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Speaker 1: rates may vary. Well. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of the Check podcast. I will be
Speaker 1: honest with you. I sort of have a I have
Speaker 1: like seventeen thousand topics. I feel like I should share
Speaker 1: a few a few quick takes for you on or
Speaker 1: a few different ways to be thinking about it, or
Speaker 1: at least share with you how I how I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it and see how much that informs you. That's
Speaker 1: one thing I try not to do is I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to tell you what you think. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: sort of lay out, lay out a structure to understand
Speaker 1: why whatever the situation is we're in. Look, there were
Speaker 1: two dominant stories that I'm going to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time on. Obviously, the biggest one is Iran. Iran
Speaker 1: sort of is everything because of its massive impact on
Speaker 1: the global economy, which of course means our economy, which
Speaker 1: of course means Campaign twenty twenty six. But the Eric
Speaker 1: Swawell implosion out in California also is a really really
Speaker 1: b FD, as Joe Biden might whisper in the ear
Speaker 1: of Barack Obama, and it's something that we need to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on because it's actually two stories. Right. One,
Speaker 1: it's going to trigger a bunch of show votes in
Speaker 1: cong VERUS, so Congress can make itself feel better by
Speaker 1: kicking out men behaving badly. But the other shakeup is
Speaker 1: what's going to happen in California. I think what we
Speaker 1: will we know for sure, and I think this has
Speaker 1: now been more likely than we You know, I just
Speaker 1: think now the swallow thing trigger it. Here's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: There's going to be another election for California governor before
Speaker 1: twenty thirty. That I promise you. I do not believe
Speaker 1: whoever wins this governor's race will be able to survive
Speaker 1: the inevitable recall effort that is coming. We are slip
Speaker 1: sliding into one of those Californy governor's races. It's going
Speaker 1: to look a lot like two thousand and two Gray
Speaker 1: Avis versus Bill Simon, where everybody hates their choices. So
Speaker 1: those are the two dominant stories. A bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff percolating. Not going to leave it on the cutting
Speaker 1: room floor. I want to want to get to a
Speaker 1: bunch of it. My guest Martha z Aller, and she's
Speaker 1: really interesting. She's a conservative talk radio host in Georgia,
Speaker 1: but she's not somebody who's sort of stuck in her
Speaker 1: own bubble. And you know, as you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: desperate to find people not stuck in their bubble. I
Speaker 1: don't you know mine left and right, you know, center, progressive,
Speaker 1: you name it. It's that you accept the premise that
Speaker 1: you may believe you're right, but not everybody agrees with you.
Speaker 1: The point is, I think Martha will give us a
Speaker 1: nice little I think she did, certainly she did for me,
Speaker 1: give us a nice little insight on where the Georgia
Speaker 1: Republican Party is. I think it's the most interesting Republican
Speaker 1: party in the country because it's no less conservative than
Speaker 1: it's been. But it is interesting that the that the
Speaker 1: Republicans who feel the most comfortable pushing back at Trump,
Speaker 1: other than Utah, which pushes back more on character the
Speaker 1: publicans in that state. It really there is a bit
Speaker 1: of it's both character driven in policy driven. Right, both
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp and Marjorie Taylor Green have separated themselves with
Speaker 1: Trump and lived to see another day. So I just
Speaker 1: think what's happening inside the Georgia Republican Party is interesting,
Speaker 1: and Martha's got her finger on it, and she's sort
Speaker 1: of she's got feet in all the camps, and I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot to learn and it's very instructive.
Speaker 1: I hope it's instructive for you about where the GOP
Speaker 1: is headed as it transitions from a Trump party to
Speaker 1: a post Trump party. But let's get to Iran. So
Speaker 1: the ceasefire is I guess kind of intact, but make
Speaker 1: no mistake, a naval blockade, which President Trump ordered on
Speaker 1: Sunday is an act of war. That's you know, that
Speaker 1: is what it is. Now we are still at war
Speaker 1: with Iran. I think Iran still at war with us.
Speaker 1: The question is does either country break the ceasefire? Is
Speaker 1: this considered breaking of the ceasefire? Will the Iranians respond
Speaker 1: or just part of a stalemate until we hit the
Speaker 1: end of the two weeks or until we see negotiations
Speaker 1: pick up. Because one thing that it is important. Neither
Speaker 1: jd Evans for the American side nor the Iranians indicated
Speaker 1: that they both behaved as if they knew there would
Speaker 1: be another round of talks. They didn't say another round
Speaker 1: was coming, but you get the impression another round is coming.
Speaker 1: Still no deal, no framework, and no actual next step
Speaker 1: just yet. But in some ways the blockade is an
Speaker 1: acknowledgment by President Trump that the United States has less
Speaker 1: leverage in this deal than we want to admit. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, the President doesn't want to man it. He
Speaker 1: keeps declaring victory, and that's a huge problem. If you've won,
Speaker 1: then why are you negotiating? If you've won Why are
Speaker 1: you potentially floating the idea of a joint venture with
Speaker 1: Iran to patrol and maybe even collect tolls for the
Speaker 1: straight of Horn moves and the tolls being used as reparations. Right, So,
Speaker 1: this is why his rhetoric is not harmless. The stupid
Speaker 1: rhetoric he makes untruth social, the dumb rhetoric where he
Speaker 1: beats his checks, declares victory or sort of the secretary
Speaker 1: of the fence who constantly loves to beat his chest
Speaker 1: and you know, I guess probably you know, choose on
Speaker 1: too much creatine before he does any of his press
Speaker 1: briefings and declares these capital v victories. Okay, then why
Speaker 1: are we negotiating? Right? So, the bottom line is we
Speaker 1: don't have leverage. They do. They came out of this
Speaker 1: ceasefire with the single most important piece of leverage, control
Speaker 1: of the straight of Horror moves, control of the global economy,
Speaker 1: and essentially control right now of the Trump presidency. So
Speaker 1: that's why Trump in some ways had no choice but
Speaker 1: to do this with the straight of hormones. The He's
Speaker 1: got to find and see if he can get some
Speaker 1: leverage to force the Iranians to back off a little bit.
Speaker 1: So the question is is there a next step? Right?
Speaker 1: I think it. The blockade is intended to get around
Speaker 1: back to the table and to start having a conversation
Speaker 1: about the Strait and about the nuclear deal. If there
Speaker 1: is no The question though, is will the president escalate
Speaker 1: further if this does not get the deal he's looking for?
Speaker 1: Does he then send in ground troops to didn't try
Speaker 1: to militarily take control of the Straight and essentially operate
Speaker 1: the Straight in behalf of the world. Now there's all
Speaker 1: sort of look the where to morning quarterback this war. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the total misunderstanding of the power of the Strait that
Speaker 1: the Iranians would have is the initial blunder of this war.
Speaker 1: This is the I swear to you, there's WMDs right this.
Speaker 1: If you're going to say, if there was any like,
Speaker 1: what is the failure of this administration for going into war?
Speaker 1: It is underplaying and underrealizing the leverage the Iranians had
Speaker 1: with the Strait. And had they understood it from the
Speaker 1: beginning and they chose to do this, my guess is
Speaker 1: they would have immediately tried to get control of the
Speaker 1: Straight first, then you start worrying about everything else. But again,
Speaker 1: the problem here is the president surrounded himself with sycophants,
Speaker 1: and even though we have learned that these folks did
Speaker 1: not want to endorse his strategy, here they were afraid
Speaker 1: of telling him the truth. They were afraid of telling
Speaker 1: they They just danced around the edges of the issues
Speaker 1: and allowed him to hear what he wanted. And now
Speaker 1: we're in this potentially intractable situation that we're in where
Speaker 1: we may have no choice but escalate because of the
Speaker 1: initial blunder at the beginning, or you're going to have
Speaker 1: to cut a deal with the Iranians that leaves the
Speaker 1: regime in power, legitimizes the regime, gives them acknowledges their
Speaker 1: control over the Strait, and essentially makes the hardliners like
Speaker 1: John Bolton are going to wish they had the Iran
Speaker 1: nuclear deal, because the best thing that Trump can get
Speaker 1: now is essentially naftaizing the Iran nuclear deal. And what
Speaker 1: do I mean by that by naftaizing? He said he
Speaker 1: hated NAFTA, so he ripped it up, renegotiated the same
Speaker 1: deal with the Mexicans and the Canadians and called it
Speaker 1: us MCA the United States Mexican Canadian right accord whatever. See,
Speaker 1: there's there's no NAFTA. That's what's coming here. He's gonna
Speaker 1: hope he can get the Obama nuclear deal. If he's lucky,
Speaker 1: he can get the Obama Obama nuclear deal. And that's
Speaker 1: if this this is the best, the best version of this,
Speaker 1: you know. And again we can sit here and talk
Speaker 1: about all the all the problems going into this thing. Right,
Speaker 1: it was a mistake, and everybody advised him. It was
Speaker 1: most people around him advised him. It was a mistake
Speaker 1: outside of John Bolton and and and the Gulf States
Speaker 1: and Israel. And this is a case where the president
Speaker 1: consistently listens to outside voices rather than his own military
Speaker 1: advisors and his own intelligence. He did it all the
Speaker 1: time in his first term, and he's doing it again
Speaker 1: in his second term. And that is an issue that
Speaker 1: does not get enough attention. He trusts the Israeli intelligence
Speaker 1: more than he trusts the US intelligence. The Israeli said
Speaker 1: this was going to be easy regime. James was going
Speaker 1: to happen and the people were going to rise up,
Speaker 1: And the CIA said that was bullshit. And the CIA
Speaker 1: is fronted by somebody who is a trumper, John Radcliffe,
Speaker 1: who wants to tell Trump what he wants to hear,
Speaker 1: but can't bring himself to tell him bullshit. But the
Speaker 1: President refuses to listen to his own his own folks
Speaker 1: on that front. So the next look that I expect
Speaker 1: the markets to panic a bit. I mean, I kind
Speaker 1: of think they've been under panicking. I'm a bit hopeful
Speaker 1: that somehow, you know, the resilience of the markets in
Speaker 1: the past, just like they were during the pandemic, just
Speaker 1: like they have been during the Russia Ukraine War, that
Speaker 1: it's going to happen again. But the lack of a
Speaker 1: clear resolution it is, you know, here's what we do now.
Speaker 1: President does not want to restart the war. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt he probably read rats ever starting it, and considering
Speaker 1: the situation he's in, you know, he could have you know,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, right, should he have tried to squeeze him more,
Speaker 1: Should he have tried to find more ways to isolate Iran,
Speaker 1: do more to it, to increase the stranglehold so that
Speaker 1: the people would rise up and be angry at their leaders,
Speaker 1: and instead, in a weird way, he's even united. If
Speaker 1: you guys have started following my friend, my Suzanne kan
Speaker 1: Poor she's her reporting is indicated that they're you know,
Speaker 1: even those that don't like this regime, uh now feel
Speaker 1: as if that it's everybody versus America, which is a
Speaker 1: very dangerous place to be. And it's you really got
Speaker 1: to bungle this as badly as this administration has bungled
Speaker 1: this to put put ourselves in this situation. Well, we're
Speaker 1: basically begging iron to come to give us some deal
Speaker 1: so Trump can save face and the and that's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Iranians know it.
Speaker 2: They know.
Speaker 1: They know it. They know he can't handle the economic
Speaker 1: fallout from this, they know it's politically beyond painful for him.
Speaker 1: They know it screws up his trade negotiations with China
Speaker 1: next month, It messes up all sorts of aspects of him.
Speaker 1: And look, the Iranians, they will negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate,
Speaker 1: and they're going to keep dragging this out. So the
Speaker 1: end of the day, he had to find some leverage.
Speaker 1: We'll see if doing a blockade of the Strait does that.
Speaker 1: But it is going to have you know, this is
Speaker 1: it's going to be it's probably going to be an
Speaker 1: ugly day in the markets because now whether we're questions,
Speaker 1: is the straight open or not? Now it's we know
Speaker 1: it's not open, right, it is definitely closed. But I
Speaker 1: go back to something right. The problem, Right, the president
Speaker 1: has already declared victory and he continues to try to
Speaker 1: declare victory. So if we've already won, why do we
Speaker 1: have to keep doing all of these things? And this
Speaker 1: is the position he's put himself in. Right, when you
Speaker 1: define victory early then compromise later starts to look like retreat.
Speaker 1: And right now the Iranians know it, they see it.
Speaker 1: It looks like retreat because it is retreat. The president
Speaker 1: can't afford to do this. We didn't have we don't.
Speaker 1: He can't politically, he does not have the political capital
Speaker 1: to get even his own party to give him time
Speaker 1: to put in ground troops to get control the straight.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's just you know, and then there's
Speaker 1: who he is, right, he doesn't have the patience to
Speaker 1: do things methodically. He's always looking for a shortcut. It's
Speaker 1: been it's defined his career. And the thing is is
Speaker 1: that he's had so much success with short cuts that
Speaker 1: he forgets the failures with shortcuts. That also, right, he
Speaker 1: was able to become a star because of short cuts,
Speaker 1: but bankruptcy. He was still the only one of the
Speaker 1: few casino operators to find a way to go bankrupt
Speaker 1: oning casino because he was taking a shortcut on competition
Speaker 1: and try to buy up all his competitors. You know,
Speaker 1: he shortcuted his way into politics, but he didn't really
Speaker 1: build a coalition in order to support him and use
Speaker 1: his political capital. So when you take all these shortcuts,
Speaker 1: right he's trying to shortcut his way into getting an
Speaker 1: Iranian victory. He's trying to shortcut his way and trying
Speaker 1: to get a Venezuelan victory. But he's no longer promoting
Speaker 1: democracy anymore. In America is not on the side of
Speaker 1: democratic freedom. We are not on the side of democratic
Speaker 1: freedom in Venezuela right now, and we're doing a poor
Speaker 1: job of being on the side of freedom, democratic freedom
Speaker 1: and Iran. But ultimately that's what you have to remember here.
Speaker 1: In conflicts like this, the side that understands the other
Speaker 1: side better usually has the advantage. President Trump does not
Speaker 1: understand this Iranian regime. He thinks they're all just as
Speaker 1: transactional as he is. He sees everybody through the himself.
Speaker 1: He assumes everybody behaves the way that everybody's motivation is
Speaker 1: what his motivation is, power, money, et cetera. And he
Speaker 1: just assumes those same motivations and certainly loosely the motivations
Speaker 1: are similar, and they may rhyme, but he did not
Speaker 1: and does not. And you know, again, he didn't bother
Speaker 1: to study, right. You know, he doesn't listen to the
Speaker 1: experts who have studied the Iranians for decades, not just weeks,
Speaker 1: months or even years. He doesn't listen to those experts.
Speaker 1: But here we are in some ways, this is this
Speaker 1: is why Iran is starting to look like our failed
Speaker 1: military expeditions. Vietnam second Iraq war are the two most
Speaker 1: are the two biggest ones, and now this one because
Speaker 1: we succeeded militarily right sort of, but we didn't get
Speaker 1: our strategic end goal. And even with Iraq we kind
Speaker 1: of ended up, I guess what we wanted. There is
Speaker 1: no a rock with a nuclear program, so that's good.
Speaker 1: There's no a rock with Saddam Hussein. But boy was
Speaker 1: the cost worth it? Right? And I think to this
Speaker 1: day we're not even sure that the cost was worth it.
Speaker 1: So bottom line is the good news is the talks
Speaker 1: are going to have There's going to be another round
Speaker 1: of talks. Both sides did not indicate that there was
Speaker 1: no room for more talks. This was the first meeting,
Speaker 1: was always inevitably going to be a feeling out. Meaning.
Speaker 1: But I think the one thing that the that President
Speaker 1: Trump ought to take away is an understanding. And I
Speaker 1: think again his move to try to blockade the Straight
Speaker 1: is in some ways any acknowledgment of this, which is
Speaker 1: he didn't have enough leverage destroy you know, and and
Speaker 1: you know right now, the Iranians care about one thing,
Speaker 1: control of that straight. So Trump is right to try
Speaker 1: to go after the one thing they care about in
Speaker 1: order to see if he can regain some leveragere But
Speaker 1: you know, the most likely endgame here is not a
Speaker 1: restart of the war. It is not a sending ground
Speaker 1: troops in to get control of the stray. The most
Speaker 1: likely dgame here is the Iran Nuclear deal two point zero.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump will call it then, you know USMCA of
Speaker 1: Nuclear Deals brand new. It won't do this, won't do that,
Speaker 1: but it'll give them some money. And remember, you know
Speaker 1: why Iran doesn't want to give up the idea that
Speaker 1: it may never pursue a nuclear weapon Libya. Right, the
Speaker 1: Libya example is always the reason Libya gave up its
Speaker 1: nuclear ambition and regime change happened. North Korea has not
Speaker 1: given up his nuclear ambition, and that Kim Jong n
Speaker 1: he just named his daughter the latest air parent. If
Speaker 1: something happens to him, and we may end up with
Speaker 1: a fourth generation of North Korean leaders, all because they
Speaker 1: have a nuclear weapon. So it's not irrational how the
Speaker 1: Iranians are thinking. Right, this is a case and there's
Speaker 1: no doubt the United States, the North Korea is a
Speaker 1: reason why to do whatever it takes to not let
Speaker 1: Aron get there. Carrots and sticks. Trump has been all stick.
Speaker 1: He's going to have to now have to give some carrots,
Speaker 1: and he ain't gonna like it, and he's going to
Speaker 1: find out. Remember, we don't trust them and they don't
Speaker 1: trust us. And in situations like this, whatever agreement you
Speaker 1: come into is a leap of faith. You're going to
Speaker 1: have to trust somebody you don't trust. That's why you
Speaker 1: put in verifications and all sorts of things in there.
Speaker 1: But it is in if you want to deal, well,
Speaker 1: it's inevitable you're going to get one where you have
Speaker 1: to give up something you don't like. And in that sense,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, this is where he is a terrible deal maker.
Speaker 1: He has never been. He does not believe in win win.
Speaker 1: He wants to get the best of somebody, and he
Speaker 1: thinks caving into any demand of the other side makes
Speaker 1: him look weak. Well, you know what makes him look weak?
Speaker 1: Presiding over this economy that's deteriorating by the hour. That's
Speaker 1: something that makes you look weak. And in case you're
Speaker 1: wondering the economic hit, it's already happening. Consumer confidence is
Speaker 1: now lower, lower than it was during the pandemic. We
Speaker 1: are now in this We're lowest in the Michigan Index.
Speaker 1: We're talking as bad as the seventies were. And remember
Speaker 1: we now have a fertilizer issue, We've got food transport issues,
Speaker 1: and we got supply chain issues. So this is not
Speaker 1: going to get better anytime soon. This is and we
Speaker 1: have not felt the worst parts of this. Every expert said,
Speaker 1: come about mid April, then all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: going to feel like things went off a cliff. Well,
Speaker 1: this is the week where we hit mid April gas
Speaker 1: prices biggest one month spike since the sixties. Hiring is
Speaker 1: slowing wages are flattening. Uncertain economic future means companies start
Speaker 1: freezing everything they're doing. You pull back on new investments,
Speaker 1: you hold off on new hires, because you're not sure
Speaker 1: where this economy is going. And in this case, this
Speaker 1: is why the bad shoots that we're seeing on the economy,
Speaker 1: and it's opposed to green shoots. It could accelerate because
Speaker 1: of that situation. Before I leave the Iran issue here,
Speaker 1: I know Trump doesn't care about optics anymore, but I
Speaker 1: thought Marco Rubio might as talks are deteriorating with the
Speaker 1: war with Iran, which of course is going to probably
Speaker 1: could probably trigger a global recession. I'm glad to know
Speaker 1: that the commander in chief and the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: were whooping it up at a UFC match in Miami.
