WEBVTT - Full Episode - A Daring Rescue Can’t Distract From Disastrous Iran War + Trump’s Profanity Laced Easter Morning Message 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.040 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.440 by Ethos and what Ethos does is it helps you 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:06.880 find life insurance. Let me tell you why life insurance 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.360 bailed me out. My father died when I was sixteen. 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.680 We didn't have a lot of money when it happened, 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.640 and we were in a pretty tough financial spot after 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.520 it happened. I'm an only child. Suddenly my mother's single, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.360 single mother. She had a job, suddenly lost a job, 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.799 looking for another job, and we were struggling. You know, 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.720 my dad didn't leave us in the best financial situation, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.080 but he did make one purchase. 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Application times may 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:47.600 vary and rates may vary. Hello, They're happy Monday. Happy 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.080 Easter Monday for those of you'd celebrate. It is Easter 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:55.680 egg roll Day here in Washington. Normally in a tremendous event, 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.480 with half the White House destroyed right with the East wing, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.640 it's a construction zone. I am a little curious how 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.920 it goes today, whether they ended up limiting tickets. They 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.440 didn't say, but it will be something that I am 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:16.480 curious about a little bit for you know, never mind 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.440 who's in the White House. The tradition itself is something 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.520 that many particularly locally. There's many people who love to 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.799 go every year, who find a way to go every year. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.800 Sometimes I'm sorry that politics gets from the way of 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.200 some fun traditions that people have, but there's no doubt 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.360 politics is going to get in the way of that. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.440 So that is what it is. I want to give 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.919 you a few things that I'm doing this week. Yes 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.680 it's called promotion, before we get to the meet and 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.280 the heart of what I've got today, because boy do 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.360 I have a lot today on the Iran War and 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.200 where things are headed in a variety of methods here. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.239 But before we get to that. Number one, you know 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.480 about my new sports history podcast. With my partner Jaaatdande, 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.680 both formerly a ESPN and The La Times, we launched 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.760 a new sports history podcast called Dynastic where we look 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.560 at the dynasties some of the all time sports dynasties, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.440 both in pro and college. Our first deep dive is 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.120 the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is up now. Yes, we 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.200 have snuck it into my audio feed. But you can 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.960 subscribe directly wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.840 to the Dynastic d y n A SDIC. Just look 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.000 up Dynastic, follow us on Dynastic on socials. Because I'm 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.240 trying very hard, I am going to try to create 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.120 a bright line. You will not see political commentary on 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.280 the dynastics stuff, which you might see some sports commentary 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.520 on this feed, but that's neither here nor there. But 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.880 we also so once a month we do a deep 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.880 dive and then at the two week mark of the month, 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.480 we do a deep dive interview with some iconic member 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.720 of that franchise. Well, the iconic member of the franchise 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.440 of the Dodgers, Jimi Hereen. Jimy Herene is the Hall 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.920 of Fame Spanish language broadcaster of the La Dodgers. He 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.320 basically was the Dodgers decided to have a Spanish language 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.720 broadcast when they moved to La in nineteen fifty nine, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.760 and Jimi Herene was the voice of the Dodgers for 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:20.480 many Spanish language fans for decades. So I mean, imagine 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.600 you have Vince Scully and Jimi Heren. I mean it 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.960 was literally two Hall of Famers that the Dodgers had. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.839 He is tremendous. It's a tremendous interview. He's a JA 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.480 has known him a long time and he's in his nineties, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.919 but you would think he was in his sixties. He 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.640 is just as excited about a baseball game today as 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.960 I think he was back in the late fifties, early sixties. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.480 His stories are terrific. But we also feature greatest games, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.119 all this stuff. So anyway, that is hitting the feed 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.800 on Tuesday, this interview with himI aren So, I want 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.359 you to take a look at that. Also, as you know, 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.000 the Chuck toodcasts been a big supporter of Local News Day. Well, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.320 guess what happens this Thursday. Thursday is the day, April ninth, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.120 Local news Day. I will have another interview later this 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.800 week in my feed featuring another prominent news organization that 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.599 has gone the independent route. It's a legacy media company 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.320 that is going new, going independent. It's about the Salt 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.599 Lake Tribune. So we will you will hear that later 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.480 this week, but again be aware of Local News Day. 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.839 I hope at this point I've gotten many of you 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.040 to find out who's doing local news in your neck 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.239 of the woods, and hopefully you've signed up and taken 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.599 a look at least if it's a quality product. But 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.479 take a look at the news organizations at the local 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.839 news day website of who's participating, because it's a great 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.200 way to find out if somebody in your neighborhood is participating, 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.200 which also means they've been kind of vetted and we 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:54.200 know that they're truly independent and they truly are with 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.039 journalistic standards. And then finally, on Thursday night, I'm going 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.080 to be in Chicago at the University of Chicago or 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.200 I'm going to be moderating a debate between Chris Christi 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.920 and New York Times columnists David French. And the issue 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.920 is on gambling. Has it become the new pornography? So 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.120 Chris Christy is going to be essentially on the supportive side, 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.480 David French is going to be on the skeptical side. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.359 I am moderating with my own biases about it having 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.360 to do I enjoy betting. I enjoyed lots of aspects 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.120 of this. I have also expressed my reservations on certain 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.320 aspects of how fast we've legalized and how we do it. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.120 Should we have more friction. So it's going to be 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.719 a nuanced conversation. Because this is the University of Chicago. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.120 They don't expect a sort of he said, he said 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.120 food fight, even though both Chris Christi David French are 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.360 certainly capable of participating in that kind of conversation. But 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:48.800 that's not what they want to have. It's not what 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:50.080 I want to have, it's not what the University of 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.080 Chicago wants to have. But it's going to be. You'll 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.320 be able to see it, I hope eventually, courtesy of 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:56.880 the University of Chicago. So if you want to check 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:58.920 that out, we'll be doing that. I'll be doing that 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.720 on Thursday. So I thought i'd let you know all 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.800 of the various things we've got cooking here at the 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.920 world headquarters of the Chuck Podcast. And so, without further ado, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:14.480 let's get into the precarious moment we continue to live 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.040 in in this Trump era. We're going to start today 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.560 though with what is a sigh of relief that has 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.520 turned pretty quickly into a cold sweat, because over the weekend, obviously, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.360 when most of you were getting ready if you celebrate Easter, 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.640 preparing for Easter, the White House was in something close 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.320 to paralysis. In fact, the lack of commentary by the 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.920 President himself led to all sorts of Twitter rumors and 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:41.520 social media rumors because it was strange not to hear 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.560 from the President. But there was a reason for this, 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.200 because we had pilots that were shot down in Iran, 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.400 and this was a potential nightmare for the United States. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.520 An American F fifteen E Strike Eagle, one of the 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.080 most advanced aircraft we have, was knocked out of the 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.800 sky over Isfahan, Iran, and for a stretch of hours, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.680 perhaps it was longer, the scenario everyone feared was the 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.320 one nobody wanted to say out loud, and American pilot 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.160 captured and paraded through perhaps even paraded through the streets 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:12.880 of Turan. I don't know if they would have parrated 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.400 this person through the st the streets of Tehran, but 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.920 it would have been a huge psychological blow to the 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:24.120 United States and a huge psychological help to the regime. 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.680 So that is why I think you had a paralyzed 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.000 White House where even the President knew how much he 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.600 had at stake. But thankfully that didn't happen. Thank goodness 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.920 for our special forces, how good they are, and they 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.840 were able to extract both the pilot and the weapons 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.800 expert eventually out, and the stories were hearing. I hope 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:46.960 they're true. I'm sorry I have to say that, but 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:48.840 you and I both know that that's the case. You 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:53.240 have to always take the stories you're getting directly from 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:58.680 this administration with a grain of salt. But the heroism obviously, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.080 these special forces going in harm's way. Clearly this is 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.160 not a safe place to be, despite all of the 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.280 bluster from Pete Haikseth earlier in the month, and I'm 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.640 going to get to that, but we got a rescue, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.640 and it's extraordinary what the special ops folks did, and 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.320 the President is celebrating it, and I think it's celebrating 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.800 out of relief because this would have been a huge below. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.160 But here's the problem. We are now in a moment 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.480 where the success of the rescue is being used to 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.640 obscure the failure of the premise itself and in fact 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.000 be on the lookout. I'm not going to prejue. You 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.360 never know what Trump's going to say at a one 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.480 pm news conference, but he's going to have one later today. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.000 My guess is he wants to bask in the glow 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.840 of this rescue mission and hope that it obfuscates the 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:48.920 fact that did we mislead these pilots, let alone the public, 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.000 into how safe the skies were. But let's be very 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.760 clear here, because if you have to rescue a pilot 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.440 from Isfahan, then you were never operating in what Pete 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:03.440 Haikseth boasted a couple of weeks ago, uncontested airspace. That's 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.880 not interpretation, it's simply geography. Isfahan is deep inside Iran. 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.600 This isn't a coastal town, which means one of two 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.199 things is true. Either the battlefield is far more contested 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.120 than the military leaders have told you the American taxpayers, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.120 or we put American pilots in harm's way based on 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.320 assumptions that weren't true. Is either outcome good. Either your 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.720 government was lying to you or they were lying to 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:34.040 themselves and put our pilots in harms way. This should 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.800 be a huge concern, and we've seen this pattern before. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.000 We are very good at celebrating the moment of heroism, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.520 the rescue, the extraction, the comeback. We don't leave people 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.600 behind for and this is good, this is who we are. 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.400 But we are much worse at asking a harder question. 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.480 When these things happen, why did we need the rescue 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.480 in the first place? Right, And a lot of times 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.160 you will get it presidential administrations. When you start asking 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.400 these questions, they will question your patriotism, They will question 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.400 things like that. These are important questions we have to ask, 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.800 because remember, it wasn't just the F fifteen that was 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.880 struck down and a black clowk that was hit. Iran 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.960 also down an A ten attack aircraft on Friday, undercutting 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:17.880 all of these claims by Trump and Hegseth and other 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.040 officials that the US had unchecked dominance of this guise 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.520 from over Iran. Now, the good news was the pilot 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.079 of the A ten attack aircraft was able to essentially 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.440 extract himself in friendly territory and ejected safely. So that's 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.719 the good news. But let's not pretend that things are 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.280 going well in this war, because they're not. And that 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.200 brings us to this man, to the man at the podium, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.960 the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, pretty much the propaganda 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:48.960 Pete as I've tried to nickname him, and I know 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.240 that sounds snarky, but the guy doesn't appear to ever 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.920 tell us the truth, and he has been caught with 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.120 his pants down with this one. For the last month, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:02.239 we've been getting a very consistent message from heg Seth certainty. 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.400 Let me just walk through in a March fourth, Pete 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.079 hagg Seth, the Secretary of Defense, complete control uncontested airspace 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.320 March tenth, the Iranian Air Force is no more. We 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.280 control their faith. Last week iron as toast, it's not 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.000 even a fair fight. And as for the radar systems, 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:23.400 one hundred percent annihilated. Okay, so let's ask the obvious question. 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.679 If the airspace is uncontested, how do you lose a 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:31.079 strike ego over Isfahan? If the radar is gone, how 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:35.040 do they get a lock on one of our advanced 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.600 fighter jets. If it isn't a fair fight, why are 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:45.720 we running rescue missions in the middle of Iran? Look, 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.360 this isn't about rhetoric and for its own sake, this 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.800 is about credibility in wartime. These guys are not telling 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.200 us the truth. We just don't know what they're not 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.440 telling us. But if they were telling us the truth, 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.240 then we wouldn't have had what we had happen over 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:06.040 the weekend. Okay, they're not telling us the truth. Are 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.480 they lying or are they withholding information that's something that 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.480 an inspector general. We used to have this entity called 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.640 the US Congress that would do things like this. I'm 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.520 not sure. I think they've been totally castrated or neutered. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.480 I'm being a little obviously sarcastic here, but this is 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.679 what their job should be in a moment like this, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.680 because if we don't have credibility in wartime, how the 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.680 hell are we going to win this thing? Because there's 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.240 a huge credibility gap. Either the Secretary is being given 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.400 overly optimistic battle field assessments, or they're lying to the 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:41.160 president to mislead him, or they're withholding obviously bad information 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.000 from the president, which is also possible, or he's simply 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.760 presenting him that way to the public intentionally lying. Either way, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.920 the story we're being told no longer matches the reality 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.880 we're seeing, and historically that's when things start to drift. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.840 So while the Pentagon is trying to explain all this 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.840 and wrap it up in heroism, and there is heroism 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:02.959 to go around for the special forces that had to 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:09.080 be called in to do this, but it's nothing to 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.079 celebrate that we put our pilots in harms way like this. Then, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.320 of course you had the president on social media on 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.600 Easter morning. Easter Sunday morning, people are getting ready to go. 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.320 You know, imagine some of the president's more religious supporters 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.840 who just love the man, and they open up and 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:33.120 they see that they see him say the following again, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.120 Easter Sunday morning, Tuesday will be power plant Day and 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.480 bridge Day all wrapped up in one. In Iran, there 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.320 will be nothing like it. Three exclamation points. Then in 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.840 open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:54.400 living in hell. Just watch Praise be to Allah. The 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:59.000 American President of the United States uttered the following. Let 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.120 me repeat what the American President of the United States 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:07.480 set open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.480 be living in hell. Just watch Praise be to Allah. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:18.360 Is he mocking Islam with that last comment. I'm not Muslim. 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.880 I will let others speak if they're offended or not. 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.200 I know I have if I were saying that, I 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.240 don't in that context. I don't think I would be 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:35.240 honoring the Islamic any sort of Islamic traditions like this. