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Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I am not
Speaker 1: in studio. I am traveling. I am in Miami. I'm
Speaker 1: on a sort of a three city excursion here. I'll
Speaker 1: be in Miami, I'll be in Charlotte. I got a
Speaker 1: trip to New York all this week. I just came
Speaker 1: from Austin. I want to actually give a report on that.
Speaker 1: It was a participant at the Texas Tribune Festival where
Speaker 1: I interviewed Wes Moore. Actually, a part of that conversation
Speaker 1: I'm going to have in the feed later this week,
Speaker 1: so you will get a full opportunity to hear that conversation.
Speaker 1: But with that, let me get started with a quick
Speaker 1: little take on where we're at at the moment in
Speaker 1: our current politics, and where we're at is we have
Speaker 1: a president who is in the midst of a feeding frenzy,
Speaker 1: and it is a feeding frenzy that he can't control,
Speaker 1: and he is flailing. We've been in these positions with
Speaker 1: him before and he always navigates his way out of it.
Speaker 1: But this time is different. As I said in our
Speaker 1: previous episode, we've got a struggling economy, something that he's
Speaker 1: actually reacting to that's fascinating and I want to get
Speaker 1: to that also in this episode. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, his what he's doing and how he's
Speaker 1: reacting to this Epstein situation is not exactly the way
Speaker 1: somebody who's innocent would be reacting it is. There's so
Speaker 1: many aspects of this that are strange when it comes
Speaker 1: to the way he's treated this story. I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: go back to something and I know, just set aside
Speaker 1: everything you know about the story, but think about it
Speaker 1: in this way. Donald Trump has the ability to b
Speaker 1: as his way out of you know, he lies, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the way water flows out of a faucet, right,
Speaker 1: He's very comfortable doing that, and he'll say whatever it
Speaker 1: takes today to put off something that may be coming tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and if he's got to say something else tomorrow, I'll
Speaker 1: say something else tomorrow. The big head scratcher here on
Speaker 1: this one is why he has chosen to be so
Speaker 1: lenient on Gallayne Maxwell. And to me, this is the
Speaker 1: part I want to focus on first. And then I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to what is clearly an overreaction to
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey, and I'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a second, But I keep coming back to
Speaker 1: this Kallaine Maxwell. And again when you get when we
Speaker 1: get to my time the time Machine segment today, you'll
Speaker 1: see where I'm going. But the reason there's an assumption
Speaker 1: lying about something is because there's so many politicians that
Speaker 1: have preceded him over the last fifty years that have
Speaker 1: always lied to protect themselves first, and eventually the truth
Speaker 1: would come out. It just sometimes would take years and
Speaker 1: in some cases decades. What's a head scratcher about the
Speaker 1: way he has treated Gallaine Maxwell is he seems to
Speaker 1: fear her, And the question is why does he fear her?
Speaker 1: She's in jail number one, number two. She was convicted
Speaker 1: of essentially helping Epstein traffic underage women. He could easily
Speaker 1: be wanting to throw the book at her, and instead
Speaker 1: of putting her in a club fed, he could have
Speaker 1: been putting her in solitary or making her life even
Speaker 1: more miserable, rather than trying to be lenient. And for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, he really wants her not to say anything
Speaker 1: bad about it, even though if she did, he could
Speaker 1: just simply say she's lying. She you know that he
Speaker 1: had a story that was plausible enough that would likely
Speaker 1: have kept everybody on his side. Right. The story was
Speaker 1: Epstein was being a creep, he was recruiting, He and
Speaker 1: Glane were recruiting women from mar A Lago. He had
Speaker 1: had enough, he kicked him out, end of the relationship.
Speaker 1: Why is he keep pulling Glaine Maxwell back into his orbit?
Speaker 1: And I'll just say this, there is something else in
Speaker 1: his life. There's there There is something that she knows about.
Speaker 1: Perhaps there's something she assisted him with. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: relationship he has or had with somebody. But there is
Speaker 1: something that he has that hasn't come out that he
Speaker 1: apparently is petrified of that she knows. Because there really
Speaker 1: seems to be no other explanation, because he could be
Speaker 1: behaving the exact opposite way and the fact that he
Speaker 1: isn't is a head scratcher, and someday, maybe sooner, maybe
Speaker 1: it'll take a while, we'll find out for sure. Maybe
Speaker 1: she knows the origin story of his personal life, Maybe
Speaker 1: she knows things that we don't know about the origin
Speaker 1: story of his marriage. None of us know for sure.
Speaker 1: His behavior is making it easier to go down conspiratorial lanes,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like he is either purposely doing this
Speaker 1: just to try to create more fog, which is not
Speaker 1: totally out of character for him, or there's something that
Speaker 1: Maxwell has that he just can't he just can't risk,
Speaker 1: and so he's got to figure out. So we'll see. Look,
Speaker 1: if he commutes her sentence and releases her, that will
Speaker 1: be you know, not just one red flag, right, that
Speaker 1: would be a thousand red flags. But let's go to
Speaker 1: the other part of this story, which is his decision
Speaker 1: to punish Marjorie Taylor Green unendorse her. We already know
Speaker 1: he's sicked his political machine on Thomas Massey trying to
Speaker 1: primary him. There's an interesting pattern here Trump. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who is Trump dumped or pulled his
Speaker 1: endorsement from, or tried to defeat in his side of
Speaker 1: the aisle who disagreed with him on an issue of substance. Right,
Speaker 1: he went after those that voted to impeach him after
Speaker 1: January sixth, right, the ten, and he is he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to forget those. He's still got vendettas against anybody
Speaker 1: that voted to convict him in the Senate. Hence why
Speaker 1: I think there's still no endorsement for Bil Cassidy, and
Speaker 1: I don't think there will ever be an endorsement for
Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy in his senatecy. But none of these he
Speaker 1: is he is angrier at Massy and Green for simply
Speaker 1: voting for transparency on the Epstein files. Then he's as
Speaker 1: angry at them as he was against the ten House
Speaker 1: Republicans that voted to impeach him after January six It
Speaker 1: is it is if this is this, and the irony is,
Speaker 1: he's got plenty of ways that they're likely going to
Speaker 1: kill this. Right, he's got the Senate. We'll see. Look,
Speaker 1: I think if there's a hundred or more House Republicans
Speaker 1: that vote with the Democrats on this, and I think
Speaker 1: there will be that many. I do think that once
Speaker 1: this vote goes on the record, there's a reason Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson wanted to try to just release the files as
Speaker 1: a unanimous consent because he doesn't want to recorded vote.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of House Republicans that don't want
Speaker 1: to have to vote against the President on this, but
Speaker 1: they're more petrified of not voting to release files having
Speaker 1: to do with a pedophile. So that's one. The second
Speaker 1: way they could kill it is maybe in the Senate,
Speaker 1: but if it gets one hundred or more House votes,
Speaker 1: I think there are thirteen Senate votes. Now maybe leaders
Speaker 1: Senate leadership just finds different ways never to bring it
Speaker 1: to the floor. But somebody's going to bring this to
Speaker 1: the floor. Somebody's going to be able to introduce it,
Speaker 1: and then it's possible Trump could be to it. But
Speaker 1: don't underestimate what the Justice Department just did with this
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump railed Rented on social media demanding that
Speaker 1: Pambondi started an investigation into Democrats in their relationship with Epstein.
