Speaker 1: Happy Monday. Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you I have a little extra
Speaker 1: bouncing my step because we just had a weekend of
Speaker 1: meaningful football. Okay, I am a college football fanatic. I
Speaker 1: love these first two weeks where college football gets center stage.
Speaker 1: Week zero. Literally, I'll watch anything. I watch some fcs,
Speaker 1: I will watch all of it. Kansas State Iowa State,
Speaker 1: of course, was the best game of the day. But
Speaker 1: Stanford Hawaii, right, you got to go all day long.
Speaker 1: It's just nice to have football back. So that put
Speaker 1: me in a good mood after what was an excruciating
Speaker 1: time dropping off my youngest at college. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go through the specifics. It's not fair to him.
Speaker 1: But let's just say that this is it's as hard
Speaker 1: as everybody will tell you that it is. And then
Speaker 1: some if you've this was my second time, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny when you know you still have another child
Speaker 1: at home, there's sort of one set of emotions. When
Speaker 1: suddenly it's empty, it's a whole new set of emotions.
Speaker 1: So but I will I will spare you some of that.
Speaker 1: But let's just say that a good distraction from my
Speaker 1: glumness and me missing my son. Is the start of
Speaker 1: college football season, that's for sure, and which sort of
Speaker 1: brings me here we are. We're in August. I know
Speaker 1: some of you think college football shouldn't start in August.
Speaker 1: It should start, you know, first of September. But here
Speaker 1: we are. That's what it is. And it gets me
Speaker 1: to my theme that I want to jump in on.
Speaker 1: By the way, my guest later today. The guest is
Speaker 1: Jonathan Martin of Politico, and Jonathan and I have known
Speaker 1: each other longer than this century. I it goes past
Speaker 1: the twenty first. We've been friends, colleagues, and then some
Speaker 1: going back to the nineties. We regularly have conversations and
Speaker 1: sometimes we put them on camera and put them on tape,
Speaker 1: and that's essentially what my Monday episode with him is.
Speaker 1: So I hope, I know if you're a political junkie,
Speaker 1: you will enjoy the conversation. And if you like you're
Speaker 1: a little taste of college football on the side, I
Speaker 1: think you'll also enjoy it as well. But we hit
Speaker 1: the gambit. We were all over the place, whether it's Trump,
Speaker 1: whether it's the Democrats, whether it's the primary calendar in
Speaker 1: twenty eight elections in twenty five, the midterms in twenty
Speaker 1: six we covered the entire tapestry of things, But let
Speaker 1: me get started. One of the topics I actually did
Speaker 1: have a conversation with him on was in reaction to
Speaker 1: to what I want to talk about today. Because for
Speaker 1: most of my thirty five years here in Washington, I
Speaker 1: got here in nineteen ninety. August has always been the
Speaker 1: slowest month of the year, right, slower even than December,
Speaker 1: right because December, yes it's slow, but we're we've got
Speaker 1: so many obligations, right, you know, August is the slowest
Speaker 1: month of the year. Congress leaves town, the White House
Speaker 1: throttles back. Trust me, as a traffic there's no traffic
Speaker 1: in Washington unless there's a Nats game, even right now,
Speaker 1: especially if the Nets playing the Phillies are Mets these days.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's literally the only traffic you run into.
Speaker 1: And the rule of thumb about August was simple, don't
Speaker 1: watch anything new until September, when everyone is paying attention again,
Speaker 1: when all parents are, the kids back at school, et cetera.
Speaker 1: August really was always used for regrouping. Presidents took vacations.
Speaker 1: That didn't mean stuff didn't there was a lot of
Speaker 1: important stuff what happened in August. I think I said
Speaker 1: this to you before. I actually have always done a
Speaker 1: July vacation. I've learned to do that lately, more so
Speaker 1: than August, because for me, August there is always a
Speaker 1: lot more happening in August than people realize. So August
Speaker 1: for me is about preparing for September in many ways.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's sort of made August even more
Speaker 1: interesting at times because it was so baked in that
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything planned, that you knew if something
Speaker 1: happened in August it was unplanned, and that it was
Speaker 1: a bigger story than you realized. Bill Clinton thought he
Speaker 1: was in the clear in August of ninety eight, and
Speaker 1: the Mona, the Lewinsky grand jury test about he had
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five. George W. Bush thought he
Speaker 1: could vacation in Crawford. Then he had Hurricane Katrina, which
Speaker 1: turned August into a political catastrophe. But it was these
Speaker 1: are semi unplanned events, right, and in some ways you
Speaker 1: were encouraged to try to keep your head down in August.
Speaker 1: Of course, Donald Trump's never bought into that idea. For him,
Speaker 1: there is no regrouping. There is no resting. August is
Speaker 1: no different than April, than May, than December than June. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all the same. And of course this
Speaker 1: August has been anything but sleeping. We've had two high
Speaker 1: profile summits, a federal takeover the DC Police Department, the
Speaker 1: government buying a stake in Intel, a new redistricting order
Speaker 1: in Texas, a response in California, a manufactured Epstein file.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm leaving a few things out. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of motion in August. But you know what
Speaker 1: we didn't have. We didn't have a lot of movement
Speaker 1: right where things stood between Ukraine and Russian July they
Speaker 1: still stand today. The summits produced nothing, but there was
Speaker 1: a big TV show. The takeover DC policing has been performative.
Speaker 1: Troops are deployed in all the wrong neighborhoods South Park
Speaker 1: Head right. For what it's worth, I've been driving around
Speaker 1: town and wherever you would think that what Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: stated goal is. He's not been. He's not been. I've
Speaker 1: not seen him in parts of town that aren't tourist attractions.
