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Speaker 1: They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of the

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Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast. A little rundown on today. It is Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: which means you're gonna get at a top five list.

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Speaker 1: I got a fun one for you. It involves the

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Speaker 1: president and prestigious awards. So I gave you a big hint.

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Speaker 1: But maybe you still won't quite know where I'm headed

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Speaker 1: with that. We'll do some letters. My interview today is

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Speaker 1: actually perfectly timed for all the conversation that just took

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Speaker 1: place in Munich at the Munich Security Conference. It's Robert Blackwell.

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Speaker 1: He is a longtime foreign policy hand, if you will.

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Speaker 1: He was a deputy National Security advisor during George W.

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Speaker 2: Bush.

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Speaker 1: He has worked for Henry Kissinger in the past. He

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Speaker 1: is somebody who is now at the Council on Foreign

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Speaker 1: Relations and wrote sort of a and I'd given this

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Speaker 1: to you guys before sort of his walked you through

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Speaker 1: sort of what I've believed was his sort of memo

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Speaker 1: to the next president essentially, no matter what party you're from,

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Speaker 1: but how to repair America's standing in the world post Trump.

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Speaker 1: Needless to say, Blackwell is not a big fan of

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Speaker 1: what Trump has done to the global order. And I think,

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Speaker 1: you know when you hear it from somebody who's mostly

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Speaker 1: worked for Republicans going back to the Nixon era, and

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Speaker 1: he's not alone. You know, there's quite a few of

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Speaker 1: sort of what I call former Republican foreign policy types

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Speaker 1: that now I think consider themselves American foreign policy experts

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Speaker 1: that used to work for Republicans and be willing to

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Speaker 1: work for any party that believes in multilateralism and believes.

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Speaker 2: In those things.

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Speaker 1: This obviously is not that, but I do think his

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Speaker 1: memo is something that everybody running for president needs to read.

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Speaker 1: But we go through and I think it's a live

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Speaker 1: It's both a lively conversation and one that will I

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Speaker 1: think fit quite well in with what we've been hearing

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Speaker 1: in and out of Munich. What is the future of

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Speaker 1: America's relationship with Europe, what should be the future relationship,

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Speaker 1: how do we deal with China, et cetera. So I

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Speaker 1: do think you will enjoy that conversation, but I want

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Speaker 1: to begin today with you know, one of the things

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Speaker 1: that I'm mindful of is that sometimes we're so dark

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Speaker 1: and negative that we sometimes can miss a big deal

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Speaker 1: taken place in plain sight. Right, And to start with

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Speaker 1: a with an issue that has not really made the

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Speaker 1: rounds on cable television, you haven't seen much of it

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Speaker 1: on social media, and it certainly has yet to generate

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Speaker 1: a Chiron countdown clock. But it might matter a lot

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Speaker 1: more than most of the headlines we've been dealing with

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Speaker 1: over the last few weeks. And it's a constitutional amendment

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Speaker 1: proposal that is now circulating in Congress that would allow

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Speaker 1: congressional lawmakers to nullify a presidential pardon this is not

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Speaker 1: a bill that, while you may have it is not

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Speaker 1: idea that would have gotten much traction or must interest

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Speaker 1: even five years ago. But something like this seems very

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Speaker 1: plausible to me, and it's plausible enough that I wanted

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Speaker 1: to give it a little extra attention. And that's sometimes

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Speaker 1: the role I feel like I can play best here,

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Speaker 1: which is like, hey, you know, I used to run

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Speaker 1: a mainstream news supposed mainstream news organization, a couple of them.

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Speaker 1: Here's what I would be leaning into there, and you

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Speaker 1: should be too. And that's sort of a role I

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Speaker 1: like to play sometimes. But we may be seeing a

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Speaker 1: major structural shift in conversation at a time that we

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Speaker 1: really needed, and it may be.

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Speaker 2: To me.

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Speaker 1: I hope it gives you a little bit of hope,

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Speaker 1: because it gives me. I'm granted, I'm looking for it.

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Speaker 1: So I'm looking for this, which is that maybe we

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Speaker 1: have begun a new era of reform that you know,

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Speaker 1: like the progressive era of the early twentieth century, which

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Speaker 1: created some needed constitutional reform that we're finally starting. I've

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Speaker 1: been saying we're going to get it, We're going to

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Speaker 1: get it. Well, guess what we're finally starting to see

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Speaker 1: a concrete proposal, and the fact that it starts with

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Speaker 1: pardons is actually not surprising to me, because we knew

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Speaker 1: something was going to trigger, right. I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: in reform eras happen when enough people on both sides

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Speaker 1: of the aisle the sides it's the rules that need

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Speaker 1: to be tightened or changed that a singular president can't do.

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Speaker 1: The fixes that we now know are systemic or structural. So, look,

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Speaker 1: why did we start with pardons? Well, I think it's

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Speaker 1: pretty obvious what triggered this right pardon power, and it's

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Speaker 1: how it's been abused, particularly with this president. Under Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: the pardon power has become so politically charged in ways

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Speaker 1: we haven't seen ever on the presidential level. We've seen

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Speaker 1: governors sell pardons for profit, we have not seen presidents

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Speaker 1: do it. It is aggressively Trump has. We've seen what

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Speaker 1: appear to be potential pay to play pardons in some

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Speaker 1: form or another, but it would be one controversial pardon

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Speaker 1: by a president, you know, not essentially the entire process

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Speaker 1: being monetized, which is what's happened here today. And so

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Speaker 1: under Trump, you know, some of the most controversial ones, right,

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Speaker 1: there's the broad January sixth partons for anybody, and that

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Speaker 1: is that has allowed a lot of bad people who

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Speaker 1: deserve to be behind bars not to be behind bars.

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Speaker 1: Some of them have committed crimes as their pardon was

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Speaker 1: made official. That's been a total a disaster by doing that.

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Speaker 1: But we know why he did it. It's his own

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Speaker 1: personal motivation believing that somehow January sixth was not what

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Speaker 1: it was, that it was somehow a lawful protest. We

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Speaker 1: know he pardons people that are represented by his longtime

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Speaker 1: political allies, or people like Roger Stone who get paid

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Speaker 1: as sort of an intermediary for the pardons. We know

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Speaker 1: that's taking place. I mean, you know, you don't think

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Speaker 1: the former president of Hondura's got pardoned for free, do you.

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Speaker 2: So you know that sits out there.

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Speaker 1: And then there's this pattern of Trump where he pardons

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Speaker 1: people that are accused of doing things that he's been

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Speaker 1: accused of, always in the white collar space, in particular

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Speaker 1: financial crimes and things like that. So we now know

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Speaker 1: it's fair to say that the perception is that pardon

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Speaker 1: power is now drifted towards the personal and political. It's

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Speaker 1: no longer what its original construct was about, which was

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Speaker 1: constitutional mercy if you will. Now it's about political protection.

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Speaker 1: And look, it's like everything Trump does, he's not the

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Speaker 1: first to do it, and he's not the you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not as if it's not been done by members

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Speaker 1: of both parties. He's just done it more aggressively and

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Speaker 1: more you know, sort of like rubbing our nose and

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Speaker 1: dog manure faith, right, Like he's grotesque about it. But

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Speaker 1: what Joe Biden did at the end of his term,

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Speaker 1: I've always thought was just as bad as what Trump's

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Speaker 1: doing because he almost gave Trump a license to do

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Speaker 1: it when he did his preemptive pardons that involved family

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Speaker 1: members that had no business getting a pardon at all

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Speaker 1: or certainly seemed to get pardoned for, you know, not

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Speaker 1: for the thing he claimed they were getting pardoned for,

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Speaker 1: but you know, and even used clemency at times that

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Speaker 1: did generate some partisan backlash, and it seemed like some

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Speaker 1: of his sweeping commutations were tied to some political issues

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Speaker 1: that he wanted to bring to the forefront. So again,

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Speaker 1: Will Biden didn't do it as ham handedly as Trump is.

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Speaker 1: What he did with his family at the end was grotesque,

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Speaker 1: the preemptive pardons and using Trump as the as the

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Speaker 1: rationale to do it was all the more awful, I'll

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Speaker 1: be honest, because it just assumed corruption in the process itself.

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Speaker 1: And and so I understand you assume Trump is corrupt,

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Speaker 1: but then to essentially do it before Trump actually does

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Speaker 1: what you fear, you know, you've suddenly committed your own

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Speaker 1: slate of corruption there.

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Speaker 2: So it is.

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Speaker 1: And frankly, in order to get institutional change, you need

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Speaker 1: bad actors on both sides. So, you know, if we

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Speaker 1: want to make the Biden pardons sort of the you

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Speaker 1: know the oh, by the way, I think it's worthy,

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Speaker 1: those preemptive pardons.

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Speaker 2: Let's not.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure this is not equal both siderisms here. Okay,

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Speaker 1: what Trump has done is on an unprecedented level, But

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Speaker 1: to get this structural reform, you're going to need bipartisan

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Speaker 1: buy in. And what Biden did was awful. What Trump

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Speaker 1: does has been worse. So no matter what, whether you

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Speaker 1: support the individual actions or oppose them, the structural concern

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Speaker 1: has become the same that the the power of pardon pardoning.

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Speaker 1: Presidential pardons has become a high stake's political instrument now

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Speaker 1: in the last decade, and it's got to change. And

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Speaker 1: now that both parties are fearing how the other might

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Speaker 1: wield this power. That's when you actually start getting reform conversations,

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Speaker 1: and it is incredibly important. So late last year, a

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Speaker 1: Maryland Congressman by the name of Johnny Olzuski introduced a

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Speaker 1: constitutional amendment to give Congress the opportunity to nullify a pardon,

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Speaker 1: and it would under certain conditions, and it would essentially

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Speaker 1: it's similar to what the power Congress has now to

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Speaker 1: override vetos. Now, what made me interested in this story

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Speaker 1: this last week is that this was a Democrat introducing it.

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Speaker 1: So and you sometimes can get these partisan ideas introduced

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Speaker 1: and there's nobody on the other side that's interested. Well,

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Speaker 1: Don Bacon, a Republican from Omaha, Nebraska who's not running

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Speaker 1: for reelection, decided to sign on as an early host sponsor,

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Speaker 1: and it made him the first Republican to support this

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Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. And it's always important the minute you can

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Speaker 1: get something by partisan, it suddenly has traction and has

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Speaker 1: an opportunity. Now, let me read you the proposal word

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Speaker 1: for word here of this pardon amendment that Congress may,

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Speaker 1: by a vote of two thirds of each House, nullify

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Speaker 1: any pardon granted by the President of the United States

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Speaker 1: upon petition of twenty members of the House of Representatives

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Speaker 1: and five members of the Senate. A vote shall be

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Speaker 1: held within a specified period to determine whether such pardon

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Speaker 1: shall stand. So again it's modeling. So this amendment specific

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Speaker 1: amendment would model the process after what is the veto

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Speaker 1: override structure, So they wouldn't abolish the presidential pardon. Something

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Speaker 1: I might consider there's not partisan punishment, but it's a

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Speaker 1: good old fashioned constitutional check. It'd be something the founders

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Speaker 1: would be impressed with because it's a high threshold to

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Speaker 1: nullify a presidential pardon. That's not easy. Two thirds of

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Speaker 1: each out of Congress and to get your sort of

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Speaker 1: twenty members of the House, five members of the Senate.

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Speaker 1: That's probably the easy part. The hard part is getting

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Speaker 1: that two thirds. I might argue that, you know, the

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Speaker 1: I think the having leaving one person with any of

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Speaker 1: that power is the mistake itself. And then maybe you

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Speaker 1: create a pardon board that includes, you know, the two

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Speaker 1: longest serving members of the Supreme Court, the you know, say,

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Speaker 1: you know, the two longest serving members of the House

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Speaker 1: and the Senate, the Attorney General, the President, and the

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Speaker 1: Vice president something like that that would become a pardon

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Speaker 1: board where no one individual could decide, but you would

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Speaker 1: bring bring individual cases there. But either way, the fact

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Speaker 1: that Congress has a bipartisan amendment to potentially at least

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Speaker 1: put a check on the pardon power of the president

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Speaker 1: is big, a big deal, not a small deal, And

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Speaker 1: I think it signifies the start of something. So let's

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Speaker 1: zoom out here. The last time Americans felt that the

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Speaker 1: structure itself was compromised, we Americans of men did the

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Speaker 1: constitution and it wasn't an abstract it was all scandal driven.

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you the story of the seventeenth Amendment.

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Speaker 1: All right before nineteen thirteen, state legislatures chose US senators.

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Speaker 1: The system had been rotting for years. Deadlocks had left

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Speaker 1: too many Senate seats vacant. Party bosses essentially controlled the

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Speaker 1: appointment process. Wasn't the voters hadn't much say at all.

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Speaker 1: Wealthy interests wo lobby state House votes. I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I'll be honest. I think you know, the lower down

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Speaker 1: the ladder, you go the most corruptible institutions or state legislatures,

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Speaker 1: then city councils. Right, you keep going down, Right, the

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Speaker 1: least corruptible these days has been Congress. So imagine all

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Speaker 1: that power deciding a US Senate in the state level.

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Speaker 2: It was a.

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Speaker 1: Mess, but it took a big scandal to sober the

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Speaker 1: public up and say, hey, enough of this shit. Let

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Speaker 1: me tell you the story of a gentleman named William

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Speaker 1: Lowermer in the state of Illinois. He was elected by

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Speaker 1: the state legislature to the US Senate, I believe in

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Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine. Well, soon after, a state legislator confessed

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Speaker 1: that he was paid one thousand dollars to vote for

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Speaker 1: the guy. That's roughly thirty five thousand dollars today. Investigators

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Speaker 1: then uncovered and what was called a jackpot slush fund

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Speaker 1: that allegedly used was used to secure enough votes in

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Speaker 1: a Chicago hotel bathroom. So the Senate investigated. They cleared

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Speaker 1: him once, but the public outrage exploded. New evidence emerged

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Speaker 1: of just how this process worked, and so by nineteen twelve,

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Speaker 1: the Senate declared his election corrupt and vacated the seat.

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Speaker 1: But what America saw was a Senate seat that was

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Speaker 1: effectively purchased. So guess what happened? We finally changed the

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Speaker 1: constitution It had been building for a while, but it

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Speaker 1: took a scandal like that one to sober ebody up

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Speaker 1: and say yeah, seventeenth Amendment suddenly moved Senate elections directly

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Speaker 1: to voters, so corruption became visible and the reform followed.

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Speaker 1: That's what we have here with pardons. This episode of

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Speaker 1: you the story of the sixteenth in then right, they've

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Speaker 1: debilitated at tax income. Right. That has its roots in

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Speaker 1: income inequality of the early parts of the Industrial Revolution.

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Speaker 1: Right right around that same period, industrial wealth was exploding.

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Speaker 1: Sound familiar. Tariffs taxes on consumption were the federal government's

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Speaker 1: primary revenue source. Working families paid disproportionately a larger share

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Speaker 1: of tariff revenue to the government treasury than the wealthy

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Speaker 1: people did. The wealthiest industrialists paid relatively little in any

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Speaker 1: kind of taxation. Supreme Court even struck down an earlier

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Speaker 1: attempt to create an income tax. He said it was unconstitutional. Well,

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Speaker 1: so reformers amended the Constitution to make a federal income

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Speaker 1: tax unquestionably legal. And the six thing amendment wasn't sub subtle.

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Speaker 1: It was all about shifting the burden upward. And why

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Speaker 1: was there traction for that at that time? Because you

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Speaker 1: had these wealthy industrialists. Income inequality was massive, you know,

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Speaker 1: you had an explosion in sort of abused labor, child labor.

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Speaker 1: It was terrible. So this is why the public appetite

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Speaker 1: for this was huge. The public believed these elites, these

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Speaker 1: robber barons. That's why they got the name we're gaming

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Speaker 1: the system, We're robbing the system. So the system was changed.

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Speaker 1: And let's not forget the nineteen Amendment, which also came

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Speaker 1: in this same period. Half the population wasn't allowed to

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Speaker 1: vote simply because of their gender. Nineteen the amendment corrected

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Speaker 1: that it was an incremental reform. It was structural expansion

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Speaker 1: of small d democratic power at a time when the

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Speaker 1: public felt that the democracy was slipping away. So it

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Speaker 1: looked like the elites were gaming the system. The wealthy

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Speaker 1: were getting wealthier while the rest of us were being

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Speaker 1: left behind. And oh, by the way, the democracy wasn't

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Speaker 1: really even representing most of the country because half the

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Speaker 1: country couldn't couldn't vote. That structural reform. That's a reform era.

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Speaker 1: Question is are we about to do the same thing now? Look,

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Speaker 1: not every reform from that era was a good idea.

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Speaker 1: The eighteenth Amendment prohibition was born of moral urgency. Right

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Speaker 1: temperance movements believed alcohol was destroying families, corrupting politics, and

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Speaker 1: undermining public virtues. So basically at the same time of

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Speaker 1: distrust of politicians, distrust of elites, this is why one

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Speaker 1: of these this moral amendment got through, right to ban

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Speaker 1: the manufacturing and sale of alcohol. Well, that ended up

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Speaker 1: actually jumpstarting crime arguably created the modern mob system that

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Speaker 1: we still deal with today. Black markets, organized crime, all

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Speaker 1: that mess. And so within fourteen years we're like, ooh,

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Speaker 1: that was a bad idea. And so the twenty first

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Speaker 1: Amendment repealed prohibition. So it's an important lesson because reform

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Speaker 1: eras are powerful and they're also potentially risky. When we

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Speaker 1: amend the constitution, we are playing with the architecture of

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Speaker 1: the country itself. Some reforms will stabilize the democracy direct

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Speaker 1: election of senators, did the income tax, did women the

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Speaker 1: right to vote? Did others overcorrect like prohibition. It's something

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Speaker 1: I think about about the Balanced Budget Amendment. I'm sort

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Speaker 1: of intrigued by it. I kind of in theory agree

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Speaker 1: to it, and then you're like, what would this mean?

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Speaker 1: Could this create an economic im a catastrophe for us

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Speaker 1: in ways that we have not, you know, because of

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Speaker 1: the unintended consequence. So and I'm mindful I think we're

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Speaker 1: going to have an era of reform. So the question

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Speaker 1: is what does what does that look like? I do

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Speaker 1: think this that historians may one day say see the

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Speaker 1: Obama and Trump presidencies as bookends of the same structural

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Speaker 1: frustration they had different ideologies, but it was the same demand.