Speaker 1: Because here's what's likely to happen. If there's an open
Speaker 1: investigation that the Justice Department is conducting having to do
Speaker 1: with people and their associations with Epstein, then it's likely
Speaker 1: they go to a court and say, hey, we can't
Speaker 1: have these files released because it's currently a part of
Speaker 1: an investigation. Right there's been a lot of conversation. One
Speaker 1: of the knee jerk right wing talking points is, well,
Speaker 1: the Biden folks could have released this, Well, they were
Speaker 1: in the middle of an investigation, so they couldn't release
Speaker 1: any files at the time. Now the investigation, in theory
Speaker 1: is over. But if they're reopening an investigation, then suddenly
Speaker 1: that is that likely will mean that will be used.
Speaker 1: This quote open investigation will be used as saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we can't release any of this material. It may matter
Speaker 1: in an investigation and we don't want to have to
Speaker 1: put all that out earlier. So it's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pads, I think for this to be to have
Speaker 1: these files prevented from being released to the public. There's
Speaker 1: a handful of ways. You can see how it could
Speaker 1: be Senate leadership that does it. It could be that
Speaker 1: President Trump vetos it, or it could simply be the
Speaker 1: Justice Department goes to court to say they can't because
Speaker 1: there's an open investigation. Because Pambondi agreed to open investigation
Speaker 1: just to investigate Democrats in their relationship with Epstein. So
Speaker 1: the point is it's how much, it's how rattled he
Speaker 1: is on this, and when he's rattled, this is when
Speaker 1: mistakes get made, and he's rattled at a time when
Speaker 1: the other parts of his job aren't going very well. Right,
Speaker 1: you have, it's pretty clear that this economy is not
Speaker 1: working for people that don't have money. He is realizing
Speaker 1: how badly the inflation issue is impacting, particularly his voters,
Speaker 1: because he's doing something he said he'd never do. He's
Speaker 1: getting rid of tariffs on food and coffee. Now, what's
Speaker 1: interesting is how all of his surrogates went out on
Speaker 1: the Sunday shows and they won't say that they're getting
Speaker 1: rid of the tariffs, like they keep not trying to
Speaker 1: use the word, or they keep saying, no, we're lowering costs. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're getting rid of the tariffs. So the terrorists raised costs. No,
Speaker 1: the terifts didn't raise any costs. But we're going to
Speaker 1: lower costs on food. There's this weird they don't you know.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump can't ever admit he's wrong. And the fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is these tariffs. Foreigners didn't pay these fees.
Speaker 1: You and I did. We've been paying this. If you've
Speaker 1: bought a banana recently, you paid tariffs. So if he's
Speaker 1: going to sit here and refund this to some people,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if they're even able to do that,
Speaker 1: we're going to find out soon enough. He's likely to
Speaker 1: lose at least some of this tariff authority in court.
Speaker 1: He probably will try to find another way in the
Speaker 1: law to try to try to implement some of these tariffs,
Speaker 1: and I think there are a few other levers he
Speaker 1: can pull that he'll be able to do this. But
Speaker 1: the reality is is that you know, despite everything he
Speaker 1: claimed that somehow Americans weren't going to be paying this tax,
Speaker 1: Americans have paid this tax. We have been getting more
Speaker 1: tax on food, particularly fruits, vegetables, stuff that comes from overseas,
Speaker 1: plus coffee. So the fact that they're dropping them shows
Speaker 1: you that there's a bit of an acknowledgment that number one,
Speaker 1: prices haven't calmed down, they've gone up, and number two,
Speaker 1: he's been the reason why prices have gone up. And
Speaker 1: then finally he's got to deal with this healthcare issue
Speaker 1: and the fact that premiums are everybody now that is
Speaker 1: is that is on the Obamacare exchanges, is seeing that
Speaker 1: the premiums are about to go up if they were
Speaker 1: getting some of these subsidies, it looks to me like
Speaker 1: there's going to be an extension of these subsidies. Is
Speaker 1: it a year, is it is it a year with
Speaker 1: a few extra strings attached. I think all of those
Speaker 1: things are possible, But I do want to highlight something
Speaker 1: Rick Scott said. Rick Scott made it crystal clear in
Speaker 1: a Sunday Show interview earlier that they were not going
Speaker 1: to repeal Obamacare and that you know, there was not
Speaker 1: going they were not that they that all insurance was
Speaker 1: going you know, they weren't going to repeat or the
Speaker 1: pre existing condition issue. Because the only way to save
Speaker 1: money on this on on these insurance exchanges in OBAMACAREA
Speaker 1: is if you let insurance companies essentially cherry pick who
Speaker 1: they get to cover and if you don't have a
Speaker 1: pre existing condition, and they can shift people with pre
Speaker 1: existing conditions and make them pay higher rates but have
Speaker 1: healthy people pay super low rates. That's you know that
Speaker 1: that's the system we had before, which didn't work for anybody.
Speaker 1: So the fact that Rick Scott is saying we are
Speaker 1: not going to do that because you cannot have insurance
Speaker 1: companies be able to not accept clients because of a
Speaker 1: pre existing condition. This is why the system didn't work before.
Speaker 1: But the talking point that is really bizarre to me,
Speaker 1: as they're saying, well, they want to they don't want
Speaker 1: to give this money to the insurance companies, are going
Speaker 1: to give it to the American people. Well, where do
Speaker 1: they think the American people is going to spend this money?
Speaker 1: Can you get health insurance coverage without paying an insurance company?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess unless we're going to be doing
Speaker 1: Medicare for all, is that the plan. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's going to be the plan that comes from the
Speaker 1: Republican side of the aisle. But if you don't want
Speaker 1: to pay insurance companies, who else do you pay? And
Speaker 1: if you would like to get rid of the insurance companies,
Speaker 1: if you hate insurance companies, Bernie Sanders would love to
Speaker 1: talk with you. He's got a plan, Republicans. If you
Speaker 1: don't like insurance companies and you don't want to pay
Speaker 1: insurance companies, He's got a terrific idea just do it
Speaker 1: straight with the government. So it's a strange talking point
Speaker 1: that they're using. But the point is they know this
Speaker 1: is not good politics for them. They know that they
Speaker 1: have to deal with this, and I think they're going
Speaker 1: to deal with this soon. But this Epstein thing, it's
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, there was a deodorant commercial
Speaker 1: for a deodorant called Sure. And this is back when
Speaker 1: we had aerosolt deodorance. And you know that the aerosolt
Speaker 1: the odorance was gross. You know, thankfully, you know, we
Speaker 1: had such a we were so worried about the ozone
Speaker 1: layer back then. They finally got rid of those things,
Speaker 1: which is there's a whole bunch of us that are
Speaker 1: thankful for that. That was just gross. You walk into
Speaker 1: a gem and you'd always smell that sort of aerosol deodorant.