Speaker 1: It's like being anchored in the ocean while the boat
Speaker 1: rocks back and forth. Right, there's plenty of turbulence, but
Speaker 1: no forward direction. And at some point that motion without
Speaker 1: movement simply makes everybody seasick. So take the redistrict find
Speaker 1: in Texas. Trump's order was met with such resistance that
Speaker 1: had triggered a nationwide scramble. Everyone's trying to outgain the
Speaker 1: other side for partisan advantage. Democrats are justifying their actions
Speaker 1: by pointing to Republicans, Republicans point to Democrats, and the
Speaker 1: result is a complete abandonment of the Democratic princes bull
Speaker 1: of fair representation. That's motion with real consequences, but it's
Speaker 1: the kind that corrodes institutions rather than strengthens them. And
Speaker 1: ultimately the goal for both parties is to fight to
Speaker 1: a draw, which is motion without movement. Let's look at
Speaker 1: the Epstein file gambit. Trump managed to stage a faux
Speaker 1: revelation by saying this was this is actually like unpack
Speaker 1: what he did with Epstein here. Right. You know, if
Speaker 1: you believe there are all these files that should be
Speaker 1: released and aren't being released, you should really be angry
Speaker 1: by what he did. Right, Because Trump managed to stage
Speaker 1: a faux revelation by sending his old personal lawyer to
Speaker 1: interviewed Gallaine Maxwell. Of course, before the interview they made
Speaker 1: sure to publicly dangle the possibility of clemency, so it
Speaker 1: sort of obviously had an impact under testimony. Right then,
Speaker 1: of course, they released the transcript that surprise seemed to
Speaker 1: clear Trump manufactured theater through it through right here, we
Speaker 1: had a convicted fallon begging for a pardon, coach through
Speaker 1: her answers, presented to the public as if she were
Speaker 1: a credible witness, chum in the water, created headlines, got
Speaker 1: people talking, but advance nothing, motion, not movement. I am
Speaker 1: really curious to see if those that say they care
Speaker 1: about the Epstein files on the right view this Gallaine
Speaker 1: Maxwell transcript as something that's worthless or worth something. I
Speaker 1: kind of think it's totally worthless, right, I mean, at
Speaker 1: what point did the transcript which he says, hey, let
Speaker 1: me add something, and it's this extra It's almost like
Speaker 1: her lawyer said, hey, you didn't clear Trump enough. You
Speaker 1: need to make sure you clear Trump more. Or let's
Speaker 1: look at the John Bolton prosecution threat. What was the
Speaker 1: point of that Not to win a conviction. The point
Speaker 1: is to send a message criticized Trump and the government
Speaker 1: will be weaponized against you. That's why cash Ptel at
Speaker 1: the FBI now makes JEdgar Hoover look like a statesman.
Speaker 1: And that's why the sudden firing of Trump loyalists Billing
Speaker 1: Long at the IRS is extra suspicious because there's only
Speaker 1: one of two reasons Billy Long was fired. Either he
Speaker 1: wouldn't go far enough on something, or he was willing
Speaker 1: to go too far, and Scott Besson stepped in. Either way,
Speaker 1: something that stinks to high Heaven. Here. Let's just say
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when House Republicans used to
Speaker 1: care about abuse at the IRS or and they would
Speaker 1: spend all sorts of of time trying to I mean,
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan, I think, became a household figure by going
Speaker 1: after a bureaucrat at the IRS. And here we have
Speaker 1: really suspicious activity at the IRS. I would say, don't
Speaker 1: hold your breath for James Comer to start issuing subpoenas
Speaker 1: for testimony from Treasury to find out what's actually happened
Speaker 1: in the IRS, to find out what actually happened with
Speaker 1: Billy Long. Something smells, but don't count on your congressional oversight, folks,
Speaker 1: to actually care. And it's not confined to Washington. Virginia,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice has been working to elevate the
Speaker 1: transgender school issue again fight Republicans believe helps them politically.
Speaker 1: But here's the federal government being used to try to
Speaker 1: prop up a campaign in Virginia. This is what you're
Speaker 1: going to see, right, We're starting to see, right, the
Speaker 1: power of the federal government. Trump will use this power
Speaker 1: to politically try to maneuver things in his favor. And
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're wondering, like all this mortgage
Speaker 1: fraud stuff, right, they sort of this has been one
Speaker 1: of the more interesting sort of manufactured crises that they've created,
Speaker 1: which is to scour the financial disclosures of home ownership
Speaker 1: and of real estate of selective political opponents. Letitia James
Speaker 1: Adam shift. We're now seeing it with the Fed governor.
Speaker 1: And I will just tell you a basic rule of thumb.
Speaker 1: If Roger Stone, which is a longtime Trump dark arts
Speaker 1: on and off again advisor, he hypes these two things
Speaker 1: more than anything. Right, Well, when his own is involved
Speaker 1: in something, you know it's not on the up and
Speaker 1: up right. This guy is as crooked as they come
Speaker 1: when it comes to political dark arts. He arguably invented
Speaker 1: the modern version of it in many ways, and his
Speaker 1: obsession with this tells me how manufactured that is. So still,
Speaker 1: it's part of a bigger pattern, right, constant motion, not
Speaker 1: a lot of movement. Every day, one of these stories
Speaker 1: takes over every day the boat rocks again. Trump's first
Speaker 1: term he did the same thing. But there were people
Speaker 1: inside government who did try to study the ship. Not anymore.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's Bessin on the economy, maybe Ruby on Ukraine.
