Speaker 1: Hello, They're happy Thursday. Welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast. A little quick programming note. This is my
Speaker 1: ASSD update for the month of August, and in fact
Speaker 1: we will not be dropping an episode on Monday on
Speaker 1: Labor Day. We will be though, doing Tuesday, so the
Speaker 1: same three updates next week, but instead of Monday, Wednesday Thursday,
Speaker 1: it will be Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. So just a little
Speaker 1: programming note on that front. Obviously, begin tip and Wednesday
Speaker 1: afternoon evening here for Thursday morning. The big news, correctly
Speaker 1: consuming much of the much of the political and news
Speaker 1: world is the mass shooting in Minneapolis at that Catholic school.
Speaker 1: Given what I did for a living doing live television
Speaker 1: and anchor many many A special reports when it came
Speaker 1: to school shootings, sadly, there's a pattern. There's a pattern
Speaker 1: in coverage. There's a pattern, you know, where there's sort
Speaker 1: of there's there's a lot of this that becomes very familiar.
Speaker 1: There is a quick, sort of all consuming moment and
Speaker 1: then as fast as people pay attention is as fast
Speaker 1: as the coverage usually goes away. Uh. There in many
Speaker 1: cases this is fitting a pattern. Young person in their
Speaker 1: twenties shoots up a school that they once attended, a
Speaker 1: manifesto that sort of indicates a lot of mental health challenges,
Speaker 1: and you ask yourself, how did this person get all
Speaker 1: these weapons? And there's good, there's so, there's there's certainly,
Speaker 1: And this is where I hope we can have political
Speaker 1: leaders try to have an uh, what I would call
Speaker 1: an am conversation rather than an or conversation. Too many
Speaker 1: times with these school shootings, I think everybody wants everybody's
Speaker 1: the wrong word. There's sometimes a political instinct too. If
Speaker 1: you believe in an idea, if you believe in gun control,
Speaker 1: or you believe that this is a mental health issue,
Speaker 1: whichever one it is, you find you find a piece
Speaker 1: something in the current investigation that reinforces your belief and
Speaker 1: you sort of dismiss the idea that there are other
Speaker 1: factors that contribute here beyond what your core belief is
Speaker 1: the motivation of these things, whether you believe it's a
Speaker 1: mental health is the primary issue, Access to guns is
Speaker 1: the primary issue, School security is the primary issue. Rhetoric
Speaker 1: rhetoric online being the issue right there, And my encouragement
Speaker 1: would be I wish we could get to a place
Speaker 1: where we had some and conversations. Let's look at the
Speaker 1: access to weapons and the conversation and the rhetoric that
Speaker 1: takes place on social media, and the divisive and divisiveness
Speaker 1: and hate that's going around, and the issue with protecting
Speaker 1: kids in schools and the issue of mental health for
Speaker 1: young people. I think we all know, unfortunately that we're
Speaker 1: not going to have and the conversations that we'd like
Speaker 1: to have. This particular story has the potential of truly
Speaker 1: becoming very divisive in our culture wars, given that the
Speaker 1: shooter transitioned from being a man to a woman, This
Speaker 1: is already something that many on social media are using
Speaker 1: and want to make certain points. Again, it's an attempt
Speaker 1: to cherry pick something to reinforce a core belief, regardless
Speaker 1: of any of the other factors that may be involved
Speaker 1: in this situation. So this is one of those times
Speaker 1: where you're just where I get hopeful that the political
Speaker 1: community will be mature and sort of rise above partisanship,
Speaker 1: rise above the ability to exploit something for a cheap
Speaker 1: political gain. And yet what world am I living in? Right?
Speaker 1: I think we know that this has every chance of
Speaker 1: being politicized in all the wrong ways. I hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: I hope that the online conversation is the outlier and
Speaker 1: that the in person conversations that the focus is in
Speaker 1: the right direction here. Unlikely. I'm aware of the world
Speaker 1: we live in, but it is this is something where
Speaker 1: I wish we could have this and conversation because you
Speaker 1: have rabid people who don't even want to touch the
Speaker 1: access to guns issue, and you have others that don't
Speaker 1: want to have certain conversations about rhetoric online, about about identity,
Speaker 1: and so this is going to be one of those
Speaker 1: moments where you need a really good leader, and perhaps
Speaker 1: in a tough moment, we don't have the leadership in
Speaker 1: this country to rise to the occasion that's necessary. But
Speaker 1: hope Spring's eternal, and perhaps and perhaps cooler heads and
Speaker 1: more empathetic heads are going to prevail here. But we
Speaker 1: shall see. We are at a moment for what it's worth. Right,
Speaker 1: We're going to have some federal agencies. We've already had
Speaker 1: the FBI director pretty high profile talk about that he
Speaker 1: wants to make that they're investigating this as a hate
Speaker 1: crime against Catholics, and they're looking at this as domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: I've heard from some folks fearing that the calling it
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism will then single out certain groups of people.
