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Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday morning, and welcome to another episode

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Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. I'm full disclosure when I'm taping.

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Speaker 1: It is Sunday evening. We are likely. It feels as

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Speaker 1: if there is real momentum to get a deal to

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Speaker 1: open the government. It seems like we're very close here

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Speaker 1: actually working a weekend. The fact that the House of

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Speaker 1: course hasn't been been around in weeks, but the Senate actually,

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Speaker 1: instead of going home for the weekend, stayed in and

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Speaker 1: perhaps it did some good because it does appear we're close.

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Speaker 2: What is close?

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Speaker 1: Is it going to be later on Monday? Is it

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday clearly, I think the air travel threats however

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Speaker 1: you want to whatever you want to look at him.

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Speaker 1: Those Some Democrats say that Sean Duffy at the Transportation

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Speaker 1: department's playing politics. Sean Duffy says he's just taking He's

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Speaker 1: just taking his advice from the FAA. We hear at

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Speaker 1: the Check podcast, like Leland Viidder's idea from News Nation

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Speaker 1: or Leland suggested, why are we cutting any commercial flights? First?

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Speaker 1: Cut off private air travel first. Let the rich people

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Speaker 1: have to fly commercial. They'll get angry at the members

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Speaker 1: of Congress that some of them think that they own,

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Speaker 1: and maybe it'll get resolution even faster. That was a

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Speaker 1: good idea. I don't know why there hasn't been, especially

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Speaker 1: both parties claim to be populous these days, right, so

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Speaker 1: act like it right, actually behave like a populist. But

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Speaker 1: in all seriousness, I think we're close, and there's a

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Speaker 1: variety of reasons neither party can afford for this to

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Speaker 1: drag on. You know, I think, you know, Chris Murphy

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Speaker 1: probably wishes he didn't say the following Right after the

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Speaker 1: big night that Democrats had last week in the elections,

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Speaker 1: he goes, well, you know, now it's to our advantage

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Speaker 1: to keep the government closed. You know, it is. There's

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Speaker 1: no doubt there's a lot of progressives that are putting pressure.

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Speaker 1: Don't want Democrats to quote unquote give in yet don't

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Speaker 1: do this. This is you know, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: I've look, I'm not I have been wrong about this.

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Speaker 1: Democrats have had a stiffer spine than I expected. Part

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Speaker 1: of it is the more center centrist wing of the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party is just a small group of people, right

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Speaker 1: it is. There are a couple of senators that normally

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Speaker 1: would have been in the middle of this who are

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Speaker 1: no longer in the United States Senate as Democrats anymore.

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Speaker 1: And that's Kirsten Cinema in Joe Mansion. So that's two

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Speaker 1: less senators there that might have cut that deal. So

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Speaker 1: it is, But obviously Republicans know this is hurting them.

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Speaker 1: Why the President is trying to play hardball with snap

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Speaker 1: benefits is a real head scratcher to me. The fact

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Speaker 1: that the administration over the weekend ordered states who are

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Speaker 1: trying to pay the benefits in full doing essentially abiding

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Speaker 1: by one court ruling, We're suddenly being told not to

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Speaker 1: fulfill that by the Feds. That's a head scratcher. It

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Speaker 1: goes back to I think the administration and this is

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Speaker 1: the weird coalition that Trump put together. Right, Trump's winning

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Speaker 1: coalition includes quite a few voters that are on snap benefits,

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Speaker 1: quite a few voters that are on Medicaid, quite a

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Speaker 1: few voters that do you need government assistance to live?

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Speaker 1: And you still have people sort of that come from

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Speaker 1: the maybe you call it the Heritage Foundation wing of

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Speaker 1: the party or from some other the the Hey government,

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Speaker 1: you know, the super inn ran libertarian wing of the

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Speaker 1: party that says government shouldn't be doing this, and that

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Speaker 1: most government there's you know, the stereotype that somehow people

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Speaker 1: on government assistants are somehow lazy or somehow you know,

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Speaker 1: not deserving of this need or not not in a situation.

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Speaker 1: So it is I think this is a case where, boy,

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Speaker 1: this was is just a bad politics for the Trump

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Speaker 1: administration what they're doing here and those that are trying

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Speaker 1: to guide this and trying to weaponize government benefits as

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Speaker 1: some stereotype from the eighties and the welfare queen and

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Speaker 1: all that nonsense that took place back in the eighties

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Speaker 1: and nineties when people were trying to stereotype those on

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Speaker 1: government benefits, particularly those activists on the right. You know

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Speaker 1: what has made you know, what got Trump into power

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Speaker 1: was him sort of stopping that kind of class warfare

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Speaker 1: from the right, you know, stopping attacking Social Security or

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Speaker 1: attacking those on Medicare and pronouncing that he wasn't going

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Speaker 1: to touch those things. Now the Republican Party has and

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Speaker 1: I think they're paying a price for it, but then

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Speaker 1: then to actively not again, this is just a head

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Speaker 1: scratch politically, and it gets it something that I think,

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Speaker 1: you know where you can feel the growing coverage of,

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Speaker 1: which is what's going on with the president. You know,

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Speaker 1: he pronounced himself all last week was saying that somehow

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Speaker 1: the affordability issues that Democrats successfully ran on in all

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Speaker 1: of these particularly in New Jersey, New York City, and Virginia,

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Speaker 1: that somehow it was a con job that some of

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Speaker 1: this wasn't true. And he comes out there and claims

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Speaker 1: essentially claiming the economy is better than it is. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is as if there's Biden advisor suddenly advising Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: when all the Biden economic advisors would would say, hey,

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Speaker 1: pay no attention to cost the living issues. This is

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Speaker 1: just the right wing spinning it. This economy is great

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Speaker 1: and there's so many people with jobs, the unemployment rate

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Speaker 1: is low, and they came across extraordinarily out of touch.

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Speaker 1: Well guess what Donald Trump now looks extraordinarily out of touch,

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Speaker 1: and the way he's speaking about it, it's so out

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Speaker 1: of touch that you have to say, hey, what's going

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Speaker 1: on here? Is he not fully briefed? Is he not

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Speaker 1: getting a full picture? Is he got an information bubble

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Speaker 1: now that does not give him any sort of reality anymore?

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Speaker 1: Is the filter? So I mean to think that he

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Speaker 1: was more focused today on going on Sunday going to

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Speaker 1: a commander's game in order to lobby the Washington commanders

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Speaker 1: to name the new stadium after him rather and oh,

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Speaker 1: by the way, in the same weekend that he says,

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Speaker 1: don't even let them eat crumbs of a cake. We're

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Speaker 1: going to pull all attempts by states to fund snap benefits.

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Speaker 1: This is just really stupid politics. It just it hands.

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Speaker 1: And this goes back that this is a Republican party

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Speaker 1: that's still not comfortable being Trump's party at times, not

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Speaker 1: understanding who its voters actually are, that the voters that

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Speaker 1: they think they're representing, and the voters that they're actually representing,

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Speaker 1: that they present essentially two different messages there to them.

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Speaker 1: So it's been a it is. I think this is

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Speaker 1: weirdly the out of touchness of the Trump administration on

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Speaker 1: the shutdown is I think motivating a bunch of Republicans

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Speaker 1: to say, hey, healthcare is going to kick our ass

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Speaker 1: in the midterms if we're not careful here anyway, let's

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Speaker 1: at least deal with the Obamacare premiums. Here, Democrats are

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Speaker 1: offering Republicans a political lifeline here to extend them a

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Speaker 1: year and see what happens. Basically get through the election year.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the political picture is bad enough that's being

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Speaker 1: painted right now going into the midterms when you look

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Speaker 1: at what happened in fact, you know, the further away

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Speaker 1: we get from those Tuesday elections, the more you realize

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Speaker 1: just how much energy is on the left and how

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Speaker 1: little energy is on the right. I still can't get over.

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Speaker 1: And I think this is where, you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of people distracted by Mamdani. Okay, and there's unfortunately

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Speaker 1: a lot of the political conversation is just completely distracted

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Speaker 1: by Mamdani. What happens in New York City is a

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Speaker 1: new York City thing it is. I know there's gonna

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Speaker 1: be a lot of people trying to extract what's happening

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Speaker 1: in New York City and apply it nationally. And anybody

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Speaker 1: that tells you that was the most important election, by

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Speaker 1: the way, not the other two, but that what happens

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Speaker 1: about New York City is more important than anything else.

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Speaker 1: They have their own agenda, they want it, they're trying

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Speaker 1: to will it to be. I saw Barry Weisse put

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Speaker 1: out her weekly email from the Free Press that's now

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Speaker 1: I guess owned by the Allisons. I'm not sure if

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Speaker 1: it's an independent organization anymore. But she came out and

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Speaker 1: said the single most important, you know, the biggest, the

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Speaker 1: most important election was newer I mean, it is such

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Speaker 1: a New York centric thing. It's clear this is a

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Speaker 1: person that doesn't really live in the rest of the country,

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Speaker 1: doesn't live in the you know, this is not the

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Speaker 1: most important election. I know there are folks that want

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Speaker 1: it to be. They want this to be the conversation,

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Speaker 1: they want this to be the debate. There are progressives

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Speaker 1: that want Mom Donni to be seen as sort of

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Speaker 1: the shining star of the left, and there are folks

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Speaker 1: on the cultural right that want the same thing. And

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Speaker 1: so when you see people trying to make the Mom

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Speaker 1: Donnie election somehow more important than anything else, it usually

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Speaker 1: tells you more about their own politics than the reality

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Speaker 1: of the situation. The reality of the situation and the

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Speaker 1: single most important result, I would argue was in the

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Speaker 1: state of New Jersey because of the following issue that happened,

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Speaker 1: the Republican candidate for governor got more raw vote. Jack

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Speaker 1: Chittarelli got more rav vot about one hundred thousand more

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Speaker 1: then he got four years earlier when running against Phil Murphy.

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Speaker 1: That was a good Republican a year, by the way,

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Speaker 1: But this time he got one hundred thousand more votes.

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Speaker 1: Four years ago he lost by three percentage points. This

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Speaker 1: year he lost by thirteen percentage points. You know why

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Speaker 1: because Mikey Cheraw got four hundred thousand more votes than

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Speaker 1: Phil Murphy did. More than four hundred thousand more votes.

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Speaker 1: That is an ass whoop in number one and number two.

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Speaker 1: That is a turnout. So when you see the president's

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Speaker 1: political director, James Blair go out there and say, oh,

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Speaker 1: there was nothing in the exit pole that indicated that

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Speaker 1: this somehow is a referendum on Donald Trump. You're like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: there was nothing in the exit pole that said it

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Speaker 1: is a referendum on Donald Trump. You know what was

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Speaker 1: proof that there was a referendum on Donald Trump the

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Speaker 1: raw vote totals in all of these elections. That's proof

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Speaker 1: that this was a referendum on Donald Trump. You have

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Speaker 1: a Republican Party and independent voters who are not interested

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Speaker 1: in voting as much as independents that want to check Trump,

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Speaker 1: and Democratic voters, the surge in Democratic participation in Virginia,

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Speaker 1: in New Jersey. In the fact that you also have

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Speaker 1: the non the other tests that we got, which is

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Speaker 1: the state of Georgia, where neither party spent any money

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Speaker 1: on a couple of statewide races for public service commissioner,

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Speaker 1: and the Democrats won both races in a route against

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Speaker 1: two appointed incumbents. They're incumbents, but they were appointed. They

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Speaker 1: hadn't faced the voters before. But you put all that together,

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Speaker 1: this is a referendum on Donald Trump. So that's whistling

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Speaker 1: past the graveyard again. All of this, I think is

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Speaker 1: also pushing congressional Republicans to hurry up and get a deal.

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Speaker 1: Now do Democrats how quickly do they want this deal.

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Speaker 1: You know this is I do think you've had the

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Speaker 1: center and center left Democrats have been a little antsy

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Speaker 1: about this. The poll numbers have been narrowly favoring sort

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Speaker 1: of Democrats on this shutdown issue. They're winning the issue

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Speaker 1: by a lot healthcare specifically, so that's a net positive

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Speaker 1: for them. But with so many with you know, past

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Speaker 1: forty days, with what's happening, whether it's it's the FAA

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Speaker 1: issuing safety regulations or the Trump administration playing hardball with

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Speaker 1: air traffic, it doesn't matter. We're too close to Thanksgiving.

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Speaker 1: Take the win. I've been saying it for three or

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Speaker 1: four weeks, Right, take the win. You got what you

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Speaker 1: wanted out of these elections, out of the these off

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Speaker 1: off your elections. You've got what you need out of this.

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Speaker 1: You've got the ability to recruit more candidates. You get

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Speaker 1: mired here and you start impacting more and more everyday people,

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Speaker 1: then it looks like you really just want the issue

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Speaker 1: rather than the solution. And if you've got a half

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Speaker 1: measure here that guarantees these Obama Care subsidies for another year,

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Speaker 1: you're going to get full snap benefits paid immediately. You're

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Speaker 1: going to get these folks paid for you take the deal.

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Speaker 1: You take the deal. You've got the win, you take

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Speaker 1: the deal. So it does appear as if things are

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Speaker 1: getting close. But I'll tell you the other thing that

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Speaker 1: I'm watching for now, and as the pivot out of

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Speaker 1: this is is this, you know, and to me it

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Speaker 1: was going to be the this is the big test

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Speaker 1: out of these off off your elections. Is this the

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Speaker 1: beginning of Donald Trump's lame duck period in his presidency?

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Speaker 1: And for it to begin, Republicans have to bail on him. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we've already seen, you know, he tried to say, Nope, Nicks,

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Speaker 1: the Philipbuster, don't give into the Democrats. Just reopen the

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Speaker 1: government on its own and we'll have this debate about

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Speaker 1: Obam mccarelay, and Senate Republicans said no, they felt comfortable

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Speaker 1: enough on that issue, and they had enough votes there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, look, you had a few the people who

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Speaker 1: are the most sensitive to not ever disagree with Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump or folks, it turns out to be Jim Banks,

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Speaker 1: Josh Holly, right, Rick Scott. You sort of see and

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Speaker 1: we know who that wing is. In many cases, it's

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Speaker 1: the senators that voted for Rick Scott instead of John Thune. Right,

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Speaker 1: those that voted for John Thune wanted him to protect

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Speaker 1: as much of the institution of the Senate as was

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Speaker 1: possible in the Trump era. What that really means is

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Speaker 1: just simply protect the fellowbuster. And that's about all Thune

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Speaker 1: is done.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: He did not protect his members from making bad votes

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Speaker 1: on Pete Hegseth and making bad votes on Tulsa Gabbart,

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Speaker 1: or making bad votes on RFK Junior. These are things

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Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell would actually never allowed his Republican senators, I think,

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Speaker 1: to vote on those guys. I think he would have

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Speaker 1: found a way to kill him sooner. Fune wasn't going

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Speaker 1: to do that. That's his way of trying to appease

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Speaker 1: the Trump White House. But he is going to hold

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Speaker 1: firm on the filibuster. And we've seen that there's a

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Speaker 1: reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a

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Speaker 1: reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm.

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Speaker 1: For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five

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Speaker 1: billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It

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Speaker 1: includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing just

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Speaker 1: hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across

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Speaker 1: the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people.

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Speaker 1: If you're injured, you need a lawyer, you need somebody

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Speaker 1: Slash podcast or now pound law, Pound five two nine

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Speaker 1: are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan.

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Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. So is at

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Speaker 1: the beginning of Republicans showing an ability to want a

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Speaker 1: distance and telm from Trump. I'm not sure I'm there yet,

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Speaker 1: but I do think this is where we are headed,

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Speaker 1: and it is you know, the way they've hand away

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Speaker 1: the Trump Administration's handled the shutdown has been terrible politics

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Speaker 1: for the Republicans right. The aggressiveness on snap going basically

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Speaker 1: pushing back on federal judges who are just telling them, hey,

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Speaker 1: just feed those in need, that's what this program is

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Speaker 1: supposed to be for, and then pulling it back again.

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Speaker 1: This is many of their own voters. There are more

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Speaker 1: poor white people in this country than there are poor

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Speaker 1: people of color. Just just remember that. And many of

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Speaker 1: those poor white people were voters of Donald Trump. So

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Speaker 1: the inability for them to see that does put them

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Speaker 1: in where the affordability message suddenly becomes even easier for

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Speaker 1: the Democrats to adopt. I mean, that's what's so funny

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Speaker 1: about politics sometimes is how often, how often parties don't

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Speaker 1: learn the lesson from the other party. I mean, on

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Speaker 1: one hand, Democrats got the memo after the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four election, hey, stop talking about any other issue other

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Speaker 1: than affordability. And by god, whether it was progressive zo

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Speaker 1: On Mamdani or milk toast moderates like Mikey Cheryl and

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Speaker 1: Abigail Spamberger, they all got the memo and it worked,

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Speaker 1: and worked big time. When you look at independent voters,

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Speaker 1: you can see it there. When you look at a

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Speaker 1: fact that in the Eggsit poll, one in four voters

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Speaker 1: who are proved of the job Republican Governor Glenn Younkin

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Speaker 1: was doing in Virginia voted for Spamberger. That tells you

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Speaker 1: that the affordability message was something that penetrated the culture war.

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Speaker 1: Stuff that Winson Sears ran on and that some in

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Speaker 1: the Maga world beliefs still can help them didn't didn't

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Speaker 1: work at all. So it is the fact that the

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Speaker 1: Trump White House, who got back to the White House

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Speaker 1: on affordability issues, on painting Kamala Harris, is more worried

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Speaker 1: about they them than your issues at the grocery store.

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Speaker 1: Now it's Donald Trump that's more worried about his name

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Speaker 1: on the Commander Stadium, his own crypto businesses trying to

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Speaker 1: get a peace prize. By the way, it's interesting to

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Speaker 1: me that FIFA, and I don't know if you caught this,

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Speaker 1: but FIFA that the organization that runs World Soccer, essentially

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Speaker 1: the entity in charge of the World Cup. The United States,

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Speaker 1: along with Mexico and Canada is joined going to be

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Speaker 1: hosting the World Cup next year. It's going to be

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Speaker 1: an extraordinarily extraordinary event and one that's turning more precarious.

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Speaker 2: Right, what are what.

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Speaker 1: Are what's ice going to do. You know, are they

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Speaker 1: going to use World Cup events to try to aggressively

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Speaker 1: deport people that they think don't belong here. So we've

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Speaker 1: got a mess potentially building with the World Cup. But

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Speaker 1: there's also a lot of excitement here. Well you know, FIFA.

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Speaker 1: FIFA is known as perhaps the most corrupt international sports

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Speaker 1: body there is. You know, maybe the IOC after Salt

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Speaker 1: Lake had the had the had the belt of being

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Speaker 1: the most corrupt international sports institution. But it looks like

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Speaker 1: since I mean when you look at where the World

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Speaker 1: Cup has been, right when it's been in Russia and

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Speaker 1: it's been in Cutter two places that arguably should never

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Speaker 1: have been hosts, but they were bribed. I mean it

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Speaker 1: is you know, everybody knows FIFA's for sale. Well what's

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Speaker 1: FIFA doing. They're creating a peace Prize And apparently there's

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Speaker 1: going to be an event at the Kennedy Center sometime

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Speaker 1: this year so they can give Donald Trump the FIFA

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Speaker 1: Peace Prize again. Donald Trump more worried about a grand ballroom,

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Speaker 1: More worried about putting gold LeMay all over the White House,

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Speaker 1: More worried about putting new gold lettering identifying which door

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Speaker 1: belongs to what we've got, the new titling of the

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Speaker 1: Oval Office, more worried about, to see if he can

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Speaker 1: get international acclaimed, to see if he can get his

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Speaker 1: name on a building just before he passes away, his

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Speaker 1: name in a football stadium. All of that are things

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Speaker 1: that he's focused on that doesn't have to do with

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Speaker 1: your electric bill or your grocery bill, or your rent

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Speaker 1: or your mortgage, or your ability to find a mortgage

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Speaker 1: that's affordable. And so as the Trump White House continues

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Speaker 1: to sort of be more obsessed with image, culture, his celebrity,

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Speaker 1: all of that, his retribution campaign, you've got a bunch

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Speaker 1: of elected Republicans on Capitol Hill that realize they've got

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Speaker 1: a break from him. It's not easy, right because you know,

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Speaker 1: in some ways we saw it even an election day

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Speaker 1: last week. If mag if Trump can't get Trump voters

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Speaker 1: to the polls, Republicans get killed. If he goes out

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Speaker 1: of his way not to support you, like he did

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Speaker 1: to win some earl series that costs you three or

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Speaker 1: four points. Now, even if he had done a bunch

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Speaker 1: of stuff for her, maybe Spamberger wins by twelve instead

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Speaker 1: of fifteen, because maybe turnout in the rural areas is

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Speaker 1: a little bit better. And you know that if you

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Speaker 1: do break with him too publicly, he'll go to war

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Speaker 1: trying to stop you. But the fact of the matter

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Speaker 1: or is it's going to be better politics to break

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Speaker 1: from him on something. And what does that look like? Well,

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Speaker 1: let me give you one example. Down in Georgia. Brian

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Speaker 1: Kemp's got a super pac the governor outgoing governor there.

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Speaker 1: He's got a candidate that he believes can win that

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Speaker 1: Senate seat and knock off John Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent.

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Speaker 1: His candidate is Derek Dooley. Derek Dooley is the son

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Speaker 1: of legendary Georgia football coach Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley tried

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Speaker 1: a little head coaching himself. Didn't go as well as

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Speaker 1: his dad's stints did. He was at tennesseeat It's the

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Speaker 1: most prominent spot that he went. But what was interesting

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Speaker 1: is that the Kemp super pac didn't add boosting Derek

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Speaker 1: Dooley for Senate and the ad blamed both Congressional Democrats

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Speaker 1: and Congressions and Republicans for the shutdown because there are

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Speaker 1: two members of Congress Republican members of Congress in the

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Speaker 1: primary field against Derek Dooley. And of course there's an

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Speaker 1: incumbent senator, Democratic Senator in John Ossa. So here's Dooley

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Speaker 1: wanting to put all of the Washington crowd, Democrat and

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Speaker 1: Republican and kept into one bucket. Well, the congressional Republicans

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Speaker 1: are quote unquote furious about this, right, Buddy Carter and

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Speaker 1: Mike Collins are upset about this, almost called him by

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Speaker 1: his dad's name. Mac and Mike Collins are upset about this,

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Speaker 1: the two Republican candidates running in that primary in Georgia.

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Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, I think it's smart politics on

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Speaker 1: Duley's part, Right, I think being associated with Washington, particularly

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Speaker 1: being associated with Washington Republicans right now, when the economy

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Speaker 1: is upside down, when right track wrong tracks upside down,

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Speaker 1: when the president's job rating is upside down, why do

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Speaker 1: you want to be associated with Congressional Republicans, especially House

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Speaker 1: Republicans right now, who have just completely abandoned their duties.

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Speaker 1: I think Mike Johnson has made an incredible fatal air

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Speaker 1: here in how he's conducted himself during the shutdown. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: he's you know, We've said this, he's a Spino speaker

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Speaker 1: in name only, and in some ways the only Spiney

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Speaker 1: has is Trump's right arm, because Trump appears to be

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Speaker 1: a puppeteer to Mike Johnson. He doesn't ever question anything

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Speaker 1: out of the White House. He doesn't ever question any strategy. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: they didn't he didn't want to be here if it

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Speaker 1: was all about squeezing Senate Democrats and making this about

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer. He went ahead and agreed with the White

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Speaker 1: House policy. Now, look, he wouldn't be Speaker without Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: So in some ways he understands where his political bread

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Speaker 1: is buttered, but he has put he has made life

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Speaker 1: so much harder for congressional Republicans that are running for

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Speaker 1: reelection or running for higher office. And so this entire

430
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 1: sort of three weeks, and I'd say the last three weeks,

431
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: right about the last week before the elections, the elections themselves,

432
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: we sort of saw the test and then the bizarre

433
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,199
Speaker 1: reaction of Donald Trump, where he you know, clearly is

434
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 1: doesn't have he either doesn't have grasp on reality or

435
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: is trying to alter reality.

436
00:25:59,440 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 2: Right.

437
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, given the president's age, none of us know

438
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: for sure what the situation is other than you know,

439
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: these little anecdotes. I mean, the same thing the right

440
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 1: used to beat up Joe Biden and show him forgetting words, mispronouncing,

441
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: calling things other things. Like Donald Trump last week went

442
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: to Miami to talk about South America and kept talking

443
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: about South Africa, and he kept saying it over and

444
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: over again. Well imagine that Joe Biden thought, oh wait,

445
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: we did have moments where Joe Biden did this, and

446
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: it became a huge thing on the right. And now

447
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: you've got people on the right going, oh my god,

448
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: they're overdoing it. They're trying to make a big deal.

449
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: I saw somebody from the world of real color politics say,

450
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, mainstream media cares about this,

451
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: They didn't care about Joe Biden, of which I would say, well,

452
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,719
Speaker 1: first of all, do two wrongs make a right? You know,

453
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: if you believe there should have been intense coverage of

454
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's mental declines while he's president, then of course

455
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: you should believe that another eighty year old president should

456
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: have get tough coverage that you were calling for before.

457
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: Unless you're a partisan, right, This is how you find

458
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: out who in the media is actually a partisan.