Speaker 1: In fact, I do wonder if you didn't have Bessin
Speaker 1: on the economy, we'd probably already be in a recession
Speaker 1: with the tear of craziness. And if you didn't have
Speaker 1: Rubio there, Ukraine would already have lost its sovereignty to Russia.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, everyone else is enabling this chaos.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I mean, my gosh, the FBI
Speaker 1: is not a true I mean, this is so deeply
Speaker 1: damaging to the repation of the FBI. What Cash Betel
Speaker 1: is doing. I mean, you know what American is going
Speaker 1: to believe anything coming out of the FBI right now?
Speaker 1: It all feels And if I were a rank and
Speaker 1: file a BI agent, I'd be just appalled. This is terrible. Say,
Speaker 1: what's happening to the core rank and file at Border Patrol, DHS,
Speaker 1: your average National Guard. You know, remember these people are
Speaker 1: following orders and they're they're really it's it's what Trump
Speaker 1: is doing to these folks. What's happening to these agencies.
Speaker 1: This is doing long term damage where it's just trust
Speaker 1: will erode for everybody. But it also brings me to
Speaker 1: the economy because this is the real danger. What happens
Speaker 1: when things get worse with this economy, and they're going
Speaker 1: to get worse, right, You've heard it from Mark Xandy.
Speaker 1: I just heard it from one of Trump's most loyal
Speaker 1: economic advisor, Steve Moore, who's certainly more bullish than most,
Speaker 1: but has some concerns about this economy. Things are getting worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, now just give you everybody hates the airport anecdote,
Speaker 1: but I was at the airport killing some time. Ordered
Speaker 1: a couple eggs and the men you said three seventy
Speaker 1: five per egg, so you know, two eggs. Waiter said, actually,
Speaker 1: we just had to We just raised them. The price
Speaker 1: changed and it's six dollars per egg now. And he
Speaker 1: went through this whole reason. He was like apologizing. He goes,
Speaker 1: you know, are you sure you want to order eggs?
Speaker 1: Or do you want to just order one egg? And
Speaker 1: it was just, you know, look, it's an anecdotal, but
Speaker 1: you're hearing it. I told you about stringflation already taking
Speaker 1: place of Trader Joe's. We know others of you have
Speaker 1: been when I weighed in on that. I've been hearing
Speaker 1: from other folks on this. I mean, the cost of
Speaker 1: living has gone up. There's not a single streaming service
Speaker 1: that has is deciding to charge less for entertainment, and
Speaker 1: in fact, everybody seems to be charging more, even as
Speaker 1: there's weird consolidation Disney, Hulu and ESPN. I thought, We're
Speaker 1: all under the same umbrella, and somehow I'm going to
Speaker 1: be paying more, not less. Right, we all see that coming.
Speaker 1: All of that impacts the pocketbook, all of it. So
Speaker 1: here we are, we have, jobs are scarcer. The next
Speaker 1: jobs report, next couple of jobs report are going to
Speaker 1: be very very telling. Inflation is still rising. Stagflation in
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty six is a real potential problem.
Speaker 1: And what happens when that happens, Right, what's the federal government?
Speaker 1: How's Trump going to try to distract from all of this.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he can, because lived experience is
Speaker 1: just that you feel it at the grocery store. You'll
Speaker 1: feel it at the gas pump. You'll feel it when
Speaker 1: ren hikes outpaced paychecks. You'll feel it when the soul
Speaker 1: called booming economy doesn't match the reality of your own
Speaker 1: household budget. Stocks may be going up in a handful
Speaker 1: of stocks that are betting on AI, but all those
Speaker 1: bets on AI are about eliminating your job. That's what's
Speaker 1: scary out there for people. So when the economy does
Speaker 1: sour in twenty six, Trump's going to panic. So what
Speaker 1: are we going to see. We're going to see more
Speaker 1: boltons probably, you know, if you're a nominee in a
Speaker 1: race that's on the edge and you're going up against Trump,
Speaker 1: whether you're an independent, Democrat, whatever, don't be surprised if
Speaker 1: an allegation, you know, gets instead of a piece of
Speaker 1: oppo research, they just use it. They have a US
Speaker 1: attorney make an announcement to make it seem more real. Right,
Speaker 1: I think we know those that's all coming. There'll be
Speaker 1: more abuse of the irs, more abuse of the DOJ
Speaker 1: and the FBI, there'll be a lot more distraction retribution.
Speaker 1: All of it will be motion, but no movement, right,
Speaker 1: no movement. And in the end, that's the Trump's strategy.
Speaker 1: The boat must always be rocking motion for its own sake,
Speaker 1: and when you squeal, when you get seasick, he leans
Speaker 1: into it. That was true in his first term. It's
Speaker 1: more true now with no guardrails left. The question is
Speaker 1: how much of this will the country tolerate When the
Speaker 1: trains aren't running on time, when the rocking boat isn't
Speaker 1: going anywhere, how long before people simply want off? Well,
Speaker 1: we found out in twenty twenty, right this strategy made
Speaker 1: people literally sick and they wanted out. And that's to me,
Speaker 1: the real risk that's out there, because right now all
Speaker 1: this motion is just leaving us a drift economically, certainly,
Speaker 1: leaving us a drift politically certainly, leaving us a drift
Speaker 1: when it comes to America's place in the world. We're exhausted,
Speaker 1: we're seasick, and we're likely worse off than when we started.
Speaker 1: So I have a few other things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted folks that I just sort of think
Speaker 1: of them as little notebook blips but I have to
Speaker 1: tell you the reaction to the latest episode of South Park.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people, a lot of
Speaker 1: the South Park ride ups always focused about writing it
Speaker 1: up through the prism of their anti trumpness. But to me,
Speaker 1: this most recent episode was more brilliant in its satire
Speaker 1: against Silicon Valley right and against AI and sort of
Speaker 1: the techridy, you know, as he became Well literally, I'm
Speaker 1: watching that episode and the next morning I'm going to
Speaker 1: read you the following story about Elon Musk and this
Speaker 1: is I thought it was part of the south Park parody.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk announced he wants to simulate software companies like
Speaker 1: Microsoft using only artificial intelligence. He's even got a name
Speaker 1: for the new venture, macro Hard. Do you get it?