Speaker 1: I am. I am hopeful that does not happen, but
Speaker 1: it does serve as a reminder of the importance of
Speaker 1: whether you trust law enforcement or not. And there's actually
Speaker 1: some new polling data indicating just how polarized we are
Speaker 1: in our trust or distrust of law enforcement agencies right
Speaker 1: now that it is completely based on what your political
Speaker 1: party is when it comes to your views of ICE,
Speaker 1: your views of the Department of Homeland Security, your views
Speaker 1: of the Department of Justice, your views of the FBI.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a taste of this conversation on
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. From the big picture standpoint, the
Speaker 1: numbers haven't changed all that much. Right last year overall,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice in this Pew survey had a
Speaker 1: forty three favorable rating versus a forty four percent unfavorable rating. Okay,
Speaker 1: this year right now, it's thirty nine percent favorable forty
Speaker 1: six percent unfavorable. But boy, when you go inside the numbers,
Speaker 1: you start to see the politic how politicized the views
Speaker 1: of these agencies are. Majority of Republicans now rate the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice favorably. It's up eighteen points from Republican
Speaker 1: views of the Department of Justice last year. And guess
Speaker 1: what the trend is the opposite among Democrats. Just twenty
Speaker 1: eight percent of Democrats view the Justice Department favorably, and
Speaker 1: that's down twenty seven points from last year. You can
Speaker 1: see similar polarized movements when it comes to the favorable
Speaker 1: or unfavorable ratings of the Department of Homeland Security. You
Speaker 1: have sixty eight percent of Republicans viewing it favorably, just
Speaker 1: twenty six percent of Democrats view it favorably. Last year,
Speaker 1: Democrats were more likely than Republicans to rate DHS favorably.
Speaker 1: Partisan gap on ICE is wider there than under any
Speaker 1: other group that was tested by Pew. Seventy two percent
Speaker 1: of Republicans favorable, have a favorable view towards ICE seventy
Speaker 1: two percent, twenty one percent unfavorable. In contrast, Democrats, literally
Speaker 1: it's a mirror image, just thirteen percent of a favorable
Speaker 1: rating of ICE, seventy eight percent unfavorable on that front,
Speaker 1: and obviously on the FBI itself, just to give you
Speaker 1: a sense of that, on the FBI, you still you
Speaker 1: have a fifty four percent of Republicans have a favorable
Speaker 1: rating of the FBI, and right now a ray of
Speaker 1: Democrats have a favorable rating of the FBI forty five percent.
Speaker 1: It shows you that it hasn't totally trickled down just yet. There,
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, there actually are places where both
Speaker 1: where there isn't a polarized view of certain federal agencies.
Speaker 1: The National Park Service basically seventy percent of Republicans and
Speaker 1: Democrats have a favorable view of the National Park Service.
Speaker 1: Let's see how the dosee cuts impact that over time.
Speaker 1: The National Weather Service has a fairly high favorable rating
Speaker 1: sixty one percent of Republicans, seventy three percent of Democrats. Oddly,
Speaker 1: NASA is a bit more polarized, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: While it has a net favorable rating, more Democrats have
Speaker 1: a higher favorable rating of NASA than Republicans. And the
Speaker 1: Social Security Administration is a huge partisan divide, with more
Speaker 1: Republicans having a positive view of it versus versus Democrats.
Speaker 1: But the point is, we are living in a time
Speaker 1: where I think most Americans, and I think correctly now
Speaker 1: view the at least the federal law enforcement agencies through
Speaker 1: very partisan eyes. Because they are being run by very
Speaker 1: partisan actors who are not trying to hide their partisanship. Right,
Speaker 1: Pambody is a Republican operative in the role of Attorney General,
Speaker 1: Cash Bettel a Republican operative in the role of FBI director.
Speaker 1: That's not healthy for our society. This is why there
Speaker 1: is a real debate here if the more the president
Speaker 1: wants to concentrate power through him in the executive branch
Speaker 1: and control these agencies that multiple presidents left and right
Speaker 1: believe they had to create some distance from in order
Speaker 1: to keep credibility with these agencies, whether it is the FBI,
Speaker 1: whether it is the Department of Justice, whether it is
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve. And when you concentrate all this in
Speaker 1: moments like we're dealing with where we need where a
Speaker 1: very political response is the last thing the situation needs,
Speaker 1: you're going to have extraordinarily partisan actors whose first instinct
Speaker 1: is to exploit for partisan gain, and it is only
Speaker 1: going to erode the credibility of these agencies. Right now,
Speaker 1: I gave you the partisan leanings here. Essentially, independence are
Speaker 1: essentially moving there. In these cases, the Independence look slightly
Speaker 1: more left than right as far as their ratings are concerned,
Speaker 1: and I think independence just look at it a little
Speaker 1: more straightforward, not necessarily through a partisan lens, but through
Speaker 1: a reality lens. And the reality is the right believes
Speaker 1: the left politicize these agencies, the left believes the rights
Speaker 1: politicizing these agencies. If both sides are saying these agencies
Speaker 1: have been politicized over the last two years, I promise
Speaker 1: you independents are going to view that the agencies are
Speaker 1: always being politicized, and they're going to line up essentially
Speaker 1: against the political party and power in that one. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the situation that we're going to see
Speaker 1: here and let's see, let's see how political this investigation
Speaker 1: itself gets. But this is we are dealing with a
Speaker 1: very with a very skeptical public in general right now,
Speaker 1: where everybody is looking at sees everything through a very
Speaker 1: partisan lens, and in many cases that's exactly the way
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. This is a feature of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: They don't view They're okay, if it's seen positively only
Speaker 1: by their voters, that is an acceptable outcome, and that's
Speaker 1: that's I think the ultimate problem with the current situation
Speaker 1: we're living in is that this is the first administration
Speaker 1: that didn't care whether people that didn't vote for them
Speaker 1: respected their ability to govern one and two whether they
Speaker 1: ought to govern for people that didn't vote for them.
