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Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Check podcast.
Speaker 2: I will be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I sort of have a I have like seventeen thousand topics.
Speaker 1: I feel like I should share a few a few
Speaker 1: quick takes for you on or a few different ways
Speaker 1: to be thinking about it, or at least share with
Speaker 1: you how I how I'm thinking about it and see
Speaker 1: how much that informs you. That's one thing I try
Speaker 1: not to do is I'm not trying to tell you
Speaker 1: what you think. I'm trying to sort of lay out,
Speaker 1: lay out a structure to understand why whatever the situation
Speaker 1: is we're in. Look, there were two dominant stories that
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend a lot of time on. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the biggest one is Iran. Iran sort of is everything
Speaker 1: because of its massive impact on the global economy, which
Speaker 1: of course means our economy, which of course means Campaign
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. But the Eric Swawell implosion out in
Speaker 1: California also is a really really b FD, as Joe
Speaker 1: Biden might whisper in the ear of Barack Obama, and
Speaker 1: it's something that we need to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time on because it's actually two stories.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: One, it's going to trigger a bunch of show votes
Speaker 1: in cong VERUS, so Congress can make itself feel better
Speaker 1: by kicking out men behaving badly. But the other shakeup
Speaker 1: is what's going to happen in California. I think what
Speaker 1: we will we know for sure, and I think this
Speaker 1: has now been more likely than we You know. I
Speaker 1: just think now that the swallow thing trigger it. Here's
Speaker 1: the bottom line. There's going to be another election for
Speaker 1: California governor before twenty thirty. That I promise you. I
Speaker 1: do not believe whoever wins this governor's race will be
Speaker 1: able to survive the inevitable recall effort that is coming.
Speaker 1: We are slip sliding into one of those Californy governor's races.
Speaker 1: It's going to look a lot like two thousand and
Speaker 1: two Gray Avis versus Bill Simon, where everybody hates their choices.
Speaker 2: So those are the two dominant stories.
Speaker 1: A bunch of other stuff, Perkolating not going to leave
Speaker 1: it on the cutting room floor. I want to want
Speaker 1: to get to a bunch of it. But let's get
Speaker 1: to Iran. So the ceasefire is, I guess, kind of intact,
Speaker 1: but make no mistake, a naval blockade, which President Trump
Speaker 1: ordered on Sunday is an act of war. That's you know,
Speaker 1: that is what it is. Now we are still at
Speaker 1: war with Iran. I think Iran still at war with us.
Speaker 1: The question is does either country break the ceasefire? Is
Speaker 1: this considered breaking of the ceasefire? Will the Iranians respond or,
Speaker 1: is this just part of a stalemate until we hit
Speaker 1: the end of the two weeks or until we see
Speaker 1: negotiations pick up, because one thing that it is important.
Speaker 1: Neither JD Evans for the American side nor the Iranians
Speaker 1: indicated that they both behaved as if they knew there
Speaker 1: would be another round of talks. They didn't say another
Speaker 1: round was coming, but you get the impression another.
Speaker 2: Round is coming.
Speaker 1: Still, no deal, no framework, and no actual next step
Speaker 1: just yet. But in some ways the blockade isn't It
Speaker 1: is an acknowledgment by President Trump that the United States
Speaker 1: has less leverage in this deal than we want to admit. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, the President doesn'tant tomit it. He keeps declaring victory.
Speaker 1: And that's a huge problem. If you've won, then why
Speaker 1: are you negotiating? If you've won, why are you potentially
Speaker 1: floating the idea of a joint venture with Iran to
Speaker 1: patrol and maybe even collect tolls for the straight of
Speaker 1: horn moves and the tolls being used as reparations. Right, So,
Speaker 1: this is why his rhetoric is not harmless. The stupid
Speaker 1: rhetoric he makes un truth social, the dumb rhetoric where
Speaker 1: he beats his checks, declares victory, or sort of the
Speaker 1: secretary of the Fence who constantly loves to beat his
Speaker 1: chest and you know, I guess probably you know, choose
Speaker 1: on too much creatine before he does any of his
Speaker 1: press briefings and declares these capital v victories.
Speaker 2: Okay, then why are we negotiating? Right? So the bottom
Speaker 2: line is we don't have leverage. They do.
Speaker 1: They came out of this ceasefire with the single most
Speaker 1: important piece of leverage, control of the Strait of hormones,
Speaker 1: control of the global economy, and essentially control right now
Speaker 1: of the Trump presidency. So that's why Trump in some
Speaker 1: ways had no choice but to do this.
Speaker 2: With the straight of hormones.
Speaker 1: He's got to find and see if he can.
Speaker 2: Get some leverage to force the Iranians to back off
Speaker 2: a little bit. So the question is is there a
Speaker 2: next step? Right? I think it.
Speaker 1: The blockade is intended to get around back to the
Speaker 1: table and to start having a conversation about the Strait
Speaker 1: and about the nuclear deal. If there is no The
Speaker 1: question though, is will the president escalate further if this
Speaker 1: does not get the deal he's looking for? Does he
Speaker 1: then send in ground troops? To didn't try to militarily
Speaker 1: take control of the Straight and essentially operate the Straight
Speaker 1: in behalf of the world. Now there's all sort of
Speaker 1: look there to Monday morning morning quarterback this war. Obviously, the.
Speaker 2: The total.
Speaker 1: Misunderstanding of the power of the Strait that the Iranians
Speaker 1: would have is the initial blunder of this war. This
Speaker 1: is the I swear to you, there's WMDs right this.
Speaker 1: If you're going to say, if there was any like,
Speaker 1: what is the failure of this administration for going into war?
Speaker 1: It is underplaying and under realizing the leverage the Iranians
Speaker 1: had with the Strait. And had they understood it from
Speaker 1: the beginning and they chose to do this, my guess
Speaker 1: is they would have immediately tried to get control of
Speaker 1: the Straight first. Then you start worrying about everything else.
Speaker 1: But again, the problem here is the president surrounded himself
Speaker 1: with sycophants, and even though we have learned that these
Speaker 1: folks did not want to endorse his strategy here they
Speaker 1: were afraid of telling him the truth. They were afraid
Speaker 1: of telling They just danced around the edges of the
Speaker 1: issues and allowed him to hear what he wanted. And
Speaker 1: now we're in this potentially intractable situation that we're.
Speaker 2: In where we may have no choice but escalate.
Speaker 1: Because of the initial blunder at the beginning, or you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to cut a deal with the Iranians that
Speaker 1: leaves the regime in power, legitimizes the regime, gives them
Speaker 1: acknowledges their control over the Strait, and essentially makes.
Speaker 2: The hardliners like John Bolton are gonna wish they.
Speaker 1: Had the Rand nuclear deal because the best thing that
Speaker 1: Trump can get now is essentially naftaizing the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaker 2: And what do I mean by that by naftaizing?
Speaker 1: He said he hated NAFTA, so he ripped it up,
Speaker 1: renegotiated the same deal with the Mexicans and the Canadians
Speaker 1: and called it USMCA the United States, Mexican Canadian right accord.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: See, there's there's no NAFTA. That's what's coming here. He's
Speaker 1: gonna hope he can get the Obama nuclear deal. If
Speaker 1: he's lucky, he can get.
Speaker 2: The Obama Obama nuclear deal.
Speaker 1: And that's if this this is the best, the best
Speaker 1: version of this, you know. And again we can sit
Speaker 1: here and talk about all the all the problems going
Speaker 1: into this thing, right, it was a mistake, and everybody
Speaker 1: advised him. It was most people around him advised him
Speaker 1: it was a mistake, outside of John Bolton and the
Speaker 1: Gulf States and Israel. And this is a case where
Speaker 1: the president consistently listens to outside voices rather than his
Speaker 1: own military advisors and his own intelligence. He did it
Speaker 1: all the time in his first term, and he's doing
Speaker 1: it again in his second term. And that is an
Speaker 1: issue that does not get enough attention. He trusts the
Speaker 1: Israeli intelligence more than he trusts the US intelligence. The
Speaker 1: Israeli said this was going to be easy regime James
Speaker 1: was going to happen and the people were going to
Speaker 1: rise up, And the CIA said that was bullshit. And
Speaker 1: the CIA is fronted by somebody who is a Trumper,
Speaker 1: John Ratcliffe, who wants to tell Trump what he wants
Speaker 1: to hear, but can't bring himself to tell him bullshit.
Speaker 2: But the President refuses to listen to his own, his
Speaker 2: own folks on that front.
Speaker 1: So the next look that I expect the markets to
Speaker 1: panic a bit.
Speaker 2: I mean I.
Speaker 1: Kind of think they've been under panicking. I'm a bit
Speaker 1: hopeful that somehow you know, the resilience of the markets
Speaker 1: in the past, well, it was like they were during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, just like they have been during the Russia
Speaker 1: Ukraine War.
Speaker 2: That it's going to happen again. But the lack of
Speaker 2: a clear resolution it is, you know, here's what we
Speaker 2: do now.
Speaker 1: President does not want to restart the war. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt he probably regrets ever starting it, and considering the
Speaker 1: situation he's in, you know, he could have you know,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, right, should he have tried to squeeze him more,
Speaker 1: should he have tried to find more ways to isolate Iran,
Speaker 1: do more to it, to increase the stranglehold so that
Speaker 1: the people would rise up and be angry at their leaders,
Speaker 1: and instead, in a weird way, he's even united.
Speaker 2: If you guys have.
Speaker 1: Started following my friend, my Suzanne Kanpoor, She's her reporting
Speaker 1: is indicated that they're you know, even those that don't
Speaker 1: like this regime, uh now feel as if that it's
Speaker 1: everybody versus America, which is a very dangerous place to
Speaker 1: be and it's you really got to bungle this as
Speaker 1: badly as this administration's bungled this to put put ourselves
Speaker 1: in this situation or we're basically begging around to come
Speaker 1: to give us some deal so Trump can save face
Speaker 1: and the and that's the thing. The Iranians know it.
Speaker 2: They know they know it.
Speaker 1: They know he can't handle the economic fallout from this.
