Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump Doubles Down On Election Conspiracies + Why Closed Partisan Primaries Are Terrible For Democracy

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Full Episode - Trump Doubles Down On Election Conspiracies + Why Closed Partisan Primaries Are Terrible For Democracy · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd,
2:18
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Chuck Podcast, what I like to
2:21
Speaker 1: call politics for the rest of us. And we begin
2:25
Speaker 1: with an incredibly busy week. And I say this because
2:32
Speaker 1: here I have decided to go down to two podcasts
2:35
Speaker 1: a week. Although if you're listening, hopefully you're already listening
2:38
Speaker 1: to Super Tuesdays with Chris Lizza that are our new
2:42
Speaker 1: our new jointly produced show there. So obviously you've heard
2:48
Speaker 1: you've heard from me there, but a lot's been We
2:50
Speaker 1: just had a ton going on and we're going to
2:52
Speaker 1: have a ton happening today. If you're listening to this
2:55
Speaker 1: on Thursday, we're going to be anticipating some well, we're
3:02
Speaker 1: going to anticipate something from the President regarding his fetish
3:05
Speaker 1: about the twenty twenty election, and it's a little bit
3:08
Speaker 1: of a topic I want to cover here.
3:10
Speaker 2: We're going to cover Ice, we're going to cover Iran, and.
3:15
Speaker 1: We're gonna cover little daylight saving times, among other things.
3:17
Speaker 1: So those are the four big stories I want to
3:19
Speaker 1: hit on Trump and has continued election denialism. What's happening
3:23
Speaker 1: with Todd, Blanche and Jay Clayton, who has been nominated
3:28
Speaker 1: for positions of trust in our government, for Attorney General
3:32
Speaker 1: and Director of National Intelligence. And then my interview is
3:37
Speaker 1: going to be with the man who runs the organization
3:40
Speaker 1: called Open Primaries, who literally sue states, tries to lobby
3:45
Speaker 1: legislatures whatever it takes to open up partisan primaries to
3:50
Speaker 1: independent voters at a minimum, and frankly to all voters
3:54
Speaker 1: where there is the appetite to do that. So, as
3:57
Speaker 1: you know, I think much of our much of our
4:00
Speaker 1: polarization begins with our primary process, which is extraordinarily two
4:06
Speaker 1: partisan and frankly has too little participation. Right if there
4:11
Speaker 1: were more people participating, I promise you it wouldn't be
4:14
Speaker 1: producing the extreme candidates that in some cases in some
4:18
Speaker 1: of these primaries that we are getting.
4:20
Speaker 2: So that's that.
4:21
Speaker 1: I'll have my top five list, it's a fun one
4:23
Speaker 1: this week. My top five current athletes who I think
4:27
Speaker 1: will make who already look like they have what it
4:29
Speaker 1: takes to.
4:30
Speaker 2: Make successful politicians.
4:33
Speaker 1: The only requirement was you have to be an active
4:38
Speaker 1: player right now, right, So there's nobody there's no just
4:42
Speaker 1: retired guys or gals on my list. It is people
4:46
Speaker 1: who are currently no owners or coaches on my list
4:50
Speaker 1: that means you, Steve Kerr, who I do think is
4:53
Speaker 1: somebody who I could picture getting tucked into running for
4:55
Speaker 1: office in the state of California, say four years from now,
4:59
Speaker 1: when they're incredibly unhappy with their current governor, whoever that
5:03
Speaker 1: happened to be. So there's your rundown of what to
5:06
Speaker 1: expect on this episode.
5:08
Speaker 2: But I do want to begin.
5:10
Speaker 1: With what we're going to hear later tonight, and I'll
5:13
Speaker 1: certainly do a follow up on sort of the nonsense
5:17
Speaker 1: that we're anticipating. And President is planned a primetime address.
5:20
Speaker 1: We hope to get some update on Iran, and I'm
5:23
Speaker 1: going to get to that question here in a few minutes,
5:26
Speaker 1: but we're going to get some some sort of allegation
5:32
Speaker 1: that he's going to make. The rumors have been all
5:35
Speaker 1: over the place. I kind of I'm always hesitant to
5:37
Speaker 1: repeat rumors of what he may or may not say.
5:40
Speaker 1: He clearly plans to it looks like target the state
5:44
Speaker 1: of Georgia individually on this. But I tell you, we
5:50
Speaker 1: got a little bit of a preview on Wednesday of
5:52
Speaker 1: just how silly this whole thing is, right and how
5:57
Speaker 1: ridiculous Republican who feel like they have no choice but
6:02
Speaker 1: to perform for their audience of one end up behaving
6:05
Speaker 1: and looking silly. Jay Clayton, Right, there's two. There's two
6:10
Speaker 1: things going on right now and sort of top of
6:12
Speaker 1: the list in Washington, and that is the confirm We
6:14
Speaker 1: had this confirmation hearing for Todd blanche who's President's personal attorney,
6:18
Speaker 1: who somehow got confirmed to be Deputy Attorney General, which
6:21
Speaker 1: to this day, having the president a former personal lawyer
6:25
Speaker 1: to the president, particularly on criminal cases, working at the
6:29
Speaker 1: Justice Department, never should have been confirmed in the first place.
6:32
Speaker 1: Like that is a that is an ethical line that
6:35
Speaker 1: Republicans breach that they would have would have filibustered forever
6:40
Speaker 1: had a Democrat tried to I mean, I can only
6:43
Speaker 1: imagine a Bill Clinton tried to nominate David Kendall to
6:46
Speaker 1: be Attorney General who was his personal lawyer during the
6:49
Speaker 1: whole Monica and Paula Jones and all that mass. I mean,
6:52
Speaker 1: it would have and rightfully so, right the Department of
6:56
Speaker 1: Justice is not supposed to have this. All that said,
6:59
Speaker 1: and obviously I am personally sort of offended by the
7:03
Speaker 1: idea that we are going to diminish the Department of
7:05
Speaker 1: Justice like this.
7:06
Speaker 2: This is not a partisan statement. This is this is.
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Speaker 1: Something that harms the country, harms trust and the rule
7:11
Speaker 1: of law. Now, Todd Blanche was under some tough questioning
7:15
Speaker 1: from John Cornyn in particular, and I think he failed
7:18
Speaker 1: the Cornan test. Now we'll see what Cornyn does. But
7:21
Speaker 1: Cornyn made the weaponization fund his primary issue that he
7:26
Speaker 1: interrogated on, and it's pretty clear that Blanche did not
7:30
Speaker 1: want to get caught lying under oath, so he never lied,
7:33
Speaker 1: apparently because he basically admitted that the deal is still
7:36
Speaker 1: alive and that only Congress could kill this deal. And
7:40
Speaker 1: who knows if there's the votes to kill this We've
7:43
Speaker 1: already seen a test vote on it and it didn't
7:45
Speaker 1: kill it. So if that really is the line the
7:50
Speaker 1: weaponization fund for Tillis and Cornyn, well Blanche would not
7:54
Speaker 1: I think he. You know, if we take Cornyn and
7:57
Speaker 1: till Us at his word and you throw in the
8:02
Speaker 1: fact that there is I cannot imagine a scenario Susan
8:06
Speaker 1: Collins votes to confirm Blanche under this scenario with her
8:09
Speaker 1: up for reelection. I find it highly unlikely Lisa Murkowski does.
8:13
Speaker 1: And then you throw in a John Curtis and in
8:15
Speaker 1: you two I think we'll be troubled by this and
8:18
Speaker 1: probably politically feels comfortable enough to.
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Speaker 2: Say no.
8:23
Speaker 1: And I don't think the votes are there, And you'll
8:26
Speaker 1: see once the vote isn't there, then all of a sudden,
8:30
Speaker 1: the whole bunch of people may just come out against
8:32
Speaker 1: it and then they kill it. But you'll see that
8:35
Speaker 1: every once in a while. But Blanche had a very
8:38
Speaker 1: bad back and forth with Cornn. It certainly appears if Cornyn,
8:43
Speaker 1: if you take him at his word on this, then
8:49
Speaker 1: Blanche failed too. He wouldn't put into writing that this
8:55
Speaker 1: weaponization deal is dead, or that this sort of shielding
8:58
Speaker 1: from iris audit agreement and all of that. So I've
9:04
Speaker 1: been skeptical that Blanche can get confirmed because I think
9:07
Speaker 1: it's a real we are. It is a real test, right.
9:10
Speaker 1: I have positive here and I still am sitting with
9:15
Speaker 1: my belief that we're. Trump's script is loosening on the party,
9:20
Speaker 1: and I think this Blanche inability to confirm Blanche will
9:23
Speaker 1: be the evidence will be a big piece of evidence
9:27
Speaker 1: to support my thesis on this. But we'll find out.
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Speaker 1: Now there was another confirmation, Jay Clayton, who has been
9:35
Speaker 1: nominated to replace Tulsa Gavett is the Director of National Intelligence.
9:39
Speaker 1: I want to share this before I get into the
9:45
Speaker 1: lack of common sense around all things having to do
9:48
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump in twenty twenty. But I just want
9:52
Speaker 1: to read you this transcript. Some of you may have
9:54
Speaker 1: already seen it on social media. This back and forth
9:57
Speaker 1: between John Ossoff and Jay Clayton. Asof begins with a
10:02
Speaker 1: simple question, and he starts in he's asking him multiple
10:06
Speaker 1: questions and even asks them, is you know did you know?
10:09
Speaker 1: Essentially you know, the way you would in any sort
10:11
Speaker 1: of lie detector test. You want to get something on
10:13
Speaker 1: there that you know he has to, you know, say it,
10:16
Speaker 1: did you know did President Trump pardon a convicted drug
10:20
Speaker 1: drug lord?
10:21
Speaker 2: Which we know he did.
10:22
Speaker 1: It's the former president of Hondorus, right, yeah, so he
10:25
Speaker 1: uh so Clayton's accepts the premise of that question and
10:31
Speaker 1: says yes. Then the next question Asaf asks is, well,
10:37
Speaker 1: who won the twenty twenty election? And after answering the
10:40
Speaker 1: first sort of question, and again, if you want to
10:44
Speaker 1: say that Asof was basically being a troll on this.
10:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, but when you have people who who are
10:51
Speaker 1: going to be ridiculous, you may think it's silly to ask.
10:55
Speaker 1: It's even sillier to sit there the way mister Clayton looked.
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Speaker 1: So who won the twenty twenty election? And Clayton goes,
11:03
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm not going to do this with
11:04
Speaker 1: you again, after he had answered the first question having
11:08
Speaker 1: to do with the pardoning of the drug lord for
11:11
Speaker 1: on Doris, And then Asoff responds, well, this is a
11:14
Speaker 1: job interview. You have an obligation to be honest with
11:16
Speaker 1: this committee. Who won the twenty twenty election? And I'm
11:19
Speaker 1: not going to get into it with you, then you're
11:22
Speaker 1: not being honest. And fourth, and it goes on, and
11:24
Speaker 1: it keeps going and Clayton just sits there and won't
11:27
Speaker 1: answer the question. He won't answer the question, And in
11:33
Speaker 1: some ways this is probably as good of a preview
11:35
Speaker 1: as you can have. So what we do know is this,
11:41
Speaker 1: there are people that Donald Trump is appointed into the
11:43
Speaker 1: federal government who believe their jobs are on the line
11:47
Speaker 1: if they don't produce evidence that he wants to see.
11:52
Speaker 1: So just we already know that everybody who's working for
11:55
Speaker 1: him is not on the up and up, particularly on
11:58
Speaker 1: this issue, because if he wanted to be on the open,
12:01
Speaker 1: this is for the director of National Intelligence. You know,
12:02
Speaker 1: the irony to this is as horrendous as this answer is.
12:07
Speaker 2: I mean, and of.
12:08
Speaker 1: All jobs, you've got to be giving the most honest
12:12
Speaker 1: assessment of frankly, sometimes not the not stuff that is
12:18
Speaker 1: factually certain. Right, interpreting intelligence reports, it can be very subjective.
12:28
Speaker 1: So you want a pretty high you know, pretty a
12:32
Speaker 1: student intellect there, pretty common sense oriented. So the irony
12:36
Speaker 1: is that Jake Clayton's probably going to be a lot
12:37
Speaker 1: more responsible than Telson Gabbard ever was in this position.
12:41
Speaker 1: And yet the fact that he sat there looking like
12:44
Speaker 1: a ridiculous sickophan in not being able to say what
12:51
Speaker 1: everybody knows, which is Joe Biden won the twenty twenty election,
12:54
Speaker 1: and the fact that Donald Trump has so effectively cowered
13:00
Speaker 1: supposedly grown men. This is a grown ass man sitting
13:04
Speaker 1: there just act having to behave like like I can't
13:10
Speaker 1: my parent, my daddy won't let me say. It's really
13:16
Speaker 1: just sad to watch all this. It could be funny
13:20
Speaker 1: except that it's doing nothing but tearing the country apart
13:24
Speaker 1: and completely eviscerating trust in our election system. And it's
13:29
Speaker 1: clearly a feature Donald Trump is going out of his way.
13:33
Speaker 1: And this gets it to really what I think we're
13:35
Speaker 1: seeing with his with what he's done with ice, and
13:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that in a few minutes,
13:40
Speaker 1: and what he's doing with election integrity in his head,
13:45
Speaker 1: in their head, Donald Trump has convinced his own advisors
13:48
Speaker 1: that his people won't show up unless he's deporting people
13:53
Speaker 1: as violently as possible. And I'm all right exaggerating that
13:57
Speaker 1: part of it, but certainly if they don't look like
13:58
Speaker 1: they're aggressively deporting people, So, yes, some theater involved with it.
14:03
Speaker 1: And yes, this physical violence that we've been seeing as
14:06
Speaker 1: a feature, I think to some of Trump world than
14:11
Speaker 1: it is a bug in this system, which is why
14:13
Speaker 1: what Mark Waynemullen said was suddenly rescinded by the president.
14:16
Speaker 1: But again, I'm going to get into that in a
14:18
Speaker 1: few minutes. But I do think they believe that talking
14:23
Speaker 1: about twenty twenty and talking about and doing the massive
14:28
Speaker 1: deportation and looking like you're trying to just deport anybody
14:31
Speaker 1: that doesn't look like a community member is somehow going
14:37
Speaker 1: to help their turnout in the midterms. I think this
14:41
Speaker 1: is crazy. I think all they're doing, all Donald Trump
14:44
Speaker 1: is doing is probably making it easier for Democrats to sweep.
14:50
Speaker 1: I really think they're missing this is a complete misread,
14:54
Speaker 1: and it's probably a misread. His consultants know it, his
14:58
Speaker 1: strategists know it. Everybody in that West wing knows it.
15:02
Speaker 1: They're just not going to tell him because they don't
15:03
Speaker 1: have the guts to say no to him. So we
15:07
Speaker 1: got a little bit of preview, right, But look, you
15:11
Speaker 1: don't have to. I think we you know, we already saw.
15:16
Speaker 1: We already know what Trump's going to do, because, believe
15:19
Speaker 1: it or not, right just before preparing for this ridiculous
15:24
Speaker 1: speech he wants to prepare that he's going to do
15:27
Speaker 1: supposedly later tonight about this about election fraud. You know
15:30
Speaker 1: what he did on Wednesday, first thing in the morning,
15:34
Speaker 1: he gave his complete and total endorsement for governor of
15:36
Speaker 1: Minnesota to the Pillow Man, right, the guy who is
15:42
Speaker 1: mister maighty Pillow CEO himself, Mike Lindell. So think about
15:46
Speaker 1: the timing of this one. The day before he's supposedly
15:49
Speaker 1: going to give this major speech meant to convince the
15:52
Speaker 1: country that our democratic systems are fragile and compromised, and
15:55
Speaker 1: somehow cost him the twenty twenty election, Trump formally hit
15:59
Speaker 1: the campaign trail for this single most famous, legally discredited
16:04
Speaker 1: election conspiracy theorist we've had in modern history. Move over,
16:08
Speaker 1: Patrick Byrne, It's Mike Lindell.
16:13
Speaker 2: Right.
16:14
Speaker 1: This is where the political rhetoric of the rally stage
16:16
Speaker 1: crashes headfirst into the cold, hard reality of a courtroom.
16:21
Speaker 2: Me let me run down the.
16:22
Speaker 1: Track record here of mister Lindell. Okay, what he called
16:26
Speaker 1: one of the quote America's greatest and most hardworking patriots.
16:29
Speaker 2: Mike Lindell was.
16:30
Speaker 1: So incredibly sure he had proof of Chinese election hacking
16:34
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty that he offered five million dollars in
16:37
Speaker 1: prize money to anyone who could prove his data wrong. Well,
16:39
Speaker 1: a conservative computer forensic expert took about on it, showed
16:43
Speaker 1: the data was completely garbage, and guess what, a private
16:46
Speaker 1: arbitration panel, later backed up by a federal judge, ordered
16:49
Speaker 1: Lindell to pay five million dollars, so his claims couldn't
16:54
Speaker 1: even survive his own self imposed challenge, of which an
16:59
Speaker 1: arbiter had to get involved and force him not to
17:02
Speaker 1: be a welchair on his bet. And that was just
17:05
Speaker 1: the warm up BacT. Smart Mattic sued Mike Lindell and
17:08
Speaker 1: one summary judgment last fall meeting a federal court has
17:11
Speaker 1: looked at the rhetoric record and decided this didn't even
17:14
Speaker 1: need a trial.
17:16
Speaker 2: It was such a slam dunk.
17:18
Speaker 1: A jury in Colorado find that Lindell defamed a former
17:21
Speaker 1: Dominion employee. That verdict is on appeal, but he lost
17:26
Speaker 1: at once. He'll lose the appeal. Just last month, Lindell
17:28
Speaker 1: settled the billion dollar defamation suit brought by the voting
17:32
Speaker 1: machine company formerly known as a Dominion. Six years of
17:35
Speaker 1: claiming he had the evidence that would put people in prison,
17:39
Speaker 1: and when it counted in every form with rules and
17:41
Speaker 1: consequences where you'd have to actually tell the truth, he lost,
17:46
Speaker 1: he settled, or he paid. And yet this is the
17:50
Speaker 1: standard bearer a man who is right now telling Minnesota
17:53
Speaker 1: voters that if he's elected the state's voting machines, his
17:56
Speaker 1: words need to be melted down and turned into prison bars.
18:00
Speaker 1: The man's a lunatic. Now it highlights the fundamental, glaring
18:05
Speaker 1: paradox at the heart of this entire ridiculous movement. We're
18:09
Speaker 1: expected to believe a narrative where elections in this country
18:12
Speaker 1: are only unsafer rigged when Donald Trump loses them. Not
18:17
Speaker 1: only that, apparently they're only safe when Democrats are in charge.
18:22
Speaker 1: Hear me out, think about the logic. So in twenty sixteen,
18:26
Speaker 1: when the Obama administration was running elections and Trump won
18:31
Speaker 1: and the outcome stood now, even then, even in victory,
18:34
Speaker 1: he claimed somehow there were three to five million illegal
18:36
Speaker 1: votes had been cast against him in California because he
18:39
Speaker 1: couldn't accept even losing the popular vote. Right, But he
18:42
Speaker 1: had no evidence. He never produced. It never has shown
18:45
Speaker 1: up anyone, and it is just worth reminding, right, the
18:50
Speaker 1: same guy that also claimed to this day that he
18:52
Speaker 1: didn't lose the Iowa Cox's Ted Cruz. Okay, So we
18:56
Speaker 1: know his fraud claims show up sometimes win or lose,
19:00
Speaker 1: and he wins, the fraud explains the popular vote, and
19:02
Speaker 1: when he loses, the fraud explains the loss.
19:04
Speaker 2: Right.
19:05
Speaker 1: The only constant in his head is it's you know,
19:07
Speaker 1: if he doesn't get his way, it's fraud. Because this
19:09
Speaker 1: man is so narcissistic he literally thinks everything revolves around it.
19:14
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty four, somehow the Biden administration ran
19:18
Speaker 1: an election that Trump won and suddenly the system worked
19:20
Speaker 1: perfectly again run by Democrats. There were no commissions, no audits,
19:24
Speaker 1: no midnight tweets about rigged machine. But in twenty twenty,
19:27
Speaker 1: the only election of the three entirely run by Donald
19:31
Speaker 1: Trump's own administration, with his own handpicked and pointees running
19:36
Speaker 1: federal election security, this is the one we're supposed to
19:40
Speaker 1: believe was hopelessly compromised. Keep in mind who was actually
19:45
Speaker 1: running the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in November twenty twenty,
19:50
Speaker 1: Chris Cobts a Trump and Pointe. Nine days after the
19:53
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, his agency released a joint statement calling
19:56
Speaker 1: twenty twenty the most secure in American history. Rerebs was
20:01
Speaker 1: fired by tweet shortly after, But that was the official
20:06
Speaker 1: federal security assessment of that election, and it is never changed.
20:11
Speaker 2: Now.
20:11
Speaker 1: If you trace the evolution of these theories over the
20:13
Speaker 1: last six years, you realize you aren't looking at a
20:15
Speaker 1: real You're not looking at a legal argument. It is
20:18
Speaker 1: a total shell game. When one theory gets debunked or
20:21
Speaker 1: sued out of existence, the goalposts just get dragged to
20:24
Speaker 1: a new part of the field. Right first, in late
20:27
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, it was illegal law changes Dominion voting machines.
20:31
Speaker 1: Then when those claims faced actual legal threats, it shifted
20:34
Speaker 1: to targeting individual Georgia election workers and wild Remember the
20:39
Speaker 1: Italy Gates, foreign hacking plots, satellites in Italy. I don't
20:43
Speaker 1: think this was Jewish lasers just yet, but we're getting there.
20:46
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty two, the narrative pivoted to two thousand,
20:48
Speaker 1: that movie two thousand Mules.
20:50
Speaker 2: With that grifter.
20:53
Speaker 1: Dinesh Desuza claiming a massive, coordinated conspiracy of physical ballot stuffers.
20:59
Speaker 1: By late twenty two two and twenty twenty three, the
21:02
Speaker 1: focus shifted to social media censorship and the Twitter files.
21:05
Speaker 2: That is what did it right?
21:07
Speaker 1: And now in twenty twenty six, we're moving it again
21:09
Speaker 1: because now it's foreign actors and classified intelligence. But foreign
21:13
Speaker 1: actors played no role in sixteen, but apparently played a
21:15
Speaker 1: huge role in twenty.
21:18
Speaker 2: So why does the story keep changing?
21:21
Speaker 1: Well, there's a simple reason. Every single time these theories
21:23
Speaker 1: are forced to stand up under oath, they completely disintegrate.
21:28
Speaker 1: Let's look at the scoreboard. Dominion was paid seven hundred
21:30
Speaker 1: and eighty seven million dollars by Fox News to settle
21:33
Speaker 1: its defamation suit. Rudy Giuliani conceded in court filings that
21:36
Speaker 1: his statements about two Georgia election workers were false, that
21:39
Speaker 1: he was a liar, resulting in a staggering one hundred
21:42
Speaker 1: and forty eight million dollar judgment against him that has
21:44
Speaker 1: probably successfully bankrupted him for the rest of his life.