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.880 I don't know whether he thought it was funny. Perhaps 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.040 he thought it was funny again, all of this on 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:51.880 Easter morning, a very religious holiday to Christians, extraordinary important holiday. Look, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.720 as I taught my kids when they were young, they 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.960 were like, so, asking me about Easter, and I said, well, 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.360 I said, the easiest way is it's where Jews and 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.800 Christians diverge. That's usually the polite way I say it. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:12.800 But all of this on Easter morning? Are there evangelicals 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.160 left with any sort of moral or ethical code that 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:21.160 you can defend this? But hey, you can just do 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.040 whatever you want with them, right, you just grab them 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.680 by the huh oh right, same guy. Nothing's changed. One 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.720 thing about Donald Trump is he's consistent. So he's threatening 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:33.880 what he called a power plant day, a bridge day 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.480 now on its own. That kind of language is familiar. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.600 It's Trump, right, We've heard it before. But here's what's changed. 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.400 It's no longer landing as leverage. He thinks it's leverage 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.600 because after three weeks of similar threats, the Strait of 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:52.000 Hormuz is still constrained, the conflict is still extraordinarily active, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.600 and the underlying strategic position has not shifted one bit, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.200 which raises a more fundamental question what happens when escalation 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.000 becomes repetitive, and repetition becomes background noise, because it's kind 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.120 of already there, right, We're kind of used to him 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.960 these weirdly weakly escalations. By the way, he also he 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.760 also claimed to Axios that there were talks going on 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.680 with some with some key folks in the Iranian of 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.280 who's alive in this Iranian government, of which Axios his 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.199 own sources said, there's no, there's nothing that serious going on. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.639 But hey, it's Sunday that he said that. And what 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.680 does he do on Sundays during the start of this war, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.800 tries to jaw bone down the price of oil in 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.479 time for the markets. I'm not sure the markets are 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:40.159 listening to Donald Trump these days, but we shall see. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.120 But I don't think he's increasing the pressure he thinks 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:48.400 he's doing. He's actually revealing the limits that we have 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.639 right now. We have very few limits, I mean, the 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.600 only thing that can be done. And he's very frustrated 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.840 by this, which is why he used the F word. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:01.040 He's frustrated because he has no choice if he wants 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.439 this war to ever be seen as successful, if he 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.800 wants to at all get his strategic goals, because if 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.600 he walks away with the Iranians using the Straight of 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.199 Hormuz as a toll road, then he actually set the 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.880 entire world back with his decision and did nothing in return, 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.200 did not help the Iranian people nothing. So he knows 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.199 he's probably going to have to order ground troops in 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.240 order to secure the Straight of Horror moves to have 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.399 any leverage over this over the Iranians, because right now 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.680 he is none, and that's the problem. Now, this is 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.080 where I want to tell you about an interview I 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.320 did for Newsphere. Now, those of you, I hope that 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.080 those of you, if you've liked what you've seen on 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.960 what I've done with Newsphere. It's a standalone news app 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:46.199 of independent journalists from around the world. Every Sunday I 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.440 have a new interview on there with a newsmaker or expert, 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.160 and this week I sat down with Daniel Jurgen, sort 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:58.600 of probably the world's foremost expert on energy markets. He's 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:02.479 author the Pulitzer Prize win the Prize. I think I 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.760 promoted it before, but here it is. I know it's 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:08.720 a very familiar book on my bookshelves's been there a 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.800 long time, and I wanted to share with you some 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.840 of the things he told me because I think it 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.639 are important points here and why the president, why the 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.200 straight of Horne moves is the whole ballgame. So I 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.080 asked him how big is this? And he didn't hedge. 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.679 He called it the biggest disruption in the history of 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:30.000 world energy. Hardstop. This is bigger than nineteen seventy three, 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.840 bigger than nineteen seventy nine. So just let that sink 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.679 in for a second. And if you know Daniel Jurgen, 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.600 he is not He's not a guy who likes to 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:45.440 live in likes to use hyperbolic vocabulary. It's just not him. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.040 But those two crises were huge. They were the crises 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.639 that reshaped the global economy, reshaped the American economy. It 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:57.360 triggered recessions, stagflation, reowned and an American forum policy for generation. 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.880 And what is Jurgen saying right now is all ready bigger. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.240 And here's the part that should make you really uneasy. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.960 This isn't some black Swan event that nobody saw coming. 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.879 This is the scenario, the one policymakers have been gaming 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.200 out for forty years. The nightmare scenario centered on the 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.320 strait of horror moves. It has always been about this. 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.159 Daniel will tell you this, the narrow passageway that a 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.960 huge percentage of the world's energypply has to pass through. 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:30.640 And now it's not theoretical anymore. It's happening because what's 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.480 changed isn't just conflict, it's control. There used to be 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.919 a kind of uneasy system Iran oman the UAE managing traffic, 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:43.280 keeping things moving, preventing catastrophe. Now you have Iran effectively 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.800 saying we're in charge here. It's almost more important than 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.680 them developing a nuclear weapon. And once that becomes real, 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.160 once that becomes the operating assumption of global markets, you're 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.760 not dealing with the temporary disruption. You're dealing with a 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.119 new reality and reversing that. Even Jurgen very carefully makes 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.640 clear there it's not something you do easily, not without escalation. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:07.440 And here's where the story gets even bigger than oil, 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.160 because we learned something during COVID and then again they're 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.640 in the Ukraine War. The global economy is far more 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.440 interconnected than we like to admit, and it's far more 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.320 interconnected than it was during those crises in the seventies, 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.120 which is why this is worse. You don't just get 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.040 oil from the golf. You get fertilizer, You get helium, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.720 which is essential for semiconductors, for mir machines, for advanced manufacturing. 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.280 How about Taiwan's chip industry. It depends on inputs coming 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.000 through where that same region, right through the strait. So 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.080 when that system gets disrupted, you don't just feel it 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:44.600 at the gas pot. You're going to feel it everywhere. 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.399 And even if this stopped tomorrow, even if it froze 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.119 right now, you're gonna says, you're still looking at the 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.760 better part of a year just to get supply chains 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:57.120 back to normal. So this is why I have been 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.399 very declarative. These midterms are over. For the reports, books 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.920 and Trump, they are over. There is no recovering from this. Economically, 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.199 this is going to be a crappy economy for the 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.280 rest of the year at best. If he manages this 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.040 and gets the straight open, maybe we don't get into 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.280 a full fledged recession, but it is not going to 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:21.120 be a popular economy. Inflation. Inflation. Inflation is coming. Let's soap, 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:27.840 it does not stagflation. This episode of the Chuck Podcast 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.520 is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:35.640 the first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.959 arteisonal pastries and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.600 baked in twenty five minutes or less. 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No full accounting 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.200 to the American people, no sustained debate, just classified briefings 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:33.480 in a skiff, and leadership basically saying trust us, and again, 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:37.520 who when have they told the truth? They have no 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:41.600 track record of telling the truth, rankly about anything, including 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:46.000 the president's wait and to height remember that it's not 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:48.680 but Congress is doing nothing here and they're going to 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:52.600 pay a price. There's no oversight. It's just pure avoidance 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:55.560 because they're afraid of the questions that are going to 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.440 get asked. And it's basically the Constitution the is streaming 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.840 at them to do their effing job. Since we're dropping 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:07.320 the F word, we might as well say it. It's 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:09.520 a dangerous mismatch that we're in right now, because the 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.359 global system is already adjusting to this crisis, even if 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:16.840 our political system isn't. And that brings me to another 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:19.840 story that got overlooked over the weekend, And it's going 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:21.879 to get really serious, and I think it shows the 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:25.840 beginning of what is going to be more erosion of 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:28.040 support for this war from the Republican side of the 0:25:28.040 --> 0:25:30.240 app Do you have a member of the president's own 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:34.040 party stepping in not to critique the messaging, but to 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.720 challenge the structure of the war itself. Senator John Curtis, 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:40.959 he's the Republican that replaced Mett Romney from Utah. Hit 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:43.359 an obed in the Deseret News over the weekend and 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:48.040 it is absolutely must read. Desert News is the news 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:52.040 organization that is owned by the Church Litterday Saints and 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:56.560 many Utah politicians. When they've got something to say to 0:25:56.800 --> 0:26:00.480 the public, they choose the Desert News to say it, 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:04.040 especially if they themselves are also Latter Day Saints. So 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:08.120 Curtis starts with something very straightforward, right he talks about 0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:09.920 the numbers that are being asked. We got one point 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:14.320 five trillion ask for the Pentagon budget, and we've heard 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:17.280 that ask. Now, remember any when the initial budget asks 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:19.880 are made by administrations are always laughed at by Congress. 0:26:20.320 --> 0:26:22.920 So one point five is a goal, is a target number. 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:25.640 But there is also a very specific ass of two 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:29.760 hundred billion for a supplemental request in order to essentially 0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:34.360 replenish the cost of this war, because we've been averaging 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:36.960 somewhere around a billion to two billion dollars a day 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:38.879 somewhere in there. So we've already spent some thirty to 0:26:38.920 --> 0:26:41.040 thirty five billion dollars in this war. And that's probably 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:47.439 a conservative estimate. And it's going to force a question 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.040 that Washington tries to avoid, what are we committing to 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:53.000 with all this money? Because Curtis in his op ed, 0:26:53.119 --> 0:26:56.760 is invoking the War Powers Resolution Act of nineteen seventy three, 0:26:56.880 --> 0:27:02.120 which includes a sixty day clock. So this war, let's 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:05.280 call the start February twenty eighth. We've had thirty one 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:10.359 days of March. Today is April sixth. Let's give one 0:27:10.440 --> 0:27:12.600 day in the twenty eighth. That's thirty two. We'll add 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:14.879 the six or in day thirty eight, so we had 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:18.360 twenty two days left on the sixty day clock. If 0:27:18.400 --> 0:27:22.440 this is a real war, then John Curtis is saying 0:27:23.119 --> 0:27:25.400 he's not voting for any supplemental until there's a vote 0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:28.520 on this war, and it requires a real vote. It's 0:27:28.520 --> 0:27:32.320 an important number there. You subtract Curtis, you're already losing 0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:36.360 Rand Paul, you may lose Lisa Murkowski, you could lose 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:42.399 Tom Tillis, you may gain Fetterman. There may be a 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:48.639 couple of other Democrats on there. So's we'll see. But 0:27:49.560 --> 0:27:52.200 there's a lesson here from Vietnam, and that's what Curtis 0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:54.280 is trying to warn folks about. This is where Curtis 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:57.600 is being more historically grounded than most lawmakers in Washington. 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:00.200 And I have to tell you I appreciate it. John 0:28:00.200 --> 0:28:02.240 Curtis might be the only Republican outside of Rand Paul, 0:28:02.640 --> 0:28:08.760 expressing the constitutional responsibility that Congress has here. Because Curtis 0:28:08.800 --> 0:28:10.800 is looking at Vietnam, not as an analogy, but as 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:13.919 a warning. Vietnam didn't begin as a declared war. It 0:28:13.920 --> 0:28:19.280 began as a limited commitment advisors support containment, and then 0:28:19.280 --> 0:28:22.320 it expanded, not because there was a single decisive vote, 0:28:22.800 --> 0:28:25.160 but because there was never a forcing mechanism to stop 0:28:25.160 --> 0:28:30.800 and ask do we want to keep going? So that's 0:28:30.840 --> 0:28:33.560 what this sixty day clock, right, that's seventy three. The 0:28:33.560 --> 0:28:37.560 War Powers Resolution Act was about avoiding another Vietnam, and 0:28:37.560 --> 0:28:39.480 that's what this sixty day clock is supposed to be. 0:28:40.200 --> 0:28:44.040 A forcing mechanism. And what Curtis is saying, I'm not 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:51.000 supporting any supplemental without a vote on this. But Curtis 0:28:51.080 --> 0:28:54.480 isn't just focused on authority, He's focused on conduct because 0:28:54.520 --> 0:28:57.240 while Congress is being asked to fund this war, the 0:28:57.320 --> 0:28:59.560 legal framework for how it's being fought is shifting in 0:28:59.560 --> 0:29:03.600 real time. The administration is leaning on the idea of 0:29:03.720 --> 0:29:09.200 dual use infrastructure, basically attacking power plants and bridges and 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:12.760 water systems. Many would say, isn't that a war crime 0:29:12.800 --> 0:29:18.760 because you're targeting civilians essentially, And what the Trump administration 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:22.320 is looking for is lawyers to give them cover by saying, well, 0:29:22.360 --> 0:29:25.840 those systems also support military, so you can make them targets. 0:29:27.160 --> 0:29:30.880 But even under that theory, the law still requires proportionality. 0:29:31.640 --> 0:29:33.480 So to send them back to the quote Stone Age, 0:29:33.480 --> 0:29:38.680 it's probably not proportionality. You don't destroy a civilian water 0:29:38.720 --> 0:29:43.600 system to eliminate a marginal military advantage. And that's where 0:29:43.600 --> 0:29:46.520 strategy crosses into something else. And then you layer on 0:29:46.560 --> 0:29:49.200 top of that the rhetoric from Secretary Hegset who has 0:29:49.240 --> 0:29:54.200 also said lethality over legality not just a sound bite, 0:29:54.240 --> 0:29:58.040 it's a doctrine. He does not care about human rights, 0:29:58.320 --> 0:30:03.720 nor the rules, nor the Geneva courts. And it carries 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:08.520 consequences because once legality becomes secondary, you're no longer just 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:14.160 fighting a war. You're redefining the rules of it. And 0:30:14.200 --> 0:30:16.960 this is why Curtis matters, because he's connecting all of it, 0:30:17.000 --> 0:30:19.720 the cost, the authority, and the conduct, and he understands 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:22.080 something Washington often forgets in real time. When you move 0:30:22.120 --> 0:30:24.800 outside the rules, you don't just change the war, you 0:30:24.920 --> 0:30:28.440 change your position in the world. And we've done it. 0:30:29.000 --> 0:30:32.080 I see some on the right who are angry that 0:30:32.120 --> 0:30:34.160 our NATO allies haven't stepped up for us, that some 0:30:34.200 --> 0:30:35.640 of them have gone as far as to say, hey, 0:30:35.640 --> 0:30:37.800 you can't land your planes at the bases that are 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:43.280 in our countries. Well, if you're angry about the behavior 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:44.960 of our NATO allies, you should be angry at the 0:30:45.000 --> 0:30:48.000 President of the United States, not at those allies. President 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:50.480 the United States has treated them like shit. And apparently 0:30:50.480 --> 0:30:52.760 I need to use four letter words for people to 0:30:52.840 --> 0:30:56.040 understand what I'm saying. He's treated our allies terribly. He's 0:30:56.040 --> 0:30:59.160 berated them with tariffs, he has all done all of 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:01.040 these things, and he says and then he wants just 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:03.040 to help. By the way, the United States has been 0:31:04.000 --> 0:31:06.840 not been a good partner for Ukraine, has done everything 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:09.240 they can to help Russia in the war, everything they 0:31:09.280 --> 0:31:12.680 can to make Europe less safe, and he wonders why 0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:19.880 they're not standing by us in this those look I get. 0:31:20.200 --> 0:31:23.760 Some of my friends in the right are so focused 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:27.040 on getting rid of this Iranian regime that they're angry 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:29.800 that others don't see the threat the way they see it. 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:32.200 And I understand that, I understand your frustration. I'm not 0:31:32.240 --> 0:31:36.320 going to sit here and dismiss that frustration, but stop 0:31:36.360 --> 0:31:39.360 lashing out of our allies. You know who did this this, 0:31:39.600 --> 0:31:42.280 You're our commander in chief has been a terrible ally 0:31:42.280 --> 0:31:44.640 to Israel, has been a terrible ally to Europe, has 0:31:44.680 --> 0:31:46.920 been a terrible ally to the Golf State. He is 0:31:47.080 --> 0:31:52.480 not a reliable ally to anybody, not to America's closest 0:31:52.480 --> 0:31:55.480 allies in Europe, not to Israel. He's doing Israel no 0:31:55.560 --> 0:31:58.840 favors here. He's doing the Golf States no favors here. 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:05.360 He's potentially chasing them into China's arms. So realize why 0:32:05.400 --> 0:32:10.040 we're here. We're here because of his diplomatic mismanagement, his 0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:14.760 ridiculous rhetoric, and his appointment of some of the most 0:32:15.520 --> 0:32:21.360 unqualified people in the national security positions that we've ever had. 0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:26.120 That's why we're in this position. One person did this, 0:32:27.120 --> 0:32:31.960 one individual put us in this position. Seventy five years 0:32:32.000 --> 0:32:37.680 of American leadership, popular and unpopular presidents, liberal and conservative presidents, 0:32:37.920 --> 0:32:42.640 moderates and non moderates have all made sure not to 0:32:42.680 --> 0:32:47.040 alienate American allies the way this man has, and he 0:32:47.120 --> 0:32:49.600 has put us all more. We are less safe today. 