Speaker 1: And I think this is this is unfortunately a time
Speaker 1: where you need max trust in your law enforcement agencies,
Speaker 1: and we are at a time where we probably are
Speaker 1: as low as it's been probably since the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: certainly has polarized on these agencies. We didn't have the
Speaker 1: same amount of polling that we do today, and how
Speaker 1: often would we do it. But it is nonetheless a
Speaker 1: we're in a period of low trust. We know this
Speaker 1: across the board, and so it is like, again, you
Speaker 1: hope that the moment is heavy enough that even the
Speaker 1: most partisan actor realizes this is not the time for partisanship.
Speaker 1: But if passed his prologue, it's unlikely that your hope
Speaker 1: is going to turn into reality. Let's get into some
Speaker 1: asshat ask Chuck. First question comes from Jeff, and it's
Speaker 1: a perfectly timed sports and politics question. He says, Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Jeff from Pittsburgh. Here. I just dropped off my oldest
Speaker 1: son off for his first year at university. He has
Speaker 1: a great interest in journalism, particularly sports and politics. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's familiar to me, But my fear as a parent
Speaker 1: is naturally the dying legacy of legacy outlets. I've heard
Speaker 1: you mentioned in passing on the podcast about how local
Speaker 1: sports coverage may have the potential to transform, support other
Speaker 1: local coverage, or remake the media landscape. Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: on this? Yes, Look, I've been examining the local news
Speaker 1: landscape for quite some time through a variety of potential
Speaker 1: business proposals. For one, I'm going to keep some of
Speaker 1: it a bit cryptic on that, but here's the basic premise.
Speaker 1: You know, local news they had two main revenue streams
Speaker 1: for a long time, right advertised, well, three main revenue streams, advertising,
Speaker 1: subscriptions and classified. And it was really classified that were
Speaker 1: the sort of the reliable revenue generator. ADS. ADS would
Speaker 1: go up and down, if you will, and even like subscriptions,
Speaker 1: you know, yes that mattered, but in some cases it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, you know, they were just dying to
Speaker 1: make sure you got the pay. You know, it was
Speaker 1: more important for them to have higher circulation numbers to
Speaker 1: sell to advertisers than it was necessarily to get direct
Speaker 1: subscription income revenue from each household. So that's why I've
Speaker 1: always looked at it more as two primary primary resources there.
Speaker 1: And you know, as i've you may have heard me
Speaker 1: say this on this podcast, I say it wherever I go.
Speaker 1: I said, a man named Craig decided classified zuta be free. YadA,
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, Donald Trump became president. Because what happened is,
Speaker 1: I do think when we knocked out local and classified,
Speaker 1: when when you got rid of classified revenue for basically
Speaker 1: any news newspaper that had a circulation of fifty thousand
Speaker 1: or less, that was sixty to seventy percent of their revenue.
Speaker 1: So look, let me speed through this part, which is
Speaker 1: I don't think nonprofit is a way to is a
Speaker 1: long term solution to the local news crisis that we
Speaker 1: have in America. Uh So, I think that you got
Speaker 1: to find a revenue stream. And I actually think the
Speaker 1: fact that for all the reasons I just talked about
Speaker 1: in this episode about how much money is coming into college,
Speaker 1: how much money is being poured into high school sports
Speaker 1: to prepare to get your opportunity in college now and
Speaker 1: this is no longer just about basketball and football. This
Speaker 1: is across the board, right beach volleyball, lacrosse, both men's
Speaker 1: and women's soccer, both men's and women's women's softball, even
Speaker 1: men's baseball in some places is a net positive revenue
Speaker 1: sport and what that's going to do even as we're
Speaker 1: at this weird demographic cliff where we were actually stagnant
Speaker 1: when it comes to to growth of the under seventeen generation,
Speaker 1: Like you know, universities have been talking about this that
Speaker 1: this was the beginning of this demographic cliff where we
Speaker 1: you know, and then you throw in that we're a
Speaker 1: little more restrictive on immigration, so are we are? We
Speaker 1: are getting older as a country, not younger. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to youth sports, it's primarily been pretty boy heavy,
Speaker 1: and I think now with the amount of opportunity in
Speaker 1: women's sports, you're going to see gender parity among youth sports.
