Speaker 1: Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. It is October first, and apparently what
Speaker 1: that means. It's October first, twenty twenty five. Do you
Speaker 1: know if your government's open? Well, the answer is, there
Speaker 1: are portions of the government not open today. What does
Speaker 1: it mean? Well, you heard, if you heard my last
Speaker 1: monologue about this, you know this is a manufactured moment.
Speaker 1: This is a created political a manufactured political drama based
Speaker 1: on legal interpretations of two Justice departments that go back
Speaker 1: to the Carter and Reagan era, and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of members of Congress who claim they don't like these
Speaker 1: shutdowns but have refused to pass legislation that actually would
Speaker 1: make these showdowns moot. So I'm not going to bother
Speaker 1: to rehash that, but it really bothers me how that
Speaker 1: New York Times did a story about sort of, oh,
Speaker 1: we've had fifty years of this polarizing and sort of
Speaker 1: didn't sort of glossed over the fact that this is
Speaker 1: simply an interpretation. There's no law in the Constitution that
Speaker 1: says the government is open or closed on October first,
Speaker 1: depending on when you pass appropriations bills. This is essentially
Speaker 1: a decision that people in power made in order to
Speaker 1: create a point of drama or leverage, apparently for no
Speaker 1: particular good that's come from it. Right, this has just
Speaker 1: been a disaster. And I think this is the challenge
Speaker 1: that Democrats have being the instigators of this, which is
Speaker 1: for my entire adult lifetime, it has been the Republicans
Speaker 1: that have been the instigators of the shutdown we've had these.
Speaker 1: It was when there was a Democratic president that we
Speaker 1: had it in the nineties, democratic president, when we had
Speaker 1: it during Obama. It is with Trump. That's the first
Speaker 1: time we've had this with a Republican now, the first
Speaker 1: time it was Republican. This is now the second time
Speaker 1: we've had a shutdown with Trump as president and Republicans
Speaker 1: in charge of both the House and the Senate now
Speaker 1: because of the filibuster. And I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute, because you got to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what if this is what ends the filibuster. I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: to see what the reaction would be among some of
Speaker 1: the left who've been agitating for getting rid of the
Speaker 1: philibuster for some time. Imagine if this is the trigger
Speaker 1: for it, just something to put a pin in that right,
Speaker 1: let's just file this away for a second. But we're here,
Speaker 1: and I think the issue and it's reflective. I've got
Speaker 1: some pull numbers I want to go through that are
Speaker 1: actually well timed, sort of end of September polls. They're
Speaker 1: well timed. But they we get at this question of shutdowns.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Democrats have messaged for twenty years
Speaker 1: the shutdowns are bad, and now here they are on
Speaker 1: the other side saying passing up the opportunity for a
Speaker 1: clean of temporary six week extension to keep the government
Speaker 1: open because you know they want their And this is
Speaker 1: I said this before. I think tactically they made a
Speaker 1: mistake not accepting this continuing resolution to November. I think
Speaker 1: they would be better off having this showdown over the
Speaker 1: exact same issue healthcare subsidies, the Obamacare subsidies. They'd have
Speaker 1: been better off, I think starting that fight in November
Speaker 1: after the twenty twenty five elections in Virginia, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: New York, et cetera. But here's you know, here's what's interesting.
Speaker 1: So the time says this new pulling out and let
Speaker 1: me read you one of a couple of the questions
Speaker 1: that had to do with the with a shutdown, Who
Speaker 1: would you blame if there is a shutdown? The Democrats
Speaker 1: in Congress, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress, both
Speaker 1: or both parties equally or all entities equally. Now they
Speaker 1: combined Republicans and Donald Trump into one column. There's other
Speaker 1: polling out there that has put Democrats in Congress, Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress, and Donald Trump as separate three you know,
Speaker 1: three categories. So essentially, when you start to see it
Speaker 1: that way, if you separate it out, more people blame
Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress than Trump. But if you combined Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress and Trump, you see where I'm going. But
Speaker 1: there's essentially a third, a third and a third right.
Speaker 1: A third are saying it's one party's fault, a third
Speaker 1: are saying it's the other party's fault, and a third
Speaker 1: just blame everybody type of mindset. But I thought this
Speaker 1: was interesting. They just asked a straight up question, which
Speaker 1: statement comes closer to you view your view, even if
Speaker 1: neither is exactly right. The Democrats should shut down the
Speaker 1: government if their demands are not met. Twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: agreed with that statement. The Democrats should not shut down
Speaker 1: the government even if their demands are not met. Sixty
Speaker 1: five percent agreed with that statement. That's the uphill battle
Speaker 1: here that I think Democrats are dealing with because you've
Speaker 1: got you've got a sort of a you've got a
Speaker 1: confluence of things that have happened over the last twenty
Speaker 1: years that frankly, have conditioned the public about shutdowns. One
Speaker 1: is they're not that serious. I explained this to you
Speaker 1: in the last episode. They exempt social Security, they exempt
Speaker 1: military pay, they exempt TSA, They're not going to disrupt
Speaker 1: the flights, They exempt food inspectors, they exempt so many
Speaker 1: things that it's sort of like, all right, it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of the operational part of government that matters, matters
Speaker 1: a lot. People will notice over time when those parts
Speaker 1: of government are shuttered, but they don't notice in the
Speaker 1: immediate right. So anything that the public might notice immediately,
Speaker 1: politicians over the years have tried to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: shield that right. So that's how you've had these military
Speaker 1: gets paid. Back pay for federal government workers is now guaranteed.
Speaker 1: You know, you have all these little things in there
Speaker 1: that are done to sort of mitigate the consequences of
Speaker 1: a shutdown in the moment but as I've said, what
Speaker 1: it's done is lowered the consequences for a shutdown. If
Speaker 1: the consequences were much higher, as in Social Security checks
Speaker 1: don't go out tomorrow morning, heart stop, military doesn't get
Speaker 1: paid next Friday, heart stop. I promise you there'd be
Speaker 1: more urgency to this. But they took all of that out,
Speaker 1: which is again, and so the public has gotten used
Speaker 1: to it that these shutdowns are annoying, their distractions. You know,
Speaker 1: they over time impact the economy negatively. They're not good,
Speaker 1: they slow down. I told you all the wasted government money,
Speaker 1: wasted time for people, particularly in your fear in a
Speaker 1: public private defense contractors have time wasted. They still get
Speaker 1: paid but and the government will eventually remburse him, but
Speaker 1: they don't do the actual work. And this could be
Speaker 1: this could be, could be a few weeks, could be longer.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what the exit ramp is here
Speaker 1: for anybody. It does seem as if the Trump administration
Speaker 1: would love to try this out. And the threats that
Speaker 1: Trump has made actually showcase an issue that I wish
Speaker 1: more voters cared about, which is Donald Trump does not
Speaker 1: believe he should govern for people that didn't vote for him,
Speaker 1: and if anything, he wants to punish anybody by getting
Speaker 1: rid of any program that the government funds that doesn't
Speaker 1: benefit him somehow politically. And he's essentially telegraphed this. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to reverse some things that
Speaker 1: they're never going to be able to get back. He
Speaker 1: is almost excited about the opportunity to govern with a
Speaker 1: political lens and a harsh one at that. Next week,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have an interview with the mayor of
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. But I want to give you a little
Speaker 1: preview of something he said, which is, this is the
Speaker 1: consequences of these partisan primaries and the way we nominate people.
Speaker 1: If you're if you have to answer to everybody all
Speaker 1: the time in your voters, if you're a member of
Speaker 1: Congress and you're facing all voters in a primary rather
Speaker 1: than just this small slice of obsessed partisans, you're going
Speaker 1: to have a different incentive of who If you have
Speaker 1: to win over a middle of the road voter to
Speaker 1: get a nomination, to get to the second uh, to
Speaker 1: get to actual general election, well you're going to comport
Speaker 1: yourself a hell of a lot differently than if all
Speaker 1: you have to do is deal with a partisan set
Speaker 1: of voters. And you know, for him, it was his
Speaker 1: explanation of my mayor's or the least polarized executive that
Speaker 1: you have in the country that all across the country
Speaker 1: where where the Republican mayors or Democratic mayors, almost all
Speaker 1: of them treat a pothole as a pothole. They don't
Speaker 1: look to see what the precinct, how which way the
Speaker 1: precinct voted before deciding to fill the pothole. Now I
Speaker 1: know that they're back in the days of the machine
Speaker 1: political machines of Chicago and New York, there was always
Speaker 1: rumors that, you know, the daily wards got their potholes filled,
Speaker 1: and if you weren't a daily guy, you didn't get
Speaker 1: your pothole filled. But you can't get away with that
Speaker 1: being a mayor of a city these days, and you
Speaker 1: don't do that. But it is remarkable to me how
Speaker 1: often we're seeing some partisans governed this way as governors
Speaker 1: and as president. And it's particularly a hallmark of magga
Speaker 1: driven politicians because the whole owned the Libs like it's ok,
Speaker 1: you know, we're if if we're suffer, if we all suffer,
Speaker 1: and it makes the Libs cry, then it's a worthy
Speaker 1: cause to do anyway, that's sort of this mindset at
Speaker 1: times on the own the libs mentality, and so it's
Speaker 1: a it is this is the fact that Trump's going
Speaker 1: to do this. But the point is this gets to
Speaker 1: sort of all the times you have confrontations with Trump.
