1
00:00:03,200 --> 00:00:06,880
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, Happy Day, one of the second one hundred

2
00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:11,520
Speaker 1: days of the Trump administration. I got a fascinating interview

3
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:14,600
Speaker 1: coming up today with a woman by the name of

4
00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:17,880
Speaker 1: Jody Vittori. She's a military veteran. She's a professor in

5
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:22,720
Speaker 1: practice for global politics with a concentration on national security

6
00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 1: issues at Georgetown University. But she spent a lion's share

7
00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:28,680
Speaker 1: of her career in the military, educated at the Air

8
00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:33,720
Speaker 1: Force Academy, and she's a specialist in kleptocracies, and actually,

9
00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:38,360
Speaker 1: you know how democracies get corrupted, and she wrote a

10
00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:43,519
Speaker 1: pretty provocative piece for Foreign Affairs about that issue. Is

11
00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:46,640
Speaker 1: America creeping into a kleptocracy? You've probably heard me use

12
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:49,919
Speaker 1: that word. I said that in twenty twenty four, at

13
00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:52,280
Speaker 1: a minimum, that Donald Trump had turned the Republican Party

14
00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,160
Speaker 1: in some ways into a kleptocracy. I don't think we're

15
00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:58,560
Speaker 1: there yet as a country, but when you have things

16
00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,000
Speaker 1: like this inaugural fund that law firms have to pay

17
00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:06,039
Speaker 1: into in order to keep the government off their back,

18
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:11,200
Speaker 1: that would pretty much put you into that in that

19
00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:15,720
Speaker 1: category where you might be arguing that we are creeping

20
00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:18,560
Speaker 1: into that. So, look, it's a long conversation. I want

21
00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:20,080
Speaker 1: to get into that, but before I get into that,

22
00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:22,639
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the second

23
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,199
Speaker 1: hundred days because I think in fairness to him, you know, look,

24
00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,160
Speaker 1: I've been highly critical because I think this has been

25
00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:30,960
Speaker 1: a disastrous start. This is not because whether I support

26
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,800
Speaker 1: them or oppose them. This is just political incompetence how

27
00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:38,400
Speaker 1: they've gone about this. Yes, I think it's economic incompetence too.

28
00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:41,479
Speaker 1: But if this was the plan, they've executed the plan

29
00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,959
Speaker 1: extraordinarily poorly. Right, there was a way to do government

30
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,400
Speaker 1: reform better and more secure. There was a way to

31
00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:51,320
Speaker 1: do Tariff's better. There was probably a way to order

32
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,560
Speaker 1: reorder his agenda, but he chose not to do it.

33
00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:57,639
Speaker 1: And there's a fundamental part of his presidency that strikes

34
00:01:57,680 --> 00:01:59,800
Speaker 1: me as a bit lazy, that he is kind of

35
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,240
Speaker 1: ailing it in. And you know, one way you can

36
00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,960
Speaker 1: see this that Donald Trump is now mailing in the presidency.

37
00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:08,680
Speaker 1: It's his travel schedule for the first hundred days. He

38
00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: marked the one hundred day with a trip to Michigan.

39
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:13,760
Speaker 1: What's shocking about his trip to Michigan is that that's

40
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: the first essaidually, it's the first battleground state he's bothered

41
00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:23,000
Speaker 1: to visit since the beginning of his term. He had

42
00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,960
Speaker 1: one day where he traveled to North Carolina, Nevada, in California.

43
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,600
Speaker 1: He was checking out flood damage in North Carolina. This

44
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:32,600
Speaker 1: was right there. He was trying to It was something

45
00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:35,120
Speaker 1: he had been scoring points on due to the what

46
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,160
Speaker 1: was a poor recovery effort led by FEMA in western

47
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: North Carolina during the remnants of a hurricane that devastated

48
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:44,600
Speaker 1: them with floods in western North Carolina. So he made

49
00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:47,560
Speaker 1: a political stop there, made a political stop in Nevada,

50
00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,840
Speaker 1: and then made a tour of the wildfire damage in LA.

51
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,480
Speaker 1: But you take that day away, and that's three less. Basically,

52
00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:57,720
Speaker 1: the only trips he would have made are to the

53
00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 1: super Bowl, to the Daytona five hundred and to Bedminster

54
00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,720
Speaker 1: or mar A Lago over and over and over again.

55
00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:06,600
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is that it's quite the contrast from

56
00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:08,359
Speaker 1: his first term and his first term. In the first

57
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:10,680
Speaker 1: under days, he traveled quite a bit. In fact, he

58
00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:13,160
Speaker 1: was a very you know, yes, he's still golfed quite

59
00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:17,400
Speaker 1: a bit. Now he seems to be only golfing on weekends.

60
00:03:17,440 --> 00:03:19,720
Speaker 1: He's spent at one point six days in a row

61
00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:21,919
Speaker 1: mar Alago, going to my friends over at NBC News

62
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:26,799
Speaker 1: where some federal workers were wondering if he was qualifying

63
00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:30,480
Speaker 1: for work for home benefits there. He was there so long.

64
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: But there is a sense that he is just either

65
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:36,120
Speaker 1: not interested in traveling the country, not wanting to hold

66
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:38,960
Speaker 1: his rallies, which he used to love to do in

67
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 1: his first term. And I think it's it's I actually

68
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 1: think this is another bad political mistake, right, And this

69
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:48,520
Speaker 1: is what happens when you surround yourself with people that

70
00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,240
Speaker 1: just tell you what you want to hear. He doesn't

71
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:53,440
Speaker 1: want to travel, he doesn't want to work very hard,

72
00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: so he gets to go back to Marlago so he

73
00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:56,440
Speaker 1: can go golf, or he gets to go back to

74
00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:58,960
Speaker 1: Bedminster and so he could go golf. He was in

75
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 1: the first term surrounded people that said, you know, especially

76
00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:04,400
Speaker 1: if you want to win reelection, you need to be

77
00:04:04,600 --> 00:04:07,840
Speaker 1: communicating with the public what you're trying to do. The

78
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:12,240
Speaker 1: tariff policies are extraordinarily unpopular. His inability to even communicate

79
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,400
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do has made it even worse

80
00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:19,120
Speaker 1: for him. So the fact that he waited literally to

81
00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 1: his hundredth day to have his first public event outside

82
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:28,000
Speaker 1: of Washington to explain his tariff policy. I think that

83
00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:33,040
Speaker 1: just strikes me as lazy, and it is kind of

84
00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:36,239
Speaker 1: the hallmark of how this White House has been run.

85
00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:39,479
Speaker 1: You know. In some ways they make it look like

86
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot of motion going on, but in some

87
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 1: ways they're not. You know, take he signs executive orders,

88
00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:48,240
Speaker 1: but he doesn't try to pass legislation. They're trying to

89
00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:51,960
Speaker 1: take a lot of political shortcuts they're not doing If

90
00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:54,320
Speaker 1: you wanted to cut government, you wouldn't do it the

91
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:56,640
Speaker 1: way they're doing it with those because most of the

92
00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:59,320
Speaker 1: cuts that they make are going to get restored. Most

93
00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 1: of the executive order he's signing are going to get

94
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:04,640
Speaker 1: thrown out by the courts. If he wanted to make

95
00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:08,200
Speaker 1: real change. He has a Republican Congress. It's pretty compliant,

96
00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:13,200
Speaker 1: but guess what legislation is hard. Trying to get lawmakers

97
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,840
Speaker 1: to do. It's going to take time and effort, and

98
00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:18,760
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we sit here and wonder, Oh,

99
00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:22,840
Speaker 1: he's an authoritarian. In some ways, he's an authoritarian by laziness,

100
00:05:22,839 --> 00:05:25,880
Speaker 1: meaning he'd prefer to just sign edicts because he doesn't

101
00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:28,240
Speaker 1: want to have to put in the work that it

102
00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,320
Speaker 1: takes to host members of Congress and cajole them to

103
00:05:31,320 --> 00:05:33,800
Speaker 1: do X, or host members of Congress and condrole them

104
00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,039
Speaker 1: to do why, or travel the country and put public

105
00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 1: political pressure. He doesn't know. For a guy who prides

106
00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:44,200
Speaker 1: himself at being mister salesman and mister art of the deal,

107
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,600
Speaker 1: he's done a terrible job of selling his policies and

108
00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:50,360
Speaker 1: selling them to the country. He has spent a lot

109
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:52,680
Speaker 1: more time on true social that he has talking with

110
00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:57,760
Speaker 1: people outside of his bubble. It is notable to me

111
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:01,800
Speaker 1: that this week he's at least doing interviews with media

112
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:07,960
Speaker 1: entities that are not just espousing the MAGA line of thinking.

113
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 1: He interviewed with ABC News, interview with The Atlantic, and

114
00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:14,520
Speaker 1: that is a huge difference from Trump one point oh,

115
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,159
Speaker 1: Trump one point oh talk to everybody. Trump one point

116
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:20,279
Speaker 1: oh was tweeting. Trump one point oh was trying to

117
00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:24,520
Speaker 1: communicate with the entire country. I mean, even if let's

118
00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:27,359
Speaker 1: just take the example, let's say he was just so

119
00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:30,160
Speaker 1: lazy he only wanted a golf on weekends. Well, then

120
00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:33,279
Speaker 1: travel the country to different golf courses in golf on weekends,

121
00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:37,120
Speaker 1: actually connect with the rest of the American people. Right now,

122
00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:41,120
Speaker 1: He's conducting a presidency that is essentially sitting on Air

123
00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:44,120
Speaker 1: Force one or one of his two clubs. He's a

124
00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:47,480
Speaker 1: creature of habit. He's creature comfort, and when you get older,

125
00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:50,599
Speaker 1: that's what happens. Joe Biden spent just about every weekend

126
00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:53,920
Speaker 1: in Delaware. Well, you know, Donald Trump wants to spend

127
00:06:53,960 --> 00:06:57,080
Speaker 1: every weekend at mar Lago or Bedminster. And so it

128
00:06:57,200 --> 00:07:00,600
Speaker 1: just struck me that to see this event, which was right.

129
00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:03,400
Speaker 1: He gets a lot of energy from these things. So

130
00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:07,720
Speaker 1: the question is perhaps he maybe he's just getting older,

131
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,560
Speaker 1: getting more tired, doesn't want to you know, needs to

132
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,600
Speaker 1: work three and a half four days a week, doesn't

133
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:15,040
Speaker 1: want to have the full five day weeks. It wants

134
00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:20,280
Speaker 1: to have extra recovery time. Whatever it is, I actually

135
00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:25,840
Speaker 1: think it's harming his presidency just from a communications standpoint.

136
00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:28,360
Speaker 1: Whether you love him or hate him, he's the best

137
00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: communicator they have, and he doesn't seem to actually want

138
00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:34,560
Speaker 1: to go out there and communicate with the public. Right now.

139
00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:38,360
Speaker 1: He went to Michigan. It's almost like they said, okay,

140
00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:41,520
Speaker 1: we got to have a hundred days event, but he's

141
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,880
Speaker 1: right back here. So anyway, it's just fascinating to me

142
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:48,440
Speaker 1: how I think that as tumultuous as the first one

143
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:52,040
Speaker 1: hundred days, there's an underlying aspect of this that there's

144
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:54,920
Speaker 1: actually kind of a laziness to the president in his

145
00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 1: lack of salesmanship, lack of doing these things. One other thing,

146
00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:02,080
Speaker 1: because I think it's a fair question, so what would

147
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:05,480
Speaker 1: a you know, I've been pretty doom and gloom. I

148
00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:07,600
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be pretty hard for Donald Trump to recover.

149
00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:11,080
Speaker 1: I think he's probably if you told me if I

150
00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:13,760
Speaker 1: went into a coma today and didn't wake up until

151
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: January twentieth, twenty twenty nine, and you said to me,

152
00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:20,840
Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump's approval rating never got over forty

153
00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 1: five percent for the rest of the term while you

154
00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,960
Speaker 1: were in a coma, wouldn't surprise me. And I've gone

155
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,120
Speaker 1: through the reasonings before of why I did this. I think,

156
00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,840
Speaker 1: particularly in a second term, that's part of the you know,

157
00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:34,160
Speaker 1: that's part of the why there's probably a shorter lease

158
00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:36,360
Speaker 1: with the public, public like sort of oh, he's going

159
00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:38,720
Speaker 1: to be that all right, forget it right, And there

160
00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:42,080
Speaker 1: may be they may give up on him quicker, especially

161
00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:45,320
Speaker 1: since he's messing up on supposedly the issue that was

162
00:08:45,320 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: his core competency. But let me let me do the

163
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:52,440
Speaker 1: other side. So let's say I wake up and from

164
00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:58,560
Speaker 1: my from my mythical coma, and it turns out he's popular.