Speaker 1: Not the best look, I know. If I were a
Speaker 1: Republican on the ballot, I'd be like, does the President
Speaker 1: take any of this seriously? I mean, sometimes is it?
Speaker 1: You know, he just, you know, the celebrity parts of
Speaker 1: the presidency matter more to him than the actual job itself.
Speaker 1: And it's moments like Saturday night where he's whooping it
Speaker 1: up at at at a at a at a UFC
Speaker 1: match while JD. Vance is negotiating in his behalf and
Speaker 1: having to walk away. And here's the thing, you know,
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio, you know, you know who would have been
Speaker 1: really critical of a Secretary of State behaving this way,
Speaker 1: Senator Marco Rubio. If John Kerrey at all had done
Speaker 1: anything even close to this, gone to a Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: concert while there was a negotiation on the rand nuclear
Speaker 1: dew right, I promise you a Senator Marco Rubio would
Speaker 1: be beating his chest about it. You have one job.
Speaker 1: All this stuff. Deep down inside, he knows it's a
Speaker 1: bad look, you know. And with Rubio and I wonder, look,
Speaker 1: I'm some people think I'm too tough on Rubey, and
Speaker 1: some of you think I give Rubia too much credit.
Speaker 1: I've heard that too. Oh you keep thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: when you know, I just know he knows better, and
Speaker 1: everybody who knows him knows he knows better. And he's
Speaker 1: allowed himself to get caught up in this. And maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little celebrity, maybe it's the middle class chip
Speaker 1: on his shoulder. I get it.
Speaker 2: I have it.
Speaker 1: I have that chip. You know, he wasn't born on
Speaker 1: third base and then and handed everything. I wasn't born
Speaker 1: on third base, so I get it. I get the chip,
Speaker 1: but you got to have the character to sort of
Speaker 1: understand how to draw some lines and how to compartmentalize it.
Speaker 1: You know, he seems to have gotten It's almost like
Speaker 1: he's more caught up on the celebrity than I thought
Speaker 1: he would. It's just a disappointment. I know that's not
Speaker 1: a new criticism for me, but I know he knows better.
Speaker 1: And that was a bad look. And that's one of
Speaker 1: those that you feel like, I know, nothing matters, right,
Speaker 1: Trump can shoot somebody and put that on and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But it just chips away again, chips away,
Speaker 1: chips away. You know, this is serious stuff. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: they can't they am you know, nobody's saying don't watch
Speaker 1: the match, but you know, send a message to the
Speaker 1: country that you're worried about what's happening in their lives.
Speaker 1: You have made decisions that have upended the lives of
Speaker 1: millions of Americans. But I'm glad you're having a good
Speaker 1: time at a UFC match. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well,
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Speaker 1: and sixty five day returns quints dot com slash chuck
Speaker 1: use that code. Speaking of unserious people, let's go talk
Speaker 1: about Eric Swallaller and the sort of the fall of
Speaker 1: Eric Swalwell. You know, this is one of those and
Speaker 1: I've seen some back and forth on this. They're shocked
Speaker 1: but not surprised, surprised but not shocked, whatever way you
Speaker 1: want to whatever however you want to use those two
Speaker 1: words interchangeably. Right. We have this all the time. With Trump,
Speaker 1: he finds ways to surprise us, even if we're not shocked.
Speaker 1: With that, he surprises us. But with Swawell, this is
Speaker 1: one of those things you're like, well, everybody kind of
Speaker 1: knew or thought they knew, but the stakes were never
Speaker 1: high enough where you thought it was important to report
Speaker 1: about it. All right, That's the best explanation I can
Speaker 1: give you as a reporter. And you know, do you
Speaker 1: chase every rumor and every politician you hear about, because
Speaker 1: I promise you I've heard a rumor about every single
Speaker 1: politician that's ever remotely thought about running for president. Swawell
Speaker 1: run for president there, and I'm sure ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the rumors are unsubstantiate. The problem is there's always enough
Speaker 1: things that are true that it makes you constantly in
Speaker 1: the back of your head as a political reporter. You know,
Speaker 1: you file the other accusations away. You're like and you
Speaker 1: start to like, you know, look for smoke. A lot
Speaker 1: of times there's no smoke, so you don't keep going.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you know, look, I know you're if you're
Speaker 1: right now still defending Eric Swallow, you'll say, how come
Speaker 1: this is all coming out right when he's you know,
Speaker 1: the front runner. Well, a lot of times people have,
Speaker 1: you know, compartmentalized their bad experiences with somebody until that
Speaker 1: person's back in the news, or until that person's about
Speaker 1: to get even more power, and then they think, whoa
Speaker 1: if I don't speak out now when you know before
Speaker 1: while they're still a chance if they really believe this
Speaker 1: person is too irresponsible to have power. So I think
Speaker 1: you've got to be careful when you're questioning the timing
Speaker 1: of accusations. In some ways, the political campaign season, the
Speaker 1: primary campaign, is exactly when we should be having these,
Speaker 1: you know, conversations. We're trying to find out who these
Speaker 1: people are. Do they have the character to handle the job,
Speaker 1: do they have the qualifications to handle the job? Do
Speaker 1: they have the knowledge to handle the job. So, you know,
Speaker 1: in Swalwell's problem here is that he's only denying a crime.
Speaker 1: I did not sexually assault anybody. He's saying, he's not
Speaker 1: denying that he had a wondering eye. And unfortunately, for
Speaker 1: those of us that have covered Washington for as long
Speaker 1: as we have, there are a lot of Eric Swawall's
Speaker 1: out there. And you can sit here and say, well,
Speaker 1: it's the system that creates it. I think there's some
Speaker 1: truth to that. These sitting senators and sitting members of
Speaker 1: House have these enormous stabs that are just voted to
Speaker 1: keeping them happy, and it just can create a bubble
Speaker 1: or a filter or for the truly weak character. You know, it,
Speaker 1: you know, makes you think more of yourself. You think
Speaker 1: you're above it all, or you think you can get
Speaker 1: away with anything, or you think you're just you think
Speaker 1: your personality is just that magnetic. Why else would all
Speaker 1: these people not be so devoted to you? So you do,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've had you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things, if you if you have a little bit
Speaker 1: of of the narcissistic gene in you, the way getting
Speaker 1: elected to Congress in some ways can can amplify it,
Speaker 1: if that's possible. And when you look at some of
Speaker 1: of his mo that the various allegations are out there,
Speaker 1: it right, it's it's sadly familiar, right. He seems to
Speaker 1: be looking for those that look up to him, right,
Speaker 1: that's who he prayed upon, you know. And you could
Speaker 1: say whether it was consensual, and I'm sure in his
Speaker 1: mind it was consensual, but he you know, he's trying
Speaker 1: really hard to say I'm not Bill Cosby, I'm Bill Clinton. Well,
Speaker 1: even that I don't think people accept anymore because there
Speaker 1: was still a power dynamic issue. So you did it,
Speaker 1: You're not You're not sneaking in date rape drugs still
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're qualified to be the next governor of
Speaker 1: California as far as the American public or the California
Speaker 1: public is concerned. So, you know, in some ways, it's
Speaker 1: a very familiar story. So now let's talk about the fallout.
Speaker 1: I think there's going to be the first thing we're
Speaker 1: going to see is we're going to see Congress. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got two other members of Congress that have been
Speaker 1: who's behavior with women have been an issue, and there's
Speaker 1: been some threats to expel them from Congress. Tony Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: Republican from Texas, who has since dropped out. He pulled
Speaker 1: out of that runoff, but he hasn't resigned from Congress,
Speaker 1: Corey Mills, Republican from Florida. Then you have another member
Speaker 1: of Congress who's accused of essentially stealing money from FEMA,
Speaker 1: and there may be a vote to expel her. So
Speaker 1: we may have like four expulsion votes. You need two
Speaker 1: thirds of a vote to do this. And I'll just
Speaker 1: say I think this is you know, are there's going
Speaker 1: to be political votes of convenience, right, Both parties just
Speaker 1: want to sweep their bad apples under the rug, so
Speaker 1: you may see a vote. Is it one vote?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Two votes?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Four votes? Right? Three of them are inappropriate behavior with
Speaker 1: women Tony Gonzalez, Corey Mills, and Eric Swalwell. The fourth,
Speaker 1: Sheila Sherphyllis McCormick, is the one of where she's accused
Speaker 1: of basically stealing COVID money in using it for her campaign.
Speaker 1: She hit the public trial with the Ethics Committee. So
Speaker 1: it is it is certainly politically convenient for both parties
Speaker 1: and for a Jeffreys and a Johnson to almost agree
Speaker 1: to this and just sort of saying, let the will
Speaker 1: of the House happen, whatever happens happens, and they clean
Speaker 1: it up. I will just say this the law of
Speaker 1: unattended consequences. One. If the votes fail, and they might,
Speaker 1: there might be other members of Congress who think there
Speaker 1: but for the grace of God go I and who
Speaker 1: may think do and may think they're going to practice
Speaker 1: their own version of the Golden Rule, and they're going
Speaker 1: to do not unto others, what they hope will be
Speaker 1: done unto them. And if they fear that they've got
Speaker 1: something in their past that could come out, what precedent
Speaker 1: do they want to send, so you could have some
Speaker 1: of that, You could have some of it. In the
Speaker 1: other way, where the news of Swawell and Gonzales and
Speaker 1: Mills trigger there's even more accusations and more staffers decide
Speaker 1: if we're going to hold these four accountable, then we
Speaker 1: need to hold these other folks account So it's possible.
Speaker 1: It's an important moment for Congress to sort of draw
Speaker 1: a line and to try to raise the bar because,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, the quality of member of Congress has
Speaker 1: been going downhill for some time. They're more and more
Speaker 1: of them are not role models. Now you could say, hey,
Speaker 1: they just are you know, a reflection of us. Man,
Speaker 1: They're a perverted reflection of us, because these congressional districts
Speaker 1: aren't fairly reflective of the country. So it's a perverted version.
Speaker 1: It's a fun house mirror version of us. And then
Speaker 1: there's always been a small part of me that we
Speaker 1: as American citizens, you know, we've always punched, we've always
Speaker 1: punched down in Congress. We want to believe that we're
Speaker 1: all better than them, and this is only going to
Speaker 1: be more proof of that. But I am you know, look,
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be it's probably going
Speaker 1: to be swift justice. But it's a version of sweeping
Speaker 1: all this under the rug all at the same time,
Speaker 1: rather than maybe having a better come to you know
Speaker 1: what moment where you say, you know, you know, how
Speaker 1: do we demand a better quality of behavior, How do
Speaker 1: we draw some better lines, and how do we root
Speaker 1: this stuff out sooner? And how do we But it's
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just the nature of the beast. And we
Speaker 1: know we've lived with politicians like this for this long
Speaker 1: and part of it is are we going to hold
Speaker 1: Is Congress going to hold individual members of Congress to
Speaker 1: a higher bar than they hold the President of the
Speaker 1: United States?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That's the uncomfortable shadow that hangs over all of this, folks, Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Every single accusation against Mills,
Speaker 1: against Gonzales, against Swawell, and against and even on the
Speaker 1: funding stuff against Sherphyllis McCormick, all of it. There are
Speaker 1: accusations against Donald Trump for versions of this, whether it's
Speaker 1: essentially using government money, using power to enrich himself. That's
Speaker 1: basically been the second term. Never mind the various accusations
Speaker 1: for women, including a civil court that said he was
Speaker 1: credibly accused of rape, of which he still not paid
Speaker 1: the fine that a civil court adjudicated against him. So
Speaker 1: that's also a part of this. That's just like, like
Speaker 1: I said, just hovers over all of this. The real
Speaker 1: question is does this have a I think this ends up,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of, if it's possible to lower the
Speaker 1: approval rating of Congress generically overall, it will. And this
Speaker 1: is a pox on everybody who's running as an incumbent,
Speaker 1: which is why they're going to want to try to
Speaker 1: wash their hands because there's also an Epstein angle to this, right,
Speaker 1: they've done so little on the Epstein front, they better
Speaker 1: make sure they're willing to hold accountable any one of
Speaker 1: their members at a minimum, because of their failure to
Speaker 1: do so when it came to all things Epstein. So
Speaker 1: I think we know what's going to happen here to
Speaker 1: these four members. I do think these votes are going
Speaker 1: to happen. My guess is they all do get expelled
Speaker 1: because of the desperation of the members that are currently
Speaker 1: running to look a little less dirty. But I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, the cynic in me says, hey, this is
Speaker 1: this is this is small stuff, and maybe you could say, hey,
Speaker 1: a small improvement here of trying to raise the bar
Speaker 1: anywhere is better than not trying at all. I grant
Speaker 1: you that, But there are a bunch of elephants in
Speaker 1: the room on these stories that we're not touching, that
Speaker 1: are certainly having a little bit of it back there.
Speaker 1: As for the ubernatorial follow in the obviously the primary
Speaker 1: is coming up. Democrats had been reluctantly rallying around Swallwell.
Speaker 1: And this is all a reflection by the way that
Speaker 1: I do think most California Democrats that are in some
Speaker 1: power have little interest in seeing Tom Stier as their
Speaker 1: standard bearer. And it has been in anybody but Styre
Speaker 1: sort of mindset, right. And so this is why you
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of folks hoping that Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: would jump in, Alex Padia would jump in, And I
Speaker 1: understand why both of them didn't. If you're not interested
Speaker 1: in the job, don't run. And I think Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: wants one more bite at the apple of president. That's
Speaker 1: been made clear and clear. Alex Padia, he might have
Speaker 1: been able to win the governorship, but he'd be giving
Speaker 1: up a Senate seat for life. Essentially, there's no term
Speaker 1: limits on running for the Senate, there is termal limits
Speaker 1: on running for governor, and maybe he wants to spend
Speaker 1: the next twenty years in the Senate. Ditto Adam Scheff.
Speaker 1: And then there's another uncomfortable aspect of I'm just I've
Speaker 1: been constantly trying to figure out why is this field,
Speaker 1: excuse me, why is this California gubernatorial field so weak?
Speaker 1: I think there's a whole bunch of people that don't
Speaker 1: want the job, that don't think the job is worth having.
Speaker 1: In the first time after news now I've explained to
Speaker 1: you why I think some major Democrats were against. I
Speaker 1: think another is that there's been sixteen straight years of
Speaker 1: democratic governorship of rule of the governorship. There is going
Speaker 1: to inevitably be fatigue on Democrats. So the likelihood that
Speaker 1: the next governor was at best going to get one
Speaker 1: term might not survive a recall, I think was quite
Speaker 1: high and quite likely. So that may explain why some
Speaker 1: people didn't want to do it. Then think about the reality,
Speaker 1: right the next governor is going to be dealing with
Speaker 1: a very active presidential campaign of a former California governor,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, and he'll be high profile, and he'll be
Speaker 1: running on what he believes as his record that will
Speaker 1: be questioned. It will be a constant sort of. It
Speaker 1: will make the the pr side of running the state
Speaker 1: a little bit harder. If you want to hit Gavin
Speaker 1: for not having an air apparent, I think it's a
Speaker 1: fair hit. I'm now I know why he didn't. He
Speaker 1: didn't like it when he sort of got pushed aside.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he his feeling was let let
Speaker 1: a thousand flowers bloom because he wants He didn't like
Speaker 1: the way he was treated. He was sort of forced
Speaker 1: await his tournament. Then he had a run for Lieutenant governor,
Speaker 1: and then and then the you know, the sea's parted
Speaker 1: for him essentially, but he didn't he didn't really have
Speaker 1: an air parent. But now they've got a real problem Becauesswallwell,
Speaker 1: obviously that candidacy is dead, whether he sees the light
Speaker 1: and drops out or not. As another story, everybody that
Speaker 1: was anybody who has pulled their endorsement there if Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1: I just look at all the money Toms Tire has
Speaker 1: spent to promote Tom Steyer, especially in the state of California,
Speaker 1: and when you look on the ROI of the amount
Speaker 1: of money he spent and the translation that money and
Speaker 1: that how much money that has translated to support for him,
Speaker 1: It is one of the worst investments you could ever have.
Speaker 1: I mean the amount of money he spent. He should
Speaker 1: he's already be and they should be in first place,
Speaker 1: up by ten over anybody. Unless the dogs don't like
Speaker 1: the dog food. One of the old axioms. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: dogs don't like the dog food. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the brand says. It doesn't matter how much money you
Speaker 1: spent on advertising. The dogs won't eat your dog food
Speaker 1: if it ain't alpo or it ain't whatever, right, And
Speaker 1: you got to ask yourself. Stire's done all these he's
Speaker 1: just whether. I don't think he comes across very likable.
Speaker 1: I think he's sort of the angry billionaire. Look without
Speaker 1: any charm. Right, Trump has the angry billionaire. You know,
Speaker 1: he's the angry, fake billionaire who used the presidency to
Speaker 1: become a billionaire. But he's got a little charm. And
Speaker 1: in politics you need a little charm. Doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: you are, gotta have a little charm. And Stier's missing
Speaker 1: the charm thing now maybe you can just lean into
Speaker 1: being the a hole billionaire I would if I were him.
Speaker 1: Don't try to be something you're not. Just try that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it works, maybe he gets there, But the point
Speaker 1: is he's pretty much alienated. He is not seen as
Speaker 1: somebody that's easy to work with, which is why they
Speaker 1: doesn't have any major supporters that aren't supporting him without
Speaker 1: being paid by him. Now, he's not the first billionaire
Speaker 1: candidate to pay people to support him, pay influencers things
Speaker 1: like that. That's sort of now. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: influencers that are getting paid by outside actors that don't
Speaker 1: say who they are. I'm not one of them. In
Speaker 1: case you're wondering, I don't think anybody knows which side
Speaker 1: could buy me off very well. But the point is,
Speaker 1: as I just I just look at you know, the
Speaker 1: facts are the facts. Tyra spent all this money and
Speaker 1: it's never translated to anything. So then the question is,
Speaker 1: what does you know If you're Gavin news, some Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, foremost prominent Democrats in the state,
Speaker 1: do you all endorse the same person? Does that help
Speaker 1: or hurt them? I think in this unique race, it
Speaker 1: would help them because, you know, because the last two
Speaker 1: Democrats that most of the party wants to see, and
Speaker 1: that's in that slot, or Tom Styron, Katie Porter. So
Speaker 1: if they want somebody else, maybe it's Matt Mayn. You know,
Speaker 1: he's gotten little. He had plenty of resources to get
Speaker 1: into this thing. He's not caught fire. Maybe he's not
Speaker 1: well known enough. Maybe he got in too late. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're just never going to be able to make the
Speaker 1: mayor of San Jose a statewide figure. Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There was one candidate that I do think would have
Speaker 1: would have been their best candidate, and it's the mayor
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. Now he is just there.