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Speaker 1: They were elected to shake things up, to change the system,

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Speaker 1: fix what feels broken. At the time, the public thought, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe a president could restore some balance. Turns out structural

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Speaker 1: corrosion requires structural repair, and structural repair requires constitutional thinking.

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Speaker 1: They alone cannot fix it, meaning a singular president Obama

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Speaker 1: couldn't do it. Trump clearly cannot do it. So if

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Speaker 1: this pardon conversation gains traction, expect more to follow. And

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Speaker 1: this one should. This one, to me is an easy

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Speaker 1: one to get traction for. And I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things that could be an interesting

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Speaker 1: way for Republicans to show some independence from Trump, but

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Speaker 1: grounding it in the Constitution and for protection of future

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Speaker 1: presidents abusing the power of the pardon. So it's also

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Speaker 1: a pretty good way to sort of keep track of huh.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like, you know, if I were

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Speaker 1: a Republican strategist trying to mitigate the damage that's coming

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Speaker 1: in this midterm year, I might want a vehicle like

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Speaker 1: this pardon constitutional amendment where I can sign on as

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Speaker 1: a co sponsor to show my independence, to show that

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Speaker 1: I still care about some sort of I have some

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Speaker 1: ethical lines that I'd like to draw here. So if

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Speaker 1: this pardon thing gains traction, where else could we see

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Speaker 1: some reform attempts of the constitutional sort. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: we could have limits on executive emergency authority.

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Speaker 2: Won't do it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we'll put a constitutional amendment into force Congress to

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Speaker 1: realize it's authority there. Maybe there's there's clearly if we

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Speaker 1: want to do anything in the in campaign finance, whether

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Speaker 1: it's limits or transparency, basically outlawing anonymous contributions, you're going

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Speaker 1: to need Since the courts have used the First Amendment

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Speaker 1: as a shield on anything to reform and to reform

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Speaker 1: in the campaign money era area, then you need a

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Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. I think that will get traction in some form.

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Speaker 1: I think transparency is the way to go, because again,

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Speaker 1: when you're trying to pass the constitutional amendment to third

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Speaker 1: support in the House, you know it's got to pass

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Speaker 1: the House, in the Senate plus thirty eight states, you've

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Speaker 1: got to have something.

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Speaker 2: That you can talk everybody into. You know.

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Speaker 1: My pet issue on this run indicates the expansion of

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Speaker 1: the House Representative. It's been capted at feign in thirty

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Speaker 1: five since their early twentieth century. It is, you know,

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Speaker 1: we should not have congressional districts that are sized of

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Speaker 1: major city eight hundred thousand people. We should have congressional

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Speaker 1: districts that are somewhere between three hundred and fifty and

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Speaker 1: four hundred thousand. And you could put a constitutional amendment

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Speaker 1: and say no congressional district can have a population more

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Speaker 1: than you know, point oh three percent of the population.

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00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 2: Basically you can.

433
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: You can have it as right now, right if you

434
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: base it on three hundred fifty million people you're looking

435
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 1: at you know, I think it is. I think it's

436
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: point oh one. Point oh three would get you about

437
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: three fifty four hundred. So that's the hope is that

438
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: reform eras cascade. It doesn't stop at one idea, that

439
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: you actually have a series of amendments. And that's that's

440
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: the moment I think we're headed to the And this

441
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: this is why this symbolic decision by Bacon to become

442
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: the first Republican on this particular constitutional amendment, one that

443
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: I think would have broad support. If you pulled it

444
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,919
Speaker 1: and my polling friends put it out there show that

445
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: it does, you could you could see the beginning of

446
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: something here, and I think it's important because individual an

447
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: individual can at least can re establish norms, but they

448
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: can't protect us from future demagogues. Constitutional amendments, though, are

449
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: not easy. Right they require two thirds of Congress, a

450
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: ratification of thirty eight states. But guess what, it was

451
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: a daunting challenge to do that when we were stripping

452
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: state legislatures of Senate selection power, when we imposed an

453
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: income tax on the richest people in America and the

454
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: public won that argument, right, seems daunting these days to

455
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: go after the tech titans, doubling the electorate through women's suffrage,

456
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 1: that was a big deal. So the point is, and

457
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: that wasn't easy, and it was never going to be easy.

458
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 1: But here's how you kind of know when reform begins.

459
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: Reform begins when exhaustion becomes bipartisan and exasperation becomes bipartisan.

460
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: And we're starting to get there. We're approaching bipartisan exhaustion

461
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: with all of this executive overreach, and there are more

462
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 1: sort of Republicans understanding that, you know, the next time

463
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: it could be a Gavin Newsom that's making their lives miserable.

464
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to get bipartisan support for structural

465
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: changes than it is frankly for policy changes. And I

466
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: think we can get bipartisan support to check unchecked.

467
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 2: Power, and the pardon power is one of those.

468
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: So look, as we approach America's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,

469
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 1: the question isn't whether the Constitution is sacred. It's whether

470
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: we are willing to maintain it and use the tools

471
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: that we have at our disposal right now to demand

472
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: a better structure for our democracy. The pardon debate may

473
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: be the first crack, and I want to jump on

474
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: this with enthusiasm. This is great news. You feel down

475
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: about the direction of this country. The fact is you're

476
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: not alone. People are very frustrated with it, and we

477
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: know we've got to make some structural repairs. This is

478
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: an important symbolic moment. What don and did O Losewinsky?

479
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: My apologies for mangling your name there, Congressman Johnny, but.

480
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 2: This is a big deal.

481
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: I think we are at the early stages of what's

482
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 1: going to be a ten to fifteen year run of

483
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: important reforms that we will Some of them will be incorrect.

484
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: What we reforms with unintended consequences, perhaps just like with prohibition.

485
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not guaranteeing every reform we make will work,

486
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: but once we start, this one is a common sense one.

487
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: I think everybody can agree to it. Nobody should, no

488
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: president should basically sell pardons, and we need to have

489
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: some mechanism to prevent when we know it's happened or

490
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: it looks really awful. And I can tell you those

491
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: January sixth pardons probably would not have would have been nullified.

492
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: So you know, the presidential pardon power might not be,

493
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: to you, the worst thing Trump does, but it's it's

494
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: it is a structural change that I think can lead

495
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: to other change. So when Congress finally starts debating constitutional guardrails,

496
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: if we can get them there instead of partisan revenge,

497
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: then we're getting somewhere that becomes durable. So look, reform

498
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: eras don't start with certainty. They start with the feeling

499
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 1: we have right now, discomfort. We know it's not working,

500
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: we know something's wrong. This system doesn't work. And if

501
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: you're truly honest with yourself, if you're an Obama Trump voter,

502
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: you thought an individual could fix this, I hope you're

503
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: now convinced no individual can fix this. We need structural change,

504
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: and if this week is any indication, it's possible a

505
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: reform era has finally begun. Yes, I'm looking for it,

506
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: but goddamn it, we need it, and there's no better place,

507
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: I think to start than what is staring us in

508
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: the face the misuse and abuse of the presidential park pattern.

509
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,560
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Speaker 1: got a growing family. So if you spend any time

567
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Speaker 1: thinking about American form moment, you can feel the drift.

568
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: Alliances are under strain, trade is being redefined in some

569
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: blunts transactional terms. The word multilateral has become suspect in

570
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: certain corners of Washington, and hovering over all of it

571
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: is the central strategic fact of our time. China is

572
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: not just rising, it is competing. So here's the question,

573
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: what is America's grand strategy?

574
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 2: Now?

575
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: It's not a slogan, not a reaction out a tweet,

576
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: a strategy. My guess today has spent decades inside the

577
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: machinery of American foreign policy trying to answer that question.

578
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: Ambassador Robert Blackwell is a former Ambassador to India, former

579
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: Deputy National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush, and

580
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: really one of the most seasoned strategic things in Washington.

581
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: He's now the Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council

582
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,719
Speaker 1: on Foreign Relations, and he's out with a special Council

583
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: special report. I had previewed it for the audience a

584
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, actually when it first came out, it's

585
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: called America Revived, a Grand Strategy of Resolute Global Leadership. Basically,

586
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: he's laying out an argument that is both a warning

587
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: and a blueprint, and I sort of viewed it as

588
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: must if you're running for president, whichever side of the

589
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: isle you're on. I felt this was something that I

590
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: think the Ambassador is hoping will be something these candidates

591
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: read and be thinking about, as in case one of

592
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: them actually wins the next presidency and can implement what

593
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 1: is a twenty first century national security strategy.

594
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 2: So Ambassador Blackwell joins me. Now, Bob, good to see.

595
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 3: You, Good to see you, Thanks for having me.

596
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 2: So look you have.

597
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: You know, you're part of this world that you know

598
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: that some people will criticize as the uniparty, right, that

599
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: there's always and in the Cold War there really was

600
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: the quote bipartisan consensus, and you talk about this in

601
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: your Peace and there is no consensus anymore on how

602
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: what America's role in the world should be at the moment.

603
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: And it struck me that what you were trying to

604
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: do is make an argument for a new consensus.

605
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 2: Is that fair?

606
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 3: That is fair? The consensus of which you speak, Chuck

607
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 3: governed America's approach to the world from the end of

608
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 3: World War Two to mister Trump, and it was pursued

609
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 3: by presidents in both parties. They did it in certain

610
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 3: different ways, but the instance was a foreign policy based

611
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 3: on alliances which they every president thought contributed to American strength,

612
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 3: to American values, which every president thought was the foundation

613
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 3: of America's power projection into the world, and finally avoiding

614
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 3: the emergence of a peer competitor which would dominate a

615
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 3: crucial region. And uh, I believe President Trump has rejected

616
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 3: all three of those. Uh, and so that has produced

617
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 3: the debate that we're now acutely in.

618
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: So let's start with before we get into what you're

619
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: what you're laying out, Let's start with what everybody got

620
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: wrong on China. And it just feels like what you know,

621
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: I think, you know, whether it was Nixon and Carter

622
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 1: believing you could bring them along right frankly Dido with

623
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: Clinton and Bush in many ways, I would argue those

624
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 1: four in different ways, had had big impacts. And you know,

625
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: I think the assumption was that somehow, the more we

626
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: brought China into the Free market economy, the more the

627
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: people of China would see how great a free market

628
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: economy is and would reject communism, and it would over

629
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: time essentially help help us win the argument, if you will,

630
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: that didn't happen.

631
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 3: Why, Well, first, I would distinguish Nixon Kissinger from the rest.

632
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 3: They opened up China for geopolitical reasons to balance the

633
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 3: Soviet Union, and although out of office later Richard Nixon

634
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 3: hoped that perhaps China would move in a more liberal direction.

635
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger never made that argument, and I think never

636
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 3: believed it, but you're right there. American leaders' presidents after

637
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 3: them held the hope that over the decades, China would

638
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 3: be integrated into this liberal international approach to world order,

639
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 3: and they went on, I'm hoping for that up through

640
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,959
Speaker 3: the mid twenty tens and far past, when it should

641
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 3: have been obvious that China had a different set of

642
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:17,240
Speaker 3: objectives in mind, which was essentially to replace the United

643
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 3: States as the primary power in the Indo Pacific. And

644
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the late twenty tens, after the Pivot

645
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 3: Asia had failed, that finally, finally a consensus emerged that

646
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 3: China no longer could be considered a candidate for liberal evolution,

647
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 3: and indeed, Bob Gates makes an argument former Distinguished Secretary

648
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 3: of Defense and a wise man makes the argument that

649
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 3: China is the most dangerous rival in American history and

650
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 3: is likely to remain so for years ahead. So it

651
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 3: was a combination of wishful thinking but also not wanting

652
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:18,280
Speaker 3: to spend the money in on the defense side, which

653
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 3: would be consistent with regarding them as this dangerous rival.

654
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 3: And we still haven't spent that money up until this day.

655
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:30,399
Speaker 1: You know, there's sort of two things that I think

656
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 1: we in hindsight, I'm curious where would we be if

657
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: we had pushed for this. One, of course, is the

658
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: Transpacific Partnership, which seemed to be a great potential economic

659
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: sort of bulwark against of getting other Asian allies into

660
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: a trade pack to be a check on China. Then,

661
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: of course, you know, essentially Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

662
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: came roaring in and essentially cowed the establishment wings of

663
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: both party to back off on that. And the second

664
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: is if we should have aggressively developed basically Asian what

665
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: I use in shorthand is Asia, NATO, the quad is

666
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: sort of we're at the very beginning here, But should

667
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: we have created both an economic and security packed a

668
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: lot sooner. It should have been something we thought about

669
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: in the early odds, you know, either your time in

670
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 1: Bush or the first term of Obama.

671
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 3: I think that the situation in Asia was not right

672
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 3: for any interest in a NATO like arrangement for two reasons.

673
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 3: Money is, at that time they didn't regard the China

674
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 3: threat as so serious that it was required. But the

675
00:40:56,280 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 3: second was that from two thousand and one, of course,

676
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 3: the United States was preoccupied with the War on Terror

677
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 3: and almost to the exclusion of other issues, including the

678
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 3: rise of China. Our good friend Steve Hadley, who's one

679
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 3: of the most distinguished practitioner practitioners in decades, said in public,

680
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 3: we just got China wrong, and we got Shei Jinping wrong.

681
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 3: And I think the primary reason that we got him

682
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 3: wrong is that to this day we have trouble understanding

683
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:48,800
Speaker 3: how Marxist Hi Jinping really is. It's so foreign to

684
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 3: the way we think of the world, and there's hardly

685
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 3: anybody still alive who remembers that very Marxist Soviet Union.

686
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 3: It's last three and a half decades was a gradual

687
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 3: slump from that acute Marxism, and what does Marxism tell

688
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 3: Shi Jinping that China is not safe in the world

689
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 3: without leading it because the other forces will try to

690
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 3: do China in And so that's I think his policy,

691
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:33,800
Speaker 3: and we still have not developed the will to combat

692
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 3: it with increases in the defense budget and so forth.

693
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:42,359
Speaker 3: I'll just give you one example, but it is an

694
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 3: example of the limp policies of liberal internationalism. The militarization

695
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 3: of the artificial islands in the South China Sea. We

696
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 3: could see that coming, We watched it. Indeed, perhaps spectators, Yeah,

697
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 3: we were spectators.

698
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 2: Wow.

699
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 3: And I think we backed away from the danger of

700
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 3: a collision with China. And in that period we were

701
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 3: much stronger in naval forces in the South China Sea

702
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:26,239
Speaker 3: and so forth, but we just let it happen. We

703
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 3: are our limp reaction to the twenty fourteen Russian acquisition

704
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 3: of Ukraine. I have a great long list, but liberal

705
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 3: internationalism became weaker and weaker in its expression, and China

706
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 3: I think was in bolden by that and has taken

707
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 3: advantage of it. The last few liberal internationalist presidencies I

708
00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 3: think would be unrecognizable to Harry Truman or to Jack Kennedy,

709
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 3: or to Scoop Jackson, or to Dan moynihan and so forth.

710
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 3: They have been weak in their reaction to the challenges

711
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 3: that we face around the globe.

712
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,359
Speaker 1: So you have to live in the I always joke,

713
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: he used to say this all the time. It meet

714
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 1: the press, I cover politics as it is, not as

715
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: I wish it were, so we can we know, we

716
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: could talk about what we could have done, should have done,

717
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: et cetera. Now the question is now what do we do?

718
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: And I want to start with there hasn't There's been

719
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: a lot of in the foreign policy news world, a

720
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: lot of intrigue, concern uh and focus a little bit

721
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: on on the purge She's been doing of his military.

722
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: What do you make of that? And how should we

723
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:53,319
Speaker 1: what do you how do you view that? What's what

724
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 1: do you think is going on internally in China's political

725
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:57,280
Speaker 1: leadership at the moment.

726
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 3: First, the first thing that one should say, since there's

727
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 3: so much commentary, is that not one of the people

728
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 3: who are writing foreign affairs articles and op eds know

729
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 3: what it means, So it's all speculation.

730
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: Is intelligence that week in China?

731
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 3: Well, in order to know since there's such a small circle,

732
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 3: and it's smaller now than it was a month ago.

733
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 3: It's such a small circle. It would be wonderful if

734
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 3: we had penetrated the very inner workings of the five

735
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 3: men who made decisions led by Shi Jinping.

736
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: Sounds like we might have gotten close, which got him paranoid.

737
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 3: Well, let me just say it is when a general

738
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 3: is charged with leaking nuclear secrets to the Americans. Well,

739
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 3: hooray if it's actually true. But there are a variety

740
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 3: of other interpretations one could make in the Chinese government

741
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 3: saying that, So we are, hopefully the president is receiving

742
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,879
Speaker 3: from the intelligence community their best judgment of what's going on,

743
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 3: and they're speculating less how much they know. Undoubtful they

744
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 3: have penetrated the inner workings. So there are two biometrically

745
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:32,280
Speaker 3: opposed explanations. One is that he's getting the military ready

746
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 3: for action, as he said as soon as two thousand

747
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 3: and seven against Taiwan.

748
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty seven.

749
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:50,760
Speaker 3: That's theory one, and he's the older generations are corrupt

750
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,320
Speaker 3: and not warriors, to use a word that's now prevalent

751
00:46:56,360 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 3: in Washington. The second is that this elderly leadership of

752
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 3: the PLA began perhaps in the faintest possible way, to

753
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 3: dissent from the path that Chi Jinping is on, which

754
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 3: is more and more dominated by this single personality. And

755
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 3: I don't nobody knows which of those it is are

756
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 3: a combination of the two, But I think we do

757
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 3: have to take seriously the military threat that China represents

758
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 3: with respect to Taiwan, which they're working very hard on

759
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 3: every single day. And one of the things that's happened

760
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 3: during this period that we've been discussing, let's say, the

761
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 3: last fifteen to twenty years, is they dramatically narrowed the

762
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:59,279
Speaker 3: gap between our two militaries, especially concerning Taiwan contingencies, and

763
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,840
Speaker 3: we have to do something about that. Deterrence today is

764
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 3: the weakest it's ever been with respect to deterring China

765
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 3: from acting on Taiwan.

766
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to positive theory to you tell me

767
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,760
Speaker 1: if I'm either too cynical, and I fully, I fully

768
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 1: respect that. But my concern is that she is on

769
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: the clock because he knows that that Trump might let

770
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: him have Taiwan. It seems to be it's on the

771
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 1: negotiating table. Trump has seemed to have allowed that to

772
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: be that we could quote change our posture starting, you know,

773
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: no longer support independence things like that. What's what's a

774
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: worse outcome that we just sort of let it happen

775
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: and they and they get Taiwan without really firing a

776
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 1: shot if there is a fight, but they get it

777
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 1: with out us, you know, and we sort of help

778
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: but not enough and they get it anyway. Or is

779
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: it something we should be fighting all the way to stop?