165
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,800
Speaker 1: What would have happened, Well, I think in this next

166
00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:05,040
Speaker 1: hundred days he must for that to happen, for him

167
00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:07,480
Speaker 1: to sort of write this ship, he needs some points

168
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:10,480
Speaker 1: on the points on the board. Maybe he cuts in

169
00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:12,800
Speaker 1: a Ran deal. Maybe he gets both Russian and Ukraine

170
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 1: to agree to a cease fire. Maybe he's able to

171
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:21,760
Speaker 1: get Israel and the Palestinians to at least cease violent interactions.

172
00:09:22,480 --> 00:09:26,800
Speaker 1: Perhaps he's able to get some trade deals with India, Australia, Japan,

173
00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:30,800
Speaker 1: the UK. I'm skeptical of all those things, but it's

174
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,560
Speaker 1: not out of the question, right, It's not as if

175
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,680
Speaker 1: those aren't active things he's engaged in at the moment.

176
00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:39,720
Speaker 1: But that's what the next Oh no, by the way,

177
00:09:40,559 --> 00:09:43,880
Speaker 1: how about putting some shovels in the ground for some

178
00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:46,440
Speaker 1: new factories. Right, there's a lot of pledges out there,

179
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,240
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't doesn't He doesn't even have a

180
00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:51,520
Speaker 1: fox con that he's been able to. Which was that

181
00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:54,720
Speaker 1: company that announced this big I remember Trump and Paul

182
00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:58,800
Speaker 1: Ryan together they announced this big investment into Wisconsin, this

183
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,480
Speaker 1: company called Fox Cohn and and the investment never really happened.

184
00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 1: But he needs some shovels in the ground somewhere, some

185
00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:08,439
Speaker 1: ribbon cuttings to do that. So you know what would

186
00:10:08,559 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 1: if day one on one to two hundred, If on

187
00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:13,560
Speaker 1: day two oh one his numbers are ten points better

188
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:17,439
Speaker 1: than they are today. These are the things that need

189
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:20,520
Speaker 1: to happen. Peace steel in Ukraine, pea steel in the

190
00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:26,240
Speaker 1: Middle East. Maybe he gets Saudi Arabia to formally go

191
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:32,559
Speaker 1: public in their recognition of Israel. Trade, the individual trade

192
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:38,800
Speaker 1: deals with a Japan, in India and Australia. Perhaps maybe

193
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 1: some some pullback on the tariffs in China, and positive

194
00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:49,560
Speaker 1: market reaction. Now again, all of those things are certainly

195
00:10:49,559 --> 00:10:51,680
Speaker 1: things he's trying to do, and I think all of

196
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,680
Speaker 1: them are quite tough because here's the other problem that

197
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:56,480
Speaker 1: he has, and I think I mentioned this during the

198
00:10:56,559 --> 00:10:59,880
Speaker 1: last one. He's I think he's given up a lot

199
00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:02,360
Speaker 1: of leverage because guess what, everybody knows he needs a

200
00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:04,880
Speaker 1: deal and now the UK is teaming up with the EU.

201
00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:08,320
Speaker 1: So I guess not only has Donald Trump impacted the

202
00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:12,599
Speaker 1: politics of Canada. But did he just unbreaks it. I

203
00:11:12,640 --> 00:11:15,640
Speaker 1: guess we call it Brentrance at this point, with the

204
00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:19,680
Speaker 1: UK and the EU essentially doing their own trade deal

205
00:11:19,679 --> 00:11:23,560
Speaker 1: to start working together to deal with America, perhaps that

206
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:26,480
Speaker 1: he can call that an international victory he brought. He's

207
00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:31,440
Speaker 1: helping reunite Europe economically. But these are the things that

208
00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:33,800
Speaker 1: I think he needs to get to happen, and I

209
00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:35,280
Speaker 1: think he's going to have a hard time doing it.

210
00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 1: And he's going to have an even a harder time

211
00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:39,760
Speaker 1: doing it if he is going to go about this

212
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:42,960
Speaker 1: presidency sort of working three and a half four days

213
00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:45,719
Speaker 1: a week and not traveling the country and not communicating

214
00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,440
Speaker 1: with all of America. Right now, he just rants to

215
00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:52,320
Speaker 1: his supporters. Makes him happy. Untruth social What he doesn't

216
00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:55,760
Speaker 1: fully appreciate is no one sees this stuff outside of

217
00:11:55,800 --> 00:12:00,760
Speaker 1: his filter. Bubb guess what that forty of the countries

218
00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:03,720
Speaker 1: with him, there's another sixty percent that's not with him,

219
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:07,000
Speaker 1: And he doesn't seem to be that interested in communicating

220
00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:09,920
Speaker 1: with that sixty percent anymore. Trump one point oh was

221
00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:12,800
Speaker 1: Trump one point oh traveled the country? Trump one point oh,

222
00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:16,079
Speaker 1: see seem to want to connect to the public. Perhaps

223
00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:20,800
Speaker 1: This is the best evidence we have yet that Trump

224
00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:23,240
Speaker 1: has no interest in a third term, because if he did,

225
00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:27,240
Speaker 1: he'd be behaving like somebody who wanted to run for reelection.

226
00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:30,520
Speaker 1: He's behaving like somebody who's worn out already at the

227
00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:33,440
Speaker 1: start of a second term. And look, he's not a

228
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:36,200
Speaker 1: spring chicken. And it could very well be that the

229
00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:40,760
Speaker 1: job itself has become physically taxing. All right, So with that,

230
00:12:41,679 --> 00:12:43,480
Speaker 1: I want to pause here. We're going to sneak in

231
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,680
Speaker 1: a quick break and when we come back. This is

232
00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:49,600
Speaker 1: a fascinating conversation with Jody Vittori, and again we talk

233
00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,439
Speaker 1: about a lot of countries and sort of the various

234
00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:55,160
Speaker 1: phases when is something a kleptocracy, when is in it?

235
00:12:55,200 --> 00:12:58,520
Speaker 1: And you know, can can you have sort of pieces

236
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,480
Speaker 1: of a democracy become a kleptocracy, but the democracy itself

237
00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:08,000
Speaker 1: is still healthy enough to push back on authoritarianism. What

238
00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:10,760
Speaker 1: I like about doctor Vittorre is that she is this

239
00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:14,560
Speaker 1: is she is not an academic first, she is a

240
00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:20,160
Speaker 1: practitioner that is now in academia teaching her real life experiences.

241
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:30,800
Speaker 1: So with that, enjoy the interview. So what is the

242
00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:33,560
Speaker 1: state of the American democracy? This is a question I

243
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:39,920
Speaker 1: get frequently from friends, neighbors, viewers, listeners. Are we in

244
00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:45,560
Speaker 1: a constitutional crisis? How clear things are? And my answer

245
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 1: for the last six months is like, well, you know,

246
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:49,560
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm nervous about is that, you know,

247
00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:53,640
Speaker 1: stage one of an authoritarian regime is when a democracy

248
00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:57,959
Speaker 1: becomes a kleptocracy. And I had been kind of saying

249
00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,680
Speaker 1: it without a lot of academic rigor, and then I

250
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:04,600
Speaker 1: read a terrific piece in Foreign Uh in Foreign Policy

251
00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:09,440
Speaker 1: by Georgetown professor doctor Jody Vittori, who is my guest today,

252
00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:14,040
Speaker 1: who wrote about this very issue, that making the case

253
00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:18,360
Speaker 1: that we are now in an early stage, early stages

254
00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:21,600
Speaker 1: of what if this were happening in any other country,

255
00:14:21,640 --> 00:14:24,200
Speaker 1: we would identify as hey, there, this appears to be

256
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:29,840
Speaker 1: forming a kleptocracy. So doctor Vittori, it's appreciate you coming on.

257
00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me here today. I appreciate it.

258
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,480
Speaker 1: So look, let's start with what we mean. You know,

259
00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:38,800
Speaker 1: you hear the word kliptocracy, and I'll be honest, it's like,

260
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:41,360
Speaker 1: is this some sort of superman word or does it

261
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:43,120
Speaker 1: have to do with the Kremlin? Right, Like, there's a

262
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:47,880
Speaker 1: lot of people kleptocracy. You know, define it and tell

263
00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:50,160
Speaker 1: me give me a couple of an examples around the

264
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:54,920
Speaker 1: world that are that you might file under kleptocracy right now.

265
00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:59,880
Speaker 2: Sure, So, kleptocracy literally means rule by thieves, like kleptomania,

266
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 2: someone who can't stop, you know, stealing, ocracy at the

267
00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:07,760
Speaker 2: end like democracy, government by the people, theocracy government by religion.

268
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:11,400
Speaker 2: So kleptocracy is just putting those two together. So government by.

269
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: Thieves and government by thieves. Let's take a step back.

270
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:20,040
Speaker 1: That's pretty that's it. There you go. It's not a pirate. No,

271
00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:22,720
Speaker 1: it's not charming at all. There's no upside. There's never

272
00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:24,840
Speaker 1: a positive case for a kleptocracy, is there.

273
00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:27,640
Speaker 2: No, there is, There is not. Although people will come

274
00:15:27,720 --> 00:15:29,440
Speaker 2: up try to come up with some crazy reasons to

275
00:15:29,520 --> 00:15:32,280
Speaker 2: justify why they should be a kleptocracy, or what they're

276
00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:34,640
Speaker 2: really doing is reforming things, or that's how their culture

277
00:15:34,680 --> 00:15:36,560
Speaker 2: is set up or whatever, but at the end of

278
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:39,600
Speaker 2: the day, they're very predatory on their citizens and often

279
00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:43,240
Speaker 2: very predatory on the world. So there's not one definition

280
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 2: of what kinds of things make rule by thieves or

281
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:50,200
Speaker 2: what's thiefy enough, what's thievery enough to make it a kleptocracy.

282
00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:52,440
Speaker 2: But there's a couple of things that we look at

283
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,640
Speaker 2: that when we're thinking about a place that is a kleptocracy.

284
00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:58,880
Speaker 2: One is that just the amount of money and stuff

285
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:01,320
Speaker 2: that is being basically stolen by these thieves, and what

286
00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:05,840
Speaker 2: happens to the institutions of a government. And so we

287
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:08,120
Speaker 2: have different terms that have like if you like ven diagrams,

288
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:11,960
Speaker 2: there's a lot of overlap. Sleptocracy, grand corruption, and state

289
00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:16,200
Speaker 2: capture often get used interchangeably. There's some slight differences between them.

290
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:20,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, nationalizing an economy is that automatically a kleptocracy.

291
00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:22,640
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be. And I will push back

292
00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:24,520
Speaker 2: on one of your first senates is just a little bit.

293
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:29,720
Speaker 2: There are cases where you have incredibly authoritarian regimes, even

294
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 2: totalitarian regimes, that don't engage in large scale grand corruption. Okay,

295
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:40,720
Speaker 2: so there's still hideous lot in Cambodia, lots of petty corruption,

296
00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:45,520
Speaker 2: you know, people paying bribes to just survive. But Poulpot

297
00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:48,120
Speaker 2: was not buying mansions in the south of France or

298
00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 2: anything during this or NII in Tanzania. You know, the

299
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:56,680
Speaker 2: entire population was impoverished under his regime, but you know

300
00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:59,560
Speaker 2: he wasn't buying fancy mansion somewhere in the States or

301
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:02,200
Speaker 2: something like that. So they are rare. But you can't

302
00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:06,440
Speaker 2: have authoritarian and even fatality and regimes that are not leptocracies. Okay,

303
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:11,159
Speaker 2: but most pleptocracies will be at least competitive authoritarianism have

304
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:15,119
Speaker 2: significant backsliding if they've been democracies ever, because you can't

305
00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 2: have rule by thieves in a functioning government democracy and

306
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:22,480
Speaker 2: have people not protesting and voting the bumps out and

307
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:24,120
Speaker 2: so forth. So you need to make sure you stay

308
00:17:24,119 --> 00:17:27,480
Speaker 2: and power run your cryptocracy. So they'll at least be

309
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:30,199
Speaker 2: very shaky on the democracy side all the way up

310
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,800
Speaker 2: to full fledge totalitarian dictatorships like Kim Jong un or

311
00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:35,399
Speaker 2: you know, North Korea or something like that.

312
00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:38,639
Speaker 1: So we would look at a So what you're describing

313
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:41,600
Speaker 1: to me, the immediate country that jumps out as Putin

314
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:45,240
Speaker 1: in Russia, because here's a guy who does have big mansions,

315
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:47,280
Speaker 1: Here's a people with a bunch of oligarchs who've made

316
00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:50,400
Speaker 1: money off the state. It seems that this is how

317
00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:54,600
Speaker 1: he kind of controls the wealthy diaspora is through some

318
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:58,560
Speaker 1: sort of investments. I mean, is that the clearest example

319
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:03,080
Speaker 1: we have probably the world right now in a semi

320
00:18:03,119 --> 00:18:03,760
Speaker 1: large country.

