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Speaker 1: Happy hangover Monday, the day after the super Bowl, and

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Speaker 1: don't worry. The NFL is working on the idea of

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Speaker 1: another week to the season so that they officially take

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Speaker 1: over President's Day weekend for the super Bowl. And you

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Speaker 1: can see where it goes. Super Bowl Sunday we get

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Speaker 1: President's Day off, because what's more American than that. The

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Speaker 1: super Bowl itself, well, it kind of, it kind of went.

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Speaker 1: It kind of went. The conventional wisdom I mean, when

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Speaker 1: a sort of amateur like me is out there on

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Speaker 1: the record saying I think this game's going to be

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Speaker 1: like twenty to six. Well, you know, I missed a

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Speaker 1: few points here or there, but it kind of went

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Speaker 1: exactly how we thought that Seattle would. Just so what

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Speaker 1: they've done all year. They kind of grind teams down

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Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my god, we can't catch up

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Speaker 1: when you're playing them, They're just there is a relentlessness there.

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Speaker 1: I'll say this, I got to give credit to the

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Speaker 1: Pats defense. They Seattle could have blown this game open

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Speaker 1: in the first half, and they made it. You know,

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Speaker 1: Darnald missed a couple of throws by that much, a

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Speaker 1: couple of great plays by the defensive backfield at Christian Gonzales.

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Speaker 1: That was impressive. But at the end of the day, man,

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Speaker 1: you cannot The Patriots tried to do something that no

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Speaker 1: team had ever done in a Super Bowl. They try

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Speaker 1: to win a Super Bowl without a left side of

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Speaker 1: their offensive line. I know they were actual physical human beings.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps I think they were. I wasn't live at the game,

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Speaker 1: but if you told me that was just a green

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Speaker 1: screen for their left tackle, because my god, poor Drake

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Speaker 1: May I mean running for his life. It is what

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Speaker 1: it is. That was the fear going into this game.

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Speaker 1: Is that's what we'd expect, but that's what it was.

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Speaker 1: But come on, for us football fans are not Patriots fans.

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Speaker 1: Did we really want to see them just make it

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Speaker 1: this easy to get back and win and winning super bowls?

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Speaker 1: That it couldn't be this easy. They should be happy

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Speaker 1: they're going to be contenders again when they get an

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Speaker 1: offensive line. That's a great defense. It's a well coached team.

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Speaker 1: But you got to give your hats off to the

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Speaker 1: Seattle defense. Unbelievable. Kenneth Walker was unbelievable. Before those last

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Speaker 1: couple of touchdown passes, Kenneth Walker was looking like the

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Speaker 1: MVP in that front. But look, Sam Donald, he made

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Speaker 1: a few throws that you're like, you know, when you're

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Speaker 1: a Sam Donald fan, I didn't. I imagine there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of no, no, no, no, no yes when it comes

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Speaker 1: to Donald, but there it is. Kudos to the Seahawks,

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Speaker 1: it was. This is one of those years where it

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Speaker 1: felt like the NFC was just that much better and

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Speaker 1: the Super Bowl produced kind of exactly how the season went.

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Speaker 1: The AFC was weaker and a bit of a jumbled mess.

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Speaker 1: The NFC was stronger with Seattle constantly on top, and

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Speaker 1: we got the scroll. They got a few things on

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Speaker 1: the non football playing side. First of all, look love

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Speaker 1: Mike Turrico, consider him a friend. He had one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite calls of the night when he talked about

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Speaker 1: the rocket scientist jumping onto the field. I just thought

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Speaker 1: that was a I love that. That's what he That's

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Speaker 1: how he referred to the guy that whatever happened on

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Speaker 1: the field. Obviously, those of us not there live don't

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Speaker 1: know what the interruption was, but I liked the shout

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Speaker 1: out to rocket scientists, bad bunny. The Super Bowl party,

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Speaker 1: I was at everybody's like, well, that was interesting, and

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Speaker 1: as somebody who grew up in Miami, it was very

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Speaker 1: familiar to me. I enjoyed sort of the tour of

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Speaker 1: Latin culture and the Puerto Rican culture, you know, going

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Speaker 1: through the dominoes and the weddings and the cantinnaras and

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Speaker 1: all that stuff. I thought that was a nice little touch.

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Speaker 1: But I have no doubt that there'll be a lot

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Speaker 1: of dumb social media takes on this. But if you're

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Speaker 1: the NFL, you were there to expand your fan base,

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Speaker 1: to continue this outreach to Latin America, and Bad Bunny

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Speaker 1: did the job. I think that the NFL was hoping

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Speaker 1: that he would do on that front. I'm sure if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to find out how popular it was, my

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Speaker 1: guess is, if you like Trump, you didn't like Bad Money,

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Speaker 1: And if you didn't like Trump, you said, wow, that

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Speaker 1: was terrific. You know, not everybody's a Bad Bunny fan,

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Speaker 1: but I get what he was trying to do. I

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Speaker 1: thought it was interesting, I thought it was unique, and

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Speaker 1: I thought it was worth watching. On that the commercials,

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Speaker 1: I'm just creeped out by the d aging. I'm sorry

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Speaker 1: that weird Eccinity ad with Jurassic Park and all. I'd

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Speaker 1: rather see all those actors as they are now, give

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Speaker 1: them to me with all their gray hair. It might

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Speaker 1: even be funnier if they did that. But all of

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Speaker 1: the d aging, and it was in a few ads.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just that one. It was oh, the Goodwill Hunt,

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Speaker 1: the dunkin Donuts ad with everybody looking d aged except

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Speaker 1: for Brady, which I guess was the Brady was always

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Speaker 1: sort of Benjamin Button. Anyway, Again, I know all these guys,

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Speaker 1: have these all these great new tools to mess with

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Speaker 1: thanks to AI, thanks to d aging, but eh, a

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Speaker 1: little overused. I'm a little creeped out about it. I'm intrigued.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know there was going to be a Once

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Speaker 1: upon a Time in Hollywood sequel, so call me intrigued

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Speaker 1: on that. So thank you super Bowl commercial for that.

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Speaker 1: And finally, I guess this was I said it would

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Speaker 1: be the year of the AI ad. There were certainly

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Speaker 1: AI companies and teases and and different AI agents being advertised.

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Speaker 1: It felt like, my guess is just like what we

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Speaker 1: saw during the Crypto super Bowl a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: and we had our Internet super Bowl way back when

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Speaker 1: half of those AI agents that advertised in this super

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Speaker 1: Bowl will not be in existence in what three years?

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Speaker 1: What should we make the over under that two and

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Speaker 1: a half years that some of these companies will no

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Speaker 1: longer be be relevant or be ever heard of, or

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Speaker 1: some of these things the only time we'll ever hear

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Speaker 1: from them might actually be the Super Bowl ad you

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Speaker 1: watched last night. But all in all, I'm sad that

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Speaker 1: football season's over. I am a huge football fan. I

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Speaker 1: love it, but hey, let's turn to basketball. We got

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Speaker 1: the All Star weekend. Next weekend, we got the best

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Speaker 1: part of college basketball coming up, so I know how

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be spending a lot of my evenings

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Speaker 1: over the next over the next few weeks. And as

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Speaker 1: I told you before, I love the Olympics. So there.

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Speaker 1: So look, we got through the Super Bowl without two

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Speaker 1: without any political disruption, which is kind of nice. And

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Speaker 1: I barely made it through the Super Bowl without one

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Speaker 1: Cali disruption from my dog. All right, so let's get

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Speaker 1: focused on the show ahead. Let me give you a

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Speaker 1: quick little table of contents. I've got a few things

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Speaker 1: to say about the about the weekend that was with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, both the European essentially the Europeans at the

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Speaker 1: Olympics expressing their expressing their opinion about Team USA and

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Speaker 1: how humiliating that was for US Americans watching on TV

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Speaker 1: and live. We'll get to that. We've got the Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump racist meme. And what's interesting about that story is,

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Speaker 1: like with a lot of things with Donald Trump, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how we're surprised or shocked that he does

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Speaker 1: something that's racist, that he either shares a post that's

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Speaker 1: racist or implies something that is racist. And you know,

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Speaker 1: there's always this question, is he you know, he always

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Speaker 1: wants to say I'm the least racist person. But as

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Speaker 1: there was a great debate line back in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: I think it's Andrew Gillham to Ronda Santis, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you're racist, but a lot of racist people

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Speaker 1: think you're racist. The point is this consistency of Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump that whenever sort of there's a line, he's willing

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Speaker 1: to cross it and be on the side of those

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Speaker 1: that would be accused of being racist. But we're going

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Speaker 1: to get to that in a minute. I also have

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Speaker 1: the most underreported story last week that is is a

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Speaker 1: huge consequence to campaign twenty twenty six and why perhaps

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Speaker 1: we can call the election right now. We can, at

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Speaker 1: least on the House side, that we can call it

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Speaker 1: right now. I will explain statistically why that is later

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Speaker 1: in this episode, but let's get started with the fallout

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Speaker 1: from Donald Trump and the racist meme attacking the Obamas,

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Speaker 1: because you know, whenever we have these incidents with him,

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Speaker 1: because these are very frequent, right, you can go down

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Speaker 1: the litany of lists. We can go back all the

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Speaker 1: way to twenty fifteen. Frankly, with Donald Trump, you can

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Speaker 1: go all the way back to the eighties in the

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Speaker 1: Central Park five. Actually, if you want, you can go.

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Speaker 1: When it comes to race and the questions of racism,

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Speaker 1: you go all the way back to the early seventies

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Speaker 1: when he had to go hire a lawyer named Roy

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Speaker 1: Cone because the Nixon government, the Nixon led Justice Department,

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Speaker 1: was investigating his father's firm, essentially for bias in how

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Speaker 1: they rented and sold houses and apartments in suburban New

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Speaker 1: York City. So the point is the accusation of racism.

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Speaker 1: The question about whether he was racially tolerant or not,

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Speaker 1: or racially accepting or not, has been hovering over Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump for his entire adult life. He leans sometimes, it

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Speaker 1: seems as if he leans into racist tropes almost as

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Speaker 1: a way to quote. Maybe he thinks he's owning the

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Speaker 1: Libs or he's somehow giving fuel to his base. I

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Speaker 1: think sometimes he insults his own base. I think he

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Speaker 1: thinks that deep down that the MAGA base is all racists.

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Speaker 1: So that's why he plays to it, which if you

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Speaker 1: believe it is in his agenda, but you're not racist,

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Speaker 1: should offend you. And I think that that was so.

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Speaker 1: The what I took away from this story was not

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Speaker 1: that Donald Trump did this. Of course Donald Trump did this, right,

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Speaker 1: That is not the news. What was new and important

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Speaker 1: to chronicle in this story was the immediate reactions of

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Speaker 1: people like Tim Scott, who said, this is the most

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Speaker 1: racist thing that's come out of this White House. By

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Speaker 1: the way, that phrasing was fascinating, right, talk about a

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Speaker 1: guy you'd like to put under a polygraph and say, huh,

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Speaker 1: you're implying you've seen other racist things come out of

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Speaker 1: this White House. Right by saying this is the most racist.

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Speaker 1: He didn't say this was the only racist thing that

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Speaker 1: came out of this White House. So that's of note.