21:47
Speaker 1: Sidney Palell's own defense lawyers are getting court that no
21:50
Speaker 1: reasonable person would conclude her claims of election fraud quote
21:53
Speaker 1: were truly statements of fact. How about that her own
21:56
Speaker 1: lawyers made the case that our client is so bizarre
21:59
Speaker 1: and rech ridiculous that there's no way anybody would have
22:02
Speaker 1: taken them seriously. The Gateway Pundit had to issue retractions
22:05
Speaker 1: for its false claims about those same Georgia election workers.
22:08
Speaker 1: The media company behind two Thousand Mules had to issue
22:10
Speaker 1: a public apology and pulled the film from distribution after
22:13
Speaker 1: an innocent Georgia man they had accused of ballot trafficking
22:17
Speaker 1: was investigated and cleared. Newsmax and Oann both had to
22:21
Speaker 1: settle defamation suits against Smartmatic, and Lindell settled lost paid
22:26
Speaker 1: as we already just covered. So for those of you
22:29
Speaker 1: who are still claim these arguments never got their day
22:31
Speaker 1: in court. Let's clear up that myth once and for all.
22:35
Speaker 1: We're not citing any sort of democratic sources here. There's
22:38
Speaker 1: a report called Loss Not Stolen, written by lifelong conservative
22:41
Speaker 1: Republicans Ben Ginsberg, dean of a Republican election Warriers. I
22:46
Speaker 1: hesitate to call them somebody who I call a friend,
22:49
Speaker 1: and I hope that doesn't harm his reputation.
22:53
Speaker 2: I'm with you, Bet and.
22:54
Speaker 1: Former Senator John Danforth, who you've heard on this podcast.
22:57
Speaker 1: They went through every case Trump and his allies filed,
23:00
Speaker 1: sixty four of them across the country. Thirty of those
23:03
Speaker 1: cases had full hearings on marits dismissed. Fourteen were voluntarily
23:07
Speaker 1: withdrawn by the Trump team before a hearing could even
23:09
Speaker 1: happen for fear of lying under oath tente. Were dismissed
23:13
Speaker 1: on standing, just or procedural grounds because they were just
23:16
Speaker 1: bad lawyers. The single solitary case they won was in Pennsylvania,
23:20
Speaker 1: and it was a minor dispute over voter ID deadlines
23:22
Speaker 1: involving far too few votes to affect the outcome. Had
23:26
Speaker 1: nothing to do with fraud. So even in Georgia, the
23:29
Speaker 1: epicenter of so many of these allegations, the state conducted
23:33
Speaker 1: a one hundred percent manual hand eye recount of all
23:36
Speaker 1: five million paper ballots. The physical paper matched the machines
23:40
Speaker 1: spind all the thories you want, my friends, but you
23:43
Speaker 1: cannot back hack a physical piece of paper, right, did
23:47
Speaker 1: they go through like Maduro? Somehow flew them in in Venezuela.
23:51
Speaker 1: So when you watch the screen on Thursday night and
23:53
Speaker 1: you see this tired old man yelling at the end
23:57
Speaker 1: of a bar, this election was stolen and he's going
24:02
Speaker 1: to have the presidential seal in front of him because
24:04
Speaker 1: God love him. And you hear this dramatic build up,
24:07
Speaker 1: the warnings and the promises of newly uncovered secrets, you
24:11
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe what his people are finding. Right, remember during
24:14
Speaker 1: burtherism with him, Just remember the trail of retractions, settlements, bankruptcies,
24:20
Speaker 1: dismissed court cases left in the wake of the.
24:23
Speaker 2: Last six years.
24:24
Speaker 1: And remember who got his endorsement the day before. The
24:29
Speaker 1: stories keep changing, the facts, do know? The President's fetish continues,
24:36
Speaker 1: and there's a whole bunch of people that are being
24:38
Speaker 1: humiliated along the line by going along with this. Jay Clayton,
24:43
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26:29
Speaker 2: Now let me just move on to the ice store.
26:34
Speaker 2: What we've witnessed over the last eight days.
26:39
Speaker 1: Is something pretty ugly, but I would argue that unfortunately,
26:45
Speaker 1: we all saw this coming over a year ago, and
26:48
Speaker 1: it's a window that I want to paint here of
26:49
Speaker 1: how policy is actually being made and unmade at the
26:52
Speaker 1: highest levels of our government and the very real and
26:56
Speaker 1: lethal consequences that follow when you have this sort of
26:59
Speaker 1: political performance theater, and it overrides basic tactical sanity.
27:06
Speaker 2: So let's go with the facts here. We've had three
27:08
Speaker 2: deaths in eight days, all connected to ice enforcement operations.
27:11
Speaker 2: July seventh and Houston ICE officers shot and killed a
27:14
Speaker 2: fifty teen year old fifty two year old man, Lorenzo
27:17
Speaker 2: Salgado al Rojo during a vehicle stop. Six days later
27:21
Speaker 2: in January and July thirteenth, up in Biddeford, Maine, an
27:24
Speaker 2: officer shot and killed twenty six year old Johann Sebastian
27:27
Speaker 2: Duran Guero, also at a vehicle stop. And then Tuesday
27:30
Speaker 2: morning St. Augustine, Florida. Earlier this week, a twenty year
27:34
Speaker 2: old man fleeing an encounter with ICE an HSI agents
27:36
Speaker 2: that's only in security investigative team at a gas station,
27:39
Speaker 2: ran across a state road and was struck and killed
27:42
Speaker 2: by attractive trailer. Now, look, here's the part you have
27:47
Speaker 2: to let think of it.
27:48
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be careful here because these investigations
27:51
Speaker 1: are ongoing, and you you know, I believe you got
27:54
Speaker 1: to presume every you got to take every investigation individually first.
27:59
Speaker 1: But there is a uncomfortable pattern we're all noticing. And
28:01
Speaker 1: both shootings, the men who were killed were not the
28:03
Speaker 1: targets of the ICE operations, and that's not the characterization
28:08
Speaker 1: I'm trying to draw here. That is what DHS itself
28:11
Speaker 1: confirmed Okay, they admitted this, So these were bystanders. One
28:17
Speaker 1: might call them innocent bystanders. One of them, according to
28:20
Speaker 1: Main immigrant advocates, was authorized to work in this country
28:22
Speaker 1: with a Social Security number. Now, DHS says both men
28:26
Speaker 1: quote weaponized their vehicles. It's the same story they said
28:28
Speaker 1: about Renee Good, that somehow they tried to flee in
28:31
Speaker 1: a way that endangered officers of the public. Okay, let's
28:36
Speaker 1: see the footage. There's a reason we can't see the footage,
28:41
Speaker 1: but I'm going to.
28:41
Speaker 2: Get into that.
28:42
Speaker 1: In Houston, passengers in the van dispute the account. In
28:46
Speaker 1: Main witnesses have also challenged DHS's account. And guess what,
28:50
Speaker 1: We're never going to be able to know for sure
28:51
Speaker 1: because neither agent was wearing a BodyCount. There's no take,
28:56
Speaker 1: no objective record, just two dead men to content narratives,
29:02
Speaker 1: no way to check either one of them. But a
29:04
Speaker 1: government who and a department who has a history of
29:08
Speaker 1: line since this administration took over in early twenty twenty five.
29:14
Speaker 1: I mean, they lied about Renee Good and they lolled
29:16
Speaker 1: about ox Bretty, so we already know they're capable of this.
29:19
Speaker 1: So they don't have any credibility, and when you don't
29:21
Speaker 1: have the com body camera footage, you don't there's no
29:24
Speaker 1: institutional trust. Now I'll say this, you saw quick You
29:31
Speaker 1: saw what in theory was faster response by this leadership
29:38
Speaker 1: team than what Christy Nome provided under DHS Secretary Mark
29:42
Speaker 1: wayn mullen. At least they looked at the tactical reality.
29:46
Speaker 1: They did see a crisis. They recognized that vehicle stops
29:48
Speaker 1: are quite literally among the most voalatable, unpredictable, dangerous operations
29:52
Speaker 1: and all of law enforcement. It's not just for civilians
29:55
Speaker 1: but for the officers themselves. So Mark wait Mullen did
30:01
Speaker 1: the correct answer and hit the brakes, and on Tuesday,
30:04
Speaker 1: ICE announced that they paused most vehicle stops nationwide. By
30:08
Speaker 1: the way, I just think, you know, with the disdained
30:10
Speaker 1: age of cameras, we shouldn't have any vehicle stops should
30:13
Speaker 1: only only be for going after the most violent and
30:18
Speaker 1: the most wanted people. Just pulling people over for speeding,
30:21
Speaker 1: creating these creating confrontations over five and ten mile an
30:27
Speaker 1: hour speed limit. Stuff, mail the ticket and them. There
30:31
Speaker 1: are more people will be alive if you do this,
30:34
Speaker 1: and our roads will still be just the same.
30:40
Speaker 2: But I digress. So they hit the brakes smart. It's
30:47
Speaker 2: the right thing to do. He said.
30:49
Speaker 1: It was a temporary halt while officers got additional training
30:52
Speaker 1: on vehicle stop tactics, which is also and admittance that
30:58
Speaker 1: they didn't have they weren't well trained, And I'm going
31:00
Speaker 1: to get to that. It was a recognition by Mark
31:04
Speaker 1: wwyn Mullen that vehicle stops are quite literally incredibly dangerous.
31:11
Speaker 1: And in the same breath, markwyn Mullen announced they're moving
31:14
Speaker 1: to expand body camera use, putting a camera equipped agent
31:16
Speaker 1: on every arrest. Why that wasn't the case in the
31:19
Speaker 1: first place. We had a government shutdown over that, if
31:22
Speaker 1: you recall. But I want to give credit where it's due,
31:24
Speaker 1: because that is what functional government looks like. You may
31:27
Speaker 1: not like markwyn Mullen, he may not be your politics, but.
31:30
Speaker 2: That's the right.
31:31
Speaker 1: It's the right first response when you've got three deaths
31:35
Speaker 1: in a week. Hey, we got a problem here, let's
31:38
Speaker 1: shut this down, let's get some better training, let's figure
31:41
Speaker 1: this out.
31:45
Speaker 2: All right.
31:47
Speaker 1: But that's sanity. That bureaucratic sanity lasted all of a night.
31:51
Speaker 1: I don't even think twenty four hours because by Wednesday morning,
31:54
Speaker 1: President Trump took the truth social and publicly cut the
31:56
Speaker 1: legs out from under his own DHS leadership team. He
31:59
Speaker 1: called the t traffic spot, and I'm quoting here, one
32:02
Speaker 1: of ICE's most important and effective crime fighting tools. He said,
32:06
Speaker 1: backing off would be playing right into the criminal's hands.
32:10
Speaker 1: He said the radical left would love to see it end,
32:11
Speaker 1: but it won't happen in my watch. And then he
32:14
Speaker 1: told ICE officers to go back and do your very
32:16
Speaker 1: important job. So this is a reminder. Donald Trump wants
32:20
Speaker 1: the theater. The traffic stop is the most volatile one
32:23
Speaker 1: to do. It is the one that is intentionally disruptive
32:26
Speaker 1: to communities, intentionally disruptive, and it is designed this is
32:30
Speaker 1: a feature, not about I actually think Mark wayn Mullen
32:34
Speaker 1: actually doesn't want this. I don't know, but I don't
32:36
Speaker 1: think he wants the theater of this because it puts
32:39
Speaker 1: lives in danger, more lives in danger than this sor.
32:41
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump wants this. That's what you need to
32:45
Speaker 1: take away from this. Donald Trump wants the theater. He
32:48
Speaker 1: wants the violent confrontations. He wants to force this picture.
32:55
Speaker 1: Now as I sit here, the pause is technically still
32:57
Speaker 1: in effect. But think about what just happened, right, The
33:00
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security ordered a safety stand down after
33:03
Speaker 1: three deaths and eight days, and within twenty four hours,
33:06
Speaker 1: the commander in chief, the President of the United States,
33:08
Speaker 1: publicly overrides him because he thought that tactical safety pause
33:13
Speaker 1: didn't make them.
33:14
Speaker 2: Look tough enough. Well, which official does an ICE officer
33:18
Speaker 2: in the field going to listen to?
33:19
Speaker 3: Now?
33:20
Speaker 1: The secretary ordered the pause of the president had told
33:22
Speaker 1: him to get back out there, and also has the
33:24
Speaker 1: power to pardon. So as shocking as that whiplashes, we
33:30
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised. The violence we are seeing this month
33:34
Speaker 1: isn't an anomaly. It's the entire predictable output of a
33:38
Speaker 1: machine that was set in motion more than a year ago.
33:42
Speaker 1: And it has three gears who were recruited, who they recruited,
33:46
Speaker 1: how little they were trained, and how hard they're being squeezed.
33:51
Speaker 1: So you get who you recruit. I want to go
33:53
Speaker 1: back to twenty twenty five here, when the administration took
33:56
Speaker 1: office with a mandate for the mass deportations, they realized
33:59
Speaker 1: very quickly they had a math problem. They didn't have
34:02
Speaker 1: the bodies at at ICE or border patrol to make
34:06
Speaker 1: this happen, So DHS launched a one hundred million dollar
34:09
Speaker 1: wartime recruitment for their words campaign that was their own
34:14
Speaker 1: phrase and an internal strategy document. And I'm just telling
34:17
Speaker 1: you these words matter in the type of officer you
34:21
Speaker 1: end up recruiting and what kind of behavior they will
34:26
Speaker 1: exhibit based on the expectations of how they were recruited.
34:32
Speaker 1: So this wartime recruitment is what's used to hire ten
34:36
Speaker 1: thousand new ice employees on top of a workforce of
34:38
Speaker 1: roughly twenty thousand, So a fifty percent increase in a
34:42
Speaker 1: single year. You're going to change the culture of an organization. Now,
34:49
Speaker 1: when a normal police department recruits, what's the recruitment usually
34:52
Speaker 1: look like. They run ads about community public service, protecting
34:57
Speaker 1: your neighbors, protecting the vulnerable local. That isn't what I did.
35:02
Speaker 1: They went straight for a very specific, highly volatile psychological
35:07
Speaker 1: profile of of recruit. They engineered a marketing campaign designed
35:14
Speaker 1: to attract people who weren't looking to serve a community,
35:16
Speaker 1: who were looking for a fight. Look at the ads
35:20
Speaker 1: that they actually ran. First, they started by targeting local
35:24
Speaker 1: police officers and so called quote sanctuary cities like Chicago
35:28
Speaker 1: and Denver, and the pitch was direct. I was watching
35:32
Speaker 1: these ads during football season. As I've told all of you,
35:35
Speaker 1: when you watch all the college football I watch, you
35:37
Speaker 1: end up getting a lot of localized ads. And I'd
35:40
Speaker 1: see these ads. Your city is telling you to stand down,
35:43
Speaker 1: come to us. We're gonna give you a fifty thousand
35:45
Speaker 1: dollars signing bonus and let you go after the worst
35:47
Speaker 1: of the worst. And it wasn't much subtext. It wasn't subtle.
35:51
Speaker 1: Your local leaders are soft, Come join our army. And
35:55
Speaker 1: then it got worse when they went to the digital
35:58
Speaker 1: side of things, and they went on to gaming platform Spotify, TikTok, Instagram,
36:02
Speaker 1: targeting young men who marinate in a hyper militarized online culture.
36:08
Speaker 1: They posted an image of Uncle Sam at a crossroads,
36:10
Speaker 1: caption which way American man, a riff on the title
36:15
Speaker 1: of a book published by a neo Nazi publishing house.
36:18
Speaker 1: A phrase that lives today is a well known white
36:21
Speaker 1: nationalist narrative. In a separate had, this one shared by
36:25
Speaker 1: the White House itself. The soundtrack was a song called
36:28
Speaker 1: We'll Have Our Home Again, produced and popularized by a
36:31
Speaker 1: white nationalist group. They used imagery from a video game
36:36
Speaker 1: called Halo, and the message destroy the flood, And if
36:39
Speaker 1: you've ever played Halo, the flood is a brainless, parasitic
36:43
Speaker 1: alien plague that exists only to infect and destroy. That
36:48
Speaker 1: was the metaphor that this federal agency chose to compare
36:54
Speaker 1: immigrants in this country. Two, let's conect the dots. If
37:00
Speaker 1: you spend one hundred million dollars telling the public this
37:03
Speaker 1: job is a militarized video game, that the target is
37:06
Speaker 1: an alien parasite, and that nobody, no local police chief,
37:09
Speaker 1: no body camera will be looking over your shoulder. What
37:12
Speaker 1: do you think signs up? Do you think you get
37:15
Speaker 1: the patient, community minded peacemaker or do you get the
37:18
Speaker 1: adrenaline junkie. Do you get the online culture warrior? Do
37:21
Speaker 1: you get the guy who's been itching to use the
37:23
Speaker 1: tactical gear he bought online, has been costplaying on Instagram? Now, look,
37:33
Speaker 1: honest caveat here. We don't know the full backgrounds every
37:36
Speaker 1: officer involved in this month's incidence. The Atlantic reports of
37:39
Speaker 1: one of the officers in the main shooting was newly
37:41
Speaker 1: sworn in at ice hired earlier this year, but he
37:44
Speaker 1: came from the Veteran Affairs Police, where he'd served since
37:47
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, So you know, maybe he's not some meme
37:51
Speaker 1: pilled gamer with a badge. He's a career law enforcement officer.
37:56
Speaker 1: But hold on, because that fact doesn't let the system
37:58
Speaker 1: off the hook, indicts it from a different direction. So
38:01
Speaker 1: here's a man with nearly a decade in federal law enforcement,
38:04
Speaker 1: and within months of joining ICE, he's on a surveillance
38:06
Speaker 1: operation improvising a vehicle stop on a man who wasn't
38:09
Speaker 1: even the target, with no body camera and a person
38:12
Speaker 1: is dead. Is it possible he was just looking for
38:16
Speaker 1: more action because he didn't like the federal law enforcement
38:20
Speaker 1: arena that he was working at and Veterans Affairs didn't
38:23
Speaker 1: give him the action. Is that what happens to the
38:26
Speaker 1: experienced hires? This machine is chewing through. So what do
38:30
Speaker 1: you think happens to the new twenty six year old
38:32
Speaker 1: recruited off TikTok? Because it's not just too they recruited,
38:36
Speaker 1: it's what they're demanding from them. NBC News reported that
38:42
Speaker 1: the administration's relentless pressure to drive up arrest numbers has
38:46
Speaker 1: put officers under their words, too much stress. They have
38:50
Speaker 1: to hit quotas, and you give police officers quotas, you're
38:55
Speaker 1: already warping and screwing up the rule of law. Know what,
39:00
Speaker 1: they just want numbers to feed, you know, their narrative.
39:04
Speaker 1: Recruit for aggression, skip the training at a quota. It's
39:08
Speaker 1: not a law enforcement agency. That's a pressure cooker with
39:11
Speaker 1: a gut. And we wonder why there's already been so
39:14
Speaker 1: many dead Americans. And that brings us to the actual
39:17
Speaker 1: mechanics of what is happening on the streets. Any veteran
39:19
Speaker 1: police officer will tell you the vehicle stop is the
39:22
Speaker 1: danger zone. You're approaching a heavy, potentially lethal piece of machinery.
39:27
Speaker 1: You don't know who's inside, you don't know if there
39:29
Speaker 1: are weapons. You know, my mother dated a police officer.
39:33
Speaker 1: He once told me, you know, what officers are hopeful
39:37
Speaker 1: is that the driver will make sure his hands are visible.
39:40
Speaker 1: So whenever I've been pulled over for speeding, and what
39:42
Speaker 1: I've ever been pulled over is for speeding, I've always
39:45
Speaker 1: done that. Boys been mindful of that because I don't
39:50
Speaker 1: want some cop to think I'm you know, I'm not
39:55
Speaker 1: doing that for his safety. I'm doing it for mine,
39:57
Speaker 1: and I get it right. You're also standing in active
39:59
Speaker 1: trees if it's an interstate. So look, this is why
40:04
Speaker 1: the camera is a better speed detector these days and
40:07
Speaker 1: a safer speed detector. But street cops usually get a
40:12
Speaker 1: lot more training on this stuff, and ice deportation officers
40:15
Speaker 1: they're not street cops, and they're not they didn't sign
40:19
Speaker 1: up to be street cops, but it's become a description.
40:23
Speaker 1: And for most of the agency's history, they were taking
40:28
Speaker 1: people into custody who were.
40:30
Speaker 2: Already in jail.
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42:17
Speaker 1: and rates may vary. So and in fact, some former
42:25
Speaker 1: ICE officials have set it out loud this month. The
42:27
Speaker 1: enforcement and removal side of the agency simply does not
42:29
Speaker 1: have deep experience with vehicle stops. They're just never been
42:36
Speaker 1: trained for this, and of course the demands of the
42:39
Speaker 1: quotas have forced this. But these officers are being sent
42:43
Speaker 1: out to perform these stops. Again, I think the conflict
42:48
Speaker 1: is a feature not above. So you combine an undertrained
42:53
Speaker 1: officer with the most volatile operation in law enforcement of
42:56
Speaker 1: vehicle stop, add production pressure from DC for quota numbers,
43:01
Speaker 1: strip away the body camera tragedy isn't a risk in
43:05
Speaker 1: this equation. It's a guarantee. It's a statistical guarantee. In Houston,
43:11
Speaker 1: they were looking for one man. They stopped the van
43:13
Speaker 1: with a different man. It escalated in seconds and Lorenzo
43:17
Speaker 1: is dead. In Maine, they were watching an address for
43:20
Speaker 1: one man. A different man drove away from it, and
43:23
Speaker 1: now mister Guero is dead. In Florida, four men saw
43:26
Speaker 1: federal agents coming and ran. Because in July twenty twenty six,
43:29
Speaker 1: people are so terrified of an encounter with an ice
43:31
Speaker 1: agent that you just flee, and you'll flee across a
43:34
Speaker 1: major highway because you think anything is safer than being
43:37
Speaker 1: in their custody. Given that you're not one hundred percent
43:40
Speaker 1: guaranteed your life is safe in their custody, why wouldn't
43:42
Speaker 1: you run?
43:43
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you? And now one of them is dead.
43:47
Speaker 1: And yet instead of letting the agency which does need fixing,
43:50
Speaker 1: and like I said, Mark Wayn Mullins's initial response was
43:53
Speaker 1: the correct one, and the president overruled them. This is
44:00
Speaker 1: the tragedy of this current moment. We have turned federal
44:02
Speaker 1: law enforcement into a theater of dominance, and all we
44:07
Speaker 1: have done is weaket their ability to be trusted to
44:11
Speaker 1: the public. Overall, we treated the recruitment of federal agents
44:15
Speaker 1: not as a sober exercise in building a professional constitutional force,
44:19
Speaker 1: but as a branding exercise aimed at the darkest, most
44:22
Speaker 1: combative corners of the Internet. We skip the training because
44:26
Speaker 1: training is slow, and the quota is due Friday.
44:32
Speaker 2: And when the.
