bunch of anonymous quotes and playbook earlier
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: this week about that very issue, this sort of fear
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: if you will, that Democrats that excuse me, fear if
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you will, that this Iran war will get so unpopular.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You're already seeing it, right that even among the self
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: described MAGA folks who actually stuck by him at the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: start of the Iran war, despite mega influencers questioning this decision,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: now MAGA voters are looking a little almost very similar
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: to mega influencers on that front. So look, ultimately, like
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I said, over the last eighteen months, in some ways,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the picture hasn't changed. And if you look at sort
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: of the long developments that have taken place, Democrats have
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: made a lot more progress in putting themselves in a
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: position to win control of both the House and the
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Senate than Republicans have of putting themselves in a position
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: to defend both the House and the Senate. That said,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I think on the House side, certainly Republicans have made
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: it have gotten some court rulings that are going to
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: make it a little bit harder for Democrats to get
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: to get the big House majority they were hoping for.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: So we're going to probably be looking at a very
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: narrow or somewhat narrow House majority, and the Senate is
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: clearly in play. But there are two wild cards that
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: are going to impact this election over the next hundred days.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Wild Card one is, of course Donald Trump. He's a
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: grievance machine. He does more speeches like he did last
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Thursday with this absurd election denihilism. It does nothing to
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: motivate his base and it only seems to, you know,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: send Republican incumbents fleeing for the ills, right. None of
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: them want to be seen next to him when he's
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: talking about any of that stuff. If he's going to
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: have more, if he's going to continue to have these daily,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: if not weekly, announcements on tariffs, which are only essentially
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: tax increases on the American consumer in an electioneer seems
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: like bad headlines to be generating out of the White
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: House on a near daily basis. And now the Iran
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: war looks like we're nowhere near getting towards an end.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And if anything, you have Donald Trump out there saying, well,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: we don't need the STRAIGHTUFOAR moves, we could just walk away.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I think he said at some point on Wednesday that
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you know, between the United States and and then control,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the United States currently has over Venezuela's oil, that that
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: that combination means that the United States it doesn't matter,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: they don't care. But the problem is the rest of
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the world needs some oil out of the straight of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: foremos right, And guess what, Our economy is not disconnected
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: from the rest of the world. And if the rest
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of the world struggles with the global economy, trust me
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: so well. Our economy there is no moat. There's no
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: economic moat that can be built here. I know Donald
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Trump thinks you can build this moat that will somehow
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: make create this golden age of economic growth for the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: United States at the expense of the rest of the world. Well,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: let's just say that is not how the American how
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the economy in general works. The second wild card, though,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: is Democrats, because one could argue Trump has done everything
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: he can to put the Democrats in a position to
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: win both the House and the Senate. Can the party
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: stay united enough to find electable candidates in these places
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: and not shoot themselves in the foot and not have
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: these intra party right The only things standing in the
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: way I think of Democrats winning the Senate majority versus
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: losing the Senate majority are is if they nominate the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: wrong people in a handful of the Senate races that
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: are left and they end up coming up short. So
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: one hundred days out, big picture, Democrats still the favorite.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: If anything, I kind of think I kind of think
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: that it's been a little bit of a mirage, this
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: sort of Republican optimism that we've seen this summer. I
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: understand where it comes from, right, all those court rulings
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and what we've seen, but when you look at it
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: sort of from sixty thousand feet, this feels like it's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: only headed in one direction right now. Many of you
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: know I'm a college football fanatic, which means I've been
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: following this negotiations on Capitol Hill over It's one of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the few things that are bipartus. And because it's remember here,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: this is not a case of Democrats versus Republicans. This
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: is really the SEC and the Big Ten versus everybody else.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: So there aren't partisan lines. There are different kinds of lines.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: But look, in the next three weeks before the Senate
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: leaves for its August resets, I do expect Congress to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: try to pass what could be the most consequential piece
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of sports legislation that Congress has passed in a generation.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: It's called the Protect College Sports Act. The White House
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: is behind it, the NCAA is behind it, the NFL, NBA,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, twenty four conferences and more than two
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty schools are all in favor of this.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: There's two conferences that are against it, the SEC and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten. Now all that set I happen to
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: think it doesn't matter what happens to this bill, because
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I think it is headed for a courtroom shredder. Because
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: everybody inotiating this bill and I mean everybody has ignored
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the one group of people. The entire enterprise in college
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: sports runs up the players. So let me start with
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: what this bill actually will do, because it is sweeping.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: It would give the NCAA and the conferences and antitrust exemption,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: essentially legal immunity to do things courts keep telling them
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: they can't do right, like put a cap on what
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: an athlete gets paid, or limit how often or when
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: they can transfer schools, or setting eligibility rules five years,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: six years, medical red shirts, things like that. It would
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: let schools pool their metea ites, it would ban coaches
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: from bailing mid season. It's everything, and it would be federalized. Well,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: think about who's in the room writing this bill. There
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: are three Senators Ted Cruz, Maria Cantwell, Eric Schmidt. Those
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: are states that are represented where their schools are in
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the mostly the SEC and the Big Ten, and those
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: two conferences keep sending over their revision demands before they'll
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: sign out on it. By the way, advising the White
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: House effort on this is a New York Yankees executive
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: by the name of Randy Levine. And then of course
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: there's Cody Campbell, who if you follow college football very closely.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: He is basically the biggest donor to Texas Tech Athletics
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: there in West Texas. But you know who's not in
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the room. There is not one of the five hundred
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: thousand athletes this bill governs. There are former athletes that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: have been consulted, but not current ones. And it's not
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: because they were excluded from the meeting. But there's no
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: one to invite, right College athletes have no union, there's
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: no bargaining agent, there's no institution with the legal authority
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: to say yes or no on their behalf. They are
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the object of this legislation, but they are not a
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: part of to it. And this is why I am
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: convinced this legislation is going nowhere until there's collective party.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: And here's how you know the money conversation is happening
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: without the players because the revisions being negotiated right now
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: that have been reported out of various league meetings we
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: keep hearing about in various places. They're all about the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: size of the cap. Right, how much can they cap spending?
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: If you will? The bill locks in a twenty one
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: point three million dollar revenue share per school, tough new
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: rules shutting down these booster collective collectives that also give
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: extra money to these players. But here's the problem. The
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: actual market right now is actually forty to fifty million
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: at the top schools, So this bill has written will
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: end up being a pay cut roughly half at the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: top end. The conferences know this, so they're negotiating a fix.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: They want a separate retention pool twenty to thirty million
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: more per school. Maybe put a luxury tax on the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: big spenders, so you've got cap levels, retention money, luxury taxes. Huh.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Kind of sounds like a collective bargaining agreement. Right. That
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: is literally the agenda of every collective bargaining agreement negotiation
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: and the history of professional sports. Right. Randy Levine, when
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: he's in baseball, bargains those exact items with the players
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: union in baseball. That's his day job. And here he
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: and others are trying to build a college version, except
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: there's nobody across the table. They are drafting the management
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: half of the agreement of a labor deal with no
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: agreement from the labor side, and they're going to somehow
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: get federal immunity to do this. But look, in every
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: professional sports league in this country. The salary cap exists
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: for one reason and one reason, and only the players
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: agreed to it. The NFL cap, the NBA cap, and
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the NHL cap. We'll see if MLB does it. Every
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: one of them was collectively bargained, and that agreement is
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: precisely what makes them legal. It's called the labor exemption.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: You can restrain a labor market in America if labor
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: consents through its union. Baseball, for instance, has an anti
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: trust exemption. They've had one for essentially one hundred years,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and it coexists with the strongest union in sports. There
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: is no league, none, zero, that operates a cap on
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: worker pay without a union's signature on it until this bill.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: This bill takes the restraint and skips the consent of
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: the players. It's a take it or leave it labor law.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: The schools and the conferences want to decide what the
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: athletes deserve, and the athlete's role is simply to just say,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: thank you, may I have another? And I'm going to
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: tell you what the courts have done with this arrangement
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: every single time they've seen it. In nineteen ninety eight,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the NCAA capped assistant coaches salaries, and guess what federal
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: appeals court struck it down cost the NCAA fifty four
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and a half million dollars. Then, of course you had
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the famous Obandon case. Then in twenty twenty one, the
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Alston case, where the Supreme Court ruled nine to nothing,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: not five to four, nine to nothing, that the NCAA
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: compensation limits get full antitrust scrutiny. Justice Kavanaugh wrote separately,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to paraphrase this price fixing labor is
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: flatly illegal everywhere else in America, and the nc DOUBLEA
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: is not above the law. And yet they're trying to
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: get Congress to pass something that looks just like this. Now,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: can Congress override that with exemption? Technically they can, but
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: look at the track record on exemptions. The courts hate them.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: They call baseball's exemption and aberration. They refuse to extend
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: it one inch, not even to football. Every ambiguity in
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: this statue will be litigated, and seventy years of precedent
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: say courts resolve ambiguity against the cartel, and in this case,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the cartel is the universities, the boosters, and the conferences,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and parts of this bill aren't just narrow. They're constitutionally exposed.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: The provision reportedly capping specific named conferences at nineteen members
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Congress writing commercial rules for private organizations by name. That's
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: begging for a bill of attainder challenge. And I didn't
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: even go to law school. Meanwhile, the lead lawyer from
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the House Settlement, that's this settlement that may the decision
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: that all these athletes get paid. It's called the House Settlement. Anyway,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the lead lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, is already on the record
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: saying Congress cannot rewrite terms of a court supervised settlement guaranteed.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: So this bill was sold at the end of the lawsuits.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: It is a full employment act for sports litigators. That's
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: all it is. And by the way, the bill's answer
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: to this representation problem, well, they'll give athletes a seat
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: on some governing boards. Section one sixteen creates a commission
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: to quote study whether collective bargaining might be a good
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: idea anybody a board seat and a blue ribbon panel
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: to decide whether labor should have a say in what
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: its compensation looks like in exchange for essentially a wage
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: cap that's imposed immediately in any other industry. We have
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: a name for that arrangement. It's called a company union,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: and it was outlawed in nineteen thirty five. So where
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the uh where does all this leave us? Well, it
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: pains me to say this, but anyways, scratch that, I
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: want you to do this and edit. I don't want
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: to say it this way. So where does that lead us?