Speaker 1: It was disgusting. But the Sure, I always said, never
Speaker 1: let him see his sweat was sort of the tagline
Speaker 1: for Sure deodorant. Well, Donald Trump is letting all of
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Speaker 1: He is clearly nervous about all things up sent it
Speaker 1: is his personal obsession. He is trying to enact political
Speaker 1: and vendettas having to do with it. He is making
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green a martyr. He is giving, he is
Speaker 1: helping get her mainstreamed with independency. She is proudly calling herself,
Speaker 1: you know, Maga without him, And that's the thing like
Speaker 1: he is not. You know, I do think Thomas Massey,
Speaker 1: who was a sort of America first Conservative before Donald
Speaker 1: Trump ever showed up. Marjorie Taylor Green's beliefs clearly aligned
Speaker 1: closer with a with a conservative that's more in line
Speaker 1: with Massy than she is with Trump. Trump is always
Speaker 1: as many a Trump advisor will quietly let me know,
Speaker 1: he's always the least Maga person in any room you
Speaker 1: walk into, wherever you go with maga, Trump's the least
Speaker 1: Maga and he's become obsessed with the deal making overseas.
Speaker 1: He's become obsessed with all the money he's making off
Speaker 1: of his ac off of his influence in government. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much the opposite of what the true believers in MAGA,
Speaker 1: those that did want to go after the elites, who
Speaker 1: thought the elites were using government to enrich themselves, And
Speaker 1: what's Donald Trump doing using government to enrich himself. So look,
Speaker 1: I wrote it in my substeck last week, and I
Speaker 1: think that so far everything is playing out sort of
Speaker 1: exactly how I sort of was laying it out, and
Speaker 1: I think we're going to continue to see it. His
Speaker 1: influence is waning more Republicans discover every day that he
Speaker 1: will never be on a ballot again, and just keep
Speaker 1: an eye on. So he's already gone after Massey, and
Speaker 1: it's not really going that well. Thomas Massey's primary is
Speaker 1: going is May nineteenth, and that's fairly early in the
Speaker 1: primary season. There's a lot more though, you know, we
Speaker 1: have a few states in March, couple states in April,
Speaker 1: but most of the primaries are in June, than a
Speaker 1: big chunk in August, and are remaining a few in September.
Speaker 1: If Massy wins, and right now, I'd rather be Massy
Speaker 1: than anybody else in that Republican primary. He's had a
Speaker 1: hard time finding anybody. It's yet going to be another
Speaker 1: reminder that the Emperor is losing his clothes. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say the Emperor has no clothes at the moment,
Speaker 1: but I think the Emperor is starting to shed some
Speaker 1: clothes at the moment. And if he is trying to
Speaker 1: punish somebody and he can't do it right, he already
Speaker 1: lost one big one with Brian Kemp. And remember why
Speaker 1: he turned on Brian Kemp. He turned on Brian Kemp
Speaker 1: over January sixth. In the election. He turned on Brian
Speaker 1: Kemp because Brian Kemp wouldn't do an illegal act, right,
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp wouldn't abide by his by Donald Trump's wishes.
Speaker 1: So again this pattern. The only time Donald Trump wants
Speaker 1: to punish a fellow Republican is when they won't go
Speaker 1: along with something that just is bullshit. Right. They won't
Speaker 1: go along on the Epstein files, they won't go along
Speaker 1: on January sixth, they won't go along on the election.
Speaker 1: And whether they're it's the only time he turns on folks.
Speaker 1: He doesn't ever really turn on him over policy disagreements.
Speaker 1: He only turns on him if he thinks other people
Speaker 1: are going to embarrass them him because they won't keep
Speaker 1: his lap. And when Massey wins that primary in May,
Speaker 1: it's yet going to be another chink in the armor,
Speaker 1: and it's going to continue to open the store and
Speaker 1: everybody is. It's just getting easier and easier to separate
Speaker 1: yourself from Donald Trump. And there's going to be these
Speaker 1: different lease a little small. The Epstein vote is going
Speaker 1: to be a step in that direction, and you're going
Speaker 1: to see one hundred or more House members do it.
Speaker 1: When the Supreme Court rules against his tariffs, you're going
Speaker 1: to see a whole bunch of Republicans suddenly find their
Speaker 1: free trade spines again, and they'll put out releases talking
Speaker 1: about following the Constitution. So these little and then you're
Speaker 1: going to see, you know, as people are upset about
Speaker 1: the costs rising costs, you're going to see more in
Speaker 1: Republicans look for ways to potentially separate themselves from the
Speaker 1: White House, but certainly to more directly appeal to voters,
Speaker 1: either in different ways to try to get rid of terrorists,
Speaker 1: the lower costs, or to question big tech and what
Speaker 1: they're doing to raise our electric bills with all these
Speaker 1: data centers that are going up all over the place.
Speaker 1: So I do think we are witnessing, like I said
Speaker 1: before the beginning of the lame ducification of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: One other thing before we get to the interview that
Speaker 1: I want to get to. So I spent Thursday and
Speaker 1: Friday in Austin, Texas the Texas Tribune Festival. They have
Speaker 1: it every year. I've been to it a few times.
Speaker 1: They asked me to moderate a conversation with Maryland Governor
Speaker 1: Wes Moore. I think I told you I was doing
Speaker 1: that while I was there. I also it kind of
Speaker 1: unofficially became a bit of a cattle call for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight presidential candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle.
Speaker 1: Wes Moore was there, Pete Bootage was there, Tim Walls
Speaker 1: was there, Chris Murphy was there. So, you know, while
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say it was,
Speaker 1: you had a whole bunch of people looking for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight candidates. I think they were there looking for
Speaker 1: people to fight Donald Trump more than anything else. It
Speaker 1: was interesting the various conversations that were had. Look, I
Speaker 1: would say the attendees at the Texas Tribune Festival were
Speaker 1: folks looking to fight Trump. These were folks that are,
Speaker 1: you know, fall on the left side of the aisle.
Speaker 1: They were there looking for They're looking for hope, you know,
Speaker 1: looking for a stronger vision in the Democratic Party looking
Speaker 1: in some cases, I think many of them probably were
Speaker 1: a little further to the left than probably the average
Speaker 1: rank and file member of the Democratic Party. And like
Speaker 1: I said, the wes More conversation, you know, I was
Speaker 1: intrigued by the sort of the tone he took. He
Speaker 1: knew this audience was very liberal, and yet he didn't
Speaker 1: try to play to the audience. He really hugged the
Speaker 1: center lane in ways that I didn't fully expect him
Speaker 1: to hug it. He made it clear that, you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't view himself as tied to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: He was a Democrat, but that didn't mean he would
Speaker 1: abide by everything the Democratic Party was for. I thought
Speaker 1: that was an interesting distinction. Always a little bit easier
Speaker 1: for governors to say that than any other officeholder, but
Speaker 1: he went out of his way to say that. I
Speaker 1: thought that was intriguing, and I do think it's you know,
Speaker 1: when he goes through I mean, his military experience is
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's some you know, John Kerrey
Speaker 1: used to get criticized by some who thought that he
Speaker 1: used his military he went into the military for political purposes.