0:32:51.960 --> 0:32:54.040 And then they're lying to you all the time. They 0:32:54.040 --> 0:32:56.880 are not telling you the truth. So here we are. 0:32:57.400 --> 0:33:01.480 We had a rescue that we should absolutely celebrate, But 0:33:01.560 --> 0:33:04.480 it exposed a reality we haven't fully reckoned with. We 0:33:04.520 --> 0:33:07.400 have a credibility gap between what we've been told and 0:33:07.440 --> 0:33:10.880 what's actually happening on the ground. We have rhetoric escalating 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:14.680 without clear evidence that it's changing the outcome. And now 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:17.680 we have a constitutional clock that's ticking because of that 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:20.960 sixty day clock. It's not there radical it should be 0:33:21.000 --> 0:33:23.960 a forcing mechanism. Congress needs to get off its ass 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:28.040 and do its fucking job. There. There's some presidential rhetoric 0:33:28.080 --> 0:33:31.320 for you. And if the president wants to continue this war, 0:33:31.360 --> 0:33:34.240 he has to going to have to go to Congress 0:33:34.880 --> 0:33:37.000 ask for permission if he wants all of this money, 0:33:37.520 --> 0:33:39.440 which he says he wants to take away from the 0:33:39.440 --> 0:33:42.880 social safety net. By the way, talk about more political 0:33:42.920 --> 0:33:48.520 problems for his party. He explicitly said last week that 0:33:48.680 --> 0:33:52.320 the Pentagon budget is priority over social security and medicare 0:33:52.760 --> 0:33:55.720 good luck. Anybody want to go to the campaign trail 0:33:55.760 --> 0:34:02.640 and back up that statement, Try it, trust me, just 0:34:02.720 --> 0:34:06.040 try it so we'll see. But he lost. This is 0:34:06.120 --> 0:34:11.120 a huge look. John Curtis right, he's not He's I'm 0:34:11.200 --> 0:34:16.399 not a household name, but he's an independent Republican. He's 0:34:16.400 --> 0:34:20.520 an independent conservative. He's no Maga guy, and he's no 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:27.520 sickaphan and apparently he's read the Constitution. All right, I 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:29.880 wanted to do one more thing before we get to 0:34:30.880 --> 0:34:33.359 my interview today, and the interview is Mike Pesca. You 0:34:33.400 --> 0:34:36.240 know him from the Just List. Some of you probably 0:34:36.280 --> 0:34:39.759 listen to his podcast fairly regularly. Mike, can I do this? 0:34:39.960 --> 0:34:41.799 We're now doing this fairly regularly. I think this is 0:34:41.840 --> 0:34:44.359 the third time he's been on this pod that I've 0:34:44.360 --> 0:34:50.200 been on his twice, and you know, it's sometimes less interview, 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:54.560 more debate, more trying to spitball different issues. We talked 0:34:54.560 --> 0:34:56.960 about the redistricting problems. We talk about a lot of 0:34:56.960 --> 0:34:58.680 that stuff, but we also get into what's wrong with 0:34:58.800 --> 0:35:01.440 NBA and the tanking issue as well. So it's a 0:35:01.480 --> 0:35:05.560 lively conversation. But before we get to that, amidst all 0:35:05.640 --> 0:35:11.440 this crisis that President Trump is introduced on himself and 0:35:11.520 --> 0:35:19.759 the world in our political system, he he issued a 0:35:19.800 --> 0:35:23.480 new executive order in college sports and I kind of 0:35:23.480 --> 0:35:25.359 wanted to just quickly go through it. You know, I'm 0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:28.520 an obsessive college sports fan. I care about this issue 0:35:28.560 --> 0:35:32.400 a lot, and you know, the president his role in 0:35:32.440 --> 0:35:37.279 this has been unhelpful. I think probably you know, yes, 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:39.800 he's got the power to convene, but he really wasted 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:41.919 the time of that meeting a couple of weeks ago, 0:35:42.760 --> 0:35:45.880 where it was just there to you know, essentially, you know, 0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:48.120 puff up his ego. Look at all the cool and 0:35:48.160 --> 0:35:51.680 famous people I got here, rather than actually trying to 0:35:51.760 --> 0:35:56.960 solve the problem or come up. But I thought I 0:35:56.960 --> 0:35:59.680 would go through it for those of you that care 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:03.279 about this issue. Look guess what, I know some of you. 0:36:03.280 --> 0:36:05.120 If you don't care about college sports, you can you 0:36:05.160 --> 0:36:07.200 can fast forward through. But I just wanted to get 0:36:07.239 --> 0:36:09.480 into this for a few minutes. So the core thesis 0:36:09.560 --> 0:36:12.240 was this this executive order that he wrote over the weekend. 0:36:13.480 --> 0:36:16.120 It has there are some things that have there is 0:36:16.200 --> 0:36:19.319 like that resemble teeth into this not quite teeth, but 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:21.319 they resemble teeth. I'm going to get into it. So 0:36:21.360 --> 0:36:24.759 it's written to sound very muscular, but it is architecturally 0:36:24.840 --> 0:36:26.719 incredibly weak, and it kind of knows that the White 0:36:26.760 --> 0:36:29.200 House knows Congress is the only entity that can actually 0:36:29.239 --> 0:36:32.000 fix college sports, and they actually say so. It's buried 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:35.400 in the preamble of this executive order. Everything else in 0:36:35.440 --> 0:36:38.960 the Executive order is either delegation to agencies with limited authority, 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:42.719 suggestions to the NCAA, or legal theories that may not 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:46.520 even survive a court challenge. So, and he even says 0:36:46.520 --> 0:36:49.600 it right there in the document itself, the Congress is 0:36:49.640 --> 0:36:54.680 strongly encouraged to expeditiously pass legislation. Translation, I'm issuing a 0:36:54.719 --> 0:36:57.239 press release, but I'm not going to call it a 0:36:57.280 --> 0:36:59.040 press release. I'm going to call it an executive order. 0:36:59.560 --> 0:37:02.280 So in the order itself, the whiteness is admitting it's 0:37:02.320 --> 0:37:06.480 simply a placeholder. It's just a list of suggestions. But 0:37:06.520 --> 0:37:08.520 here's the one thing to understand about how this order 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:11.080 is constructed. All right, it's a classic use of the 0:37:11.080 --> 0:37:16.280 bully pulpit plus federal procurement power two levers. A president 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:19.920 actually does control layered over a sector where the president 0:37:19.960 --> 0:37:23.560 has almost no direct legislative authority. So once you see 0:37:23.560 --> 0:37:27.680 the architecture, then the whole document reads differently. So let 0:37:27.719 --> 0:37:30.920 me quickly follow through it. So here's what it actually does. 0:37:31.400 --> 0:37:36.680 There's a federal contractor leverage that he is using as 0:37:36.680 --> 0:37:40.799 his authority. It's real, but it's extraordinary limited, and it's 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:43.319 the orders. Really, it's the only credible threat in this 0:37:43.440 --> 0:37:46.960 executive order, and the mechinism actually has a specific name, 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:52.000 suspension and disbarment, and it directs federal agencies to evaluate 0:37:52.040 --> 0:37:56.200 whether NCAA rule violations are serious enough to affect a 0:37:56.320 --> 0:38:01.399 university's status as a responsible contractor or grantee. Translate, if 0:38:01.400 --> 0:38:05.440 they think you're abusing the NIL system and you're somehow 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:08.920 taking money away from programs that might be giving getting 0:38:08.960 --> 0:38:12.240 government funding in order to pay for your football program, 0:38:12.840 --> 0:38:17.480 they could theoretically ban that university from receiving any federal 0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:21.080 research grants at all. Now would they actually do it? 0:38:22.719 --> 0:38:26.000 Would it up even survive court challenges if they attempted it? 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:30.279 But it is a This would really be a nuclear option, right, 0:38:30.560 --> 0:38:35.399 This is the one power this order technically has That 0:38:35.400 --> 0:38:38.160 one would be shocked if he actually enacted it, because 0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:41.319 you'd be attacking a lot of state universities. And we 0:38:41.360 --> 0:38:45.719 know this. Nuclear options usually don't get used casually. But 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:49.360 ask yourself, this is the Department of Energy going to 0:38:49.400 --> 0:38:52.200 shut down a billion dollar physics project because a booster 0:38:52.280 --> 0:38:56.360 overpaid for a quarterback. The threat of an audit or 0:38:56.360 --> 0:38:59.920 a funding suspension is a real deterrent. Right. Universities hate it, 0:39:00.719 --> 0:39:05.120 but actual disbarmment is so disruptive to federal research relationships 0:39:05.160 --> 0:39:08.239 that it functions more as a sword to waive than 0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:11.840 a sword to swing. There's also a technical problem. The 0:39:11.880 --> 0:39:16.040 trigger requires violations of NCAA rules that are applicable, lawful, 0:39:16.080 --> 0:39:19.839 and operative. Well, given the courts, it basically struck down 0:39:19.880 --> 0:39:24.000 every NCAA rule there's ever been into football, then there's 0:39:24.120 --> 0:39:27.080 really nothing for it. The universe of operative rules may 0:39:27.120 --> 0:39:31.440 be legally thin by the way this order technically becomes 0:39:31.480 --> 0:39:36.239 functional August first, twenty twenty six. So the government is 0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:40.560 threatening to enforce rules that are simultaneously being litigated into oblivion. 0:39:41.239 --> 0:39:43.279 And that's the one part of this order that had 0:39:43.320 --> 0:39:50.040 teeth okay. Also in here the twenty million dollar threshold definition. 0:39:50.200 --> 0:39:53.920 Quietly important buried in the definition section is a provision 0:39:53.920 --> 0:39:57.759 that actually focuses the order's enforcement universe by limiting its 0:39:57.760 --> 0:40:00.439 scope to schools generating at least twenty milli million dollars 0:40:00.480 --> 0:40:03.840 annually in athletics revenue. So that means the order is 0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:06.239 targeting somewhere between one hundred and thirty and one hundred 0:40:06.239 --> 0:40:10.120 and fifty programs, essentially the Power four plus the group 0:40:10.160 --> 0:40:12.760 of it's the power four plus the group of five schools. 0:40:14.400 --> 0:40:16.400 You know, some not all group of five schools, but 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:18.400 I put Gonzaga in there. They don't a football program, 0:40:18.400 --> 0:40:20.920 but they would qualify on the athletic side, right, But 0:40:21.000 --> 0:40:23.960 it's schools like that, So it exempts basically every D 0:40:24.040 --> 0:40:27.440 two and D three program. It's meaningfully narrow, and it 0:40:27.480 --> 0:40:29.839 tells you where the White House actually intends to apply pressure, right, 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:33.840 it's on the big schools. Now, there is another directive 0:40:33.880 --> 0:40:36.920 with the Federal Trade Commission, and it directs the FTC 0:40:37.040 --> 0:40:43.359 to enforce existing statutes against bad actor agents. Now this look, 0:40:43.480 --> 0:40:46.760 I think everybody wants to see agents held to account, 0:40:46.760 --> 0:40:49.879 make sure they're following the law. The FTC already has 0:40:49.920 --> 0:40:52.560 its authority. They don't need a law to do it. 0:40:52.560 --> 0:40:57.520 It just redirects existing enforcement priority. So this is actionable, 0:40:57.760 --> 0:41:00.760 but it addresses agents at the margins about the systemic 0:41:00.840 --> 0:41:04.160 NIL and revenue sharing problem. So if agents are taking 0:41:04.200 --> 0:41:06.759 too big a chunk of change from the NIL, that's bad, 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:11.960 but it doesn't actually deal with the system itself. Then 0:41:12.000 --> 0:41:15.319 there's the Department of Justice challenge to state laws, and 0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:17.960 I think that directing the Attorney General to pursue actions 0:41:18.000 --> 0:41:21.680 against these state NIL laws using the commerce clause and 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:26.319 contracts clause. It's a legitimate theory of law. But some 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:29.600 state laws, particularly those that apply only to insatee schools 0:41:30.440 --> 0:41:33.080 or discriminate against out of state transfer competition, may be 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:38.400 genuinely vulnerable. But it's expensive litigation. Federal government has not 0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:42.080 been winning these cases very easily. They'd be suing Florida, 0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:47.960 Republican states, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and they'll fight this. Do 0:41:48.000 --> 0:41:50.239 we really think this administration is going to go after 0:41:50.280 --> 0:41:53.400 the state of Florida, the state of Texas. Ken Paxton 0:41:53.480 --> 0:41:56.520 still the Attorney general last time I checked. So look 0:41:57.760 --> 0:42:02.640 reporting acquirements. This matter of education shall consider requiring reporting 0:42:02.640 --> 0:42:06.560 on roster spots and athletic aid by gender. This is 0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:11.920 helpful if it allows Title nine enforcement to be used, 0:42:11.960 --> 0:42:14.560 and it could. It's important data to gather so that 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:16.840 in itself, Look, more data is better than no data. 0:42:19.920 --> 0:42:23.960 But everything else is wish casting zero enforcement right. This 0:42:24.040 --> 0:42:26.279 is the biggest tell in the document. Section four B 0:42:26.360 --> 0:42:28.880 is essentially a wish list sent to the nc double 0:42:28.880 --> 0:42:32.960 at it should, in its discretion adopt rules of eligibility, transfers, 0:42:33.000 --> 0:42:35.560 revenue sharing, nil and more. While the nc DOUABA is 0:42:35.560 --> 0:42:38.680 a private organization. The White House can't control anything it does. 0:42:39.040 --> 0:42:43.640 Every single item is aspirational that they list, and there's aspirational, 0:42:43.680 --> 0:42:46.839 it's not mandatory. The word should appears where shell would 0:42:46.920 --> 0:42:50.880 appear if this had actual force, Right, should versus shell. 0:42:50.960 --> 0:42:53.640 That's a keyword there. If you see shell, that's enforceable. 0:42:53.640 --> 0:42:58.960 If you see should, it's just a suggestion. Now, this 0:42:59.080 --> 0:43:01.359 is handing the nc double life some political cover, right. 0:43:01.600 --> 0:43:03.640 The White House is handing the NCAA a document it 0:43:03.680 --> 0:43:06.440 can point to when implementing unpopular rules. Hey, we're not 0:43:06.480 --> 0:43:08.960 doing this because we want to. The federal government directed 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:13.080 us to do it, so that's the functional purpose. But 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:15.719 this administration and the government is so unpopular. Do we 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:18.360 think that this gives the NCAA the cover that the 0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:23.120 White House thinks it's giving them. There's a fraudulent nil definition. 0:43:23.239 --> 0:43:26.720 It's legally untested. It almost certainly will be challenged in court. 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:29.160 The order tries to define paying above fair market value 0:43:29.200 --> 0:43:32.000 for nil services as fraud Well, who the hell decides 0:43:32.000 --> 0:43:35.239 what fair market value is the market? Who's deciding the market? Right? 0:43:35.320 --> 0:43:39.240 This is it's a novel legal theory. But we don't 0:43:39.280 --> 0:43:45.160 really have any sort of enforcement mechanism here. Trust me, 0:43:45.360 --> 0:43:48.279 it would be litigated to death, and to its death. 0:43:49.880 --> 0:43:53.200 The revenue sharing prohibition legally circular. The order calls for 0:43:53.239 --> 0:43:56.280 prohibiting federal funds from being used for nil revenue sharing payments, 0:43:56.560 --> 0:43:59.640 but schools aren't currently using federal funds for that. But again, 0:43:59.680 --> 0:44:01.840 I think they're going to try to use fungible money. 0:44:01.880 --> 0:44:05.640 And this where this is where I guess if he 0:44:05.760 --> 0:44:07.680 really wanted to be the college sports are and just 0:44:07.719 --> 0:44:10.440 start punishing certain schools, the problem is he would look 0:44:10.480 --> 0:44:13.480 like he's trying to essentially go back to the old system, 0:44:13.600 --> 0:44:16.920 which was actually more unfair to the players, more unfair 0:44:16.920 --> 0:44:19.520 to the schools, and only allowed about fifteen or twenty 0:44:19.560 --> 0:44:24.600 schools to do it. So bottom line, this executive order 0:44:24.640 --> 0:44:26.640 is a press release with an August first state stamp. 0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:31.080 It has three legally credible mechanisms, federal contractor leverage, FDC, 0:44:31.120 --> 0:44:34.520 agent enforcement, and a DG challenge to certain state laws, 0:44:34.640 --> 0:44:38.680 but all three face meaningful legal and practical obstacles. None 0:44:38.719 --> 0:44:41.800 of them address the core structural problem. College football generates billions. 0:44:41.800 --> 0:44:44.160 The courts have said players deserve a share, and Congress 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:45.960 has not passed a framework to govern any of it. 0:44:46.480 --> 0:44:48.640 What this order does most effectively is give the White 0:44:48.640 --> 0:44:51.680 House a political talking point on college sports. That's it 0:44:52.200 --> 0:44:54.520 hands the NCAA a document to hide behind if they 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:57.200 want to implement unpopular parts of this. But the order 0:44:57.200 --> 0:45:01.480 cannot restore the NCAA's enforcement authority, not grant anti trust immunity. 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:04.880 It cannot settle the employee question. Only Congress can do 0:45:04.920 --> 0:45:07.400 those things. And the order admits it right there at 0:45:07.400 --> 0:45:11.760 the top, if you know where to look. So that's 0:45:11.840 --> 0:45:15.640 your president trying to insert himself in a situation of 0:45:15.640 --> 0:45:18.680 which he has no controlling legal authority what so ever. 0:45:19.239 --> 0:45:21.400 But we always kind of knew that. Speaking of no 0:45:21.440 --> 0:45:23.600 controlling legal authority, the real question is does even have 0:45:23.640 --> 0:45:26.600 one to conduct the war he's doing in Iran that 0:45:27.000 --> 0:45:30.640 in twenty two days technically expires. All right with that, 0:45:30.800 --> 0:45:33.440 let's sneak in the break and my conversation with my 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:40.600 friend Mike Pascot. 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So no 0:46:51.200 --> 0:46:55.359 hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan, 0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:58.040 So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to 0:46:58.120 --> 0:47:01.080 Sold today. Right now, SOL is offering my audience thirty 0:47:01.120 --> 0:47:03.919 percent off your entire order. Go to getsold dot com 0:47:03.920 --> 0:47:07.400 and use the word podcast that's getsold dot Com promo 0:47:07.440 --> 0:47:11.120 code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too 0:47:11.400 --> 0:47:18.160 am a customer. Well, coming back for a return engagement 0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:20.040 as we would like to do regularly. I think we're 0:47:20.040 --> 0:47:23.280 almost doing this quarterly. It's my my pal Mike Pesca 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:27.960 of the Just List and all sorts of his his world. 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:32.040 We were just talking about each other's each other's digital world, 0:47:33.080 --> 0:47:35.319 and we like to have our world's collide. Mike, It's 0:47:35.360 --> 0:47:35.920 good to see you. 0:47:36.200 --> 0:47:38.880 Hey, thanks for having me. Speaking of quarterly, what happened 0:47:38.880 --> 0:47:42.200 to the Trump proposal to do away with quarterly reports 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:44.319 and only do by any l I guess it would 0:47:44.360 --> 0:47:46.640 be Actually just so there's that's still moving its way 0:47:46.640 --> 0:47:47.480 through the SEC. 0:47:47.600 --> 0:47:49.359 I think I actually just saw an update on. 0:47:49.320 --> 0:47:52.440 That there is which I've talked to like that. 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:56.279 Oh, it's a good idea I talked to. You know, 0:47:56.360 --> 0:48:00.040 there was a so Jack Welch is considered the he 0:48:00.840 --> 0:48:03.319 got the sort of the godfather of that idea right, 0:48:03.360 --> 0:48:06.520 the quarterly reports to goose stock prices. Back in his 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:11.480 old ge days and towards the end of his life 0:48:11.520 --> 0:48:15.320 he started expressing like he admitted, I probably that the 0:48:15.400 --> 0:48:21.440 quarterly report idea was it is past. He wouldn't, you know, 0:48:21.480 --> 0:48:24.359 because no person of his ego will ever admit they 0:48:24.400 --> 0:48:27.359 were wrong. He just sort of admitted that they were 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:29.800 it was no longer useful, and that in some ways 0:48:29.800 --> 0:48:35.000 it was probably hurting companies. He was he was pre right, Yes, yeah, exactly, 0:48:35.040 --> 0:48:36.920 you know the way somebody with a huge ego like 0:48:37.000 --> 0:48:38.160 his son. 0:48:38.440 --> 0:48:41.080 Yeah. The downside to that that I've heard is that 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:45.680 back when Jack Welsh was pioneering that things were a 0:48:45.719 --> 0:48:49.239 little more stable, and now quarterly reports at least give 0:48:49.320 --> 0:48:54.640 some visibility into possible meltdowns. But also the Ft. There's 0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:57.279 an FT podcast, I know you like the Ft, and 0:48:57.400 --> 0:48:59.879 they were having a debate where I think they said, 0:49:00.120 --> 0:49:03.319 just financially good idea, but what you don't want to 0:49:03.360 --> 0:49:06.399 do is give Donald Trump any wins ever, And these 0:49:06.440 --> 0:49:09.840 were FT journalists right now, but they were embracing I 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:12.840 guess their activism, which is once he comes up with 0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:15.799 a good idea, that's the most dangerous thing of all. 0:49:16.080 --> 0:49:18.319 And I was contrasting that I did a thing on 0:49:18.480 --> 0:49:22.360 the Gist my show with The Dispatch where viewed Emily Auster, 0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:24.880 who was saying, you know, some of this maga stuff, 0:49:24.960 --> 0:49:27.920 not the vaccines, but the meat and the food pyramid, 0:49:28.080 --> 0:49:30.080 that is a good idea, And then she got blowback, 0:49:30.080 --> 0:49:33.439 how are you giving Trump credit? So even journalistically, it's 0:49:33.480 --> 0:49:36.440 interesting the Dispatch, you know, these former Republicans are maybe 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:40.880 still identified conservatives. They're saying, we have to be honest, 0:49:40.880 --> 0:49:42.920 and if we need to give Trump a win, we 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:46.560 give him a win. And the Financial Times, which definitely 0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:50.879 sees himself outside the activism continuum, said no, we can 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:52.040 never give Donald Trump a win. 0:49:52.800 --> 0:49:55.960 No. Well, you know this is at the core of 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:59.960 the redistricting fight in Virginia. This is a bad idea, 0:50:00.239 --> 0:50:05.799 this is bad for democracy. But the counter argument from 0:50:05.800 --> 0:50:07.960 people that even admit, yeah, this is not a good 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:10.640 idea long term, you got to fight fire with fire, 0:50:11.719 --> 0:50:15.160 And it's the whole, this whole mentality. And I just think, 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:18.520 look what we've turned into is I think both parties 0:50:18.560 --> 0:50:23.920 have become reactionary parties. Right, they don't really they define 0:50:23.960 --> 0:50:28.160 themselves right own the Libs and Trump resistance is really 0:50:28.200 --> 0:50:31.759 the same ideology, don't you think, yes? 0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:34.680 And all we're doing and evall Levine writes about this, 0:50:34.960 --> 0:50:37.840 we're just in this era of going back and forth 0:50:37.880 --> 0:50:40.040 and to and fro, and I don't see how we 0:50:40.080 --> 0:50:42.719 get out of it now as far as the redition. 0:50:42.520 --> 0:50:45.040 I do, but we got out of this before. I 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:48.960 obsessed over this. This is actually the I'm going to 0:50:48.960 --> 0:50:52.759 pull a muscle padding my promoting something I'm doing here, 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:56.520 but on my substack this week I sort of go through. 0:50:56.680 --> 0:51:00.560 I'm obsessed with the period between Jackson and lincol in 0:51:00.600 --> 0:51:05.040 American history because it was this we had technically eight 0:51:05.080 --> 0:51:07.719 presidents in twenty four years because of deaths, but it 0:51:07.880 --> 0:51:12.080 was really seven presidencies in twenty four years because you 0:51:12.080 --> 0:51:16.040 had the thirty one day president and each one of 0:51:16.080 --> 0:51:21.480 them and essentially it was like each president was elected 0:51:21.960 --> 0:51:24.359 claiming they were going to solve it. They were going 0:51:24.400 --> 0:51:26.280 to bring the country together, they were going to quote 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:29.680 solve this problem, right, but not necessarily solve the problem, 0:51:29.760 --> 0:51:32.960 meaning at that time it's slavery. But it would be 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:36.120 all these papering over ideas, right, So you had whether 0:51:36.160 --> 0:51:39.200 it was the Democrats nominating a Northern or at one 0:51:39.239 --> 0:51:43.160 point in Franklin Pierce or the joint Tickets. 0:51:42.760 --> 0:51:44.759 Which was Harrison and Title dough Face. 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:49.080 What's it the dough Face, right, Yeah, the signing of 0:51:49.120 --> 0:51:51.719 the Fugitive Slave Act that Millard Fillmore thought was going 0:51:51.760 --> 0:51:55.560 to finally, you know, to break some peace. Right, it was, 0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:57.759 but it was a It was just a series of 0:51:57.760 --> 0:51:59.719 presidents that were trying to paper over right and then 0:51:59.760 --> 0:52:03.160 find only the Whigs were just too weak to deal 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:05.520 with the issue. And then finally we got a new 0:52:05.520 --> 0:52:08.840 party in the Republican Party. So it led me to 0:52:08.880 --> 0:52:11.160 think which party is going to be the Whigs because 0:52:11.160 --> 0:52:13.120 I'm convinced one of them is going away in the 0:52:13.120 --> 0:52:16.560 next decade or so out of frustration by their bye 0:52:16.600 --> 0:52:19.799 by like you can't you're not you're not accomplishing. You know, 0:52:19.960 --> 0:52:21.960 there's going to be a moment and I think, you 0:52:22.000 --> 0:52:26.040 know Trump won, everybody thought it'd be the Republicans. I'm 0:52:26.040 --> 0:52:29.000 not thinking, well, it could very easily be the Democrats, 0:52:29.080 --> 0:52:32.440 right because they're in some ways performing like the Whigs. 