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Three two one? So where does that leave us? Well, honestly,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: I think Tommy Tupperville, right, who's an outgoing center. He's
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: running for governor I was telling you about earlier in
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the podcast. He might have the most defensible position in
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: the Senate right now. His alternative is very narrow. He
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: just simply thinks Congress ought to deal with two things,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: eligibility and the transfer issue five years of eligibility, lock
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it in one free transfer, and then kill everything else.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: And essentially what Tupperville is being what's left unset, is
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: let the unionizing happen organically, and then everybody will get
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: back to the table. Now the bill itself has a
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: similar blind spot. It's still rule, it's still rules imposed
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: on athletes without their consent, the Tupperville Bill, but it's
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: a stop gap that is probably you can probably navigate
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: around the courts, and it would stabilize a couple of
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: things that have been causing the most day to day chaos,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: right the transfers, portal and the player eligibility. And it
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't cement a compensation system into federal law before the
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: players ever get organized. So you get to fix the
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: calendar problems now and essentially punt the issue of compensation
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: down the road. Because here's the bottom line. Until there's
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: a collective bargaining, until there's some sort of union or
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: collective bargaining in college sports, we're not going to be
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: in a good place. Period. These are now professional athletes.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Suck it up, universities, suck it up, conference chairs. You've
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: got to actually treat the players like partners here. Now,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Congress could actually make it happen. They could force it.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: The federal labor law that covers unions only applies to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: private employers. Most big athletic programs are public university and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: several sec states flat out ban public employee bargaining. Michigan
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: athletes could organize tomorrow. Alabama athletes legally can't. But Congress
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: can fix that patchwork. That's even a model. We've had
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: a separate custom built labor law for railroads and airlines
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: since nineteen twenty six. You can write one for college sports,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: two players associations, one for the revenue sports football and
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: basketball to bargain the cap and the transfer rules, and
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: then frankly one for everybody else to bargain healthcare, scholarship, safety, etc.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: And then here's the hammer. The anti trust exemption only
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: turns on when there's a ratified collective bargaining agreement, no deal,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: no immunity. It's not a radical proposal. It is literally
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: how every single other sports league in America already works.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: So look, I am very I think this college bill
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: is nothing. It is one sided. It is basically trying
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: to jam the players here because they're trying to do
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: this before players union develops. And I know some of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: this is complicated. Are you going to have players associations
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: by conference? Is there going to be the SEC players union?
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And we also have these issues of are they public employees?
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Are they private employees? Right? If you're working for the collective,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: that's a private entity. If you're working for the university,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: and if it's a state school, that's a public entity.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: So there's certainly a lot of but the fact that
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Congress isn't touching that aspect of it, to me is
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the incredible blind spot, and it is why, for what
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: it's worth, I don't expect this to actually pass. Now. Look,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I got one more quick rant about this, and it's
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: it's this SEC temper chantrum where Greg Zanki said, well,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: we may not like this and we may just pull out.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You know. Look, I'll own my own bias here when
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: it comes to the SEC. As many of you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge Miami Hurricane fan, and I've seen this
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: movie with the SEC now for forty years. When Miami
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and the other independence Florida State Notre Dame, ruled college
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: football in the eighties, the SEC was begging for a
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: new system because their teams weren't winning. When the Big
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Ten and the Rose fow held the leverage, the SEC
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: pushed to blow up the bowl structure. Snubbed in the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: BCS time for a playoff, the SEC demanded the pattern
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: has never changed. Whenever the power sits somewhere else, the
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: SEC demands a new system that it revolves around them,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: and the moment the SEC is on top, the system
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: must be frozen in place. And now they in the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Big Ten want a playoff structure and a legal framework
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: where those two conferences never have to compete on a
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: level playing field. Again, call it what it is, but
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I call it college football nationalism. You know, instead of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: America First, it's SEC first. And here's why I'm not
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: just self interested here. I actually think it's self defeating
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: for college football. Look, I'm actually not worried about Miami.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: They'll get into one of the two super conferences if
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: college football decides to destroy itself and become a forty
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: team semipro league, all right, But I'm hoping that isn't
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the answer, because I think the sport's superpower is its geography.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: College football sells out one hundred thousand seed stadiums in
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: big cities and packs them in small towns. It's the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: only sport in America that genuinely lives everywhere. The SEC
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: first path shrinks that. Maybe they want only forty communities
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: tops allowed to truly compete and rules written to keep
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: new challengers out permanently. That's not a league. It's a monopoly.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: And I guess if they're working with the Big Ten,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: call it a duopoly. Right. The NFL face this exact choice.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty one, the Giants and the Bears could
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: have hoarded their own TV markets. They had every short
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: term reason to do that. Instead, Pete Rosell convinced the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: big market owners to pull everything, pull all their media dollars,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: pull all their revenues, split it evenly, and then Congress
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: passed a law to let them do that. That decision
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: is why Green Bay, Wisconsin population a little over one
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand, has an NFL team, And it's why the
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: NFL is a twenty billion dollars a year colossus. While
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: every hoard your own market league is a footnote. This
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: bill actually offers college football the same door. Let all
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty eight schools pull their media rights.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: And yet it's the SEC that is blocking the door.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: If they'd take it, everybody makes more money, including the SEC.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: They're they're choosing a bigger slice of a smaller pie,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and history says the pie is the whole ball game.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: We shall see, all right. I got three other quick
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: sidebars for you that caught my attention this week that
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I thought was necessary to go through. First, the measles
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: numbers this week ought to stop every single politician in
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: their tracks. We've now had more measles cases this calendar
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: year twenty twenty six than we had in all of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: last year, and last year was an incredibly shockingly high
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: year for measle outbreaks. We've had more than twenty two
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: hundred cases already. It's the highest number in thirty five years,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and we're only in July. But ninety five percent of
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the cases are among people who are unvaccinated or whose
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: vaccination status is unknown. Let's think about that for a second.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: This isn't some new virus that scientists are still trying
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: to understand. This is the measles we had essentially eliminated
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: in this country, Which is why I think it's fair
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: to say that Robert F. Kennedy Junior bears real responsibility
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: for the climate where and I don't say that as
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: a political shot. I say it because the evidence points
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in that direction. Robert F. Kennedy Junior is literally responsible
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: for this rise, arguably almost all on his own. No,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: he didn't invent vaccine skepticism. He just made it mainstream.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: There's no public official in America who has done more
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of the last two decades to undermine the confidence, specifically
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: in the measles vaccine than Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Obviously,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I've this has been an obsession of mine. I haven't
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: been on it in a while, But long before he
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: entered government, he spent years questioning the measles vaccine despite
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: overwhelming scientific consensus that it is safe and extraordinarily effective.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Now he has since acknowledged that the combined vaccine, the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: MMR vaccine, is the best protection against measles. Okay, and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: that's welcome the please. He has created all sorts of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: questions about vaccines, and once confidence in public health is eroded,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: it takes years to rebuild, sometimes decades. Viruses don't wait
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: for politics to catch up. So when vaccine vaccination rates slip,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: when communities lose heard immunity, and when measles returns after
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: we'd essentially eliminate it, it's impossible to separate those outcomes
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: from the atmosphere that was created. This is not a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: partisan conclusion. Science isn't partisan. We're just simply following cause
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and effect here. Politics rewards people for creating doubts. So
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: congratulations Arefkjunior. You've done it. Biology punishes you for creating doubt.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: And if these outbreaks continue. Eventually somebody is going to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: pay a political price for Maybe it's not this cycle,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: maybe it's next year. But parents don't like discovering that
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: their child got sick from a disease modern medicine had
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: already beaten. This shouldn't be a cultural war issue. It
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: should be a competency issue, and just shame on everybody
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: involved in allowing this menace to public health. Robert F.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Jr. Anywhere near public policy, he is single handedly,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: he is single handedly responsible for any of these deaths
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: and measles. I wouldn't be surprised if that man. I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: certainly think, I certainly think he could be. You know,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: there's immunity as a as a political as a government official.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: But after he leaves office, some trial or is going
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: to create some civil litigation. Trust me. The Mam Donnie speech,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: his movement versus his mayorality. Quick observation about what we
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: saw from zoning Mamdanni earlier this week. Whatever your views
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: are on Benjamin Yah and whatever your views are on Gaza,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I think the mayor made an important political choice this week,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: and I think it may prove to be an important
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: political mistake. He delivered what amounted to an address to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: the city voted to whether Benjamin Nanyahu should be arrested
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: if he comes to New York for the United Nations
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: General Assembly. Then, after walking through the legal realities, he
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: acknowledged that the mayor of New York City doesn't actually
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: have the authority to make that happen. Now look, I'm
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: not gonna My point isn't whether Netna who deserves to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: face prosecution from the International Criminal Court. That's a separate debate.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: My point is about what a mayor chooses to elevate.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: During the campaign, Mom Dannie, the candidate, repeatedly argued that affordability,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: not Israel, would define his administration housing, cost of living, transit,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: making New York more affordable. And yet, when he had
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: one of his biggest opportunities to use the New York
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: City mayoral bully pulpit, he decided to give a formal
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: address not about housing, not about affordability, public safety, quality
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: of life. He gave one about foreign policy. Now look, choice,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: he could have answered a reporter's question on this issue.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: He could have issued a written statement calling on the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: federal government to hand Nahu over. Instead, he chose a
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: formal address to the city, and I think it tells
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: us something because it's also clear that Mamdanni isn't simply
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: trying to govern New York City. He's trying to lead
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: a movement inside the Democratic Party. He wants to mainstream
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: his version of democratic socialism. That's his larger project, and
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: up until now, I'd actually argue he's been remarkably disciplined
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: about that project. He's had these bite sized governing initiatives
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: that have been brilliant. His ice cream regulation, you know,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: he got rid of red tape on selling ice cream
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: in certain restaurants. The World Cup, traffic planning, the everyday
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: municipal issues. I think he's been really it's sort of
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: you know, it's been these little small ball stuff to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: sort of get shitting done issues, and I think it's
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: projected competence in the first few months, and it might
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: have even encouraged skeptical voters to say, maybe the guy
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: really is focused on making city government work better. That's
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: how you could make a movement go mainstream. You don't
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: start by convincing everyone to agree with your ideology. You
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: start by convincing people you can govern. This is why
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I think this speech on net Nyahu was such an
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: unforced error. Instead of expanding his coalition, he reminded every
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: skeptical voter why they were skeptical of him in the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: first place. Fairly or unfairly, speeches like this reinforce the
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: perception that underneath the affordability message, the real passion is
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Middle East politics. For him, that's why he ran, That's
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: what motivated him, and he specifically wants to try to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: change America's relationship with Israel. Whether that's an entirely fair
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: characterization almost becomes beside the point. Politics is about what
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: voters conclude, and I think this made it harder, not easier,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: for him to mainstream the movement he says he's trying
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: to build. And it also made me wonder for the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: first time whether we're looking at someone whose next campaign
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: is not going to be for reelection in twenty twenty
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: nine as mayor of New York City, what it's going
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: to be for the United States Senate in twenty twenty
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: eight for a seat currently held by Chuck Schumer. Because
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: that speech sounded much more like the opening argument of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: a national politician than the priorities of a mayor six
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: months into his job. Now, Mom, Donnie was not born
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: in the United States. We can't run for president, but
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: he can run for any other office. Look, the Middle
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: East has become trapped in a cycle where every side
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: can point to the moment they were wronged, and too
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: few people are willing to acknowledge the suffering of anyone else.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Hamaspar's responsibility for decades of terrorism and for October seventh,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Israel's government has faced very fair, intense international scrutiny and
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: criticism for its conduct in Gaza. Both of those statements
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: can be true at the same time. But if your
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: job is mayor of New York City, a city that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: is home to one of the largest Jewish populations anywhere
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: in the world, people are entitled to expect that your
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: biggest speeches are going to be mostly about New York City,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: not the Middle East. And that's the political reality. And
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: that's why I think this week Mamdandi Mamdani made his
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: own political project just a little bit harder. Finally, before
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: we get to my interview with Neartanda, one piece of
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: good news. If you've been listening to me rant about
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: primaries for the last year, I had John Opdyke of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Open primaries on the podcast a couple of weeks ago,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and one of the things we discussed wasn't politics, it
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: was constitutional law because I think as we've been asking