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Speaker 1: Let's just say I listened to words very carefully, and

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Speaker 1: yes I part sentences too much. So assuming the other

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Speaker 1: aspect of this was watching how many other Republicans decided

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Speaker 1: to go in on that, and there was the weasel words.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine he did this. It must have been

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Speaker 1: a staffer, right, these staffers that apparently are up as

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Speaker 1: late as he is. To the President's credit, he essentially

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Speaker 1: while he didn't he's essentially admitted he did it. He's now,

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Speaker 1: I think, claiming he didn't see it all the way through.

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Speaker 1: So we didn't see how it was ending. It's how

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Speaker 1: he wants to go. But it's it's interesting that he

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Speaker 1: kind of, you know, reversed the bus that that the

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Speaker 1: that ran over the staffer that everybody decided, whoever this

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Speaker 1: imaginary staffer was that did it. One would assume it's

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Speaker 1: the caddy Dan Scavino, who supposedly runs all the social

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Speaker 1: media accounts from time to time, but they never did

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Speaker 1: say his name. It was sort of implied, but it

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Speaker 1: was Donald Trump's way of bringing back the PUS. But

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Speaker 1: the point was, and this goes back to something I

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Speaker 1: wrote on Substack last fall, which was the cracks are

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Speaker 1: beginning to show in the Trump coalition. Well, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if a week's gone by where the cracks haven't

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Speaker 1: gotten deeper, where you haven't had another Republican either decide

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Speaker 1: not to seek reelection or decide to back away in

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Speaker 1: some way. The comfort that more Republicans have in criticizing

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Speaker 1: him publicly, in questioning him publicly. Look, I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to sit here and say it's an avalanche of criticism

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Speaker 1: coming from Republicans, but you are starting to see that

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Speaker 1: more of them realize they're the ones that are going

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Speaker 1: to be on the ballot. The future of the party

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Speaker 1: is in their hands because Donald Trump doesn't care about

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Speaker 1: the future of the party. And you throw in the

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Speaker 1: fact that I know to say Donald Trump had ever

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Speaker 1: had a filter, it might be might be an understatement.

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Speaker 1: But here's what we do know. As people age, whatever

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Speaker 1: filter they have goes away. So he didn't have much

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Speaker 1: of a filter before. But it's but it's possible Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump five years ago might have might have had some

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Speaker 1: little voice in his head to say, don't retweet that

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Speaker 1: Obama Obama racist meme. And this time there's no right

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Speaker 1: He's that he's living in his He's living in a

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Speaker 1: cocoon that seems to be even more self serving than

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Speaker 1: ever before. He does not seem to appear like when

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Speaker 1: he was asked about Jadie Vance getting booed at the

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Speaker 1: Olympics during the opening ceremonies, he seemed to feign surprised

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Speaker 1: by that. Maybe that's his way of spinning, or maybe

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Speaker 1: he really is in this cocoon that he doesn't realize

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Speaker 1: how unpopular his administration is, how unpopular he is, and

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Speaker 1: how unpopular jd Vance is growing, but particularly in Europe.

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Speaker 1: If he doesn't understand Teddy Vance has gone to Europe

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Speaker 1: and attacked Europe every different way. He has attacked the

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Speaker 1: culture of Western Europe. He is he essentially said, you're

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Speaker 1: bringing all this on yourself, and and he has gone

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Speaker 1: there to to to give aid and comfort to all

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Speaker 1: of these right wing movements that are very offensive to

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Speaker 1: a lot of Western Europeans, particularly the ones that go

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Speaker 1: to the Olympics that can afford to travel. Let's just

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Speaker 1: say this ain't a jade Van's crowd, and it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's I would caution the president to be careful attacking

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Speaker 1: Americans who American athletes who speak out. This is the

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Speaker 1: age we live in. And I have to say I've

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Speaker 1: been impressed. The athletes are all trying to walk a line.

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Speaker 1: You can see it. But it's uncomfortable. It's no fun

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Speaker 1: to be an American overseas. And no, I have no

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Speaker 1: doubt there are other athletes in the in the village

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Speaker 1: giving American athletes grief that there is a cold shoulder.

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Speaker 1: You talk to any Americans to travel overseas right now,

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Speaker 1: it is uncomfortable. It's much worse than it was during

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Speaker 1: the Iraq War. So it is. It wouldn't surprise me

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Speaker 1: that when you sort of look at why Trump doesn't

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Speaker 1: see how bad things are going for him, that because

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Speaker 1: they've created this safe space in the Oval Office for

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Speaker 1: him and they sort of block out any negative news,

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Speaker 1: only show him like pieces of polls that give him

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Speaker 1: aid and comfort, but they don't show him the big pictures.

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Speaker 1: So he really doesn't know how bad things are. It

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Speaker 1: only is going to lead for him to do more mistakes.

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Speaker 1: I mean you want to if you want evidence by

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Speaker 1: the way of the filter being totally and completely gone,

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Speaker 1: just look go back and look at that performance at

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Speaker 1: the National Prayer Breakfast where he was just awful and attacking,

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Speaker 1: just attacking Democrats, saying democrats aren't can't be religious people.

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Speaker 1: It was just it couldn't have been more American and

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Speaker 1: certainly more anti First Amendment than what he did. But

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Speaker 1: I do think it's important to note how much he

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Speaker 1: has put his party in jeopardy just in these first

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Speaker 1: six weeks of this calendar year. Right, the year began

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Speaker 1: with the Madua extradition, which looked like it was going

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Speaker 1: to be a good news story for him. Right, it

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Speaker 1: was an impressive military operation. They extracted Madureau out and

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Speaker 1: it seemed as if they made it seem relatively easy,

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Speaker 1: and as a military operation, it was relatively easy. Now

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Speaker 1: he is now botching the aftermath, right, he is not

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Speaker 1: interested in standing up democracy. He has rejected the democratic

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Speaker 1: elected leaders in Venezuela and not endorsed them. He went

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Speaker 1: ahead and accepted that peace prize from MS Machado, which

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Speaker 1: is still one of the most It's not surprising, but

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Speaker 1: still seems so brazen and I can't believe he did it.

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Speaker 1: But I say this because beginning with then, and if

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Speaker 1: you think about it, there hasn't been a week that

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Speaker 1: hasn't gone by, if not more, where he has said

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Speaker 1: or done something that has put Republicans on the defensive.

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Speaker 1: It's one thing to see, right the left get upset

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Speaker 1: and the media and you can say, okay, this is

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Speaker 1: partisan back and forth. But the distinction I want to

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Speaker 1: make here is, like what we saw with the Obama

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Speaker 1: racist me the Obviously there was plenty of outrage from

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Speaker 1: people on the left and in the center, but to

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Speaker 1: see elected Republicans express public outrage and the type of

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Speaker 1: Republicans that did these weren't the liberal Republicans that always

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Speaker 1: criticized Trump, right, like you're Lisa Murkowski's perhaps you're Don

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Speaker 1: Bacons and folks like that. It was no or Tom

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Speaker 1: Tillis who has become more comfortable criticizing Trump of late.

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Speaker 1: It was Tim Scott, right, it was Roger Wicker. It

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Speaker 1: was Pete Ricketts, who, by the way, in an increasingly

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Speaker 1: more competitive US Senate race, Tim Scott, head of the NRSC,

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Speaker 1: who just delivered some dire warnings to his Senate Republican

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Speaker 1: conference that hey, Trump's approval ratings are a huge problem,

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Speaker 1: and the Senate is really in play. And oh, by

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Speaker 1: the way, it may not matter who they nominate in Texas,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a competitive race and a money suck.

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Speaker 1: So look in each individual case. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: Roger Wicker, I think is just speaking out because he's

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Speaker 1: got an extraordinarily large African American constituency in Mississippi. But

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to put it in pure political terms,

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Speaker 1: there's also a potentially competitive US Senate seat there. It's

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Speaker 1: not his seat, it's Sydney hind Smith, the other Senate

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Speaker 1: seat there. So you could say the three of them

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Speaker 1: all have their own political motivations to speak out and

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Speaker 1: not wanting to be seen as silent co conspirators to

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Speaker 1: Trump's racism. But that's just the latest. Right, last week,

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Speaker 1: did I lead my what did I lead the show

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Speaker 1: with the corruption from the corruption story from the Wall

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Speaker 1: Street Journal that had a the UAE essentially as a

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Speaker 1: government invest in the National Security Advisor, the UAE invest

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Speaker 1: in Trump's company for Trump's kids, company's crypto company four

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Speaker 1: days before the inauguration, and of course it leads to

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Speaker 1: a foreign policy change. It is at least half a

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in investment, one hundred and thirty million dollars

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Speaker 1: in direct cash to the Trump's literally just cash. And

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Speaker 1: as Andrew McCarthy, this conservative legal analyst that writes for

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Speaker 1: The National Review, said, you know who was extraordinarily critical

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Speaker 1: of sort of the mixing the bidens did of the professional,

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Speaker 1: the personal, the political, and the family with Hunter Biden

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Speaker 1: and Joe Biden. He said this, this is literally exponentially worse,

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Speaker 1: uh and at a at another level of corrupt. So

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Speaker 1: if you were outraged by the corruption of of of

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden and thought that it may have reached in

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Speaker 1: the level of impeachment, what Andrew McCarthy is arguing, and

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Speaker 1: again conservatively right, This is the conservative National review legal

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Speaker 1: ailis this he said, is literally he said, add a

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Speaker 1: couple of zeros of worse to this. Okay, not one zero,

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Speaker 1: a couple of zeros when it comes to this, because

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Speaker 1: the actual financial corruption is unbelievable, and the direct policy

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Speaker 1: changes that came from you know, following the actual transactions,

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Speaker 1: you know, you didn't quite see it as crystal clear

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Speaker 1: with the purchase of the Hunter Biden paintings and all

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Speaker 1: of that. It was a little less directly related to

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Speaker 1: actual policy changes with Trump. Right, there's no there's no subtlety.

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Speaker 1: H And that was another point that McCarthy made. That's

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Speaker 1: just that was last week, right in the week before

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Speaker 1: we had this second killing of an American citizen by

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Speaker 1: ICE agents in Minneapolis, right two different weekends, essentially due

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Speaker 1: to that, where again Republicans were criticizing the policy and

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Speaker 1: feeling uncomfortable on this Abu Dhabi investment. Many Republicans aren't

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Speaker 1: saying a word, but you now have Republican legal analysts

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Speaker 1: who can't look away and have to realize that, hey, this,

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Speaker 1: if you thought Biden, what the Bidens did between Hunter

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Speaker 1: Biden Joe Biden was corrupt, then what the Trumps are

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Speaker 1: doing is historic in its level of corruption. There's the

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Speaker 1: bizarre raid of Fulton County and the votes. There's the

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Speaker 1: talk about federalizing elections, which the most anti small sea

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Speaker 1: conservative thing you could come up with. The thing is

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Speaker 1: all of this. If I brought up Greenland and the

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Speaker 1: controversy that sort of Royal Davos, and essentially it's arguably

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Speaker 1: it is Greenland that has helped you unite Europe against

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Speaker 1: the United States, which of course triggered Canada to go

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Speaker 1: do a trade deal with China that we had been

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Speaker 1: hoping that they wouldn't do when it came to our

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Speaker 1: concerns about sovereignty and security when it involves China. So again,

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Speaker 1: everything I've just discussed has all taken place since January third.

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Speaker 1: We are at this is February ninth, folks, and I

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Speaker 1: say a week hasn't gone by. It seems like every

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Speaker 1: there's at least two major incidents a week where Trump

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Speaker 1: either says something or does something that's putting Republicans on

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Speaker 1: the defensive, that is urging Republicans to have to speak out.