321
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:06,320
Speaker 2: Well, hiptocracies can come in a lot of different forms,

322
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,600
Speaker 2: so you asked me a couple of different types, and

323
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:10,359
Speaker 2: they work different ways. The one we most think of

324
00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:14,000
Speaker 2: is probably Russia, and it's you know, think of their oligarchs.

325
00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:17,679
Speaker 2: They're not quite oligarchs nowadays, but the types of oligarchs

326
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:22,000
Speaker 2: is very very tiny inner grouping that controls the Russian

327
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:25,200
Speaker 2: economy can decide to send it to war in devastating ways,

328
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 2: and you know, devastate their next door neighbor in Ukraine.

329
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:32,040
Speaker 2: The lack of democracy in there. They have kind of

330
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,720
Speaker 2: fake votes, but it's not obviously it's not a functioning

331
00:18:35,720 --> 00:18:38,679
Speaker 2: real democracy, but just the huge amount of money what

332
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:41,000
Speaker 2: we call assets shripping and so forth that occurs there.

333
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:46,159
Speaker 2: That's one kind. You have other kleptocracies, like in Afghanistan

334
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 2: under the Talla Bond Part one and the United States

335
00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:52,360
Speaker 2: where it's just a free for all. In Russia's case,

336
00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:53,800
Speaker 2: you know exactly who's the We have.

337
00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:56,440
Speaker 1: The warlords, right, each warlord had their own it's sort

338
00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:58,520
Speaker 1: of they kind of wanted to control their economic weather

339
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:00,320
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan.

340
00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:02,439
Speaker 2: So Sudan right now, would be a great example of that,

341
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:06,640
Speaker 2: just total chaos sort ofcery. And then you have sort

342
00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 2: of the more refined sort of tech kleptocracies. Think of

343
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:14,600
Speaker 2: Hungary or the UAE. That can be nice places to

344
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:16,960
Speaker 2: go visit. They seem to have some level of rule

345
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:18,359
Speaker 2: of law. When you're there, you're not getting you know,

346
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:22,040
Speaker 2: this is not Afghanistan or Sudan, clearly, you know, there's

347
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:24,879
Speaker 2: kind of shiny, the nice downtown areas and so forth,

348
00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 2: and they're a much more subtle sort of form of kleptocracy.

349
00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:34,520
Speaker 2: You know, Hungary is is the classic example. Orbond calls

350
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 2: his country an illiberal democracy. That's his goal, of course,

351
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:40,960
Speaker 2: is an oxymoron liberal with a small obviously not a

352
00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:43,680
Speaker 2: big l. It's an oxymoron. You can't be democratic and

353
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:46,320
Speaker 2: and not be liberal with the rule of law and

354
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 2: in the rule of law institute. But he has made

355
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:53,240
Speaker 2: it so that his cronies control the media. He makes

356
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:56,320
Speaker 2: sure his friends get contracts. These are very expensive contracts,

357
00:19:56,359 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 2: and so forth. The United States, if it does slip

358
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,680
Speaker 2: into club totocracy, will be unique because we've never had

359
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:08,200
Speaker 2: a situation where a consolidated democracy with strong governing institutions

360
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,560
Speaker 2: has gone to a full fledged cleptocracy before. It was

361
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:16,600
Speaker 2: always theoretically possible, but it hasn't happened. There's been grand

362
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:18,480
Speaker 2: corruption scandals in places, right.

363
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:21,080
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I look at Teapot Dome was probably

364
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:26,159
Speaker 1: the closest we came to looking like a kleptocracy. That

365
00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,280
Speaker 1: the taft essentially filled his cabinet with a bunch of

366
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: guys that were just trying to make money off the taxpayers.

367
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:35,040
Speaker 2: But the United States wouldn't be considered a consolidated democracy

368
00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:37,080
Speaker 2: at that point. We don't really truly become a fully

369
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,920
Speaker 2: fledged consolidated democracy until after the passing the Civil Rights

370
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,320
Speaker 2: Acted in the nineteen six So again, that's not going

371
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:49,760
Speaker 2: to qualify plus plus is the country in the international system.

372
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:53,440
Speaker 2: It's it's the reserve currency, it's the largest military.

373
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:55,600
Speaker 1: Set the rules essentially the rules.

374
00:20:56,080 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 2: What happens when the state power in the global system

375
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 2: them if it becomes a kleptocracy. We don't have a

376
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 2: historic model for them.

377
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:09,680
Speaker 1: So I started using the word sort of in this,

378
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,639
Speaker 1: you know, and I was trying to I have the

379
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: episodes to prove it. I'm trying to explain why Donald

380
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 1: Trump was so obsessed with tariffs, and yes, he cared

381
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,919
Speaker 1: about these trade deficits, and I think misunderstood them, but

382
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: we can. I'm going to set that aside the real

383
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: benefit that he enjoyed in the first term with tariffs,

384
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:36,520
Speaker 1: that he learned about. And this is how I always

385
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:39,879
Speaker 1: say Trump is very much as a rote learner, and

386
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:44,680
Speaker 1: he you know, you can't fool them twice. And so

387
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: what the tariffs allow him to do is encourage people

388
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 1: to have to come to him for exemptions, and that

389
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: the exemption process is what how we can end up

390
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:04,680
Speaker 1: in a kleptocracy where he has full control of different

391
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:08,439
Speaker 1: aspects of the economy because he can decide winners and losers.

392
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:10,640
Speaker 1: He can decide you get a tariff, you don't get

393
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 1: a tariff, you get this, you don't get this, and

394
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 1: that this is what was so dangerous about his tariff policy,

395
00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: because it wasn't about the tariffs themselves. It was about

396
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 1: that he was going to have singular control of the economy.

397
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: But what you just described, I'm actually questioning whether that's

398
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: you know that maybe we don't we have enough checks

399
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: and balances that that he can create an administration that's

400
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:42,439
Speaker 1: a leptocracy, but he can't really change the system into

401
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:48,399
Speaker 1: that per se am I being naive, I think.

402
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 2: A little bit. I mean, our founding fathers did an

403
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 2: amazing job on taking government and setting up in ways

404
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 2: with checks and balances.

405
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: I'm it's more remarkable all the time with the stuff

406
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 1: they thought of. When I think about the emoluments clause,

407
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: I think about you know, the only thing I can't

408
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:07,160
Speaker 1: figure out is why the heck they thought presidents should

409
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: have pardon power? Like what was the point of getting

410
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: away from the king? But anyway, I could set that

411
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 1: one little thing aside, the idea that presidents couldn't be

412
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 1: put on trial very easily and that you might actually

413
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:19,920
Speaker 1: have to do it in a different way like the

414
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 1: I mean, it is remarkable to me how they understood

415
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: what could what the public would be able to take,

416
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: and what they couldn't and well.

417
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:29,760
Speaker 2: And they were in many ways. Some scholars make the

418
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 2: argument that a lot of what went into the Constitution

419
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 2: is actually anti corruption methods and institutions as they understood

420
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 2: them at the time. Things like the emolument's clause. They

421
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 2: had seen king's bribe with you know, chests of gold,

422
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 2: they didn't That's why they put it in there. It

423
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 2: was in the Articles of Confederation. There's not even really debate,

424
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 2: and putting it in the constitution is just like, well.

425
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 1: A given, Yeah, of course we're doing that, right.

426
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:53,199
Speaker 2: Why you have to live in your districts so you

427
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 2: can't just you know, have these rotten boroughs where you

428
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 2: know somebody's patron or whatever, just you know, you declare

429
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,199
Speaker 2: them you're MP in parliament. So a lot of the

430
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 2: constitutions actually corruption as they know it. But it of

431
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 2: course assumes famously if men were angels, we wouldn't need government.

432
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: They in many ways it's set up to use one

433
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 2: person's greed against the other. It's one of the things

434
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 2: I've always loved most about our founding fathers is someone

435
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 2: who reads a lot of political theory, Marxism and a

436
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 2: lot of the Islamism under side could have been others

437
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 2: assume that you could make a perfect society, and our

438
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 2: founding fathers took people as they were, And so you know,

439
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 2: it's this idea that Congress should be a check on

440
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,360
Speaker 2: the present actually supposed to be the most important power,

441
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 2: which you've brought up before in other episodes, in the

442
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 2: role of the Supreme Court evolves over time, but right

443
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 2: now there's big concerns because of course Congress isn't acting

444
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 2: as a check. Indeed, Trump is not unlike in his first.

445
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: Right now, Yeah, that leadership of Congress has been captured

446
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: right now.

447
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 2: I mean they approved takes that.

448
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, approved Bobby Kennedy Junior.

449
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, who in a million years would have

450
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 2: thought that these people are qualified to be in government.

451
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 2: You know, we have a Supreme Court that basically gave

452
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: a tremendous amount of impunity to Trump himself in the

453
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 2: United States versus Trump, which is extremely concerning, and a

454
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 2: Supreme Court that, especially since twenty ten, has really shrump

455
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 2: what the definition of corruption in any.

456
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: They seem to be really afraid of the voters for

457
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: a group of people that don't have to face the

458
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: voters the Supreme Court, like I do think I think

459
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: Robert's motives are are Pure's the wrong word to use here,

460
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: are noble, even if he's producing outcomes that I understand

461
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: what he's trying to avoid. And I think what we

462
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: all know is that these are lessons. You can't put

463
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,680
Speaker 1: off these lessons, and the longer you put it off,

464
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: the worse it's going to get. But I understand what

465
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: he thinks he's trying to avoid how's that? But they

466
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: look way too captured, They look way too afraid of

467
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: the of the people on this one and of a

468
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 1: small group of people.

469
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 2: Well, and the concerns about you know, half million dollars

470
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 2: win of egos and so forth aren't exactly helping their

471
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 2: credibility with the people in.

472
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: The fact at all.

473
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's that's a big part of what

474
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 2: you deal with in any sort of society, but particularly

475
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 2: if society really is becoming much more kleptocratic. Is the

476
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 2: sort of every day it's another how is this okay?

477
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 2: That degradation of society, its values, its norms, as its

478
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 2: institutions are allowed to degrade themselves, the society at large

479
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 2: in any ways degrades itself.

480
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: So you know, it's one of the This feels like

481
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: one of those things, you know, like trying to figure

482
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: out when a recession begins. Well we sort of know

483
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: after we leave it, right, Like it's it's always easier

484
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 1: to find out when a recession started after we're done

485
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: with the recession than when we're in the middle of it.

486
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: Is that how you would describe trying to you know,

487
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: how do you know when we're in a kleptocracy, perhaps

488
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: we're already in it. We don't feel it right, the

489
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: bog we've been we're of the boiled frog and we

490
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: just don't fully realize it yet or are there more

491
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: signs we should looking for.

492
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: It's I mean, different scholars will some will argue that

493
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 2: we're already at least in an oligarchy. And this came

494
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 2: up quite a bit since two thousand and eight, and

495
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 2: you actually brought up one of your other shows, the

496
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 2: fact that nobody was actually went to jail for gross

497
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 2: col jail that led to two thousand and eight that

498
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 2: at least, if not a kleptocracy, these increasing concerns about

499
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 2: the United States already being an oligarchy rule by the few,

500
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: were those few. It's an Aristotelian term literally from three

501
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 2: fifty BC, that you know, these are individuals that are

502
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 2: in charge for their benefit, not for the benefits society overall.

503
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:37,639
Speaker 1: And you know what they would argue at the time,

504
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: because this was the argument at the time, right, the

505
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: economy is too big to fail, and even though we

506
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: have these horrible, bad actors, we don't have time to

507
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: decide who was who was nefarious and who was accidental.

508
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: We have to just use we have to bail out

509
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: the economy so that it doesn't destroy the rest of

510
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: the global order. Right like it was, it felt as

511
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: if it was like people exempted the people from punishment

512
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: because you don't understand we're in the middle of it.

513
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: You know, we don't have time to arrest people in

514
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: the middle of a hurricane.

515
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 2: And I understand the argument, and at the time it

516
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:10,719
Speaker 2: actually makes a lot of sense. And many of those

517
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,360
Speaker 2: who were in charge had been students of the Great Depression,

518
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 2: but after the fact, they still didn't go to jail.

519
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just that. We've seen the role that

520
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 2: money is playing increasingly in politics. How different. As you know,

521
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 2: we focus a lot on the Supreme Court and Citizens United,

522
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 2: but a lot of campaign finance laws and rules have

523
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,719
Speaker 2: actually been degraded under the courts, in particularly the Supreme

524
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 2: Court over the years to a shell of what they

525
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 2: were in the past. The amount of what constituted corruption

526
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 2: has shrunk, the ability of politicians to accept money. You know,

527
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 2: one of the interesting things about the definition of a

528
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 2: conflict of interest overall is we know it's very it

529
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 2: degrades a democracy, but conflict of interest doesn't actually have

530
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: to be illegal, unlike Briberry or something where there's illegality.