Speaker 1: They know it's politically beyond painful for him. They know
Speaker 1: it screws up his trade negotiations with China next month,
Speaker 1: It messes up all sorts of aspects of him. And look,
Speaker 1: the Iranians, they will negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and they're
Speaker 1: going to keep dragging this out. So the end of
Speaker 1: the day he had to find some leverage. We'll see
Speaker 1: if doing a blockade of the Strait does that. But
Speaker 1: it is going to have you know, this is it's
Speaker 1: going to be. It's probably going to be an ugly
Speaker 1: day in the markets because now, whether we're questions, is
Speaker 1: the straight open or not or now it's we know
Speaker 1: it's not open, right, it is definitely closed. But I
Speaker 1: go back to something right, the problem, Right, the president
Speaker 1: has already declared victory and he continues to try to
Speaker 1: declare victory. So if we've already won, why do we
Speaker 1: have to keep doing all of these things? And This
Speaker 1: is the position he's put himself in. Right, when you
Speaker 1: define victory early then compromise later, starts to look like retreat.
Speaker 2: And right now the Iranians know it. They see it.
Speaker 1: It looks like retreat because it is retreat. The president
Speaker 1: can't afford to do this.
Speaker 2: We didn't have we don't.
Speaker 1: He can't political He does not have the political capital
Speaker 1: to get even his own party to give him time
Speaker 1: to put in ground troops to get control of the
Speaker 1: straight and you know, he's just you know, and then
Speaker 1: there's who he is, right, he doesn't have the patience
Speaker 1: to do things methodic. He's always looking for a shortcut.
Speaker 1: It's been it's defined his career. And the thing is
Speaker 1: is that he's had so much success with shortcuts that
Speaker 1: he forgets the failures with shortcuts. That also, right, he
Speaker 1: was able to become a star because of shortcuts, but bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: He was still the only one of the few casino
Speaker 1: operators to find a way to go bankrupt, oning the
Speaker 1: casino because he was taking a shortcut on.
Speaker 2: Competition and try to buy up all his competitors.
Speaker 1: You know, he shortcuted his way into politics, but he
Speaker 1: didn't really build a coalition.
Speaker 2: In order to support him and use his political capital.
Speaker 1: So when you take all these shortcuts, right, he's trying
Speaker 1: to shortcut his way into getting an Iranian victory. He's
Speaker 1: trying to shortcut his way and trying to get a
Speaker 1: Venezuelan victory. But he's no longer promoting democracy anymore. And
Speaker 1: America is not on the side of democratic freedom. We
Speaker 1: are not on the side of democratic freedom in Venezuela
Speaker 1: right now, and we're doing a poor job of being
Speaker 1: on the side of freedom, democratic freedom and Iran. But
Speaker 1: ultimately that's what you have to remember here. In conflicts
Speaker 1: like this, the side that understands the other side better
Speaker 1: usually has the advantage. President Trump does not understand this
Speaker 1: Iranian regime. He thinks they're all just as transactional as
Speaker 1: he is. He sees everybody through the himself. He assumes
Speaker 1: everybody behaves the way that everybody's motivation is, what his
Speaker 1: motivation is, power.
Speaker 2: Money, etc.
Speaker 1: And he just assumes those same motivations, and certainly loosely
Speaker 1: the motivations are similar, and they may rhyme, but he
Speaker 1: did not and does not. And you know, again, he
Speaker 1: didn't bother to study, right, you know, he doesn't listen
Speaker 1: to the experts who have studied the Iranians for decades,
Speaker 1: not just weeks, months, or even years.
Speaker 2: He doesn't listen to those experts. But here we are
Speaker 2: in some ways, this is.
Speaker 1: This is why Irana starts to look like our failed
Speaker 1: military expeditions. Vietnam second Iraq war are the most are
Speaker 1: the two biggest ones, and now this one because we
Speaker 1: succeeded militarily right sort of, but we didn't get our
Speaker 1: strategic end goal. And even with Iraq we kind of
Speaker 1: ended up with I guess what we wanted. There is
Speaker 1: no Iraq with a nuclear program, so that's good. There's
Speaker 1: no a rock with Saddam Hussein. But boy, was the
Speaker 1: cost worth it?
Speaker 2: Right? And I think to this day we're not even
Speaker 2: sure that the cost was worth it. So bottom line is.
Speaker 1: The good news is the talks are going to There's
Speaker 1: going to be another round of talks. Both sides did
Speaker 1: not indicate that there was no room for more talks.
Speaker 1: This was the first meeting was always inevitably going to
Speaker 1: be a feeling out meeting. But I think the one
Speaker 1: thing that that President Trump ought to take away as
Speaker 1: an understanding, and I think again his move to try
Speaker 1: to blockade the Straight is in some ways any acknowledgment
Speaker 1: of this, which is he didn't have enough leverage destroy
Speaker 1: you know, and and you know right now, the Iranians
Speaker 1: care about one thing, control of that Straight. So Trump
Speaker 1: is right to try to go after the one thing
Speaker 1: they care about in order to see if he can
Speaker 1: regain some leverage here. But you know, the most likely
Speaker 1: endgame here is not a restart of the war. It
Speaker 1: is not a sending ground troops in to get control
Speaker 1: of the Straight. The most likely endgame here is the
Speaker 1: Iran nuclear deal two point zero. Donald Trump will call
Speaker 1: it then, you know USMCA of Nuclear Deals brand new.
Speaker 1: It won't do this, won't do that, but it'll give
Speaker 1: them some money. And remember, you know why Iran doesn't
Speaker 1: want to give up the idea that it may never
Speaker 1: pursue a nuclear weapon. Libya, right, the Libya example is
Speaker 1: always the reason Libya gave up its nuclear ambition and
Speaker 1: regime change happened. North Korea has not given up his
Speaker 1: nuclear ambition. And that Kim Jong n family, he just
Speaker 1: named his daughter the latest air parent. If something happens
Speaker 1: to him, and we may end up with a fourth
Speaker 1: generation of North Korean leaders all because they have.
Speaker 2: A nuclear weapon. So it's not irrational how the Iranians
Speaker 2: are thinking.
Speaker 1: Right, this is a case, and there's no doubt the
Speaker 1: United States the North Korea is a reason why to
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to not let Iran get there
Speaker 1: carrots and sticks. Trump has been all stick. He's going
Speaker 1: to have to now have to give some and he
Speaker 1: ain't gonna like it, and he's gonna find out. Remember,
Speaker 1: we don't trust them and they don't trust us. And
Speaker 1: in situations like this, whatever agreement you come into is
Speaker 1: a leap of faith. You're going to have to trust
Speaker 1: somebody you don't trust. That's why you put in verifications
Speaker 1: and all sorts of things in there. But it is
Speaker 1: in if you want a deal, it's inevitable you're going
Speaker 1: to get one where you have to give up something
Speaker 1: you don't like. And in that sense, Donald Trump, this
Speaker 1: is where he is a terrible deal maker.
Speaker 2: He has never been.
Speaker 1: He does not believe in win win. He wants to
Speaker 1: get the best of somebody, and he thinks caving into
Speaker 1: any demand of the other side makes him look weak.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what makes him look weak.
Speaker 1: Presiding over this economy. That's deteriorating by the hour. That's
Speaker 1: something that makes you look weak. And in case you're
Speaker 1: wondering the economic hit, it's already happening. Consumer confidence is
Speaker 1: now lower, lower than it was during the pandemic. We
Speaker 1: are now in this We're lowest in the Michigan Index.
Speaker 1: We're talking as bad as the seventies were. And remember
Speaker 1: we now have a fertilizer issue, we've got food transport issues,
Speaker 1: and we got supply chain issues.
Speaker 2: So this is.
Speaker 1: Not going to get better anytime soon. This is and
Speaker 1: we have not felt the worst parts of this. Every
Speaker 1: expert said, come about mid April, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's going to feel like things went off a cliff. Well,
Speaker 1: this is the week where we hit mid April. Gas
Speaker 1: prices biggest one month spike since the sixties. Hiring is slowing,
Speaker 1: wages are flattening. Uncertain economic future means companies start freezing.
Speaker 2: Everything they're doing.
Speaker 1: You pull back on new investments, you hold off on
Speaker 1: new high because you're not sure where this economy is going.
Speaker 2: And in this case, this is this is why the the.
Speaker 1: The the bad shoots that we're seeing on the economy,
Speaker 1: and as opposed to green shoots, uh, it could accelerate
Speaker 1: because of that situation. Before I leave the Iran issue here,
Speaker 1: I know Trump doesn't care about optics anymore, but I
Speaker 1: thought Marco Rubio might as talks are deteriorating with the
Speaker 1: war with Iran, which of course is going to probably
Speaker 1: could probably trigger a global recession. I'm glad to know
Speaker 1: that the commander in chief and the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: were hooping it up at a.
Speaker 2: UFC match in Miami. Not the best look. I know.
Speaker 1: If I were a Republican on the ballot, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: does the President take any of this seriously? I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes is it? You know, he just, you know, the
Speaker 1: celebrity parts of the presidency matter more to him than
Speaker 1: the actual job itself. And it's moments like Saturday night
Speaker 1: where he's whooping it up at at a UFC match
Speaker 1: while JD. Vance is negotiating in his behalf and having
Speaker 1: to walk away. And here's the thing, you know, Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: you know, you know who would have been really critical
Speaker 1: of a secretary of State behaving this way, Senator Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: if John Kerry at all had done anything even close
Speaker 1: to this. Gone to a Bruce Springsteen concert while there
Speaker 1: was a negotiation.
Speaker 2: On the Iran nuclear right.
Speaker 1: I promise you a Senator Marco Rubio would be beating
Speaker 1: his chest about it.
Speaker 2: You have one job. All this stuff.
Speaker 1: Deep down inside, he knows it's a bad look, you know,
Speaker 1: And with Rubio, and I wonder, Look, some people think
Speaker 1: I'm too tough on Ruby, and some of you think I.
Speaker 2: Give Rubio too much credit.
Speaker 1: I've heard that too. Oh you keep thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: when do you know? I just know he knows better,
Speaker 1: and everybody who knows him knows he knows better. And
Speaker 1: he's allowed himself to get caught up in this. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little celebrity. Maybe it's the middle class
Speaker 1: chip on his shoulder.
Speaker 2: I get it. I have it. I have that chip.
Speaker 1: You know, he he wasn't born on third base, and
Speaker 1: then and handed everything. I wasn't born on third base.
Speaker 2: So I get it. I get the chip.
