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Hello, 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.760 They're happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of the 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.080 Chuck Podcast. Let me give you a quick little rundown 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:02.680 of what to expect in today's full episode. I will 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.640 have an answer to the question that I get more 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.360 often than any other will the mid terms happen? But 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:14.040 I want to explain it in such a way that 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.480 kind of builds off of what we talked about on Monday. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.640 I will get to that in a minute. So going 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.120 to have my top five list, and this one has 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.440 to do with thought. I'm calling Project twenty thirty two 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.959 for the Democratic Party. I'll just leave that little tease 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.639 at that, and you'll get an idea of where I'm 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.840 going to go with my top five list on that, 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.919 and of course we'll take some questions and go from there. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.639 All right, So let's go back to the to this exercise. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.320 I want to do it, and it wants to I 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.520 want to build on the story we talked about on Monday, 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:50.200 but try to explain why why it's disappearing, and I'm 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:52.839 going to lament why it's disappearing because I don't think 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.800 it should be disappearing, and try to sort of help 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.520 you discern, you know, which one of these alarming stories. 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.680 How much worry about Trump's alarming rhetoric versus his alarming deeds. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.200 So look, if you listen to Money's episode, you know 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.200 I spent a good chunk of time slowing things down, 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.120 walking through a story that I think is easy to 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.440 miss in this current information ecosystem. I knew that this 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:18.359 didn't have easy visuals to show bells and whistles, But 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.680 what I really believe is that this is the worst 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.120 sort of this is the worst corruption scandal we've ever 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.120 had involving an American president. It's bigger than teapot doma 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.280 bigger than Watergate. And I know, because we're so numb 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.600 to Trump's transactionalism, we just don't see it, right. But 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.400 that's why I wanted to walk through the details very deliberately, 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:42.960 because it's incredibly important. 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:44.400 And it was. 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.560 Of course, I'm referring to the Wall Street Journal story, 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.040 the report about how Sovereign Wealth Fund of UAE investments 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.880 into a crypto company that really wasn't going anywhere for 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.160 Trump that suddenly became relevant. It led to a change 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.400 in America in the States of America's policy on AI 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.120 and chips, and of course led to a pardon of 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.640 a very controversial figure in the crypto world. And all 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:15.080 of it happening while Trump was receiving hundreds of millions 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:16.760 of dollars in cash Trump. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:17.040 And his family. 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:24.000 Now, the story didn't have dramatic visuals, and it wasn't 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.159 easy to villainize somebody in a moment. It was a 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.520 dense it was. It's a story that requires some patience. 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:32.679 In some ways. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:34.520 As I said, right, you need a you need to 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.159 either the Whiteboard on a Beautiful Mind or clar Danes 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.520 and Homeland to sort of see how everything is connected. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.080 And I really believe that it was the most important 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.520 story of the weekend and really something that that should 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.240 be seen. You know that every congressional reporter should be 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.120 asking every member of Congress about it, right, that type 0:04:55.160 --> 0:05:01.040 of story to sort of get Congress off its ass 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.400 and start worrying about whether presidents are following the Constitution. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.720 But then the rest of the Then the rest of 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:09.679 Monday happened. 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:10.039 Right. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.160 You had the Dan Bongino podcast that the President did 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.920 where he mused about federalizing elections, which, of course that 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.520 quick comment coupled with the video footage of the bizarre 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:26.480 Telsea Gabbard leven FBI rate of Fulton County in Atlanta 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.640 with the twenty twenty ballots, and boom, right, you instantly 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.680 had a bit viral of a feeding frenzy on a 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:34.640 specific story. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:36.880 You know, by. 