Speaker 1: I don't care if somebody went into the military for
Speaker 1: political purposes. That doesn't bother me. But some people think, oh,
Speaker 1: you're doing it to check a box. That isn't why
Speaker 1: Wes Moore joined the military, and that's what he got
Speaker 1: in I you know, I I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: here and question the motive of somebody that chooses to
Speaker 1: put themselves in a position where they could put themselves
Speaker 1: in harms way because they think it'll look good on
Speaker 1: a political resume. I'm not saying some haven't thought about
Speaker 1: it that in those terms. But if you're willing to
Speaker 1: do that, then I've got no problem with that. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that you're trying to have a variety of experiences
Speaker 1: in order to in order to be a better leader
Speaker 1: if you do get a shot at being a small
Speaker 1: d democratic leader of this country. So I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a huge deal, but I do think his military
Speaker 1: experience a little bit different right when you join at seventeen,
Speaker 1: and he was already had gone to military school. So
Speaker 1: I just think he's I don't think he's a conventional
Speaker 1: liberal Democrat, is my point. And I didn't fully appreciate
Speaker 1: that until you had, until you have this longer conversation,
Speaker 1: I was intrigued by him. I thought it was I
Speaker 1: thought some of his answers, his defensive capitalism was quite interesting. Again,
Speaker 1: later this week, we're going to drop this into the feed,
Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to this conversation, you
Speaker 1: can listen to the whole conversation. I actually used it
Speaker 1: also this week in my new sphere, so those of
Speaker 1: you that are a member of Newsphere, you can check
Speaker 1: out Sunday Night with Chuck Todd. That was a big
Speaker 1: chunk of that interview appeared there as well. But there
Speaker 1: was one other thing I wanted to bring up, because
Speaker 1: both he and Tim Walls. I saw Tim Wall's conversation.
Speaker 1: He was in conversation with Jennifer Paul Mary, a longtime
Speaker 1: Democratic operative, and I asked both jen asked Tim Walls
Speaker 1: a question about sort of what does Trump do well?
Speaker 1: And I asked a question, what does Trump get right?
Speaker 1: You know to wes Moore some version of it, and
Speaker 1: they both said the same thing. You know, he acts,
Speaker 1: it's moved, he moves quickly. I think Tim Wall said,
Speaker 1: he moves quickly and he goes. You know one thing
Speaker 1: Trump does well, what wes Moore said, is that there's
Speaker 1: always action. Right. He doesn't wait around for a commission,
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a committee to study something before trying
Speaker 1: to implement it. A lot of times he tries to
Speaker 1: implement things even when he doesn't have the authority to
Speaker 1: do it. But he's always but the voter sees him
Speaker 1: trying to do something, sees him trying to fulfill a
Speaker 1: promise that he made, even if it ends up being
Speaker 1: kind of an empty fulfillment, he still attempts to do it.
Speaker 1: It tells me that the next Democratic president is if
Speaker 1: there's one thing they're going to attempt to emulate from Trump,
Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot more signing ceremonies, a
Speaker 1: lot more public signing ceremonies, a lot more executive orders,
Speaker 1: a lot more attempts at doing rather than studying, and
Speaker 1: maybe even trying to do too much rather than looking back,
Speaker 1: like I think many in the Obama years do and
Speaker 1: wonder was that was the two years that he had
Speaker 1: full where he had fifty nine to sixty Senate seats.
Speaker 1: He had sixty for a while and it was back
Speaker 1: to fifty nine a fairly large House majority. Was that
Speaker 1: did he was getting healthcare? Was great? Should he have
Speaker 1: just kept pushing the envelope, tried to get cap and trade?
Speaker 1: Just pushed, pushed, pushed, and because no matter what there
Speaker 1: was going to be, they were going to lose the
Speaker 1: mid terms, no matter what. So you might as well
Speaker 1: have done as much as you can. Because what's the
Speaker 1: lesson Donald Trump has taken. Do as much as you
Speaker 1: can while you can, because you really never know how
Speaker 1: long you're going to be there. And I think the
Speaker 1: fact that both Wesmore and Tim Walls that that's one
Speaker 1: of the lessons those that's the initial and when when
Speaker 1: they're asked what does Trump do well or what does
Speaker 1: Trump get right? That both of them and I don't
Speaker 1: think they talked to each other about this. I don't
Speaker 1: think either. I don't think More the Wall said at first.
Speaker 1: I think More heard Tim Wall say this. It didn't
Speaker 1: really go viral or anything like that, So I don't
Speaker 1: think he's alone and I've heard this from quite a
Speaker 1: few other Democrats that that they get frustrated. They think
Speaker 1: when you know, well, he's he's signing these executors they're
Speaker 1: kind of meaningless. Yeah, ninety percent of them are meaningless.
Speaker 1: But the message to the voters is he's trying that
Speaker 1: he's making an effort, that he's doing something. Nobody ever
Speaker 1: wonders whether you know. I think it's why Trump's erratic
Speaker 1: health isn't hurting him quite yet as much as it
Speaker 1: hurt Biden, because Biden didn't look like he was doing
Speaker 1: as much. So then you wondered, why is an he's
Speaker 1: doing as much? So it is it is. It was
Speaker 1: just intriguing that that that that was singled out. But
Speaker 1: again I go back. My big takeaway from Wes Moore
Speaker 1: is that he is he is definitely not going to
Speaker 1: be running as a mainstream liberal Democrat. I think he
Speaker 1: is going to be running as something a bit differ.
Speaker 1: And those that are thinking this is the second coming
Speaker 1: of Obama, I would say, I think it's more likely
Speaker 1: the second coming of Bill Clinton than it is Barack Obama.