Speaker 1: But you got to have the character to sort of
Speaker 1: understand how to how to draw some lines and how
Speaker 1: to compartmentalize. And you know, he seems to have gotten
Speaker 1: It's almost like he's more caught up on the celebrity
Speaker 1: than I thought he would. It's just a disappointment. I
Speaker 1: know that's not a new criticism for me, but I
Speaker 1: know he knows better and that was a bad look.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those that you feel like, I know,
Speaker 1: nothing matters, right, Trump can shoot somebody and put that
Speaker 1: on and.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But it just chips away again, chips away, chips away.
Speaker 1: You know this is serious stuff. I'm sorry they can't
Speaker 1: they am you know, nobody's saying don't watch the match,
Speaker 1: but you know, send a message to the country that
Speaker 1: you're worried about what's happening in their lives. You have
Speaker 1: made decisions that have upended the lives of millions of Americans.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're having a good time at.
Speaker 2: A UFC match. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well.
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Speaker 1: Speaking of unseerious people, let's go talk about Eric Swallall
Speaker 1: and the sort of the fall of Eric Swalwell. You know,
Speaker 1: this is one of those And I've seen some back
Speaker 1: and forth on this. There's shocked but not surprise, surprise
Speaker 1: but not shocked, whatever way you want to whatever however
Speaker 1: you want to use those two words interchangeably.
Speaker 2: Right, we have this all the time.
Speaker 1: With Trump, he finds ways to surprise us, even if
Speaker 1: we're not shocked.
Speaker 2: With that, he surprises us.
Speaker 1: But with Swalwell, this is one of those things you're like, well,
Speaker 1: everybody kind of knew or thought they knew, but the
Speaker 1: stakes were never high enough where you thought it was
Speaker 1: important to report about it. All right, That's the best
Speaker 1: explanation I can give you as a reporter. And you know,
Speaker 1: do you chase every rumor and every politician you hear about,
Speaker 1: because I promise you I've heard a rumor about every
Speaker 1: single politician that's ever remotely thought about running for presidents?
Speaker 2: Why will run for president?
Speaker 1: And I'm sure ninety percent of the rumors are unsubstantiate.
Speaker 1: The problem is there's always enough things that are true
Speaker 1: that it makes you constantly in the back of your
Speaker 1: head as a political reporter. You know, you file the
Speaker 1: other accusations away. You're like and you start to like,
Speaker 1: you know, look for smoke. A lot of times there's
Speaker 1: no smoke, so you don't keep going. And sometimes you know, look,
Speaker 1: I know you're if you're right now still defending Eric Swallow,
Speaker 1: you'll say, how come this is all coming out right
Speaker 1: when he's you know, the front runner. Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of times people have, you know, compartmentalized their bad experiences
Speaker 1: with somebody until that person's back in the news or
Speaker 1: until that person's about to get even more power, and
Speaker 1: then they think, whoa if I don't speak out now
Speaker 1: when you know, before while there's still a chance if
Speaker 1: they really believe this person is too irresponsible to have power.
Speaker 1: So I think you've got to be careful when you're
Speaker 1: questioning the timing of accusations. In some ways, the political
Speaker 1: campaign season, the primary campaign, is exactly when we should
Speaker 1: be having these you know, conversations, we're we're trying to
Speaker 1: find out who these people are. Do they have the
Speaker 1: character to handle the job? Do they have the qualifications
Speaker 1: to handle the job? Do they have the knowledge to
Speaker 1: handle the job. So, you know, in Swalwell's problem here
Speaker 1: is that he's only denying a crime.
Speaker 2: I did not sexually assault it. But he's saying it's not.
Speaker 1: Denying that he had a wondering eye. And unfortunately for
Speaker 1: those of us that have covered Washington for as long
Speaker 1: as we have, there are a lot of Eric Swabbles
Speaker 1: out there. And you can sit here and say, well,
Speaker 1: it's the system that creates it. I think there's some
Speaker 1: truth to that. These sitting senators and sitting members of
Speaker 1: House have these enormous stabs that are just devoted to
Speaker 1: keeping them happy, and it just can create a bubble
Speaker 1: or a filter or for the truly weak character. You know,
Speaker 1: it you know makes you think more of yourself. You
Speaker 1: think you're above it all, or you think you can
Speaker 1: get away with anything, or you think you're just you
Speaker 1: think your personality is just that magnetic. Why else would
Speaker 1: all these people not be so devoted to you? So
Speaker 1: you do, you know, if you've had. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one of those things if you have a little bit
Speaker 1: of the narcissistic gene in you, the way getting elected
Speaker 1: to Congress in some ways can can amplify it, if
Speaker 1: that's possible. And when you look at some of of
Speaker 1: his mo that the various allegations are out there, it right,
Speaker 1: it's it's sadly familiar, right. He seems to be looking
Speaker 1: for those that look up to him, right, that's who
Speaker 1: he preyed upon, you know. And you could say whether
Speaker 1: it was consensual, and I'm sure in his mind it
Speaker 1: was consensual, but he you know, he's trying really hard
Speaker 1: to say I'm not Bill Cosby, I'm Bill Clinton. Well,
Speaker 1: even that I don't think people accept anymore because there
Speaker 1: was still a power dynamic issue. So you did it,
Speaker 1: you're not sneaking in date rape drugs, still doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're qualified to be the next governor of California as
Speaker 1: far as the American public or the California public is concerned. So,
Speaker 1: you know, in some ways, it's a very familiar story.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about the follow up. I think
Speaker 1: there's going to be the first thing we're going to
Speaker 1: see is we're going to see Congress. Right, you've got
Speaker 1: two other members of Congress that have been whose behavior
Speaker 1: with women have been an issue, and there's been some
Speaker 1: threats to expel them from Congress. Tony Gonzales, Republican from Texas,
Speaker 1: who has since dropped out. He pulled out of that runoff,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't he hasn't resigned from Congress. Corey Mills,
Speaker 1: Republican from Florida. Then you have another member of Congress
Speaker 1: who's accused of essentially stealing money from FEMA, and there
Speaker 1: may be a vote to expel her. We may have
Speaker 1: like four expulsion votes. You need two thirds of a
Speaker 1: vote to do this. And I'll just say I think
Speaker 1: this is you know, he's going to be political votes
Speaker 1: of convenience, right, Both parties just want to sweep their
Speaker 1: bad apples under the rug. So you may see a vote.
Speaker 2: Is it one vote? Is it two votes? Is it?
Speaker 2: Four votes? Right?
Speaker 1: Three of them are inappropriate behavior with women? Tony Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: Corey Mills, and Eric Swalwell. The fourth, Sheila Sherphyllis McCormick,
Speaker 1: is the one of where she's accused of basically stealing
Speaker 1: COVID money and using it for her campaign. She hit
Speaker 1: the public trial with the Ethics Committee. So it is
Speaker 1: certainly politically convenient for both parties and for a Jeffreys
Speaker 1: and a Johnson to almost agree to this and just
Speaker 1: sort of saying, let the will of the House happen,
Speaker 1: whatever happens happens, and they clean it up.
Speaker 2: I will just say this, the law of unattended consequences.
Speaker 1: One. If the votes fail, and they might there might
Speaker 1: be other members of Congress who think, there but for
Speaker 1: the grace of God go I and who may think
Speaker 1: and may think they're going to practice their own version
Speaker 1: of the Golden Rule, and they're going to do not
Speaker 1: unto others, what they hope will be done unto them.
Speaker 1: And if they fear that they've got something in their
Speaker 1: paths that could come out, what precedent do they want
Speaker 1: to send?
Speaker 2: So you could have some of that, you could have
Speaker 2: some of.
Speaker 1: It in the other way, where the news of Swawell
Speaker 1: and Gonzales and Mills triggers even more accusations and more
Speaker 1: staffers decide, if we're going to hold these four accountable,
Speaker 1: then we need to hold these other folks agount.
Speaker 2: So it's possible.
Speaker 1: It's an important moment for Congress to sort of draw
Speaker 1: a line and to try to raise the bar, because,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, the quality of member of Congress has
Speaker 1: been going downhill for some time. More and more of
Speaker 1: them are not role models. Now you could say, hey,
Speaker 1: they just are you know, a reflection of us, man,
Speaker 1: They're a perverted reflection of us, because these congressional districts
Speaker 1: aren't fairly reflective of the country. So it's a perverted version.
Speaker 1: It's a fun house mirror version of us. And there's
Speaker 1: always been a small part of me that we as
Speaker 1: American citizens, you know, we've always punched, we've always punched
Speaker 1: down in Congress. We want to believe that we're all
Speaker 1: better than them, and this is only going to be
Speaker 1: more proof of that. But I am you know, look,
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be it's probably going
Speaker 1: to be swift justice. But it's a version of sweeping
Speaker 1: all this under the rug all at the same time,
Speaker 1: rather than maybe having a better.
Speaker 2: To come to you know what moment.
Speaker 1: Where you say, you know, you know, how do we
Speaker 1: demand a better quality of behavior, How do we draw
Speaker 1: some better lines, and how do we root this stuff
Speaker 1: out sooner? And how do we But it's sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just the nature of the beast. And we know we've
Speaker 1: lived with politicians like this for this long and part
Speaker 1: of it is are we going to hold Is Congress
Speaker 1: going to hold individual members of Congress to a higher
Speaker 1: bar than they hold the President of the United States?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That's the uncomfortable shadow that hangs over all of this, folks, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Every single accusation against Mills,
Speaker 1: against Gonzales, against Swawell, and against and even on the
Speaker 1: funding stuff against Sherp Phyllis McCormick, all of it. There
Speaker 1: are accusations against Donald Trump for versions of this, whether
Speaker 1: it's essentially using government money, using power to enrich himself
Speaker 1: that's basically been the second term. Never mind the various
Speaker 1: accusations for women, including a civil court that said he
Speaker 1: was credibly accused of rape, of which he still not
Speaker 1: paid the fine that a civil court.
Speaker 2: Adjudicated against him.