Speaker 1: It's a little early, and it could be that some
Speaker 1: of these folks like Caruso, Lurie, maybe even Padilla, maybe Harris,
Speaker 1: maybe they all said, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: run for governor in twenty thirty. I am not want
Speaker 1: to try to follow in this sixteenth Street. You know,
Speaker 1: let me follow somebody that it's in debacle. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be governor. Well, Gavin's running for president, right,
Speaker 1: there's a whole I understand that line of things, but
Speaker 1: they have to avoid a debacle. They've got to find
Speaker 1: a viable candidate. And look, maybe maybe they just say, fine,
Speaker 1: let's die or have it. At least he'll spend money
Speaker 1: on behalf of the ticket. I don't think money is
Speaker 1: the problem though for the California Democrats. So it'll be
Speaker 1: curious to see. I think those four if they choose
Speaker 1: to sort of be their own version of a of
Speaker 1: a of of king and queen makers here but Shift Padilla,
Speaker 1: Harrison Newsom, if they care about the state party and
Speaker 1: try to strengthen, and if they want the eventual governor
Speaker 1: that gets elected to have some credibility when they get elected,
Speaker 1: they probably ought to try to rally behind somebody in
Speaker 1: this primary. I think it could be Javier Bisera. I
Speaker 1: think if it wasn't for the Biden baggage, maybe Beisera
Speaker 1: would be the guy. It's a state ag you know,
Speaker 1: he's got the correct resume, but the Biden baggage is
Speaker 1: not unheavy. I think everybody else looks like they're retreats
Speaker 1: via Ricosa, Katie Porter, all these people that feel like
Speaker 1: they've been trying to you know, sort of the also rants.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I go back. This feels a lot
Speaker 1: like nineteen ninety eight, two thousand and two California politics,
Speaker 1: where none of the big names would run. No Diane Feinstein,
Speaker 1: she still wouldn't run for governor. That was still the
Speaker 1: sort of the hope that some Democrats had, no barber
Speaker 1: boxer running or anything like that, and the lesser known
Speaker 1: sort of nebbish at the time, not everybody was thrilled
Speaker 1: with it. Gray Davis sort of sneaks through because they
Speaker 1: didn't want the They didn't want a rich guy owning
Speaker 1: the party from on the outside. Now, Checki and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, Jane Harmon didn't take off, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Harmon and Checky beat each other up and
Speaker 1: it cleared the path for Davis a little bit. But
Speaker 1: I do think this. I think the most likely new
Speaker 1: thing that has happened here is no matter that we
Speaker 1: are likely to have two unpopular figures running for governor
Speaker 1: by November. Steve Hilton and whoever the Democrat is. My
Speaker 1: guess is they'll both be underwater, just like Great Davis,
Speaker 1: Bill Simon twenty two, and whoever becomes governor is just
Speaker 1: swimming uphill. And it's so easy to put a recall
Speaker 1: initiative on there, and if things are south, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that will be well. It
Speaker 1: will only sort of reinforce the likely weakness of whoever wins.
Speaker 1: But the other unintended consequence to this debacle could be
Speaker 1: that the Democrats and the legislature decide to get rid
Speaker 1: of the all party primary and try to put a
Speaker 1: put a referendum back on the ballot to get rid
Speaker 1: of it. Personally, I hope not. I think all party
Speaker 1: primaries long term are healthier for the system. But the
Speaker 1: two parties have viewed all party primaries always through the
Speaker 1: lens of is it good for them or bad for them?
Speaker 1: And if they think it's bad for them, then they're
Speaker 1: going to fight to get rid of them. And in
Speaker 1: this case, both parties think this all open primary is
Speaker 1: actually bad for them. They've never liked it, and not
Speaker 1: having this type of control over their nominee and over
Speaker 1: the process when you have a tobacco like this, I
Speaker 1: fear is going to make a lot of California Democrats
Speaker 1: decide they don't want this all party primary anymore. So
Speaker 1: I hope that's not the unintended consequence one of them.
Speaker 1: But I fear it could be. All Right, a few
Speaker 1: other quick hitters of a whole bunch of stuff. These
Speaker 1: are just literally things that I've pondering in the back
Speaker 1: of my head, and I thought I would share them
Speaker 1: with you. News that Roger Stone is who saved Tulsa
Speaker 1: Gas does not. Let's just say, if you're still deep
Speaker 1: in the Russia ties to Trump world story, well, the
Speaker 1: two of the top four or five people that have
Speaker 1: had some ties to that world, two of them are
Speaker 1: Telsa Gabard and Roger Stone. I'm not saying anything, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that it took Roger Stone to
Speaker 1: tell Donald Trump not to fire Telsa Gaard. Roger Stone,
Speaker 1: who was mister WikiLeaks, who seemed to know everything that
Speaker 1: was going on there, you know it. Roger anyway, put
Speaker 1: it this way, It's not the best look for this
Speaker 1: administration that somebody with all of Roger Stone's interest in
Speaker 1: questionable and intriguing ties to overseas oligarchs is the one
Speaker 1: telling Trump not to get rid of Tulsa Gabbard. All Right,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal pardon story, the sweeping pardons anybody
Speaker 1: to inter fee from the Oval office. Look, we knew
Speaker 1: this was likely that he would be thinking about this,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. This is why those Joe Biden pardons,
Speaker 1: preemptive pardons, were such a huge mistake, because it only
Speaker 1: gives him cover to do exactly this is what Trump
Speaker 1: going to do, worse than what Biden did. Probably and
Speaker 1: I know some of you are going to what are
Speaker 1: you both siding this? Because there is no reward for
Speaker 1: being less bad. I only robbed half of your house.
Speaker 1: I didn't rob all of your house. You're still a
Speaker 1: bad You're still a robber. Be better. This is why
Speaker 1: this was a mistake. Here's the good news. I hope
Speaker 1: this accelerates interest in the constitutional amendment to create a
Speaker 1: congressional nullification on pardons if we've ever needed that in
Speaker 1: place asap. This story better be the trigger for that.
Speaker 1: And then finally there were I have to tell you.
Speaker 1: I want you know the tech world has a real
Speaker 1: problem because the most prominent people in the tech world
Speaker 1: they don't actor behave like the rest of us. And
Speaker 1: when you read this uh Altman Biergra profile in New Yorker,
Speaker 1: and when you read the Lauren Bezos said chez inn
Speaker 1: Say Lauren Sanchez Bezos interview in the New York Times, Man,
Speaker 1: if you didn't need more evidence that the pitchforks are coming,
Speaker 1: and that when the look, it's your own behavior and
Speaker 1: your own sort of borderline sort of compartmentalization of how
Speaker 1: ridiculous you people look, you super wealthy people look, you
Speaker 1: power hung folks look, and then you're going to be
Speaker 1: angry when government's coming at you. Well, government's made up
Speaker 1: of the people. So when the pitchforks come and you
Speaker 1: don't like the level of regulation that's coming, just remember
Speaker 1: only have yourselves to blame, all right? With that, I've
Speaker 1: gone on a while and then some since it was
Speaker 1: two pretty big stories this weekend, but hey, there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on. All of that plus an incredible
Speaker 1: Masters tournament, right, but let me steak it a break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, let's talk Georgia Republican politics with
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Speaker 1: to talk a lot about a topic that I'm very
Speaker 1: fascinated with. There's a couple of states that within the
Speaker 1: debate in where's the Republican Party headed? Particularly where's the
Speaker 1: Republican Party headed post Donald Trump? There are two state
Speaker 1: Republican parties that I'm most fascinated to watch. One is
Speaker 1: out west in Utah, and for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: and Utah has been a fascinating state to watch as
Speaker 1: sort of the conservative movement has been realigning in which
Speaker 1: way we've seen it's not just Mitt Romney, but we've
Speaker 1: seen you know, you've got one senator in John Curtis
Speaker 1: in one direction of the party, Mike Lee going in
Speaker 1: another direction. But the other state that is seen in
Speaker 1: where the where I think you can't say that the
Speaker 1: Republican Party is just totally trumpified as Georgia. Well, my
Speaker 1: guess there's somebody who works both in Georgia Republican politics,
Speaker 1: talks Republican politics, knows the media landscape. Well. Her name's
Speaker 1: Martha Zalor those of you down in Georgia probably very
Speaker 1: familiar with her, whether it's listening to her podcast or
Speaker 1: listening to her or her talk show in and around
Speaker 1: the Gainesville, Georgia area. And I'm looking forward to talking
Speaker 1: a little Georgia politics. As I was telling my listeners
Speaker 1: last week, Martha, I thought it was interesting that the
Speaker 1: first state to act on a gas tax holiday was
Speaker 1: Georgia and Governor Brian Kemp, and I thought, well, that'll
Speaker 1: be an interesting talking point a hypothetical campaign and say
Speaker 1: the state of New Hampshire. And so anyway, let's just
Speaker 1: say it's just a little taste of where I hope
Speaker 1: our conversation goes. Martha, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: It's great to be with you, Chuck, it's nice to
Speaker 2: e meet you or whatever. Zoo.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I mean I am, like I said, I
Speaker 1: call myself a political anthropologist. These days, desperately studying the
Speaker 1: crazy tribes of American politics, right, and we know, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear to me that both parties are really coalitions, right,
Speaker 1: there's sort of collections of There is a lot more
Speaker 1: diversity underneath the umbrellas, underneath that red umbrella and that
Speaker 1: blue umbrella. And I think sometimes both parties get defined
Speaker 1: by just one individual or one part of the party.
Speaker 1: And I think what's interesting is george has been sort
Speaker 1: of the one place where conservatives have not been punished
Speaker 1: for swimming in a different direction every now and then.
Speaker 1: And I guess let me start there. What what do
Speaker 1: you what do you make of the fact that the
Speaker 1: Georgia Republican Party and whether it's Marjorie Taylor Green, who's
Speaker 1: I think feels let down by the MAGA movement or
Speaker 1: at least let down by Donald Trump, or it's a
Speaker 1: Brad Raffinsburger, right, who's in a totally another part of
Speaker 1: the party. I know what it looks like from the outside,
Speaker 1: What does it look like from your seat?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting you mentioned such of state Raffensburger, because
Speaker 2: you know, he went from the guy that no one
Speaker 2: would have lunch with to winning very decidedly with not
Speaker 2: only Republican votes, but independence and Democrats to in his
Speaker 2: re election in twenty twenty two and is now running
Speaker 2: for governor. And so he's an interesting thing. And he
Speaker 2: did it by going to every lunch, every invitation, Democrat, Republican, Independent,
Speaker 2: and taking every question. I remember, right after the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty election, but Miller and I, Butch Miller was a
Speaker 2: state senator, we had to go face the Republican Party
Speaker 2: for the first time in March of twenty one before
Speaker 2: the world shut down, I mean, while we were still
Speaker 2: in that kind of weird place after COVID. And one
Speaker 2: thing we did is we paid the bar tab because
Speaker 2: it was out of winery, because we didn't want people
Speaker 2: to be mad. Because Butch and I laid out what
Speaker 2: happened with the Georgia election, what the good things were
Speaker 2: and what the bad things were. And it wasn't about corruption, okay,
Speaker 2: it was about something we had been saying since two
Speaker 2: thousand and six that we had a pretty big loophole
Speaker 2: in our rules around absentee ballots. Using a loophole is
Speaker 2: not breaking the law. Using a loophole is not corruption.
Speaker 2: It's just there was a pretty big loophole in how
Speaker 2: absentee ballots could be done. And as Karen Handel, who
Speaker 2: was the Secretary of State when this law was passed, said,
Speaker 2: the Democrats figured out how to drive a mack truck
Speaker 2: through it, and they used the rule to their advantage,
Speaker 2: and that's what ultimately happened with the election. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of Republicans today to still disagree with me about that.
Speaker 2: As early as today on my show when I was
Speaker 2: talking to all the candidates for secretary of State, there
Speaker 2: is one candidate that is looking forward and all the
Speaker 2: rest of the secretary of state candidates on the Republican
Speaker 2: side are looking backward. And I just don't think that's
Speaker 2: the answer for anything. Number one. But yeah, George has
Speaker 2: been very interesting, and there are these different buckets, and
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't allow myself to be categorized. I mean,
Speaker 2: I supported President Trump. I voted for him three times.
Speaker 2: I gave money in twenty twenty to his campaign. I
Speaker 2: was one of those people that got caught up in
Speaker 2: that wind red thing where it was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a one time donation and they tried to take it,
Speaker 2: you know, every month. And so I have been a
Speaker 2: supportive person. Don't like everything that he does. I think
Speaker 2: he's the reason why we have two Democrat senators. He
Speaker 2: came to Georgia for that runoff and he told people
Speaker 2: you can vote, which your vote might not count, and
Speaker 2: four hundred thousand Republicans stay home, and you know, and
Speaker 2: it was heaviest in the two cities he went to.
Speaker 2: So I've had my own issues with President Trump related
Speaker 2: to that. I don't get invited to any of the parties,
Speaker 2: I don't get to do any of that stuff. But
Speaker 2: I have met him several times. And everybody in Georgia
Speaker 2: is not a Trump Republican, but they are. There are
Speaker 2: more Republicans than Democrats, and if we get out to vote,
Speaker 2: we will still win. But we've had a tough run
Speaker 2: the last six statewide elections. Now a lot of more
Speaker 2: special elections to be fair, but you can't deny we've
Speaker 2: had six races that have gone Democrat in the last
Speaker 2: three years, and you know, we can't continue to run
Speaker 2: the state the way we want to as Republicans if
Speaker 2: we continue to lose races.
Speaker 1: How'd you handle David Purdue primarying Brian Kemp.
Speaker 2: It was very difficult because I had because.
Speaker 1: You were part of both both the administers both for
Speaker 1: both of them, right, So.
Speaker 2: I had already asked David if he was running. He
Speaker 2: said no, And so I had worked for Kemp in
Speaker 2: his first election, and so I committed to Brian Kemp.
Speaker 2: And so I got an invitation to go to dinner
Speaker 2: I want with Senator Purdue. I won't discuss what we
Speaker 2: talked about other than he was running, and you know,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm already committed, and so you know I can't.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to take that away. And
Speaker 2: you said you weren't going to run, And then I
Speaker 2: saw that.
Speaker 1: That he was.
Speaker 2: He had made his mind up, and I said, don't
Speaker 2: talk about the election. Talk about something like both of
Speaker 2: his parents were public school teachers. Fifty five percent of
Speaker 2: the budget Georgia is paid on it is spent on education.
Speaker 2: You know, we have a lot of work to do
Speaker 2: on education, so I said. But he didn't listen to me.
Speaker 2: But I still got the first interview with him when
Speaker 2: he when he announced his race, and I just navigated
Speaker 2: being fair, you know, to both sides, all the way throughout.
Speaker 2: But he was, you know, it was an embarrassing loss.
Speaker 2: It was seventy's he doing.
Speaker 1: Now I mean, I have to tell you, I'm gonna look.
Speaker 1: I interviewed him during his first run in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: It was right when I was just starting to meet
Speaker 1: the press, and we did this fun little bus tour
Speaker 1: of battleground states, and Georgia was one of them.
Speaker 2: I was working on that campaign.
Speaker 1: I remember interviewing both that was Michelle nun Race I believe, right, yes, right,
Speaker 1: and David Perdue. And I'll tell you you know, and
Speaker 1: I say this, this is not meant to anything other
Speaker 1: than an easy descriptor for sort of the average viewer
Speaker 1: and listener here, which is he struck me as a
Speaker 1: Mett Romney Republican, a businessman, Republican, the chamber of whatever.
Speaker 1: And I say this, it's not meant to be disparaging,
Speaker 1: It's not meant to be anything other than descriptive that
Speaker 1: this is a pro business guy, this is a small
Speaker 1: government guy. And I just look at it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to put words in your mouth that he kind
Speaker 1: of lost his political identity in getting caught up in
Speaker 1: Trump world. And this is he's not alone. I watch
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans who had a set of a
Speaker 1: set of things that they had been advocating for and
Speaker 1: been principled about for decades. They get caught up in
Speaker 1: the Trump sort of whatever you want to call it, right,
Speaker 1: the whirlpool, whatever it is, and you just the vortex,
Speaker 1: and they sort of lose their own identity. Governor Kemp
Speaker 1: never did, Senator did? How did Senator Purdue get caught
Speaker 1: up in this so much?
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's interesting because in this social
Speaker 2: media world to live in where everything's under a microscope,
Speaker 2: I would argue more than ever, I think the kind
Speaker 2: of corruption that's going on now has been going on forever.
Speaker 2: We just didn't see it the way we see it now.
Speaker 1: Look, it's an MR. I look at the Trump era
Speaker 1: in this one way, in a very positive way, which
Speaker 1: is it's been an MRI for me, meaning I have
Speaker 1: learned a lot about people, good bad and otherwise, institutions
Speaker 1: good bad or otherwise, about the problems in our what
Speaker 1: I would call our small D democratic infrastructure that need fixing,
Speaker 1: that have been exposed. You know, you pointed out one
Speaker 1: in Georgia politics there about you know, how should absentee
Speaker 1: battling work? Is this a loophole? You know? I think
Speaker 1: the point is is that he's an MRI, and if
Speaker 1: you're if you care about the country, then use it
Speaker 1: for good. And that's been my choice. But it's been
Speaker 1: an MRI for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Well, Senator Purdue was more of an establishment guy, but
Speaker 2: he did get on the Trump train very early. He
Speaker 2: liked Donald Trump, he liked the way he did things,
Speaker 2: and he actually when Trump was thinking about running after
Speaker 2: he won Purdue one in twenty fourteen, one of the
Speaker 2: first meetings that Trump took was with Purdue up in
Speaker 2: Trump Tower to talk about how he is a businessman.
Speaker 2: Won and so they kind of hit it off in
Speaker 2: that area. Well, he's currently the ambassador to China, so
Speaker 2: he you know, he is serving there and he has
Speaker 2: been extremely loyal.
Speaker 1: Sort of ironic. I don't mean it. I remember the
Speaker 1: whole His relationship with China was such a huge part
Speaker 1: of that first campaign, if I remember it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I this is my again, my personal opinion,
Speaker 2: and I'm always transparent. I don't think that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: was loyal to him, Okay, because he did not really
Speaker 2: help him as much in his runoff. He did not
Speaker 2: help at all on the runoff.
Speaker 1: Oh I think Look, I thought your analysis. The fact
Speaker 1: is Democrats got the Senate majority because of Donald Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's buzzy campaign. If he doesn't show up on
Speaker 1: January fifth and campaign in Georgia, maybe it's one Senate
Speaker 1: seat that goes, not both.
Speaker 2: Because we forget and when we talk about the Georgia landscape,
Speaker 2: I don't think that it's a done deal that a
Speaker 2: Democrat's going to win a statewide race this time again
Speaker 2: for the Senate races, but I don't think it's a
Speaker 2: done deal because Center oss Off only won by fifty
Speaker 2: thousand votes. Brian Camp only won by one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: votes in his second election, So it's tight margins, okay.