531
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 2: The concept is of a rational person and could have

532
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 2: questions about that civil servant or that politician and where

533
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,239
Speaker 2: their interests lies. That's where the conflict of interest is.

534
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: It doesn't make it a cry, doesn't make it illegal,

535
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: but it makes it unethical.

536
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: It makes it highly unethical. But it also just degredes

537
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: your overall democracy and your overall governing system. And that's

538
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 2: the kind of things that we see with the Supreme

539
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 2: Court and the expensive fishing trips and the expense of winnebagos.

540
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 2: Clearly I need better friends because I'm not getting free Winnebago's.

541
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 2: The ability for large amounts of money to be bundled

542
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 2: and so forth and given to politicians, the weakening of

543
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 2: the rules of what they can use for personal use

544
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 2: versus non personal use, in the role of private loans,

545
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 2: even book sales, stuff like that.

546
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: So around you know, it used to be worse, though, Jodie,

547
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, like I always love to

548
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: tell this story to my students when I'm teaching about

549
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: Like as bad as it seems now, it used to

550
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: be worse. So did you know that in nineteen ninety two.

551
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: So in nineteen ninety two, it was my first year

552
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: covering campaign politic, and that year we had this astronomical

553
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: amount of members of Congress decided to not seek re election.

554
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: And there was a variety of reasons for that. Number one,

555
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: you had a check bouncing scandal where they got to

556
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: write checks without any money to cover it, and the

557
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: government just covered it. That was a weird and even

558
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: when you go back to this day, you're like, I

559
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: can't believe members of Congress just had this sort of

560
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: create a checkbook without money in it and it always

561
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: cash year less, Like that's crazy. There was also a

562
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: reapportionment year, and so people don't like to run a

563
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: new lines. But there was one other thing. They had

564
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: just changed the law. Prior to nineteen ninety two, a

565
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: member of Congress could retire and keep their campaign money

566
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: as their own personal just like an IRA, Like here

567
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: you go, I mean, I'm after nineteen ninety two. In theory,

568
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: members of Congress are not allowed to personally pocket campaign

569
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: money once they're done running for office. But prior to

570
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, so Congress could do that like so

571
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: I do. I take your point here, but we've actually

572
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: had the looser laws in the past that allowed for

573
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: some shocking things like what I just described.

574
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: In some ways yes, in some ways no, And the

575
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: laws are always changing, and when you make a law,

576
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 2: someone finds a loophole, you know, right, Yeah.

577
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: That's why I always say money finds, like, it's really

578
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: hard to legislate campaign finance because money finds a way, right,

579
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: life finds a way. Money finds a way, like you

580
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: know five oh one C fours, five oh one C three's.

581
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: You know, we came up with the all of these

582
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: weird tax code things that people have found where you're like, oh, no,

583
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: as long as it's not advocacy, you can use it.

584
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: Registering people to vote is not advocacy, so you can

585
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: use this dark money to do that, right, Like, we

586
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: keep changing, but there's definitely, there's definitely been. I think

587
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: it's really hard to legislate money out of politics.

588
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 2: It will be, But when we look at the United

589
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 2: States compared to other countries, the ability to give un

590
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 2: a little bit amounts of dark money under many circumstances

591
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 2: is unique. That's their point, you're and Martial Fund did

592
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 2: a really interesting study and looked at a lot of

593
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 2: countries in their campaign finance loss and everybody's got a

594
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 2: loophole somewhere that everybody thinks is crazy. But you know,

595
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 2: this whole Citizens United and dark money capability, that one

596
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 2: really stands out in the world that you don't have

597
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 2: another that you really don't see in other places. When

598
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 2: you get a big corruption scandal with campaign finance in

599
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 2: Britain or something, you're talking about a few million dollars,

600
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 2: not tens and tens and millions of dollars now.

601
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: Be a million dollars these days is just a state

602
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: legislative race.

603
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 2: And we just kind of look at it like, oh,

604
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 2: isn't that cute? You know, when you're complaining about their

605
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 2: coruption scandal, they're like, oh, let me, let's let's talk here.

606
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: So so, so what's the next step for us on

607
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: this dark road to cliptocracy?

608
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 2: So the kinds of things, the rules that keep coming

609
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 2: out are are more and more concerning. We talked about

610
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 2: campaign financing, the issues with that, but given my teaching

611
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 2: and my career, I started working on these issues. Actually

612
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: when I was back in the military on an anti

613
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 2: corruption task force. What really stands out for me is

614
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: the fact that as the Trump administration has come in

615
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 2: this time, they have undermined so many of the anti

616
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 2: corruption rules and the Department of Justice institutions that are

617
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 2: meant to minimize the levels of corruption coming in. So

618
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: we already had lots of issues and lots of loopholes

619
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: and questions about enforcement, like with two thousand and eight

620
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 2: and nobody going to jail, but things like we're just

621
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 2: not the fact that this ties with their constitutional crisis concerns,

622
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 2: the fact that the government said, we're just not going

623
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 2: to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for the next

624
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 2: six months. Yeah, and we're not going to enforce the law,

625
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 2: ironical ly, which passed in Trump won that most anonymous

626
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 2: shell companies. Not only are we not going to enforce it,

627
00:33:57,840 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 2: we're going to make an interim final rule that is

628
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: the exact opposite of what Congress legislated. And and you know, Congress,

629
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 2: good luck with that, and the court's good luck with that.

630
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 2: These are very frightening issues. And then you add crypto

631
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 2: to it, not only the Trump family and their business

632
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 2: interests with crypto, but just putting crypto friendly individuals in there.

633
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 2: Lots of people have different opinions on what is the

634
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: value of crypto or does it have a value outside

635
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 2: of money laundering and corruption.

636
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: People have I'm pretty cynical about it. It feels like the

637
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: entire crypto industry decided to get on board Trump in

638
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: the last six months of the campaign because they saw

639
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: that as the fastest way to make their bitcoin investments

640
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: worth more than they actually are.

641
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 2: So our prior Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, had

642
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 2: had noted and lots of people noted it before, that

643
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 2: the United States was already the easiest place in the

644
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 2: world to launder your money now with not enforcing the face.

645
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: I watched Ozark. We saw that, like you know, right,

646
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: Ozark really taught everybody how to do Oh okay, you

647
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: treat that in the Americans. I look at every travel

648
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 1: agency now with skepticism thanks to the Americans. And you're

649
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: just sitting there going, yeah, casinos makes sense to me.

650
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,800
Speaker 2: Let's throw some crypto in there. What could go wrong?

651
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 2: And let's let it go and more and more, and yeah,

652
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,439
Speaker 2: let's let normal people get involved. What could go wrong?

653
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 2: So you've already got as a place where we have

654
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 2: lots of dirty money flowing around. We don't actually know

655
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 2: how much because we have we have more secrecy rules

656
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 2: than about ninety different countries in the world. The standard

657
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 2: is not anonymous shell companies. For example, the United States

658
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: on January one, twenty twenty one, past the Transparency Act

659
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 2: as part of the National Defense Authorisation Act. They did

660
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 2: have to override Trump's feto for it, not because of

661
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 2: the act that ended this anonymous disability to anonymous shell companies.

662
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:55,760
Speaker 2: So if you have anonymous shell companies, we have anonymous trust.

663
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 2: We have all sorts of anonymity that we treat as

664
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 2: basically the getaway car for all sorts of illicit money

665
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,399
Speaker 2: coming by with the United States. But if you think

666
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,399
Speaker 2: of a society with so much dirty money coming in

667
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 2: into its politics, into its economics, sectors, into we've often

668
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,280
Speaker 2: focused in the federal government, but state and local governments

669
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 2: are particularly susceptible to corruption and what that does to

670
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 2: your larger country, what it does to your democracy. So

671
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: we were already the easiest place to launder money, and

672
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 2: we basically put out a giant welcome sign that says,

673
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 2: bring it here, bring it on, and here's if you

674
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 2: have five million dollars, you can buy some citizenship too.

675
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: Well, that's the Yeah, that's right, and we're not asking

676
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: I guess there's no character test with that. That's whether

677
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: your check claars, yes, are there. It's interesting you brought

678
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: up state legislatures. I mean, I just you know it is.

679
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: I always say that the least corrupt legislature in America's

680
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 1: Congress because we have more eyeballs on it. The fewer

681
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: eyeballs you have on the state level and the local level,

682
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: that's where you're usually you know, shoot city councils. To

683
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: me of the most corrupt corrupt a ball. I'm not

684
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: saying they're all corrupt corruptible, because you know, developers, we

685
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: all know. You know that that stories as old as time.

686
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: But since you brought up states, are there certain states

687
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 1: that are worse than others that stand out to you?

688
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 2: So states don't get evaluated the same way as countries do.

689
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: This is one of the issues for the United States.

690
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 2: Were such a big country and we kind of have

691
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 2: fifty plus you know, we had DC and Puerto Rico

692
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 2: and all that, different qualities, different local governments, different civil societies.

693
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 2: So you know, when we think of what place is

694
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,479
Speaker 2: the most corrupt in the world or whatever. There's there's

695
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 2: the corruption Barometer that Transparencion National does. There's the Corruption

696
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 2: Perceptions Index, there's the World Bank Governance Index. There's all

697
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 2: these indexes, but none of the states. There's only been

698
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 2: a couple attempts to even look at how corrupt states are,

699
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of issues in even trying to

700
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 2: measure a couple of different ones. One of them looked

701
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 2: at what were some of the worst states when it

702
00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 2: came to their actual laws. For those who live in Rjimia,

703
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 2: it actually comes out as one of the worst ones

704
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 2: because they have some of the worst laws and you know, well.

705
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: Their campaign finance laws are garbage. I mean, just anybody

706
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: can write a check.

707
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 2: Yeah you can, you can have you can have business

708
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 2: in front of the state legislature and write a check

709
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 2: and no problem.

710
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: Right, which is that means no investigation, nothing right, No,

711
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: And there's huge loopholes in it. South Dakota, I know,

712
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: has a crazy trust law that allows people to hide

713
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: money they've they've I know they were They changed their

714
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: law on purpose in order to attract people to do this.

715
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,760
Speaker 2: Jorida recently did that as well. Florida made it easier

716
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 2: to hide money. It was interesting too, because they were

717
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:44,879
Speaker 2: as far as you could tell, it was actually changed

718
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 2: to the Walmart family, or at least that was the

719
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 2: main lobbyist behind it, but it was, you know, as

720
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 2: far as local media reports. You know, hey, if Wyoming

721
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 2: can do that, why can't we make it easier to

722
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 2: do anonymous trust which are.

723
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: Made it a competition thing. Don't you want this big

724
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: money in this state? It's be good for the state,

725
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: you know.

726
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 2: But it's Wyoming. It's been good for a tiny number

727
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 2: of you know, five or six key individuals. Actually it's

728
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 2: not helped the typical population at all. And it's become

729
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 2: the scam one of the scam capitals of the world.

730
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 2: And strangely enough, like North Korean's, North Korean government was

731
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 2: using those the ability to form these anonymous companies and

732
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 2: trusts and so forth in Wyoming, particularly to undermine US

733
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: national security, to be able to get into companies and

734
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 2: so forth and make these fake LinkedIn profiles and so forth,

735
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 2: and get their people embedded in companies, secrets and so forth,

736
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: and money. So it's undermining US national security with no

737
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 2: real benefit to the state of Wyoming itself. And so

738
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 2: other ways we measure states is just an attempt to

739
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 2: look at do their laws actually meet the needs of

740
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 2: their citizens and stuff. Not surprisingly, Southern states do particularly

741
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 2: poorly by that. A recent book that literally just came

742
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 2: out in the last month by Michael Johnston and Osgan

743
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 2: Dincer tries to tries to do different assessments of states

744
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 2: and try to figure out looking at things like police

745
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 2: violence and its links to racial politics and the environment

746
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 2: within those states.

747
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: So one of the ways that I try to make

748
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 1: myself feel better about this current era is is how

749
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 1: similar to me it looks to the early twentieth century.

750
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 1: And you know, I look at the early twentieth century

751
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: and we can sit here and we can talk about

752
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: the Robert Barons, and there was a lot of those issues,

753
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 1: but it also was a massive period of reform, political reform,

754
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: economic reform. Clearly, the public wasn't happy, and you saw movements.