Speaker 1: So that's also a part of this. That's just, like
Speaker 1: like I said, just hovers over all of this. The
Speaker 1: real question is does this have a I think this
Speaker 1: ends up, you know, sort of if it's possible to
Speaker 1: lower the approval rating of Congress generically overall, it will
Speaker 1: and this is a pox on everybody who's running as
Speaker 1: an incumbent, which is why they're going to want to
Speaker 1: try to wash their hands, because there's also an Epstein
Speaker 1: angle to this, right, they've done so little on the
Speaker 1: Epstein front. They better make sure they're willing to hold
Speaker 1: accountable any one of their members at a minimum, because
Speaker 1: of their failure to do so when it came to
Speaker 1: all things Epstein. So I think we know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen here to these four members. I do think
Speaker 1: these votes are going to happen. My guess is they
Speaker 1: all do get expelled because of the desperation of the
Speaker 1: members that are currently running to look a little less dirty.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, the cynic in me says, hey,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is small stuff, and maybe
Speaker 1: you could say, hey, a small improvement here of trying
Speaker 1: to raise the bar anywhere is better than not trying
Speaker 1: at all. I grant you that, But there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of elephants in the room on these stories that
Speaker 1: we're not touching, that are certainly having a little bit
Speaker 1: of impacked there. As for the dubernatorial follow in the
Speaker 1: obviously the primary is coming up. Democrats had been reluctantly
Speaker 1: rallying around Swallwell. And this is all a reflection, by
Speaker 1: the way that I do think most California Democrats that
Speaker 1: are in some power have little interest in seeing Tom
Speaker 1: Steyer as their standard bearer. And it has been in
Speaker 1: anybody but Styre sort of mindset, right, And so this
Speaker 1: is why you had a whole bunch of folks hoping
Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris would jump in, Alex Padilla would jump in,
Speaker 1: and I understand why both of them didn't. If you're
Speaker 1: not interested in the job.
Speaker 2: Don't run.
Speaker 1: And I think Kamala Aris wants one more bite at
Speaker 1: the apple of president.
Speaker 2: That's been made clear and clear.
Speaker 1: Alex Padilla, he might have been able to win the governorship,
Speaker 1: but he'd be giving up a Senate seat for life. Essentially,
Speaker 1: there's no term limits on running for the Senate. There
Speaker 1: is term limits on running for governor, and maybe he
Speaker 1: wants to spend the next twenty years in the Senate.
Speaker 1: Ditto Adam Scheff. And then there's another uncomfortable aspect of
Speaker 1: I'm just I've been constantly trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: is this field, Excuse me, why is this California gubernatorial field?
Speaker 2: So weak.
Speaker 1: I think there's a whole bunch of people that don't
Speaker 1: want the job, that don't think the job is worth having.
Speaker 1: In the first time after news now I've explained to
Speaker 1: you why I think some major Democrats were against. I
Speaker 1: think another is that there's been sixteen straight years of
Speaker 1: democratic governorship of rule of the governorship. There is going
Speaker 1: to inevitably be fatigue on Democrats. So the likelihood that
Speaker 1: the next governor was at best going to get one
Speaker 1: term might not survive a recall, I think was quite
Speaker 1: high and quite likely. So that may explain why some
Speaker 1: people didn't want to do it. Then think about the reality,
Speaker 1: right the next governor is going to be dealing with
Speaker 1: a very active presidential campaign of a former California governor,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, and he'll be high profile, and he'll be
Speaker 1: running on what he believes is his record that will
Speaker 1: be questioned. It will be a constant sort of It
Speaker 1: will make the pr side of running the state a
Speaker 1: little bit harder. If you want to hit Gavin for
Speaker 1: not having an heir apparent, I think it's a fair hit.
Speaker 2: I'm now I know why he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't like it when he sort of got pushed aside.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he his feeling was let let
Speaker 1: a thousand flowers bloom because he want he didn't like
Speaker 1: the way he was treated. He was sort of forced
Speaker 1: await his turn them and he had a run for
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor and then and then the you know, the
Speaker 1: sea's parted for him essentially, but he didn't he didn't
Speaker 1: really have an air apparent. But now they've got a
Speaker 1: real problem because Swawell obviously that candidacy is dead, whether
Speaker 1: he sees the light and drops out or not. As
Speaker 1: another story, everybody that was anybody has pulled their endorsement.
Speaker 2: There if Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1: I just look at all the money Tom's tyre has
Speaker 1: spent to promote Tom Steyer, especially in the state of California.
Speaker 1: And when you look on the ROI of the amount
Speaker 1: of money he spent and the translation that money and
Speaker 1: how much money that has translated to support for him,
Speaker 1: it is one of the worst investments you could ever have.
Speaker 1: I mean, the amount of money he spent. He should
Speaker 1: he's already been. They should be in first place up
Speaker 1: by ten over anybody.
Speaker 2: Unless.
Speaker 1: The dogs don't like the dog food. One of the
Speaker 1: old axioms sometimes the dogs don't like the dog food.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what the brand says. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how much money you spent on advertising. The dogs won't
Speaker 1: eat your dog food if it ain't alpo or it
Speaker 1: ain't whatever, right, And you got to ask yourself. Stier's
Speaker 1: done all these he's just whether. I don't think he
Speaker 1: comes across very likable.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: He's sort of the angry billionaire. Look without any charm. Right,
Speaker 1: Trump hads the angry billionaire. You know, he's the angry,
Speaker 1: fake billionaire who used the presidency to become a billionaire.
Speaker 1: But he's got a little charm and in politics you
Speaker 1: need a little charm. That matter who you are, gotta
Speaker 1: have a little charm, and Styr's missing the charm thing. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe you can just lean into being the a hole
Speaker 1: billionaire I would if I were him. Don't try to
Speaker 1: be something you're not.
Speaker 2: Just try that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it works, maybe he gets there, But the point
Speaker 1: is he's pretty much alienated. He is not seen as
Speaker 1: somebody that's easy to work with, which is why they
Speaker 1: doesn't have any major supporters that aren't supporting him without
Speaker 1: being paid by him. Now, he's not the first billionaire
Speaker 1: candidate to pay people to support him, pay influencers things
Speaker 1: like that. That's sort of now. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: influencers that are getting paid by outside actors that don't
Speaker 1: say who they are.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of them.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, I don't think anybody knows which
Speaker 1: side could buy me off very well. But the point is,
Speaker 1: as I just I just look at you know, the
Speaker 1: facts are the facts. Tyra spent all this money and
Speaker 1: it's never translated to anything. So then the question is,
Speaker 1: what does you know if you're Gavin news from Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla fore most prominent Democrats in the state,
Speaker 1: do you all endorse the same person? Does that help
Speaker 1: or hurt them? I think in this unique race it
Speaker 1: would help them because, you know, because the last two
Speaker 1: Democrats that most of the party wants to see and
Speaker 1: that's in that slot or Tom Styren Katie Porter. So
Speaker 1: if they want somebody else, maybe it's Matt Mahon. You know,
Speaker 1: he's gotten little, he had plenty of resources to get
Speaker 1: into this thing.
Speaker 2: He's not caught fire.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's not well known enough, maybe he got into late.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're just never going to be able to make
Speaker 1: the mayor of San Jose a statewide Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There was one candidate that I do think would have
Speaker 1: would have been their best candidate, and it's the mayor
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. Now he is just there.
Speaker 1: It's a little early, and it could be that some
Speaker 1: of these folks like Caruso, Lurie, maybe even Padilla, maybe Harris,
Speaker 1: maybe they all said, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: run for governor in twenty thirty. I am not want
Speaker 1: to try to follow in this sixteenth Street, you know,
Speaker 1: let me follow somebody that it's in debacle.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be governor.
Speaker 1: Well, Gavin's running for president, right, there's a whole I
Speaker 1: understand that line of things. But they have to avoid
Speaker 1: a debacle. They've got to find a viable candidate. And look,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they just say, fine, let'sty or have it.
Speaker 1: At least he'll spend money on behalf of the ticket.
Speaker 1: I don't think money is the problem though for the
Speaker 1: California Democrats. So it'll be curious to see. I think
Speaker 1: those four if they choose to sort of be their
Speaker 1: own version of a of a of of of king
Speaker 1: and Queen makers here, but Shift Padilla, Harrison Newsome. If
Speaker 1: they care about the state party and try to strengthen,
Speaker 1: and if they want the eventual governor that gets elected
Speaker 1: to have some credibility when they get elected, they probably
Speaker 1: ought to try to rally behind somebody in this primary.
Speaker 1: I think it could be Javier Bsara. I think if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the Biden baggage, maybe Besera.
Speaker 2: Would be the guy.
Speaker 1: It's a state ag you know, he's got the correct resume,
Speaker 1: but the Biden baggage is not unheavy. I think everybody
Speaker 1: else looks like they're retreats for a Ricosa Katie Porter,
Speaker 1: all these people that feel like they've been trying to
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the also rants.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I go back.
Speaker 1: This feels a lot like nineteen ninety eight, two thousand
Speaker 1: and two California politics, where none of the big names
Speaker 1: would run. No Diane Feinstein, she still wouldn't run for governor.
Speaker 1: That was still the sort of the hope that some
Speaker 1: Democrats had, no Barber Boxer running or anything like that,
Speaker 1: and the lesser known sort of nebbish at the time,
Speaker 1: not everybody was thrilled with it. Gray Davis sort of
Speaker 1: sneaks through because they didn't want they didn't want a
Speaker 1: rich guy owning the party from on the outside.
Speaker 2: Now, Checki and for whatever reason, Jane.
Speaker 1: Harmon didn't take off, you know, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: Harmon and Checky beat each other up and it cleared.
Speaker 2: The path for Davis a little bit. But I do
Speaker 2: think this.
Speaker 1: I think the most likely new thing that has happened
Speaker 1: here is no matter that we are likely to have
Speaker 1: two unpopular figures running for governor by November, Steve Hilton
Speaker 1: and whoever the Democrat is. My guess is they'll both
Speaker 1: be underwater, just like Gray Davis, Bill Simon twenty zho
Speaker 1: and whoever becomes governor is just swimming uphill. And it's
Speaker 1: so easy to put a recall initiative on there. And
Speaker 1: if things are south, you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that will be well. It will only sort of
Speaker 1: reinforce the likely weakness of whoever wins. But the other
Speaker 1: unintended consequence to this debacle could be that the Democrats
Speaker 1: and the Legislature decide to get rid of the all
Speaker 1: party primary and try to put a put a referendum
Speaker 1: back on the ballot to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: Personally, I hope not.
Speaker 1: I think all party primaries long term are healthier for
Speaker 1: the system. But the two parties have viewed all party
Speaker 1: primaries always through the lens of is it good for.
Speaker 2: Them or bad for them?