780
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 3: Well, you've at the end highlighted the major issue which

781
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 3: is not really discussed in public, even in the elite,

782
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 3: which is the question that Britain asked itself in nineteen

783
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 3: thirty nine, are we willing to go to war with

784
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 3: Germany over Poland? And the question not asked around Washington

785
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 3: in all of the palaver is are we willing to

786
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 3: go to war with China over Taiwan? Yes? Or no?

787
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:58,359
Speaker 3: And an American president should know that he doesn't have

788
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 3: to announce it, although Biden did.

789
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 2: For did was that work?

790
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: That was the first time an American president ever done

791
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: that right?

792
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 3: Right? And and at each time, as we know, the

793
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 3: State Department walked it back the next morning. But I

794
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 3: think we do have some evidence that Biden would go

795
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:24,439
Speaker 3: to war with China over Taiwan. I think you're right

796
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 3: that there is no such evidence with respect to President Trump,

797
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 3: and he has said things like Taiwan has a little

798
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 3: dot on the coast of China which stole all of

799
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 3: our chip technology and so forth. So would he go

800
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 3: to war with China over Taiwan? I think that at

801
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 3: least there's a doubt in his case and it and

802
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 3: President she Jen p may want to test the hypothesis,

803
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 3: maybe not with a.

804
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: I mean if I were sitting in his shoes. And again,

805
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 1: I don't want this to happen. I wouldn't wait for

806
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,399
Speaker 1: another American president to do this. I'd do it under

807
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 1: this one.

808
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:17,880
Speaker 3: But it's still nobody knows what an American president is

809
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 3: going to do before he does it. And this is

810
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 3: particularly I might say erratic American president. He can't, even

811
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:33,879
Speaker 3: with the perhaps footprints in the sand, heading toward a

812
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:39,760
Speaker 3: quiet reaction to such Chinese aggression. He can't be sure.

813
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 3: And using his military force is a great gamble. It

814
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 3: hasn't been in combat since the late nineteen seventies, it's

815
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:53,920
Speaker 3: corrupt and all the rest. So what if he tries

816
00:51:54,280 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 3: and fails? So making that decision to say, Okay, there's

817
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 3: not going to be a better moment than now go.

818
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to predict what he'll say, but it's

819
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 3: certainly true de terrence is weaker under President Trump, There's

820
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 3: no doubt about that. Any If you.

821
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: Were in Taiwan, would you be more concerned now under

822
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:20,759
Speaker 1: the current situation than you've ever been?

823
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah, absolutely.

824
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 1: I've always thought the biggest problem American political leaders have

825
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: on the Taiwan issue is, particularly with the memory of

826
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan still still recent enough for enough people

827
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: that you'd have a hard time convincing the country that

828
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:46,800
Speaker 1: it's worth going to war over.

829
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 2: Taiwan.

830
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 1: I mean, you see, we're look, Americans are always instinctively isolationists,

831
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 1: and then you know, we can be talked into it.

832
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: But I think that's a top political order, Bob, it is.

833
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 3: I agree. But if the president is suddenly informed that

834
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 3: China has started military action against Taiwan, then what does

835
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 3: he do. Well, he can try to avoid responsibility, as

836
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 3: presidents have done and said, well, the Congress has to

837
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 3: decide this, not me, but there'll be pressure. There'll be

838
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:36,240
Speaker 3: pressure on him to make a decision and The longer

839
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 3: he waits, the more likely we won't intervene. So he

840
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:45,880
Speaker 3: has that time to try to persuade the American people.

841
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 3: I believe, though, with you, that if it were to

842
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 3: happen and he were to ask the American people, should

843
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 3: I go to war with China, a majority is likely

844
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:05,879
Speaker 3: to say no, it's too far away. Uh, it's it's

845
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 3: uh not important enough. We seem to have a recent

846
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 3: inclination to lose wars. No. But that's where American leadership

847
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 3: comes in and and explains to the American people, here's

848
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 3: why we're going to war. Uh. But it's a it

849
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 3: will be a tough sell. Just again, to use a

850
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 3: historical analogy, we will never know whether FDR and the

851
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 3: American Congress would have declared war on Germany. On Germany

852
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 3: once Pearl Harbor had occurred, if Hitler hadn't declared war

853
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:52,240
Speaker 3: on US first, because the the the body of of

854
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 3: of opinion was, let's concentrate on Japan. They're the ones

855
00:54:57,080 --> 00:55:01,800
Speaker 3: who attacked us. Germany hasn't attacked US. And that decision

856
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 3: by Hitler to declare war four days later after Pearl Harbor,

857
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 3: that's what Mary LaGuardia called a doozy. That's a historic doozy.

858
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:26,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and obviously a giant misstep by the Germans

859
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: in that time. So let's talk about let's assume we

860
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: get through this term without without being fake, without anybody

861
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:42,240
Speaker 1: being faced with the Taiwan decision. What are you advising

862
00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: the next president to do in twenty twenty nine or

863
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,320
Speaker 1: what do you hope the next president is thinking about

864
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 1: come twenty twenty nine?

865
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:57,399
Speaker 3: Well, I myself am an optimist in several respects with

866
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:04,280
Speaker 3: respect to your question. First of all, I think President

867
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:11,479
Speaker 3: Trump is a unique singular figure in American history, and

868
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:16,839
Speaker 3: that he will take much of trump Ism with him

869
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 3: as he goes out the door, in particular, in particular

870
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 3: the erratic behavior that he prefers, the contempt for America's alliances,

871
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,879
Speaker 3: the statement that American values have no place in American

872
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 3: foreign policy, and so forth. Those are so un American,

873
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 3: those views that I think he takes them out the

874
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 3: door with him.

875
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: You're that confident a president jd.

876
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:48,000
Speaker 2: Vance would throw all that away?

877
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:52,319
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I'm speculating. But let me say what I

878
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:57,840
Speaker 3: think he won't throw away, which is American nationalism, which

879
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 3: has dominated American grand strategy since the founding.

880
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 1: I'm glad you point this out. I try to tell

881
00:57:08,520 --> 00:57:11,360
Speaker 1: people the Cold War was an outlier in American history

882
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:19,320
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, political parties, political extremism, isolationism,

883
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 1: and nationalism versus multilateralism. I mean, and unfortunately or fortunately

884
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: we get to live in that era and we saw, hey,

885
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Erica really benefited from this era of multilateralism,

886
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: which makes it a head scratcher.

887
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 2: Why we would want to give it up?

888
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 3: Well, it became weaker, as I tried to say earlier,

889
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 3: but the and I can't be sure obviously who the

890
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 3: Republican nominee would be and what you would say. But

891
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:53,959
Speaker 3: I think the challenge, the debate after Trump will be

892
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 3: between American nationalism, which, as I say, for more than

893
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty years was amer and grand strategy,

894
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 3: and I hope a much stronger liberal internationalism with a

895
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 3: much greater capacity in the military, most more defense of

896
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 3: international institutions and so forth. And I think that'll be

897
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 3: the debate. It'll be the Western hemisphere versus the globe.

898
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 3: And I don't the American people instinctively, as you say, Chuck,

899
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 3: all the way back to the beginning, are anxious about alliances,

900
00:58:34,840 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 3: about entangling alliances, to use the founder's words, and so

901
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 3: if it is, if it is vice president advanced, then

902
00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:51,919
Speaker 3: he will campaign as a Trumpist. But I don't think

903
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:54,720
Speaker 3: he will be a Trumpist. I think most likely he'll

904
00:58:54,760 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 3: be an American nationalist. And then that is raising the question, well,

905
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 3: who is the Democrat candidate and what is the Democrat

906
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:12,960
Speaker 3: approach to world order and US grand strategy today or

907
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:16,960
Speaker 3: more pertinently during the campaign. And I don't have a clue.

908
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:19,960
Speaker 3: I don't have you do, but I know I couldn't.

909
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,680
Speaker 3: I could sit Yeah, I mean you might do.

910
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: I think that your your peak bootage is your Josha Piers,

911
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: your Wes Moores would be would look very familiar to

912
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: you as far as foreign policy over the last thirty

913
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 1: or forty years, I think so. But who's to say

914
00:59:35,720 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: they're going to be you know, I think this, You know, you.

915
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 2: Don't know for sure.

916
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:44,040
Speaker 1: Let me look at it through Europe's perspective here, you know,

917
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: Europe is you know, I've often joked that Trump's going

918
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: to make Europe great again because they've got to sort

919
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:56,000
Speaker 1: of like, well, can't rely on America anymore. So let's

920
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 1: start making our own economic deals and let's start thinking

921
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:03,919
Speaker 1: about our own defense packs and things like that. It's

922
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: going to take a while for our European allies to

923
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: trust us again. So how do you build really, if

924
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 1: we're gonna if you get a president that wants to

925
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:16,200
Speaker 1: rebuild these alliances, how do you do it in such

926
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: a way where it becomes more durable and essentially Trump

927
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: proof it for the next time.

928
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:26,400
Speaker 3: Well, that is related to what I said earlier at Davos.

929
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 3: Friend of mine asked foreign minister, well, what about after Trump?

930
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 3: And he said, well, if the next president looks more

931
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 3: like ones we've seen before, okay, but then we can

932
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 3: get another Trump. And my argument, which my friend didn't use,

933
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 3: but my argument is no, you're not going to get

934
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 3: another Trump. He is such a singular figure in American

935
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 3: history that, as I said, I think his many of

936
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 3: his policies will go with him, but it will so let.

937
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 2: Me pause you there.

938
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 1: I mostly agree with you, but but we have I

939
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: have a friend of mine wh always says, you know,

940
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 1: with Trump, we sometimes forget the phrase failure of imagination.

941
01:01:10,080 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: And you know, there have been multiple times we thought

942
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 1: this would do in Trump, We're not going to return

943
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 1: to Trump, and yet we've done it, so I would

944
01:01:19,560 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: you know, I've wondered if the second election of Trump

945
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: really sort of cemented skepticism about America at least for

946
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: another decade.

947
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 3: I think you're the expert on domestic politics. It's not

948
01:01:35,400 --> 01:01:38,320
Speaker 3: my line of work, but I think it mostly shows

949
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 3: the weakness of the Democrat candidate, or at least.

950
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 2: That I don't disagree. I mean the last three part

951
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 2: of it.

952
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 3: But back back to the fundamental point, which is the

953
01:01:52,440 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 3: Trump approach, which is as I say, I think at

954
01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 3: the at the base an American because it has no

955
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 3: values in it, and every president back to Washington had

956
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 3: values in their approach to international affairs. I don't think jd.

957
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 3: Vance will say the same thing, for example, that President

958
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 3: Trump says and mister Miller says about that power and

959
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 3: strength is everything in the world. I would be very surprised.

960
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:36,680
Speaker 3: When I was in the Serengetti recently, I had a

961
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 3: guide say in the Serengetti every night animals eat and

962
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:48,200
Speaker 3: animals are eaten. Well, I think that's mister Miller's view

963
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 3: of current civilization and it's not shared by the American people.

964
01:02:54,080 --> 01:03:01,120
Speaker 3: And I think if mister Vance were to campaign on

965
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 3: that gangsterism, which incidentally has some loyalties at least, that

966
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 3: would be a mistake. So anyway, whoever's the next president

967
01:03:13,080 --> 01:03:17,440
Speaker 3: will have the opportunity to build that trust. If it's

968
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:23,200
Speaker 3: mister Vance and he keeps denigrating our democratically elected allies,

969
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:29,920
Speaker 3: then trust will not be re established. And in life,

970
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:34,840
Speaker 3: we know it can be re established unless the perforation

971
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:39,040
Speaker 3: of the trust goes on. And so if the next

972
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 3: president says, I know trust in America has weakened to

973
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 3: the Europeans, but just watch me, and you're going to

974
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 3: see a consistency of our policies, and I hope we'll

975
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:59,160
Speaker 3: build trust over time. It won't happen automatically. But question

976
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:02,280
Speaker 3: which you imply is, and I don't know the answer, is, well,

977
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 3: what about if the next president treats the European allies

978
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:12,440
Speaker 3: the way this one has? Well, when is it that

979
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 3: they finally give up on America And they're not going

980
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:24,200
Speaker 3: to do it to amplify their risk. But a Europe,

981
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 3: and this is something that the administration seems not to accept.

982
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 3: A Europe which really is separated from the United States,

983
01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 3: is a Europe which will go on its own, not

984
01:04:37,880 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 3: just in dealing with European security issues, but with trade

985
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:46,440
Speaker 3: with China or treating Israel in the Middle East or whatever.

986
01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 3: It will have no incentives to care much about what

987
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 3: the United States thinks or advises if we separate from

988
01:04:56,720 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 3: them in the way that the President vice president seem

989
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 3: to want. This curiosity in which the President can say

990
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 3: nothing positive about Europe while he emphasizes his close friendships

991
01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 3: with Shijinping, who's trying to displace the United States as

992
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 3: the principal power in Asia and beyond, and Vladimir Putin,

993
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:29,880
Speaker 3: who is seeking to murder as many innocent Ukrainians as

994
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 3: he can, are close friends. It is unfathomable. For it

995
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:38,280
Speaker 3: is me at least.

996
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: One of the my reading of history is nationalism is

997
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: usually comes before wars, and that nationalism is also contagious.

998
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 1: And when we get more nationalistic, so does the world.

999
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 1: When we get more protectionists, so do other.

1000
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:00,240
Speaker 2: Countries become protection.

1001
01:06:01,440 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: And this is something that I think you write soberly,

1002
01:06:05,800 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: but to me this I read it with a bit

1003
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:13,200
Speaker 1: of alarm. I think we've never it feels like we

1004
01:06:13,280 --> 01:06:16,520
Speaker 1: are at There are a lot of we are at

1005
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 1: a moment where there's quite a few places where a

1006
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: spark could cause something that we can't control.

1007
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 3: Well, in some places it's gotten better, but in some

1008
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:33,160
Speaker 3: places it's gotten worse. I do want to point out,

1009
01:06:33,360 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 3: and it's not because of American policies. It's because of

1010
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:42,640
Speaker 3: the IDF and Israel. But that spark is much less

1011
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 3: likely in the Middle East now than it was before

1012
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:51,720
Speaker 3: the Hamas attack on Israel.

1013
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:54,680
Speaker 1: That is true. The stability in the Middle East there

1014
01:06:54,680 --> 01:06:57,760
Speaker 1: may be political. It may have caused more political instability

1015
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:02,480
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party here, but there is security stability

1016
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:04,720
Speaker 1: in the Middle East in a way that we've not

1017
01:07:04,840 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 1: seen in a long time. Right.

1018
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:10,200
Speaker 3: But in Europe the danger is and it's an analog

1019
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:15,080
Speaker 3: to what UH you raised with respect to Taiwan. Who

1020
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 3: believes that Donald Trump will abide by Article five, that

1021
01:07:20,920 --> 01:07:23,880
Speaker 3: is to say, an attack on one as an attack

1022
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:29,200
Speaker 3: on all. Essentially, if little green men go into a

1023
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 3: Baltic state.

1024
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:35,400
Speaker 1: Oh, we've heard Tucker Carlson say this about Estonia. Is

1025
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:38,840
Speaker 1: American America going to spill blood for Estonian right?

1026
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 3: And so UH can putin especially if he can't conquer Ukraine.

1027
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:53,160
Speaker 3: UH will he test the proposition too? About Trump souh

1028
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:57,520
Speaker 3: a spark there could lead to the collapse of NATO,

1029
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 3: for example, UH if the United States were not willing

1030
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:08,240
Speaker 3: to UH to abide by Article five, or even worse,

1031
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:17,439
Speaker 3: somehow endorsed the Little Green Men from Russia the paramilitaries

1032
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 3: into the Baltic States. And President Trump, after his interactions

1033
01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:30,880
Speaker 3: with President Putin, often seems to accept President Putin's explanation

1034
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 3: of what is happening in the world. So there there's

1035
01:08:34,920 --> 01:08:38,439
Speaker 3: a point. And but the most dangerous I'll just say

1036
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:42,920
Speaker 3: this to make it clear, the most dangerous place on earth,

1037
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:48,559
Speaker 3: as that spark you mentioned for the rest of the

1038
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:55,840
Speaker 3: of the Trump term, is Taiwan. That that's because of

1039
01:08:55,880 --> 01:09:00,360
Speaker 3: the reasons we said. I think uh Is is the

1040
01:09:00,360 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 3: most dangerous. And that spark quote could happen anytime.

1041
01:09:14,800 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 1: If the US helps create a peace steal between Russia

1042
01:09:19,840 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 1: and Ukraine that essentially rewards Russia.

1043
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:25,320
Speaker 2: What's the fallout from that.

1044
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:31,360
Speaker 3: Well, the peace steel, the one I would support, will

1045
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:39,360
Speaker 3: reward Russia because there is no stomach in the West

1046
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:44,200
Speaker 3: and no capability in Ukraine to drive Russia out of

1047
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:48,400
Speaker 3: the Donboss and out of Crimea. So they are going

1048
01:09:48,479 --> 01:09:52,519
Speaker 3: to profit at the expense of more than a million

1049
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:56,439
Speaker 3: deaths and so forth from their invasion. The question is

1050
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:01,799
Speaker 3: rather is rather can we stop them where they are

1051
01:10:02,560 --> 01:10:07,680
Speaker 3: and retain Ukrainian sovereignty? And some of the things that

1052
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:14,760
Speaker 3: mister Wikoff has proposed in the past would jeopardize or

1053
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:23,240
Speaker 3: even end Ukrainian sovereignty. So that's the question. And I think,

1054
01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:26,240
Speaker 3: sadly the war is likely to go on because I

1055
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:33,200
Speaker 3: think that there is a determination in Ukraine not to

1056
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:37,719
Speaker 3: lose their statehood, and that's what Putin, of course wants

1057
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:42,960
Speaker 3: to accomplish. And I just hope the Americans, the American administration,

1058
01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:48,400
Speaker 3: are not going to assist President Putin In that by

1059
01:10:49,200 --> 01:10:54,480
Speaker 3: putting pressure on Ukraine to give up its sovereignty.

1060
01:10:55,920 --> 01:10:59,040
Speaker 1: Look, I sort of positive this idea that I think

1061
01:10:59,120 --> 01:11:03,160
Speaker 1: she knows that if he wants to that it might

1062
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 1: benefit him to test the premise while Trump's still here,

1063
01:11:07,680 --> 01:11:13,280
Speaker 1: then waiting until after Trump leaves. I assume that times

1064
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:18,000
Speaker 1: ten with Putin, that Putin knows he's got he'll never

1065
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:20,480
Speaker 1: have a friendlier American president.