Speaker 1: So it is going it is a huge growth area
Speaker 1: and there is just a ton of money. And I
Speaker 1: think if a way you're trying to build a local
Speaker 1: news organization, and I've I've there are some good examples
Speaker 1: that I've come across in my research of the local
Speaker 1: news ecosystem that local sports is a pretty good uh
Speaker 1: magnet to get readers to get people interested in what
Speaker 1: you're doing. And if you can become in the same way, right,
Speaker 1: then my friends at NBC through a bunch of money
Speaker 1: to get the NBA because in there and you know,
Speaker 1: live sports during the week is sort of one of
Speaker 1: these last ways you can get people to turn on
Speaker 1: a legacy TV each It's the same thing in local
Speaker 1: if you can become the hub and I believe if
Speaker 1: you can become the local hub of how the community
Speaker 1: watches the local high school football game or watches the
Speaker 1: twelve you travel teams in your community play each other,
Speaker 1: and maybe you put that behind a paywall, but you
Speaker 1: also are creating a friendly or advertising environment. Small businesses
Speaker 1: love being associated with youth sports. Right. It's not polarizing
Speaker 1: as a as somebody who cares about trying to glue
Speaker 1: communities back together between red and blue. I think sports
Speaker 1: is one of the safe zones that you can do
Speaker 1: that with. You can if you start with sports, you
Speaker 1: build your trust that way, and then over time you
Speaker 1: can build trust with them and then eventually they will
Speaker 1: believe you when you say and oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: we're also doing this reporting over here to tell you
Speaker 1: that your city councilman's corrupt. So that's the that's that's
Speaker 1: my that's my thesis, and it's one I've put together
Speaker 1: in a business plan and it's one I really believe in.
Speaker 1: I know this the youth sports world is going to
Speaker 1: be is growing, and it's growing extraordinarily fast, and it's
Speaker 1: only going to get bigger, and there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people wanting to invest money in it. There's not
Speaker 1: as many people that want to invest money in local news.
Speaker 1: They've sort of almost written it off, thinking, oh, it
Speaker 1: should be just a project of nonprofit. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: ready to write it off, and I'm like, can we
Speaker 1: marry these two entities if you will right? Ultimately, you
Speaker 1: need a local publisher to let you know that the
Speaker 1: youth sports tree fell in the forest and here's the scores,
Speaker 1: and somebody's got to deal with the infrastructure to make
Speaker 1: sure the stream lives somewhere and you can have a
Speaker 1: place to see the highlights, etc. So I just think
Speaker 1: that this is one of these things where it's when,
Speaker 1: if you will right, we can rebuild a more trusted
Speaker 1: local ecosystem and oh, by the way, we're providing a
Speaker 1: service to the community. That it really wants. Trust me,
Speaker 1: as a parent of two kids that were pretty active
Speaker 1: in the youth sports space, five or six different apps
Speaker 1: you'd run late you didn't want to miss an app bat,
Speaker 1: you know, towards the end of their youth sports careers.
Speaker 1: There'd be the occasional parent that says, hey, I've created
Speaker 1: a live stream, go to this what was it Vimeo?
Speaker 1: I think is the Mayo. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: said it right, and you could kind of watch it
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So I do think this is
Speaker 1: actually and it goes back to what I believe a
Speaker 1: successful local news publication has to be, which is a
Speaker 1: service journalism, meaning you really are in service to the community.
Speaker 1: You're helping people in the community live their lives. So
Speaker 1: one part of that is making it easier for them
Speaker 1: to keep up with the youth sports scene. But another
Speaker 1: might be you hire an influencer who's just there to
Speaker 1: help you save money on food. They keep track of,
Speaker 1: you know, the price of chicken on everywhere, the price
Speaker 1: of eggs, and what restaurant makes it easier to take
Speaker 1: two small children to go out and not break the bank,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Right, you essentially recreate the old As I say,
Speaker 1: you're recreating what everybody loved about the newspaper bundle. Right.
Speaker 1: I've always said this about the old newspaper. We all
Speaker 1: got it, but only ten percent of it cared about
Speaker 1: the news part. The other ninety percent had something else
Speaker 1: we had in there. It was just a terrific bundle. Well,
Speaker 1: you start to unpack that bundle and say, what is
Speaker 1: it that helped you know? So you need to find
Speaker 1: out what's going on in your community. You need to
Speaker 1: find out how to save money in your community. You
Speaker 1: need to find out what's the weather in my area
Speaker 1: going to be, not just on the other side of
Speaker 1: the county. Well, my goodness, weather forecasting has never been more.
Speaker 1: The only good local news the Washington Post does anymore
Speaker 1: is its weather in Capital Weather Gang. Because of the
Speaker 1: ability to micro forecast, they literally can have pretty accurate
Speaker 1: forecasts of my neighborhood and the neighborhoo next door and
Speaker 1: be correct it is it is, and so every community.
