WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - Could A Government Shutdown Backfire On Democrats + Trump’s Outrageous Speech To Military Leaders 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.239 Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.480 the Chuck Podcast. It is October first, and apparently what 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.640 that means. It's October first, twenty twenty five. Do you 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.680 know if your government's open? Well, the answer is, there 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.520 are portions of the government not open today. What does 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.040 it mean? Well, you heard, if you heard my last 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.560 monologue about this, you know this is a manufactured moment. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:35.440 This is a created political a manufactured political drama based 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:41.720 on legal interpretations of two Justice departments that go back 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.600 to the Carter and Reagan era, and a whole bunch 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.400 of members of Congress who claim they don't like these 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.160 shutdowns but have refused to pass legislation that actually would 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:57.720 make these showdowns moot. So I'm not going to bother 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.120 to rehash that, but it really bothers me how that 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.160 New York Times did a story about sort of, oh, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.920 we've had fifty years of this polarizing and sort of 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.480 didn't sort of glossed over the fact that this is 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.840 simply an interpretation. There's no law in the Constitution that 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.240 says the government is open or closed on October first, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.000 depending on when you pass appropriations bills. This is essentially 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.760 a decision that people in power made in order to 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:29.679 create a point of drama or leverage, apparently for no 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.520 particular good that's come from it. Right, this has just 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.960 been a disaster. And I think this is the challenge 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.800 that Democrats have being the instigators of this, which is 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.560 for my entire adult lifetime, it has been the Republicans 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.040 that have been the instigators of the shutdown we've had these. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.840 It was when there was a Democratic president that we 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.120 had it in the nineties, democratic president, when we had 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.320 it during Obama. It is with Trump. That's the first 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.840 time we've had this with a Republican now, the first 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.680 time it was Republican. This is now the second time 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.960 we've had a shutdown with Trump as president and Republicans 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.040 in charge of both the House and the Senate now 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.600 because of the filibuster. And I'm going to get to 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.000 that in a minute, because you got to ask yourself, 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:19.360 what if this is what ends the filibuster. I'm fascinated 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.560 to see what the reaction would be among some of 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.679 the left who've been agitating for getting rid of the 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.640 philibuster for some time. Imagine if this is the trigger 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.720 for it, just something to put a pin in that right, 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:35.440 let's just file this away for a second. But we're here, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.720 and I think the issue and it's reflective. I've got 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.000 some pull numbers I want to go through that are 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.320 actually well timed, sort of end of September polls. They're 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.320 well timed. But they we get at this question of shutdowns. 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.359 And you know, the Democrats have messaged for twenty years 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.480 the shutdowns are bad, and now here they are on 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.000 the other side saying passing up the opportunity for a 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.200 clean of temporary six week extension to keep the government 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:09.040 open because you know they want their And this is 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:14.080 I said this before. I think tactically they made a 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:19.799 mistake not accepting this continuing resolution to November. I think 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.440 they would be better off having this showdown over the 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:27.280 exact same issue healthcare subsidies, the Obamacare subsidies. They'd have 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:35.280 been better off, I think starting that fight in November 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.640 after the twenty twenty five elections in Virginia, New Jersey, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.000 New York, et cetera. But here's you know, here's what's interesting. 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.200 So the time says this new pulling out and let 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.080 me read you one of a couple of the questions 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.240 that had to do with the with a shutdown, Who 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.240 would you blame if there is a shutdown? The Democrats 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.760 in Congress, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress, both 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.839 or both parties equally or all entities equally. Now they 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.119 combined Republicans and Donald Trump into one column. There's other 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.760 polling out there that has put Democrats in Congress, Republicans 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.640 in Congress, and Donald Trump as separate three you know, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.920 three categories. So essentially, when you start to see it 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.400 that way, if you separate it out, more people blame 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.160 Democrats in Congress than Trump. But if you combined Republicans 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.440 in Congress and Trump, you see where I'm going. But 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.920 there's essentially a third, a third and a third right. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.320 A third are saying it's one party's fault, a third 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.040 are saying it's the other party's fault, and a third 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:37.320 just blame everybody type of mindset. But I thought this 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.200 was interesting. They just asked a straight up question, which 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.960 statement comes closer to you view your view, even if 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.840 neither is exactly right. The Democrats should shut down the 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.200 government if their demands are not met. Twenty seven percent 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.240 agreed with that statement. The Democrats should not shut down 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.400 the government even if their demands are not met. Sixty 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:03.680 five percent agreed with that statement. That's the uphill battle 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.880 here that I think Democrats are dealing with because you've 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:13.640 got you've got a sort of a you've got a 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.279 confluence of things that have happened over the last twenty 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:21.719 years that frankly, have conditioned the public about shutdowns. One 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.760 is they're not that serious. I explained this to you 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.160 in the last episode. They exempt social Security, they exempt 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.799 military pay, they exempt TSA, They're not going to disrupt 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.160 the flights, They exempt food inspectors, they exempt so many 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.200 things that it's sort of like, all right, it's it's 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.679 sort of the operational part of government that matters, matters 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.559 a lot. People will notice over time when those parts 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.840 of government are shuttered, but they don't notice in the 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.560 immediate right. So anything that the public might notice immediately, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.160 politicians over the years have tried to sort of, you know, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.880 shield that right. So that's how you've had these military 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.320 gets paid. Back pay for federal government workers is now guaranteed. 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.119 You know, you have all these little things in there 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.480 that are done to sort of mitigate the consequences of 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.320 a shutdown in the moment but as I've said, what 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.720 it's done is lowered the consequences for a shutdown. If 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.280 the consequences were much higher, as in Social Security checks 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:30.160 don't go out tomorrow morning, heart stop, military doesn't get 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.800 paid next Friday, heart stop. I promise you there'd be 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.320 more urgency to this. But they took all of that out, 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.960 which is again, and so the public has gotten used 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:47.760 to it that these shutdowns are annoying, their distractions. You know, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:52.080 they over time impact the economy negatively. They're not good, 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.000 they slow down. I told you all the wasted government money, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.240 wasted time for people, particularly in your fear in a 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.360 public private defense contractors have time wasted. They still get 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.160 paid but and the government will eventually remburse him, but 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.720 they don't do the actual work. And this could be 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.040 this could be, could be a few weeks, could be longer. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.160 So I don't know what the exit ramp is here 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:24.120 for anybody. It does seem as if the Trump administration 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.680 would love to try this out. And the threats that 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:33.560 Trump has made actually showcase an issue that I wish 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.320 more voters cared about, which is Donald Trump does not 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.760 believe he should govern for people that didn't vote for him, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.160 and if anything, he wants to punish anybody by getting 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.560 rid of any program that the government funds that doesn't 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:52.520 benefit him somehow politically. And he's essentially telegraphed this. He goes, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.120 I'm going to be able to reverse some things that 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.480 they're never going to be able to get back. He 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.480 is almost excited about the opportunity to govern with a 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.360 political lens and a harsh one at that. Next week, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.480 I'm going to have an interview with the mayor of 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.679 Oklahoma City. But I want to give you a little 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.280 preview of something he said, which is, this is the 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.119 consequences of these partisan primaries and the way we nominate people. 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.560 If you're if you have to answer to everybody all 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.760 the time in your voters, if you're a member of 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.600 Congress and you're facing all voters in a primary rather 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:31.960 than just this small slice of obsessed partisans, you're going 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.960 to have a different incentive of who If you have 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:36.800 to win over a middle of the road voter to 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.400 get a nomination, to get to the second uh, to 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.400 get to actual general election, well you're going to comport 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.680 yourself a hell of a lot differently than if all 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.600 you have to do is deal with a partisan set 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.480 of voters. And you know, for him, it was his 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.760 explanation of my mayor's or the least polarized executive that 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.959 you have in the country that all across the country 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.920 where where the Republican mayors or Democratic mayors, almost all 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.200 of them treat a pothole as a pothole. They don't 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.679 look to see what the precinct, how which way the 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.480 precinct voted before deciding to fill the pothole. Now I 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.000 know that they're back in the days of the machine 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.440 political machines of Chicago and New York, there was always 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.640 rumors that, you know, the daily wards got their potholes filled, 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:23.600 and