1066
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:22,760
Speaker 2: Than the one he has now.

1067
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:26,559
Speaker 1: So what does that mean when it comes to his

1068
01:11:26,880 --> 01:11:28,360
Speaker 1: actions in the next two and a half.

1069
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:32,519
Speaker 3: Years, Well, what can he do that's exactly the right question.

1070
01:11:33,360 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 3: His progress on the battlefield is painfully slow and doesn't

1071
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 3: seem to accelerate now. So I think there's no breakout

1072
01:11:53,479 --> 01:11:58,519
Speaker 3: for Putin in the military campaign. So the strategy would

1073
01:11:58,520 --> 01:12:05,960
Speaker 3: be to persuade President Trump to put so much pressure

1074
01:12:06,320 --> 01:12:12,439
Speaker 3: on Ukraine that it will abandon its determination to retain

1075
01:12:12,479 --> 01:12:18,559
Speaker 3: its sovereignty and succumb. Well, how could President Trump do that?

1076
01:12:19,280 --> 01:12:23,840
Speaker 3: He could say, we will no longer support you with

1077
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:33,519
Speaker 3: intelligence information, right, which which would be a catastrophic Uh,

1078
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:34,040
Speaker 3: it's the.

1079
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:39,080
Speaker 1: Single most valuable thing we still do for them wedirectly

1080
01:12:39,760 --> 01:12:42,080
Speaker 1: give them military, but it's now indirect the way it

1081
01:12:42,200 --> 01:12:43,400
Speaker 1: was direct.

1082
01:12:43,400 --> 01:12:46,719
Speaker 3: Exactly, and it helps them with their targeting, with moving

1083
01:12:46,720 --> 01:12:50,200
Speaker 3: their force of all the rest. Well, he can, as

1084
01:12:50,240 --> 01:12:56,200
Speaker 3: a presidential act actor with unlimited power in that regard,

1085
01:12:56,479 --> 01:12:59,599
Speaker 3: he can end it tomorrow, and he could say, if

1086
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:03,000
Speaker 3: you do not accept X y Z, I'm going to

1087
01:13:03,200 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 3: end it. Second, I'm going to stop selling weapons to Europe,

1088
01:13:10,439 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 3: which they then pass on to you, and Europe cannot

1089
01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 3: keep you sufficiently supplied with specially artillery shells, but other

1090
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:23,240
Speaker 3: things as well and so forth. So Putin could hope

1091
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 3: that with that ultimatum from the United States and from

1092
01:13:29,479 --> 01:13:36,839
Speaker 3: President Trump. Perhaps the view in the Ukrainian leadership would

1093
01:13:37,320 --> 01:13:43,120
Speaker 3: succumb to this American pressure, and I think Putin will

1094
01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:46,760
Speaker 3: keep working on that and be patient. We talk, and

1095
01:13:46,800 --> 01:13:49,200
Speaker 3: this is I'm guilty of this more than you. But

1096
01:13:52,439 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 3: when I'm hopeful, Chuck about what America's future might be

1097
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:03,519
Speaker 3: with respect to it's foreign policies. When I'm hopeful, I

1098
01:14:03,600 --> 01:14:09,240
Speaker 3: have to say that I have to compartmentalize that hope

1099
01:14:09,920 --> 01:14:14,240
Speaker 3: and ignore that the president is in office for three

1100
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:23,839
Speaker 3: more years. So what will he do to further rupture,

1101
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:29,000
Speaker 3: to use the Canadian Prime Minister's words, to rupture the

1102
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:36,800
Speaker 3: alliances for now? For now? And Greenland is a good example.

1103
01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:44,280
Speaker 3: Europe is traumatized by what President Trump says, not what

1104
01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:53,439
Speaker 3: he does. So Davos was a flitter not because President

1105
01:14:53,479 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 3: Trump did anything about Greenland. It was he said he

1106
01:14:57,840 --> 01:15:02,439
Speaker 3: would consider the use of force. What we need, I

1107
01:15:02,479 --> 01:15:06,760
Speaker 3: think to be acutely aware of as in the next

1108
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:11,360
Speaker 3: three years, is what does he start, not just saying,

1109
01:15:11,479 --> 01:15:15,320
Speaker 3: but doing. For example, does he make the decision to

1110
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:22,599
Speaker 3: withdraw US forces from South Korea or substantial numbers from

1111
01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:31,519
Speaker 3: Japan from from Europe? Does he succumb to the one

1112
01:15:31,680 --> 01:15:39,720
Speaker 3: China interpretation of the Chinese interpretation of one China, which

1113
01:15:39,760 --> 01:15:43,599
Speaker 3: says Taiwan is part of China and so forth. So

1114
01:15:43,680 --> 01:15:46,640
Speaker 3: I think we need to adopt what you and I

1115
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:51,559
Speaker 3: will remember. And others ed Meese's line about watch what

1116
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:57,599
Speaker 3: we do, not what we say. It's especially true that

1117
01:15:58,439 --> 01:16:02,720
Speaker 3: to become traumatized every night at two am when he

1118
01:16:02,800 --> 01:16:08,639
Speaker 3: tweets out is not a productive way to spend your

1119
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:09,880
Speaker 3: time at two am.

1120
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:15,640
Speaker 1: I still have some you know it. What do you

1121
01:16:15,680 --> 01:16:19,960
Speaker 1: make of Marco Rubio's role here? I view him as

1122
01:16:20,000 --> 01:16:23,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of a firewall in that administration. He

1123
01:16:23,120 --> 01:16:26,519
Speaker 1: certainly has the ear of the president. He has his

1124
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:29,360
Speaker 1: own agendas that he is trying to you know, as

1125
01:16:29,400 --> 01:16:31,679
Speaker 1: I joke, he's going to there'll be more streets named

1126
01:16:31,680 --> 01:16:35,880
Speaker 1: after him in my hometown of Miami than anybody else

1127
01:16:36,080 --> 01:16:38,040
Speaker 1: in the next twenty years if he gets what he

1128
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:42,840
Speaker 1: wants in both Cuban Venezuela. But he is a I

1129
01:16:42,880 --> 01:16:46,320
Speaker 1: think he's an internationalist. I think he believes in multilateralism.

1130
01:16:46,800 --> 01:16:51,040
Speaker 1: He certainly has changed his rhetoric to Appeace Trump. But

1131
01:16:51,120 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: would you be a lot more concerned if he wasn't there?

1132
01:16:54,160 --> 01:17:01,320
Speaker 3: Yes, and yes, and although if more were more important,

1133
01:17:01,360 --> 01:17:05,000
Speaker 3: what I'm about to say would damage his standing.

1134
01:17:05,240 --> 01:17:06,000
Speaker 2: But I admired.

1135
01:17:06,120 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 1: Everybody's afraid of saying that. Don't don't praise him too much, right.

1136
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:12,880
Speaker 3: But I admire what he's trying to do. And I

1137
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:18,720
Speaker 3: think he's essentially a classic as I am, a classic

1138
01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:23,519
Speaker 3: Republican in the view in how he views the world,

1139
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:25,280
Speaker 3: the strength of alliance.

1140
01:17:25,320 --> 01:17:28,360
Speaker 1: Of the Republican of the as I say, from Eisenhower

1141
01:17:28,400 --> 01:17:31,200
Speaker 1: to Romney, there was sort of a Republican foreign policy

1142
01:17:31,240 --> 01:17:34,439
Speaker 1: consensus generally, right, Well, I think.

1143
01:17:34,240 --> 01:17:36,880
Speaker 3: It went beyond that in any but in any case,

1144
01:17:37,880 --> 01:17:42,040
Speaker 3: I think he has it. In just one topical example,

1145
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:48,519
Speaker 3: I think that he and perhaps Secretary hexas Uh put

1146
01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 3: the language in the National Security Strategy, tough language on

1147
01:17:54,479 --> 01:17:57,800
Speaker 3: the balance of power in the First Island chain and

1148
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:03,639
Speaker 3: the threats to that. But and so I'm glighted they

1149
01:18:03,640 --> 01:18:07,920
Speaker 3: put it in. But because of the President, they couldn't

1150
01:18:07,960 --> 01:18:14,000
Speaker 3: mention the country that raises these anxieties, that is to say, China.

1151
01:18:14,400 --> 01:18:20,280
Speaker 3: So it's as if, well, let's see who might that be? Yeah, right,

1152
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:27,160
Speaker 3: So I admire what Secretary Rubio is trying to do,

1153
01:18:27,600 --> 01:18:32,160
Speaker 3: and it's the most delicate balancing act to go just

1154
01:18:32,360 --> 01:18:37,880
Speaker 3: far enough but not too far. I don't believe he himself,

1155
01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 3: for example, ever said we must take sovereign possession of Greenland.

1156
01:18:46,240 --> 01:18:49,920
Speaker 3: I think he tries to make his point, perhaps often

1157
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:55,799
Speaker 3: through silence, and so good good for him for trying

1158
01:18:55,880 --> 01:19:01,040
Speaker 3: and retaining if he has a here of the president.

1159
01:19:02,000 --> 01:19:02,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is.

1160
01:19:03,400 --> 01:19:06,240
Speaker 1: At some point, I expect the President to turn on him,

1161
01:19:06,240 --> 01:19:09,880
Speaker 1: but so far he is. That hasn't happened. To get

1162
01:19:09,920 --> 01:19:12,559
Speaker 1: your opinion on something, Jake Sullivan, when he was Biden's

1163
01:19:12,600 --> 01:19:16,160
Speaker 1: National security advisor, gave a speech. It may have been

1164
01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:19,960
Speaker 1: in front of CFR counts some formulations where he viewed

1165
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:22,920
Speaker 1: He said, look, we're in a competition with China, and

1166
01:19:22,960 --> 01:19:25,240
Speaker 1: there's some he said, if if you want to look

1167
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:28,799
Speaker 1: at it and use American language, you know of swing states.

1168
01:19:29,280 --> 01:19:31,960
Speaker 1: But he viewed him as swing nations, and it was

1169
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:35,120
Speaker 1: sort of at the time he was basically trying to

1170
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:37,759
Speaker 1: convince Biden that he had to work with Saudi Arabia.

1171
01:19:38,040 --> 01:19:38,639
Speaker 2: We know you don't.

1172
01:19:38,760 --> 01:19:43,120
Speaker 1: You're personally angry, and Biden was was was not wanting to,

1173
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:46,120
Speaker 1: you know, he'd made this pledge about Saudi Arabia, and

1174
01:19:46,160 --> 01:19:48,920
Speaker 1: then you know, you make all the pledges in the

1175
01:19:48,920 --> 01:19:52,559
Speaker 1: world and campaign and all that right, and the reality hits.

1176
01:19:53,240 --> 01:19:59,280
Speaker 1: But he identified four countries and it was Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, India,

1177
01:19:59,479 --> 01:20:01,599
Speaker 1: and I.

1178
01:20:01,520 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 2: Think it was Brazil.

1179
01:20:04,080 --> 01:20:06,320
Speaker 1: As sort of these swing countries that we had to

1180
01:20:07,479 --> 01:20:11,880
Speaker 1: you know, these are that it was necessary to have

1181
01:20:12,080 --> 01:20:16,479
Speaker 1: close alliances with to prevent them from going into China's arms.

1182
01:20:17,160 --> 01:20:21,479
Speaker 1: Do you generally agree with that take and do you

1183
01:20:21,560 --> 01:20:24,080
Speaker 1: still see that as an issue? And I do feel

1184
01:20:24,080 --> 01:20:28,960
Speaker 1: like we've had in the twenty first century consecutive but

1185
01:20:29,200 --> 01:20:32,240
Speaker 1: one consistency is you've had all the presidents trying to

1186
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:34,040
Speaker 1: make nice with India.

1187
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, I do agree with that. And in that context,

1188
01:20:42,000 --> 01:20:47,360
Speaker 3: I think we are headed for not a multipolar world

1189
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:54,320
Speaker 3: in which the superpowers are first among equals and so forth.

1190
01:20:54,400 --> 01:20:56,839
Speaker 3: Although there's a lot of talk about the Middle Powers

1191
01:20:56,880 --> 01:20:59,400
Speaker 3: now and so forth, I think we're headed for a

1192
01:20:59,520 --> 01:21:03,320
Speaker 3: bipolar world that will be very familiar to us, and

1193
01:21:03,400 --> 01:21:07,280
Speaker 3: it will be the war to basically, yeah, well in

1194
01:21:07,320 --> 01:21:10,360
Speaker 3: that sense. There'll be many differences, but in that sense,

1195
01:21:10,400 --> 01:21:13,559
Speaker 3: and it will be the United States and China trying

1196
01:21:13,640 --> 01:21:19,360
Speaker 3: to attract these major other countries in the in the

1197
01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:24,879
Speaker 3: international system beginning with and including the four you mentioned,

1198
01:21:25,520 --> 01:21:31,120
Speaker 3: and that it will take ignoring in some cases there

1199
01:21:31,120 --> 01:21:37,240
Speaker 3: are human rights, domestic practices and others. India comes to

1200
01:21:37,320 --> 01:21:43,040
Speaker 3: mind a determined avoidance of anything that smells like an

1201
01:21:43,040 --> 01:21:46,679
Speaker 3: alliance while they get closer to the United States, which

1202
01:21:47,400 --> 01:21:53,759
Speaker 3: has been happening and so forth. And what they want,

1203
01:21:54,560 --> 01:21:59,920
Speaker 3: I think out of the United States is a consistency

1204
01:22:00,840 --> 01:22:05,920
Speaker 3: based on American strength, based on American strength, not a

1205
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:10,920
Speaker 3: consistency based on ideology from their point of view, And

1206
01:22:12,080 --> 01:22:16,960
Speaker 3: I tried to make an argument. It's argued at length

1207
01:22:17,040 --> 01:22:22,560
Speaker 3: in the report that American strength has not been impressive.

1208
01:22:22,600 --> 01:22:26,640
Speaker 3: The application of American strength you mentioned, and I neglected

1209
01:22:26,640 --> 01:22:34,960
Speaker 3: to follow up. The Obama administration's decision to abandon the

1210
01:22:35,080 --> 01:22:40,280
Speaker 3: Transpecific Partnership was catastrophic. It was a chance to have

1211
01:22:40,320 --> 01:22:44,800
Speaker 3: a framework for international trade in Asia led by the

1212
01:22:44,920 --> 01:22:51,000
Speaker 3: United States, and now we have no multilateral framework. Meanwhile,

1213
01:22:52,120 --> 01:22:59,280
Speaker 3: Asia itself is organizing and has organized itself with such

1214
01:22:59,280 --> 01:23:01,720
Speaker 3: a framework, and we have the Irony.

1215
01:23:01,400 --> 01:23:04,160
Speaker 2: Now in charge of it.

1216
01:23:03,960 --> 01:23:08,559
Speaker 3: That China has applied to be a member. What is

1217
01:23:08,720 --> 01:23:15,000
Speaker 3: the essence of the Transit Pacific Partnership. So what I'm

1218
01:23:15,080 --> 01:23:21,600
Speaker 3: advising is a much more robust engagement with the international

1219
01:23:21,680 --> 01:23:30,240
Speaker 3: system than recent administrations. That's liberal internationalism strengthened in every dimension,

1220
01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:38,040
Speaker 3: and an increased defense budget which stops China from narrowing

1221
01:23:38,120 --> 01:23:42,320
Speaker 3: the gap and therefore produces to terrence for the across

1222
01:23:42,320 --> 01:23:45,800
Speaker 3: the Taiwan Strait. And I know that'll be a hard

1223
01:23:45,920 --> 01:23:50,600
Speaker 3: sell and the American people, the Americans will have to

1224
01:23:50,640 --> 01:23:54,519
Speaker 3: be persuaded. But that's what we used to believe presidents do,

1225
01:23:55,240 --> 01:24:01,599
Speaker 3: which is persuade the American people that what they want

1226
01:24:01,640 --> 01:24:04,600
Speaker 3: to do, what America's role in the world should be,

1227
01:24:06,240 --> 01:24:09,960
Speaker 3: is part of their job. And I think President Trump

1228
01:24:10,000 --> 01:24:15,400
Speaker 3: has articulated a vision very powerfully. I think it's counter

1229
01:24:15,439 --> 01:24:20,360
Speaker 3: productive in almost every way, but he's worked hard at it.

1230
01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:25,240
Speaker 3: The next president, if it proceeds anywhere near along the lines,

1231
01:24:25,320 --> 01:24:31,479
Speaker 3: I would like he or she will in an equally

1232
01:24:32,280 --> 01:24:37,000
Speaker 3: resolute way, give the American people, beginning in the campaign,

1233
01:24:37,680 --> 01:24:40,960
Speaker 3: a different view of America's role in the world and

1234
01:24:41,040 --> 01:24:45,200
Speaker 3: the role in which they and their children are going

1235
01:24:45,320 --> 01:24:49,439
Speaker 3: to live. And to go back to the most primary point,

1236
01:24:50,080 --> 01:24:55,080
Speaker 3: do the American people really want to live in mister

1237
01:24:55,160 --> 01:24:58,559
Speaker 3: Miller's world? Do they really want to live in a

1238
01:24:58,600 --> 01:25:05,800
Speaker 3: world without rule, in which the strong dictate to the week,

1239
01:25:06,000 --> 01:25:11,280
Speaker 3: without any without any framework of right and wrong. Do

1240
01:25:11,360 --> 01:25:13,559
Speaker 3: they want to live in the world in which the

1241
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:19,639
Speaker 3: American president says, I operate in no moral context, what

1242
01:25:19,760 --> 01:25:23,799
Speaker 3: I decide is right or wrong? Is that the world

1243
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:26,600
Speaker 3: they want their kids to live in. It's not the

1244
01:25:26,640 --> 01:25:30,679
Speaker 3: world I want my kids and grandkids to live in.

1245
01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:33,320
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this, which

1246
01:25:33,360 --> 01:25:36,160
Speaker 1: is you talk about that we're headed to this bipolar world?

1247
01:25:37,439 --> 01:25:40,519
Speaker 1: And you know, I think in maps, and I think

1248
01:25:40,560 --> 01:25:43,479
Speaker 1: in numbers, and I think in states, and I look

1249
01:25:43,520 --> 01:25:46,559
Speaker 1: at the world, and I look at continents, and China's

1250
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:50,280
Speaker 1: ahead of America in Africa. China might be head of

1251
01:25:50,320 --> 01:25:54,320
Speaker 1: America in South America. China might be ahead of America

1252
01:25:54,400 --> 01:25:57,320
Speaker 1: in Asia, not in Europe.