Speaker 1: If I were running a local news operation, whether it's
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, Kansas or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I'd be hiring a
Speaker 1: local meteorologist. By the way, my daughter's minoring and meteorology,
Speaker 1: so she needs a job too. And one other thing
Speaker 1: to sort of alleviate you your concern about about journalism
Speaker 1: as a career for your for your for your son.
Speaker 1: When I entered the information ecosystem, space journalism, whatever we
Speaker 1: want to call it anymore, in the early nineties, it
Speaker 1: was at a time of media contraction. But there was
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of startups, and I got a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of early experience and startups where the old legacy
Speaker 1: reporters didn't want to bother understanding what the internet was.
Speaker 1: And at twenty three, because I was comfortable on the internet,
Speaker 1: you know, I you know, had an early political column.
Speaker 1: I was doing analysis on the days, all because the
Speaker 1: old legacy reporters didn't want to do it. So what
Speaker 1: I would say is that if there's ever an exciting
Speaker 1: time to be in in the world of journalism, it's
Speaker 1: when you're in your twenties, not when you're like me
Speaker 1: in your fifties. And here's one other way to give
Speaker 1: you some to give you a little bit more comfort
Speaker 1: that this isn't a wasted degree for your for your son,
Speaker 1: more and more Fortune five hundred. There is now this
Speaker 1: belief in the in the in the corporate world that
Speaker 1: you've got to run your own communications. This isn't just
Speaker 1: about finding a media outlet that will be friendly to
Speaker 1: you when you roll out your new logo or your
Speaker 1: new this. You've got to create your own content. And
Speaker 1: more and more Fortune five hundred companies want to be
Speaker 1: their own publishers. They're setting up comm shops that look
Speaker 1: more like newsrooms than they are just marketing material, and
Speaker 1: so there is a actually a demand. There's quite a
Speaker 1: few of my former colleagues are going into the corporate
Speaker 1: world to essentially set up be a news newsletter publisher,
Speaker 1: or be a content creator for their TikTok page, or
Speaker 1: to set up podcasts, you know, maybe a weekly podcast
Speaker 1: that the CEO is a part of, or that they
Speaker 1: do for communication. So I think that the while the
Speaker 1: narrow when you look at the world of journalism through
Speaker 1: the narrow lens of sort of what we thought of
Speaker 1: as journalism twenty years ago, it looks like a shrinking field.
Speaker 1: When you look at it through the prism of communications
Speaker 1: and managing media, well, then suddenly the same skills are
Speaker 1: necessary and many more entities want to hire people with
Speaker 1: this skill set. So I think it's a I think
Speaker 1: there's more opportunity than you realize. So I, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make you feel better Jeff that this
Speaker 1: is I get it. But if you sort of sort
Speaker 1: of what is it? Widen your aperture here of what is?
Speaker 1: You know, the traditional jobs are gone, but there are
Speaker 1: suddenly a lot of other opportunities that also exist where
Speaker 1: getting this journalism degree is going to be an asset
Speaker 1: not a liability, I promise. Okay. Next question comes from Bobs.
Speaker 1: A lot of smack talk here on football. Looks like
Speaker 1: I've been a long time listening to your podcast, always
Speaker 1: enjoyed your work on me the Press. I'm listening in
Speaker 1: listening to your most recent podcast has struck me that
Speaker 1: two of your favorite sport teams sports teams happen to
Speaker 1: be playing two of my favorite sports teams in their
Speaker 1: opening games. That said, let me make these predictions. Notre
Speaker 1: Dame beats Miami in a close game. Detroit's Bank screen Bay. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Should these results come to fruition, I just hope it
Speaker 1: will not impact your excellent commentary in the ensuing days,
Speaker 1: nor teint the remainder of their respective schedules. Except for
Speaker 1: Green Bay second less to Detroit on Thanksgiving, compounding any
Speaker 1: gastro and testinal issues for Green Bay fans that day. Hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, that game's at noon, so it's actually
Speaker 1: before you start totally consuming too much food. Trust me,
Speaker 1: my son and I have already noted what time those
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving games are. Cheers, Go Irish, go Lions. Appreciate that, Bob,
Speaker 1: You're gonna love this. My son's roommate, he knew his
Speaker 1: roommate a little bit, but he didn't know his roommate
Speaker 1: really well. His roommate moved in the day before, and
Speaker 1: when we go into the room, the first thing we
Speaker 1: see is this Lion's flag all taped up on the wall.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh man, and my son brought
Speaker 1: to Jordan love Jersey, but he didn't bring up the
Speaker 1: packer flag. So of course I have I am win
Speaker 1: on Amazon quickly to order him a packer flag so
Speaker 1: he could have some he could have, hey, and some
Speaker 1: fun and fun little Miami news. My son ran into
Speaker 1: Tyler van Dyke. If you're an old school her Knees fan,
Speaker 1: or if at least been following them from more than
Speaker 1: the last twenty four last year, Tyler van Dyke was
Speaker 1: was had sort of six great games for Miami a