44:32
Speaker 1: Professionals in charge finally tried to pump the brakes, the
44:36
Speaker 1: respond from the very top was get your foot off
44:39
Speaker 1: the brake.
44:40
Speaker 2: Keep going.
44:41
Speaker 1: This has had real word consequences. A fifty two year
44:44
Speaker 1: old father in Houston is dead. At twenty six year
44:46
Speaker 1: old with a work perman in Maine is dead at
44:48
Speaker 1: twenty eight year old is at a gas station is dead.
44:52
Speaker 1: You get who you recruit, you get what you're trained for,
44:56
Speaker 1: and you get what you demand. I spent twenty twenty
44:58
Speaker 1: five recruiting for a war, skip the training and set
45:02
Speaker 1: a quota, and in twenty twenty six, three families in
45:05
Speaker 1: three states are living with those consequences. All right, let
45:11
Speaker 1: me pivot to two more issues that have popped up
45:14
Speaker 1: this week that are obviously one is taking a huge
45:17
Speaker 1: which is ira and I kind of want to tackle
45:19
Speaker 1: the bigger question here, which is how has this administration
45:22
Speaker 1: gotten everything's so wrong about this war?
45:25
Speaker 2: Right?
45:26
Speaker 1: That's really, I mean, there's not And by the way,
45:28
Speaker 1: you'll be forgiven if you're like what happened to the
45:30
Speaker 1: new fear of nuclear weapons? Because if the President didn't
45:33
Speaker 1: say that anymore. Right, we may have destroyed more items
45:37
Speaker 1: in Iran than Iran destroyed of American owned assets, but
45:42
Speaker 1: Iran has more leverage today than when this war began.
45:45
Speaker 1: That's the definition of losing. So how did this administration
45:48
Speaker 1: just get everything.
45:49
Speaker 2: So wrong about this war?
45:51
Speaker 1: Five months in right straight up hormones choked off again,
45:54
Speaker 1: Kuwait taking the heaviest missile barrage in weeks, five cruise missiles,
45:58
Speaker 1: ballistic missile already, three drones all in one night, all
46:02
Speaker 1: US assets. The Hooties are warming up to perhaps close
46:06
Speaker 1: a second choice choke point at the bab El Mandeb
46:11
Speaker 1: the other side of Saudi Arabia, at the Arabian Peninsula,
46:13
Speaker 1: a ceasefire that lasted a month before it collapsed, a
46:18
Speaker 1: memorandum of understanding that's turned into a memorandum of misunderstanding.
46:23
Speaker 1: And a president who announced a fee for ships transmitting
46:25
Speaker 1: through the Strait of hoorm Moves on Monday, rescinded it
46:28
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, and who knows.
46:29
Speaker 2: What will be thinking over the weekend. So how does
46:31
Speaker 2: all this happen?
46:32
Speaker 1: How does the most powerful military on Earth, fighting a
46:34
Speaker 1: country whose economy was already on its knees, end up
46:37
Speaker 1: five months into a war with no exit, no strategy.
46:40
Speaker 2: Anyone can name an oil at four week ties.
46:44
Speaker 1: So let's walk through the airs, because there's been a
46:46
Speaker 1: whole catalog with them. And yet I also will tell
46:51
Speaker 1: you up front I think there's one answer underneath all
46:53
Speaker 1: of them, and it's not intelligence failures. It's not incompetence
46:57
Speaker 1: at the Pentagon. It's simpler than that, and we'll get there.
46:59
Speaker 1: But I want to start with theog of evidence. Era
47:01
Speaker 1: one was not understanding the straight up foremoes. The US
47:04
Speaker 1: military has wargamed a conflict with Iran for decades, and
47:07
Speaker 1: in every one of those exercises, the Strait was the
47:09
Speaker 1: whole ballgame. Twenty percent of the world's oil moves through
47:12
Speaker 1: that passage, and yet, according to reporting out of War
47:18
Speaker 1: on the Rocks, two officials familiar told them that the
47:24
Speaker 1: administration underestimated Iran's willingness to actually close it and could
47:29
Speaker 1: likely have prevented the closure of it. It positioned naval
47:32
Speaker 1: assets there from day one. They didn't even prepare for it,
47:36
Speaker 1: even bebe admitted, it took a while to understand how
47:39
Speaker 1: big that risk was. How did they not know this?
47:41
Speaker 1: This guy was so obsessed with going to war, you
47:42
Speaker 1: don't think about all the various consequences. The one thing
47:45
Speaker 1: everybody knew was Iran's as the thing that Iranian planners
47:48
Speaker 1: built their entire strategy around, and Washington just sort of
47:51
Speaker 1: overlooked it. Air two fighting the wrong war. Right, here's
47:56
Speaker 1: the part of the story that should genuinely bother you.
47:58
Speaker 1: Iran wasn't improvising. Back in twenty oh five, the Revolutionary
48:02
Speaker 1: Guard Strategy Center formalized a doctrine they called the Mosaic Defense,
48:08
Speaker 1: a deliberately decentralized command structure designed to survive exactly the
48:13
Speaker 1: kind of decapitation strikes that opened this war. They war
48:17
Speaker 1: gained this and they followed their blueprint. Their Foreign minister
48:23
Speaker 1: set it out loud as the bombs were falling. We've
48:25
Speaker 1: had two decades to study American military defeats to our
48:28
Speaker 1: im mediatet East and West, and we've incorporated those lessons
48:31
Speaker 1: a rock on one side, Afghanistan on the other. Uran
48:34
Speaker 1: took notes for twenty years. So while Washington fought a
48:38
Speaker 1: war to fined by military force, where we of course
48:41
Speaker 1: went it, we won every engagement in theory, Tehran moved
48:45
Speaker 1: the contest onto terrain that we weren't set up to contest.
48:49
Speaker 1: The straight of war moves the economic pain, the information warfare,
48:53
Speaker 1: the political will, because that has doomed the United States
48:57
Speaker 1: ever since World War Two. Air Iree was the strategy
49:01
Speaker 1: turn aaron missile campaign, then in naval quarantine. Now what
49:04
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal describes as a calibrated firepower plus
49:07
Speaker 1: a reimposed blockade.
49:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that's three.
49:10
Speaker 1: Major military strategies of this war in five months. Each
49:14
Speaker 1: one announced was decisive, and none of that were decisive.
49:18
Speaker 1: Then the fourth era, and this one's cumulative. The president
49:21
Speaker 1: keeps negotiating with himself. This is what David Ignacious wrote
49:26
Speaker 1: earlier this week, and he nailed it. He said, declare
49:28
Speaker 1: victory one day, resume the war the next, Praise Iran's leaders,
49:32
Speaker 1: then call them scum. Announced a twenty percent protection fee
49:34
Speaker 1: for hormus, the exact practice's own age, rejected when Iran
49:38
Speaker 1: demanded it. Then kill the idea of the next morning.
49:41
Speaker 1: Now the threats hit them hard for three days, Then
49:43
Speaker 1: next week the power plants, next week, the bridges. It's
49:45
Speaker 1: always next week, right, How many next weeks have we heard?
49:49
Speaker 1: Every deadline that passes without the bridges coming down? Teaches
49:52
Speaker 1: Tehran the same lesson. American threats have a shelf life,
49:55
Speaker 1: and it's measured in news cycles. Now let's do the
49:58
Speaker 1: honest part, because if you're rooting against Trump here, you're
50:01
Speaker 1: going to be tempted to hear all this and conclude
50:03
Speaker 1: Irana's winning, And that's not true either. Zoom out on Tehran.
50:06
Speaker 1: The economy is severely weakened, the nuclear facilities are under rubble,
50:10
Speaker 1: their top nuclear scientists are dead.
50:13
Speaker 2: The leadership is report is totally divided about whether to
50:16
Speaker 2: cut a deal.
50:16
Speaker 1: That's real. The hardliners are exalting. They're almost flexing their
50:22
Speaker 1: muscles simply because they survived. But we know surviving is
50:25
Speaker 1: not a long term strategy for what comes next, and
50:27
Speaker 1: they don't appear to have a strategy. If you offered
50:30
Speaker 1: iran supreme leader the status quo of January versus the
50:33
Speaker 1: status quo of today, he probably takes January every time.
50:38
Speaker 1: So no, it's not a story of American weakness here.
50:41
Speaker 1: The military did what it was asked to do. This
50:43
Speaker 1: is a story about American impatience, or specifically Donald Trump impatience.
50:48
Speaker 1: And that's my answer at the top, because at every turn,
50:52
Speaker 1: every single error in that catalog I listed, every one
50:54
Speaker 1: of them is a symptom of the same disease. Wasn't
50:56
Speaker 1: stupidity or bad intelligence simply in patience? Why wasn't the
51:00
Speaker 1: maybe positioned at our moves? Because prepositioning is slow, and
51:03
Speaker 1: that plan was a short sharp war. Why three strategies
51:06
Speaker 1: in five months, because each one was supposed to work
51:08
Speaker 1: in weeks and when it didn't, you don't adjust, you swat.
51:11
Speaker 1: Why announce a fee and rescind it in twenty four
51:13
Speaker 1: hours because it sounded like leverage on Monday. Why threaten
51:16
Speaker 1: the bridges next week instead of just hitting the bridges
51:18
Speaker 1: because the threat is instant and the campaign takes months
51:21
Speaker 1: and it may not work. So it's Kenneth Pollock. I
51:27
Speaker 1: want to associate myself with him. His analysis of this war,
51:30
Speaker 1: former CIA agent, he said, he goes, this is now
51:34
Speaker 1: a coercive war of attrition, both sides trying to push
51:37
Speaker 1: the other past some unknowable pain threshold. And guess what
51:42
Speaker 1: coercive wars go on and on. So this is now
51:47
Speaker 1: a fight over leverage, not a fight over the regime,
51:49
Speaker 1: which is already a win for a run.
51:52
Speaker 2: Now here's the structural problem.
51:53
Speaker 1: This is the part that has nothing to do with
51:55
Speaker 1: anyone's character and everything to do with incentives. A war
51:58
Speaker 1: of attrition is a test of clocks in Iran's clocks. Right,
52:03
Speaker 1: That's that Taliban saying, you know, we've got the time,
52:08
Speaker 1: and you've got the watches right. And Iran's clock runs
52:11
Speaker 1: on decades. This regime is built for survival, period. That's
52:16
Speaker 1: an institutional design. It's formal, it was formalized twenty years ago.
52:20
Speaker 1: They're not interested in having the modern country that Trump
52:23
Speaker 1: thinks they want, not the leaders at the moment. That's
52:27
Speaker 1: that's another problem. And then Trump's clock runs, you know,
52:31
Speaker 1: is the right now it's the mid terms for instance,
52:33
Speaker 1: he needs a win or he needs he can't have
52:36
Speaker 1: a total defeat before November, and every day the straight
52:39
Speaker 1: is closed. Gas price has become a campaign issue. Again,
52:42
Speaker 1: every week this war grinds on, it becomes more unpopular.
52:45
Speaker 1: And again he doesn't even talk about the original rationale
52:48
Speaker 1: for this war, which was their nuclear capabilities.
52:53
Speaker 2: Tehran.
52:53
Speaker 1: They can read a calendar, their entire theory of victory,
52:57
Speaker 1: this one they wrote over twenty years ago, is survived
52:59
Speaker 1: long enough to impose costs. And the question stops being
53:02
Speaker 1: how long can Iran hold out and starts being whether
53:05
Speaker 1: Washington can stay the course. They don't need to beat
53:08
Speaker 1: the US military. They cannot beat They can't beat the
53:11
Speaker 1: US military. They just need to outweight this American president
53:14
Speaker 1: and every flip flop, every fake you know, every rescinded threat,
53:21
Speaker 1: it's not real pressure. It's almost confirmation that their strategy
53:24
Speaker 1: is working and that they've pulled this off. So how
53:28
Speaker 1: did this administration get everything so wrong about the Iran war?
53:34
Speaker 1: It just misjudged time. Iran spent twenty years preparing for
53:38
Speaker 1: this war. Donald Trump spent twenty minutes preparing for this war.
53:42
Speaker 2: Right, And in a.
53:43
Speaker 1: War of attrition, the side that counts in decades doesn't
53:46
Speaker 1: have to beat the.
53:47
Speaker 2: Side that counts in news cycles. They just have to wait.
53:52
Speaker 1: So the best we can hope for is a managed
53:54
Speaker 1: stalemate here hopefully doesn't get Americans killed. But this is
54:00
Speaker 1: a total mess, and it you know, we're his only
54:09
Speaker 1: options escalation and A I don't think he has the
54:14
Speaker 1: stomach for it, and B you don't know where that goes.
54:19
Speaker 1: So here's where we are, a managed stalemate. Uh, forever war.
54:28
Speaker 1: I want to do a quick little thing on daylight
54:29
Speaker 1: saving time, because the House just passed a bill, made
54:32
Speaker 1: a permanent sentence about to do what the Senate does,
54:34
Speaker 1: which is likely nothing. There's a bipartisan block against this idea.
54:40
Speaker 1: Tom Cotton, Conservative Republican Center from Arkansas has been a
54:44
Speaker 1: know on this for a while. John Barrasso says it
54:48
Speaker 1: can't pass with unanimous consent like it accidentally did once.
54:53
Speaker 1: And so you know, the Senate did pass this by
54:56
Speaker 1: unanimous consent kind of accidentally, and then the House couldn't
54:58
Speaker 1: pass this bill. But look, this bill is probably going
55:03
Speaker 1: to die as well. So I don't think we're going
55:05
Speaker 1: to get this permanent change. But here's the thing. We
55:07
Speaker 1: don't have to guess what happens if it does pass.
55:09
Speaker 1: We run this experiment. We've actually run it twice. We
55:13
Speaker 1: did year round daylight saving during World War Two, and
55:16
Speaker 1: then we did it again in December nineteen seventy three.
55:18
Speaker 1: Those of you are fans of my tie cast time
55:21
Speaker 1: machine segment, No, I've done this before in the middle
55:24
Speaker 1: of the Opec oil embargo. Congress did it again.
55:26
Speaker 2: Right.
55:27
Speaker 1: Permanent daylight saving time sold as energy conservation, by the way,
55:30
Speaker 1: at the time, wildly popular like it is now. Polling
55:33
Speaker 1: before it took effect showed roughly four out of five
55:35
Speaker 1: Americans were in favor of permanent daylight saving time. Who
55:38
Speaker 1: doesn't want more evening sunlight?
55:40
Speaker 2: Right?
55:41
Speaker 1: And then January came and in January, permanent daylight saving
55:45
Speaker 1: means the sun comes up after eight or eight thirty
55:48
Speaker 1: in the morning across large chunks of the country. Kids
55:51
Speaker 1: walked to school in the dark, kids waited for buses
55:54
Speaker 1: in the dark. There were reports of children killed in
55:56
Speaker 1: dark morning traffic accidents in Florida within weeks collapsed from
56:01
Speaker 1: that four and five number to low forties by February,
56:04
Speaker 1: and by October of that year, Congress voted overwhelmingly to
56:07
Speaker 1: undo it, and gerald Ford signed the repeal. The whole
56:11
Speaker 1: daylight saving time permanence experiment lasted ten months. That was
56:15
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. This is twenty twenty six, fifty two
56:18
Speaker 1: years later, almost exactly the interval it takes, apparently for
56:21
Speaker 1: everyone who lived through the last mistake to age out
56:24
Speaker 1: of this conversation. Right, And that's really the point of
56:28
Speaker 1: this segment. Permanent daylight savings is the perfect specimen of
56:31
Speaker 1: a certain kind of politics, the popular idea whose costs
56:34
Speaker 1: fall on somebody else. The people who love this bill
56:38
Speaker 1: are people who want daylight at six pm in July,
56:41
Speaker 1: which the bill doesn't change, by the way, you already
56:43
Speaker 1: have that.
56:43
Speaker 2: The people who pay for.
56:44
Speaker 1: It are third graders at a bus stop in the
56:47
Speaker 1: dark in January and the guy pouring concrete at a
56:50
Speaker 1: construction site in the dark at seventy am. Cotton's on
56:54
Speaker 1: the merits on this one. You talked about it. It screws
56:56
Speaker 1: up work, workplace, particularly construction, and it screws up school children.
57:03
Speaker 1: Other than that, it's a great idea, right, and even
57:05
Speaker 1: sleep scientists agree. They've said, if you're going to lock
57:08
Speaker 1: the clock, don't do it on daylight saving, lock it
57:11
Speaker 1: on standard time, which is the one option Congress has
57:15
Speaker 1: never seriously considered. Look, voters wants what's good for them.
57:20
Speaker 1: Sometimes very selfishly, lawmakers like to give voters what they want.
57:24
Speaker 1: And what's good for you at six pm isn't good
57:26
Speaker 1: for somebody else at seven am. Apparently that's a lesson
57:29
Speaker 1: we're going to have to learn about every fifty two years.
57:32
Speaker 1: See you in twenty seventy six. And with that, let's
57:36
Speaker 1: take a break, and when we come back, by conversation
57:39
Speaker 1: with John if Dick about open primaries and fixing the
57:42
Speaker 1: primary extremist problem. Well, in my ongoing focus to figure
57:57
Speaker 1: out what are some of the cures for polar political polarization,
58:02
Speaker 1: one that just screams out there to everybody is what
58:08
Speaker 1: my friend Nick Troiano calls the primary problem, and the
58:11
Speaker 1: issue is how do we get more voters participating in primaries.
58:15
Speaker 1: It is no doubt the two major parties don't want
58:18
Speaker 1: open primaries, They don't want independence voting in him. They
58:21
Speaker 1: do everything they can do stop it. It is and
58:25
Speaker 1: yet supposedly leaders of the two parties don't like polarization,
58:29
Speaker 1: but they don't do anything in their parties to.
58:30
Speaker 2: Try to stop it.
58:32
Speaker 1: My guest today, John Opdyke, has been running an organization
58:35
Speaker 1: called Open Primaries that literally is just trying to do this.
58:38
Speaker 1: They've spent years make doing legal arguments, doing petitions. Sometimes
58:43
Speaker 1: it's referendum that can do it. Sometimes it's a lawsuit.
58:46
Speaker 1: New Mexico is one that they actually got the legislature involved.
58:51
Speaker 1: And John is here now, and John I was doing
58:53
Speaker 1: a little researcher. Is it ten states now that lock
58:58
Speaker 1: independence out of both primary it's ten states where there's
59:03
Speaker 1: even zero chance for an independent without physically changing their
59:07
Speaker 1: voter registration, well not election.
59:10
Speaker 3: Day, Yeah, yeah, I think it's I think it's the
59:13
Speaker 3: number is between eleven and sixteen because sometimes states like
59:16
Speaker 3: Arizona have close primary for presidential but open for state,
59:21
Speaker 3: but people think, so it's it's somewhere between eleven and sixteen.
59:25
Speaker 2: So it let's be more precise. No, it's because every
59:29
Speaker 2: state the definition is.
59:30
Speaker 1: Slightly different, right, because some states are like my state
59:34
Speaker 1: in Virginia, where I'm registered to vote, there's no party registration.
59:38
Speaker 1: You've got to pick once you stay, you stay for
59:42
Speaker 1: that for the whole cycle. Now there's we don't have
59:43
Speaker 1: runoffs in Virginia. I guess Ohio. Does that correct? And
59:49
Speaker 1: so now you have to correct me if I'm wrong.
59:53
Speaker 1: In Ohio, do you stay an unregistered voter or do
59:56
Speaker 1: you become identified with the party you choose to vote?
59:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't have artists and registration.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: So what happens is is you go on a file
1:00:04
Speaker 3: that delivered to the parties.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: In La, right, and you make it direct mail. Look,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: in Virginia, were unregistered? I vote in all I vote
1:00:14
Speaker 1: in primaries on both sides of the aisle, So I
1:00:16
Speaker 1: get a lot of direct mail. Missus Todd votes in
1:00:20
Speaker 1: one set of primaries, and she gets she is a
1:00:23
Speaker 1: super voter in that set of primaries. And we get
1:00:25
Speaker 1: sometimes specific door knocks and just to like you know, hey,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: you haven't voted in the dog catcher race. You're gonna
1:00:31
Speaker 1: vote in the dog catcher RaSE, you know that sort
1:00:33
Speaker 1: of thing. So that is how the parties use it
1:00:38
Speaker 1: for for some of that voter talk to So let's
1:00:41
Speaker 1: let's talk about this. Why is this? There's two things
1:00:47
Speaker 1: that always amuse me about this issue of registered independence.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: Who make this decision not to be a member of
1:00:54
Speaker 1: either party. I have a feeling they don't really want
1:00:58
Speaker 1: to vote in primaries, as if they did, there'd be
1:01:01
Speaker 1: more anger about this being too cynical.
1:01:04
Speaker 3: No, no, and I think that the issue. We have
1:01:08
Speaker 3: to take this on head on. We can't put our
1:01:11
Speaker 3: head in the sand and just focus on changing the
1:01:13
Speaker 3: law because.
1:01:15
Speaker 2: We'll show up and vote right way.
1:01:17
Speaker 3: We need to do that, but we need to be
1:01:19
Speaker 3: sober about the fact that changing the law is insufficient.
1:01:23
Speaker 3: We have to change the culture. We have to change
1:01:25
Speaker 3: how people think about primaries. And you're one hundred percent right.
1:01:28
Speaker 3: It's not just independence don't vote in primaries. Most Democrats
1:01:31
Speaker 3: and Republicans don't vote in primaries. We all have the
1:01:34
Speaker 3: attitude of the hardcore people vote in primaries. I'm a
1:01:40
Speaker 3: regular American, I vote in November. That's the culture and
1:01:45
Speaker 3: do you think it almost it's funny you say it
1:01:46
Speaker 3: that way.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: Do you think all those people think, Oh, I don't
1:01:48
Speaker 1: want to be seen as a primary voter, almost like
1:01:51
Speaker 1: there's disdain for it. I don't want to be seen
1:01:53
Speaker 1: as some partisan hack.
1:01:55
Speaker 3: Well, I think two things. One is, there's some of that.
1:01:57
Speaker 3: But I think if you if you pay attention to
1:02:02
Speaker 3: the culture of campaigning in a primary, particularly in a
1:02:06
Speaker 3: closed primary, but also in some of these nonpartisans like
1:02:10
Speaker 3: Texas and Tennessee, the culture is all the advertising, all
1:02:15
Speaker 3: the texting.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: It's dog whistle.
1:02:18
Speaker 3: It's designed to be heard by five percent over here
1:02:20
Speaker 3: and five percent over here. It's not designed to motivate
1:02:23
Speaker 3: people to go out and vote in the primary.
1:02:25
Speaker 2: Right, So.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: Tell me the history of open primaries, like you guys
1:02:32
Speaker 1: got started?
1:02:33
Speaker 2: When? And what was the what was the what, what
1:02:37
Speaker 2: was the instigator? You know, it's a it's a So.
1:02:42
Speaker 3: I helped get Mike Bloomberg elected in New York City
1:02:45
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, and.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: I was the first, the first rap in the early
1:02:49
Speaker 1: when he was running his an R.