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Speaker 1: check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless
Speaker 1: they win. Let's go into the podcast time machine. So
Speaker 1: it's the week of November seventeenth through the twenty third,
Speaker 1: And you know what I like to do, go back
Speaker 1: in history, and we're just looking at this these seven days,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, this is quite I stumbled
Speaker 1: onto what is conspiracy theory Week? In American history? Three
Speaker 1: moments in particular have anniversaries this week. The Jonestown massacre,
Speaker 1: the kool Aid drinking November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight. There's,
Speaker 1: of course, the jfk assassination November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: and the eighteen and a half minute gap in the
Speaker 1: Nixon tapes was revealed on November twenty first, nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: three events that on their own would be enough to
Speaker 1: bend the country's imagination, but together, stacked on the same
Speaker 1: week of the calendar, I think they tell us something
Speaker 1: a bit more profound about why Americans believe conspiracies and
Speaker 1: why those beliefs are so durable. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this is also the same energy right now fueling our
Speaker 1: current national fixation on the Epstein files, where the fantastical
Speaker 1: spreads faster than any known fact. But we only have
Speaker 1: one type of person to blame, the elected American elected
Speaker 1: official right, So let's get to the time machine. So
Speaker 1: we're going to start with Jonestown. That's when conspiracy thinking
Speaker 1: became catastrophic. It's November. We're going to go back to
Speaker 1: November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight in Jonestown. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people think of Jonestown as a cult tragedy, and
Speaker 1: it is, but it's also the story of how a
Speaker 1: closed information system can destroy a human judgment. Jim Jones,
Speaker 1: the cult leader, didn't just isolate his followers physically. He
Speaker 1: isolated them psychologically, emotionally, and informationally. He convinced them that
Speaker 1: outsiders were coming to kill them. He convinced them that
Speaker 1: only he understood the truth. He convinced them that everyone else,
Speaker 1: from the media to the US government was lying. Perhaps
Speaker 1: he alone could fix it. But I digress. But here's
Speaker 1: the terrifying part. The more erratic Jones became, the more
Speaker 1: his followers trusted him. Because once you buy into total,
Speaker 1: this sort of total narrative, once you build your identity
Speaker 1: around a conspiratorial worldview, facts are no longer persuasive. Facts
Speaker 1: become evidence of the conspiracy against you. Jonestown is not
Speaker 1: a government conspiracy. It's the consequence of conspiratorial thinking, and
Speaker 1: it becomes a template decades before so social media for
Speaker 1: how a charismatic figure can sever followers from reality and
Speaker 1: create a world where the fantastical is accepted without question.
Speaker 1: It's why QAnon didn't surprise psychologists. It's why people fall
Speaker 1: for online cults. Jonestown is a modern cautionary tale of
Speaker 1: what happens when people choose narrative over truth. My god,
Speaker 1: imagine how big Jonestown might have gotten with social media.
Speaker 1: All right, let's to the second, the second big conspiratorial
Speaker 1: event in our timeline. This week, the conspiracy the public
Speaker 1: never accepted fourteen years earlier. The same week, November twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.
Speaker 1: If Jonestown shows what happens when people buy into a
Speaker 1: false conspiracy, the jfk assassination shows what happens when the
Speaker 1: official story fails to convince the public. The Warren report
Speaker 1: was assembled very quickly. The evidence was confusing. The single
Speaker 1: bullet theory sounded well, pretty implausible to the average American,
Speaker 1: and the result was a permanent fracture in public trust.
Speaker 1: In fact, I always go back. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at the original sin of when did you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at baby boomers today, right, they grew
Speaker 1: up with this. This was their coming of age moment.
Speaker 1: Was government they believed lying to them about what happened
Speaker 1: to their president. Right. And then just about every subsequent
Speaker 1: generation would have a little bit more of the government
Speaker 1: liing to them, and we'd chip away, chip away, chip away.
Speaker 1: But this was a big one because the generation before
Speaker 1: the Baby Boomers trusted their government. But for millions of Americans,
Speaker 1: JFK's death marks the moment when they stopped believing the
Speaker 1: government reflexively and started believing the government selectively, not because
Speaker 1: they wanted a conspiracy, but because the government couldn't explain
Speaker 1: the tragedy in a way that felt complete, transparent, or
Speaker 1: sufficiently humble. This is where CIA theory is, mafia theories,
Speaker 1: castro theories, LBJ theories, deep state theories. They all began here.
Speaker 1: But the more important important point is this after JFK,
Speaker 1: Americans no longer needed evidence for a conspiracy. They only
Speaker 1: needed doubt. JFK didn't create the conspiracy culture, but it
Speaker 1: created the psychological conditions for the next event that did,
Speaker 1: and that brings us to a year that still feels
Speaker 1: like a wound. It's nineteen seventy three. The Nixon tape gap,
Speaker 1: the conspiracy that was well was a conspiracy, it was true.
Speaker 1: Two weeks before Thanksgiving, November twenty first, nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: America learns that there is an eighteen and a half
Speaker 1: minute gap in one of Nixon's Oval office tapes, the
Speaker 1: very tape that might have shown what he knew about Watergate.
Speaker 1: This is the moment that permanently rewires American brain. After
Speaker 1: years of being told trust us, after years of dismissing
Speaker 1: accusations as partisan, and after years of insisting that critics
Speaker 1: of Nixon were hysterical, here it was a missing tape,
Speaker 1: not metaphorically literally an erased tape, Thank you, Rosemary Woods.
Speaker 1: And the White House explanation was so implausible secretaries accidentally
Speaker 1: leaning on pedals, fingers slipping, that it practically invited conspiracy.
Speaker 1: The lesson for the American public was brutal and simple.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true, and sometimes the cover
Speaker 1: up is even dumber than the crime. And once that happens,
Speaker 1: once government credibility is broken in this specific way, you
Speaker 1: don't get it. Back through press releases. You don't get
Speaker 1: it back through official investigations, and you don't even get
Speaker 1: it back through prosecutions. And of course we never did prosecute,
Speaker 1: you know, I think when I first started my timecast
Speaker 1: time Machine, one of the I started with the part
Speaker 1: with Ford's pardon and a mistake. I think now we
Speaker 1: see that was clearly I don't think it's it's even
Speaker 1: a close call anymore, that that was clearly a mistake,
Speaker 1: because we never did get justice for what was done.
Speaker 1: But Watergate taught Americans that powerful people sometimes lie, and
Speaker 1: institutions sometimes protect those lies. And once you know that,
Speaker 1: you never unknow it. And then it just sort of
Speaker 1: sits there, and it chips away and chips away, and
Speaker 1: we wonder why we have a government we don't trust today.
Speaker 1: So let's look at sort of the modern parallel, right
Speaker 1: the Epstein files, fast forward to the present, and conspiracy
Speaker 1: is the default, it's not the exception. Just look at
Speaker 1: this Epstein moment. We're all living through. People assume elites lie,
Speaker 1: people assume institutions are hiding things. People assume the truth
Speaker 1: is always worse, and people assume if there is a conspiracy,
Speaker 1: it's probably bigger and darker than anything the government admits. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm an Ockham's razor person. I think if there was
Speaker 1: something even darker, deeper, we there'd at least be a
Speaker 1: leak about it somewhere. But we haven't gotten that. But
Speaker 1: still conspiracies persist. But it's because of Jonestown, because of JFK,
Speaker 1: because of Nixon, because of IRAQ WMDs, because of the
Speaker 1: NSA surveillance revelations, because of January sixth. Americans now process
Speaker 1: every new event through a lens shaped by generations of
Speaker 1: government betrayal, government confusion, and partial truths at best. So
Speaker 1: just look at what we did with Epstein. Right, the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory arrived first, the facts are we still don't
Speaker 1: have all the facts, do we They're arriving later. The
Speaker 1: public decides what it believes before the evidence even begins
Speaker 1: to land. It's not that people want to believe in
Speaker 1: sane things. It's that the factual world is moving slower
Speaker 1: than the fantastical one. We have more information than ever,
Speaker 1: but we have less trust than ever, and in that environment,
Speaker 1: speculation fills every gap instantly. And then you look at
Speaker 1: our ridiculous algorithms that sort of reward those that have
Speaker 1: a new theory rather than those that have factual information. Right.