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Speaker 1: This is a growing electoral disaster, and I don't think

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Speaker 1: folks fully appreciate what's coming. This episode of the Chuck

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Speaker 1: Podcast is being brought to you by Quints. As you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, lighter jackets as things I hope warm up

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458
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: So that brings me to what I think is the

459
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: most underreported story from last week. Obviously the Obama racist beme.

460
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: We have the Abu Dhabi story. You have the fear

461
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: of federalizing elections. Those arguably those three stories all got

462
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: more attention last week than the milestone that was reached

463
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: week when we got our fiftieth and fifty first incumbent

464
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: member of Congress deciding not to run for reelection in

465
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. This marks now we are inching ever

466
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: closer to the highest ever open seat total in a

467
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: midterm year basically since World War Two. Okay, in twenty eighteen,

468
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: there were fifty five members of Congress who chose not

469
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: to return. Either they didn't seek reelection or they decided

470
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: to go seek higher office, but they did not seek reelection.

471
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: We are sitting now at fifty one. There's still most

472
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: of the filing deadlines have not yet passed. We haven't

473
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: had the California filing deadline pass, and we know there's

474
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: going to be a handful of Republicans likely that walk

475
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: away because of the remap. We have the Virginia remap

476
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: that's likely to happen, that's going to lead to some retirements.

477
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: We've got the Florida remap that's likely to lead to

478
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: some retirement. So we are well on our way. The

479
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: all time record, by the way, is sixty five open

480
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: seats going into an election year, and that was back

481
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two. That was a confluence of circumstances.

482
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: It was a reapportionment year, so you had your typical

483
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: you had that, but it was the first time that

484
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: the Justice Department insisted on majority minority districts in certain

485
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: Southern states, which even led to a more upheaval in

486
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: how the maps were drawn all over the country, but

487
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: particularly in the South. And you also that was the

488
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: if you did not if you chose to retire that year.

489
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: There was one other loophole which encouraged a lot of

490
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: incumbents to leave office at nineteen ninety two and not

491
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: seek reelection. If you left in nineteen ninety two, you

492
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: got to keep whatever leftover campaign money you had, and

493
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: you got to keep it and make it your money.

494
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: You could turn it into an ioa or investment fund literally.

495
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: But if you chose to stay, you no longer it

496
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: was no longer legal for you to make campaign money

497
00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: your own money. That's right, folks. It used to be

498
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: members of Congress could take their campaign treasury and when

499
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: they were done running, they could pocket whatever was left.

500
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: That was perfectly legal. Now if you pocket it, at

501
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: least you have to come up with dummy corporations and

502
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: charge your campaign account invented items for reimbursement in order

503
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: to try to get that money, but before you could

504
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: just pocket it. So that's why ninety two is sort

505
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: of an outlier. But the real important story is for

506
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,479
Speaker 1: a mid term cycle. And I've gone back and studied

507
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: this since nineteen fifty four at fifty one open seats.

508
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: Right now, we are only four away from the modern

509
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: record of fifty five, which was twenty eighteen, which led

510
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: to a forty seat pickup for the out party. We're

511
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: going to pass that. The question is how close to

512
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: sixty five will we get? So how did we get there? All? Right?

513
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: The latest two names, right, it didn't make what didn't

514
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: make huge news? You didn't see it on any cable news.

515
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: Chiron was Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, Mark Emmedi of Nevada.

516
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: Both Republicans and Republican solid Republican seats. They're unlikely to

517
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: see de You know, they were going to likely win

518
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: reelection had they chosen to run. But what's interesting about

519
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: both of them, and it's part of a larger trend

520
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: I want to get into. Both were elected before Donald

521
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: Trump took office, and both fit a growing category of

522
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: Republican retirees that I call the exhaustion caucus. These are

523
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: members who are no longer looking for a promotion in politics,

524
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: right running for governor, running for Senate, running for some

525
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: over the office. They're just looking for an exit, right.

526
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: Ludermoak was elected in twenty fourteen and started serving in

527
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: January twenty fifteen. In fact, in his statement announcing his retirement,

528
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: he leaned into the citizen legislator idea. Representing people in Congress,

529
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: he said is a service, not a career, and he

530
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: talked about focusing on family, being a husband and a grandfather.

531
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: He didn't come up and just try to light the

532
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: place on fire. Amedi has represented that second district in Nevada.

533
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: He won a twenty eleven special election. He's the lone

534
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 1: Republican in the Nevada delegation. And he framed his decision

535
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: as passing the torch after roughly fifteen years in Washington,

536
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: and he said it's time he announced early because they

537
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: have a later filing deadline. Want to give others time

538
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: to step up. And again, this is the one congressional

539
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: seat that represents basically everything in Nevada that is in

540
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas media market. Essentially. Now, look, they don't

541
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: seem like guys that are plotting a comeback. They're just done.

542
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: And I think that distinction matters, because the most revealing

543
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: thing to think about in these retirements is that there's

544
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 1: clearly two different forces operating here at once, particularly when

545
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: it comes to motivating what certain Republicans try to degree do.

546
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: Because you have now we're up to I believe, twenty

547
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: nine Republicans who have announced that they're not seeking reelection,

548
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: About half are running for another office, and about half

549
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: are just walking away. Right that group that's walking away,

550
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: they're tired, tired of the grind, tired of the incentives.

551
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: A lot of them don't like the performative, the way

552
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: political theater now is the dominant force of American politics

553
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: that you don't get any credit for doing legislating. Of course,

554
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: the other group is leaving because you know, they just

555
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: always had viewed the House as a stepping stone, and

556
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: this is going to be a bad year to be

557
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: an incumbent Republican, so you might as well go up

558
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 1: and out because maybe you can set yourself up for

559
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: another office two or four years down the road. Now,

560
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: it's going to create a massive experience gap at some point,

561
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: right we are seeing a massive churn, and so there's

562
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of institutional memories that go

563
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: away because the longtime members are the committee chairs that

564
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: are leaving the institutional memory types when they walk out

565
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: the door. You don't just lose votes, you lose people

566
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: who know how to legislate, how to negotiate, frankly, how

567
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: to work across the aisle, even in this dysfunctional atmosphere.

568
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: And what it will mean is we're going to have

569
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: a House it's likely to be more political, more partisan,

570
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: more junior, more ambitious, more online, which means less functional.

571
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: So it's you know, we'll wait to see what this

572
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: Congress looks like in twenty twenty seven, but that's a

573
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: likely problem. So fifty one, Why does fifty one open

574
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: seats matter beyond being just a big number? And why

575
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: am I now essentially saying, hey, you can call it now.

576
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: The Democrats have one, They're gonna win the House. It

577
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: would take an historical set of events that we have

578
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: no idea what they would look like for this not

579
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: to be the case. Because open seats always behave like

580
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: a political accelerant. Right when a seat is open, the

581
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: incumbent advantage disappears. National environment matters, more, money matters more,

582
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 1: Candidate quality matters more. Historically, when open seats pile up early,

583
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: it tends to mean one of two things. Either the

584
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: majority party is bracing for impact or the members closest

585
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: to the ground are seeing something coming that everyone else

586
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:46,360
Speaker 1: is still denying. And the other tell, of course, is

587
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: that it's February. February. Retirements are the early warning system.

588
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: If you're already at fifty one now, it suggests there's

589
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: a lot of quiet quitting still sitting on people's desks.

590
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 1: So let's talk about records, because this is where people

591
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: can get sloppy. As I said, the modern mid mid

592
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: term era benchmark, and then there's the all time benchmark.

593
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 1: The modern benchmarks midterms since nineteen fifty four, the cycles

594
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: with the huge retirement waves in the television era nineteen

595
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: ninety four, twenty ten, twenty eighteen. Those are my modern

596
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: reference points. And when retirement numbers start approaching that neighborhood

597
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: forty plus, history usually points in one direction, trouble for

598
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: the party in power, right, And if you extend the

599
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: lens beyond the midterms, you have to use nineteen ninety two.

600
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:39,840
Speaker 1: Is that modern is that modern high of retirement, sixty

601
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 1: five House members choosing not to run again. And as

602
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: I told you, there was a variety of reasons why

603
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: that created such a massive shake up. It was still

604
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:51,800
Speaker 1: to this day over there, I think, where there was

605
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten new members of Congress, and it

606
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: also led to then seventy three more new members of

607
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: Congress the following cycle in a four year cycle really

608
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: basically cycled out. Anybody that was left from the fifties

609
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: and sixties in Congress was sort of really totally cycled

610
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: out by nineteen ninety four. So now I want to

611
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: be mindful of the fact that nothing is statistically sound

612
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: here that I'm gonna say, right, when you only have

613
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: when you only have like fifteen incidentss to use, right,

614
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: you can't say this is statistically sound. But I do

615
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: think the patterns matter here a lot. So in the

616
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,439
Speaker 1: spirit of that argument, I'm gonna frame it this way.

617
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: Once you see the number of open seats get over twenty,

618
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: just twenty, it becomes extremely difficult for the majority party

619
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: to hold the line because open seats are the proxy

620
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: for vulnerability and opportunity. Well, guess what we're now over

621
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: fifty with essentially too with essentially about sixty percent of

622
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: them being Republican, it's about two one. Here is where

623
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: we're sitting at now. Open seats aren't a cause for

624
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: the wave, but they're the early warning sign that the

625
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:13,320
Speaker 1: ground is shifting and that you have some longtime incumbents

626
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: reading tea leaves deciding they'd rather leave on their own

627
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,479
Speaker 1: terms than get swept out and humiliated. And then there's

628
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: always one other piece to the puzzle. Presidential approval. Open

629
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: seats are the engine. Presidential approval rating is the fuel.

630
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: The president is popular, the party can sometimes blunt losses

631
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 1: the president is unpopular, especially if they're just sitting below

632
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: fifty percent approval, and Donald Trump hasn't seen forty five.

633
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: It seems like in four months, let alone fifty. Midterms

634
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: usually then become nationalized and become a national referendum. So

635
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: you have a president's approval ratings sitting in the low forties,

636
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: which look a lot like Bush going into six, Obama

637
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: going into fourteen and ten, frankly, and Bill Clinton going

638
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:58,800
Speaker 1: in to nineteen ninety four. So, putting all this together,

639
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 1: here's why this story is in face. It's accelerating we've

640
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: entered the most volatile period for retirements, late winter to

641
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 1: spring wind decision window. Members are looking at fundraising, the map,

642
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 1: the mood, their own lives, and of course all these

643
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: redistricting threats as well, and they're all deciding whether it's

644
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: worth it. Do they want to get to know a

645
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: new constituency for a cycle that may not go very well.