Speaker 2: And we have these four counties Fulton to cab Gwinnette,
Speaker 2: and Cobb that are Democrat counties, okay, but they are
Speaker 2: about a million and a half Republican votes. So in
Speaker 2: those four counties there's about it's about two to one
Speaker 2: Democrat to Republican, So there's about a million and a
Speaker 2: half for Publican votes.
Speaker 1: Their vote counts just as much in a statewide race.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so our when you're dealing with margins of
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand and fifty fifty thousand for the Democrats,
Speaker 2: for the Senate one hundred thousand for the Republicans for governor.
Speaker 2: You have a guy like say Mike Thurman, who is
Speaker 2: a moderate Democrat who's running in this race. He's the
Speaker 2: only moderate Democrat running in the race, and who knows
Speaker 2: if he's got a chance. But he's well liked in
Speaker 2: those four counties because he served as Dacab County CEO.
Speaker 2: He was the superintendent of Dacab County schools. And if
Speaker 2: he you're going to laugh at this, but it's true.
Speaker 2: If he can peel off a hunt or two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand squishy Republican women who were the people I have
Speaker 2: to deal with in my work all the time, because
Speaker 2: they voted for Clinton in ninety six, they voted for
Speaker 2: for I've forgotten Gore, in two thousand they voted for Bush,
Speaker 2: and four they voted for Obama, and eight they voted
Speaker 2: for Trump in sixteen, not in twenty but then in
Speaker 2: twenty four. If you can peel off one hundred or
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand on either side, if a Republican can
Speaker 2: do it or a Democrat can do it, there's the
Speaker 2: one who wins.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Well, you go, Republican women.
Speaker 2: You can quote me on that what.
Speaker 1: Makes somebody what do you count as a squish?
Speaker 2: They don't like the style of most negative campaigning, and
Speaker 2: obviously negative can more style than substance, more style than substance.
Speaker 2: They're not as much one issue people anymore. I mean
Speaker 2: it used to be was we could get them back
Speaker 2: on the right to life issue. That's not as much
Speaker 2: of an issue that they want to talk about anymore.
Speaker 1: Actually, let me put a let's put it. Let me
Speaker 1: let me I want to get more into this, but
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a very specific question on abortion,
Speaker 1: because I've been curious that with rogue gone as a
Speaker 1: rallying cry, has that actually made courting Republican Republicans on
Speaker 1: that issue harder because they think the issue solved well, especially.
Speaker 2: In Georgia, it has because we've got Heartbeat Bill, and
Speaker 2: you know, our biggest my as a person who's been
Speaker 2: involved in the movement, I served as the executive director
Speaker 2: of the Georgia Life Alliance. I helped start the Georgia
Speaker 2: Life Alliance, which is a more I don't want to
Speaker 2: use the term moderate, but it was a more reasonable
Speaker 2: right to life group which understood that we live in
Speaker 2: a world where this happens and we want to make
Speaker 2: it and we were more like Clinton, I don't want
Speaker 2: to say that, but more legal and rare as well.
Speaker 1: That's the Clinton that there isn't a Democrat that says
Speaker 1: that anymore. But it was his mantra was safe, uh, legal,
Speaker 1: safe and rare or something like that.
Speaker 2: And so for me, my biggest issue related to the
Speaker 2: life issue now is that right now most abortions are
Speaker 2: done through the clinic, the chemical abortion over the you know,
Speaker 2: the abortion hill that they like to call it. And
Speaker 2: the problem with that is it has a seven percent
Speaker 2: complication rate. It has a seven percent complication rate, which
Speaker 2: today the FDA would never approve something like that, not
Speaker 2: because of Trump, but because most anything over four percent
Speaker 2: complication rate. And what I'm trying to get accomplished, not
Speaker 2: just in Georgia but across the country is that you
Speaker 2: need to see a doctor. You shouldn't just take it,
Speaker 2: not do it. In twenty twenty four, there were a
Speaker 2: couple of women who died that were used in ads,
Speaker 2: you know, because they said it was because of the
Speaker 2: Heartbeat Bill. It wasn't that, it was that they didn't
Speaker 2: go to a doctor. And all you need to know
Speaker 2: about that that's the safer way to do things, is
Speaker 2: that planned parenthood requires you to come back the next
Speaker 2: day to be sure everything's okay. And so for me,
Speaker 2: it's a health a women's health issue. And I tell you,
Speaker 2: I've had such a hard time getting Democrat women. They'll
Speaker 2: agree with me in the meetings, but then when we
Speaker 2: have to go out and talk about legislation because I
Speaker 2: help with things like that, can't get them to come along.
Speaker 2: But I feel encouraged because after my heart attack, which
Speaker 2: was the reason why we didn't get together the last
Speaker 2: time I got was honored by a group of women
Speaker 2: at the Georgia Legislature last week, mainly for surviving but
Speaker 2: also for using my platform to talk about women's heart health.
Speaker 2: And it was Democratic women that did that initiative. So
Speaker 2: that makes me feel good. Because I'm a conservative, I'm
Speaker 2: not apologetic about it. I think our ideas are better.
Speaker 2: But I've always worked with everybody.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to this descriptor of squish and
Speaker 1: substance versus style, because I I you know, let me
Speaker 1: ask a different way. What do you think we're polarized
Speaker 1: as a country? Right? We're pretty evenly divided Georgia's as
Speaker 1: good of an example of this as anything. Right, This
Speaker 1: is a I'm with you. I think that it's slightly
Speaker 1: right leaning. Right, it's light like I consider Georgia light ping.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is deep purple. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll find out for sure over the we'll
Speaker 1: know for sure after Trump leaves. Right, it could be
Speaker 1: that this is a Trump hangover type of thing, but
Speaker 1: my instinct has been that it's that I'm surprised at
Speaker 1: ours off strength. Let me put it that way so far,
Speaker 1: and we'll find out when there's a's a nominee. But
Speaker 1: in this larger question, right, America is divided? If Alexis
Speaker 1: Detokfeld came back to life right and was trying to
Speaker 1: study America again and write about democracy in America, what
Speaker 1: would you tell him that we're divided about? What is
Speaker 1: this big issue? In the nineteenth century, we knew what
Speaker 1: we were divided about. There was a specific thing this
Speaker 1: country was divided about. It is hard for me to
Speaker 1: say there's this one thing we're divided about. But it's
Speaker 1: almost more of a feeling. Right, we know it, and
Speaker 1: someone will say, well, it's culture, okay, but what is
Speaker 1: what would you how would you describe the divide in
Speaker 1: America today and what animates well?
Speaker 2: And I would also note that Georgia is a we
Speaker 2: don't register by party, right, and.
Speaker 1: So I think personally I think party registration. I think
Speaker 1: it's great. But if you us as a voter, can
Speaker 1: just register and pick the primary we want to participate in.
Speaker 2: And independence are growing in Georgia, or people that call
Speaker 2: themselves independence are growing in Georgia. I think independents are
Speaker 2: actually just disaffective Republicans, but that's.
Speaker 1: Just me, but I think they're disaffected. I think some
Speaker 1: of them are disaffected Democrats. I think I think the independent.
Speaker 1: I can tell you what I feel as an independent,
Speaker 1: which is I don't feel comfortable. Either party doesn't really
Speaker 1: represent everything I believe in, but I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: throw them both out either.
Speaker 2: Right. I'm going to answer your question, but I want
Speaker 2: to tell you about someone. There's a guy named Justin
Speaker 2: Gibney that was a Democratic operative. He became a pastor,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't say he's left the Democratic Party, but
Speaker 2: he's more in that. I'm uncomfortable because he leads a
Speaker 2: group of urban Christian blaques and who do things, and
Speaker 2: they call it the and campaign instead of saying, but
Speaker 2: you say and and and he said, we agree with
Speaker 2: Republicans about the social issues, the cultural issues, but we
Speaker 2: don't like the way they talk about them, and we
Speaker 2: disagree with how the Democratic Party looks at family and
Speaker 2: I think I think the big issue is the difference
Speaker 2: between I'm going to sound so eighties when I say
Speaker 2: family values, but it's about traditional family values versus this
Speaker 2: far left progressive like you see at these protests. I mean,
Speaker 2: I saw a woman on one of the protests and
Speaker 2: no King's processes. I've been protested for everything since the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I
Speaker 2: know these women. I used to and I'm going to
Speaker 2: get in trouble for this. I used to say, the
Speaker 2: meanest people on the face of the earth are old
Speaker 2: white Democrat women that I never got yelled at by
Speaker 2: Republican women like I have by Democrat women.
Speaker 1: And I just think that what.
Speaker 2: Separates us are these are not so much abortion or
Speaker 2: same sex marriage or whatever the issues were, but it
Speaker 2: is more of a cultural family, you know, because I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of people out there, a lot
Speaker 2: of millennials, especially that have put off having families, that
Speaker 2: have put off all these things. They thought they were
Speaker 2: supposed to work and do this and that and the
Speaker 2: other thing. And now they're sitting there with either no
Speaker 2: children or one child, and they feel like life has
Speaker 2: passed them by. And I know, in my own family,
Speaker 2: my youngest daughter, you know, and I agree with her
Speaker 2: about this, is that they've waited and hopefully they will
Speaker 2: have children. And she's very liberal, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I raised kids to think for themselves, and I think
Speaker 2: that what happens is is that that we have been
Speaker 2: telling people things they knew were not true about the world,
Speaker 2: and media was a part of it, and this idea
Speaker 2: that happened, and now a lot of people are second guessing.
Speaker 2: But I will say that she's right that she doesn't
Speaker 2: have it as easy as I had it. It is
Speaker 2: harder for her to buy a house. These affordab ability
Speaker 2: issues are real things, and neither party is offering any
Speaker 2: solutions for it. They're just fighting. I mean, this DHS
Speaker 2: thing is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I
Speaker 2: wrote a column this week on my substack about we
Speaker 2: need to go back to pre gram Redman because before
Speaker 2: that you didn't have shutdowns. The understanding was you're going
Speaker 2: to be grown ups because money is coming into the
Speaker 2: federal government every day check you can continue to pay people.
Speaker 1: Well it is look, I went, now, it's a weapon.
Speaker 2: It's a weapon.
Speaker 1: Well it goes back to is lovely bipartisan the legal opinions.
Speaker 1: One was in Carter's Justice department and one was in
Speaker 1: Reagan's Justice department. Within essentially an eighteen month period, two
Speaker 1: different partisan justice departments made the same analysis about that
Speaker 1: once there's a funding dispute in Congress, then government has
Speaker 1: to cease spending money. It's ridiculous, it's absurd, and it
Speaker 1: is your only Actually, you know, I have a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who's been in a government contractor basically he's
Speaker 1: in this one of those public private areas in the
Speaker 1: world of nukes, Okay, and it's about all he can
Speaker 1: tell me. But the point is is that it's this
Speaker 1: public private and he goes the amount of times they've
Speaker 1: literally had to stop in the middle of a research
Speaker 1: product because of a continuing resolution, Like if people understood,
Speaker 1: he gets he harps on this with me all the time.
Speaker 1: He goes, I wish you guys could meaning us in
Speaker 1: the media could do a better job of explaining how
Speaker 1: even continuing resolutus quote keeping the lights on, actually prevent
Speaker 1: us from doing certain research spending. Sometimes it takes a
Speaker 1: little extra money to figure out something or to be
Speaker 1: able to do something extra. We are sometimes just literally
Speaker 1: waiting in place while we fill out another form or
Speaker 1: wait for something that we know we're going to get
Speaker 1: in the next budget. But in the meantime, we can't
Speaker 1: use spend that money until they officially pass it and
Speaker 1: he goes. We're literally paying people to do nothing, and
Speaker 1: it is just ridiculous the budgeting process in America that
Speaker 1: has put us in this and it incentivizes both parties
Speaker 1: to weaponize the budget process.
Speaker 2: And look, I mean, let's look at something that's a
Speaker 2: little more you know, everyday kind of business other than news. Agriculture. Okay,
Speaker 2: I have people that are friends of mine in the
Speaker 2: agriculture world where they do things like they work on
Speaker 2: vaccines on chickens and they do other things. Well, if
Speaker 2: you're dealing with animals, you can't have two months at
Speaker 2: a time continuing resolutions because the animals have to be
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, these things, so they can't
Speaker 2: start stuff because they're afraid they can't finish it, and
Speaker 2: it's just very inefficient. But you asked me something about Asoff,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to know if you wanted to
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about him.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I well, what I mean, well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick up on something you said you were talking about.
Speaker 1: We were talking about what the divide is and you
Speaker 1: thought it was cultural and unfamily and that, and you
Speaker 1: did something and I totally respect it. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I feel like it's part of I think
Speaker 1: that each party is viewed as a caricature by folks
Speaker 1: that are in the other party, And like, I sit
Speaker 1: here and I'm like, and sometimes I look at both
Speaker 1: parties as caricatures, and I try really hard not to
Speaker 1: that we're all three dimensional figures. And I kind of
Speaker 1: think that's part of the problem. Meaning you asked, why
Speaker 1: do you feel like some won't cross the aisle to
Speaker 1: help on certain things that you're working on, And I
Speaker 1: think the problem is there's this, and the two parties
Speaker 1: do this a lot. Media can do it too, and
Speaker 1: categorizing creates this guilt by association that the minute you
Speaker 1: work with the other side. Oh yeah, right, you immediately
Speaker 1: are seen as a traitor or a turncoat.
Speaker 2: Was famously said. He said, I don't like c SPAN
Speaker 2: because every time I walk across the aisle to work
Speaker 2: with somebody, somebody's going to use it in an ad
Speaker 2: against me.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is insanity that we have done this,
Speaker 1: because none of us would want to be treated that
Speaker 1: way individually, right, we all actually have. We're all usually
Speaker 1: pretty proud of the relationships that we have in our
Speaker 1: personal lives because they are diverse, they're unique. We all have,
Speaker 1: you know, the family members that we all just we
Speaker 1: don't agree with, and all these other things. And yet
Speaker 1: we then hold the political parties and members of it
Speaker 1: to a standard that does create this caricature element to
Speaker 1: it that I think almost it's what it does, is
Speaker 1: what I think it does, is it turns off the volume,
Speaker 1: meaning people will just stop listening and tell me what.
Speaker 2: You think about this. Because this goes back to historical
Speaker 2: references and things like that. You know, there was all
Speaker 2: this hooplaw about members of Congress not being in their
Speaker 2: districts more, and so the work schedules changed dramatically in
Speaker 2: the last way twenty five years. Maybe, Oh, it's been
Speaker 2: a disaster.
Speaker 1: Personally, i'd think it up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because what happens is when you when you
Speaker 2: wear a badge of honor of living in your office. Okay,
Speaker 2: and you didn't bring your family up and they did it.
Speaker 2: And granted I used to joke about with Senator Nune
Speaker 2: we were great friends. I said, your kids didn't broke
Speaker 2: in Georgia, they grew up in Washington, DC. And he
Speaker 2: would laugh about it. But what happened with that is
Speaker 2: you made relationships with all different kinds of people. And
Speaker 2: now we don't do that because they come in on
Speaker 2: Tuesday or maybe Monday night and they go back whenever.
Speaker 2: And I think they should work twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: if they're not going to fund the government, and they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be paid for it. But I just think that
Speaker 2: it didn't make those relationships that you normally have, you know.
Speaker 1: And no, I mean it was done out of campaign, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you better be in your district. And then if like
Speaker 1: if you spend too much time in Washington, it was
Speaker 1: somehow a negative And I'm like, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: You're the elected member of Congress. That's your job is
Speaker 1: to spend time in Washington. And the fact that We
Speaker 1: turned it into if you spend too much time in Washington, basically,
Speaker 1: if you spend too much time trying to be good
Speaker 1: at your job, we're going to hold that against you
Speaker 1: in a political app and we did. They created the schedule.
Speaker 1: They work three days a week. Right. They fly in
Speaker 1: now Tuesday more. It used to be they came in
Speaker 1: a Monday. Now they've pushed it. Especially if you're on
Speaker 1: the East coast. You grab that six am flight. They
Speaker 1: get there for the Tuesday hearing that they have to
Speaker 1: do and the caucus lunch whatever it is, and then
Speaker 1: the smell of jet fumes by two. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: they basically work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: It's really crazy. And you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you knew. I ran for Congress in twenty twelve and
Speaker 2: I got which district in the ninth district of Georgia,
Speaker 2: and I got through the primary, but I lost in
Speaker 2: the runoff to Doug Collins, who's now the Vasa. And
Speaker 2: you know, for me, you know, it's not good for
Speaker 2: a media person to run for office because there was
Speaker 2: ten thousand hours of me talking about issues and.
Speaker 1: This is like reason number seven thousand why I won't
Speaker 1: run for office. But I've had plenty of people I'm like,
Speaker 1: why would I. No matter which party I picked, you
Speaker 1: could find thirty things that would make me a problem
Speaker 1: within that party, and you can pick either one of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no you know, to me, I made
Speaker 1: a choice. This is the choice I make, and this
Speaker 1: is how I want to contribute.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but it was funny because I remember saying
Speaker 2: that the thing I said, yeah, and some poor person
Speaker 2: had to sit down and find the two and a
Speaker 2: half minutes that they were going to use, and somebody
Speaker 2: from the back of rom goes that was a lot
Speaker 2: more than that, Martha. So, and you know, when you
Speaker 2: do what we do, sometimes you're asking questions just to
Speaker 2: get answers, and you're not necessary really saying that you
Speaker 2: believe in whatever.
Speaker 1: It's a devil's advocate. It's all about getting I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I always said this when meet the press, I wanted
Speaker 1: to know two things, actual information and then the why
Speaker 1: yes and the questions. Most of the questions I asked
Speaker 1: were about trying to answer the question of why, well,
Speaker 1: why did you choose to do this? Why do you
Speaker 1: believe this? What you know that's because ultimately, if you
Speaker 1: choose to watch to me, if you choose to watch
Speaker 1: a Sunday show, or if you choose to listen to
Speaker 1: a political talk show, you're not interested in the what
Speaker 1: you already know, the what. Right, You're you're trying to
Speaker 1: get a why, because you're it's more than just the information.
Speaker 1: You're looking to understand, well, how did we get to
Speaker 1: this position. You're trying to get more information, more context.
Speaker 1: You're not there just for the what. So you're already
Speaker 1: a pretty well informed person, so you're then if they're
Speaker 1: coming to you, your job or my job is to
Speaker 1: add more context to the situation.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. And sometimes you say things just
Speaker 2: to you know, get a reaction and to see what
Speaker 2: people are going to say. And uh, it's and look,
Speaker 2: I long for the time where people work together better.
Speaker 2: We even you know, I'm in a plus twenty six district, Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's it's not an area that's going to likely
Speaker 2: have a Democrat representative. But because the Democrats in Georgia
Speaker 2: see blood in the water, because we've lost several races
Speaker 2: along the way, they I got to give them credit.