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I do think that that
Speaker 1: Trump respects a fight er more than he respects a capitulator.
Speaker 1: So I do think that in some ways, if if
Speaker 1: the more resistance they put up in certain areas, that
Speaker 1: in a weird way, Trump will will will respect that
Speaker 1: because he's a he likes to be resistant, but he's
Speaker 1: also got a higher tolerance for this pain. Right. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care how the mainstream media coverage goes. In his mind,
Speaker 1: if if a major you know, if the New York
Speaker 1: Times polling is showing it somehow it's Republican's fault. He
Speaker 1: sees that as a political asset, not a political liability.
Speaker 1: And you know, as long as his base is happy,
Speaker 1: he believes his politics are doing well. And you sort
Speaker 1: of see that his base is happy, but the rest
Speaker 1: of the country is pretty sour in his leadership. This
Speaker 1: latest New York Times Santa Pol shows he is basically
Speaker 1: at his presidential average. He's sitting at forty three percent
Speaker 1: job approval in this bowl. It's about what he was
Speaker 1: the last time. It's about what he was for just
Speaker 1: about the entire first term that he had from seventeen
Speaker 1: to twenty. You know, he's never he's never really sniffed
Speaker 1: fifty percent. And in order to do that, you'd have
Speaker 1: to have at least fifty percent of independence happy. And
Speaker 1: that's the problem he's having. Is that independence or more
Speaker 1: sour about his presidency? Then you know they look they don't.
Speaker 1: They're not as they're not as sour at his presidency
Speaker 1: as Democrats, but they're closer to looking like Democrats than
Speaker 1: they do Republicans when it comes to this. So I'll
Speaker 1: fully confess here, I have no idea when this ends,
Speaker 1: or how this sends, whether in what kind of stomach
Speaker 1: senate Democrats are going to have for how long are
Speaker 1: they going to go on this? When I think about
Speaker 1: who the seven votes would be, we know Fetterman's one,
Speaker 1: Jeene Shaheen could be two, she's retiring. Would Tina Smith
Speaker 1: be three as a retiring senator? I don't know. Uh
Speaker 1: as as a third one, Gary Peters, he could be right,
Speaker 1: you see where I'm going here, that some of them
Speaker 1: who are not going to be in ballots could could
Speaker 1: do this, uh, if they so chose to. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's seven that are that are ready
Speaker 1: to break completely. But ask me again in a week,
Speaker 1: ask me again in two weeks. How aggressive does Russell Voight,
Speaker 1: the O and B director get and trying to potentially
Speaker 1: fire furloughed government employees? Is it? Is it aggressive? So?
Speaker 1: I think some of the reaction and some of the
Speaker 1: stiffness of the spine. How stiff will the democratic spine
Speaker 1: be depends I think on how aggressive omb is in
Speaker 1: using the shutdown to maybe reorient government permanently in some
Speaker 1: form or another. So we're, you know, like with many
Speaker 1: things with Trump urban uncharted territory, unlike the previous shutdown.
Speaker 1: With Trump, he's got a he's got two aids who
Speaker 1: know their way around the bureaucracy. Russell Void's been thinking
Speaker 1: about this for years as the author of Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, and Stephen Miller understands how to manipulate the
Speaker 1: bureaucracy in ways that are pretty much second to none
Speaker 1: of any presidential aid I've ever covered, regardless of what
Speaker 1: you think of his politics, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable on how
Speaker 1: to on the co essentially the legal code, and on
Speaker 1: the ability to sort of tinker with the federal government.
Speaker 1: We saw it during the pandemic, how we used it
Speaker 1: to shut down the border, came up with sort of
Speaker 1: some interesting, unique ways in rationales to do it. And
Speaker 1: so you know, that's that to me, is the uncharted
Speaker 1: territory that we're entering and that we don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about, and we don't know how aggressive and where
Speaker 1: this has headed. But I think if there's a big
Speaker 1: danger for the Democrats besides what I just outlined with
Speaker 1: the aggressiveness of Trump, the other one is whether the
Speaker 1: public is just paying attention, whether even the activists, whether
Speaker 1: this is turning into action, whether it does fire up folks,
Speaker 1: or if there's sort of an exhaustion that comes with this,
Speaker 1: because again, the Democrats have never been on this side
Speaker 1: of a government shutdown, and we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot of conservative media sites re treading all these quotes
Speaker 1: from the Chuck Schumers over the years of Nancy Pelosi's
Speaker 1: talking about clean CRS, government shutdowns, are bad, they should
Speaker 1: never happen, etc. Etc. Etc. And that could take the
Speaker 1: toll as well, and how much of all of that
Speaker 1: gets traction. But this gets it to a larger issue,
Speaker 1: which is actually what I tackle. By the way, it's
Speaker 1: worth noting the Pew Center came out with some new
Speaker 1: poll polling that happened to hit today, and what they
Speaker 1: had is they had some favorable unfavorable ratings on the
Speaker 1: congressional leaders. And what's interesting is just how unpopular Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer is the new Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell was
Speaker 1: always the most unpopular of the four political leaders when
Speaker 1: it was McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and McCarthy. McConnell was always
Speaker 1: far and away the most unpopular because McConnell was the
Speaker 1: only one that had negative ratings among Democrats and negative
Speaker 1: ratings among Republicans. Well, Chuck Schumer, welcome to Mitch McConnell country.
Speaker 1: He not only has negative ratings among Republicans, but he
Speaker 1: has a negative ratings just narrowly, thirty nine unfavorable thirty
Speaker 1: five favorable among Democrats. By the way, Jeffrey's numbers are
Speaker 1: not bad overall, he's got good numbers among Democrats two
Speaker 1: to one on that favorable rating overall. That allows him
Speaker 1: to have a thirty to twenty four, so he's he's
Speaker 1: got some he's got some room here. He's sort of
Speaker 1: got a net positive view, which is rare for a gouvernile.
Speaker 1: John Thune, the least known of the of the of
Speaker 1: the current set of four, also has a net positive.
Speaker 1: He's narrowly net negative. Je excuse me, I read this wrong.
Speaker 1: Jeffreys is narrowly net negative. But his positive rating with
Speaker 1: Republicans is with Democrats, is better than for instance, thunes
Speaker 1: p a a rating is among Republicans. Sorry for confusing
Speaker 1: that there a little bit, but the real headline of
Speaker 1: this is Chuck Schumer is unpopped, more unpopular among Democrats
Speaker 1: than he is popular among Democrats. And that also means
Speaker 1: he's going to be really resistant to caving because he's
Speaker 1: really afraid of the base. It's the base that's the
Speaker 1: most angry with Schumer. He sort of mismanaged the communication
Speaker 1: of the first one. I think he made the right call,
Speaker 1: but he spent a day talking up a shutdown and
Speaker 1: then completely reversed course, which is what really I think
Speaker 1: angered the left. He sort of he led him on
Speaker 1: and then he yanked the carpet from underneath them. I
Speaker 1: think on this one, he's going to want to stick
Speaker 1: it out longer. Well put it this way, If he's
Speaker 1: interested in running again and he's up in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: he's going to probably care more about what the base
Speaker 1: thinks of this shutdown than what swing voters think of this.
Speaker 1: Show them. But this gets to the sort of larger
Speaker 1: dilemma that I think democrats face, and it's the subject
Speaker 1: of my substack column. I encourage you to go subscribe.
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Speaker 1: But in the substec I talk about this democratic dilemma,
Speaker 1: and that is if Democrats want if a Democrat wants
Speaker 1: to win the White House in twenty twenty eight, just
Speaker 1: saying Donald Trump is an existential threat and a dictator
Speaker 1: and a fascist isn't going to cut it, because in
Speaker 1: order to win the presidency, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: win over some Trump voters. So and in order to
Speaker 1: have a conversation with us Trump voters, you're going to
Speaker 1: have to admit that Trump was right about some things.