0:52:32.480 --> 0:52:34.880 At the moment where there's a divide inside the party, 0:52:35.040 --> 0:52:39.200 do you go full resistance or do you try to 0:52:39.239 --> 0:52:42.399 persuade those you know, a few more from the other 0:52:42.440 --> 0:52:46.880 side to try to have a more durable majoritarianism. And 0:52:46.920 --> 0:52:49.799 I think that, you know, bottom line is we're not 0:52:50.000 --> 0:52:52.319 We're not done yet with this back and forth we had. 0:52:52.680 --> 0:52:56.800 We went through six presidencies between Jackson and Lincoln. Nobody 0:52:56.840 --> 0:52:58.880 got re elected, no party got reelected. Right, it was 0:52:58.920 --> 0:53:02.200 just a series of this stuff, and we're we're in 0:53:02.200 --> 0:53:04.600 our third one right now, twenty eight get going to 0:53:04.680 --> 0:53:07.640 resolve this. So I think we will eventually resolve it. 0:53:07.719 --> 0:53:09.600 The question is how many people have to get hurt 0:53:09.640 --> 0:53:10.839 before we sober up? 0:53:10.960 --> 0:53:12.960 That's exactly what I was saying. So all it will 0:53:12.960 --> 0:53:15.799 take is six hundred thousand dead, although normed for the 0:53:15.840 --> 0:53:18.360 current population now would be like what two million? Great? 0:53:19.920 --> 0:53:22.520 I know, I'm we're not advocating civil war here, guys. 0:53:22.840 --> 0:53:26.000 No the boat. We're actually hoping we can resolve it 0:53:26.040 --> 0:53:27.239 with it, you know, just short of that. 0:53:27.960 --> 0:53:30.879 Yeah, there are different party systems. I wanted I heard 0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:35.840 your commentary on Virginia. So you think that even without 0:53:35.840 --> 0:53:39.600 this redistricting it would go from now it's six Democrats, 0:53:39.600 --> 0:53:42.520 five Republicans. You think we'd go to nine two eight 0:53:42.560 --> 0:53:44.040 three without eighty three? 0:53:44.080 --> 0:53:46.799 Without it, you got the first and the second. Wait, man, 0:53:46.880 --> 0:53:50.239 you think you think ten to one with it. I 0:53:50.239 --> 0:53:53.279 don't know if they get the ten one ten one max. Yeah, 0:53:53.320 --> 0:53:54.759 but it could end up at nine two. So if 0:53:54.800 --> 0:53:58.239 you end up at nine two, you basically did all 0:53:58.239 --> 0:54:01.440 this work. You sort of peed away political capital of 0:54:01.480 --> 0:54:04.640 Barack Obama and Abigail Spamberger from one seat. 0:54:05.200 --> 0:54:09.799 Right. But do you think, as a general principal Democrats 0:54:09.800 --> 0:54:13.880 who have always said we are better than redistricting for 0:54:13.960 --> 0:54:17.239 political gain, do you think that's what they should say 0:54:17.320 --> 0:54:20.320 or they should be recognizing the moment right now where 0:54:20.400 --> 0:54:22.560 the headwinds are that we don't need to do it 0:54:22.640 --> 0:54:26.000 right now because as a principle, I do not believe 0:54:26.400 --> 0:54:29.239 in unilateral disarmament. 0:54:29.480 --> 0:54:34.440 Sure, I understand that concept. Yeah, I just think the 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:38.239 problem is, I guess I'm even more Pollyannish about it. 0:54:38.320 --> 0:54:42.719 I think having more swing basically you're taking away swing districts. 0:54:42.960 --> 0:54:46.680 But if you actually have Republicans in light red districts, 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:50.560 then you have more possibility. Would we be better off 0:54:51.080 --> 0:54:55.440 if a third of the Republican caucus were Don Bacon people, right? 0:54:56.040 --> 0:54:59.400 Or do you create a situation where no, you're just 0:54:59.400 --> 0:55:01.960 gonna have a whole bunch of James Comers, is that 0:55:02.000 --> 0:55:05.040 what you want? And then then there's no ability to 0:55:05.160 --> 0:55:09.960 sort of bridge any device, so that I actually think 0:55:10.000 --> 0:55:11.640 that that's the other part of this is that what 0:55:11.680 --> 0:55:14.920 do you what do you are we really gaining in 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:18.759 this other than a fight bridge just you know, a 0:55:18.800 --> 0:55:27.120 gavel And again I'm I'm this. Look, we've gone through this. 0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:32.319 Anytime you want to temporarily suspend anything because you think no, no, no, well, 0:55:32.800 --> 0:55:36.120 first of all, how often have parties you know who 0:55:36.120 --> 0:55:37.920 said no, no, no, we'll come back to this have actually 0:55:37.960 --> 0:55:38.480 come back to this. 0:55:38.719 --> 0:55:44.759 Right, Yeah, I think that that's wise, but very specific 0:55:44.800 --> 0:55:47.960 to the moment. And I remember it was before we 0:55:48.080 --> 0:55:51.360 started seeing polls or knew much more than there's usually 0:55:51.400 --> 0:55:54.839 the swing back in the midterms. But New York had 0:55:54.840 --> 0:55:57.920 the choice whether to really to throw out a fairly 0:55:58.000 --> 0:56:02.240 drawn electoral map or the Democrats could try to force 0:56:02.320 --> 0:56:06.320 through their pro democratic map. And I remember thinking to myself, 0:56:06.800 --> 0:56:09.319 these are the Democrats right now kind of violating their 0:56:09.360 --> 0:56:11.640 own principles. And I don't know if they'll be punished 0:56:11.680 --> 0:56:14.160 by the voters for it, but they're showing themselves to 0:56:14.200 --> 0:56:17.680 be cynical. And it is I said, not a good look. Now, 0:56:17.719 --> 0:56:20.760 this was before I thought that they would win anyway. 0:56:20.760 --> 0:56:22.880 And in New York it doesn't really matter that My 0:56:23.040 --> 0:56:25.040 matter is a little bit. You know, Upstate New York 0:56:25.440 --> 0:56:27.400 elects Repubsi Valley. 0:56:27.400 --> 0:56:31.160 There's a whole bunch of places where right now, New 0:56:31.200 --> 0:56:36.360 York is Ohio without the New York City meaniway. 0:56:35.600 --> 0:56:38.600 Well, Pennsylvania's Alabama with a tea in the middle. But 0:56:41.400 --> 0:56:44.000 as a principle, I don't think people really vote on it, 0:56:44.080 --> 0:56:46.400 especially because of the primacy of the primaries. And I 0:56:46.400 --> 0:56:49.040 think this is the biggest problem in American politics. You 0:56:49.080 --> 0:56:51.720 were talking about money. I think whatever can be done 0:56:52.000 --> 0:56:54.239 to make the because we're so polarized. I mean, if 0:56:54.239 --> 0:56:56.439 you want to go back to the EPI phenomenon, the 0:56:56.480 --> 0:56:59.440 primaries of the EPI phenomenon on, our polarization is the worst. 0:56:59.520 --> 0:57:00.799 And I have a b' end and a guy I know, 0:57:00.880 --> 0:57:04.560 Bradley Tusk, and he's tried to get essentially app voting, 0:57:04.600 --> 0:57:06.560 and I think that would be a real game changer 0:57:06.600 --> 0:57:09.440 if it could be done successfully. And he's convinced me 0:57:09.480 --> 0:57:11.600 it can be done, So I don't want to. 0:57:11.680 --> 0:57:13.880 You know, that's a lot of they're going to experiment 0:57:13.960 --> 0:57:15.080 in Alaska with this first. 0:57:14.880 --> 0:57:17.240 One Alaska, and it's done in West Virginia and it's 0:57:17.240 --> 0:57:20.680 been done successfully, and he specifically tried to bring it 0:57:20.720 --> 0:57:22.920 to non blue states. He tried to bring it to 0:57:23.000 --> 0:57:26.880 places where they might be suspicious of this online voting app. 0:57:26.920 --> 0:57:28.560 And think about all the things that we do that 0:57:28.680 --> 0:57:30.920 need to be secure on an app, from you know, 0:57:30.960 --> 0:57:34.520 registering for a citizenship or for our IDs and everything else, 0:57:34.640 --> 0:57:36.240 so it can be done. And once it's done and 0:57:36.280 --> 0:57:39.560 once it's easy, it takes primaries from something with eleven 0:57:39.560 --> 0:57:42.240 percent participation to you know, fifty, And I think that's 0:57:42.280 --> 0:57:45.160 a huge game changer and it's the number one reform 0:57:45.160 --> 0:57:47.080 I think that really can change things. 0:57:47.480 --> 0:57:50.440 Look and I actually think state I think I think 0:57:50.480 --> 0:57:55.560 we've had this conversation before. I think taxpayer funded partisan 0:57:55.680 --> 0:58:00.880 primaries I think are unconstitutional because you're telling me I 0:58:00.920 --> 0:58:05.440 have to join a private organization in order to participate 0:58:05.480 --> 0:58:09.720 in a taxpayer funded event. I think that's a violation 0:58:09.760 --> 0:58:13.680 of equal protection. And now they I don't think they're 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:19.720 you know, I'm I am pretty I would just call 0:58:19.760 --> 0:58:23.000 it supportive of the folks over at open primaries, and 0:58:23.080 --> 0:58:25.440 I've like pushed this as as sort of I think 0:58:25.480 --> 0:58:28.480 there's a legal I think there's actually you can you 0:58:28.560 --> 0:58:31.040 can sue some of these states that have these that 0:58:31.200 --> 0:58:36.120 essentially bar independence and bar non registered voters from this. 0:58:36.200 --> 0:58:40.040 But looked all party primary, I mean, it is the 0:58:40.040 --> 0:58:43.960 better answer. There's no you know. The fact is, think 0:58:44.000 --> 0:58:47.280 about the office that is the least partisan in America 0:58:47.320 --> 0:58:51.560 these days, it's mayor. And a majority of mayors are 0:58:51.600 --> 0:58:55.000 elected in all party primaries, where the top two candidates 0:58:55.040 --> 0:58:57.200 usually they don't even put parties. A lot of them 0:58:57.200 --> 0:59:00.360 are none are you don't put your party, lay on 0:59:00.480 --> 0:59:04.040 the ballot and top two play. I mean. And the 0:59:04.080 --> 0:59:06.560 thing is is that I love to use the example 0:59:06.600 --> 0:59:10.640 of a congressman named Carlos Sumenez. He's a Republican congressman 0:59:10.680 --> 0:59:14.640 from Miami. When he was mayor of Miami Dade, I 0:59:14.640 --> 0:59:17.760 had no idea he was a conservative Republican because he 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:20.760 didn't govern that way. He governed the whole county. He 0:59:20.800 --> 0:59:24.280 was elected in a county wide vote. He never put 0:59:24.360 --> 0:59:29.440 his party. You knew he leaned right, okay, and let's 0:59:29.480 --> 0:59:32.880 just see you govern based on how the votes that 0:59:32.960 --> 0:59:34.920 get you in office. And then of course he got 0:59:34.920 --> 0:59:38.680 elected in a partisan Republican primary where the Republican primaries everything, 0:59:38.720 --> 0:59:41.680 and he's voted a lot more. Conserve even even challenged 0:59:41.720 --> 0:59:46.000 that the elect didn't certify in January sixth, right, And 0:59:46.120 --> 0:59:48.320 I remember being surprised that he didn't because I knew 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:50.600 what kind of Mary was. But I actually chalk it 0:59:50.680 --> 0:59:53.040 up to I always say this, our issue is incentives. 0:59:53.320 --> 0:59:56.400 There are bad people can do good things with good incentives, 0:59:56.400 --> 0:59:58.920 and good people can do bad things with bad incentives. 0:59:59.280 --> 1:00:03.040 And our primary system is mostly a bad incentive. 1:00:02.600 --> 1:00:04.600 Right and are and to be a mayor you have 1:00:04.680 --> 1:00:08.080 to deliver actual material benefits to your voters and you 1:00:08.120 --> 1:00:10.520 will be judged on that. And snow days matter not 1:00:10.560 --> 1:00:13.040 in Miami, but definitely in the Northeast. And then when 1:00:13.080 --> 1:00:17.320 you were a part of an anonymous or by choice, 1:00:17.520 --> 1:00:21.000 a powerless organization like the House of Representatives, then your 1:00:21.040 --> 1:00:24.120 incentives are all to be either a free agent who 1:00:24.160 --> 1:00:26.160 is a burr in the side of your party or 1:00:26.280 --> 1:00:30.600 you know, a party apparatic. Absolutely, what do you. 1:00:32.640 --> 1:00:35.880 What do you think of these independent candidacies and do 1:00:35.920 --> 1:00:37.720 you buy into them or are you one of those 1:00:37.760 --> 1:00:40.240 that just doesn't believe these are going to work. 1:00:40.560 --> 1:00:43.720 Duverger's law, we only have two parties? Do you remember 1:00:43.760 --> 1:00:46.080 that from your political science training? What was it whose 1:00:46.160 --> 1:00:49.640 law Duverger might be du Viage. This was the idea 1:00:49.680 --> 1:00:52.120 that in a first past the post system such as ours, 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:54.280 you only ever get two parties. But it was one 1:00:54.280 --> 1:00:56.320 of these laws with so many exceptions. I don't know. 1:00:56.360 --> 1:00:58.440 It wound up being like a Tammany Hall law. Like 1:00:58.560 --> 1:01:00.560 look at India, they have first passed the post, then 1:01:00.560 --> 1:01:03.200 they have votre parities. Of course it's India. So I 1:01:03.200 --> 1:01:06.160 think in some of the cases, you know Nebraska, it's 1:01:06.480 --> 1:01:10.400 an imperative, it's the the In that case, the brand 1:01:10.480 --> 1:01:13.760 of the Democrats are so toxic that it makes sense 1:01:14.040 --> 1:01:18.240 to run as an independent, say with McMullen in Utah. 1:01:18.360 --> 1:01:20.400 Not that he could win, but it makes sense to 1:01:20.520 --> 1:01:23.200 win to run that way. And I also think on 1:01:23.240 --> 1:01:26.959 the presidential level there's a real chance at a breakthrough 1:01:27.280 --> 1:01:29.880 of a third party candidate. I think it's so much 1:01:29.920 --> 1:01:32.680 harder at the state level. I kind of support it. 1:01:32.720 --> 1:01:37.000 I like experimentation and mixing up, but you know, just 1:01:37.040 --> 1:01:40.240 because of all the incentives and all the everything that's 1:01:40.280 --> 1:01:42.520 in place, it makes it hard. It would be easier 1:01:42.560 --> 1:01:45.120 with that jungle primarya I think first past, not first 1:01:45.120 --> 1:01:47.800 past the post, but top two. Oh and one other 1:01:47.800 --> 1:01:50.920 thing I wanted to say, it's a light criticism. I 1:01:50.960 --> 1:01:54.920 think that the activists who were so behind ranked choice voting, 1:01:55.360 --> 1:01:59.280 they my rank choice of electoral reforms that would be 1:01:59.320 --> 1:02:02.120 way down the I'd more for it than against it, 1:02:02.400 --> 1:02:05.320 But ninety something percent of the time it doesn't have 1:02:05.640 --> 1:02:08.440 a real impact. There is a certain percentage of the 1:02:08.480 --> 1:02:10.720 time where you could plausibly argue is the are the 1:02:10.760 --> 1:02:13.720 will of the people really being reflected? And they did 1:02:13.760 --> 1:02:16.240 put a lot of effort into that, as opposed to 1:02:16.320 --> 1:02:18.880 jungle primers, which I think would have helped things a 1:02:18.960 --> 1:02:19.439 lot more. 1:02:19.920 --> 1:02:26.200 Well, look the concept of top four then you know 1:02:26.280 --> 1:02:28.720 sort of top four advance. You know the Alaska law 1:02:28.840 --> 1:02:32.680 is everybody's on the same ballot and top four advance. 1:02:33.520 --> 1:02:37.760 Then it becomes ranked choice for the general I'd preferred it. 1:02:37.800 --> 1:02:40.040 I'm with you. My issue with ranked choice goes back 1:02:40.080 --> 1:02:43.360 to my days explaining what was explaining the vote count 1:02:43.360 --> 1:02:47.040 as it was coming in on election nights, and nobody 1:02:47.240 --> 1:02:49.560 can explain the black box that is ranked choice voting. 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:51.440 There is no way for me to be able to 1:02:51.520 --> 1:02:54.520 open up on election night. Okay, here's the initial run 1:02:55.240 --> 1:02:58.120 and you know, here's what we know about the second choices. 1:02:58.240 --> 1:03:00.560 There appears to be this case and it has more 1:03:00.560 --> 1:03:03.760 second choices of this, and you know, do I think 1:03:03.800 --> 1:03:07.680 we could get there with states and local officials getting 1:03:07.720 --> 1:03:11.480 better at figuring out how to report these things out? Yeah? 1:03:11.520 --> 1:03:14.160 But are we better off not trying to have them 1:03:14.240 --> 1:03:16.560 do two or three different counts on election nine and 1:03:16.680 --> 1:03:19.320 just focus on the main thing being the main thing, 1:03:19.520 --> 1:03:23.480 the actual the first count and then you have a runoff, 1:03:23.960 --> 1:03:28.560 you know, I mean, look, I'm for Louisiana had the 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:31.920 of all the jungle primary systems, it was Louisiana was 1:03:31.960 --> 1:03:36.400 my favorite jungle system because they did it where the 1:03:36.400 --> 1:03:40.280 all party primary actually was like in October or September, 1:03:40.400 --> 1:03:43.840 was late, and then top if nobody got fifty, top 1:03:43.920 --> 1:03:47.720 two met in the general election itself. So that way 1:03:47.760 --> 1:03:49.480 you had because the fear is that if you have 1:03:49.520 --> 1:03:52.360 a runoff after the general election, you get fewer, lesser turnout, 1:03:52.400 --> 1:03:55.320 and it's less well of the people. That's why the 1:03:55.360 --> 1:03:59.560 timing of the Louisiana system made the most sense of 1:03:59.560 --> 1:04:01.160 how he did it, and then you don't have to 1:04:01.160 --> 1:04:03.600 worry about rank choice voting, but you get all the 1:04:04.080 --> 1:04:07.360 but you get the you get exactly what rankd choice 1:04:07.440 --> 1:04:08.440 voting wants to deliver. 1:04:09.520 --> 1:04:12.120 Yes, And I think that I still think it's true 1:04:12.120 --> 1:04:14.520 that ninety something percent of the vote would be the same. 1:04:14.560 --> 1:04:16.760 And that's why these other reforms I think would deliver. 1:04:17.040 --> 1:04:20.560 I think that Louisiana system has the potential to deliver 1:04:20.760 --> 1:04:23.720 vastly different and more in line with the will of 1:04:23.760 --> 1:04:25.400 the people results unlike us. 1:04:25.680 --> 1:04:27.520 Look, I think that by the way, look at the 1:04:27.600 --> 1:04:31.360 last you know, Louisiana, it's basically created a Republican primary 1:04:31.360 --> 1:04:34.040 system for this cycle just to beat Bill Cassidy. Right, 1:04:34.040 --> 1:04:36.160 it became a but they got there getting rid of 1:04:36.200 --> 1:04:37.960 their They got rid of the system just to defeat 1:04:37.960 --> 1:04:40.520 Bill Cassidy because in the old system, Cassidy would have won. 1:04:41.000 --> 1:04:41.840 Yeah. 1:04:42.160 --> 1:04:44.760 And the point being, if you actually look at Louisiana 1:04:44.800 --> 1:04:47.440 election results over the past twenty five years, before you 1:04:47.480 --> 1:04:51.520 know they put this system in, you had a competitive 1:04:51.520 --> 1:04:55.480 two party system. Sure, you had the land Drew dynasty 1:04:55.640 --> 1:04:58.040 was that's right, And you also had you know, John 1:04:58.080 --> 1:05:01.800 Bell Edwards. By the way, Washington State, which has a 1:05:01.880 --> 1:05:05.280 version of this system too, also has had even though 1:05:05.280 --> 1:05:08.760 it's a very blue state, it's been a very competitive 1:05:08.760 --> 1:05:12.480 Republican party for some time up there because of this system. 1:05:13.240 --> 1:05:16.320 And so I just think it actually gives minority voices 1:05:16.840 --> 1:05:20.040 more of an opportunity to have to get their say. 1:05:21.800 --> 1:05:24.880 And I look at Washington, Louisiana, who have Now you know, again, 1:05:25.040 --> 1:05:27.640 we're in this era where each party feels like they 1:05:27.680 --> 1:05:32.160 have to do everything they can to maximize their ability 1:05:32.200 --> 1:05:35.360 to win. In fact, so a buddy of mine who's 1:05:35.360 --> 1:05:40.439 a big consultant in California, I asked him, so, what's 1:05:40.440 --> 1:05:43.440 that What happens if the two Republicans end up in 1:05:43.480 --> 1:05:45.720 the top two and that's the general election, right, Steve 1:05:46.160 --> 1:05:51.760 Hilt and Bianca? And he said Hilton would win, and 1:05:51.840 --> 1:05:55.520 in less than a year there'd be a recall and 1:05:56.040 --> 1:05:58.640 the top two and then the legislature would he and 1:05:58.640 --> 1:06:01.720 then there'd be a a ballot prop to get rid 1:06:01.720 --> 1:06:06.120 of the all party primaries in California would return to 1:06:06.320 --> 1:06:10.640 this old system, basically eradicate all the Arnold Schwarzenegger election 1:06:10.840 --> 1:06:15.720 reforms within essentially eighteen months. Yes, if that is, if 1:06:15.760 --> 1:06:17.760 that's the scenario, and the way he at I said, 1:06:17.760 --> 1:06:19.920 you know what, he's probably right. There would probably be 1:06:19.960 --> 1:06:23.600 a successful recall. Hilton probably would get recalled pretty quickly. 1:06:23.680 --> 1:06:25.880 And you know, you could just see that because we're 1:06:25.920 --> 1:06:29.720 so partisan right now, particularly out on the coasts, that 1:06:29.760 --> 1:06:30.760 would happen pretty quick. 1:06:31.120 --> 1:06:35.200 So there's a classic conundrum there where Stier and Porter 1:06:35.360 --> 1:06:37.520 and Swowell looking at each other, and the mayor of 1:06:37.520 --> 1:06:40.000 San Jose McMahon, who you had on the show the 1:06:40.040 --> 1:06:42.760 other day. You know, he thinks it's on fairies at 1:06:42.760 --> 1:06:45.840 four percent or whatever. I guess you could say, hoo 1:06:45.880 --> 1:06:49.600 blinks first, But is it if someone has to do it? 1:06:49.640 --> 1:06:52.760 You know, it's the classic conundrum of they're all incentivized 1:06:52.800 --> 1:06:56.680 not to go, but but some of them, one of 1:06:56.720 --> 1:06:58.800 them has to go for the good of the trust. 1:06:58.800 --> 1:07:00.840 Don't you trust the voters to figure it out? And 1:07:01.040 --> 1:07:02.120 I just think they'll tune in. 1:07:02.560 --> 1:07:05.440 I don't know. I think that if Styr or Porter 1:07:05.760 --> 1:07:09.720 or swallwell, if one of them doesn't go, the risk 1:07:10.160 --> 1:07:15.040 is so far outweighs their individual choice of a chance 1:07:15.080 --> 1:07:18.400 of becoming governor. It could even ruin all of their careers, right, 1:07:18.400 --> 1:07:20.400 That's maybe how they should think about it. But they 1:07:20.400 --> 1:07:23.640 were so selfish that them would step down. 1:07:34.800 --> 1:07:37.479 I could look at it another way. Isn't this isn't 1:07:37.480 --> 1:07:40.160 the fact that no Democrat has jumped out and indictment 1:07:40.240 --> 1:07:43.600 of the candidates themselves who are running. I mean, you know, 1:07:43.720 --> 1:07:47.880 you do have a lot of I remember remember the 1:07:49.080 --> 1:07:51.600 since you're you're you and I are pretty close in age. 1:07:51.760 --> 1:07:54.760 You remember the nineteen ninety two presidential field when it 1:07:54.800 --> 1:07:57.360 was in nineteen ninety one and called the seven Dwarfs. Yep, 1:07:57.800 --> 1:08:00.360 I remember that because none of them ever all that, 1:08:01.120 --> 1:08:03.720 none of the major Democrats that everybody thought were going 1:08:03.760 --> 1:08:06.040 to be the front runners. They thought, oh, Bush is unbeatable, 1:08:06.040 --> 1:08:07.880 I'm not running. I'm going to wait till ninety six. Right, 1:08:07.840 --> 1:08:10.840 you're Bill Bradley's you're out, Gorge, your dicktep parts, all 1:08:10.880 --> 1:08:13.160 these Jay Rockefeller, all these say I'm none. There were 1:08:13.160 --> 1:08:15.920 all these people that said I'm waiting, and you know, 1:08:16.880 --> 1:08:19.599 so there were those that said, well, every nomination's worth having, 1:08:19.920 --> 1:08:24.000 so why not. And it does feel like the California 1:08:24.080 --> 1:08:26.200 right that the mayor of San Francis. I've talked to 1:08:26.280 --> 1:08:27.800 so many Democrats who are like, I wish the Mayor 1:08:27.800 --> 1:08:30.200 of San Francisco were running. Luriy or you have those 1:08:30.240 --> 1:08:32.760 in southern California. I wish Rick Caruso were running, but 1:08:32.920 --> 1:08:36.040 he's not. I've heard others say I wish Kamala Harris 1:08:36.080 --> 1:08:38.080 are running. I wish Alex Padill were running. There's a 1:08:38.080 --> 1:08:40.360 lot of It is amazing when you look at the 1:08:40.479 --> 1:08:44.920 number of high profile people that don't want to lead 1:08:45.400 --> 1:08:49.200 the world's fourth largest economy. It's surprising how many people 1:08:49.200 --> 1:08:50.439 have taken a pass on that seat. 1:08:50.880 --> 1:08:54.160 Well, you know, maybe some of those names you listed 1:08:54.280 --> 1:08:57.080 have more of an accurate sense of their chances of winning. 1:08:57.120 --> 1:08:59.880 I mean, if Kamala Harris ran for that and lost, 1:09:00.439 --> 1:09:03.880 I think she'd be forever done in politics in any way. 1:09:03.960 --> 1:09:06.120 I mean, it helps her to be Richard Nixon. 1:09:06.360 --> 1:09:09.800 Richard Nixon lost to California governor's racing, became president within 1:09:09.880 --> 1:09:10.479 six years. 1:09:10.560 --> 1:09:12.880 I know we didn't. So you're saying we won't have 1:09:12.960 --> 1:09:15.280 Kamala Harris to kick around anymore with there you got 1:09:15.280 --> 1:09:18.880 democratic cloth code. Yeah. I do think that it's going 1:09:18.920 --> 1:09:20.760 to shake out, and I think that one of them 1:09:20.800 --> 1:09:22.919 will leave, And I don't know if it'll be pressure 1:09:23.040 --> 1:09:27.360 or polling or Tom Steyer really thinks he's going to 1:09:27.400 --> 1:09:28.000 be governor. 1:09:28.479 --> 1:09:32.880 I think Cash Patel is going to get Eric Swawall 1:09:34.720 --> 1:09:38.160 the nomination. If they go and leak that file about 1:09:38.160 --> 1:09:42.320 his in a weird way, that will you know, if 1:09:42.360 --> 1:09:45.559 he becomes a quote target of the Trump administration, right, 1:09:46.200 --> 1:09:48.280 it probably helps him in that primary. 1:09:48.840 --> 1:09:51.920 Yeah. Also, but also the voters aren't paying attention and 1:09:51.960 --> 1:09:54.040 they're turned off by it. I mean, I think I 1:09:54.479 --> 1:09:56.040 don't sense that the voters are paying attention. 1:09:56.080 --> 1:09:58.240 How about the fact that Gavin Newsom doesn't seem to 1:09:58.240 --> 1:10:00.840 have an heir apparent and has no in Tristan. And 1:10:00.880 --> 1:10:02.879 I don't know if any of them would want Gavin's 1:10:02.920 --> 1:10:04.120 endorsement out. 1:10:03.960 --> 1:10:07.200 There, which is odd republic I mean, Democratic front runner, 1:10:07.240 --> 1:10:10.880 but wouldn't even have a positive effect in the race. 1:10:11.000 --> 1:10:14.080 Right now, you know this gets too I know it's 1:10:14.120 --> 1:10:16.559 your show, but let me segue here. So if the 1:10:16.560 --> 1:10:18.040 Democrats gained power. 1:10:17.840 --> 1:10:19.360 Of this is like saying, back of the days when 1:10:19.400 --> 1:10:21.000 I used to have Tom Broke on Meet the Press, 1:10:21.000 --> 1:10:22.640 it would be like, are you going to anchor. 1:10:22.400 --> 1:10:23.080 Meet the Press? 1:10:23.320 --> 1:10:25.439 You know, you know I always said, you know Tom 1:10:25.600 --> 1:10:30.120 was a okay passenger, that he always be instinctively wanting 1:10:30.160 --> 1:10:33.120 to grab the wheel, right, but go ahead, go ahead. 1:10:32.960 --> 1:10:35.360 Well, I could ask you how to question to plug 1:10:35.400 --> 1:10:37.280 my later show how to Know what I wanted to 1:10:37.280 --> 1:10:42.439 ask you was interesting and important for them and everyone. 