Speaker 1: Microsoft macro Hard. I literally, I'm reading this story. I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a bite, waite. Is this a ketamine fueled idea
Speaker 1: that came out of South Park or is this actually
Speaker 1: a real idea? And the fact that there are all
Speaker 1: these people that enable Musk around him, you know at
Speaker 1: this point, like I know, there's a fine line between
Speaker 1: genius and crazy, and you throw a little kenemine into it,
Speaker 1: and God only knows what that does. But I'm sorry
Speaker 1: macro Hard versus my I mean it was it is?
Speaker 1: Is it life imitating art imitating life at this point anyway,
Speaker 1: I just you just can't see. Sometimes it's impossible to
Speaker 1: parry to parody reality when the reality itself feels completely
Speaker 1: like a parody. One of the other pieces of seasickness
Speaker 1: that folks scott was this, you know, sort of the
Speaker 1: random you know campaign that Trump, I guess launched last
Speaker 1: week saying you wanted to get rid of mail and voting.
Speaker 1: I did want to point out some polling information that
Speaker 1: if let's say, states, do I mean we know he
Speaker 1: is running, if he tells a state governor and a
Speaker 1: state legislature that is that is controlled by Trump, the
Speaker 1: Trump machine, which is, you know, say your Missouri's, you're Indiana's,
Speaker 1: places like that right everywhere where he's been able to
Speaker 1: in Texas, where he's being able to order people essentially
Speaker 1: to do his bidding on redistricting and stuff, he probably
Speaker 1: can order the getting rid of mail in ballots in
Speaker 1: some of these states. But I have a feeling the
Speaker 1: only way voters are going to accept that is if
Speaker 1: you extend early voting and in person early voting, and
Speaker 1: so you know if you told me. And what's interesting is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were actually looking for a way
Speaker 1: to sort of eliminate this fight over mail in ballots
Speaker 1: and if you just wanted to limit them to the
Speaker 1: military ballots, this is what the public would tolerate, right,
Speaker 1: which is eighty four percent. This is a Pew pole
Speaker 1: that came out this week Centers for American Trends panel poll.
Speaker 1: So it's a panel survey. It's not random sample, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting what the public. These were the most popular
Speaker 1: voting reform proposals. One requiring electronic voting machines to print
Speaker 1: a paper backup of a voter's ballot. Eighty four percent
Speaker 1: favored that. Requiring all voters to show government issued voto
Speaker 1: or ID. That's eighty three percent. Support making early and
Speaker 1: in person voting Okay, not mail voting, early and in
Speaker 1: person voting available for at least two weeks prior to
Speaker 1: the election. That has eighty percent favorability making election day
Speaker 1: a federal holiday as seventy four percent. Everything else started
Speaker 1: to get more polarizing. I mean, Trump has effectively polarized
Speaker 1: the idea of mail in ballots. When again this was
Speaker 1: an invention of the Republicans, right. It was all frankly,
Speaker 1: in my home state of Florida, they encouraged mail in
Speaker 1: ballots because of the snowbirds, and the snowbirds were wealthier
Speaker 1: and more Republican leaning. So it was an incentivized by
Speaker 1: the Republican lawmakers to make it easier convenience voting for
Speaker 1: the snowbirds who didn't have to fly back to the
Speaker 1: state of Florida in time to make it for their
Speaker 1: five months and twenty nine days or actually, no, excuse me,
Speaker 1: six months and six months plus one day, so that
Speaker 1: they could avoid paying stay and income tax. But I
Speaker 1: think that is a if you do see an effort
Speaker 1: that actually does. I think the only way that voter
Speaker 1: the public would tolerate getting rid of mail in ballots
Speaker 1: is if you extend early in person voting. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you you cannot. If we try to have everybody
Speaker 1: vote on election day and election day only, there'd be
Speaker 1: you know, we would have lines that would probably last
Speaker 1: past midnight in quite a few states. So it is
Speaker 1: it is we have. You cannot process everybody. You cannot
Speaker 1: process one hundred and fifty million ballots in one twenty
Speaker 1: four hour period. Okay, one hundred years ago when we
Speaker 1: were you know, half of that population even less so.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you ever wanted, you know, in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century elections, some you know, some states held
Speaker 1: their presidential electoral vote election to decide which way the
Speaker 1: electoral votes go in, like in October. There was no
Speaker 1: one day. Different states would hold it on different days.
Speaker 1: So this is anyway, The point is is that I
Speaker 1: there is you could see if there was, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to try to reach out to a voter who
Speaker 1: was bought into Donald Trump's manufactured threats about mail in ballots.
Speaker 1: The easiest way to sort of get around it is
Speaker 1: to propose longer in early, in person, in person situation.
Speaker 1: And then finally, I want to close with this because
Speaker 1: it's my favorite. It was my favorite thing I read
Speaker 1: all week, and it comes from a newsletter out of
Speaker 1: the Dispatch by Scott Lindselcombe. It's very economics focused. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite newsletters. People ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: what do you read? I always forget to mention Scott,
Speaker 1: but he had this great lead the other day and
Speaker 1: it's a great word that I will be using a lot,
Speaker 1: and it summarizes what happens to debate online better than
Speaker 1: anything else. He said this, he writes this easily. One
Speaker 1: of the worst and most cynical plays in modern politics
Speaker 1: is the practice of nut picking. What does he mean
Speaker 1: by nut picking? Partisans will treat the loopy utterance of
Speaker 1: some random member of the other political team as broadly
Speaker 1: representative of the entire movement, thereby seeking to discredit it
Speaker 1: and it's saner and stronger players, and to reassure their
Speaker 1: comrades that everyone on the other side is a wackadoodle freak,
Speaker 1: not worth engaging, etc. The practice of nut picking is
Speaker 1: widespread on both sides of the aisle, especially on social media,
Speaker 1: and typically related to culture, war issues, family, race, gender, crime, etc.