Speaker 1: And you can do it in a way. You know
Speaker 1: that Trump has identified problems, He's just been terrible at
Speaker 1: solving them. In fact, his solutions make things worse in
Speaker 1: some cases. Right, he's trying to return manufacturing back to America.
Speaker 1: His transactional tariff policy, which is turning us into a kleptocracy,
Speaker 1: is a horrendous way to do this, Terrible for the economy,
Speaker 1: terrible for the consumer, and doing nothing to bring manufacturing back.
Speaker 1: But what the voters, You got to sort of understand
Speaker 1: what the voters were voting for when they voted for
Speaker 1: Trump in sixteen, and then they did it again in
Speaker 1: twenty four. It's almost like the old Verizon commercial. Can
Speaker 1: you hear me? Now? You know, Democrats misinterpreted the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty election. They thought the voters were like, Yep, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was a mistake, This is an accident of history,
Speaker 1: and he needs to be Trump and Trump is that
Speaker 1: needs to be excommunicated essentially from mainstream American political debate.
Speaker 1: That's not what the voters were saying. By the way,
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden had had four hundred electoral votes, you
Speaker 1: could have made the case that that's what the voters
Speaker 1: were saying. If he did have but Joe Biden, while
Speaker 1: he won every swing stay but North Carolina, it only
Speaker 1: would have taken a couple, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, basic about one hundred thousand plus votes for
Speaker 1: Trump to win the electoral college. Right. It wasn't a landslide.
Speaker 1: It wasn't some sort of massive repudiation of trump Ism.
Speaker 1: What it was was a bunch of swing voters exhausted
Speaker 1: from COVID and wanting off the roller coaster. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't a repudiation of the reason why Trump got elected
Speaker 1: in the first place. You know, and I think when
Speaker 1: you now, I think we have to view Trump's election
Speaker 1: and this and this is sort of the blueprint that
Speaker 1: I think any successful Democrat in twenty twenty eight has
Speaker 1: to follow. And that is, you know, in fifteen, when
Speaker 1: Donald Trump essentially launched his candidacy by going after John
Speaker 1: McCain and the Bush family, many of us stuck in
Speaker 1: some conventional thinking, myself included, thought, well, that's a mistake.
Speaker 1: Republicans are not going to tolerate that. They're going to
Speaker 1: punish him for that. It turns out, and I don't
Speaker 1: think Trump knew this is what he was doing by
Speaker 1: doing it. He just did it because it was his instinct.
Speaker 1: He just got angry at people who didn't take him seriously.
Speaker 1: This was no strategy. But you know, and I think
Speaker 1: the biggest sometimes we all try to look for a strategy,
Speaker 1: and with Trump, Trump just sort of stumbles into these things.
Speaker 1: But the voters have a strategy, okay, And that's where
Speaker 1: I think Democrats in general have the respect voter decision
Speaker 1: here a lot better than they go about doing it
Speaker 1: right now, by signaling that he was willing to take
Speaker 1: on McCain and Bush. He signaled he was a different
Speaker 1: type of Republican, that he wasn't going to be the
Speaker 1: same type of Republican that they were used to that
Speaker 1: was doing essentially nothing but losing elections for them. Going
Speaker 1: back to George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W.
Speaker 1: Bush winning only the popular vote once right, John McCain
Speaker 1: met Ronniey. It singles that he's different, he's willing to
Speaker 1: buck his party made him, gave him an independent credential.
Speaker 1: So suddenly you had non Republicans going, huh, I'm curious
Speaker 1: what that guy's up to. I want to check that out.
Speaker 1: And so, yes, the sixteen election was more of a
Speaker 1: vote against Clinton than it was a vote for Trump.
Speaker 1: But Trump was a vehicle to say, no, we don't
Speaker 1: want establishment status quote politics. Right. Biden essentially won promising
Speaker 1: status quot politics because the pandemic had so exhausted everybody
Speaker 1: from Trump's roller coaster that, yeah, that is what the
Speaker 1: public wanted. Now, Biden didn't bring that, right, Biden didn't
Speaker 1: do that. Biden instead governed very aggressively farther to the
Speaker 1: left than he had a mandate for, and they attempted
Speaker 1: repudiation in their form of Essentially, the movement wanted to
Speaker 1: excommunicate Trump and trump Ism. And I think the reason
Speaker 1: the voter ended up rallying around Trump was not because
Speaker 1: they liked Trump, but they didn't want all of us
Speaker 1: to forget the initial message in the first place, the
Speaker 1: same power, the same message that was sent by electing
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, the same message that was sent by electing
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, which is, we don't want the same old,
Speaker 1: same old. We want something entirely different. We want not
Speaker 1: restoration preservation, We want annihilation, if you will, of the
Speaker 1: way things work, and a rebuilding and renewal of some sort.
Speaker 1: And in order to talk to that voter that didn't
Speaker 1: like the way things have been going, who's been a
Speaker 1: Literally they voted Obama, they voted Trump, they voted Biden,
Speaker 1: they went back to Trump. Right, Who are these unsatisfied people? Right?
Speaker 1: They feel they don't love their ability to move up
Speaker 1: the economic ladder. It feels like there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of rungs missing between them and the upper middle class,
Speaker 1: Like they'd love to reach for it, but they can't
Speaker 1: even get there. Income inequality has gotten worse, so there's
Speaker 1: I think it's that disconnect that a future. So I
Speaker 1: say this and that in order to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with the very voters that reluctantly voted for Trump. These
Speaker 1: people don't like them. This is great. I was telling
Speaker 1: you about a focus group last week that I observed
Speaker 1: out of Michigan of Biden Trump voters. And there's one
Speaker 1: voter going on and on not liking all the power
Speaker 1: that he's accumulating. I worry he wants to be a dictator,
Speaker 1: this voter said. And then like, well, do you approve
Speaker 1: of the job he's doing? Yeah, I'd say it. Do
Speaker 1: you regret your vote? No? I don't regret my vote.
Speaker 1: So they, you know, they kind of already know that
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have the temperament for the job and
Speaker 1: isn't really and is going too far in what they
Speaker 1: want him to do the latter, but they wanted something.
Speaker 1: They wanted somebody to attempt something. Their biggest fear on
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris was that she wasn't going to change things.
Speaker 1: She was gonna be status quo. And you know, look,
Speaker 1: it was revealing in her own memoir when she said
Speaker 1: she underestimated the need that people wanted to know she
Speaker 1: was going to be a lot different from Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: She thought her mere presence was enough to indicate she'd
Speaker 1: be different from Joe Biden. I think we've learned in
Speaker 1: politics you got to say something over and over again,
Speaker 1: and you sometimes have to make a symbolic sacrifice at
Speaker 1: the altar of sorts in order to prove to this
Speaker 1: group of voters no, no, no, no, you're going to be
Speaker 1: different in one form or another. And I say all
Speaker 1: that in that I know that some on the left
Speaker 1: don't want to hear that. That you can't acknowledge that
Speaker 1: Trump's gotten has identified some issues that the Democrats have
Speaker 1: failed to address, and that the threat to democracy that
Speaker 1: he presents is such a front and center threat that
Speaker 1: that needs to be the focal point. The problem is,
Speaker 1: I don't think the voters you need to win are
Speaker 1: interested in that conversation, and they still want to know
Speaker 1: what are you going to do for them? They understand
Speaker 1: what he's doing, it's still going to come back of
Speaker 1: what are you going to do for me? And what
Speaker 1: are you going to do about these problems he's identified?