646
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: I think we know the answer to that. And if

647
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: you want to know where the next tranch of names

648
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: is likely to come from on the retirement watch list,

649
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: there's a couple of states where maps are in motion,

650
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: Florida and Virginia. Right DeSantis has a special session in

651
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: April where he wants to focus on redrawing the map,

652
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: try to pick up four or five seats of more

653
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: seats that are more Republican, seeing if he can somehow

654
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: squeeze more Republican districts out of that map. I'm skeptical,

655
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: but they think they can get a couple, especially if

656
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act essentially gets swept away by the

657
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: Supreme Courts. But when you're shaking up that map, it's

658
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: likely to lead to retirements. We hadn't thought about even

659
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: some incumbents. If it creates an incumbent incumbent fight stuff

660
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: like that. Then, of course Virginia where Democrats are pushing

661
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: for a mechanism to enable new maps, right, there's going

662
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: to be a special constitutional amendment election in order to

663
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 1: get permission. And if they do that, they may eliminate

664
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: four Republican incumbents and most of them likely won't try

665
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: to seek re elections. So we're sitting at fifty one

666
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: right now. The likelihood that this grows to over fifty five,

667
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: which was the number that was hit in eighteen when

668
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: Democrats then the out party, won over forty seats, then

669
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,919
Speaker 1: you see where this is going, right, We already see

670
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: the Houses already showing signs of high volatility. Majority party

671
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:42,439
Speaker 1: is bleeding its incumbency advantage. And oh, by the way,

672
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: what happened over the weekend? Two more special elections we're

673
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: in very red And yes they're state legislative elections. Yes

674
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: they're special elections happening on a weekend, And yes, the

675
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: Democrats have more voters who pay more attention to these

676
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 1: special elections and Republicans do. Okay, Well, that means Democrats

677
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: are pay attention. It means Democrats are more fired up

678
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 1: and you know, we're seeing another weekend of over performance

679
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:10,720
Speaker 1: by Democrats in legislative districts that Trump carried by double digits.

680
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: And it seems like another you know, this is like

681
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,439
Speaker 1: you know, another plane land safely at national right. It's

682
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 1: happening with such frequency it's hard to call it news.

683
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: It's almost like that continuation. So you all, this is happening.

684
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: You've got open seats hitting critical territory. And like I said,

685
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: we've got I looked it up. There's another and this

686
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: is this is intriguing here, there's another one, two, three, four, five, six,

687
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: seventy eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,

688
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: seventy eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one to two, twenty three,

689
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: twenty four to twenty five, twenty six, twight seven. Okay,

690
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 1: there's another twenty seven Republican incumbents sitting in districts where

691
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: Donald Trump received fifty nine percent or less into twenty

692
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: twenty four presidential vote. And I've put the market fifty

693
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: nine percent I think now given the over performance, given

694
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: Trump's approval ratings, and frankly is just terrible leadership right

695
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: now of the party on messaging anybody sitting in a

696
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: fifty nine percent Trump district or less should be scared nestless. Okay,

697
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: they should be feeling it a lot. Well, there's these

698
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: Republicans I was just telling you about. There's a big

699
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: chunk of California Republicans. That filing deadline is March six.

700
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,280
Speaker 1: Some Georgia Republicans sit in there. Do any more throat

701
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: decide to do that. Wisconsin's filing deadline, Michigan's filing deadline,

702
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: there's a New York filing deadline in May, which you

703
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: could see it change a little bit. So this is

704
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 1: a list that's likely to grow. And again I go

705
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: back every single here. You could just look at this.

706
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: I put together these different midterm charts. So twenty eighteen

707
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: fifty five open seats the out party, the Democrats, gained

708
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: forty seats, flip control. Right. In twenty twenty two, there

709
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: were forty nine open seats, Republicans nine seats, and they

710
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: flipped control. Nineteen ninety four, there were forty eight open seats,

711
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: Republicans netted fifty two overall and flipped control. Twenty ten,

712
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: thirty eight open seats, Republicans gained sixty three flipped control.

713
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: Two thousand and six, thirty one open seats, Democrats gained

714
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: thirty one seats and flipped control. Nineteen fifty eight, there

715
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: were twenty eight open seats, Democrats gained forty eight. They

716
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: already held control, they were already in charge, but they

717
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: netted another forty eight. Nineteen eighty two, a similar situation.

718
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: There were twenty four open seats, So I just gave

719
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: you in the midterms in order there right, every single one,

720
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: twenty four and above, going back to nineteen fifty four

721
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:50,720
Speaker 1: to midterms, and the out party always gained seats, and

722
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: many times it flipped. Most of the time it flipped

723
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: control of the House. So the point is, at this

724
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: point in time, it is hard to come up with

725
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 1: a scenario where Republicans are going to hold the House.

726
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: Every historical marker says otherwise. The only two times where

727
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: the party in power was able to do well is

728
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: when the two when presidential approval was over sixty percent

729
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,280
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton in nineteen ninety eight and George W. Bush

730
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two. That was post nine to eleven.

731
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety eight was the Monica backlash, where Clinton's personal

732
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: rating was in the toilet, but his professional rating was

733
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: sky high. It was this weird. The voter was almost

734
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 1: like stubborn about it. No, we don't like Clinton, and

735
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 1: yes we love the job he's doing. It was like

736
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: we were It was this fascinating split in the way

737
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: polling was registering. No, people were looking for a way

738
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: to express personal disgust at what Trump, at what Clinton did,

739
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: but they didn't. But they wanted to make it clear

740
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: they didn't want him thrown out of office over it. Right,

741
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: And so you would see this dichotomy in the where

742
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: his favorable rating, his personal favorable rating was upside down,

743
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: but his professional rating was through the roof. The point

744
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: is those are the two exceptions. Now ask yourself, what's

745
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: Donald Trump going to do between now and November to

746
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: somehow get a sixty percent joberating? Is it improbable? Yes,

747
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna say anything's impossible in the Trump earrow,

748
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: that's for sure. But the point is massive unexpected outside

749
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: events like you know, aliens landing, you know in the Arctic,

750
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, whatever it is, like, it is

751
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: stuff you cannot you cannot say is a feasible likely

752
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: event to happen? Right? So, and of course what's really

753
00:44:55,600 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: happening right now with Donald Trump, is he is epitomizing

754
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: the saying that I love to quote from Haley Barber,

755
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: the long time Republican operative and governor of Mississippi, who'd

756
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: love to and I think it's somebody else's expression first.

757
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: But good gets better and bad gets worse. And as

758
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: we're seeing with Donald Trump, that is getting worse every week. Right.

759
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: It feels like every week he throws another log on

760
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: the let me piss off more than half the country bonfire.

761
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: And that's why you're seeing more and more Republicans figure

762
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: out a way to push back. Some say it publicly,

763
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: some choose not to file for reelection, and others may

764
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 1: be contemplating doing either of those things. Because if they

765
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: want to speak out but they think it'll backfire, then

766
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: my guess is they walk away if they assess their

767
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: political situation and decide maybe they can survive by going

768
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: after Trump. Maybe he's becoming more unpopular. Maybe the Epstein

769
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: files have left to Mark by the way, I didn't

770
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: even get to the Epstein files. Right, That's like the

771
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 1: other none of that has gotten any better for him either.

772
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: It may be sullying the Clintons Bill Clinton a little bit.

773
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: By the way, I still don't I don't under you know,

774
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 1: other than Republicans wanting to attach Hillary Clinton to anything

775
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: that they can attach her to. I do not understand

776
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: why she's being asked to testify on anything Epstein. Right.

777
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: There's nothing in the files in any case she was

778
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 1: ever on the planes, ever did anything, et cetera. I

779
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: guess they'll say, well, she must have had some played

780
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: some part in the Clinton Foundation and the relationship with

781
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 1: Gallaine Maxwell, even that seems beyond tenuous at best. She

782
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: was a sitting senator at the time, So I don't

783
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: get that one. I don't see Melinda Gates being called

784
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,959
Speaker 1: up to find out what she knew about about Bill

785
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: Gates's relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, Right, We don't see any

786
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 1: of that. So that seems to be a head scratcher

787
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: on that one. And we'll see if that that's one

788
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: of those that I would say to mister comer, be

789
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: careful what you ask for, Be careful of what you're

790
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: doing there. You want to talk about something that's more

791
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: likely to blow up in your face than somehow create

792
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: political deflection for Trump. It's playing games like this with

793
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: trying to We're trying to target Hillary Clinton in particular.

794
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: Just you know, I know you think she's so unpopular,

795
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you do. I'd watch it. I

796
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: think there's that's something I would be extraordinarily careful with.

797
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you

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852
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: is something you should really think about it, especially if

853
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. By the way, one of

854
00:50:59,920 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: the things that I wouldn't mind hearing from you the viewers.

855
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: We love suggest booking suggestions. We get plenty of booking

856
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: people throwing stuff our way. But if there are specific

857
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: candidates or individuals or historians you'd like to hear on

858
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: the podcast, don't be shy. Let us know. Ask Chuck

859
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: at thechucktodcast dot com. Yes, the same place that you

860
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: send all your brilliant pieces of email and analysis and

861
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: questions to me that I'd love to read and absorb.

862
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: But please use that address if you've got any other

863
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: folks you'd like to see as My goal is to

864
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: try to between now and the filing deadline for the

865
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: Iowa Caucuses if they are indeed first in the nation

866
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: come January of twenty twenty seven, I hope everybody of

867
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 1: consequence that's running for president that I get to spend

868
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: thirty to forty five minutes here with us. So with that,

869
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 1: one quick addendum before I get to the Toddcast time

870
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: Machine event for this week, and that is it's like

871
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: a little we had a little coda to the Washington

872
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: post event. Will Lewis the publisher in name only, I

873
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: guess because he was nowhere to be found at the

874
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: announcement of the layoffs. He was nowhere to be found

875
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: in frankly the last nine months of the newsroom itself.

876
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: A photo showed up of him at the Super Bowl

877
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: at one of the pre parties on the red carpet

878
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: for NFL honors. And let's say that suddenly an email

879
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: resignation statement showed up and a lot of inboxes come Saturday.

880
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,800
Speaker 1: I believe it was Saturday morning that a very abrupt

881
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: he thanked Jeff Bezos and walked away, had nothing to

882
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: say about the journalists that he oversaw for a couple

883
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: of years. So will lewis cementing his place as the

884
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,240
Speaker 1: single worst publisher in the history of the Washington Post.

885
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: So congratulations mister Lewis on that. And probably you know,

886
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: unhire should be seen in journalism circles. It's completely unhirable,

887
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: just completely unhirable to run. To run an enterprise. He might,

888
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: he might have some smart things to say about trend

889
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: lines and what's happening, but a manager of people and

890
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: a leader of people, he is not. Uh, And I

891
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: think that that is obvious. Look, it's it's it is.

892
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: It's really weird to be sort of, you know, our

893
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 1: fourth day five without essentially without the Washington Post, because

894
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: I know, yes, there's national reporter still doing good work,

895
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: there's a congressional team that's still doing good work, and

896
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to shit on them, Okay,

897
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,240
Speaker 1: but you know, the Washington Post is going to slowly,

898
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: essentially fade into more is relevant in Washington as Politico,

899
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:54,879
Speaker 1: which is there's nothing wrong professional professionally, political punch bowl

900
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 1: relevant professionally, the Washington Post will be relatant as a

901
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: member and a leader of the of the DMV in

902
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: this community, it's over. That's what's dead, and the idea

903
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: that they don't care about local sports, which is just

904
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: such an important part of the community. So it's in

905
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:17,240
Speaker 1: that vein that I have a you know, sometimes sometimes

906
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: I have interesting business ideas that I don't share with

907
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,799
Speaker 1: you because I'm working on them myself. And then sometimes

908
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: there are things that are above my pay grade, you know,

909
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 1: and instead feel like something a challenge that should be

910
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: issued publicly. So here's my public challenge to the three

911
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,320
Speaker 1: major sports owners of the Washington, DC market, Mark Lerner,

912
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: who runs the Nationals, Ted Leons's owner of both the

913
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: Caps and the Wizards, and Josh Harris, owner of the

914
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:51,240
Speaker 1: Washington Commanders. You three have an enormous interest in having

915
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:56,480
Speaker 1: a local and regional news organization that is trusted, that

916
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: is frankly a bit of a cheerleader to the local

917
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: sports teams, even if they are will every once in

918
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: a while attack all of you for doing crappy things

919
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: as owners every once in a while because we fans

920
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: might get upset at you because we want to spend

921
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 1: your money in ways that you don't want to spend

922
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: your money. My tongue is I'm going hard in cheek

923
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: here a little bit, but you get my point. But

924
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: you you know, if your teams don't get attention and

925
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: people don't know what you're up to, then maybe you

926
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: have a harder time selling season tickets and maybe have

927
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: a harder time selling single game tickets, maybe have a

928
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: harder time letting people know that Taylor Swift's coming to

929
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 1: the new RFK or Bad Bunny's coming to the Capitol

930
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: One Arena. And I say this because both Josh Harris

931
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: and Ted Leones is in particular. I don't know the

932
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: history of Mark Learner's investments, but both have invested in

933
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 1: media organizations in the past. Josh Harris has been a

934
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: funder and has made money off of investments on new

935
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 1: startups and the By the way, I want to throw

936
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 1: my uh Mark iin into this conversation. He's another sort

937
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: of major player in the Washington sports market. He's one

938
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: of the I think minority owners and investors and the

939
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 1: commanders owns. I think he's very involved in the in

940
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: the professional tennis league that's here, and I believe in

941
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: some of the soccer franchise as well. So and he's

942
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: also very much a what I'd say is a member

943
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: of the Washington community and in some ways of more

944
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: vocal than some of his other fellow sports investors there.