1:02:51
Speaker 3: And New York has fusion, so he wasn't just running
1:02:54
Speaker 3: as an R. He ran as an R and an
1:02:56
Speaker 3: I and I was the treasurer of the.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: Independency Independence Party, right yeah, And we cut a deal
1:03:02
Speaker 1: with Mike and we said we'll give you our line.
1:03:04
Speaker 3: We were talking to all the mayoral candidates, Democrat and Republican.
1:03:08
Speaker 3: We said, we'll give you our line if you come
1:03:10
Speaker 3: out for open primaries for New York City. Because there's
1:03:13
Speaker 3: at that point four hundred thousand independents that couldn't vote
1:03:16
Speaker 3: in the primaries.
1:03:17
Speaker 2: So Mike said, sure, we'll do this.
1:03:20
Speaker 3: We put it on the ballot and we got crushed.
1:03:22
Speaker 3: And it wasn't just that we got crushed, it's that
1:03:25
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party establishment campaigned against this like it was
1:03:29
Speaker 3: an existential threat. Like eighty five percent of cities already
1:03:34
Speaker 3: have some form of open, nonpartisan system, and yet the
1:03:36
Speaker 3: New York City Democratic Party, you'd think we were trying
1:03:40
Speaker 3: to restore the klu Klux Klan or something like that,
1:03:43
Speaker 3: right when we put this referendum on the ballot. So
1:03:46
Speaker 3: I'm made a little mental note. This issue shouldn't be controversial,
1:03:52
Speaker 3: and yet it is. It ruffles the feathers of political insiders.
1:03:55
Speaker 3: So kind of kept my and you know, looking at this,
1:04:00
Speaker 3: and then started the open primaries as an organization in
1:04:03
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. People looked at me then like
1:04:06
Speaker 3: I was forming a UFO research organization, you know, like Okay,
1:04:11
Speaker 3: he's gone off his rocker a little bit, because it
1:04:13
Speaker 3: was really it was illegitimate. I mean, there was these
1:04:16
Speaker 3: there were these efforts in New York City. We you know,
1:04:19
Speaker 3: I formed the organization and literally the New York City
1:04:22
Speaker 3: later Democratics, Democrats and repot. It's still a closed primary system. Yeah,
1:04:26
Speaker 3: No independents are allowed to vote, which nope, locked up.
1:04:29
Speaker 3: By the way, that is a reminder of perhaps why
1:04:32
Speaker 3: the Democratic Socialists have had so much more success in
1:04:35
Speaker 3: New York City perhaps other places around the world, because
1:04:38
Speaker 3: they're dealing with a much smaller pool of voters in
1:04:41
Speaker 3: a much more liberal space.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's not just that.
1:04:47
Speaker 3: As someone who spent years in retail politics in New
1:04:50
Speaker 3: York City, it's hard to describe the cumulative effects of
1:04:56
Speaker 3: thirty years of closed primaries.
1:04:58
Speaker 2: The electorate has.
1:05:00
Speaker 3: Gotten so minuscule, it's so small, and these candidates are
1:05:04
Speaker 3: competing over the votes of literally several thousand people in
1:05:08
Speaker 3: a district of eight hundred thousand people.
1:05:10
Speaker 2: It's terrible. So the issue has really gone.
1:05:16
Speaker 3: Through ups and downs. You know, we've taken a lot
1:05:19
Speaker 3: of lumps. But I think with the kind of weaponization
1:05:22
Speaker 3: of gerrymandering, there's a lot more interest in if the
1:05:25
Speaker 3: primary is the only election where there's any uncertainty, we
1:05:29
Speaker 3: got to pay attention to this.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: If you could waive your wand to sort of how
1:05:33
Speaker 1: would you get this more front and center and folks,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: you know, is it to get more independence angry that
1:05:41
Speaker 1: they're being disenfranchised because I feel like independent voters don't
1:05:44
Speaker 1: realize they know they're being the parties disenfranchised them, but
1:05:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if they think that the system is disenfranchising.
1:05:52
Speaker 2: You know, it's a mixed bag.
1:05:53
Speaker 3: I think in general, you're right, and I think that's
1:05:55
Speaker 3: even broader than independence. I think the average Democrat and
1:05:59
Speaker 3: republic and they just you know, they might vote in
1:06:02
Speaker 3: a presidential primary every four years, but they don't see
1:06:05
Speaker 3: primary voting.
1:06:06
Speaker 2: So it's widespread.
1:06:08
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you independent voters, I've been organizing independence
1:06:13
Speaker 3: for a long time, right, and for years the dominant
1:06:18
Speaker 3: experience was that independence were like a rubber band. They
1:06:21
Speaker 3: were moving away from the partisan scrub like I just
1:06:26
Speaker 3: can't hang out.
1:06:27
Speaker 2: It's allergic yeah, I'm allergic.
1:06:29
Speaker 3: It's perfect what's starting to happen in very modest ways,
1:06:33
Speaker 3: and I don't want to overstate it, but you're getting
1:06:35
Speaker 3: independents saying, I can't wipe my hands of this. Are
1:06:39
Speaker 3: countries at stake. I've got to find a way as
1:06:41
Speaker 3: an independent. I'm not going to go join Team Blue
1:06:43
Speaker 3: or Team Ray. I've got to make my voice heard.
1:06:46
Speaker 3: I've got to engage with candidates. I have to support things.
1:06:48
Speaker 3: So we're you know, we've got these open primaries bills
1:06:51
Speaker 3: in places like Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Independents are flocking to
1:06:56
Speaker 3: these state capitals to come testify in favor of these bills.
1:07:00
Speaker 3: We're not writing their talking points. We're not, you know,
1:07:04
Speaker 3: paying for them to take off from work. It's not
1:07:06
Speaker 3: one of those phony, you know, nostro turfy things. Independents
1:07:10
Speaker 3: are saying, I got to stand up and do something
1:07:12
Speaker 3: about this because this has gotten too far.
1:07:14
Speaker 2: So I'm of I have.
1:07:17
Speaker 1: I'll admit to a couple of intellectual sort of contradictions
1:07:22
Speaker 1: that I that I'm struggling with on this issue because
1:07:25
Speaker 1: I'm look, I think the two parties are destroying the
1:07:30
Speaker 1: republic right now, so hard stop. That said, I think
1:07:36
Speaker 1: those two private organizations have a right to decide who
1:07:39
Speaker 1: should be representing them on a ballot. Yeah, at the
1:07:44
Speaker 1: same time, I don't think my tax dollars should be
1:07:47
Speaker 1: used to help this private organization decide who their nominee is.
1:07:52
Speaker 2: So that's where I struggle.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: Where I understand the argument that a that a political
1:07:59
Speaker 1: party leader will say, hey, you know, look, we're a
1:08:02
Speaker 1: private organization. We should be able to decide who we
1:08:05
Speaker 1: want as our representative. And I'm like, that's fine, but
1:08:08
Speaker 1: you have created a system where I can't even have
1:08:11
Speaker 1: representation as an independent voter. There's no party that will
1:08:13
Speaker 1: speak to me right now. I could argue, at least
1:08:16
Speaker 1: New York State makes it easy to start parties and
1:08:19
Speaker 1: you could actually have a ballot line. And so if
1:08:21
Speaker 1: you're going to close your primary, you better make it
1:08:24
Speaker 1: easy for me to get on the ballot. In another way,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: you better make it easy for me as a as
1:08:28
Speaker 1: a as a voter to be able to have some
1:08:32
Speaker 1: choice here. So I guess that's the you know, that's
1:08:37
Speaker 1: sort of the philosophical issue I struggle with in that
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I have empathy. I think a private organization should decide
1:08:44
Speaker 1: who their standard bearers.
1:08:46
Speaker 3: I do too, don't think. I don't see what you're
1:08:48
Speaker 3: saying as a contradiction. In some ways, I think that
1:08:52
Speaker 3: you know, and sometimes people they get angry with me
1:08:54
Speaker 3: for this because I fundamentally see the value of open
1:08:59
Speaker 3: primary is not as a specific policy that gets enacted,
1:09:04
Speaker 3: but more as a provocation to have that conversation what
1:09:08
Speaker 3: is the proper role of the political parties right now?
1:09:11
Speaker 3: They are both the umpires and the players. They are
1:09:14
Speaker 3: the gatekeepers and the competitors. And I think that we've
1:09:18
Speaker 3: got to have a national conversation about that because it
1:09:20
Speaker 3: doesn't work. It just doesn't work. So I don't think
1:09:25
Speaker 3: that's a contradiction. And in fact, if the only value
1:09:28
Speaker 3: of open primaries is saying, maybe these party primaries, if
1:09:34
Speaker 3: they want to keep them members only, which is their right,
1:09:37
Speaker 3: I agree with you on that they should just do it.
1:09:40
Speaker 2: On their own, done on their own, Like this is
1:09:42
Speaker 2: my issue.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: And I think I'm trying to figure out and we've
1:09:47
Speaker 1: discussed this before, and I assume you're waiting. I know
1:09:51
Speaker 1: there are legal arguments, speak, Yeah, I don't see how
1:09:54
Speaker 1: this isn't an easy equal protection argument when it comes
1:09:57
Speaker 1: to close primary. Yeah, we'll make you that tech payer money. Yeah,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: we're making the equal protection argument in Pennsylvania. We're making
1:10:04
Speaker 1: the right to vote argument in Maryland.
1:10:06
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a clause in the Constitution of Maryland
1:10:09
Speaker 3: which says all citizens of Maryland have the right to
1:10:12
Speaker 3: vote in every election.
1:10:14
Speaker 2: That's pretty cut and dry, and it's funny.
1:10:16
Speaker 1: You know, our constitutionally, federal constitution does not have a
1:10:21
Speaker 1: right to vote.
1:10:21
Speaker 2: No, but state how many states do? Yeah, I think
1:10:26
Speaker 2: it's about it. I think it's about a third of them.
1:10:28
Speaker 3: And also there's a there's a clause in many Western
1:10:31
Speaker 3: states called the anti donation clause, which came during when
1:10:35
Speaker 3: when they were using public funds to build private railroads
1:10:38
Speaker 3: and basically says you can't use taxpayer funding for purely
1:10:41
Speaker 3: private purposes. And so we're looking at we're probing legally
1:10:47
Speaker 3: at all these vulnerabilities taxpayer funding for private elections, use
1:10:51
Speaker 3: of taxpayer funding, equal protection, right to vote, and we'll
1:10:54
Speaker 3: see what we break through.
1:10:56
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's an argument that I think can
1:10:58
Speaker 1: get your Neil Gore such of the world. Like, I
1:11:01
Speaker 1: think this isn't just a left wing argument. I think
1:11:04
Speaker 1: there's some libertarian, conservative arguments about this that that are
1:11:08
Speaker 1: Gorsuch would be there. It is notable to me that
1:11:14
Speaker 1: there are more Democratic parties that are open to open
1:11:17
Speaker 1: primaries than state Republican parties. And what's funny about that is,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: I remember when the movement was exactly reversed in the nineties,
1:11:25
Speaker 1: where in the nineties it was state Republican parties wanting
1:11:28
Speaker 1: to open up they work. At that time they thought, hey,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: we need to expand our voting roles we need and
1:11:35
Speaker 1: now it's Democrats in more states, at least in red states.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: They're suddenly going no, no, no, no, we want open primaries.
1:11:42
Speaker 1: Now you only get support when a party's in trouble.
1:11:46
Speaker 2: Yep.
1:11:48
Speaker 3: No, it's very it's very confusing to people because you're right,
1:11:51
Speaker 3: I mean the Democratic Party of Utah, South Dakota. And
1:11:59
Speaker 3: what I always say is it's not much of a
1:12:00
Speaker 3: bargain to be able to vote in the primary of
1:12:03
Speaker 3: that has no consequences at all. It's like you get
1:12:06
Speaker 3: to choose which person loses to the Republican you know.
1:12:10
Speaker 3: And also the Democrats are some of our fiercest opponents
1:12:13
Speaker 3: in places like Florida, in New Jersey and New York.
1:12:16
Speaker 2: You know, in their.
1:12:17
Speaker 1: Strong Why are they fighting in Florida? I mean, look,
1:12:19
Speaker 1: the Florida Democratic Party is easily the worst run state
1:12:23
Speaker 1: party organization of all the fifty states and has been
1:12:26
Speaker 1: for some time. When you look at you did it
1:12:28
Speaker 1: as a I always say, if you did it as
1:12:30
Speaker 1: baseball statistics sort of the political the amount of vote
1:12:34
Speaker 1: a generic Democrat gets versus the ineffectiveness or effectiveness of
1:12:38
Speaker 1: their party. The Florida Democratic Party would like be head
1:12:43
Speaker 1: and shoulders the worst performer of all of them. I
1:12:46
Speaker 1: can't believe they fight this well, you know, it's one
1:12:49
Speaker 1: of those things, Chuck, that you see this in state
1:12:53
Speaker 1: after state where if you have a a because Florida
1:12:56
Speaker 1: is one of those states that for decades had actual
1:12:59
Speaker 1: competitive general elections, right, it went back and forth, and
1:13:03
Speaker 1: as things start to go red or go blue, Right, logically,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: you'd think the losing party would say, let's connect with
1:13:12
Speaker 1: the independence to get back at least to where we were.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of logic to that, and they
1:13:18
Speaker 1: end up they always do the exact opposite.
1:13:21
Speaker 3: They what they end up doing is saying we're on
1:13:24
Speaker 3: the way down. We have to hold on even stronger
1:13:27
Speaker 3: to the fiefs that we have left right, and that's
1:13:31
Speaker 3: unfortunate because there are i mean the Democratic Party of Florida.
1:13:35
Speaker 2: I have a lot of contacts down there, and they're
1:13:36
Speaker 2: just saying, it's a shell of itself. It's it's it's
1:13:40
Speaker 2: it's just been. It's Yeah, there's a lot of issues.
1:13:43
Speaker 1: They basically, you know, if they don't get a Mike
1:13:45
Speaker 1: Bloomberg check, they are not They're irrelevant.
1:13:47
Speaker 2: They don't get a John Morgan check, they're irrelevant.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: And if that's their entire party budget is based on
1:13:52
Speaker 1: begging Michael Bloomberg or begging John Morgan, you're just saying,
1:13:56
Speaker 1: I think you've got a I think I think you've
1:13:58
Speaker 1: got a bigger problem than that. Yours saying you've been
1:14:00
Speaker 1: involved in the independent voter movement for some time. The
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Independence Party of New York, if I'm not mistaken, was
1:14:08
Speaker 1: sort of an offshoot of Perro's Reform Party.
1:14:11
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah? Yeah, I mean many of them
1:14:13
Speaker 2: are still active. I don't think any.
1:14:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the Independence Party of Oregon has
1:14:20
Speaker 3: a different origin story, but might have been connected to Pero.
1:14:24
Speaker 3: I think there are a couple reform parties, like in
1:14:26
Speaker 3: South Carolina, actually the Reform Party of South Carolina just
1:14:31
Speaker 3: merged with the Forward Party. But pretty much the Reform
1:14:35
Speaker 3: Party infrastructure has been either either we did ourselves in
1:14:41
Speaker 3: or we were done in, and it was usually some
1:14:43
Speaker 3: combination of our own stupidity and external forces as well
1:14:47
Speaker 3: that kind of knocked us out.
1:15:00
Speaker 2: Because you know, it does.
1:15:02
Speaker 1: Look, we've we've seen each other at some of these
1:15:04
Speaker 1: uh sort of I don't know what to call them,
1:15:07
Speaker 1: gatherings of sort of reformers, you know, people that are
1:15:11
Speaker 1: that are I don't want to call them nonpartisan because
1:15:13
Speaker 1: some people are partisan in there, but sort of, but
1:15:16
Speaker 1: basically the political reformer set, some media people like myself,
1:15:20
Speaker 1: some some folks who have been in the independent side
1:15:23
Speaker 1: of the movement for a long time, and frankly some
1:15:26
Speaker 1: wayward Dems and Republicans now who feel as if, hey,
1:15:29
Speaker 1: this this uh, this this extremism that's taking place, there
1:15:34
Speaker 1: needs to be a check here. Never has there been
1:15:38
Speaker 1: a opportunity that I think exists right now for this
1:15:42
Speaker 1: sort of moment for an independent or a third party.
1:15:46
Speaker 1: And yet the deeper you dive into this group of
1:15:50
Speaker 1: voters who refuse to register with either party, it is
1:15:54
Speaker 1: hard to get them excited about some of these reform
1:15:57
Speaker 1: efforts that frankly have to be implemented before we can
1:16:00
Speaker 1: give them, before they get the the the influence that
1:16:06
Speaker 1: they deserve. Yeah, and I think that we have to
1:16:10
Speaker 1: look in the mirror.
1:16:10
Speaker 3: I think there is a mistake that is pretty ingrained
1:16:14
Speaker 3: in the as you describe it.
1:16:15
Speaker 2: The reform movement is not really so neat and clean.
1:16:18
Speaker 1: It's kind of a no because look, you and I
1:16:21
Speaker 1: know people that are just look, yeah, it's campaign finance
1:16:24
Speaker 1: that's the problem.
1:16:25
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a problem. I agree with.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: It's no, it's the primary system that's the problem. Yeah, right, No,
1:16:31
Speaker 1: you're right about that. It's the you know, it's sort
1:16:34
Speaker 1: of And I think that's always Another issue is that
1:16:36
Speaker 1: every everybody in that room, and I'm one of them,
1:16:39
Speaker 1: we all have our own theory of the case, and
1:16:41
Speaker 1: everybody wants their theory of the case to be the center, right,
1:16:45
Speaker 1: And I.
1:16:45
Speaker 3: Think that and again I'm of this movement. I'm not
1:16:48
Speaker 3: trying to distance myself, but I think there's two things
1:16:51
Speaker 3: that we haven't grappled with. One is there is this default,
1:16:57
Speaker 3: lazy way of understanding independent voters as in the middle
1:17:01
Speaker 3: and moderate and I think it's it's dead wrong. But
1:17:04
Speaker 3: it's not just I'm not saying our taxonomy has to
1:17:07
Speaker 3: be better. I'm saying there's huge implications if you relate
1:17:11
Speaker 3: to an emerging constituency, as as as if it's driving
1:17:17
Speaker 3: force is ideology. It's not moderates. These people, independents are
1:17:22
Speaker 3: all over the place. What they're reacting to, in my opinion,
1:17:26
Speaker 3: is dog whistle politics. They want complexity, they want diversity.
1:17:32
Speaker 2: They want.
1:17:34
Speaker 1: Temperament. They're not necessarily but everybody mistakens it for ideology.
1:17:38
Speaker 2: It's exactly. It's it's a.
1:17:41
Speaker 1: You know, I get mad when people call me a centrist.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: I say, I'm not a centrist. I'm an incrementalist. I
1:17:46
Speaker 1: just I just know my country's history enough to know
1:17:49
Speaker 1: that big change has to come with baby You have
1:17:53
Speaker 1: to do big change in baby steps, right, and it's
1:17:57
Speaker 1: what the founders intended.
1:17:59
Speaker 2: It's right how the system and you know that gets
1:18:03
Speaker 2: it the whole.
1:18:03
Speaker 1: You know, I think the longer I'm I'm in this,
1:18:07
Speaker 1: you know, in this world, the more I've decided we've
1:18:10
Speaker 1: just got a basic civics education problem. You know that
1:18:14
Speaker 1: people don't understand the rights that they actually do have
1:18:18
Speaker 1: in the Constitution. They don't quite understand like and I
1:18:22
Speaker 1: don't mean it understanding that they don't. You know, it's
1:18:25
Speaker 1: that we're just not we're teaching it as if it's
1:18:28
Speaker 1: some relic, not if it's it's the active users manual
1:18:32
Speaker 1: for how to behave and how to get things done
1:18:36
Speaker 1: in this republic.
1:18:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:18:38
Speaker 3: I think Also something I I think there hasn't been
1:18:43
Speaker 3: adequate research and study and discussion about is that one feature,
1:18:50
Speaker 3: not the only feature, but one feature of the early
1:18:52
Speaker 3: nineties was how the American people did things that no
1:18:59
Speaker 3: one expected them to do. They put term limits on
1:19:02
Speaker 3: the ballot with no money and no organization. They got
1:19:05
Speaker 3: behind Ross Perot. Remember Paro didn't say I'm running for president.
1:19:09
Speaker 3: He said to Larry King, if you put me on
1:19:12
Speaker 3: the ballot, I will run for president. He had half
1:19:15
Speaker 3: a million volunteers in twenty four hours. And I think
1:19:18
Speaker 3: one thing, it's not the only way, but one way
1:19:20
Speaker 3: to look at what you know politics from Clinton and
1:19:26
Speaker 3: gingrich On, it's been an effort to make sure the
1:19:30
Speaker 3: independence never do that again. I mean the restrictions, the jerrymandering,
1:19:34
Speaker 3: the control, the culture, the algorithms all designed to keep independence,
1:19:40
Speaker 3: you know, not coming together in some ways that shake
1:19:44
Speaker 3: things up.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: Well, look, you know, you talk to Jesse Ventura and
1:19:49
Speaker 1: his argument will be about this, about this movement for
1:19:52
Speaker 1: a third an independent or a third party, and he
1:19:55
Speaker 1: believes and obviously his own experience sort of reinforces this belief,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: which is you have to have a charismatic leader and
1:20:05
Speaker 1: that without a singular carot. And that's what ross Perot
1:20:09
Speaker 1: presented Jess Ventura was that you could argue anytime you've
1:20:12
Speaker 1: had independence breakthrough, they've had their own sort of state
1:20:15
Speaker 1: based right, you know, sort of hold on the electorate
1:20:18
Speaker 1: or something like this. Right, you think that's part of
1:20:22
Speaker 1: the problem. Is this this reform movement lacks a face.
1:20:27
Speaker 1: I mean, we lack a lot chuck money, I agree
1:20:31
Speaker 1: with Jesse. I mean you need you need that kind
1:20:34
Speaker 1: of galvanizing figure.
1:20:35
Speaker 2: You need, you know, a little flare.
1:20:37
Speaker 1: You need a little and we frankly need a better
1:20:40
Speaker 1: way to make this mundane matter, right. Like you know,
1:20:46
Speaker 1: that's what frustrates me. It's like, you know, you know
1:20:50
Speaker 1: this is you think it's a reform issue. It's more
1:20:52
Speaker 1: than that, do you do you know why your money
1:20:55
Speaker 1: is being wasted? It's because of this partisanship, you know,
1:20:58
Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
1:20:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is.
1:21:02
Speaker 3: Again, I've been around on this issue for more than
1:21:04
Speaker 3: twenty years. One of the things that's happened in the
1:21:06
Speaker 3: last decade is there's been an influx of philanthropic dollars
1:21:10
Speaker 3: to drive primary reform and other reforms. And that's positive.
1:21:14
Speaker 3: We need funds, we need to be able to do things.
1:21:17
Speaker 3: But one of the I think one of the things
1:21:21
Speaker 3: we've had to navigate is that philanthropic funders come with
1:21:25
Speaker 3: an expectation of outcomes. They want certain types of people
1:21:30
Speaker 3: elected or protected. And I get that this isn't a criticism,
1:21:35
Speaker 3: but if you try to market primary reform as outcome oriented,
1:21:40
Speaker 3: people tune you out.