459
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:07,959
Speaker 2: Right.

460
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: Why when they call for one thing when one side

461
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: is president, but then they complain when it's being done

462
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 1: to the other president. So you know, be careful letting

463
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: your bias show there. It's I would say, it's not

464
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: very clear which side, or maybe I would say, you're

465
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: being really clear about which side of the aisle you're

466
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: trying to report from. And I just come on, come on. Now,

467
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: we know a president falling asleep in the middle of

468
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: meetings is not a small thing. It's kind of a

469
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 1: big deal, especially a president that we know has been

470
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: mister energizer Bunny. So if suddenly he's not mister energizer Bunny,

471
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: then maybe we all are be concerned that something is

472
00:27:54,840 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: wrong here. So bottom line, I do think we are

473
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: in the very early stages of the Trump lane duck presidency.

474
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: It's not there yet. You know, he's he does have

475
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: too much executive power in too many ways, and he's

476
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: still good at being able to hijack a media, you know,

477
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: a media news cycle and all of those things. But

478
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: you have a lot of elected Republicans who are trying

479
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 1: to find a way out. How do they distance themselves

480
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: without full alienation of the magabase You're you're you're seeing

481
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 1: the tiptoes. And look, there's some other things that are

482
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: dividing MAGA right now to including the bizarre, the bizarre

483
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson. Like I, I sort of follow this. It's

484
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: funny to me that a whole bunch of conservatives are

485
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: just discovering now that that there's a Tucker, an anti

486
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: Semitic Tucker Carlson wing of the party. Guys, some of

487
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: us experienced that anti semitism from that wing of the

488
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: party ten years ago. Okay, but I have Look, I

489
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: get it. Everybody's got their own information bubble, and maybe

490
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: maybe they compartmentalized the anti semitism on the right and

491
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: only was focused on the anti semitism on the left.

492
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: As I've said repeatedly, anytime you hear anytime you see

493
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: the rise of populism, left wing or right wing populism,

494
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: I promise you the anti Semites, the left wing anti

495
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: semites or the right wing anti Semites come out from

496
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: under their rock and embrace that populism and go and

497
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: target the Jews. It's been happening on the right, and

498
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: it's been happening on the left. Those that think it's

499
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: only the other side literally have blinders on, so sadly,

500
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: I've experienced it from both sides of those aisles, so

501
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: something to keep an eye on there. My interview this

502
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: week for this episode is Garrett Graff Garrett at these days.

503
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: I've known him since he was on the He was

504
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: an early blogger before anything any of.

505
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 2: That was cool.

506
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: He was editor of Washingtonian for a period of time.

507
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: He's really made his mark though as a historian and author,

508
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: and what he really does tremendously well, Like he did

509
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven book, An Oral History of nine

510
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: to eleven that was just tremendous, And he's really good

511
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: at sort of going back to a going back to

512
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: recent history and unpacking some new revelations. He's done it

513
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: with Watergate and it led to an interesting discussion that

514
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: he and I had, And I think that you would

515
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: appreciate those of you that already subscribed to this feed,

516
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: which is when is the best time to fully believe

517
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: you can get an accurate picture of some key event.

518
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: Is it five years later, ten years later? We know

519
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: it's not in the moment, right, It's never in the

520
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: heat of the moment. We know whatever, no matter how

521
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: well an event is reported out in the first seventy

522
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: two hours, even first six months. There are things that

523
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: we don't learn until years later, right until classified documents

524
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: get released, until presidential library prairies are built, and information

525
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: is available, and Freedom of Information Act requests get fulfilled,

526
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: all of those things. And so what is the peak period?

527
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: And we sort of, I think we agreed it's somewhere

528
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: in the twenty to twenty five year range. Right, you

529
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: get too far away, and there's just not enough people alive,

530
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: not enough first hand accounts to pick apart. If you

531
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: get too close, some of the principles still have power,

532
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: and there are people that work for those principles that

533
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: may be afraid, still afraid of telling the full truth.

534
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: And so some of the principles have to be deceased

535
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: before you will get all until you get a big

536
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: chunk of this information. And so anyway, I think whether

537
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: we were talking Iron Contra, we were talking Watergate, we

538
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: were talking how Watergate and the Vietnam War, the secret

539
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: deal of Nixon's and sixty eight actually all were one

540
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: large scandal, and we were both He was implying that

541
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: perhaps the Iran hostages and that whole weirdness that the

542
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: Reagan campaign seemed to have some backchannel with the Iranians.

543
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: Was it all tied to Iran contra? Was that actually

544
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: one big that the Iran conscious scandal that we knew

545
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: of in eighty six and eighty seven actually begin in

546
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: seventy nine when the hostages were still in captivity in Tehran.

547
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think a conversation that you'll appreciate. We

548
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: tackle a whole bunch of scandals of the recent past

549
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: and sort of speculate about when would be the peak

550
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: time to get all of that information. I even slip

551
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: in one of my favorite theories as to the death

552
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: of cable news that it all began with a former

553
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: football player accused of double murder by the name of

554
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: Borenthal James Simpson. So with that, let me sneak in

555
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: a break, we'll have my girgraph interview. After that, it's

556
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: the Toddcast time Machine. A huge event is coming up

557
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: this week, a big holiday. No, my Toddcast time Machine

558
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: isn't about the origin of that holiday, but it's close.

559
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: How's that with a teaser? And then I want to

560
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: report about some interesting weekend events that I had. One

561
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: had to do with veterans and another had to do

562
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: of course with the University of Miami, but sneak in

563
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: that break aircraft. On the other side, having good life

564
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: insurance is incredibly important. I know from personal experience. I

565
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: was sixteen when my father passed away. We didn't have

566
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: any money. He didn't leave us in the best shape.

567
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: My mother single mother, now widow. Myself sixteen trying to

568
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: figure out how am I going to pay for college

569
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, my dad had one life insurance

570
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: policy that we found wasn't a lot, but it was

571
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: important at the time, and it's why I was able

572
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: to go to college. Little did he know how important

573
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: that would be in that moment. Well guess what. That's

574
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: why I am here to tell you about Ethos Life.

575
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576
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577
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578
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579
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580
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581
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583
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584
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585
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586
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587
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Speaker 1: twenty five, Business Insider named Ethos the number one no

588
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590
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591
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592
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593
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594
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 1: got a growing family.

595
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 2: Well.

596
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 1: Joining me now is someone who I've known forever, which

597
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: means all of the twenty first century. I first got

598
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: to know him when he was an blogger, and I

599
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: believe correct me if I'm wrong. What did we call those?

600
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: What was the DC version of that thing that predated TV.

601
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 2: Newser Fishbowl DC?

602
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: Fish Bowl d C. Is it fair to say that

603
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: that's how you feel like you cut your teeth in

604
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: the Washington ecosphere with Fishbowl DC.

605
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 2: That is exactly where I got myself started in journalism

606
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: in Washington. As you remember, this was two thousand and five.

607
00:35:55,719 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 2: Brian Stelter was writing TV newser out at Taos. I

608
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 2: was a student at Towson University, also for Media Bistro,

609
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 2: and I was writing Fishbowl d C covering Washington politics,

610
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 2: all under the pseudonym.

611
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: Right, was it in a pseudonym for a while? Were

612
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: you a pseudonym? You didn't release?

613
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, you might you might be thinking of

614
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: want at at the time at the pseudonym.

615
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: Right, she did the pseudonym for a while. Right, Well, look,

616
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: you have taken that, and in some ways you've always

617
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 1: been an entrepreneurial journalist, meaning that you're very comfortable going

618
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 1: off on your own. You've dabbled in establishment journalists, and

619
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: you ran the Washingtonian for a bit. You certainly contribute

620
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: to plenty, but uh, look it's an you know now,

621
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,879
Speaker 1: you're I think one of our better historian writers of

622
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:58,399
Speaker 1: of I guess recent history is probably how you would

623
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: describe it, right, You specialized sort of in looking back

624
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: at recent history. I think you've carved a carved a

625
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: great franchise there because, as we now know, with with

626
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: so much information being thrown at us all the time.

627
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: We forget look at it, look at look at the killing.

628
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 1: Netflix is making just doing nineties bs history, right, pop

629
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: culture history like missing kids and balloons and planes and stuff,

630
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: to do actual interesting political and government stories. Uh is

631
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 1: going to be pretty uh, a pretty interesting way to

632
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: go what uh? What made you stumble into that franchise?

633
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 2: So I've always been on the magazine writing side of journalism,

634
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 2: as you know, was at Washingtonian, as you mentioned, an

635
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 2: editor of political magazine, and then after I left there,

636
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 2: spent the better part of a decade as a contributor

637
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 2: it Wired. And I've always been fascinated at returning to

638
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 2: stories a couple of years after the sort of daily

639
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 2: media has moved on to try to understand what actually

640
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 2: takes place, because you know, you know this as a

641
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 2: student of history, so much of what we think about

642
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 2: an event as it flows by us in the on

643
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 2: rushing tide of daily news turns out to either be

644
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: sort of slightly mistaken or not the full picture, or

645
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: sort of otherwise not fully understood. And so I've spent

646
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 2: a lot of my career as a writer, as an author, historian,

647
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 2: and now as the host of this podcast series Long Shadow,

648
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 2: returning to events, you know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty five

649
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: years later, to try to put them in better context

650
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 2: and help use that history to tell the story of today.

651
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 2: That that I think sort of all of the work

652
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:18,359
Speaker 2: that I do is really aimed at trying to make

653
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 2: sure that we understand why the world is the way

654
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 2: that it is today, because I think so much of

655
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 2: so much of sort of what Russia's past us in

656
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 2: the news today feels unconnected, and you know, journalists love

657
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 2: to throw around this is unprecedented, but the truth is like,

658
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 2: nothing is really unprecedented, and that what's really fun to

659
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 2: me in understanding history and studying history is going back

660
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:57,439
Speaker 2: and looking at how the way that the world is

661
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 2: today is the often very deliberate choice of a small

662
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: group of people during identifiable moments.

663
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with butterfly effects. So I do a series

664
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: every year where I just simply call it what if.

665
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: Where it takes you take one specific thing that didn't happen,

666
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 1: What if this had happened? How everything else would have changed?

667
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: And you know, it's as as small as what if

668
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton had run for president in two thousand and four.

669
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:32,839
Speaker 1: I think it's the only time she would have won.

670
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: It's the only time her last name would have been

671
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:36,879
Speaker 1: an asset, It's the only time. Like so it's sort

672
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: of a way, you know. So that's sort of my

673
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: way of trying to tackle recent history. What if Bill

674
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: Clinton had resigned in nineteen ninety eight when his own

675
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: party kind of wanted him to, We're kind of opened,

676
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: he'd read the room, he chose not to. Well, you

677
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: know what that would have meant. Al Gore would have

678
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: been president during nine to eleven yep. And do you

679
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: know how much different politics would be because of that,

680
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 1: Because then you would have had twelve years of democratic,

681
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: straight democratic running of the government. There would have been

682
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: a more partisan reaction to nine to eleven, and who

683
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: knows how everything we have today might have been accelerated forward.

684
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: But the point is is that it is always it

685
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: strikes me, you know, this is why I love your work,

686
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: and that this is how you think you're like looking

687
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: for these pivotable pivotabal listen to me, pivotal moments that

688
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: were the fork in the road yep, you know.

689
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 2: And I think it often takes a long time to

690
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 2: put that framework together.

691
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: Well, that's what's going to be my next question. It's

692
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: like a piece of fruit, you know. You cut a

693
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,439
Speaker 1: peach too soon and it sucks. You cut a peach

694
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: too late and it sucks. Right, I'm obsessed with peaches,

695
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: and it bugs the crap out of me that it's

696
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: so hard for me to figure out the perfect time

697
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: to eat a peach.

698
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 2: Right.

699
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: That is way when peeling back this, how do you

700
00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: know when an event in history is ready for your

701
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: deep dive where the eyewitnesses are ready to talk but

702
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: not performatively and stuff like that, Like is there a

703
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: specific thing you look for to know? I think that

704
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,919
Speaker 1: that's a right piece of fruit, historical fruit. I can

705
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: it's time to eat it.

706
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 2: So there are a couple of different answers to that,

707
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 2: because I sort of think about this in different epochs

708
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:36,800
Speaker 2: of sort of returning to a story. You know. Probably

709
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 2: the most famous piece I ever did, as you know,

710
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 2: was in twenty sixteen, for the fifteenth anniversary of nine

711
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: to eleven, I went back and did an oral history

712
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 2: of being a board Air Force one with President Bush.

713
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 2: Ten years later, or not ten years later, for the

714
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 2: tenth anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden, I went

715
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 2: back and did a similar oral history of the killing

716
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 2: of Bin Laden and sort of what it was like

717
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 2: to be part of the Obama White House at that time.

718
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 2: And that ten to fifteen year window I think often

719
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 2: ends up being really fruitful because you'll find that the

720
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 2: major players are out of the job at that point

721
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: but still alive, but still alive, and their memories are

722
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 2: still pretty good that they you know, that they'll be

723
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: able to sort of talk more freely in off. Usually

724
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 2: at that sort of ten or fifteen year mark, they

725
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 2: have sort of achieved in their career something meaningfully different,

726
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 2: so that they are more comfortable talking about a moment

727
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 2: in the past when they you know, their legacy might

728
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,479
Speaker 2: sort of still be in shape. But it can also

729
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 2: take a lot longer. I wrote a book about Watergate

730
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 2: actually that came out in twenty twenty two.

731
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: I thought that was a brave decision you made to

732
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 1: do that one. Well, thank you, because you know, especially

733
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: with Woodward still alive, right, are any of us allowed

734
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: to write about Watergate while Bob's still alive?

735
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:23,439
Speaker 2: Right?

736
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: So this was you know, that's why I found you brave.

737
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 2: Right, the fiftieth anniversary of the burglary in nineteen seventy

738
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 2: two and yet it had taken most of those fifty

739
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 2: years to answer two of the central questions of Watergate.

740
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 2: Who is deep throat? And sort of why did Nixon

741
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 2: launch the Watergate cover up? And so when I sat back, I.

742
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: Think there's a third question that we've never pursued well enough.

743
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: Way not to go down a rabbit hole. All right,

744
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: what actionable intelligence did they learn from the phone tapping?

745
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 2: We have the phone tapping of the d n c H.

746
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: Now I've talked to sources who've given I've gone down

747
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole, and I've talked to people that were

748
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,919
Speaker 1: could you know, that were convinced that John Connolly sold

749
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: them out for a variety of reasons. And but that

750
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 1: part of Watergate doesn't get told very well. Right, it's

751
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: always through the prism of Nixon. But the manipulation of

752
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: the nomination was real, you know, the the what Nixon

753
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: did with the Texas delegation to make sure McGovern was

754
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: going to get was gonna was to make sure nobody

755
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: could have basically so that McGovern could win it at

756
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: the convention. I think was the intelligence they got over

757
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: the over the over what they learned from the dnc HM.

758
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 2: But you know, when I sat down in to write

759
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 2: that book to come out in twenty twenty two, no

760
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 2: one had ever been able to tell the story of Watergate,

761
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 2: knowing the identity of Deep Throat as we now know

762
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 2: FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, and no one had ever

763
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:25,240
Speaker 2: been able to write it knowing the sort of original sin.

764
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: That kicked off the Nixon Well, Woodward and Bernstein and

765
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: Theory knew.

766
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,720
Speaker 2: No, they definitely didn't the documents. So the original sin

767
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 2: of Watergate, the reason that Nixon doesn't sort of launches

768
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 2: the cover up and doesn't hang the burglars out to dry,

769
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 2: is the way that it traces all the way back

770
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 2: through the Pentagon papers and to the Shenalta Fair in

771
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight.

772
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 1: Well, that this was a whole But he's been doing

773
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: this in multiple ways, and this was part of a

774
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: larger operation where the Democratic nomination fight was just the

775
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: latest operation that he was running.

776
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 2: Yes, But what no one understood until the documents were

777
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:16,320
Speaker 2: declassified from the Lynden Johnson Presidential Library in twenty eleven

778
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 2: was the extent of Nixon's treachery in the sixty eight

779
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 2: campaign and how he had been exposed by Johnson confronted

780
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 2: by Johnson, and that this.

781
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,919
Speaker 1: Start is over the South Vietnamese right, the.

782
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 2: South Vietnamese treachery where Nixon is interfering in the Paris

783
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,879
Speaker 2: peace talks, and that this becomes sort of the Edgar

784
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 2: Allen Poe telltale heart beating away at the center of

785
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 2: the Nixon presidency that he is then desperate to cover

786
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 2: up in when the Pentagon papers start to come out

787
00:47:54,360 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 2: in seventy one, which brings him to hire the plumbers

788
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,479
Speaker 2: in the first place to sort of set and set

789
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: g Gordon Liddy sort of at loose inside the Nixon

790
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 2: White House. But you know, until you understand sort of

791
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 2: those two central parts of the narrative of Watergate, you know,

792
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: identity of deep throat and the sort of original sin

793
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 2: of the Nixon administration, you know, we've never really understood Watergate,

794
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 2: and it took us forty forty five years to actually

795
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 2: begin to piece together the totality of what that story

796
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 2: actually was.

797
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 1: You know, the one of the unintended consequences of Watergate

798
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: was was the destruction of the White House taping system.

799
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watch, if you've seen the

800
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: Apple television show for All Mankind.

801
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 2: I'm aware of it.

802
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they it's an alternative history, and they do

803
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: have this sort of American politics in real life back

804
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 1: they don't, well, it's not part of the show. It's

805
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: sort of in the backdrop. They do a fun little

806
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: like little vignettes to sort of And in this scenario,

807
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: because Nixon loses the race, Nixon's president when we lose

808
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: the race to the moon, he's of course a one termer,

809
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: not a two termer. Well, what does that mean? The

810
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: White House taping system never gets discovered by the public,

811
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 1: nor by Congress or anything like this, and it doesn't happen.

812
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 1: And in the way this TV show worked, it makes

813
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: it all the way to the nineties before people find

814
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: out there's a White House taping system, and each president

815
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 1: subsequently anyway, but it's made me like I remember when

816
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 1: I saw it. I remember thinking, can you imagine how

817
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: much richer our knowledge of presidents would be if we

818
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: always had this information like this eventually available to us?

819
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:47,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I actually I really worry about that as

820
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 2: a modern historian, in the extent to which you know

821
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 2: the future historians of the White House and you know,

822
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 2: US government, and really.

823
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: Look at this White House you know, we already we

824
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: already have caught Donald Trump meaning to direct message his

825
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: attorney general on truth social he ends up making it

826
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: public the infamous you know, what are you doing? Go

827
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: get Camy, Go get you know, James, go get Shift.

828
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: And we learned it's intended to be a direct message.

829
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: And now you're thinking, think about Presidential Records Act? How

830
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 1: many direct messages? What are we not seeing? What don't

831
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: we know? And we know this president has had no

832
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: interest in seeing records preserved for history's sake.

833
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you and so so much of that conversation

834
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 2: is now taking place, you know, over text message, over

835
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 2: direct messages, over encrypted signal chats which may or may

836
00:50:54,120 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 2: not be being properly maintained for Presidential Records Act. And

837
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 2: I really do worry about how hard it's going to

838
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 2: be to recreate some of what we are used to seeing.

839
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 2: And you know, everyone one of their first questions about

840
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 2: Watergate ends up being you know, well, if it took

841
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 2: us forty years to figure out the truth about Watergate,

842
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 2: you know, what are we going to learn about Trump's

843
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 2: presidency in forty years? Fifty years? You know, what do

844
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 2: we not know now about what is going on, and

845
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's clearly a lot that we don't

846
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 2: know about what's going on behind the scenes that we'll

847
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 2: have to wait for memoirs or future declassified documents. But

848
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 2: I would like to think that this administration is, uh,

849
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 2: we sort of know more at least of what's transpiring

850
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:55,319
Speaker 2: in real time.

851
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: Well, that's funny you say that. I don't disagree like

852
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: I think I've I find it fascinating how often what

853
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: you think is the case is the case.

854
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 2: Yes?

855
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 1: Have you noticed that?

856
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah?

857
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: And now part of it is I joke that, you know,

858
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: if I'm not a great poker player, but I'm a

859
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: better poker player than Donald Trump. I'd love to play

860
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: poker with him because he shows his cards constantly, Right,

861
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 1: you don't have to work very hard to figure out

862
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: what he's holding. I actually think that's what what is

863
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: some of his appeal as I think people think, well,

864
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: I know exactly what he's doing in thinking. I don't

865
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: love it either, but he's pretty you know, it's the

866
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,799
Speaker 1: what's it's the It's one of my favorite things that

867
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson likes to to try to use as a rationale.

868
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 1: You know, well, Donald Trump's very transparent about what he's doing.

869
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 1: He doesn't say whether it should be should be happening.

870
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,320
Speaker 1: You know, you always know what he's doing, you know

871
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,799
Speaker 1: when you ask him about crypto or the or a

872
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 1: you know, an insider trading deal or a pardon. You know,

873
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 1: he's a very transparent president. Well that's kind of true.

874
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Mike Johnson to me, is always fascinating as

875
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 2: the world's least informed human being. Like you, you can

876
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:26,240
Speaker 2: sort of walk up to him with any Trump story

877
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:30,439
Speaker 2: and he's like, ah, never heard of it. First, I've heard, right, first,

878
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 2: I first time. I'm really gonna have to look at

879
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 2: I just heard about that as I was walking into

880
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 2: this room.

881
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: Well doesn't it though, Like weirdly, you know it is.

882
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: But then it's it's funny to be that Mike Johnson

883
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:43,399
Speaker 1: saying well I don't think he can serve a third

884
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 1: term was a headline, right, because you're like, Mike Johnson

885
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: never says anything definitive, so what he does take it

886
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: to the bank.

887
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but just sort of the the idea that like,

888
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:58,879
Speaker 2: you're Speaker of the House and you appear to have

889
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 2: no access to news information on a daily basis.

890
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,879
Speaker 1: So let's take your theory of ten to fifteen years,

891
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: maybe as far back as we're right at the we're

892
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 1: just past fifty with Watergate. Now Watergate, as you noted,

893
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:16,720
Speaker 1: there was a specific thing to get released, yep, that helped.

894
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: So the Iran hostage crisis, have you thought about that?

895
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 1: You know, there's allegations. You know, there's a couple of

896
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 1: books that were written at the time right about you know,

897
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: the erig that's where October Surprise sort of got mainstreamed

898
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: back in the day. And there certainly were plenty of

899
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: sort of you know, conspiracy theorists about what did the

900
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: Reagan campaign know about the hostages and when did they

901
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 1: know it, et cetera, which has always had a little

902
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: bit of echo to the South Vietnamese allegation with Nixon.

903
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually would love to do a book on

904
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 2: Iran contra. I have noodled that. I've got a big

905
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 2: stack of research materials here in my office to that

906
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 2: I've been saving over the years, assembling it. I think

907
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:14,920
Speaker 2: it is something that we don't understand how fundamentally it

908
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 2: reshaped American politics thereafter. Of course, you've got Bill Barr

909
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 2: right there in the midst of it. You know, Oliver

910
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 2: North infamously a huge part of that.

911
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: But like Watergate, you know, you described how the burglary was, actually,

912
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:33,799
Speaker 1: you know, there was a whole other you know, this

913
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:37,319
Speaker 1: all began in sixty eight. Like Iron Contra as the

914
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 1: way some people may remember it, may they may think

915
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 1: of it as a late eady scandal, arguably it started

916
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: before Reagan became president.

917
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:51,280
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, And I actually just read Jonathan Blitzer's amazing

918
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 2: book on immigration that I think came out last year.

919
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 2: Everyone here is Gone, Everyone who is gone is here.

920
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 2: Couldn't couldn't recommend it more sort of history of US

921
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 2: policy in Latin America. And it's fascinating to sort of

922
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 2: realize how much of Iran Contra and the sort of

923
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:21,400
Speaker 2: Reagan era Bush era efforts to you know, destabilize Central

924
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 2: American politics are what kicks off downstream the immigration crisis

925
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 2: that we are now living with today. And like you know,

926
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,720
Speaker 2: I'm scribbling in the margins of this book as I'm reading,

927
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 2: like Iran Contra in some ways is what gives us

928
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:39,320
Speaker 2: Donald Trump.

929
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting through line. Look, I constantly so

930
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:50,280
Speaker 1: let me run a theory by you. I have thought

931
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: that one of the reasons why the CIA just won't

932
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 1: come clean about what it knew about Oswald is not

933
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: because they were involved. It's just the opposite, right. It

934
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:04,280
Speaker 1: was the fear that everybody would think they were involved,

935
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 1: but more importantly that he was simply a thread into

936
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: a larger what they were doing in the Western hemisphere,

937
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: and that copping to Oswald could be a string that

938
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: you start to pull that unravels a whole lot of

939
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 1: bad shit that we did in Latin America in the

940
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: fifties that could actually be problematic today. Like because here's

941
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,000
Speaker 1: why I think about it this way, Garrett, how is

942
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:36,040
Speaker 1: it that we've had back to back presidents Biden and

943
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:40,800
Speaker 1: Trump who have had CIA directors, one of whom Trump appointed,

944
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:43,959
Speaker 1: one of whom Biden appointed, who in the laws said

945
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 1: you got to release it. All the CIA directors is no, no, no, no,

946
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: you can't let this happen, and somehow both Trump and

947
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 1: Biden agreed to it. I've always wondered, what do these

948
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: CIA directors say to these presidents to make them say,

949
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,160
Speaker 1: got it, Okay, I won't do it, I'll figure it,

950
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 1: I'll shut this down. My thesis has been that yeah,

951
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: and that because it would only extend like our playing

952
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 1: around with Latin America has sort of like bid us

953
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: in the ass on multiple times in our sort of

954
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,920
Speaker 1: recent history. And if you told me that was the

955
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:24,760
Speaker 1: reason why Oswald gets this special, weird, special treatment, it's

956
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 1: less about Oswald, this person and Kennedy the assassination, and

957
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: more about what bad shit we were doing in Latin America.