Speaker 1: If I were to say, right now, boy, it's got
Speaker 1: to be that Gallaine Maxwell knows the origin story of
Speaker 1: Malania Trump and how Milani and Donald met, boy, the
Speaker 1: algorithms would go crazy and this video could go viral
Speaker 1: because I'd say, because I'd say that I have no
Speaker 1: evidence of this. Okay, I certainly am trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why the president is hiding so much of this
Speaker 1: and why he seems to be so scared of Gallainne Maxwell.
Speaker 1: So your mind wanders, and unfortunately, because of how poor
Speaker 1: government's been about being transparent about things including the jfk
Speaker 1: assassination being frankly exhibit A, how do you tell an
Speaker 1: American not to go down that conspiratorial rabbit hole? This
Speaker 1: is where we are. So what do we take away
Speaker 1: from this in this week in American history? Here's the
Speaker 1: common threat. We are conspiracy prone, not because we're gullible,
Speaker 1: but because our institutions have repeatedly given us enough reason,
Speaker 1: just enough reason to suspect that we're not being told
Speaker 1: the full story. When leaders lie, even tiny lies, they
Speaker 1: leave behind just enough ambiguity for our collective imagination to
Speaker 1: go to work, and when institutions are slow, opaque, or
Speaker 1: even arrogant, doubt becomes a form of self defense. When
Speaker 1: information drips out instead of flows out, the vacuum fills
Speaker 1: the narrative, and when the official story doesn't feel complete,
Speaker 1: the unofficial ones become irresistible. So I'll leave you this.
Speaker 1: We Americans can handle plenty of bad news. What we
Speaker 1: cannot handle is missing news. Got you got to tell
Speaker 1: us everything. Don't hold back, because if you do, if
Speaker 1: we find out and you held back, it is so
Speaker 1: much worse. The more than institutions give us half truths,
Speaker 1: delayed truths, redacted truths, or contradictory truths or alternative facts,
Speaker 1: the more this week in history becomes every week in
Speaker 1: our political system. So there you go. Enjoy conspiracy Week
Speaker 1: in the Todd Cash a time machine. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for some good jonestown documentaries, there are
Speaker 1: a ton of them out there. They're all fascinating. There
Speaker 1: was a couple recently I think on Netflix that definitely
Speaker 1: is worth your time. My friend Jeff Morley JFK. Fax
Speaker 1: is a terrific substack. He goes through, he goes through
Speaker 1: all the government releases the way you would want a
Speaker 1: reported to do it. You know, yes, he has his theories,
Speaker 1: but he separates the facts from the theories. I wish
Speaker 1: I had a really good place for you to go
Speaker 1: for all things having to do with filling the gaps
Speaker 1: and Watergate. But in some ways, I think I think
Speaker 1: we've filled we have between Garrett Graft's most recent book
Speaker 1: about Watergate, plus everything Woodward and Bernstein has done, we
Speaker 1: have a pretty decent handle on them. So you know
Speaker 1: what this means. It's college football time. Okay, soa okay,
Speaker 1: So Miami kept up its end of the bargain, had
Speaker 1: a nice I will say I was pleasantly surprised. There's
Speaker 1: nothing like a Hurricane's game when the defense sort of
Speaker 1: sparks things and the pick six early set the tone.
Speaker 1: The offense started to hum. Yes, NC State didn't have
Speaker 1: the best of defenses, but the fact is Miami won
Speaker 1: by a margin that they should win by. They covered
Speaker 1: the spread. I think they doubled actually the actual spread,
Speaker 1: So it was a It was a decisive victory. And
Speaker 1: you know, some things went Miami's way as far as
Speaker 1: you know, teams that needed to lose ahead of them
Speaker 1: A few teams did Texas lost, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: They're not you know, they're they're not going to get
Speaker 1: in even a victory over Texas. A and M They're not.
Speaker 1: A three loss team is not yet going to make
Speaker 1: the playoff. A couple other things be Boston College had
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech on the ropes. You know, I certainly would
Speaker 1: like to see Miami be able to play itself into
Speaker 1: the playoff, not having to wait to see if their
Speaker 1: body of work will be considered better or worse than
Speaker 1: the body of work of other two loss teams. But
Speaker 1: I want to get to that here in a minute.
Speaker 1: But for the look in fairness, I think it was
Speaker 1: the best game Miami's played since Notre Dame and and
Speaker 1: South Florida where too, probably the two most complete games
Speaker 1: they've played all year. Even the Florida game, they didn't
Speaker 1: play a great first half. It was the second half
Speaker 1: that they sort of put that game away. But but
Speaker 1: Notre Dame, they played three great quarters. They let they
Speaker 1: let Notre Dame sort of make the game look like
Speaker 1: it was a close game. And I think this this,
Speaker 1: you know, they basically were ahead by double digits most
Speaker 1: of the game. Notre Dame gets a lay touchdown and
Speaker 1: so the game looked closer than it actually was. But
Speaker 1: this was a pretty complete game they got. This was
Speaker 1: the last home game Senior Day. They got two more
Speaker 1: road games, Virginia Tech and then Pit. And let's talk
Speaker 1: about Pitt because Notre Dame now got to face a
Speaker 1: Pit team that did not chose to play an exhibition game. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the players that actually played in the
Speaker 1: game didn't play hard. They did, but the coaching staff
Speaker 1: made a decision that they were not going to play
Speaker 1: to win this game. Anybody that was fifty to fifty
Speaker 1: on you know, could play, but you know, they'd rather
Speaker 1: have them rest for the conference their last two conference
Speaker 1: games Georgia Tech and Miami. They chose to do that.
Speaker 1: The coach went public earlier in the week and said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't this game was meaningless to them. This was
Speaker 1: akin to a preseason game, an exhibition game. They could
Speaker 1: lose by one hundred, it didn't matter. Their path to
Speaker 1: the playoff did not go through Notre Dame. Their path
Speaker 1: to the playoff went through making it to the ACC
Speaker 1: Conference title game, and if they went out, they will
Speaker 1: have a place in the title game, which brings me
Speaker 1: to and then, by the way, same thing just happened
Speaker 1: a week earlier with Notre Dame when they played Navy.