1253
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:00,160
Speaker 2: And you know, with.

1254
01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:03,439
Speaker 1: Maybe we have a slight advantage in the Middle East,

1255
01:26:03,560 --> 01:26:07,920
Speaker 1: But are we behind when it comes to this great competition?

1256
01:26:08,000 --> 01:26:10,080
Speaker 2: If this is indeed where we're headed.

1257
01:26:11,040 --> 01:26:16,360
Speaker 3: Not yet. But the trends are bad. The military trends

1258
01:26:16,360 --> 01:26:21,120
Speaker 3: are bad. And that's the reason I believe we need

1259
01:26:21,120 --> 01:26:25,440
Speaker 3: to increase our defense budget and reform our defense processes

1260
01:26:25,479 --> 01:26:29,120
Speaker 3: and acquisition and all the rest so militarily the gap

1261
01:26:29,200 --> 01:26:37,840
Speaker 3: is dramatically closed. China's diplomacy is still outmatched by American diplomacy.

1262
01:26:37,840 --> 01:26:42,600
Speaker 3: Look who's negotiating the Gazza. The Gaza sees fire and

1263
01:26:42,840 --> 01:26:43,800
Speaker 3: Ukraine and so forth.

1264
01:26:44,120 --> 01:26:45,800
Speaker 2: But we got rid of a ID that wasn't a

1265
01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:46,280
Speaker 2: good idea.

1266
01:26:46,560 --> 01:26:51,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they are gaining ground. And then of course economically,

1267
01:26:51,960 --> 01:26:59,280
Speaker 3: they are forging business deals and trade agreements with India,

1268
01:26:59,320 --> 01:27:04,800
Speaker 3: with Europe, with so forth. While we have a basically

1269
01:27:04,840 --> 01:27:12,360
Speaker 3: a we will coerce you into an agreement in principle

1270
01:27:13,320 --> 01:27:19,840
Speaker 3: which is condemned by your domestic audiences, and we'll see

1271
01:27:19,880 --> 01:27:23,000
Speaker 3: if they really come to pass. And just a word,

1272
01:27:24,000 --> 01:27:31,160
Speaker 3: the President said in the last week that we produced

1273
01:27:31,760 --> 01:27:35,880
Speaker 3: a miraculous new trade agreement with India where I spent

1274
01:27:37,120 --> 01:27:42,599
Speaker 3: some your ambassador and mody now is in across the

1275
01:27:42,600 --> 01:27:49,520
Speaker 3: board attacks that that agreement in general does not protect

1276
01:27:50,680 --> 01:27:56,160
Speaker 3: end in vital national interests. So we are losing ground

1277
01:27:56,360 --> 01:28:01,599
Speaker 3: and contempt for the Third World, apart from the moral

1278
01:28:01,840 --> 01:28:08,800
Speaker 3: vacuum that is is over the long run detrimental to

1279
01:28:08,840 --> 01:28:14,040
Speaker 3: American national interests. If you look at the population trends,

1280
01:28:14,080 --> 01:28:18,240
Speaker 3: if you look at where the minerals are and so forth,

1281
01:28:18,800 --> 01:28:22,360
Speaker 3: And to just talk about the Third World as if

1282
01:28:22,400 --> 01:28:30,280
Speaker 3: it was a only a a swamp that can never

1283
01:28:31,640 --> 01:28:37,160
Speaker 3: be rescued the way the president does is just bad strategy.

1284
01:28:37,760 --> 01:28:41,800
Speaker 1: You are proving, you are proving your experience as a diplomat.

1285
01:28:42,439 --> 01:28:44,160
Speaker 1: I think what you're referring to is when he would

1286
01:28:44,200 --> 01:28:46,680
Speaker 1: call them s whole countries. But I can say it,

1287
01:28:46,760 --> 01:28:48,679
Speaker 1: and I know you will never say it that way,

1288
01:28:48,720 --> 01:28:49,639
Speaker 1: but that is what he did.

1289
01:28:50,320 --> 01:28:54,320
Speaker 3: Well, that is what he did, you know, and I

1290
01:28:54,360 --> 01:28:56,120
Speaker 3: want to say that, I don't want to end We're

1291
01:28:56,160 --> 01:28:58,679
Speaker 3: getting her then on a negative note. But the one

1292
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:02,160
Speaker 3: thing I would say to I think America remains the

1293
01:29:02,160 --> 01:29:08,880
Speaker 3: most powerful country on Earth, militarily, economically, and diplomatically. So

1294
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:14,000
Speaker 3: we have vast instruments to help shape world order to

1295
01:29:14,160 --> 01:29:18,479
Speaker 3: our benefit and to the benefit of our values. That's

1296
01:29:18,560 --> 01:29:21,880
Speaker 3: number one, and that will be true at the end

1297
01:29:22,200 --> 01:29:29,760
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration. But number two is that the

1298
01:29:29,880 --> 01:29:35,360
Speaker 3: trends are against us, and President Trump with three more

1299
01:29:35,439 --> 01:29:39,320
Speaker 3: years in office, I do not believe is going to

1300
01:29:39,439 --> 01:29:43,200
Speaker 3: change his view of the world or how he operates.

1301
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:47,240
Speaker 3: I believe this is what you see is what you get.

1302
01:29:47,840 --> 01:29:51,600
Speaker 3: He's believed many of these things he's detested the Europeans

1303
01:29:52,160 --> 01:29:56,559
Speaker 3: and the and their democracies for half a century or more.

1304
01:29:56,640 --> 01:29:59,320
Speaker 3: He's not going to change. He's not going to change

1305
01:29:59,320 --> 01:30:08,439
Speaker 3: his attraction to autocratic government and so forth. So we're powerful,

1306
01:30:08,800 --> 01:30:15,439
Speaker 3: but we are in this very dangerous next three years

1307
01:30:15,479 --> 01:30:19,280
Speaker 3: of the combination of the growth of Chinese power and

1308
01:30:19,360 --> 01:30:25,920
Speaker 3: a president who does not defend either traditional American national security,

1309
01:30:26,040 --> 01:30:28,880
Speaker 3: vital national interests, or American values.

1310
01:30:30,080 --> 01:30:37,240
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully this is a document that many a presidential

1311
01:30:37,240 --> 01:30:40,719
Speaker 1: candidate reads and absorbs on both sides of the aisle.

1312
01:30:41,280 --> 01:30:44,120
Speaker 1: And here's hoping we can actually have a debate, though

1313
01:30:44,160 --> 01:30:48,439
Speaker 1: I fear our twenty twenty presidential primary debates. We'll have

1314
01:30:49,160 --> 01:30:51,760
Speaker 1: a couple of questions on Taiwan and Ukraine, and then

1315
01:30:51,840 --> 01:30:53,599
Speaker 1: everything else will be back to domestic.

1316
01:30:53,640 --> 01:30:55,200
Speaker 2: But you of.

1317
01:30:55,160 --> 01:30:58,320
Speaker 1: Outlined why we need a better debate about America's role

1318
01:30:58,360 --> 01:31:00,200
Speaker 1: in the world, and hopefully we'll get one. I was

1319
01:31:00,200 --> 01:31:02,160
Speaker 1: so terrific. It's great to catch up with you. I

1320
01:31:02,160 --> 01:31:03,920
Speaker 1: always learn a ton from you.

1321
01:31:04,040 --> 01:31:05,240
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me.

1322
01:31:13,880 --> 01:31:15,960
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation about what I

1323
01:31:16,000 --> 01:31:19,320
Speaker 1: think the next president ought to be thinking about. You know, look,

1324
01:31:19,360 --> 01:31:23,920
Speaker 1: we've got. We've got to hope we get a consensus

1325
01:31:24,280 --> 01:31:27,000
Speaker 1: at some point when it comes to America's role in

1326
01:31:27,040 --> 01:31:29,519
Speaker 1: the world. As much as you know we can have

1327
01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:33,400
Speaker 1: healthy disagreements on a lot of domestic issues, America's role

1328
01:31:33,439 --> 01:31:35,559
Speaker 1: in the world is one We're going to have to

1329
01:31:35,600 --> 01:31:38,160
Speaker 1: accept the premise that one's sixty percent of us agree

1330
01:31:38,160 --> 01:31:41,479
Speaker 1: in a direction that we ought to take it. Just

1331
01:31:41,520 --> 01:31:44,040
Speaker 1: a few quick observations. I've got a fun little top

1332
01:31:44,040 --> 01:31:45,360
Speaker 1: five list for you here, but I wanted to do

1333
01:31:45,400 --> 01:31:47,240
Speaker 1: a few quick observations, and I wanted to do it

1334
01:31:47,360 --> 01:31:50,920
Speaker 1: following Bob the Bob Blackwell interview about what we saw

1335
01:31:50,920 --> 01:31:53,800
Speaker 1: in Munich and the different roles. It was interesting to

1336
01:31:53,840 --> 01:31:58,599
Speaker 1: see Rubio and the reception he got. You know, Marco

1337
01:31:58,640 --> 01:32:02,320
Speaker 1: Rubio's reception the Europeans at the Munich Security Conference reminded

1338
01:32:02,360 --> 01:32:07,599
Speaker 1: me of bringing thirsty people water. He didn't bring them

1339
01:32:07,600 --> 01:32:12,320
Speaker 1: cold water. He just brought them some hydration. It wasn't

1340
01:32:12,400 --> 01:32:16,559
Speaker 1: as antagonistic as Jade Vance a year earlier. It wasn't

1341
01:32:16,600 --> 01:32:22,120
Speaker 1: as pointed as it was a year earlier. It wasn't

1342
01:32:22,160 --> 01:32:28,080
Speaker 1: as personal, it wasn't as as doom and gloom, and

1343
01:32:28,120 --> 01:32:30,439
Speaker 1: it's sort of the role Rubio has been playing right,

1344
01:32:30,520 --> 01:32:33,479
Speaker 1: And you heard the conversation that Bob and I had

1345
01:32:33,479 --> 01:32:37,559
Speaker 1: about sort of this interesting role Rubio is, in some ways,

1346
01:32:37,640 --> 01:32:41,320
Speaker 1: I think, seize himself as a potential bridge between sort

1347
01:32:41,320 --> 01:32:44,200
Speaker 1: of Trump's destruction of the world order and those that

1348
01:32:44,280 --> 01:32:47,320
Speaker 1: would like to preserve some form of the old world order.

1349
01:32:47,560 --> 01:32:48,559
Speaker 2: And what does this look like?

1350
01:32:48,600 --> 01:32:51,040
Speaker 1: Obviously Ruby hopes to be the guy that builds it, right,

1351
01:32:51,120 --> 01:32:54,439
Speaker 1: he would like to be the president or maybe this

1352
01:32:54,479 --> 01:32:57,639
Speaker 1: is his portfolio if he is, if there's some sort

1353
01:32:57,680 --> 01:33:02,520
Speaker 1: of vance Rubio ticket that succeeds to Trump on this front.

1354
01:33:04,240 --> 01:33:07,120
Speaker 1: But you know, make no mistake, I mean, you know,

1355
01:33:07,880 --> 01:33:10,639
Speaker 1: Rubio still gave it tough love, but he at least

1356
01:33:10,680 --> 01:33:13,439
Speaker 1: showed that he knows how to use diplomatic language. And

1357
01:33:13,479 --> 01:33:15,559
Speaker 1: when you're the secretary of State, you better be pretty

1358
01:33:15,560 --> 01:33:18,479
Speaker 1: good at using diplomatic language. But I think what you

1359
01:33:18,600 --> 01:33:21,160
Speaker 1: heard there, and that's you know, the whole the open

1360
01:33:21,240 --> 01:33:24,799
Speaker 1: question I have about Rubio and his and his decision

1361
01:33:24,880 --> 01:33:28,640
Speaker 1: to to try to work with trump Ism rather than

1362
01:33:28,680 --> 01:33:30,799
Speaker 1: fight against it like he did for a few years

1363
01:33:31,120 --> 01:33:35,639
Speaker 1: when it first came aboard, was is you know, at

1364
01:33:35,640 --> 01:33:40,320
Speaker 1: some point if he if Trump thinks Rubio is causing problems.

1365
01:33:40,320 --> 01:33:41,719
Speaker 2: He will throw Ruby onto the bus.

1366
01:33:41,760 --> 01:33:44,880
Speaker 1: If what Rubio has suggested becomes unpopular, he will throw

1367
01:33:44,960 --> 01:33:46,880
Speaker 1: Ruby onto the bus. Then again, the same is true

1368
01:33:46,880 --> 01:33:50,720
Speaker 1: with Jadie Vance as well. And that's why it's very

1369
01:33:50,720 --> 01:33:54,559
Speaker 1: precarious when you build a political identity based on the

1370
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:58,880
Speaker 1: whims of a single individual. You know, I think the

1371
01:33:58,960 --> 01:34:03,679
Speaker 1: thing that you know, Rubio may not ever be able

1372
01:34:03,720 --> 01:34:05,840
Speaker 1: to win over a MAGA voter on his own. He

1373
01:34:05,920 --> 01:34:09,599
Speaker 1: may need the endorsement and the stamp of approval by

1374
01:34:09,600 --> 01:34:13,120
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. The question is, one, is that still a

1375
01:34:13,160 --> 01:34:16,880
Speaker 1: big enough constituency by twenty twenty eight. That's an open

1376
01:34:16,960 --> 01:34:23,240
Speaker 1: question I have in my head. And two, can Rubio

1377
01:34:23,400 --> 01:34:28,280
Speaker 1: be both a MAGA person and at the same time

1378
01:34:28,400 --> 01:34:31,360
Speaker 1: be trusted by either side to help build a new

1379
01:34:31,400 --> 01:34:36,080
Speaker 1: world order to engage in multilateralism, which Rubio himself, I

1380
01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:40,439
Speaker 1: think does believe in multilateralism, even if Donald Trump does not.

1381
01:34:40,840 --> 01:34:45,280
Speaker 1: And so that's an open question. The other story coming

1382
01:34:45,280 --> 01:34:47,679
Speaker 1: out of Munich is the reception that alexandri O Cassio

1383
01:34:47,720 --> 01:34:52,080
Speaker 1: Cortez got. And you know, it's a classic case of

1384
01:34:52,360 --> 01:34:54,519
Speaker 1: if you want her succeed, you said, oh, look, she's

1385
01:34:54,560 --> 01:34:56,920
Speaker 1: made her debut on the foreign policy stage. If you

1386
01:34:56,960 --> 01:34:58,519
Speaker 1: want her to fail, you're like, oh, look at how

1387
01:34:58,560 --> 01:35:01,160
Speaker 1: much she flubbed on her debut on the policy stage.

1388
01:35:02,200 --> 01:35:06,720
Speaker 1: I will just say this, look, I think that that

1389
01:35:06,840 --> 01:35:10,400
Speaker 1: she could have. It did look like she didn't study

1390
01:35:10,400 --> 01:35:15,600
Speaker 1: for the test enough, and I'm surprised she, you know,

1391
01:35:15,720 --> 01:35:19,200
Speaker 1: didn't have a more you know, prepared answer. At the

1392
01:35:19,200 --> 01:35:22,920
Speaker 1: same time, I think it's healthy to if you're thinking

1393
01:35:22,920 --> 01:35:25,880
Speaker 1: about running for national office too. I'm glad she went

1394
01:35:25,960 --> 01:35:28,120
Speaker 1: to this event. Get to know some of the players

1395
01:35:29,120 --> 01:35:31,320
Speaker 1: make some early mistakes. If you're going to make mistakes,

1396
01:35:31,360 --> 01:35:34,280
Speaker 1: make them now, not in the actual campaign. Here, learn

1397
01:35:34,320 --> 01:35:38,559
Speaker 1: what you don't know. Learn those and you know when

1398
01:35:38,600 --> 01:35:41,760
Speaker 1: it comes to foreign policy and political campaigns, you know,

1399
01:35:41,800 --> 01:35:45,240
Speaker 1: the key is not to block put yourself in a

1400
01:35:45,320 --> 01:35:49,200
Speaker 1: rhetorical corner that will become problematic down the road.

1401
01:35:49,400 --> 01:35:49,559
Speaker 3: Right.

1402
01:35:49,840 --> 01:35:52,840
Speaker 1: The best example of this is when Barack Obama drew

1403
01:35:52,840 --> 01:35:55,879
Speaker 1: a red line on chemical weapons being used by Bashar

1404
01:35:55,920 --> 01:35:58,559
Speaker 1: al Asad in Syria. Once he did it, he said,

1405
01:35:58,560 --> 01:36:00,640
Speaker 1: it was a red line. How are you going to

1406
01:36:00,680 --> 01:36:02,679
Speaker 1: enforce that red line if he crosses it? Sure enough,

1407
01:36:02,760 --> 01:36:06,840
Speaker 1: Aside crossed it, and we didn't enforce the red line.

1408
01:36:07,080 --> 01:36:09,120
Speaker 1: I don't think Obama regrets not enforcing the red line.

1409
01:36:09,160 --> 01:36:12,040
Speaker 1: I think he regrets ever drawing that sort of hard

1410
01:36:12,080 --> 01:36:12,960
Speaker 1: and fast.

1411
01:36:13,040 --> 01:36:14,120
Speaker 2: Rule on that.

1412
01:36:14,240 --> 01:36:17,880
Speaker 1: So I think that that's a lesson that all newcomers

1413
01:36:17,880 --> 01:36:21,120
Speaker 1: to presidential politics, as they dabble, as they dip their

1414
01:36:21,120 --> 01:36:23,080
Speaker 1: toe in the foreign policy water's got to learn that.