1:10:42.800 --> 1:10:46.240 Should the Democrats gain power, But what are the things 1:10:46.320 --> 1:10:49.760 they want to do? I know on the national scene 1:10:49.760 --> 1:10:53.920 it's save our democracy, but what are the things in 1:10:54.040 --> 1:10:58.080 the Senate There've been a couple of gigantic bills. Corey 1:10:58.080 --> 1:11:00.960 Booker wants spend seven trillion dollars to give tax cuts 1:11:00.960 --> 1:11:03.280 to everyone except the rich. That would be a rather 1:11:03.479 --> 1:11:07.400 bad program. Chris van Holland has a similar, smaller program, 1:11:07.720 --> 1:11:11.000 but a thing that has gain steam because we're told, 1:11:11.000 --> 1:11:13.400 and I think it's true that this is the affordability 1:11:13.439 --> 1:11:17.840 moment and election is There are different words for it, 1:11:18.160 --> 1:11:24.560 surveillance pricing, predatory pricing, predictive pricing. This is the technology, 1:11:24.800 --> 1:11:27.439 very simple technology that you could change the price based 1:11:27.479 --> 1:11:28.599 on a lot of different things. 1:11:28.760 --> 1:11:30.320 Look, I want to get into this a minute, but 1:11:30.400 --> 1:11:34.560 I actually want to get at the at this specific 1:11:34.920 --> 1:11:38.599 So if Democrats get Congress and they have a Donald 1:11:38.600 --> 1:11:42.000 Trump as president for two years, and this is a 1:11:42.080 --> 1:11:45.800 question that I've had a lot of Democrats freeze up 1:11:45.840 --> 1:11:49.559 on me when I ask them this question, do you 1:11:49.640 --> 1:11:51.559 try to pass legislation with Donald Trump. 1:11:52.760 --> 1:11:53.200 How can you. 1:11:53.240 --> 1:11:57.000 Answer there is a real the base won't be excited 1:11:57.240 --> 1:12:00.680 if you know they negotiate with Donald Trump, you know. 1:12:02.280 --> 1:12:05.080 And yet I'll give you an I'll give you an 1:12:05.080 --> 1:12:08.479 item that I think you could get Jade Vanson to support, 1:12:09.439 --> 1:12:10.840 but I don't know if they would want to help 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:16.280 jd Vance potentially help his presidential campaign. And that is 1:12:16.320 --> 1:12:21.160 the childcare tax credit. Right, that is something that Vance 1:12:21.160 --> 1:12:24.120 and could get Trump to support. That a lot of 1:12:24.360 --> 1:12:26.160 a lot of sort of main you know, sort of 1:12:26.200 --> 1:12:29.479 the There was plenty of Republican opposition to it, right, 1:12:29.560 --> 1:12:31.080 But this is one of the areas where there is 1:12:31.120 --> 1:12:34.240 some there is some agreement between sort of one wing 1:12:34.280 --> 1:12:38.639 of the Democratic Party and one wing of the Republican Party. 1:12:38.800 --> 1:12:42.240 But to me, I think that's the hardest. I think 1:12:42.360 --> 1:12:45.800 that's the hardest thing. Forget what they're going to do 1:12:46.600 --> 1:12:50.479 when in office. Do you want your bills signed by 1:12:50.479 --> 1:12:52.439 Donald Trump? And are you going to be comfortable if 1:12:52.840 --> 1:12:54.639 you pass things that Donald Trump likes? 1:12:54.720 --> 1:12:56.880 Hey, listen, I don't want my money signed by Donald Trump, 1:12:56.920 --> 1:12:58.759 and I'll still spend it, you know what I'm saying. 1:12:58.960 --> 1:13:02.840 How can you get into office and say we are 1:13:02.880 --> 1:13:05.680 such an alternative to the do nothing Republicans, and we're 1:13:05.680 --> 1:13:08.160 going to prove it by doing nothing. So there's a 1:13:08.240 --> 1:13:10.880 number of people in their constituency who really want to 1:13:10.920 --> 1:13:13.439 do something. There's some who look at they know that 1:13:13.439 --> 1:13:14.760 the map's not going to be as good as it 1:13:14.800 --> 1:13:17.000 was in twenty six and actually working with Republicans and 1:13:17.040 --> 1:13:20.599 being bipartisan will be rewarded. There's a bunch that, you know, 1:13:20.760 --> 1:13:24.479 Democrats tend to be more policy wonks. They actually are 1:13:24.520 --> 1:13:28.200 excited to get some things done. You add that all up. 1:13:28.320 --> 1:13:30.479 I think that the we need to do nothing to 1:13:30.920 --> 1:13:34.439 make a point or to not give JD or Donald 1:13:34.439 --> 1:13:36.799 a win. I think that's a small caucus. Of course, 1:13:37.400 --> 1:13:42.240 you know, just a small faction can have devastating, outsized impacts. 1:13:42.320 --> 1:13:44.280 I was just going to say, I don't disagree that 1:13:44.320 --> 1:13:48.040 it's a small faction, but I think the loudest voices 1:13:48.160 --> 1:13:53.080 in the world we occupy right in new media are 1:13:54.280 --> 1:13:56.080 going to be one. And don't forget you're going to 1:13:56.120 --> 1:13:58.439 have presidential candidates on the trail. That's the other thing. 1:13:59.040 --> 1:14:01.000 You're going to have president candidates who are going to 1:14:01.040 --> 1:14:04.880 do nothing but piss on Washington, right, and they're going 1:14:04.960 --> 1:14:09.040 to look for opportunities to run against those that establishment 1:14:09.320 --> 1:14:13.920 crowd whatever it is. So I think we are absolutely 1:14:14.360 --> 1:14:17.679 going to see nothing get done if there's a democratic Now, 1:14:17.880 --> 1:14:20.760 some might argue that's what they want, right, just paralysis 1:14:20.800 --> 1:14:22.559 is better than giving anything. 1:14:22.640 --> 1:14:25.280 These two investigations, they'll count that as the thing. 1:14:25.479 --> 1:14:28.880 But Noia, I think that will be the highest profile stuff, 1:14:28.880 --> 1:14:32.639 and it won't be. It won't be Trump administration officials 1:14:32.680 --> 1:14:35.479 who will all hide under executive privilege. But I'll tell you, 1:14:37.240 --> 1:14:39.240 and I've told this to my friends in the business 1:14:39.280 --> 1:14:43.000 community when they ask me, what should we be telling 1:14:43.040 --> 1:14:45.840 our business that the you know, corporations who are trying 1:14:45.880 --> 1:14:49.360 to figure out what's happening. Why, I said, be prepared 1:14:49.400 --> 1:14:54.120 for lots of subpoenas, because because congressional democrats aren't going 1:14:54.160 --> 1:14:58.160 to be able to get these Trump officials to answer subpoenas, 1:14:58.200 --> 1:15:01.280 because they'll all hide behind executive privilege and finding out 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:03.560 what these deals were that were cut with the administration 1:15:03.720 --> 1:15:06.320 and all this stuff. But the private sector doesn't get 1:15:06.320 --> 1:15:08.920 to hide behind executive privilege. And I have a feeling 1:15:08.960 --> 1:15:13.679 that the most high profile impact of a democratic Congress 1:15:13.760 --> 1:15:14.200 is going to be that. 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:17.120 Yeah, I would think that there are a number of 1:15:17.160 --> 1:15:19.760 Democrats who would say, we'll have done our job if 1:15:19.800 --> 1:15:23.559 our investigations by the time we're done lead in two 1:15:23.680 --> 1:15:28.720 years to subpoena's credible subpoenas of Elon Musk. That's a 1:15:28.760 --> 1:15:32.519 big target. He's subpoenable based on his beach. 1:15:32.520 --> 1:15:34.559 Entire AI, all the Tech I mean, I think they're 1:15:34.560 --> 1:15:36.479 coming after Tech in a big way. 1:15:37.200 --> 1:15:38.800 This is with them. I don't know that Tech has 1:15:38.840 --> 1:15:42.000 committed crimes, but you know, there's a plausible case that 1:15:42.120 --> 1:15:45.240 Musk has with how he you know, his website which 1:15:45.240 --> 1:15:47.560 would only register, which would crash if you wanted to 1:15:47.640 --> 1:15:51.880 register as a Democrat, and even guys like Stephen Miller, 1:15:52.000 --> 1:15:53.120 I think our subpoenable. 1:15:53.240 --> 1:15:56.479 Not that he'll answer. I think he's not that privilege. 1:15:56.479 --> 1:15:59.440 He's in the West Wing. Yeah, I think he absolutely 1:15:59.479 --> 1:16:01.640 hides behind executive privilege. 1:16:01.800 --> 1:16:05.400 But investigations that show that, you know, he went to 1:16:06.120 --> 1:16:11.640 California officials and said, forget due process and forget reasonablelek 1:16:11.640 --> 1:16:15.160 cause just go to parking lots of home depots. I 1:16:15.160 --> 1:16:17.479 mean he did say that, or he allegedly or has 1:16:17.520 --> 1:16:18.760 been reported to have said that. 1:16:19.400 --> 1:16:23.439 Now surveillance price, Okay, I know you're you're obsessed about this. 1:16:23.640 --> 1:16:25.360 Let me tell you a fun Let me tell you 1:16:25.439 --> 1:16:27.439 a fun little nugget I got on this. I had 1:16:27.520 --> 1:16:32.160 interviewed Brad Carson, former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, who's essentially 1:16:32.200 --> 1:16:35.519 the front person for the anthropic AI super Pac, meaning 1:16:36.160 --> 1:16:40.679 the AI superPAC that is pro regulation versus the open 1:16:40.720 --> 1:16:42.679 AI super pac. Right, you know, there's all this money 1:16:42.680 --> 1:16:47.000 flowing around. So were I threw this in there and 1:16:47.080 --> 1:16:49.280 he told me. He says, well, I thank good. Now 1:16:49.280 --> 1:16:51.599 we were talking about AI regulation and I said why 1:16:51.960 --> 1:16:53.800 you're pro and he says, yes, and I want to 1:16:53.840 --> 1:16:56.280 see the states regulate. And he gave me an example. 1:16:56.320 --> 1:16:59.120 He goes, I'm a subscriber to the Washington Post and 1:16:59.200 --> 1:17:03.439 thanks to the law New York, you know, I really 1:17:03.439 --> 1:17:05.880 you know, which said that, you know this has been 1:17:05.920 --> 1:17:08.720 done with surveillance pricing. You know essentially that he was 1:17:08.760 --> 1:17:12.160 being And that was his way of using an example 1:17:12.160 --> 1:17:15.000 why it's good if the state's way in and in 1:17:15.040 --> 1:17:18.280 one state law could actually help people living in other states. 1:17:19.840 --> 1:17:24.360 In one regulatory decision by New York to force disclosure 1:17:24.400 --> 1:17:28.960 on surveillance pricing at least gave a consumer in Oklahoma 1:17:28.960 --> 1:17:30.960 an opportunity to find out what this was all about. 1:17:32.240 --> 1:17:34.080 So, yeah, I like Brek Carson. By the way, I 1:17:34.120 --> 1:17:36.880 think his heart is actually in it. He's not just 1:17:36.960 --> 1:17:40.800 taking a gig. He's a former secret under Secretary of 1:17:40.840 --> 1:17:43.360 the Army and ran University of Tulsa for a while. 1:17:43.880 --> 1:17:45.880 I've had him on my show, not even mad. I 1:17:45.880 --> 1:17:48.200 think he's a straight shooter. And you know, back back 1:17:48.240 --> 1:17:50.000 in a time when you could get elected as a 1:17:50.040 --> 1:17:52.920 Democrat from Oklahoma, maybe that time will come again. So 1:17:52.960 --> 1:17:55.800 the deal with surveillance pricing, which, depending on how much 1:17:55.840 --> 1:17:58.960 you like it or hate it, is called dynamic pricing. 1:17:59.000 --> 1:18:02.679 That seems good the stores, the retailers call it dynamic pricing. 1:18:03.040 --> 1:18:06.960 And I think the remember dynamic scoring. Remember that phenomenon 1:18:07.000 --> 1:18:08.320 in Congressional Budget Office? 1:18:08.479 --> 1:18:10.880 Oh right, yes, yes, no, so. 1:18:11.240 --> 1:18:14.599 Tax cuts, no, no, no, dynamic scoring. The debt doesn't 1:18:14.640 --> 1:18:17.200 go up, it goes down with dynamic scoring. 1:18:17.400 --> 1:18:19.439 For the first time ever, an account and gets accused 1:18:19.479 --> 1:18:22.880 of dynamism. The worth of dynamic duo meaning he has 1:18:22.920 --> 1:18:24.519 the pencil and I have the ice shade. 1:18:24.680 --> 1:18:29.960 Anyway, dynamic scoring, dynamic price pricing, surveillance pricing, predatory pricing, 1:18:30.000 --> 1:18:30.719 you could change. 1:18:30.880 --> 1:18:33.200 That's if you hate it, you call it predatory pricing. 1:18:33.400 --> 1:18:36.040 And if you adopt a bill or propose a bill 1:18:36.320 --> 1:18:41.000 like Letitia James in New York and McMorrow is campaigning 1:18:41.040 --> 1:18:45.599 on this in Michigan. You talk about the egregious example. 1:18:45.720 --> 1:18:50.719 So McMorrow always talks about if you go to book 1:18:50.720 --> 1:18:53.800 an uber but your phone shows that it's under five 1:18:53.840 --> 1:18:57.200 percent battery, it boosts the price because it knows you're desperate. 1:18:57.439 --> 1:19:01.120 No one likes that. That's pretty bad. But another aspect 1:19:01.160 --> 1:19:03.479 of dynamic pricing, and this made the front page of 1:19:03.520 --> 1:19:06.479 the New York Post, is Wendy's was charging more for 1:19:06.600 --> 1:19:10.680 Hamburgers at noon than they were at eleven. And I 1:19:10.760 --> 1:19:13.240 got to say, all this to me is is a 1:19:13.280 --> 1:19:15.600 discount for the eleven o'clock hamburg. 1:19:15.560 --> 1:19:19.080 That doesn't bother me. That's not to me. That's different 1:19:19.120 --> 1:19:21.879 because in theory everybody's eligible for the discount. 1:19:23.040 --> 1:19:26.400 But what about the prices. Here's another one, the prices 1:19:26.479 --> 1:19:29.840 on store shelves. That there are a lot of bills 1:19:29.960 --> 1:19:34.680 in different legislators that would illegalize electronic price tags, like 1:19:34.960 --> 1:19:37.720 what is this nineteen seventy eight, because the idea is 1:19:37.800 --> 1:19:40.439 you could use dynamic pricing, and what they always say 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:44.479 is charge two people different things. And I guess the 1:19:44.479 --> 1:19:47.800 people who are against this all democrats, think that it 1:19:47.880 --> 1:19:51.080 is just inherently bad to charge two people different things. 1:19:51.360 --> 1:19:54.679 But this is what the circulars and discounts and even 1:19:54.840 --> 1:19:58.160 be longing to Sam's Club gives you. Right, different people 1:19:58.479 --> 1:20:02.360 have different things. The classic example that the retailers use 1:20:02.520 --> 1:20:05.840 is if the bananas are going bad, we could price 1:20:05.880 --> 1:20:08.120 them at ten cents a pound instead of thirty five 1:20:08.200 --> 1:20:10.400 cents a pound, and essentially we might even be taking 1:20:10.400 --> 1:20:12.920 a loss. But what we're really doing is incentivizing the 1:20:12.920 --> 1:20:15.360 shopper to take the bananas home with them instead of 1:20:15.439 --> 1:20:17.800 us putting it in a compost team. So there's so 1:20:17.880 --> 1:20:21.439 much about dynamic pricing that's just modern and that actually 1:20:21.560 --> 1:20:24.920 just helps everyone and is being thought of as a boogeyman. 1:20:24.960 --> 1:20:28.120 And there are bills, literally bills in front of Congress 1:20:28.400 --> 1:20:33.240 that would eliminate the banana pricing scheme. And I identify 1:20:33.320 --> 1:20:37.600 this as though the outrageous examples concentrate the mind. I 1:20:37.600 --> 1:20:41.679 think that if you just publicize them, my libertarian instincts 1:20:41.680 --> 1:20:44.200 would say that the companies wouldn't want to be associated 1:20:44.240 --> 1:20:47.960 with them. I think of it as so if affordability 1:20:48.000 --> 1:20:50.800 is the issue, it's very hard for Democrats not to 1:20:50.920 --> 1:20:54.439 jump on this trend. But are they really improving things 1:20:54.520 --> 1:20:56.320 for the media and voter and consumer. 1:20:57.000 --> 1:21:00.320 That's a look. I think it all depends and what 1:21:00.360 --> 1:21:02.639 you're putting your throwing into this bucket of what we're 1:21:02.640 --> 1:21:05.680 going to call surveillance pricing or whatever. I think the 1:21:06.439 --> 1:21:09.280 where I the problem I have is what the airlines 1:21:09.320 --> 1:21:11.800 want to do, which is use the data, use the 1:21:11.880 --> 1:21:15.200 data that I have voluntarily given them against me to 1:21:15.280 --> 1:21:18.280 price some things right, And that is wait a minute, 1:21:18.640 --> 1:21:21.200 you know, so now it looks like now I'm almost 1:21:21.240 --> 1:21:24.720 regretting ever becoming a frequent flyer because I've given them 1:21:24.760 --> 1:21:28.679 so much information that you know, they now every time 1:21:28.720 --> 1:21:31.400 I book, they know certain things and I'm going to 1:21:31.400 --> 1:21:34.160 get quoted a price. You know, they know where I'm 1:21:34.360 --> 1:21:36.599 They can look at my history to know how price 1:21:36.640 --> 1:21:39.400 sensitive I am on various things and various routes and how. 1:21:40.200 --> 1:21:45.080 And so the I think it's how the how the 1:21:45.200 --> 1:21:48.400 data you've handed over to them, if that's being used 1:21:48.439 --> 1:21:53.160 to inform your individual price. I think when you're saying 1:21:53.280 --> 1:21:59.240 floating price based on supply and demand, that seems very normal, 1:21:59.400 --> 1:22:03.080 fair part of the free market economy. When you're changing 1:22:03.200 --> 1:22:08.640 price based on what you think an individual will do, 1:22:09.000 --> 1:22:13.320 that feels a little bit. That feels like you're bordering 1:22:13.360 --> 1:22:14.160 on discrimination. 1:22:15.120 --> 1:22:18.280 Well, if you write the bill narrowly so it doesn't 1:22:19.000 --> 1:22:22.000 go through broad I guess I support it, but I don't. 1:22:22.080 --> 1:22:25.479 I listened to the rhetoric of Greg Caesar and Luhan 1:22:25.680 --> 1:22:28.640 of New Mexico, and they and Letitia James, and this 1:22:28.840 --> 1:22:31.400 is not what they're saying. They're not allowing I never 1:22:31.479 --> 1:22:34.400 hear the clause, and I listen of now. Of course 1:22:34.479 --> 1:22:38.599 we understand that businesses. It's not just in their ability, 1:22:38.640 --> 1:22:42.479 but helps the business stay afloat and also helps the 1:22:42.520 --> 1:22:46.040 consumer dev different prices at different times. They're just all 1:22:46.120 --> 1:22:49.200 seen as a boogeyman, and in this moment of affordability 1:22:49.200 --> 1:22:52.599 above all else, it's tantalizing to reach for. I also 1:22:52.680 --> 1:22:58.160 don't know do voters really reward you for these small, 1:22:58.320 --> 1:23:04.320 bore quality of life improvements. When Biden tried, and maybe 1:23:04.320 --> 1:23:05.759 this was messaging jump. 1:23:05.560 --> 1:23:08.840 Fees, it was weirdly popular. Though it pulls well. 1:23:09.040 --> 1:23:12.680 It does ask people the question flat out, you want 1:23:12.680 --> 1:23:14.800 to pay more or less? They'll say less, But does 1:23:14.840 --> 1:23:18.760 it really accrue to the statesman who is there and 1:23:18.800 --> 1:23:21.240 trying to fight for you in a big way. Maybe 1:23:21.240 --> 1:23:23.840 on the smaller level it will. I don't think this 1:23:24.040 --> 1:23:27.599 is I am suspicious. I understand why Democrats are reaching 1:23:27.600 --> 1:23:30.400 for I don't think that it is the killer blow 1:23:30.439 --> 1:23:31.479 that some think it is. 1:23:31.840 --> 1:23:33.599 I don't think it's a killer blow. But I do 1:23:33.720 --> 1:23:38.720 believe if you're always seen on the side of the consumer, right, 1:23:38.840 --> 1:23:41.160 not thinking of this as voter, and if you want 1:23:41.200 --> 1:23:43.439 to have a conversation with people that are just not 1:23:43.560 --> 1:23:47.720 in your tribe but are actually members of other tribes, 1:23:49.400 --> 1:23:55.160 then I think it's a way in. Again. Look, I 1:23:55.200 --> 1:23:58.840 believe this. I think part of the news media's trust 1:23:58.840 --> 1:24:02.120 issue is on the national level, we don't think of 1:24:02.160 --> 1:24:06.320 ourselves as consumer advocates. Very often. Local news actually used 1:24:06.320 --> 1:24:10.000 to be. That was the differentiator. Your local news operation 1:24:10.200 --> 1:24:13.640 was much more of a consumer advocate than and I 1:24:13.680 --> 1:24:16.639 think gutting and I've always said when we gutted local news, 1:24:17.160 --> 1:24:21.200 we actually gutted the first line of trust defense, meaning 1:24:21.560 --> 1:24:26.200 because the local news operators were the consumer advocates finding 1:24:26.240 --> 1:24:28.840 out who was getting scammed and hey, there's some bad 1:24:28.960 --> 1:24:33.559 phone calls, right, Always Shasmer protection on you that it 1:24:33.680 --> 1:24:37.439 gave actually media a little bit more trust generally. So 1:24:38.520 --> 1:24:41.800 I agree it's not a single killer app issue. But 1:24:41.880 --> 1:24:44.960 I actually think anytime you're caught being a consumer advocate, 1:24:45.120 --> 1:24:46.040 you're gaining trust. 1:24:46.560 --> 1:24:49.320 Yeah, and if you agree with us, we'll also send 1:24:49.360 --> 1:24:52.320 you a copy of the fight back theme song. That 1:24:52.479 --> 1:24:56.799 was the other David Horowitz they show from the eighties. True, 1:24:57.560 --> 1:24:58.719 then again, and then. 1:24:58.640 --> 1:25:01.920 David Horowitz became a a huge right winger. I remember 1:25:01.720 --> 1:25:04.439 different guys, was it a different there were two David 1:25:05.120 --> 1:25:08.320 there Barwitz does. I remember being very confused, Wait a. 1:25:08.320 --> 1:25:11.760 Minute, right, why are we fighting back? 1:25:11.840 --> 1:25:14.679 But in fact I think the right wing David Horwitz 1:25:14.720 --> 1:25:15.639 became more prominent. 1:25:16.200 --> 1:25:18.760 Oh yeah, and he the right wing David horror Whitz 1:25:18.760 --> 1:25:21.719 started off as an extreme left wing you know, smashed 1:25:21.760 --> 1:25:24.840 the state guy, as is often the arc. I also, 1:25:24.960 --> 1:25:27.280 I do wonder though, if the idea of the local 1:25:27.320 --> 1:25:30.519 news and the tip off to a ripoff is of 1:25:30.600 --> 1:25:33.960 a piece with an older era where Chuck Schumer would 1:25:34.000 --> 1:25:36.880 have a press conference every week at a gas station 1:25:37.320 --> 1:25:40.280 and talk about exactly these issues, but he also knew 1:25:40.320 --> 1:25:42.840 that he could get coverage of it. And now what 1:25:42.960 --> 1:25:45.519 are we really paying attention to. Do you think there's 1:25:45.560 --> 1:25:48.639 going to be a ripoff talk, a shame on you talk? 1:25:48.920 --> 1:25:51.800 Do you think this is going to be a predatory 1:25:51.880 --> 1:25:54.400 pricing talk. I don't know that these are the issues 1:25:54.439 --> 1:25:56.679 that are grabbing our attention these days. 1:25:56.720 --> 1:25:58.880 No, but it is a piece of the larger issue 1:25:58.880 --> 1:26:01.719 that we have less control and that somehow we've given 1:26:01.920 --> 1:26:05.559 tech too much control of things in general. So I 1:26:05.600 --> 1:26:07.880 think it's a piece of something bigger. That's why I 1:26:07.920 --> 1:26:08.880 think it resonates. 1:26:09.080 --> 1:26:11.920 Yeah, and I think MGP. I think Marie Glufenkan Perez 1:26:12.240 --> 1:26:15.400 is the ultimate example of someone who's very much on 1:26:15.439 --> 1:26:17.840 the side of consumer and she's mostly associated with the 1:26:17.880 --> 1:26:20.160 ability to fix your own washing machine, and that's her 1:26:20.200 --> 1:26:22.479 brand and it helps her. So yeah, that would be 1:26:22.600 --> 1:26:25.479 an example of where some of it does break through. 1:26:25.720 --> 1:26:27.800 I wonder, I mean, if the Republican Party didn't go 1:26:27.880 --> 1:26:29.960 as crazy as it did. I had wondered for a 1:26:30.000 --> 1:26:33.200 long time, might she defect because she seems very very 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:35.800 upset with the Democrats, and often is. If you hear 1:26:36.080 --> 1:26:39.240 three Democrats voted against the bill and she's off from one. 1:26:49.760 --> 1:26:52.720 I am and maybe this is the Polypanish in me. 1:26:52.880 --> 1:26:55.320 I am hopeful that what Kevin Kylie did when he 1:26:55.360 --> 1:26:57.519 decided to put an eye next to his name and 1:26:57.600 --> 1:27:01.679 leave the Republican Party. You know that if you told 1:27:01.680 --> 1:27:06.920 me MGP decided to become an I and then you know, look, 1:27:07.600 --> 1:27:12.160 I'm pretty fluent and certainly I converse a lot with 1:27:12.200 --> 1:27:16.080 the folks in the in the forward space, the Andrew 1:27:16.120 --> 1:27:21.599 Yang world, Christy Weapons involved, and and you know, they're 1:27:21.840 --> 1:27:24.320 they're trying they're sort of fighting a two front war. Right. 1:27:24.400 --> 1:27:27.240 One is they're trying to improve ballot access for independent candidates. 1:27:27.240 --> 1:27:29.320 And you know, and that's a that's the thing you 1:27:29.400 --> 1:27:31.679 kind of have, that's almost like a that's the long game. 1:27:32.200 --> 1:27:35.360 The short game is they're looking to do a better 1:27:35.479 --> 1:27:39.040 version of what problem Solvers and no Labels tried to 1:27:39.080 --> 1:27:42.479 do and didn't do it very well, which is create 1:27:42.520 --> 1:27:46.200 a caucus of independent thinkers whatever that is independent Dems, 1:27:46.240 --> 1:27:52.240 independent ours, independent independence right that collectively vote together on 1:27:52.400 --> 1:27:56.040 leadership elections and and become the folkrum like in the 1:27:56.120 --> 1:27:59.840 Senate if you just got you know, take Dan Osborne, right, 1:28:00.200 --> 1:28:02.960 the thing that's keeping him from winning that center race 1:28:03.240 --> 1:28:06.320 is the fact that he you know, it's you know, 1:28:06.360 --> 1:28:08.160 it's he's going to be a vote for Schumer. He's 1:28:08.160 --> 1:28:10.679 going to be a vote for Democrats. So how does 1:28:10.760 --> 1:28:13.519 he convince the voters that he's not a vote for 1:28:13.560 --> 1:28:15.439 Schumer and then he's not a vote for Democrats? Right? 1:28:16.120 --> 1:28:18.400 You know, if he's working with you know, if his 1:28:18.400 --> 1:28:20.280 answer is I'm going to work with Lisa, I'm going 1:28:20.280 --> 1:28:24.759 to Lisa Murkowski, and I'm going to you know, Bernie 1:28:24.800 --> 1:28:29.120 Sanders and Lisa Murkowski and Angus King and you know, 1:28:29.439 --> 1:28:31.680 and John Curtis in Utah, you know, you sort of 1:28:32.040 --> 1:28:33.840 and I'm you know, I'm going to try to forge 1:28:33.840 --> 1:28:37.559 an independ I refuse to have to pick between Donald 1:28:37.600 --> 1:28:39.640 Trump and Chuck Schumer. You're not going to make me 1:28:39.800 --> 1:28:43.080 pick here, because I actually think my election is going 1:28:43.120 --> 1:28:47.320 to create an opening with to work with a whole 1:28:47.320 --> 1:28:50.240 bunch of independents and will make the two parties court 1:28:50.439 --> 1:28:55.559 us to decide who should get the majority. But until 1:28:55.560 --> 1:28:59.200 we have that breakthrough, that's what makes it I think 1:28:59.200 --> 1:29:01.360 tough in these independent Senate campaigns. 1:29:02.080 --> 1:29:06.880 Yeah, I think that the structure of it. Yeah, I 1:29:06.920 --> 1:29:10.920 think that it's structurally tough. I think that our politics 1:29:11.560 --> 1:29:15.200 is sclerotic, and it doesn't it doesn't at all comport 1:29:15.280 --> 1:29:18.200 with our media and our attention. And I think that 1:29:18.240 --> 1:29:20.960 there's been a bigger there hasn't ever been a bigger 1:29:21.000 --> 1:29:26.000 mismatch in our lifetime. It's like we're running analog politics 1:29:26.320 --> 1:29:31.679 with next gen digital. Not just this goes to think 1:29:31.720 --> 1:29:32.400 about the world. 1:29:32.479 --> 1:29:35.600 Well, this goes to whether it's it's infrastructure right to 1:29:35.960 --> 1:29:40.439 improve the small de democratic infrastructure like online voting or 1:29:40.479 --> 1:29:43.520 you know, doing things like this, Like we haven't modernized 1:29:43.640 --> 1:29:48.479 the infrastructure of politics to match the needs of today. 