Speaker 1: Are you going to do something about it? So you know,
Speaker 1: I think about it. Going back to Bill Clinton in
Speaker 1: the eighties, the Democrats spent the eighties trying to repudiate
Speaker 1: Reagan and Reaganism. Even in eighty eight, the campaign wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to sort of accept the premise that Reagan was
Speaker 1: a successful two term president. There was still the DNA
Speaker 1: of the Democrats in eighty eight was no, the Republicans
Speaker 1: were wrong about everything. By ninety two, after another shellacking
Speaker 1: in eighty eight, Bill Clinton's was not sitting here repudiating
Speaker 1: everything Reagan did. In fact, I always say that you know,
Speaker 1: you knew Reagan won the argument when in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five Bill Clinton said the air of big government is
Speaker 1: over right when a Democrat said that, just like I
Speaker 1: believe in some ways. Barack Obama won the argument on
Speaker 1: entitlements when Donald Trump is out there campaigning saying Social
Speaker 1: Security and Medicare cannot be touched, right, that is you know,
Speaker 1: that was the central argument he said of the twenty
Speaker 1: twelve campaign between Obama and Romney. Ryan and Donald Trump said,
Speaker 1: you know, Obama was right. He doesn't say it that way,
Speaker 1: but he's essentially saying it, which opened the door for
Speaker 1: him to have a conversation with a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other voters who basically, while they may have agreed with
Speaker 1: Republicans and a lot of the cultural issues, just didn't
Speaker 1: trust them on issues like social security and healthcare. And
Speaker 1: then Donald Trump found a way to have that conversation
Speaker 1: by saying no, no, no, I hear you on that. It's
Speaker 1: a similar vibe. You got to get somewhere where, whether
Speaker 1: it's crime in the cities, security at the border, skepticism
Speaker 1: of big tech, getting other countries to share the burden
Speaker 1: of global security. You do it in a way. You
Speaker 1: could say, hey, look, he's identified these problems, but he's
Speaker 1: chosen ways that actually make it worse, doesn't make it better,
Speaker 1: or he you know. Essentially, Democrats would be better served
Speaker 1: by running Trump against Trump, saying, hey, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: said he was going to do this. I was hoping
Speaker 1: that he actually might follow through on something. The guy
Speaker 1: never follows through in everything. But it's too bad, and
Speaker 1: here's something but I and then you have days like
Speaker 1: what happened Tuesday, where Trump behaves in such an Unamerican way,
Speaker 1: behaves in pretty much the worst way a commander in
Speaker 1: chief could ever behave in front of America's uniformed military leaders.
Speaker 1: And I understand why there are some on the left
Speaker 1: that just can't stomach the idea that gift accept the
Speaker 1: premise that there are some things his presidency has identified
Speaker 1: that voters like. All Right, I get it. I mean
Speaker 1: what he did in front of the uniform military was outrageous,
Speaker 1: the essentially declaring war on American citizens. You know, he's
Speaker 1: really put these military leaders in an impossible situation. None
Speaker 1: of them have been given an illegal order yet, and
Speaker 1: I think the moment, you know, if you're wondering, why
Speaker 1: aren't there should there be mass resignations. I've talked to
Speaker 1: plenty of my friends that have served, and I've asked
Speaker 1: them about this, whether they're they're disappointed that there hasn't
Speaker 1: been resignations in the upper echelons and military rank to
Speaker 1: this just clown show that is Pete hag Saith and
Speaker 1: what Trump has been doing by essentially desperately trying to
Speaker 1: politicize the military, pit the military, you know, essentially say
Speaker 1: the military has to be pro MAGA and they say,
Speaker 1: you know, until he until he issues an un constitutional order,
Speaker 1: unlawful order. You know, if you're gonna if the whole
Speaker 1: goal of the military is to stay above politics. A
Speaker 1: political you salute whoever the people of the country decide
Speaker 1: to elect to that office. Then the way they behave
Speaker 1: today is exactly correct, or excuse me, behaved on Tuesday
Speaker 1: is exactly correct. Yes, I'm doing this on a Tuesday
Speaker 1: evening going into tomorrow, and it's it's frankly, I think
Speaker 1: we should be proud of the fact that they stood
Speaker 1: there silently. They made it as awkward as possible for
Speaker 1: hag Seth and Trump up there. They put the country first.
Speaker 1: They put their rank and file first. They put the
Speaker 1: military ahead of politics, ahead of ahead of whatever they
Speaker 1: thought they had to do. They showed up because they
Speaker 1: were ordered to. Now, it's kind of pathetic that that
Speaker 1: hag Seth is trying to lecture a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people that have gotten a whole lot of more promotions
Speaker 1: than he ever got went in the military, and he's
Speaker 1: trying to lecture these guys about what a warrior ethosays. Oh,
Speaker 1: to be a oh to be a fly in their
Speaker 1: brains as they were thinking about about about this, but
Speaker 1: just think about where you don't you don't really you
Speaker 1: didn't earn the respect, but you have to beg for it.
Speaker 1: You have to demand it. Man whoever wants to be
Speaker 1: in a position where they have to beg for respect.
Speaker 1: If you are in a position of leadership and you
Speaker 1: have not earned the respect of the people you're leading,
Speaker 1: it's on you. You've done something wrong here. So today's
Speaker 1: spectacle is and it is it is alarming. It is
Speaker 1: everything that folks that plenty of folks are saying, and
Speaker 1: it is going to be the counter that many have
Speaker 1: to what I'm saying about. If you're gonna if you're
Speaker 1: gonna sort of win back voters who left the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to acknowledge the reason why they left,
Speaker 1: and you're going to have to acknowledge that there were
Speaker 1: some things that Trump tapped into that the Democrats failed on.
Speaker 1: So it's I get it instinctively, you're alarmed and want
Speaker 1: to fight over here. But in some ways he's the
Speaker 1: one trying to bait everybody. He wants those debates on
Speaker 1: his terms. He would love for people to spend all
Speaker 1: this time criticizing him about military and how he's trying
Speaker 1: to use it to deal with crime in the streets.
Speaker 1: What he would be have a harder time dealing with
Speaker 1: is when you're like, boy, you know, well he's right
Speaker 1: about getting manufacturing. He's too bad. He's taking too many
Speaker 1: bribes from companies in different ways that he's been that
Speaker 1: he's had his own personal wealth enhands in lieu of
Speaker 1: actually doing what he promised to do. So you're better off,
Speaker 1: particularly in a democracy that I still think is functioning here. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know it's we are not in a great place.
Speaker 1: By the way, the number two most important issue to
Speaker 1: voters who volunteered, the New York Times did not give
Speaker 1: them a list. Number one was the economy and number
Speaker 1: two was political division. It was the only two issues
Speaker 1: that got double digits. And again I liked the way
Speaker 1: the Times did it. They did not offer a list
Speaker 1: of issues and asked the respondents to pick. They said,
Speaker 1: what's the most important issue, and they just waited for
Speaker 1: them to say. It is the better way to figure
Speaker 1: out what are the issues that voters care about most?
Speaker 1: You ask them and you let them. You don't prod them,
Speaker 1: you don't push them, You let them tell you. The
Speaker 1: fact that political division was two. The fact that we
Speaker 1: are now this poll and another one over sixty percent
Speaker 1: think we have a problem with political division in this country.
Speaker 1: Another poll identified it as a political crisis. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that that that the country is going to be
Speaker 1: looking for a leader that's going to figure out how
Speaker 1: to bring us together. But part of being able to
Speaker 1: bring us together is acknowledging you know what it is
Speaker 1: that that Trump tapped into that the Democratic Party needs
Speaker 1: to lean into more. It is Wednesday, which also means
Speaker 1: I've got a new top five list, the top est
Speaker 1: top five top to jest stop. And here's something that
Speaker 1: I am pledging to do is that the first the
Speaker 1: first Wednesday of every month when I have in which
Speaker 1: is October first, I will do Senate races up until
Speaker 1: November of twenty twenty six, and the second Wednesday of
Speaker 1: every month, I'll do a top five involving governor's races.
Speaker 1: So my top five involving center races today are simply
Speaker 1: this the top five center races that are most likely
Speaker 1: to switch parties. I'm not saying any of these five
Speaker 1: are going to switch parties, but they're the in order
Speaker 1: of most likely to switch to Essentially, in this case,
Speaker 1: it's the five most competitive races in the country, but
Speaker 1: in the order of most likely to flip so number
Speaker 1: one on that list is North Carolina, the open seat there.
Speaker 1: We've had a little bit of early polling. You've got
Speaker 1: somebody who's held state wide office versus somebody who hasn't. Right,
Speaker 1: Michael Wattley has it as essentially the Republican nominee to
Speaker 1: be and the Democratic nominee to be. Roy Cooper has
Speaker 1: one state wide office multiple times. But you already see
Speaker 1: it's it's I think I've seen two different polls and
Speaker 1: they both basically have shown the same thing. Cooper's got
Speaker 1: a but it's all within the margin of era forty six,
Speaker 1: forty two, forty seven, forty four. And guess what, that's
Speaker 1: what the numbers are going to be between now and November.
Speaker 1: This will be, as the cliche goes, all about turnout.