958
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Chuck, don't worry what we're doing in Venezuela

959
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 2: right now, it's going to go great. This is the

960
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 2: time when the US meddling in the foreign politics of

961
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 2: Latin America will go great.

962
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: Garrett, I speak as a Miamian. I want to see

963
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 1: Chavez and Maduro, that entire regime out of there. I

964
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: have plenty of friends, I get it, right. I be

965
00:58:56,520 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: more honest with us, mister president, right, like, tell us

966
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:01,920
Speaker 1: the truth about what you're up to, and you might

967
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:06,960
Speaker 1: actually get some support for supporting democracy in Venezuela. But

968
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:11,080
Speaker 1: to do it this backhanded way, the unintended consequence could

969
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 1: be what if Maduro is popular?

970
00:59:15,760 --> 00:59:22,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, to answer your real question about the Oswald stuff,

971
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know whether your thesis is right,

972
00:59:26,600 --> 00:59:29,640
Speaker 2: but you get at what to me is sort of

973
00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 2: my central organizing principle of understanding conspiracies, which is my

974
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 2: challenge as someone who has covered government for twenty years.

975
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: And usually debunk conspiracies. Yes, is you're pretty good at

976
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: debunking them.

977
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is that government conspiracies presuppose a level of competence, foresight,

978
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:56,200
Speaker 2: and strategy that is not on display in the rest

979
00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 2: of the work that the government does. And it's on

980
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 2: c y a right, right, And that the the government

981
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 2: is sort of able to keep two kinds of secrets.

982
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 2: They're able to keep big secrets for a short period

983
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:16,440
Speaker 2: of time.

984
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: This is the Lodden's you know, Ben Loden's Whereabouts.

985
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:26,400
Speaker 2: No, I'm talking about something different actually, like the Manhattan

986
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 2: Project or the D Day invasion, something that is thousands

987
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 2: of people, but we only need to keep this for

988
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 2: a period of months or weeks. Or they can keep

989
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,480
Speaker 2: sort of small secrets for a long period of time.

990
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:50,480
Speaker 2: And this is where you get in into sort of

991
01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 2: secrets that the you know, the Argo plot, you know,

992
01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 2: sort of things that the intelligence agencies are able to

993
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 2: keep for a very extended period of time. The challenge

994
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 2: for me with something like the Kennedy assassination, UFOs and Roswell, which,

995
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:22,480
Speaker 2: as you know, I wrote a book about or or

996
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 2: you know, nine to eleven Truthers is sort of you're

997
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 2: asking us to believe that the government is able to

998
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 2: keep big secrets for a long period of time, that

999
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: sort of secrets that encompass sort of hundreds or thousands

1000
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 2: of people for decades with no meaningful.

1001
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 1: Compromise, and that thedea, that area fifty one could be

1002
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:51,680
Speaker 1: what people what the conspiracy theorists think it is. And

1003
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:54,480
Speaker 1: somehow it would be the secret that we could keep

1004
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 1: for fifty years, that there wouldn't be some cleaning service,

1005
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:08,200
Speaker 1: some some kid, right, some disgruntled fired employee who didn't have.

1006
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 2: The goods right exactly so, and that's where I think

1007
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 2: that you know, sort of whatever is sort of left

1008
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:22,440
Speaker 2: at the core of the Kennedy records, I think to

1009
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 2: your point has nothing to do with Kennedy anymore.

1010
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:30,480
Speaker 1: That it has to be about CIA workflow of some sort, right,

1011
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 1: And I you know, I it's it's my version of

1012
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: Okham's razor. I cannot imagine they weren't, like, I don't

1013
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: buy the idea that they didn't have them under surveillance.

1014
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: You're telling me a marine who defected to the Soviet Union.

1015
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 1: Wasn't a known person to the CIA? Is that a

1016
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: believable fact? Absolutely not, at least in that era, right, Yeah.

1017
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: But the idea that the CIA would somehow create this

1018
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: Patsy through this entires program like our our version of

1019
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: a reverse Americans, right, like that also seems kind of

1020
01:03:09,960 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 1: out there. Absolutely, So there's iron contra. Is there more

1021
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: to be done on Monica Lewinsky in the first and

1022
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 1: the first modern impeachment?

1023
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:33,440
Speaker 2: I think I think so in part because again that's

1024
01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 2: and this is a little bit of what you were

1025
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 2: talking about with, you know, Bill Clinton resigning hypothetical. I

1026
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:47,120
Speaker 2: don't know that that history has been meaningfully revisited sort

1027
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 2: of post me Too, which I think would be.

1028
01:03:51,960 --> 01:03:54,280
Speaker 1: It's an interesting way put it. We were kind of, look,

1029
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 1: it's funny Bill Clinton's reputation went into the shitter the

1030
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 1: height of Me Too, Right, it was sort of like, hey,

1031
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: what about all that, And Everybody's like, yeah, you're right,

1032
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,120
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have been toleranted that. Well, everybody just moved on.

1033
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:11,440
Speaker 2: Well, and I think that the reputations changed on both sides,

1034
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:16,120
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton's, but then Monica Lewinsky that I think we

1035
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:23,960
Speaker 2: as a country have really revisited the you know, stereotypes,

1036
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 2: if that's what you want to call it, about how

1037
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 2: we viewed Monica Lewinsky in the nineteen nineties as this

1038
01:04:31,040 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 2: scandal was unfolding, and that she has done such an impressive.

1039
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,200
Speaker 1: Job of.

1040
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 2: Not just rebuilding, but I think changing the way that

1041
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:46,560
Speaker 2: America thinks about her.

1042
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 1: There was no greater victim and a scandal that we've had.

1043
01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:58,760
Speaker 1: And I remember, I've always felt that boy that Clinton's

1044
01:04:58,800 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: never never fully could ever apologize enough.

1045
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 2: Yep. And I think that, you know, one of the

1046
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 2: things that I sort of came to think about Watergate

1047
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:27,800
Speaker 2: is Watergate is best understood not as an event, but

1048
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:31,560
Speaker 2: as a mindset, and that really Watergate is this umbrella

1049
01:05:32,320 --> 01:05:39,040
Speaker 2: for like thirteen to fifteen distinct but overlapping scandals that

1050
01:05:39,120 --> 01:05:45,640
Speaker 2: sort of all emerge from the paranoid, conspiratorial mindset of

1051
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon that sort of he brings in and.

1052
01:05:51,240 --> 01:05:52,400
Speaker 1: That really date back to.

1053
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 2: Me.

1054
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: Shoot, one of my favorite Nixon books is one about

1055
01:05:57,040 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 1: his California Senate race.

1056
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 2: I mean, exactly like his parent is exactly who he's

1057
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:04,280
Speaker 2: he is straight through his career.

1058
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty, Richard Nixon running for the US Senate against

1059
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:13,080
Speaker 1: Helen Kahagen Douglas nineteen fifty two. Checkers speech Nixon nineteen sixty. Right,

1060
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: it's the same guy, except every loss or grievance fuels him.

1061
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:26,440
Speaker 2: Yes, and that he I don't know that we have

1062
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 2: ever sort of reappraised Bill Clinton's presidency through that lens.

1063
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:38,320
Speaker 1: That It's funny you say that, because you're right, because

1064
01:06:38,440 --> 01:06:45,000
Speaker 1: Monica Lewinsky was the culmin nation exactly of what Hillary

1065
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:49,200
Speaker 1: Clinton called a vast right wing conspiracy. My only criticism

1066
01:06:49,240 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: of her comment was the word conspiracy. It wasn't being

1067
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:58,520
Speaker 1: done underground, right, it was we were all watching it

1068
01:06:58,560 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 1: and playing. It started with Trooper game. It started with

1069
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 1: Whitewater and Vince Foster and and Travel Office and you

1070
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:09,960
Speaker 1: know the stocks and you know all of this, you know,

1071
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:13,000
Speaker 1: attempt until they finally got him on something.

1072
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 2: Yep. And that I think we would look very differently

1073
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 2: at all of that. I mean, remember, like this is

1074
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,840
Speaker 2: where a lot of the modern Supreme Court ends up

1075
01:07:24,880 --> 01:07:30,360
Speaker 2: sort of getting their start in the right. Yeah, you know,

1076
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:36,080
Speaker 2: this is where Rod Rosenstein gets his start, and that

1077
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 2: sort of there's a long shadow to a lot of

1078
01:07:40,600 --> 01:07:46,000
Speaker 2: what transpires during impeachment there and the ken Starr investigation

1079
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:47,960
Speaker 2: that I see what.

1080
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:50,560
Speaker 1: You did there, by the way, mister longshadow.

1081
01:07:50,160 --> 01:07:54,200
Speaker 2: That I think we would look very differently at now.

1082
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:57,800
Speaker 2: You know, I think one one of the things, and

1083
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 2: this is just not an impeachment thing. There's going to

1084
01:08:03,120 --> 01:08:08,320
Speaker 2: be a big biography written at some point about Bill

1085
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 2: Clinton that has not been done yet, and I don't

1086
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:17,600
Speaker 2: know whether it will be done during his lifetime that

1087
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:25,719
Speaker 2: I think will dramatically rewrite his his presidency as viewed

1088
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:30,160
Speaker 2: by history, you know, I think, and you understand this. Presidents,

1089
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:35,600
Speaker 2: the view of presidents changes dramatically across decades.

1090
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 1: Arry Truman is a great example, right. It's one of

1091
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:42,640
Speaker 1: the easiest ones for people to grasp because he was

1092
01:08:42,640 --> 01:08:46,160
Speaker 1: an unpopular president when he left. In fact, he was

1093
01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:49,280
Speaker 1: a punching He was a punchline for Republicans for a

1094
01:08:49,360 --> 01:08:54,240
Speaker 1: long time. In fact, it was Ronald Reagan that arguably

1095
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:57,840
Speaker 1: revitalized Truman's brand before any Democrat did, and before David

1096
01:08:57,880 --> 01:09:01,880
Speaker 1: McCullough did. And then David McCullough comes out, everything changes, right,

1097
01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:07,320
Speaker 1: Harry Truman is now a top fifteen president in many historians'

1098
01:09:07,360 --> 01:09:08,160
Speaker 1: minds because.

1099
01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:12,719
Speaker 2: And Dwight Eisenhower sort of I think undergoing that same

1100
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:16,160
Speaker 2: change right now, we're living in you know, this is

1101
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 2: sort of someone who there was sort of you know,

1102
01:09:18,479 --> 01:09:23,040
Speaker 2: he's a doddering old golfer for you know, much of

1103
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 2: his and then you've seen sort of work by Evan

1104
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 2: Thomas and others that have really made us sort of

1105
01:09:28,280 --> 01:09:31,840
Speaker 2: rethink that this was a much smarter and more strategic

1106
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 2: and more consequential president than we've given him credit for.

1107
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:45,320
Speaker 1: Okay, while I count myself among those, I think there's

1108
01:09:45,360 --> 01:09:47,719
Speaker 1: only been two, and I think we've had two presidents

1109
01:09:47,760 --> 01:09:52,240
Speaker 1: who have been independent, truly less the least partisan presidents

1110
01:09:52,280 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 1: we ever had. And both of them were commanders, and

1111
01:09:54,560 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: both of them were supreme Allied commanders in the army right.

1112
01:09:58,160 --> 01:10:00,640
Speaker 1: One was General George Washington and the other one was

1113
01:10:00,680 --> 01:10:01,680
Speaker 1: General Dwight Eistewer.

1114
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:03,280
Speaker 2: So I.

1115
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:08,040
Speaker 1: Want to associate myself with that historical line of thinking

1116
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:16,720
Speaker 1: about Ike. However, how much is Eisenhower's this renewal of

1117
01:10:17,920 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 1: this sort of renewed positive look at Eisenhower a reflection

1118
01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:27,120
Speaker 1: of how crappy our leaders are today and that we're

1119
01:10:27,160 --> 01:10:30,320
Speaker 1: actually judging Eisenhower not through the prism of what he

1120
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:33,799
Speaker 1: did in the fifties, but through the prism of looking

1121
01:10:33,840 --> 01:10:37,000
Speaker 1: back and going wow, he wasn't what we have today.

1122
01:10:40,080 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 2: I think that the revisionism around him is something that

1123
01:10:48,680 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 2: started before we fell into our current age of poor

1124
01:10:53,360 --> 01:10:57,519
Speaker 2: leadership in America. I think the example you're looking for

1125
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:03,120
Speaker 2: is George H. W. Bush, where I think you see

1126
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:08,880
Speaker 2: a lot of celebration of George H. W. Bush as

1127
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:15,120
Speaker 2: sort of the upstanding, you know, president, dedicated in a

1128
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 2: life of public service, you know, sort of not of this,

1129
01:11:19,520 --> 01:11:22,040
Speaker 2: you know, not of this time anymore like that. That

1130
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:24,559
Speaker 2: to me is a big part of the gloss that

1131
01:11:24,600 --> 01:11:26,720
Speaker 2: we put over George H. W. Bush these days.

1132
01:11:26,760 --> 01:11:31,200
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Okay, I just it's always you know, I

1133
01:11:31,240 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: have found myself and I'm curious if you do this.

1134
01:11:34,439 --> 01:11:36,320
Speaker 1: There are more and more history books I read where

1135
01:11:36,360 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 1: I realize when the book was written is very important

1136
01:11:39,360 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: to understand before you dive into the interpretation of the

1137
01:11:42,439 --> 01:11:44,719
Speaker 1: of the history that the book is attempting to interpret.

1138
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:49,479
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely absolutely, And I think, by the way, as

1139
01:11:49,479 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 2: a historian, that's one of the things that is always

1140
01:11:53,040 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 2: incredibly humbling, is you never understand a topic more than

1141
01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:04,640
Speaker 2: when you've only read one book about it, and it's

1142
01:12:04,680 --> 01:12:09,760
Speaker 2: sort of every book thereafter only makes life more complicated.

1143
01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:11,840
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of where I think this

1144
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,040
Speaker 1: is the most, where I have run into it the most,

1145
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:16,640
Speaker 1: because I spent a lot, I read a bunch about it.

1146
01:12:17,160 --> 01:12:24,280
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with the essentially the post Grant politics of

1147
01:12:24,320 --> 01:12:28,920
Speaker 1: America yep. Eighteen seventy six. I've probably read four or

1148
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 1: five different books on the eighteen seventy six election, and

1149
01:12:33,479 --> 01:12:36,240
Speaker 1: I would argue that the politics of the author are

1150
01:12:36,320 --> 01:12:41,280
Speaker 1: what distinguishes each of the books, not the information. The

1151
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:44,480
Speaker 1: information is mostly the same. The interpretation of the information

1152
01:12:45,439 --> 01:12:49,960
Speaker 1: is what's different. And that is one that I find

1153
01:12:49,960 --> 01:12:53,559
Speaker 1: myself pulling my hair out sometimes reading these various accounts

1154
01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:57,519
Speaker 1: because they're this similar, but they're not the same, and

1155
01:12:57,560 --> 01:13:02,680
Speaker 1: they really are more about how the author perceives Republicans

1156
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:07,040
Speaker 1: versus Democrats in the twenty first century or late twentieth century,

1157
01:13:07,040 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: when one of them was written versus versus in that

1158
01:13:11,240 --> 01:13:11,960
Speaker 1: moment in time.

1159
01:13:12,439 --> 01:13:15,360
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, No, I think that's very true, and I

1160
01:13:15,400 --> 01:13:19,680
Speaker 2: think that that's a challenge across a lot of the

1161
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:24,400
Speaker 2: way that narrative history ends up getting written, you know,

1162
01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:27,719
Speaker 2: as you know, I spend a lot of time doing

1163
01:13:27,840 --> 01:13:33,320
Speaker 2: oral history, and to me, part of the power of

1164
01:13:34,960 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 2: oral history and why I think it's sort of so

1165
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:40,840
Speaker 2: important as a tradition and a writing form is the

1166
01:13:40,880 --> 01:13:47,160
Speaker 2: way that it puts you back in moments when the

1167
01:13:47,320 --> 01:13:52,240
Speaker 2: participants are living them, are experiencing them before they know

1168
01:13:52,360 --> 01:13:54,639
Speaker 2: the outcome. That I think sort of one of the

1169
01:13:54,760 --> 01:14:04,080
Speaker 2: drawbacks of a lot of narrative history. May events seem neater, cleaner, simpler,

1170
01:14:04,120 --> 01:14:07,600
Speaker 2: and more preordained than they felt to anyone who was

1171
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:12,720
Speaker 2: living through them at the time. That you know, you

1172
01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:15,519
Speaker 2: and I you know, think about where we are right now,

1173
01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:18,240
Speaker 2: Like none of us know where we are in the

1174
01:14:18,400 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 2: arc of the American story right now. And if you

1175
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:24,960
Speaker 2: if we sit down someday, ten years, fifteen years, fifty

1176
01:14:25,000 --> 01:14:28,240
Speaker 2: years later to write the story of today, like we'll

1177
01:14:28,280 --> 01:14:31,000
Speaker 2: know exactly how it goes, and we'll be able to,

1178
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:34,599
Speaker 2: you know, sort of plot our story. But if you're

1179
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:39,280
Speaker 2: interviewing you and me about you know, well, what did

1180
01:14:39,280 --> 01:14:44,000
Speaker 2: you feel in September twenty five, you know, October twenty five,

1181
01:14:44,120 --> 01:14:47,040
Speaker 2: November twenty five, you know, we're going to give you

1182
01:14:47,240 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 2: very different answers.

1183
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:53,639
Speaker 1: On the oral history front, it seems that a great

1184
01:14:54,600 --> 01:14:57,439
Speaker 1: January sixth is going to be a terrific oral history

1185
01:14:57,640 --> 01:15:02,360
Speaker 1: at some point, but I'm gonna I don't feel like

1186
01:15:02,400 --> 01:15:06,719
Speaker 1: it's ripe yet. I assume you don't think it's ripe yet.

1187
01:15:07,439 --> 01:15:09,840
Speaker 1: My gut is that's not ripe until Trump dies.

1188
01:15:10,960 --> 01:15:17,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're actually, you know, January, this January twenty

1189
01:15:17,520 --> 01:15:21,880
Speaker 2: six will be five years. There are actually two good

1190
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:27,080
Speaker 2: oral histories that are coming out, one by Nora Noose

1191
01:15:27,720 --> 01:15:35,360
Speaker 2: who wrote an oral history of of Charlottesville, and then

1192
01:15:35,400 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 2: the other by Mary Claire Jolanic, who you probably know

1193
01:15:38,520 --> 01:15:43,720
Speaker 2: from the AP and I think that they are, you know,

1194
01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:49,719
Speaker 2: very solid, good sort of first drafts of oral histories.

1195
01:15:49,800 --> 01:15:54,360
Speaker 2: You know. Part of the challenge with the January sixth

1196
01:15:55,280 --> 01:16:00,840
Speaker 2: oral histories, I think forever is going to be unentangling

1197
01:16:02,800 --> 01:16:07,000
Speaker 2: the truth because there are so many villains in that

1198
01:16:07,160 --> 01:16:09,880
Speaker 2: story whose voices need to be in there that.

1199
01:16:11,200 --> 01:16:13,200
Speaker 1: And they're tough. You know. It's funny. I've interviewed Roger

1200
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:20,320
Speaker 1: Stone a lot for various projects. I think I know

1201
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:22,240
Speaker 1: when he's bullshitting, and I think I know when he's

1202
01:16:22,240 --> 01:16:27,200
Speaker 1: telling me the truth. But I Garrett, you have to

1203
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:30,240
Speaker 1: take my word for it. Yep, he's not. I also

1204
01:16:30,280 --> 01:16:31,599
Speaker 1: know he's not a reliable narrator.

1205
01:16:33,240 --> 01:16:38,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, my trustee, Roger Stone. Mug here where I said,

1206
01:16:38,600 --> 01:16:41,160
Speaker 2: I wrote a history of Watergate that was a finalist

1207
01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 2: for the Pulitzer Prize last year. And let me tell

1208
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:46,160
Speaker 2: you when Nixon said, if the president does it, it's

1209
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:49,559
Speaker 2: not illegal, no one believes that that was true, to

1210
01:16:49,600 --> 01:16:54,000
Speaker 2: which Roger Stone replies, your book is laughable fiction, Pulletzer Prize.

1211
01:16:54,000 --> 01:16:58,000
Speaker 2: My ass, get the truth now, my coffee mug.

1212
01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:05,640
Speaker 1: That's fun. Roger has this. Roger and I have a

1213
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:09,360
Speaker 1: love hate relationship. I think he loves to hate me,

1214
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:14,200
Speaker 1: and yet he can't quit. He's obsessed with because he

1215
01:17:14,280 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: was obsessed with the Hotline back in the day, and

1216
01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:18,800
Speaker 1: that was you know, we covered back when he was

1217
01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:26,200
Speaker 1: a relevant political consultant and things like that. But you

1218
01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:29,559
Speaker 1: kind of I'm curious how you we all develop our

1219
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:33,280
Speaker 1: bullshit detectors with people that are serial liars, right, you know?

1220
01:17:34,479 --> 01:17:38,880
Speaker 1: And and I do feel like there are ways to

1221
01:17:38,920 --> 01:17:41,679
Speaker 1: figure that out. I mean, you know, do you feel

1222
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:44,559
Speaker 1: I mean, you've had to I don't know. Did you

1223
01:17:44,560 --> 01:17:46,719
Speaker 1: ever interview g Gordon Letty for anything?

1224
01:17:46,760 --> 01:17:50,880
Speaker 2: No, yeah, here on his radio show, But never actually

1225
01:17:50,880 --> 01:17:52,439
Speaker 2: interviewed him.

1226
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've interviewed a serial liar and

1227
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:56,639
Speaker 1: you knew it going in and how did you deal

1228
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:56,960
Speaker 1: with it?

1229
01:17:58,000 --> 01:18:03,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely have it. You know a lot of

1230
01:18:03,200 --> 01:18:09,440
Speaker 2: my work has been with in covering federal law enforcement,

1231
01:18:09,560 --> 01:18:13,080
Speaker 2: and so you know, I've interviewed a fair number of

1232
01:18:16,400 --> 01:18:19,800
Speaker 2: criminals over the years in one form or another. You know,

1233
01:18:19,840 --> 01:18:21,600
Speaker 2: when I was doing the Watergate book, you know, I

1234
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:27,880
Speaker 2: actually joked. You know, the core primary sources for that

1235
01:18:29,320 --> 01:18:35,879
Speaker 2: are about three dozen memoirs, all of which were written

1236
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:40,280
Speaker 2: by people who were later convicted of perjury or obstruction

1237
01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 2: of justice, and so they are sort of the most

1238
01:18:42,439 --> 01:18:46,720
Speaker 2: unreliable sets of memoirs you could ever possibly imagine. And

1239
01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:51,200
Speaker 2: I dealt with it in my book with a whole

1240
01:18:51,200 --> 01:18:54,639
Speaker 2: lot of footnotes that are like, you know, it's also

1241
01:18:54,720 --> 01:18:58,040
Speaker 2: possible this meeting never happened, because all three of the

1242
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:00,960
Speaker 2: participants in this meeting you know, who wrote about it,

1243
01:19:01,040 --> 01:19:05,120
Speaker 2: denied that they said anything in it. Right, That's funny.

1244
01:19:07,080 --> 01:19:13,320
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying that sort of going through. But answer the

1245
01:19:13,360 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 1: other question, do you think it'll be easier to get

1246
01:19:16,400 --> 01:19:19,160
Speaker 1: more truthful answers of the people that were in and

1247
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:22,719
Speaker 1: around Trump after Trump is gone, and that that would

1248
01:19:22,720 --> 01:19:25,439
Speaker 1: be my concern about an oral history of January six.

1249
01:19:25,640 --> 01:19:32,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I don't think we're I actually I talked

1250
01:19:32,280 --> 01:19:37,640
Speaker 2: a very prominent Washington journalist, or helped to talk a

1251
01:19:37,760 --> 01:19:41,320
Speaker 2: very prominent Washington journalist out of doing an oral history

1252
01:19:41,360 --> 01:19:45,080
Speaker 2: of Trump's first term for sort of exactly that first.

1253
01:19:45,160 --> 01:19:47,240
Speaker 2: That reason was, I was like, the only reason there

1254
01:19:47,280 --> 01:19:50,400
Speaker 2: has been any good journalism about Trump is anonymous sources,

1255
01:19:50,439 --> 01:19:54,080
Speaker 2: and you can't do an anonymously sourced oral history.