1:29:48.560 --> 1:29:52.160 Just like and I'd argue our constitution needs updated, doesn't 1:29:52.160 --> 1:29:55.160 need we don't need to redo it, but there are 1:29:55.200 --> 1:29:57.360 a few things that like, okay, that's sort of that 1:29:57.400 --> 1:29:59.360 doesn't work anymore, and we kind of need this, like 1:29:59.400 --> 1:30:03.160 the garden power. I'm really into this constitutional amendment that's 1:30:03.200 --> 1:30:06.639 been introduced in the House that gives Congress the ability 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:10.439 to essentially overturn a presidential pardon using sort of but 1:30:10.880 --> 1:30:13.360 realizing it has to be a constitutional amendment. And I 1:30:13.360 --> 1:30:15.760 actually think the parameters they created, which was it has 1:30:15.840 --> 1:30:17.400 to be a super majority to do it, and all 1:30:17.439 --> 1:30:21.559 this stuff feels very founding fatherlike, oh, sort of like okay, 1:30:21.920 --> 1:30:25.160 and the type of modernization that probably is necessary out 1:30:25.200 --> 1:30:26.679 of you know, for the life of me, I don't 1:30:26.680 --> 1:30:30.719 know why there's soul why an individual was given pardon 1:30:30.760 --> 1:30:32.519 power by a bunch of people who were afraid of 1:30:32.520 --> 1:30:35.719 a king. But needless to say that I did happen. 1:30:35.800 --> 1:30:38.280 You know, from reading the history. It was a huge 1:30:38.320 --> 1:30:43.400 compromise and didn't really conceptualize what the president would. I 1:30:43.479 --> 1:30:46.120 give them a lot of leeway. Those guys in those wigs, 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:47.840 drinking the weak beer they were. 1:30:48.160 --> 1:30:50.040 It was pretty good. What they did come up with 1:30:50.080 --> 1:30:54.200 has been it, yes, right, they were reaffected. They didn't 1:30:54.200 --> 1:30:56.599 think of you know, remember our first constitution didn't even 1:30:56.640 --> 1:30:59.760 last a decade, so so a pretty good thing is 1:30:59.800 --> 1:31:02.679 the most of It's so hard to amend the constitution, 1:31:02.760 --> 1:31:05.400 and the moment to amend the Constitution is a post 1:31:05.400 --> 1:31:06.519 Watergate moment when. 1:31:06.400 --> 1:31:09.920 Everyone realizes, oh my god, that went horribly wrong. And 1:31:10.080 --> 1:31:12.160 I don't think we're going to have that. I don't 1:31:12.160 --> 1:31:14.360 think we're going to have that in twenty twenty eight. 1:31:14.360 --> 1:31:15.040 I don't think we're going. 1:31:15.040 --> 1:31:17.519 To have no, but I think we will buy twenty forty. 1:31:18.479 --> 1:31:20.360 You know, if you look at the eras when we 1:31:20.439 --> 1:31:23.920 have done multiple constitutional amendments in a ten year period. 1:31:24.640 --> 1:31:28.800 They have happened after huge moments. Right. We had a 1:31:28.840 --> 1:31:32.000 period around the Civil War. We had a period essentially 1:31:34.080 --> 1:31:36.920 in the industrial right, the Industrial Revolution and the pushback 1:31:36.960 --> 1:31:38.799 on that. That's why we got direct election of senators 1:31:38.800 --> 1:31:43.679 when we suffrage the ability to tax rich aggressive. Right. 1:31:44.280 --> 1:31:47.280 So you know, do I think it's twenty twenty eight? No? 1:31:48.160 --> 1:31:51.000 But do I think remember all of those constitutional amendments 1:31:51.000 --> 1:31:52.960 that passed were like introduced twenty years earlier. 1:31:53.200 --> 1:31:53.439 Right. 1:31:53.600 --> 1:31:55.559 It is one of those things that it does take 1:31:56.320 --> 1:31:59.200 you know, it takes time to do it, and you know, 1:31:59.280 --> 1:32:01.880 I think we will eventually get there. Hey, let me, 1:32:03.120 --> 1:32:04.160 are you an NBA fan? 1:32:04.760 --> 1:32:06.240 I am, in fact. 1:32:06.280 --> 1:32:09.720 Okay, because I thought this would be a good way 1:32:09.720 --> 1:32:12.800 for us to close. We're buttoning up here in the 1:32:13.400 --> 1:32:16.080 forty five close seven times during the interview. Shock, yeah, 1:32:16.120 --> 1:32:17.840 you have you keep trying to get out. That's really 1:32:18.240 --> 1:32:22.600 the sneaky little thing. I have this annual conversation with 1:32:22.640 --> 1:32:25.280 a whole group of friends of mine and it always 1:32:25.280 --> 1:32:29.320 happens at the same time a year. Why during March 1:32:29.360 --> 1:32:32.439 madness do I end up realizing how much I hate 1:32:32.720 --> 1:32:36.280 the NBA sucks? NBA regular season sucks, And it's like 1:32:36.439 --> 1:32:41.360 it like it always, just it's a stark reminder that, 1:32:41.439 --> 1:32:45.120 like the NBA has a massive regular season problem. I'll 1:32:45.120 --> 1:32:47.439 say this both as a fan of basketball and as 1:32:47.479 --> 1:32:50.800 a gambler. Okay, I enjoy gambling. I know that's not 1:32:50.960 --> 1:32:52.280 popular to say that, but. 1:32:52.680 --> 1:32:54.479 It's not popular to say that. It's popular to do 1:32:54.560 --> 1:32:55.679 it exactly. 1:32:56.640 --> 1:32:59.680 But I also want I also believe in honest I 1:32:59.720 --> 1:33:03.840 want to gamble honestly, meaning if you know, I don't 1:33:03.880 --> 1:33:06.040 gamble on the NBA because I don't believe every team 1:33:06.080 --> 1:33:08.479 is trying every night, and if I know that people 1:33:08.479 --> 1:33:10.559 aren't trying, then I don't want to. I'm not risking 1:33:10.600 --> 1:33:13.040 my money on something that is that is that is 1:33:13.080 --> 1:33:16.920 not going to be, that is not going to match 1:33:17.000 --> 1:33:21.720 what the data indicates generally it should match, right. And 1:33:23.320 --> 1:33:25.000 I don't know, but I think the NBA has a 1:33:25.040 --> 1:33:28.840 massive regular season problem. And I don't know how they should, 1:33:29.120 --> 1:33:31.120 how they're going to fix it, but I think they've 1:33:31.160 --> 1:33:34.600 got to fix it. I'm embarrassed about the Wizards, you know, 1:33:34.800 --> 1:33:37.080 but if they're not alone here with this tanking mess, 1:33:37.360 --> 1:33:39.519 but it really has made the NBA is useless to 1:33:39.560 --> 1:33:42.800 watch when a tanking team is playing anybody It doesn't 1:33:42.800 --> 1:33:45.040 matter if they're playing Wemby or if they're playing you know, 1:33:45.160 --> 1:33:50.320 it is baseball. Yeah, think about baseball, baseball, whatever you 1:33:50.360 --> 1:33:53.480 think of baseball in September. Of the teams that are eliminated, 1:33:53.520 --> 1:33:56.360 those players try hard because. 1:33:56.120 --> 1:33:57.799 They want to all up and it's their slot. 1:33:57.920 --> 1:34:01.680 Yeah right, And somehow the I mean literally you have 1:34:01.720 --> 1:34:03.880 the Wizards. As soon as a player does well that 1:34:03.920 --> 1:34:06.559 he gets benched. Yes, I mean literally, the coaches get 1:34:06.600 --> 1:34:08.960 involved to do this, and I do think it's screwed 1:34:09.040 --> 1:34:12.160 up the product. And I do think the NCAA tournament 1:34:12.240 --> 1:34:17.000 always becomes this moment to remind people, oh yeah, boy, 1:34:17.280 --> 1:34:19.479 this time. I can't wait for the NBA playoffs because 1:34:19.479 --> 1:34:21.679 we're literally at the crappiest time of year to watch 1:34:21.720 --> 1:34:22.120 the NBA. 1:34:22.720 --> 1:34:25.639 Right, So my counters, I don't know if they're counters. 1:34:25.840 --> 1:34:27.599 And by the way, this would make a great how too. 1:34:27.600 --> 1:34:29.679 You should come on my new show how to Fix 1:34:29.720 --> 1:34:30.120 the NBA. 1:34:30.160 --> 1:34:31.960 And I don't have a good answer this. 1:34:32.680 --> 1:34:35.840 We need question askers, so you would ask, how how 1:34:35.840 --> 1:34:37.880 do I fix the How do I gamble correctly and 1:34:38.080 --> 1:34:38.320 do this? 1:34:38.680 --> 1:34:41.640 And I want to get I enjoy Well, put it 1:34:41.640 --> 1:34:44.439 this way, the NCAA Tournament's been great. This has been 1:34:44.560 --> 1:34:47.920 great cause basketball. By the way, a reminder, money can't 1:34:47.920 --> 1:34:51.840 improve things creating financial incentives to you know, we have 1:34:52.080 --> 1:34:57.000 some of the most competitive basketball and improved quality that 1:34:57.080 --> 1:34:59.759 we've had in thirty years. This feels like the eighties. Again, 1:35:00.120 --> 1:35:02.240 how good college basketball is right now. 1:35:02.280 --> 1:35:05.160 So I'm a huge Saint John's fan. Without Mike Ropole 1:35:05.280 --> 1:35:08.320 of Vitamin Water and some horses inchecting tens of million 1:35:08.400 --> 1:35:11.479 dollars into that franchise to get Patino and to pay players, 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:14.120 they'd be regular old probably not even gonna make the tournament. 1:35:14.120 --> 1:35:16.559 Saint John's. I agree with you on an il. I 1:35:16.600 --> 1:35:18.760 definitely think they need a bunch of reforms, Like you 1:35:18.840 --> 1:35:21.080 need to know how much the players will pay. 1:35:21.200 --> 1:35:23.400 You need to know that everybody's following the same rules. 1:35:23.720 --> 1:35:25.200 Yes, we need to We need to know what the 1:35:25.240 --> 1:35:28.080 market is. It screws the players. It's opaque, it's not 1:35:28.120 --> 1:35:30.840 working for anyone except the agents. Would you rather have 1:35:31.200 --> 1:35:34.680 It's almost unfair because the NBA is a one and 1:35:34.760 --> 1:35:39.320 done situation. So that's unbelievably exciting. But it's a six. Yes, 1:35:39.520 --> 1:35:42.800 sorry March Maddis is that's a six game tournament, and 1:35:42.880 --> 1:35:47.240 not only for money and attention, but even for the 1:35:47.280 --> 1:35:53.080 actual the actual pace of play and how sophisticated these 1:35:53.120 --> 1:35:55.720 guys are. You want longer series in the NBA, not 1:35:55.800 --> 1:35:58.280 by being selfish and trying to milk the fans. Long 1:35:58.320 --> 1:36:01.040 series where teams get to know each other and get 1:36:01.080 --> 1:36:04.679 to know each other's every move are amazing. They're great. 1:36:05.200 --> 1:36:09.200 So I'd rather have an NBA where people are trying, 1:36:09.240 --> 1:36:13.000 where teams are trying, than in NCAAA, which gins up 1:36:13.360 --> 1:36:16.479 this March Madness excitement because of the one and done 1:36:16.560 --> 1:36:19.000 nature of the tournament. In fact, I think the tournament 1:36:19.040 --> 1:36:22.799 itself is this great product, and people don't view NCAA 1:36:23.080 --> 1:36:25.800 basketball is this great product. They do a little bit lately. 1:36:25.840 --> 1:36:27.840 People are interested in the fresh better. 1:36:27.880 --> 1:36:31.440 Oh, I think it's quality of play. Look, March Madness 1:36:32.840 --> 1:36:36.280 kept the conversation about the crappiness of college basketball over 1:36:36.320 --> 1:36:38.680 the last twenty years at Bay because the tournament was 1:36:38.680 --> 1:36:41.280 still good right even at the team, even if we 1:36:41.320 --> 1:36:43.000 saw a lot of just crappy games. 1:36:43.280 --> 1:36:47.240 The tournament is a great product. Absolutely, it's great marketing, 1:36:47.360 --> 1:36:50.960 gambling helps, and one and done. In Jacka's drama into it. 1:36:51.240 --> 1:36:54.400 I would argue that the improved the fact that you 1:36:54.439 --> 1:36:56.760 have players now staying longer. Right, anybody under six to 1:36:56.800 --> 1:37:00.120 six isn't isn't leaving to go play in Europe anymore, 1:37:00.160 --> 1:37:02.160 staying here because they can make the same money here 1:37:02.240 --> 1:37:04.639 that they could make playing in Turkey or in France 1:37:04.720 --> 1:37:07.639 or whatever. So you've got you know, you've got these 1:37:07.720 --> 1:37:11.559 veteran teams, right, So you've got just in the same 1:37:11.600 --> 1:37:14.559 way four year point guards were the key to winning 1:37:14.560 --> 1:37:17.120 the tournament in the eighties. Four year point guards again 1:37:17.320 --> 1:37:20.840 have become important in the n club a. So I 1:37:20.880 --> 1:37:23.639 think that in that sense, let me throw an idea 1:37:23.680 --> 1:37:26.680 at you. It at the NBA. So look, I hear 1:37:26.720 --> 1:37:28.840 you on a seven game series. There's nothing like it 1:37:28.840 --> 1:37:32.720 for the NBA finals and for the conference finals. But 1:37:32.800 --> 1:37:35.600 you know, baseball would have a bigger problem about the 1:37:35.640 --> 1:37:37.880 Dodgers if it wasn't for the fact that they have 1:37:37.920 --> 1:37:40.160 a five game series in their playoffs. 1:37:39.880 --> 1:37:43.400 Because it introduces randomness, correct, And if you had a 1:37:43.439 --> 1:37:46.479 little bit more randomness in the NBA in that first round. 1:37:46.520 --> 1:37:48.600 Now, remember they used to have it two out of 1:37:48.600 --> 1:37:50.720 three was a bad idea. They tried that once and 1:37:50.800 --> 1:37:52.840 eliminated the Lakers. In the first round. That was a 1:37:52.840 --> 1:37:55.559 disaster for them, so they quickly got rid of that. 1:37:55.640 --> 1:37:58.840 I remember this back in Green was heard, but like 1:37:58.960 --> 1:38:00.800 they loose to the Rockets two out of three the 1:38:00.880 --> 1:38:03.240 year after they win the title, is just screw it. 1:38:03.280 --> 1:38:03.599 Eighties. 1:38:03.640 --> 1:38:06.800 Yeah, but a five game series in the first round 1:38:07.640 --> 1:38:12.120 and allowing some randomness in the first round. My thesis 1:38:12.240 --> 1:38:17.200 is those nine, ten to eleven teams. You know, and 1:38:17.439 --> 1:38:19.320 I'm not a big fan of the play in as much. 1:38:19.400 --> 1:38:21.360 I get why they tried it, but instead of doing 1:38:21.439 --> 1:38:23.559 the play in, I'd rather see the five game first 1:38:23.640 --> 1:38:27.040 round series because it then makes the eighth seed and 1:38:27.160 --> 1:38:30.280 seven seed worth having as it is, and you might 1:38:30.360 --> 1:38:34.439 get more nine through twelve teams who are deciding do 1:38:34.479 --> 1:38:37.120 I tank or not. You're not beating Oh, you're not 1:38:37.160 --> 1:38:38.720 going to win a one You're not going to beat 1:38:38.720 --> 1:38:40.719 a one seed in a seven game series. It's happened 1:38:40.760 --> 1:38:44.200 once or twice, but it mostly doesn't. But you could 1:38:44.200 --> 1:38:47.200 do it in a five game and then suddenly that's 1:38:47.200 --> 1:38:50.440 an incentive to get into the playoffs. Just like in baseball, 1:38:51.000 --> 1:38:55.360 the eighty eight win team that sneaks in with a 1:38:55.400 --> 1:38:58.400 great pitcher can knock off the one seed in a 1:38:58.439 --> 1:39:00.840 five game series because that picture can pay twice. 1:39:01.760 --> 1:39:03.880 And I know that's exciting, but I don't know that 1:39:03.880 --> 1:39:06.760 that's fair. Just on the baseball side of things, I 1:39:06.840 --> 1:39:08.960 used to analogize it too. There was a lot of 1:39:09.080 --> 1:39:12.000 u There was a lot of discussion about if college 1:39:12.040 --> 1:39:15.400 admissions were fair or not fair, and I said, well, 1:39:15.479 --> 1:39:17.560 what you could do is inject a lot of randomness, 1:39:17.640 --> 1:39:20.360 which is your SAT score would just correlate to the 1:39:20.400 --> 1:39:22.679 number of spots you had on a big prize wheel, 1:39:22.840 --> 1:39:25.280 and that would be if you got into college. So 1:39:25.320 --> 1:39:28.080 that would be more I guess fair or random, or 1:39:28.080 --> 1:39:31.120 it would deprioritize the SATs. But I don't think that 1:39:31.160 --> 1:39:33.640 would be a fairer system. But what we want in 1:39:33.680 --> 1:39:37.040 sports is entertainment. So I definitely want to say this 1:39:37.080 --> 1:39:39.000 one thing. I have a solution, And I have a 1:39:39.000 --> 1:39:41.080 critique of something. You said you don't bet because you 1:39:41.120 --> 1:39:43.559 don't know if the teams are trying. That is true. 1:39:43.560 --> 1:39:46.599 I think you're probably over indexing for the Wizards, who 1:39:46.640 --> 1:39:49.800 are horrendous on this score, Absolutely shameful. 1:39:49.880 --> 1:39:51.640 I've had to deal with this for three years now. 1:39:51.640 --> 1:39:55.479 I mean, your best DC could be a great basketball market. 1:39:55.640 --> 1:39:58.400 It's the d the NBA and the Wizards have just 1:39:58.400 --> 1:40:00.519 been you know, made screwed it up. 1:40:00.640 --> 1:40:03.080 The players, of course always try, but like you say, 1:40:03.160 --> 1:40:05.280 the management doesn't give you the good players, or they 1:40:05.320 --> 1:40:08.519 shut you down, or the coaches will pull you out 1:40:09.280 --> 1:40:11.719 if you weren't you bet. I mean on the Nuggets 1:40:11.760 --> 1:40:13.840 are playing the Rockets, or the Knicks are playing the Rockets, 1:40:13.920 --> 1:40:15.880 or the Nuggets are playing the Lakers. These guys are 1:40:15.880 --> 1:40:18.640 going at it. Let's right, Luca is going at it 1:40:18.680 --> 1:40:21.720 as hard as he could. I'm seeing Jamal Murray with 1:40:21.840 --> 1:40:24.960 facial lacerations as he drives down the lane. There is 1:40:25.040 --> 1:40:27.559 a lot of effort and the way to stop the tanking. 1:40:27.600 --> 1:40:30.360 It's very interesting because they thought that, well, instead of 1:40:30.400 --> 1:40:33.960 giving teams the guaranteed number one pick, we'll just give 1:40:34.000 --> 1:40:36.360 them the highest odds at the number one pick. And 1:40:36.400 --> 1:40:38.960 I think a behavioral economists will say that will never 1:40:39.120 --> 1:40:42.400 change behavior. If all you're doing is saying, well, do 1:40:42.439 --> 1:40:44.559 I have any chance of it? Is it a better 1:40:44.640 --> 1:40:46.519 chance than everyone else? I'm still going to do it. 1:40:46.560 --> 1:40:49.240 The downside of tanking, isn't that bad what you do. 1:40:49.560 --> 1:40:53.000 It's a fundamental change, But really, if you think about it, 1:40:53.000 --> 1:40:55.959 it's fine. It works. It solves a lot of problems. 1:40:56.360 --> 1:40:59.280 Rotate the number one pick among all thirty two teams 1:40:59.280 --> 1:41:02.240 in the league, or we expand thirty five thirty eight. 1:41:03.240 --> 1:41:06.800 So that's fine. I mean, one year Oklahoma City will 1:41:06.840 --> 1:41:10.559 have it after winning the National Championship and one or 1:41:10.640 --> 1:41:14.320 the NBA Championship, and one year the Spurs will have 1:41:14.360 --> 1:41:17.080 it after being in last place, as they did when 1:41:17.400 --> 1:41:20.680 you know, when they picked David Robinson. So if you 1:41:20.760 --> 1:41:24.519 just do a rotation and then some modification, I don't 1:41:24.520 --> 1:41:26.960 think teams are jockeying so much to get the three 1:41:27.040 --> 1:41:29.360 or four or five pick. I think it's a lot 1:41:29.400 --> 1:41:31.320 better than what we have now. You have to address 1:41:31.360 --> 1:41:35.240 tanking silver I think could lose a job over how 1:41:35.280 --> 1:41:37.080 bad the tanking issue has become. 1:41:38.800 --> 1:41:41.360 Well, and the other thing is, I think more transparency. 1:41:41.400 --> 1:41:45.960 I mean, look, it is true. Am I gonna see 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:50.479 certain players when they come to my city once? Right? 1:41:50.960 --> 1:41:53.760 When they come to my city once and then I 1:41:54.360 --> 1:41:56.679 spend all this money, you know, and then you don't 1:41:56.680 --> 1:41:59.720 get to see that one star playy you kind of 1:41:59.720 --> 1:42:03.760 want to to see, right, And that's the fact. I mean, 1:42:03.800 --> 1:42:05.920 they try to mess around with load management by having 1:42:05.920 --> 1:42:08.879 a mandatory number of games to qualify for awards and stuff. 1:42:10.880 --> 1:42:13.679 I don't think that's worked right. I think we still 1:42:14.120 --> 1:42:16.320 we still have it, and part of the load management 1:42:16.360 --> 1:42:18.280 gets it too. This is why I think tinkering with 1:42:18.360 --> 1:42:23.479 the playoffs, where you incentivize making the regular season matter more, 1:42:24.160 --> 1:42:26.559 you've got and I think ultimately, if the regular season 1:42:26.600 --> 1:42:29.880 matters more, you will over time have less handing. And 1:42:29.920 --> 1:42:33.000 I don't know how you do. When you allow twenty 1:42:33.000 --> 1:42:35.320 of the thirty teams to make the playoffs, have you 1:42:35.360 --> 1:42:37.160 made the regular season matter anymore? 1:42:37.760 --> 1:42:40.000 No, it doesn't matter that much. But you know, I'm 1:42:40.000 --> 1:42:41.880 sure you've been watching it for a while. If you 1:42:41.960 --> 1:42:45.000 compare a random second quarter of an NBA game now 1:42:45.080 --> 1:42:48.400 just the defense that's being played to the eighties or nineties. 1:42:48.439 --> 1:42:50.080 I used to think, are they even really trying? And 1:42:50.120 --> 1:42:51.439 they weren't, and just go to a. 1:42:52.000 --> 1:42:56.040 Defense we know And I get it. But again I 1:42:56.120 --> 1:43:00.560 go back, Baseball doesn't have this problem. 1:43:00.920 --> 1:43:03.360 Well, baseball has a lot of other problems. 1:43:03.479 --> 1:43:04.840 They have other problems. I'm not going to sit there 1:43:04.880 --> 1:43:07.559 and say they don't, but they don't have this problem. 1:43:07.680 --> 1:43:10.200 And they have, you know, even fewer teams that make 1:43:10.200 --> 1:43:12.880 the playoffs in a given year. By the way they've 1:43:13.200 --> 1:43:15.240 they have a rule that seems like a pretty simple 1:43:15.320 --> 1:43:17.280 rule on their lottery. If you got the number one 1:43:17.360 --> 1:43:21.439 pick this year. I remember the Nats. One year they 1:43:21.439 --> 1:43:24.600 got the first overall pick, and they were ineligible to 1:43:24.720 --> 1:43:26.880 get the first overall the next year the mat the 1:43:26.960 --> 1:43:29.960 highest they could get was eleven. Yeah, so you know, 1:43:30.000 --> 1:43:32.280 that seemed like a pretty so that way you're not 1:43:32.320 --> 1:43:35.080 doing the process i e. The Sixers where you're tanking 1:43:35.120 --> 1:43:38.160 three years in a row or what the Astros did, 1:43:38.280 --> 1:43:40.160 right that was that was what happened in baseball. The 1:43:40.200 --> 1:43:42.920 Astros did a huge tank job in twenty ten, twenty eleven, 1:43:43.000 --> 1:43:48.800 twenty twelve, which got them to a corea Bregman, and 1:43:48.960 --> 1:43:50.920 you know, and then they ended up, you know, having 1:43:51.000 --> 1:43:51.679 this great run. 1:43:52.040 --> 1:43:54.200 And the Rains were sort of doing a tank job 1:43:54.400 --> 1:43:57.320 except when they weren't, but they just didn't want to 1:43:57.320 --> 1:43:59.640 spend any money. But the baseball draft matters a lot 1:43:59.720 --> 1:44:03.720 less than the NBA draft, just for in terms of predictability, 1:44:03.760 --> 1:44:06.960 but also in terms of development. The guys making the picks, 1:44:07.160 --> 1:44:09.439 probably if they screw it up too often, won't be 1:44:09.439 --> 1:44:12.160 in the front office years later, whereas in the NBA 1:44:12.400 --> 1:44:14.479 you know, those are your picks that are that you 1:44:14.560 --> 1:44:15.439 hang on the GM. 1:44:16.520 --> 1:44:18.880 Well, it's just it's just funny. I can't tell you. 1:44:19.040 --> 1:44:21.439 It feels like every April there's this group of friends 1:44:21.479 --> 1:44:24.040 of mine and I we have this argument about God, 1:44:24.040 --> 1:44:26.080 what's wrong with the NBA and it and I think 1:44:26.120 --> 1:44:28.479 part of it is again, it's recency bias. The tournament 1:44:28.520 --> 1:44:31.120 is so much fun, right, and and you're just sitting 1:44:31.120 --> 1:44:34.840 there going, oh, there's no urgency. And we're at the 1:44:34.880 --> 1:44:36.920 tail end of the season, right, We're at this and 1:44:37.400 --> 1:44:40.040 so you do have that, you know, there's a little 1:44:40.040 --> 1:44:42.840 bit of let's save people a little bit for the playoffs. 1:44:42.840 --> 1:44:45.800 So it is, and it's a if I'm the NBA, 1:44:45.920 --> 1:44:47.679 it's a bummer. You've got a whole bunch of people 1:44:47.760 --> 1:44:51.240 excited about basketball, they tune into the pros, and you're 1:44:51.240 --> 1:44:55.920 not giving them nearly the same urgency. And you know, 1:44:56.280 --> 1:44:58.800 I think it's a missed opportunity for the NBA as well. 1:44:59.200 --> 1:45:01.439 I've always thought on and that first Thursday of the 1:45:01.560 --> 1:45:03.840 NCAA Tournament, which is one of the best days in 1:45:03.880 --> 1:45:06.280 sports structurally the same as the next day, but just 1:45:06.400 --> 1:45:09.559 wall to wall games that the NBA even plays a 1:45:09.640 --> 1:45:13.120 game or two is kind of laughable. It's just setting itself. 1:45:13.160 --> 1:45:14.599 Get out of the way, parata failure. 1:45:14.880 --> 1:45:19.120 More importantly, make the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the following 1:45:19.160 --> 1:45:22.719 week some of the best matchups you you know, make 1:45:22.800 --> 1:45:27.400 sure Lakers Celtics, make sure thunderspurs, make sure, you know, 1:45:27.960 --> 1:45:31.719 have a big prime time, you know, something like counter. 1:45:31.960 --> 1:45:35.599 You know, take advantage of this moment that you have 1:45:36.720 --> 1:45:37.639 on those days. 1:45:38.160 --> 1:45:41.200 Yeah, I think that the NBA just has too many 1:45:41.200 --> 1:45:43.640 games in the season, and of course they do, but 1:45:43.880 --> 1:45:45.559 this is what you're going to get. The last ten 1:45:45.600 --> 1:45:47.840 games of the NBA season is always going to be boring. 1:45:47.880 --> 1:45:50.800 If there are more than fifty games in the NBA season. Hey, 1:45:50.800 --> 1:45:53.800 if you want to balm for all of this. WNBA 1:45:53.960 --> 1:45:56.000 they've gone to a forty four game season, but they 1:45:56.000 --> 1:45:58.920 have three game series and it's all tight and taut. 1:45:59.240 --> 1:46:03.160 And though again with the new deal, which I congratulate 1:46:03.200 --> 1:46:05.360 the players for, as more money comes into the league, 1:46:05.400 --> 1:46:08.000 they're going to want to if they can fill an arena, 1:46:08.040 --> 1:46:09.479 as they will, and that's what's going to happen with 1:46:09.479 --> 1:46:12.000 the WNBA, and they will be grousing about this. We'll 1:46:12.040 --> 1:46:14.840 be saying, oh, the Links always get the number one pick. 1:46:17.000 --> 1:46:19.080 Well, it seemed like in the eighties, don't you remember it, 1:46:19.120 --> 1:46:21.160 like the Lakers and Celtics always ended up with the 1:46:21.240 --> 1:46:21.920 number one pick. 1:46:22.720 --> 1:46:23.439 Yeah, it was. 1:46:23.880 --> 1:46:27.560 It was just like but somehow the Clippers traded the 1:46:27.680 --> 1:46:29.439 Lakers the number one pick, and you're like, how did 1:46:29.600 --> 1:46:32.000 I mean it was? I mean, that's why they had 1:46:32.040 --> 1:46:34.799 to create the lottery, because too many teams were dumping 1:46:34.840 --> 1:46:36.759 their picks to the to the better teams. 1:46:36.880 --> 1:46:39.360 But if there were, if there's ever a counter argument 1:46:39.400 --> 1:46:42.559 to good old days with the sport of basketball in 1:46:42.600 --> 1:46:46.680 the fifties, they had the regional picks, so that the 1:46:47.040 --> 1:46:50.120 this is why, this is why the Celtics got everyone 1:46:50.120 --> 1:46:52.840 who went to a New England institution. And the draft 1:46:52.880 --> 1:46:57.240 went like fifteen rounds. I don't understand. There were ten 1:46:57.280 --> 1:47:00.559 teams in the league. How are they picking fifteen players? 1:47:00.720 --> 1:47:03.440 Although you know you always hear Dave Debusha a thirteenth 1:47:03.479 --> 1:47:03.920 round pick. 1:47:04.040 --> 1:47:06.320 I know, well, but that NFL was that way. Bart 1:47:06.360 --> 1:47:08.200 Star famously was a seventeenth round pick. 1:47:08.840 --> 1:47:11.879 But seventeen on a roster of fifty two versus fifteen 1:47:11.920 --> 1:47:12.080 on a. 1:47:12.120 --> 1:47:14.320 Rock you only had like twelve. But back then you 1:47:14.360 --> 1:47:16.719 only had like twelve teams, right, right, So it made 1:47:16.760 --> 1:47:18.880 sense that you had you had all these rounds. But 1:47:19.560 --> 1:47:22.439 then again, remember Mike Piazza was famously drafted in like 1:47:22.479 --> 1:47:23.759 the twenty ninth round, and you're. 1:47:23.760 --> 1:47:26.360 Right as a favorite of Tommy Lasorda because their dads 1:47:26.360 --> 1:47:28.000 were friends or maybe just Italian. 