Speaker 2: They got we got a contested Democrat primary in our district, okay,
Speaker 2: which they have no chance, they have no chance, but
Speaker 2: they couldn't get a few more Democrats out for the
Speaker 2: state wide races, you know, if there's a good Democrat
Speaker 2: in the race.
Speaker 1: So, by the way, you know who was the godfather
Speaker 1: of that strategy, Howard No, No, no, No. Goes back further,
Speaker 1: there was this young conservative activists from Georgia named Newt Gingrich.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you know, I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many members of Congress I know over the years who
Speaker 1: told me that they first learned how to run from
Speaker 1: office by listening to Newt gingridg piscept tapes. Yeah, from
Speaker 1: the old Gopak era. But the point was, I remember
Speaker 1: he was a big advaty of this basically fill the tree.
Speaker 1: If you have a candate in every race locally, up
Speaker 1: and down the ballot, well, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: have that many more people going out to ask for Republicans,
Speaker 1: having somebody to go vote for a Republican or in
Speaker 1: this case, and I've always you know, there's a pretty
Speaker 1: good correlation if you study this via data, where the
Speaker 1: party that has the fewest empty ballot slots is usually
Speaker 1: the party that's going to win that cycle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for fifteen years there were no Democrats on
Speaker 2: the other side running. Okay, And you know it's funny
Speaker 2: because John Ausoff and I have a pretty decent relationship.
Speaker 2: I got him to come on my show. He didn't
Speaker 2: want to come on my show because I worked for
Speaker 2: David Purdue, and I completely understand that. But I convinced
Speaker 2: him by saying, you know what, you might you're not
Speaker 2: just helping yourself, but for the first time in twenty years,
Speaker 2: Democrats are running up and down the ballot in our area.
Speaker 2: If you come on my show, you can help them too.
Speaker 2: And he goes, wow, you're really good. And you know,
Speaker 2: but I did have to apologize for calling him a
Speaker 2: thirty three year old intern, because I did do that.
Speaker 1: But you know, don't you think his youth was an
Speaker 1: asset At the end of the day, it was.
Speaker 2: And I tell you what, he is much better looking
Speaker 2: in person. And when he came to the studio and
Speaker 2: you know, the salespeople got to see him and all
Speaker 2: the people got to see him, and he looks really
Speaker 2: great in a suit. Okay, I'll admit that even though
Speaker 2: you're not. I mean, I'm old enough to be his mother,
Speaker 2: so I can say those things. And when he left,
Speaker 2: all the women were like, Oh, who was that? Who
Speaker 2: was that? It's kind of like the way Tom Graves
Speaker 2: was to mention a Republican too. Tom was a really
Speaker 2: good looking guy and still is, of course, and same
Speaker 2: kind of thing happened. He came in, he had this
Speaker 2: charisma and after he left, all the girls were like,
Speaker 2: who is that? Who was that? And you know, John
Speaker 2: is I think John has a good chance my thing.
Speaker 2: And I said this to him. I said, look, I
Speaker 2: want you to lose. I'm a Republican. I said that
Speaker 2: you've forgotten who you are. Your your your fundraising letters
Speaker 2: sound like you're a far left progressive, but yet your
Speaker 2: press release is say all these things you're doing on
Speaker 2: a bipartisan basis. You know, I said, I'll give you
Speaker 2: a piece of advice that I usually charge people for,
Speaker 2: and it's that don't forget that nobody's going to remember
Speaker 2: the name of your consultant. You know, they only know
Speaker 2: your name, and so so if you if you're doing
Speaker 2: this kind of crazy fundraising emails and I don't know
Speaker 2: how many people actually see those, but I noticed that
Speaker 2: it didn't sound the same. He's not a far left progressive, Okay,
Speaker 2: He's probably kind of like Barack Obama in that I
Speaker 2: think Obama was much more progressive than he governed. He
Speaker 2: kind of governed center left, even though I think if
Speaker 2: he were if he didn't have to negotiate with Congress,
Speaker 2: he probably would have been a lot more far left.
Speaker 2: And the fact that he allowed the the economy it
Speaker 2: grew in about one percent a year. It wasn't gangbusters,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't what it was when he came in.
Speaker 2: So he was a to win some people over because
Speaker 2: of that. But I think if he was left to
Speaker 2: his own devices, he's very progressive. But it'll be interesting
Speaker 2: to see how John does. I kept trying to get
Speaker 2: We have a Palestinian woman who was running for governor
Speaker 2: that is from Decab County, and I was joking. I said,
Speaker 2: I was trying to get her to switch over to
Speaker 2: the Senate race so we could see how far left
Speaker 2: John would go. But she didn't do that. She got
Speaker 2: out of the race.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that Republican primary for the Senate. I
Speaker 1: will just I will like said it a few times
Speaker 1: on this show, so I will say it again. I
Speaker 1: think the worst name to have in politics in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six is going to be Congressman. Okay, if your
Speaker 1: first name is Congress. If that's your first name, I
Speaker 1: think it's terrible. I'd rather be coach. I'd rather be
Speaker 1: former football coach than current member of Congress. So I
Speaker 1: don't care what party I'm int, but particularly in this
Speaker 1: political environment we're living in where we don't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of positive views of how Congress has worked
Speaker 1: and all of that. But that's not what the polling
Speaker 1: has been showing. Derek Dooley is having a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble getting traction. Arguably all of the candidates are having
Speaker 1: some trouble getting traction, but not like Dooley. What you know,
Speaker 1: is there any way of doing this without Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: I like and Trump has not gotten involved in the
Speaker 2: Senate race yet, but I don't know if he will
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 1: But well, he won't take Kemp's candidate. I know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that, Derek. I like Derek Moore every
Speaker 2: time I meet him. Derek Dooley, I think he's learning
Speaker 2: as he goes. I think that with Mike Collins, I
Speaker 2: think you cannot underestimate the power of his championing the
Speaker 2: Lake and Riley Act among Republican primary vote. I mean it,
Speaker 2: it was in a you know, and especially in the
Speaker 2: area where most of the Republican voters are in and around.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got a geographic advantage on that.
Speaker 2: And a geographical advantage, and he, you know, he worked
Speaker 2: the halls, and I've told him he needs to show
Speaker 2: more of that side of himself about how he went
Speaker 2: to these offices. He went to every Democrat's office, he
Speaker 2: went to every Republican's office, and he pushed for this
Speaker 2: bill and pushed for this bill and got it passed
Speaker 2: into two Congresses, and you know, it was you can
Speaker 2: underestimate that with primary voters. So I think it's Mike's
Speaker 2: to lose of the primary. Buddy Carter's working very hard
Speaker 2: and I think he's working smart, but it's hard to
Speaker 2: win from that first district, just ask Jack Kingston. But
Speaker 2: I do think that with the with Rick Jackson getting
Speaker 2: in the race on the governor's side, that is another
Speaker 2: outsider that could help Derek Dooley. But I still think
Speaker 2: if the election were real today and be Mike Collins.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Let's go to the governor's race. Rick Jackson
Speaker 1: really seemed to be a shock to the Bert Jones campaign.
Speaker 1: They did. Was this truly a blind side? They didn't
Speaker 1: know this was coming. There were no whispers. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. It certainly looked to me that there
Speaker 1: was no giant killer in the race. And I had
Speaker 1: heard whispers of concerns about Jones and a general fear
Speaker 1: that he couldn't win a general So there had been
Speaker 1: some there'd been some whispers, but the way they acted
Speaker 1: is if they just couldn't believe this happened.
Speaker 2: It was completely quiet. And I know Rick, I've known
Speaker 2: him for years. He brought me into his office when
Speaker 2: I ran for Congress. That's when I first met him,
Speaker 2: and I'd worked with him on foster care stuff. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's been very involved in politics. He's given money to everyone,
Speaker 2: and that's running gotten him a little bit in a
Speaker 2: little bit of trouble. But it was totally unknown, and
Speaker 2: it completely upended the entire race. For three or four weeks.
Speaker 2: Jones's people were completely on their back feet for three
Speaker 2: or four weeks. They're kind of gaining it back and
Speaker 2: a little bit now.
Speaker 1: But they're doing Trump has he still is holding a
Speaker 1: Trump endorsement.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's holding a Trump and.
Speaker 1: It's active, right, It's an active endorsement, right, It's.
Speaker 2: An active endorsement.
Speaker 1: He says, say that because you never know, like Trump
Speaker 1: as the ones where he's endorsed everybody he's endorsed previously
Speaker 1: candidates fudge.
Speaker 2: You know, there are trips back back and forth to
Speaker 2: mar A Lago by Rick Jackson, though, so you know
Speaker 2: it's happening.
Speaker 1: We know the president likes a winner. And if somebody
Speaker 1: suddenly looks like a winner and they're rich, and mister
Speaker 1: Jackson is rich, mister Trump can be persuaded, and he has.
Speaker 2: I tell you, I went to several of his events
Speaker 2: and what is so amazing to me is the women
Speaker 2: that have shown up that are not Republican, not regular
Speaker 2: people that you see at Republican events. They came because
Speaker 2: of the commercials and they love the fact that he
Speaker 2: came from nothing. He lived in techwood homes, you know,
Speaker 2: he lived in the projects. He and he broke the cycle.
Speaker 2: He's had a long term marriage since he was nineteen
Speaker 2: years old. He's got three successful children that are doing
Speaker 2: great and that are running the businesses now for him,
Speaker 2: and he you know he he's made some missteps because
Speaker 2: he doesn't know. You know, he's not a politician. He's
Speaker 2: a guy that's running business. But Bert seems to be
Speaker 2: getting his feet under him again. But I'm sure he
Speaker 2: can't wait for sine die on Thursday, which is the
Speaker 2: last day of the legislative session, because then he can
Speaker 2: raise money and get out on the main trail.
Speaker 1: Again, where's the governor on this? Does he have a
Speaker 1: strong preference?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think all he cares about is getting
Speaker 2: Derek Duley across the finished line.
Speaker 1: So he's got it he is. That is more his
Speaker 1: focus is that center race, really and he's just sort
Speaker 1: of staying above the fray and the governor's And I
Speaker 1: tell you, I.
Speaker 2: Wish that he had run because of Bryan Kempin run,
Speaker 2: we wouldn't have this fruit basket turnover that we've had
Speaker 2: in the Republican Party. We've got about half of the
Speaker 2: Senate running for other offices. We're going to have a
Speaker 2: George is going to look different next year. I just
Speaker 2: don't know, you know, what the makeup's going to be
Speaker 2: because there are so many people running for higher office.
Speaker 1: Then Martha, it is miserable being in Congress right.
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, well, and going from governor to Senate, they
Speaker 2: don't like it.
Speaker 1: It's you talk to any former governor in the Senate,
Speaker 1: and every one of them I've had this conversation. Whether
Speaker 1: it's Lamar, Alexander, Mark Warner, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if a democratic governor Republic. They hate the Senate once
Speaker 1: they've gotten there. And that's why you see, I think
Speaker 1: we have a record number of sitting Senators running for
Speaker 1: governor this year in other states across the board. And
Speaker 1: then the other problem, I mean the problem is what
Speaker 1: used to make the Senate fun and actually, frankly a
Speaker 1: great place for a former governor to go, is that
Speaker 1: that it was a place to be somewhat independent. I mean,
Speaker 1: you were expected to sit on one side of the
Speaker 1: aisle or the other, but nobody expected to you know,
Speaker 1: they'd look at Ted Kennedy and John McCain and think, okay,
Speaker 1: I can mess around, It's okay to work with the
Speaker 1: other side. And it was a very accepted practice in
Speaker 1: the Senate in some ways. It was a feature, not
Speaker 1: a bug, of the Senate. And I think the Senate
Speaker 1: in particular, in our new polarize and I say new
Speaker 1: polarized climate obviously, where the politics that you and I
Speaker 1: grew up with in the seventies and eighties is not
Speaker 1: today's politics. Right. The divides may look familiar, but it's different.
Speaker 1: And you keep bringing up Sam Nun. Sam Nunn was
Speaker 1: my father's dream candidate for president. He was recovering, you know.
Speaker 1: He was a Reagan Democrat who never went back to
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, and he loved Sam Nun. Sam Nunn
Speaker 1: was always the last, the one Democrat alive that he
Speaker 1: wanted to vote for next before he passed away. So
Speaker 1: you cannot do that anymore in the Senate because that
Speaker 1: in some ways, maybe it's our partisan media, right, we
Speaker 1: have a very there's robust liberal media, there's robust conservative media,
Speaker 1: there's robust mega media, there's robust influencer media, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it these days, right, and it's all different.
Speaker 1: And if Governor Camp asked me could he get anything
Speaker 1: done in the Senate, I tell him you can't unless
Speaker 1: you become a leader. And you know, especially it's really
Speaker 1: miserable being in the Senate when your party's in the
Speaker 1: White House, because you cannot ever criticize your party, even
Speaker 1: if you really want to you become a heretic, as
Speaker 1: ask Joe Manchin or ask Lisa Mrkowski.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it's so. You know, the
Speaker 2: Senate was always like my dream job, you know. I
Speaker 2: always thought that would be like the most fun because
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have to be as political because it's a
Speaker 2: six year term, you know, And it's just not that
Speaker 2: way anymore. But I kind of blame where we are
Speaker 2: in politics today on the decision in nineteen thirteen to
Speaker 2: change the constitution and make the Senate elected instead of appoint.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you're one of those you want to repeal that.
Speaker 1: I have a I blame about thirteen years later. I
Speaker 1: blame Congress no longer expanding the size of the House
Speaker 1: every ten years. Not just that's interesting. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want state legislatures. Well, he's cited. Tell you what,
Speaker 1: there's always maker case. I'll shut up.
Speaker 2: There's always going to be corruption in politics. Okay, But
Speaker 2: at least when you were dealing with the Senate, I mean,
Speaker 2: with the legislature, you didn't need all this money to run.
Speaker 2: And I remember David Produce saying to me, you know,
Speaker 2: well then then I would have never won in a
Speaker 2: situation like that. I said, but maybe you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: wanted to leave retirement and run if we had had
Speaker 2: those kind of senators, because I believe the problem with
Speaker 2: the Senate they're not beholding to their states anymore. They
Speaker 2: care more about their donors and their caucus than they
Speaker 2: do about their states. They do not put their states first,
Speaker 2: whether it's Rafayel Warnock and John oss Off or it's
Speaker 2: you know, what's a state with two Republicans it doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: or they're not as they're not as behold and they
Speaker 2: care more about the DSCC and their caucus and their donors.
Speaker 2: And that's when that kind of money raising started. You know,
Speaker 2: they didn't need money before then.
Speaker 1: So that's my thought.
Speaker 2: I am one of those twenty three.
Speaker 1: Well I say that, you know, you know, the trigger
Speaker 1: for that amendment, like the last straw, was a bribery
Speaker 1: scandal of the Illinois state legislature. And I know Illinois shocking,
Speaker 1: but it was a bribery of the Illinois state of Basically,
Speaker 1: they were handing out ten thousand dollars checks in nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: nineteen ten. That's a lot of money in nineteen ten.
Speaker 2: Okay, my grandmother's house in Jersey City was about ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars around that time.
Speaker 1: See that's how much a that's how much per legend,
Speaker 1: per vote they were purchasing. You know, it's no wonder
Speaker 1: Rod Blgoyevitch didn't want to give up that Obama sendency
Speaker 1: for zero. You know that his famous quote, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't I I don't know. I look at state less.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I believe the least corrupt legislature in
Speaker 1: America's Congress, and that the lower you go, the more
Speaker 1: corruptible it is. And there's a variety of reasons for
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Money.
Speaker 1: Well, there are more more eyeballs on Congress. There's more reporters.
Speaker 1: You can hate them, hate us, or love us. There's
Speaker 1: just more of us covering Congress. Fewer are at state legislatures,
Speaker 1: and even fewer at city councils. Right. I would say
Speaker 1: the most corrupt is usually the most local, because no
Speaker 1: one's watching.
Speaker 2: No, I don't disagree with that. And the joke I
Speaker 2: used to tell when Cassim Read was the mayor of Atlanta,
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, the money comes in down the hall,
Speaker 2: and that's very tempting. You know, it's like you can't.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's a it's a it's a challenge.
Speaker 2: And I think that you're right. I think the more
Speaker 2: local stuff is more corrupt. And I don't know that
Speaker 2: the I'm not saying so much that the Senate's corrupt.
Speaker 2: It just takes too much money to become a senator.
Speaker 2: I'm I mean, I think we spent a half a
Speaker 2: billion dollars last time in that cycle.
Speaker 1: And that's North Carolina. It's probably going to be the
Speaker 1: first billion dollar center. Yeah, it's crazy, insanity, it is.
Speaker 2: It's too much money. It's like when I had a
Speaker 2: meeting for that Senate seat appointment that Kelly Lefler got,
Speaker 2: and I was very frank with the governor. I said,
Speaker 2: I can't raise twenty million dollars. I'm not that good
Speaker 2: at it, you know. And I thought Kelly Leffler was great,
Speaker 2: but she got forced because Doug Collins got into the race.
Speaker 2: She got forced to go right instead of being that
Speaker 2: suburban woman she was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got the sense that Kelly Leffler lost her
Speaker 1: political identity pretty quickly. It sounds like you agree with
Speaker 1: that that it felt like who she was when she
Speaker 1: who Governor Kemp thought he was appointing a bunch of
Speaker 1: political consultants got ahold of her and turned her into
Speaker 1: a two dimensional just caricature.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the consultants all the time, isn't it. You've
Speaker 2: got to be really strong in that area. But one
Speaker 2: thing I do love about her is that she didn't
Speaker 2: take her ball and go home. She started this organization
Speaker 2: called Greater Georgia that was dad or driven and that
Speaker 2: that identified a bunch of conservative households that weren't voting
Speaker 2: regularly and got out and did the grassroots stuff to
Speaker 2: get him out to vote. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 2: that's one thing I loved. She did not take her
Speaker 2: ball and go home, and she continued being an operative
Speaker 2: in Georgia politics.
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp for President's it sounds to me it's like
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. I think if he I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons you don't run for the Senate
Speaker 1: see Look, I think there was a lot of job
Speaker 1: description reasons why you don't run for the Senate. See.
Speaker 1: But if you're at all thinking about running in twenty eight,
Speaker 1: it's an insult of voters to immediately run for one
Speaker 1: thing in twenty six and then another thing in twenty eight.
Speaker 1: So if he was thinking about president it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense for me at least, then don't run
Speaker 1: for the Senate, because that'd be you know, to leave
Speaker 1: after two years. You know, immediately you're running, and you'd
Speaker 1: immediately be running.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people will know after we get through
Speaker 2: this session and actually the primary. He's probably not going
Speaker 2: to do anything to take the light off of Derek
Speaker 2: Dooley at all. I have not talked to him about
Speaker 2: a presidential run, but you know, it all depends on Marty.
Speaker 2: You know, they are a very very strong couple, and
Speaker 2: if she is not interested in doing that, they won't
Speaker 2: do it. And I don't think that's a bad idea
Speaker 2: for couples to be that way actually, because it's a
Speaker 2: big commitment. You know, it's a big commitment to do that.