Speaker 1: But I do think since this is a Republican held seat,
Speaker 1: the Democrats a slight favor right, I would probably make
Speaker 1: if you want to do it as point spreads here,
Speaker 1: I'd probably make Cooper a one and a half point
Speaker 1: favorite here a little bit, but you know that's when
Speaker 1: you're talking about margins that small. It doesn't take much
Speaker 1: to lose this race. But when you look at it
Speaker 1: for the rest of the map, and I think it
Speaker 1: shows you how tough the path is for Democrats to
Speaker 1: pick up the four seats they need to win the
Speaker 1: Senate when the best shot at flipping a seat that
Speaker 1: they have is essentially a coin flip on its own, right,
Speaker 1: you need your third or fourth seat to be the
Speaker 1: coin flip. And the fact is they're not anywhere near that.
Speaker 1: They might get there. We'll see with recruiting. So right now,
Speaker 1: this one year and one month out from election day
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, number one most likely Senate seat to
Speaker 1: flip North Carolina number two. I didn't put an open
Speaker 1: seat there. I think the last time I did this,
Speaker 1: I said, I usually prioritize open seats, but I have
Speaker 1: as off there. I think the John Assoft seat, Georgea's
Speaker 1: Senate seat is all the polling have indicated. He's got
Speaker 1: a narrow lead, just like Cooper. Right, nothing's big, I am.
Speaker 1: I am not as convinced as others that George's a
Speaker 1: pure swing state. I think Georgia is a organizing state
Speaker 1: that Democrats, oh, you know, sort of have to a
Speaker 1: lot of things have to go right for them to
Speaker 1: win state wide races. The last time John Osoft was
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Rafael Warnock was also on the ballot
Speaker 1: with them when we had the two Senate seats at
Speaker 1: the same time. How much did that matter with mobilizing
Speaker 1: African American vote. I think it's worth something can Assoff
Speaker 1: generate the same enthusiasm as Reverend Warnock. That's an open question.
Speaker 1: When you look at other statewide races in Georgia, right,
Speaker 1: it is, Yes, Biden carried it in twenty twenty, Harris
Speaker 1: got close but lost it. One governor's race there has
Speaker 1: been fairly close, but the second but the one in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two wasn't that close. It's still an uphill
Speaker 1: battle for Democrats to win state. White race is sort
Speaker 1: of in a generic environment. I'm not saying this is
Speaker 1: going to be a generic environment, and a lot of
Speaker 1: this may depend on who the primary is. But when
Speaker 1: you just look at the demographics of the state and
Speaker 1: sort of just by the pure numbers, I put Georgia
Speaker 1: as the second most likely to flip. And again the
Speaker 1: fact that Georgia is above other Republican held seats. You know,
Speaker 1: this is why the Democratic path to winning four seats
Speaker 1: to get control of the same The path is so
Speaker 1: narrow that right now it's not visible. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it might not become visible, but right now it is
Speaker 1: not visible. Number Three, I'm the most likely to flip.
Speaker 1: I put the open seat in Michigan. Mike Rogers is
Speaker 1: not going to have a primary. That's a big advantage.
Speaker 1: The Democratic primary is going to be messy, it's going
Speaker 1: to be fascinating, it's going to be telling. In many ways.
Speaker 1: I think it's a preview of what to expect in
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty eight Democratic presidential primary. You have sort
Speaker 1: of different flavors. You have sort of an establishment favored
Speaker 1: in Haley Stevens. You're going to have sort of an
Speaker 1: outsider but sort of in the mainstream wing of the
Speaker 1: party in Molly McMorrow. And then you have a more
Speaker 1: progressive candidate Abdul Sayed. And so I'll do alll sayat sorry,
Speaker 1: And I think that's very representative of what you're going
Speaker 1: to see. Some outsiders that are mainstream. You're going to
Speaker 1: see some progressives that are exciting the base, and it
Speaker 1: could create a very messy primary. It could be very
Speaker 1: hard to unify. But we don't know yet. And I
Speaker 1: still think there's a slight Blue lean to Michigan generically,
Speaker 1: which is why I have it further down on the
Speaker 1: list than Georgia on there as remember, right now Michigan
Speaker 1: is a Democratic held seat, but it is you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the open seats, the Democratic open
Speaker 1: seats Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Illinois, Michigan is the best
Speaker 1: shot that Republicans have of winning one of those open seats.
Speaker 1: But I still actually think Georgia right now is still
Speaker 1: a better shot for them than any of the open
Speaker 1: Democratic seats. I'll be doing these monthly, so this list
Speaker 1: could change. Number four on the list. I tell you
Speaker 1: I've vacillated on this. I went back and forth. I
Speaker 1: had three different seats in this slot over the last
Speaker 1: few hours as I was having these debates. I ended
Speaker 1: up settling on Maine at number four. I do think
Speaker 1: Susan Collins is very difficult to beat, but I also
Speaker 1: think this is Susan Collins has never attempted to run
Speaker 1: for reelection this unpopular before. Her favorable ratings are as
Speaker 1: low as they've ever been. Her unfavorable rating in Maine
Speaker 1: is as high as it's ever been. I am not
Speaker 1: gonna underestimate her ability to win elections, and this is
Speaker 1: not a presidential year. I always thought she'd be more
Speaker 1: vulnerable in a presidential year. So we'll see. We could
Speaker 1: have an intense primary here if the governor Janet Mills
Speaker 1: does get in and it becomes sort of establishment versus
Speaker 1: progressive primary with the oyster farmer. Let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: I will say this, I think if Janet Mills runs,
Speaker 1: she'd better come across more enthusiastic about wanting to be
Speaker 1: a Senator than she has so far. The way that
Speaker 1: she sort of kept her likely candidacy alive has been
Speaker 1: this sort of if it's the mindset, I have to
Speaker 1: if you twist my arm. You know one thing about
Speaker 1: Susan Collins. She loves being in the Senate. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it always plays well with voters. I get
Speaker 1: that you may be a reluctant partisan and maybe you
Speaker 1: don't want to do that, but are you reluctant to
Speaker 1: actually do the job? I don't want to be in Washington, Okay,
Speaker 1: then don't run for the office. Right So I'm a
Speaker 1: little I'm gonna be if she runs. I'm very curious
Speaker 1: to see what her rollout is because she needs to
Speaker 1: show a lot more enthusiasm for this race, I think
Speaker 1: to win it. Then she's shown so far and in
Speaker 1: the number five slot. If I vacillated a bunch with Maine,
Speaker 1: I always was going to have Maine in my top five.
Speaker 1: For this fifth slot, I condemplated three different races. New
Speaker 1: Hampshire right, it's an open seat. Johnny Soon whu news
Speaker 1: being recruited heavily. It looks like he's more likely than not.
Speaker 1: Big baseball card collector, by the way, really great collection.
Speaker 1: His is all pre war. He's real super old school
Speaker 1: in that. Scott Brown has not been polling as well.
Speaker 1: I understand why Republicans think he's he's he's not electable there.
Speaker 1: I still think that he would run a competitive race
Speaker 1: against Chris Pappas, but there's no doubt all the polling
Speaker 1: has shown that, you know, the Chris sonun who hangover
Speaker 1: effect I think has really helped Johnson, Who's name idea.
Speaker 1: What's funny is is well Johnson Who's no trumpy trumper.
Speaker 1: He was much more of a conservative ideologically than his brother.
Speaker 1: But his brother's governorship I've seen very much through a
Speaker 1: moderate lens, and I think that spillover has really helped
Speaker 1: because and I think John would agree with me, his
Speaker 1: poll numbers look better today than they did when he
Speaker 1: when he ended up losing reelection the last time he
Speaker 1: ran for the Senate. So I don't know if he
Speaker 1: wants to admit that his younger brother might have helped
Speaker 1: his political political brand a little bit. Ohio. With Shared
Speaker 1: Brown in the race, I cond of played putting that
Speaker 1: in five and then Iowa. I ultimately decided to go
Speaker 1: with New Hampshire because Sonunu looks like he's more likely
Speaker 1: to be in And I do think Sonunu that's a
Speaker 1: different ballgame, especially you're going to have real investment of
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of money that comes with it, so
Speaker 1: it'll become self fulfilling and we'll be staring at one
Speaker 1: of these one two three point races in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you my thinking on Ohio. I just don't
Speaker 1: know how Shared Brown gets to fifty right, I'm now
Speaker 1: ruling it out. I also think Brown has a complicated
Speaker 1: messaging challenge, which I've shared with you before. On tariffs.
Speaker 1: On one hand, the tariffs are are causing a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of consumer pain. On the other hand, tariffs
Speaker 1: are not a bad word to work in people in Ohio.