Speaker 1: That arouse strong feelings and push people's buttons. Don't you
Speaker 1: feel satisfied now that there is now a word for
Speaker 1: this nonsense? When you see it like that whole conversation
Speaker 1: about the genes was this back and forth between nut
Speaker 1: pickers Right there, You could just feel that there was
Speaker 1: an attempt to attack others' political positions based on an
Speaker 1: outlanders position that somebody took that has no connection to anybody,
Speaker 1: but somebody wants to make you think it does. Anyway,
Speaker 1: The point is I just love this phrase. It so
Speaker 1: applies to political debate today. This is what has replaced
Speaker 1: actual political debate. This is what the conversation is on
Speaker 1: cable news quite a bit nutpicking. Literally, a segment is
Speaker 1: created based on nut picking. So let's just say, let's
Speaker 1: stop not can we You know, friends don't let friends
Speaker 1: not pick. Maybe we can. Maybe there's some better ways
Speaker 1: to phrase this. I would love to hear from you
Speaker 1: and what's your favorite or worst versions of nutpicking are?
Speaker 1: And with that, we'll sneak in a break for those
Speaker 1: of you listening to the entire episode in one fell swoop,
Speaker 1: we'll sneak in a break and bring in Jonathan Martin.
Speaker 1: The rest of you will be getting the mail back.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little ass Chuck, ask Chuck.
Speaker 1: We got a decent number of questions today. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many I'll get through. I think I'll try
Speaker 1: to get through or maybe five. We'll see how long
Speaker 1: I ramble on here. Question one here, This comes from
Speaker 1: Dylan Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Swing State. Very appreciated. Can you explain
Speaker 1: how a vice presidential pick can boost or hurt a
Speaker 1: campaign with some examples of both. Also, do you think
Speaker 1: that if Gored picked Graham Bob Graham over Joe Lieberman
Speaker 1: in two thousand, he beats Bush? Well, that's u A.
Speaker 1: It's certainly something many of US Floridians believe. Right, was
Speaker 1: Bob Graham worth five hundred and thirty eight votes? Right?
Speaker 1: Bush won by five hundred and thirty seven votes? Officially
Speaker 1: Was Bob Graham worth five hundred and thirty eight votes?
Speaker 1: The answer is yes? Right? The point is do running
Speaker 1: mates matter? Well, if an election is decided by five
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight seven votes, having that person from
Speaker 1: the home state probably is worth something. Right? Is it
Speaker 1: a half a percentage point? Is it a whole percentage point?
Speaker 1: Is it too? You could? I don't think we've had
Speaker 1: enough instances to prove it. Does John Kennedy carry Texas
Speaker 1: without obj right? Now? Michael Ducaccas had Lloyd Benson, a
Speaker 1: Texas Senator, on trying to do the same Massachusetts Texas
Speaker 1: pairing was trying to invoke Kennedy Johnson with do Coccas Benson,
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush Kerry Texas. So you know it
Speaker 1: is It's one of those things that I think is
Speaker 1: extraordinarily overrated, right, which is, I do think you're better
Speaker 1: off picking a running mate to help you with a
Speaker 1: state or help you with an image issue, right, So
Speaker 1: as much, you know, let's take your two thousand example,
Speaker 1: I do believe Bob Graham on the ticket is better
Speaker 1: than Joe Lieberman for carrying Florida. But Joe Lieberman. Getting
Speaker 1: Joe Lieberman was a way for Al Gore to separate
Speaker 1: from Bill Clinton on a character level in a way
Speaker 1: that served Gore well. I think when you look at
Speaker 1: the Gore surge, it really begins the naming of Lieberman
Speaker 1: and the idea that he was his own person. He
Speaker 1: was separating himself from Clinton. It was seen as you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest critic of Bill Clinton's morality in the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party at that time was seen as Joe Lieberman. So
Speaker 1: that created that and it you know, and boy did
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton hate those headlines. And I know there are
Speaker 1: some that will argue that Gore should have wrapped his
Speaker 1: arms around Clinton even more, right, And the one Democrat
Speaker 1: who did wrap his arms around Bill Clinton was a
Speaker 1: Democrat named Jade Dickie in the fourth District of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He was a Democratic incumbent. He wanted Bill Clinton's help,
Speaker 1: and Jay Dickey won reelection, and Bill Clinton made sure
Speaker 1: everybody knew that the one place he did campaign he
Speaker 1: was an asset, not a liability. Obviously that was Arkansas.
Speaker 1: But still we could And yet George W. Bush is essential.
Speaker 1: You know, he was running against Bill Clinton's character the
Speaker 1: entire campaign, right. His tagline was I'm going to restore
Speaker 1: honor and integrity into the White House. He wasn't running
Speaker 1: against Al Gore. He was running against Bill Clinton, miche Lewinsky,
Speaker 1: and he was running against sort of are you exhausted
Speaker 1: from this? Not saying whether he should be, he did not.
Speaker 1: You know, he separated himself from all the impeachment nut
Speaker 1: jobs and all of that stuff. But he was running
Speaker 1: on character and Gore taking character off the table. Suddenly
Speaker 1: even that race out. So and then you throw in
Speaker 1: the kiss, right, which said, hey, look at this marriage.