if you weren't a daily guy, you didn't get 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.000 your pothole filled. But you can't get away with that 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:28.880 being a mayor of a city these days, and you 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.760 don't do that. But it is remarkable to me how 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.079 often we're seeing some partisans governed this way as governors 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:40.760 and as president. And it's particularly a hallmark of magga 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:46.079 driven politicians because the whole owned the Libs like it's ok, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.080 you know, we're if if we're suffer, if we all suffer, 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.920 and it makes the Libs cry, then it's a worthy 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.280 cause to do anyway, that's sort of this mindset at 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.920 times on the own the libs mentality, and so it's 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.520 a it is this is the fact that Trump's going 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.400 to do this. But the point is this gets to 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.440 sort of all the times you have confrontations with Trump. 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.840 And don't get me wrong, I do think that that 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:16.040 Trump respects a fight er more than he respects a capitulator. 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.360 So I do think that in some ways, if if 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.319 the more resistance they put up in certain areas, that 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.000 in a weird way, Trump will will will respect that 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.559 because he's a he likes to be resistant, but he's 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.920 also got a higher tolerance for this pain. Right. He 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.240 doesn't care how the mainstream media coverage goes. In his mind, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.880 if if a major you know, if the New York 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.880 Times polling is showing it somehow it's Republican's fault. He 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.160 sees that as a political asset, not a political liability. 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.280 And you know, as long as his base is happy, 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.160 he believes his politics are doing well. And you sort 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.440 of see that his base is happy, but the rest 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.280 of the country is pretty sour in his leadership. This 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.160 latest New York Times Santa Pol shows he is basically 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.080 at his presidential average. He's sitting at forty three percent 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.440 job approval in this bowl. It's about what he was 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.760 the last time. It's about what he was for just 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.560 about the entire first term that he had from seventeen 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:24.920 to twenty. You know, he's never he's never really sniffed 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.760 fifty percent. And in order to do that, you'd have 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.680 to have at least fifty percent of independence happy. And 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:36.680 that's the problem he's having. Is that independence or more 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:42.640 sour about his presidency? Then you know they look they don't. 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:44.960 They're not as they're not as sour at his presidency 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.400 as Democrats, but they're closer to looking like Democrats than 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.920 they do Republicans when it comes to this. So I'll 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.199 fully confess here, I have no idea when this ends, 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:02.840 or how this sends, whether in what kind of stomach 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:06.240 senate Democrats are going to have for how long are 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:11.160 they going to go on this? When I think about 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.760 who the seven votes would be, we know Fetterman's one, 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:20.920 Jeene Shaheen could be two, she's retiring. Would Tina Smith 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.320 be three as a retiring senator? I don't know. Uh 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.880 as as a third one, Gary Peters, he could be right, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.000 you see where I'm going here, that some of them 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:32.920 who are not going to be in ballots could could 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.680 do this, uh, if they so chose to. But I 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.079 don't know if there's seven that are that are ready 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.680 to break completely. But ask me again in a week, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.840 ask me again in two weeks. How aggressive does Russell Voight, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:53.400 the O and B director get and trying to potentially 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.880 fire furloughed government employees? Is it? Is it aggressive? So? 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.199 I think some of the reaction and some of the 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.400 stiffness of the spine. How stiff will the democratic spine 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:11.400 be depends I think on how aggressive omb is in 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:16.520 using the shutdown to maybe reorient government permanently in some 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:21.600 form or another. So we're, you know, like with many 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:27.680 things with Trump urban uncharted territory, unlike the previous shutdown. 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:32.920 With Trump, he's got a he's got two aids who 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.720 know their way around the bureaucracy. Russell Void's been thinking 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.360 about this for years as the author of Project twenty 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.960 twenty five, and Stephen Miller understands how to manipulate the 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:46.679 bureaucracy in ways that are pretty much second to none 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.800 of any presidential aid I've ever covered, regardless of what 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:57.440 you think of his politics, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable on how 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:04.040 to on the co essentially the legal code, and on 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.559 the ability to sort of tinker with the federal government. 