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.560 Tuesday morning, you wake up and it's Kennedy Senator has 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.320 been Kennedy Center. He's just canceled it, shutting it down 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.159 for two years. Again, a shiny metal object story became 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:47.600 the lead of the day, and oh, by the way, 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.359 the government was shut down, so we had to reopen 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.640 that and all of it, shoving what is the perhaps 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.400 the biggest scandal in American history further and further and 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.919 further down the information ecosystem ladder. And of course, the 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:08.600 sudden burst of rhetorical crazy from Trump involving the midterms 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.000 led to a whole bunch of questions that I regularly 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:17.640 get from both listeners, viewers, and friends and family starting 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.159 to panic, you know, is is he going to cancel 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.120 the midterms? And it always leads to this, because how 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.320 anxious should we all be right now? And you know 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.000 you can and I get it right? Are things collapsing? 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.279 Is this different? Is Trump actually serious this time? What 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.920 guardrails are left that could stop him on this? So 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.680 here's what I want to do. I don't want to 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.200 hype your anxiety, and I don't want to dismiss it either. 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.360 What I want to try to do is organize it, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.240 because one of the biggest mistakes we make in moments 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.919 like this is confusing volume with importance and mistaking what 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.280 feels scariest for what's actually doing the most damage. It 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.320 goes to the original trope with Trump, you know, right, 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.960 you know, which is you know, do you take them 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.000 literally or seriously or both? 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:10.360 Right? 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.080 And in this case, what I would say is should 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.320 you worry about what he's saying or should you worry about. 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:16.800 What he's doing? 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.040 Now, of course I would argue the answer is yes 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.400 to everything. And that's what we're going to get to. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.040 So let's start with the story that everyone understands. Immediately, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.760 Donald Trump goes on a podcast muses again about federalizing elections, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.840 which of course you know, reminds people of him musing 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.840 about just I wish I could cancel the midterms, and 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.560 almost simultaneously, right when you play that, you have your 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.200 file footage, right, so if you see this on video, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.720 you could just show the weird Tulsa Gabert thing and 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.440 the striking images out of Georgia of federal agents executing 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:51.320 a raid connected to election materials from twenty twenty. You know, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.840 we're at nearly six years later. We've had multiple elections 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.040 in Fulton County ever since. I mean, I sort of 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.000 look at what he's doing is laughable. I think it's silly, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.000 but it's also very serious. Right, we know he's desperate 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:11.960 to continue to sell this lie that he somehow was 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:20.320 illegitimately thrown out of office in twenty twenty. 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:22.760 So Trump talks. 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.360 About overwriting elections, and then all of a sudden, you 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.880 see federal agents seizing ballots. Right, the great fear that 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.720 so many people have. So you don't need a constitutional 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.760 law degree to fill your stomach drop. That is scary. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.199 Rhetoric plus visuals, threat plus spectacle. It's an easy story 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.040 to tell. It fits in a tweet, it fits in 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.120 a cairn, and it fits in your nervous system, and 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.560 it rides the algorithm. Now, let me be very clear. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.839 The rhetoric is not harmless. This isn't normal, and it 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.440 shouldn't be normalized. Election interference talk is as damaging as 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.840 election interference itself, and using federal power to intimidate state 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.480 workers matters a great deal. 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:05.920 So I don't want to I'm. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.200 Not trying to minimize what he has said or what 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:13.360 he has done. But here's what I want. I want 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.480 you to understand, and I want to make this clear 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.720 because it's essential. What feels existential is not always what's 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.560 most consequential. So these two events, the rhetoric and the raid, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.600 landed together. They functioned together. They were consumed as one 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.520 narrative event. It almost doesn't matter which technically came first, right, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.880 the raid itself or his rhetoric to Bongino, the meaning 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:39.160 formed through proximity and imaging. Right, that's how political narratives 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.200 work now, thanks to these algorithms, thanks to these big 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.920 tech companies that control the flow of information that you 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.679 and I get to see. It isn't done through chronology 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.679 or nuanced but through what shows up next on your screen. 