Speaker 1: And if they think it's bad for them, then they're
Speaker 1: going to fight to get rid of them. And in
Speaker 1: this case, both parties think this all open primary is
Speaker 1: actually bad for them. They've never liked it, and not
Speaker 1: having this type of control over their nominee and over
Speaker 1: the process when you have a debacle like this, is
Speaker 1: going to make a lot of California Democrats decide they
Speaker 1: don't want this all party primary anymore. So I hope
Speaker 1: that's not the unintended consequence one of them, but I
Speaker 1: fear it could be. All Right, a few other quick
Speaker 1: hitters of a whole bunch of stuff. These are just
Speaker 1: literally things that I've pondering in the back of my head,
Speaker 1: and I thought I would share them with you. News
Speaker 1: that Roger Stone is who saved Tulsa Gabbard does not.
Speaker 1: Let's just say, if you're still deep in the Russia
Speaker 1: ties to Trump world story, well, two of the top
Speaker 1: four or five people that have had some ties to
Speaker 1: that world. Two of them are Tulsa Gabbard and Rogerstone.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying anything, but it's interesting to me that
Speaker 1: it took Roger Stone to tell Donald Trump not to
Speaker 1: fire Tulsa Gabbard. Roger Stone, who was mister wickily, who
Speaker 1: seemed to know everything that was going on there, you
Speaker 1: know it, Roger Anyway, put it this way, It's not
Speaker 1: the best look for this administration that somebody with all
Speaker 1: of Roger Stone's interest in questionable and intriguing ties to
Speaker 1: overseaz oligarchs is the one telling Donald Trump not to
Speaker 1: get rid of Tulsa Gabbard. All Right, the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal pardon story, the sweeping pardons, anybody to in free
Speaker 1: from the Oval office. Look, we knew this was likely
Speaker 1: that he would be thinking about this, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: This is why those Joe Biden pardons, preemptive pardons, were
Speaker 1: such a huge mistake, because it only gives him cover
Speaker 1: to do exactly this is what Trump going to do,
Speaker 1: worse than what Biden did. Probably, and I know some
Speaker 1: of you are going to what are you both siding this?
Speaker 1: Because there is no reward for being less bad. I
Speaker 1: only robbed half of your house. I didn't rob all
Speaker 1: of your house. You're still a bat. You're still a robber.
Speaker 2: Be better. This is why this was a mistake. Here's
Speaker 2: the good news.
Speaker 1: I hope this accelerates interest in the constitutional amendment to
Speaker 1: create a congressional nullification on pardons if we've ever needed
Speaker 1: that in place asap. This story better be the trigger
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: And then finally.
Speaker 1: There were I have to tell you, I want you know,
Speaker 1: the tech world has a real problem because the most
Speaker 1: prominent people in the tech world.
Speaker 2: They don't actor behave like the rest of us. And
Speaker 2: when you read this.
Speaker 1: Uh Altmann biograph profile in New Yorker, and when you
Speaker 1: read the Lauren Bezos said Chez say Lauren Sanchez Bezos
Speaker 1: interview in the New York Times, Man, if you didn't
Speaker 1: need more evidence that the pitchforks are coming and that
Speaker 1: when the look it's your own behavior and your own
Speaker 1: sort of borderline sort of compartmentalization of how ridiculous you
Speaker 1: people look. You super wealthy people look, you power hungry
Speaker 1: folks look. And then you're going to be angry when
Speaker 1: government's coming at you. Well, government's made up of the people.
Speaker 1: So when the pitchforks come and you don't like the
Speaker 1: level of regulation that's coming, Just remember only have yourselves
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Speaker 2: Podcast. Time Machine Time. So let me tell you I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 1: This was not the easiest week to decide what was
Speaker 1: worth your time doing a deep dive on. And I
Speaker 1: say your time because that's how I try to look
Speaker 1: at these things. What is something that I think? What
Speaker 1: are what's a topic that people you know, they know
Speaker 1: they know something, but they don't really know as much
Speaker 1: about it as they probably should. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I try to choose it right in those terms,
Speaker 1: which I won't go with the most obvious. And this week,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll be honest, there was just a ton
Speaker 1: of anniversaries that hit this week. In history, I mean,
Speaker 1: April nineteenth, seventeen seventy five, the battles of Lexting and Concord, Right,
Speaker 1: that's that, you know, when protests becomes a revolution April fourteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln April nineteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, the Oklahoma City bombing and domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: And in culture April fifteenth, nineteen forty seven, Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: steps onto a baseball field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. April sixty,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. Michael Jordan steps off the court
Speaker 1: for the very.
Speaker 2: Last time as a Washington Wizard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he probably forgot, That's right, he did play for
Speaker 1: the Washington Wizards. I've never forgotten it, and I have
Speaker 1: the basketball cards in PSA ten holders to prove it. Okay,
Speaker 1: But I define, but I diverge.
Speaker 2: And look.
Speaker 1: And while all of those could easily be worth its
Speaker 1: own dime dive, and we could have tentacles of the impact,
Speaker 1: the long term impacts of all of them. It's a
Speaker 1: group of exiles on a beach in Cuba that we're
Speaker 1: about to define the limits of American power that I
Speaker 1: want to focus on, because there's echoes here for the
Speaker 1: current situation in Iran and of course what could be
Speaker 1: coming next in Cuba. So let me start with that.
Speaker 2: So we're doing the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, and it's the lung shadow of this.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the invasion, we have to start
Speaker 1: with something a bit uncomfortable. The United States didn't just
Speaker 1: lose Cuba, it misread it. For years, the US backed
Speaker 1: a gentleman by the name of Flujencio Batista until he
Speaker 1: became indefensible. So when Fedel Castro takes power in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, Washington doesn't immediately slam the door and working
Speaker 1: with Castro.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't warmy.
Speaker 1: Castro comes and visits the United States, but Dwight Eisenhower
Speaker 1: refuses to meet with him.
Speaker 2: He goes golfing.
Speaker 1: And Richard Nixon meets with him instead, the Vice president.
Speaker 1: And it tells you everything you need to know. This
Speaker 1: wasn't a clean break, but it also wasn't a real opening.
Speaker 1: By the time Washington decides that Castro is a problem,
Speaker 1: the relationship is already slipping away. Now I have my
Speaker 1: own little interesting history here a little bit. My grandfather
Speaker 1: I stumbled across some things he was building sugarcane help.
Speaker 1: He was an engineer on sugarcane plants that they were
Speaker 1: building in Cuba in the mid to late fifties. And
Speaker 1: one of the stories he says is he said he
Speaker 1: would be visited by Cia folks every once in a
Speaker 1: while to ask them about Castro because he was in
Speaker 1: the role part. So he met Castro. And in order
Speaker 1: for Castro's rebels to sort of leave your business alone,
Speaker 1: if you agreed to just put a photo up in
Speaker 1: your sort of trailer off us, if you can think
Speaker 1: about those trailer offices that are parts of these you
Speaker 1: know sort of you know, his factories are being built,
Speaker 1: right and things like that. And because I remember I
Speaker 1: found this eight by ten glossy of my grandfather while
Speaker 1: we were cleaning some stuff up. Fidel Castro was like, Grandpa,
Speaker 1: what's this and he said it was basically it was
Speaker 1: basically proof that you that you paid to get left alone.
Speaker 1: But that was the point he would make. He told
Speaker 1: me that he would make to these CIA sort of
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, officers, people that were
Speaker 1: just trying to find out information.
Speaker 2: What could you tell us about Castro? And he'd say, Hey,
Speaker 2: it's not a good guy, so be careful.
Speaker 1: But there was a real back and forth. How much
Speaker 1: should they be they were they were trying to see
Speaker 1: it was it worth sort of wrapping their arms around Castro?
Speaker 1: And it was a constant back and forth at that time.
Speaker 1: But let's zoom out, okay, because none of this is
Speaker 1: happening in isolation. This is early nineteen sixty one, when
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs itself happens. It's a world that's
Speaker 1: still rattled by Spotnik and shaped by the fear of
Speaker 1: a missile gap that the new young president John Kennedy
Speaker 1: had run on. So Cold War tensions are super high.
Speaker 1: And just months after the Bay of Pigs August nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, that'd be construction of the actual Berlin Wall begins, right,
Speaker 1: So the Bay of Pigs happens just before that sort
Speaker 1: of iron curtain becomes permanent for a period of time. Ambiguity,
Speaker 1: fading sides hardening in Cuba, ninety miles from Florida, is
Speaker 1: now part of that global equation.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One thing that people need to remember about the Bay
Speaker 1: of Pigs invasion is that it wasn't It wasn't Kennedy's plan.
Speaker 1: This plan didn't begin with Kennedy. It begins with Dwight
Speaker 1: Eisenhower in March of nineteen sixty he's still president and
Speaker 1: he directs the CIA to develop a plan to remove Castro.
Speaker 1: So by the time John F. Kennedy takes office, this
Speaker 1: is already a presidential approved operation and the CIA, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't the CIA of today. This is the CIA
Speaker 1: of then, a much different CIA than we had now.
Speaker 1: It's coming off what appears to be a winning streak
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three Iranian coup, something that the time
Speaker 1: Machine tackled a few weeks ago. Guatemala nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: was a successful CIA inspired coup. Small operations, weak resistance,
Speaker 1: quick wins, so it created a bit of a trap.
Speaker 1: Success becomes confidence for the CIA. Confidence becomes assumption, and
Speaker 1: assumption becomes strategy. They think they've seen this before, Well
Speaker 1: they hadn't, and they were fighting the last war. So
Speaker 1: Kennedy walks in. He's the youngest elected president in American
Speaker 1: history at the time, forty three, so he's new, he's unproven,
Speaker 1: and he's under pressure. And this plan, it was already moving.
Speaker 1: The training camps were already happening, the exiles to participate,
Speaker 1: We're already recruited, the logistics were in place, so the
Speaker 1: machinery is running. So here's the problem Kennedy's facing. It's
Speaker 1: easier to approve something already in motion than to stop it.
Speaker 1: This is what happened to Barack Obama and Bush at
Speaker 1: the end of his term decided not to approve an
Speaker 1: increase in troops in Afghanistan and let it. Let it
Speaker 1: be a decision. The new president makes well, he wasn't
Speaker 1: crazy about it, but what was he going to do
Speaker 1: stop it? It was too early in his presidency to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: So what does he do. He ends up adding more
Speaker 2: troops to it.
Speaker 1: So this is how a previous president can somehow tie
Speaker 1: the hands of an incoming president.
Speaker 2: And we've seen it.