1256
01:19:54,640 --> 01:19:58,720
Speaker 1: So I've done a few Q and a's with Ryan

1257
01:19:58,720 --> 01:20:03,920
Speaker 1: too previous. Recently, I work over at USC. He's got

1258
01:20:03,920 --> 01:20:05,400
Speaker 1: a kid at USC, so we are doing a little

1259
01:20:05,439 --> 01:20:10,360
Speaker 1: something for USC, and he is this great line because

1260
01:20:10,400 --> 01:20:12,120
Speaker 1: he told me the story. So I've used it as

1261
01:20:12,160 --> 01:20:14,360
Speaker 1: a way to I said, so, why haven't you written

1262
01:20:14,360 --> 01:20:16,040
Speaker 1: a book about your time in the Trump White House?

1263
01:20:16,680 --> 01:20:19,559
Speaker 1: And he says that Trump will ask him that how

1264
01:20:19,560 --> 01:20:21,280
Speaker 1: come you have written a book? Right, And he says,

1265
01:20:21,320 --> 01:20:27,759
Speaker 1: mister President, I can't tell the truth and I won't lie. Yeah,

1266
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:31,960
Speaker 1: So I say that in that you know, there are

1267
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:34,280
Speaker 1: plenty of people in this town that have a living

1268
01:20:34,320 --> 01:20:36,040
Speaker 1: to make in their minds, and they're just not going

1269
01:20:36,080 --> 01:20:38,799
Speaker 1: to do it. It's not worth it, right Yeah.

1270
01:20:39,040 --> 01:20:42,559
Speaker 2: Well, and by the way, what you're talking about right

1271
01:20:42,600 --> 01:20:48,400
Speaker 2: now is not unrelated to the unraveling and backsliding of

1272
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:52,839
Speaker 2: American democracy, which is a whole lot of very powerful

1273
01:20:52,840 --> 01:20:55,640
Speaker 2: people in Washington and elsewhere in the country, and a

1274
01:20:55,640 --> 01:20:59,960
Speaker 2: whole lot of powerful institutions making a very cynical truth

1275
01:21:00,439 --> 01:21:04,400
Speaker 2: that it is not worth their own personal cost to

1276
01:21:04,560 --> 01:21:09,680
Speaker 2: stand up and you know, speak the truth or object

1277
01:21:10,160 --> 01:21:15,439
Speaker 2: or you know, to be the person who the Trump

1278
01:21:15,479 --> 01:21:17,800
Speaker 2: administration ends up zeroing in their fire.

1279
01:21:21,880 --> 01:21:23,639
Speaker 1: I don't want to assume where your head is at

1280
01:21:23,680 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 1: when it comes to how could what you know on

1281
01:21:28,000 --> 01:21:30,040
Speaker 1: the defcon scale? Where are you when it comes to

1282
01:21:30,080 --> 01:21:33,240
Speaker 1: the future of our democracy? I use a phrase that

1283
01:21:33,360 --> 01:21:36,320
Speaker 1: says I'm long term, I'm short term pessimistic, the long

1284
01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:40,880
Speaker 1: term optimistic. And I often joke that in nineteen thirty

1285
01:21:40,960 --> 01:21:43,720
Speaker 1: nine I would have said I was short term pessimistic

1286
01:21:43,720 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 1: and long term optimistic, and by nineteen forty six I'd

1287
01:21:46,560 --> 01:21:49,880
Speaker 1: have been correct. A lot of bad shit happened between

1288
01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:56,000
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine and eighteen forty six. I get the

1289
01:21:56,040 --> 01:22:00,160
Speaker 1: impression you're more alarmed at times than maybe you think

1290
01:22:00,240 --> 01:22:03,000
Speaker 1: the rest of us are. And yet at the same time,

1291
01:22:04,080 --> 01:22:05,720
Speaker 1: I also notice every once in a while you take

1292
01:22:05,720 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 1: a step back the other way, where Yeah.

1293
01:22:08,360 --> 01:22:13,439
Speaker 2: I think that's accurate. I think we are underestimating how

1294
01:22:13,479 --> 01:22:19,839
Speaker 2: bad things are right now and the trajectory of where

1295
01:22:19,880 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 2: we are, you know, nine ish months into this administration,

1296
01:22:27,000 --> 01:22:30,040
Speaker 2: and sort of how much worse it can get, because

1297
01:22:30,080 --> 01:22:34,840
Speaker 2: I think we are still as Americans trapped in a

1298
01:22:36,040 --> 01:22:41,000
Speaker 2: it can't happen here. We're America. You know, this is

1299
01:22:42,520 --> 01:22:45,520
Speaker 2: you know, I think Chuck, too many of our colleagues

1300
01:22:45,560 --> 01:22:51,920
Speaker 2: and friends are not speaking clear eyed in the media

1301
01:22:52,000 --> 01:22:55,960
Speaker 2: about sort of what is actually happening that we sort

1302
01:22:56,000 --> 01:22:56,840
Speaker 2: of continue to know.

1303
01:22:57,080 --> 01:22:58,840
Speaker 1: The more you speak clear eyed, the more you don't

1304
01:22:58,840 --> 01:22:59,559
Speaker 1: have a job in.

1305
01:22:59,520 --> 01:23:03,320
Speaker 2: That well, yes, which is you know, which which is

1306
01:23:03,360 --> 01:23:07,920
Speaker 2: not nothing an accident, right, but the you know, the

1307
01:23:07,920 --> 01:23:09,639
Speaker 2: the way that we sort of still use a lot

1308
01:23:09,640 --> 01:23:14,680
Speaker 2: of euphemisms of you know, Trump is pushing the bounds

1309
01:23:14,760 --> 01:23:16,759
Speaker 2: of presidential power.

1310
01:23:18,600 --> 01:23:22,760
Speaker 1: Uh, but that's editing. That's editing, that's editing. That's not

1311
01:23:22,800 --> 01:23:25,439
Speaker 1: coming from the journalists. Yes, yeah, just so you know,

1312
01:23:25,640 --> 01:23:27,439
Speaker 1: I mean, unfortunately.

1313
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:30,840
Speaker 2: But I do agree with you, and I actually I

1314
01:23:31,160 --> 01:23:36,439
Speaker 2: sat down at a little bit ago this fault and

1315
01:23:36,720 --> 01:23:42,479
Speaker 2: tried to organize my sense of hope into uh, sort

1316
01:23:42,520 --> 01:23:49,280
Speaker 2: of three buckets, because I do I think have long

1317
01:23:49,479 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 2: term hope for America. We will never be the country

1318
01:23:53,479 --> 01:23:59,400
Speaker 2: that we were before, because we can now never say

1319
01:23:59,520 --> 01:24:02,760
Speaker 2: this didn't happen here. But I do think we are

1320
01:24:04,640 --> 01:24:09,400
Speaker 2: in a moment where, uh, there is more reason for

1321
01:24:09,560 --> 01:24:14,080
Speaker 2: long term hope or long term optimism as you say.

1322
01:24:15,240 --> 01:24:18,400
Speaker 2: And and the sort of three reasons that I ended

1323
01:24:18,479 --> 01:24:26,680
Speaker 2: up sort of organizing my thoughts around we're one uh

1324
01:24:25,960 --> 01:24:30,080
Speaker 2: and and this is all me speaking for myself and

1325
01:24:30,120 --> 01:24:34,120
Speaker 2: not necessarily associating you, uh with with with any of

1326
01:24:34,160 --> 01:24:37,599
Speaker 2: this is you know there are more of us than

1327
01:24:37,600 --> 01:24:41,760
Speaker 2: there are of them. That Trump is actually a historically

1328
01:24:41,880 --> 01:24:48,719
Speaker 2: unpopular figure. You know that there two thirds of America

1329
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:54,880
Speaker 2: did not vote for Donald Trump. He is h institutionally

1330
01:24:55,240 --> 01:24:59,160
Speaker 2: and politically much weaker than I think many journalists and

1331
01:24:59,280 --> 01:25:02,519
Speaker 2: institution and sort of think that he is day to

1332
01:25:02,640 --> 01:25:06,320
Speaker 2: day and that.

1333
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:11,599
Speaker 1: You know, he's got a strong grip on a weekend.

1334
01:25:11,960 --> 01:25:16,160
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. The second is and this is exactly I

1335
01:25:16,240 --> 01:25:19,479
Speaker 2: think the what what you were talking about and what

1336
01:25:19,520 --> 01:25:21,160
Speaker 2: we've talked about a little bit over the course of

1337
01:25:21,240 --> 01:25:26,200
Speaker 2: this episode is for me, history is a source of hope,

1338
01:25:26,280 --> 01:25:32,760
Speaker 2: which is America has had dark chapters before, sometimes those

1339
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:40,520
Speaker 2: chapters are long, but that there are many stories of America,

1340
01:25:40,560 --> 01:25:47,559
Speaker 2: and the one that I choose to believe is that

1341
01:25:47,640 --> 01:25:51,120
Speaker 2: we are a country that strives to get better. That

1342
01:25:51,240 --> 01:25:55,880
Speaker 2: sort of decade by decade, generation to generation, we are

1343
01:25:55,920 --> 01:26:02,240
Speaker 2: a country that tries to get closer to living up

1344
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:06,599
Speaker 2: to the very imperfect creed that we were founded upon,

1345
01:26:06,880 --> 01:26:10,400
Speaker 2: of all men are created equal. That at that point

1346
01:26:10,680 --> 01:26:13,080
Speaker 2: was a creed that you know, not only excluded women

1347
01:26:13,280 --> 01:26:19,040
Speaker 2: and minorities and Native Americans, but also you know, white

1348
01:26:19,120 --> 01:26:24,240
Speaker 2: men who didn't own property. And that sort of decade

1349
01:26:24,240 --> 01:26:27,200
Speaker 2: by decade, generation by generation, we are a country that

1350
01:26:27,280 --> 01:26:35,120
Speaker 2: has sort of been generally moving towards progress. And then

1351
01:26:35,160 --> 01:26:40,920
Speaker 2: the third for me is actuarial, which is, I don't

1352
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:43,200
Speaker 2: know where we are in the Donald Trump story. I

1353
01:26:43,240 --> 01:26:46,639
Speaker 2: don't know whether we are in the beginning, the middle,

1354
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:50,679
Speaker 2: or the end. I don't know whether Donald Trump will

1355
01:26:50,720 --> 01:26:54,800
Speaker 2: figure out a way to hold on for a third term,

1356
01:26:54,840 --> 01:27:00,880
Speaker 2: maybe a fourth term. But I do know that, you know, actuarily,

1357
01:27:01,520 --> 01:27:05,080
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's reign over American politics is going to be

1358
01:27:05,240 --> 01:27:09,000
Speaker 2: measured in years and not decades. That this is not a.

1359
01:27:08,960 --> 01:27:11,120
Speaker 1: Situation closer to the end than the beginning.

1360
01:27:11,439 --> 01:27:16,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that this is not him as America's Franco who

1361
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:20,120
Speaker 2: reigned in Spain from nineteen thirty nine right through the

1362
01:27:20,200 --> 01:27:27,080
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. And that I think whenever Donald Trump exits

1363
01:27:27,120 --> 01:27:30,960
Speaker 2: the stage, however that happens, and I'm not I have

1364
01:27:31,040 --> 01:27:35,280
Speaker 2: no medical conspiracies to offer you. I have no predictions

1365
01:27:35,320 --> 01:27:39,080
Speaker 2: about how or when that happens, whether it's noon on

1366
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 2: January twentieth of twenty twenty nine, or before or after.

1367
01:27:45,760 --> 01:27:53,879
Speaker 2: But he has failed to build an actual movement in Maga.

1368
01:27:53,960 --> 01:27:56,160
Speaker 1: He has heard, Oh I talk about this. He's too

1369
01:27:56,280 --> 01:27:58,080
Speaker 1: lazy to be Hitler, right.

1370
01:27:58,240 --> 01:28:00,120
Speaker 2: That he I mean, I'm sorry, I don't know how

1371
01:28:00,280 --> 01:28:06,120
Speaker 2: to put it. He has sort of assembled a weird

1372
01:28:06,760 --> 01:28:14,240
Speaker 2: coalition of a personality cult of white nationalists and conspiracists

1373
01:28:14,360 --> 01:28:19,839
Speaker 2: and anti government extremists and crypto bros and couple of grifters,

1374
01:28:20,360 --> 01:28:24,599
Speaker 2: and then a whole bunch of grifters and a group

1375
01:28:24,640 --> 01:28:30,040
Speaker 2: of people who are genuinely correct in their belief that

1376
01:28:30,160 --> 01:28:32,960
Speaker 2: they have been You know that the era of sort

1377
01:28:33,000 --> 01:28:38,080
Speaker 2: of neoliberal Larry Summer's globalization has not worked out very

1378
01:28:38,080 --> 01:28:41,439
Speaker 2: well for them as workers and citizens and a whole

1379
01:28:41,439 --> 01:28:45,160
Speaker 2: bunch of people whose brains have been rotted by Fox

1380
01:28:45,240 --> 01:28:50,439
Speaker 2: News and Facebook, And that the moment Trump exits, that

1381
01:28:50,640 --> 01:28:56,240
Speaker 2: coalition fractures, and that you know, this is not a

1382
01:28:56,240 --> 01:29:00,439
Speaker 2: coalition that sort of immediately transfers its loyalty to JD Advance.

1383
01:29:01,120 --> 01:29:04,760
Speaker 2: It doesn't immediately go to Don Junior, it doesn't immediately

1384
01:29:04,800 --> 01:29:08,559
Speaker 2: go to Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, And that there

1385
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:13,760
Speaker 2: will be a moment at that fracturing where sort of

1386
01:29:14,040 --> 01:29:24,640
Speaker 2: people in history can begin to try to reassert itself.

1387
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:27,639
Speaker 1: You have, you've given voice to why. I just think

1388
01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:29,840
Speaker 1: that we're going to turn a corner now it's going

1389
01:29:29,920 --> 01:29:36,479
Speaker 1: to be uneven, and I don't know, you know, the

1390
01:29:36,520 --> 01:29:39,559
Speaker 1: Democratic Party still had you know that there. They still

1391
01:29:39,560 --> 01:29:41,679
Speaker 1: think they're just going to benefit from a CEESA effect

1392
01:29:42,200 --> 01:29:46,760
Speaker 1: and until they sort of come up with a better

1393
01:29:46,800 --> 01:29:49,720
Speaker 1: theory of the case, we could be living in this

1394
01:29:49,760 --> 01:29:52,400
Speaker 1: sort of uneven period for for some time.

1395
01:29:53,200 --> 01:29:55,679
Speaker 2: And by the way, there's there's an there's a point

1396
01:29:55,720 --> 01:30:01,400
Speaker 2: there that I think is important, Chuck, which is I

1397
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:10,040
Speaker 2: think Democrats have still not appropriately admitted that Trump voters aren't.

1398
01:30:09,760 --> 01:30:14,080
Speaker 1: Wrong well, until they get there. I wrote this couple

1399
01:30:14,160 --> 01:30:22,320
Speaker 1: substeps ago, the Democrats don't don't recover until they admit

1400
01:30:22,560 --> 01:30:26,839
Speaker 1: Trump voters were right about some things. Yes, And because

1401
01:30:26,920 --> 01:30:29,160
Speaker 1: they have to go win those voters, and you're not

1402
01:30:29,240 --> 01:30:31,519
Speaker 1: going to win them by telling them how wrong they

1403
01:30:31,520 --> 01:30:35,280
Speaker 1: were about Trump, that the best shot you have at

1404
01:30:35,280 --> 01:30:37,240
Speaker 1: them is to say you were right, and Trump lets

1405
01:30:37,280 --> 01:30:37,679
Speaker 1: you down.

1406
01:30:39,400 --> 01:30:42,000
Speaker 2: Yes, And then I think Democrats have done this weird

1407
01:30:42,120 --> 01:30:45,880
Speaker 2: thing where the two times Donald Trump has beat them,

1408
01:30:48,000 --> 01:30:52,200
Speaker 2: they have just put an asterisk next to that election

1409
01:30:53,240 --> 01:30:58,840
Speaker 2: and been like, oh, you know, twenty sixteen Russia, Hillary's emails,

1410
01:30:59,479 --> 01:31:05,160
Speaker 2: that'll memory happen again. Oh, twenty twenty four, Biden was

1411
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:11,719
Speaker 2: too old, We shouldn't have nominated Kamala. There were only

1412
01:31:11,760 --> 01:31:16,160
Speaker 2: one hundred and seven days. You know, that'll never happen again,

1413
01:31:16,280 --> 01:31:22,040
Speaker 2: and that sort of all. Were only one white male

1414
01:31:23,800 --> 01:31:30,800
Speaker 2: away from running a totally normal election that we can win.

1415
01:31:32,240 --> 01:31:35,880
Speaker 2: And I think it's a lot deeper than that.

1416
01:31:37,680 --> 01:31:42,000
Speaker 1: No, I don't think Democrats have lost enough yet. It's

1417
01:31:42,040 --> 01:31:44,200
Speaker 1: not lost on me that they needed a second kick

1418
01:31:44,280 --> 01:31:48,360
Speaker 1: to the head after eighty four. You know, eighty four

1419
01:31:48,479 --> 01:31:50,200
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the all time low for them,

1420
01:31:51,600 --> 01:31:55,839
Speaker 1: and then they went and nominated a technocrat, not a

1421
01:31:55,920 --> 01:31:59,080
Speaker 1: total liberal, but a technocrat, and that didn't work either, right,

1422
01:31:59,120 --> 01:32:01,720
Speaker 1: because he was a cultural It was just sort of

1423
01:32:01,720 --> 01:32:05,599
Speaker 1: culturally out of touch and it just was a you know,

1424
01:32:06,920 --> 01:32:09,200
Speaker 1: that's when they realized they had to have a cultural makeover.

1425
01:32:09,600 --> 01:32:12,240
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a policy makeover. They needed to because

1426
01:32:12,360 --> 01:32:17,040
Speaker 1: do Caucus's policies were fine for the electorate. What it

1427
01:32:17,080 --> 01:32:20,759
Speaker 1: really was was cultural issues. And that's what Bill Clinton understood.

1428
01:32:22,400 --> 01:32:25,480
Speaker 2: I would like to have to live in the country

1429
01:32:26,400 --> 01:32:31,240
Speaker 2: where Mike do Caucus's rail policies kicked in starting in

1430
01:32:31,280 --> 01:32:34,400
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine.

1431
01:32:35,240 --> 01:32:37,519
Speaker 1: I had somebody say something made myself. I had somebody

1432
01:32:37,560 --> 01:32:39,800
Speaker 1: who made me feel better about our rail policy when

1433
01:32:39,800 --> 01:32:42,639
Speaker 1: he noted because you know, I did, you know, over

1434
01:32:42,800 --> 01:32:45,360
Speaker 1: a couple holidays ago, did a family did the family

1435
01:32:45,439 --> 01:32:47,760
Speaker 1: did a family trip to Germany and did the whole thing,

1436
01:32:48,000 --> 01:32:50,680
Speaker 1: the whole German history thing, which is just amazing. And

1437
01:32:50,720 --> 01:32:55,680
Speaker 1: we took the train from Berlinda Munich and it's unbelievable, right,

1438
01:32:55,840 --> 01:32:59,880
Speaker 1: unbelievable ride, beautiful train. And as somebody said to me,

1439
01:33:00,120 --> 01:33:04,800
Speaker 1: is because you're a prioritized their trains for people and

1440
01:33:04,840 --> 01:33:08,360
Speaker 1: their roads for freight, and America prioritize their trains for

1441
01:33:08,439 --> 01:33:13,120
Speaker 1: freight and their roads for people. And then this person argues,

1442
01:33:13,680 --> 01:33:17,320
Speaker 1: and you may not love it, but whose GDP is bigger?

1443
01:33:19,080 --> 01:33:22,519
Speaker 1: And I just thought it was somebody when this person

1444
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:24,639
Speaker 1: framed it that way, and they weren't a lobbyist for

1445
01:33:25,200 --> 01:33:27,840
Speaker 1: CSX for what it's worth, Okay, I'm not gonna that

1446
01:33:28,000 --> 01:33:31,720
Speaker 1: wasn't like it was more of an economic economist. And

1447
01:33:31,760 --> 01:33:33,840
Speaker 1: I thought, huh, I hadn't thought of it that way.

1448
01:33:34,280 --> 01:33:34,439
Speaker 2: That.

1449
01:33:34,520 --> 01:33:38,200
Speaker 1: Look, it's true, and had we prioritized trains for people

1450
01:33:38,240 --> 01:33:40,719
Speaker 1: instead of freight, we would have better rout.

1451
01:33:41,080 --> 01:33:44,800
Speaker 2: I believe that certainly has some truth to it. I

1452
01:33:44,800 --> 01:33:46,760
Speaker 2: would like to think in a country with as much

1453
01:33:46,840 --> 01:33:49,559
Speaker 2: space as the United States has, we could have gotten both.

1454
01:33:49,840 --> 01:33:52,360
Speaker 1: We could have done both, had too right and had

1455
01:33:52,360 --> 01:33:57,280
Speaker 1: a nice, nice, comfortable rail system. And yeah, and with that,

1456
01:33:59,080 --> 01:34:04,360
Speaker 1: you ever thought about DA outside of politics and government. No,

1457
01:34:06,680 --> 01:34:08,760
Speaker 1: you're not going to get suckered in like Woodward did

1458
01:34:08,800 --> 01:34:09,639
Speaker 1: with John Belushi.

1459
01:34:10,320 --> 01:34:14,400
Speaker 2: Uh, very very boring. Uh answer, I.

1460
01:34:14,560 --> 01:34:16,760
Speaker 1: Because oj I here's what, here's the only thing I

1461
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:20,720
Speaker 1: would love to see us do. When I say us

1462
01:34:20,760 --> 01:34:26,200
Speaker 1: somebody of your historical, because I do think OJ is

1463
01:34:26,200 --> 01:34:28,200
Speaker 1: a story we haven't revisited correctly.

1464
01:34:28,600 --> 01:34:29,000
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

1465
01:34:29,800 --> 01:34:34,120
Speaker 1: I think we got close with the We got close

1466
01:34:34,400 --> 01:34:37,639
Speaker 1: with at least explaining why LA responded the way they

1467
01:34:37,640 --> 01:34:42,599
Speaker 1: did to OJ, and that's what the ESPN, but we've

1468
01:34:42,640 --> 01:34:46,519
Speaker 1: never fully explained how. You know, I'm I'm one of

1469
01:34:46,520 --> 01:34:50,080
Speaker 1: those who says, without OJ, you don't get Trump. H hmm.

1470
01:34:50,840 --> 01:34:57,040
Speaker 1: Because OJ fundamentally changed the TV news business. Before OJ,

1471
01:34:57,640 --> 01:35:00,080
Speaker 1: it was not you know, there there's always been this

1472
01:35:00,240 --> 01:35:04,400
Speaker 1: obsession that it's a ratings driven business, but it actually

1473
01:35:04,479 --> 01:35:09,559
Speaker 1: wasn't until OJ, because that was the moment when news

1474
01:35:09,600 --> 01:35:12,800
Speaker 1: divisions decided, hey, why don't we give people what they

1475
01:35:12,880 --> 01:35:16,240
Speaker 1: want to watch as a newscast rather than what they

1476
01:35:16,280 --> 01:35:19,360
Speaker 1: need to watch? M h We didn't do that pre OJ,

1477
01:35:20,760 --> 01:35:23,200
Speaker 1: but OJ was the first time, Hey, this was this

1478
01:35:23,360 --> 01:35:25,799
Speaker 1: was an event we wanted treated like a news story

1479
01:35:26,000 --> 01:35:29,519
Speaker 1: and the audience asked for that, and CNN said okay,

1480
01:35:30,360 --> 01:35:33,000
Speaker 1: and CNN made a boatload of money and they made

1481
01:35:33,040 --> 01:35:35,559
Speaker 1: so much money doing it. Then NBC and Fox said,

1482
01:35:35,640 --> 01:35:38,600
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we want a piece of this cable business.

1483
01:35:39,200 --> 01:35:43,720
Speaker 1: You guys can't have it alone. So if I were

1484
01:35:43,760 --> 01:35:47,479
Speaker 1: to throw an eye if I were throwing pitches at

1485
01:35:47,520 --> 01:35:55,600
Speaker 1: you for what you should tackle. How OJ changed you

1486
01:35:55,640 --> 01:35:59,920
Speaker 1: know how? I do think the OJ aification of the

1487
01:36:00,080 --> 01:36:04,000
Speaker 1: news business set us on this course. Yeah, that we

1488
01:36:04,120 --> 01:36:07,439
Speaker 1: are that we of the algorithmic. You know, before we

1489
01:36:07,439 --> 01:36:11,719
Speaker 1: had algorithms deciding what we wanted to see. We told

1490
01:36:11,880 --> 01:36:14,360
Speaker 1: you know, we told CNN no, no, no, no, we're

1491
01:36:14,360 --> 01:36:16,719
Speaker 1: going to watch court TV if you don't cover OJ.

1492
01:36:17,760 --> 01:36:21,000
Speaker 1: And they said, okay, we'll cover OJ. We'll stop covering news,

1493
01:36:21,320 --> 01:36:24,679
Speaker 1: We'll just do OJ twenty four seven. It's a great

1494
01:36:24,720 --> 01:36:30,120
Speaker 1: business decision. It changed journalism forever, and it gave us

1495
01:36:30,120 --> 01:36:34,360
Speaker 1: the Kardashians. I love to remind people of this. You

1496
01:36:34,360 --> 01:36:36,639
Speaker 1: will love this, Garrett. I teach a class at USC.