1:47:28.040 --> 1:47:33.519 I don't know, that's exactly. Well, you've got some technical 1:47:33.760 --> 1:47:34.880 issues that you're going to mess with. 1:47:34.960 --> 1:47:39.120 Huh, it's just the camera. Somebody like microphone sound great? 1:47:39.560 --> 1:47:42.479 They do, and ninety percent of my audience, I think. 1:47:43.479 --> 1:47:46.240 I think the interviews are more audio. Do you know 1:47:46.320 --> 1:47:49.479 the distinction between your audio and your video? Yes, it's 1:47:49.600 --> 1:47:52.920 uh ninety five to five ninety five, yeah, yeah, and 1:47:52.960 --> 1:47:54.880 so that it seems like if you don't offer video, 1:47:55.080 --> 1:47:57.360 that's an important five, you're you're missing out. 1:47:57.520 --> 1:47:59.680 It is true. It's the cutting edge five and they're 1:47:59.720 --> 1:48:02.439 gonna going to lose them. To call your daddy. I fear. 1:48:05.520 --> 1:48:10.160 A couple shows, please, Okay. I think I think I'm 1:48:10.200 --> 1:48:11.960 due to be in our Home and Away series. I 1:48:11.960 --> 1:48:13.200 think I'm due on here soon and. 1:48:13.200 --> 1:48:13.880 I can't wait. 1:48:14.080 --> 1:48:15.840 I've got more to plug there. I've got a new 1:48:15.880 --> 1:48:16.559 sports show. 1:48:17.200 --> 1:48:19.160 And I do have this show how to I said, 1:48:19.439 --> 1:48:21.280 we can pair you with a how to bet better 1:48:21.680 --> 1:48:24.599 the episode that is up right now. So every week 1:48:24.640 --> 1:48:27.880 we someone asks how to question, we get an expert, uh, 1:48:27.920 --> 1:48:30.280 my friend Nate Silver, who I'm sure I don't know 1:48:30.280 --> 1:48:32.960 if you've interviewed him. He's a brilliant thinker and he's 1:48:33.000 --> 1:48:36.160 a good talker, but he uses these filler words like 1:48:36.280 --> 1:48:39.360 right and um. So this week's episode is how not 1:48:39.479 --> 1:48:42.400 to say um with Nate Silver, and he's not embarrassed 1:48:42.439 --> 1:48:44.680 about he gets created it by the end. Let me 1:48:44.720 --> 1:48:47.640 tell you. So, we've had how to Emigrate as a 1:48:47.680 --> 1:48:51.120 throuble to the to Europe. We've had how to be 1:48:51.160 --> 1:48:53.880 a Ghostbuster. We're doing next week how to Talk to 1:48:53.960 --> 1:48:57.160 My Cats? Some good practical advice there. I do have cats, 1:48:57.439 --> 1:49:00.720 So tune into how to for you please clectic and 1:49:00.920 --> 1:49:03.479 practical pieces of advice, and i'd let you want to 1:49:03.520 --> 1:49:04.200 ask a question. 1:49:04.280 --> 1:49:06.880 Seriously, I love the series, and I do hope how 1:49:06.920 --> 1:49:10.120 to fix the NBA. Count me in, all right, count 1:49:10.120 --> 1:49:12.080 me in for that. But by the way, the cat, 1:49:12.640 --> 1:49:16.439 I mean, that's plain to algorithms, aren't you. That's play 1:49:16.479 --> 1:49:18.840 into the algorithm there, How to Talk to Cats? 1:49:19.160 --> 1:49:22.120 Except my experts like, don't don't try, just operate in 1:49:22.160 --> 1:49:25.240 their world. She's a very good cat expert. The guy 1:49:25.280 --> 1:49:27.760 asking the question said, am I doing it right? My 1:49:27.880 --> 1:49:30.240 cat named mister Bad wakes me up at four thirty 1:49:30.240 --> 1:49:32.000 in the morning and I lock them in the closet. 1:49:32.240 --> 1:49:34.400 Then at six I show them my watch and say 1:49:34.439 --> 1:49:36.240 now it's time for feeding. And it turns out that 1:49:36.520 --> 1:49:37.719 wasn't how to talk to a cat. 1:49:38.320 --> 1:49:40.439 By the way, how do people get your daily newsletter? 1:49:40.520 --> 1:49:43.240 I love it and I find so many fun little 1:49:43.280 --> 1:49:45.360 stories from it. Tell people how to get it. 1:49:45.560 --> 1:49:49.120 The gist list is at Mike Pasca dot substack dot 1:49:49.160 --> 1:49:52.200 com and they also have some I've been doing going 1:49:52.800 --> 1:49:56.559 some deep diving information on the pit and their background, 1:49:56.640 --> 1:49:59.240 character and why you're obsessed. 1:49:58.680 --> 1:50:01.720 With all the A holes. Yeah, that's just been a 1:50:01.760 --> 1:50:03.200 running gag of yours, hasn't it. 1:50:03.280 --> 1:50:06.160 Yes, Well, I'm keeping the official tracker. You know, you 1:50:06.240 --> 1:50:07.320 gotta have someone doing it. 1:50:08.000 --> 1:50:10.439 I have a I have a submission for the just list. 1:50:10.680 --> 1:50:12.960 You know, there's a pencil running for governor of Oregon. 1:50:13.600 --> 1:50:15.400 Oh really a pencil, Yes. 1:50:15.160 --> 1:50:17.519 A pencil and it actually is a series running is 1:50:17.520 --> 1:50:18.400 a writing candidate? 1:50:18.600 --> 1:50:20.040 Hey, there you go. 1:50:20.120 --> 1:50:22.720 See it just writes itself. Is he hoping to come 1:50:22.760 --> 1:50:23.360 in number two? 1:50:23.800 --> 1:50:24.040 Well? 1:50:24.800 --> 1:50:26.520 Does he believe in carbonations? 1:50:28.120 --> 1:50:30.360 Man? This is I had We did not plan this. 1:50:30.560 --> 1:50:32.599 I just threw it up there and there it is. 1:50:32.920 --> 1:50:35.120 You know you dad pund it out of the ballpark. 1:50:35.600 --> 1:50:36.519 Make a good point. 1:50:36.920 --> 1:50:39.760 Guess who's lasting reading on K through three? The state 1:50:39.760 --> 1:50:40.160 of Oregon? 1:50:40.560 --> 1:50:41.160 Is it really? 1:50:41.600 --> 1:50:43.960 Yeah? So that's the irea that. 1:50:44.040 --> 1:50:46.639 The Mississippi miracle. Someone has to. 1:50:47.120 --> 1:50:50.439 It's exactly what needs to happen is go learn about 1:50:50.520 --> 1:50:52.880 you know, go get hooked on phonics. I think we learned. 1:50:53.200 --> 1:50:55.240 Go get hooked on phonics. It works. 1:50:55.479 --> 1:50:57.920 Found it out people. I love the pencil all right. 1:50:58.040 --> 1:51:01.000 Anyway, go check out Governor penns. So we need that's 1:51:01.120 --> 1:51:04.479 you know, I think people would be happier with inanimate 1:51:04.479 --> 1:51:07.240 objects as our political leaders as it is. So, you know, 1:51:07.400 --> 1:51:08.439 the stapler is next. 1:51:09.439 --> 1:51:12.439 I hope a red stapler that I think has niche appeal. 1:51:12.920 --> 1:51:15.040 Well, you have the red staples. You have the red 1:51:15.040 --> 1:51:17.560 staples and the blue staples. They don't always you know, 1:51:17.600 --> 1:51:18.800 it gets a little polarizing. 1:51:18.840 --> 1:51:21.640 And that's what third party paper fastener. 1:51:22.120 --> 1:51:25.559 Yeah, you know, the big bulky clip people. You know 1:51:27.800 --> 1:51:29.120 Mike Pasca. It is always a pleasure. 1:51:29.360 --> 1:51:31.439 Oh, thank you, Chuck. Pleasure for me too. 1:51:39.360 --> 1:51:43.920 Hey, I'd love to hear your taking thoughts. By the 1:51:43.960 --> 1:51:46.960 way I went through the cut, I went through Nate 1:51:47.080 --> 1:51:49.960 Silver's convoluted. And I say convoluted because you got to 1:51:49.960 --> 1:51:52.400 read the whole thing idea of turning the draft into 1:51:52.400 --> 1:51:55.360 an auction and then creating a whole new currency system 1:51:55.400 --> 1:51:59.320 in the NBA of auction dollars or auction box or 1:51:59.400 --> 1:52:02.120 you know, maybe call them silvers, little Adam silvers and 1:52:02.160 --> 1:52:04.040 Nate silvers. Are you gonna call them silvers? You don't 1:52:04.080 --> 1:52:06.400 know whether an homage to Nate or homage to Adam, 1:52:07.360 --> 1:52:09.280 but you know, how many silvers do you have to 1:52:09.360 --> 1:52:13.280 participate in this draft? I didn't hate the idea of 1:52:13.320 --> 1:52:16.879 somebody who prefers auction over snake drafts and fantasy sports, 1:52:19.800 --> 1:52:21.880 but the tanking problem is just a real problem. And 1:52:22.040 --> 1:52:25.080 what's interesting is we go through this what's wrong with 1:52:25.120 --> 1:52:28.519 the NBA. It's always at this time of year, and 1:52:28.560 --> 1:52:31.120 it's all because of how great the NCAA tournament is 1:52:31.360 --> 1:52:33.400 and how great especially if the basketball is really good, 1:52:33.400 --> 1:52:35.840 which this year it is, and we sit there and 1:52:36.760 --> 1:52:43.280 so anyway, I'm curious your tanking solutions. It's really it 1:52:43.400 --> 1:52:46.240 really bothers me. I want to be a good Wizards fan. 1:52:47.320 --> 1:52:50.800 I'm embarrassed. It bothers me. I don't like I don't 1:52:50.880 --> 1:52:53.280 like not competing for multiple years in a row, and 1:52:53.320 --> 1:52:58.439 they have not competed. Right, even when baseball teams tank, 1:52:59.120 --> 1:53:03.719 the on the field is an effort. That's what bothers. 1:53:04.200 --> 1:53:10.200 It's really gross. But anyway, you know, it is Monday, 1:53:10.640 --> 1:53:18.400 so let's jump into the time machine. So let me 1:53:18.439 --> 1:53:22.679 tell you this week was a doozy, right. This week 1:53:22.720 --> 1:53:25.639 in history, with the anniversaries they have in this coming 1:53:25.920 --> 1:53:28.360 seven day period, is one of those weeks that simply 1:53:28.360 --> 1:53:31.519 stops you when you actually look at it. April twelfth, 1:53:31.560 --> 1:53:34.559 eighteen sixty one. The Battle of Fort Sumter. The Civil 1:53:34.600 --> 1:53:38.920 War begins. April ninth, eighteen sixty five. Surrender of Appomatics 1:53:39.000 --> 1:53:42.639 at the Appomatics Courthouse. The Civil War ends. April sixth, 1:53:42.760 --> 1:53:46.040 nineteen seventeen. US entry and too World War One, the 1:53:46.120 --> 1:53:49.960 United States enters its first global war. Just sit with 1:53:50.040 --> 1:53:55.120 that a second, right, This week alone two wars one week. 1:53:56.479 --> 1:54:01.120 One of those wars this week both its beginning and 1:54:01.160 --> 1:54:06.360 its end. Both fall within the same seven days fifty 1:54:06.360 --> 1:54:11.200 four years apart. That's not something historian engineers. It's just 1:54:11.240 --> 1:54:14.639 the calendar being strange and almost poetic at the same time. 1:54:17.000 --> 1:54:19.320 But you know, history geeks and history in general loves 1:54:19.320 --> 1:54:22.559 weeks like this. They're clean markers, their dates. We can 1:54:22.600 --> 1:54:25.920 teach their moments, we can point to and say they're 1:54:28.320 --> 1:54:31.639 that's when it started, that's when it ended. But here's 1:54:31.680 --> 1:54:33.880 what I keep coming back to. When I looked at 1:54:33.880 --> 1:54:35.520 this week and I thought about what should I do 1:54:35.560 --> 1:54:38.000 the deep dive on, what should I make the history lesson? 1:54:38.520 --> 1:54:40.680 And I thought, you know, we kind of knew we 1:54:42.240 --> 1:54:45.720 there may be something deeper here. We're really good at 1:54:45.720 --> 1:54:48.760 marking the beginning of conflicts, and we're also good at 1:54:48.800 --> 1:54:52.640 marking the end of them. What we are almost never 1:54:52.640 --> 1:54:56.960 good at is resolving the argument that caused them. We 1:54:57.000 --> 1:55:00.600 stop fighting the actual war, but we don't don't resolve 1:55:00.600 --> 1:55:04.240 the argument itself, not slowing it down, not changing its shape, 1:55:04.480 --> 1:55:09.280 actually resolving the argument. And this week makes that uncomfortable 1:55:09.280 --> 1:55:12.920 truth almost impossible to ignore. Because these two wars, in 1:55:12.960 --> 1:55:16.520 particular World War One in the Civil War, they both 1:55:16.560 --> 1:55:21.480 have end dates, but neither were resolved Let's start with 1:55:21.480 --> 1:55:23.840 the Civil War, because if you're looking for a clean 1:55:23.960 --> 1:55:27.880 ending in American history, it doesn't get any cleaner than appomatics. Right, 1:55:28.840 --> 1:55:31.640 Sometimes you just have to say it. Sometimes people will 1:55:31.680 --> 1:55:34.440 reference or we're going to have an appomatics moment. Right, 1:55:35.280 --> 1:55:40.520 that's how that's how important this moment is in American history. 1:55:40.720 --> 1:55:45.040 April ninth, eighteen sixty five, Roberty Lee surrenders to Ulysses s. 1:55:45.520 --> 1:55:49.920 Grant's terms are notably generous. Lee's officers keep their side arms, 1:55:50.400 --> 1:55:54.760 his soldiers keep their horses. There's no triumphalism. There's almost 1:55:54.800 --> 1:55:57.000 a deliberate effort to make it feel like a closing. 1:55:57.960 --> 1:56:02.960 The fighting stops most immediately, the country begins telling itself 1:56:03.000 --> 1:56:06.800 a story. The war is over the nation as whole. 1:56:07.720 --> 1:56:13.120 Let's move forward. But what exactly was resolved? Slavery, yes, 1:56:13.480 --> 1:56:17.080 formally abolished, but the argument underneath the war, the one 1:56:17.080 --> 1:56:19.560 that made the war necessary in the first place. Who 1:56:19.560 --> 1:56:23.960 belongs in the country, on what terms, with what rights? 1:56:24.320 --> 1:56:27.120 Who gets to be an American? That did not end 1:56:27.120 --> 1:56:29.960 in eighteen sixty five. We did not resolve that argument. 1:56:30.040 --> 1:56:32.280 Three years later, the fourteenth Amendment of the United States 1:56:32.280 --> 1:56:40.080 Constitution put birthrights citizenship directly into the Constitution settles it supposedly, 1:56:41.640 --> 1:56:46.280 if you're born here, you're an American, full stop. Except 1:56:46.400 --> 1:56:50.880 it wasn't full stop. Even with that language in the Constitution, Citizenship, 1:56:50.960 --> 1:56:56.080 its meaning, its application, its daily lived reality, has remained 1:56:56.120 --> 1:57:02.200 bitterly contested. On paper, black Americans were citizens. In practice, 1:57:02.240 --> 1:57:05.840 they were systematically denied what citizenship was supposed to guarantee 1:57:06.360 --> 1:57:10.920 for nearly a century, through law, through violence, through deliberate exclusion. 1:57:14.400 --> 1:57:16.200 And here's the part that should give us some pause, 1:57:17.360 --> 1:57:20.160 that argument who gets to be an American? What birthright 1:57:20.240 --> 1:57:24.640 citizenship actually means? Who qualifies? It's not a historical debate, 1:57:25.080 --> 1:57:27.680 It's an active one right now. Just last week, right 1:57:27.840 --> 1:57:29.800 in front of it was argued in front of the 1:57:29.800 --> 1:57:35.720 Supreme Court. We didn't resolve the question at appomatics. We 1:57:35.760 --> 1:57:39.640 didn't resolve it with the fourteenth Amendment. We didn't resolve 1:57:39.680 --> 1:57:44.960 it with the court case that settled birthright citizenship. We 1:57:45.120 --> 1:57:48.920 continue to relitigate it in different forms ever since. So 1:57:48.960 --> 1:57:51.800 the Civil War ended the argument that caused it did not. 1:57:52.920 --> 1:57:57.760 We just keep finding new occasions to happen. Guess what, 1:57:57.920 --> 1:58:01.240 that's not just an American problem. Now, take that same 1:58:01.280 --> 1:58:04.600 pattern and scale it globally. On April sixth, nineteen seventeen, 1:58:04.640 --> 1:58:07.080 the US formally enters World War One, the Great War, 1:58:07.080 --> 1:58:09.400 it was called at the time. Frame me is explicit 1:58:10.000 --> 1:58:13.160 make the world safe for democracy, hard stop. This was 1:58:13.160 --> 1:58:17.040 supposed to be the war to end all wars. November eleventh, 1:58:17.120 --> 1:58:23.720 nineteen eighteen, the war ends. Armistice Day, remember that celebration 1:58:23.920 --> 1:58:28.240 relief another clear clean marker, another date we can point to. 1:58:28.720 --> 1:58:33.320 We've now changed into Veterans Day, because it's not like 1:58:33.360 --> 1:58:36.680 that was a real peace day, was it. I actually 1:58:36.680 --> 1:58:38.960 think it's wrong to try to celebrate Armistic's Day if 1:58:39.000 --> 1:58:41.960 you ended up with another World war essentially some twenty 1:58:42.040 --> 1:58:46.680 years later, because the peace that followed wasn't resolution, it 1:58:46.720 --> 1:58:50.960 was rearrangement. The Treaty of Versailles punishes Germany without stabilizing Europe, 1:58:51.520 --> 1:58:55.680 and across the broader conflict, empires collapsed, most consequentially the 1:58:55.720 --> 1:58:58.800 Ottoman Empire, which I had controlled much of the Middle 1:58:58.800 --> 1:59:02.760 East for centuries. And into that vacuum, some outsized powers, 1:59:03.240 --> 1:59:08.320 outside powers, primarily Britain and France, drew new borders. They 1:59:08.360 --> 1:59:12.320 created new states, assigned new rulers. You get a kingdom, 1:59:12.360 --> 1:59:15.000 You get a kingdom. Hey, we've decided this straight line 1:59:15.080 --> 1:59:18.840 is a border. Let's paper over ethnic, religious, and national 1:59:18.840 --> 1:59:23.840 claims that had never actually been resolved. Well, guess what. 1:59:25.240 --> 1:59:29.480 Their maps didn't settle anything. They didn't settle those competing claims. 1:59:29.720 --> 1:59:33.600 They just drew lines through them and moved on. And 1:59:33.640 --> 1:59:36.080 this is what I want you to think about. We 1:59:36.120 --> 1:59:37.880 talk about the modern Middle East as though it's a 1:59:37.920 --> 1:59:41.960 series of separate crises, as though each conflict is its 1:59:41.960 --> 1:59:45.560 own thing, But it's not much of what we're navigating 1:59:45.560 --> 1:59:48.240 in that region today. The instability, the competing claims, the 1:59:48.240 --> 1:59:51.600 borders that don't match the people living inside them. That 1:59:51.760 --> 1:59:54.720 is the direct, unresolved consequence of a map drawn in 1:59:54.760 --> 1:59:57.480 the aftermath of World War One, as I used to joke, 1:59:57.520 --> 1:59:59.480 by a couple of drunk Frenchmen and Brits. Maybe they 1:59:59.480 --> 2:00:03.680 weren't drunk, but I hope they were, because they made 2:00:03.720 --> 2:00:05.880 so many mistakes that I'd like to chalk it up 2:00:05.880 --> 2:00:11.720 to their brains not fully functioning. But they were drawn 2:00:11.720 --> 2:00:15.000 by people who weren't from there, settling claims they didn't 2:00:15.000 --> 2:00:18.360 fully understand, and for interest that often had very little 2:00:18.360 --> 2:00:23.080 to do with the people actually living inside those manufactured lines. 2:00:24.360 --> 2:00:28.160 That's not ancient history, that's the architecture virtually every conflict 2:00:28.240 --> 2:00:30.000 the United States has been involved in over there for 2:00:30.040 --> 2:00:33.840 the last half century. We ended World War One in 2:00:33.920 --> 2:00:37.400 nineteen eighteen, we declared another World War in nineteen thirty nine, 2:00:38.160 --> 2:00:40.200 and more than a century later, we are still dealing 2:00:40.200 --> 2:00:44.080 with what was left unresolved when the first one ended. 2:00:45.800 --> 2:00:49.920 The fighting stopped, the argument did not. This is the 2:00:49.960 --> 2:00:52.960 pattern I keep coming back to, not just in these 2:00:52.960 --> 2:00:55.840 two wars cross history again and again. We treat wars 2:00:55.880 --> 2:00:59.040 like chapters, beginning, middle, and an end. We closed the book. 2:00:59.080 --> 2:01:02.840 We build the monuments in the holidays. But most wars 2:01:02.840 --> 2:01:07.080 aren't chapters. They're arguments. And arguments don't end when the 2:01:07.080 --> 2:01:09.920 shooting stops. They end if they end when you actually 2:01:10.160 --> 2:01:12.280 attempt to resolve the thing that made people willing to 2:01:12.320 --> 2:01:16.720 fight in the first place, identity, power, belonging, who controls what, 2:01:17.120 --> 2:01:20.920 who counts as whom. That's a lot harder than winning. 2:01:22.480 --> 2:01:28.480 That requires the real diplomacy. It requires more than a 2:01:28.520 --> 2:01:32.280 surrender ceremony and generous terms. It requires a willingness to 2:01:32.320 --> 2:01:34.840 actually finish what you started. That just keeps, not just 2:01:34.840 --> 2:01:39.240 stop fighting about it, and that willingness, historically speaking, is 2:01:39.280 --> 2:01:42.680 pretty rare. So that brings us back to this week. 2:01:42.720 --> 2:01:47.040 Fort Sumpner appomatics America entering World War One. They're some 2:01:47.080 --> 2:01:50.920 of the cleanest markers in history. Dates, we teach, moments, 2:01:50.920 --> 2:01:54.760 we commemorate stories with supposedly a satisfying shape of a 2:01:54.800 --> 2:01:58.640 beginning and an end. But what those dates don't tell 2:01:58.680 --> 2:02:02.360 you is that argument underneath them are still running. Who 2:02:02.400 --> 2:02:05.440 gets to be an American is still being litigated, the 2:02:05.480 --> 2:02:08.520 consequences of the post World War One map still being 2:02:08.600 --> 2:02:13.640 lived today. We marked the endings, we celebrated them, we 2:02:13.720 --> 2:02:17.480 built monuments to them. What we didn't do, and what 2:02:17.520 --> 2:02:21.839 we almost never do, is finish the argument. And unfinished 2:02:21.920 --> 2:02:25.240 arguments don't disappear. They don't respect the calendar. They don't 2:02:25.280 --> 2:02:29.000 care about anniversaries. They just wait for the next occasion, 2:02:29.320 --> 2:02:31.480 for the next generation to pick up where the last 2:02:31.480 --> 2:02:35.600 one left off. History gives us dates to remember, it 2:02:35.600 --> 2:02:38.240 almost never gives us the resolution we thought we earned. 2:02:41.520 --> 2:02:44.480 And we still got a lot to learn about World 2:02:44.480 --> 2:02:47.240 War One if we're still in the middle of fighting 2:02:47.280 --> 2:02:56.480 another war there today, ask Chuck. 2:02:59.280 --> 2:03:01.760 All right. First question comes from Tom l and he 2:03:01.760 --> 2:03:03.640 goes first time writing, I was introduced to you by 2:03:03.640 --> 2:03:05.320 watching me the press as you help keep my wife 2:03:05.320 --> 2:03:08.440 and I stay sane during the chaos of Trump one point. Oh, well, 2:03:08.480 --> 2:03:10.520 thank you for saying that finding your podcast now is 2:03:10.560 --> 2:03:12.560 again helping me through the next level of chaos and 2:03:12.560 --> 2:03:15.880 Trump two point zero and your level headed analysis of 2:03:15.960 --> 2:03:18.200 current events. Loving the time machine too. What are your 2:03:18.200 --> 2:03:20.879 thoughts on ranked choice voting. You've mentioned that electing independence 2:03:20.880 --> 2:03:23.160 could help our dysfunctional Congress. To me, voting for an 2:03:23.160 --> 2:03:25.840 independent risks throwing away your vote and allowing a candidate 2:03:25.880 --> 2:03:27.680 you oppose win. Ranked choice seems to be a way 2:03:27.720 --> 2:03:30.320 to safely take a chance on an independent, you prefer 2:03:30.320 --> 2:03:33.360 by choosing a traditional party candidate as a backup. And 2:03:33.400 --> 2:03:37.360 then he adds go Dodgers, Well, Tom, the theory of 2:03:37.440 --> 2:03:39.720 ranked choice voting I like a lot. And why do 2:03:39.800 --> 2:03:44.760 I say it's a theory because of this idea of hey, 2:03:44.560 --> 2:03:48.320 when you're voting, rank them, And I accept the premise 2:03:48.360 --> 2:03:51.879 that maybe if we implemented it within ten years, everybody 2:03:51.920 --> 2:03:53.760 would get comfortable and then we'd be like, what's the 2:03:53.760 --> 2:03:59.600 big deal? That's also true, but getting from there to 2:04:00.080 --> 2:04:02.000 you know, basically, from point to point B. I think's 2:04:02.000 --> 2:04:06.160 extraordinarily difficult. I think the challenge is, Look, what we're 2:04:06.160 --> 2:04:08.400 trying to do is solve for a problem, right, and 2:04:08.720 --> 2:04:17.920 problem one is primaries have way too much impact on 2:04:17.960 --> 2:04:21.720 our politics. It sort of independence don't really have much say, 2:04:21.720 --> 2:04:24.000 they're kind of underrepresented. They don't get to participate in 2:04:24.040 --> 2:04:26.920 these primaries. They don't get to have much choice into 2:04:26.960 --> 2:04:29.840 actually who shows up in the ballot. So, you know, 2:04:29.920 --> 2:04:32.040 ranked choice voting is a way to try to fix, 2:04:33.120 --> 2:04:36.600 to try to improve. Essentially, we're not dealing with the 2:04:37.040 --> 2:04:40.480 core problem, which is primaries themselves, and instead rank choice 2:04:40.560 --> 2:04:44.640 voting sort of papers over it. My issue with rank 2:04:44.720 --> 2:04:46.960 choice voting is I think you have a hard time. 2:04:47.040 --> 2:04:53.960 I think it's too easy to exploit. It's too easy 2:04:53.960 --> 2:04:57.320 to make people think that you're messing around with the numbers. Right, 2:04:57.880 --> 2:05:00.680 It's hard to follow the ballot all the way. Like 2:05:00.800 --> 2:05:03.760 I just think about what I did for over a 2:05:03.800 --> 2:05:07.200 decade on NBC, almost two decades, right, basically explaining returns 2:05:07.200 --> 2:05:09.760 as they came in, And you could explain the first 2:05:09.800 --> 2:05:12.280 count and you're like, all right, but it is hard 2:05:12.360 --> 2:05:18.480 to cleanly audit for the average American to consume cleanly 2:05:18.560 --> 2:05:20.920 audit that second choice, third choice, and all of that. 2:05:22.000 --> 2:05:26.360 It's doable. It's just you've got to rely on the 2:05:26.400 --> 2:05:29.480 government giving us more access to these ballots. You're going 2:05:29.560 --> 2:05:35.160 to show a lot of the ballot itself. It's very difficult. Ideally, 2:05:37.160 --> 2:05:40.520 I'd like the what ranked choice vote voting gives us, 2:05:40.600 --> 2:05:43.960 but to just do it in stages. So I think 2:05:43.960 --> 2:05:49.120 the ideal system is a combination of California, Washington, and Louisiana. 2:05:49.680 --> 2:05:53.160 All three states have had jungle primaries. What do I 2:05:53.200 --> 2:05:56.320 mean by that? Everybody appears in the same primary ballot. 2:05:56.480 --> 2:05:59.880 Now they each resolve how and now Alaska's that way, 2:06:00.200 --> 2:06:02.760 but with the rank choice voting. Right, So the idea 2:06:02.760 --> 2:06:06.880 is everybody votes, it's just round one of the general election, 2:06:07.320 --> 2:06:09.720 rather than call it prime. But it's sort of round one. 2:06:10.320 --> 2:06:15.120 It's the first round, and the top four advance. Right now, 2:06:16.000 --> 2:06:19.280 California has a top two, Washington has a top two, 2:06:19.760 --> 2:06:23.480 and one the top from each party meets. Louisiana was 2:06:23.560 --> 2:06:26.960 just top two generally, kind of like California, but some 2:06:27.160 --> 2:06:32.560 form of that. I think Alaska is top four and 2:06:32.600 --> 2:06:35.760 then they go to rank choice voting. So, however, you 2:06:35.760 --> 2:06:36.000 want to. 2:06:36.000 --> 2:06:36.440 Look at it. 2:06:37.200 --> 2:06:39.640 I think it's I'd like to say I think we are. 2:06:40.560 --> 2:06:44.560 I think the American electorate is better divvied up in 2:06:44.720 --> 2:06:48.080 four than by two. I think we're not cleanly left right. 2:06:48.320 --> 2:06:51.480 I think there really is. There's plenty of degrees there 2:06:51.480 --> 2:06:55.839 on the spectrum. But I think having progressive center, left, 2:06:56.280 --> 2:07:02.680 center right, and pop and sort of nationalists is probably 2:07:02.680 --> 2:07:05.560 a better populoist right nationalists kind of same thing. So 2:07:05.720 --> 2:07:10.000 sort of nationalists, progressive right on and so those four 2:07:10.040 --> 2:07:13.200 flavors if you're looking for avatars, so Sanders on the left, 2:07:13.480 --> 2:07:17.600 Trump on the right, and then some combination of oh, 2:07:17.680 --> 2:07:21.160 let's say Jos Shapiro, Glenn Younkin, all right, or maybe 2:07:21.200 --> 2:07:26.200 it's maybe a better version of it is Josh Shapiro, 2:07:26.280 --> 2:07:29.640 Nikki Haley all right, how's that right? Sort of occupy. 