Speaker 1: When it comes to goods, perhaps you'll see a shared
Speaker 1: brown say, the food tariffs are bad, the the tariffs
Speaker 1: on auto parts are good. The tariffs and cars are good.
Speaker 1: They're bad on food. And I'm kind of wondering if
Speaker 1: we're going to start to see that split because I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of conversations with labor leaders where you know,
Speaker 1: they like that Trump is willing to use tariffs. They
Speaker 1: liked that Biden was willing to use tariffs, particularly when
Speaker 1: it came to some of the to steal into some
Speaker 1: of those some of the sort of the non food tariffs, right,
Speaker 1: but the tariffs on ag are really causing pain. The
Speaker 1: tariffs on coffee are causing all of us pain. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if you're going to start to see an
Speaker 1: attempt by Democrats who are still trying to win labor
Speaker 1: back and labor union members back, finding a way to
Speaker 1: split at the attack on tariffs and essentially go after
Speaker 1: the food tax, tariffs on AG and hurting farmers and
Speaker 1: try to sort of create a create a sort of
Speaker 1: a separate distinction with the steel tariffs and the auto tariffs,
Speaker 1: and then I contemplated Iowa because of the open seat.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you, Uh, look, I've been impressed
Speaker 1: without quickly Republicans have rallied around at Ashley Hinson's campaign.
Speaker 1: I still think this is going to be a competitive race.
Speaker 1: But another reason I kept it out of the five
Speaker 1: slot is I've been following a story and I don't
Speaker 1: know how many of you have, but I keep an
Speaker 1: eye the story about the des Moines superintendent who turned
Speaker 1: out to be not an American citizen that came to
Speaker 1: as a shock to a lot of people in des Moines.
Speaker 1: He was apparently well regarded in his job, but somehow
Speaker 1: he was in this country illegally and had a deport
Speaker 1: deportation notice for over a year, and there was sort
Speaker 1: of an awkward you know, as usual. How Ice has
Speaker 1: been conducting itself has been horrendous, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: unnecessarily confrontational. But it doesn't mass the issue that apparently
Speaker 1: this now former des Moines superintendent. I believe he's resigned
Speaker 1: at this point, essentially lied to the school board of
Speaker 1: des Moines. Well, guess what one of the people running
Speaker 1: for the US Senate, Jackie Norris, is on the Des
Speaker 1: Moines School Board. This story hasn't finished playing out, but
Speaker 1: I wonder how much this sets back Democrats in the state. Generically,
Speaker 1: it may end up being a non issue a year
Speaker 1: from now, but it isn't a net positive for the
Speaker 1: Democratic brand, and I think that's fair to say. Again,
Speaker 1: let's see this whole story play out, make sure we
Speaker 1: have all the facts on this, But it was I've
Speaker 1: been following the story pretty closely. It's like, you're just like, wait,
Speaker 1: what when I saw that that Ice had detained the
Speaker 1: superintendent of schools and he was not an American citizen?
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Right? There's a lot that needs
Speaker 1: to be unpacked with this story. But to say that
Speaker 1: it's it's super high profile in the largest media market
Speaker 1: in the state, so it's going to get its share
Speaker 1: of attentions. In what I would call my others receiving
Speaker 1: votes category, they're not near the top five yet, but
Speaker 1: who's to say they won't get there. Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota
Speaker 1: Republicans have had a surprisingly hard time finding a credible
Speaker 1: candidate in the Minnesota open seat. Alaska and Louisiana still
Speaker 1: waiting for some candidate things to develop there but anyway,
Speaker 1: the five right now most likely to flip my top
Speaker 1: five right now, thirteen months from election day North Carolina one,
Speaker 1: Georgia two, Michigan three, Main four, New Hampshire five. So
Speaker 1: with that, let's do a few questions. Ask Chuck all right.
Speaker 1: First question comes from Luke anyway, Hey, Chuck, technical clarification question.
Speaker 1: I keep hearing Republicans saying that the Democrats are going
Speaker 1: to shut down the government for quote, illegal immigrants to
Speaker 1: get healthcare. Is this true? Are the subsidies in question
Speaker 1: really just for undocumented immigrants? If not, and I suspect not,
Speaker 1: then why is this lie so pervasive and unquestion? I
Speaker 1: haven't heard left leaning outlets discuss this point, and it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how much of a kernel of truth
Speaker 1: is in the claim that Dems are unwilling to admit.
Speaker 1: Are Democrats able to handle this talking point without fracturing
Speaker 1: what's left of their coalition? Thanks in advance, love the show, Luke. So, Luke, look, no,
Speaker 1: the answer is no, it's not true. Now. What happened
Speaker 1: before is that they discovered that some people who were here,
Speaker 1: undocumented people were somehow accessing some benefits because perhaps they
Speaker 1: were with somebody or had a child who is an
Speaker 1: American citizen who was getting benefits. Right, that's if you're
Speaker 1: looking for the kernel truth truth. It's not the parents
Speaker 1: may be here illegally, but their kid is here legally.
Speaker 1: They do have access to the medicaid, to these various things,
Speaker 1: but the parent doesn't. So I'll let you decide. Can
Speaker 1: you say, are the parents that are not of legal
Speaker 1: status in this country benefiting because their child who does
Speaker 1: have legal status is getting a benefit? You see where
Speaker 1: I'm going here. So, if you're looking for the kernel
Speaker 1: of truth, which many on the right would say, you know,
Speaker 1: democrats are claiming it's not true, but you know they're
Speaker 1: benefiting from this, et cetera. So that's the semantic you'd
Speaker 1: be debating over. But no, nobody who's here illegally is
Speaker 1: supposed to be eligible for this. But if you are
Speaker 1: an American citizen, and then you are. And so where
Speaker 1: the gray area is is the children who are here
Speaker 1: who were born here to folks who are not of
Speaker 1: legal status. I hope that helps a little bit in
Speaker 1: the clarification. Next question comes from will E says, Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: your commentary was spot on. I just don't know which commentary.
Speaker 1: I'll keep going because aren't they all sorry? I think
Speaker 1: that's what you have to do as a podcast host now, right,
Speaker 1: is I have to overinflate my ego and how say
Speaker 1: how smart and great? I am? Right? Isn't that what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to say? Anyway? I digress, But anyway, I
Speaker 1: went to my first Wisconsin game in over fifteen years
Speaker 1: and it was ugly student section channing fire. Fickle friends
Speaker 1: texting me, f fickle, don't see how he makes it
Speaker 1: for the rest of the season. The bye this weekend
Speaker 1: is going to be our best weekend for the rest
Speaker 1: of the season. Enjoy the show. So obviously, what he's
Speaker 1: saying is my commentary on football was spot on. I appreciate.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And by the way, some of you are
Speaker 1: probably asking me, weren't you at a football game this weekend?
Speaker 1: How come you didn't talk about it in the last show.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you in the second here, but I want
Speaker 1: to get through a couple more questions. This next one
Speaker 1: comes from Deborah You. Hey, Chuck love the podcast. Your
Speaker 1: recent discussion on polls showing democrats less interested in talking
Speaker 1: with Republicans really resonated with me. Many of us have
Speaker 1: tried to have rational, civil conversations with Trump supporters, presenting facts, listening,
Speaker 1: seeking common ground, but it feels futile. I consider myself
Speaker 1: moderate and open to compromise, yet too often the loudest
Speaker 1: UOP voices drown out dialogue with outrage and hypocrisy, leaving
Speaker 1: me exhausted and disheartened. Well, Deborah, I would just say
Speaker 1: start with people in your family that that you know,
Speaker 1: Start with people you work with, or people in your
Speaker 1: neighborhood that that you that you know are on the
Speaker 1: other side, and try it that way. I think if
Speaker 1: you have some sort of previous relationship that isn't political
Speaker 1: with somebody, that's where you can start to break, just
Speaker 1: to sort of break the ice and thaw things out
Speaker 1: a little bit. I try humor. You know. Look, I
Speaker 1: I have learned over I have my own ways that
Speaker 1: I you know, I consider myself pretty good at reading people.
Speaker 1: I kind of know where I think people will go. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if I don't know somebody very well, I
Speaker 1: usually try to connect on another subject first, sports or
Speaker 1: weather or you know, if you're on an airplane, you
Speaker 1: know the frustrations of flying or something, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of non controversial like that. But I think it feels
Speaker 1: like what you're describing is having a conversation with somebody
Speaker 1: that's super online. And I will say, there's no I've
Speaker 1: tried to have civil conversations with pen pals. I have
Speaker 1: quite a few pen piles I've I've accumulated over the years.