1497
01:36:37,760 --> 01:36:41,800
Speaker 1: OJ died on the day that I was teaching. So

1498
01:36:41,880 --> 01:36:44,599
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, at USC students, I've got to do OJ.

1499
01:36:46,560 --> 01:36:48,439
Speaker 1: So I said, all right, we're scrapping what the lecture

1500
01:36:48,479 --> 01:36:50,000
Speaker 1: is going to be. We're going to do OJ. You know,

1501
01:36:50,040 --> 01:36:52,920
Speaker 1: this is USC you guys, you know, and before I

1502
01:36:52,960 --> 01:36:55,360
Speaker 1: got there, this is whatever he died last year.

1503
01:36:55,400 --> 01:36:55,880
Speaker 2: I think it was.

1504
01:36:56,520 --> 01:36:58,680
Speaker 1: So I do a quick ask, you know, what do

1505
01:36:58,720 --> 01:37:01,679
Speaker 1: you guys know about OJA? First thing, someone says, is

1506
01:37:01,680 --> 01:37:03,200
Speaker 1: isn't he Chloe Kardashian's father?

1507
01:37:06,000 --> 01:37:06,519
Speaker 2: And I knew.

1508
01:37:06,560 --> 01:37:09,280
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, this is going to be

1509
01:37:09,280 --> 01:37:15,519
Speaker 1: a long couple of hours. I just throw that out there.

1510
01:37:15,560 --> 01:37:17,559
Speaker 1: I think it's the one pop culture event that had

1511
01:37:17,600 --> 01:37:20,200
Speaker 1: true political ramification. Yeah, but I think you're right just

1512
01:37:20,280 --> 01:37:22,719
Speaker 1: because of what it did to the news media, and

1513
01:37:22,320 --> 01:37:24,639
Speaker 1: I don't think we've fully reckoned with it. I've had

1514
01:37:24,640 --> 01:37:27,320
Speaker 1: this conversation with my friend Andy Lack, who was head

1515
01:37:27,360 --> 01:37:29,519
Speaker 1: of the NBC at the time, and he pushes back

1516
01:37:29,560 --> 01:37:31,559
Speaker 1: on me a little bit, and you know, he says, Oh,

1517
01:37:31,640 --> 01:37:33,360
Speaker 1: the news business has always covered a little bit of

1518
01:37:33,400 --> 01:37:35,479
Speaker 1: what people want and a little bit of what people need.

1519
01:37:35,560 --> 01:37:38,800
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, but we used to have a balance. Yeah,

1520
01:37:39,360 --> 01:37:41,720
Speaker 1: the minute we had a metric every fifteen minutes of

1521
01:37:41,720 --> 01:37:45,439
Speaker 1: what people were thinking. Then all of a sudden we changed.

1522
01:37:45,600 --> 01:37:47,679
Speaker 1: We let the audience be the managing editor.

1523
01:37:48,439 --> 01:37:51,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's an interesting theory. I like it.

1524
01:37:53,360 --> 01:37:54,840
Speaker 1: What do you got going on with Long Shadow?

1525
01:37:54,840 --> 01:37:57,280
Speaker 2: Before I let you go? People come in and subscribe,

1526
01:37:57,280 --> 01:38:01,080
Speaker 2: what do they get so Long Shadow? We are just

1527
01:38:01,240 --> 01:38:07,479
Speaker 2: out with our fourth season. This is the story of

1528
01:38:09,240 --> 01:38:13,760
Speaker 2: every season. We try to do a as I was

1529
01:38:13,760 --> 01:38:16,600
Speaker 2: saying at the top, sort of pick us story in

1530
01:38:16,640 --> 01:38:19,400
Speaker 2: the news today and tell us how we got to today.

1531
01:38:20,040 --> 01:38:24,720
Speaker 2: And this year's season available wherever you get your podcasts,

1532
01:38:25,080 --> 01:38:29,880
Speaker 2: is the breaking of the Internet, sort of how a

1533
01:38:30,000 --> 01:38:33,680
Speaker 2: tool that was supposed to bring us together ended up

1534
01:38:33,760 --> 01:38:38,160
Speaker 2: driving us all apart. And it was, as I was

1535
01:38:38,160 --> 01:38:41,160
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, I think, a fascinating example. I lived

1536
01:38:41,160 --> 01:38:42,640
Speaker 2: a lot of the story. You lived a lot of

1537
01:38:42,640 --> 01:38:44,799
Speaker 2: the story, you know. I think one of the hardest

1538
01:38:44,920 --> 01:38:49,320
Speaker 2: things that we struggled with in this season was to

1539
01:38:49,360 --> 01:38:54,639
Speaker 2: take people back to the early two thousands and sort

1540
01:38:54,640 --> 01:38:57,800
Speaker 2: of how promising and exciting the Internet seemed before we

1541
01:38:57,840 --> 01:39:00,479
Speaker 2: sort of all realized it was going to ruin our

1542
01:39:01,880 --> 01:39:06,360
Speaker 2: politics and our world. Was sort of just how exciting

1543
01:39:06,360 --> 01:39:16,240
Speaker 2: the Internet was, and that trajectory from there to you know,

1544
01:39:16,320 --> 01:39:22,320
Speaker 2: the manosphere and the red Pill today, you know, turns

1545
01:39:22,320 --> 01:39:26,680
Speaker 2: out to be a much more linear story of individuals

1546
01:39:26,720 --> 01:39:33,680
Speaker 2: making important decisions along the way that seemed relatively inconsequential

1547
01:39:33,720 --> 01:39:37,920
Speaker 2: at the time, but really altered the trajectory of the

1548
01:39:37,920 --> 01:39:39,320
Speaker 2: way that we consume information.

1549
01:39:40,120 --> 01:39:43,160
Speaker 1: What is the fork in the road moment on algorithms?

1550
01:39:43,800 --> 01:39:49,840
Speaker 2: The fork in the road algorithms is Facebook choosing to

1551
01:39:49,920 --> 01:39:55,280
Speaker 2: be advertiser driven. That's what changes the whole Internet, because

1552
01:39:56,160 --> 01:39:58,960
Speaker 2: the moment that they decide that they are going to

1553
01:39:59,040 --> 01:40:01,120
Speaker 2: be advertised driven.

1554
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:05,719
Speaker 1: Maximizing basically driven by shareholders or investors.

1555
01:40:05,800 --> 01:40:10,040
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that was you know, Facebook going public and

1556
01:40:10,120 --> 01:40:12,360
Speaker 2: you know, needing to make a lot of money really quickly,

1557
01:40:13,320 --> 01:40:20,120
Speaker 2: and Facebook deciding that begins to optimize the whole site

1558
01:40:20,200 --> 01:40:23,840
Speaker 2: for how long they can keep users engaged. And what

1559
01:40:24,320 --> 01:40:30,519
Speaker 2: Facebook figures out pretty quickly with its newsfeed algorithm, followed

1560
01:40:31,320 --> 01:40:34,280
Speaker 2: later by Twitter and you know, almost every other social

1561
01:40:34,320 --> 01:40:40,200
Speaker 2: media site since, is that things that make people angry

1562
01:40:41,160 --> 01:40:45,640
Speaker 2: make them engage, and so if you want engagement, you

1563
01:40:45,760 --> 01:40:53,000
Speaker 2: want enragement, and that sort of they begin to very

1564
01:40:53,080 --> 01:40:57,519
Speaker 2: carefully tweak that algorithm so that what you see in

1565
01:40:57,560 --> 01:41:01,960
Speaker 2: your news feed is the story of things that make

1566
01:41:02,040 --> 01:41:06,880
Speaker 2: you mad, that polarize us. And that we now sort

1567
01:41:06,880 --> 01:41:15,080
Speaker 2: of understand from internal Facebook documents that Facebook weights prioritizes

1568
01:41:15,960 --> 01:41:21,240
Speaker 2: the equivalent of its dislike button five times more strongly

1569
01:41:22,080 --> 01:41:26,120
Speaker 2: than the like button. And so you know, whatever you're

1570
01:41:26,200 --> 01:41:31,360
Speaker 2: scrolling through chuck that makes you personally angry, you get

1571
01:41:31,400 --> 01:41:34,559
Speaker 2: five times more that content than that which you actually like,

1572
01:41:34,760 --> 01:41:38,200
Speaker 2: and that that it becomes the backdrop of so much

1573
01:41:38,479 --> 01:41:42,880
Speaker 2: of the backlash to the Arab spring, you know, literal

1574
01:41:43,479 --> 01:41:48,760
Speaker 2: genocide in Me and mar the Russian interference in the

1575
01:41:48,800 --> 01:41:54,479
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen campaign, and then of course you know COVID

1576
01:41:54,720 --> 01:42:02,400
Speaker 2: and anti vaccine conspiracies and sort of the the big

1577
01:42:02,439 --> 01:42:04,200
Speaker 2: lie leading up to January sixth.

1578
01:42:05,640 --> 01:42:09,320
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing. There's a similar there's a

1579
01:42:09,360 --> 01:42:12,559
Speaker 1: business podcast. Do you you ever done the Acquired series?

1580
01:42:12,800 --> 01:42:13,000
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1581
01:42:13,080 --> 01:42:17,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, there they do very It's sort of episodic, big long,

1582
01:42:17,880 --> 01:42:21,400
Speaker 1: deep dive. Slightly different but like on a company, how

1583
01:42:21,439 --> 01:42:25,640
Speaker 1: did Google become Google? That sort of thing. It's a

1584
01:42:26,880 --> 01:42:30,080
Speaker 1: I think it's the best of podcasting. Yeah, you know,

1585
01:42:30,439 --> 01:42:34,640
Speaker 1: so I am. I'm glad it's there. Do you do

1586
01:42:34,640 --> 01:42:38,720
Speaker 1: you think it's that? I don't think books are getting replaced,

1587
01:42:38,720 --> 01:42:43,920
Speaker 1: but do you Is this a because these are all

1588
01:42:43,920 --> 01:42:46,200
Speaker 1: things you could have done as a book, but you're

1589
01:42:46,200 --> 01:42:50,759
Speaker 1: doing it as a podcast. Is that simply a choice?

1590
01:42:50,960 --> 01:42:53,599
Speaker 1: Or it could be in either or and right now

1591
01:42:53,640 --> 01:42:56,519
Speaker 1: the podcast makes more sense to.

1592
01:42:56,520 --> 01:42:59,200
Speaker 2: Be there a little bit of either or. You know,

1593
01:42:59,280 --> 01:43:04,320
Speaker 2: podcasts each a different audience, which you know is uh

1594
01:43:04,640 --> 01:43:12,160
Speaker 2: has its strengths and from a production standpoint, they're also

1595
01:43:12,240 --> 01:43:14,760
Speaker 2: sort of slightly different stories that you can sort of

1596
01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:19,880
Speaker 2: tell and in a podcast where you have good archival sound,

1597
01:43:20,000 --> 01:43:25,280
Speaker 2: where you have you know, good interviews that you can

1598
01:43:25,360 --> 01:43:28,439
Speaker 2: do that sort of make these stories more come alive

1599
01:43:28,640 --> 01:43:30,240
Speaker 2: than I think they can on the page.

1600
01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:34,680
Speaker 1: Well, look, it's what you're what you were built to do.

1601
01:43:35,800 --> 01:43:39,439
Speaker 1: So it's now it's like you don't you know, usually

1602
01:43:39,640 --> 01:43:41,920
Speaker 1: big historical book authors they do a big book, they

1603
01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:44,160
Speaker 1: take a break and they do you're just now you've

1604
01:43:44,560 --> 01:43:47,879
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you always have how many projects, live projects

1605
01:43:47,920 --> 01:43:49,040
Speaker 1: do you have going at one time.

1606
01:43:49,920 --> 01:43:53,000
Speaker 2: Oh? I love the mix of sort of the short

1607
01:43:53,080 --> 01:43:58,639
Speaker 2: term magazine newsletter writing, the you know, sort of mid

1608
01:43:58,840 --> 01:44:03,040
Speaker 2: term mid length podcast writing, and the long term book writing.

1609
01:44:03,560 --> 01:44:07,320
Speaker 2: You know. I try to do a book every year

1610
01:44:07,920 --> 01:44:11,240
Speaker 2: or eighteen months, depending on what the topic is, and

1611
01:44:11,280 --> 01:44:14,719
Speaker 2: then one podcast season a year, and then try to write,

1612
01:44:15,080 --> 01:44:17,200
Speaker 2: you know, more or less weekly for my newsletter.

1613
01:44:17,200 --> 01:44:21,840
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, seems very simple, but I'm well aware of

1614
01:44:23,280 --> 01:44:26,920
Speaker 1: that that you fall behind very quickly, exactly matter what,

1615
01:44:27,120 --> 01:44:29,160
Speaker 1: no matter what, no matter how well you think you're

1616
01:44:29,160 --> 01:44:31,519
Speaker 1: scheduleding Garrett, thanks for humoring me. I went a little

1617
01:44:31,520 --> 01:44:33,559
Speaker 1: longer than I planned to. But you know, you're too

1618
01:44:33,560 --> 01:44:36,439
Speaker 1: good of a conversationalist. I'm just too into this stuff.

1619
01:44:36,800 --> 01:44:38,479
Speaker 2: Well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, and

1620
01:44:38,600 --> 01:44:42,000
Speaker 2: I've appreciated our friendship across a lot of different chapters

1621
01:44:42,000 --> 01:44:43,280
Speaker 2: of our respective lives.

1622
01:44:43,800 --> 01:44:48,360
Speaker 1: No, and at a minimum, I enjoyed the history brainstorming here. Yes,

1623
01:44:48,680 --> 01:44:51,040
Speaker 1: you know of different ways to tackle different things, and

1624
01:44:52,000 --> 01:44:57,280
Speaker 1: I have a feeling you would be an interesting candidate

1625
01:44:57,280 --> 01:44:58,000
Speaker 1: on Bill clin.

1626
01:45:00,120 --> 01:45:01,080
Speaker 2: I have considered it.

1627
01:45:01,520 --> 01:45:05,479
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I hope you pursue it, and I totally agree.

1628
01:45:06,320 --> 01:45:11,599
Speaker 1: I think it's it. Probably it probably needs to wait

1629
01:45:12,439 --> 01:45:16,439
Speaker 1: until there's there's a till all the actuary tables have

1630
01:45:16,520 --> 01:45:16,920
Speaker 1: kicked in.

1631
01:45:17,280 --> 01:45:17,519
Speaker 2: Yep.

1632
01:45:19,000 --> 01:45:21,559
Speaker 1: Well, I know we all are interested. We're all interested

1633
01:45:21,560 --> 01:45:24,120
Speaker 1: in what Hillary Clinton has to say, and I.

1634
01:45:26,400 --> 01:45:29,160
Speaker 2: Will look forward to crediting you on the first line

1635
01:45:29,160 --> 01:45:32,200
Speaker 2: of the acknowledgments of the OJ book. There you go.

1636
01:45:32,640 --> 01:45:35,160
Speaker 1: Well, there's more to be done here. I keep trying

1637
01:45:35,160 --> 01:45:36,280
Speaker 1: to look for a better way.

1638
01:45:36,160 --> 01:45:36,559
Speaker 2: To do it.

1639
01:45:36,680 --> 01:45:43,360
Speaker 1: I know when I spend time. Let's just say, I

1640
01:45:43,400 --> 01:45:47,160
Speaker 1: wrote an entire essay and my former company begged me

1641
01:45:47,240 --> 01:45:52,040
Speaker 1: not to have it air, and they had that right

1642
01:45:53,880 --> 01:45:56,720
Speaker 1: but I do think it's it's our it's case, it's

1643
01:45:56,840 --> 01:45:58,519
Speaker 1: television news is original sin.

1644
01:45:59,040 --> 01:45:59,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1645
01:46:00,280 --> 01:46:02,559
Speaker 1: Anyway, h right, my friend, thanks for the time.

1646
01:46:02,800 --> 01:46:03,240
Speaker 2: Good night.

1647
01:46:11,960 --> 01:46:15,720
Speaker 1: Well this is you know you would you would think

1648
01:46:15,760 --> 01:46:20,800
Speaker 1: here at Toodcast World Headquarters that that all of this

1649
01:46:20,920 --> 01:46:24,080
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily well planned because to have a guy like

1650
01:46:24,120 --> 01:46:27,920
Speaker 1: Gerrit Graff, who's sort of a recent history buff, if

1651
01:46:27,960 --> 01:46:30,800
Speaker 1: you will, and so good at sort of connecting the

1652
01:46:30,840 --> 01:46:35,400
Speaker 1: present with history, that it's a perfect Monday interview because

1653
01:46:35,439 --> 01:46:45,360
Speaker 1: it's podcast time Machine Day. We're just that good here

1654
01:46:46,200 --> 01:46:50,439
Speaker 1: at Toodcast World Headquarters. So it is time for the

1655
01:46:50,439 --> 01:46:54,160
Speaker 1: Toodcast time machine. And look we're going to go back

1656
01:46:54,520 --> 01:46:58,720
Speaker 1: and leaning into November eleventh, right, the eleventh hour, the

1657
01:46:58,760 --> 01:47:03,120
Speaker 1: eleventh day, eleventh every November. You know, this was the

1658
01:47:03,160 --> 01:47:05,120
Speaker 1: real I want to talk about the real end of

1659
01:47:05,160 --> 01:47:07,360
Speaker 1: World War One. And those of you that know me

1660
01:47:07,520 --> 01:47:10,439
Speaker 1: very well know what pet peeve I am about to

1661
01:47:10,600 --> 01:47:14,479
Speaker 1: go off on. But this is the perfect time. This

1662
01:47:14,640 --> 01:47:20,360
Speaker 1: is essentially a plea to teach World War One act

1663
01:47:20,439 --> 01:47:23,960
Speaker 1: more accurately than how all of US Americans get taught

1664
01:47:24,120 --> 01:47:27,959
Speaker 1: World War One in school. So here we go. Every November,

1665
01:47:28,479 --> 01:47:31,960
Speaker 1: we pause for this familiar ritual. The eleventh hour of

1666
01:47:32,000 --> 01:47:35,000
Speaker 1: the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent.

1667
01:47:35,600 --> 01:47:38,960
Speaker 1: The Great War was over, or so the story goes.

1668
01:47:39,600 --> 01:47:42,280
Speaker 1: We call it Armistice Day, we renamed it Veterans Day.

1669
01:47:42,720 --> 01:47:44,960
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. That famous moment on the Western

1670
01:47:45,000 --> 01:47:48,160
Speaker 1: Front wasn't the true end of the war. It was

1671
01:47:48,200 --> 01:47:52,200
Speaker 1: the biggest headline, but it wasn't the closing chapter. Because

1672
01:47:52,240 --> 01:47:55,519
Speaker 1: twelve days before Germany surrender aboard a British warship anchored

1673
01:47:55,520 --> 01:48:00,120
Speaker 1: in the Agency, another armistice was signed, the Armistice of Mudros. Yes,

1674
01:48:00,840 --> 01:48:04,560
Speaker 1: and that one, that's the one that really changed the world,

1675
01:48:05,200 --> 01:48:08,080
Speaker 1: and that's the one that still leaves World War One

1676
01:48:08,320 --> 01:48:12,120
Speaker 1: unresolved today. It marked the surrender of the Ottoman Empire.

1677
01:48:12,640 --> 01:48:14,599
Speaker 1: It was the empire that had ruled the Middle East

1678
01:48:14,800 --> 01:48:22,560
Speaker 1: for six centuries, six hundred years of ruling, governed Jerusalem, Damascus, Bagdad,

1679
01:48:22,640 --> 01:48:28,320
Speaker 1: Mecca and Istanbul, and it collapsed almost overnight. When we

1680
01:48:28,360 --> 01:48:30,880
Speaker 1: commemorate November eleventh, we're not just honoring the end of

1681
01:48:30,880 --> 01:48:35,040
Speaker 1: a war. We're marking the moment when an entire world

1682
01:48:35,200 --> 01:48:39,040
Speaker 1: order vanished and left a geopolitical mess that we still

1683
01:48:39,080 --> 01:48:43,559
Speaker 1: haven't cleaned up. So let's talk about that forgotten surrender,

1684
01:48:43,840 --> 01:48:46,479
Speaker 1: the one before the one we talk about, and made

1685
01:48:46,479 --> 01:48:50,960
Speaker 1: a national holiday. On October thirtieth, nineteen eighteen, Automan officials

1686
01:48:51,040 --> 01:48:56,720
Speaker 1: met British admirals Somerset, go Calthorpe aboard the HMS Agamemnon

1687
01:48:56,880 --> 01:49:00,120
Speaker 1: in the harbor of the Greek island of Lemnos. They

1688
01:49:00,200 --> 01:49:04,360
Speaker 1: signed away an empire. The terms were extraordinarily harsh. Allied

1689
01:49:04,400 --> 01:49:09,480
Speaker 1: forces could occupy forts, control the Bosphorus and the Dardnellis,

1690
01:49:09,520 --> 01:49:13,920
Speaker 1: and moved troops anywhere they deemed necessary. Within days, British

1691
01:49:13,920 --> 01:49:17,680
Speaker 1: and French soldiers were marching into Istanbul Arab lands that

1692
01:49:17,720 --> 01:49:21,479
Speaker 1: had been Ottoman provinces were carved up on European maps

1693
01:49:22,040 --> 01:49:25,679
Speaker 1: by November eleventh. Today the world remembers the Ottoman state

1694
01:49:25,800 --> 01:49:29,599
Speaker 1: already existed in name only. It was less a peace

1695
01:49:29,920 --> 01:49:34,360
Speaker 1: than a liquidation sale. The Syke's picket lines drawn a

1696
01:49:34,400 --> 01:49:38,960
Speaker 1: few years earlier. Those straight colonial borders that paid no

1697
01:49:39,000 --> 01:49:44,799
Speaker 1: attention to tribes, sects or languages suddenly became real. France

1698
01:49:44,840 --> 01:49:49,800
Speaker 1: got Syria and Lebanon. Britain took a rock Transjordan and Palestine.

1699
01:49:50,200 --> 01:49:53,360
Speaker 1: The seeds of modern conflict were being planted even as

1700
01:49:53,400 --> 01:49:58,479
Speaker 1: the victory parades began in Paris. So welcome to the

1701
01:49:58,560 --> 01:50:02,880
Speaker 1: unfinished war. You like to think World War One ended, folks,

1702
01:50:03,040 --> 01:50:06,479
Speaker 1: It never did. It metastasized. The collapse of the Ottoman

1703
01:50:06,479 --> 01:50:09,280
Speaker 1: Empire created a power vacuum that has never truly been filled.

1704
01:50:10,040 --> 01:50:12,720
Speaker 1: I argue that to this day, World War One is

1705
01:50:12,720 --> 01:50:17,760
Speaker 1: an unresolved conflict, no less unresolved than the Korean War.

1706
01:50:18,800 --> 01:50:21,120
Speaker 1: Every crisis you can name in the modern Middle East,

1707
01:50:21,160 --> 01:50:24,679
Speaker 1: from Israel and Palestine to the Sunni Shia divide in Iraq,

1708
01:50:25,040 --> 01:50:28,439
Speaker 1: from the Syrian Civil War to Turkey's uneasy relationship with

1709
01:50:28,479 --> 01:50:32,000
Speaker 1: its Kurtis population, all of it traces back to those

1710
01:50:32,000 --> 01:50:36,320
Speaker 1: few months between October nineteen eighteen and the early nineteen twenties.

1711
01:50:37,240 --> 01:50:39,960
Speaker 1: Europe may have stopped fighting, but the Middle East never

1712
01:50:40,040 --> 01:50:44,479
Speaker 1: got its peace conference. It got foreign administrators, new flags,

1713
01:50:44,600 --> 01:50:47,519
Speaker 1: and a ton of broken promises. The British had pledged

1714
01:50:47,560 --> 01:50:50,559
Speaker 1: independence to Arab leaders who fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia.

1715
01:50:51,280 --> 01:50:54,320
Speaker 1: They had also promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine through

1716
01:50:54,360 --> 01:50:58,280
Speaker 1: the Balfour Declaration. Well, guess what those two commitments could

1717
01:50:58,280 --> 01:51:03,000
Speaker 1: not coexist. Still living with this contradiction today. The French,

1718
01:51:03,000 --> 01:51:05,680
Speaker 1: for their part, wanted to secure influence from the Mediterranean

1719
01:51:05,680 --> 01:51:08,759
Speaker 1: to the Euphrates, and the Turk, stripped of an empire,

1720
01:51:09,439 --> 01:51:13,280
Speaker 1: turned inward, rallying behind a young general named Mustafa Kamal

1721
01:51:13,400 --> 01:51:16,519
Speaker 1: Ada Turk who would fight to reclaim sovereignty and reinvent

1722
01:51:16,560 --> 01:51:20,479
Speaker 1: Turkey as a secular republic. By nineteen twenty three. It's

1723
01:51:20,520 --> 01:51:24,400
Speaker 1: fascinating to go to be in Ankara. I've been there

1724
01:51:24,439 --> 01:51:28,679
Speaker 1: a couple of times for work back in the day,

1725
01:51:29,080 --> 01:51:31,280
Speaker 1: and how important out of Turk is. He sort of

1726
01:51:31,560 --> 01:51:36,200
Speaker 1: treated like the George Washington now of Turkey there, but

1727
01:51:36,600 --> 01:51:40,040
Speaker 1: it is as strange. It's almost as if Turk, you know,

1728
01:51:40,200 --> 01:51:44,479
Speaker 1: Turkey became this sort of modern country then. But it's

1729
01:51:44,520 --> 01:51:47,360
Speaker 1: weird to have so little about the Ottoman Empire itself

1730
01:51:49,280 --> 01:51:53,680
Speaker 1: when you're there. But the Caliphate, the symbolic headship of

1731
01:51:53,720 --> 01:51:56,520
Speaker 1: the Muslim world, was gone, and the vacuum of spiritual

1732
01:51:56,520 --> 01:51:59,960
Speaker 1: authority has haunted the Islamic world ever since as well.