Speaker 1: Now the irony is of course Bill and Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: are still together, Alan Tipper or not, so you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, irony is what it is. But at
Speaker 1: the time, so you know, Lieberman did help. Collectively, it
Speaker 1: helped reinforce a message. Right, It's about reinforcing a message right,
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, picking Al Gore was reinforcing a youthful message.
Speaker 1: Now there was also a tactical reason he picked out
Speaker 1: Gore in it. At the time Ross Perot. When he
Speaker 1: picked out Gore, Ross Parou was the leader in the
Speaker 1: presidential race, it looked like an even three way race,
Speaker 1: that this was going to be an electoral college knife fight.
Speaker 1: And in an electoral college to knife fight in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, the Democrats benefit from a Southern strategy, so
Speaker 1: going with an all Southern ticket would have allowed them
Speaker 1: and it would open the door. And you basically, you know,
Speaker 1: the Democratic vote being largely African American in many of
Speaker 1: these Southern states, the Democratic floor is thirty eight thirty
Speaker 1: ninety percent in many of those states versus the Republican
Speaker 1: floor if you're splitting it with pro Now par ends
Speaker 1: up dropping out then getting back in, and Bush essentially
Speaker 1: consolidated enough vote where where only I think Clinton did
Speaker 1: carry Georgia, does Cary, Arkansas, it does carry Tennessee. So
Speaker 1: he certainly overperformed in the southern states having an all
Speaker 1: Southern ticket, But that was so I could make a
Speaker 1: both practical case and it reinforced this hey young change message, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, it's one of those things where you
Speaker 1: can argue both sides. Now, Kamala Harris, I don't think
Speaker 1: did a single thing for Joe Biden, right, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it hurt them. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: helped them. And I would love to know what val
Speaker 1: Deming's been enough to help find three percentage you know,
Speaker 1: three percentage points in Florida. I don't know, right, we can't.
Speaker 1: You know. That's that's why it's impossible to sit here
Speaker 1: and say, you know, can can these running mates help
Speaker 1: in a specific way? You know, did Vance add anything
Speaker 1: to the numbers in Ohio? For Trump? I'd argue no,
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Advance was an asset. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue that maybe he brought more problems, potential
Speaker 1: problems to the ticket than he did a good upside
Speaker 1: of course financially though for Trump, Vance was a huge
Speaker 1: upside because Silicon Valley wanted Advance and they gave Advance
Speaker 1: in the crypto community and they all came in heavy.
Speaker 1: So it so, I guess the question over VP picks
Speaker 1: are it's what do you need from your VP pick?
Speaker 1: Do you need a state? Do you need to unite
Speaker 1: a faction of your hardy right. Reagan picked Bush not
Speaker 1: for a state, but to bring the moderates into the fold,
Speaker 1: the sort of the forward wing of the party. It
Speaker 1: was originally going to be Reagan Ford in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: and it instead became Reagan Bush. So it is. There
Speaker 1: are examples of when it works or examples when it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's still usually like ninety five percent of the of
Speaker 1: the equation is the top of the ticket in a
Speaker 1: super close race. That's when you can look at examples
Speaker 1: of the bottom of Look. I think Sarah Palin helped
Speaker 1: McCain lose by less than he would have lost by.
Speaker 1: You know, McCain wanted Lieberman, Gore. Obama Biden I think
Speaker 1: beats McCain Lieberman by a bigger margin because the base
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, particularly the pro life community, would
Speaker 1: have probably sat on their hands. And I think that
Speaker 1: I think Obama probably wins Georgia. He already won North
Speaker 1: Carolina that here, and he probably gets awfully close in
Speaker 1: like a place like Mississippi or South Carolina. When I
Speaker 1: say awfully close, like within five points, I think it
Speaker 1: becomes because I think that was what McCain was warned about,
Speaker 1: which is, be careful if you pick a Democrat, particularly
Speaker 1: an abortion issue, back in two thousand and eight. So
Speaker 1: I'd argue that Sarah Palin helped McCain. I think Sarah
Speaker 1: Palin saved Georgia for the Republicans in that electoral So
Speaker 1: the point is is, I think you can you can
Speaker 1: look at it through one eye and make one case,
Speaker 1: look at it through the other eye. Again, it's still
Speaker 1: ninety five percent about the top of the ticket, but
Speaker 1: in a super close selection, everything matters, all right. Next question, Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I'm a recent college grad who now is the time
Speaker 1: to read for pleasure? Again? Do you have a book
Speaker 1: suggestion or two? I'd love a suggestion for a non
Speaker 1: political book if you have one. I'm from Michigan, where
Speaker 1: people are already canvassing for Jocelyn Benson at the local
Speaker 1: farmers market Mike dug and billboards are all over the place,
Speaker 1: and my phone is blowing up with political texts. I
Speaker 1: want some thing non political to read. Well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this stuff that I've I guess it's look. I'll
Speaker 1: admit I'm mostly a history and nerd. I if you're
Speaker 1: tired of the political side of things. But you want
Speaker 1: some nonfiction, I would recommend a few of these business biographies.
Speaker 1: You're from Michigan, I actually think you'd enjoy the memoir
Speaker 1: of Leiah Coca, who was the former chairman of Chrysler,
Speaker 1: because the coolest part of it is learning about Lei.