945
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: So I should have included Mark iin into this, but

946
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:36,879
Speaker 1: I'm saying it publicly. You guys know how to get

947
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 1: a hold of me, So I'm happy to help out

948
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: in any way possible. But I think it's your your

949
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: best interests to come help fund. Whether it's d MV today,

950
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: maybe it's a sports vertical at first, sports local culture.

951
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: The point is, you guys have the resources to do this.

952
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,560
Speaker 1: Don't hire Will Lewis to do it. That would be

953
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: my number one piece of advice. But beyond that, I

954
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,920
Speaker 1: hope you have an open door for whether it's myself,

955
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 1: whether it's my friend Kara Swisher. And speaking of Kara Swisher,

956
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: she's my guest this week on my Newsphere program Sunday

957
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,360
Speaker 1: Night with Chuck Todd. And I'll just put it this way.

958
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 1: If you enjoy hearing sentences that include Jeff Bezos in

959
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 1: the F word, you're gonna love this Kara Swisher interview.

960
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: She doesn't hold anything back. She's got a lot of

961
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: strong opinions, and she knows these people better than any

962
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: other person. And by the way, if you want to

963
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: know for care, if it's personal, Yes, it is her

964
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: first job, mailroom inside the Washington Post, so it's personal

965
00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:45,919
Speaker 1: for her. But she has a lot of smart ideas here.

966
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 1: And I think we and it's not just about the

967
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: Washington Post that we spent We talk about the tech

968
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: titans in general and whether there are any good guys

969
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. Here's the good news. She thinks there's

970
00:57:57,200 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: at least one good guy there. I'm not going to

971
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: tell you is here. Go check it out on newsphere.

972
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 1: So just wanted to do that little coda on the

973
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,000
Speaker 1: Washington Post. Given how much time I spent on it

974
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: last week, it's still pretty painful to realize that what

975
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: just happened to the Washington Post, and then to see

976
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: the will Lewis thing. I mean, it was deserved, right.

977
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: Whether Bezos fired him out of just a pr pr necessity,

978
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 1: it was necessary. It gives Matt Murray a chance at

979
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 1: maybe rallying the remaining troops there. And look, I'll say

980
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: what I said last week, I feel for him on this,

981
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: and you know, some of you look, he made his

982
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 1: own bed, so you know, yes, but he's there to

983
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: execute strategy. And the fact that the owner and the

984
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 1: publisher didn't have the guts to be the face of

985
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 1: this tells you who they are, tells you a lot

986
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 1: about their character. And that's what I think has been

987
00:58:57,600 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: the most damning thing about all of this. All Right,

988
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: let's go back into time. It's time machine time. So

989
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: where are we going in history? I kind of want

990
00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:17,480
Speaker 1: sound effects, right, we'll get there. So where are we going?

991
00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:20,959
Speaker 1: We're going to go to February eleventh, nineteen seventy nine,

992
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: It's the day the Iranian monarchy collapsed. The Shaw's government fell,

993
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 1: military declared neutrality in Iran, and a revolution that had

994
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:32,919
Speaker 1: been building for more than a century finally broke through.

995
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: What followed was the creation of the Islamic Republic and

996
00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:41,040
Speaker 1: authoritarian theocracy, one of the most consequential ruptures in US

997
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: foreign policy, still shaping the Middle East today, global energy markets,

998
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: and American politics. And as questions once again swirl about

999
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 1: the future of Iran's regime, it's worth remembering something clearly

1000
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,080
Speaker 1: at the outset as we go into this time machine.

1001
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:00,840
Speaker 1: The Iranian Revolution did not come out of nowhere, and

1002
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 1: America was not a bystander in it all right. So

1003
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: to understand how we got to February nineteen seventy nine

1004
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:12,640
Speaker 1: and the Ayatola Khamane becoming essentially a dictator of Iran,

1005
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 1: we have to go back a lot further. Iran didn't

1006
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 1: suddenly appear in the twentieth century. For thousands of years,

1007
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:21,320
Speaker 1: of course, it was known to the outside world as Persian,

1008
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: one of the oldest continuous state traditions on Earth, and

1009
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 1: the monarchy in Persia was not some modern invention either.

1010
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 1: By the time of World War one. Iran had been

1011
01:00:32,600 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: ruled by kings for centuries, most recently under the Kajar dynasty,

1012
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: which took power in seventeen ninety four. In fact, even

1013
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,480
Speaker 1: the title Sha itself matters here. It's not Islamic. It's

1014
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 1: a Persian word, ancient Persian, and it dates back more

1015
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: than twenty five hundred years. The fuller imperior title is Shahanshah,

1016
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: which literally means king of kings. So when Iranians overthrew

1017
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 1: the Shaw eighteen seventy nine, they weren't just rejecting a

1018
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:05,760
Speaker 1: modern autocrat, and by the way, that last Shaw was

1019
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: an autocrat, I'll get to that. They were rejecting a

1020
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 1: pre Islamic royal tradition that stretched back to the antiquity era.

1021
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:17,040
Speaker 1: This wasn't just political upheaval. It was a civilization break.

1022
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:21,320
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty five, Iran's ruler asked foreign governments to

1023
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 1: stop using Persia and adopt the name Iran instead. It

1024
01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: was a nationalist gesture meant to assert sovereignty and create

1025
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 1: a modern identity. It wasn't the creation of a new country,

1026
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 1: but it was a demand to be seen on its

1027
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:39,479
Speaker 1: own terms. So we all need that little history lesson

1028
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 1: every now and then, So now we place a rain

1029
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 1: into its regional context and just sort of a little

1030
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,160
Speaker 1: bit of the backstory here on Iran. In the early

1031
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: twentieth century, during World War One, Persia was officially neutral,

1032
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: but neutrality never did protect it as a country. Its

1033
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: territory was repeatedly violated by the Russians, the British, and

1034
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:01,640
Speaker 1: at times even the Ottoman forces. Persia was never part

1035
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: of the Ottoman Empire. That's an important note. Historically it

1036
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 1: was often the chief rival to the Ottomans, particularly along

1037
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,920
Speaker 1: sectarian lines. We had the Sunni Ottoman rule versus the

1038
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:16,760
Speaker 1: Shia Persian identity right Sunni Shia, something that's been there

1039
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: from nearly the beginning of Islam. The lesson Iranians absorbed

1040
01:02:20,560 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: from World War One, though, was a harsh one. Neutrality

1041
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 1: does not stop great powers from using your country as

1042
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:31,760
Speaker 1: a chessboard. So at the same time, the Ottoman Empire

1043
01:02:31,800 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 1: collapsed at the end of the war, and it gave

1044
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:39,480
Speaker 1: birth largely through a European mandate system new states like Iraq, Syria,

1045
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 1: and Lebanon. Right. Iraq, for example, emerged as a British

1046
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 1: backed monarchy in the early nineteen twenties, and it gained

1047
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: full independence in nineteen thirty two. So Iran is sitting

1048
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:56,439
Speaker 1: there watching its neighbors be invented by outside powers while

1049
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 1: struggling to preserve its own independence in a world dominated

1050
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: by empires. What's interesting is this Iran did not passively

1051
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 1: accept monarchy as destiny. In fact, just the opposite. In

1052
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:17,240
Speaker 1: nineteen oh six, Persia experienced a constitutional revolution. It produced

1053
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: a written constitution, a parliament. The majills, I hope I

1054
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: get that jealous and I have no doubt, and I

1055
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:30,400
Speaker 1: will mess up some of these pronunciations of some of

1056
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:33,400
Speaker 1: these Persian words. My apologies, but essentially it was a

1057
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:36,960
Speaker 1: parliament and limits on royal authority. This was one of

1058
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: the earliest constitutional movements in the Middle East. There's a

1059
01:03:39,800 --> 01:03:44,800
Speaker 1: real small d democratic tradition inside of Iran. Iran had

1060
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: a They did this decades before many of its neighbors,

1061
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:53,480
Speaker 1: but it was fragile. Iranian politics became defined by a

1062
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 1: persistent tension monarchy, secular reformers, religious authorities, and foreign powers,

1063
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,400
Speaker 1: and they were all always pulling around in different direction.

1064
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 1: Tension has never disappeared. It simply evolves in different ways

1065
01:04:08,400 --> 01:04:10,840
Speaker 1: over times. And we're seeing it play out at the moment.

1066
01:04:11,600 --> 01:04:14,800
Speaker 1: So in the nineteen twenties you had Resa Shah pa Lavi.

1067
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: He sees power and eventually crowned himself. Shaw His project

1068
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 1: was modernization, centralizing the state, building infrastructure, weakening the religious authority,

1069
01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: clerical authority, and enforcing secularism. But it was modernization from above,

1070
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: enforced by coercion. Parliamentary democracy was weakened, political pluralism shrank,

1071
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:45,440
Speaker 1: the monarchy reasserted itself as the center of gravity. So

1072
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:47,840
Speaker 1: we can look at it and say, well, great, they

1073
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 1: were modernized, they were westernizing, but they were essentially beating

1074
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: people into modernizing. Right. It was not a democratic move

1075
01:04:56,240 --> 01:05:00,760
Speaker 1: to modernization, and it meant that Resia sh Shaw's project

1076
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: also came across as nationalists. He was attempting to reduce

1077
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:08,560
Speaker 1: British and Russian influence. Of course, that independence would not last.

1078
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 1: The most important Hinge point before in nineteen seventy nine

1079
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:17,360
Speaker 1: comes in the early fifties. By then Iran had another Shaw,

1080
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: Riza Shaw's son, Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, and a democratic chosen

1081
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:27,320
Speaker 1: prime minister by the name of Mohammed Mozadek. Well, Mozadek

1082
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:31,440
Speaker 1: the prime minister moved to nationalize Iran's oil industry. At

1083
01:05:31,480 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: the time, it was an attempt to challenge the British

1084
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: dominance and over their oil economy and asserting their own sovereignty. Well,

1085
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:44,400
Speaker 1: guess what the Brits panicked called Warfares intensified and in

1086
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:48,439
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, the United States and the UK back

1087
01:05:48,520 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: the coup that removed the prime minister. So here's what

1088
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 1: happened next. The coup didn't just restore the Shaw, it

1089
01:05:56,880 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 1: also transformed him from a constitutional monarch into the central

1090
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 1: pillar of the state. And so yes, the United States

1091
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:09,840
Speaker 1: effectively helped rip up a fragile parliamentary democracy in favor

1092
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:13,880
Speaker 1: of a more centralized, more authoritarian and at the time,

1093
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: because this was the Cold War, a more pro Western monarchy.