1415
01:36:24,560 --> 01:36:27,360
Speaker 1: But the second observation I have about the AOC issue

1416
01:36:27,560 --> 01:36:30,720
Speaker 1: is it's just amusing to me how many people on

1417
01:36:30,760 --> 01:36:32,880
Speaker 1: the right one and dunk on her for a small

1418
01:36:32,920 --> 01:36:35,800
Speaker 1: mistake here, a flubb there, but the equator in Venezuela,

1419
01:36:35,880 --> 01:36:39,679
Speaker 1: And you're sitting there going, really, we're going to hold

1420
01:36:39,720 --> 01:36:44,240
Speaker 1: her to account on a geographic mistake when we've got

1421
01:36:45,360 --> 01:36:49,560
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and all of the crazy and geographic nonsense

1422
01:36:49,600 --> 01:36:52,000
Speaker 1: that he talks about where he doesn't I mean, he

1423
01:36:52,160 --> 01:36:55,320
Speaker 1: literally is the John Belushi character in Animal House. You know,

1424
01:36:55,600 --> 01:36:58,360
Speaker 1: he might as well be saying things like when the

1425
01:36:58,400 --> 01:37:03,400
Speaker 1: Germans bomb Pearl Harbor. Know type of mindset, And I

1426
01:37:03,439 --> 01:37:07,360
Speaker 1: don't you know whether this is about her and there's

1427
01:37:07,400 --> 01:37:10,479
Speaker 1: an obsession on the right to just dunk on her

1428
01:37:10,560 --> 01:37:12,840
Speaker 1: whenever you get a chance, which there's something to that,

1429
01:37:13,880 --> 01:37:17,720
Speaker 1: or if it's a sign that maybe maybe folks are

1430
01:37:17,760 --> 01:37:21,880
Speaker 1: embarrassed by how ignorant Trump comes across about so many

1431
01:37:21,920 --> 01:37:24,320
Speaker 1: things in foreign affairs and about geography.

1432
01:37:24,360 --> 01:37:28,439
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, do you.

1433
01:37:28,360 --> 01:37:31,320
Speaker 1: Think he could name fifteen countries in Africa? Let alone

1434
01:37:31,320 --> 01:37:32,880
Speaker 1: all the countries in Africa? But do you think he

1435
01:37:32,880 --> 01:37:33,719
Speaker 1: can name fifteen?

1436
01:37:33,920 --> 01:37:34,120
Speaker 2: Ten?

1437
01:37:34,200 --> 01:37:37,200
Speaker 1: What number would I have to lower myself to before

1438
01:37:37,240 --> 01:37:39,720
Speaker 1: you think he could name? You know, I think he'd

1439
01:37:39,760 --> 01:37:42,800
Speaker 1: struggle at ten. You know, I think many Americans would

1440
01:37:42,800 --> 01:37:44,680
Speaker 1: struggle at ten. But many Americans are not president of

1441
01:37:44,680 --> 01:37:47,680
Speaker 1: the United States. So the point is is that it

1442
01:37:47,760 --> 01:37:50,000
Speaker 1: is amusing to me when we want to hold our

1443
01:37:50,040 --> 01:37:55,040
Speaker 1: political opponents to higher standards than we will hold people

1444
01:37:55,080 --> 01:37:57,439
Speaker 1: that are quote unquote on our side or that we're

1445
01:37:57,640 --> 01:38:00,320
Speaker 1: sympathetic too. And let's just say I saw out of

1446
01:38:00,320 --> 01:38:00,639
Speaker 1: that on.

1447
01:38:00,600 --> 01:38:02,560
Speaker 2: The right this week when it came to AOC.

1448
01:38:02,720 --> 01:38:04,559
Speaker 1: All right, now, I want to have a little fun

1449
01:38:04,800 --> 01:38:06,559
Speaker 1: with my top five lists this week. As you know,

1450
01:38:06,800 --> 01:38:09,920
Speaker 1: sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's whacky. And I thought

1451
01:38:10,640 --> 01:38:14,919
Speaker 1: there was a We've had some ridiculous attempts at currying

1452
01:38:15,000 --> 01:38:17,519
Speaker 1: favor with Donald Trump take place over the last couple

1453
01:38:17,600 --> 01:38:23,080
Speaker 1: of years, and I thought it would be worth doing

1454
01:38:23,120 --> 01:38:26,000
Speaker 1: a top five list on the most ridiculous awards Donald

1455
01:38:26,000 --> 01:38:31,439
Speaker 1: Trump is received in order for in order for entities

1456
01:38:31,479 --> 01:38:35,880
Speaker 1: to try to curry favor, and it's usually corporations or

1457
01:38:36,640 --> 01:38:39,679
Speaker 1: in one case an international entity and in another case.

1458
01:38:39,720 --> 01:38:43,360
Speaker 1: So I'm giving you my top five most absurd awards

1459
01:38:44,439 --> 01:38:59,240
Speaker 1: manufactured and created to soothe Donald Trump's ego. Top So

1460
01:38:59,360 --> 01:39:01,479
Speaker 1: number five list is one that he got in twenty

1461
01:39:01,479 --> 01:39:08,400
Speaker 1: twenty four. It's the McDonald's French Fry Certification pin. It is,

1462
01:39:08,960 --> 01:39:10,920
Speaker 1: you know, after his stint working the friar at a

1463
01:39:10,920 --> 01:39:14,240
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania McDonald's during the campaign. So as pre president, he

1464
01:39:14,320 --> 01:39:17,280
Speaker 1: was given a commemorative pin and a certificate for his service,

1465
01:39:18,240 --> 01:39:20,400
Speaker 1: and of course Donald Trump treated it with the gravity

1466
01:39:20,400 --> 01:39:23,080
Speaker 1: as if it was a state dinner, the ultimate everyman award,

1467
01:39:23,800 --> 01:39:27,599
Speaker 1: who famously loves a quarter pounder. So his French Fry

1468
01:39:27,640 --> 01:39:29,920
Speaker 1: Certificate pin is number five on my list of most

1469
01:39:30,000 --> 01:39:33,680
Speaker 1: ridiculous awards that he's been given by companies and corporations

1470
01:39:33,760 --> 01:39:38,120
Speaker 1: in order to curry favor. It's this most recent award

1471
01:39:38,120 --> 01:39:41,040
Speaker 1: that triggered the idea for this list. This one he

1472
01:39:41,280 --> 01:39:45,240
Speaker 1: just received. Number four on my list is the undisputed

1473
01:39:45,320 --> 01:39:47,960
Speaker 1: Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal Award. I bet you didn't

1474
01:39:48,000 --> 01:39:51,479
Speaker 1: know that that existed. Well, it is. The Washington Coal

1475
01:39:51,520 --> 01:39:56,080
Speaker 1: Club recently bestowed that actual title upon Donald Trump. So

1476
01:39:56,120 --> 01:39:58,360
Speaker 1: it's not just a coal award, you know, looking out

1477
01:39:58,400 --> 01:39:59,840
Speaker 1: for the coal company. It's not the first time, but

1478
01:39:59,880 --> 01:40:02,320
Speaker 1: it this one is specific and it uses some of

1479
01:40:02,520 --> 01:40:08,240
Speaker 1: Trump's favorite phrases. Right, undisputed champion, beautiful clean coal. Right,

1480
01:40:08,280 --> 01:40:10,639
Speaker 1: so this is the award, the undisputed Champion, a beautiful

1481
01:40:10,640 --> 01:40:13,439
Speaker 1: clean coal. I mean, it is right out of like

1482
01:40:14,160 --> 01:40:16,960
Speaker 1: the old WWF and all the crazy names they used

1483
01:40:16,960 --> 01:40:19,880
Speaker 1: to give to their various championship belts. Right, you had

1484
01:40:19,880 --> 01:40:23,200
Speaker 1: the you'd have the the the world champion, then you'd

1485
01:40:23,200 --> 01:40:25,920
Speaker 1: have the inter continental champion. Nobody ever explained what the

1486
01:40:25,960 --> 01:40:28,200
Speaker 1: hell the inter continental champion was. I think my man

1487
01:40:28,400 --> 01:40:32,280
Speaker 1: Paul Orndorff was that. I think uh uh was the

1488
01:40:32,600 --> 01:40:35,000
Speaker 1: was the inter continental champion? I don't think, but that

1489
01:40:35,120 --> 01:40:37,120
Speaker 1: was never You know, hul Cogan was bigger than just

1490
01:40:37,160 --> 01:40:39,400
Speaker 1: being the intercontinental champ, if you.

1491
01:40:39,360 --> 01:40:40,880
Speaker 2: Will, so he is.

1492
01:40:40,960 --> 01:40:43,840
Speaker 1: Now this this feels like that that you gotta I

1493
01:40:43,880 --> 01:40:45,400
Speaker 1: got to hand it to the Washington Coal Club.

1494
01:40:45,479 --> 01:40:47,879
Speaker 2: That's that's impressive. That was impressive.

1495
01:40:48,120 --> 01:40:50,600
Speaker 1: Number three on the list is the FIFA and the

1496
01:40:50,640 --> 01:40:55,000
Speaker 1: Peace Prize right in the middle, right deep of the arden.

1497
01:40:55,360 --> 01:40:58,479
Speaker 1: Last year, when Trump was campaigning and begging for the

1498
01:40:58,520 --> 01:41:02,640
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize. Our friends at FIFA who loved to

1499
01:41:02,720 --> 01:41:05,800
Speaker 1: curry favor with those in power, no matter how corrupting

1500
01:41:06,040 --> 01:41:10,240
Speaker 1: it looks to them, FIFA doesn't care. They manufactured a

1501
01:41:10,360 --> 01:41:17,639
Speaker 1: Peace Prize because why not. He knew that Donald Trump

1502
01:41:17,680 --> 01:41:18,680
Speaker 1: wanted a peace prize, so.

1503
01:41:18,680 --> 01:41:20,200
Speaker 2: FIFA gave him the Peace Prize.

1504
01:41:20,200 --> 01:41:23,639
Speaker 1: So they did it during at the Trump Kennedy center right,

1505
01:41:23,880 --> 01:41:26,479
Speaker 1: and the final draw for the twenty twenty six World Cup.

1506
01:41:27,720 --> 01:41:31,120
Speaker 1: And they decided to create this brand new accolade just

1507
01:41:31,200 --> 01:41:32,759
Speaker 1: in time for Trump's return to office.

1508
01:41:33,080 --> 01:41:33,240
Speaker 2: Right.

1509
01:41:35,760 --> 01:41:38,320
Speaker 1: You know, it's you know, it's like getting an award

1510
01:41:38,360 --> 01:41:40,919
Speaker 1: from your barber that says you're you're the best haircut

1511
01:41:40,960 --> 01:41:42,599
Speaker 1: customer this week, you know.

1512
01:41:44,120 --> 01:41:46,640
Speaker 2: But good old FIFA, you can count on that.

1513
01:41:46,800 --> 01:41:49,479
Speaker 1: Number two on the list, this one is the Tim

1514
01:41:49,560 --> 01:41:50,320
Speaker 1: Cook Special.

1515
01:41:50,520 --> 01:41:50,680
Speaker 2: Right.

1516
01:41:50,720 --> 01:41:52,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of you were thinking, well, you got

1517
01:41:52,240 --> 01:41:54,880
Speaker 1: to include the Tim Cook thing. So and this is

1518
01:41:54,920 --> 01:41:56,880
Speaker 1: not the first time Tim Cook has actually given him

1519
01:41:56,920 --> 01:41:59,840
Speaker 1: a couple of awards over the years, and the first term,

1520
01:42:00,640 --> 01:42:04,400
Speaker 1: Cook gave him a commemorative plaque, right, it was a

1521
01:42:04,439 --> 01:42:09,640
Speaker 1: circular piece of mac pro glass. But you know, for

1522
01:42:09,760 --> 01:42:12,160
Speaker 1: the second one, he had to really up the stakes,

1523
01:42:12,280 --> 01:42:16,440
Speaker 1: so he gave the twenty four carrot golden glass statue

1524
01:42:17,160 --> 01:42:21,280
Speaker 1: featuring a circular piece of gorilla glass on a gold base.

1525
01:42:23,200 --> 01:42:26,080
Speaker 1: What it really was was a physical manifestation of the

1526
01:42:26,120 --> 01:42:31,920
Speaker 1: trade deal Apple needed. It was less an award and

1527
01:42:32,000 --> 01:42:36,599
Speaker 1: more of a please don't tax our iPhones trophy at

1528
01:42:36,640 --> 01:42:38,920
Speaker 1: the time that it was given, but it was, you know,

1529
01:42:39,840 --> 01:42:43,320
Speaker 1: the gold played gold carrot. All that business was just

1530
01:42:43,800 --> 01:42:45,639
Speaker 1: it was just awful. But number one on the list

1531
01:42:47,000 --> 01:42:54,280
Speaker 1: matters because of how much it mainstream Donald Trump back

1532
01:42:54,280 --> 01:43:01,400
Speaker 1: into the Republican Party post January sixth, And it was

1533
01:43:01,439 --> 01:43:03,799
Speaker 1: when the NRSC when it was chaired by Rick Scott.

1534
01:43:04,840 --> 01:43:09,240
Speaker 1: He created the Champion for Freedom Bowl as an award

1535
01:43:09,240 --> 01:43:14,680
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one for Donald Trump. And this is

1536
01:43:14,720 --> 01:43:17,240
Speaker 1: April of twenty twenty one he gets this award. This

1537
01:43:17,320 --> 01:43:20,000
Speaker 1: is three months after January sixth. He's supposed to be

1538
01:43:20,080 --> 01:43:24,479
Speaker 1: persona non grata, but neither Kevin McCarthy, who stood next

1539
01:43:24,520 --> 01:43:26,760
Speaker 1: to him, and then Rick Scott. They were the two

1540
01:43:26,840 --> 01:43:30,439
Speaker 1: people who greased the skids the most for bringing Trump

1541
01:43:30,600 --> 01:43:34,719
Speaker 1: back into the mainstream and this award. So Scott presents

1542
01:43:34,760 --> 01:43:40,439
Speaker 1: Trump with the inaugural NRSC Champion for Freedom Award. And

1543
01:43:40,479 --> 01:43:44,639
Speaker 1: it was a bowl. It was a large, engraved silver

1544
01:43:44,960 --> 01:43:49,759
Speaker 1: serving bowl. There were some people that joked that Scott

1545
01:43:49,760 --> 01:43:51,240
Speaker 1: didn't know what to give him, so he grabbed the

1546
01:43:51,280 --> 01:43:53,400
Speaker 1: first punch bowl he could find from the office kitchen

1547
01:43:53,439 --> 01:43:56,519
Speaker 1: at the NRSC had it engraved, and it was all

1548
01:43:56,560 --> 01:44:00,880
Speaker 1: about making sure Trump knew, or that Trump's orders knew.

1549
01:44:01,040 --> 01:44:02,439
Speaker 2: Rick Scott was on his side.

1550
01:44:02,479 --> 01:44:06,160
Speaker 1: But it was that award that moment. It was not

1551
01:44:06,200 --> 01:44:08,160
Speaker 1: just the award itself. And so while I'm having a

1552
01:44:08,160 --> 01:44:10,400
Speaker 1: little bit of fun here and how all of these

1553
01:44:10,439 --> 01:44:13,479
Speaker 1: people right, you know, we think Trump looks ridiculous for

1554
01:44:13,520 --> 01:44:17,439
Speaker 1: taking these awards seriously, but the people giving these awards

1555
01:44:17,600 --> 01:44:20,360
Speaker 1: really it's not a good look. Rick Scott doing what

1556
01:44:20,400 --> 01:44:22,280
Speaker 1: he did post January sixth just a bad look.

1557
01:44:22,800 --> 01:44:23,040
Speaker 2: You know.

1558
01:44:23,280 --> 01:44:27,639
Speaker 1: Maybe it held party unity, but really we're gonna pick

1559
01:44:27,640 --> 01:44:31,160
Speaker 1: party unity over the disaster of January sixth, or Tim

1560
01:44:31,200 --> 01:44:34,040
Speaker 1: Cook and his gold statue, or FIFA and the absurdity

1561
01:44:34,080 --> 01:44:36,960
Speaker 1: of their Peace Prize. You know, in some ways, The

1562
01:44:36,960 --> 01:44:39,200
Speaker 1: most honest is the cole folks man. You know what,

1563
01:44:40,080 --> 01:44:43,200
Speaker 1: they know what they want, they know what they're focused on,

1564
01:44:43,240 --> 01:44:45,240
Speaker 1: and they know they have a guy, and so in

1565
01:44:45,240 --> 01:44:48,760
Speaker 1: that sense, it's an honest one. And you know the

1566
01:44:48,800 --> 01:44:52,200
Speaker 1: French Fried French fry pen is just sort of amusing.

1567
01:44:52,520 --> 01:44:54,400
Speaker 1: Notice what I didn't put on here was the actual

1568
01:44:54,520 --> 01:44:58,880
Speaker 1: Peace Nobel Peace Prize that Machado that the winner of

1569
01:44:58,960 --> 01:45:01,519
Speaker 1: last year's Peace Prize gave to Trump, and she like

1570
01:45:01,560 --> 01:45:03,800
Speaker 1: took it to a frame store and had it like

1571
01:45:03,880 --> 01:45:06,120
Speaker 1: put together, Like it was like a like you were

1572
01:45:06,120 --> 01:45:08,280
Speaker 1: featured in a newspaper article for the first time, and

1573
01:45:08,320 --> 01:45:11,040
Speaker 1: you get these companies that want to sell you a

1574
01:45:11,360 --> 01:45:13,360
Speaker 1: framed version of it so you can display it in

1575
01:45:13,400 --> 01:45:17,400
Speaker 1: your office with a plaque. She basically did that, took

1576
01:45:17,439 --> 01:45:20,200
Speaker 1: it and then gave him her Peace prize. So but

1577
01:45:20,280 --> 01:45:22,280
Speaker 1: I didn't think it belonged in the top five because

1578
01:45:22,280 --> 01:45:25,559
Speaker 1: it was the prize itself is not it was not

1579
01:45:25,640 --> 01:45:28,280
Speaker 1: awarded to him, And I don't know what to call it.

1580
01:45:28,280 --> 01:45:30,160
Speaker 1: I guess you would call it the Machado Peace Prize,

1581
01:45:30,160 --> 01:45:35,639
Speaker 1: but it's its own category and it's the But I'll

1582
01:45:35,640 --> 01:45:40,120
Speaker 1: tell you we're you know, we complained. My generation links

1583
01:45:40,120 --> 01:45:43,760
Speaker 1: to complain that we gave away too many trophies to millennials,

1584
01:45:43,880 --> 01:45:48,840
Speaker 1: right they where everybody gets a trophy. Generation. Please let's

1585
01:45:48,880 --> 01:45:51,120
Speaker 1: not keep doing this to our presidents. I mean, I

1586
01:45:51,200 --> 01:45:55,200
Speaker 1: know that Trump is arrested development and he's desperate for accolades,

1587
01:45:55,840 --> 01:45:58,360
Speaker 1: and if he can't get accolades that have historic meaning,

1588
01:45:58,680 --> 01:46:02,240
Speaker 1: then make them up and it makes him happy. Apparently,

1589
01:46:03,120 --> 01:46:04,960
Speaker 1: I get it. A lot of these people have business

1590
01:46:05,000 --> 01:46:06,519
Speaker 1: in front of the government, and if this is what

1591
01:46:06,600 --> 01:46:10,040
Speaker 1: it takes, and sadly we know how easy you know this,

1592
01:46:10,640 --> 01:46:13,080
Speaker 1: you know, and a few bucks it goes a long

1593
01:46:13,120 --> 01:46:17,519
Speaker 1: way to persuading this president. This is why we got

1594
01:46:17,520 --> 01:46:22,880
Speaker 1: to do something about this unilateral This is why you

1595
01:46:22,920 --> 01:46:33,320
Speaker 1: always need to check on the executive All right, now

1596
01:46:33,360 --> 01:46:39,720
Speaker 1: it's time for a little ass Chuck, ask chuck. Matt

1597
01:46:39,880 --> 01:46:42,280
Speaker 1: H from Manchester, Tennessee.