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: the wrong question for years. Everybody argues that whether open
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: primaries produce better candidates better government. Look, we can have
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: that debate, but I think there's a more fundamental question.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: When the government creates an election, pays for it, administers it, staffs,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: it prints the ballots, counts the votes. Can the government
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: then tell millions of qualified citizens, sorry, you can't participate
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: unless you join a private political organization. That's a constitutional question.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: And open Primaries has now filed an amicus brief this
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: week in an Oregon case making exactly this argument, And
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I have to say, I think they're finally litigating the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: issue from the right place here Amicus Brief Court, this
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: is what's needed. Their argument is refreshingly simple. Primary elections
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: aren't private club meetings. They're public elections. They're established by law,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: run by government employees, paid for by taxpayers, and in
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: many legislative districts, they effectively decide who's going to hold
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: the actual office. And if that is true, and then
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: your right to participate should not depend on whether you've
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: signed up for one of two private political parties. Think
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: about this contradiction. If I told you you had to
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: join the Rotary Club before you could vote for mayor,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: you say, that's a joke, you'd laugh. I told you
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: you had to join the Chamber of Commerce before you
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: could vote for governor, You'd say, well, that's unconstitutional, because
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: it is. Yet we've somehow accepted the idea that government
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: can require millions of Americans to affiliate with one of
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the two private organizations before they're allowed to participate in
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: what is often the election. That actually matters. The First
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Amendment protects your freedom to associate, and it also protects
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: your freedom freedom not to associate. Government should not force
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: you to surrender one constitutional right in order to exercise another.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: And that's the heart of this argument. And this is
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: why I think it matters because for years this debate
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: over primary reform has been treated as a policy debate. Well,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's the civil rights issues for all these
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: registered independents and no party registered voters who are locked
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: out of voting in some primaries. Nearly half the country
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: now identifies as politically independent, and in quite a few
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: states they're being told they can help pay for an election,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: but they can't participate in that election. Now we'll see
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: what the Oregon courts ultimately do, and maybe this ends
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: up in the Supreme Court and we can get rid
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: of closed taxpayer funded primaries forever. But I'm just ecstatic
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: that we are seeing what I believe is the right
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: question that needs to be asked. Does the right to
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: vote in a public election come from your citizenship or
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: does it come from your party membership? Because if the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: answer is citizenship, then I think the constitutional conversation about
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: closed primaries is going to be a route inside that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: court if it ever gets there. Harve we that we'll
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: sneak at a break when we come back to my
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: conversation with near A Tandon. Then on the other side
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: of that top five lists some of your questions, we'll
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: get chatting. Well. Joining me now is somebody if you're
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: on social media you see her a lot. I think
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: near A Tanden is sometimes a one woman defense mechanism
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: on X since pretty much everybody on Team Blue left
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: X not a ton of folks there. You may also
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: know her from her days working for the Biden wine House.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: The Obama wine House, Hillary Clinton for president. I've known
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: her an incredibly long time, even though we look so youthful,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: the two of us, and her current job title is
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: president of the Center for American Progress, And in many
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: ways it is you could argue, and I don't know
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: whether she pushed backed on this or not. I'll let
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: her decide. It's kind of the democratic government in exile,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: perhaps the next democratic administration in exile? Is that a what?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: In that you certainly are incubating governing strategies for the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: next time Democrats are in charge. No, I mean, I like.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: To say that we're developing ideas for the country's most
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: significant problems, and those people.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: Would be great leaders in the future.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: But I don't like the word exile, like you know.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't mind. I don't mind government and exile.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: But I just think, you know, our focus is on
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: the next generation of ideas.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about in some ways you you're I feel
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: like you're you're now working for the Hailey Stevens campaign.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you, and you're trying really hard not to.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: I know, I take your point, Like I see what
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: you're trying to do on social media, so let's start there.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: What do you think is happening inside the Democratic Party?
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: Right now, take yourself out of it for a second. Right,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: you're on a side here, understandable. There is definitely a
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: side trying to go after the establishment. What is happening?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: How do you explain this outsiders?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I could just start off with what I
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: think is the opportunity for like Democrats or people who
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: like rationality, and I'll definitely answer this thing.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that's fine, I get it because this reminds me
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: and I want to get it. This reminds me of
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Republicans twenty ten and twenty fourteen. They had this huge
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: opportunity in front of them, and they were having a
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: huge fight about who should lead in this huge opportunity.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: This is Democrats in twenty six in my opinion.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think what's happening in the country.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: I think what's happening in the Democratic Party is a
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: combination of a real anger.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: Towards the Trump administration.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: And I guess I would say, you know, at a
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: very high level, what I think is so interesting about
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: the discourse is like we act like this just started
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: to day, and you know, there was actually a first
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Trump administration.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: And during the first Trump administration, we.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: Have the rise of the DSA, and for the first time,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: DSA had one beat incumbent Democrats kind of famously Alexandria
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: Casio Cortez beats Crowley, and there's the growth of the Squad.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Now what also happened is Biden, Joe Biden was elected.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: And people forget this part, but two of the squad
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: members are defeated in primaries, in part because they were
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: not considered supportive enough of Democrats. And the DSA actually
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: as a membership organization really kind of collapsed. And now
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: we're in the second Trump term and it's Trump is worse, right,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: And I'd say, what's happening the Democratic Party is also
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: we should be totally honest, Like the job the Democratic
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: Party was to keep Trump out of office and the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: establishment did fail in doing that. Now there's side ironies.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: I want to stop. I mean, let's let's put up
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: let's put up in Yeah, this has been my thesis
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: as to what's driving this. It was sort of like
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: one Trump term, we can chalk it up to an anomaly. Yeah,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: but you at one job Joe Biden, right, and whether
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: this is fair to Biden or not. And I always
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: thought this is what made his presidency so difficult to
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: gain traction, because the one thing people wanted out of
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden he accomplished on his first day in office,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: and then everything else became okay, now what are you
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: doing for us? And then it's like, wait a minute,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: he's back. You were supposed to change the narrative enough
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: that there wouldn't be a demand for him back. So
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: you do see that as almost the central for animating
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: force right now of this sort of anti establishment left.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, what is odd to me, honestly, is.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: If you think that it was wrong for Joe Biden
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: to run again. The kind of irony of the situation
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: we're in is that it was Nancy Pelosi, who kind
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: of queen of the establishment, who thought the constant thought,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: you know, Joe Biden was probably going to lose, and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: it could have been. I had never talked to her
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: about this, but I imagined she thought that they electoral
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: consequences could be quite grave of that, and it chose
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: to act. I mean, the irony again, we don't they
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: like go off on this for a long time.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: But it was like acting after June twenty seventh. Anybody
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: could do make that decision. Sorry, the question was where
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: were you? Yes, where were you January? Where were they?
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: Where was Nancy Pelosi? Frankly December of twenty two, when
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: it should have been, Hey, we did it. We had
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: the best midterm of sitting democratic president has had in
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: a generation. And I can't wait to pass the baton.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on finishing this term strong. I'm
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: not seeking reelection, and he would have done it from
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: a position of strength.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, you know, I have like one hundred percent agreeing
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: that part of the critique of the like the establishment
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: is that they maybe allowed this to go on so long.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, the thing that.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: I just take a little I find a little bit
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: of an like an ironic twist of history, is that
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: the people who were supporting President Biden to even like
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: at the end were Senator Sanders and Congressman at Cousin Ortez.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: Well a democratic establishment. I mean, I don't know what
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: to make someone should ask them, you know. It's like,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: if people are so concerned about the failures of the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: democratic establishment, someone can ask them. I mean, I don't
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: generally know what to make of it, but I guess
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: what I'd say instead of, like I do think this
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: is why the establishment has less credibility than it has
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: had in the past, and like, I get that one
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: hundred percent. What I would say, regardless of the establishment
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: or the anti establishment, let me paint a vision of
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: what I think is possible over the next few years.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: And what I'd say is, and you know this is
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: as well, if not better than I do, which is
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: what we are seeing now for the first time in
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: the Trump era is people who have been with Trump
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: a very long time are breaking away. My kind of
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: rough estimate here the way, talk about this at a
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: very high level. In the first year, Trump lost people
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: who voted for him one time, right, he kind of
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: had lost He lost young people, he lost Latinos, he
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: lost Asians. These are people who kind of voted for
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: him in twenty four over over twenty or sixteen, Okay,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: now with the Iran war on top of the tariffs
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: and you know, sort of this like out of control
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Ice situation. People who voted for him three times, mostly
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: i'd say disproportionately white, non college women, that people who
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: haven't gone to college, who formed the backbone of his support.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: There are groups of those voters who are thinking, I'm
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: kind of peace out here, like this has been too
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: much for me. They're not running to the Democratic Party,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: but they are definitely expressing concern about Trump. That is
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: how you get from the low like mid to low
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: forties to the high thirties.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: That is like my attention.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: So the real problem of this last ten years, in
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: my mind, has been that the elections are so close, right,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: every election is like a fifty to fifty election, right,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't it's not big enough to repudiate any
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: of the tactics of the other side.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: And by the way, there's no self reflection because you think, geez,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: if only so close, no.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: Self reflection, no need to think hard about a different path.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: Since every election is close enough, you don't get the
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: members of Congress at the lowest level wondering like, oh
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: what are we doing because they can still win their races,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: or enough of them can win the races. So, in
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: my mind, like the goal of the next three years
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: should be to have actually break out of the cycle,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: to have an election which is a consequential election where
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: it's you know, win by four or five points, hard
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: to imagine, but doable, four or five points and have
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: a large scale electoral college victory. So at all parts
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: of the Republican Party, people really wonder about a pathword
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: and whether there's a non Maga pathword. And the reason
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: why this matters to me, I would just say for
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: me is because I don't want to do politics the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: rest of my life. I don't want every election to
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: be super influential. I would like to be able to think,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: not read the newspaper every day worrying about what person's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: going to get picked off the street or whatever, like
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: you know, whether we're going to go to war. I mean,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: the consequences of politics have become so huge, and I
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: would like to return to a world we're never going
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: to go like this. I think it is wrong for
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: Democrats to think of a return to normal, but they
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: can think of a different kind of stability in the country.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: And so to me, just to bottom line, it is, yeah,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: you should really think of what that coalition is needed,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: what's needed.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: I mean you and I both know that. I mean
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: it's look. I mean, the fact is, I'm sort of
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: a dog with a bone. I'm sort of in a
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: bad place with both parties right now. Because it's so
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: obvious how to build a sixty percent coalition, but nobody
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: wants to do it right. The Republicans don't want to
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: do it, and the Democrats don't want to do it.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: You can want, I really I I just say, speaking
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: for myself, I feel really interested.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: In doing that.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: No, I understand you do. But you see like it is,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: you know, do I think Chuck Schumer would like to
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: do that. Sure, but everybody wants it on their terms.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants it on the voters terms, right, like which
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: is you know I'm watching you know, take believe I'm
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: one of these people that believes forty of our fifty states,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: our fifty to fifty states, as long as you know
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: where the fifty percent marker is. Because the problem is
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: not every fifty percent line is in the same spot, right,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: and there's always overreach by one party or the other.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: There's always an opportunity if you're willing to do it right,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: if you're willing to be Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, if
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: you're willing to be John Bell Edwards in Louisiana. Right,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: We've seen this and it does seem as if that
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: that is that winning. I mean, you keep pointing this
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: out I don't think the left wants to win, right,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: I go and I keep the phrase I love Lately,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: as Matthew Iglesias sort of ripped off a phrase from
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: the TV show and Or, where the main character says,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: do you want to fight or do you want to win?