1094
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: It was what was in America's national interests that mattered

1095
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:25,640
Speaker 1: more than what was in the small d democracy interests.

1096
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,400
Speaker 1: This is an important point to understand. This is why

1097
01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 1: a lot of things we did in the fifties and

1098
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: sixties in the name of the Cold War and dealing

1099
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: with the Soviets created a lot of anti americanism around

1100
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: the world. This is one of them. So from Washington's

1101
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: perspective at the time, right, Hey, this was all about

1102
01:06:43,840 --> 01:06:49,320
Speaker 1: stability and anti communism, pure and symbol From Tehran's perspective

1103
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:52,960
Speaker 1: and the perspective of quite a few individuals, it was

1104
01:06:52,960 --> 01:06:55,760
Speaker 1: about lost sovereignty. So from that moment on, the Shah

1105
01:06:55,760 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 1: in the United States became politically intertwined in the Iranian imagination.

1106
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:05,400
Speaker 1: Opposition to the Shah increasingly meant opposition to America. And

1107
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:08,400
Speaker 1: this is where the long fuze toward nineteen seventy nine

1108
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: is let the Shaw modernized rapidly, expanding education, advancing women's rights,

1109
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:17,440
Speaker 1: pouring oil wealth into development. All that's good stuff. But

1110
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 1: the modernization was paired with repression. There was censorship, a

1111
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 1: powerful secret police. They crushed descent, and they were really

1112
01:07:25,960 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 1: tough on those that were overly religious. And it all

1113
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: came with visible American back in Regionally, Orion stood apart

1114
01:07:33,920 --> 01:07:37,160
Speaker 1: because while you had Arab states experiencing cups and military

1115
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: rule and pan Arab nationalism all over the place, Egypt

1116
01:07:40,120 --> 01:07:44,320
Speaker 1: under Nassar Syrian, Iraq under the Baptist regimes, Iran was

1117
01:07:44,400 --> 01:07:48,280
Speaker 1: actually the pillar of America's Middle East strategy in the

1118
01:07:48,320 --> 01:07:54,120
Speaker 1: Gulf region. That alignment bought power, and it also planted

1119
01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 1: some rage. And this is the environment in which a

1120
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:03,720
Speaker 1: man named Ayatola rulej Hala Komene. Yes that Komenee emerges

1121
01:08:03,760 --> 01:08:09,480
Speaker 1: as a symbol of the resistance. Here's an important clarification

1122
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:15,160
Speaker 1: in history. Komene did not flee Iran. Comeni was arrested, released,

1123
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:18,400
Speaker 1: and then banished from the country. In the early sixties,

1124
01:08:18,479 --> 01:08:22,639
Speaker 1: Comene openly denounced the Shaw's reforms and crucially attacked Iran's

1125
01:08:22,680 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: relationship with the United States, particularly laws that granted US

1126
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 1: personnel legal immunity inside of Iran. Remember this came up

1127
01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:35,640
Speaker 1: again during our in the attempt to build a democracy

1128
01:08:35,640 --> 01:08:40,960
Speaker 1: in Iraq that giving immunity to outside forces is never

1129
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:44,679
Speaker 1: popular domestically wherever you are. Well. The Shaw had options

1130
01:08:44,680 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 1: and what to do with Komene. He could imprison him.

1131
01:08:47,000 --> 01:08:49,400
Speaker 1: He could have executed him, or he could have silenced

1132
01:08:49,439 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 1: him another way. Executing him risk turning him into a martyr.

1133
01:08:53,840 --> 01:08:56,479
Speaker 1: So the Shaw decided to expel. First it was to Turkey,

1134
01:08:57,439 --> 01:08:59,640
Speaker 1: then it was to Iraq, and eventually he'd end up

1135
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:04,040
Speaker 1: in France. Well, exile was a mistake because while exile

1136
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 1: was meant as an attempt to neutralize komene Instead, he

1137
01:09:07,600 --> 01:09:12,599
Speaker 1: kind of professionalized his movement and gave him gave him

1138
01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:17,400
Speaker 1: more rhetorical power from Paris. In exile, Komeney gained something

1139
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: no opposition figure inside Iran could safely have had at

1140
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:25,360
Speaker 1: the time, global media access without fear of arrest. So

1141
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 1: he unifies the opposition, and there was a by the

1142
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:30,960
Speaker 1: way the opposition in Iran was dispersed. Here wasn't just

1143
01:09:31,640 --> 01:09:36,920
Speaker 1: the theocrats that were against him, right, So Coomane unifies

1144
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 1: the opposition and he frames it as a resistance not

1145
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 1: just on religious terms, but also moral terms, and he

1146
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:48,439
Speaker 1: positioned clerical rule as authentic national liberation. So on February first,

1147
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:53,240
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, Comeni returns to Tehran to thousands of

1148
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 1: cheering crowds. Ten days later his February eleventh, and the

1149
01:09:57,080 --> 01:10:00,360
Speaker 1: monarchy officially collapses. The revolution that toppled the SHAW at

1150
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:03,920
Speaker 1: the moment was broad based. There were secular liberals, there

1151
01:10:03,960 --> 01:10:10,320
Speaker 1: were leftists, students, merchants, clerics. But the revolution didn't end

1152
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:14,479
Speaker 1: when the regimes fall. They end when power consolidates, and

1153
01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:19,040
Speaker 1: the most organized faction was the clerical one, and they won.

1154
01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:22,040
Speaker 1: So what followed was not just a change of rulers,

1155
01:10:22,240 --> 01:10:25,839
Speaker 1: but a new governing model. They called it an Islamic republic,

1156
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 1: a theocracy fused with state power, something the region and

1157
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:36,040
Speaker 1: the world actually had never seen before. Now you may

1158
01:10:36,080 --> 01:10:38,800
Speaker 1: be wondering when did the hostage crisis begin. So, the

1159
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 1: US embassy hostage crisis actually didn't happen immediately with the

1160
01:10:42,800 --> 01:10:45,200
Speaker 1: start of the revolution in February of seventy nine. It

1161
01:10:45,240 --> 01:10:48,080
Speaker 1: came nine months later, in November of seventy nine. But

1162
01:10:48,160 --> 01:10:51,120
Speaker 1: it flowed directly from everything that came before, memories of

1163
01:10:51,160 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: fifty three, fear of American interference and the revolutionary need

1164
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,639
Speaker 1: to define itself against an external enemy, and the United

1165
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:01,680
Speaker 1: States was an easy target because of our history with

1166
01:11:01,800 --> 01:11:05,000
Speaker 1: the country, and from that moment on US Iran relations

1167
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:09,559
Speaker 1: froze into hostility. So what lessons should we take away

1168
01:11:09,560 --> 01:11:11,400
Speaker 1: from this, Well, we're in the middle of something here

1169
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: that we may help foment another revolution in Iran. We

1170
01:11:14,960 --> 01:11:17,200
Speaker 1: may be more active on this one, as active as

1171
01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:18,960
Speaker 1: we were in nineteen fifty three. Now this time we

1172
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 1: may be on the side of the people. We were

1173
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:22,559
Speaker 1: not on the side of the people in fifty three.

1174
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:24,400
Speaker 1: We were not on the side of the people in

1175
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:26,439
Speaker 1: seventy nine. This time we might be on the side

1176
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:28,599
Speaker 1: of the people. That's the one thing that's different here,

1177
01:11:28,880 --> 01:11:31,760
Speaker 1: and maybe that means a different outcome, But it is

1178
01:11:31,800 --> 01:11:36,640
Speaker 1: a warning about foreign intervention, right, and modernization without legitimacy,

1179
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:40,280
Speaker 1: and what happens when democracy is sacrificed for stability. And

1180
01:11:40,320 --> 01:11:42,360
Speaker 1: in fact, when you hear the story of the Shah

1181
01:11:42,360 --> 01:11:44,680
Speaker 1: and the fifties and sixties, I can't help but think

1182
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:48,479
Speaker 1: of NBS in Saudi Arabia. Right, Oh, hey, there's good news,

1183
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: he's modernizing, he's given women rights. But at the same time,

1184
01:11:51,800 --> 01:11:56,360
Speaker 1: there's still censorship. Right, there's still very little, you know,

1185
01:11:56,400 --> 01:12:01,160
Speaker 1: there's still terrible human rights violations, particularly when anybody violates

1186
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:04,880
Speaker 1: the law. So it is there's a lot of lessons

1187
01:12:04,920 --> 01:12:07,880
Speaker 1: to take away from this So America. We can't say

1188
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:10,880
Speaker 1: it created the Iranian revolution alone, but it did help

1189
01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:14,479
Speaker 1: destroy the alternative that might have prevented it. And that's

1190
01:12:14,479 --> 01:12:16,080
Speaker 1: the hardest left in them all. When you weaken a

1191
01:12:16,120 --> 01:12:20,439
Speaker 1: democracy to protect your own interests. We actively weakened a

1192
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:26,720
Speaker 1: democracy in nineteen fifty three. You don't eliminate the instability,

1193
01:12:26,840 --> 01:12:32,160
Speaker 1: you simply delay it. So as we decide how involved,

1194
01:12:32,160 --> 01:12:35,679
Speaker 1: we're going to get and what's happening in Iran. And

1195
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:38,600
Speaker 1: you know, look, I look at you. I think that

1196
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:44,000
Speaker 1: whenever we're on the side a small d democracy, that

1197
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:46,599
Speaker 1: usually ends up at a better place than when we're

1198
01:12:46,640 --> 01:12:49,160
Speaker 1: just on the side of helping somebody who's just simply

1199
01:12:49,760 --> 01:12:52,880
Speaker 1: on our side in a larger fight against some other

1200
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:57,680
Speaker 1: foreign power. And the Cold War created those types of relationships.

1201
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:01,480
Speaker 1: The fear of China is creating those type transactional relationships.

1202
01:13:01,840 --> 01:13:05,120
Speaker 1: But these transactional relationships, and this is right. Donald Trump

1203
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:07,360
Speaker 1: wants to make America. You know, when he talks about

1204
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:09,519
Speaker 1: making America great again, he wants to go back to

1205
01:13:09,720 --> 01:13:18,720
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty style kind of imperialistic like foreign policy approach, right,

1206
01:13:19,439 --> 01:13:22,000
Speaker 1: and all of that bitness in the ass in Latin America,

1207
01:13:22,400 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 1: all of this is bitness in the ass in the

1208
01:13:25,080 --> 01:13:29,960
Speaker 1: Middle East. Transactional politics without some sort of small the

1209
01:13:30,200 --> 01:13:35,680
Speaker 1: democratic moral code is never going to create long term

1210
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:40,080
Speaker 1: stability or security for us here in the United States.