755
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: We had direct election of senators, we got women the

756
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: right to vote, We've got the trustbusters, and you know

757
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, maybe the government ought to

758
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: be involved in regulating business. What let's assume we are

759
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: we are going to enter a period of reform, and

760
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: I think that the fact to the matter is the

761
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: most likely scenario. If we don't like how things turn

762
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: out in this administration as a public, we're probably going

763
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: to correct in that direction, Like we're going to be

764
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: looking for, you know, ways to make sure we don't

765
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: have this happen again, right that whatever we decide that is, So,

766
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: what is some reform legislation that, you know, assuming we

767
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: do head in that direction, what makes sense? What would

768
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:30,760
Speaker 1: you like to see or is this stuff that's already

769
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: on the books and we just need better enforcement of

770
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: the laws on the books and a Justice department focused

771
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: on it.

772
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 2: So a couple of things are going to have to happen.

773
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 2: And a lot of these have been put out by

774
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 2: Lewitzky ways Eyeblatt. I mean, there's lots of these out.

775
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 2: Some of these are going to be a surprise. A

776
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 2: lot of it is just making politics so that people

777
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 2: have a greater input into the politics themselves. And so

778
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 2: that's going to include anti Jerry Mandarin, so that people

779
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 2: choose their politicians more thanians choosing their ob.

780
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to double the side of Congress. I

781
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: think that that would be a huge way of trying

782
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,439
Speaker 1: to get Congress closer to the people, and you would

783
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: minimize jerry mannering anyway, go ahead.

784
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 2: And the size of Congress, but you're still going to

785
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 2: have to make it anti jerry mandering rules. Both parties

786
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 2: have played with jerry mandering. The Republicans took it to

787
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:17,439
Speaker 2: a new level, but both sides have played with it.

788
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 2: So jerrymandering, you're going to have to do some sort

789
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 2: of anti citizens united. You're going to have to do

790
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 2: an amendment to.

791
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: Over the going to need to be a constitualment, right.

792
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there are probably some constitutional amendments or some

793
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 2: creative ways to get around them. Popular elections would help

794
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 2: a great deal so that you no longer have that

795
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 2: imbalance between rural and less populated areas versus Well.

796
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: If you double the side, I will I will make this.

797
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 1: I'm making this argument. If you double the sides of

798
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: the House and there's no constitutional mement needed, then all

799
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,720
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the electoral college isn't a problem anymore,

800
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 1: by the way, because you change the math. Yeah, you

801
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: do change the math, you know. I But and the

802
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: reason I'm like obsessed with that is anything that it's

803
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment, I'm always looking for because we know

804
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: how difficult it is, Yeah, but they're non possible.

805
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 2: I mean think at the sixteenth Amendment was the income

806
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 2: tax Amendment, and that was all about corruption and the

807
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 2: fact that you had Robert parents and they weren't paying

808
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 2: their taxes. Wow, that sounds really familiar lately. Obviously they

809
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 2: immediately found loopholes, et cetera. But this was supposed to

810
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 2: be one of the means that you limited corruption, you

811
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 2: limited oligarchy in whatever year past nineteen twenty whatever this was.

812
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 2: This was one of the major reforms and it was

813
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,800
Speaker 2: it was amendment that passed incredibly rapidly. So it's hard,

814
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: it's not impossible. But with some of the Supreme Court

815
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,320
Speaker 2: decisions that have come down, Trump versus the United States

816
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 2: is probably the most frightening one. And then you know

817
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 2: movements to reform the Supreme Court itself. You know who

818
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,919
Speaker 2: gets to pick the judges, maybe having a certain term

819
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 2: limits on the court. You know, people so many years

820
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 2: and then go back to their old courts, for example,

821
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 2: so you have a concerant rotation or giving every present

822
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:03,319
Speaker 2: two you know, two justices that come in so that

823
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 2: you're not always having this makes your fight. So these

824
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 2: are some of the standard things that really stand out,

825
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 2: and a lot of the just the campaign finance reforms

826
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 2: sort of things that were there in the past, sort

827
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 2: of getting back to the original founders limiting lobbying. The

828
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 2: you know, lobbying was not an enforceable contract in the

829
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 2: United States and the eighteen seventies, per the Supreme Court,

830
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 2: it wasn't criminal, but if you got double crossed by

831
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 2: you know, if you paid a lobbyist and then the

832
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 2: lobbyists felt like they didn't get paid enough, they couldn't

833
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 2: take you to court because it wasn't considered a enforceable

834
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 2: contract because you were monifiing your citizenship.

835
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: So when did that change?

836
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:44,720
Speaker 2: It starts to change it. It's it's part it's affirmed

837
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: by the Supreme Court up to the eighteen seventies, and

838
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 2: then starting in the nineteen thirties is really where this starts,

839
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 2: sort of like bit by bit sort of getting taken apart,

840
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 2: and then it really hits gangbusters after twenty ten.

841
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 1: It's a you know, it's amazing. My friend Brodie Mellins

842
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: and his brother a terrific book on the lobbying that's

843
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: out right now called The Wolves of k Street, and

844
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: the basic point is sort of like the world of

845
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: lobbying has gotten so perverted now. It used to be

846
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,560
Speaker 1: it was corporate interests versus the public interest. Right There'd

847
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: be some advocacy group making one case and corporations would

848
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 1: make their own case, and ultimately the politician attitudes between

849
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: the citizens group or the corporate group. Now you have

850
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: two companies in the say, the same sector, who are

851
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,320
Speaker 1: essentially trying to put the other company out of business,

852
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: and they each use a lobbyist, and it's sort of like,

853
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:36,720
Speaker 1: we're not involved as citizens. It's just two companies arguing

854
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: who can weaponize government regulation in their favor, And like,

855
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: we've really perverted lobbying really down to that, and it

856
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:50,399
Speaker 1: is it is. The concept of lobbying makes a lot

857
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: of sense to me, as by the way, the federalist

858
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: papers point out they expected some form of this citizens

859
00:45:55,920 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 1: groups things like that to various factions, But how it

860
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: works right now in Washington, I don't know where citizens

861
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:03,800
Speaker 1: go to lobby.

862
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,399
Speaker 2: Put it that way, and that's where we really start

863
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 2: getting back to our original discussion of the concerns about cleptocracy.

864
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 2: We're in a kleptocracy. The institution of the state are

865
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 2: morphed in a way that the national interests the interests

866
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 2: of the citizens at best or secondary. They're definitely not

867
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: the primary. And that goes for domestic politics, foreign politics.

868
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 2: They're definitely not secondary, maybe tertiary. In some states like

869
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 2: Democratic Republic of Congo or something, they don't even show up.

870
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 2: They're not you know, they're not even there. And so

871
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 2: your discussion about different lobbyists for different industry arguing with

872
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 2: each other, where does this where does the citizen go

873
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 2: to have their interests brought forward? There are some controversial

874
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 2: studies that say citizens actually have very little influence on government.

875
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,120
Speaker 2: Those are controversial there, and there's a lot of legitimate

876
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 2: arguments that the methodology was flawed in those particular studies.

877
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 2: But certainly we've seen the realm where money seems to

878
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 2: at least buy more influence work for civil society. We

879
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 2: would often go work with the staffers for various members

880
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 2: of Congress. They were wonderful staffers, they were great to

881
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,800
Speaker 2: work with. But I live in or outside of Washington,

882
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 2: d C. My lobbyist friends would meet with the senator,

883
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 2: not the staffers, just that access. I mean the advocacy groups,

884
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 2: and these included religious groups and so forth.

885
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: Everybody rationalizes it. Now. I mean, I love how you

886
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: know all these groups that Trump's trying to target, they're

887
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: hiring Trump's favorite lobbyist, Pride Palace. You know, basically, you're right.

888
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,319
Speaker 1: You know it's sort of and again to me, that's

889
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: how you know you're in a kleptocracy when when somebody

890
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: who wants to play by the rules decides, well, that's

891
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: what the rules are, so I got to play by

892
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 1: those rules. I'm not going to play by the rules.

893
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: I'm playing by his rules.

894
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 2: But one of the things you also see in a

895
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 2: kleptocracy is where the institutions it make it easier to

896
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 2: engage in kleptocracy, and you start getting on a vicious cycle.

897
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 2: So when you say things like you're not in forcing

898
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 2: the Foreign for a Practices Act, you're not enforcing anti

899
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 2: anonymous shell company things, you're going to gut the I

900
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 2: R S's ability to go after major taxpayers. Doesn't mean

901
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 2: you're in one, but it's a very concerning set of

902
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: red flags that you're making it easier to engage in

903
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 2: significant corruption.

904
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to be a bit cynical here,

905
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: but we've essentially put out a welcome that for anybody

906
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 1: that wants to hide money in the world.

907
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, we yeah, absolutely.

908
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: And forget forgetting us, forget Switzerland anymore, forget the Caymans.

909
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: Are we as good as anybody.

910
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 2: As I mentioned before, former Secretary the Treasury Yellen's were

911
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 2: the easiest place to lounder money and to Tax Justice

912
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: Network and plenty of other groups that have agreed with her,

913
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 2: and it's gotten muchy.

914
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: This is over and above the Caymans, right, who is

915
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: notorious back in the day.

916
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 2: Right, The Tax Justice Network tries to assess these and

917
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 2: the top ones are always the Cayman Islands, usually Switzerland,

918
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 2: British Virgin Islands, and US somewhere in the top ones.

919
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 2: I haven't looked at this year's, but we're always in

920
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 2: like the top three, which is not a top three

921
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 2: you want to be in, but that was those Those

922
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 2: are even before we get into the changes since January twentieth,

923
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 2: with you know, enabling further enabling crypto, saying you're not

924
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 2: going to enforce anti coruption laws, gutting various asset finance,

925
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,399
Speaker 2: asset forfeiture, and other task forces that have have now

926
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 2: been dissolved by the Attorney General. The Golden passport thing

927
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 2: is not really helping the situation in that regard because

928
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,920
Speaker 2: you're saying, hey, pay me off and you can have

929
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 2: US citizenship and all the rights and protections that are

930
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 2: actually that go with it. But even before that, there

931
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 2: were concerns. The reasons the United States was already at

932
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 2: the top. It was the easiest place to form anonymous

933
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: shell companies, anonymous trusts, et cetera. It was the loopholes

934
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 2: for being able to evade tax and stuff are already

935
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:57,279
Speaker 2: incredibly high those shell companies and through other means, but

936
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 2: also things like tax sharing information share. So when you

937
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 2: filed your taxes, assuming you did it since we just

938
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 2: passed tax day, yep, you had to file whether you

939
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 2: had any overseas bank accounts. Right, United States with Switzerland

940
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: in particlar was something called Swiss Leaks in twenty sixteen

941
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 2: where they found out all these Americans are hiding their

942
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 2: money in Switzerland. They require countries, they've had a lot

943
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 2: of pressure and companies to send their the information on

944
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 2: bank accounts of American citizens to the US, but the

945
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 2: United States doesn't share that information with other countries in return.

946
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 2: So what that did is become well, open all your

947
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 2: bank accounts in the States and get an anonymous shell company,

948
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 2: get an anonymous druss. You can't just directly open anonymous

949
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 2: shell company into a US banks, It's not quite that

950
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:41,719
Speaker 2: easy because banks have rules under the bank secrecy on

951
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 2: and so forth. But you can use that as an

952
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 2: ability to put money hedge funds or other areas to

953
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 2: laander your money. And so if you're a Swiss citizen,

954
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: you know that information isn't going to be shared back

955
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 2: to Switzerland. If you're American citizen with a bank account

956
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 2: in Switzerland, that information is going to come to the

957
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,439
Speaker 2: US government. If you're a Swiss citizen hiding your money

958
00:50:58,440 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 2: in the United States, that's not going to go to

959
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 2: this was government. So that started bringing in that made

960
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 2: the United States an even better place to launder their money.

961
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: So to close the loop, then, is it the Trump

962
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: administration that is brought upon a kleptocracy or we already

963
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: had all of the elements of it and whoever's president

964
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: could essentially lean in or lean out, depending on what

965
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:20,720
Speaker 1: they choose.

966
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 2: I would put it if the United States is going

967
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,399
Speaker 2: into a kleptocracy, and the obviously the warning signs were there.

968
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: The old sun also rises quote from Hemingway that everybody uses.

969
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 2: You know, how did you go bankrupt slowly and then

970
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 2: quickly or something like that. I would say the same

971
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 2: thing with with kleptocracy, and that is how did the

972
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 2: United States become a cleptocracy? Well, you know, there's this

973
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 2: chiseling away of laws, campaign finance, United.

974
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: Sentensen United blah blah blah, thirty years of this reality to.