1733
01:52:01,479 --> 01:52:03,880
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, we teach World War One

1734
01:52:03,960 --> 01:52:07,200
Speaker 1: mostly as a prequel, the war that made the next

1735
01:52:07,200 --> 01:52:10,880
Speaker 1: war possible. Right almost, I promise you all of you

1736
01:52:10,920 --> 01:52:12,840
Speaker 1: go back and think about how you were taught World

1737
01:52:12,840 --> 01:52:15,559
Speaker 1: War One, and I promise you you likely taught it

1738
01:52:15,640 --> 01:52:19,400
Speaker 1: like this. We talk about German reparations, the Treaty of Versailles,

1739
01:52:19,760 --> 01:52:22,240
Speaker 1: the rise of Hitler, all through the prism of Europe.

1740
01:52:22,760 --> 01:52:25,680
Speaker 1: We barely mention the Ottoman empires collapse, even though it's

1741
01:52:25,920 --> 01:52:29,640
Speaker 1: arguably the most consequential outcome of the entire conflict. We

1742
01:52:29,720 --> 01:52:31,240
Speaker 1: treat the Great War as if it ended in the

1743
01:52:31,280 --> 01:52:34,519
Speaker 1: mud in France, not in the deserts of Arabia or

1744
01:52:34,560 --> 01:52:38,760
Speaker 1: the streets of Istanbul. Because guess what, it's not a

1745
01:52:38,800 --> 01:52:41,840
Speaker 1: clean history if you have to go in there, because

1746
01:52:41,840 --> 01:52:45,400
Speaker 1: it's a complicated history. Let's talk about there's no clean narrative.

1747
01:52:45,760 --> 01:52:48,160
Speaker 1: There's not a it's hard to find good guy, bad

1748
01:52:48,200 --> 01:52:52,160
Speaker 1: guy back and forth here, black hat, white hat type

1749
01:52:52,200 --> 01:52:56,679
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's simply competing betrayals and a centurial fallout.

1750
01:52:57,240 --> 01:52:59,479
Speaker 1: But if we're serious about understanding why the modern Middle

1751
01:52:59,479 --> 01:53:02,080
Speaker 1: East looks the way it does, why its borders don't

1752
01:53:02,080 --> 01:53:05,960
Speaker 1: fit its peoples, why faith and nationalism remained so intertwined,

1753
01:53:06,320 --> 01:53:09,519
Speaker 1: why outside powers keep being pulled back in, we have

1754
01:53:09,640 --> 01:53:12,519
Speaker 1: to start with the Armistice of Mudros, not the one

1755
01:53:13,120 --> 01:53:18,040
Speaker 1: at campaignang One hundred plus years later, the ghosts of

1756
01:53:18,080 --> 01:53:21,719
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen are still arguing. Turkey is once again projecting

1757
01:53:21,720 --> 01:53:25,880
Speaker 1: power into its old Ottoman neighborhoods, Northern Syria, the Caucasis,

1758
01:53:26,080 --> 01:53:29,880
Speaker 1: and the Balkans. What President Erdowan openly calls a neo

1759
01:53:29,960 --> 01:53:33,080
Speaker 1: Ottoman vision, Arab nationalism born in the ashes of the

1760
01:53:33,120 --> 01:53:37,759
Speaker 1: empire that's faded into sectarianism, and Israel and Palestine remained

1761
01:53:37,800 --> 01:53:41,439
Speaker 1: the unfinished ledger of those post war promises. The irony

1762
01:53:41,439 --> 01:53:44,680
Speaker 1: of Armistic's Day is that it celebrates the idea of finality,

1763
01:53:45,080 --> 01:53:47,120
Speaker 1: the notion that a world war could end cleanly with

1764
01:53:47,200 --> 01:53:49,920
Speaker 1: signatures and silence. We're so proud of ourselves about it,

1765
01:53:50,520 --> 01:53:52,599
Speaker 1: But the Middle East proves the opposite, that some wars

1766
01:53:52,600 --> 01:53:56,280
Speaker 1: don't end, they just simply changed shape. The Ottoman Empire fell,

1767
01:53:56,880 --> 01:54:01,599
Speaker 1: but the conflicts it managed among ethnicities, religious and empires

1768
01:54:01,640 --> 01:54:07,400
Speaker 1: survived that fall. So this week, as we mark Armistice Day,

1769
01:54:07,560 --> 01:54:10,439
Speaker 1: listen for the echo under that bugle call. That's not

1770
01:54:10,520 --> 01:54:13,320
Speaker 1: just the sound of the guns going silent. It is

1771
01:54:13,320 --> 01:54:16,600
Speaker 1: the sound of an empire collapsing, of maps being redrawn,

1772
01:54:17,520 --> 01:54:20,800
Speaker 1: of the modern Middle East being born in chaos when

1773
01:54:20,840 --> 01:54:24,559
Speaker 1: we teach history in this country, we spend too much

1774
01:54:24,600 --> 01:54:27,920
Speaker 1: time teaching about the Western Front. Maybe it's time we

1775
01:54:27,960 --> 01:54:31,240
Speaker 1: also teach the Eastern aftermath, because the world that ended

1776
01:54:31,240 --> 01:54:33,280
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen is the same one we're still trying

1777
01:54:33,320 --> 01:54:37,480
Speaker 1: to manage today. And by the way, I believe that

1778
01:54:37,600 --> 01:54:41,880
Speaker 1: the shocking amount of young people that don't understand the

1779
01:54:41,920 --> 01:54:44,480
Speaker 1: history of the Middle East and think it all began

1780
01:54:45,680 --> 01:54:47,920
Speaker 1: with a partition in nineteen forty eight by the new

1781
01:54:48,040 --> 01:54:52,280
Speaker 1: United Nations. This is among the reason they're so ignorant

1782
01:54:52,400 --> 01:54:57,200
Speaker 1: of that era because of how poorly we collectively taught

1783
01:54:57,200 --> 01:55:00,680
Speaker 1: our own society about World War One. So as a

1784
01:55:00,760 --> 01:55:05,160
Speaker 1: Jewish American, I do get really upset and worked up.

1785
01:55:05,240 --> 01:55:09,160
Speaker 1: And I've been a huge advocate and really believe we've

1786
01:55:09,240 --> 01:55:13,280
Speaker 1: got to improve how we teach World War One larger

1787
01:55:13,480 --> 01:55:17,560
Speaker 1: in middle school, in high school, not just waiting for

1788
01:55:17,680 --> 01:55:21,520
Speaker 1: college to learn about the Ottoman Empire. It would have

1789
01:55:21,600 --> 01:55:25,480
Speaker 1: a better understanding of the Muslim religion, we'd have a

1790
01:55:25,480 --> 01:55:28,480
Speaker 1: better understanding of the Middle East, and yes, people would

1791
01:55:28,480 --> 01:55:30,680
Speaker 1: have a better understanding of the history of the Jews

1792
01:55:31,120 --> 01:55:35,880
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem. The Great War never truly ended. It simply

1793
01:55:35,960 --> 01:55:40,000
Speaker 1: left us a lot of homework. There you go, there's

1794
01:55:40,040 --> 01:55:46,520
Speaker 1: your toodcast time machine history lesson of the week. I

1795
01:55:46,560 --> 01:55:49,480
Speaker 1: know we don't know the names as well. Doesn't seem

1796
01:55:49,600 --> 01:55:52,440
Speaker 1: like that history is as fun as watching a Netflix

1797
01:55:52,480 --> 01:55:57,960
Speaker 1: documentary about Hitler and his goons. But trust me, you'll

1798
01:55:58,040 --> 01:56:00,840
Speaker 1: understand the Middle East of today a lot better if

1799
01:56:00,880 --> 01:56:03,560
Speaker 1: you spend some time learning more about the fall of

1800
01:56:03,600 --> 01:56:05,800
Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire. All right, with that, let's take a

1801
01:56:05,800 --> 01:56:07,760
Speaker 1: few questions ask Chuck.

1802
01:56:14,560 --> 01:56:15,360
Speaker 2: As Chuke.

1803
01:56:18,000 --> 01:56:20,880
Speaker 1: This one comes from Betsy W. Longtime follow here from

1804
01:56:20,880 --> 01:56:23,080
Speaker 1: your time covering elections on NBC to Meet the Press

1805
01:56:23,080 --> 01:56:25,080
Speaker 1: to the Check podcast. Can you please explain the rules

1806
01:56:25,120 --> 01:56:27,440
Speaker 1: of voting in the Senate, specifically with regard to why

1807
01:56:27,480 --> 01:56:29,600
Speaker 1: and when a simple majority is needed to pass something

1808
01:56:29,680 --> 01:56:32,920
Speaker 1: such as HR one versus the Clean Resolution, which needs

1809
01:56:32,920 --> 01:56:36,160
Speaker 1: a sixty vote majority, and then this is considered the filibuster.

1810
01:56:36,240 --> 01:56:38,320
Speaker 1: Thank you for including a snapshot of sports on each show.

1811
01:56:38,480 --> 01:56:40,560
Speaker 1: Helps me keeping the loop for some upcoming games. Take

1812
01:56:40,600 --> 01:56:47,040
Speaker 1: care so you know, look, you have most of the

1813
01:56:47,080 --> 01:56:50,760
Speaker 1: time you need sixty votes in order to avoid a filibuster.

1814
01:56:50,960 --> 01:56:54,480
Speaker 1: And once you avoid what it technically is, it's not

1815
01:56:54,560 --> 01:56:57,840
Speaker 1: the legislation itself that is subject to sixty votes. It

1816
01:56:57,920 --> 01:57:04,680
Speaker 1: is the rule of the rule to finish the debate,

1817
01:57:05,960 --> 01:57:09,839
Speaker 1: to either start debate or end debate, that is subject

1818
01:57:09,840 --> 01:57:14,080
Speaker 1: to the sixty votes unless and here are the exceptions. Now,

1819
01:57:14,400 --> 01:57:17,280
Speaker 1: the exceptions have to do with budget reconciliation. If you

1820
01:57:17,480 --> 01:57:20,520
Speaker 1: quote unquote do a reconciliation, So anything that impacts the budget,

1821
01:57:20,560 --> 01:57:23,800
Speaker 1: you can make it a fifty vote threshold. And you

1822
01:57:23,880 --> 01:57:30,680
Speaker 1: see Biden used that for his agenda. Trump used it

1823
01:57:30,680 --> 01:57:32,560
Speaker 1: in his first term for his tax cut. Trump just

1824
01:57:32,640 --> 01:57:36,760
Speaker 1: used it with the Big Beautiful bill. Ironically, that is

1825
01:57:36,800 --> 01:57:39,760
Speaker 1: not how Barack Obama passed Obamacare. He had to do

1826
01:57:39,800 --> 01:57:43,000
Speaker 1: it with sixty votes. He got sixty in the Senate.

1827
01:57:43,640 --> 01:57:46,440
Speaker 1: Then they lost a vote in the Scott Brown special

1828
01:57:46,480 --> 01:57:49,440
Speaker 1: election that got Scott Brown elected for the Ted Kennedy

1829
01:57:49,560 --> 01:57:52,280
Speaker 1: after Ted Kennedy died in that seat, and then he

1830
01:57:52,360 --> 01:57:54,480
Speaker 1: went down to fifty nine. And then that's why all

1831
01:57:54,560 --> 01:57:56,360
Speaker 1: the action ended up in the House and the House

1832
01:57:56,400 --> 01:58:00,080
Speaker 1: had to basically adopt the Senate bill as is, and

1833
01:58:00,120 --> 01:58:02,640
Speaker 1: it was sixty votes. Now, the other exceptions to sixty

1834
01:58:02,680 --> 01:58:04,960
Speaker 1: votes now are judicial. Are all the judges right, and

1835
01:58:05,000 --> 01:58:09,600
Speaker 1: now presidential cabinet appointee confirmations. All of this stuff now

1836
01:58:09,640 --> 01:58:13,800
Speaker 1: has been they've essentially made it exempt from the sixty

1837
01:58:13,880 --> 01:58:18,640
Speaker 1: vote debate threshold. I hope that so anything that isn't

1838
01:58:18,680 --> 01:58:22,440
Speaker 1: part of a budget reconciliation process, which again you have

1839
01:58:22,520 --> 01:58:26,040
Speaker 1: to declare that it's part of reconciliation. So in theory,

1840
01:58:26,120 --> 01:58:29,200
Speaker 1: if you wanted HR one, the big sort of campaign finance,

1841
01:58:30,240 --> 01:58:32,280
Speaker 1: if you can make a case that it's part of

1842
01:58:32,320 --> 01:58:35,800
Speaker 1: a budget issue, you could in theory, you know, tie

1843
01:58:35,880 --> 01:58:41,640
Speaker 1: some of it to budgetary and again it's subject of

1844
01:58:39,400 --> 01:58:45,720
Speaker 1: the of the Senate parliamentarian determining whether an issue is

1845
01:58:45,800 --> 01:58:48,839
Speaker 1: part you know, would be part of impact the federal

1846
01:58:48,880 --> 01:58:51,720
Speaker 1: budget or not. And some of those things in HR

1847
01:58:51,800 --> 01:58:57,440
Speaker 1: one clearly are not technically budgetary impactful on the budgetary

1848
01:58:57,440 --> 01:59:00,240
Speaker 1: side of things. So I hope that cleared things up.

1849
01:59:00,720 --> 01:59:04,640
Speaker 1: That essentially, anything that isn't part of a reconciliation process

1850
01:59:04,760 --> 01:59:07,960
Speaker 1: or a confirmation for an appointee, either to the President's

1851
01:59:07,960 --> 01:59:12,880
Speaker 1: cabinet or the federal bench, everything else is subject to

1852
01:59:12,920 --> 01:59:19,400
Speaker 1: sixty votes. And the larger budget itself, you know, is

1853
01:59:19,640 --> 01:59:23,400
Speaker 1: subject to sixty votes. It's only if you declare a reconciliation,

1854
01:59:23,520 --> 01:59:27,240
Speaker 1: which it's sort of an invented idea that started during

1855
01:59:27,320 --> 01:59:31,800
Speaker 1: the Robert when Robert Byrd, an old timey Democrat from

1856
01:59:31,800 --> 01:59:35,760
Speaker 1: West Virginia who was Majority leader forever, he sort of

1857
01:59:35,800 --> 01:59:38,480
Speaker 1: created this process when they thought things were you know,

1858
01:59:38,760 --> 01:59:42,120
Speaker 1: every time we created these exemptions from the filibusters because

1859
01:59:42,160 --> 01:59:44,960
Speaker 1: perhaps the filibuster was being was too effective. It was

1860
01:59:45,000 --> 01:59:48,760
Speaker 1: sort of grinding things almost to a halt. And so

1861
01:59:48,800 --> 01:59:50,720
Speaker 1: whoever the Senate leader is at the time, they look

1862
01:59:50,760 --> 01:59:52,880
Speaker 1: for a carve out. The first carve out was the

1863
01:59:52,920 --> 01:59:57,160
Speaker 1: invention of this reconciliation process. Then that's where you hear

1864
01:59:57,200 --> 01:59:59,360
Speaker 1: the bird is something called a bird rule every now

1865
01:59:59,360 --> 02:00:01,280
Speaker 1: and then if you've well, it sort of has its

1866
02:00:01,360 --> 02:00:04,400
Speaker 1: origin when Robert Byrd helped sort of create the idea

1867
02:00:04,840 --> 02:00:08,600
Speaker 1: of a budget reconciliation that could be exempt from the filibuster.

1868
02:00:09,160 --> 02:00:13,040
Speaker 1: Then you have you know, Harry Reid, and he did

1869
02:00:13,080 --> 02:00:17,400
Speaker 1: it for lower court, for the lower courts, and then

1870
02:00:17,600 --> 02:00:20,640
Speaker 1: Mitch mcconnald did it for the Supreme Court. So it

1871
02:00:21,080 --> 02:00:24,160
Speaker 1: is always wherever there has been whenever a Senate leader

1872
02:00:24,200 --> 02:00:26,680
Speaker 1: feels as if they've gotten to a point where it's

1873
02:00:27,120 --> 02:00:30,960
Speaker 1: clogged up their sides agenda in one form or another.

1874
02:00:31,040 --> 02:00:34,280
Speaker 1: So we keep doing all these I will just tell

1875
02:00:34,320 --> 02:00:36,600
Speaker 1: you I'm somebody who thinks it should be seventy five

1876
02:00:36,680 --> 02:00:39,440
Speaker 1: votes all for the federal bench, and I it would

1877
02:00:39,480 --> 02:00:42,760
Speaker 1: you know, when we hold our mythical constitutional Convention in

1878
02:00:42,800 --> 02:00:44,480
Speaker 1: the next couple of years, which I hope is not

1879
02:00:44,560 --> 02:00:47,560
Speaker 1: mythical and actual real thing, that would be an amendment

1880
02:00:47,800 --> 02:00:51,760
Speaker 1: that I would say, all, maybe at least Supreme Court justices,

1881
02:00:51,840 --> 02:00:54,640
Speaker 1: maybe you start with that are subject to seventy to

1882
02:00:54,720 --> 02:00:57,760
Speaker 1: three quarters votes in the US Senate, and I promise

1883
02:00:57,800 --> 02:01:03,160
Speaker 1: you you would get more neutral, truly neutral umpire referee

1884
02:01:03,200 --> 02:01:08,080
Speaker 1: style judges if we made it seventy five votes in

1885
02:01:08,120 --> 02:01:12,440
Speaker 1: the Senate or three quarters whatever, seventy five percent whatever, whatever.

1886
02:01:12,520 --> 02:01:14,120
Speaker 1: We probably have to do a percentage because you never know,

1887
02:01:14,160 --> 02:01:16,560
Speaker 1: if we had a couple of states, right, you guys

1888
02:01:16,920 --> 02:01:20,360
Speaker 1: just learned both Puerto Rico and DC. I think within

1889
02:01:20,440 --> 02:01:23,240
Speaker 1: my lifetime. So I'd like to think I'm gonna last

1890
02:01:23,280 --> 02:01:26,440
Speaker 1: on this, on this marble that we call Earth at

1891
02:01:26,520 --> 02:01:28,560
Speaker 1: least another three decades. I think in the next three

1892
02:01:28,560 --> 02:01:32,560
Speaker 1: decades we had a state, all right. I hope that helped, Betsy.

1893
02:01:32,600 --> 02:01:34,960
Speaker 1: And if you need more clarification, shoot us another email

1894
02:01:35,040 --> 02:01:38,040
Speaker 1: and I'll clean that up for it. Next question comes

1895
02:01:38,040 --> 02:01:40,360
Speaker 1: from Bryant. While the US Virgin Islands may not meet

1896
02:01:40,360 --> 02:01:43,200
Speaker 1: today's population standards for statehood, they actually have more people

1897
02:01:43,240 --> 02:01:45,280
Speaker 1: now than Nevada did when it joined in the eighteen

1898
02:01:45,360 --> 02:01:48,800
Speaker 1: hundreds to Shay. If combined with other English speaking Caribbean

1899
02:01:48,880 --> 02:01:52,320
Speaker 1: territories like the British Virgin Islands, Antigua or Barbados, there

1900
02:01:52,320 --> 02:01:54,960
Speaker 1: could be enough population for a Caribbean West Indies state.

1901
02:01:55,360 --> 02:01:57,480
Speaker 1: It could have strategic and economic benefits for both the

1902
02:01:57,560 --> 02:01:59,280
Speaker 1: United States and those islands. Do you think an idea

1903
02:01:59,320 --> 02:02:02,640
Speaker 1: like that has any marrior, even politically Bryan, It's interesting

1904
02:02:03,000 --> 02:02:05,720
Speaker 1: your idea of putting them all together, And I do

1905
02:02:05,760 --> 02:02:09,839
Speaker 1: buy that if somehow they all did sort of banded

1906
02:02:09,880 --> 02:02:11,560
Speaker 1: together and said, hey, we wanted to be a country,

1907
02:02:12,040 --> 02:02:14,320
Speaker 1: you know, we wanted to be a or we wanted

1908
02:02:14,320 --> 02:02:17,600
Speaker 1: to be a US state, I think the United States

1909
02:02:17,640 --> 02:02:21,840
Speaker 1: would get more out of it, for sure, strategically influenced

1910
02:02:21,840 --> 02:02:25,680
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean. But everything you just described, you could

1911
02:02:25,720 --> 02:02:29,440
Speaker 1: also say, maybe they become their own country, independent of

1912
02:02:29,520 --> 02:02:33,200
Speaker 1: either the United States or the Brits or anybody else

1913
02:02:33,200 --> 02:02:37,320
Speaker 1: in Europe. Right, So that's another angle that can go in.

1914
02:02:37,720 --> 02:02:40,520
Speaker 1: I just you know, I'm just sensitive, as somebody who

1915
02:02:40,560 --> 02:02:43,760
Speaker 1: has been a resident of DC a couple of times

1916
02:02:43,800 --> 02:02:48,480
Speaker 1: in my lifetime, I'm very sensitive to taxation without representation,

1917
02:02:49,040 --> 02:02:52,120
Speaker 1: and I think when we just sort of decide that

1918
02:02:52,200 --> 02:02:55,000
Speaker 1: status quo should be there for a long period of time,

1919
02:02:55,120 --> 02:02:58,720
Speaker 1: like we've done to Puerto Ricans and people that live

1920
02:02:58,760 --> 02:03:00,480
Speaker 1: on the US Virgin Islands or pople that live in

1921
02:03:00,480 --> 02:03:02,560
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia, that we ought to be making

1922
02:03:02,600 --> 02:03:04,600
Speaker 1: a better effort to figure out how to get them

1923
02:03:04,920 --> 02:03:08,320
Speaker 1: fair representation. Next question comes from Brad, no question. Just

1924
02:03:08,320 --> 02:03:10,000
Speaker 1: want to say I loved your election. I coveraged thanks

1925
02:03:10,040 --> 02:03:12,080
Speaker 1: as a politics nerd. I love the depth you guys

1926
02:03:12,080 --> 02:03:14,600
Speaker 1: went into. Also loved all the guests. Great job all around.

1927
02:03:14,640 --> 02:03:17,680
Speaker 1: Hope you three and others do it again for the midterms. Hey, Brad,

1928
02:03:17,680 --> 02:03:19,800
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. We're pretty proud of what we did.

1929
02:03:21,160 --> 02:03:24,600
Speaker 1: Very little marketing, as you noticed, right I marketed it

1930
02:03:24,640 --> 02:03:27,520
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Chris marketed on his Stuff Decision Desk

1931
02:03:27,640 --> 02:03:32,000
Speaker 1: HQ did theirs. We believe we peaked with some like

1932
02:03:32,120 --> 02:03:35,800
Speaker 1: nearly three hundred and fifty thousand at one time. We're

1933
02:03:35,840 --> 02:03:40,880
Speaker 1: pretty convinced we probably had over half a million uniques collectively.

1934
02:03:41,080 --> 02:03:43,720
Speaker 1: You know, if you put it all together throughout the evening,

1935
02:03:46,480 --> 02:03:50,200
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the future is now. To quote quote

1936
02:03:50,240 --> 02:03:55,640
Speaker 1: an old Washington football coach named George Allen, this was

1937
02:03:56,440 --> 02:03:58,680
Speaker 1: this was basically a proof of concept, and I think

1938
02:03:58,680 --> 02:04:02,280
Speaker 1: we proved the concept. And let me just say this,

1939
02:04:02,840 --> 02:04:06,360
Speaker 1: I'll see a Texas primary night. That's the first primary night.

1940
02:04:06,400 --> 02:04:09,000
Speaker 1: I think we're going to do special coverage like that again.

1941
02:04:10,160 --> 02:04:12,840
Speaker 1: So thank you, Brad. Next question comes from Colonel Steven

1942
02:04:12,960 --> 02:04:15,280
Speaker 1: m Us Air Force retired. Hey, big fan of yours

1943
02:04:15,280 --> 02:04:16,920
Speaker 1: and curious if you can shed light on any reason

1944
02:04:16,920 --> 02:04:19,800
Speaker 1: why the twenty twenty six federal appropriations haven't approved as

1945
02:04:19,840 --> 02:04:21,880
Speaker 1: of today. I can't think of any and hope you

1946
02:04:21,920 --> 02:04:27,400
Speaker 1: will share with us your thoughts. Well, why do I

1947
02:04:27,440 --> 02:04:30,000
Speaker 1: feel like you're sort of tweaking here right Like, why

1948
02:04:30,000 --> 02:04:32,520
Speaker 1: can't they get any appropriations done? Why is it so

1949
02:04:32,720 --> 02:04:36,760
Speaker 1: difficult to get the basics done with Congress? I can't

1950
02:04:36,800 --> 02:04:40,360
Speaker 1: tell you how weak Congress is, right, it is so

1951
02:04:41,480 --> 02:04:45,880
Speaker 1: weak on this front, and the fact that they've allowed

1952
02:04:45,920 --> 02:04:51,080
Speaker 1: the executive branch to take over spending issues, you know,

1953
02:04:51,240 --> 02:04:56,920
Speaker 1: taxing authority when it comes to the tariffs, so it is,

1954
02:04:58,000 --> 02:05:01,000
Speaker 1: you know, they they do. I think they got the

1955
02:05:01,120 --> 02:05:05,040
Speaker 1: National Defense Appropriation A bill done. I believe they got that.