1211
01:13:40,520 --> 01:13:53,240
Speaker 1: So with that, there's your time machine. All right, let's

1212
01:13:53,240 --> 01:13:59,240
Speaker 1: get to some questions. Ask Chuck, if Trump continues to

1213
01:13:59,280 --> 01:14:01,080
Speaker 1: claim you when the twenty twenty election, wouldn't that make

1214
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 1: the potential twenty twenty four run unconstitutional two determinants. I

1215
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:07,320
Speaker 1: love how you're thinking. If you somehow approved he was

1216
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:09,760
Speaker 1: the rightful winner in twenty twenty, wouldn't that undermine the

1217
01:14:09,800 --> 01:14:12,000
Speaker 1: legality of a future term and even weaken his legal

1218
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:14,439
Speaker 1: protections side to the presidency just seems like a self

1219
01:14:14,479 --> 01:14:19,640
Speaker 1: defeating argument. You know, this reminds me of a of

1220
01:14:19,680 --> 01:14:22,800
Speaker 1: a of a rule I used to have I meet

1221
01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:25,000
Speaker 1: the press meetings with my staff, when we have these

1222
01:14:25,080 --> 01:14:28,920
Speaker 1: daily meetings about the editorial day, I'd say we've banned

1223
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:36,320
Speaker 1: logic in the Trump era. And because what you're making,

1224
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:40,640
Speaker 1: you're taking a news story and applying logic to it,

1225
01:14:40,680 --> 01:14:44,000
Speaker 1: and say, well, doesn't this mean this Donald Trump has

1226
01:14:44,080 --> 01:14:48,000
Speaker 1: never allowed logic to get in the way of a

1227
01:14:48,040 --> 01:14:51,320
Speaker 1: good narrative, right of a good owned the libs mean

1228
01:14:51,560 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 1: of a good attempt at not having to admit defeat right.

1229
01:14:56,920 --> 01:15:03,639
Speaker 1: And so everything you're saying is correct. But that isn't

1230
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:06,000
Speaker 1: what he's up to here, right, We know what he's

1231
01:15:06,160 --> 01:15:09,880
Speaker 1: really up to here. This is just continuing to try

1232
01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:17,480
Speaker 1: to continuing to try to sort of undermine more legitimacy

1233
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:20,439
Speaker 1: of more institutions, and the more institutions I mean, if

1234
01:15:20,439 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 1: he is able to fully undermine the entire election system,

1235
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:27,479
Speaker 1: which is what he's attempting to do here with twenty twenty,

1236
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:33,840
Speaker 1: then everything he would do to question the midterms and

1237
01:15:33,920 --> 01:15:40,920
Speaker 1: anything like that becomes then natural or normalized because of

1238
01:15:40,920 --> 01:15:42,559
Speaker 1: what he's done with twenty twenty. So this is what

1239
01:15:42,600 --> 01:15:45,439
Speaker 1: makes what he's doing so dangerous. Here. He's trying to

1240
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 1: sort of legitimize interfering with future elections, right, and he's

1241
01:15:49,720 --> 01:15:54,360
Speaker 1: desperate to try to find even you know, even the

1242
01:15:54,400 --> 01:15:58,479
Speaker 1: illusion of evidence to reinforce his beliefs about what happened

1243
01:15:58,520 --> 01:16:03,000
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. And they look, it's clear they're manufacturing pretext here.

1244
01:16:02,160 --> 01:16:07,479
Speaker 1: They have not legitimized a single fact. I mean, you

1245
01:16:07,560 --> 01:16:11,200
Speaker 1: go to this about twenty twenty. He's only gone after Georgia.

1246
01:16:11,280 --> 01:16:14,240
Speaker 1: By the way, let's I've gone in another place. Let's

1247
01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:17,360
Speaker 1: say he magically somehow figures out that he won Georgia,

1248
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:20,960
Speaker 1: he still doesn't have enough electoral votes to prove that

1249
01:16:21,000 --> 01:16:23,880
Speaker 1: he won in twenty twenty. There's still other states. He

1250
01:16:23,920 --> 01:16:25,840
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to find the votes in Arizona, he

1251
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:27,479
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to find the votes in Nevada. He

1252
01:16:27,479 --> 01:16:29,120
Speaker 1: hasn't be able to find the votes in Wisconsin, he

1253
01:16:29,120 --> 01:16:30,680
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to find the votes in Michigan, he

1254
01:16:30,720 --> 01:16:34,120
Speaker 1: hasn't made to find the votes in Pennsylvania. So but

1255
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:37,040
Speaker 1: again that's logic. This is not about logic, right, I mean,

1256
01:16:37,080 --> 01:16:40,320
Speaker 1: he thinks if he can somehow find anything that becomes

1257
01:16:40,360 --> 01:16:46,439
Speaker 1: believable behind his delusional followers on this, it allows him

1258
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:51,240
Speaker 1: not to declare any victory about twenty twenty, but then

1259
01:16:51,280 --> 01:16:56,360
Speaker 1: he will use that as a way to legitimize likely

1260
01:16:56,439 --> 01:16:59,240
Speaker 1: using the government to interfere in the actual elections themselves

1261
01:16:59,240 --> 01:17:02,760
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight. Now I say

1262
01:17:02,760 --> 01:17:04,920
Speaker 1: that in that I still don't believe he can effectively

1263
01:17:04,960 --> 01:17:07,040
Speaker 1: do that. I think there's enough checks and balances in

1264
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:09,240
Speaker 1: the states. I think it's not going to happen. And

1265
01:17:09,280 --> 01:17:13,920
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I vacillate between being worried

1266
01:17:13,920 --> 01:17:15,880
Speaker 1: and laughing at these attempts that he's doing. I think

1267
01:17:15,880 --> 01:17:19,640
Speaker 1: he's making just an absolute fool of himself. And more importantly,

1268
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:22,880
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean literally the laughing stock of the

1269
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:25,800
Speaker 1: intelligence community is Tulsa Gabbert, Right, but she has been

1270
01:17:26,920 --> 01:17:31,479
Speaker 1: I will say that she must be beyond humiliation which

1271
01:17:31,520 --> 01:17:34,439
Speaker 1: means she has her own sort of delusions about all

1272
01:17:34,479 --> 01:17:42,360
Speaker 1: of this. But it's it's whenever you apply logic to

1273
01:17:42,400 --> 01:17:45,719
Speaker 1: anyone of Trump's arguments, they fall apart completely, which means

1274
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:49,760
Speaker 1: it's never been about logic all right. Next question comes

1275
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:51,840
Speaker 1: from Luke Hey. Thanks for tackling the issue of sports betting.

1276
01:17:51,840 --> 01:17:53,760
Speaker 1: I've seen it devastate families, and I refuse to work

1277
01:17:53,760 --> 01:17:56,759
Speaker 1: for gambling platforms because of the ethical concerns. My question

1278
01:17:56,840 --> 01:17:59,439
Speaker 1: is about professional ethics. It people with integrity keep quitting

1279
01:17:59,520 --> 01:18:03,160
Speaker 1: problematic institutions. Do those spaces just get worse? Is it

1280
01:18:03,200 --> 01:18:05,320
Speaker 1: better to stay and try to limit the damage from within?

1281
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:07,800
Speaker 1: I'm torn between sticking to my moral line or trying

1282
01:18:07,800 --> 01:18:11,160
Speaker 1: to be sand in the gears from the inside. Loops, Well,

1283
01:18:11,280 --> 01:18:15,719
Speaker 1: welcome to what a lot of prosecutors, career prosecutors are

1284
01:18:16,120 --> 01:18:19,400
Speaker 1: contemplating at the Justice Department, What a lot of career

1285
01:18:19,479 --> 01:18:23,919
Speaker 1: form policy folks are thinking about at the State Department.

1286
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:28,720
Speaker 1: What many career military particularly for one, two and three

1287
01:18:28,760 --> 01:18:35,160
Speaker 1: star generals, high ranking admirals. You know that this is

1288
01:18:36,760 --> 01:18:44,400
Speaker 1: this is this is a huge dilemma, you know, I don't.

1289
01:18:44,439 --> 01:18:46,160
Speaker 1: I think everybody's got their own line, So I'm not

1290
01:18:46,160 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: going to tell you what your line should be. I'll

1291
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:52,000
Speaker 1: just tell you what my line is. If I feel

1292
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:56,680
Speaker 1: like I can be effective, not just being sand in

1293
01:18:56,720 --> 01:19:00,559
Speaker 1: the gears right and doing you know, feeling like I

1294
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:03,160
Speaker 1: have to sneakily upend things, but I feel like I

1295
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:07,600
Speaker 1: can turn the tide, I can report what needs to

1296
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 1: be reported or whatever it is, then it is worth

1297
01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:14,479
Speaker 1: sticking around. If you feel like your position can prevent

1298
01:19:16,479 --> 01:19:19,840
Speaker 1: the worst things to happen, and you say to yourself, well, hey,

1299
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:22,519
Speaker 1: you know, I just have to do it for nine

1300
01:19:22,560 --> 01:19:25,800
Speaker 1: months until we get new leadership. Right, That's why it

1301
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:30,000
Speaker 1: to me. I would advise somebody at the Justice Department,

1302
01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:32,320
Speaker 1: in somebody the state department to stick it out right,

1303
01:19:32,800 --> 01:19:34,479
Speaker 1: believe in the democracy. You don't have to believe in

1304
01:19:34,560 --> 01:19:37,160
Speaker 1: the administration. You can believe in the democracy that there

1305
01:19:37,200 --> 01:19:41,280
Speaker 1: will be you know that bad There are good stewards

1306
01:19:41,320 --> 01:19:45,840
Speaker 1: and bad stewards, but there'll be another steward. Because I

1307
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:48,080
Speaker 1: do think on the political side and in the public

1308
01:19:48,120 --> 01:19:51,559
Speaker 1: service sector, the more good actors that leave, they will

1309
01:19:51,560 --> 01:19:53,840
Speaker 1: only be filled with bad actors and it will only

1310
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:57,559
Speaker 1: get worse than it might be irreparable. Right, So on

1311
01:19:57,640 --> 01:20:06,080
Speaker 1: the private sector side. I think it's a harder call, right.

1312
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:09,160
Speaker 1: It's one thing to be stand in the gears to

1313
01:20:09,200 --> 01:20:12,599
Speaker 1: another thing. If you're literally working against the business interests

1314
01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:16,719
Speaker 1: of the company, and if they're not committing illegal acts,

1315
01:20:17,200 --> 01:20:19,240
Speaker 1: then I think it is better to quit on moral

1316
01:20:19,280 --> 01:20:22,519
Speaker 1: and ethical grounds, but do so publicly say why you're

1317
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:28,640
Speaker 1: doing it. To do it silently, then it's ineffective. You know,

1318
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:31,559
Speaker 1: speak out, become a whistleblower, right, become the person that

1319
01:20:31,600 --> 01:20:33,560
Speaker 1: worked for the tobacco companies to talk about all that

1320
01:20:33,880 --> 01:20:36,400
Speaker 1: you know, or the person that worked at Meta and

1321
01:20:36,760 --> 01:20:40,320
Speaker 1: saw everything that Facebook was doing to sort of weaponize

1322
01:20:40,520 --> 01:20:44,880
Speaker 1: the likes and the algorithms and stuff. You know. But

1323
01:20:44,920 --> 01:20:47,679
Speaker 1: I guess that's where I would go. I think it's

1324
01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:51,240
Speaker 1: I think if you're in the if you work for government,

1325
01:20:52,920 --> 01:20:55,920
Speaker 1: I think you're obligated to stick it out. I think

1326
01:20:55,960 --> 01:20:58,240
Speaker 1: if you work in the private sector and you have

1327
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:02,479
Speaker 1: ethical and moral quandary, is I think then it's you know,

1328
01:21:02,560 --> 01:21:10,719
Speaker 1: I probably would be on the side of make it.