Speaker 1: Some of you may be listening now that are regular
Speaker 1: pen piles with me. Where Frankly, if you if you
Speaker 1: email me, I usually will respond if you're fairly civil,
Speaker 1: even if you're tough and discree. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think you you know, I really you're always you know,
Speaker 1: given a pass to this side or giving a pass
Speaker 1: to that side. You know, as long as you're not
Speaker 1: like filled with venom, I'm usually going to respond and
Speaker 1: try to have a civil back and forth because frankly,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to learn. I'm trying to understand the
Speaker 1: you know, what is it that has you exercised? Maybe
Speaker 1: it's something I'm missing, So I always think there's something
Speaker 1: to learn. But when the person's super online and they're
Speaker 1: just sort of you know, you know, they they spend
Speaker 1: more time reading cat Turd fifty two or whatever that
Speaker 1: right wing meme Twitter feed is or TikTok feed. I
Speaker 1: just call them all cat turns. But I think one
Speaker 1: of them is called cat turd fifty two. Is it?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's cat turd ninety six. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like they're all Mike Lee, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Senator Mike Lee is like somebody who can't
Speaker 1: have a conversation with anymore because he's just gotten just
Speaker 1: he calls himself based Mike Lee, right, like in weird way,
Speaker 1: he's at least admitting that he's, Hey, I am unk
Speaker 1: on this, and he is sort of drunk on online
Speaker 1: mega right. And I guess he's sort of like the
Speaker 1: reverse reform smoker, right. He was. He was anti he
Speaker 1: was an anti trumper from the beginning, and then when
Speaker 1: he flipped a maga, he decided, I'm going to smoke
Speaker 1: four packs a day. You're not going to have a
Speaker 1: rational debate with with somebody who's who's that online? So
Speaker 1: I guess, you know it. It's certainly a better conversation
Speaker 1: to be had in person then it will be, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, digitally anyway. But it probably is best to
Speaker 1: start off with somebody you might have a pre existing
Speaker 1: relationship with even if it's something as innocuous as you're
Speaker 1: dry cleaner, or you know somebody you just happen to
Speaker 1: see while you're walking your neighborhood all the time. Next
Speaker 1: question comes from Gail in Woodinville, Washington. Hey, Chuck, so
Speaker 1: glad I discovered the toodcast me too. Tell your friends. Uh,
Speaker 1: our numbers are growing a lot. Uh, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: You know again, I think of Sister Pound in my chest.
Speaker 1: We're the fastest growing podcast in you know this section three,
Speaker 1: two four five. So anyway, I'm sort of kidding. I
Speaker 1: know hindsight is twenty twenty, but do you think the
Speaker 1: country would be better off now if Trump had been
Speaker 1: re elected in twenty twenty. I've heard this argument. For
Speaker 1: the sake of argument. Let's forget that many of us
Speaker 1: probably would have died from COVID under his leadership. But
Speaker 1: had he been reelected, Mike Pence would have been VP,
Speaker 1: and we might never have known of JD. Vance. Trump
Speaker 1: and his clown posse might have been bumbled through the
Speaker 1: second term. With more guardrails. There would have been no
Speaker 1: indictments or prosecutions to trigger his revenge to her. There
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been the four years from twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty five to develop Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: and give Stephen Miller the opportunity to consolidate power, and
Speaker 1: best of all, Trump would be out of office right now.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Keep up the great work, Gale.
Speaker 1: I have had this conversation. I have humored this conversation,
Speaker 1: and with various friends of mine on this front, it's
Speaker 1: a it's as as you know, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: a what if series coming up, and what I do
Speaker 1: is sort of forks in the road. You know, what
Speaker 1: if this would have happened instead of this? In the past,
Speaker 1: I've done what if Hillary Clinton had run for president
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four instead of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: which you've actually won the presidency in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: I certainly make the argument that her best chance was
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, more so than eight or sixteen
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. What if Bill Clinton had
Speaker 1: resigned in nineteen ninety eight, as many Democrats wanted him
Speaker 1: do in the peak of Monica Lewinsky, then you would
Speaker 1: have had a President Gore running for a full term
Speaker 1: in two thousand. What is that election like nine eleven,
Speaker 1: still happens, but this time it's ten straight years of
Speaker 1: democratic So you see, how you know, you start to
Speaker 1: go down these roads, and so anyway you have well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, you have potentially helped preview one
Speaker 1: of the what ifs that I want to go down
Speaker 1: because I think this is it is true. This is
Speaker 1: a more damaging presidency to the sort of guard rails
Speaker 1: of American democracy than if he had served two consecutive terms.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. It's an interesting question though,
Speaker 1: whether I think it's weirdly, I think we need another
Speaker 1: twenty years to figure out whether it was better or not.
Speaker 1: You know, do any of the Biden policies work, And
Speaker 1: if they do, you know you're going to have to
Speaker 1: consider those as well. So I think it's I understand
Speaker 1: where you're coming from. I think there's there's certainly when
Speaker 1: you look at the when you look at this the
Speaker 1: what he's done so far and not even through year one,
Speaker 1: and what I've said earlier about Steven Miller, and we'll
Speaker 1: see how the shutdown goes. I think it's put it
Speaker 1: this way, Donald Trump is a much weaker figure inside
Speaker 1: the Republican Party if he had won reelection, and he'd
Speaker 1: have been a much weaker figure sooner inside the party.
Speaker 1: And maybe Democrats control the Senate after twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: in a bigger way, not a smaller way. Maybe their
Speaker 1: map is more navigable, right Like, I could certainly paint
Speaker 1: a very rosy picture for Democrats right now, but it's anyway.
Speaker 1: The point is is I think this is a discussion
Speaker 1: that you should look forward to on the Chuck Podcast
Speaker 1: towards the end of the holiday season, when I will
Speaker 1: do my annual what if series that I've done in
Speaker 1: my previous iterations of the Chuck Podcast. Do you search them?
Speaker 1: Some of these episodes NBC's taken off the website, but
Speaker 1: some of them you can find. But it's I call
Speaker 1: it my what if series, so you can check it
Speaker 1: out from there. Do one more question, and then I'll
Speaker 1: give you a quick little update about my football travels.
Speaker 1: This next question comes from Cold Tea. Oh. The question is, Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: hopefully you've seen this crazy story. The Des Moines superintendent
Speaker 1: was arrested by ice, which is crazy enough, but it
Speaker 1: could also take down the leading Democratic Senate candidate, Jackie Norris.
Speaker 1: Who was chair of the schooloard wild stuff in Iowa.
Speaker 1: No one seems to know what is true or not.
Speaker 1: You just summarized everything I was saying earlier with my
Speaker 1: top five list and why I didn't put Iowa in
Speaker 1: that fitth spot because I want to see this story
Speaker 1: finished playing out. It is wild. If you don't know
Speaker 1: the story, it does feel it's amazing people that love. Look,
Speaker 1: the superintendent was beloved by many people, and they don't
Speaker 1: want to leave the facts that apparently are in this case.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think the the fallout from this
Speaker 1: could be more damaging to the Democratic brand. I again,
Speaker 1: I'm I want to wait. I'm not gonna lie. I
Speaker 1: want to wait a little bit to just let's get
Speaker 1: all the facts out. Let's see what everything looks like.
Speaker 1: Is he is everything that's been said true that he
Speaker 1: you know about a weapon in his car, cash, et cetera.
Speaker 1: He was the second superintendent job. I mean, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like does anybody do any vetting anywhere in this
Speaker 1: country on this front? So there's a there's a more
Speaker 1: information I want to know, But I thought Cole, you
Speaker 1: summarized it well. Have you seen this crazy story you
Speaker 1: couldn't have made up a story like this right as
Speaker 1: a plot line. And this is always a reminder when
Speaker 1: you're whenever I'm trying to write fictional political storylines. For
Speaker 1: the various attempts I've done for political fiction, story like
Speaker 1: this happens, and you're like, how do you manufacture fiction
Speaker 1: when the truth is so much crazier? All right, I
Speaker 1: will tell you I was at that crazy Dallas Green
Speaker 1: Bay game. I think I sort of hinted that I
Speaker 1: was going to that, which in full sort of toodcast
Speaker 1: behind the curtain plotting. You know what that meant is
Speaker 1: that Monday podcast I taped before I left for Dallas
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning. I went down Sunday, came back Monday,
Speaker 1: so it was a quick trip. My son's doing great.