1598
01:46:42,800 --> 01:46:44,200
Speaker 2: All right, Manchester, Tennessee.

1599
01:46:44,200 --> 01:46:47,559
Speaker 1: I wonder how many Manchesters there are around the country, right,

1600
01:46:47,880 --> 01:46:49,880
Speaker 1: Manchester and your Hamshire. Of course, it's the Manchester I

1601
01:46:49,920 --> 01:46:52,479
Speaker 1: spent the most time in. But Manchester, Tennessee. All right,

1602
01:46:52,880 --> 01:46:54,080
Speaker 1: didn't know that one.

1603
01:46:54,000 --> 01:46:54,439
Speaker 2: Matt H.

1604
01:46:54,600 --> 01:46:56,840
Speaker 1: And hey, I've been a fan since your rest days,

1605
01:46:56,840 --> 01:46:58,960
Speaker 1: and your show is now my go to for political

1606
01:46:58,960 --> 01:47:01,240
Speaker 1: insight and enjoyed your inner with Doctor and Andrews, which

1607
01:47:01,240 --> 01:47:02,880
Speaker 1: got me thinking, as a center left voter in deep

1608
01:47:02,920 --> 01:47:04,760
Speaker 1: red Tennessee, do you think I'll live to see a

1609
01:47:04,800 --> 01:47:06,599
Speaker 1: Democrat win state wide here again? I missed the days

1610
01:47:06,600 --> 01:47:08,519
Speaker 1: of Phil Bredison and Al Gore, but they feel along,

1611
01:47:08,600 --> 01:47:11,840
Speaker 1: they feel long gone. You know, it's interesting, Matt. You know,

1612
01:47:11,880 --> 01:47:15,879
Speaker 1: when I was in the eighties, the South was splitting

1613
01:47:15,920 --> 01:47:18,720
Speaker 1: up between sort of new South, Old South, right, and

1614
01:47:18,800 --> 01:47:22,519
Speaker 1: there was in the New South states were Florida, Georgia,

1615
01:47:22,880 --> 01:47:24,320
Speaker 1: North Carolina.

1616
01:47:23,880 --> 01:47:25,600
Speaker 2: Virginia and Tennessee.

1617
01:47:26,600 --> 01:47:29,440
Speaker 1: And then supposedly the old South states you're you're Alabama's

1618
01:47:29,520 --> 01:47:31,479
Speaker 1: or Mississippi or South Carolina your Arkansas.

1619
01:47:31,479 --> 01:47:32,280
Speaker 2: You get where I'm going.

1620
01:47:33,000 --> 01:47:38,759
Speaker 1: And you've seen, right, the New South states have swung

1621
01:47:38,800 --> 01:47:44,120
Speaker 1: either or swing swinging, have been or competitive or you know,

1622
01:47:44,160 --> 01:47:46,720
Speaker 1: in the case of Virginia a little more blue, case

1623
01:47:46,760 --> 01:47:49,400
Speaker 1: of Florida a little more red. But you've seen that.

1624
01:47:50,439 --> 01:47:53,320
Speaker 1: The head scratcher to me has been Tennessee. That the

1625
01:47:53,360 --> 01:47:58,439
Speaker 1: fact that Tennessee hasn't moved in the directionally the same

1626
01:47:58,479 --> 01:48:01,960
Speaker 1: way that both Virginia in North Carolina have moved. Has

1627
01:48:02,000 --> 01:48:05,439
Speaker 1: always been mildly surprising to me because it particularly with

1628
01:48:05,479 --> 01:48:07,760
Speaker 1: the growth of Nashville. Right, Nashville is now like this

1629
01:48:07,880 --> 01:48:10,639
Speaker 1: artist hub, particularly for on the on the music side

1630
01:48:10,640 --> 01:48:15,519
Speaker 1: of things. And you know, look what Austin did to

1631
01:48:15,520 --> 01:48:19,360
Speaker 1: to you know, became bluer. And obviously, you know, Hollywood

1632
01:48:19,400 --> 01:48:23,720
Speaker 1: itself and being a has certainly given a very you know,

1633
01:48:23,920 --> 01:48:26,400
Speaker 1: darker blue tint to southern California than it used to

1634
01:48:26,439 --> 01:48:31,559
Speaker 1: have in itself. So I think there was I think

1635
01:48:31,880 --> 01:48:35,000
Speaker 1: I certainly I thought nash the growth of Nashville would

1636
01:48:35,120 --> 01:48:39,240
Speaker 1: naturally create more competition in the state, that all of that,

1637
01:48:39,320 --> 01:48:41,360
Speaker 1: and we haven't seen that. Now. There's a few things.

1638
01:48:41,360 --> 01:48:46,080
Speaker 1: My friend Brad Todd, a Republican consultant from Tennessee, he says,

1639
01:48:46,120 --> 01:48:48,760
Speaker 1: you know, the growth of Nashville has been different than

1640
01:48:48,960 --> 01:48:52,799
Speaker 1: say the Research Triangle or Atlanta, Atlanta or northern Virginia.

1641
01:48:52,880 --> 01:48:54,920
Speaker 1: And I thought Nashville would sort of behave the same

1642
01:48:54,960 --> 01:48:57,360
Speaker 1: way has And he said, part of it is you've

1643
01:48:57,400 --> 01:49:02,000
Speaker 1: had a lot of Midwesterners moved to particularly the sort

1644
01:49:02,040 --> 01:49:05,960
Speaker 1: of the larger Nashville ex serbs right, Franklin County in particular.

1645
01:49:06,000 --> 01:49:08,920
Speaker 1: But the excerbs of Nashville. And he says, like on

1646
01:49:08,960 --> 01:49:11,200
Speaker 1: a Saturday, you can go to some of these subdivisions

1647
01:49:11,520 --> 01:49:13,519
Speaker 1: and you don't see it falls. You don't see any

1648
01:49:13,560 --> 01:49:20,520
Speaker 1: Tennessee Vall's flag in the fall, but you do see Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, State, Wisconsin.

1649
01:49:21,200 --> 01:49:22,920
Speaker 1: And he said there's been a lot of sort of

1650
01:49:23,600 --> 01:49:27,439
Speaker 1: Republicans have left those states and moved to a lower

1651
01:49:27,479 --> 01:49:32,400
Speaker 1: tax state like Tennessee and the expanding excerps of Nashville,

1652
01:49:32,720 --> 01:49:36,519
Speaker 1: and that that is that the migration has not been

1653
01:49:36,560 --> 01:49:40,679
Speaker 1: as as swing voter or as liberal as the migration

1654
01:49:40,800 --> 01:49:44,960
Speaker 1: you saw in Northern Virginia Research Triangle or Austin and

1655
01:49:45,680 --> 01:49:50,280
Speaker 1: or the Atlanta suburbs. But look, we've seen some signs

1656
01:49:50,280 --> 01:49:55,720
Speaker 1: at Nashville itself gets competitive. So look, I think the

1657
01:49:55,720 --> 01:50:01,120
Speaker 1: biggest problem that Tennessee Democrats have in general's Memphis. Memphis

1658
01:50:01,200 --> 01:50:04,840
Speaker 1: is just it's a city that has fallen behind. Right,

1659
01:50:05,000 --> 01:50:07,840
Speaker 1: there was a time that Memphis was a growing city

1660
01:50:08,120 --> 01:50:12,840
Speaker 1: FedEx being headquarters. There was I'll be honest with you,

1661
01:50:12,920 --> 01:50:15,400
Speaker 1: I've traveling and out of Memphis a lot always have

1662
01:50:15,439 --> 01:50:21,120
Speaker 1: gone back thirty years now, and you know, just just

1663
01:50:21,200 --> 01:50:23,320
Speaker 1: in the in the areas in and you know, I

1664
01:50:23,320 --> 01:50:26,400
Speaker 1: think about the area in and around of Graceland now

1665
01:50:26,479 --> 01:50:31,759
Speaker 1: the airport hotels, you know, the crime issues pretty pretty

1666
01:50:31,800 --> 01:50:35,000
Speaker 1: bad these days. All the airport hotels are like behind

1667
01:50:35,040 --> 01:50:40,960
Speaker 1: these like huge, you know, ten foot iron fences, black

1668
01:50:41,120 --> 01:50:42,760
Speaker 1: you know, sort of those black iron you.

1669
01:50:42,720 --> 01:50:44,439
Speaker 2: Know fences, and.

1670
01:50:46,080 --> 01:50:50,320
Speaker 1: It screams like not welcoming all around that part of Memphis.

1671
01:50:51,320 --> 01:50:54,080
Speaker 1: And so you know, it is it is sort of stagnated.

1672
01:50:54,520 --> 01:50:57,760
Speaker 1: You know, whether this look Tennessee Republicans have made a

1673
01:50:57,800 --> 01:51:02,160
Speaker 1: living running against Memphis forever. Memphis was racial code words.

1674
01:51:03,160 --> 01:51:06,160
Speaker 1: You know, it was the largest African American population in

1675
01:51:06,200 --> 01:51:11,680
Speaker 1: Tennessee concentrated wise, was in Memphis. But it is stalled

1676
01:51:11,840 --> 01:51:14,360
Speaker 1: growth wise. I wish I had a better explanation. I

1677
01:51:14,360 --> 01:51:17,280
Speaker 1: haven't studied it enough, but you know, Memphis feels like

1678
01:51:17,320 --> 01:51:21,840
Speaker 1: it's headed in the wrong direction. In you know, there

1679
01:51:21,880 --> 01:51:24,000
Speaker 1: was a time both in Memphis and Nashville felt like

1680
01:51:24,040 --> 01:51:27,400
Speaker 1: where they were both growing. And I think, you know,

1681
01:51:29,400 --> 01:51:34,080
Speaker 1: better democratic governance of Memphis and more success in Memphis

1682
01:51:34,760 --> 01:51:40,000
Speaker 1: might I think raise the prospects of of more credibility

1683
01:51:40,040 --> 01:51:43,519
Speaker 1: for democratic Canadate statewide. Look, I think that there is

1684
01:51:43,640 --> 01:51:46,120
Speaker 1: just and there's no pipeline anymore, right when they carved

1685
01:51:46,200 --> 01:51:48,320
Speaker 1: up the Nashville seat so that they did it as

1686
01:51:48,320 --> 01:51:50,600
Speaker 1: a hub and spoke where they just took pieces of

1687
01:51:50,640 --> 01:51:53,640
Speaker 1: Nashville to try to make it so that essentially, I

1688
01:51:53,640 --> 01:51:55,800
Speaker 1: think the only Democrat you really are going to end

1689
01:51:55,880 --> 01:52:01,320
Speaker 1: up with is the is the congressman from Memphis. You

1690
01:52:01,360 --> 01:52:04,280
Speaker 1: don't have somebody that wins in swing districts that then

1691
01:52:04,320 --> 01:52:08,800
Speaker 1: become that become like a Phil Bretison that knows how

1692
01:52:08,840 --> 01:52:11,320
Speaker 1: to run stay wide. And you've also had that scandal

1693
01:52:11,360 --> 01:52:13,760
Speaker 1: with the Nashville mayor. So when you think about the

1694
01:52:13,800 --> 01:52:16,559
Speaker 1: places where the benches would develop, where there could be

1695
01:52:16,560 --> 01:52:19,280
Speaker 1: benches for candidates to develop, mayor of Nashville is a

1696
01:52:19,280 --> 01:52:24,160
Speaker 1: big one. The congressional you haven't had that. So let's

1697
01:52:24,160 --> 01:52:25,400
Speaker 1: just say it's a lot of work to do. If

1698
01:52:25,439 --> 01:52:28,519
Speaker 1: I were advising Tennessee Democrats, I'd be like, go get

1699
01:52:28,560 --> 01:52:32,080
Speaker 1: your Memphis house in order and then then get started

1700
01:52:32,120 --> 01:52:38,080
Speaker 1: at sort of change, you know, improving your brand in

1701
01:52:38,120 --> 01:52:44,040
Speaker 1: the Nashville area. Next question comes from ant and should

1702
01:52:44,080 --> 01:52:46,040
Speaker 1: I say you love listen to your time machine message today.

1703
01:52:46,040 --> 01:52:48,200
Speaker 1: I'm a high school US history and US government teacher.

1704
01:52:48,240 --> 01:52:50,439
Speaker 1: I've always argued that some years in history require a

1705
01:52:50,439 --> 01:52:53,439
Speaker 1: book addressing events in just that year. You hit one

1706
01:52:53,439 --> 01:52:55,360
Speaker 1: of those years today, eighteen forty eight.

1707
01:52:55,840 --> 01:52:56,479
Speaker 2: You are so right.

1708
01:52:56,479 --> 01:52:58,640
Speaker 1: I'm not bright enough to write it and to just

1709
01:52:59,520 --> 01:53:02,640
Speaker 1: deal a time to focus my attention. I'm passing the

1710
01:53:02,640 --> 01:53:04,800
Speaker 1: baton to you get writing. If eighteen forty eight is

1711
01:53:04,800 --> 01:53:07,559
Speaker 1: it your cup of tea, maybe nineteen sixty eight would

1712
01:53:07,560 --> 01:53:09,519
Speaker 1: be more to your taste. And no, you're right, I

1713
01:53:09,520 --> 01:53:12,280
Speaker 1: mean it was a time of disruption. There was it

1714
01:53:12,320 --> 01:53:15,160
Speaker 1: was sort of peak fear of the industrial age, and

1715
01:53:15,200 --> 01:53:19,160
Speaker 1: it was more in Europe. It was you know, brewing

1716
01:53:19,160 --> 01:53:21,240
Speaker 1: in this country, but it was definitely something hit in

1717
01:53:21,280 --> 01:53:24,000
Speaker 1: London more, which is hence why that came. You're absolute right,

1718
01:53:24,920 --> 01:53:28,280
Speaker 1: there is more to eighteen forty eight as a touchdone

1719
01:53:28,320 --> 01:53:32,200
Speaker 1: in history. Just to put some meat on the eighteen

1720
01:53:32,280 --> 01:53:36,920
Speaker 1: forty eight bones there, And I do expect you to

1721
01:53:36,960 --> 01:53:41,640
Speaker 1: grade me and to tell me. I just want to

1722
01:53:41,640 --> 01:53:44,320
Speaker 1: give folks a quick run through. Why do you put

1723
01:53:44,320 --> 01:53:47,680
Speaker 1: that way? So what makes eighteen forty eight unique is

1724
01:53:47,680 --> 01:53:51,440
Speaker 1: that it wasn't one single war. There were spontaneous, contagious

1725
01:53:51,520 --> 01:53:55,439
Speaker 1: irruption of over fifty different revolts across Europe. And all

1726
01:53:55,479 --> 01:53:59,000
Speaker 1: of it was without our modern communications of the moment. Right,

1727
01:53:59,000 --> 01:54:02,360
Speaker 1: this wasn't the Internet didn't get contagious that way. You know,

1728
01:54:02,439 --> 01:54:07,040
Speaker 1: you had the fire started arguably in Sicily in January.

1729
01:54:07,400 --> 01:54:10,320
Speaker 1: Then there was Paris in February, where the monarchy went away,

1730
01:54:11,479 --> 01:54:13,280
Speaker 1: the revolutionary spirit kept going.

1731
01:54:13,360 --> 01:54:14,000
Speaker 2: You had.

1732
01:54:15,640 --> 01:54:20,799
Speaker 1: You had the Austrian Empire, the prince fleeing to London.

1733
01:54:21,600 --> 01:54:22,360
Speaker 2: You had.

1734
01:54:23,640 --> 01:54:27,760
Speaker 1: The Prussians agreeing to a promise of a constitution and

1735
01:54:27,840 --> 01:54:34,040
Speaker 1: a parliament. You had Italian reunification. One could argue there

1736
01:54:34,080 --> 01:54:38,080
Speaker 1: was a collision of isms liberalism, the middle class wanting constitutions,

1737
01:54:38,120 --> 01:54:41,000
Speaker 1: free speech, the right to vote, that was happening over Europe.

1738
01:54:41,040 --> 01:54:44,120
Speaker 1: You had nationalism. You had ethnic groups Hungarians, Germans, Italians,

1739
01:54:44,440 --> 01:54:47,280
Speaker 1: checks they wanted their own independent countries. Right, we still

1740
01:54:47,280 --> 01:54:50,520
Speaker 1: had a Prussia at that time, no Germany. Socialism was

1741
01:54:50,520 --> 01:54:53,040
Speaker 1: on the rise with obviously with what I pointed out

1742
01:54:53,080 --> 01:54:58,080
Speaker 1: with Marx and all of that. So she was saying, yes,

1743
01:54:58,120 --> 01:55:00,040
Speaker 1: there needs to be a book. Well, the historian and

1744
01:55:00,240 --> 01:55:03,440
Speaker 1: GM Trevellion called eighteen forty eight the turning point at

1745
01:55:03,520 --> 01:55:06,480
Speaker 1: rich modern history failed to turn as a great turn

1746
01:55:06,480 --> 01:55:11,200
Speaker 1: of phrase that he had everything seemed to collapse that year,

1747
01:55:11,240 --> 01:55:13,680
Speaker 1: and then by eighteen forty nine there was a conservative snapback.