2:07:29.720 --> 2:07:33.400 So there's your sort of avatars for the four and 2:07:33.440 --> 2:07:37.520 then top two. You know, if somebody gets fifty out 2:07:37.560 --> 2:07:39.240 of that top four, they don't have to go to 2:07:39.280 --> 2:07:41.840 a runoff. But you sort of hold it right. We 2:07:41.920 --> 2:07:45.960 might have April, you know, sort of regional primaries throughout 2:07:45.960 --> 2:07:48.680 the month of April. Each week is a different region 2:07:48.760 --> 2:07:53.600 that votes, say October, you'd have the all four and 2:07:53.600 --> 2:07:55.560 if somebody got over fifty, This is the way Louisiana 2:07:55.680 --> 2:07:57.800 used to work. Somebody got over fifty, they didn't have 2:07:57.840 --> 2:07:59.200 to go to a runoff, they got they won the 2:07:59.240 --> 2:08:02.920 election right there. But if you know, nobody got fifty, 2:08:02.960 --> 2:08:05.480 then the top two ended up in a runoff that 2:08:05.640 --> 2:08:10.680 was held on the November election day. So that, to 2:08:10.800 --> 2:08:14.960 me is my ideal. So what rank choice voting is 2:08:15.000 --> 2:08:18.080 trying to accomplish I agree with. I think the execution 2:08:18.200 --> 2:08:20.360 of it though papers over the larger problem of the 2:08:20.400 --> 2:08:24.560 primaries themselves and the fact that all voters don't have 2:08:24.600 --> 2:08:26.920 a say it who gets to be who gets to 2:08:26.960 --> 2:08:31.640 represent you know, team A, Team B, TEAMC, and TMD 2:08:32.480 --> 2:08:36.240 in that sense, and all part putting and giving independence. 2:08:36.320 --> 2:08:42.760 Right now, the state sanctioning a primary but then excluding 2:08:42.840 --> 2:08:45.320 certain residents because they've chosen not to become members of 2:08:45.320 --> 2:08:50.320 a private club feels like a violation of your constitutional rights. 2:08:50.920 --> 2:08:54.320 And I think, frankly some of these taxpayer funded primaries 2:08:54.560 --> 2:08:57.600 can be attacked on those grounds lack of equal protection. 2:08:58.520 --> 2:09:00.880 And I think you're seeing my friends over at the 2:09:00.920 --> 2:09:04.040 open primaries are trying to do. So that's where I 2:09:04.040 --> 2:09:06.920 come down on ranked choice voting. It's a solution to 2:09:07.080 --> 2:09:09.720 the primary problem. If you're not going to fix the 2:09:09.720 --> 2:09:12.640 primary system, but if we can attack the root cause, 2:09:12.680 --> 2:09:16.000 which is how we do this primary system, then maybe 2:09:16.080 --> 2:09:21.880 ranked choice voting would be less necessary. Just my two cents, 2:09:23.960 --> 2:09:27.200 I think we're disagreeing on how to implement, not on 2:09:27.240 --> 2:09:29.000 the larger solution that. 2:09:28.920 --> 2:09:29.600 We're looking for. 2:09:30.440 --> 2:09:32.560 Next question comes from George RSIs Chuck Levy show is 2:09:32.560 --> 2:09:35.240 a proud Stetson grad. I have to correct you. I 2:09:35.280 --> 2:09:38.480 appreciate that Stetson's main campus is into Land, which I 2:09:38.480 --> 2:09:41.000 did get correct, But the law school is in Gulfport, 2:09:41.040 --> 2:09:43.600 which is a small sitting next to Saint Petersburg. And 2:09:43.640 --> 2:09:46.280 since BONDI went to Stetson, they also have another law 2:09:46.280 --> 2:09:51.400 school campus in Tampa, so go hatters there and literally yes, 2:09:51.680 --> 2:09:56.240 Stetson hats, so they adopted the hatters. On that front, 2:09:57.960 --> 2:09:59.800 I did not know that. I probably should have known it. 2:10:00.000 --> 2:10:02.440 George Mason's law school is in Arlington. It's not in 2:10:02.480 --> 2:10:05.440 fair fact, so I should know better on that. A 2:10:05.440 --> 2:10:07.400 lot about Georgetown's law school is not on the campus 2:10:07.400 --> 2:10:11.480 of Georgetown. It's actually in your Capitol Hill. So that 2:10:11.680 --> 2:10:14.680 is an error on me and I wish I do it. 2:10:14.680 --> 2:10:17.840 I appreciate the correction, so thanks George. Next question comes 2:10:17.840 --> 2:10:21.520 from Patrick C. With your end of round snake draft 2:10:21.560 --> 2:10:24.240 picks I employ you to take. To take two questions 2:10:24.240 --> 2:10:26.280 from Patrick in Los Angeles, I'd enter the Chuck Tad 2:10:26.400 --> 2:10:29.320 two timers club and three way club. One. What current 2:10:29.320 --> 2:10:31.480 player or manager in the big three sports leagues would 2:10:31.480 --> 2:10:33.200 best transition into politics? 2:10:33.680 --> 2:10:33.880 Two? 2:10:34.000 --> 2:10:36.480 Convince me otherwise China sweeps in to secure the straight 2:10:36.520 --> 2:10:39.960 in exchange to peg oil, to the Ewen, ending the 2:10:40.000 --> 2:10:44.360 Petro dollar, and tanking the US economy. Interesting, all right, 2:10:45.640 --> 2:10:51.040 So I got to take I see you're quite all right. 2:10:51.120 --> 2:10:53.320 The first quote, which current player or manager in the 2:10:53.320 --> 2:10:57.640 big three sports leagues for NHL? Right, you're assuming doing MLB? 2:11:00.080 --> 2:11:07.320 Have to say? I think right now? I think right now, 2:11:07.360 --> 2:11:11.840 I'd probably go Steve Kerr. I think he's become fairly 2:11:11.880 --> 2:11:15.560 active on the left a little bit. I think he's 2:11:16.600 --> 2:11:21.440 I think if you told me in four years he's 2:11:21.520 --> 2:11:25.520 being recruited to run for governor of California or something 2:11:25.640 --> 2:11:28.800 like that, because their last it's been a debacle and 2:11:28.880 --> 2:11:31.880 the party's infighting, right like, I could see him transitioning 2:11:31.920 --> 2:11:35.400 to it. I saw a nice story about him writing 2:11:35.640 --> 2:11:38.560 a handwritten note to the manager of the Toronto Blue 2:11:38.640 --> 2:11:41.920 Jays just after they lost Game seven John Schnyder. Schnyder 2:11:41.960 --> 2:11:45.160 shared the note. Curtdn't right. Schnyder shared the note. It 2:11:45.160 --> 2:11:47.920 was just a hand written note from courgasing how much 2:11:47.920 --> 2:11:52.680 he admired Schneider and how prepared his team was, and 2:11:52.720 --> 2:11:55.280 how just he knows it's painful that he'd been there, 2:11:56.520 --> 2:12:00.800 and it was just the type of thing that just 2:12:00.840 --> 2:12:03.840 to you know, he didn't that's something he didn't have 2:12:03.920 --> 2:12:06.320 to do. He didn't know, John Snyder. He might have been, 2:12:06.360 --> 2:12:09.320 as he admitted, he was rooting for the Dodgers, but 2:12:09.360 --> 2:12:15.600 he admired how well Schneider was managing that game. Clearly 2:12:15.680 --> 2:12:18.400 he sort of was on top of things, had sort 2:12:18.400 --> 2:12:23.280 of gotten there was you know, look, let's be realistic, 2:12:23.280 --> 2:12:25.720 the Dodgers. The Dodgers won the World Series by a 2:12:25.760 --> 2:12:30.440 cleat if those of you that recalled that Game seven, 2:12:31.160 --> 2:12:34.240 but it was interesting the athletic story on that. Sin 2:12:34.360 --> 2:12:39.280 Kerr was asked about how he got how what inspired 2:12:39.360 --> 2:12:40.880 him to do this? And he's done this six or 2:12:40.920 --> 2:12:42.880 seven times, not very often, and he didn't say which 2:12:42.880 --> 2:12:45.840 coaches he's sent it to but because he said he 2:12:45.880 --> 2:12:47.880 got a note out of the blue from Sean Payton 2:12:49.000 --> 2:12:52.920 after his first NBA Finals appearance, and he says he 2:12:52.920 --> 2:12:54.840 didn't know Sean Payton. This was now the coach of 2:12:54.880 --> 2:12:58.000 the Broncos, then was the coach of the Saints, and 2:12:58.400 --> 2:13:01.240 just sort of a similar message like merely impressed with 2:13:01.360 --> 2:13:04.760 you know how you've transitioned to coaching, et cetera. And 2:13:06.600 --> 2:13:09.000 you know, I'm always I always admire people when they 2:13:09.040 --> 2:13:12.000 get when when they're doing something that they didn't They 2:13:12.000 --> 2:13:15.800 didn't do for public praise. They just did it because 2:13:15.840 --> 2:13:19.040 they wanted to make somebody they did un They literally 2:13:19.040 --> 2:13:21.000 followed the golden doing to others that you hope someone 2:13:21.040 --> 2:13:24.320 does unto you or maybe you passed it, you paid 2:13:24.320 --> 2:13:27.840 it forward because someone did it for you. So I'd 2:13:27.840 --> 2:13:30.840 probably put Steve Kerr in that in that first category. 2:13:30.920 --> 2:13:35.160 I'm trying to think of a few others. Look, Bruce 2:13:35.200 --> 2:13:40.880 Burrow may end up running for office, and you know, 2:13:41.080 --> 2:13:44.400 I think he you know, I'm not. I'm not sure. 2:13:45.000 --> 2:13:47.600 Alabama is an odd place for him. I don't know 2:13:47.640 --> 2:13:51.000 if it. If I know he's he's he wouldn't be 2:13:51.040 --> 2:13:53.000 the first former Auburn coach to try to win state 2:13:53.000 --> 2:13:55.680 white office. But I do wonder if you have to 2:13:55.720 --> 2:13:58.240 have this othern accent to win state white office in Alabama, 2:13:59.040 --> 2:14:01.960 that would be that That's my strong curiosity there. But 2:14:02.240 --> 2:14:04.160 you already have a guy like Bruce Pearl's thinking about it. 2:14:04.160 --> 2:14:06.040 And by the way, I know, like I said, if 2:14:06.080 --> 2:14:10.840 you follow Bruce Pearl on Twitter, you're at and you 2:14:11.120 --> 2:14:13.240 follow him for basketball, but you get his political stuff, 2:14:13.440 --> 2:14:15.640 you might say, oh, he seems to be decidedly on 2:14:15.640 --> 2:14:18.200 one side of the aisle. And I know it makes 2:14:18.200 --> 2:14:20.600 some people, you know, judge him just based on his politics, 2:14:20.600 --> 2:14:24.880 But I tell you, I really enjoyed his commentary, you know, 2:14:24.920 --> 2:14:28.000 regardless of what his politics are on this front. And 2:14:28.040 --> 2:14:31.480 he's pretty pretty defensive of the state of Israel in general. 2:14:32.360 --> 2:14:36.560 But he clearly I think has the I think he's 2:14:36.560 --> 2:14:38.400 got the ambition, So I think he's somebody else I 2:14:38.440 --> 2:14:41.640 would I would throw into there, and I think they 2:14:41.680 --> 2:14:44.160 would both manage politics better than Tommy Tupperville. Put it 2:14:44.240 --> 2:14:46.120 this way, I've never had Tommy Tupperville on my calendar, 2:14:46.120 --> 2:14:48.240 and I still don't think he makes a really good politician. 2:14:48.280 --> 2:14:52.680 I think he's burming that every day. And while I don't, well, 2:14:52.720 --> 2:14:55.880 I assume he does become governor, I have a feeling 2:14:55.920 --> 2:14:59.600 that ain't gonna go well. You know, he's not known 2:14:59.640 --> 2:15:01.879 as a hard worker, and I don't think he realizes 2:15:01.920 --> 2:15:05.080 big governors actually work. Being a senator ain't a real job. 2:15:06.960 --> 2:15:10.200 Being a governor is a real job. So I'll be 2:15:11.440 --> 2:15:14.880 let's just say I'm not I'm I've set the bar 2:15:14.920 --> 2:15:17.680 pretty low for him there, and he's facing a pretty 2:15:17.720 --> 2:15:21.280 tough candidate for the Democrats and Doug Jones and who 2:15:21.440 --> 2:15:24.280 of course won that senate's special Senate election a few 2:15:24.360 --> 2:15:28.000 years back against Roy Moore. Topperville's no Roy Moore as 2:15:28.000 --> 2:15:30.360 far as the morality stuff is concerned. But I think 2:15:32.080 --> 2:15:33.600 I have a feeling that's going to be a close race. 2:15:34.560 --> 2:15:35.720 I think a lot of people are going to be 2:15:35.720 --> 2:15:39.760 aware that Tommy ain't up to this job. He probably 2:15:39.760 --> 2:15:45.520 wins because that state's pretty conservative, but this is the 2:15:45.520 --> 2:15:47.400 whiff of one four year term, and I'll just leave 2:15:47.440 --> 2:15:52.400 it at that. As for your second one, look, that's 2:15:52.440 --> 2:15:56.280 the conversation I had with Thyke Friman. I mean, in well, 2:15:56.280 --> 2:16:00.400 that's an And as far as China, you're taking avantage 2:16:00.560 --> 2:16:03.760 of this Trump term to get what they want. In 2:16:03.800 --> 2:16:06.400 my interview with Daniel Jurgen, I asked him if not 2:16:06.440 --> 2:16:08.680 the United States to secure the Strait. He basically said, 2:16:08.680 --> 2:16:10.680 there's only one other country that can, and that's China. 2:16:11.280 --> 2:16:13.640 And he says, look, he says, going back to Jimmy Carter, 2:16:13.760 --> 2:16:16.720 we basically have made a deal with the Golf States 2:16:16.760 --> 2:16:19.440 that we had them. We were their defense umbrella. And 2:16:19.520 --> 2:16:21.200 if we're not there to open up the straight and 2:16:21.240 --> 2:16:24.120 we don't do it, they will turn to China. And 2:16:24.280 --> 2:16:26.440 China would love to have those golf States as their 2:16:26.520 --> 2:16:30.600 number one ally rather than right now, those Golf States 2:16:30.600 --> 2:16:33.959 they play us their eyes with bo but we're in 2:16:34.000 --> 2:16:38.440 the number one camp. China's decidedly number two. We do 2:16:38.560 --> 2:16:41.440 not want that to flip. And you're right, that is 2:16:41.560 --> 2:16:46.760 the price that would be. But they don't want to tank. 2:16:46.840 --> 2:16:49.120 Remember it's actually not in China's interest to tank the 2:16:49.160 --> 2:16:52.800 American economy. The Chinese economy would tank if they tanked 2:16:52.840 --> 2:16:55.480 the American economy, so that actually is something they wouldn't 2:16:55.520 --> 2:16:58.400 want to do. But do they want more influence in 2:16:58.440 --> 2:17:01.560 the golf, Yes, they would want that. Next question comes 2:17:01.600 --> 2:17:04.480 from Johnny Goes. Hello from a two timer working towards five. 2:17:04.800 --> 2:17:07.400 Thanks for the Mattman interview. He will have my vote 2:17:07.400 --> 2:17:09.960 for governor. Much has been made about Congress since Operation 2:17:10.000 --> 2:17:12.480 Desert Storm relinquishing its authority to commit the country to 2:17:12.520 --> 2:17:15.160 foreign wars is required by the Constitution. Has their inaction 2:17:15.280 --> 2:17:17.879 produced a precedent that would be difficult to overcome? What 2:17:17.920 --> 2:17:19.920 would be required for Congress to take this power back 2:17:19.920 --> 2:17:23.600 from the executive branch? John, it's sitting right there, hold 2:17:23.600 --> 2:17:28.720 a vote. I think they have. You know, the Constitution 2:17:28.879 --> 2:17:33.040 is pretty clear. But if they fail to the precedent 2:17:33.120 --> 2:17:37.320 they set is that they if they fail to attempt 2:17:37.400 --> 2:17:40.400 to use their power, then yes, what the what the 2:17:40.440 --> 2:17:44.680 executive does? They can't They don't do anything about unless 2:17:44.680 --> 2:17:46.959 they deny him money. And I think that's the point 2:17:46.959 --> 2:17:49.800 of John Curtis's op ed saying, Hey, the clock is 2:17:49.879 --> 2:17:53.480 ticking and we're twenty two days away from the expiration 2:17:53.520 --> 2:17:57.040 of the sixty day clock. But this administration has a 2:17:58.400 --> 2:18:05.120 unitary view of the executive and every administration has. Every 2:18:05.160 --> 2:18:07.560 president since the passage of the War Powers Act has 2:18:07.600 --> 2:18:18.200 at least abided by its rules. But most anybody that 2:18:18.240 --> 2:18:26.039 there are a lot of constitutional lawyers who believe that 2:18:26.120 --> 2:18:30.840 the War Powers Act does is not that does not 2:18:30.959 --> 2:18:36.360 have the constraints that the Act thinks it does. Ultimately, 2:18:36.680 --> 2:18:40.280 the real power Congress has is the purse. That's the 2:18:40.400 --> 2:18:46.080 power hard stop period and that they can use any 2:18:46.080 --> 2:18:52.160 time they want. None of this has been precedent per se, 2:18:53.000 --> 2:18:57.680 because it's not as if. But I do think if 2:18:58.800 --> 2:19:01.520 if Congress is says, actually went to the courts and 2:19:01.560 --> 2:19:04.039 claimed that the President was violating the War Powers Act, 2:19:04.800 --> 2:19:07.600 I don't think they'd lose that court fight. I don't 2:19:07.600 --> 2:19:11.039 think the administration would want that court fight. But it 2:19:11.080 --> 2:19:13.039 may not be a slam dunk and we and it 2:19:13.080 --> 2:19:16.240 would be something that might get litigated for months while 2:19:16.240 --> 2:19:20.920 the administration just continues to opt to to conduct this war. 2:19:23.120 --> 2:19:31.160 All right. Last question comes from Natalie or Nathalie, an 2:19:31.200 --> 2:19:35.840 expat nat in Skien, Norway. He says, Hey, Chuck, big 2:19:35.920 --> 2:19:39.920 Nuggets fan here, and while this was one of the 2:19:39.959 --> 2:19:42.080 best times to be a basketball fan, the Joker Wenby 2:19:42.120 --> 2:19:44.640 matchup the other night was a masterclass. Hey, I caught 2:19:44.800 --> 2:19:48.320 the last five minutes. I will thank Bill Simmonson a 2:19:48.360 --> 2:19:52.760 tweet who said, I hope you're catching this match up 2:19:52.800 --> 2:19:54.200 here at the end I was like, first of all, 2:19:54.240 --> 2:19:56.480 it took me three apps to go find the game. 2:19:56.840 --> 2:19:59.600 I first went to YouTube TV, not there. Then I 2:19:59.640 --> 2:20:04.760 went and to my NBA app, Nope, Prime. Then I 2:20:04.800 --> 2:20:08.000 finally found it on Prime and caught the last minute 2:20:08.280 --> 2:20:11.520 and a half plus the overtime. I mean, just amazing, 2:20:12.320 --> 2:20:15.920 And it was a reminder the Nuggets can that was 2:20:17.720 --> 2:20:20.960 it's Wemby's league. Now we're just it's Wemby's world. We're 2:20:21.000 --> 2:20:23.080 just lucky to be want to be a part of it. 2:20:24.120 --> 2:20:28.560 So anyway, but I digress. Let me continue with your question. 2:20:28.640 --> 2:20:30.280 The stain on the NBA right now is tanking. So 2:20:30.280 --> 2:20:32.879 here's my question. Is relegation structurally possible in the NBA. 2:20:33.200 --> 2:20:35.200 The idea of being the three lowest ranked teams dropped 2:20:35.200 --> 2:20:37.080 to the G League and have to earn promotion back 2:20:37.120 --> 2:20:39.600 it would make tanking suicidal overnight. But the G League 2:20:39.800 --> 2:20:42.680 isn't an independent division like the Championship the way the 2:20:42.720 --> 2:20:45.280 Championship League works over in Europe. It's a network of 2:20:45.320 --> 2:20:48.400 franchise owned affiliates, and relegated teams would likely hemorrhage broadcast 2:20:48.400 --> 2:20:51.240 revenue in ways that could make major market valuations impossible 2:20:51.400 --> 2:20:54.680 to sustate, has anyone actually modeled this or does the 2:20:54.680 --> 2:20:57.320 franchise ownership structure make it a non starter? By definition? 2:20:58.160 --> 2:21:02.120 You just essentially and asking your question also made the 2:21:03.120 --> 2:21:08.280 essentially the rest of your question explains why it's never 2:21:08.360 --> 2:21:13.080 going to happen. There's a chance that if you told 2:21:13.160 --> 2:21:16.080 me in thirty years that the European League and the 2:21:16.120 --> 2:21:20.640 North American NBA League were in the sort of original 2:21:20.720 --> 2:21:24.080 NBA in the European NBA were sort of on par leagues, 2:21:25.040 --> 2:21:28.959 could we see something that way where the punishment for 2:21:29.000 --> 2:21:30.920 tanking in the United States would being, No, you're stuck 2:21:30.920 --> 2:21:34.280 with an overseas. You're gonna be stuck with overseas. You're 2:21:34.320 --> 2:21:37.480 still playing professionally. Maybe the revenues are somewhat equal, but 2:21:37.800 --> 2:21:40.240 you you know, your fan base isn't happy because you're 2:21:40.240 --> 2:21:44.560 playing all these European teams that nobody knows. Like. As 2:21:44.640 --> 2:21:47.400 the NBA develops a league in Africa, a league in Europe, 2:21:47.920 --> 2:21:52.240 plus expansion of the North American situation, I think you 2:21:52.280 --> 2:21:55.320 could eventually see a structure that does this, But not 2:21:55.360 --> 2:21:57.200 with the G League at the moment because of all 2:21:57.280 --> 2:22:00.240 the reasons. You just stay right now. But this making 2:22:00.240 --> 2:22:03.680 things a gigantic problem. You know, do you expand rosters? 2:22:05.160 --> 2:22:05.400 You know? 2:22:05.720 --> 2:22:13.520 Is that an answer that would help I? You know, look, 2:22:13.920 --> 2:22:15.440 Pasca and I went through a whole bunch of this 2:22:15.560 --> 2:22:17.880 or in earlier in this in this full episode, if 2:22:17.879 --> 2:22:20.279 you're listening to these questions after you've heard my past interview, 2:22:20.560 --> 2:22:22.680 we go through a bunch of things, like I'd like 2:22:22.720 --> 2:22:24.200 to see a best of five in the first round 2:22:24.200 --> 2:22:26.080 of the playoffs. I wonder if you add them a 2:22:26.080 --> 2:22:28.360 little bit of randomness the way baseball is a little 2:22:28.360 --> 2:22:30.320 bit of randomness in it the playoffs because of their 2:22:30.480 --> 2:22:33.160 best of fives. Because look at the Dodgers, the big 2:22:33.200 --> 2:22:35.920 great evil Empire. The Dodgers have been denied the World 2:22:36.000 --> 2:22:41.560 Series essentially because of losing in the five game. They 2:22:41.560 --> 2:22:43.879 don't know, haven't lost in the seven games very often. 2:22:44.120 --> 2:22:46.800 But the Nats won the title in nineteen because they 2:22:47.040 --> 2:22:49.040 beat the Dodgers in a five game. Could they have 2:22:49.040 --> 2:22:51.600 beaten them in a seventh game a seven game series? 2:22:51.800 --> 2:22:55.560 I don't know. The Diamondbacks when they got to the 2:22:55.560 --> 2:22:59.080 World Series, they did it. They beat the Dodgers in 2:22:59.080 --> 2:23:01.160 a five game. When the Philly got to the World Series, 2:23:01.480 --> 2:23:03.600 they beat the Padres who beat the Dodgers in a 2:23:03.640 --> 2:23:05.879 five game, you get the thing. So I kind of 2:23:06.240 --> 2:23:08.119 I wonder if you had the five game, if more 2:23:08.160 --> 2:23:10.840 teams would think, hey, I could win around in the 2:23:10.879 --> 2:23:14.440 playoffs and get to the second round. Would that discourage something? 2:23:14.600 --> 2:23:17.080 So I anyway, I think there's a few things to 2:23:17.200 --> 2:23:22.480 try first on this tanking thing. But it's embarrassing, it's terrible. 2:23:23.000 --> 2:23:24.640 And again, I know we go through this. We beat 2:23:24.720 --> 2:23:26.880 up the NBA, and it's always right around n C 2:23:26.959 --> 2:23:30.600 double a time because those college players always try that. 2:23:30.640 --> 2:23:37.160 We that we know. All right, I got a few 2:23:37.160 --> 2:23:39.320 odds and ends in the sports world real quick. I 2:23:39.360 --> 2:23:44.959 went to the Nats home opener. Everything looked great except 2:23:44.959 --> 2:23:47.879 the makeup of the of the Nats bullpen and then 2:23:47.959 --> 2:23:52.760 some I am already lamenting the idea that we're going 2:23:52.800 --> 2:23:56.000 to trade C. J. Abrams. I worry about that. I 2:23:56.040 --> 2:23:59.520 think that if you were, if you believe you're going 2:23:59.560 --> 2:24:01.039 to be a win in the next two to three years, 2:24:01.080 --> 2:24:03.360 you should keep c. J. Adams. If you've decided you're 2:24:03.360 --> 2:24:04.840 not going to be a winner for five years, then 2:24:05.440 --> 2:24:10.280 sure be my guest, trade him. So a trade of C. J. 2:24:10.400 --> 2:24:14.920 Adams will be more Another reminder that this team is 2:24:15.280 --> 2:24:17.360 not serious about trying to put a competitor on the 2:24:17.360 --> 2:24:22.520 field sooner rather than later, because I don't think you're 2:24:22.560 --> 2:24:24.600 going to get from Abrams what you think. Look, if 2:24:24.600 --> 2:24:26.879 you get a haul that looks like the Hall you 2:24:26.920 --> 2:24:29.480 got for Sodo, sure do it. But that ain't gonna happen. 2:24:31.200 --> 2:24:33.400 And if you don't, don't trade him unless it's for 2:24:33.440 --> 2:24:36.199 that kind of hall, Just don't do it. I think Abrams, 2:24:36.760 --> 2:24:40.000 I think there's a I think he and Wood are 2:24:40.600 --> 2:24:44.560 collectively could be an interesting foundation. Speaking of what he's 2:24:44.560 --> 2:24:48.120 got a problem with his swing, he's clearly either the 2:24:48.120 --> 2:24:54.280 word is out on it. I noticed that when he 2:24:54.360 --> 2:24:56.560 swings at the first pitch, he has better luck than 2:24:56.560 --> 2:24:59.520 when he takes pitches. The minute he starts taking pitches, 2:24:59.560 --> 2:25:02.119 it's almost inevitable that he's going to get strike out. Looking. 2:25:03.400 --> 2:25:05.640 But he seems to have an issue. We need. There 2:25:05.680 --> 2:25:07.480 needs to be some coaching there. There needs to be 2:25:08.000 --> 2:25:11.520 somebody there. Something's off there. Basically, he's not been the 2:25:11.560 --> 2:25:14.120 same since the home run, since participating in the home 2:25:14.200 --> 2:25:15.960 run derby in the All Star Break. I mean, you 2:25:15.959 --> 2:25:18.879 look at it, it's a definitive line and he's beginning 2:25:18.959 --> 2:25:21.640 the season. The way he ended the season, it's a 2:25:21.680 --> 2:25:25.280 little bit of cause for concern. I'd like to know 2:25:25.320 --> 2:25:29.560 what the Nats are doing to help him and fix that. 2:25:32.400 --> 2:25:35.360 But I want to be mindful of another thing. The 2:25:35.440 --> 2:25:39.640 Dodgers are just like, right, the top three. First of all, right, 2:25:39.720 --> 2:25:42.440 there's nothing like the Nats home opener to be the 2:25:42.440 --> 2:25:45.840 elixir for the supposedly struggling top of the order of 2:25:45.840 --> 2:25:48.760 the Gnats. Right. I was at the game that the 2:25:48.840 --> 2:25:50.920 number one guy in the batting order show Aotani Homer, 2:25:50.959 --> 2:25:52.959 the number two guy in the batting order Kyle Tucker Homer, 2:25:53.000 --> 2:25:55.280 the number three guy in the batting order Mookie Betts Hobert, 2:25:55.320 --> 2:25:57.680 and the number four guy Freddie Freeman said hey, I 2:25:57.720 --> 2:26:01.959 want a part of this. Will Smith seemed the only 2:26:01.959 --> 2:26:03.640 one that didn't get to go to the home run party. 2:26:04.760 --> 2:26:07.959 Andy Pie is wow. Right. The point is the Dodgers 2:26:07.959 --> 2:26:10.600 have such depth in that lineup. Task for Fernandez is 2:26:10.600 --> 2:26:14.400 into the seventh hole. So I don't want to crush 2:26:14.440 --> 2:26:19.960 the Nats too much here. The Dodgers are essentially they're 2:26:20.000 --> 2:26:23.360 the number one team. There is no number two, right, 2:26:23.600 --> 2:26:27.480 I think that's it. There's nobody close to them that 2:26:27.520 --> 2:26:29.480 doesn't mean they can't lose a series. That doesn't mean 2:26:29.520 --> 2:26:31.160 they didn't come a cleat away from losing to the 2:26:31.160 --> 2:26:35.440 Blue Jays. But on paper, there's nobody close to them. Now. 2:26:35.520 --> 2:26:38.160 They've got some starting pitching issues, but they had them 2:26:38.200 --> 2:26:40.240 last year and they will figure out how to you know, 2:26:40.280 --> 2:26:45.760 they'll just buy themselves another picture that I'm convinced of. 2:26:47.720 --> 2:26:52.360 We brought up the Wemby stuff that was unbelievable. Just it. 2:26:52.600 --> 2:26:55.560 It really was worthwh and I am looking forward. These 2:26:55.720 --> 2:27:00.560 NBA playoffs could be great, particularly in the West. It's 2:27:00.600 --> 2:27:03.520 sad about what's happened to the Lakers that a healthy 2:27:03.600 --> 2:27:07.360 Lakers inserted into this sort of three team juggernaut that 2:27:07.520 --> 2:27:15.279 is the Thunder, the Spurs, and the Nuggets. It's a bummer, 2:27:15.840 --> 2:27:20.440 but those hamstring strains are tough. Are tough, so enjoy 2:27:20.520 --> 2:27:23.720 Lebron in the playoffs kind of by himself. I have 2:27:23.760 --> 2:27:25.440 a feeling we might see a game or two where 2:27:25.480 --> 2:27:27.800 Lebron just has a game one more reminder, forty one 2:27:27.879 --> 2:27:30.600 year old Lebron, and he'll will them to a sixth 2:27:30.720 --> 2:27:33.600 you know, to probably sneaking out a first round win 2:27:33.720 --> 2:27:36.160 and then probably inevitably running into one of the top 2:27:36.160 --> 2:27:39.600 three Juggernauts and then it's over. But that's a bummer, 2:27:40.200 --> 2:27:42.760 and the only other people more bummed are the TV 2:27:42.840 --> 2:27:46.240 rights holders on that losing both Luke and Austin Reeves. 2:27:47.400 --> 2:27:50.920 That's a tough situation, all right. It was a long 2:27:50.959 --> 2:27:54.000 Monday episode. We got through a lot. There's a little 2:27:54.000 --> 2:27:56.280 something for everybody in here. I will see you in 2:27:56.360 --> 2:27:57.120 forty eight hours.