Speaker 1: Thanks for asking. I know some of you are at
Speaker 1: least thinking that, so I thought I would pre answer
Speaker 1: that question. But I'll tell you this. I'll we get
Speaker 1: to the game and it feels it felt like sixty
Speaker 1: forty Cowboys to Packers fans. There were Packers fans everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I know some of it is like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're Packers fans, so all we're seeing are the other
Speaker 1: Packers fans, But when the teams came out, you felt
Speaker 1: the cheers and early on, and of course the Packers
Speaker 1: got a quick start thirteen to nothing, and here they're
Speaker 1: about to kick the extra point, and you could just
Speaker 1: feel the Dallas fans were like, oh, this is going
Speaker 1: exactly as I feared. US Packer fans were as cocky
Speaker 1: as ever. And then they blocked that extra point and
Speaker 1: run back for two points and it's instead of fourteen
Speaker 1: to nothing, it's thirteen to two. And I just sit
Speaker 1: there and look at my son. I'm like, what the
Speaker 1: second week in a row we're getting We get that
Speaker 1: field goal block with the Browns and then this extra
Speaker 1: point block, so we just are stewing from here on out.
Speaker 1: We stopped and joined the game. We're angry at Rich Bisaccia,
Speaker 1: who's the special teams coach, who a bunch of US
Speaker 1: Packer fans have been like, get rid of this guy.
Speaker 1: The special teams is atrocious. It's been atrocious for two
Speaker 1: years now. And then every single time on the kickoff,
Speaker 1: the Packers didn't know the rules. They kept the ball
Speaker 1: bouncing the landing zone and they'd take it in the
Speaker 1: end zone thinking they were getting it at the thirty five,
Speaker 1: and they did it multiple times and it comes out
Speaker 1: to the twenty. All these little hidden yardages, and then
Speaker 1: there was the bizarre play calling of Lafleur at the
Speaker 1: end of the first half, end of the regulation, and
Speaker 1: at the end of the overtime. This was one of
Speaker 1: those where so the game ends in a tie and
Speaker 1: the Dallas fans felt like they won something and all
Speaker 1: of us Packer fans felt like we lost. This was
Speaker 1: not one of those where everybody, eh, and you didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I didn't leave gone. Boy, that was a
Speaker 1: great game. It was not a great game. The Packers
Speaker 1: played terribly. The Cowboys. It was really interesting. They were
Speaker 1: playing afraid for the first quarter and a half. It
Speaker 1: was like they did not want Michael Parsons to even
Speaker 1: get a chance to sack backs. They didn't even bother
Speaker 1: to pass the ball, or if they did, it would
Speaker 1: be like a quick strop and a little dump off.
Speaker 1: Then they get this two point conversion and it's like
Speaker 1: Schottenheimer coach decided, you know what, there are other plays
Speaker 1: in the playbook, why not? And you know the way
Speaker 1: football is, right, it's like a this this game felt
Speaker 1: like one of those college games where a highly ranked
Speaker 1: team is visiting an unranked team and they let the
Speaker 1: unranked team hang around, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the unranked team realize they have a chance to win
Speaker 1: and they start playing the best game of their lives.
Speaker 1: George Pickens, who's never consistent when he's on a football field,
Speaker 1: paid attention and seem to actually participate in the offense
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent of the plays. And guess what,
Speaker 1: when he's fully paying attention, he's a dangerous threat. The
Speaker 1: Packers couldn't get a pass rush. They were only you know,
Speaker 1: the whole key to the Packers is just that doing
Speaker 1: that four man pass rush, the assumption was they were
Speaker 1: going to get to Dak and they couldn't get to him.
Speaker 1: Really until the overtime did they finally seem to figure
Speaker 1: that out. But Schottenheimer out coached Halfley, and we hadn't
Speaker 1: seen Halfley out coach. So the Packers are are what
Speaker 1: are we now? Two to one and one? And it
Speaker 1: just feels off right, And now you got to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: was was the Lions game sort of an anomaly where
Speaker 1: the Packers simply a little bit more ready and the
Speaker 1: Lions weren't they were still in preseason mode, because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they look like the best team in
Speaker 1: that division, and the Packers are not playing like the
Speaker 1: best team in that division. So what I have to say,
Speaker 1: I think that's a full indictment on the coaching staff,
Speaker 1: from Halflee to Lafleor to Bisacia, Bisacia, this is I don't.
Speaker 1: I admire that Lafleur is very loyal to his coaches,
Speaker 1: but he kept the defensive coordinator a season too long.
Speaker 1: And I think it's painfully obvious with these new special
Speaker 1: teams rules that nobody on the team seems to know
Speaker 1: that they probably kept the special teams coach a season
Speaker 1: too long on this front, And if you follow Packer,
Speaker 1: you know, for those of you that follow the Packer
Speaker 1: stuff closely, you know that most Packer fans are raging
Speaker 1: right now about that more than ever on the college front. Look,
Speaker 1: it was just a great game, great weekend of games,
Speaker 1: and it was great to not have to worry about
Speaker 1: the Hurricanes to be in that. I will say this,
Speaker 1: I'm a little bummed that Florida State lost that Uva
Speaker 1: game on Friday night because what that sets up is
Speaker 1: a more desperate Florida State team against Miami this Saturday.
Speaker 1: This is another big test for crystabal Right, there's there
Speaker 1: was a couple of coaches that have high ranked teams
Speaker 1: that have not been able to win the big game.
Speaker 1: James Franklin at Penn State, Mario Cristobal whether he was
Speaker 1: at Oregon or at Miami. You know, are you going
Speaker 1: to be able to win? Be able to you know,
Speaker 1: not lose a dumb game. I think Christa Ball passed
Speaker 1: one test against Florida when they played not their best game.
Speaker 1: That's a game they would have lost last year, and
Speaker 1: they figured out how to win it this year. This
Speaker 1: is the first road test against a team that's more
Speaker 1: desperate to win than Miamias. You know, can we do?
Speaker 1: We do? We treat it as a business trip and
Speaker 1: we go up there and just out physical them. There's
Speaker 1: no reason why they shouldn't. But Florida State's now a
Speaker 1: bit more desperate. I would have preferred a more hyped
Speaker 1: up Florida State team thinking that they're going to go
Speaker 1: nose for nose and would have would have had a
Speaker 1: little bit more attention on that. But it's uh. I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to Saturday night in Tallahassee. But I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie. I wish they had won that Friday game
Speaker 1: because I think in some ways they're going to be
Speaker 1: a bit more desperate, which means they're going to be
Speaker 1: playing whatever that means, right, just slightly slightly with more urgency,
Speaker 1: more entire because or State has to win if they
Speaker 1: want to get there. Because I think one thing we
Speaker 1: know is true, ten and two ACC teams are not
Speaker 1: getting into the playoff. We already found that out. Miami
Speaker 1: found out the hard way. You're gonna have to be
Speaker 1: eleven and one in the regular season. You can have
Speaker 1: two losses, but your second loss has to come in
Speaker 1: in that conference title game. So Florida State has to.
Speaker 1: If they accumulate their second loss, I think they go
Speaker 1: down where the only shot they have would be to
Speaker 1: win the conference a lah Clemson last year, So we
Speaker 1: shall see. That's coming up. By the way, I want
Speaker 1: to share one more totally inane fact and for five
Speaker 1: of you you'll find this funny or weird, or maybe
Speaker 1: you think, why the hell is he sharing this? But
Speaker 1: I did something that I have never done. I swear
Speaker 1: in my entire life. I got to the end of
Speaker 1: a chapstick too. I am one of those people. I
Speaker 1: never have chapstick when I need it. So you go
Speaker 1: and you're always buying new ones, always buying new ones,
Speaker 1: and then you find year old stuff and all this stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and over time I end up with my little sticks
Speaker 1: of chapstick. You know, I got one near my my
Speaker 1: keys are, and one in my car, and one near
Speaker 1: my bed and all these different things. Right, Well, I
Speaker 1: finally worked. I think I had this stick of chapstick
Speaker 1: for three years. I didn't know you could ever get
Speaker 1: to an end of a chapstick tube, but I finally,
Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, made it to
Speaker 1: the end of the chapstick tube. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: finally not wasted money for once on all the unused
Speaker 1: chapstick that I have lost over the years. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's all with all of my missing pairs of sunglasses
Speaker 1: as well. So with that piece of inane trivia that
Speaker 1: I hear that podcasters are supposed to share with their
Speaker 1: with their listeners and viewers, I'm gonna call it for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and we'll see it when we upload again.