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:11.520 We saw it during the pandemic, how we used it 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.480 to shut down the border, came up with sort of 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.600 some interesting, unique ways in rationales to do it. And 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:25.760 so you know, that's that to me, is the uncharted 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.520 territory that we're entering and that we don't know a 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.400 lot about, and we don't know how aggressive and where 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:37.800 this has headed. But I think if there's a big 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.320 danger for the Democrats besides what I just outlined with 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.320 the aggressiveness of Trump, the other one is whether the 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:49.120 public is just paying attention, whether even the activists, whether 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.360 this is turning into action, whether it does fire up folks, 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.040 or if there's sort of an exhaustion that comes with this, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.320 because again, the Democrats have never been on this side 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.000 of a government shutdown, and we're going to see a 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:09.720 lot of conservative media sites re treading all these quotes 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.239 from the Chuck Schumers over the years of Nancy Pelosi's 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.280 talking about clean CRS, government shutdowns, are bad, they should 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:23.200 never happen, etc. Etc. Etc. And that could take the 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.040 toll as well, and how much of all of that 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.760 gets traction. But this gets it to a larger issue, 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.200 which is actually what I tackle. By the way, it's 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.640 worth noting the Pew Center came out with some new 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.440 poll polling that happened to hit today, and what they 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.120 had is they had some favorable unfavorable ratings on the 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:47.160 congressional leaders. And what's interesting is just how unpopular Chuck Schumer. 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.280 Chuck Schumer is the new Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell was 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.240 always the most unpopular of the four political leaders when 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:58.680 it was McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and McCarthy. McConnell was always 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.480 far and away the most unpopular because McConnell was the 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.480 only one that had negative ratings among Democrats and negative 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:10.720 ratings among Republicans. Well, Chuck Schumer, welcome to Mitch McConnell country. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.840 He not only has negative ratings among Republicans, but he 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:18.320 has a negative ratings just narrowly, thirty nine unfavorable thirty 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:24.840 five favorable among Democrats. By the way, Jeffrey's numbers are 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.000 not bad overall, he's got good numbers among Democrats two 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.760 to one on that favorable rating overall. That allows him 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:35.360 to have a thirty to twenty four, so he's he's 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.920 got some he's got some room here. He's sort of 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.400 got a net positive view, which is rare for a gouvernile. 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.920 John Thune, the least known of the of the of 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:49.040 the current set of four, also has a net positive. 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.120 He's narrowly net negative. Je excuse me, I read this wrong. 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.280 Jeffreys is narrowly net negative. But his positive rating with 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.720 Republicans is with Democrats, is better than for instance, thunes 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.040 p a a rating is among Republicans. Sorry for confusing 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.119 that there a little bit, but the real headline of 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.560 this is Chuck Schumer is unpopped, more unpopular among Democrats 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.480 than he is popular among Democrats. And that also means 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.200 he's going to be really resistant to caving because he's 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.199 really afraid of the base. It's the base that's the 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.879 most angry with Schumer. He sort of mismanaged the communication 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.600 of the first one. I think he made the right call, 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 but he spent a day talking up a shutdown and 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.000 then completely reversed course, which is what really I think 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.480 angered the left. He sort of he led him on 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:41.800 and then he yanked the carpet from underneath them. I 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.440 think on this one, he's going to want to stick 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.240 it out longer. Well put it this way, If he's 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.880 interested in running again and he's up in twenty twenty eight, 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.720 he's going to probably care more about what the base 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.760 thinks of this shutdown than what swing voters think of this. 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.560 Show them. But this gets to the sort of larger 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.440 dilemma that I think democrats face, and it's the subject 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.119 of my substack column. I encourage you to go subscribe. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.680 I don't charge any it's all free. I don't charge 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.680 for this podcast. It's all free. I do not want 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.480 to be captive to an audience. I don't want to 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.760 be captive to a paywall. I think that has been 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:26.680 that is that becomes self fulfilling. I am trying to 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:31.360 swerve away from that way of building an independent media operation. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.360 So it is free and I'm not going to triculator 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.960 and charge it. Okay, the one place where you do 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:39.600 have to pay to go check out what I'm doing 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:41.840 is new Sphere. It's a unique app and there's some 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.919 terrific journalists there that do deserve the subscription revenue. So 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.720 I view that as myself helping a whole bunch of 0:18:49.240 --> 0:19:00.639 independent journalism. There's a reason results matter more than promises, 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.399 just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.680 largest injury law firm. 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Their fee is free unless they win. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.960 But in the substec I talk about this democratic dilemma, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.000 and that is if Democrats want if a Democrat wants 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.800 to win the White House in twenty twenty eight, just 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.159 saying Donald Trump is an existential threat and a dictator 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.639 and a fascist isn't going to cut it, because in 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.600 order to win the presidency, you're going to have to 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.840 win over some Trump voters. So and in order to 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.000 have a conversation with us Trump voters, you're going to 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.200 have to admit that Trump was right about some things. 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.479 And you can do it in a way. You know 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.120 that Trump has identified problems, He's just been terrible at 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.960 solving them. In fact, his solutions make things worse in 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:47.320 some cases. Right, he's trying to return manufacturing back to America. 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:55.280 His transactional tariff policy, which is turning us into a kleptocracy, 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.600 is a horrendous way to do this, Terrible for the economy, 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.520 terrible for the consumer, and doing nothing to bring manufacturing back. 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.359 But what the voters, You got to sort of understand 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.280 what the voters were voting for when they voted for 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.800 Trump in sixteen, and then they did it again in 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.200 twenty four. It's almost like the old Verizon commercial. Can 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:22.520 you hear me? Now? You know, Democrats misinterpreted the twenty 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.639 twenty election. They thought the voters were like, Yep, Donald 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.920 Trump was a mistake, This is an accident of history, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.920 and he needs to be Trump and Trump is that 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:42.200 needs to be excommunicated essentially from mainstream American political debate. 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.520 That's not what the voters were saying. By the way, 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:53.320 if Joe Biden had had four hundred electoral votes, you 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.159 could have made the case that that's what the voters 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.760 were saying. If he did have but Joe Biden, while 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:05.880 he won every swing stay but North Carolina, it only 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.480 would have taken a couple, you know, a couple of 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.800 hundred thousand, basic about one hundred thousand plus votes for 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.880 Trump to win the electoral college. Right. It wasn't a landslide. 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.960 It wasn't some sort of massive repudiation of trump Ism. 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.760 What it was was a bunch of swing voters exhausted 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.959 from COVID and wanting off the roller coaster. But it 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.399 wasn't a repudiation of the reason why Trump got elected 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.680 in the first place. You know, and I think when 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.199 you now, I think we have to view Trump's election 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.480 and this and this is sort of the blueprint that 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.920 I think any successful Democrat in twenty twenty eight has 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:48.960 to follow. And that is, you know, in fifteen, when 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.880 Donald Trump essentially launched his candidacy by going after John 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:57.919 McCain and the Bush family, many of us stuck in 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:02.560 some conventional thinking, myself included, thought, well, that's a mistake. 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.040 Republicans are not going to tolerate that. They're going to 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:09.360 punish him for that. It turns out, and I don't 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:12.040 think Trump knew this is what he was doing by 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.840 doing it. He just did it because it was his instinct. 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:17.720 He just got angry at people who didn't take him seriously. 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:22.800 This was no strategy. But you know, and I think 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.200 the biggest sometimes we all try to look for a strategy, 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.399 and with Trump, Trump just sort of stumbles into these things. 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:30.880 But the voters have a strategy, okay, And that's where 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:35.040 I think Democrats in general have the respect voter decision 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:36.840 here a lot better than they go about doing it 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:44.000 right now, by signaling that he was willing to take 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.080 on McCain and Bush. He signaled he was a different 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:49.280 type of Republican, that he wasn't going to be the 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.600 same type of Republican that they were used to that 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.720 was doing essentially nothing but losing elections for them. Going 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.600 back to George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:01.800 Bush winning only the popular vote once right, John McCain 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:09.000 met Ronniey. It singles that he's different, he's willing to 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:13.720 buck his party made him, gave him an independent credential. 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:19.040 So suddenly you had non Republicans going, huh, I'm curious 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:21.480 what that guy's up to. I want to check that out. 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:31.040 And so, yes, the sixteen election was more of a 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:33.479 vote against Clinton than it was a vote for Trump. 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.520 But Trump was a vehicle to say, no, we don't 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:45.720 want establishment status quote politics. Right. Biden essentially won promising 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:50.640 status quot politics because the pandemic had so exhausted everybody 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:53.399 from Trump's roller coaster that, yeah, that is what the 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:56.600 public wanted. Now, Biden didn't bring that, right, Biden didn't 0:24:56.600 --> 0:24:59.919 do that. Biden instead governed very aggressively farther to the 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.919 left than he had a mandate for, and they attempted 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:07.359 repudiation in their form of Essentially, the movement wanted to 0:25:07.359 --> 0:25:12.000 excommunicate Trump and trump Ism. And I think the reason 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:14.200 the voter ended up rallying around Trump was not because 0:25:14.200 --> 0:25:17.760 they liked Trump, but they didn't want all of us 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:21.119