1:21:41
Speaker 1: No, this is what's happened with the I think with
1:21:44
Speaker 1: the rank choice voting movement. You know, Look, I think
1:21:46
Speaker 1: that I think it's there's a few sort of flaws
1:21:49
Speaker 1: in how it's pitched and how it's understood, but ultimately,
1:21:54
Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem with it is that in
1:21:56
Speaker 1: the places.
1:21:57
Speaker 2: That it has that it works.
1:22:01
Speaker 1: Right now, the Republican Party looks like they're on the
1:22:03
Speaker 1: losing end of this, right Like, that's what they feel
1:22:06
Speaker 1: as if this has been in some ways targeting them. Now,
1:22:09
Speaker 1: given the rise of the Democratic Socialists on the left,
1:22:13
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder how if some of these attitudes
1:22:17
Speaker 1: in the in the center right change.
1:22:18
Speaker 2: On this issue, we'll see.
1:22:21
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the rank choice voting movement has
1:22:23
Speaker 3: made some serious tactical errors in terms of let's.
1:22:26
Speaker 1: Talk about that, because you know, you talk to Jared
1:22:29
Speaker 1: Golden and he'll say, first of all, please don't use
1:22:32
Speaker 1: the phrase ranked choice voting. He likes insitant runoff, just
1:22:35
Speaker 1: simply that it's a runoff like it is. You know
1:22:39
Speaker 1: that the minute you tell people rankings, and yet people
1:22:43
Speaker 1: get it.
1:22:43
Speaker 2: It's not there.
1:22:44
Speaker 1: And if we've been voting this way for two hundred years,
1:22:46
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't be an issue. But it is new
1:22:49
Speaker 1: to people and they don't quite fully get it. And
1:22:53
Speaker 1: me and the news media, we in the news media
1:22:55
Speaker 1: have not had a there's no easy way to explain,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: you know, to show your work, you know what I mean.
1:23:05
Speaker 1: I always think that election night, you want to be
1:23:06
Speaker 1: able to show your work. Well, okay, here's the first
1:23:09
Speaker 1: choice votes. This is our best estimate of the second
1:23:11
Speaker 1: choice votes. And it's just very hard to do that.
1:23:14
Speaker 1: It is kind of a black box.
1:23:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's both.
1:23:17
Speaker 3: There's both the objective reality of it, and then there's
1:23:21
Speaker 3: also the perception of it. And I had this conversation
1:23:24
Speaker 3: with Rob Ritchie like six or eight years ago.
1:23:27
Speaker 1: He's one of the trist and Rob for thirty years,
1:23:29
Speaker 1: he's been on this, God love him. And you know,
1:23:33
Speaker 1: I remember how excited he was when Burlington Vermont got
1:23:35
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting, and he was like wanting a hotline expose.
1:23:39
Speaker 2: On it, and I teased him about it.
1:23:40
Speaker 3: But the fact is that he has been and they have,
1:23:43
Speaker 3: you know, absolutely. And I told Rob and he disagreed
1:23:47
Speaker 3: with me, and that's his right. I mean, it's his issue,
1:23:49
Speaker 3: it's not my issue. I said, if I was in
1:23:51
Speaker 3: your shoes, I would self consciously not try to enact
1:23:55
Speaker 3: this in another liberal college town. I would focus on Tulsa,
1:24:00
Speaker 3: and you know, I would get this and say this
1:24:02
Speaker 3: is not partisan. Because right now, all the advocates for
1:24:05
Speaker 3: rain choice voting say this is not partisan. But the
1:24:10
Speaker 3: only places they can point to are liberal college towns
1:24:14
Speaker 3: plus Maine in Alaska, which are barely states. They're kind
1:24:17
Speaker 3: of outlives, right, And I think that that leads into
1:24:21
Speaker 3: this perception that this is a liberal progressive reform, which
1:24:25
Speaker 3: means it can't. It doesn't play in three quarters of
1:24:28
Speaker 3: the country, right, No, and well, I mean the fact
1:24:31
Speaker 3: is what has motive. It's because I think the biggest
1:24:34
Speaker 3: donors are from the left.
1:24:36
Speaker 2: Right.
1:24:36
Speaker 1: It's been about quote stopping the far right exactly. Okay,
1:24:39
Speaker 1: I get it. But you now have a far left
1:24:41
Speaker 1: issue like this is exactly you know, and this is
1:24:46
Speaker 1: so in theory it should be enactual. But you're right,
1:24:50
Speaker 1: they got to go to a conservative community and have it.
1:24:53
Speaker 1: You had the Virginia Republican Party used it, right, but
1:24:57
Speaker 1: it kept the conservative from getting the nomination, which is
1:25:00
Speaker 1: what conservatives notice.
1:25:01
Speaker 3: No, exactly, and also I think that I think that again,
1:25:04
Speaker 3: and this is hard, Chuck, I get this, but as
1:25:09
Speaker 3: a movement, we are very vulnerable to marketing reform as
1:25:14
Speaker 3: let me tell you the positive outcome that will come
1:25:18
Speaker 3: from this in a linear fashion, and that is not
1:25:22
Speaker 3: how political change works.
1:25:23
Speaker 2: You're so right, you can't sell the outcomes. Nope.
1:25:26
Speaker 1: Ultimately, what you what you're trying to sell is, hey,
1:25:30
Speaker 1: your rights are being violated. And that's the fact, right,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: the rights of a more than a third of the
1:25:37
Speaker 1: country's voters are not are not being are not fully
1:25:41
Speaker 1: available to them because of various rules that either the
1:25:44
Speaker 1: states or the two parties have created to marginalize.
1:25:49
Speaker 2: This group of Americans.
1:25:51
Speaker 1: And the fight should be about giving them more ability
1:25:56
Speaker 1: to exercise their civic duty and exercise their right to
1:25:59
Speaker 1: vot heartstop.
1:26:02
Speaker 3: Yes, although I would expand it a little beyond that.
1:26:04
Speaker 3: I agree the exon the legal exclusion of independent voters
1:26:08
Speaker 3: is a Jim Crow type exclusion.
1:26:11
Speaker 2: We need to fighte that.
1:26:12
Speaker 3: And it's also a marginalization of Democratic and Republican voters
1:26:19
Speaker 3: that are more average, they're less fanatical, they're not primary voters,
1:26:26
Speaker 3: they're general election voters. Those people have virtually no say
1:26:32
Speaker 3: because the country's been divvied up. I mean, just you
1:26:35
Speaker 3: know this. You look at issue after issue average Americans,
1:26:40
Speaker 3: you get seventy to eighty percent support on a wide
1:26:43
Speaker 3: range of policies, and yet you can never do anything
1:26:45
Speaker 3: with those because those voters don't really have much saying.
1:26:50
Speaker 2: So independence, if what is the best move now?
1:27:00
Speaker 1: Is it third party or is it opening up the
1:27:03
Speaker 1: ballot all party primaries? Like if you were you know,
1:27:06
Speaker 1: if you were advising the Forward Party, or if you
1:27:08
Speaker 1: were advising what John Morgan is starting. I think he's
1:27:10
Speaker 1: calling it the common grounders down in Florida. You know,
1:27:16
Speaker 1: is it to become a party or is it to
1:27:19
Speaker 1: sort of weaken the other two parties?
1:27:22
Speaker 3: Right?
1:27:22
Speaker 1: I'm a mixed mind of it myself. I mean, if
1:27:26
Speaker 1: you read Madison carefully, what Madison wanted was he figured
1:27:31
Speaker 1: and the reason to always grow the House, for instance,
1:27:34
Speaker 1: was Hey, the only thing worse than two factions is
1:27:39
Speaker 1: one faction. Like he was like, let's have fifty factions,
1:27:43
Speaker 1: and the way our system will work, No one faction
1:27:45
Speaker 1: is going to dominate the country. And that's ultimately what
1:27:47
Speaker 1: it is. And instead, it's very hard to create a
1:27:51
Speaker 1: new faction outside of Team Blue and Team Right right,
1:27:54
Speaker 1: And that to me is another potential way to go
1:27:58
Speaker 1: at this. So I'm of, like I said, there's a
1:28:00
Speaker 1: part of me that says I want either no parties
1:28:02
Speaker 1: or I want fifty parties, right.
1:28:06
Speaker 3: I Mean, the way I think about this is that
1:28:08
Speaker 3: we need an environment of creative experimentation to see where
1:28:13
Speaker 3: the American people.
1:28:14
Speaker 2: Want to go.
1:28:15
Speaker 3: I think there is a strong evidence that people don't
1:28:19
Speaker 3: want more parties. I mean, the third parties don't do
1:28:22
Speaker 3: particularly well in any electorals. That's an interesting point.
1:28:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, But I think they want parties right now.
1:28:28
Speaker 1: I think they prefer no parties.
1:28:30
Speaker 2: No parties, I think, but I don't think we need
1:28:33
Speaker 2: to decide.
1:28:34
Speaker 3: I think we need to run independent candidates, build third parties,
1:28:38
Speaker 3: change the rules of the game.
1:28:39
Speaker 2: Look at political reform.
1:28:41
Speaker 3: See what sticks, see what has an impact, and also
1:28:45
Speaker 3: see what combinations of those things have the most impact,
1:28:50
Speaker 3: and learn from those things and go forward. I've been
1:28:52
Speaker 3: a voice in the reform movement against premature consolidation around
1:28:57
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like one or two tactics say that,
1:29:01
Speaker 3: because that is the.
1:29:02
Speaker 1: Pushback I've gotten from some people as we've tried to
1:29:06
Speaker 1: come up with a variety of ways to, you know,
1:29:08
Speaker 1: how do we empower this sort of middle you know,
1:29:12
Speaker 1: you look at it. I always say this about swing voters.
1:29:14
Speaker 1: Swing voters are so important in October to the two parties,
1:29:17
Speaker 1: and when they govern, they're the last people they ever
1:29:19
Speaker 1: think about. Right, they don't have anybody representing them. Ultimately,
1:29:24
Speaker 1: it's always the special interest groups, the far right of
1:29:26
Speaker 1: the far left, special interest groups that that that are
1:29:29
Speaker 1: inside the speaker's office, so the Cenate majority leader's office
1:29:32
Speaker 1: and dictating things. So there's there's there's that it is
1:29:38
Speaker 1: we're in your experience where where where do you think
1:29:44
Speaker 1: there's you know what states? Are there some better opportunities
1:29:47
Speaker 1: in some because it feels like maybe breaking through in
1:29:50
Speaker 1: a few states in people seeing it suddenly it will
1:29:55
Speaker 1: get then it's like, oh, Minnesota gets to do that.
1:29:58
Speaker 1: How come we don't get to do that? You know,
1:29:59
Speaker 1: that's sort of mindset. I mean, I think there's some
1:30:02
Speaker 1: really interesting candidates running as independence this year, people except.
1:30:07
Speaker 3: Bodnar Out in Missouri, Montana, Montana Rallery. Yeah, that are
1:30:14
Speaker 3: I think poised with if they get some breaks and
1:30:16
Speaker 3: the wind blows in their direction, they might do that.
1:30:19
Speaker 2: I think that we're seeing it's a bad.
1:30:21
Speaker 1: Look though, that the independent candidates in South Dakota, Nebraska,
1:30:25
Speaker 1: and Montana all need one thing to help them, the
1:30:29
Speaker 1: Democrat to drop out, which then implies that the independent
1:30:33
Speaker 1: is not independent, right, And.
1:30:35
Speaker 3: That's been a concern of mine. Yeah, no, and that's
1:30:38
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's not a level playing field. It's
1:30:40
Speaker 3: like really hard to do this stuff. I think also
1:30:45
Speaker 3: on the reform front, ironically, we're getting a lot of
1:30:48
Speaker 3: traction in some of these old machine style states like Delaware,
1:30:52
Speaker 3: and Maryland and New York and New Jersey and Massachusetts.
1:30:55
Speaker 2: That the whole old as slate corridor to the worst
1:31:00
Speaker 2: voting like.
1:31:01
Speaker 1: Access to voting laws that there are. I mean, we
1:31:04
Speaker 1: were just enfranchising laws.
1:31:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I always thought we're gonna we're gonna get
1:31:08
Speaker 3: those breaks west of the Mississippi and then we'll come ease.
1:31:10
Speaker 3: And it might be that we got our head handed
1:31:12
Speaker 3: to us west of the Mississippi. I think Florida is
1:31:17
Speaker 3: going to come back around. I mean, the public support
1:31:20
Speaker 3: for this in Florida is.
1:31:21
Speaker 2: Through the roof. There is.
1:31:24
Speaker 1: There is no doubt there are hard partisans on both
1:31:26
Speaker 1: sides of the island Florida, but most people move down
1:31:30
Speaker 1: there are between the thirty five yard lines. There may
1:31:32
Speaker 1: be slightly more on the right than on the left
1:31:34
Speaker 1: right now, but they're always there.
1:31:36
Speaker 2: They don't, you.
1:31:37
Speaker 1: Know, they don't love overly partisan stuff. It's gonna swing.
1:31:42
Speaker 1: It'll swing. Yeah, it may be another cycle or two,
1:31:44
Speaker 1: but it'll swing.
1:31:46
Speaker 3: I think the legal stuff, you know, we're still looking
1:31:48
Speaker 3: for the best venues. I think there's opportunities to challenge
1:31:51
Speaker 3: a whole set of of the thing we were talking
1:31:55
Speaker 3: about early earlier about the undefined role of political parties.
1:32:01
Speaker 3: Are they private organizations of like minded citizens or are
1:32:04
Speaker 3: they quasi governmental gatekeepers that control the rules of the game.
1:32:09
Speaker 3: That's what we want to wedge at from a legal standpoint.
1:32:12
Speaker 3: I don't know where we're going to get our breakthrough
1:32:14
Speaker 3: on that, but I feel like I really think where
1:32:19
Speaker 3: we are is we have to be experimenting, experimenting, and
1:32:23
Speaker 3: listening to what people say in response to those experiments.
1:32:27
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you're on the side of maybe you know,
1:32:31
Speaker 1: the voters are telling us they want independence, not a
1:32:34
Speaker 1: third party, which I think some people see the two
1:32:37
Speaker 1: is the same, and you.
1:32:38
Speaker 3: Don't clearly big difference, big difference. What do you think
1:32:42
Speaker 3: that distinction is?
1:32:42
Speaker 1: They literally just don't like political parties in general, and
1:32:46
Speaker 1: they just the two parties have so poisoned the idea
1:32:50
Speaker 1: of an effectiveness of what a political party does.
1:32:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's twofold.
1:32:55
Speaker 3: I think among younger voters political parties are kind of
1:32:58
Speaker 3: like Blockbuster video membership, like it's just it just seems
1:33:02
Speaker 3: like outdated. I think among older voters, I think there
1:33:06
Speaker 3: is kind of a healthy philosophical recognition about the power
1:33:12
Speaker 3: of self interest taking momentum, and so they say, hey,
1:33:18
Speaker 3: I used to vote Democrat because the Democratic Party stood.
1:33:21
Speaker 3: Now they just stand for themselves, and so I'm not
1:33:24
Speaker 3: going to get behind a third party because they might
1:33:26
Speaker 3: have the right ideas, They're going to be just like
1:33:28
Speaker 3: that in twenty years. Self interest has a way of
1:33:33
Speaker 3: taking over ideals, and so they're like, look, let's just
1:33:35
Speaker 3: elect good people, have them served for six years, and
1:33:38
Speaker 3: then put some other good people in there, and not
1:33:40
Speaker 3: try to codify it into a bureaucracy because it never works.
1:33:55
Speaker 1: You see this redistricting, It sounded like to me, you
1:33:58
Speaker 1: see the redistricting, the agressive redistricting that both parties have
1:34:01
Speaker 1: chosen to now, you know, and they will rationalize it
1:34:05
Speaker 1: by saying, but the other party, but the other party,
1:34:08
Speaker 1: And yes, I will sit here and acknowledge, yes Trump
1:34:10
Speaker 1: started it, you know, but I'm never going to accept
1:34:13
Speaker 1: the premise that two wrongs make a right. But this
1:34:18
Speaker 1: could have some und I think you sounds like you're
1:34:21
Speaker 1: hopeful that it weirdly has some unintended consequences that it
1:34:25
Speaker 1: only says one more time, how much the two parties
1:34:28
Speaker 1: are just afraid of the actual voters.
1:34:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a big believer, and things
1:34:35
Speaker 3: have to get worse before they can get better, because
1:34:37
Speaker 3: things things sometimes get worse and then they get really bad.
1:34:41
Speaker 3: I do think. I do think, though, there is there
1:34:46
Speaker 3: is evidence that as you reduce general election competition to
1:34:52
Speaker 3: the zero level, there's not what you know, the numbers
1:34:56
Speaker 3: twenty five districts that are up in the air that yeah.
1:35:00
Speaker 1: I know the Democrats are trying to claim they've put
1:35:02
Speaker 1: there are forty five in play.
1:35:04
Speaker 2: Now you're like, okay, that's that's not a.
1:35:07
Speaker 1: Let's say, let's say you accept that that's still barely
1:35:11
Speaker 1: basically four hundred, just about four hundred, just under four
1:35:14
Speaker 1: hundred districts not going to decided.
1:35:17
Speaker 3: So as you as you basically reduce the map, the
1:35:20
Speaker 3: control of the nominating system is very important because you
1:35:24
Speaker 3: don't just want to win those districts, you want your
1:35:27
Speaker 3: faction of the party to win those districts. And so
1:35:30
Speaker 3: we're seeing this in California where the Democratic Party now
1:35:35
Speaker 3: that they've now I know it's temporary, but they've eliminated
1:35:39
Speaker 3: any general election competition at the at the local and
1:35:43
Speaker 3: at not at the state wide level, but at the
1:35:45
Speaker 3: local level, they want to go back to closed primaries.
1:35:47
Speaker 1: Oh, they want to get rid of the top two.
1:35:49
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I it is right now. The
1:35:54
Speaker 1: state party wants nothing to do with us. Nope, I
1:35:56
Speaker 1: want to get rid of the reforms that I don't
1:35:58
Speaker 1: put it yep.
1:36:00
Speaker 3: Texas Democrats, Texas Republican Party, they want to do the
1:36:03
Speaker 3: same thing. Even though they have some of the lowest
1:36:05
Speaker 3: turnout already in the country in the primaries, they want
1:36:07
Speaker 3: to drive it even lower.
1:36:10
Speaker 2: Same thing in Alabama and South Carolina. So as you.
1:36:14
Speaker 3: Redistrict the whole country, control of the primary process is
1:36:18
Speaker 3: something that partisan consultants and activists and agitators are now
1:36:22
Speaker 3: starting to pay attention to. And I think we're going
1:36:26
Speaker 3: to be playing defense over the next couple of years
1:36:29
Speaker 3: in some big states.
1:36:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:36:31
Speaker 1: Now I think so too. So it so it sounds like, look,
1:36:34
Speaker 1: you're in all of the above. You're like, look, try
1:36:37
Speaker 1: this reform, try this reform, try this reform. It sounds
1:36:39
Speaker 1: like to just sort of whatever it takes to sort
1:36:42
Speaker 1: of break the doopoly that's your mindset.
1:36:44
Speaker 2: Absolutely and build trust.
1:36:46
Speaker 3: I mean, I think again, I have fights with my
1:36:49
Speaker 3: fellow reformers all the time. They want to talk about
1:36:52
Speaker 3: the merits of the policy. Well, if we do this,
1:36:55
Speaker 3: if we have proportional representation, we'll get a thirteen percent.
1:36:58
Speaker 3: And I'm like, does anybody trust you? And the answer
1:37:02
Speaker 3: is no. The American people don't trust the reform movement.
1:37:05
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that to be a critic. I'm
1:37:09
Speaker 3: saying that earning trust in America is hard. And if
1:37:13
Speaker 3: all we're going to do is hide behind our little
1:37:15
Speaker 3: data points and our facts and figures and our grafts,
1:37:18
Speaker 3: people are going to relate to us like we're a
1:37:19
Speaker 3: bunch of academic nerds that really have nothing to do
1:37:22
Speaker 3: with their lives.
1:37:23
Speaker 1: Well you're, well, you're so right, So what's the movement
1:37:26
Speaker 1: need in order to go to the next level? What
1:37:29
Speaker 1: do you think is missing here?
1:37:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think this is a silver bullet,
1:37:35
Speaker 3: but something that I think about every day and I
1:37:39
Speaker 3: literally start my day like can I raise sufficient funds
1:37:42
Speaker 3: to do this? Is I want to build a network
1:37:47
Speaker 3: of five to ten million independent voters and do nothing
1:37:51
Speaker 3: to try to consolidate it into a unified thing, but
1:37:55
Speaker 3: create it as a heterodox platform for independence being able
1:38:00
Speaker 3: to insert their voice in some new ways. Because here's
1:38:03
Speaker 3: the thing I think, and I've seen this in action.
1:38:09
Speaker 3: When you bring voters into the political discourse that are
1:38:14
Speaker 3: not reading from Team Blue or Team red talking points,
1:38:18
Speaker 3: it just changes everything in ways that are cultural and
1:38:23
Speaker 3: not reducible to left right policy this or that. It's
1:38:27
Speaker 3: a new form of political life, and the more that
1:38:30
Speaker 3: we can get it's an example.
1:38:32
Speaker 2: What's your best example.
1:38:35
Speaker 3: We had legislative hearings in Actually, I'll tell you a
1:38:41
Speaker 3: Florida story. So every twenty years, Florida has a constitutional
1:38:45
Speaker 3: vision process and they do public hearings throughout the state
1:38:51
Speaker 3: and we mobilize independent voters to come to these hearings
1:38:54
Speaker 3: and speak out.
1:38:56
Speaker 2: And we've been doing this now.
1:38:57
Speaker 3: In New York and Delaware and Maryland and this and that,
1:39:00
Speaker 3: and the commission knew nothing about this issue. And we
1:39:05
Speaker 3: mobilized about thirty forty independents to come and show up,
1:39:09
Speaker 3: and we've got this on video. For every person that
1:39:12
Speaker 3: we brought, five independents got there on their own and
1:39:16
Speaker 3: stood up and talked so passionately about the experience of
1:39:22
Speaker 3: going to vote and being told you're not allowed to vote,
1:39:25
Speaker 3: and it changed the whole commission. These commissioners, none of
1:39:30
Speaker 3: them went into there. They're all experts in housing and
1:39:33
Speaker 3: finance and issues, and to hear people say I was
1:39:37
Speaker 3: turned away from voting because I don't want to join
1:39:39
Speaker 3: an organization.
1:39:41
Speaker 2: We almost got on the ballot in Florida.
1:39:43
Speaker 3: We ended up having to go petition, but we almost
1:39:45
Speaker 3: got this commission to put it on the ballot.
1:39:48
Speaker 2: And we're seeing that in Maryland, in Delaware and New York.
1:39:51
Speaker 3: It's just when you get an independent voter saying I
1:39:55
Speaker 3: can't vote, it changes things.