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.120 And that's why this story dominates. It feels like democracy 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.120 itself is on the line, and it animates a lot 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.920 of people. But feeling existential isn't the same thing as 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:06.839 actually being the thing that does the most lasting damage. Now, 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.160 let me talk about the Kennedy Center here. First glance, 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.880 Trump's moved to effectively just shut down the Kennedy Center 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.240 unilaterally under the guise of renovations. I see why some 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.520 see it as cultural authoritarianism, and symbolically, sure, it's pretty ugly, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.480 and if it's a broader pattern of treating institutions as 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.640 enemies and loyalty tests. But then the context of all 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.880 this matters, right, and I think it tells us something 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.480 pretty important about how Trump actually operates. So why did 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.040 he shut this down? This wasn't a first strike, This 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.920 was a reaction. He was being humiliated right. Artists were 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.800 pulling out, performers were canceling, events were unraveling quietly but visibly. 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:50.559 The reputational damage was happening big time for Trump. Right 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.760 the minute Trump touched the Kennedy Center got involved. Everybody 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:58.880 wanted out. The opera wanted out. People, every classical, anybody 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.680 with any level of integrity wanted in. The art community 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.280 wanted out. And it was humiliating the Kennedy Center. It 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:15.000 was humiliating Trump. Right. So Trump wasn't dominating the story. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.760 He was losing control of it. So what does he do? 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.840 This is a classic Trump He flips the script. Instead 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.320 of having to deal with they're rejecting me, which is 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.040 what they are doing, it becomes I shut it down, 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.920 and instead of absorbing a thousand small acts of descent, 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:35.680 he creates one big spectacle. Instead of reputational damage accumulating quietly, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.360 he centralizes the conflict and reframes it as Trump versus 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:44.920 the culture. Right, it's just simple spin, right, And notice 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.800 what happens when he does that, right, The story becomes 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.120 about Trump's power, Trump's move Trump's dominance. 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:50.400 Can he do it? Is it legal? 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.640 The stories of the cancelations fade, the accountability dissipates, and 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:02.320 the noise replaces the consequence. This matters because it's the 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.520 same dynamic we're seeing everywhere else, which brings me back 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:07.040 to Monday. 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:08.120 Right. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.079 While George and the Kennedy Center sucked all the oxygen 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.760 out of the room early part of this week, the 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.120 story I walked through earlier in the week is already fading. 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.760 And that should worry us more because that story, the 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.000 fact that Donald Trump has turned America into a kleptocracy 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:30.720 for his personal enrichment, that's the story that ought to 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.880 be alarming everybody because he's already doing it, and he's 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.079 already done it. He has taken these payments, he has 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:41.680 enriched himself. This isn't he might he's thinking about. He's doing. 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.080 This is stuff he's done. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:45.679 Okay. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:51.280 Foreign sovereign wealth flowing into Trump linked enterprises, policy decisions, 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.040 especially around AI chips and crypto, suddenly aligning with the 0:12:55.080 --> 0:13:01.640 private financial financial upside, pardons, permission, an access, all moving 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.600 in parallel, And as I said, the journal never says 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.520 it was a quid pro quo. But all you have 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.480 to do is look right. The modern corruption doesn't look 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.520 like a brown paper bag anymore. It looks like timing, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.600 proximity and mutual benefit. Each step defensible on its own 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:23.000 and technically legal in some sort of byzantine way of 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.520 looking at it, but it is damning when taken together, 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.559 and it is illegal when you realize it's being done 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.719 by the president of the United States, and violation of 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.080 the Constitution. And here's the moment that really sort of 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.200 crystallized all this for me. So on Tuesday morning, I 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:46.200 was scanning my usual mountain of newsletters right bias. You know, 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.439 lots of good ones out there, lots of mediocre ones, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.800 but I read a lot of them good faith actors, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.800 smart people, outlets that are deeply focused on democratic norms. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.080 And the foreign policy story was gone from a couple 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.000 of them that I was shocked to see it gone 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.920 on from. But the election rhetoric that was everywhere, the 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.720 midterm anxiety that was dominant. I mean, my friend Bill Crystal, 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:12.040 who does the Morning Shots newsletter for the Bullwork on Tuesday, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.880 not a single mention of this Wall Street Journal story anymore. Look, 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.479 they did a lot on Monday, but they were obsessed 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:22.120 with the midterm issue. Ditto with playbook had nothing on 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.840 that had a slew on the midterm issue. We all 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.640 know how this stuff, right. Some stuff travels more, some 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.920 stuff rides the algorithm right, and the way the independent 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:42.600 media landscape works, a lot of editorial folks examine what's 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.640 getting attention what isn't, and they may lean more heavily 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.160 on the stories that are getting more traction, even if 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.680 there are other stories that are arguably more important. And 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.480 I'm not calling it. I don't think that's bad faith. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.520 I don't think it's corruption. But it is sort of 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.240 how our information ecosystem is kind of doing exactly what 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.880 it's designed to do. It rewards stories that are visually 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.240 immediate and emotionally legible and quietly pushes aside stories that 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.520 are technical, slow and complicated it and might not be 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:16.120 as gripping to as large enough of an audience. And 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:21.960 that's exactly why the story of the creation of the 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.640 American kleptocracy is much more dangerous. So it brings me 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.600 back to the anxiety question and something I want to 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.920 be very clear about. As alarmed as we all are 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.040 by some of Trump's rhetoric and by the sense that 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.800 there are no guardrails left. The truth is a bit 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.640 more complicated, because what's interesting is every time we lament 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.920 this idea that there are no guardrails, you start to 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.600 see that some of them do work, not all of them, 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.600 not consistently, but some of them some of the time. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.800 And it's interesting for us to realize when they do 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.600 work and when they don't work, and understanding which ones 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.560 work and why is the difference, I think, between whether 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.120 you should panic and whether you should view it as 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.560 some sort of strategy. So let me give you two examples. First, 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:12.480 there's Minneapolis after the killing of two Americans, and let's 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.640 just say it took two American deaths for Trump to 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.160 do this. Trump did something almost never does rhetorically. 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:18.640 He back down. 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.760 He sat down with Senate Democrats, he negotiated, He accepted 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.080 the premise that they were going to shut down the 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.320 government if he didn't negotiate constraints on ice. 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.400 And he said, okay, right. 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.840 Here's a guy that his critics consistently say, you know, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.560 doesn't listen to anything. There's no and he did on 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.880 this one. So why was it because of norms? No, 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.360 we know he doesn't care about norms. Was it because 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:50.760 someone made a better constitutional argument to him, sorry? Or 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.760 was it because the political costs suddenly became undeniable even 0:16:53.800 --> 0:17:00.640 for Trump? Right, public opinion has shifted dramatically on this issue. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.199 Republicans got nervous. The backlash wasn't abstract anymore, and it 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.560 wasn't just coming from Democrats that owned the Libs. It 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.280 was measurable, and Trump does respond to measurable pain, at 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:12.879 least political pain in poling. 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:14.639 Look at the FED. 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.879 We heard all the noise, the threats, the posturing, and 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.920 then the choice came down to it. He picked Kevin Walsh, conventional, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:30.040 even market reassuring pick. He didn't pick a sickophan, a 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.959 guy like Kevin Hassett, who might have been somebody who 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.320 would have just yes, you know, been a yes man 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.959 for whatever Trump wanted on interest rates. So why did 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.480 he do that? Well, one guardrail. He does seem to 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.680 care about our markets, right, and he cares about what 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.520 some donors think, his donors, and he certainly cares about 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.399 what the elites that he interacts with think. So the 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.200 guardrail wasn't the idea of FED independence. It was the 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.000 risk of immediate, tangible financial consequences for him and his friends. 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.320 So it's an interesting pattern that you've watched over. It's like, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.280 every once in a while he responds to a guardrail, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.680 but it's never that for the reason you want him 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.560 to respond to a guardrail. It's for usually some sort 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.480 of personal cost and personal nervousness. So it does seem 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.240 as if Trump accepts pushback when when three conditions are met. First, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.080 the cost is immediate, it's not theoretical, it's not long term, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:33.479 it's immediate. Second, the backlash is something he sees poll numbers, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:38.320 market drops, donor anger, maybe even a ratings issue. Right, 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:43.200 it's not an editorial, it's not a whole bunch of statements, right. 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:49.560 And if the pressure is across the board, right, lots 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.000 of people and lots of different parts of his life going, hey, 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:54.040 are you sure about this? 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.880 Are you sure about this? Are you sure about this? Right? 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.000 It's why he seemed to back down a bit on Minneapolis. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:02.040 And I know some of you're going to say he 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.480 hasn't back down that much, But for Trump, he's back down. 