Speaker 1: few years back, and there was some thought that maybe
Speaker 1: in Manny Dias his last year, that maybe he could
Speaker 1: get us over the finish line. He didn't. But his
Speaker 1: best years at Miami were when Rhet Lashley was the
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator. Well, Rhet last he's now the head coach
Speaker 1: at SMU, and Tyler Van Dyke is playing his last
Speaker 1: season right now, he's the backup at SMU. My son
Speaker 1: ran into him, recognized him, and he couldn't have been nicer,
Speaker 1: couldn't have been you know, So's like, Wow, I'm eighteen
Speaker 1: and he's a grown man. He goes, I just felt
Speaker 1: like I believe we're both students at SMU was sort
Speaker 1: of his reaction. But if Tyler, for whatever reason, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, I really appreciate how great you were to
Speaker 1: your fellow SMU Mustang freshman there, So thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Brian in Massachusetts, second time writer here. Recently,
Speaker 1: you said that Marco Rubio was one of the only
Speaker 1: adults in the room, Bessen being the other. Have you
Speaker 1: heard if Rubio has any regrets or is embarrassed his
Speaker 1: body language tends to say so, but when he's interviewed,
Speaker 1: he sounds trumpy. I was never a big fan of his,
Speaker 1: but this feels like when Hulkogan became a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Brian from track at Massachusetts. I'll tell you. Look, I
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio and I grew up. Both grew up in Miami.
Speaker 1: Think he graduated the year after me or a year
Speaker 1: before me, I can't quite remember. I think he graduated
Speaker 1: from South Miami High School. I went to kill And
Speaker 1: High School. His football coach was an old family friend
Speaker 1: of mine. So we've but we didn't know each other
Speaker 1: back then. And I'm not gonna but there's certainly we
Speaker 1: know a lot of people who know each other type
Speaker 1: of mindset. Right. It's a you know, like any like
Speaker 1: any community, it can feel like a small town. The
Speaker 1: more you get to know people, it's a riddle. It's
Speaker 1: a riddle on Rubio. I will say this. I think
Speaker 1: that I look every time I see the administration be
Speaker 1: surprisingly supportive of Ukraine, I think, oh, Rubio had a
Speaker 1: good day getting to Trump, And when I see then
Speaker 1: Trump going the other way, it's like, oh, Rubio wasn't
Speaker 1: there today. Vance had the presidents here on that stuff.
Speaker 1: So look, I don't know where you know, Ruby is
Speaker 1: not the only one. There's a lot of Republicans who
Speaker 1: have expressed discomfort over the years, some of them publicly
Speaker 1: who have since acquiesced, some of them privately who have
Speaker 1: never gone public. I look at some of the things
Speaker 1: that happened, you know, I can't believe the the irresponsibility
Speaker 1: of confirming Robert F. Kennedy Junior to HHS. I got it.
Speaker 1: I got to think there are some well, I know
Speaker 1: there are at least two or three Republican Senators who
Speaker 1: regret their vote. But you know, the confirmations of Patel,
Speaker 1: hag Seth, Gabbert, and Kennedy are probably for the most
Speaker 1: irresponsible ones that we've seen the Senate do, and there
Speaker 1: were a majority against them. What they were afraid of
Speaker 1: going public? You know, if there had been secret ballots,
Speaker 1: none of those four in the Senate, none of those
Speaker 1: four get confirmed, not a single one of those four
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned, only because it's on the public record.
Speaker 1: And in some ways that's why you noticed there's always
Speaker 1: a move to try to make certain things more public
Speaker 1: because it is harder to say no to the president
Speaker 1: when you have to do so in public it is
Speaker 1: a lot easier if you can somehow stop him without
Speaker 1: having to publicly go after him and do that. But
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna look, I played the what is Rubio
Speaker 1: really thinking game for a few years during the second
Speaker 1: half of term one. I have retired that part of
Speaker 1: my part of my obsession over there, and so it
Speaker 1: is you know, look, I do think that on his
Speaker 1: foreign policy issues, that when it comes to Latin America,
Speaker 1: when it comes to America's national security, that he does
Speaker 1: have some deeply held beliefs, and it does seem to
Speaker 1: me that he tries to not throw away all of
Speaker 1: those beliefs in service to Trump. But he has certainly
Speaker 1: proven to be a I guess the polite way would
Speaker 1: be calling it flexible when it comes to what he
Speaker 1: used to define what he wants to find is conservative
Speaker 1: and what he embraces his conservatism today. But I do
Speaker 1: think he is ecstatic to sit there and be in
Speaker 1: in some ways, to be compartmentalized as the foreign policy guy,
Speaker 1: because let's just say, I think even Senator Rubio would
Speaker 1: have spoken out against taking a piece of intel, and
Speaker 1: I think he would have been, like you knows, as
Speaker 1: the son of exiles, Cuban exiles, nationalizing the idea of
Speaker 1: any sort of government control of a company is something
Speaker 1: that is that that that many a true sort of
Speaker 1: anti Castro Cuban exile would just find appalling and be
Speaker 1: very concerned that it was a slippery slope to Latin
Speaker 1: American style authoritarianism. And in fact it's funny. I have
Speaker 1: I've actually been thinking about that I've been putting together.