Speaker 1: When Navy decided not to play one of their quarterbacks
Speaker 1: in that game, Horvat saving him because he had been
Speaker 1: somewhat he'd been dinged up a little bit. They wanted
Speaker 1: to basically give him a week off before their conference
Speaker 1: game against South Florida. By the way, that was a
Speaker 1: terrific game. I watched a lot of that game that
Speaker 1: was in my multibox. That was a fun game to watch,
Speaker 1: and it was a shootout and somehow South Florida couldn't
Speaker 1: stop Navy very often. Navies won that game, and they
Speaker 1: still have a path to the college football playoff again
Speaker 1: through the Group of five playoff slot. Again, the Notre
Speaker 1: Dame game was meaningless to them in their attempt to
Speaker 1: get to the playoff. So now Notre Dame and this,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw that ESPN was promoting this win
Speaker 1: on Pitt as if it was an impressive win that hey,
Speaker 1: they they had. They made it part of their ticker lead,
Speaker 1: and they made it seem as if that this they
Speaker 1: played an exhibition game. Pitt did not take this game seriously,
Speaker 1: and I do think the College Football Committee if they're
Speaker 1: if this committee is serious and I am, I am
Speaker 1: a huge skeptic given that three years in a row
Speaker 1: they have made decisions that were not about football teams
Speaker 1: that were instead about what ESPN wanted or what the
Speaker 1: SEC wanted, which maybe won and the same right. We
Speaker 1: go back to the decision not to put Florida State
Speaker 1: into the end of the playoff when they were undefeated
Speaker 1: after winning their conference title game, and they just chose
Speaker 1: not to at Florida statea right. So if you're wondering
Speaker 1: why I have have been so hard on ESPN and
Speaker 1: the SEC about this, is because not that they might
Speaker 1: do this, because they've already done it once and then
Speaker 1: they arguably did it last year. Miami absolutely belonged in
Speaker 1: that playoff, and they chose not to put Miami in
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to put in a third ACC team.
Speaker 1: They have decided the ACC isn't worthy of having two
Speaker 1: or three teams on any given year. That's just a
Speaker 1: decision they make, period. There is not I would argue,
Speaker 1: not as many metrics that would actually argue for that
Speaker 1: than others want to say but this is the decision. Yes,
Speaker 1: or they're not going to put in two Big twelve teams.
Speaker 1: Then they're going to try really hard not to put
Speaker 1: in two ACC teams. We'll see if Miami can sort
Speaker 1: of force the envelope. But explain to me, I mean
Speaker 1: to me if you were to treat Notre Dame as
Speaker 1: sort of instead of knowing that it was no, and
Speaker 1: I just gave you the profile of team A, Team B,
Speaker 1: Team C, Team D. Right, there is no way Notre
Speaker 1: Dame is a playoff team. They don't have a good
Speaker 1: Their best win is USC, who may or may not
Speaker 1: be a competitor for a playoff spot. And then two
Speaker 1: of their victories are against teams that chose essentially to
Speaker 1: pull some of their starters so that they didn't face
Speaker 1: the toughest version of PITT. Miami's going to face the
Speaker 1: toughest version of PITT. They didn't face the toughest version
Speaker 1: of Navy. South Florida faced the toughest version of Navy.
Speaker 1: So you know, I I that that should matter. If
Speaker 1: the head to head isn't going to matter now, obviously
Speaker 1: the most important thing ought to be the head to head.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame loses to Miami and they're both ten and two.
Speaker 1: It's obvious what any actual tie breaking scenario in any
Speaker 1: other league, the first tiebreaker is head to head. Now
Speaker 1: they don't there is no there are no rules, right,
Speaker 1: this committee has never said what the metrics are to
Speaker 1: get into the playoff. They don't release a criteria. You
Speaker 1: know what that means, because they make up the criteria
Speaker 1: when they when it suits them, right, if it if
Speaker 1: it's easier to make a case for a team to
Speaker 1: get in because of their losses, they'll say, hey, they
Speaker 1: have great losses. And if it's easier to make a
Speaker 1: case for a team to get in because they have
Speaker 1: great wins, and they'll say, hey, they have great wins. Right,
Speaker 1: But they don't seem to have a standardized metric on
Speaker 1: what matters more wins or losses when you're trying to
Speaker 1: differentiate between a ten and two team or three ten
Speaker 1: and two teams. In fact, we're gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of this, right, You're gonna have you may have ten
Speaker 1: and two Oklahoma, ten and two, Notre Dame, ten and two,
Speaker 1: Alabama and ten into a Miami And let's just take
Speaker 1: a look at this. Okay, Alabama, one of their losses.
Speaker 1: Is a team Miami B Do you think that's gonna
Speaker 1: matter to the committee? Not naive, I know it's not
Speaker 1: gonna matter. I'll give Alabama this. They have the best
Speaker 1: win of the four because Alabama beat Georgia, so they
Speaker 1: will get credit for that. Oklahoma has now Alabama is
Speaker 1: their best win, right They lost to Texas, a team
Speaker 1: that Florida beat, a team that Miami whipped before Florida
Speaker 1: was giving up okay, before the whole firing and all
Speaker 1: that business. And then of course when you compare Miami
Speaker 1: Notre Dame, Miami beat Notre Dame. Obviously I'm singling those
Speaker 1: four teams out because I am if that if they
Speaker 1: all four ten and two and there's three slots for
Speaker 1: those four teams, I know this committee is going to
Speaker 1: try to keep Miami out. And if you looked at
Speaker 1: him in a blind survey, Miami arguablyst this the second
Speaker 1: best of those four. If you're going to do that,
Speaker 1: let alone third or fourth. So I all'm I am.
Speaker 1: I want to try to give the assume that some
Speaker 1: people on this committee take their job seriously and are
Speaker 1: simply trying to get the best teams. The fact is
Speaker 1: Miami's probably got one of the three best rosters in
Speaker 1: the nation, easily the combination best offensive and defensive lines going.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, the committee decided to overly punish Miami
Speaker 1: for losing a gamed SMU on the road. They didn't
Speaker 1: punish him as much for the first loss to Louisville,
Speaker 1: but they punished him a lot for that SMU loss.
Speaker 1: It was a way over punishment obviously in this idea
Speaker 1: that when you lose somehow should should matter. And I
Speaker 1: know this has always sort of been out there because
Speaker 1: of the of the screwyway college football works. But again,
Speaker 1: in the NFL, your record's your record, and if there's
Speaker 1: a tiebreaker doesn't matter when that game happened, right. The
Speaker 1: head to head is the head to head. So look,
Speaker 1: Mimy's got to do its part. Yes, I'm still you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the irony is that Miami should be undefeated,
Speaker 1: shouldn't have lost either one of those games. Sort of
Speaker 1: coach farted those games away, arguably, and they were both
Speaker 1: winnable even at the very end, but they got coach
Speaker 1: farted away. I think I'm going to try to use
Speaker 1: that term going forward, coach farting. But We'll see what
Speaker 1: the committee does. But the thing that I that I
Speaker 1: want to see whether this committee is taking itself seriously
Speaker 1: at all, is the fact that Notre Dame has two
Speaker 1: teams on their schedule that decided not to play to one.