Speaker 2: And it's easier for women to not have their husbands
Speaker 2: everywhere than it is for men to not have their
Speaker 2: wives everywhere. You know, my husband was you know, he
Speaker 2: would put signs up, but he wasn't a guy that
Speaker 2: was going to come to an event with me and
Speaker 2: be the little man. But it's more acceptable for a
Speaker 2: you know, a husband of a female candidate not to
Speaker 2: show up everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's interesting that that's an observation that I've not heard before.
Speaker 1: But I think you're right. I think there is. It
Speaker 1: is one of these how would you do? It's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a stereotype that it's not fair. But
Speaker 1: it's just that people ask.
Speaker 2: Me who's going to take care of my kids? Who's
Speaker 2: gonna I mean, my kids were all grown by then.
Speaker 2: You know when women start. I did my whole thesis
Speaker 2: on women's electoral success in the Republican Party, and women
Speaker 2: start later because they think they need to be ready.
Speaker 2: Men will just run for every anything. But the funt
Speaker 2: the hardest thing is you've got to let You've got
Speaker 2: to put aside the time to get your hair done okay,
Speaker 2: because there are no gray haired women in politics or
Speaker 2: television or very few. And who's going to carry your purse?
Speaker 2: Because it never looks good to walk out of a
Speaker 2: room with your purse, So you got to do those things.
Speaker 1: Do you What do you make of Marjorie Taylor Green's
Speaker 1: critique She's been typically on this that that MAGA doesn't
Speaker 1: make it easy for women.
Speaker 2: I agree with that, and I think that Okay, Marjorie
Speaker 2: should have talked a lot more throughout her career about
Speaker 2: this great third generation construction business that she was keeping
Speaker 2: going and growing. I mean, and that was my advice
Speaker 2: to her when she first started running. Nobody really knew
Speaker 2: that side of her. They just knew the bomb throwing
Speaker 2: side of her. I have a lot of problem with
Speaker 2: people that leave office before their term is up. To
Speaker 2: your point that you were talking about earlier, it's a
Speaker 2: two year office that you asked for, you begged for,
Speaker 2: you raised money for. And even if she decided she
Speaker 2: wasn't going to run, she just could not run and
Speaker 2: then finished out her term instead of doing what she's
Speaker 2: doing to her people right now, is which a primary
Speaker 2: and run a general, I mean a jungle primary and
Speaker 2: a runoff, and then they're going to have a general
Speaker 2: primary and a runoff and then they're going to have
Speaker 2: another election. And so I just hate that, okay. And
Speaker 2: I think the only time I have ever agreed with
Speaker 2: AOC is when she said Donald Trump's been giving you
Speaker 2: a hard time for a week. He's been doing it
Speaker 2: to me for five years, and you're leaving, so I
Speaker 2: you know, I think AOC is the most overblown person
Speaker 2: that I've ever seen in politics. I think she does not.
Speaker 2: I think she's very attractive, and even men on my
Speaker 2: side think she looks great. But I think she doesn't
Speaker 2: understand what the real world is like. But she was
Speaker 2: right about that. I mean, you get picked on by
Speaker 2: the president for a week and you quit your job.
Speaker 1: Do you think is there any credence to her criticism?
Speaker 1: Though that? It is harder for that. It is harder
Speaker 1: for women to get traction with the Maga wing of
Speaker 1: the party.
Speaker 2: Not just magawing. It's harder for women to get traction everywhere.
Speaker 2: The Democrats do a little better job than the Republicans do,
Speaker 2: but it's still not anywhere near their percentage of who's voting.
Speaker 2: Because women are the hardest on other women. You know,
Speaker 2: I got a lot more problem.
Speaker 1: And that's what missus Todd would tell you. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: feels like you know, she used to argue, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly for our generation, there would be one seat at
Speaker 1: the table for a woman, right and so hey, it's
Speaker 1: more seats than there were from the boomers, and you
Speaker 1: get that one seat, and other women would instead of
Speaker 1: fighting to get a second or a third seat, they
Speaker 1: didn't send and said they all, you know, keeping other
Speaker 1: women from making it right rather than fighting for more.
Speaker 2: I think in general, it's easy for easier for men. Period.
Speaker 2: We've come a long way, baby, and I consider myself
Speaker 2: a feminist and I really resent it when liberal feminists
Speaker 2: say I can't be a feminist because I'm a conservative.
Speaker 2: I think being a feminist is all about having the
Speaker 2: choices you know before you you know, I stayed at
Speaker 2: home for ten for eight years, and I did you know,
Speaker 2: I say, you can have it all, just not at
Speaker 2: the same time. And there's just it's harder for women
Speaker 2: and everything, okay, even though we've come a long way
Speaker 2: and we've done great, but you know what, I don't
Speaker 2: focus on that. I have a great husband and a
Speaker 2: fantastic family, and especially being eight weeks out from a
Speaker 2: heart attack, I'm thinking, you know, there's a lot more
Speaker 2: important things in life, so you just got to make
Speaker 2: sure you got all your priorities straight.
Speaker 1: Let me close with this. I had Jack dan Forth
Speaker 1: on recently, who's just I mean, it's amazing at ninety
Speaker 1: two and he's you think he was seventy two. He's
Speaker 1: just one of the great gentlemen of the US. Senate back.
Speaker 1: You know when people say the good old days, he's
Speaker 1: one of the people I would vision envision in my head.
Speaker 2: He's one of the people that made it good.
Speaker 1: He's really he really is. What really animates him negatively
Speaker 1: about this about President Trump and about MAGA is the
Speaker 1: nastiness of it, right, the personal and look, it is ugly.
Speaker 1: I'm got to sit here and says, politics ain't being
Speaker 1: bag right, all's fair and love and politics right, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I've been around long enough to understand that.
Speaker 1: Do you think we've crossed the line though in where
Speaker 1: our rhetoric is? And you know, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you run into this, right, Why do why do suburban
Speaker 1: sort of squishy Republicans, why are they willing to cross
Speaker 1: the aisle against Trump? It's usually for character in style,
Speaker 1: not necessarily for substance, It's true.
Speaker 2: And look, I have this theory that there are these
Speaker 2: fifty year cycles and we get just far enough away
Speaker 2: that we don't remember. So like in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: you had prohibitions, so you had lawlessness and crime in
Speaker 2: the cities and all this stuff. In the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: you had in the late sixties and seventies, you had assassinations,
Speaker 2: you had political assassinations, you had you know, all that
Speaker 2: sort of thing that happened, and then you know, we're
Speaker 2: now in the twenty twenties. We've got the same sort
Speaker 2: of side. We had some political political assassination last year,
Speaker 2: we had other things that were going on, and you've
Speaker 2: got people now not moving from the cities to the suburbs,
Speaker 2: they're moving whole states. And so I think we're kind
Speaker 2: of I'm an optimistic person, so I think things will
Speaker 2: get better.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I don't think this is all Trump's fault. You know,
Speaker 2: I think that he was a symptom. I've often said
Speaker 2: that I think Barack Obama and Donald Trump were two
Speaker 2: sides of the same coin. People wanted to check.
Speaker 1: Voters wanted not just change, they wanted full disruptions. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Obama was one kind of disruption, and then Trump
Speaker 1: was was, you know, another kind of disruption. And I
Speaker 1: don't disagree with that. Yeah, I think there's some truth things.
Speaker 2: My theory is President Obama actually really wanted to belong more.
Speaker 2: You know, he said he was the change agent, and
Speaker 2: I guess he was because he was the first black president.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be in the club, and so he
Speaker 2: wanted to kind of function the way way it always
Speaker 2: had been done. And he strikes me as somebody that
Speaker 2: they thought he was this guy that wanted to change everything,
Speaker 2: but maybe he didn't.
Speaker 1: Now granted he was a blessed I can argue that
Speaker 1: anybody that breaks the ceiling, yes, the first, all firsts
Speaker 1: feel as if they have to be extraordinarily cautious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a bit risk averse. And whether it's political risk
Speaker 1: averseness or cultural risk averseness. You know, there's this great
Speaker 1: line about that I got when I was reporting out
Speaker 1: Biden being the running mate, you know, rather than and
Speaker 1: the line that I kept being told that Barack Obama
Speaker 1: said is I'm enough change and it is always stuck
Speaker 1: with me because you're right. I mean, he chose. I
Speaker 1: think he saw it as, Hey, I can't be too radical,
Speaker 1: I can't be to this because I am breaking a barrier.
Speaker 1: And I think it's true of anybody that's broken a barrier.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you you know you don't want to be
Speaker 1: you don't want to leave the place where nobody that
Speaker 1: looks like you doesn't have a shot again.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think too that he and this is
Speaker 2: one of those woman things, Okay, because I looked at
Speaker 2: a lot of pictures of him as a child, and
Speaker 2: a lot of pictures there. If you notice and you
Speaker 2: go back and look at you pictures of him as
Speaker 2: a child, he was sitting alone a lot. You know,
Speaker 2: if there was a group of kids, he was over
Speaker 2: by himself. It was like, I think he felt very
Speaker 2: you know, it's different now being biracial than it was.
Speaker 2: It's almost like lift it up now being biracial, it's
Speaker 2: very positive in the UAE.
Speaker 1: Well, when he was born it was his parents.
Speaker 2: It was different.
Speaker 1: Relationship was illegal and about the States.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so yeah, so you saw this kind of guy,
Speaker 2: and I think he's been trying to fit in, you know,
Speaker 2: whether it was to go to the right church, marry
Speaker 2: the right person, do the right kind.
Speaker 1: I've always chalked it up to the island mentality, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, he he grew up differently than most of
Speaker 1: us do. You grew up on an island, and you
Speaker 1: have to work with others because you're got to. You're
Speaker 1: all stuck in this island. Good, better and different. By
Speaker 1: the way you'd see it during COVID, right the island
Speaker 1: Nations handled it much better than anybody else did, just
Speaker 1: because they're kind of used to, hey, oh hey we've
Speaker 1: got we've got an outbreak of something. We got to
Speaker 1: be careful or we got to do this. We got
Speaker 1: And Hawaii is such a melt you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about being a melting pot. Hawaii is a melting there
Speaker 1: is nobody's at fifty percent right. You've got a Japanese population,
Speaker 1: a Native Hawaiian population, a North you know, sort of
Speaker 1: expat if you want to call it that, people that
Speaker 1: grew up on the continental United States over there, and
Speaker 1: it's just a it's a it really is a full
Speaker 1: fledged melting pot. So yeah, I think all of that
Speaker 1: is true with him. Well, just like with with Trump,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a different sort of you know,
Speaker 1: I think he also had a lonely job. But because
Speaker 1: here's something that's always bugged me, and it's a bug's
Speaker 1: not the wrong word, but it's an observation you meant
Speaker 1: about Obama. And I'm curious if you notice it was
Speaker 1: about Trump. You know what, you know what you never
Speaker 1: hear about Donald Trump. Childhood friend came to visit him today.
Speaker 1: Guy he went to college with came to visit at
Speaker 1: mar A Lago today. Person he grew up with, he
Speaker 1: went golfing with today. And I don't say that as
Speaker 1: any judgment. It's just interesting. And it's like he also
Speaker 1: went to boarding school. He also sort of I think
Speaker 1: he was raised weirdly isolated from other kids.
Speaker 2: Probably a lot of them are dead, Okay, that are
Speaker 2: is it would be his child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we forget he's out there.
Speaker 2: And we forget that when he came across the bridge
Speaker 2: from Staten Island or wherever it was that he grew
Speaker 2: up to Manhattan, he was a destructor because you didn't
Speaker 2: come over and get into the Manhattan real estate business
Speaker 2: if you didn't have that connection to the Manhattan real
Speaker 2: estate business. And it's so interesting. He's an interesting guy,
Speaker 2: he really is. I mean, I don't like all the
Speaker 2: things that I don't like a lot of the things
Speaker 2: that he says. I don't like that way he presents himself,
Speaker 2: the whole thing about Rob Reiner and then about Mueller,
Speaker 2: when you know he can act right. When he was
Speaker 2: asked about RB. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he was gracious and
Speaker 2: he was kind and he didn't.
Speaker 1: Like her act. Does I tell you when you can't
Speaker 1: fake it when you what what do you mean? I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just like, can't you just not give you
Speaker 1: a hold off a week? I mean, I had a
Speaker 1: boss who had a very strong feelings about Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1: And when Richard Nixon died, and he had worked very
Speaker 1: closely with Nixon Rofe, closely with that version of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, he goes, he said, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say anything until after he's buried, and after all the
Speaker 1: tributes have happened, there was like this. He believed that
Speaker 1: there was like some level of respect, like this was
Speaker 1: not the week to tell you, you know. But when
Speaker 1: it was over, he called an all staff meeting. Let me,
Speaker 1: let's sit down and let me tell you about him.
Speaker 1: And he had some things to say, but there was
Speaker 1: this pay some respect to the dead.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, no, I agree he didn't. LVJ was a horrible person,
Speaker 2: but nobody said anything about it, you know, on the
Speaker 2: day he died, you know. And I just think that
Speaker 2: there's there's like a Jenson Franklin who's a pastor in
Speaker 2: our community, who's part of the faith community. For Trump
Speaker 2: said he has a problem with the compassion gene. But
Speaker 2: but then you also see these really gracious things he
Speaker 2: does with little kids at the Easter egg thing or
Speaker 2: people that he brings into the Oval office so he
Speaker 2: can do it. I just wish he would do it,
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of wish X would or truth
Speaker 2: social whatever you use, go back to one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty characters, because it would you know, it's that last
Speaker 2: line that's the problem. They get you in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he Uh, You're not the first person who said
Speaker 1: I remember I had somebody who worked for him and said,
Speaker 1: I like when you interview him because you keep him
Speaker 1: on message. Because but it's he look someday we'll study
Speaker 1: maybe somebody will study him in science. Trying to figure
Speaker 1: that out, because it he only would have to modify
Speaker 1: his behavior this much, it need be in a better place.
Speaker 1: And the fact that he won't modify his behavior that
Speaker 1: much is also a curiosity. Why, right, he's willing to
Speaker 1: do so many other things transactionally, Why won't you do that?
Speaker 1: Because the benefits you would get if you would do
Speaker 1: that could be pretty big politically, but he chooses not to.
Speaker 2: But I do think that so far the second term
Speaker 2: is much better than the first term.
Speaker 1: And I do think that really that voters. The voters
Speaker 1: are agreeing with you on that his numbers are worse
Speaker 1: now than they were anytime during the first term.
Speaker 2: Well that may at the moment, you know, pulling his
Speaker 2: snapshots anyway.
Speaker 1: True in this war is not popular coupled with affordability,
Speaker 1: it's a mess.
Speaker 2: I mean, I obviously this election is the Democrats to lose. Okay,
Speaker 2: the Democrats should pick up in November. We've had what
Speaker 2: was it two thousand and two, I guess the last
Speaker 2: time that this card.
Speaker 1: And that was arguably a war, right, it was the war.
Speaker 2: It was war time, and it was we had been attacked,
Speaker 2: and so you know, it's it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 2: how it plays out. I just don't I don't pay
Speaker 2: attention to poles as much as I used to because
Speaker 2: the just you don't know if they're AI generated, you
Speaker 2: don't know where they come from and what they do.
Speaker 2: And I know, I don't answer the polling calls that
Speaker 2: I get. And I know I'm a weirdo, you know,
Speaker 2: because I'm a political person, But but I just don't know.
Speaker 2: It is funny though, because my daughter will I'll sometimes
Speaker 2: get calls from my daughter and it's always a left
Speaker 2: linging poll, and so I do answer that one.
Speaker 1: So I just try to mess it up, all right,
Speaker 1: let me get you out of here on this. Now
Speaker 1: that Miami's going to be dominating college football again and
Speaker 1: the Big Ten keeps winning national titles, is Kirby Smart
Speaker 1: on the hot seat yet? I mean, how many? How long?
Speaker 1: How long does this drought? How expected are you, as
Speaker 1: Bulldog fans for this winning now like this? How much?
Speaker 1: How much does he how much time does he buy?
Speaker 2: I don't disagree that we're in a drought. We won
Speaker 2: the SEC championship, and you know it's it's I think
Speaker 2: Georgia Bold. He's there as long as he wants to
Speaker 2: be there, because the thing about Georgia is we don't
Speaker 2: like to hire coaches that have already made it. You know.
Speaker 2: We like to hire coaches we can grow, and that's
Speaker 2: what that's what we like to do.
Speaker 1: But I'm so you've had better success when you've hired
Speaker 1: coaches that can grow versus right. I mean, both both
Speaker 1: Ricked and Smart weren't head coaches. The first head coaching
Speaker 1: job was Georgia right for both cases, yes.
Speaker 2: Right, and Vince Dooley too.
Speaker 1: You know, way back when well, I you know, I
Speaker 1: one of the weird things about Miami and Georgia is
Speaker 1: that they've both been big college football powers off and
Speaker 1: on for the last thirty years, and they never play.
Speaker 1: It really bugs me that Miami and Georgia. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was looking forward and then to Miami playing Georgia
Speaker 1: Carson Beck's return, and yet you guys blew it against
Speaker 1: Ole Miss. I mean, you know, you ruined what would
Speaker 1: have been a rare unique I think it had been.
Speaker 1: I mean, Miami, it only played Old Miss like three times.
Speaker 1: It is strange how in the hotbed of the South
Speaker 1: that Miami and some of these SEC schools have rarely played.
Speaker 2: Don't count the SEC out and our applications are way
Speaker 2: up because we handled all the problems with the protests
Speaker 2: better than anybody else. And and look, All Miss is
Speaker 2: fantastic because they built this back. They have the best tailgating.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever tailgated.
Speaker 1: I have, I've been there. I look, look, all I'll
Speaker 1: say is an ACC apologist is the only difference between
Speaker 1: the ACC and the secs. You guys got better stadiums, okay,
Speaker 1: and you've got better tailgates. I will concede that. Whether
Speaker 1: it's Fayetteville, whether it's Oxford, whether it's Athens, Auburn, I
Speaker 1: will concede college station. You know these adopted SEC towns
Speaker 1: that I still can't quite believe their SEC town I
Speaker 1: will give you that you guys have better stadiums, but
Speaker 1: I just question whether the football is actually that much better.
Speaker 1: That's all right, well it you.
Speaker 2: Know, the numbers back it up. We're going to see
Speaker 2: what happens though with n I L I mean, and
Speaker 2: all the things that are going on there. I'm so
Speaker 2: glad that Rick Saban was on that Nick Saban was
Speaker 2: on that committee though, because he's you know, he knows.
Speaker 1: How to do it so well. Look, I appreciate that
Speaker 1: the president wants to insert himself in this. This is
Speaker 1: a congress job. Congress has to get involved. This is
Speaker 1: a this is they've got to get involved. University president's
Speaker 1: got to go in some ways. The president is a
Speaker 1: distraction from this. He cannot solve this with an executive order.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, my my friend Saxby Chambliss, he's living
Speaker 2: the life of Riley Man.
Speaker 1: He's got he's got this the handicapp down to he
Speaker 1: had the most handicap for a long time.