1956
02:05:05,120 --> 02:05:07,800
Speaker 1: You know, they they do pass some you know, these

1957
02:05:07,840 --> 02:05:11,000
Speaker 1: appropriations bills do get pass chunks at a time, so

1958
02:05:11,040 --> 02:05:14,080
Speaker 1: you'll get like, you know, dhs done, although I think

1959
02:05:14,080 --> 02:05:17,440
Speaker 1: that one's gonna be a little tougher given given what

1960
02:05:17,520 --> 02:05:20,360
Speaker 1: Ice is done, you'll get like specifics done. Usually defense

1961
02:05:20,440 --> 02:05:22,600
Speaker 1: is the easiest one to get done. That's usually where

1962
02:05:22,600 --> 02:05:25,640
Speaker 1: there's the most bipartisan you know, there's a reason the

1963
02:05:25,640 --> 02:05:29,160
Speaker 1: military industrial complex is so successful. There are so many

1964
02:05:29,200 --> 02:05:35,000
Speaker 1: congressional districts that have that have some impact on their

1965
02:05:35,040 --> 02:05:38,560
Speaker 1: economy when it comes to defense that you see, that

1966
02:05:38,800 --> 02:05:43,160
Speaker 1: is usually the one appropriations bill that gets approved and implemented,

1967
02:05:43,520 --> 02:05:46,200
Speaker 1: but so many other ones sometimes never get implemented. They're

1968
02:05:46,240 --> 02:05:49,120
Speaker 1: basically you keep the same levels of funding as the

1969
02:05:49,200 --> 02:05:54,160
Speaker 1: year before and it keeps going through. So look, I

1970
02:05:54,240 --> 02:05:57,120
Speaker 1: just think we've got Congress. You know that we've had

1971
02:05:57,160 --> 02:06:02,640
Speaker 1: a succession of weak speakers who maybe they're politically strong,

1972
02:06:02,760 --> 02:06:06,200
Speaker 1: like Nancy Pelosi was politically strong with inside the Democratic Party,

1973
02:06:07,480 --> 02:06:11,240
Speaker 1: but all of these speakers were too weak when their

1974
02:06:11,400 --> 02:06:14,520
Speaker 1: party had the White House and we're too willing to

1975
02:06:14,600 --> 02:06:20,280
Speaker 1: give up certain things, you know, due to pressure from

1976
02:06:20,320 --> 02:06:24,040
Speaker 1: their political allies in the executive branch. And you know,

1977
02:06:24,960 --> 02:06:26,920
Speaker 1: you chip away, you chip away, you chip away, chip away,

1978
02:06:26,960 --> 02:06:28,960
Speaker 1: and then you have a Then you suddenly are facing

1979
02:06:28,960 --> 02:06:31,640
Speaker 1: the constitutional crisis that arguably we're in the middle of

1980
02:06:31,720 --> 02:06:38,040
Speaker 1: right now, and that is very frustrating. Hey, colonel, first,

1981
02:06:38,120 --> 02:06:39,920
Speaker 1: just thank you for your service. And this trigger is

1982
02:06:39,920 --> 02:06:41,680
Speaker 1: something else I wanted to share with you guys before

1983
02:06:41,680 --> 02:06:46,480
Speaker 1: I get into my football my football nuggets. Here for

1984
02:06:46,560 --> 02:06:50,160
Speaker 1: the weekend, I spend Friday evening at a terrific event

1985
02:06:50,320 --> 02:06:54,680
Speaker 1: was a fundraiser called Vet's in Tech. It was founded

1986
02:06:54,720 --> 02:06:57,240
Speaker 1: and run by this woman named Catherine Webster. I met

1987
02:06:57,240 --> 02:06:59,920
Speaker 1: her at a fundraiser for the Medal of Honor Museum

1988
02:07:00,080 --> 02:07:02,160
Speaker 1: few months ago that was taking place here in DC.

1989
02:07:02,720 --> 02:07:07,440
Speaker 1: I don't do a lot of socializing in DC very much,

1990
02:07:08,480 --> 02:07:10,960
Speaker 1: just as a journalist there's always and everything has gotten

1991
02:07:10,960 --> 02:07:13,400
Speaker 1: so partisan that I only like to try to go

1992
02:07:13,440 --> 02:07:16,120
Speaker 1: to things where I think you'll be sort of above politics.

1993
02:07:16,680 --> 02:07:19,760
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor fundraiser is one of them, and the

1994
02:07:19,760 --> 02:07:25,040
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor Museum, by the way, just you know,

1995
02:07:26,320 --> 02:07:28,000
Speaker 1: I as a sports fan love to give a lot

1996
02:07:28,000 --> 02:07:30,680
Speaker 1: of grief to Jerry Jones, right, he is fun to

1997
02:07:30,680 --> 02:07:33,640
Speaker 1: give grief about. He's not been the smartest of owners

1998
02:07:34,120 --> 02:07:35,920
Speaker 1: where he might be. No, actually I disagree. He's been

1999
02:07:35,960 --> 02:07:39,760
Speaker 1: a great business owner of the Cowboys. He's not the

2000
02:07:39,760 --> 02:07:43,280
Speaker 1: best general manager when it comes to the on the

2001
02:07:43,320 --> 02:07:45,920
Speaker 1: field product, but everything he does off the field is

2002
02:07:46,840 --> 02:07:51,360
Speaker 1: actually quite savvy, quite smart. He and his daughter Charlotte Jones,

2003
02:07:51,400 --> 02:07:54,760
Speaker 1: have been big supporters. They essentially the money that was

2004
02:07:54,840 --> 02:07:58,040
Speaker 1: raised for the Medal of Honor Museum. It is essentially

2005
02:07:58,120 --> 02:08:01,200
Speaker 1: on the campus of AT and T Stadium there in Arlington, Texas.

2006
02:08:01,440 --> 02:08:04,080
Speaker 1: I think it's a terrific idea to take something of

2007
02:08:04,240 --> 02:08:07,320
Speaker 1: historical importance like a museum that honors our Medal of

2008
02:08:07,320 --> 02:08:11,400
Speaker 1: Honor recipients, which every story if you've ever read just one,

2009
02:08:12,280 --> 02:08:14,280
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to, if you're ever feeling

2010
02:08:14,320 --> 02:08:17,240
Speaker 1: really shitty about yourself or really shitty about the country,

2011
02:08:17,960 --> 02:08:26,040
Speaker 1: go just read any citation for a Medal of Honor winner.

2012
02:08:27,400 --> 02:08:30,240
Speaker 1: I mean, you could literally pick one at random and

2013
02:08:30,280 --> 02:08:32,640
Speaker 1: you'll see like, oh my god, how selfless they were,

2014
02:08:32,800 --> 02:08:35,480
Speaker 1: Oh my god, they saved how many lives? Oh my god,

2015
02:08:35,520 --> 02:08:38,840
Speaker 1: they did what you know, if you're into Marvel superheroes,

2016
02:08:39,400 --> 02:08:43,360
Speaker 1: these people are real superheroes in the Medal of Honor Museum.

2017
02:08:43,440 --> 02:08:48,120
Speaker 1: So anyway, I say all that, it's just to give

2018
02:08:48,160 --> 02:08:50,480
Speaker 1: you a little bit of backstory of how I got involved,

2019
02:08:50,480 --> 02:08:54,200
Speaker 1: and Katherin Webster asked me to come out and say

2020
02:08:54,200 --> 02:08:58,080
Speaker 1: a few words. Now, I'll be honest, I didn't. I

2021
02:08:58,080 --> 02:09:02,600
Speaker 1: didn't feel qualified. I haven't served, and but I am

2022
02:09:02,840 --> 02:09:06,160
Speaker 1: somebody who believes that we need more veterans and more

2023
02:09:06,200 --> 02:09:10,000
Speaker 1: walks of life. Now, this was a fundraiser that was

2024
02:09:10,640 --> 02:09:14,720
Speaker 1: for you know, encouraging the tech community to recruit and

2025
02:09:14,800 --> 02:09:18,840
Speaker 1: hire veterans. But really what I decided to use my

2026
02:09:18,920 --> 02:09:21,440
Speaker 1: time to do is basically making a case that we

2027
02:09:21,480 --> 02:09:25,280
Speaker 1: need veterans in a in a in a bunch of

2028
02:09:25,280 --> 02:09:27,800
Speaker 1: walks of life. And you guys have heard me talk

2029
02:09:27,880 --> 02:09:30,520
Speaker 1: about it before, but it's a you know, we've got

2030
02:09:30,560 --> 02:09:33,160
Speaker 1: a trust deficit in this country. We've got to trust

2031
02:09:33,160 --> 02:09:36,360
Speaker 1: deficit in my industry, in the media, and I'm you know,

2032
02:09:36,440 --> 02:09:38,840
Speaker 1: I believe that in order to restore trust, we have

2033
02:09:38,880 --> 02:09:39,560
Speaker 1: to start locally.

2034
02:09:39,680 --> 02:09:39,880
Speaker 2: Right.

2035
02:09:39,880 --> 02:09:43,440
Speaker 1: It's ground up, Frankly, it's everybody has to when you're

2036
02:09:43,480 --> 02:09:46,240
Speaker 1: rebuilding trusts. You start from the bottom, right, So we

2037
02:09:46,320 --> 02:09:49,280
Speaker 1: and media have to start local. In politics, you've got

2038
02:09:49,280 --> 02:09:51,120
Speaker 1: to start at the city council level, right, you know,

2039
02:09:51,400 --> 02:09:54,640
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But we do have one entity,

2040
02:09:55,240 --> 02:09:58,280
Speaker 1: and hopefully it doesn't get messed up by the current

2041
02:09:58,360 --> 02:10:01,400
Speaker 1: leadership right now. But the one institution in America that

2042
02:10:01,440 --> 02:10:04,680
Speaker 1: still has an enormous level of trust is the military,

2043
02:10:04,800 --> 02:10:09,720
Speaker 1: particularly military veterans. You know, it's it's I think been

2044
02:10:09,760 --> 02:10:14,880
Speaker 1: one of the great things that have changed about our

2045
02:10:14,920 --> 02:10:18,120
Speaker 1: society that we have We as a society collectively have

2046
02:10:18,320 --> 02:10:25,280
Speaker 1: compartmentalized the decisions civilians make in misusing our military, say

2047
02:10:25,280 --> 02:10:28,960
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, from those who are

2048
02:10:28,960 --> 02:10:35,440
Speaker 1: following orders and who are you know who who? You know?

2049
02:10:35,480 --> 02:10:37,960
Speaker 1: They didn't make these political decisions, but they had to

2050
02:10:38,040 --> 02:10:42,600
Speaker 1: execute a decision under under our constitution. And we have

2051
02:10:42,680 --> 02:10:45,360
Speaker 1: figured out how not to punish veterans. You know, we

2052
02:10:45,360 --> 02:10:48,960
Speaker 1: weren't look as I say, my father's generation, my mother's generation,

2053
02:10:49,080 --> 02:10:54,040
Speaker 1: they were you know, that is not how Vietnam soldiers retreated.

2054
02:10:54,200 --> 02:10:59,240
Speaker 1: They were sometimes held seen as to be held as

2055
02:10:59,280 --> 02:11:01,920
Speaker 1: accountable as the civilian leaders who led us into that

2056
02:11:02,000 --> 02:11:06,520
Speaker 1: horrible conflict. I think we've now matured, frankly as a

2057
02:11:06,560 --> 02:11:10,560
Speaker 1: society and see it that way. But the reason that

2058
02:11:10,600 --> 02:11:12,480
Speaker 1: I want to see more in the way, I call

2059
02:11:12,560 --> 02:11:14,120
Speaker 1: it the reason I want to see more veterans, and

2060
02:11:14,160 --> 02:11:17,000
Speaker 1: I think we could. You know, the one candidate for

2061
02:11:17,040 --> 02:11:19,320
Speaker 1: president that I thought could have broken through both the

2062
02:11:19,360 --> 02:11:22,040
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans, could have broken through as an independent

2063
02:11:23,400 --> 02:11:26,560
Speaker 1: was Bill McRaven. He was the of course he was.

2064
02:11:27,560 --> 02:11:30,040
Speaker 1: He's retired admiral, but he was. He's the architect of

2065
02:11:30,080 --> 02:11:33,840
Speaker 1: the Bin Laden Raid, sort of oversaw what Seal Team

2066
02:11:33,960 --> 02:11:38,120
Speaker 1: six accomplished. When he left the military, became the chancellor

2067
02:11:38,120 --> 02:11:41,920
Speaker 1: of the UT system, and he also gave one of

2068
02:11:41,920 --> 02:11:45,280
Speaker 1: the great commencement addresses of all time, the Make Your

2069
02:11:45,320 --> 02:11:47,640
Speaker 1: Bed Speech. He turned it into a book, but I

2070
02:11:47,640 --> 02:11:49,960
Speaker 1: promise you, if you want to go look at it

2071
02:11:50,000 --> 02:11:53,800
Speaker 1: on YouTube, you'd be one of twenty million people who

2072
02:11:53,880 --> 02:11:59,160
Speaker 1: have who have watched his make Your Bed Speech. But

2073
02:11:59,240 --> 02:12:01,280
Speaker 1: the reason I thought we needed him is because I

2074
02:12:01,320 --> 02:12:05,840
Speaker 1: do think we need a lesson that we don't. We

2075
02:12:06,160 --> 02:12:09,080
Speaker 1: need what I call pastors for patriotism. And that was

2076
02:12:09,080 --> 02:12:11,920
Speaker 1: my plea. You know, we need veterans in the classroom

2077
02:12:12,160 --> 02:12:14,880
Speaker 1: who can be you know, I'm not a religious person,

2078
02:12:14,960 --> 02:12:16,760
Speaker 1: but so that's why when I say, you know, in

2079
02:12:16,760 --> 02:12:21,560
Speaker 1: some ways I worship our Constitution, Right I do. I

2080
02:12:21,560 --> 02:12:24,560
Speaker 1: think it's a marvel and I think that it gives

2081
02:12:24,640 --> 02:12:28,240
Speaker 1: us all the tools for self governance that there is,

2082
02:12:28,280 --> 02:12:30,120
Speaker 1: and I think we could make some improvements to it.

2083
02:12:30,160 --> 02:12:32,839
Speaker 1: And you know, I think we should have a constitutional convention.

2084
02:12:33,320 --> 02:12:36,440
Speaker 1: It's time to update the constitution for the twenty first century.

2085
02:12:36,440 --> 02:12:39,760
Speaker 1: I think there's bipartisan agreement that there's plenty of things

2086
02:12:39,840 --> 02:12:42,480
Speaker 1: we can do in there. Let's contemplate age limits, Let's

2087
02:12:42,480 --> 02:12:47,040
Speaker 1: contemplate term limits. Let's contemplate campaign finance reform. Let's contemplate

2088
02:12:47,080 --> 02:12:49,720
Speaker 1: a violence budget amendment. There's a lot of things here

2089
02:12:49,760 --> 02:12:53,280
Speaker 1: that I think we should we should be thinking about.

2090
02:12:54,920 --> 02:12:58,680
Speaker 1: But it seems to me that we keep trying our

2091
02:12:58,680 --> 02:13:01,880
Speaker 1: two political parties keep trying to paint the other side

2092
02:13:01,920 --> 02:13:04,720
Speaker 1: is unpatriotic. Let me just tell you what patriotism is.

2093
02:13:04,760 --> 02:13:08,320
Speaker 1: Patriotism is waving the flag, and patriotism is burning the flag.

2094
02:13:08,520 --> 02:13:11,800
Speaker 1: Patriotism is flipping off the president, and patriotism is saluting

2095
02:13:11,800 --> 02:13:16,120
Speaker 1: the president. Right, That's what made makes our country different, Right,

2096
02:13:16,520 --> 02:13:19,600
Speaker 1: It's we were an idea and we were wanted to

2097
02:13:19,800 --> 02:13:23,160
Speaker 1: have essentially free will and self governance and self determination.

2098
02:13:24,440 --> 02:13:28,120
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of our system at its best.

2099
02:13:29,360 --> 02:13:32,080
Speaker 1: And I think it is members of the military who

2100
02:13:32,280 --> 02:13:36,200
Speaker 1: are sometimes forced to be in a platoon with people

2101
02:13:36,200 --> 02:13:38,760
Speaker 1: that don't look like them, that don't worship the same God,

2102
02:13:38,960 --> 02:13:42,040
Speaker 1: that don't live in the same you know, urban America,

2103
02:13:42,160 --> 02:13:49,360
Speaker 1: rural America. They're all US soldiers, and the experience over

2104
02:13:49,440 --> 02:13:54,440
Speaker 1: time of figuring out how to work with a diverse

2105
02:13:54,520 --> 02:14:00,640
Speaker 1: set of fellow Americans only makes you potential. I think

2106
02:14:00,680 --> 02:14:02,960
Speaker 1: that's why our American veterans, and on this Veteran's Day,

2107
02:14:03,400 --> 02:14:06,480
Speaker 1: our American veterans can be the pastors for patriotism that

2108
02:14:06,520 --> 02:14:10,400
Speaker 1: we need to essentially not allow a political party to

2109
02:14:10,520 --> 02:14:14,400
Speaker 1: hijack patriotism, not allow a political party to hijack the flag,

2110
02:14:15,320 --> 02:14:19,520
Speaker 1: and instead sort of teach what this constitution is about.

2111
02:14:20,320 --> 02:14:23,080
Speaker 1: But I think that you know, you bring a veteran

2112
02:14:23,120 --> 02:14:27,400
Speaker 1: into your workforce, whether it's a teacher, whether it's at

2113
02:14:27,400 --> 02:14:30,880
Speaker 1: a tech company, whether it's in a media company, and

2114
02:14:30,960 --> 02:14:37,880
Speaker 1: you're going to automatically diversify the experience of your workforce.

2115
02:14:40,280 --> 02:14:43,040
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for somebody that is going to

2116
02:14:43,080 --> 02:14:47,840
Speaker 1: be able to handle high pressure situations or uncomfortable situations.

2117
02:14:48,720 --> 02:14:50,480
Speaker 1: A veteran is more likely to be able to do

2118
02:14:50,520 --> 02:14:53,240
Speaker 1: that better than anybody else. But I also think that

2119
02:14:53,360 --> 02:14:56,560
Speaker 1: a veteran has the ability to culturally help us all

2120
02:14:57,520 --> 02:15:08,200
Speaker 1: appreciate what the idea of America is in its best form.

2121
02:15:08,560 --> 02:15:12,840
Speaker 1: So look, it's yes, it's a fundraiser. You can say

2122
02:15:12,840 --> 02:15:16,120
Speaker 1: I'm being a little sappy here, but I mean it here.

2123
02:15:16,360 --> 02:15:23,040
Speaker 1: I think that there's something about going through and it's

2124
02:15:23,040 --> 02:15:25,200
Speaker 1: why I think national service could be such a help.

2125
02:15:25,480 --> 02:15:29,120
Speaker 1: We could take mandatory national service and go beyond just

2126
02:15:29,160 --> 02:15:32,920
Speaker 1: the military with where you would serve, Serve in classrooms,

2127
02:15:32,960 --> 02:15:37,440
Speaker 1: serve in river cleanups, serve in community hospitals, serve in

2128
02:15:37,560 --> 02:15:43,600
Speaker 1: community centers that help people find work. Things like that.

2129
02:15:44,720 --> 02:15:47,880
Speaker 1: Having rural twenty one year olds and urban twenty one

2130
02:15:47,960 --> 02:15:50,760
Speaker 1: year olds working for a common good and for the

2131
02:15:50,800 --> 02:15:55,160
Speaker 1: same goal, I think it would help us all appreciate

2132
02:15:56,000 --> 02:15:59,360
Speaker 1: just the ideal and the idea of America. So there's

2133
02:15:59,360 --> 02:16:00,800
Speaker 1: my there's my veteran state.

2134
02:16:00,640 --> 02:16:02,120
Speaker 2: Pitch for you.

2135
02:16:09,760 --> 02:16:11,680
Speaker 1: All Right, with that, let's have a little lightness here

2136
02:16:11,680 --> 02:16:15,040
Speaker 1: and let's talk a little football. First of all, I

2137
02:16:15,120 --> 02:16:18,040
Speaker 1: was down I just saw my beloved Miami Hurricanes again

2138
02:16:18,160 --> 02:16:24,400
Speaker 1: back to back weeks. They won after another sluggish first

2139
02:16:24,440 --> 02:16:28,080
Speaker 1: half with terrible play calling. Now I was not there

2140
02:16:28,080 --> 02:16:30,160
Speaker 1: for the terrible play calling in the first half. I

2141
02:16:30,280 --> 02:16:32,320
Speaker 1: was there to see my daughter get hunted during one

2142
02:16:32,320 --> 02:16:35,879
Speaker 1: of the commercial breaks in the first quarter. She's part

2143
02:16:35,920 --> 02:16:38,160
Speaker 1: of the homecoming committee. She put on. This was the

2144
02:16:38,600 --> 02:16:41,320
Speaker 1: U one hundredth. It's the hundredth anniversary of the Unversity

2145
02:16:41,320 --> 02:16:43,840
Speaker 1: of Miami. This was the one hundredth homecoming, so it

2146
02:16:43,920 --> 02:16:46,760
Speaker 1: was pretty special that my daughter, being a senior, got

2147
02:16:46,760 --> 02:16:51,840
Speaker 1: to essentially help organize it. She her fingerprints were all

2148
02:16:51,879 --> 02:16:57,080
Speaker 1: over the campus. It was kind of cool to see that,

2149
02:16:58,160 --> 02:17:00,880
Speaker 1: so I'm pretty proud of her. It was neat to

2150
02:17:00,879 --> 02:17:03,560
Speaker 1: see her get honored on the field. Her old man's

2151
02:17:03,640 --> 02:17:05,920
Speaker 1: never been honored at a University of Miami game, so

2152
02:17:07,320 --> 02:17:13,280
Speaker 1: it's uh. She she was beyond ecstatic, and so was I.

2153
02:17:13,280 --> 02:17:16,119
Speaker 1: I'm glad we won. She was not happy when Miami

2154
02:17:16,120 --> 02:17:19,600
Speaker 1: lost SMU last week. Worried that somehow fewer people show up,

2155
02:17:19,600 --> 02:17:22,120
Speaker 1: and it's possible fewer. I think the stands were a

2156
02:17:22,160 --> 02:17:24,280
Speaker 1: little less filled than they would have been had Miami

2157
02:17:24,520 --> 02:17:27,680
Speaker 1: only had one loss versus two and the perception that

2158
02:17:27,720 --> 02:17:29,360
Speaker 1: we're out of the college football playoff. And I'm going

2159
02:17:29,400 --> 02:17:31,320
Speaker 1: to get to that in a minute. By the way,

2160
02:17:31,360 --> 02:17:36,119
Speaker 1: I should note Central and Western New York football teams

2161
02:17:36,160 --> 02:17:38,800
Speaker 1: ought to ought to not come down to Miami in November.

2162
02:17:39,640 --> 02:17:43,199
Speaker 1: Syracuse got a butt weapon by the University of Miami,

2163
02:17:43,320 --> 02:17:46,800
Speaker 1: and then the Buffalo Bills come down and get their

2164
02:17:47,320 --> 02:17:53,080
Speaker 1: butts handed to them by the Devon A Chainers, and

2165
02:17:53,080 --> 02:17:57,080
Speaker 1: and and what's left of the Dolphins, even after they

2166
02:17:57,400 --> 02:18:02,360
Speaker 1: traded away their best pass rushers. So just a tough

2167
02:18:02,400 --> 02:18:05,920
Speaker 1: time for the Central and Western New Yorkers there when

2168
02:18:05,959 --> 02:18:11,080
Speaker 1: it comes to the football field. But look, a few

2169
02:18:11,120 --> 02:18:14,360
Speaker 1: things happened that might that at least made it.

2170
02:18:15,200 --> 02:18:15,360
Speaker 2: You know.

2171
02:18:15,400 --> 02:18:17,560
Speaker 1: I've said Miami's chances of getting into the a SEC

2172
02:18:17,680 --> 02:18:20,840
Speaker 1: title game, which is really the probably the only shot

2173
02:18:20,920 --> 02:18:24,480
Speaker 1: they have of getting into the playoff, given how the

2174
02:18:25,480 --> 02:18:29,760
Speaker 1: committee decided to treat Miami in the first week. They've

2175
02:18:29,840 --> 02:18:33,080
Speaker 1: set it up so that Miami that Notre Dame, despite

2176
02:18:33,080 --> 02:18:35,840
Speaker 1: losing to Miami. If Miami and Notre Dame have identical records,

2177
02:18:35,840 --> 02:18:38,160
Speaker 1: they're going to take Notre Dame right they've started them.