Speaker 1: I haven't, I haven't, and it's not quite ready, it's
Speaker 1: not quite ready to debut here on the pod. But
Speaker 1: there are a number of similarities here to sort of
Speaker 1: what we've seen in South America, for whether it's in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Argentina, frankly, whether it's in Bolivia, whether
Speaker 1: it's in Mexico. But you're seeing certain certain things that
Speaker 1: Trump is doing that we've seen in countries where we
Speaker 1: have said democracy is backsliding. All right, next question, um, like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to sneak in two more here
Speaker 1: on Georgia Show on Georgia Show on me Press and
Speaker 1: was delighted to join your podcast. Two things I want
Speaker 1: to follow up on One, where can I find a
Speaker 1: book or publication that explains voting trends by generations. I'm
Speaker 1: a baby boomer and want to understand the number of
Speaker 1: voters it turned out and the results of voting in
Speaker 1: this country since Kennedy, that is, when I was able
Speaker 1: to vote. He died before I could vote for him.
Speaker 1: I'm hungry for better world news. Oh number two, I'm
Speaker 1: hungry for better world news. You mentioned a publication that
Speaker 1: shares more information. Will you share that with me? Please?
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Keep up, keep up, keep making
Speaker 1: us think, Barbara Jane, thank you, Barbara for both of
Speaker 1: those questions. You know, there's not really one publication on
Speaker 1: the on the generational voting patterns. This is I don't
Speaker 1: know if you may be reacting to the conversation I
Speaker 1: had with Charlie Cook about our deep collections of the
Speaker 1: omen x of American politics, because in some ways these
Speaker 1: are things that we've we've had to do together. There
Speaker 1: there is the Brookings Institute puts out a publication called
Speaker 1: Vital Statistics on Congress. It does have some voting trends
Speaker 1: in there. You can actually it looks like they now
Speaker 1: just offer it up as a PDF download that goes through.
Speaker 1: At least it gives you a sense of of the
Speaker 1: shifting the shifting map of congressional seats more for Congress
Speaker 1: than anywhere else. Congressional Quarterly used to puts out something
Speaker 1: called Politics in America, where they've kept a more of
Speaker 1: a of a longer. I think in the publication itself
Speaker 1: they include the sort of longer voting trend lines on
Speaker 1: that front. But what you're describing itself doesn't really exist
Speaker 1: in one book form, right, I think it is. In fact,
Speaker 1: I've been encouraging my friend John Delavope, who you may
Speaker 1: have heard a podcast with him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: For twenty five years he's run the Harvard Youth Poll.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? He has been polling basically
Speaker 1: millennials since they were eighteen and now since they were
Speaker 1: before eight before they were eighteen, going into college, and
Speaker 1: now that they're heading into middle age. You know, this
Speaker 1: is all this is twenty five years of data. I'm like, John,
Speaker 1: You've got a book here just sort of millennials, the
Speaker 1: next big generation, you know, in comparing them to the boomers.
Speaker 1: So I think that there is I think that I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with the generation of sort of how you know,
Speaker 1: I buy into the scholarship that says we there's basically
Speaker 1: four types of generations, and they just kind of repeat
Speaker 1: each repeat each other. You know, since we have about four,
Speaker 1: I guess we're now. You know, there's always pieces of
Speaker 1: a new generation an old generation on the on the
Speaker 1: outer edges there. So you know, parts of six generations
Speaker 1: are living at one time these days, because because we
Speaker 1: keep living longer and longer on that front. But I
Speaker 1: certainly think a good analysis of the boomers over the
Speaker 1: years would be quite healthy. I think what you learn
Speaker 1: is and this is what we're seeing, at least with
Speaker 1: the millennials. They started out very liberal. They have become
Speaker 1: less so as they've aged. Boomers have been interestingly fairly
Speaker 1: even split the whole time. What I find interesting about
Speaker 1: the generations is it is that you know where you
Speaker 1: begin politically, you know, how close or far away from
Speaker 1: the center do you begin. Usually is about what you're
Speaker 1: coming you know, what was the politics during your coming
Speaker 1: of age? Well, what's interesting with the boomers the coming
Speaker 1: of age times and some it was basically in the
Speaker 1: heart of a very polarized period of America right the sixties. Well,
Speaker 1: here we are at the endgame of the boomers, we're
Speaker 1: in a polarized era. We weren't as polarized in between
Speaker 1: as much, but we were there. Millennials came in and
Speaker 1: sort of at at a low point for the Republicans
Speaker 1: and at a hot and it's sort of a rising point
Speaker 1: for the Democrats with Obama, and that I think started
Speaker 1: them further, you know, started them in a more liberal trend.