975
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 2: Avoider taxes, the fact that IRS was already underfunded and

976
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 2: unable to go after tax avoidance, tax avoidance and money laundering,

977
00:51:57,440 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 2: even though they're not taxing the same use the exact

978
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 2: same processes. So whether you're hiding or fentanyl, you're hiding

979
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 2: money from your wife, you're about to divorce, you don't

980
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 2: pay ali money, they're the same processes, not from the

981
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 2: same organizations in the same places. So that sort of

982
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: stuff was already there. But then you know, whatever duct

983
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 2: tape was kind of holding the system together and things

984
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 2: were actually starting to improve a little bit in the

985
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 2: United States with these new laws, with the new regulations

986
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,439
Speaker 2: that were going in, Like that's just sort of that's

987
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:27,280
Speaker 2: rapidly marg as we speak.

988
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this. How

989
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 1: did you become an expert in this? What brought you

990
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 1: to You know, when you're in college, You're like, I'm

991
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 1: going to be a specialist on understanding clip you know

992
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 1: what happens when a government becomes corrupt and how corrupt

993
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: government's happened. But I'm guessing that is in how you

994
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: got into this. How'd you end up give me your

995
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 1: a little bit of your origin story here before we got.

996
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, anti eruption of specials was definitely not on my

997
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 2: BINGO card. Actually, I didn't go to university. I went

998
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:59,319
Speaker 2: to military academy, okay, and I studied engineering and.

999
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:02,240
Speaker 1: Which which academy?

1000
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 2: Of course academy, and so I was you know, I

1001
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 2: went into the intelligence career field. I ended up working

1002
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 2: on issues with terrorism, finance, the.

1003
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 1: Tax payer, so you saw how money was moved very corruptly.

1004
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 2: I got very interested when I was on peacekeeping in

1005
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 2: the Balkans, I worked on some terrorism finance related issues.

1006
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 2: Ended up getting pulled into NATO's only anti corruption task

1007
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 2: force ever, which was in Afghanistan, which you know you

1008
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 2: really start to under at the time, Afghanistan was the

1009
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 2: second most corrupt country in the world or new the

1010
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 2: Transparency International. When I left, it was the most corrupt.

1011
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:41,919
Speaker 2: So there we go those who can't do teach. Yeah,

1012
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,439
Speaker 2: But and it kept working on it, and I come

1013
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 2: from corruption from a different perspective than a lot of others.

1014
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 2: Most come into it from law enforcement or human rights perspective.

1015
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 2: I come from it from a hard military perspective because I.

1016
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: Feel like a national security perspective, really.

1017
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 2: Very national security, very hard power. What does it do

1018
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 2: you know? I served in a Rock, I served in Afghanistan.

1019
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 2: Both were mission failures in many ways because of corruption.

1020
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:10,520
Speaker 1: Corruption, right, Yeah, Well, when.

1021
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 2: You talk about why did Afghanistan fall to the Taliban,

1022
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 2: ultimately it's either Pakistan or corruption. Always one of those.

1023
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,520
Speaker 1: I was just going to say. And some might argue

1024
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 1: Pakistan and corruption go hand in hand.

1025
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, and they're they're definitely overlapping, overlapping circles there.

1026
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 2: So I kept working on it and realized that not

1027
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 2: many people from a military background were writing on it

1028
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:34,720
Speaker 2: and had had that academic background to like, what is corruption?

1029
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 2: What is cliptocers? You define it? Why do we get mission?

1030
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 2: Phillyre out of these things? And just kept working on it.

1031
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: Well, your students are pretty lucky. That's a good back.

1032
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 1: That's a different background. You're not somebody who's just been

1033
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: in the world of hypotheticals, the world of you know,

1034
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:51,920
Speaker 1: London School of Economics, No disrespect to them, but sort

1035
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: of a different you know, more of a real world.

1036
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very combat boot sort of on the

1037
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 2: ground and you know, babble and Iraq in the Balkans

1038
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 2: sort of.

1039
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: You saw political theory get implemented rather than just read it.

1040
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: We're not we're not implemented, but either way, you.

1041
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 2: Know, I had my PhD and I landed on the

1042
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 2: ground and I'm like, you know, some some things that

1043
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:14,480
Speaker 2: the theory worked, and some were like boy, that was prep.

1044
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was the school. I'm sure it's like that.

1045
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:21,879
Speaker 1: That's where the Mike Tyson quotes comes in, right, quote

1046
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 1: comes in. Everybody's got a plan until they get punched

1047
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:29,760
Speaker 1: in the face. Absolutely sounds similar. Hey, uh, doctor Jody Vittori.

1048
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,959
Speaker 1: I learned a lot. It was a very provocative piece,

1049
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 1: but I thought a necessary one. And it's like, you know,

1050
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 1: this isn't just about throwing around names, right, throwing around

1051
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: this is this These are this is late stage democracy.

1052
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: When you start to lose it, and I think we

1053
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: need to be a little more aware of it.

1054
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,840
Speaker 2: So thank you now, I thank you for having me

1055
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 2: here today. I really appreciate it.

1056
00:55:52,360 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 1: You got it. So i'd love your comments about this

1057
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: interview with Jody Battori here, what you think of whether

1058
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:11,360
Speaker 1: we are at a kleptocracy and what we can do

1059
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:15,760
Speaker 1: about it. You know, I do think that the issue

1060
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: of money in politics, which is I've kind of been

1061
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 1: hitting on that theme a little bit with with with

1062
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: the variety of my guests here. You know, the ease

1063
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 1: with which money circulates in the political system does make

1064
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: this the opportunity to pay to play, pay to survive,

1065
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, it is it is.

1066
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: It is just it is more likely to happen, and

1067
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 1: it is a problem. And we're going to need more

1068
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 1: politicians willing to essentially not be tempted by the opportunity

1069
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:52,280
Speaker 1: that is out there for pay to play and instead

1070
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: try to find some laws that perhaps protect the democracy

1071
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 1: from that. But voters are going to have to care

1072
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: about it enough to scare these politicians into doing it.

1073
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a few questions. Let's dig in

1074
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 1: to the file what we call around here, they ask

1075
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: Chuck File, ask Chuck, there it is. You got the music?

1076
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: So that helps get me in the mood. All right,

1077
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 1: I'm just going to plow forward here with four questions

1078
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: and I'm going to kind of keep my answers tight

1079
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 1: and we'll go from there. In a society this one

1080
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 1: comes from Dave in Alexandria, Virginia, in a society that

1081
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: is granted personhood to corporations, I assume he's kind of

1082
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: referring to citizens United. Has it come time to grant

1083
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 1: the same protection to the state and it's populous in

1084
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 1: preventing them from reckless and false statements? Is it time

1085
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: to make false, active and malicious statements by the government

1086
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:50,400
Speaker 1: or actively filed political candidates illegal. So I think what

1087
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: you have to get at is intent, right. It is

1088
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 1: somebody making a false statement because they believe in that falsehood,

1089
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: or they're making the false statement because they know it's false, right,

1090
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: And that's you know, motive when it comes to speech,

1091
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: is a very difficult thing to prove. And I'll be

1092
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:11,160
Speaker 1: honest with you, I read this question about three or

1093
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: four different times, and I was thinking about not bothering

1094
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 1: with it and not answering it. Because I was worried

1095
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 1: it would come across the wrong way to folks and stuff.

1096
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:21,720
Speaker 1: But I wanted to address it because I understand where

1097
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 1: you're coming from, right, which is like when you know,

1098
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 1: should and I think I'd go deeper than that. You know,

1099
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 1: could a could it almost like voters file a class

1100
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: class action suit against a Maybe it's a sitting governor,

1101
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:39,439
Speaker 1: maybe it's a sitting president, Maybe it's the HHS. Right,

1102
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: you know, does a group of Texans decide to file

1103
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: a class action suit against HHS and Secretary Kennedy for

1104
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: misleading people on the measles vaccine? Now, look, there's obviously

1105
00:58:56,520 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: indemnity and government government officials are supposed to be indemnified,

1106
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: and it's very hard to sue them on a personal basis.

1107
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 1: You could get to defamation and things like that, but

1108
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: I guess I would, You know, I was trying to

1109
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: think of what would be an example of a suit

1110
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:14,640
Speaker 1: that might get standing. Right, did did did a government

1111
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: official provide essentially mislead the public and it led to deaths? Right?

1112
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 1: This would be the measles Right? Is there is there

1113
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: some standing there? So I guess my answer to this

1114
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 1: question is I think this would be difficult to make happen.

1115
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 1: I think there's a you know, elected officials have, particularly

1116
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:40,920
Speaker 1: in Congress, have protection the Speech and Debate Clause the

1117
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: First Amendment does does sort of protect. You know, you

1118
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 1: have a right to lie. You know you have a

1119
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: right to mislead. The question is maliciously intent. There's defamation.

1120
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,000
Speaker 1: Did your you know, did you do your misstatements to

1121
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:59,440
Speaker 1: purposely cause harm? Right, there's there's sort of you do

1122
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: have to can acted the motive there. But in coming

1123
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: up with an example, the one that would perhaps could

1124
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:11,200
Speaker 1: have standing, and I'd be fascinated to see if there

1125
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 1: was a federal court that would take this, and what

1126
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court would say is if a group of

1127
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:21,520
Speaker 1: citizens in Texas sued the sued Kennedy and HHS essentially

1128
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: by saying that they they helped they helped enhance the

1129
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 1: measles outbreak which have then caused this damaged loss of life,

1130
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:34,120
Speaker 1: et cetera. So it would be on I think health

1131
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: statements that I think perhaps the government would be the

1132
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 1: most vulnerable on in something like that, especially if you

1133
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 1: can scientifically prove that they were just wrong on the facts.

1134
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:44,960
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a there's the Surgeon General of

1135
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 1: Florida is a massive misinformer on so many things on health.

1136
01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:55,240
Speaker 1: He's the one that's been trying to convince people to

1137
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: take floride out of water, misleading people about the damaged

1138
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: floride could do like anything, if you just injected fluoride

1139
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: into your body at you know, a whole tube of

1140
01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: toothpaste of it immediately or whatever it is, yeah, it

1141
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: could poison you. But that is not the amount of

1142
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 1: fluoride in water that is taking place. So I would

1143
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: love to see a class action suit about health advisories

1144
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: from the government that that possibly, possibly could be something

1145
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: that would put them at risk. Certainly would be an

1146
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:35,320
Speaker 1: interesting and interesting thing to watch unfold in the courts.

1147
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 1: All right. Next question here comes from James E. Are

1148
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 1: there any realistic possibilities to stop jerrymandering? It gets tricky

1149
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 1: because this comes down to a state and county law

1150
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:47,520
Speaker 1: thing correct. For example, if Congress makes a law banning it,

1151
01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: the states don't have to adhere to that. I feel

1152
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:51,680
Speaker 1: that this problem could fix a lot of Washington by

1153
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:54,960
Speaker 1: promoting more moderate candidates and more competitive races. Curious about

1154
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: your thoughts of what it would take to ban jerrymandering.

1155
01:01:57,240 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: So here's the problem. If you start banning. You know,

1156
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: one person's jerry mander is another person's attempt at creating

1157
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: a competitive district. You know, one of the one of

1158
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,919
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of our society over the last twenty years.

1159
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: You know, jerry mandering was a gigantic problem in the nineties,

1160
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: in the first decade of the odds, and then we

1161
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 1: started self sorting. Meaning you know, when I was growing up,

1162
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Nobody had any idea whether you

1163
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: lived in a Republican neighborhood or a Democratic neighborhood, and

1164
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: especially if you lived in sort of a mixed neighborhood

1165
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:27,479
Speaker 1: like I did. It was sort of a middle class

1166
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 1: neighborhood in what I call East Kendall. There's no East Kendall,

1167
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: but it was east of the Turnpike for those of

1168
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 1: you keeping track of Miami geography. And you know, I

1169
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:41,960
Speaker 1: think our block. You know, I have no idea. You know,

1170
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: my father was a bumper sticker guy, so he had

1171
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 1: a bob Old bumper sticker for the eighty eight race.

1172
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that sort of I marked our house,

1173
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 1: but I don't, you know, I don't really have a

1174
01:02:51,280 --> 01:02:54,560
Speaker 1: strong memory of anybody on either side, and people weren't

1175
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:59,479
Speaker 1: sure what people's politics were on different things. Now there's

1176
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: this bit of cultural self sorting where people want to live,

1177
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: whether it's in a similar ethnic group or with similar

1178
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:14,520
Speaker 1: cultural ties. And so if you're trying to create, you know,

1179
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,160
Speaker 1: congressional districts that are competitive, you actually might need to

1180
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:22,280
Speaker 1: gerrymander in order to create the competitive nature. So I'm

1181
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 1: not sure gerry mandering itself is something you want to ban. Now.