2178
02:18:38,560 --> 02:18:40,959
Speaker 1: It's almost like they under ranked Miami on purpose. They

2179
02:18:40,959 --> 02:18:43,040
Speaker 1: had no business being ranked as low as they were.

2180
02:18:43,600 --> 02:18:46,240
Speaker 1: I am curious to see if there's a real correction made.

2181
02:18:46,320 --> 02:18:51,680
Speaker 1: And they're in the thirteen fourteen, fifteen range, which which

2182
02:18:51,760 --> 02:18:53,960
Speaker 1: I think is the minimum they should be. You know,

2183
02:18:54,040 --> 02:18:56,240
Speaker 1: I think that when you look at and this gets

2184
02:18:56,240 --> 02:18:59,480
Speaker 1: at to the great debate of committees in general. Right,

2185
02:18:59,520 --> 02:19:02,480
Speaker 1: when you and you decide these things, what matters more

2186
02:19:03,360 --> 02:19:05,760
Speaker 1: your your wins or your losses?

2187
02:19:06,440 --> 02:19:06,600
Speaker 2: Right?

2188
02:19:06,760 --> 02:19:08,920
Speaker 1: Is it better to have a good win or is

2189
02:19:08,920 --> 02:19:12,040
Speaker 1: it better to have a good loss? And you know

2190
02:19:12,120 --> 02:19:14,800
Speaker 1: how it works. If you want to get your team

2191
02:19:14,879 --> 02:19:17,240
Speaker 1: into the mix, you talk about the thing that you

2192
02:19:17,320 --> 02:19:18,320
Speaker 1: think is the best thing.

2193
02:19:18,640 --> 02:19:18,840
Speaker 2: Right.

2194
02:19:18,920 --> 02:19:21,520
Speaker 1: So Notre Dame doesn't have any good wins, but they

2195
02:19:21,560 --> 02:19:25,600
Speaker 1: have two great losses, right, four total points to Miami

2196
02:19:25,680 --> 02:19:29,680
Speaker 1: in Texas A and m Miami doesn't have two. You know,

2197
02:19:29,720 --> 02:19:32,400
Speaker 1: they don't have bad losses. They're conferdent to me, when

2198
02:19:32,400 --> 02:19:34,959
Speaker 1: you lose a conference game to a winning program, those

2199
02:19:35,000 --> 02:19:38,240
Speaker 1: aren't bad losses because conference games are just harder. I know,

2200
02:19:38,320 --> 02:19:41,080
Speaker 1: the SEC thinks it's the only football conference that exists.

2201
02:19:41,720 --> 02:19:45,480
Speaker 1: Every football conference, all conference games are hard, and all

2202
02:19:45,480 --> 02:19:49,280
Speaker 1: conference games ought to be treated sort of similarly, as

2203
02:19:49,440 --> 02:19:53,039
Speaker 1: you know Greg sink in Mississippi State. And if you

2204
02:19:53,080 --> 02:19:56,280
Speaker 1: think that's a tough conference game, well, okay, I'll accept

2205
02:19:56,280 --> 02:19:59,480
Speaker 1: the premise. So's playing at wake Forest, okay. And just

2206
02:19:59,520 --> 02:20:02,280
Speaker 1: because you don't respect wake Forest doesn't mean when you

2207
02:20:02,360 --> 02:20:04,600
Speaker 1: have to play them every year, they don't bite you

2208
02:20:04,640 --> 02:20:09,040
Speaker 1: in the ass. You know, conference matchups are hard, hard stop.

2209
02:20:09,800 --> 02:20:13,680
Speaker 1: And Miami basically, you know, had like nine turnovers in

2210
02:20:13,720 --> 02:20:17,119
Speaker 1: those two games, and that's why they lost, right And

2211
02:20:17,360 --> 02:20:20,520
Speaker 1: they were still both games that they could have won

2212
02:20:20,520 --> 02:20:23,760
Speaker 1: on the last possession. So are those good losses bad losses?

2213
02:20:23,840 --> 02:20:23,960
Speaker 2: Right?

2214
02:20:24,000 --> 02:20:29,080
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going here. I make no apologies.

2215
02:20:29,120 --> 02:20:31,640
Speaker 1: I think this coaching staff let this team down. I

2216
02:20:31,640 --> 02:20:34,560
Speaker 1: think this I think our offensive game plan sucks. I

2217
02:20:34,600 --> 02:20:36,520
Speaker 1: think the only reason why Miami scored a bunch of

2218
02:20:36,520 --> 02:20:38,760
Speaker 1: points in the second half of that game is sort

2219
02:20:38,800 --> 02:20:42,440
Speaker 1: of the the floodgates open. Thanks to the defense, they

2220
02:20:42,440 --> 02:20:46,160
Speaker 1: got to pick six and then then suddenly they used

2221
02:20:46,320 --> 02:20:49,680
Speaker 1: essentially every trick play that that Shannon Dawson has come

2222
02:20:49,760 --> 02:20:50,120
Speaker 1: up with.

2223
02:20:50,520 --> 02:20:51,640
Speaker 2: They used. They had a.

2224
02:20:53,280 --> 02:20:56,280
Speaker 1: Malachai Toni threw a pass to Carson Beck, Carson Beck

2225
02:20:56,320 --> 02:21:00,720
Speaker 1: to would tackle eligible play to France. This is Mayonoa,

2226
02:21:00,760 --> 02:21:02,640
Speaker 1: who's going to be a first round draft choice next

2227
02:21:02,720 --> 02:21:08,320
Speaker 1: year as an offensive lineman. So that's you know, those

2228
02:21:08,320 --> 02:21:11,640
Speaker 1: were fun to see, but they were kind of you know,

2229
02:21:12,840 --> 02:21:16,680
Speaker 1: they were still you know, the regular game plane didn't

2230
02:21:16,720 --> 02:21:18,840
Speaker 1: really work. They did have to do a bunch of

2231
02:21:18,840 --> 02:21:21,000
Speaker 1: these sort of trick plays to sort of open the

2232
02:21:21,040 --> 02:21:23,880
Speaker 1: offense up. I appreciate that some efforts were made in

2233
02:21:23,920 --> 02:21:27,400
Speaker 1: the second half to do that, but there's still the

2234
02:21:27,480 --> 02:21:35,120
Speaker 1: basic formations, and the basic offense is it's just pretty predictable,

2235
02:21:35,400 --> 02:21:38,240
Speaker 1: and the more it's on film, the more teams seem

2236
02:21:38,280 --> 02:21:40,320
Speaker 1: to be prepared for it. And Syracuse in the first

2237
02:21:40,320 --> 02:21:44,680
Speaker 1: half was extraordinarily prepared for the normal Miami offense. And

2238
02:21:44,680 --> 02:21:46,560
Speaker 1: then by the second half, when they got worn down

2239
02:21:46,600 --> 02:21:49,879
Speaker 1: a little bit and Miami started doing a few trick plays,

2240
02:21:50,000 --> 02:21:53,600
Speaker 1: then things started to work. Now I'm a little frustrated

2241
02:21:53,600 --> 02:21:55,600
Speaker 1: that they made a real effort to get the ball

2242
02:21:55,640 --> 02:21:58,080
Speaker 1: to Malachai Toni in any way they could possibly get

2243
02:21:58,080 --> 02:21:59,879
Speaker 1: to him in this game. Where was that in the

2244
02:22:00,000 --> 02:22:02,160
Speaker 1: Louville game? Where's that been in the last six weeks?

2245
02:22:02,800 --> 02:22:02,959
Speaker 2: Right?

2246
02:22:03,080 --> 02:22:05,280
Speaker 1: Not enough of that? That's number one. And then to

2247
02:22:05,760 --> 02:22:09,880
Speaker 1: really rub salt in the wound. On the last play

2248
02:22:09,879 --> 02:22:12,560
Speaker 1: of the game, Miami's went in thirty eight to ten.

2249
02:22:13,520 --> 02:22:15,280
Speaker 1: Miami had the ball and the last play of the game,

2250
02:22:16,760 --> 02:22:19,920
Speaker 1: they didn't take a knee. They ran the ball. They

2251
02:22:19,920 --> 02:22:22,880
Speaker 1: didn't need to do that. They were up twenty eight points.

2252
02:22:24,720 --> 02:22:26,640
Speaker 1: But you take a knee when the game is tied

2253
02:22:26,680 --> 02:22:28,640
Speaker 1: and you have twenty five seconds and one time out.

2254
02:22:28,920 --> 02:22:32,480
Speaker 1: I am never going to forgive that Miami coaching staff

2255
02:22:32,480 --> 02:22:35,640
Speaker 1: and coach Crystal Ball for taking a knee and the explanations.

2256
02:22:35,680 --> 02:22:38,959
Speaker 1: I'm sorry local media has not been tough enough on

2257
02:22:39,000 --> 02:22:43,040
Speaker 1: this question. Coach Crystal Ball's response on this has been terrible.

2258
02:22:43,520 --> 02:22:46,520
Speaker 1: When he said, it's well, we just determined that anytime

2259
02:22:46,520 --> 02:22:48,560
Speaker 1: you're in the twenty five yard line or closer to

2260
02:22:48,600 --> 02:22:51,520
Speaker 1: the gold line, only bad things can happen. Well, if

2261
02:22:51,560 --> 02:22:53,840
Speaker 1: that's what you claim, and that's why you took a

2262
02:22:53,920 --> 02:22:56,640
Speaker 1: knee in the SMU game, which I think, again the

2263
02:22:56,879 --> 02:22:59,920
Speaker 1: single worst decision that's been made all year long by

2264
02:23:00,160 --> 02:23:04,080
Speaker 1: coaching staff taking a knee with twenty five seconds, game

2265
02:23:04,160 --> 02:23:07,560
Speaker 1: tied and a timeout, and all you need is forty yards.

2266
02:23:08,080 --> 02:23:11,400
Speaker 1: All you need is forty yards to get the to

2267
02:23:11,440 --> 02:23:14,120
Speaker 1: attempt the game winning field goal, and you don't do

2268
02:23:14,200 --> 02:23:17,560
Speaker 1: it when college rules where the clock stops after every

2269
02:23:17,560 --> 02:23:21,440
Speaker 1: first down, and you don't do that. What you really message,

2270
02:23:21,440 --> 02:23:24,480
Speaker 1: you're really sending is you don't trust this quarterback. Well,

2271
02:23:24,480 --> 02:23:26,120
Speaker 1: then what do you spend the money on If you

2272
02:23:26,160 --> 02:23:29,800
Speaker 1: don't trust, Let him succeed or fail on his own.

2273
02:23:31,040 --> 02:23:35,640
Speaker 1: This trying to sort of manage risk, manage your way

2274
02:23:35,840 --> 02:23:38,720
Speaker 1: around a quarterback that I guess you guys don't trust,

2275
02:23:40,400 --> 02:23:42,760
Speaker 1: is no way to win a championship. It's no way

2276
02:23:42,760 --> 02:23:43,920
Speaker 1: to get yourself in the playoff.

2277
02:23:45,480 --> 02:23:45,760
Speaker 2: Now.

2278
02:23:46,360 --> 02:23:48,720
Speaker 1: As much as I'm going to give this coaching staff

2279
02:23:48,800 --> 02:23:52,000
Speaker 1: grief on what I think is under performance by them

2280
02:23:52,120 --> 02:23:55,560
Speaker 1: holding back a team that is arguably the most talented

2281
02:23:55,600 --> 02:23:59,600
Speaker 1: in the country, I'm also going to argue that you

2282
02:23:59,640 --> 02:24:03,000
Speaker 1: can't have a media company deciding who gets to be

2283
02:24:03,520 --> 02:24:06,800
Speaker 1: in the college football playoff because if they do take

2284
02:24:06,840 --> 02:24:08,720
Speaker 1: ten and two Notre Dame over ten in to Miami,

2285
02:24:08,959 --> 02:24:14,160
Speaker 1: they're only doing it because of TV ratings in their heads, right,

2286
02:24:14,280 --> 02:24:16,600
Speaker 1: and it's just the bigger program. Because I promise you

2287
02:24:16,640 --> 02:24:19,200
Speaker 1: if it were ten and to anybody else and ten

2288
02:24:19,280 --> 02:24:21,800
Speaker 1: in to Miami, they probably would take Miami. But they

2289
02:24:21,840 --> 02:24:23,600
Speaker 1: can't do that to a Notre Dame, They're not going

2290
02:24:23,640 --> 02:24:26,480
Speaker 1: to do it to an Alabama. They're probably not going

2291
02:24:26,520 --> 02:24:29,360
Speaker 1: to do it to a Georgia certainly won't do it

2292
02:24:29,360 --> 02:24:33,720
Speaker 1: to an Ohio State. It's worth noting that Miami is

2293
02:24:33,760 --> 02:24:37,040
Speaker 1: the highest rated ACC team when it comes to TV ratings.

2294
02:24:38,000 --> 02:24:39,840
Speaker 1: How do we know this? Miami is getting the biggest

2295
02:24:39,840 --> 02:24:43,000
Speaker 1: bonus because ACC has is giving bonuses to the teams

2296
02:24:43,000 --> 02:24:47,440
Speaker 1: that get the best ratings to sort of quote unquote

2297
02:24:47,480 --> 02:24:55,600
Speaker 1: have extra value on their football program. So but if

2298
02:24:55,600 --> 02:24:57,760
Speaker 1: Miami wants to get to the ACC title game, they

2299
02:24:57,800 --> 02:25:00,879
Speaker 1: did get a few breaks Uva losing. They need all

2300
02:25:00,920 --> 02:25:03,959
Speaker 1: of these teams that lost this weekend. They all have

2301
02:25:04,080 --> 02:25:06,400
Speaker 1: to lose again. I mean, that's what makes it difficult.

2302
02:25:06,440 --> 02:25:08,840
Speaker 1: But hey, at least they got a couple of losses

2303
02:25:08,959 --> 02:25:14,160
Speaker 1: in now. I certainly would have liked to have seen

2304
02:25:14,240 --> 02:25:16,760
Speaker 1: Penn State finish up Indiana, and I really wanted to

2305
02:25:16,760 --> 02:25:21,920
Speaker 1: see Iowa beat Oregon to potentially limit the Big Ten

2306
02:25:22,000 --> 02:25:25,760
Speaker 1: to two to open up the door to maybe they

2307
02:25:25,800 --> 02:25:28,360
Speaker 1: only get two. I think they're only going to get

2308
02:25:28,360 --> 02:25:30,240
Speaker 1: three at the end of the day, but we'll see.

2309
02:25:30,680 --> 02:25:34,080
Speaker 1: But that both of those games I think needed to

2310
02:25:34,080 --> 02:25:36,480
Speaker 1: go the other way to to sort of open the

2311
02:25:36,520 --> 02:25:40,240
Speaker 1: door up a bit more for them to where the

2312
02:25:40,240 --> 02:25:43,039
Speaker 1: committee has no choice but to take Miami. But look,

2313
02:25:43,200 --> 02:25:46,520
Speaker 1: whatever they do with this football playoff going forward, the

2314
02:25:46,640 --> 02:25:48,920
Speaker 1: NFL doesn't have a committee to decide who's in the playoffs,

2315
02:25:48,959 --> 02:25:50,880
Speaker 1: because if they did, Dallas would be in the playoffs

2316
02:25:50,879 --> 02:25:54,280
Speaker 1: every year, right, regardless of their record, because they're the

2317
02:25:54,360 --> 02:25:58,560
Speaker 1: TV They're the ratings juggernaut. The Jacksonville Jaguars would never

2318
02:25:58,560 --> 02:26:00,680
Speaker 1: make it to the playoffs, right. The Houston would never

2319
02:26:00,680 --> 02:26:05,000
Speaker 1: make it to the playoffs. So whatever it is, I

2320
02:26:05,040 --> 02:26:07,640
Speaker 1: would just like it to be decided on the field.

2321
02:26:07,720 --> 02:26:09,959
Speaker 1: If you win X number of games you get to

2322
02:26:10,560 --> 02:26:13,120
Speaker 1: you know, you can qualify. And if you do finish

2323
02:26:13,200 --> 02:26:15,600
Speaker 1: this place in your conference, you can qualify. And if

2324
02:26:15,600 --> 02:26:18,360
Speaker 1: you want to say each year before the season starts

2325
02:26:18,360 --> 02:26:21,880
Speaker 1: and say, okay, this year, based on last year's record,

2326
02:26:21,959 --> 02:26:24,560
Speaker 1: this year, this conference is only going to get three

2327
02:26:24,640 --> 02:26:27,880
Speaker 1: slots into the playoff instead of four. You know, is

2328
02:26:27,920 --> 02:26:30,240
Speaker 1: a form of quote releg you know, this year due

2329
02:26:30,240 --> 02:26:33,920
Speaker 1: to their past records, conference A gets five slots instead

2330
02:26:33,920 --> 02:26:36,640
Speaker 1: of four, or three slots instead of two, or something

2331
02:26:36,760 --> 02:26:42,720
Speaker 1: like that. Whatever it is, there should just you should

2332
02:26:42,720 --> 02:26:45,400
Speaker 1: be able to either play yourself in or play yourself out.

2333
02:26:45,800 --> 02:26:49,400
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be subject to a lobbying campaigned by Greg Sanke,

2334
02:26:49,560 --> 02:26:54,600
Speaker 1: the chairman of the SEC. And that's or a media

2335
02:26:54,680 --> 02:26:58,279
Speaker 1: company who's in business and cares more about the profitability

2336
02:26:58,320 --> 02:27:02,400
Speaker 1: of one conference for the profitability of another business partner

2337
02:27:02,440 --> 02:27:10,000
Speaker 1: that they don't value as much. Anyway, it was kind

2338
02:27:10,040 --> 02:27:11,640
Speaker 1: of a you know, I think we all were hoping for.

2339
02:27:12,040 --> 02:27:16,120
Speaker 1: I will say this, that catch in Indiana. We watched

2340
02:27:16,160 --> 02:27:18,879
Speaker 1: that just before the kickoff to the Miami game. That

2341
02:27:18,959 --> 02:27:22,400
Speaker 1: kid made an amazing catch. And then I watched the

2342
02:27:22,480 --> 02:27:24,520
Speaker 1: end of the Iowa Oregon game where the i was

2343
02:27:24,560 --> 02:27:27,280
Speaker 1: trying to go for a two point conversion. And I mean,

2344
02:27:27,520 --> 02:27:29,600
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about the quote unquote game

2345
02:27:29,640 --> 02:27:33,760
Speaker 1: of inches, just take those two highlights. Indiana's successful touchdown

2346
02:27:34,200 --> 02:27:38,520
Speaker 1: and the toe tap Iowa's unsuccessful two point conversion, which

2347
02:27:38,600 --> 02:27:40,960
Speaker 1: ultimately cost them the game. Since Oregon was able to

2348
02:27:41,040 --> 02:27:42,920
Speaker 1: kick a field goal to win the game rather than

2349
02:27:42,959 --> 02:27:47,959
Speaker 1: to just hie was missed by essentially two inches. So

2350
02:27:49,800 --> 02:27:55,440
Speaker 1: another reminder to just how fun, crazy and cool college

2351
02:27:55,560 --> 02:27:58,720
Speaker 1: football can be. Look, I don't know about you, guys,

2352
02:27:58,760 --> 02:28:06,520
Speaker 1: I didn't learn anything new about everybody other than I

2353
02:28:06,560 --> 02:28:08,640
Speaker 1: thought we'd get a better effort out of LSU and

2354
02:28:08,640 --> 02:28:11,920
Speaker 1: Garrett Nsmeyer. We didn't get that better effort. I think

2355
02:28:11,920 --> 02:28:13,960
Speaker 1: we did expect a good effort out of Penn State.

2356
02:28:14,280 --> 02:28:17,120
Speaker 1: By the way, imagine if the interim coach had knocked

2357
02:28:17,160 --> 02:28:19,640
Speaker 1: off a top five team, but James Franklin could never

2358
02:28:19,680 --> 02:28:22,800
Speaker 1: be a top five team. In some ways, there's probably

2359
02:28:22,879 --> 02:28:25,560
Speaker 1: relief in the James Franklin camp that Penn State came

2360
02:28:25,640 --> 02:28:30,440
Speaker 1: up just short on that game. BYU was exposed. That's

2361
02:28:30,480 --> 02:28:33,320
Speaker 1: going to be the interesting thing on the college football players.

2362
02:28:33,320 --> 02:28:36,039
Speaker 1: So by you got its first loss, and this is

2363
02:28:36,040 --> 02:28:38,680
Speaker 1: one of those Look, they only have one loss. Are

2364
02:28:38,680 --> 02:28:41,160
Speaker 1: they going to be ranked behind Miami or above Miami?

2365
02:28:42,080 --> 02:28:44,680
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to be the subjective game,

2366
02:28:44,720 --> 02:28:47,920
Speaker 1: and if you're holding Miami accountable in the ways that

2367
02:28:47,959 --> 02:28:51,120
Speaker 1: they're being held, which I think is sort of every

2368
02:28:51,160 --> 02:28:53,680
Speaker 1: standard is different based on the team they're looking at. Right,

2369
02:28:54,120 --> 02:28:57,760
Speaker 1: That's what's my frustration. There's no it's so subjective that

2370
02:28:57,760 --> 02:29:00,560
Speaker 1: there's not a consistent measurement of how one team is

2371
02:29:00,600 --> 02:29:04,680
Speaker 1: assessed versus another team is assessed. And yes, BYU seems

2372
02:29:04,720 --> 02:29:07,720
Speaker 1: to have gotten lucky, just like UVA. Luck finally ran

2373
02:29:07,760 --> 02:29:10,200
Speaker 1: out right. They didn't lose any fumbles all of a sudden,

2374
02:29:10,200 --> 02:29:14,120
Speaker 1: they lost three fumbles in that game. I'm very curious

2375
02:29:14,120 --> 02:29:16,520
Speaker 1: to see if BYU is below Miami or above Miami

2376
02:29:16,520 --> 02:29:19,520
Speaker 1: and the college football rankings. That will tell me how

2377
02:29:19,560 --> 02:29:22,119
Speaker 1: realistic it is that Miami has a shot at somehow

2378
02:29:22,240 --> 02:29:28,240
Speaker 1: sneaking in or not. And does Vanderbilt at all move

2379
02:29:28,360 --> 02:29:31,600
Speaker 1: up or down based on it surviving that game with Auburn.

2380
02:29:33,480 --> 02:29:35,480
Speaker 1: Obviously a loss would have knocked them out completely. That

2381
02:29:35,560 --> 02:29:38,520
Speaker 1: was another game that frankly, it was kind of hopeful,

2382
02:29:39,480 --> 02:29:41,840
Speaker 1: just to you know, at this point, I got to

2383
02:29:41,840 --> 02:29:43,920
Speaker 1: get anybody who's going to share a record with Miami

2384
02:29:43,959 --> 02:29:46,600
Speaker 1: out of the way from an SEC or a Big

2385
02:29:46,640 --> 02:29:49,440
Speaker 1: ten school if I'm going to have any hopes of

2386
02:29:49,480 --> 02:29:53,360
Speaker 1: that committee having to be stuck to have to invite Miami.

2387
02:29:54,200 --> 02:29:57,560
Speaker 1: When all is said and done, so, all in all

2388
02:29:58,000 --> 02:30:03,520
Speaker 1: a successful trip because my daughter was honored on the field.

2389
02:30:03,879 --> 02:30:06,400
Speaker 1: I don't care what the score was beyond that she

2390
02:30:06,520 --> 02:30:09,160
Speaker 1: did a great job. It was a bang up homecoming

2391
02:30:09,200 --> 02:30:13,280
Speaker 1: and in fact, she convinced the school to minimize the

2392
02:30:13,360 --> 02:30:16,520
Speaker 1: use of fireworks and instead use drone do a drone

2393
02:30:16,600 --> 02:30:21,000
Speaker 1: light show, And the biggest hit of Homecoming weekend was

2394
02:30:21,040 --> 02:30:25,600
Speaker 1: the drone light show. It was amazing. Go find all

2395
02:30:25,640 --> 02:30:27,400
Speaker 1: things having to do with the universe. Remind me Homecoming

2396
02:30:27,440 --> 02:30:29,720
Speaker 1: and the drone light show on Instagram, and trust me,

2397
02:30:30,120 --> 02:30:32,800
Speaker 1: you will be impressed and you will realize why are

2398
02:30:32,840 --> 02:30:36,720
Speaker 1: any of us bothering with fireworks anymore? The coolest ways

2399
02:30:36,760 --> 02:30:41,119
Speaker 1: to do displays in the sky are are these drone

2400
02:30:41,200 --> 02:30:45,520
Speaker 1: light shows? All Right, I've rambled on long enough. I

2401
02:30:45,640 --> 02:30:47,800
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed your weekend. Let's hope by the next

2402
02:30:47,800 --> 02:30:50,800
Speaker 1: time we talk in the next forty eight hours, the

2403
02:30:50,840 --> 02:30:54,879
Speaker 1: government is open and air travel is smooth. And with that,

2404
02:30:55,000 --> 02:30:56,240
Speaker 1: I'll see you when we upload again.