Speaker 1: And this is the look Notre Dame should be dinged
Speaker 1: for not being in a conference playing conference games. The
Speaker 1: stakes are higher when you don't have a conference games,
Speaker 1: there's no stakes. Yes, the stakes are higher, they have
Speaker 1: to keep winning, but the conference game is so much
Speaker 1: more high pressure. And whether your conference road game or
Speaker 1: hosting a team that just you would make their season
Speaker 1: if they beat you, which is just about every team
Speaker 1: Miami plays in the ACC. Okay, you know what Miami
Speaker 1: doesn't do. They don't storm fields because when you win
Speaker 1: national titles, you don't worry about storming a field because
Speaker 1: because it isn't a big deal to you until you
Speaker 1: actually win the whole thing. But I tell you, I've
Speaker 1: been to plenty of Miami games where the other team
Speaker 1: storms the field because it's a big deal of them
Speaker 1: to beat Miami in a regular season Notre Dame knows
Speaker 1: this feeling. Plenty of teams when they've upset Notre Dame
Speaker 1: on the road, they storm the field. But the fact
Speaker 1: is Miami is playing more high pressure games. Shoot, Oklahoma's
Speaker 1: playing more high pressure games us every one of the
Speaker 1: power for because of how important this path to the
Speaker 1: playoff is. These conference games are much more high stakes
Speaker 1: and Notre Dame doesn't have any of them. And so
Speaker 1: I actually think that Notre Dame not the arrogance of
Speaker 1: Notre Name not being at a conference and still wanting
Speaker 1: to be treated equally compared to what everybody else has
Speaker 1: to go through with these conference schedules. I actually think
Speaker 1: that these athletic directors that are on this committee, as
Speaker 1: much as they want to do whatever they have to
Speaker 1: do for ESPN for the ESPN Invitational here, at the
Speaker 1: same time, are irritated that Notre Dame doesn't have to
Speaker 1: go through this conference business. So at a minimum, Rhys Davis,
Speaker 1: please ask whoever's going to be that I think it's
Speaker 1: now the Arkansas ad who is going to be the
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the committee. Please ask them whether the committee
Speaker 1: is going to essentially downgrade the two victories that Notre
Speaker 1: Dame had over Navy and pit They should be downgraded.
Speaker 1: They did not face They faced an exhibition. They faced
Speaker 1: two tens that treated the game as an exhibition. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying the players themselves did, but the coaching staff did.
Speaker 1: And when you say you don't care if you win
Speaker 1: the game, you know your players hear it. So when
Speaker 1: you're comparing not every ten and two record should be
Speaker 1: treated the same. And I think clearly here Notre Dame
Speaker 1: should be the one that's in much bigger trouble in
Speaker 1: their playoff path right now because they have teams that
Speaker 1: are not taking the Notre Dame game that seriously anymore
Speaker 1: because of how important now the conference pathway is. I
Speaker 1: have to say a few other notes on what I
Speaker 1: saw over the weekend. I get more impressed at Texas
Speaker 1: Tech all the time. I have no idea why anybody's
Speaker 1: ranking Oregon as high as they are. I think Oregon
Speaker 1: I have some questions about Oregon here. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: they have one loss. I'll be this Oregon USC game
Speaker 1: coming up up. It's a huge game to see if
Speaker 1: the Big ten can get three teams into the playoffs.
Speaker 1: But Oregon's best win is now Penn State. How good
Speaker 1: of a win is that Oregon needs to blow out USC?
Speaker 1: I think to justify they're certainly to justify how to
Speaker 1: see them ranked as high a high as they are.
Speaker 1: I got to give Texas A and M a ton
Speaker 1: of credit, both A and M this week in Indiana.
Speaker 1: Last week, when you should lose a game and you
Speaker 1: figure out a way to win and you're one of
Speaker 1: these undefeated teams, I am in some ways more impressed.
Speaker 1: They didn't play their best game in the first half.
Speaker 1: You know, I gave you that tip last week. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I had heard that with the new offensive coordinator, they
Speaker 1: were they're worried about losing Lenora Sellers in the portal.
Speaker 1: There's even rumors at Miami he may end up at
Speaker 1: Miami that they were going to open things up a
Speaker 1: little bit, And boy did they and he looked terrific
Speaker 1: in that first half and shut them down and shut
Speaker 1: everything down in the second half. So I have to
Speaker 1: say A and M impressed me and impressed me quite
Speaker 1: a bit. They don't have to win another game. They will,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to win another game. I'm very curious,
Speaker 1: and here's going to be something to see. Texas got
Speaker 1: its third loss. What is that? You know, what's their
Speaker 1: intensity going to be like for the rest of the season,
Speaker 1: particularly for the A and M game at the end
Speaker 1: of the year. It's exciting to see Texas Texas A
Speaker 1: and M play. I think they're gonna be playing on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving weekend, which will be kind of nice that. And
Speaker 1: then there's Vanderbilt. You know, they're still They're still sitting
Speaker 1: there at eight and two, and you have Utah sitting
Speaker 1: there and eight and two, both ahead of Miami. So
Speaker 1: don't think I haven't. I don't have my eyes on
Speaker 1: them on that front. I have a feeling if Miami
Speaker 1: takes care of business and wins by margin in their
Speaker 1: last two games, that they likely leap frog, because again,
Speaker 1: Miami does have better wins I think than either of
Speaker 1: those other two teams. But we shall see. All in all,
Speaker 1: I am obviously nervous, I'm willing, I'm trying to will
Speaker 1: every everything I have and making sure Miami is treated
Speaker 1: fairly in this. That's all I'm asking is that Miami
Speaker 1: is treated fairly, because I don't think the ACC in
Speaker 1: general gets treated fairly in this, and frankly, until we
Speaker 1: have a year where they are treated fairly, you're going
Speaker 1: to have a hard time convincing any fan of any
Speaker 1: team in the ACC that the that ESPN or the
Speaker 1: College Football Playoff Committee or the ESPN Invitational Committee, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, is going to give an
Speaker 1: ACC team a fair shot. But like I said, I
Speaker 1: will I will pull back some of my critique of
Speaker 1: the of the media company's influence on this committee if
Speaker 1: I see some hard questioning of the committee chair on
Speaker 1: this issue of whether Notre Dame's two victories over Navy
Speaker 1: and Pitt ought to be downgraded. So with that, I
Speaker 1: do enjoy trolling my friends that are Notre Dame fans
Speaker 1: on this one. But in all seriousness, if I know
Speaker 1: if somehow this could be used as a demerit against
Speaker 1: an ACC team, this committee would be all over it.
Speaker 1: It's a big name, Notre Dame that's doing it. Will
Speaker 1: they have the guts to publicly call out Notre Dame's
Speaker 1: victories on this one? We shall all right with that.
Speaker 1: I hope you even had a good weekend. Hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed your weekend. I'm glad, since I'm traveling a lot
Speaker 1: this week that all of the airports are up and running.
Speaker 1: I thank those TSA agents and those air traffic controllers
Speaker 1: who have been working without pay thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your service, Thank you for at least
Speaker 1: doing what you can to keep a government that behaves
Speaker 1: so dysfunctionally a bit more functional. And with that, until
Speaker 1: I upload again,