1182
01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:28,360
Speaker 1: I do think you could create guard rails on gerrymandering, right,

1183
01:03:28,400 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 1: And I think I've brought this up before, where you know,

1184
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:33,800
Speaker 1: there's always been this idea that the courts could come

1185
01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:36,520
Speaker 1: up with a formula. So, for instance, let me give

1186
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,919
Speaker 1: you a formula that I've wanted to test out, which

1187
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,760
Speaker 1: is you take, you know, in any decade, at the

1188
01:03:42,840 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 1: end of the decade, when you're trying to figure out

1189
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 1: how you're starting your apportionment, you take the last two

1190
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 1: gubernatorial elections and the last two presidential elections, and you

1191
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: basically you put all four of those votes together and

1192
01:03:56,320 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: you split the dn R and whatever it is, whatever

1193
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: that spacing is. If the party that has an advantage

1194
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: is at fifty two percent, then no district can be

1195
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:11,280
Speaker 1: ten points greater than fifty two, you know, for for

1196
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: said party. You know that you can't make a district

1197
01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:17,560
Speaker 1: bigger than sixty two percent advantage for Party X. And

1198
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:20,000
Speaker 1: if it's fifty five, then that number would expand to

1199
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: sixty five. Right. You sort of create some sort of

1200
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 1: you know, no more than ten points in one direction

1201
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 1: or the other based on the statewide partisan split over

1202
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: the last four statewide elections for the two executive offices

1203
01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:37,560
Speaker 1: in the state, governor and the presidency. That's a way

1204
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 1: to create a formula. I'm a data guy. I would

1205
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:42,960
Speaker 1: love to just have rules that you would follow. It's

1206
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 1: math and you go from there. The other idea, of course,

1207
01:04:47,360 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 1: is what I floated in my ted talk, which is

1208
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,360
Speaker 1: you want to if you want to limit the damage

1209
01:04:52,360 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: that jerrymandering can do and the fact that political leaders

1210
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 1: in a state can essentially, you know, put the finger

1211
01:04:57,600 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: on the scale for one party or the other. I mean,

1212
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: the fact of the matters Republicans have an advantage, you know,

1213
01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:04,920
Speaker 1: have the majority in Congress, not because of the voters

1214
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 1: that voted, but because of congressional districts that were redrawn

1215
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:11,280
Speaker 1: in North Carolina and Florida. That's the margin for the Republicans.

1216
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 1: If they don't get those corridorder redraws that go their way,

1217
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 1: Democrats probably control the House and we have a much

1218
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 1: different situation here with Trump and his attempt to govern.

1219
01:05:26,120 --> 01:05:32,800
Speaker 1: So I do think that that gerry mandering as it

1220
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:35,240
Speaker 1: stands now, and I think we have two we don't have.

1221
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:37,960
Speaker 1: We have too many people in per congressional district, eight

1222
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:40,959
Speaker 1: hundred thousand per congressional districts too many. There are only

1223
01:05:41,680 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 1: thirteen cities that have a population of greater than eight

1224
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,479
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, Okay, so that means we have four hundred

1225
01:05:47,480 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: and thirty five congressional districts that are the that would

1226
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:56,480
Speaker 1: be individually, you know, bigger or as big as just

1227
01:05:56,520 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 1: about every major city in America. But for the top thirteen, Austin,

1228
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 1: Texas has just under eight hundred thousand. So that is

1229
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:06,360
Speaker 1: not a community of interest and that and when you

1230
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 1: have districts that big, it actually becomes easier to jerrymander.

1231
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,080
Speaker 1: And I know nobody wants to put more members of

1232
01:06:12,120 --> 01:06:14,640
Speaker 1: Congress and more politicians in Washington, but I believe it

1233
01:06:14,720 --> 01:06:18,040
Speaker 1: or not, more democracy is better for the democracy, not

1234
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:20,320
Speaker 1: less democracy. And if you want to get rid of

1235
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: jerrymandering or limit the damage jerry mandering is do, then

1236
01:06:24,360 --> 01:06:27,440
Speaker 1: we should expand the House. You don't need a constitutional

1237
01:06:27,480 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 1: amendment for this. This is just an Act of Congress.

1238
01:06:30,120 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 1: Expand the House. We're at one per four hundred thousand.

1239
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:35,960
Speaker 1: You're going to have more communities of interest. By the way,

1240
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:39,040
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand, it's a population of America's fiftieth largest city,

1241
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:42,280
Speaker 1: which is Arlington, Texas. That's a suburb of Dallas. That

1242
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:44,520
Speaker 1: is a community of interests. I expect there to be

1243
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:48,160
Speaker 1: a member of Congress for Arlington, Texas. You know that

1244
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:52,360
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. In the likelihood, if you have

1245
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:54,720
Speaker 1: eight hundred and eighty one districts rather than four hundred

1246
01:06:54,720 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: and thirty five, it's just harder to slice and dice them.

1247
01:06:57,840 --> 01:07:00,800
Speaker 1: You're actually going to have more of everything. And it

1248
01:07:00,840 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 1: should create more diversity, a bit more small d democracy

1249
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: in the House. And yes, you're going to have a

1250
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:10,480
Speaker 1: different class of people finally have an opportunity to run

1251
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: for Congress. It isn't going to be somebody you know

1252
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 1: or some ideology that you share with. Just enough people

1253
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 1: in order to break through with an interest group to

1254
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: get the nomination in a congressional district that only the

1255
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 1: primary would decide things. So, if you're looking to get

1256
01:07:27,280 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: rid of jerrymandering, I don't think it is by doing

1257
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,760
Speaker 1: a law as you're describing, because people move around and

1258
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: you never know when you're going to need to create

1259
01:07:36,960 --> 01:07:41,320
Speaker 1: jerrymander in order to create competition, Right, So I do

1260
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:44,400
Speaker 1: think the better answer is double the size of the house.

1261
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:47,600
Speaker 1: All right, let me move on to the next question here,

1262
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 1: and this one comes from it's unsigned, long time listener,

1263
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 1: first time caller. I love that you always like to

1264
01:07:55,600 --> 01:07:57,720
Speaker 1: talk about finding people in the middle, and I've always

1265
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:00,320
Speaker 1: liked your description that most Americans live between the thirty

1266
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 1: yard lines referring to a football field. But my question

1267
01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:04,960
Speaker 1: for you is, could you explain what you're measuring with

1268
01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 1: that metaphorical football field when you're talking about moderates. Is

1269
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:10,960
Speaker 1: it a question about tone, not being a bomb thrower,

1270
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 1: deference to process, policy, incrementalism, people who try to triangulate

1271
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:17,599
Speaker 1: some position that seems to appeal to some imaginary swing voter,

1272
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: or is it really just about being pragmatic as opposed

1273
01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 1: to seeming like a doctrinaire partisan dialog. Yes, okay. The

1274
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: answer is that he goes on which version are the

1275
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:28,920
Speaker 1: people you think politicians need to speak to when you're

1276
01:08:28,960 --> 01:08:31,320
Speaker 1: talking about moderates, and which of these voices should the

1277
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:33,559
Speaker 1: media try to find. Look, I am a one of

1278
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:38,680
Speaker 1: those who believes that I always say that I, you know,

1279
01:08:38,720 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: I don't share my I have Depending on the issue,

1280
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:44,960
Speaker 1: some people might say my views are radically left or

1281
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:48,400
Speaker 1: they're radically right or whatever. Right they don't. But what

1282
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:50,839
Speaker 1: I always say is you can't sort of make progress

1283
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:54,439
Speaker 1: without incrementally in the middle. It doesn't mean, you know,

1284
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:57,559
Speaker 1: I think there's there's two types of moderates. I think

1285
01:08:57,600 --> 01:08:59,840
Speaker 1: there's moderate in temperament and then there's sort of moderate

1286
01:08:59,880 --> 01:09:02,559
Speaker 1: in and that they have a mixed constituency and they're

1287
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 1: trying to represent maybe a business community on one part

1288
01:09:07,560 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 1: of their district, and maybe they're trying to represent a

1289
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:12,360
Speaker 1: religious community and another part of their district. And maybe

1290
01:09:12,360 --> 01:09:16,880
Speaker 1: there's sometimes some things go together. But I'm mostly in

1291
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:19,960
Speaker 1: for tone or tenor. I mean, I think that you know,

1292
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: there there used to be Republicans try to get the

1293
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:28,880
Speaker 1: most electable conservative. I've heard someone the left describes themselves

1294
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:32,080
Speaker 1: as a pragmatic progressive, meaning they're always looking to make progress,

1295
01:09:32,120 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 1: but they're not trying to you know, they're not trying

1296
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:37,800
Speaker 1: to solve the problem. And one fell sloop swoop. You

1297
01:09:37,880 --> 01:09:39,719
Speaker 1: know that in a country of three hundred and fifty

1298
01:09:39,760 --> 01:09:43,160
Speaker 1: million people with a lot of diverse opinions, you got

1299
01:09:43,160 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: to bring them along one step at a time. So

1300
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:48,400
Speaker 1: when I speak about the thirties, it's not that people

1301
01:09:48,600 --> 01:09:51,280
Speaker 1: don't have some things that they may be further to

1302
01:09:51,360 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 1: the left than somebody and further to the right. It's

1303
01:09:54,880 --> 01:09:57,320
Speaker 1: just that they accept the fact that, hey, their point

1304
01:09:57,360 --> 01:09:59,439
Speaker 1: of view is out of that mainstream and isn't going

1305
01:09:59,439 --> 01:10:02,000
Speaker 1: to get a dress. But maybe there's something in between.

1306
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 1: So maybe you believe that all abortions should be banned,

1307
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:08,880
Speaker 1: but you know that's a that's not a seventy percent

1308
01:10:08,920 --> 01:10:11,360
Speaker 1: issue that in fact, there's a seventy percent issue against

1309
01:10:11,400 --> 01:10:14,720
Speaker 1: your point of view. So instead you may be for

1310
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:18,240
Speaker 1: parental notification, or you may be for you know, trying

1311
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:22,519
Speaker 1: to limit the number of weeks somebody has access to abortion,

1312
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: because then you find yourself sharing the views of people

1313
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:30,479
Speaker 1: somewhere in the in the in this larger middle. So

1314
01:10:31,479 --> 01:10:34,080
Speaker 1: when I refer to that I do refer to. I

1315
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,440
Speaker 1: think of it as that way because I don't think anybody.

1316
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:40,400
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody per se. I think people define

1317
01:10:40,439 --> 01:10:42,840
Speaker 1: themselves as centrist based on the caricatures of the two

1318
01:10:42,920 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: parties that are out there. But I actually think that

1319
01:10:45,439 --> 01:10:48,479
Speaker 1: isn't the issue. It really is more I see it

1320
01:10:48,479 --> 01:10:52,280
Speaker 1: as more temperament. Right. You know, you have people that

1321
01:10:52,360 --> 01:10:55,040
Speaker 1: are going to take a sledgehammer to government, right. I mean,

1322
01:10:55,080 --> 01:10:58,080
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's no moderate here, even though he actually has

1323
01:10:58,120 --> 01:11:02,840
Speaker 1: positions that might not you know, that might not put

1324
01:11:02,920 --> 01:11:06,120
Speaker 1: him as an ideologue traditional conservative on X or Y

1325
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:08,920
Speaker 1: or Z right. He's actually a protectionist, which in the

1326
01:11:08,920 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 1: eighties was considered a left wing position. But it you know,

1327
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:17,760
Speaker 1: he is not conservative at all in his in his

1328
01:11:18,080 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 1: in his mindset of trying to hurry up and change things, right,

1329
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:24,360
Speaker 1: that is not you know, the first part of conservative

1330
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:27,400
Speaker 1: is conserve right, which means you you you don't do

1331
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:32,000
Speaker 1: anything too rashly, if anything, you don't you know you incrementalism,

1332
01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 1: but even even smaller right on that front. So look,

1333
01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:41,040
Speaker 1: you you outlined it well. But that is usually what

1334
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:45,920
Speaker 1: I'm referring to. It's not necessarily an ideological It's more

1335
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:50,920
Speaker 1: about temperament and whether and whether you believe that, hey,

1336
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:53,240
Speaker 1: the goals should be to give something, you know, get

1337
01:11:53,280 --> 01:11:56,240
Speaker 1: a little something for everybody. A seventy thirty win if

1338
01:11:56,240 --> 01:11:59,519
Speaker 1: you're the party in majority, that's a win versus this

1339
01:11:59,600 --> 01:12:01,920
Speaker 1: idea that the other side doesn't get any say at all.