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Andy and Matthew's whole point was it's increasingly obvious that
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: the left's more interested, particularly DSA. We know that, but
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: even DSA adjacent is more interested in having the fight
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: over the direction of the Democratic Party rather than winning
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: a majority and seeing if you can incrementally make progress
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: on covering more people on healthcare.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think let me do something unusual, which is
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: perhaps rented the defense of the left. But the place
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: I would say that I think the left is more
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: right than moderates is the following, which is, I think
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: a lot a lot of normy liberals or kind of
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: normal Democrats. A real problem where moderates have lost credibility
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: is in the following, which is, I think sometimes moderate
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: sound like they are for.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: Like incrementalism.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: And I think the hard thing there is it is
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: hard to look at the United States and say, you
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: know what, our problems are kind of small, and if
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: we just do them do issues around.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: We're just like, t W how do you define incrementalism?
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: This is what bothers me? Okay, okay, I've used the example.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: One could argue civil unions was an incrementalist policy. Yeah,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: but you couldn't have gotten the same sex marriage without
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: people realizing this civilist unions thing. Actually it's kind of silly,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: it's kind of unnecessary. But before we got to marriage,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: you had to sort of show it, and then suddenly
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: the publics like, oh yeah, there's no difference, there's nothing here,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: And what happened support for same sex marriage and the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: idea that there's a distinction between civil unions and marriage. Right,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: it was, But I could make the case that if
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: you never tried civil unions, you may never have gotten
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: same sex marriage. Social Security is the greatest. My point
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: is is that I'm tired of hearing because I call
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: myself an incrementalist, and to me, incrementalism has is exactly
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: how we've gotten major changes. Social Security is one of
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: my favorite incremental incrementalism stories. It started literally just to
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: prevent old widows from living in poverty, and then we said,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, how about people with disabilities? You know what?
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: How about everybody who's retired, right, Like, yes, over time
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: we got there. You could not have passed that big
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: idea all at once. So I do think, you know,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: this gets back at where I think the left in
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: the center, I agree with you, moderates don't know how
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: to sell that incrementalism actually leads to major, you know,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: to hockey stick moments in public policy. And the left
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't understand that. If you in a country of three
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million people, if you believe in pluralism,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: and I've had people on the left tell me f pluralism,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: I'm done with it. That's a whole nother story. If
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: you want to f pluralism, then you're getting rid of
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: America in the Constitution. But go for it. Yeah, But
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: I do think many in the left don't understand how
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: many of the policies we've successfully gotten to make progress
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: in this country all had to start with incrementalism. You
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten Civil Rights Act in sixty four and
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: sixty five without Harry Truman right doing the executive order
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: in the US military. So yeah, I just sort of ye,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: I almost want to give a defense of incrementalism. Incrementalism
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: has been the greatest change agent in American government.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: I guess I'd say a few things.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: Number One, this whole debate is basically encapsulated in the
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: kind of left now center debate on the ACA. Like
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: I think it's a fundamental failure for people not to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: understand what a huge success getting forty five million Americans
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: covered through the Affordable Care Act. Yeah, I mean this
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: is a question when we're going through the debate. The
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: Conservatives weren't attacking it, laid us to incremental and now
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: people are you know, now the thing is it's all incrementalism.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: But I think the thing I would say to people
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: and is the truth is that things that can sound
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: incremental to you are not perhaps incremental to the public.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: And I'll give a great example of this, which is
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: a Medicare drug negotiation. Like when you ustually taught this
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: was like the most popular thing Joe Biden did. It
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: was our top testing and like accomplishment, and the administration still.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: Felt like they didn't talk about it enough. I was
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: still I didn't talk about it enough.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: It was hugely successful, even so successful.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: Trump took it over and were trying to keep it.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to people, you know, actually if you go
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: to people and say the government is going to ensure
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: that the price of I mean it started with ten drugs,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: so like you know, fifty drugs a year, the prices
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: will come down. People would think of that as a
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: really big change in their lives. And this is where
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: I think the kind of like, you know, I will criticize,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: I will have arguments with the left because you know,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: the real problem and medicure for all is not like
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure insurance companies don't like it.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: The real problem and medicure for all is humans are
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: very changeaverse on healthcare. That is why we had to
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: build on the system.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: We ad to get the affordable correct, I mean, when
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: people forget as we were talking liberals and the left,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: we're talking about socialized medicine for thirty years and it wasn't.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: Moving the dial.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: And finally we did ACA, which built truly built on
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: the healthcare system. It wasn't a radical restructuring and uh
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: and it was able to pass. I mean, it took
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: sixty folks, but we were still abuilt.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: To pass it.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: And the thing like my most seminal learning during the
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: whole debate on the ACA was being in focus groups
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: where people were so change avers, like they didn't want
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: to lose their insurance. They were very susceptible to any
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: story of how they were going to like lose their insurance.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: Or have to pay more or do anything.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: And that is the problem with like people want to
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: point to entrenched interests, and oftentimes there are obviously entrenched
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: interests in Washington that.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: Stopped a strong majority. That happens all the time. They're
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: not wrong about it.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: But on some of these more transformative changes, like when
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: you tell people you know, the government is going to
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: control healthcare, that means Donald Trump and RFK would be
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: in control, everyone would start paying, right, But like, you know,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: you don't have these like rational discourses because it becomes
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: a discourse of not a policy debate, but a debate
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: about motives. Right, you don't like you know what I
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: feels like just to be totally candid about the debates
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: that we have in the Democrat Party And I'm online
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: and I disagree with people and they'll basically be like,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: you're a murderer, progenocide or something, And you know, I'm
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: now like old enough. I was in debates in twenty
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: sixteen where people took videos political leaders who would not
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: say keep it on the ground on climate and they
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: were called murderers. And then I was in twenty twenty
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: and people took videos of leaders who wouldn't support so
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: like Medicare for all, they were called murderers, and the
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: same thing happening. And I guess my take here is
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: like the world would be better off if we just
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: honestly debated, Like you didn't think I was opposed to
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: you because I'm some kind of corporate person. I the
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: real problem is we have to build a majority in
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: the country in a country that's kind of conservative on
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of issues.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: We're a libertarian country. We were founded. I always say this,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: we're kind of founded more libertarian than anything else. You know,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: it's funny about it. I'm willing to say a libertarian
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: and both parties. Oh, when I would argue is that
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: both parties literally reflect one half of that libertarianism. Right. Essentially,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are a little more culturally libertarian and the
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: Republicans are a little more economically libertarian, right, And which
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: is why there's never been a successful I've always said
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: the reason why the libertarians and theory, even though they're
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: basic things because we're an individualist society, right, we were
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: sort of founded that way. Everybody you know, it's an
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: American dream, is an individualistic goal, right. We don't talk
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: about collectives. You know, that just isn't the United States.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: And I do think both parties that's usually when one
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: party overreaches on that, right, looks like they're talking down
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: and telling you how to live. Either telling you how
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to tell you how to live your life,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: you know, big government way the way strong government way
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: Trump's doing now, or we're going to tell you how
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: to live your life culturally, you know what you can
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: laugh at and who can tell a joke? Right? At
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: any time you move too far away from that, I
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: think that is when you see you actually see the boomerang.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, okay, this is so odd because I'm
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: going to defend left and we're very dry, and I
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: think there are a lot of people in the middle
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: in on the left, like maybe even some conservatives, I
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: don't know conservative, maybe it's just independence, but definitely a
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: lot of working class people. So I guess to me,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: I would say, if I were just a strategist for
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, which I am definitely not, I would
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: be trying to organize elections and so that you could
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: and organize messaging so you could attract.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: A larger group of working class people into the fold.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: And this should not, you know, like the party has
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: normally been considered the party of the underdog. It should
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: be something we think about. And I'd say, you know,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: I do think a lot of people walk around and wonder,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: in a country as wealthy as this, how is it,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: you know, where you have a trillion error, how is
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: it that like people have to struggle to make ends
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: meet working two jobs. That is like a legitimate thing.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of working class people think that
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: are kind of economically populist in ways. Now that doesn't
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: mean they're socialists and redistributors, but I do think they think, wow,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: we should tax super rich people more, and like I
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: think we should tax super rich people more too, and
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: I think those are like reasonable pastures. I think the
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: difficulty in the Democratic Party is that sometimes we don't
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that working class people have bigger security concerns. And
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: my favorite I not my favorite in that I love
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: it so much, but a good example of this is crime.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: Working class people experience crime at a higher rate than
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: college educated people, and they are more sensitive to crime.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes the debate in the Democratic Party
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: become much more focused on not like how like really
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: struggling working class people have to like live their lives
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: and it's in those spaces. I mean, like, when you
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: really look at working class voters, they care, they care
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: about crime and immigration and security issues, and you know,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: you said.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: Like al from from nineteen eighty seven, and I have
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: to say they're kind of I don't mean.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 2: That is negative, but I mean like they're also more
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: economically populoist in terms of they do think you should.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: I don't even know if this is popular or just
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: mainstream Democratic at this point, but like, I think the
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: it is odd how little we've discussed the fact that
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: we've done five rounds of tax cuts for super super
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: rich in corporations in the course of two Republican administrations.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: And it is a weird country that people do struggle
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: to make ends meet and there's so much wealth. And
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: I do think one last point, like I actually think
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: under Trump there's a greater concern about like I'm not
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: sure people know what this means, but like a true
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: meaning of oligarchy that the super rich have so much
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: power over the political system, and those are like super
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: legitimate anxieties in the country, like you should.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: That's like she doesn't allowed to drill down because there's
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: a policy issue that I think the Democrats have given
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: up on on taxes. Might look. My frustration is, I'm
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: not a big fan of trying to create a new
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: ser tax when if you just got rid of loopholes. Yeah,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, if the if the rich actually
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: paid thirty nine percent without the loopholes, and basically guess
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: what you get once you have an income over five million,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: there are no more tax deductions. You don't get any right,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: you know, you could create you know that that instead
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: of adding on, because when you add on, you actually
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: only create the conditions for more loopholes, right, and for
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: more of that and that. But I don't want to
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: be distracted. I'll give you the one place where I
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: think there's money in the Banana Stan when it comes
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: to populism, and that is the inheritance tax. Frank Lunz
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: and Frank Lunz and Grovin nor Quists, God bless them.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: The creation the myth of the death tax was one
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: of the greatest political campaign victories of our generation. It
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: was brilliant and it I arguably scared the laft from
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: going after it anymore. It has been something that nobody proposes.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: Nobody touches this anymore. And yet this if you want
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: to prevent an oligarchy, if you want to prevent essentially
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at half a problem with them. I'm
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: going to absolutely stereotype here, but these second generation wealthy kids,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: whether they're super maga or super socialists, they're the ones
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: causing our problems at politics because they've never actually had
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: to have a job, They've inherited money, or they're living
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: off their parents and they're you know, suddenly deciding to
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: pick up the hobby of politics. So that the last
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: part is a little bit of my own old man
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: yelling at cloud. But I do think you would get
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: popular support on the inheritance tax situation in these days one.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: Hundred resent Like, I'm a big fan of the inheritance tax,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: and cause you know, that's.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: You know what people love about taxing. You know, when
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: people people are always in favor of taxing somebody else.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants that everybody thinks their taxes are too high,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: and everybody else's taxes are too low, right, Well, what's
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: the best way to rally and a majority of the
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: country for somebody to have their taxes raise. It's rich
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: people when they die.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the truth of I mean, I guess