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:06.200 Right. What happened? 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.879 You had Republicans saying, oh, whoall this went too far. 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:11.200 The same with the FED. 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.679 But all those reasons are also explained why it's so 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:24.400 hard for the formn policy monetization story to get legs. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.320 Because it fails those three tests, the costs are delayed. 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.840 We won't see the impact of selling out American form policy, 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.639 creating loopholes for China to catch up. We won't know 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:39.840 this until after it's too late. The consequences are on 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.080 a spreadsheet, and none of us like to read spreadsheets. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.200 And of course the backlash is a bit fragmented. There's 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.359 no market crash, there's no single dramatic moment, there's no 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.600 image on cable news. Just a slow monetization of power, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.000 and we see it. We see it almost every week 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.720 when he signs, when he releases the list of people 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.760 he's and you start to go through it and you 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.840 realize most of them were represented by friends of Trump, 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.880 and he just was monetizing, helping them win fees from 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:17.160 these rich crooks. And it also explains why I'm less 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.960 worried about Trump's election rhetoric than i am about what 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.480 he's doing in form policing. Elections in the United States 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.080 are decentralized by design, States run them counties, administer. The 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.560 diffusion isn't a weakness, it's actually a firewall. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:32.960 Right. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:37.400 Trump doesn't control it. Republicans quietly know he can't override 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:42.200 it without detonating their own power. They can't do it. 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.480 They'd have to pass Acts of Congress. There's so many 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.600 different ways in order to make this happen. It's for 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.000 it to happen, the Republican Republic would essentially have to collapse. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.439 We'd have to suspend the Constitution, and we're not and 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:01.400 he doesn't have that kind of power. Ironically, I think politically, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.399 every time Trump muses about interfering with elections, he doesn't 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.320 suppress turnout, which I know is a fear some people have. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:10.679 He fuels it. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:16.159 He energizes opposition voters, he repels swing voters who just 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.600 want to get rid of the chaos, and he deepened 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.359 cynicism among his own base. So if you were trying 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.480 to design the dumbest possible strategy heading into the midterm election, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.080 you'd be hard pressed to beat the one Trump is 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.760 doing right now. Talk about if you're on the Democratic 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:35.840 side of the aisle, you should want him talking about this. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.600 All it does is make it saved you money on 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:40.960 get out the vote. Donald Trump is going to get 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.040 your base out to vote. And then he's sending a 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.760 message that he thinks the whole thing is rigged anyway, 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.840 and he's sending a message to his own base that, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.400 you know, maybe he's sort of winking and nodding, don't worry, 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:51.760 I'll rig it. So it doesn't matter. 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:53.160 They're not going to show up. 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.639 So, yes, the rhetoric's extraordinarily dangerous and I don't want 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:05.360 to miss it, but it is institutionally constrained and politically 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:10.639 incredibly self defeating. That's not the case with this foreign 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.560 policy story. Congress is supposed to be the check here. 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.320 The voters are never going to be the check. 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:16.800 On this story. 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:18.919 It's going to take them a while to get it. 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.879 This Congress has shown no interest in investigating the leader of 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.399 their own party, so that story is just going to 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:30.159 keep going. He's going to keep selling foreign policy decisions 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:36.000 to the highest bidder. Sometimes he'll do it right out 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.000 in the open. Sometimes they'll do it quietly. I mean 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.800 times it feels like Venezuela, and the oil is he's 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.000 just doing it right out in the open. Most of 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:48.520 this he'll do out of view. So The point is this, No, 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:54.760 I don't think the country's collapsing tomorrow, and no, I 0:22:54.760 --> 0:23:01.080 don't think elections are going to get canceled twenty six, 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.320 But I do think we're watching something more subtle and 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:10.399 more corrosive. Democracies don't usually fall from who's they actually erode. 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.680 They look more like what happened, what's happening in Turkey, 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:21.960 what's happening in Hungary. They erode when corruption becomes complicated, normalized, 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:28.520 and easier to ignore than the latest outrage, cultural outrage. 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:30.120 You know, bad bunny. 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:32.920 You know, pay attention to bad Bunny, but don't pay 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:37.240