Speaker 1: This isn't the This is arguably one of the first
Speaker 1: times that this happens that you see it become a.
Speaker 2: Problem for that president.
Speaker 1: So it is easier to approve it, that something that's
Speaker 1: already in motion than to stop it. So he doesn't
Speaker 1: cancel it, but he does try to shape it, and
Speaker 1: this is where he makes a mistake. The plan depends
Speaker 1: on air superiority. The CIA uses B twenty six bombers
Speaker 1: pointed to painted to look like their Castro's plans. The
Speaker 1: cover story that it's a mutiny, but the strikes on
Speaker 1: April fifteen miss some key targets, Castro's air force survives,
Speaker 1: and the cover collapses. At the United Nations, Adelie Stevenson,
Speaker 1: the second defends the story that he doesn't know is false.
Speaker 1: When he learns the truth, he's humiliated, and he reportedly
Speaker 1: considered resigning. That's the cost of plausible deniability.
Speaker 2: So now Kennedy has a choice, does he escalate or
Speaker 2: pull back?
Speaker 1: Well, he cancels the second air strike, and that's the
Speaker 1: moment the operation dies. Now the entire planted on one
Speaker 1: assumption that the Cuban people were going to rise up.
Speaker 1: They don't because by then many of the opponents had
Speaker 1: already fled. The bombings ended up rallying support for Castro,
Speaker 1: and Castro moved fast. He arrests more than one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand suspected opponents, dissidence clergy, journalists, CIA networks.
Speaker 2: He clamps down art.
Speaker 1: The invasion doesn't just fail to spark an uprising, it
Speaker 1: does almost the opposite. It helps make one impossible. So
Speaker 1: April seventeenth, Brigade twenty five oh six Lands includes fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred Cuban EXAs they believe they're going home at the
Speaker 1: Bay of Pigs. Bahia de Cochinos was actually named not
Speaker 1: for pigs, but likely for a local fish kind of
Speaker 1: called a hogfish that shorthanded Debay of Pigs. History gave
Speaker 1: it a better name, the Bay of Hogfish. By the way,
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs ended up giving me my favorite
Speaker 1: laugh line from the nineteen eighties. Being a Green Bay
Speaker 1: Packer fan, the great late Pede Axe Thelm then I
Speaker 1: write a sportswriter for Newsweek Previews back then when Tampa
Speaker 1: Bay and Green Bay meant in football twice a year
Speaker 1: because they were both in the NFC Central, he started
Speaker 1: referring to the matchup as the.
Speaker 2: Bay of Pigs. But I digress.
Speaker 1: So now we're back in nineteen sixty one. Within forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, by April nineteenth, the mission is over defeated,
Speaker 1: exiles captured, And it wasn't because of cowardice. It was
Speaker 1: because the assumptions were wrong from the start. The aftershocks
Speaker 1: we're still living with them. The consequences don't stop there.
Speaker 1: The failure ends up strengthening Castro shapes. How Nikita Khrushchev
Speaker 1: sees Kennedy, that perception carries forward A year later, Soviet
Speaker 1: missiles in Cuba. They test the young president again. The
Speaker 1: most dangerous moment in the Cold War may not have
Speaker 1: ever happened, the Cuban missile crisis, if not for the
Speaker 1: failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. So that was
Speaker 1: the first evidence that the Bay of Pigs didn't stay.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty one, more than eleven hundred members of
Speaker 1: Brigade twenty five oh six are captured. Eventually they're released
Speaker 1: in exchange for fifty three million dollars in food, in medicine.
Speaker 1: But the defining moment came after in Miami, before tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of Cuban exiles, Kennedy receives the brigade's flag.
Speaker 1: He's not yet, they're not angry at Kennedy yet, and
Speaker 1: he makes a promise that it will be returned to
Speaker 1: a free Havana.
Speaker 2: It never has.
Speaker 1: And that's when failure becomes memory. It got turned into
Speaker 1: a betrayal for Cuban exiles. This wasn't about just the
Speaker 1: United States. This is about John F. Kennedy the belief.
Speaker 1: He encouraged it, he launched it, and then he didn't
Speaker 1: follow through. That's the way the Cuban exile community saw it,
Speaker 1: and that became a political identity, and it would stain
Speaker 1: the Democrats in the eyes of Cuban exiles for a lifetime. Now,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen right away. Cubans didn't automatically become Republican
Speaker 1: right away.
Speaker 2: It took time.
Speaker 1: In the sixties, the Cuban American voters were still split.
Speaker 1: The memories there, but it's not yet partisan.
Speaker 2: That changes.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan wins roughly eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the Cuban American vote. He ends up carrying Florida decisively,
Speaker 1: as state Jimmy Carter carried in seventy six. He activates
Speaker 1: the identity, and from that point on Florida becomes something different,
Speaker 1: not just a southern state, but a Cold War state
Speaker 1: shaped by exile, anti communism and memory, and that framework
Speaker 1: expands and later with the waves of immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Speaker 1: plug into really the same political model. And if you
Speaker 1: want to see the impact, there's probably no better campaign
Speaker 1: yere than the year two thousand. Florida's decided by five
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven votes, a state shaped in part
Speaker 1: by the identity born in nineteen sixty one. So when
Speaker 1: you think of this week in history, you think about revolutions, assassinations,
Speaker 1: cultural breakthroughs. Right, the revolutions we just talked about, the
Speaker 1: assassinations Lincoln, the cultural breakthroughs, Jackie Robinson, it was moments
Speaker 1: where individuals redefine what's possible. With the Bay of Pigs,
Speaker 1: it's where a group of exiles revealed the limits of
Speaker 1: something else, American power and the power of political memory.
Speaker 1: Because every time a candidate steps onto a stage in
Speaker 1: Miami today, they're not just campaigning, they're still walking in
Speaker 1: the shadow.
Speaker 2: Of that beach, the Cochinas, the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 1: Ass Chuck, All right, it's some ass chuck time, So
Speaker 1: let's dig in. First one comes from David S. Colchester, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and he writes, Dear Chuck, thanks for the podcast. When
Speaker 1: news breaks far too often these days. I appreciate your
Speaker 1: reason perspective.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: My question is, when a US pren't it can launch
Speaker 1: massive military actions that deplete our arsenal and potentially leaving
Speaker 1: our military vulnerable, will Congress realistically vote to prevent rebuilding?
Speaker 1: If not, is the power of the person still a
Speaker 1: viable check on the executive branch. You know, that's a
Speaker 1: fair question, David, because I know if I were a
Speaker 1: member of Congress and I didn't approve of this war,
Speaker 1: I probably would feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Not replenishing the stockpiles in the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: And so you're absolutely right to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: I would, you know, I'd like to think i'd be
Speaker 1: a rational member.
Speaker 2: And you know, it is it is.
Speaker 1: This is I think the the difficulty in using your
Speaker 1: vote in Congress as a protest bihicle and it and
Speaker 1: it it is a way that sometimes presidents know how
Speaker 1: to jam Congress with this. But this is a fair
Speaker 1: I think this is a fair observe there are no
Speaker 1: this proves to you there's no good options left on
Speaker 1: this right. Number one, you just you got to you
Speaker 1: gotta win the argument at the ballot box. Number two, Uh,
Speaker 1: you've got to figure out how to I think that
Speaker 1: it's clear that even the war powers act as it stands,
Speaker 1: we're still got questions of whether it's constitutional or not
Speaker 1: because it's really not been fully litigated. That even that
Speaker 1: gives too much leeway and takes away so much of
Speaker 1: Congress's authority when it comes to who makes war.
Speaker 2: And this you know when I don't.
Speaker 1: What I don't understand is why there's not even further
Speaker 1: attempts to restrict I mean, it goes back to why
Speaker 1: did the founder You know, if you if you care
Speaker 1: about founders intent, and there's a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: on the right care about founders intent, well, the founders
Speaker 1: never you know, the whole point of this is they
Speaker 1: didn't want you know, they all had memories of what
Speaker 1: these monarchs in Europe did. Remember how I view monarchs.
Speaker 1: They're just dictators with a nicer name. But they made
Speaker 1: They would decide willy nilly when to go to war,
Speaker 1: and they would never send their own folks to war.
Speaker 1: They would send the their populations to war, and you'd
Speaker 1: have to fight on behalf of some treaty that the
Speaker 1: king or your queen signed with another king or queen,
Speaker 1: and maybe that treaty had to do with marriage, and
Speaker 1: maybe that treaty had nothing to do with anything other
Speaker 1: than that, and you would end up going to war
Speaker 1: because you had ties to the right family or wrong family,
Speaker 1: depending on the given time. The point is is that
Speaker 1: the founders did not want an American president to be
Speaker 1: able to do the same thing, and yet in theory
Speaker 1: that's what we already have. So I think there needs
Speaker 1: to be better clarification here. The War Powers Act doesn't
Speaker 1: do it. In sixty days is probably too much. It
Speaker 1: probably needs to be I think a commander in chief
Speaker 1: needs to be able to respond in defense of the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Hard stop.
Speaker 1: Was a run at all, in defense of the in
Speaker 1: the immediate needs to defend the United States and the immediate.
Speaker 2: It's hard to come up with evidence that it is,
Speaker 2: but look, you.
Speaker 1: Point out a real gap here in that, Yes, Congress
Speaker 1: is the power of the purse, but basically they would
Speaker 1: have to they're cutting off their nose despite their faces.
Speaker 1: Essentially what you're pointing out if they decide not to
Speaker 1: replenish our stockpiles, because then we're suddenly more vulnerable, and
Speaker 1: that's also bad.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the lose lose question there, David.
Speaker 1: But it's an important thing you pointed out, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't sooner, So thank you. Zach has the
Speaker 1: next question here, Rits. Hey, Chuck, the Zach from Cleveland,
Speaker 1: your resident Buckeye. I have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: want to claim resident Buck guye act, just.
Speaker 2: So you know, but.
Speaker 1: I'll let you be a resident buck Guy. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be like my buddy TK. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to come up with very specific title names to
Speaker 1: be the to be the resident Maybe you're the resident
Speaker 1: buck Guy from Cleveland, names act anyway, But I digress.
Speaker 1: You believe this is your fourth time getting a question
Speaker 1: on the show, and if so, congratulations. We will start looking.