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: my view of this, which I think you're getting to is,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things that really ails the
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: country is that, you know, people are so deeply pessimistic
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: that their kids will do better than they will, and
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: deeply pessimistic that the American dream really exists today. And
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: I think, like, you know, if you're trying to think
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: of like why are we in the space that we
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: have been for the last ten years of like the
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: Trump like in power or trying to get in power
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: but having more popular support.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 3: Than he really should.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: Is I think that a lot for a lot of people,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: it really feels like the basic social contract of the
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: country that you can go as far as your talents
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: can take you has been eroded. And one of the
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: reasons why it has been eroded is you can you
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: are more today in a superclass than before. I mean,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: when you think of the way that people can pass
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: on the super rich can pass on to the generational wealth,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: and when they do. They have a much better chance
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: of getting into elite colleges, They have the networks to
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: get the best jobs. They are in just a different
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: kind of stratosphere than everyone else. And you know, I
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: will say, like I grew up kind of struggling, and
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm really really lucky. I have lived
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: the American dream my parents. I've experienced deep poverty and
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: I am now in a job like this and I
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: went from deep poverty to working in.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 3: The White House.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: But I think the like and that's why, to me,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: like the most fundamental issue for today and into the
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: future is is that promise going to be alive? And
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: there are positive ways to ensure that there's real mobility
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: for people, but we should also recognize eyes that people
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: have a legitimate anger at a world where there is
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: entrenched wealth, that people who did nothing to earn that wealth.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: All you were, All that happened is that you, like
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: won the genetic lottery and you have access to a
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: world that very few other people can even strive to
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: get into.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: And I think that to me, if you believe in.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: Merit, like for all the conservatives who genuinely believe in
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: merit and argue for merit. I believe merit is a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: really important thing. And as a result, personally, I don't
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: really understand why people who have done nothing other than
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: be genetically lucky should be have not just well.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: But all the like. Now we've done the numbers on
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: this in that like, what could I mean? Because obviously
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: the best way to make a case, you know, like
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: I said, I think our inheritance tack structure is anti capitalistic.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: It's pro or dark it is, and it wasn't always
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: that way. Actually, we actually.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 3: Had we had we used to live in meritocracy.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: Right. It was about democratizing things, right, small democratization. And
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: you know this is a very recent but like I said,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: Frank Lunson grovenor quiz God bless them, right that depth
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: tax marketing was brilliant, but it really did create help
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: I think, accelerate this classify. Yeah, and also you've done it.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: That's a big one if you like.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: The one of the issues with the wealth tax is
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: that it's hard to evaluate year to year.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: That what this not easy to budget? Is that? What
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: I mean if you're trying to do ten year budgeting stuff.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: Is that well it's also like you just don't know
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: what the value of things are, and then it's a
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: little bit hard to tax.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: And also I think this.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: Room court will be pretty smart that it's not a
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: it's not an actual income tax, and you know, I
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: don't think it'll be found constitutional. But regardless, the merits
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: of this of a wealth tax apply to an estate tax.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: It's just it's and you know, at death you can
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: of value all the things that people have and it
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: has to pass to somebody else.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: Right, So that's an interesting So you think the wealth
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: tax might be unconstitutional and you almost have to do
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: it as a death tax, Well, I.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: Think so, just just as a reminder, uh, we had
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: to pass a constitutional amendment to get an income tax
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: because it was not. So the game of the wealth
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: tax is to say for people who propose a wealth
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: tax is to say that it can be, you know,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: just defined as an income tax. And I personally suspect
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: even Elena Kagan is not going to like fall through
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: that one. So I do think progressive should really think
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: about another version of the tax, and an a state
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: tax doesn't have that failure.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: I mean you have to we've found doing state and
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: obviously if you do it state by state, all you're
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: doing is pitting states against each other.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, I mean, and also it's a I
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: personally don't think it's like the greatest idea when like
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: you have a state like California that really relies on
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: very wealthy people to stay there to I mean, they're
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: they're I mean, nobody thinks this.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: But it is true in New York Cities. Marrior, New
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: York City is learning this.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean in just to say, in California,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: I know this like blows everyone's like heads, like can't
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: imagine it's true. But actually, for working class people, middle
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: like very middle class people, taxes are the same in
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: California as they are in Florida and Texas. Texas are
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: much higher, and very wealthy people and they basically help
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: fund the system. So I mean, I guess my view
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: is that for people who think we don't tax wealthy
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: people enough, and that argument does come from the left,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: they're right, we don't taxt. I mean, this is the
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: system where we've done, like again do it.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: You should actually still be fair about how you do it,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: and in some ways, right it needs to be across
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: the board. It needs to be in the tax code
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: and there you know, it almost needs to be very transparent.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 3: And isn't should be federal.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: It should be for everybody, and it should be And
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: I guess i'd say of all the people who to
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: me are the least sympathetic in terms, I mean, I
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: think we should tax everyone more, every super wealthy person more.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: But the people who I have the like least sympathy
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: for are the people who just again didn't do anything
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: to earn the money, you know, like you could say,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, people can have their qualms with Jeff Bezos,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: but he like did something creative to like make this money,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 2: and I definitely think he should be tax more. But
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: I think of Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos's errors as
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: completely different. Like Elon Musk kid kids, what do those
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: people do? Like, I mean, I'm just like, you know,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I just think it's and I think that
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: that contributes, like to a sense of the democracy is
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: kind of undermined when you have like essentially a kind
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: of economic nobility in the country now.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: And this is where I think, Look, I think the
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: messaging challenge in the past used to be that why
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: is it that somebody who wouldn't be affected by this
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: tax hike. Why are they against this tax hike because well,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: back then people believe, well, maybe they'll be rich someday
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: and they don't want to pay that high tax, right,
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: And that's how you would find working class people who
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: would have benefited from the tax hike on the wealthy
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: deciding no, they're against that because of the fear that
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: it would just you know, there's two fears. And I
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: think that that's the messaging challenge for the left, which
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: is to say, i'd be just calling it a tax fairness, right,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: and then finding a way to make it about tax fairness.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, look, a big problem in politics,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: in my experience, is someone will have an experience, you know,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: ten twenty years ago and think it will be the
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: same today as it was then. And that's true for politicians,
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: the over index on the lessons of their first campaigns
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: or their big politician.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: I always want to know, tell me how they think
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: they won their first campaign, and I'll tell you how
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: they'll government exactly.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 3: Then the hell they'll value everything.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: And so the truth about the you know, it's true
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: the right ran a death tax campaign and really undermined
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: the estate tax. And I just think like that really
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: took hold and year nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, But
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: attitudes in the nineties were radically different. I mean, just
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: to remind everyone, inequality did grow in the nineties.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: It was the house on Days Mann. You know, the
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: nineties now looked like the nineties now look like the twenties. Yeah,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: you know, you're just like, what the hell was happening?
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: You know what the hell was like? People were like
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: in this like, yeah, that's.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: This is very instructive about America, right, Okay, in the nineties,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: every income group moved up, like the bottom twenty, the
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: bottom forty, the bottom sixty.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: The body made money. The rich made money faster.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: They made a lot more like Inequality definitely grew in
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties and were.
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton produced more millionaires I think than any president before.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, he also, I mean, I feel like we had
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: a little less economic a little less political polarization because
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: everyone was doing a lot better than they had been doing.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: And again he'd also passed one of the most generous,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: generous wealthry distributions of the last fifty years. He did
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: a substantial increase in the earned income tax credit. So
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: like working people were also I mean, the economy is
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: doing well, but they also got more money. And like
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: my take on this is I think they are really
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: important lessons and I think the erosion of economic mobility
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: for the bottom fifty percent over the last two decades
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: might contribute to a different assessment of an estate tax
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: today than they might have thought of.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: No, I took look, I just think it is a
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: I think it is sounds like you and I both
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: agree here. It's like that's not a dead issue anymore,
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: like you know, the politics that used to make that toxic.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think that the conditions exist and that there's
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: there's it's probably a more pragmatic way if you're looking
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: for some new revenue, it's probably the most pragmatic place
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: to look.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: And I guess i'd say, you know, like, I definitely
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: think that there are you know, ways in which you know,
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: the rise of DSA are really challenging. But I think,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: you know, smart leaders can try to understand what's energizing
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: any kind of movement. And here, you know, I mean,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 2: I don't think you have a rise of the DSA
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: unless without Trump this term.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: Oh look, the history of politics is reactionary movements create
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: reactionary movements. Yes, exactly, and so my but like it is,
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: this was inevitable. The second Trump term was going to
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: turn the base of the Democrats into blue MAGA, and
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: we're seeing it. I know, I know some people don't
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: like it, but it does look more like blue Mega
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: than people want to admit.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 3: Well, this is what I would say. I mean, then
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 3: we'll see it. Well, we'll test all this out in
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 3: probably the next couple of months.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: Michigan is the great I mean, Michigan's the great Petri
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: Dish potentially, you know one, because just back, I don't
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: believe black voters are going to pick the Socialist over
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: and I think I'll do else. I had knowsed this,
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: and I noticed, and he's trying to try to find
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: some distance with the DSA. So you've got that to say.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: And then whether if he gets a nomination where they
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: can actually win, I don't know.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: Well, so I feel like I could talk about I
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: talk about that race all the time, but I see,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: you know, I would.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: Notice it feels like your X feet is only that race.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: So just just for the record about this whole situation,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: I just want to say for myself, you know, I mean,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: I worked with Hailey Stevens. I worked with her in
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: the she actually worked on the Hillary campaign. She also
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: worked in the Obama campaign. My singular experience with Hailey
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: Stevens was she came to me and a lot of
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: other people, including like people you know, Brian Deese, Jeans
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: Sperling when Obama won that race, when like all the
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: staff members on the campaign were like, how do we
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: go to the White House? And Haley came to me
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: and went to them too, they're all witnesses, and said,
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: i want to go work on the Auto task Force.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 3: I'm from Michigan. I want to help those people. Like
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 3: that's my look. She knows people who worked in not
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 3: and so seminal experience for me.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: And so then when I look online and people are
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: making fun of her accent and like doing these things
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: like making fun of the way she looks and all
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: this stuff, I will say, kind of triggering, and so
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: I felt the need to defend her.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 3: And as you can see, there's a lot.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: Of count response, but apart from Michigan, Like when you
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: look across the country, this isn't a hundred percent, But
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: when you look at across the country, Democrats in swing
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: states seemed to still remember that they are swing states, right,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: So in Iowa, I really loved Zach Walls. I think
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: Zach Walls is a great candidate, but he was he
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: was he was perceived as more liberal than Josh Durick,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: who actually came from a district that he had.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: Read It wasn't a red district, but it was redder
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: than what rheter rehdder.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: He'd been in a district that Trump won by six
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: and then he won by six not super red, but
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 2: he was able to pull some Trump voters suicide. He won,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: you know, he won that primary pretty handily. Like obviously
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: Texas is a very complicated place. But my own view
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: is that a lot of Liberals voted for Teleerrigo because
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: they thought he had a better chance of winning against whoever.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 3: The Republican is going to be. And we're just one
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 3: kind of dark.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: And so I think this is a big question in
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's really happening in the Democratic Party is
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: not is a debate about who can.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 3: Win general elections? Is that the deficate in swing states?