Speaker 1: Coca was the father of the Mustang. He's from soup
Speaker 1: to nuts, and the book helps you understand the history
Speaker 1: of the auto industry in Michigan. So that might be
Speaker 1: and it's an easy read. Look, Leah, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's a way back in time, so it's a forty
Speaker 1: five year old book, all right. So I apologize for going,
Speaker 1: but I was just trying to think of things that
Speaker 1: might can you know that might be of interest to you,
Speaker 1: tell you something about the history of your state out
Speaker 1: that If you're a baseball fan, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: books that I that I've really enjoyed over the years
Speaker 1: that are historical in nature. A history of the of
Speaker 1: the Negro leagues. It was called only the Ball Was White,
Speaker 1: and it was. It is a history of the legendary
Speaker 1: black players and all black professional teams. It's more than
Speaker 1: just a book about baseball. More than just a book
Speaker 1: about uh, racial justice. It's also a history of the country. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a history of that and so a purely entertainment book.
Speaker 1: If you're a basketball fan, uh history of the A
Speaker 1: B A, which was the league, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of it was the fun league of basketball. Right. The
Speaker 1: ABA gives three point shot. Right. If you like today's
Speaker 1: modern NBA, you have the a BA to thank, Right.
Speaker 1: The dunk contest began in the a BA, three point
Speaker 1: shot all those things all began in the A B A.
Speaker 1: It's an oral history called loose Ball, and it is
Speaker 1: just fabulous. There's Bob Costas, cameos, all sorts of fascinating
Speaker 1: figures from that era. And it also is culturally a
Speaker 1: great history of the nineteen seventies, the good and the
Speaker 1: bad and everything in between. It's great, there are and
Speaker 1: it triggered two other oral histories. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of oral histories. They're just I just enjoy them quite
Speaker 1: a bit. One is on the history of SNL by
Speaker 1: Tom Shales and the History of SNL, which was done
Speaker 1: I believe it was for the fortieth anniversary at the
Speaker 1: time by Tom Shales and Andrew Miller and James, excuse me,
Speaker 1: and James and Jim Miller, who's somebody I've known a
Speaker 1: long time, sort of in the history of the TV business.
Speaker 1: They also did the History of ESPN, which also was
Speaker 1: a fun, little oral history of sort of ESPN's early
Speaker 1: days in the late seventies and eighties and all the
Speaker 1: different near misses for esp and both positive and negative.
Speaker 1: So those were fun and oral histories that they're very
Speaker 1: thick books, but oral histories you can read fast. And
Speaker 1: if you're looking for some fiction older Karl Hyason is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. His new stuff's too political. It
Speaker 1: won't give you the break that you're looking for. So
Speaker 1: I have no idea whether I gave you good ideas
Speaker 1: or not, whether it's anything that will entertain you there.
Speaker 1: And I apologize for giving you older books, because all
Speaker 1: the new stuff that I read is all history and
Speaker 1: politics these days. All right. Next question, it's from Jim
Speaker 1: in Tobahana, Pennsylvania. But he says, go Buffalo bills. Do
Speaker 1: you anticipate there may be any modifications in the post
Speaker 1: Trump era to limit executive power? Well, I hope so,
Speaker 1: But I don't think anybody runs for president of a
Speaker 1: major party nomination and then comes in and limits their
Speaker 1: own power. Right, they'll say it. Joe Biden said he
Speaker 1: would support, for instance, uh decreasing executive authority on the
Speaker 1: More Powers Act and things like that. But did he
Speaker 1: do it right? Did it actually happen. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to take an outsider breaking up both parties for
Speaker 1: a for a term or something like that that runs
Speaker 1: on this and runs on sort of constitutional restoration of
Speaker 1: the of the checks and balances. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if the public is ready for a message like that yet.
Speaker 1: I wish it were. I think this is desperately needed.
Speaker 1: I think we're we're you know. I think this redistricting
Speaker 1: knife fight that we're seeing between you know, best exemplified
Speaker 1: by Texas and California, is a primal scream for a
Speaker 1: constitutional convention. We really need to refresh the rules of
Speaker 1: our democracy and rebuild some things here. Some of it
Speaker 1: needs to be refreshed, some of it needs to be renewed,
Speaker 1: and some of it needs to be subtracted. An attitude, right,
Speaker 1: but we have a mess in our hands. It is
Speaker 1: created the conditions that allow for somebody to hijack the government,
Speaker 1: and that's what's been happened, right, it's, you know, a
Speaker 1: cult of personality, reanimated a dying political party and was
Speaker 1: able to shape it into his own vision. And it
Speaker 1: is he has recreated a political machine without it without
Speaker 1: an ideology. If anything, it's just a cult of personality.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've ever read the history of Tammany
Speaker 1: Hall or any of these party machines. Trump is trying
Speaker 1: to essentially bring it back, bring back the political machine,
Speaker 1: if you will, and Democrats might be you know, my
Speaker 1: fear is that in reaction, Democrats sort of start behaving
Speaker 1: like machine party themselves, right, and they're doing it now,
Speaker 1: rallying around a bad idea like redistricting in California. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're answer to disenfranchising voters in Texas is to
Speaker 1: disenfranchised voters in California. And you want to be the
Speaker 1: constitutional party, You want to be the adult in the room.