Speaker 1: We gotta we got to find some merch. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start working on that. But he said, just a quick
Speaker 1: one here for you. Why is the market not really
Speaker 1: reacting to this war? I keep hearing it's probably the
Speaker 1: worst ever oil crisis, or it will be, But I
Speaker 1: thought the markets would fare worse even though gas is
Speaker 1: four dollars. Is because of market manipulations actually starting to
Speaker 1: correct or is it just too early to tell?
Speaker 2: Go guards?
Speaker 1: Is that the accepted sort of shortening of the Guardian.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I still struggle. I still say the
Speaker 1: eye word every once in a while.
Speaker 2: Guards. I think we all agree.
Speaker 1: Guardians, the fact that they're named after bridge statues guarding traffic.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a I know it's harder and
Speaker 1: harder to copyright nicknames than ever. I mean, trust me,
Speaker 1: I went through the process with my with GW and
Speaker 1: the Revolutionaries, not exactly, I mean.
Speaker 2: Go REVS. We like that. It's a little close to REVS.
Speaker 1: I don't know if everybody loves that, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's it could have been worse, and I guess that's
Speaker 1: probably the way to.
Speaker 2: Look at the Guardians. It could have been worse.
Speaker 1: Let me do it the question yourself, because I'd like
Speaker 1: to think I dealt with a little bit of monologue.
Speaker 1: I I think that there's I think there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of AI. There's still a sort of an the
Speaker 1: AI bubble that sort of kept things up.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: It does take longer for the oil shocks to break
Speaker 1: through because a lot more countries have been smarter about
Speaker 1: keeping a stockpile and things like that, and there's still
Speaker 1: some diversification and energy. But I do think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the market can make every predictor look like an idiot.
Speaker 1: And I'm taping this before the market's open this morning,
Speaker 1: but you may be listening to it after the markets.
Speaker 1: But I have a feeling this is the week that
Speaker 1: we start to see the to see the real negative
Speaker 1: impact start to start to hit. And then you know
Speaker 1: we're going to get You'll start to get the next
Speaker 1: you know, that next round of quarterly earnings reports that come.
Speaker 1: That'll that'll be coming, you know, May and June and
Speaker 1: all of that. That's you know, that's where you'll start
Speaker 1: to see. I mean that Michigan consumer confidence number lowest
Speaker 1: ever essentially since they started taking it.
Speaker 2: It's coming. I hate the you know, so just.
Speaker 1: Don't don't get rid of the sandbags. You know, you
Speaker 1: may think that you know, you've been told to prepare
Speaker 1: for a category five storm.
Speaker 2: Oh the storm. Maybe it's not coming. Don't take down
Speaker 2: the sandbags, don't take off the plywood.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from John and mil Milwaukee. Hey, you said,
Speaker 1: Democrats responding to Republican redistricuting with similar tactics may not
Speaker 1: be the right approach, But is there an argument for
Speaker 1: using every available tool while they still have the power
Speaker 1: to do so more broadly. As political norms continue to
Speaker 1: be tested, do you think Congress will step in to
Speaker 1: assert its role as a check or are we moving
Speaker 1: into a period where those guardrails are even weaker For contexts,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming at this from the far left. I
Speaker 1: vote a Republican from seventy six to eight. Just trying
Speaker 1: to understand where things stand. John and Milwaukee. Well, can
Speaker 1: I go back to another point on the redistricting thing.
Speaker 2: I think that you have.
Speaker 1: A better mandate if you win, if you win space
Speaker 1: with fair maps, if you have to rig the maps
Speaker 1: to get control of Congress, is it going to be
Speaker 1: a majority that is taped it that that is that
Speaker 1: has I mean, I think it has legitimacy in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the public. That's what I would fear, and
Speaker 1: that should be a fear. And I go back, Look,
Speaker 1: I get I'm specifically I specifically focus on this Virginia thing,
Speaker 1: obviously because I live here. But it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: of it's a lot of effort, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: political capital being spent for two districts. And if two
Speaker 1: districts are the difference between winning power and losing power,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have it is literally control the
Speaker 1: name only so you know it's it's a It's one
Speaker 1: of those things that I just think if you're looking
Speaker 1: to rep do you want to be the party that
Speaker 1: can repair things or not? And if you're also if
Speaker 1: it's all reaction, I just I don't think the public
Speaker 1: is going to fully embrace that either. I understand that
Speaker 1: you got to look it's it's I think the real
Speaker 1: lesson here is used power better when you have it right.
Speaker 1: And Democrats have watched it the last couple of times
Speaker 1: they've had it. I can't botch it this next time
Speaker 1: they have when they get all three or it's just
Speaker 1: impossible to ever succeed when you have all three. It's
Speaker 1: not like any party can hold it for more than
Speaker 1: two years. The question is what do you get done
Speaker 1: into you turn the corner? And I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: look at and I think it's fair. I think some
Speaker 1: on the left look at the election of Trump and
Speaker 1: sixteen and think, well, it turns out Obama should have
Speaker 1: done more, should have pushed harder. It wouldn't have mattered
Speaker 1: if Trump was coming anyway, What would you have done
Speaker 1: if you knew that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So I guess that that's going to be that's going
Speaker 1: to be one of the arguments. But as for Congress,
Speaker 1: I think that's a I think that's a guardrail. I
Speaker 1: think it's so weak that it can't get weaker that
Speaker 1: I do think you're going to have more and more
Speaker 1: members of Congress getting elected hoping to stop imperial presidencies.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm maybe I'm being pollyannish here, but I you know.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: We have we have when you go through as many,
Speaker 1: the more one term presidents we have, the more we're
Speaker 1: going to look to strengthen the other elected institution, the
Speaker 1: legislative branch.
Speaker 2: So I think that.
Speaker 1: Even though the presidency keeps getting strengthened, one term presidencies
Speaker 1: or a sign of weakness of the president, so in theory,
Speaker 1: Congress should have should be able to accumulate.
Speaker 2: Its power back.
Speaker 1: But I don't have a good I'm going to answer
Speaker 1: for you, because I get it you have one side
Speaker 1: that's willing to cheat. I just don't think and break
Speaker 1: norms and rules and all those things. And I just
Speaker 1: you know, I believe that that the elections that the
Speaker 1: Democrats have succeeded in are because they've made the case
Speaker 1: to this group of voters in the middle. They're not
Speaker 1: in the middle because of they're ideologically. They're in the
Speaker 1: middle because they should. They don't expect to get one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of what of everything. They understand that this
Speaker 1: is essentially a compromise system, and they don't like the
Speaker 1: hardcore partisanship, and they keep voting against any party that
Speaker 1: behaves too partisanally. And there's a difference between partisanship and ideology,
Speaker 1: right you you know, Bertie Sanders is a good example
Speaker 1: of this. He's super progressive, but he wasn't so progressive
Speaker 1: that he said no to the to basically the Mitt
Speaker 1: Romney Obama version of how you do healthcare. He doesn't
Speaker 1: believe in it, he doesn't think it's good. But he
Speaker 1: didn't let the enemy the perfect be the enemy of
Speaker 1: an improvement. And that was what our founders. Look You
Speaker 1: can come from far left to far right, but if
Speaker 1: you incrementally feel as if you're making incremental progress, do
Speaker 1: you just stand on ceremony or do you try to
Speaker 1: help the majority function?
Speaker 2: And I think that's.
Speaker 1: I think that's Democrats have had more success winning over
Speaker 1: that voter because the Republicans have been behaving so parsonally
Speaker 1: and when Democrats start behaving the same way as they
Speaker 1: did during the first two years of Biden's presidency, it's
Speaker 1: why there was such a revolt by the same group
Speaker 1: of voters the other way. It's not that they liked
Speaker 1: the policies of the right, they didn't like the hardcore
Speaker 1: partisanship on either side. Next one comes from Jane New York.
Speaker 1: He says, check love your weekly top five lists, especially
Speaker 1: when you revisit the year's most flippable Senate races. But
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to wonder whether the top five might soon
Speaker 1: be sentenced. Tone I am too, and am therefore more
Speaker 1: curious about the races that would make up slots six
Speaker 1: through ten. I like where you're thinking, and let's just
Speaker 1: say this is an idea that I might put into
Speaker 1: practice sooner than I realized. Anyway, if you were going
Speaker 1: to compile a six through ten lists today, would you
Speaker 1: be more inclined to include Democratic health seats like Georgia,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire and Michigan, Or might you be more inclined
Speaker 1: to include Republican health seats like Texas, Iowa, and Florida.
Speaker 1: My opinion six or ten is where we will have
Speaker 1: see the Senate mapp changing the most in real time.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent observation, and I think you're right right.
Speaker 1: I think right now both Georgia and New Hampshire they're
Speaker 1: not in the in, you know, and there's no way
Speaker 1: I would have them outside the top ten. I'm not
Speaker 1: a If you know a race is going to be
Speaker 1: decided by less than ten points, it's probably in the
Speaker 1: top ten. Right when I start thinking about the less
Speaker 1: than ten point center races.
Speaker 2: You know, by the way, I'm not one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent sure North Carolina stays single digits anymore. I
Speaker 1: think Cooper's got that big of the lead. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: Waltley will spend money, and one will assume the partisan stuff.
Speaker 1: This war keeps going as badly as it does, I
Speaker 1: could easily see a Bob Casey like, not quite the
Speaker 1: Bob Casey size of victory over Rick, a citting senator
Speaker 1: in Rick Saintrum, but I could see I could see
Speaker 1: a fifty six forty four race there. But going down
Speaker 1: the rest of the Senate map sort of in order
Speaker 1: right now where my head is at right, the next
Speaker 1: one that's most likely to flip would be Maine. Right,
Speaker 1: that's too The next one for me is probably Ohio.
Speaker 1: Now that's three. The next one after that, I would
Speaker 1: go ahead and put Alaska at four, and then you know,
Speaker 1: right then you then you sit there is at Michigan
Speaker 1: because the Democratic primary is still so unstable or is
Speaker 1: it Texas or the Republican primary is still unstable?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know, I would say if corn and wins, I
Speaker 1: put Michigan there if but if si Ed else, I'll
Speaker 1: do all si Ed wins, then I might put Michigan
Speaker 1: there too, right, so you have that. I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't think Miss I am surprised. I did how little
Speaker 1: national the Washington Republicans are viewing, how little they're They're
Speaker 1: spending more time in New Hampshire than they are Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and I think that's just a mistake. I think they
Speaker 1: have a better shot at flipping Minnesota than do New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: I think Pappas. I think, especially if a more progressive
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor who you know, the lieutenant governor, the Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: who's not very popular in Minnesota right now, and that's
Speaker 1: who Peggy Flana again, maybe I think Michelle Tafoya, Peggy Flanagan.