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: No, I think in a place like Colorado, if we
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: want to be really honest, in a state like Colorado,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: people think of themselves as kind of it's a blue state,
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: it's a blue city.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: What do you make of Minnesota? Is Minnesota that Democratic
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: primary for Senate. Look, I'm watching what the left is
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: doing in Minnesota, and I think they see an opportunity. Hey,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: Minnesota is a pretty reliably blue state. Maybe if we
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: shift the politics from center left to progressive left, we
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: can be a great experiment. Except I think that's a
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: recipe for turning Minnesota red. But I don't know if
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: Minnesota Democrats know that yet.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a little complicated. I think that's a
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 2: little complicated. I mean, I like both the candidates. I'm
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm from.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 3: Again.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: More that I know, any Glob's decision to run for
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: governor probably solved a huge what would have been a
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: huge potential, you know, for for for your side of
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: the aisle. It was turned in and you know, look,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: there's you know, there's another there's another version of events
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: where clober Shark comes in and she gets treated like
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: Michael Bennett right by by the insiders if and but
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: that wasn't the case. And I think part of it
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: was the fear that Walls was going to bring down
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: the whole party. Right. And it is interesting to me
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: when there's fear of losing, voters immediately head to the
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: center left when they think it's a free vote, those
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: same primary voters are more likely to scratch.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: So let me be optimistic here, okay, Like just let's
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: put Michigan aside. I guess to me, and I said,
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 2: those public guys of this to the New York Times
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: after DSA one, and you have these DSA candidates win
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: in New York. From my perspective, like lefty candidates winning
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: in blue cities. Like maybe that's a headache for leadership
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 2: or something or the other, but like, actually, it's not
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 2: like the worst saying in the world. I mean, and
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: we have there are some pretty left candidates of the
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party in some of these places. But are they
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: Are they farther to the left than some of the
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: kind of proto fascists we see on the far right
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: winning and these like these very very very very right places,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know someone else could design. I think you
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: could still be a healthy party and have lefty candidates
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: win in blue cities as long as you are willing
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: to give space to people who have the ability to
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: attract independence and Republicans in swing states, and that feels like.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: The gap, right, That feels like the gap that the
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: last that it looks to me that at least the
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: DSA and those that are more a little more adjacent
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: have this sort of I remember Jim DeMint on the
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: right saying I'd prefer a Senate of thirty Jim dementz
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: than Republican control with like rhinos, right, And you're like, okay, well,
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: if you pursue that, Jim dement you're going to be
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: in the forever minority. Congratulations.
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing I'd say to Democrats in this space,
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: and I will say this, I said this to everybody.
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: If you believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 2: to democracy to like our basic rights, that he is
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: a person who is freeing up like a domestic police
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 2: force to abuse immigrants, then you know you don't have
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: the luxury of like your perfect being the enemy of
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: the good like you know, I guess that's my And
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: I think this is a question for kind of normy
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: liberals in some of these places, which is it is
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: absolutely the case that they have lost faith in an
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: establishment being able to produce winners when it hasn't There
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: have been pretty big victories.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: Why do you think what could the steps? Let's do this.
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: We talked about what the establishment could have done pre
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: twenty four. That's water in the bridge.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I can, I can go back, but I
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: say like, look, you make your own evaluation about American today.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 3: Man, do you think the big problem is that there?
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: To me, that that's the question is in twenty five
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: and sort of post twenty four. I think the fairest
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: critique of the Democratic establishment is that there doesn't appear
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: to be any self reflection. Why is it that the
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: same people are in charge of the party, right, Chuck Schumer,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: a King, Jeffreys, you know, Nancy Pelosi in some ways
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: is still sort of right, the grand the Grand dam
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit as well, that there wasn't And it
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: goes back to the close election problem. Right, Well, the
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: election was closed, and know it's still a very narrow center,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: and it's still a very narrow house, really hard.
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 3: So this is a time and.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: Yet the establishment didn't there you know, electing a new
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: DNC chair wasn't the repudiation that I think Democratic primary
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: voters were looking for with the establishment. Right, If Chuck
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: Schumer had said this is on me. I'm taking the
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: fall here. It's time to move on. Do you think
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: that takes when out of the sales of the left alone?
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that at least like, with all
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: due respect, doesn't make a whole lot of sense in
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: the falling way.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 3: The real the real problem for you know, I mean,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 3: like I don't know why, I really don't want to
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 3: re litigate.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: Any of this, but but.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: The problem was not.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: It's we should It would be great if there is
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: an autopsy to fully understand and now have aggurate data
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: as to what the problem is. But if you think
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: the problem was that the singular problem for the singular
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: problem of twenty twenty four is that Joe Biden was
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: too old and should not have run again, then it
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: is the establishment that did ultimately push him out. They've
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: no pushed him out. No, no, let me, I'm saying
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: the opposite. They pushed him out. And the real problem
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 2: for taking out your anger at Chuck Schumer is that
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris lost four swing states that the Democratic Senate
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: candidate won in. So like, say what you will about
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer, maybe he acted too late or whatever, but
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: he was definitely part of a group of people trying
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: to push the president to not stay in the race,
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: and that might have meant meant the difference between a
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: Senate of forty three and a Senate of forty seven Democrats,
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: and just to say to everybody, we would not be
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: talking about the possibility of a Democratic sendent twenty twenty
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: things or maybe twenty twenty eight or even twenty five already.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't for those get it as.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: Winning saying it was fair. I get I'm not even
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: go to saying that life's not always fair. But when
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: you choose to be the leader of the party and
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: you're the senior leader, now you're the guy that's now
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: been there a generation, give it the failure was the failure? Really,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Again, it's symbolic, I know it. You
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: can say it's not fair, it's like, but the fact is,
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: I think that was one of those like you know,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes you have to fire the manager or the coach
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: of a team because the fan base is just not
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: going to buy the tickets right or the donor base
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: isn't going to give the money, so you got to
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: do something to change things. And I just it is
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: it is a road not taken, there was no actual
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: there was nobody held accountable in twenty five for what
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: happened in twenty five. But that's I think that's what
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: the left argument is.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but really I actually don't think that the lefts
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 2: are is. I think that the legitimate criticism is that,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: like I think the I think the debate here, I'll
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: just leave it at this, I guess is the debate
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: here is about what the what the president did, not,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: what like Senate leadership did.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: Let's some Democrats win the House in the Senate, well,
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: how should they spend their twenty twenty seven.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: They should absolutely spend their time in twenty twenty seven
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: focused on how they can make life better for people
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: who are struggling to make ends meet.
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: I would like ven if that means passing a bill
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: that they get Donald Trump to sign.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: I think that means if they win the House and Senate,
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: I think that they should put up bills that lower
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: healthcare costs. I mean and cap has ideas and all
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: of these healthcare costs, energy costs, utilities costs.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 3: They should end food tariffs immediately.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: They should pass bills that you can explain housing costs,
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: you pass bills where you can explain to people, this
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: legislation will save you eight hundred dollars a year, save
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: you seven hundred dollars a year.
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 3: Pass bills. I mean, and just you know the history
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 3: as well as I do.
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: In two thousand and seven, in two thousand and eight,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: Democrats put up a lot of bills between the House
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: and the Senate that Bush vetoed. It did create a
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: lot of momentum in the twenty and the presidential primary.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: People can imagine he's a Democratic president would just pass
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 2: these bills immediately. That actually did happen. Barack Obama got elected.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: He passed like six bills quickly. He was still at
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: a gigantic agenda on top of it. But to me,
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of things that people need to do.
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: They definitely need to investigate the massive corruption here. They
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: need to pass I would pass like just as a
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: standalone an anti jerryman, like a national prohibition on gerrymandering
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 2: across state.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of things we need to pass.
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: But I would say, if you want to build that
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: coalition that could allow us to have a big majority
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: and really, at the end of the day, like have
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: a country that we don't feel like to imagine a
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: country where we are not at each other's strokes. You
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: we need to have a politics that is attracting a
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: big majority, and that means a multi racial coalition on
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: the Democratic side that has college educated voters. And just
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: imagine if we got forty four percent of white non
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: college voters like Barack Obama did in twenty twelve, that
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: is a super mature, almost near supermajority in the country.
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: So for me, I would ask my very my wonderful
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: liberal friends and college educated friends and the Democratic Party
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: to stretch yourself to imagine the people struggling the most
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: and do what we can to pass legislation for them,
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: because ultimately, that is what the Democratic Party is supposed
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 2: to be about, is about help for the underdog, not
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: that people who are doing the best, people who are
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 2: struggling to meet.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: You know, there's going to be some that say, no,
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: it's about getting Trump and you gotta hold Trump accountable. Yeah,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: they maybe you do that, but I'm also like.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 2: You have my own thing here is is like, can
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: we just have a conversation amongst adults, Like the Supreme
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 2: Court has eliminated any like criminal activity, there's not sixty
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: seven votes in the Senate, like like at some point,
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: like we're responsible for us Okay, I mean, you know,
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like like we should acknowledge reality of the
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 2: Republican Party.
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 3: It's like, I think, is there a.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: Republican party that is like are we going to get
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: him out of office? Then you're just making a choice
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: of what you care about.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: Where are you on this issue of fear? What do
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: you make Let me put it this way, what do
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: you make of the fact that so few elected Republicans
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: signed on to what Trump did last Thursday night? Does
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: that give you comfort?