Speaker 1: So I think there will be an appetite by some
Speaker 1: to try to limit to try to sort of Trump
Speaker 1: proof the presidency after he leaves, But a lot of
Speaker 1: it depends on who replaces him and how he's replaced.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll make this the final question here. This
Speaker 1: comes from Marcus R. President Trump is attack pressured and
Speaker 1: threatened federal employees, colleges, media organizations, corporations, foreign countries, state governments,
Speaker 1: FESA holders, legal immigrants, and others with little to no
Speaker 1: resistance or consequences. His attacks are often based on dubious
Speaker 1: assertions or outright lies. It seems like he already has
Speaker 1: the power of a king. What would stop him from
Speaker 1: issuing an executive order stating that the Democratic Party is
Speaker 1: a terrorist organization and all Democratic leaders have the choice
Speaker 1: of switching to the Republican Party or be arrested. Based
Speaker 1: on the previous responses from the Democratic Party leaders to
Speaker 1: Trump's power grabs, it seems like they would fall apart,
Speaker 1: like what toilet paper if that happened? Thank you? Well, look,
Speaker 1: you get at sort of the dilemma that I think
Speaker 1: the Trump resistance is running into. How do you push
Speaker 1: back on this and do you use any means necessary
Speaker 1: or do you try to continue to follow some form
Speaker 1: of principles so that you can win the argument the
Speaker 1: right way? And maybe it's easy for me to say,
Speaker 1: you know, ends justifies the means, Well, you know this
Speaker 1: is not going to end well, and I still don't
Speaker 1: believe it ends well. If Donald Trump is able to
Speaker 1: successfully radicalize both parties, that's troubling and that's my fear here.
Speaker 1: And yet you're not wrong. I think the real problem
Speaker 1: and the real reason why Trump is getting away with
Speaker 1: more this term than he did the last term, is
Speaker 1: that we're missing Republicans with spines. There were quite a
Speaker 1: few Republicans that had working spines in the twenty seven
Speaker 1: seen in twenty eighteen. There are no elected Republicans left
Speaker 1: with a spine outside of Lisa Murkowski, right, I think
Speaker 1: she's it. Maybe Spencer Cox in Utah, maybe so, maybe
Speaker 1: the governor of Vermont has a spine, and Bill Scott.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, right, there's no Republican pushback
Speaker 1: because the Republican pushback gave the Democratic pushback legitimacy. Right,
Speaker 1: It gave cover to corporate leaders to feel as if
Speaker 1: they were being above politics by pushing back. And you know,
Speaker 1: Trump basically crying bias and partisanship at every criticism has
Speaker 1: effectively neutered critics, the non political critics, and now the
Speaker 1: Democrats are alone in criticizing, right. It's a that's a
Speaker 1: I guess to catch twenty two if you want to
Speaker 1: use that metaphor. But it certainly, I think is a
Speaker 1: problem that the real, I mean, the real failure of
Speaker 1: accountability on Trump is his own party, right you know
Speaker 1: that the Democrats can only do so much here, they
Speaker 1: were more The reason there was successful pushback of Trump
Speaker 1: in eighteen is that it was bipartisan. It was coming
Speaker 1: from a multiple corners, you know, obviously more from one
Speaker 1: spot than the other. But you know, I don't see
Speaker 1: any new List Cheney's walking through that door. I don't
Speaker 1: see any new Bob Corker's walking through that door. I
Speaker 1: don't see any new Jeff Flake's walking through that door.
Speaker 1: So it's I think that's I think that's why it
Speaker 1: feels like the Democrats don't know what to do. It
Speaker 1: is also a party that's just a mess right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've seen it. It's you know this is
Speaker 1: this goes back to and my last substack got into this,
Speaker 1: but you know it, the party was so convinced that
Speaker 1: demographs were on their side. It's almost as if they
Speaker 1: decided they didn't need to have to worry about what
Speaker 1: voters thought of them because the demographics were going to
Speaker 1: overcome any messaging problems that they would have. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you lose two and a half million voter registrations
Speaker 1: in four years while the other party gains two and
Speaker 1: a half million voter registrations, right, You've lost. You've lost
Speaker 1: the plot on this front. I think it's I'm shocked
Speaker 1: that there has not been a bigger house cleaning of
Speaker 1: democratic leadership. I'm shocked that there's not been more innovative
Speaker 1: ideas try you know more. I'm shocked at the at
Speaker 1: the you know, I think the reason Gavin Newsom has
Speaker 1: sort of filled the void for the moment is nobody
Speaker 1: else is filling the void. But I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: the answer. But maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm the one
Speaker 1: that's out of touch. But I think that if the
Speaker 1: answer to an undemomocratic, unconstitutional movement is not to throw
Speaker 1: away democratic principles and throw away constitutional ideals, I just
Speaker 1: think the long term consequences of that it sort of
Speaker 1: I think it accelerates our decline and accelerates the possibility
Speaker 1: that would lose the republic. I think you got to
Speaker 1: give the voters something to fight for. If everything is
Speaker 1: becomes purely transactional, which in some ways the Democrats are
Speaker 1: accepting that premise, right, if you accept the premise that
Speaker 1: this is the only rule that matters, you know that
Speaker 1: that is how that is how democracies crumble, right, That's
Speaker 1: essentially what Turkey is. Yeah, it's a democracy sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's just that sort of. And by
Speaker 1: the way, everything's gotten worse than Turkey everything, so it
Speaker 1: hasn't been good for them to be this sort of
Speaker 1: democratic authoritarianism that they've been under, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what Trump's trying to create, right, authoritarianism with democratic sort
Speaker 1: of support, if you will, smalldy. But I think you're
Speaker 1: right to be concerned about what Trump will do. I
Speaker 1: just you know, I do think that lived experience will
Speaker 1: still trump everything else, and if everybody's paying more to
Speaker 1: get by, it does. I don't know how many indictments
Speaker 1: or proclamations he can put out. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he can win that, you know, if he can overcome
Speaker 1: that obstacle. All right with that, I hope do you?
Speaker 1: This is for some of you, the last week before
Speaker 1: the big big September push. For others, it's a back
Speaker 1: to school week for quite a few, particularly on the
Speaker 1: university level classes. If it didn't start last week. Just
Speaker 1: about everything else starts this week, So with that, I
Speaker 1: will take a rest for forty eight hours and see
Speaker 1: you on Wednesday. M m hmmm mm hmm