Speaker 1: I think Republicans are a better shot of Tafoya upsetting
Speaker 1: flannagain than so New New upsetting.
Speaker 2: Papas.
Speaker 1: But I get that New Hampshire on a partisan scale
Speaker 1: looks slightly more, you know, has a higher floor for
Speaker 1: Republicans and Minnesota does. But either way, I expect those
Speaker 1: to be single digit raceist so they sit out there.
Speaker 1: You know, I do think Minnesota is the sort of
Speaker 1: in any other year would probably be getting a little
Speaker 1: more attention. But I am surprised and clobsh Are will
Speaker 1: probably guarantees that she'll cary everybody over the finish line
Speaker 1: on the DEMB side. And then may be why they
Speaker 1: look and would rather have New Hampshire because you have
Speaker 1: a Republican incumbent that's likely to win reelection in Kelly Ay.
Speaker 1: Who remember in New Hampshire they run every two years,
Speaker 1: and she'll be the top.
Speaker 2: Of the ticket.
Speaker 1: But you start looking around, right, Iowa looks like it's
Speaker 1: going to be a single digit race. Hey what about
Speaker 1: Eugene Vinman down in Florida, Right, He's raised a ton
Speaker 1: of money. I'm a bit skeptical, but could I see
Speaker 1: it become a single digit race?
Speaker 2: I could. There's Nebraska, which looks like it's definitely.
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely to be five points or
Speaker 1: less no matter what they're so, and we haven't gotten
Speaker 1: to Kansas. We haven't seen that race mature yet. There's Montana.
Speaker 1: So to sort of get at the heart of your question,
Speaker 1: you have made six through ten. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun and I'm going to have to really sort of
Speaker 1: I can't just spitball it because I sit here and
Speaker 1: you're like, well, you know, we got and some of
Speaker 1: this is still undeveloped, right, I want to see where
Speaker 1: it can. I still feel like we're not done yet
Speaker 1: with Kansas, so we get there. But what a great
Speaker 1: idea and look for it, you know, sort of how
Speaker 1: do we say that?
Speaker 2: And for this week's top five, it's the next five?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Lauren and I will work on that,
Speaker 1: coming up with something for that, but it's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Troy. He says, here's my idea
Speaker 1: for the NBA. Eliminate conferences and divisions, move to a
Speaker 1: shorter home and away schedule, Take the top sixteen teams
Speaker 1: for the playoffs, regardless of location. To make up for
Speaker 1: fewer games at a preseason single elimination tournament with semifinals
Speaker 1: on Christmas to drive fan interest in revenue. It could
Speaker 1: also create multiple championship opportunities each season tournament regular season playoffs, Troy,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the Champions League a little bit in
Speaker 1: Europe and all the very Suropean leagues. Look, this isn't
Speaker 1: I don't I like what you're what you're thinking. The reason,
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest impediment in his owners make owners
Speaker 1: get to pocket the money that takes place in their arenas.
Speaker 1: So taking away opportunities in their own arenas is just
Speaker 1: not on the table. So we all know they probably
Speaker 1: should shrink the regular season schedule, but they won't. And
Speaker 1: you know, you're right to find other ways to replace it.
Speaker 1: Is it tournaments? Maybe that doesn't. But you know, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about something else about the NBA, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering, you know, I was watching Jen Ram play
Speaker 1: at the Masters, and I was like, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a chance. But you know, every everything he moves up right,
Speaker 1: there's other things you play for in the Masters. If
Speaker 1: you win, you get into the certain I think if
Speaker 1: it's if you're in the top twenty, you automatically get
Speaker 1: an invite the next year. I think then there's certainly
Speaker 1: you get there's different financial rewards depending on the place
Speaker 1: you finish, And so it got me thinking, is there
Speaker 1: a way to create a financial reward for players based
Speaker 1: on their regular season? You know that that essentially, just
Speaker 1: like with golf, if you finish thirty fifth, you make
Speaker 1: more money than if you finish thirty six. So there's,
Speaker 1: in theory, an incentive to keep playing hard. So if
Speaker 1: there is more money on the table, more bonus money,
Speaker 1: more this money, more that money, maybe it's maybe it's
Speaker 1: the playoff TV revenue that players get, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a pool of it that all players get to
Speaker 1: get some of it depending on where their team finishes
Speaker 1: in the overall standings of the league. But for if
Speaker 1: you if you you know right now, it's the franchises
Speaker 1: that I've on the incentive and the players have no
Speaker 1: skin in the game, right if they're you know, the
Speaker 1: players play hard, I've I don't. I don't sit here
Speaker 1: and say the players aren't playing hard. They all are
Speaker 1: playing hard. It is the coaches being ordered by the
Speaker 1: GMS and the and the and the team presidents to
Speaker 1: not play certain players to keep them out, you know,
Speaker 1: to bench them in the fourth quarter. Players would fight
Speaker 1: and push back harder if there were financial penalties for
Speaker 1: losing a more likely to lose a game. So you know,
Speaker 1: is there something to borrow from golf that keeps people
Speaker 1: playing competitively even when.
Speaker 2: They have no shot at winning the tournament? Just something
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 1: But look, there's a million ideas to fix this. Hey,
Speaker 1: Adam Silver, just pick.
Speaker 2: One and do it. Thank you, buddy.
Speaker 1: Last question, I love this. I'm going to call you
Speaker 1: John from Cincinnati because of the damn HBO show.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you don't like that. Maybe you do. Let
Speaker 2: me know.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm still waiting for I didn't get
Speaker 1: my lyrics. We didn't start the fire lyrics. One of
Speaker 1: you still owes me we didn't. You're updated. We didn't
Speaker 1: start the fire lyrics. And I away that and so
Speaker 1: many people await that because they would like me to
Speaker 1: carry ok it. But anyway, last question, John from Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: and he writes, I haven't heard of a single report
Speaker 1: of President Trump going to Camp David in his second term.
Speaker 2: Does anyone use it?
Speaker 1: Since he doesn't, isn't loaned out to political donors or
Speaker 1: possibly misused. I was never a big fan of the
Speaker 1: Lincoln Bedroom being used that way by presidents of any party.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to your show for about three months
Speaker 1: and really enjoy it. Thanks and go Buck Guys and
Speaker 1: Reds John in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think, Look, we know why Trump doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: He likes the golf right, and he likes his set
Speaker 1: up any and he's actually not an introvert like Camp
Speaker 1: David is for the president's you know, he's one of
Speaker 1: the few people, you know, most celebrities I've ever gotten
Speaker 1: to know, the last thing they want to do is
Speaker 1: to be in public.
Speaker 2: That's not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He loves to be around people. I've got my own theories.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a lot of personal friends, so there's
Speaker 1: not really a group of people he wants to hang
Speaker 1: out with he doesn't have And if you don't have
Speaker 1: close friendships, a retreat like Camp David doesn't work for you, right,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's so funny about it. Presidents.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good thing for a president to have,
Speaker 1: but it is. I think what's made it less popular
Speaker 1: with some presidents is the lack of a golf course
Speaker 1: to be fully transparent, like Obama just would go to
Speaker 1: golf every weekend and Andrew's and then go back to
Speaker 1: the White House. He's used Camp David a little, but
Speaker 1: he didn't love it per se either. Look, it's on
Speaker 1: my bucket list of things that I've never gotten to
Speaker 1: see that I'd still like to see. So if there's
Speaker 1: any president that would like to invite me to use
Speaker 1: Camp David, here's my pledge to you. If I ever
Speaker 1: get access to Camp David, John, I will try to
Speaker 1: get you there and invite you as well as my
Speaker 1: plus one if that's possible. Don't tell missus Todd Knight,
Speaker 1: but I got to get some other people in here.
Speaker 1: It is one of these, like I've heard stories, I've
Speaker 1: had people tell me what it's like, right, but it is.
Speaker 1: It is one of the few things we've seen no
Speaker 1: pictures of, and perhaps those that run Camp David that
Speaker 1: don't want people to know what it looks like, or
Speaker 1: glad Trump hasn't come, because the more Trump goes, the
Speaker 1: more likely it will come out. So you're right, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are people using it that we don't know about,
Speaker 1: but on the list of outrages to cover, it's probably
Speaker 1: fifty seventh or fifty eighth on the list these days.
Speaker 1: All right, with that, we're going to take my forty
Speaker 1: eight hour break. Unless you know, news happens and we
Speaker 1: insert something in there. I always reserve the right to
Speaker 1: see you on YouTube. I had a few things that
Speaker 1: I did over the weekend that I want to tell
Speaker 1: you more about, and I'm going to save it for
Speaker 1: Wednesday's episode, including fascinating debate that I'm moderated between Chris
Speaker 1: Christy and David French about sports gambling. We actually came
Speaker 1: up with a potential compromise. I will share with it
Speaker 1: with you on Wednesday. If you want to go take
Speaker 1: a look at the debate, it's on YouTube under the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago. They hosted it and sponsored it. And
Speaker 1: on Friday at the Illinois Local New Summer, Marada moderated
Speaker 1: a panel of what I referred to as the venture
Speaker 1: capitalists of local news, the philanthropic organizations that have been
Speaker 1: trying to fill the gap here. John Palfrey, who's president
Speaker 1: MacArthur Foundation, Maybel Perez Wadsworth, whose presidency of the Knight Foundation,
Speaker 1: and Julie Morita, who's presidency of the Joyce Foundation, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit more regional in the Chicago area
Speaker 1: for the Great Lakes region, but all of them have
Speaker 1: been investing in trying to help local news startups get
Speaker 1: off the ground. And yeah, I call them vcs because
Speaker 1: they really are, except they're not trying to They don't
Speaker 1: try to get their money back once they give the money,
Speaker 1: but they are trying to be smart about putting money
Speaker 1: in places that can be used to grow an organization
Speaker 1: that can eventually be self sustaining, and that is I
Speaker 1: think the real challenge there. So a few things I
Speaker 1: wanted to share with you on both of those topics,
Speaker 1: and because I've.
Speaker 2: Gone long here, we will share that with you on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: So with that, I'll see in Porty. It outs