Speaker 2: But he also had he dealt with the PGA live thing, right,
Speaker 2: which is cool. And then he's doing nil too, so
Speaker 2: he's he's really staying relevant. We're going to talk tomorrow actually,
Speaker 2: and then he's going to be on the show Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And oh interesting, Well, that that is something I'm gonna
Speaker 1: if you're going to be I'm gonna have to check
Speaker 1: that out. I was always curious about mister Chambliss, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know he's still as active as as
Speaker 1: you described.
Speaker 2: And he's recovered from the stroke he had several years
Speaker 2: ago and he's just doing great.
Speaker 1: Well. Martha, this was a pleasure, And I have no
Speaker 1: idea whether your listeners would want a home in a way, but.
Speaker 2: You know, let me know I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 2: We'll have you on sometime, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Martha, got you podcast time Machine time. So let
Speaker 1: me tell you. I'm not gonna lie to you. This
Speaker 1: was not the easiest week to decide what was worth
Speaker 1: your time doing a deep dive on And I say
Speaker 1: you were time because that's how I try to look
Speaker 1: at these things. What is something that I think, what
Speaker 1: are a what's what's the topic that people, you know,
Speaker 1: they know they know something, but they don't really know
Speaker 1: as much about it as they probably should. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I try to choose it right in
Speaker 1: those terms, which I won't go with the most obvious.
Speaker 1: And this week, I mean, I'll be honest, there was
Speaker 1: just a ton of anniversaries that hit this week. In history,
Speaker 1: I mean, April nineteenth, seventeen seventy five, the battles of
Speaker 1: Lexting and Concord, Right, that's that, you know, when protests
Speaker 1: becomes a revolution April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five, the assassination
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, the Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City bombing and domestic terrorism. And in culture April fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, Jackie Robinson steps onto a baseball field
Speaker 1: for the Brooklyn Dodgors. April sixty, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan steps off the court for the very last
Speaker 1: time as a Washington Wizard. Yeah, he probably forgot, that's right,
Speaker 1: he did play for the Washington Wizards. I've never forgotten it.
Speaker 1: And I have the basketball cards in pas say ten
Speaker 1: holders to prove it. Okay, but I define, but I
Speaker 1: diverge and look. And while all of those could easily
Speaker 1: be worth its own dime, dive and we could have
Speaker 1: tentacles of the impact the long term impacts of all
Speaker 1: of them, it's a group of exiles on a beach
Speaker 1: in Cuba that we're about to define the limits of
Speaker 1: American power that I want to focus on, because there's
Speaker 1: echoes here for the current situation in Iran and of
Speaker 1: course what could be coming next in Cuba. So let
Speaker 1: me start with that. So we're doing the Bay of
Speaker 1: Pigs in case you're wondering, and it's the lung shadow
Speaker 1: of this. Before we get to the invasion, we have
Speaker 1: to start with something a bit uncomfortable. The United States
Speaker 1: didn't just lose Cuba, it misread it. For years, the
Speaker 1: US backed a gentleman by the name of Flujencio Batista
Speaker 1: until he became indefensible. So when Fidel Castro takes power
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine, Washington doesn't immediately slam the door
Speaker 1: and working with Castro. But it wasn't warm either. Castro
Speaker 1: comes and visits the United States, but Dwight Eisenhower refuses
Speaker 1: to meet with him. He goes golfing and Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: meets with him instead the vice president, and it tells
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know. This wasn't a clean break,
Speaker 1: but it also wasn't a real opening. By the time
Speaker 1: Washington decides that Castro is a problem, the relationship is
Speaker 1: already slipping away. Now I have my own little interesting
Speaker 1: history here, a little bit. My grandfather I stumbled across
Speaker 1: some things he was building sugarcane help. He was an
Speaker 1: engineer on sugarcane plants that they were building in Cuba
Speaker 1: in the mid to late fifties. And one of the
Speaker 1: stories he says is he said he would be visited
Speaker 1: by Cia folks every once in a while to ask
Speaker 1: them about Castro because he was in the role part.
Speaker 1: So he met Castro. And in order for Castro's rebels
Speaker 1: to sort of leave your business this alone, if you
Speaker 1: agreed to just put a photo up in your sort
Speaker 1: of trailer office, if you can think about those trailer
Speaker 1: offices that are parts of these you know sort of
Speaker 1: you know, his factories are being built right and things
Speaker 1: like that. And because I remember I found this eight
Speaker 1: by ten glossy of my grandfather while we were cleaning
Speaker 1: some stuff up. Fidel Castro was like, Grandpa, what's this
Speaker 1: And he said it was basically it was basically proof
Speaker 1: that you that you paid to get left alone. But
Speaker 1: that was the point he would make. He told me
Speaker 1: that he would make to these CIA sort of whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call them, officers, people that were just
Speaker 1: trying to find out information, What could you tell us
Speaker 1: about Castro? And he'd say, Hey, it's not a good guy,
Speaker 1: so be careful. But there was a real back and forth.
Speaker 1: How much should they be they were they were trying
Speaker 1: to see it was it worth sort of wrapping their
Speaker 1: arms around Castro? And it was a constant back and
Speaker 1: forth at that time. But let's zoom out, okay, because
Speaker 1: none of this is happening in isolation. This is early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, when the Bay of Pigs itself happens.
Speaker 1: It's a world that's still rattled by Spotnik and shaped
Speaker 1: by the fear of a missile gap that the new
Speaker 1: young president John Kennedy had run on. So Cold War
Speaker 1: tensions are super high, and just months after the Bay
Speaker 1: of Pigs August nineteen sixty one, they'd be construction of
Speaker 1: the actual Berlin Wall begins, right, So the Bay of
Speaker 1: Pigs happens just before that sort of iron curtain becomes
Speaker 1: permanent for a period of time, Ambiguity fading sides hardening
Speaker 1: in Cuba, ninety miles from Florida, is now part of
Speaker 1: that global equation.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One thing that people need to remember about the Bay
Speaker 1: of Pigs invasion is that it wasn't a It wasn't
Speaker 1: Kennedy's plan. This plan didn't begin with Kennedy. It begins
Speaker 1: with 'white Eisenhower in March of nineteen sixty he's still president,
Speaker 1: and he directs the CIA to develop a plan to
Speaker 1: remove Castro. So by the time John F. Kennedy takes office,
Speaker 1: this is already a presidential approved operation and the CIA, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't the CIA of today. This is the CIA event,
Speaker 1: a much different CIA than we had now. It's coming
Speaker 1: off what appears to be a winning streak. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three Iranian coup, something that the time Machine tackled
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. Guatemala nineteen fifty four was a
Speaker 1: successful CIA inspired coup. Small operations, weak resistance, quick wins,
Speaker 1: so it created a bit of a trap. Success becomes
Speaker 1: confidence for the CIA. Confidence becomes assumption, and assumption becomes strategy.
Speaker 1: They think they've seen this before. Well they hadn't and
Speaker 1: they were fighting the last war. Well, Kennedy walks in.
Speaker 1: He's the youngest elected president in American history at the time,
Speaker 1: forty three, so he's new, he's unproven, and he's under pressure.
Speaker 1: And this plan, it was already moving. The training camps
Speaker 1: were already happening, the exiles to participate were already recruited,
Speaker 1: the logistics were in place. So the machinery is running.
Speaker 1: So here's the problem Kennedy's facing. It's easier to approve
Speaker 1: something already in motion than to stop it. This is
Speaker 1: what happened to Barack Obama and Bush at the end
Speaker 1: of his term, decided not to approve an increase in
Speaker 1: troops in Afghanistan and let it. Let it be a
Speaker 1: decision the new president makes. Well, he wasn't crazy about it,
Speaker 1: but what was he going to do stop it? It
Speaker 1: was too early in his presidency to do that. So
Speaker 1: what does he do. He ends up adding more troops
Speaker 1: to it. So this is how a previous president can
Speaker 1: somehow tie the hands of an incoming president. And we've
Speaker 1: seen it. This isn't the This is arguably one of
Speaker 1: the earth first times that this happens that you see
Speaker 1: it become a problem for that president. So it is
Speaker 1: easier to approve it, that's something that's already in motion,
Speaker 1: than to stop it. So he doesn't cancel it, but
Speaker 1: he does try to shape it. And this is where
Speaker 1: he makes a mistake. The plan depends on air superiority.
Speaker 1: The CIA uses B twenty six bombers pointed to painted
Speaker 1: to look like their Castro's plans. The cover story that
Speaker 1: it's a mutiny, but the strikes on April fifteen miss
Speaker 1: some key targets, Castro's air force survives and the cover collapses.
Speaker 1: At the United Nations, Adelie Stevenson, the second defends the
Speaker 1: story that he doesn't know is false. When he learns
Speaker 1: the truth, he's humiliated and he reportedly considered resigning. That's
Speaker 1: the cost of plausible deniability. So now Kennedy has a choice,
Speaker 1: does he escalate or pull back? Well, he cancels the
Speaker 1: second air strike, and that's the moment the operation and dies. Now,
Speaker 1: the entire plan rested on one assumption that the Cuban
Speaker 1: people were going to rise up. They don't because by
Speaker 1: then many of the opponents had already fled. The bombings
Speaker 1: ended up rallying support for Castro, and Castro moved fast.
Speaker 1: He arrests more than one hundred thousand suspected opponents, dissidence
Speaker 1: clergy journalists, CIA networks. He clamps down art. The invasion
Speaker 1: doesn't just fail to spark an uprising, it does almost
Speaker 1: the opposite. It helps make one impossible. So April seventeenth,
Speaker 1: Brigade twenty five oh six Lands includes fourteen hundred Cuban exiles.
Speaker 1: They believe they're going home at the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 1: Bahia de Cochinos was actually named not for pigs, but
Speaker 1: likely for a local fish kind of called a hogfish,
Speaker 1: got shorthanded the Bay of Picks. History gave it a
Speaker 1: better name right, the Bay of Hogfish. By the way,
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs ended up giving me my favorite
Speaker 1: laugh line from the nineteen eighties. Being a Green Bay
Speaker 1: Packer fan, the great late Pte Axe Thelm then, I
Speaker 1: write a sportswriter for Newsweek Previews. Back then when Tampa
Speaker 1: Bay and Green Bay meant in football twice a year
Speaker 1: because they were both in the NFC Central, he started
Speaker 1: referring to the matchup as the Bay of Pigs. But
Speaker 1: I digress, so now we're back in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: within forty eight hours. By April nineteenth, the mission is over, defeated,
Speaker 1: exiles captured. And it wasn't because of cowardice. It was
Speaker 1: because the assumptions were wrong from the start. The aftershocks
Speaker 1: we're still living with them. The consequences don't stop there.
Speaker 1: The failure ends up strengthening Castro shapes. How Nikita Krushchev
Speaker 1: sees Kennedy, that perception carries forward a year later, Soviet
Speaker 1: missiles in Cuba they test the young president again. Most
Speaker 1: dangerous moment in the Cold War may not have ever happened,
Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis, if not for the failure of
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs invasion. So that was first evidence
Speaker 1: that the Bay of Pigs didn't stay. In nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: more than eleven hundred members of Brigade twenty five oh
Speaker 1: six are captured. Eventually they're released in exchange for fifty
Speaker 1: three million dollars in food, in medicine. But the defining
Speaker 1: moment came after in Miami, before tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: Cuban exiles, Kennedy receives the brigade's flag. He's not yet
Speaker 1: they're not angry at Kennedy yet, and he makes a
Speaker 1: promise that it will be returned to a free Havana.
Speaker 1: It never has and that's when failure becomes memory. It
Speaker 1: got turned into a betrayal for Cuban exiles. This wasn't
Speaker 1: about just the United States. This is about John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: the belief. He encouraged it, he launched it, and then
Speaker 1: he didn't follow through. That's the way the Cuban axile
Speaker 1: community saw it, and that became a political identity and
Speaker 1: it would stain the Democrat in the eyes of Cuban
Speaker 1: exiles for a lifetime. Now, it didn't happen right away.
Speaker 1: Cubans didn't automatically become Republican right away. It took time.
Speaker 1: In the sixties, the Cuban American voters were still split.
Speaker 1: The memories there, but it's not yet partisan. That changes.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan wins roughly eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the Cuban American vote. He ends up carrying Florida decisively
Speaker 1: as state Jimmy Carter carried in seventy six. He activates
Speaker 1: the identity and from that point on, Florida becomes something different,
Speaker 1: not just a southern state, but a Cold War state
Speaker 1: shaped by exile, anti communism and memory. And that framework
Speaker 1: expands and later with the waves of immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Speaker 1: plug into really the same political model. And if you
Speaker 1: want to see the impact, there's probably no better campaign
Speaker 1: here than the year two thousand. Florida's decided by five
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven votes, a state shaped in part
Speaker 1: by the identity born in nineteen sixty one. So when
Speaker 1: you think about this week in history, you think about revolutions, assassinations,
Speaker 1: cultural breakthroughs. Right, the revolutions we just talked about, the
Speaker 1: assassinations Lincoln, the cultural breakthroughs Jackie Robinson, it was moments
Speaker 1: where individuals redefine what's possible. With the Bay of Pigs,
Speaker 1: it's where a group of exiles revealed the limits of
Speaker 1: something else, American power and the power of political memory.
Speaker 1: Because every time a candidate steps onto a stage in
Speaker 1: Miami today, they're not just campaigning, they're still walking in
Speaker 1: the shadow of that beach, the Cochinas, the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 1: Ass chuck. All right, it's some ass chuck time, So
Speaker 1: let's dig in. First, one comes from David S. Colchester, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and he writes, Dear Chuck, thanks for the podcast when
Speaker 1: news breaks Part two often these days, I appreciate your
Speaker 1: reasoned perspective. Well, thank you. My question is, when a
Speaker 1: US president can launch massive military actions that deplete our
Speaker 1: arsenal and potentially leaving our military vulnerable, will Congress realistically
Speaker 1: vote to prevent rebuilding? If not, is the power of
Speaker 1: the purse still a viable check on the executive branch.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a fair question, David, because I know
Speaker 1: if I were a member of Congress and I didn't
Speaker 1: approve of this war, I probably would feel uncomfortable not
Speaker 1: replenishing the stockpiles in the Pentagon. And so you're absolutely
Speaker 1: right to sort of, you know, I would, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like to think i'd be a rational member. And
Speaker 1: you know, it is it is. This is I think
Speaker 1: the the difficulty in using your vote in Congress as
Speaker 1: a protest Bihle and it and it it is a
Speaker 1: way that sometimes presidents know how to jam Congress with this.
Speaker 1: But this is a fair I think this is a
Speaker 1: fair observation. There are no This proves to you there's
Speaker 1: no good options left on this right at number one,
Speaker 1: you just you got to you gotta win the argument
Speaker 1: at the ballot box. Number two, You've got to figure
Speaker 1: out how to I think that it's clear that even
Speaker 1: the war powers act as it stands, we're still got
Speaker 1: questions of whether it's constitutional or not because it's really
Speaker 1: not been fully litigated. That even that gives too much
Speaker 1: leeway and takes away so much of Congress's authority when
Speaker 1: it comes to who makes war, and this you know
Speaker 1: when I don't. What I don't understand is why there's
Speaker 1: not even further attempts to restrict I mean, it goes
Speaker 1: back to why did the founder You know, if you
Speaker 1: care about founders intent, and there's a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends on the right care about founders intent, well, the
Speaker 1: founders never you know, the whole point of this is
Speaker 1: they didn't want you know, they all had memories of
Speaker 1: what these monarchs in Europe did. Remember how I view monarchs.
Speaker 1: They're just dictators with a nicer name. But they made
Speaker 1: They would decide willy nilly when to go to war,
Speaker 1: and they would never send their own folks to war.
Speaker 1: They would send the their populations to war, and you'd
Speaker 1: have to fight on behalf of some treaty that the
Speaker 1: king or your queen signed with another king or queen,
Speaker 1: and maybe that treaty had to do with marriage, and
Speaker 1: maybe that treaty had nothing to do with anything other
Speaker 1: than that, and you would end up going to war
Speaker 1: because you had ties to the right family or wrong family,
Speaker 1: depending on the given time. The point is is that
Speaker 1: the founders did not want an American president to be
Speaker 1: able to do the same thing, and yet in theory
Speaker 1: that's what we already have. So I think there needs
Speaker 1: to be better clarification here, and that the War Powers
Speaker 1: Act doesn't do it in sixty days is probably too much.
Speaker 1: It probably needs to be I think a commander in
Speaker 1: chief needs to be able to respond in defense of
Speaker 1: the United States. Hard stop was a run at all
Speaker 1: in defense of the in the immediate needs to defend
Speaker 1: the United States and the immediate It's hard to come
Speaker 1: up with evidence that it is. But look, you point
Speaker 1: out a real gap here in that, Yes, Congress is
Speaker 1: the power of the purse, but basically they would have
Speaker 1: to they're cutting off their nose despite their faces. Essentially
Speaker 1: what you're pointing out if they decide not to replenish
Speaker 1: our stockpiles, because then We're suddenly more vulnerable and that's
Speaker 1: also bad. Thanks for the lose lose question there, David.
Speaker 1: But it's an important thing you pointed out, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't sooner, so thank you. Zach has an
Speaker 1: next question. He writes, Hey, Chuck, the Zach from Cleveland,
Speaker 1: your resident Buckeye. I have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: want to claim resident Buckeye Zach, just so you know,
Speaker 1: but I'll let you be a resident buck Eye. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be like my buddy TK. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to come up with very specific title names
Speaker 1: to be the to be the resident. Maybe you're the
Speaker 1: resident buck Eye from Cleveland. Names act anyway, But I digress.
Speaker 1: You believe this is your fourth time getting a question
Speaker 1: on the show, and if so, congratulations. We will start looking.
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta find some merch We're gonna start
Speaker 1: working on that. But he said, just a quick one
Speaker 1: here for you. Why is the market not really reacting
Speaker 1: to this war? I keep hearing it's probably the worst
Speaker 1: ever oil crisis, or it will be, but I thought
Speaker 1: the markets would fare worse, even though gas is four
Speaker 1: dollars is because of market manipulations. Axtra starting a correct
Speaker 1: or is it just too early to tell go guards?
Speaker 1: Is that the accepted sort of shortening of the Guardians?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I still struggle. I still say the
Speaker 1: eye word every once in a while. Guards. I think
Speaker 1: we all agree Guardians, the fact that they're named after
Speaker 1: bridge statues guarding traffic. I don't know's. I know it's
Speaker 1: harder and harder to copyright nicknames than ever. I mean,
Speaker 1: trust me, I went through the process with my with
Speaker 1: GW and the Revolutionaries, not exactly, I mean, go revs.