Speaker 1: Gen X, when my coming of age Republican leadership in
Speaker 1: this country brought about the end of the Cold War, right, Well,
Speaker 1: guess who's the most supportive of Republicans to this day.
Speaker 1: Of the four generations. It's not Boomers, it's not millennials,
Speaker 1: it's Gen X. So it is interesting to me for
Speaker 1: what it's worth is how much impact over time that
Speaker 1: sort of first coming of age for a generation, what
Speaker 1: the coming of age which period was politically in the country,
Speaker 1: and how it sort of has influence on sort of
Speaker 1: directionally how that generation votes and sort of how close
Speaker 1: to the center will they get to or deviate dep
Speaker 1: depending on course of where they started. All right, last
Speaker 1: question here we are bordering on one hour of non
Speaker 1: interview time. I want to be mindful of that. This
Speaker 1: comes from Blaze M. And Blaze Rights. Listening to your
Speaker 1: message about chicken at Trader Joe's got me thinking I
Speaker 1: was recently shopping for Halloween chocolate to eat now, of course,
Speaker 1: and realize most of what was on the shelves wasn't
Speaker 1: actually chocolate at all, just chocolate flavored candy with barely
Speaker 1: any cocoa didn't qualify to be labeled as chocolate. Later
Speaker 1: that day, I noticed a store brand apple drink that
Speaker 1: was really just apple flavored sugar water, sitting right next
Speaker 1: to real apple juice that cost a bit more. It
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how many people actually check the labels
Speaker 1: and how often we're left without the option of the
Speaker 1: real thing. That's interesting, Look, you point out something that
Speaker 1: you know, especially especially when it comes to chocolate or
Speaker 1: in particular. I had a lung conversation actually with Steve Moore,
Speaker 1: conservative economists who's very friendly to Trump but at the
Speaker 1: same time very nervous about these tariffs, and noted that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, all of our coffee is imported. And when
Speaker 1: you were writing this, it made me think, how much
Speaker 1: are we going to see coffee flavored drinks without coffee
Speaker 1: in it because it's cheaper to make the artificial flavor.
Speaker 1: Let's say, if it's a cold brew, or if it's
Speaker 1: you know, you know, one of those canned lattes or whatever,
Speaker 1: because the cost of coffee is skyrocketing, and we're also
Speaker 1: in a we've politicized the trade war with Brazil over
Speaker 1: over Trump's obsession over Bolsonaro there and the fact that
Speaker 1: the Brazilian government held Bolsonaro accountable for his attempt at coup.
Speaker 1: But all of that is contributing to just skyrocketing prices
Speaker 1: on coffee. And so your observation is interesting, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna make me look at chocolate. I've been ignoring chocolate
Speaker 1: for quite some time because I you know, once you
Speaker 1: hit Middle Ages, there are certain things that don't you know,
Speaker 1: I like chocolate. Chocolate doesn't like me. So I've actually
Speaker 1: not been in the market for even chocolate like substances
Speaker 1: and sometime, but I do see a similar I'm going
Speaker 1: to be looking for it there, and I would be
Speaker 1: saying I think I wouldn't be surprised if we start
Speaker 1: seeing the same thing when it comes to coffee flavored,
Speaker 1: especially if the price of coffee itself continues to go
Speaker 1: up due to the terrafes all right, I will leave
Speaker 1: it at that. I think I've said this a few
Speaker 1: times this week. I've mentioned it now College Football Week one.
Speaker 1: College football is sort of my great and favorite and
Speaker 1: most passionate distraction. Baseball is also a passionate distraction. It
Speaker 1: really stunk for me throughout this baseball season that, in
Speaker 1: this tough time professionally, that we're covering these issues with Trump,
Speaker 1: that my distraction in the evening Nationals baseball was almost
Speaker 1: was almost as frustrating and didn't exactly uh, it didn't
Speaker 1: exactly uh give me the uh, give me the detached
Speaker 1: entertainment that you kind of want when you're trying to
Speaker 1: when you're trying to uh trying to check out a
Speaker 1: little bit, if you if you'd like to. I'm really
Speaker 1: nervous about my Miami Hurricanes. I've been it has been
Speaker 1: so long since they were the team to beat that
Speaker 1: I now, you know, I'm always now, I'm like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like Wiley coated. I'm always waiting for the
Speaker 1: anvil to drop. How are we going to blow this?
Speaker 1: How are we going to screw this up? The infamous
Speaker 1: fumble with Georgia Tech two years ago, the blown twenty
Speaker 1: one point lead against Syracuse. But in some ways I
Speaker 1: have some confidence that Miami at night is just a
Speaker 1: whole different place to be when it comes to college football.
Speaker 1: If not, I'll be eating some Irish crow the next
Speaker 1: time I upload on Tuesday morning. With that, enjoy the
Speaker 1: final weekend of the summer and until we upload again.