1:39:58
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, it's funny and this gets
1:40:00
Speaker 1: You're getting at something that I'm hopeful that we can
1:40:03
Speaker 1: find some money to do. In the same way that
1:40:06
Speaker 1: Pugh did a typology report on the entire American elections,
1:40:12
Speaker 1: I looked at sort of what I thought were the more,
1:40:15
Speaker 1: the more the least partisan groups. There was one blue
1:40:20
Speaker 1: leaning group, one red leaning group, and then frankly the disassociated,
1:40:23
Speaker 1: the ones that have decided to tune out. But if
1:40:27
Speaker 1: you put them together, it was thirty eight percent. It's
1:40:29
Speaker 1: a big arguably the plurality, okay, compared to the three
1:40:35
Speaker 1: that leaned blue in the three typologies that leaned are.
1:40:39
Speaker 2: That leaned red. And what I think we're missing in
1:40:43
Speaker 2: this movement of independence is a better understanding of why
1:40:47
Speaker 2: people choose to be independent, right, And I have a
1:40:50
Speaker 2: you know, I think you and I anecdotally know that
1:40:53
Speaker 2: there is a group of independents who are Bernie Sanders people.
1:40:58
Speaker 2: There's a group of independents who are the Ron and
1:41:00
Speaker 2: Ran Paul people. They do occupy.
1:41:03
Speaker 1: You know, this has always been you know, because by
1:41:06
Speaker 1: the way, both of those entities. You know, before there
1:41:10
Speaker 1: was Bernie, it was Ralph Nader, and before it was
1:41:11
Speaker 1: Rand Paul, it was Ron Paul. You know, I saw
1:41:14
Speaker 1: it in the Paro movement. The pro movement had pieces
1:41:16
Speaker 1: of both of the Natorites and the Paulites, right, basically
1:41:21
Speaker 1: your liberal libertarians and your conservative libertarians. I've always said
1:41:25
Speaker 1: Nator is kind of a libertarian in his own Yes,
1:41:27
Speaker 1: he believed in more government regulation, regulation, but he ultimately
1:41:31
Speaker 1: was he wanted to provide more freedom and access to
1:41:35
Speaker 1: stuff to the average person. And but I but I
1:41:39
Speaker 1: don't think we know for sure why everybody chooses. Because
1:41:44
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I have I have lived in four
1:41:47
Speaker 1: or five different communities. When I lived in d C,
1:41:49
Speaker 1: I did not want to be a registered Democrat, and
1:41:56
Speaker 1: you know I was in journalism. I just didn't want
1:41:57
Speaker 1: I just didn't want that. But if you register as
1:42:00
Speaker 1: a Democrat, you didn't have any choice. Like I remember,
1:42:03
Speaker 1: I went in to vote and all my choices were
1:42:05
Speaker 1: like the Emojo party back in the day if they
1:42:08
Speaker 1: used to have this, you know, and then there was
1:42:09
Speaker 1: a State's Rights I think a state hood party, not
1:42:12
Speaker 1: states rights Jesus in DC, can you imagine state hood party?
1:42:16
Speaker 2: And so.
1:42:21
Speaker 1: If I were in a state, I love living in
1:42:23
Speaker 1: a state that I get to pick what primer I
1:42:25
Speaker 1: live in. I feel very empowered as a voter in
1:42:28
Speaker 1: the state of Virginia. But my father, who was a Conservative,
1:42:33
Speaker 1: always was a registered Democrat in Florida because he said,
1:42:36
Speaker 1: I want to have a choice in who I and
1:42:39
Speaker 1: who the Democratic nominee is because in my back then
1:42:42
Speaker 1: at Miami Dade County, the Democrats, whoever the Democratic nominee was,
1:42:45
Speaker 1: was going to be that. I am curious as to
1:42:48
Speaker 1: why independent voters choose not to, you know, basically default
1:42:52
Speaker 1: towards the majority party just to have a say, right
1:42:55
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. My point is is that I
1:42:58
Speaker 1: have a feeling we don't understand who the independents are
1:43:00
Speaker 1: as well as we think totally.
1:43:03
Speaker 3: I mean the lack of curiosity among academics and pundits.
1:43:06
Speaker 3: And the reason is that is this this polling question
1:43:09
Speaker 3: After you say I'm an independent, the polster says, do
1:43:12
Speaker 3: you lean Democrats?
1:43:13
Speaker 2: Your Republicans? Then they don't ask them any more questions.
1:43:17
Speaker 1: Right, I want to know why did you choose not
1:43:20
Speaker 1: to register with the party. Have you registered with the
1:43:22
Speaker 1: party before? That's interesting to me? You left, right, you know,
1:43:27
Speaker 1: I think it's more. You know, one of the things
1:43:30
Speaker 1: that I've learned over the last thirty five years is
1:43:32
Speaker 1: that the party out of power usually loses more people
1:43:38
Speaker 1: to the independent column than the party in power. Right.
1:43:41
Speaker 1: You know, if you're quote winning, you want to be
1:43:43
Speaker 1: with the winning team. If you're losing, you know, And
1:43:46
Speaker 1: so like, I'm not surprised that all of the polling
1:43:49
Speaker 1: I've seen so far this summer in battleground states, Democrats
1:43:54
Speaker 1: are doing really well with independence, particularly in your Iowa's,
1:43:56
Speaker 1: your Mains, your Texas is Now the question is are
1:44:01
Speaker 1: those real independents or are those Democrats who were embarrassed
1:44:05
Speaker 1: to be registered Democrats anymore? Right? That's sort of mindset
1:44:08
Speaker 1: or you know, and we've had we've seen this phenomenon
1:44:10
Speaker 1: going the other way, The reason Romney went independence in
1:44:12
Speaker 1: twenty twelve is that a whole bunch of Republicans left
1:44:16
Speaker 1: the party after twenty oh eight, you know, and we're
1:44:18
Speaker 1: sort of so there was a right lean to the independent.
1:44:21
Speaker 2: Sure, you know thin.
1:44:23
Speaker 1: But the point is is that I think, boy, there's
1:44:26
Speaker 1: no you tell me who tracks this. Nobody the sort
1:44:30
Speaker 1: of the typology of the independent voter.
1:44:34
Speaker 2: No.
1:44:34
Speaker 3: I mean, we just did a poll in New York
1:44:36
Speaker 3: City where we asked registered Democrats why did you register Democrat?
1:44:42
Speaker 3: And found that forty percent of them say, oh, well,
1:44:45
Speaker 3: I'm not a Democrat. I'm an independent, but I want
1:44:47
Speaker 3: to be able to vote in the primaries. But that
1:44:49
Speaker 3: kind of survey and poll, we need to be doing
1:44:52
Speaker 3: that in every community across the country. We need to
1:44:55
Speaker 3: be doing serious analysis of why this trend is happening.
1:44:59
Speaker 3: Instead of you know, we did, here's the data, ten
1:45:03
Speaker 3: thousand people a week.
1:45:04
Speaker 2: Change their registration. We need to speak to here.
1:45:08
Speaker 1: You and I both are friendly with mister Kevin Sheiky
1:45:11
Speaker 1: and Michael Bloomberg, who may or may not have the
1:45:13
Speaker 1: resource to do this. Hey, mister mayor, we would love
1:45:17
Speaker 1: to find out who the independents are in this country.
1:45:19
Speaker 1: This is important data. We probably need a think tank
1:45:23
Speaker 1: of sorts that's kind of a Pew Center or registered
1:45:27
Speaker 1: independence that track this stuff. I think, you know, and
1:45:31
Speaker 1: then you know, if the two parties want it, you
1:45:32
Speaker 1: sell it to them for extraordinarily high prices. But these
1:45:37
Speaker 1: are things that I think we need to know better
1:45:39
Speaker 1: to understand, you know, frankly, to force the two major parts.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: They need to understand who the independent voter is totally
1:45:46
Speaker 1: if they're going to govern better. Right, No, it's I mean,
1:45:49
Speaker 1: there is the Independence Center which is starting to do
1:45:51
Speaker 1: some interesting point it is and we and we you know,
1:45:54
Speaker 1: they've been you know they I think they need some
1:45:56
Speaker 1: more money.
1:45:57
Speaker 2: God love you.
1:45:58
Speaker 3: Right, there's the Arizona an Arizona State University Center for
1:46:02
Speaker 3: an Independent and Sustainable Democracy. They've done some interesting This
1:46:06
Speaker 3: is Jackie Sale and Tom Riley. They've done, for example,
1:46:10
Speaker 3: an interesting analysis of the social media habits of independence.
1:46:15
Speaker 3: That's interesting. But these are just tip of the iceberg.
1:46:18
Speaker 3: There needs to be a flood of polling research. Analysis.
1:46:23
Speaker 3: Christian gross Out of a USC discovered that in closed
1:46:27
Speaker 3: primary states, general election turnout among independents is twenty percent
1:46:34
Speaker 3: lower than an open primary states not in the primary
1:46:37
Speaker 3: in the general You're like, well, what's that about. Well,
1:46:41
Speaker 3: when people aren't the game of the game and then
1:46:44
Speaker 3: there's no general election, why would you expect them to vote?
1:46:47
Speaker 2: But we.
1:46:49
Speaker 3: Need five hundred times the amount of research, scholarship examination
1:46:54
Speaker 3: of this trend.
1:46:55
Speaker 2: You're right, all right, what does success look like for you?
1:46:58
Speaker 2: This year for open Prime?
1:47:00
Speaker 1: We had it back to the goal of what you're
1:47:03
Speaker 1: trying to do. You hat big one into Mexico.
1:47:05
Speaker 2: Big win in New Mexico, and we know that sounds small,
1:47:07
Speaker 2: but my goodness, it was like a ten year fight, right, Yeah,
1:47:10
Speaker 2: it was a ten year fight.
1:47:12
Speaker 3: And here's the thing, and I'm really using this to
1:47:16
Speaker 3: educate our supporters and donors. Getting the law changed was
1:47:20
Speaker 3: step one we need to be So we ran a
1:47:23
Speaker 3: campaign in New Mexico to educate voters independents that they
1:47:28
Speaker 3: now had this right to vote because the Secretary of
1:47:30
Speaker 3: State wouldn't do it. In fact, we looked at the
1:47:33
Speaker 3: websites of the thirty two counties. Half of them still
1:47:36
Speaker 3: set on their website independence camp vote. They wouldn't even
1:47:40
Speaker 3: change their homepage. So we managed to drive eleven percent
1:47:44
Speaker 3: turnout the first primary. You could say that's terrible for
1:47:47
Speaker 3: a first time, that's great, thirty eight thousand people. Now
1:47:51
Speaker 3: we have to double that in twenty twenty eight. Now
1:47:53
Speaker 3: we have to double that. In California, you're now have
1:47:55
Speaker 3: forty percent turnout in primaries. They've had a nonpartisan system
1:48:00
Speaker 3: for sixteen years. Now, that's what it takes. And we're
1:48:03
Speaker 3: just scratching the surface of that. So I think what
1:48:06
Speaker 3: victory looks like is promoting all the work being done
1:48:10
Speaker 3: to drive turnout in primaries. And it's not just us,
1:48:13
Speaker 3: It's Chloe Aker's and Best of Tennessee, it's the Builder's
1:48:16
Speaker 3: Movement in Texas. It's beyond November, which Owen LOFTUS has started.
1:48:20
Speaker 3: There's a lot of looking at this. We just got
1:48:24
Speaker 3: DC funded, so now we have an open primary in
1:48:27
Speaker 3: DC that'll happen in twenty twenty eight. We're having so
1:48:31
Speaker 3: much fun in New York City where Mayor Mount Damie
1:48:33
Speaker 3: has appointed a Charter Revision Commission, and all these independents
1:48:37
Speaker 3: are coming and saying, hey, I can't vote, and there's
1:48:41
Speaker 3: now one point two million of us. We've got bills
1:48:44
Speaker 3: in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Our legal work is really we're
1:48:48
Speaker 3: waiting for a breakthrough. We have a ballot referendum up
1:48:51
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts. But honestly, that's.
1:48:53
Speaker 2: A big one. I'm glad you brought up that. Yeah,
1:48:55
Speaker 2: so Massachusetts.
1:48:56
Speaker 1: You know a lot of my friends on the right
1:48:59
Speaker 1: like to say, Louis, you know, those of you complaining
1:49:01
Speaker 1: about jerry mandering in Texas and Alabama look at Massachusetts
1:49:04
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, okay, you know this top going
1:49:07
Speaker 1: to a top two system, right, that's what they're The
1:49:10
Speaker 1: Massachusetts referendum is about moving to a top two so
1:49:13
Speaker 1: that you might have in these super blue districts, real
1:49:17
Speaker 1: November competition between you know, one flavor of Democrat versus
1:49:21
Speaker 1: another flavor of Democrat.
1:49:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a state in which seventy percent of the
1:49:25
Speaker 3: state legislature was ran unopposed, Like, what is it in Massachusetts?
1:49:31
Speaker 3: Is one of these weird outliers on party registration? There is?
1:49:35
Speaker 3: Is it fifty percent that are registered independent? Is it
1:49:37
Speaker 3: over the fifty mark? Sixty?
1:49:39
Speaker 2: For it is astonishing?
1:49:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, because independence, like in Virginia, you get to
1:49:46
Speaker 3: pick a party ballot.
1:49:47
Speaker 2: You actually have more mobility as if.
1:49:50
Speaker 3: You picked a party than if you pick a party,
1:49:52
Speaker 3: So it's incentivized for people to do that.
1:49:54
Speaker 1: Well, the home of Paul Revere to have that exactly.
1:49:57
Speaker 1: I think the Independent should have that kind of But
1:50:00
Speaker 1: we could move to a top two system. You know,
1:50:02
Speaker 1: to me, you go to top two in every partisan
1:50:04
Speaker 1: state and you have you really have opened up the
1:50:10
Speaker 1: door to competition. And if you believe in democracy in
1:50:13
Speaker 1: the in the markets, then you should believe in competition.
1:50:15
Speaker 2: I agree.
1:50:16
Speaker 3: No, I think top two is a real game changer
1:50:18
Speaker 3: because the other thing about the top two.
1:50:23
Speaker 1: Is, by the way, is this ballot in Massachusetts on
1:50:26
Speaker 1: the November ballot or is it on their November primary ballot?
1:50:29
Speaker 2: Okay, November, it is on the November ballot. Okay, good, yeah. Yeah.
1:50:33
Speaker 3: Sometimes people criticize top two because they say, well, it
1:50:36
Speaker 3: just means that, you know what, what imagine if you're
1:50:39
Speaker 3: a Republican and who appears on the ballot is Democrat
1:50:43
Speaker 3: A and Democrat B, doesn't that mean you have no choice?
1:50:46
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, it's the exact opposite. Instead of voting
1:50:48
Speaker 3: for an irrelevant Republican in a blue district where no
1:50:52
Speaker 3: one cares, you now get a voice. I mean, like Oakland,
1:50:57
Speaker 3: the most liberal district in America, fifty percent of the
1:51:01
Speaker 3: voters are independence and Republicans. Yeah, and under the old
1:51:04
Speaker 3: system they had absolutely no say. Now they are kingmakers.
1:51:08
Speaker 3: They decide which Democrat elects represents that district. And that's
1:51:12
Speaker 3: a game changer. And you know, by the way, there's distinctions.
1:51:17
Speaker 3: Now we now see this. I think, you know, it's funny.
1:51:21
Speaker 1: I think the nineties and the first decade of the
1:51:24
Speaker 1: twenty first century created this illusion that there was a
1:51:28
Speaker 1: generic demon, a generic are and I think now we
1:51:32
Speaker 1: are back to realizing, boy, there are some real distinctions
1:51:36
Speaker 1: between a John Thune Republican and a Donald Trump Republican,
1:51:39
Speaker 1: between a Andy Basher Democrat and between a Zon Mamdani Democrat.
1:51:45
Speaker 2: And maybe that you know.
1:51:47
Speaker 1: And by the way, if the two parties had ideological diversity,
1:51:50
Speaker 1: there might not be so many independents sitting out there.
1:51:53
Speaker 1: But for the longest time, there's been no ideological diversity
1:51:56
Speaker 1: within the two rights.
1:51:57
Speaker 2: No, that's true. It's also.
1:52:01
Speaker 3: I think that a fascinating aspect of for example, the
1:52:05
Speaker 3: debate between DSA and the moderates. But you know is
1:52:09
Speaker 3: that the base of the DSA is all supportive of
1:52:14
Speaker 3: open primaries. They're young, they're independent, they're new. The leadership
1:52:20
Speaker 3: is not.
1:52:21
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
1:52:22
Speaker 1: Whereas well, the leadership sees an opportunity to take over
1:52:26
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, right, and that's what they want to do, right,
1:52:29
Speaker 1: And they want to keep the electorate as small as possible,
1:52:32
Speaker 1: right because they benefit with small exactly particularly right, and.
1:52:37
Speaker 3: To their credit, a lot of people smarter than me
1:52:39
Speaker 3: have pointed this out. You can criticize the dsay all
1:52:42
Speaker 3: you want. They went out and knocked on the doors
1:52:46
Speaker 3: of the establishment Democrats sat around and said, we don't
1:52:49
Speaker 3: have to do anything.
1:52:50
Speaker 2: We run this.
1:52:51
Speaker 1: I can't believe there's not more angry Democrats if they
1:52:54
Speaker 1: don't like what's happened in New York City. Why Jeffries
1:52:57
Speaker 1: and Schumer? Why aren't there even more anger at those
1:52:59
Speaker 1: two because they literally did nothing when Andrew Cuomo showed up,
1:53:03
Speaker 1: which was clearly a disaster for the party who thought
1:53:07
Speaker 1: that was a good idea, And those two pretended they
1:53:10
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with that in New York City.
1:53:12
Speaker 3: Or shielded Joe Biden from any competition. I mean, I
1:53:16
Speaker 3: wrote a column about this, chuck, and no one listened
1:53:18
Speaker 3: to me. I said, if Joe Biden wants to run
1:53:21
Speaker 3: for reelection after telling the American people I'm a one
1:53:24
Speaker 3: term president.
1:53:25
Speaker 2: What he should do.
1:53:26
Speaker 3: Is say, look, I've changed my mind. I think I
1:53:28
Speaker 3: should run again. But I want you to answer that question.
1:53:33
Speaker 3: I'm inviting six to ten prominent Democrats to come in.
1:53:36
Speaker 3: Let's have a fight. Let's have a primary. If I win,
1:53:39
Speaker 3: support me. If someone else does, I'll back them. They
1:53:43
Speaker 3: would have beat Trump with fifty five percent of the vote.
1:53:46
Speaker 1: No, it's just I mean, this is what happens when
1:53:48
Speaker 1: people put themselves before the party, and I think I
1:53:53
Speaker 1: think you had that situation. I'm gonna get you out
1:53:57
Speaker 1: of here on this. Does this reform movement need a
1:54:02
Speaker 1: presidential candidate in twenty eight to be sort of airs
1:54:07
Speaker 1: as Siren Singer a little bit or or not.
1:54:11
Speaker 2: Yes, we do, And.
1:54:12
Speaker 3: I think though that we need to be open minded
1:54:15
Speaker 3: as to what that means. Does that mean running an
1:54:18
Speaker 3: independent maybe? Does that mean forming a coalition like we
1:54:22
Speaker 3: did with Obama?
1:54:23
Speaker 2: Maybe?
1:54:24
Speaker 3: Does that mean maybe setting up a process in which
1:54:27
Speaker 3: we get to do multiple endorsements. We can do endorsements
1:54:32
Speaker 3: in the primary of the major party candidates, and then
1:54:36
Speaker 3: endorsementmost general.
1:54:38
Speaker 1: It's almost like you're making an endorsement based on who's
1:54:40
Speaker 1: going to look out for the best interests of the
1:54:43
Speaker 1: independent and reform movement in this primary or that primary exactly.
1:54:48
Speaker 1: So you might say, hey, this is a movement that
1:54:51
Speaker 1: supports you know, let's say Glenn Youenkin and Andy Basheer,
1:54:57
Speaker 1: because they both have pledged to be open primary guys
1:55:00
Speaker 1: or something like that, right, yeah.
1:55:02
Speaker 3: And speak out for independence and speak out for this
1:55:05
Speaker 3: new constituency that's being born. That's not yet. We don't
1:55:08
Speaker 3: have our sea legs yet. We're still kind of wobbily,
1:55:11
Speaker 3: you know, And I think we need to be open
1:55:13
Speaker 3: minded to all kinds of creative ways to play, but
1:55:17
Speaker 3: we need to play in presidential politics.
1:55:19
Speaker 2: If we're if we're on the sidelines, then you know,
1:55:22
Speaker 2: it's the It's funny.
1:55:23
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you could sit here and I
1:55:25
Speaker 1: could make a tactical argument that that's a waste of money,
1:55:28
Speaker 1: that that's going to suck up a lot of resources
1:55:30
Speaker 1: that might be better used to let's you know these look,
1:55:34
Speaker 1: you know, let's keep keep making progress state by state.
1:55:37
Speaker 1: But the way our attention economy works, if you're not
1:55:41
Speaker 1: in the conversation, you're not you might as well not be,
1:55:45
Speaker 1: you know, doing anything. And so I I've reluctantly sort
1:55:50
Speaker 1: of agree that you kind of need that.
1:55:52
Speaker 2: I think you need the pied piper.
1:55:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, And could we create an all independence primary? You know,
1:55:59
Speaker 3: maybe there's some way that we can organize that. A
1:56:02
Speaker 3: lot of people are talking about my old friend Doug Bailey,
1:56:04
Speaker 3: That's what he kept trying to. Do you have that
1:56:06
Speaker 3: Internet primary?
1:56:07
Speaker 2: You know? No?
1:56:08
Speaker 3: And I think that I think the not the mistake,
1:56:11
Speaker 3: because how could you We had to learn this and I.
1:56:13
Speaker 2: Know that's try No, you did in some ways.
1:56:16
Speaker 1: Look what they did, no eight What Doug didn't know
1:56:18
Speaker 1: eight in twelve is why you know, all of us
1:56:21
Speaker 1: are thinking about this differently going into twenty twenty.
1:56:24
Speaker 2: Peter Ackerman did and all kinds of right.
1:56:26
Speaker 3: I think the issue though, is can we create a
1:56:29
Speaker 3: primary system that is not linearly linked to a specific
1:56:35
Speaker 3: third party running.
1:56:37
Speaker 2: I think it's more could you do it?
1:56:38
Speaker 3: More like, hey, independence, what do you think about the
1:56:41
Speaker 3: Democratic candidates, what do you think about the Republican candidates?
1:56:44
Speaker 2: What do you think about the independent and third party candidates?
1:56:47
Speaker 3: And let's promote that and then maybe what the implications
1:56:53
Speaker 3: are I don't know, but there's a lot of people
1:56:55
Speaker 3: talking about ways that we can get the independent sensibility
1:56:59
Speaker 3: into the.
1:56:59
Speaker 2: President mix and we'll see, we'll see what that what
1:57:03
Speaker 2: that looks like.