Speaker 1: We like that it's a little close to REVS. I
Speaker 1: don't know if everybody loves that, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: it could have been worse, and I guess that's probably
Speaker 1: the way to look at the Guardians. It could have
Speaker 1: been worse. Let me do it with the question yourself,
Speaker 1: because I'd like to think I dealt with a little
Speaker 1: bit of monologue. I I think that there's I think
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of of AI. There's still a
Speaker 1: sort of an the AI bubble that sort of kept
Speaker 1: things up. It does take longer for the oil shocks
Speaker 1: to break through because a lot more countries have been
Speaker 1: smarter about keeping a stockpile and things like that, and
Speaker 1: there's still some diversification and energy. But I do think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the market can make every predictor look like
Speaker 1: an idiot. And I'm taping this before the market's open
Speaker 1: this morning. You may be listening to it after the markets,
Speaker 1: but I have a feeling this is the week that
Speaker 1: we start to see the to see the real negative
Speaker 1: impact start to start to hit. And then you know
Speaker 1: we're going to get You'll start to get the next
Speaker 1: you know, that next round of quarterly earnings reports that come,
Speaker 1: that'll that'll be coming, you know, May and June and
Speaker 1: all of that. That's you know, that's where you'll start
Speaker 1: to see. I mean that Michigan consumer confidence number lowest
Speaker 1: ever essentially since they started taking it. It's coming. I
Speaker 1: hate the you know, so just don't don't get rid
Speaker 1: of the sandbags. You know, you may think that you know,
Speaker 1: you've been told to prepare for a category five storm.
Speaker 1: Oh the storm. Maybe it's not coming. Don't take down
Speaker 1: the sand bags, don't take off the ply one. Next
Speaker 1: question comes from John and mil Milwaukee. Hey, you said,
Speaker 1: Democrats responding to Republican redistaputing with similar tactics may not
Speaker 1: be the right approach, But is there an argument for
Speaker 1: using every available tool while they still have the power
Speaker 1: to do so? More broadly, as political norms continue to
Speaker 1: be tested, do you think Congress will step in to
Speaker 1: assert its role as a check or are we moving
Speaker 1: into a period where those guardrails are even weaker For contexts,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming at this from the far left. I
Speaker 1: vote a Republican from seventy six to eight. Just trying
Speaker 1: to understand where things stand. John and Milwaukee. Well, can
Speaker 1: I go back to another point in the redistricting thing.
Speaker 1: I think that you have a better mandate if you win,
Speaker 1: if you win space with fair maps, if you have
Speaker 1: to rig the maps to get control of Congress, is
Speaker 1: it going to be a majority? That is take that
Speaker 1: that is that has I mean, I think it has
Speaker 1: legitimacy in the eyes of the public. That's what I
Speaker 1: would fear, and that should be a fear. And I
Speaker 1: go back, Look, I get I'm specifically I specifically focus
Speaker 1: on this Virginia thing, obviously because I live here. But
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of it's a lot of effort,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of political capital being spent for two districts,
Speaker 1: and if two districts are the difference between winning power
Speaker 1: and losing power. You're not going to have it is
Speaker 1: literally control and name only, so you know it's it's
Speaker 1: a It's one of those things that I just think
Speaker 1: if you're looking to rep do you want to be
Speaker 1: the party that can repair things are not? And if
Speaker 1: you're also if it's all reactionary, I just I don't
Speaker 1: think the public is going to fully embrace that either.
Speaker 1: I understand you got to look it's I think the
Speaker 1: real lesson here is use power better when you have
Speaker 1: it right. And Democrats have watched it the last couple
Speaker 1: of times they've had it. I can't botch it this
Speaker 1: next time when they have when they get all three
Speaker 1: or it's just impossible to ever succeed when you have
Speaker 1: all three. It's not like any party can hold it
Speaker 1: for more than two years. The question is what do
Speaker 1: you get done into you turn the corner? And I
Speaker 1: think sometimes we look at and I think it's fair.
Speaker 1: I think some some on the left look at the
Speaker 1: election of Trump and sixteen and think, well, it turns
Speaker 1: out Obama should have done more, should have pushed harder.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have if Trump was coming anyway, what would
Speaker 1: you have done if you knew that? Right? So I
Speaker 1: guess that that's going to be that's going to be
Speaker 1: one of the arguments. But as for Congress, I think
Speaker 1: that's a I think that's a guardrail. I think it's
Speaker 1: so weak that it can't get weaker that I do
Speaker 1: think you're going to have more and more members of
Speaker 1: Congress getting elected hoping to stop imperial presidencies. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: maybe I'm being Pollyannish here, but I you know.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: We have we have when you go through as many,
Speaker 1: the more one term presidents we have, the more we're
Speaker 1: going to look to strengthen the other elected institution, the
Speaker 1: legislative branch. So I think that even though the presidency
Speaker 1: keeps getting strengthened, one term presidencies or a sign of
Speaker 1: weakness of the president. So in theory, Congress should have
Speaker 1: should be able to accumulate its power back. But I
Speaker 1: don't have a good I'm going to answer for you,
Speaker 1: because I get it you have one side that's willing
Speaker 1: to cheat. I just don't think and break norms and
Speaker 1: rules and all those things. And I just you know,
Speaker 1: I believe that that the elections that the Democrats have
Speaker 1: succeeded in are because they've made the case to this
Speaker 1: group of voters in the middle. They're not in the
Speaker 1: middle because of they're ideologically. They're in the middle because
Speaker 1: they should. They don't expect to get one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of of everything. They understand that this is essentially a
Speaker 1: compromise system, and they don't like the hardcore partisanship, and
Speaker 1: they keep voting against any party that behaves too partisanally.
Speaker 1: And there's a difference between partisanship and ideology, right you
Speaker 1: You know, Bertie Sanders is a good example of this.
Speaker 1: He's super progressive, but he wasn't so progressive that he
Speaker 1: said no to the to basically the Mitt Romney Obama
Speaker 1: version of how you do healthcare. He doesn't believe in it,
Speaker 1: he doesn't think it's good, but he didn't let the
Speaker 1: enemy the perfect be the enemy of an improvement, and
Speaker 1: that was what our fact. Look, you can come from
Speaker 1: far left to far right, but if you incrementally feel
Speaker 1: as if you're making incremental progress, do you just stand
Speaker 1: on ceremony or do you try to help the majority function?
Speaker 1: And I think that's I think that's Democrats have had
Speaker 1: more success winning over that voter because the Republicans have
Speaker 1: been behaving so parsonally, and when Democrats start behaving the
Speaker 1: same way as they did during the first two years
Speaker 1: of Biden's presidency, it's why there was such a revolt
Speaker 1: by the same group of voters the other way. It's
Speaker 1: not that they liked the policies of the right, they
Speaker 1: didn't like the hardcore partisanship on either side. Next one
Speaker 1: comes from Jane New York. He says, check love your
Speaker 1: weekly top five list, especially when you revisit the year's
Speaker 1: most flippable Senate races. But I'm beginning to wonder whether
Speaker 1: the top five might soon be sentenced. Tone I am too,
Speaker 1: and am therefore more curious about the races that would
Speaker 1: make up slots six through ten. I like where you're thinking,
Speaker 1: and let's just say this is an idea that I
Speaker 1: might put into practice sooner than I realized. Anyway, if
Speaker 1: you were going to compile a six through ten list today,
Speaker 1: would you be more inclined to include Democratic health seats
Speaker 1: like Georgia, New Hampshire and Michigan, Or might you be
Speaker 1: more inclined to include Republican health seats like Texas, Iowa,
Speaker 1: and Florida. My opinion six or ten is where we
Speaker 1: will have see the Senate mapp changing the most in
Speaker 1: real time. That's an excellent observation, and I think you're
Speaker 1: right right. I think right now both Georgia and New
Speaker 1: Hampshire they're not in the in, you know, and there's
Speaker 1: no way I would have them outside the top ten.
Speaker 1: I'm not a If you know a race is going
Speaker 1: to be decided by less than ten points, it's probably
Speaker 1: in the top ten, right And when I start thinking
Speaker 1: about the less than ten point center races, you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm not one hundred percent sure North
Speaker 1: Carolina stay single digits anymore. I think Cooper's got that
Speaker 1: big of the lead. Look Whatley will spend money and
Speaker 1: one will assume the partisan stuff. But if this war
Speaker 1: keeps going as badly as it does, I could easily
Speaker 1: see a Bob Casey like, not quite the Bob Casey
Speaker 1: size of victory over rick a citting senator in Rix
Speaker 1: s Aintrum, but I could I could see a fifty
Speaker 1: six forty four race there. But going down the rest
Speaker 1: of the Senate map sort of in order right now
Speaker 1: where my head is at right, the next one that's
Speaker 1: most likely to flip would be main right, that's too.
Speaker 1: The next one for me is probably Ohio. Now that's three.
Speaker 1: The next one after that I would go ahead and
Speaker 1: put Alaska at four, and then you know, right then
Speaker 1: you then you sit there is at Michigan because the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary is still so unstable or is it Texas
Speaker 1: or the Republican primary is still unstable? Right, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say if corn and wins, I put Michigan there.
Speaker 1: If but if Si ed else, I'll do all sied wins,
Speaker 1: then I might put Michigan there too, right, so you
Speaker 1: have that. I'm not I don't think Miss I am
Speaker 1: surprised at how little national the Washington Republicans are viewing,
Speaker 1: how little they're They're spending more time in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: than they are Minnesota, and I think that's just a mistake.
Speaker 1: I think they have a better shot at flipping Minnesota
Speaker 1: than do New Hampshire. I think Pappas, I think, especially
Speaker 1: if a more progressive lieutenant governor who you know, the
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor, the Tim Walls, who's not very popular in
Speaker 1: Minnesota right now, and that's who Peggy Flann again, maybe
Speaker 1: I think Michelle Tafoya, Peggy Flanagan. I think Republicans are
Speaker 1: a better shot oft Tafoya upsetting flannagain than so New
Speaker 1: New upsetting Pappas. But I get that New Hampshire on
Speaker 1: a partisan scale looks slightly more, you know, has a
Speaker 1: higher floor for Republicans and Minnesota does. But either way,
Speaker 1: I expect those to be single digit races. So they
Speaker 1: sit out there, you know, I do think Minnesota is
Speaker 1: the sort of in any other year would probably be
Speaker 1: getting a little more attention. But I am I am surprised,
Speaker 1: and clovers are will probably guarantees that that she'll carry
Speaker 1: everybody over the finish line on the DEMB side. And
Speaker 1: then may be why they look and would rather have
Speaker 1: New Hampshire because you have a Republican incumbent that's likely
Speaker 1: to win reelection in Kelly a Ya. Who remember in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire they run every two years and she'll be
Speaker 1: the top of the ticket. But you start looking around, right,
Speaker 1: Iowa looks like it's gonna be a single digit race.
Speaker 1: Hey what about Eugene Vinman down in Florida? Right, He's
Speaker 1: raised a ton of money. I'm a bit skeptical, but
Speaker 1: could I see it become a single digit race?
Speaker 2: I could.
Speaker 1: There's Nebraska, which looks like it's definitely I think it's
Speaker 1: more likely to be five points or less no matter
Speaker 1: what they're so, and we haven't gotten to Kansas. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen that race mature yet. There's Montana. So to
Speaker 1: sort of get at the heart of your question, you
Speaker 1: have made six through ten. That's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to really sort of I can't
Speaker 1: just spitball it because I sit here and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we got and some of this is still undeveloped, right,
Speaker 1: I want to see where it can. I still feel
Speaker 1: like we're not done yet with Kansas, so we get there.
Speaker 1: But what a great idea and look for it, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of how do we say that? And for this
Speaker 1: week's top five, it's the next five? I don't know,
Speaker 1: Lauren and I will work on that, coming up with
Speaker 1: something for that. But it's a good idea. Next question
Speaker 1: comes from Troy says, here's my idea for the NBA.
Speaker 1: Eliminate conferences and divisions, move to a shorter home and
Speaker 1: away schedule, Take the top sixteen teams for the playoffs,
Speaker 1: regardless of vocation. To make up for fewer games at
Speaker 1: a preseason, single elimination tournament with semifinals on Christmas to
Speaker 1: drive fan interest in revenue. It could also create multiple
Speaker 1: championship opportunities each season, tournament, regular season or playoffs. Troy,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the Champions League a little bit in
Speaker 1: Europe and all the various European leagues. Look, this is
Speaker 1: an I don't I like what you're what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: The reason, you know, this biggest impediment in his owners
Speaker 1: make owners get to pocket the money that takes place
Speaker 1: in their arenas. So taking away opportunities in their own
Speaker 1: arenas is just not on the table. So we all
Speaker 1: know they probably should shrink the regular season schedule, but
Speaker 1: they won't. And you know, you're right to find other
Speaker 1: ways to replace it. Is it tournaments? Maybe that doesn't.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was thinking about something else about
Speaker 1: the NBA, and I was wondering. You know, I was
Speaker 1: watching John Rahm play at the Masters, and I was like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a chance. But you know, every everything
Speaker 1: he moves up right, there's other things you play for
Speaker 1: in the Masters. If you win, you get into the
Speaker 1: certain I think if it's if you're in the top twenty,
Speaker 1: you automatically get an invite the next year. I think
Speaker 1: then there's certainly you get there's different financial rewards depending
Speaker 1: on the place you finish, and so it got me thinking,
Speaker 1: is there a way to create a financial reward for
Speaker 1: players based on their regular season? You know that that essentially,
Speaker 1: just like with golf, if you finish thirty fifth, you
Speaker 1: make more money than if you finish thirty six. So there's,
Speaker 1: in theory, an incentive to keep playing hard. So if
Speaker 1: there is more money on the table, more bonus money,
Speaker 1: more this money, more that money. Maybe it's maybe it's
Speaker 1: the playoff TV revenue that players get, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a pool of it that all players get to
Speaker 1: get some of it depending on where their team finishes
Speaker 1: in the overall standings of the league. But for if
Speaker 1: you if you you know right now, it's the franchises
Speaker 1: that I've on the incentive and the players have no
Speaker 1: skin in the game, right if they're you know, the
Speaker 1: players play hard, I've I don't. I don't sit here
Speaker 1: and say the players aren't playing hard. They all are
Speaker 1: playing hard. It is the coaches being ordered by the
Speaker 1: GMS and the and the and the team presidents to
Speaker 1: not play certain players to keep them out, you know,
Speaker 1: to bench them in the fourth quarter. Players would fight
Speaker 1: and push back harder if there were financial penalties for
Speaker 1: losing a more likely to lose a game. So you know,
Speaker 1: is there something to borrow from golf that keeps people
Speaker 1: playing competitively even when they have no shot at winning
Speaker 1: the tournament. Just something to think about. But look, there's
Speaker 1: a million ideas to fix this. Hey, Adam Silver, just
Speaker 1: pick one and do it. Thank you, buddy. Last question,
Speaker 1: I love this. I'm going to call you John from
Speaker 1: Cincinnati because of the damn HBO show. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: don't like that. Maybe you do. Let me know. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm still waiting for I didn't get my lyrics.
Speaker 1: We didn't start the fire lyrics. One of you still
Speaker 1: ows me we didn't. You're updated, we didn't start the
Speaker 1: fire lyrics. And I await that, and so many people
Speaker 1: await that because they would like me to carry ok it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, last question, John from Cincinnati, and he writes,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of a single report of President Trump
Speaker 1: going to Camp David in his second term. Does anyone
Speaker 1: use it? Since he doesn't isn't loaned out of political donors?
Speaker 1: Or possibly misused. I was never a big fan of
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Bedroom being used that way by presidents of
Speaker 1: any party. I've been listening to your show for about
Speaker 1: three months and really enjoy it. Thanks and go Buck
Speaker 1: Guys and Reds John in Cincinnati. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think, Look, we know why Trump didn't like it,
Speaker 1: and he likes the golf right, and he likes his
Speaker 1: set up any and he's actually not an introvert like
Speaker 1: Camp David is for the presidents. You know, he's one
Speaker 1: of the few people, you know, most celebrities I've ever
Speaker 1: gotten to know, the last thing they want to do
Speaker 1: is to be in public. That's not Donald Trump. He
Speaker 1: loves to be around people. I've got my own theories.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a lot of personal friends, so there's
Speaker 1: not really a group of people he wants to hang
Speaker 1: out with. He doesn't have and if you don't have
Speaker 1: close friendships, a retreat like Camp David doesn't work for you, right.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's so funny about it, presidents.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good thing for a president to have,
Speaker 1: but it is. I think what's made it less popular
Speaker 1: with some presidents is the lack of a golf course
Speaker 1: to be fully transparent, like Obama just would go to
Speaker 1: golf every weekend and Andrew's and then go back to
Speaker 1: the White House. He's used Camp David a little, but
Speaker 1: he didn't love it per se either. Look, it's on
Speaker 1: my bucket list of things that I've never gotten to
Speaker 1: see that I'd still like to see. So if there's
Speaker 1: any president that would have liked to invite me to
Speaker 1: use Camp David, here's my pledge to you. If I
Speaker 1: ever get access to Camp David, John, I will try
Speaker 1: to get you there and invite you as well as
Speaker 1: my plus one if that's possible. Don't tell missus Todd Night,
Speaker 1: but we've got to get some other people in here.
Speaker 1: It is one of these like I've heard stories, I've
Speaker 1: had people tell me what it's like, right, but it
Speaker 1: is one of the few things we've seen no pictures of.
Speaker 1: And perhaps those that run Camp David that don't want
Speaker 1: people to know what it looks like, or glad Trump
Speaker 1: hasn't come because of the more Trump goes, the more
Speaker 1: likely it will come out. So you're right, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are people using it that we don't know about.
Speaker 1: But on the list of outrages to cover. It's probably
Speaker 1: fifty seventh or fifty eighth on the list these days.
Speaker 1: All right, with that, we're going to take my forty
Speaker 1: eight hour break. Unless you know, news happens and we
Speaker 1: insert something in there. I always reserve the right to
Speaker 1: see you on YouTube. I had a few things that
Speaker 1: I did over the weekend that I want to tell
Speaker 1: you more about, and I'm going to save it for
Speaker 1: Wednesday's episode, including fascinating debate that I'm moderated between Chris
Speaker 1: Christy and David French about sports gambling. We actually came
Speaker 1: up with a potential compromise. I will share with it
Speaker 1: with you on Wednesday. If you want to go take
Speaker 1: a look at the debate, it's on YouTube under the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago. They hosted it and sponsored it. And
Speaker 1: on Friday at the Illinois Local New Summer, Marada moderated
Speaker 1: a panel of what I referred to as the venture
Speaker 1: capitalists of local news, the philanthropic organizations that have been
Speaker 1: trying to fill the gap here. John Palfrey, who's president
Speaker 1: MacArthur Foundation, Maybel Perez Wadsworth, whose presidency of the Knight Foundation,
Speaker 1: and Julie Mourta who's presidency of the Joyce Foundation, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit more regional in the Chicago area
Speaker 1: for the Great Lakes region. But all of them have
Speaker 1: been investing in trying to help local news startups get
Speaker 1: off the ground. And yeah, I called them vcs because
Speaker 1: they really are, except they're not trying to They don't
Speaker 1: try to get their money back once they give the money,
Speaker 1: but they are trying to be smart about putting money
Speaker 1: in places that can be used to grow an organization
Speaker 1: that can eventually be self sustaining, and that is I
Speaker 1: think the real challenge there. So a few things I
Speaker 1: wanted to share with you on both of those topics,
Speaker 1: and because I've gone long here, we will share that
Speaker 1: with you on Wednesday. So with that, I'll see and
Speaker 1: put it out