1748
01:55:14,080 --> 01:55:17,560
Speaker 1: Monarchs regained their nerve, the Russian czars three hundred thousand

1749
01:55:17,560 --> 01:55:20,520
Speaker 1: troops to help Austria across the Hungarian revolt. The French

1750
01:55:20,560 --> 01:55:25,480
Speaker 1: Republic ended when Napoleon's nephew declared himself the emperor. So

1751
01:55:25,520 --> 01:55:27,560
Speaker 1: it was sort of but eighteen forty eight served as

1752
01:55:27,600 --> 01:55:29,960
Speaker 1: a bit of a precursor to what was to come, right,

1753
01:55:30,000 --> 01:55:32,160
Speaker 1: and we ended up with the Russian Revolution about fifty

1754
01:55:32,200 --> 01:55:36,320
Speaker 1: years later, and you know, the fall of the Ottoman

1755
01:55:36,400 --> 01:55:38,800
Speaker 1: Empire and all of that, So sort of it was

1756
01:55:39,480 --> 01:55:41,720
Speaker 1: it was sort of like the first tremors of the

1757
01:55:41,760 --> 01:55:44,920
Speaker 1: big breakup that would eventually take place in the late

1758
01:55:45,000 --> 01:55:49,320
Speaker 1: nineteenth thirty twentieth century. But you're right, eighteen forty eight

1759
01:55:49,520 --> 01:55:53,400
Speaker 1: worthy of its own book. It's a really good podcast

1760
01:55:53,520 --> 01:55:57,520
Speaker 1: serial idea too, sort of you know some years, you

1761
01:55:57,560 --> 01:56:02,200
Speaker 1: know years where you know where, years where decades happened,

1762
01:56:02,480 --> 01:56:07,000
Speaker 1: and decades where years happened. Right, So thank you for

1763
01:56:07,040 --> 01:56:09,320
Speaker 1: that suggestion, Anne, And I don't know if I did

1764
01:56:09,720 --> 01:56:13,000
Speaker 1: did the answer to your question a service.

1765
01:56:13,000 --> 01:56:15,040
Speaker 2: Hopefully I got more people interested in eighteen forty eight,

1766
01:56:15,120 --> 01:56:16,000
Speaker 2: which is the real goal.

1767
01:56:17,200 --> 01:56:19,400
Speaker 1: All right, I'm just gonna sneak in two more questions

1768
01:56:19,400 --> 01:56:22,080
Speaker 1: here because I am. As soon as I'm done with

1769
01:56:22,080 --> 01:56:25,160
Speaker 1: this taping, I'm going to go celebrate my grandmother's ninety

1770
01:56:25,360 --> 01:56:29,080
Speaker 1: ninth birthday. She turns ninety nine this week.

1771
01:56:29,240 --> 01:56:30,600
Speaker 2: How about that? Ninety nine?

1772
01:56:33,920 --> 01:56:37,280
Speaker 1: And she is well aware of everything that's going around

1773
01:56:37,280 --> 01:56:39,120
Speaker 1: around the world. She can't read the way she used

1774
01:56:39,160 --> 01:56:41,800
Speaker 1: to do anymore because of her eyesight, but she listens

1775
01:56:41,840 --> 01:56:43,880
Speaker 1: probably to like two books a day. I mean, she's

1776
01:56:43,920 --> 01:56:49,320
Speaker 1: a book on tape connoisseur. All right, This one comes

1777
01:56:49,360 --> 01:56:52,920
Speaker 1: from Max w Out of Alexandria. Here use of historical

1778
01:56:52,920 --> 01:56:55,200
Speaker 1: precedent to help analyze current political actions leads me to

1779
01:56:55,200 --> 01:56:57,839
Speaker 1: ask about the Bill of Rights. Trump administration is assaulted

1780
01:56:57,880 --> 01:56:59,680
Speaker 1: the first, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth amendments

1781
01:56:59,760 --> 01:57:02,320
Speaker 1: numer times, and it has recently gone after the second

1782
01:57:02,320 --> 01:57:04,480
Speaker 1: Amendment when it justified the alex Pretty shooting because he

1783
01:57:04,480 --> 01:57:06,640
Speaker 1: brought a gun to the protest. So what's left is

1784
01:57:06,640 --> 01:57:09,040
Speaker 1: the third Amendment quartering soldiers the only one in the

1785
01:57:09,040 --> 01:57:12,560
Speaker 1: Bill of Rights left unmolested by this administration. Maybe the eighth,

1786
01:57:12,640 --> 01:57:15,440
Speaker 1: maybe the ninth. And where's the libertarian outrage at the

1787
01:57:15,440 --> 01:57:17,720
Speaker 1: demolition of their personal rights. I'll hang up and listen.

1788
01:57:17,800 --> 01:57:21,520
Speaker 1: Let's seez A re Max w Actually, I think this

1789
01:57:21,560 --> 01:57:25,040
Speaker 1: is where you're starting to see some libertarians get cranky

1790
01:57:25,080 --> 01:57:27,040
Speaker 1: about it. I follow a whole bunch of libertarians. I'm

1791
01:57:27,040 --> 01:57:29,160
Speaker 1: going to have the editor in chief of Reason magazine

1792
01:57:29,200 --> 01:57:33,200
Speaker 1: onsoon to actually talk about this very issue.

1793
01:57:33,760 --> 01:57:34,480
Speaker 2: I know.

1794
01:57:34,560 --> 01:57:39,280
Speaker 1: This is Here's how I view these tests of liberties

1795
01:57:39,320 --> 01:57:43,760
Speaker 1: that are challenged by Trump. You know, the Republicans that

1796
01:57:43,800 --> 01:57:46,120
Speaker 1: are exhausted from defending Trump when they're willing to speak

1797
01:57:46,120 --> 01:57:49,280
Speaker 1: out on these things, and so they're they're kind of

1798
01:57:49,440 --> 01:57:54,600
Speaker 1: MRIs for who's got any principles left? So I find

1799
01:57:54,640 --> 01:57:58,200
Speaker 1: these moments useful in figuring out which one of these

1800
01:57:58,200 --> 01:58:01,760
Speaker 1: guys in Congress will put the country before the party

1801
01:58:01,840 --> 01:58:04,640
Speaker 1: if the chips are truly down, and which ones won't.

1802
01:58:04,800 --> 01:58:05,600
Speaker 2: It's moments like.

1803
01:58:05,560 --> 01:58:08,360
Speaker 1: This that give us this Here, you're right about this,

1804
01:58:08,480 --> 01:58:14,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I would argue that you know, in any

1805
01:58:14,240 --> 01:58:17,400
Speaker 1: given day, I mean it is it does feel like

1806
01:58:17,960 --> 01:58:20,040
Speaker 1: half the Bill of Rights get violated on any given

1807
01:58:20,080 --> 01:58:26,360
Speaker 1: day by this administration. But you know, does anybody believe

1808
01:58:27,080 --> 01:58:29,360
Speaker 1: do you think Donald Trump's read one federalist paper in

1809
01:58:29,400 --> 01:58:31,760
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. Maybe he read one in high school.

1810
01:58:32,280 --> 01:58:33,320
Speaker 2: Maybe all right.

1811
01:58:33,400 --> 01:58:38,080
Speaker 1: Last question for this episode comes from Dennis Dennis Rights,

1812
01:58:38,080 --> 01:58:40,880
Speaker 1: Why isn't anybody talking about the real possibility that potentially

1813
01:58:40,880 --> 01:58:43,840
Speaker 1: two conservative Supreme Court justices could resign Clarence Thomas and

1814
01:58:43,840 --> 01:58:46,240
Speaker 1: Samuel Alito, especially if the Democrats are likely to win

1815
01:58:46,320 --> 01:58:48,840
Speaker 1: the Senate to allow Trump to nominate one, possibly two, young,

1816
01:58:48,920 --> 01:58:52,080
Speaker 1: mega friendly justices to the Supreme Court, extending his legacy

1817
01:58:52,080 --> 01:58:55,120
Speaker 1: forward for decades. Even if the Republicans maintain their majority

1818
01:58:55,160 --> 01:58:57,440
Speaker 1: of the Senate following the twenty twenty sixth election, the

1819
01:58:57,440 --> 01:59:00,200
Speaker 1: real possibility still remains that either one or two the

1820
01:59:00,280 --> 01:59:02,600
Speaker 1: justices would resign prior to Trump leaving office in twenty

1821
01:59:02,640 --> 01:59:06,440
Speaker 1: twenty nine, allowing him to have nominated five Supreme Court

1822
01:59:06,520 --> 01:59:09,280
Speaker 1: justices during his time as president. Thank you, Dennis. Look,

1823
01:59:10,600 --> 01:59:13,520
Speaker 1: you know, I think you will know when the White

1824
01:59:13,560 --> 01:59:16,520
Speaker 1: House finally fears losing the Senate in twenty twenty six,

1825
01:59:16,720 --> 01:59:19,560
Speaker 1: when you start to hear those whispers grow louder about

1826
01:59:19,680 --> 01:59:24,760
Speaker 1: Alito and or Thomas. My friend Bruce Melman, you should

1827
01:59:24,800 --> 01:59:26,680
Speaker 1: check out his sub stack. Every Sunday he puts out

1828
01:59:26,920 --> 01:59:31,320
Speaker 1: these terrific PowerPoint slides, and he didn't want to basically

1829
01:59:31,640 --> 01:59:36,280
Speaker 1: anticipating the potential for a Supreme Court opening, and he said, look,

1830
01:59:36,280 --> 01:59:39,760
Speaker 1: Trump loves to try to try to set records or

1831
01:59:39,840 --> 01:59:43,040
Speaker 1: to surpass or be and he would love to nominate,

1832
01:59:43,920 --> 01:59:45,480
Speaker 1: you know, to get up to five. I think in

1833
01:59:46,160 --> 01:59:48,360
Speaker 1: Bruce's telling, let me get the Bruce charts out here

1834
01:59:48,360 --> 01:59:52,440
Speaker 1: a minute, because they were terrific on this topic. He

1835
01:59:52,560 --> 01:59:55,400
Speaker 1: pointed out that right now Trump has, as you point out,

1836
01:59:55,400 --> 01:59:59,920
Speaker 1: has had three. He's right now he's in a seven

1837
02:00:00,160 --> 02:00:03,680
Speaker 1: a way tie for the thirteenth most Supreme Court justices appointed.

1838
02:00:04,120 --> 02:00:06,800
Speaker 1: But if he gets two more, he's then tied with

1839
02:00:06,920 --> 02:00:09,440
Speaker 1: Lincoln for the fourth most all time. In case you

1840
02:00:09,560 --> 02:00:12,640
Speaker 1: keep a score, George Washington is appointed the most members

1841
02:00:12,680 --> 02:00:16,600
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court eleven, followed by FDR. Took him

1842
02:00:16,600 --> 02:00:21,240
Speaker 1: three terms plus a month to do nine. Andrew Jackson

1843
02:00:21,240 --> 02:00:28,920
Speaker 1: did six. And then you have three guys at five. Taft, Eisenhower, Lincoln, Grant, Nixon, Cleveland, Harding, Truman,

1844
02:00:29,000 --> 02:00:34,000
Speaker 1: Harrison all had four. And then Reagan got three and

1845
02:00:34,080 --> 02:00:37,040
Speaker 1: he's the most and Trump has three. No, there's no

1846
02:00:37,120 --> 02:00:41,400
Speaker 1: other modern era with three. You have to go back

1847
02:00:41,480 --> 02:00:44,400
Speaker 1: to before then you have to go back to it

1848
02:00:44,440 --> 02:00:49,360
Speaker 1: appears Hoover got three and then before that Woodrow Wilson,

1849
02:00:49,400 --> 02:00:54,880
Speaker 1: before that Teddy Roosevelt. So look, I think Alitos seemed

1850
02:00:54,880 --> 02:00:57,320
Speaker 1: to give hints that he sort of exhausted from doing this.

1851
02:00:58,920 --> 02:01:01,080
Speaker 1: There's a lot of assumption, and said Thomas is ready

1852
02:01:01,080 --> 02:01:02,800
Speaker 1: to take the RV on the road and just do

1853
02:01:02,880 --> 02:01:04,840
Speaker 1: more trips on his RV. He loves to do that.

1854
02:01:08,280 --> 02:01:10,680
Speaker 1: And I think they're both true believers right there. You know,

1855
02:01:10,720 --> 02:01:13,040
Speaker 1: it's a it's a tough decision for Trump because the

1856
02:01:13,120 --> 02:01:16,400
Speaker 1: two oldest are also the two most supportive, right they

1857
02:01:16,480 --> 02:01:19,080
Speaker 1: vote with Trump more than any other two members of

1858
02:01:19,120 --> 02:01:22,600
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, So you know, and you look at

1859
02:01:22,640 --> 02:01:27,080
Speaker 1: his appointments. Do you know that Amy Coney Barrett voted

1860
02:01:27,800 --> 02:01:31,200
Speaker 1: gave him fifty three percent of the time, voted in

1861
02:01:31,240 --> 02:01:35,920
Speaker 1: favor of the Biden administration when she was you know,

1862
02:01:36,200 --> 02:01:39,400
Speaker 1: so did Roberts, but she voted more with Roberts than

1863
02:01:39,520 --> 02:01:42,280
Speaker 1: she did. You know, Alito and Gorsage ninety five percent

1864
02:01:42,280 --> 02:01:44,440
Speaker 1: of the time do they vote with Trump, and only

1865
02:01:44,760 --> 02:01:48,480
Speaker 1: gorse it's twenty nine percent of the time voted with

1866
02:01:48,480 --> 02:01:51,960
Speaker 1: with with Biden. But both Thomas and Alito voted only

1867
02:01:52,000 --> 02:01:54,800
Speaker 1: eighteen percent of the tide with the Biden administration whenever

1868
02:01:54,800 --> 02:01:57,560
Speaker 1: they were in front of the Supreme Court. So they're

1869
02:01:57,600 --> 02:02:02,120
Speaker 1: Trump's most supportive, you know, two of their most supportive justices,

1870
02:02:02,520 --> 02:02:06,320
Speaker 1: so you push them out. You know, Kavanaugh Barrett have

1871
02:02:06,520 --> 02:02:09,800
Speaker 1: both been you know, a little, you know, more center

1872
02:02:09,880 --> 02:02:14,160
Speaker 1: right than right wing. Gorses has been more right wing,

1873
02:02:14,200 --> 02:02:16,960
Speaker 1: but he's been unpredictable in a couple of different issues.

1874
02:02:17,000 --> 02:02:23,000
Speaker 1: So you know, nothing always goes to plan. And the

1875
02:02:23,040 --> 02:02:24,680
Speaker 1: irony is that he would be getting rid of his

1876
02:02:24,720 --> 02:02:28,200
Speaker 1: two most supportive justices if he pushed them out. But

1877
02:02:29,320 --> 02:02:31,120
Speaker 1: I think this is coming. I think there are going

1878
02:02:31,160 --> 02:02:34,000
Speaker 1: to be Republicans whispering in Trump's ear that hey, nothing

1879
02:02:34,040 --> 02:02:38,040
Speaker 1: will help rally the base more than a Supreme Court opening.

1880
02:02:38,080 --> 02:02:41,320
Speaker 1: This is what worked in twenty eighteen. It kept you know,

1881
02:02:41,360 --> 02:02:44,360
Speaker 1: it helped Republicans win a couple of senten seats even

1882
02:02:44,360 --> 02:02:47,600
Speaker 1: in a bad midterm year. Maybe this does the same.

1883
02:02:47,680 --> 02:02:49,880
Speaker 1: Now here's a question that I have that was in

1884
02:02:49,920 --> 02:02:54,000
Speaker 1: a pre Dobs environment. Who gets more fired up now

1885
02:02:54,040 --> 02:02:57,040
Speaker 1: for open Supreme Court justices? But when it was Roe v.

1886
02:02:57,200 --> 02:03:00,640
Speaker 1: Wade that the right was fired up about, it was

1887
02:03:00,680 --> 02:03:03,280
Speaker 1: clear that anytime the Supreme Court was an issue, it

1888
02:03:03,400 --> 02:03:03,960
Speaker 1: motivated the.

1889
02:03:04,000 --> 02:03:05,320
Speaker 2: Right more than the left.

1890
02:03:05,640 --> 02:03:07,040
Speaker 1: Does that change in the.

1891
02:03:06,960 --> 02:03:08,240
Speaker 2: Era of Dobbs.

1892
02:03:10,480 --> 02:03:14,360
Speaker 1: That you know, will will a Supreme Court opening motivate

1893
02:03:14,400 --> 02:03:15,440
Speaker 1: the left more than the right?

1894
02:03:15,480 --> 02:03:17,000
Speaker 2: This time? We haven't had that in a while.

1895
02:03:17,040 --> 02:03:20,920
Speaker 1: But usually, when you know, it's whoever feels the side

1896
02:03:20,920 --> 02:03:23,280
Speaker 1: that feels as if the courts are the most against them,

1897
02:03:23,720 --> 02:03:25,560
Speaker 1: And right now, I think the left feels like the

1898
02:03:25,600 --> 02:03:27,760
Speaker 1: courts are more rigged against them than the right feels

1899
02:03:27,800 --> 02:03:30,360
Speaker 1: like the courts are rigged against them. Right there's not

1900
02:03:30,440 --> 02:03:33,160
Speaker 1: as many liberal judges are doing this to us type

1901
02:03:33,160 --> 02:03:37,560
Speaker 1: of victimhood these days on the right because Trump's had

1902
02:03:37,680 --> 02:03:39,400
Speaker 1: quite a few you know, they've they've gotten quite a

1903
02:03:39,440 --> 02:03:42,240
Speaker 1: few wins. So that's you know, do I think that

1904
02:03:42,480 --> 02:03:45,560
Speaker 1: Republican strategists will believe this will help them?

1905
02:03:45,600 --> 02:03:45,920
Speaker 2: I do?

1906
02:03:46,560 --> 02:03:51,680
Speaker 1: Are they right? I'm not one hundred percent convinced. And

1907
02:03:51,760 --> 02:03:55,760
Speaker 1: with that, I'm going to go figure out what. Let

1908
02:03:55,760 --> 02:03:57,640
Speaker 1: me tell you one thing about my I got a

1909
02:03:57,640 --> 02:04:00,000
Speaker 1: great anecdote about my grandmother. She's made a ninety nine years.

1910
02:04:00,400 --> 02:04:03,680
Speaker 1: You know, the single thing she hates eating the most

1911
02:04:04,200 --> 02:04:05,240
Speaker 1: fresh vegetables.

1912
02:04:05,840 --> 02:04:08,840
Speaker 2: So there you go all right, but.

1913
02:04:08,880 --> 02:04:13,720
Speaker 1: She eats the most of anything chocolate or sweet, and

1914
02:04:13,760 --> 02:04:17,520
Speaker 1: she's still going strong. I'm not saying so. Hey, mister Pross,

1915
02:04:18,080 --> 02:04:22,040
Speaker 1: you know the healthy food guy done always worked that way.

1916
02:04:22,720 --> 02:04:31,360
Speaker 1: All right, with that, I'll see you in twenty four hours.