1340
01:12:02,280 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: It's either ninety five to five. You know, you know,

1341
01:12:05,160 --> 01:12:07,160
Speaker 1: it's either my way or the highway. You know that

1342
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 1: to me is not a moderate position, even if you

1343
01:12:11,400 --> 01:12:14,439
Speaker 1: you know, if you have no interest in engaging with

1344
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:16,479
Speaker 1: the other side. All Right, The final question I'll take

1345
01:12:16,479 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 1: today is this comes from a guy named Rocky. Gotta

1346
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:25,320
Speaker 1: love that. I always appreciate when you insert some sports

1347
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:27,760
Speaker 1: knowledge into a political conversation. Based on your experiences, what

1348
01:12:27,800 --> 01:12:30,800
Speaker 1: elected official was is the most knowledgeable sports and you've

1349
01:12:30,840 --> 01:12:33,679
Speaker 1: interacted with disclaimer former athletes or coaches like Jim Bunny,

1350
01:12:33,880 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 1: Steve Large, and Tom Osborne. They don't count extra points

1351
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:38,719
Speaker 1: if you want to break it down. Baseball, college football, NFL,

1352
01:12:38,760 --> 01:12:44,400
Speaker 1: college hoops, NBA, NHLPGA. Enjoying the podcast Rocky, So, I look,

1353
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:48,160
Speaker 1: I got a couple of quick answers on this. I'll

1354
01:12:48,200 --> 01:12:51,760
Speaker 1: tell you the person that Tom Davis. He's a former

1355
01:12:51,800 --> 01:12:56,639
Speaker 1: Republican member of Congress from Northern Virginia. He basically came

1356
01:12:56,680 --> 01:12:58,640
Speaker 1: to Congress when I got to the hotline. I think

1357
01:12:58,680 --> 01:13:03,879
Speaker 1: he won in ninety two and then ninety four. Anyway,

1358
01:13:04,479 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 1: this is a guy who didn't just know every presidential

1359
01:13:08,640 --> 01:13:12,559
Speaker 1: result going back to the forty eight presidential election by county.

1360
01:13:13,800 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 1: I think he could name every World Series lineup that

1361
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:20,760
Speaker 1: goes back to nineteen forty eight. Davis was a baseball savant,

1362
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:23,679
Speaker 1: is a baseball savant. I've enjoyed going to Nats games

1363
01:13:23,720 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 1: with him in the past. If he's listening now, he

1364
01:13:26,280 --> 01:13:31,360
Speaker 1: might be. He's an old friend, easily the most knowledgeable

1365
01:13:31,400 --> 01:13:34,920
Speaker 1: baseball fan of any elected official I've met. But you

1366
01:13:34,960 --> 01:13:37,640
Speaker 1: have these sort of specialists like Shared Brown. He's got this.

1367
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:39,479
Speaker 1: I don't want to give away his email address, but

1368
01:13:39,520 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 1: his email address is a tribute to the tribe. To

1369
01:13:43,439 --> 01:13:46,719
Speaker 1: the Guardians now, I guess we refer to them. Massive

1370
01:13:46,760 --> 01:13:50,639
Speaker 1: Cleveland baseball fan and knows can go deep on Cleveland baseball.

1371
01:13:52,720 --> 01:13:56,240
Speaker 1: Not sure about the other sports. Steve Israel, a former

1372
01:13:56,280 --> 01:14:00,439
Speaker 1: Long Island congressman, goes deep on the Mets just his

1373
01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:02,599
Speaker 1: mats can go super deep. Then there's a lot of

1374
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:06,840
Speaker 1: I've always had some pretty good Haley Barber. Boy does

1375
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:09,760
Speaker 1: he love Old Miss football, And that is somebody you

1376
01:14:09,800 --> 01:14:12,960
Speaker 1: can have a deep and long conversation on Old Miss football.

1377
01:14:13,320 --> 01:14:17,640
Speaker 1: So you know, Marco Rubio can go He's a guy

1378
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:20,280
Speaker 1: that will go deep on the backup cornerbacks of the Dolphins.

1379
01:14:20,840 --> 01:14:23,479
Speaker 1: You know, he's a super fan of the Dolphins in

1380
01:14:23,520 --> 01:14:26,080
Speaker 1: a way. And I you know, I'm not sure where

1381
01:14:26,120 --> 01:14:28,639
Speaker 1: I think his son's a Gator so and he went

1382
01:14:28,680 --> 01:14:32,080
Speaker 1: to so I'm not quite sure of his college football

1383
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:36,200
Speaker 1: how obsessed with college football he is. But I know

1384
01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:38,960
Speaker 1: he's a he's a massive Dolphins fan and can go

1385
01:14:39,080 --> 01:14:42,760
Speaker 1: deep on the Dolphins on that front. So you know,

1386
01:14:42,760 --> 01:14:45,800
Speaker 1: there's quite look, there's This has been one of the

1387
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:49,559
Speaker 1: more helpful ways as a reporter. I've always said, you know,

1388
01:14:50,800 --> 01:14:53,080
Speaker 1: being a sports fan, there's always a way to connect.

1389
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:56,599
Speaker 1: And I'm an eclectic sports fan. I like, you know,

1390
01:14:56,840 --> 01:14:59,360
Speaker 1: baseball and college football are probably my two first loves.

1391
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:02,360
Speaker 1: But boy, the NFL's right there. I love the NBA.

1392
01:15:02,520 --> 01:15:05,040
Speaker 1: My son loves it more, so I've gotten into it

1393
01:15:05,320 --> 01:15:07,960
Speaker 1: a little bit more. By the way, Barack Obama, he

1394
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:11,559
Speaker 1: goes that guy watches a ton of basketball. I remember

1395
01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:14,519
Speaker 1: I busted him. He wasn't a huge baseball guy claimed

1396
01:15:14,520 --> 01:15:16,720
Speaker 1: to be a White Sox fan. And I remember one

1397
01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:18,760
Speaker 1: day there's some big trade the White Sox have. I

1398
01:15:18,840 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 1: was doing small talk. He wasn't paying attention to a

1399
01:15:22,080 --> 01:15:25,559
Speaker 1: Jake PV trade at the Chicago White Sox. But like,

1400
01:15:25,760 --> 01:15:27,439
Speaker 1: he's the guy that was going. Did you see the

1401
01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:30,679
Speaker 1: backup guard that played the other night in the Bulls game?

1402
01:15:30,720 --> 01:15:32,439
Speaker 1: That guy, you know, he played it. I watched him

1403
01:15:32,439 --> 01:15:36,840
Speaker 1: at Marquette. Like he goes deep both on college basketball

1404
01:15:37,680 --> 01:15:41,320
Speaker 1: and the NFL. You know, ironically, Donald Trump's not, as

1405
01:15:41,680 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, where he goes deep as golf. He weirdly

1406
01:15:47,160 --> 01:15:50,480
Speaker 1: doesn't go that deep on some of these other sports.

1407
01:15:50,600 --> 01:15:53,559
Speaker 1: He knows culturally he needs to connect. But as he

1408
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:57,680
Speaker 1: will say, he's friendly with a lot of sports owners.

1409
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:01,040
Speaker 1: But you know, I know he loves boxing, he loves wrestling.

1410
01:16:01,080 --> 01:16:04,760
Speaker 1: Wrestling's been a good, good thing for his businesses in

1411
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:08,080
Speaker 1: Atlantic City. He was the one guy that was willing

1412
01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:10,479
Speaker 1: to host the WWE back in the days, and that

1413
01:16:10,560 --> 01:16:14,040
Speaker 1: was an important you know, the snobs of Madison Square

1414
01:16:14,040 --> 01:16:15,600
Speaker 1: Garden weren't so into it back in the day, and

1415
01:16:16,160 --> 01:16:19,920
Speaker 1: it gave him a tenant when he needed a tenant.

1416
01:16:20,479 --> 01:16:22,519
Speaker 1: But he doesn't go as deep on the players on

1417
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:25,400
Speaker 1: some of this stuff unless he is a personal relationship.

1418
01:16:25,400 --> 01:16:27,920
Speaker 1: But on golf, and I tell you there's a reason

1419
01:16:27,960 --> 01:16:31,320
Speaker 1: golfers are so loyal to him. They will tell you.

1420
01:16:31,479 --> 01:16:33,840
Speaker 1: And I've had this conversation with golfers, even those that

1421
01:16:34,080 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 1: don't like his politics. They say, you don't understand he

1422
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:43,320
Speaker 1: really cares about making great golf courses. They've always felt very,

1423
01:16:43,479 --> 01:16:49,200
Speaker 1: very well treated by any Trump course. So you know,

1424
01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: the golfing community isn't just formed of before him. He

1425
01:16:53,439 --> 01:16:57,280
Speaker 1: has treated the golfing community quite well over the years

1426
01:16:57,280 --> 01:16:59,799
Speaker 1: because he wants more of these tournaments, right he does.

1427
01:17:00,120 --> 01:17:03,800
Speaker 1: The guy loves his golf and he does and he

1428
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:08,439
Speaker 1: does go deep on that. So I will say this,

1429
01:17:09,280 --> 01:17:12,040
Speaker 1: it is whether you're whether you're into sports or not.

1430
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:14,639
Speaker 1: If you're going to get into politics as an elected official,

1431
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:17,400
Speaker 1: as a reporter, or as a staffer, you're going to

1432
01:17:17,479 --> 01:17:20,760
Speaker 1: have to learn how to speak that language. It is

1433
01:17:20,800 --> 01:17:23,200
Speaker 1: the It is the best way to connect with communities.

1434
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:27,320
Speaker 1: It is a frankly, it is a way to bring

1435
01:17:27,320 --> 01:17:31,320
Speaker 1: communities together without you know, and especially you know, I

1436
01:17:31,360 --> 01:17:35,120
Speaker 1: wish Donald Trump didn't make this so difficult for people politically,

1437
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:39,920
Speaker 1: sort of almost being negative if somebody doesn't come. Really

1438
01:17:39,960 --> 01:17:42,680
Speaker 1: would love to separate out the politics of the presidency

1439
01:17:42,760 --> 01:17:44,800
Speaker 1: so that plenty of teams can just feel good about

1440
01:17:44,800 --> 01:17:48,360
Speaker 1: showing up at the White House. You know, I'm sorry

1441
01:17:48,360 --> 01:17:52,400
Speaker 1: that that it is treated so politically these days. You know,

1442
01:17:52,439 --> 01:17:57,439
Speaker 1: there were plenty of players at boycotted showing up at

1443
01:17:57,760 --> 01:18:01,519
Speaker 1: at showing up for the events when Obama was president,

1444
01:18:02,320 --> 01:18:04,599
Speaker 1: but it didn't get you know, it's not like Obama

1445
01:18:04,720 --> 01:18:08,080
Speaker 1: got angry about it and said something and tweeted or whatever. Right,

1446
01:18:08,240 --> 01:18:10,720
Speaker 1: And I think it's why it never seemed like it

1447
01:18:10,760 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 1: was as big of a deal as it comes across

1448
01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:21,320
Speaker 1: now because the president himself, it personalizes everything and to assume,

1449
01:18:21,439 --> 01:18:23,840
Speaker 1: you know, he whether it's about him or not, as

1450
01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:26,920
Speaker 1: we know, in some ways he loves it if he

1451
01:18:26,960 --> 01:18:31,639
Speaker 1: can make something about him on that. But look, that's

1452
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:33,519
Speaker 1: my rundown of sports fans. You know, my friend Chris E.

1453
01:18:33,520 --> 01:18:37,080
Speaker 1: Lizza wrote a whole book about presidents and sports. It's

1454
01:18:37,200 --> 01:18:40,080
Speaker 1: really good. I highly recommend it. It's a good way

1455
01:18:40,160 --> 01:18:43,840
Speaker 1: to sort of get you get you acclimated with which

1456
01:18:43,880 --> 01:18:47,599
Speaker 1: politicians truly like sports, and which politicians simply use sports

1457
01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 1: as a way to try to connect to the everyday voter.

1458
01:18:51,200 --> 01:18:54,120
Speaker 1: All right, well that does it for that group of

1459
01:18:54,200 --> 01:18:56,479
Speaker 1: We've got four questions in for Ask Chuck again a lot.

1460
01:18:56,640 --> 01:18:58,960
Speaker 1: Be sure you can send me an email at ask

1461
01:18:59,040 --> 01:19:02,519
Speaker 1: Chuck at the Chuck com. You can put a comment

1462
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:04,160
Speaker 1: on the YouTube with a question. You can do it

1463
01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:07,160
Speaker 1: on our Instagram feed. You can send us questions wherever

1464
01:19:07,200 --> 01:19:13,479
Speaker 1: you want to send us questions Instagram feed, Twitter, YouTube. Yes,

1465
01:19:13,640 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: I have a TikTok feed too for the podcast. Don't

1466
01:19:16,360 --> 01:19:19,760
Speaker 1: tell anybody at TikTok no, actually please do so the

1467
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:23,880
Speaker 1: algorithm can get better. So anyway, I would love to

1468
01:19:23,880 --> 01:19:27,679
Speaker 1: get your questions from that. And with that I will

1469
01:19:27,720 --> 01:19:30,200
Speaker 1: take a break for at least twenty four hours until

1470
01:19:30,200 --> 01:19:30,880
Speaker 1: we upload again.