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: I mean I think we I think two things are true. One,
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: you're seeing more Republicans crack or move away from Trump
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: then then in the last you know, in the first
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: year and a half. On the other hand, I mean
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: it's also true that they are tolerating which should be
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 2: intolerable exactly Like it is like when I try to
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: be optimistic, I tell people, well, you know, they are
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: breaking away. They do understand, of course, you want to
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: be cynical. It's after a lot of them have gone
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: through their primaries and it's a little bit of a
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: free vote for a lot of them. But it is
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: it is true that, you know. I mean, I think
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: if you want to be optimistic about America, we are not.
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 2: We're bonds our bonds Hungary or Russia's like, people don't agree.
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: We don't have this system. And I think we've all learned.
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe Trump would have if we had, If our system
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: was so weak that he could have created that, he'd
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: have done it already. Yeah, And the system is durable.
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 2: And to withstanding, the biggest difference between those places and
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 2: here is like, the truth about Orbon's Hungary is that
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: Orbon was popular for like thirteen or fourteen of the
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: sixteen years true power.
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 3: And Trump is unpopular.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: He's actually never been popular.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 3: He's never been popular, and he's just last.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: Sun, right, He's just less unpopular than the other person. Right.
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 2: And actually the thing, yeah, I don't want to be like,
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not like America is like Nirvana at the moment.
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: But the fact is he chose to take the country
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: into he gambled to take the country into a war
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: with Iran.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 3: He is losing that war, and.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 2: The country thinks it was a terrible idea and he
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: has made a series of bad choices and that is
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: why he is losing support.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: Again and that you know, yeah, how you know he
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: knows he's made a serious of bad choices because even
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: his most con arratorial self hasn't been able to find
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: a left wing boogeyman on this one. Like he You
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: and I both know if he could blame somebody else
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: for this, he would be and he could blame that
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: in Yahoo, and he's chosen not to so far. I
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: bet he started it and then he started It's coming
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to be fascinated to see how some
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: handle that when at some point Trump's just going to say, well,
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: it's all his fault. He's not there yet because right
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: now then it admits he takes orders from somebody else
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: r like his that's the but I think we both
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: know he can't stand taking blame on anything.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the whole psychological problem for Trump, and this is
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 2: why my whole theory of what's happening with this election's
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 2: craziness that he's doing is and like a lot of
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: people disagree with him, but it is my theory that
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 2: he can't lose. Like the basic social contract with his
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: magabase is that he is always a winner. So when
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: he gets this massive, hopefully massive vidiation, I remember, might
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 2: not happen depending on what the Democratic Party does, but
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: if the Democratic Party is rational, she'd be able to get,
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: like muster a big repudiation Trump, and I think he's
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 2: setting the groundwork to blame the Congress for not pacing
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: passing the Save Act, even though passing the Save Act
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 2: would not really so many problem in America.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: Just I think. And the irony of that is that
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: if it actually was put into law, it probably would
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: favor the left, just because they would follow every crawl
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: unbroken glass to vote in a way that I don't know.
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, And also the people that are hurts the most
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: are like women in rural places who don't take their
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: husband's name and don't have a others who did take
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: or who did take their husband's name. Act No no, no, no,
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 2: find the I can't find it. Don't have a passport.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this. What's
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: your favorite center race? Nobody talks about, you know, the
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: ones that are not in the top tier that you're like, Man,
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: I can't I that's my favorite race. Or it doesn't
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: have to be a center race. Maybe it's a GOV race,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: but like a race, it's too under it's very under
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: the radar for a variety of reasons. And you're like that,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: I can't, you can't help, but check out.
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that people are so burned on
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 2: Florida that they that they can't imagine.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 3: And I think Florida is like I'm.
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: Out on Florida Racis but good luck.
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's like David Jelly's is a
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: a as a person who very much cross pressures Republicans,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: and it's interesting.
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's very I think he's got
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: one very hard problem. He voted a defund playing paranoide
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen era. It didn't happen. That's the problem.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: I get that he's made done a what ady and
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of issues that You're right, it puts cross pressures,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: but I think it puts pressures on a lot of folks.
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but Alex Benman, I mean that's a big question.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: She's not really well known. I like that those I
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 2: find that interesting. You know this, I mean this is
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: not a like, this is not a this is not
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: a you know, unknown example. But I think you know,
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 2: I've met Josh Sure recently. I think he's really impressive.
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: My pet race is Amy acting, Oh yeah, yeah, I
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: think that's going to be the the.
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 3: Carrying.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think if she wins that that's going to
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: be considered the surprise of the night. Yeah, her being
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: close won't be a surprise anymore. Her winning, which would
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: be a surprise. And because Ramaswami is a known quantity,
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: people are like, wow, that guy lost.
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, that's a big one. I agree. I
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 3: would go with yours of her mind.
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see. I was I was the wave state.
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: If it's a wave, Iowa happens. If it's not a wave,
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: I probably doesn't happen, right, Like, it's yeah for me,
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: it's the it's the it's the fifty yard line, right
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: and you cross the goal line, however you want to
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: call it.
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 3: You know, we've had twelve years or some like until
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 3: years of Republican rule.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: In that stage, and there is in my head Iowa
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: still wants to do this, still wants to fuel windshield wiper.
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's not working out so great for them. Like,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to be firmer in Iowa today.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Well there's that Trump both loves Iowa and punishes his
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: voters there more than any other state everwhere it's you know,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: Kansas and Iowa. His own hit. The people paying the
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: price for his policies are all his voters. It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: he's saying to you, all right, my friend, great to
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: be with you. Topcast test, Top five, top top test
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: top All right, let's do my top five. Let's this week.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: It is top five uh governor's races that are most
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: likely to change parties. I'll tell you, you know, the
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: first the top couple on my list were easy to get.
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: The sort of of I would argue, sort of three
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: through eight are really close together, right, it's kind of like,
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: you know, you can if somebody wanted to take issue
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: with one of the races I put in there instead
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: of one of the others I didn't, I would totally understand.
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: So I'll start this way. Number five on my list Oregon.
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: This is the incumbent governor Cotex. She is not really
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: you know, this is there's been unhappiness of the by
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: the Oregon electorate with the leadership. They've gotten out of
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: the governor's mansion for quite some time, and yet Democrats
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: they'll change candidates and they keep holding the office. Well
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: Cotech's trying to win reelection. She's going to face a rematch,
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: this time without a third party candidate, Christine Drazen. Here,
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: this race is just going to be This is a
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: neck and neck race, and this time if it's a
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: referendum on the incumbent. The one thing benefiting Governor Cotech
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: is the fact that the atmosphere is a democratic here.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: But what's not helping her is governor's races sometimes can
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: be insulated from that national conversation. And so number five
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: on my list Oregon gov and Kotech. Number four on
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: my list is the open Republican current seat that's currently
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: held by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who, by the way,
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: is going to be coming on this podcast pretty soon.
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: And that is that seat there. I've got it. Number
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: four on my list of most likely to flip. We've
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: seen viviak Ramaswami, the Republican nominee, very polarizing figure. He
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: has struggled to build a lead on Amy Acting, the
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee. There's been plenty of polls that have actually
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: shown her up a point or two. I think that's
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: the challenge Republicans find themselves in. Look the good news
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: for Republicans is Ramaswami's willing to spend his own money
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: and he's going to outspend Amy acting here. But she's
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: kind of been keeping her powder dry. She's been holding
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: back her money. She's she's done a job of fundraising.
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: She doesn't not she can't match Ramaswami dollar for dollar,
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: but she's been holding back a little bit. I imagine
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: she'll hit the airwaves in the next next couple of
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: weeks because one of the once you go up, you
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: never want to have to come down, So she's probably
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: waiting until that happens. But with all the national money
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: that's going to be poured into that center race, particularly
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side of the aisle, it's a coin
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: flip race, pure and simple. Uh. And I've told you
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: before Ramaswami proposed that unpopular consolidation of Ohio universities Doja's unpopular,
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: so's he's playing a lot more defense, I think than
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: he planned to do. Number three on my list is Wisconsin.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: We don't know who the Democratic nominee is going to be.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: It is a total, incomplete mess. There is a panic
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: that he's a DSA candidate is going to end up
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: the nominee, the outgoing governor, Tony Evers suddenly decided to
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: drop his neutrality. He's in, won't his cur lieutenant governor
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: had to drop out. His former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: is not getting his endorsement for some reason, and instead
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: they convinced the Milwaukee County executive to get back in
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: the race, and Evers endorsed him. The irony is, that is,
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: if you believe the most recent polling, if the party.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: I understand that there's some skepticism about Mandela Barnes, given
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: that he lost to Ron Johnson back in twenty twenty two,
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: but it was a fairly close race. He basically ran
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: as a generic Democrat and lost by about a point
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: and a half. The perception was always Barnes too progressive?
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: Was he too tied to the Well, he's not a socialist,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: he is not the most far left candidate in this primary,
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: and he's kind of a known entity in polling shows
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: that against the Republican nominee, Congressman Tiffany, he'd actually lead
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: in an initial horse race matchup if you believe the
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: markete number. So it's a total mess here. Democrat I
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: have tied their hands. I think it now looks more
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: likely than ever that there's going to be a socialist nominee.
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: And this is going to be quite the test. Boy,
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: both Michigan and Wisconsin right, the whole hand thing right,
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin could have high profile Democratic nominees that
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: are either DSA or DSA adjacent. It's the ultimate test
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: to see if Democrats can sell socialism statewide and two
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: of America's most important swing states. Number two on my
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: list is Kansas governor. Right now, it is look Democrats
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: have had a two terms. Kansas has been a windshield
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: wiper here. The primaries in a couple of weeks will
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: finally know who the nominees are. But you have to
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: give Republicans the slide advantage here. We'll see. I think
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: the Kansas center race could get competitive. I don't think
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: this is I don't think this is a total impossible
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: race for Democrats to win. Lord Kelly obviously not able
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: to seek a third term here, But I do think
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: the I do think the the barrier's quite the barrier's
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: quite high. And number one on my list is Iowa.
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: I mean Rob sand is consolidating support he got the
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: Senate nominee that he's more comfortable running with than Josh Turrek.
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans are very divided. They've got an outsider candidate who's
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: had to defend all the time he spends in Kansas
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: rather than Iowa. Sand's already been trying to pain him
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: as a part time resident. He starts off behind pure
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: and simple, and Sand is going to have plenty of
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: money from the outside, and he's got, thanks to his
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: wife's family, quite a bit of personal money to use
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: if that is necessary. So I have Iowa in the
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 1: number one slot of seats most likely to flip. So
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: there's your top five list for the week, as always,
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: brought to you by my friend's Family.
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 3: Ask Chuck.