1:57:04
Speaker 1: Well, look, I am I am not going to hide
1:57:07
Speaker 1: my hope to try to figure out how to get
1:57:11
Speaker 1: to expand the aperture, frankly, whether it's American media, because
1:57:14
Speaker 1: that's another problem, right, the mainstream media doesn't necessarily only
1:57:19
Speaker 1: sees independent voters as the swing voter rather than as
1:57:23
Speaker 1: the main you know, as the star voter, if you will,
1:57:28
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to expand this aperture, because the only
1:57:31
Speaker 1: way the two parties are going to self correct is
1:57:33
Speaker 1: if they're threatened from the outside. I agree that was
1:57:36
Speaker 1: to me the greatest lesson I learned from Paro, you know,
1:57:39
Speaker 1: is sort of when you really look back, Perot did
1:57:42
Speaker 1: a great job of making both parties take a second
1:57:45
Speaker 1: look at themselves.
1:57:46
Speaker 2: And I could argue.
1:57:48
Speaker 1: That he created a Democratic party, at least in that era,
1:57:52
Speaker 1: that was more fiscally sensitive to voters, and he created
1:57:55
Speaker 1: a Republican party that over time became more sensitive to
1:57:59
Speaker 1: the union movement and workers that you now see today.
1:58:02
Speaker 1: But it took Pero essentially almost eating their lunch right
1:58:07
Speaker 1: on both of those issues and beating both parties for
1:58:10
Speaker 1: them to realize, Oh, we can't ignore every faction of
1:58:15
Speaker 1: inside our tent.
1:58:17
Speaker 2: You know.
1:58:17
Speaker 3: I think also what's so helpful for people to learn
1:58:21
Speaker 3: is that Perot did all what you're describing and didn't
1:58:25
Speaker 3: win a single electoral vote.
1:58:27
Speaker 2: Oh.
1:58:27
Speaker 1: I don't think he has to win to fix ee. No,
1:58:30
Speaker 1: it's such an important point, Like, you know, political movements don't.
1:58:34
Speaker 2: Have to win to succeed.
1:58:35
Speaker 3: Nope, No, in some ways, there's a there is a
1:58:38
Speaker 3: way to DSA arguably.
1:58:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, look at the DSA. You know they're they're
1:58:43
Speaker 2: not winning much.
1:58:44
Speaker 1: They really aren't winning much outside of New York City,
1:58:46
Speaker 1: but man it, you know, they know they're picking and
1:58:49
Speaker 1: choosing their spots very carefully, and it's smart because it
1:58:52
Speaker 1: looks like they're building momentum. I mean, I look at
1:58:54
Speaker 1: what mom, Donnie. You know, the fact is he stayed
1:58:56
Speaker 1: away from congressional districts where his endorsement might have been
1:58:59
Speaker 1: a problem. Yeah.
1:59:01
Speaker 2: No, it's very clear he's very very shrewd. But you're,
1:59:05
Speaker 2: you know, you're, you're one hundred percent right.
1:59:06
Speaker 3: The Independent Reform Movement, we need to be very creative
1:59:12
Speaker 3: about twenty twenty eight because it's going to be a
1:59:15
Speaker 3: wild year. No, it is a lot of different players
1:59:19
Speaker 3: on the board, and we need to be interacting with
1:59:21
Speaker 3: all of them.
1:59:21
Speaker 1: Got to interact and not allow some rich person to
1:59:24
Speaker 1: hijack what you and others are doing too.
1:59:27
Speaker 2: That's the other that's always my other fear too. John.
1:59:30
Speaker 1: This was great thanks to open primaries. You guys are
1:59:33
Speaker 1: fighting all over. It is it is. I mean you
1:59:37
Speaker 1: literally are fighting one party in one state, another party
1:59:39
Speaker 1: in another state. I mean there are many reform movements
1:59:43
Speaker 1: who claim they're fighting both parties. You're actually, i think
1:59:46
Speaker 1: in court against both parties. Yes, and it's it's not
1:59:49
Speaker 1: a neat and clean fight. We get punched in the
1:59:52
Speaker 1: face all.
1:59:53
Speaker 2: The time, that's right. But you get back up. You
1:59:56
Speaker 2: get that. That's the thing. You get back up, John,
1:59:58
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Thanks John.
2:00:07
Speaker 1: Well, guess what find out what your state is doing
2:00:12
Speaker 1: on this Open the primaries all voters, and by the way,
2:00:18
Speaker 1: when your primaries are open, show up. If you don't
2:00:21
Speaker 1: like your choices in November, be sure you had to
2:00:24
Speaker 1: say in your choice would be it April, May, June,
2:00:29
Speaker 1: or August. And with that, let's do My top five
2:00:32
Speaker 1: list has always brought to you my friends, at fan Duel.
2:00:37
Speaker 3: Test Top five Top Test Top.
2:00:43
Speaker 2: So I thought i'd have a little fun.
2:00:45
Speaker 1: It's summer, so I thought, here's my top five current
2:00:50
Speaker 1: American athletes who I think have already demonstrated that they
2:00:56
Speaker 1: could make a successful transition to politics. Now, before you
2:01:00
Speaker 1: roll the eyes and saying, oh, you know, this is silly. Yes,
2:01:03
Speaker 1: it's silly, but it's not that silly, and it's not
2:01:06
Speaker 1: that crazy, because then I would say, you know, outside
2:01:09
Speaker 1: the United States, sports heroes moving into politics is incredibly common.
2:01:13
Speaker 1: It's happened over and over again, particularly in the soccer players.
2:01:17
Speaker 1: You've had famous soccer players like George Wee who took
2:01:21
Speaker 1: a world you know, took soccer performances. Some people say
2:01:24
Speaker 1: he's the greatest player in Africa has ever produced. Well,
2:01:28
Speaker 1: he eventually became the president of Liberia.
2:01:30
Speaker 2: Right.
2:01:31
Speaker 1: Another player named Romerio helped win the ninety four World
2:01:34
Speaker 1: Cup for Brazil. Well, he retired, went into congress eventually
2:01:37
Speaker 1: the Brazilian Senate. His teammate Babeto did the same thing.
2:01:41
Speaker 1: So this has been pretty common when it comes to
2:01:46
Speaker 1: I mean, even the country of Georgia has elected a
2:01:50
Speaker 1: a famous soccer player. Pele even served as Brazil's Minister
2:01:53
Speaker 1: of Sports. So soccer players becoming politicians isn't some novelty.
2:01:57
Speaker 2: And since when in the middle of World Cup I
2:01:59
Speaker 2: thought off a little bit.
2:02:00
Speaker 1: With a little bit of that's it is in its
2:02:03
Speaker 1: own way, its own career path, and it's of all
2:02:05
Speaker 1: the players. And I'm not counting him as an American athlete,
2:02:08
Speaker 1: even though he plays mostly in America these days. But
2:02:10
Speaker 1: Lannel Messi, I think we all know that guy could
2:02:13
Speaker 1: get elect, you know, the next if you wanted to
2:02:16
Speaker 1: be the next president of Argentina, he get elected. Now,
2:02:18
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they would like him for very long,
2:02:20
Speaker 1: because they go they'll churn through their politicians pretty quickly.
2:02:23
Speaker 1: But he would certainly start with pretty high name recognition.
2:02:26
Speaker 1: And if somehow Harry Kane brings a World Cup to
2:02:29
Speaker 1: England or Jude Bellingham, watch out right, you know, move over,
2:02:32
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage or count Binface. You know you could get there.
2:02:35
Speaker 1: So but that's not the list I've made here, right,
2:02:40
Speaker 1: what this list is, and it isn't a list of
2:02:43
Speaker 1: athletes who can win simply because they're famous. When I
2:02:46
Speaker 1: try to come up with a list of athletes who've
2:02:47
Speaker 1: already shown some of the traits that I think modern
2:02:50
Speaker 1: politics increasingly requires. Here's my theory. Fifty years ago, athletes
2:02:55
Speaker 1: weren't accidentally training to become politicians. Today they are about
2:03:00
Speaker 1: the job description of the modern superstar. Every interview is live,
2:03:03
Speaker 1: every answer gets clipped into fifteen seconds. Every social media
2:03:07
Speaker 1: post gets analyzed and analyzed and analyzed. Every endorsement deal
2:03:10
Speaker 1: gets criticized or analyzed. They're balancing teammates, owners, sponsors, fans, media,
2:03:16
Speaker 1: millions of strangers all expects something different from them. Right.
2:03:20
Speaker 2: They're managing a brand, they're leading their own organizations. Sometimes
2:03:24
Speaker 2: they're navigating controversy without making it worse, or at least
2:03:27
Speaker 2: the best ones are. Honestly, it sounds like a state
2:03:30
Speaker 2: campaign right on this, on this front, and that's my point.
2:03:35
Speaker 2: I think that the demands on the modern athlete really
2:03:41
Speaker 2: have probably created a what I think is a bench
2:03:47
Speaker 2: of future leaders.
2:03:48
Speaker 1: Now here's one other rule. I intentionally left off the
2:03:51
Speaker 1: true goats. So no Lebron, no show Hey, and no
2:03:54
Speaker 1: Victor wembin Yama on here, right, Not because they couldn't
2:03:56
Speaker 1: do it, But I do think that when it comes
2:04:00
Speaker 1: to political success, right, when if you're like the gap
2:04:05
Speaker 1: or the women of your sport. You might be almost
2:04:07
Speaker 1: too much in a bubble. When I think politics rewards
2:04:10
Speaker 1: when it comes to the athletes, the once in a
2:04:13
Speaker 1: generation prodigy. They spend their lives being told they're inevitable,
2:04:16
Speaker 1: so they don't always make the best politician. To me,
2:04:19
Speaker 1: politics rewards people who had to convince everyone they belonged.
2:04:26
Speaker 2: In that matter.
2:04:27
Speaker 1: So I try to look at who I thought the
2:04:30
Speaker 1: sports were. It's like, there's fame, but it's one level down.
2:04:34
Speaker 2: So here's my count.
2:04:34
Speaker 1: That number five on my list is Travis Kelce, and
2:04:37
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, if he weren't retired, I would have
2:04:39
Speaker 1: actually picked Jason Kelsey, who I think's got a lot
2:04:42
Speaker 1: of little political savvy to him, but he's got I think.
2:04:47
Speaker 1: I think he's got the gift of gap because he's
2:04:50
Speaker 1: naturally curious, he's funny, he's comfortable talking about serious issues,
2:04:53
Speaker 1: but it doesn't come across self important. In fact, I
2:04:56
Speaker 1: think offensive linemen in general would make great politicians because
2:04:59
Speaker 1: you can you have to buy into being a teamwork.
2:05:02
Speaker 1: Like if I were to pick the position of player
2:05:05
Speaker 1: that I would want as a politician, it would be
2:05:07
Speaker 1: an offensive lineman. Right, they're the ultimate team players, right,
2:05:11
Speaker 1: they're not looking just out for themselves. So, but I'm
2:05:14
Speaker 1: gonna put Travis here. Tight ends are you know, they're
2:05:17
Speaker 1: not quite the egomaniacs that receivers are, if you will.
2:05:21
Speaker 1: And obviously he's one of the most recognizable athletes in America,
2:05:24
Speaker 1: and yet he doesn't quite take himself too seriously. He's
2:05:27
Speaker 1: comfortable in every room, football fans, pop culture, fans, podcast audience.
2:05:31
Speaker 1: He connects with all of them. His politics is not
2:05:33
Speaker 1: as known as you think. You know, people ascribe political
2:05:36
Speaker 1: leanings to him and he never confirms them. And he's
2:05:39
Speaker 1: from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, went to the Yer City Cincinnati.
2:05:42
Speaker 1: He's investing in civil ight there through ownership and professional sports,
2:05:46
Speaker 1: telling you he understands attention and he doesn't seem consumed
2:05:49
Speaker 1: by it. Governor Kelsey, Ohio Governor number four my list
2:05:53
Speaker 1: is Paul Schemes. He's an Air Forced academy. He's and
2:06:00
Speaker 1: I think two years there, then was at LSU. Now
2:06:02
Speaker 1: he's the face of the Pirates. So it's a little
2:06:04
Speaker 1: bit of the military background that I think gives him
2:06:07
Speaker 1: a little extra level of maturity. You've already seen it
2:06:09
Speaker 1: in him, right, he always seems to do the right thing.
2:06:12
Speaker 1: He carries himself extraordinarily well. And again I chucked that
2:06:15
Speaker 1: up to the time at the Air Force Academy. But
2:06:18
Speaker 1: every public appearance feels disciplined, but it isn't rehearsed, you know.
2:06:22
Speaker 1: Lindsay Dunn right is also a pretty pretty good partner
2:06:26
Speaker 1: for him in this as well. So I think he's
2:06:31
Speaker 1: already somebody that if you know, who knows what state?
2:06:35
Speaker 2: Right? Is it Colorado? Is it Louisiana? Is it Pennsylvania?
2:06:39
Speaker 2: Who knows? Right?
2:06:40
Speaker 1: If he brings a world title back to Pittsburgh, it
2:06:44
Speaker 1: could be there. Number three Patrick Mahomes. So this one
2:06:47
Speaker 1: isn't about football. It's a bit more in leadership. Mahomes
2:06:50
Speaker 1: has somehow become one of the most famous people in America.
2:06:53
Speaker 1: But he does it without generating a ton of drama.
2:06:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, some who follow him closely may say, oh,
2:06:57
Speaker 1: what about his brother and this? Eh, please, small time stuff,
2:07:01
Speaker 1: you know, you know, and sometimes missus Mahomes is a
2:07:04
Speaker 1: little more out there, and you know, maybe some would say, oh,
2:07:07
Speaker 1: is that going to be a problem if he got
2:07:09
Speaker 1: into politics, But he seems to.
2:07:10
Speaker 2: Manage it pretty well.
2:07:12
Speaker 1: He doesn't manufacture a ton of controversy, and like I said,
2:07:15
Speaker 1: he he sort of steers clear of it. Right. Here's
2:07:17
Speaker 1: a guy who has got this Taylor Swift sort of
2:07:22
Speaker 1: friendship due to Kelsey, you know, had that weird Harrison
2:07:25
Speaker 1: Butker issue, and yet he you know, none of it
2:07:28
Speaker 1: touched him, right. He was able to teflon it up.
2:07:31
Speaker 1: And he's pretty invested in the Kansas City sports community.
2:07:34
Speaker 1: He's shown some civic roots, he's got some Texas roots,
2:07:37
Speaker 1: you know, so who knows you could see him that
2:07:42
Speaker 1: Number two of my list is Steph Curry. I actually
2:07:45
Speaker 1: think Steph is probably one of the probably the highest
2:07:47
Speaker 1: political ceiling of anyone in my list here. And it's
2:07:50
Speaker 1: not because he's loud, it's because he's he's really trusted.
2:07:53
Speaker 2: Right.
2:07:53
Speaker 1: Here's a kid he grew up in kid in his
2:07:56
Speaker 1: mid to late thirties now, right, grew up in Charlotte,
2:07:58
Speaker 1: went to Davidson College. He wasn't viewed as some camp
2:08:01
Speaker 1: miss prospect, right, even though he was, you know, a
2:08:04
Speaker 1: NEPO baby if he wanted to call him that, since
2:08:06
Speaker 1: his dad played in the league. But he had to
2:08:08
Speaker 1: spend years proving people wrong. Right, he didn't doesn't have
2:08:12
Speaker 1: to dominate every room. He's a goat while letting other
2:08:15
Speaker 1: people say they're the goats. He never has to say it.
2:08:18
Speaker 1: He's really good at making everybody else feel comfortable. So
2:08:21
Speaker 1: if you ever decided to go on to North Carolina
2:08:23
Speaker 1: run for something, I'd be taking that campaign pretty seriously.
2:08:28
Speaker 1: And that brings me to number one of my lists,
2:08:30
Speaker 1: and it's Kaitlyn Clark. And to me, it's not even close.
2:08:33
Speaker 1: I look at everything she's had to navigate over the
2:08:35
Speaker 1: last two years, race, gender, the WNBA women's sports, social media,
2:08:40
Speaker 1: every culture war in America has tried to recruit Kaitlyn
2:08:44
Speaker 1: Clark and everybody wants her to become their symbol. And
2:08:47
Speaker 1: the remarkable thing is she just doesn't let it happen right.
2:08:51
Speaker 1: She keeps saying, in one way or the other, I'm
2:08:53
Speaker 1: here to play basketball. She acknowledges other people's experiences, so
2:08:57
Speaker 1: she doesn't ignore concerns that other players or when they
2:09:00
Speaker 1: when they get mistreated, but she refuses to ever inflame things.
2:09:04
Speaker 2: She never leans into it.
2:09:05
Speaker 1: She's a reluctant person in this debate, and she refuses
2:09:10
Speaker 1: to let other people define who she is. She didn't
2:09:12
Speaker 1: ask to become this political symbol in sports, and she's
2:09:16
Speaker 1: had to become one anyway. I think she's handled it
2:09:19
Speaker 1: with incredible discipline, incredible discipline. I hope it hasn't sapped
2:09:25
Speaker 1: the joy from her playing. I was listening to a
2:09:29
Speaker 1: conversation Bill Simmons was having with Chuck Closeter Redden. They
2:09:32
Speaker 1: were he thought that you could see that there was
2:09:35
Speaker 1: the joy was missing.
2:09:37
Speaker 2: I don't know, I hope not right.
2:09:39
Speaker 1: She's just it's infectious to watch her play, right, But
2:09:45
Speaker 1: I just am I'm impressed. And I've always said this
2:09:47
Speaker 1: about Lebron too, with when you get that amount of
2:09:51
Speaker 1: tention and you and you don't take the bait, right,
2:09:55
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of bait, and you know this
2:09:57
Speaker 1: is she's not you know, she's not a forty five
2:10:00
Speaker 1: year old middle aged person who's been through a bunch
2:10:02
Speaker 1: of stuff. Right, She's still in her twenties, in her
2:10:05
Speaker 1: mid twenties, and she handles herself like she's been, you know,
2:10:10
Speaker 1: dealing with a politically divisive culture for a generation. So
2:10:16
Speaker 1: that's why to me, and again, the amount of people
2:10:21
Speaker 1: that try to force her into political controversy and.
2:10:24
Speaker 2: She just won't let it happen.
2:10:27
Speaker 1: That is rare talents, Okay, and that might be really
2:10:32
Speaker 1: good talent for where our politics is headed. So look,
2:10:36
Speaker 1: maybe none of these people ever actually run for office.
2:10:39
Speaker 1: Most of them probably won't. I guess is one out
2:10:41
Speaker 1: of my five.
2:10:41
Speaker 2: Will, right, I don't know which.
2:10:43
Speaker 1: One, but the exercise does, I hope explain something about
2:10:46
Speaker 1: where I think politics is headed. Because there was a
2:10:48
Speaker 1: time when lawyers dominated politics. Then there was a time
2:10:51
Speaker 1: that governors were you know, that was your way. Then
2:10:54
Speaker 1: television personalities. Right, we've cut out the elected official part
2:10:57
Speaker 1: right with television personalities Trump, you know, maybe it's Tucker Carlson,
2:11:01
Speaker 1: maybe it's Steven A.
2:11:01
Speaker 2: Smith.
2:11:03
Speaker 1: I think athletes become one of our next pipeline.
2:11:06
Speaker 2: Right. Sports is a safe space. Right.
2:11:07
Speaker 1: It's a place, especially if you're looking for people that
2:11:09
Speaker 1: might be able to appeal to a broader swath of
2:11:12
Speaker 1: people instead of just being polarized Team Blue or Team red,
2:11:16
Speaker 1: you know, especially of independent politics flourishes.
2:11:19
Speaker 2: Right.
2:11:19
Speaker 1: I think the athletes and military veterans can be great
2:11:22
Speaker 1: places to recruit because I also think the skill to
2:11:25
Speaker 1: be a modern day athlete is remarkable similar it's remarkably
2:11:29
Speaker 1: similar to being a modern day politician. Right, It's not
2:11:32
Speaker 1: about policy anymore. It's about communication, surviving scrutiny, handling pressure,
2:11:39
Speaker 1: saying something that millions of people here without making half
2:11:42
Speaker 1: of them immediately hate you. Right, that's just a Tuesday
2:11:46
Speaker 1: afternoon for the superstar athlete. So and why it's a
2:11:50
Speaker 1: skill set that might be remarkably necessary for the next
2:11:53
Speaker 1: generation of politicians. The podcast Top five is of course,
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Speaker 1: Chucky time. We're going to see how many we can
2:14:02
Speaker 1: get done here in the last twelve or so minutes.
2:14:06
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Brian he Goes. Brian from Massachusetts
2:14:09
Speaker 1: three here, third Congressional District. I enjoyed taking my eighty
2:14:12
Speaker 1: four year old father to old movies when they are
2:14:15
Speaker 1: shown in theaters. We've seen Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia. This
2:14:18
Speaker 1: week we saw Citizen Kane. My father did not like
2:14:20
Speaker 1: Citizen Kane, saying it was nonsense.
2:14:22
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it and used to show
2:14:24
Speaker 2: it to my students. Am I missing something? Maybe it
2:14:27
Speaker 2: was too artsy for him. Curious as to your favorite
2:14:30
Speaker 2: old forties and fifties films, Brian, okay, I I may.
2:14:38
Speaker 2: I will tell you this.
2:14:39
Speaker 1: The first time I saw Citizen Kane, I felt the
2:14:42
Speaker 1: same way as your father.
2:14:44
Speaker 2: That is this This.
2:14:45
Speaker 1: Is supposed to be Orson Welles's masterpiece. After reading more
2:14:50
Speaker 1: about it, I watched it again. I at least understand
2:14:53
Speaker 1: why it's so iconic, and I understand and all of that,
2:14:56
Speaker 1: but I think it is if you're used to a
2:14:59
Speaker 1: certain time a movie, it can it can be slow,
2:15:03
Speaker 1: and you know, boy man, it's a long build up
2:15:06
Speaker 1: to rosebud Right and it is a long build up
2:15:09
Speaker 1: to Rosebud.
2:15:10
Speaker 2: But.
2:15:12
Speaker 1: I will tell you the one that I flipped out.
2:15:15
Speaker 2: It was one of those. So my father when we
2:15:17
Speaker 2: first got a VCR in the early eighties and.
2:15:25
Speaker 1: We were my dad had a list of movies that
2:15:29
Speaker 1: he said I had to see so and it would
2:15:32
Speaker 1: be so we had always one movie a month that
2:15:35
Speaker 1: he chose. We had this, we'd always there was just
2:15:38
Speaker 1: I was an only child, three of us for about
2:15:40
Speaker 1: four or five years. This was our pattern. It was
2:15:42
Speaker 1: our you know, when I was right, not old enough
2:15:45
Speaker 1: to go out yet, right, you know, so we would
2:15:47
Speaker 1: watch a movie. Maybe it was Friday night movie, maybe it.
2:15:49
Speaker 2: Was Saturday movie.
2:15:50
Speaker 1: Run a movie and most of the time I got
2:15:53
Speaker 1: to pick, but he picked once a month, right and
2:15:57
Speaker 1: ben her. God, we all fell asleep and bent her.
2:16:01
Speaker 1: He was so excited all this chariot ra scene. It
2:16:03
Speaker 1: redefined movie cinema, right, you know, Cherry Racene was great.
2:16:08
Speaker 1: It took a while to get everything else. I'll admit,
2:16:11
Speaker 1: cool Hand Luke loved Cool Hand Louke. We'll rewatched that,
2:16:17
Speaker 1: the one that always blew me away. And it was
2:16:19
Speaker 1: like one of those you're like, oh my god, you
2:16:22
Speaker 1: have to see it, and now I insist every generation
2:16:25
Speaker 1: has to see it. It's Casablanca because no matter how
2:16:29
Speaker 1: much of pop of sort of everyday sayings in life
2:16:33
Speaker 1: that you've heard played again all that business. You know,
2:16:37
Speaker 1: I'm shocked, shocked that there's casino gambling here.
2:16:40
Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't.
2:16:42
Speaker 1: Realize how many sayings I was using before I hadn't
2:16:44
Speaker 1: seen the movie that were from that movie. So Pasablanca
2:16:49
Speaker 1: is number one with a with a bullet for me,
2:16:53
Speaker 1: a sort of post you know, sort of a it
2:16:55
Speaker 1: was actually during World War Two, right, but of that
2:16:57
Speaker 1: of the movies, like if you set us a one
2:17:00
Speaker 1: movie from the forties in fifties, in my head, it's
2:17:04
Speaker 1: it's it's Cosa Blanca because it had such a huge
2:17:08
Speaker 1: impact I think on pop culture both in the moments. Frankly,
2:17:12
Speaker 1: it's a I mean, you know, because we've kind of
2:17:16
Speaker 1: canceled gone with the win. Frankly, my dear, I don't
2:17:18
Speaker 1: give a damn. Is no longer has the resonance that
2:17:20
Speaker 1: it did when I was growing up. Casablanca still still
2:17:26
Speaker 1: has phrases from that movie that still sort of get
2:17:32
Speaker 1: passed on right to younger folks today. So so for me,
2:17:36
Speaker 1: it's it's Cosablanca.
2:17:38
Speaker 2: But like I said, I went through this we cool hand.
2:17:42
Speaker 1: Luke is one that stood out. I love Guess Who's
2:17:44
Speaker 1: Coming to Dinner. That was a good one that I
2:17:48
Speaker 1: enjoyed in the sixties, The Entertainer. I enjoyed that because
2:17:53
Speaker 1: it was one of the first things, first sort of
2:17:55
Speaker 1: non Bach, non Beethoven things I learned to play on
2:17:59
Speaker 1: the piano.
2:18:00
Speaker 2: No no, No.
2:18:01
Speaker 1: It was like one of the reasons I really wanted
2:18:03
Speaker 1: to learn that song. I was obsessed with that song
2:18:05
Speaker 1: on the piano when I was when I was a kid.
2:18:08
Speaker 1: So and uh got And another one the original the
2:18:18
Speaker 1: original movie that was The Color of Money was the
2:18:22
Speaker 1: sequel for with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. This one
2:18:25
Speaker 1: was Paul Newman and Jackie Gleeson and he es said,
2:18:27
Speaker 1: Sheley Gleeson. There's this great scene and I've actually borrowed.
2:18:32
Speaker 1: I can't believe I've blanked on the name Hustler, and
2:18:34
Speaker 1: that little leedit there is just me making sure I
2:18:36
Speaker 1: have the name right. And there's this scene in the
2:18:38
Speaker 1: movie Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman where they're they're playing
2:18:44
Speaker 1: this all nighter game right, and it's supposedly somewhat based.
2:18:47
Speaker 1: I think Minnesota Fats and some of these pool pool
2:18:50
Speaker 1: players and some of the greatest nicknames.
2:18:52
Speaker 2: Man Minnesota Fats.
2:18:53
Speaker 1: What a great nickname, which I guess loosely is what
2:18:56
Speaker 1: what Gleason? I think that's Gleason's character going in my
2:18:59
Speaker 1: way back machine. But there's one scene in that movie
2:19:03
Speaker 1: that I've emulated on election and multiple all nighters when
2:19:07
Speaker 1: I've pulled them on Election night, and that is, you know,
2:19:10
Speaker 1: they're going all night and then finally they take a
2:19:12
Speaker 1: break and Jackie Gleason goes into the bathroom clean shaves, washes,
2:19:17
Speaker 1: his face comes up. It just sort of comes in
2:19:21
Speaker 1: and looking like a million bucks. While Paul Newman is
2:19:25
Speaker 1: like sweaty, tired, and he sees Gleason come out of
2:19:29
Speaker 1: the bathroom looking like he took like an adrenaline shot
2:19:31
Speaker 1: of some sort and it just overwhelmed him and you know,
2:19:36
Speaker 1: he falls apart and Gleason Gleason is able to win
2:19:39
Speaker 1: this all night match or whatever it was in the Hustler.
2:19:42
Speaker 1: But I've used that same trick of like, boy, I
2:19:46
Speaker 1: need to get another two or three hours of staying
2:19:51
Speaker 1: awake and being not just awake but aware enough to
2:19:54
Speaker 1: like deliver deliver information to hundreds of thousands of people,
2:20:00
Speaker 1: perhaps millions if they're watching in the middle of the night,
2:20:03
Speaker 1: and I use that movie. I borrow that trick all
2:20:05
Speaker 1: the time, so the costa block number one, number one
2:20:11
Speaker 1: on the list. Next question comes from Rob and he writes, Hey,
2:20:13
Speaker 1: dear Chuck, I first knew you from Meet the Press,
2:20:16
Speaker 1: and I've really enjoyed following your work since. After going
2:20:19
Speaker 1: through a different difficult period of depression. Eventually I decided
2:20:22
Speaker 1: to get off my ass and get outside, et cetera.
2:20:24
Speaker 1: I began with short walks, which trended into longer walks
2:20:26
Speaker 1: and hikes. You and your podcast have kept me company. Man,
2:20:29
Speaker 1: that means a lot. I'm glad to know that I've
2:20:33
Speaker 1: helped keep you company. I know what that means. I
2:20:35
Speaker 1: have podcasts that keep me company and keep me going
2:20:37
Speaker 1: when I'm running, walking, whatever it is. Thankfully, the depression
2:20:40
Speaker 1: is lifted, and I feel like I made a new friend. Well,
2:20:43
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, enjoy the deeper dives you take into issues.
2:20:46
Speaker 1: Think Thankfully, I'm doing much better now, and I just
2:20:48
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know that your work made a real.
2:20:50
Speaker 2: Difference in my life. Rob.
2:20:53
Speaker 1: I'm you're very kind to share that. You know, this
2:21:01
Speaker 1: is always a reminder, you know, you know, you know. Look,
2:21:04
Speaker 1: I I'm just trying to put out content that I
2:21:07
Speaker 1: hope people find useful. And there's a variety of ways
2:21:11
Speaker 1: that these things can be useful. And I'm glad to
2:21:14
Speaker 1: know that I can be good company. I would hate
2:21:17
Speaker 1: to be bad company on something like this.
2:21:19
Speaker 2: And hey, I.
2:21:21
Speaker 1: Also think that you, uh, you, you you travel a
2:21:25
Speaker 1: path that a lot of people travel, and it's good
2:21:27
Speaker 1: to know you have success.
2:21:28
Speaker 2: Right.
2:21:30
Speaker 1: You start one day at a time, one step at
2:21:32
Speaker 1: a time. So kudos, Rob, thank you for sharing that.
2:21:36
Speaker 1: Next question uh here comes from Gavin from Brisbane, Australian.
2:21:40
Speaker 1: He goes hey check love the pod, longtime listener. Recently
2:21:43
Speaker 1: in the UK, reform leader Nigel Farrage resigned a seat
2:21:46
Speaker 1: in UH in the Commons to force a by election,
2:21:49
Speaker 1: which will now recontest the same seat. I'm stunned that
2:21:53
Speaker 1: this is even allowed. It seems like an active hypocrisy.
2:21:55
Speaker 1: Either you are prepared to a stand scrutiny or your
2:21:59
Speaker 1: actions of your actions in stay or you leave for good.
2:22:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is permitted in Australia, but
2:22:04
Speaker 1: expect voters in the local electorate would go nuts and
2:22:07
Speaker 1: punish the offending MP for forcing them to go back
2:22:10
Speaker 1: to the polls unnecessarily. My question, are there any states
2:22:13
Speaker 1: where a US congress person or senator could technically do
2:22:16
Speaker 1: the same regards Gavin, First of all, you saw right, Well,
2:22:20
Speaker 1: we'll find out, right count binface how well Count Binface
2:22:25
Speaker 1: does against Nisa. Farras will tell you, I think how
2:22:27
Speaker 1: angry the electorate is on this. There's actually president And
2:22:30
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of one time when it
2:22:32
Speaker 1: happened and frankly where I would argue it was the
2:22:34
Speaker 1: right thing to do. Phil Graham was a Phil Graham
2:22:40
Speaker 1: is somebody. He ran for president nineteen ninety six. He
2:22:44
Speaker 1: was a longtime US Senator from Texas. But before he
2:22:46
Speaker 1: was a senator from Texas, he first got elected to Congress,
2:22:49
Speaker 1: and he was a conservative Republican in Texas. He had
2:22:52
Speaker 1: a whole When he ran for president, he used to
2:22:55
Speaker 1: his stub speech because we used to imitate it all
2:22:57
Speaker 1: the time at the hotline. His stumb speech began this
2:23:00
Speaker 1: failed the fourth, the seventh, and the eighth grade, and
2:23:03
Speaker 1: I ended up with a PhD. In economics, and he
2:23:06
Speaker 1: had this just great southern draw but he always began
2:23:09
Speaker 1: with I failed the fourth, the seventh, and I might
2:23:12
Speaker 1: be getting his gradeslong. But the implication was he flunk
2:23:15
Speaker 1: three times and he still ended up being a guy
2:23:17
Speaker 1: who could eventually get a PhD economics. And it was
2:23:20
Speaker 1: the whole picture of itself up by the bootstraps and
2:23:23
Speaker 1: don't let people tell you who that you think you are.
2:23:24
Speaker 2: That sort of mindset, right.
2:23:26
Speaker 1: But he's always been well respected in the conservative community,
2:23:29
Speaker 1: in this sort of conservative fiscal area.
2:23:32
Speaker 2: He's still alive today, by the way. You still see
2:23:34
Speaker 2: it pop out.
2:23:36
Speaker 1: But he was first elected as a Democrat to Congress,
2:23:39
Speaker 1: and when he got elected after Reagan became president, he
2:23:43
Speaker 1: decided he was going to switch parties. But he thought,
2:23:47
Speaker 1: I'm not going to switch parties in the voters elected
2:23:53
Speaker 1: me as a Democrat. So if I'm going to switch parties,
2:23:55
Speaker 1: I'm going to resign, change parties, run in the my
2:24:00
Speaker 1: voters decide whether they want to send me back under
2:24:02
Speaker 1: the new party banner. I think that's a legitimate And
2:24:07
Speaker 1: you could say maybe he should have to pay for
2:24:09
Speaker 1: the special election, and there's a tax dollar situation, but
2:24:12
Speaker 1: I thought that was I think that's a pretty I
2:24:15
Speaker 1: think that's an ethical way to deal with it. I
2:24:17
Speaker 1: want to switch parties. I know voters voted for me,
2:24:20
Speaker 1: but I know it's possible some voters voted for me because.
2:24:23
Speaker 2: Of my party.
2:24:24
Speaker 1: The honest thing to do is give voters a chance
2:24:26
Speaker 1: to decide whether they affirm or reject my decision to
2:24:30
Speaker 1: switch parties. And so he resigned, got reelected as a Republican,
2:24:36
Speaker 1: ends up becoming a senator not too far you know,
2:24:40
Speaker 1: not too far down the road. And the rest is
2:24:43
Speaker 1: a fairly successful political career with a he just didn't
2:24:46
Speaker 1: have the charisma for the presidency. He could raise money
2:24:51
Speaker 1: with the best of them, but it was it was
2:24:54
Speaker 1: the you know, he might have been able to buy
2:24:57
Speaker 1: lots of bags of dog food, but the dogs didn't
2:24:59
Speaker 1: always want.
2:24:59
Speaker 2: To eat the food. On that one.
2:25:02
Speaker 1: But I thought that's the best example. So in theory,
2:25:04
Speaker 1: sure and that, but I thought that was the best
2:25:07
Speaker 1: example I could come up with that sort of matched
2:25:10
Speaker 1: and at least I actually think a A What I
2:25:13
Speaker 1: might argue is it is one of the good one
2:25:17
Speaker 1: of the good ways to do that. Next question, Dan
2:25:20
Speaker 1: from California's forty ninth district way down there in southern California,
2:25:23
Speaker 1: says Hey, Chuck, your recent conversation with Tad Devine got
2:25:26
Speaker 1: me thinking, why don't presidential campaigns create more buzz around
2:25:29
Speaker 1: the VP selection by publicly narrowing the field to a
2:25:32
Speaker 1: few finalists and letting them campaign before making the final choice.
2:25:35
Speaker 1: Could something like that help build excitement and test messages
2:25:38
Speaker 1: or would it create more problems than it solves? As
2:25:40
Speaker 1: an aside, I saw a yard sign for someone committed
2:25:43
Speaker 1: to the you. It was referred to the University of Utah,
2:25:45
Speaker 1: but I think we can all agree Miami is the
2:25:47
Speaker 1: true the you. Well, Dan, I appreciate you saying that
2:25:50
Speaker 1: there's one big difference between the Utah you they do.
2:25:52
Speaker 2: This and THEU.
2:25:55
Speaker 1: For the univers of Miami, we do this. But you
2:26:00
Speaker 1: know it's always been pretty arrogant of the University of Miami.
2:26:02
Speaker 2: Just clean the h everybody's called a university. Uh.
2:26:07
Speaker 1: That's when you could take the nickname that any university
2:26:11
Speaker 1: can use and you somehow make it your own. That's
2:26:14
Speaker 1: powerful branding. It's almost as successful as like Kleenex. The
2:26:19
Speaker 1: fact that most people call a tissue at Cleenex rather
2:26:22
Speaker 1: than a tissue, right. I think that that's an impressive
2:26:26
Speaker 1: branding by the University of Miami. Again, you go to
2:26:29
Speaker 1: any small community with a university and they refer to
2:26:31
Speaker 1: it as the you.
2:26:32
Speaker 2: And yet if you say to you.
2:26:33
Speaker 1: In a national context, there's likely only one university, you
2:26:37
Speaker 1: mean it's so take that other universities. So Mike Murphy,
2:26:46
Speaker 1: old friend of mine, one time a Republican media consultant,
2:26:51
Speaker 1: and now I think more of an independent. I think
2:26:53
Speaker 1: he unregistered as a Republican. He's not much of a
2:26:57
Speaker 1: Trump guy at all, but long time Republican sul was
2:27:01
Speaker 1: McCain's chief advisor there a couple of his presidential campaigns,
2:27:04
Speaker 1: and you know, Murphy wanted to do exactly what you're describing. Basically,
2:27:08
Speaker 1: say we've got three here are all so to still
2:27:14
Speaker 1: keep control, his idea was to offer up the convention
2:27:18
Speaker 1: three candidates and then let the convention work its will, right,
2:27:22
Speaker 1: and let the candidates work the will of the convention
2:27:24
Speaker 1: a little bit.
2:27:26
Speaker 2: I think you want to.
2:27:27
Speaker 1: I think the presidential nominee wants to have some control
2:27:29
Speaker 1: of this.
2:27:30
Speaker 2: But I'm with you.
2:27:31
Speaker 1: I think these have been missed opportunities. I think the
2:27:35
Speaker 1: reason you don't see these bigger media spectacles. For this
2:27:39
Speaker 1: is it's usually you have consultants that want to control
2:27:42
Speaker 1: the narrative. You have strategists that are fearful that the
2:27:47
Speaker 1: selection for VP can overshadow the president, especially especially if
2:27:51
Speaker 1: they're kind of if they're a milk toast nominee, right,
2:27:55
Speaker 1: if they don't have like that grade of a personality.
2:27:59
Speaker 1: Although it's hard to imagine that we're going to produce
2:28:01
Speaker 1: that kind of candidate in those nominees, at least in
2:28:03
Speaker 1: the near future.
2:28:05
Speaker 2: And then of course you can.
2:28:07
Speaker 1: You know, the downside is if you have a campaign,
2:28:10
Speaker 1: especially right now, both parties are so frat factional, right,
2:28:13
Speaker 1: there's so many of these little mini factional divides that
2:28:17
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, you create division. Maybe at a
2:28:22
Speaker 1: time you can't afford the division. So there's a million
2:28:26
Speaker 1: reasons to not greenlight this. And yet I'm with you.
2:28:30
Speaker 1: I certainly think we will see somebody try this if
2:28:35
Speaker 1: they are hopelessly if they think they're hopelessly behind. This
2:28:38
Speaker 1: is the type of thing you do if you're behind.
2:28:41
Speaker 1: If you're ahead, or if you think you have a
2:28:43
Speaker 1: good chance of winning, you wouldn't do something like this
2:28:46
Speaker 1: because it would be seen as too risky, even though
2:28:49
Speaker 1: I don't actually think it would be all that risky
2:28:53
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But I think it's inevitable that
2:28:59
Speaker 1: we will. Like I said, it's certainly how if a
2:29:03
Speaker 1: third party candidacy gets off the ground for president, I
2:29:07
Speaker 1: know that that's the way this will work, because you
2:29:10
Speaker 1: definitely need any attention as good attention if you're running
2:29:13
Speaker 1: to try to break through the duopoly.
2:29:14
Speaker 2: Right That all right?
2:29:18
Speaker 1: Nick in Michigan second Congressional district Rights. You've said several
2:29:21
Speaker 1: times that we're likely to have at least one more
2:29:23
Speaker 1: chaotic presidential term before things begin to stabilize after what
2:29:26
Speaker 1: feels like a decade of constant turmoil. Can you offer
2:29:30
Speaker 1: a little hope as we head towards twenty twenty six
2:29:32
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty elections. What signs are milestones would make
2:29:36
Speaker 1: you think we're finally turning a corner towards a less
2:29:38
Speaker 1: chaotic political era. The biggest one is just a decisive victory,
2:29:42
Speaker 1: and we just haven't had one of those. The closest
2:29:45
Speaker 1: we came this century is Obama away, right, and that
2:29:48
Speaker 1: was a sixth little under seven point victory nationally, A
2:29:53
Speaker 1: fairly you know, large electoral college. Right, it included even
2:29:56
Speaker 1: victories in Indiana, North Carolina, right, every swing statement some
2:30:00
Speaker 1: and you know, brought in fifty nine Senate seats, right,
2:30:04
Speaker 1: that was and it did force the Republican Party to go,
2:30:07
Speaker 1: we got to do things differently. Now, they ended up
2:30:09
Speaker 1: going in a much different direction than even they thought
2:30:11
Speaker 1: they were going to go into. But they certainly changed.
2:30:14
Speaker 2: Then.
2:30:14
Speaker 1: The point is, political parties don't do major changes and
2:30:18
Speaker 1: don't try to try something different until they lose by
2:30:21
Speaker 1: a lot, not by a little. And so I think
2:30:25
Speaker 1: that the reason why I believe, I just think that
2:30:27
Speaker 1: the differences right were so we're so evenly divided that
2:30:33
Speaker 1: it does feel like it's one day of campaigning here,
2:30:36
Speaker 1: or one more television ad there, one more door knock
2:30:39
Speaker 1: there would be the difference between winning and losing. Right,
2:30:41
Speaker 1: when you have one or two percentage points literally can
2:30:44
Speaker 1: flip seven seats. You know, that leads you into you know,
2:30:50
Speaker 1: we're in a politics where both parties have a high floor,
2:30:52
Speaker 1: low ceiling. So it's when the floor collapses for one
2:30:56
Speaker 1: of the two parties is when I think we'll be there.
2:30:59
Speaker 1: So one of two things, either an independent breaks through
2:31:03
Speaker 1: and is able to sort of split the difference and
2:31:06
Speaker 1: that forces radical change inside the two parties or one
2:31:10
Speaker 1: of them gets clobbered, right, you know, I think the
2:31:16
Speaker 1: most that the party put it this way when you
2:31:20
Speaker 1: just look, if the Democrats lose in twenty eight, they're
2:31:22
Speaker 1: more likely to go through a massive makeover than if
2:31:26
Speaker 1: the Republicans lose in twenty eight. If the Republicans lose
2:31:28
Speaker 1: in twenty eight, it'll be like, well, maybe Vance wasn't
2:31:31
Speaker 1: a good nominee, maybe Trump, you know, let's see what
2:31:33
Speaker 1: happens next cycle. If the Democrats lose, it'll be thirty
2:31:37
Speaker 1: three out of four that they've lost, right, you know,
2:31:39
Speaker 1: it'd be sixteen to twenty four. Twenty eight, the one
2:31:43
Speaker 1: they won looks more and more like an accident, you know,
2:31:47
Speaker 1: in that right it it just sort of was was
2:31:50
Speaker 1: just an exhaustion election just to get rid of Trump
2:31:53
Speaker 1: and fix COVID. But if you're at three of four,
2:31:57
Speaker 1: if you're the Democrats, and then I think you're going
2:31:58
Speaker 1: to have, you know.
2:31:59
Speaker 2: The type of.
2:32:01
Speaker 1: Much bigger fight and then and until one of these
2:32:05
Speaker 1: two parties pivots, right, we're not. And so that's why
2:32:10
Speaker 1: I think it's like it it it's neither one is
2:32:14
Speaker 1: lost by enough to make the major changes that are
2:32:16
Speaker 1: necessary to get.
2:32:17
Speaker 2: Us out of this.
2:32:19
Speaker 1: That's the bottom one. And that's why I don't think so.
2:32:22
Speaker 1: I think we're another cycle or two away, you know,
2:32:24
Speaker 1: it needs I think I think the Democrats need one
2:32:26
Speaker 1: more kick to the head, right, Republicans probably have to
2:32:29
Speaker 1: lose twice in a row before they sober up on
2:32:31
Speaker 1: this Trump nationalism stuff. That's why, you know, if you're
2:32:36
Speaker 1: hoping for something sooner, I think the third party, you know,
2:32:40
Speaker 1: to sort of force to to sort of punish both
2:32:42
Speaker 1: parties at the same time and get them both to
2:32:44
Speaker 1: sober up. That's the fastest way to to sort of
2:32:48
Speaker 1: get out of this is sort of to throw your
2:32:52
Speaker 1: lot in there, because I think this ping pong and
2:32:54
Speaker 1: is actually only going to drag this out, all right.
2:32:59
Speaker 1: With that, Thank goodness for the World Cup because it
2:33:05
Speaker 1: gave us what is normally the worst week in sports
2:33:08
Speaker 1: is not this specific calendar year, because I will confess
2:33:14
Speaker 1: that even I, not the biggest soccer fan, have been
2:33:17
Speaker 1: sucked in a little bit. And I'm looking forward to
2:33:20
Speaker 1: saying as I said, and this may seem way outdated,
2:33:26
Speaker 1: but I'm team America's let's go messy, and with that,
2:33:29
Speaker 1: I'll see you the next time.