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: All right, let's wrap up the podcast. Do a little
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. I'm gonna try to squeeze in five questions
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: here today. This one comes from Donatello and from Kansas's
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: second district. I believe that is southeast part of the
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: state there, and he writes, Hey, on a recent segment
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: of Ask Chuck, you were asked to use WD forty
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: on your creaky chair. Please do not do that. I
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: love when you get so worked up that it sounds
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: like your chair is enthusiastically agreeing with you. Check podcast
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite podcasts. Let's do keep up the
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: great creaky commentary coming, Donna Tello. Thanks. I am trying
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: to do my best here in my Florida studio here
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: this chair, and it's I appreciate you asking me not
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: to do it. The WD forty. It's the chair handle
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: that's creaky. So it's not even clear where the w
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: you know where all the places you would assume that
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: the WD forty could work, it just hasn't. So I'm
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: hopeful I'm trying to be a little more self aware
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: about the chair. You know, I know now you can
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: hear it. See now, I feel like I've got to
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: like perform, come on, chair, show me the creakiness. But
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: I know that that can be a little annoying, so
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: I do want to fix that. Dean from I assume
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: it's Long Island. He goes, Dean from l I, I
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: don't know what else to assume there right other than
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: Long Island. And he claims this is his fifth he's
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: now in the five timers club, and he says, hey, Chuck. Recently,
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: a younger colleague used the term jump the shark, and
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: I had to explain to him where the term came from.
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: What is your favorite political term that most people have
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: no idea about its origin? Thanks Dean from Long Island.
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: All right, Dean, I did a little a research on
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: this because I was trying to decide, first of all,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: is jump the shark a political term? Right? You know,
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, did you have to explain who the
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: funds was and all of that? But I'll give you
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: one because the origin story is a pretty good one.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: Smoke filled room. Right, we talk about anytime the establishment
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: party bosses, the idea that a decision is made about
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: a nominee behind the scenes, not by voters. Right, the
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: phrase smoke filled room is sort of used almost as
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: a given, right, So of course I decided to look
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: up what is its origin? Well, this one is a
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: good one. It actually dates back to the nineteen twenty
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: Republican National Convention that was held in Chicago, because back
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: then it feels like the Republican National Convention was always
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: held in Chicago. The convention was deadlocked in nineteen twenty
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: and a small group of party bosses sat around a
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: cigar Hayes in the early morning to broker the convention
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: to decide who would be the nominee. The nomination ended
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: up going to future Teapot Dome president Warren G. Harding.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: And it was an AP reporter named Kirk Simpson who
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: wrote that the nominee was chosen in a quote smoke
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: filled room. And ever since that phrase became pretty popularized.
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: So I'd say smoke filled room because I've never been
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: in one for politics. By the time I started covering politics,
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like we at least kicked all the smokers
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: to the outside. It was, you know that most of
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: the by the time the nineties came around, and certainly
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: in the early twenty first century, nobody was smoking cigars
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: inside conventions or frankly inside many buildings, many buildings at all.
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: All right, next question comes from Ricks, and he writes, Hey,
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: thanks for all you do. The mornings. He says, here,
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: my mornings start with a five am Chuck todcast are
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: always better. All right, Well, I appreciate that you recently
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: mentioned that President Trump's nomination of his former defense attorney
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: Tod Blanche for Attorney General, and it reminded me of
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: President Kennedy appointing his brother Robert Kennedy to the same role.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: How was that appointment viewed at the time, and are
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: there any interesting parallels today? Thanks for your work. Yes,
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: And in fact, a lot of people thought it was
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: a bridge too far, and we passed a law basically
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: getting rid of that kind of nepotism, that presidents couldn't
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: do that. So in nineteen I was wanting to get
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: the history I knew Congress passed a law to basically
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: prevent that kind of appointment in the future after Kennedy
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: appointed his brother attorney general. So they passed along sixty seven.
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: It was the Federal Anti Nepotism Statute, And here was
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: the It was sort of here's the definition of relative.
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: It says this that a public official, including the president,
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: may not appoint So it's not just the president, right,
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: anybody who can appoint somebody to any sort of government position,
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: a civilian position, and an agency over which this official
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: would exercise actual authority, right have a budget, hire and
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: fire people, etc. The statute defines relative broadly to include spouses, parents, children, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles,
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: in laws, and several other close family relationships. So now
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: the question is does it actually apply to cabinet positions.
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: The law was generally understood to bar a president from
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: appointing a close family member to the cabinet. But in
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, when Trump appointed Jared Kushner as a senior
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: White House advisor, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel,
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: which was controlled by Jeff Sessions at the time and
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: the President, concluded that the anti nepotism law does not
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: apply to appointments within the White House Office because a
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: separate statute gives presidents much broader authority over their White
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: House staff. So anyway, there is a loophole there for
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: West Wing's staff, if you will, at least at this point.
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: But the fact is, yes, after the Kennedy Brothers, Congress
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: did pass this anti nepotism law, which the intent was
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: to prevent essentially presidents from appointing more family members like
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: that to the cabinet. The question is what do we
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: do now going forward with the situation? Right, this is
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: what the Trump presidency has done. He has done things
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: we never contemplated presidents would do, like appoint their personal
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: attorneys attorney general. I guess we're going to have to
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: pass the law saying that that nobody can be appointed
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: attorney general if the president has returned that person as
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: legal counsel at any time in their history. Probably not
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: a hard law to get passed in commerce, I bet right.
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: Next question, could any Democrat possibly running for president put
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: old swing states like Florida, Ohio, or Iowa in play? Thanks, Josh. Look,
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not ruling out Iowa or Ohio. I'm not
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: there in Florida. I think Florida's got a a I
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: think Florida is a cycle or two away that the
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: state party's a mess. If they can win a major
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: state wide office Senate or governor, they have an opportunity
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: to rebuild their state party. And that's possible. But if
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats win the governorships in Iowa Ohio, which to me
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: are very realistic, as you just heard from my top
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: five list, I think, I think, I certainly think Iowa
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: is a bit more in play than Ohio, and especially
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: with the tariffs. I mean again, you know Iowa in particular.
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm look, I'm less, I'm less convinced Ohio can
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: genuinely be a swing state. I'm not saying Democrats can't
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: carry Ohio again, but I think you know, I think
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: it's like the fifteenth swing state. You know that that
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: when when when Democrats already have three hundred electoral votes
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: type of thing, it's not going to be the tipping
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: point state. Iowa. On the other hand, though, I think
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: that I was a little bit I think a little
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: more fluid, and I certainly think this turned toward protectionism.
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: It is absolutely a recipe for scrambling Iowa's politics going forward,
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: frankly all of the Prairie politics, because the agg community
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: has benefited greatly from from lower trade barriers. All right, Uh,
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: last question for the weekend, and this is Kelly X
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: in Texas's twenty six congressional district represented by Brandon Gill
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: five timer Here, Kelly Wrights pulling in Texas shows the
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: Senate race between Pakst and tall Rico very close, while
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidates for governor, Lieutenant governor, and AG maintain
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: larger leads. Could Tall Rico generate any cotail effect for Democrats?
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: Are we more likely to see tickets splitting? Do you
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: see this becoming a broader trend in other purple closely
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: divided states. I think you for bringing intelligence and reason
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: to political discourse. Fins up. Oh, look that a Dolphins fan.
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: You know, by the way, I wish this fins up
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: business had been a thing back when I was a kid.
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: I might be I might have become more of a
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: Dolphins fan. It's kind of a kind of a cool
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: thing to say, but Dolphins fans never I never heard
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: fins up back then when I was a kid, But
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of I kind of dig it. I kind
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: of dig it. These days, it's genuinely Governor's races are
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: more likely to have hotels sometimes than senate races, for
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: one thing, although this is a unique type of senate race,
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: and I do think you're more like you know, it's
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: interesting given the unpopularity and the character concerns about Paxton,
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: ticket splitting seems inevitable here, right, you know, there's no
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: doubt in my mind if Callarrico's going to win, he's
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: going to have to win people that are likely to
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: vote for Greg Abbott as well. Right, But that's going
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: to be something I'm actually curious to see. What will
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: the gap be. I mean, look, I think Gina, you knows,
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: is going to do better than people think against Greg Abbot.
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: I think there's a little bit of Abbot fatigue. He's
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: got an enormous amount of money, There's no doubt about it.
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: But I'm you know this, the school choice has been
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: very polarizing in the state, less by party and almost
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 1: more by rural urban suburban. So I you know, I
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: think that that I'm very curious what that gap is
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: going to be. There is one way Talla Rico can
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: have coattails. It's more financial coat tails.
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: The more money that he brings in, well, that helps
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: everybody else. And in this case, because tall Rico appears
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: to be the leading fundraiser on the Democratic side, he
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: essentially quote unquote leads the ticket. Ironically though on the
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: Republican side, it's really Greg Abbott that's leading the ticket
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: on that front. So I certainly think tall Rico brings
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: resources into the state and that and you know, then
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: you have coordinated campaigns and you get out the vote effort,
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: and my guess is you will see a tight correlation
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: of the tall Rico. You know, also vote in Harris County,
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: Travis County, Dallas County. The question is going to be
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: in South Texas, right, Tall Rico did very well in
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: South Texas during the Democratic primary, So you know so
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: didn't have his competitive primaries Talerico did. I think the
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: question is whether is can she perform as well as
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: we expect Tallarico to do in South Texas. But I've
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: seen those same polls as well, and it is may.
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to say I'm convinced that Paxton is
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: going to win, but I think this is as I
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: said earlier, I think Texas is a much harder hill
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: to climb for tall Rico and Democrats than folks realize.
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: The the and you can almost imagine what you're going
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: to see, right, you know, an unpopular Donald Trump in
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: October around the country. That doesn't mean he won't be
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: popular enough to say, to send to Alabama to try
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: to save Tommy Tupperville from getting upset by Doug Jones,
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: or to send him to West Texas to try to
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: help Paxton get out the vote there, because there's concern
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: that maybe voters aren't that enthusiasm stick about him. And
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: that's the odd danger that I think Democrats in some
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: of these redder states where they are getting traction, is
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: that while you know, the last thing Susan Collins would
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: want is Donald Trump to show up in her state,
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure Michael Watley by October will want
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in his state. Ken Paxton, will you know?
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson might certainly. Pete Ricketts, will you know?
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 2: I do?
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, it's a good way to bookend
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: this with this question. If Republicans saved the Senate and
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: end up only losing the House, that will be the reason.
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: It'll be because there were just too many, too many
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: red states that that Trump could still be a net
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: positive for the Republican candidate, at least at getting the
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 1: vote out that that caused the Democrats come up short.
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: That's if they come up short. I think that that's
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: how that would happen. There, all right, enjoy the weekend.
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: In the next twenty four hours, I hope to be
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: one of one of a handful of people who are
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: contributing to this billion dollar box office smash for The Odyssey,
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: and I look forward to not contributing to the ridiculous
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: debate taking place online about The Odyssey. What's amazing is
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people looking like idiots online
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: discussing The Odyssey, while everybody else goes to the movie
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: theater and says, wow, what a great movie. Now I'm
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: a little nervous that this thing has gotten such great reviews.
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: I hope it lives up to the hype once I
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: go see it. But I will say this, I've yet
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: to be disappointed in a Christopher Nolan movie yet, and
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: I don't expect to now. With that, I'll see in
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: about seventy two hours until we upload again.