1329
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:12,759
Speaker 1: It would be easier for me to support you walking

1330
01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:15,760
Speaker 1: than not walking, But I wouldn't do it quietly. If

1331
01:21:15,800 --> 01:21:18,200
Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to try to effect change,

1332
01:21:18,280 --> 01:21:25,120
Speaker 1: you know now if there can if you think you

1333
01:21:25,160 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 1: know there is a reason to stay is if you

1334
01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:30,080
Speaker 1: think they're doing something illegal and you need to gather

1335
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:34,679
Speaker 1: evidence and and and become a whistleblower. That's that's yet

1336
01:21:34,680 --> 01:21:39,439
Speaker 1: another motivation to potentially stay if you truly believe something

1337
01:21:39,479 --> 01:21:47,519
Speaker 1: illegal is taking place. All right, appreciate the question, Luke,

1338
01:21:47,560 --> 01:21:51,400
Speaker 1: and you know there's no easy answers on those things.

1339
01:21:51,720 --> 01:21:53,519
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Tyler. Hey, I saw your video

1340
01:21:54,000 --> 01:21:56,200
Speaker 1: on the state's Democrats might put in play by twenty

1341
01:21:56,200 --> 01:21:58,320
Speaker 1: thirty two. I'm curious why Mississippi wasn't on your list.

1342
01:21:58,320 --> 01:22:01,320
Speaker 1: It's clearly it's nearly for percent African American and often

1343
01:22:01,360 --> 01:22:04,080
Speaker 1: shows more Blue counties than other Southern states. Couldn't increasing

1344
01:22:04,120 --> 01:22:06,920
Speaker 1: registration and turn out among African American voters make it competitive.

1345
01:22:06,920 --> 01:22:10,040
Speaker 1: Would love to hear your thoughts. I think I did

1346
01:22:10,080 --> 01:22:12,800
Speaker 1: mention that Mississippi's on my next round of lists. I

1347
01:22:12,800 --> 01:22:15,400
Speaker 1: think I believe it's in that and as you know,

1348
01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:21,000
Speaker 1: I keep talking about the Mississippi as Democrats search for

1349
01:22:21,080 --> 01:22:23,719
Speaker 1: more Senate seats to put in play in the twenty

1350
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:25,840
Speaker 1: six cycle that I think Mississippi should be one of

1351
01:22:25,880 --> 01:22:29,000
Speaker 1: those states for all it's exactly the reason you lay

1352
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:31,400
Speaker 1: out right. I think Mississippi, into a lesser extent, South

1353
01:22:31,400 --> 01:22:33,920
Speaker 1: Carolina is the other state in the South where there's

1354
01:22:33,920 --> 01:22:40,080
Speaker 1: clearly an un activated African American vote, either underregistrated in

1355
01:22:40,120 --> 01:22:43,280
Speaker 1: the rural counties in Mississippi and South Carolina or just

1356
01:22:43,520 --> 01:22:46,960
Speaker 1: under campaigned. Right, I've I've spent a lot of time

1357
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,160
Speaker 1: a couple of cycles ago, we were doing some some

1358
01:22:52,240 --> 01:22:56,120
Speaker 1: of our counties to watch and before the twenty sixteen

1359
01:22:56,200 --> 01:22:58,040
Speaker 1: cycle or for the twenty twenty cycle, one of the

1360
01:22:58,080 --> 01:23:00,240
Speaker 1: counties I wanted to focus on was one of the

1361
01:23:00,280 --> 01:23:03,840
Speaker 1: African rural African American majority African American counties on the

1362
01:23:03,880 --> 01:23:07,519
Speaker 1: border of North and South Carolina. And how that the

1363
01:23:07,560 --> 01:23:10,640
Speaker 1: one time Barack Obama that Democrats carried North Carolina in

1364
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:13,040
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. Barack Obama was on the ballot

1365
01:23:13,120 --> 01:23:16,160
Speaker 1: the first time, and he did a great job of

1366
01:23:16,200 --> 01:23:18,880
Speaker 1: activating the rural African American vote. North Carolina in twenty

1367
01:23:18,920 --> 01:23:20,840
Speaker 1: oh eight did not do as good of a job

1368
01:23:20,840 --> 01:23:22,640
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, and they didn't carry the state, but

1369
01:23:22,640 --> 01:23:25,080
Speaker 1: they did in twenty oh eight. The point is, I

1370
01:23:25,200 --> 01:23:28,680
Speaker 1: do think that one of the reasons why Democrats have

1371
01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:33,000
Speaker 1: been slow at seeing the opportunity in Mississippi is that

1372
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:36,360
Speaker 1: they're blind on rural on rural America, right. You know,

1373
01:23:36,479 --> 01:23:40,280
Speaker 1: their inability to get support from rural whites isn't due

1374
01:23:40,280 --> 01:23:43,320
Speaker 1: to just rural whites, it's all over. It explains why

1375
01:23:43,680 --> 01:23:49,439
Speaker 1: rural Hispanics lean right in Texas, rural blacks are. While

1376
01:23:49,439 --> 01:23:53,040
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily lean right in the South, they're less

1377
01:23:53,240 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: supportive of Democrats than urban African Americans. So yes, I

1378
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:03,240
Speaker 1: do believe Mississippi should be in that if you expanded

1379
01:24:03,280 --> 01:24:04,880
Speaker 1: it out to the top ten states they should be

1380
01:24:04,880 --> 01:24:07,920
Speaker 1: focused on. I think it's six or seven on that list,

1381
01:24:08,640 --> 01:24:13,639
Speaker 1: and they need to. But it's a multi year project

1382
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:17,040
Speaker 1: in Mississippi because there's a lot particularly in rural America,

1383
01:24:17,200 --> 01:24:20,240
Speaker 1: rural Black America, rural Wide America, and rural Hispanic America.

1384
01:24:20,400 --> 01:24:23,080
Speaker 1: Democrats have stopped showing up over the last twenty years

1385
01:24:23,439 --> 01:24:28,439
Speaker 1: and they have to reverse that trend. Next question comes

1386
01:24:28,479 --> 01:24:34,000
Speaker 1: from Charles Davis. Great name, Charles, Love to know, Charles, Charlie, Chuck, Chaz,

1387
01:24:34,120 --> 01:24:37,439
Speaker 1: Chad you what's your favorite of all of our The

1388
01:24:39,680 --> 01:24:42,080
Speaker 1: insane amount of nicknames that can come out of the

1389
01:24:42,160 --> 01:24:45,400
Speaker 1: name Charles. But I digress. It says, thanks for your

1390
01:24:45,520 --> 01:24:47,600
Speaker 1: recent podcast of the Kenny Center. It really resonated. I

1391
01:24:47,600 --> 01:24:49,880
Speaker 1: believe Trump and his allies are following authoritariing playbook, but

1392
01:24:49,920 --> 01:24:52,680
Speaker 1: they underestimated the resolve of cities like Minneapolis and the

1393
01:24:52,680 --> 01:24:55,840
Speaker 1: power of grassroots resistance. The militarization of police and the

1394
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:58,800
Speaker 1: behavior of ICE agents are deeply concerning in tragedies like

1395
01:24:58,840 --> 01:25:00,600
Speaker 1: the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Preddie show this

1396
01:25:00,680 --> 01:25:02,800
Speaker 1: takes serve my country in many ways, and I've never

1397
01:25:02,840 --> 01:25:07,559
Speaker 1: been more worried or more hopeful that Americans are waking up.

1398
01:25:07,600 --> 01:25:09,439
Speaker 1: I voted our most of my life. Trump ended that

1399
01:25:09,520 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 1: no more, and I enjoy your podcast. Keep the good work. Look,

1400
01:25:12,160 --> 01:25:16,080
Speaker 1: I appreciate you writing this note, And obviously it's not

1401
01:25:16,080 --> 01:25:19,000
Speaker 1: really a question, but it's a statement that I'll want

1402
01:25:19,000 --> 01:25:21,960
Speaker 1: to refer have a lot of people refer to when

1403
01:25:21,960 --> 01:25:27,240
Speaker 1: they start to feel bleak. You know, what he's doing

1404
01:25:27,320 --> 01:25:30,320
Speaker 1: is not popular. That's sort of the point of the

1405
01:25:30,600 --> 01:25:33,679
Speaker 1: opening of this podcast. Republicans don't like what he's doing.

1406
01:25:34,040 --> 01:25:36,200
Speaker 1: In the words of John dan Forth, aren't we better

1407
01:25:36,240 --> 01:25:41,200
Speaker 1: than this? Right? Jack dan Forth thought the Republican Party

1408
01:25:42,560 --> 01:25:46,240
Speaker 1: had had more morals than than it does under Donald Trump,

1409
01:25:46,800 --> 01:25:49,160
Speaker 1: and had any sort of ethical lines that they would draw,

1410
01:25:49,240 --> 01:25:55,160
Speaker 1: and they don't. But nobody likes this, you know, and

1411
01:25:55,400 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 1: it goes back to, you know, the whole, the whole.

1412
01:25:57,680 --> 01:25:59,320
Speaker 1: I do think there are a lot of people who

1413
01:25:59,360 --> 01:26:03,320
Speaker 1: supported Trump who don't like being seen as racist like Trump.

1414
01:26:04,479 --> 01:26:10,080
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I always say this about Trump.

1415
01:26:10,320 --> 01:26:14,320
Speaker 1: Everybody has their own line, and Trump crosses it at

1416
01:26:14,360 --> 01:26:19,040
Speaker 1: different times. It sounds like Charles for you, he crossed

1417
01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:22,680
Speaker 1: the line a while ago, as I always say for

1418
01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:26,920
Speaker 1: Liz jad he didn't cross the line until January sixth, right,

1419
01:26:27,360 --> 01:26:30,000
Speaker 1: But when he crossed that line, man, she was out,

1420
01:26:30,160 --> 01:26:35,320
Speaker 1: and she was out loudly. John Bolton was out, probably

1421
01:26:35,320 --> 01:26:39,280
Speaker 1: sooner than most people thought he'd be out. Mike Pence, Right,

1422
01:26:39,320 --> 01:26:41,360
Speaker 1: you see where I'm going here. Everybody has their line

1423
01:26:41,400 --> 01:26:45,839
Speaker 1: at different moments. Looks like Rand Paul has a line,

1424
01:26:46,160 --> 01:26:48,879
Speaker 1: looks like Thomas Massey has a line, looks like Marjorie

1425
01:26:48,880 --> 01:26:51,720
Speaker 1: Taylor Green has a line. And three years ago, if

1426
01:26:51,760 --> 01:26:53,400
Speaker 1: I said every republic has a line, some of you

1427
01:26:53,479 --> 01:26:55,400
Speaker 1: might have said, well, Marjorie, there's no line for Marjorie

1428
01:26:55,400 --> 01:27:00,160
Speaker 1: Taylor Green. Yes, there is. Everybody has a line, and

1429
01:27:00,200 --> 01:27:02,719
Speaker 1: I think and this is what I think you're right about,

1430
01:27:02,720 --> 01:27:07,240
Speaker 1: which is, you know, not all of these stories impact

1431
01:27:07,560 --> 01:27:11,320
Speaker 1: everybody the same way, but a lot of people are

1432
01:27:11,360 --> 01:27:13,920
Speaker 1: impacted by at least one of these stories in the

1433
01:27:13,960 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 1: same way. And that's why he's got approval ratings that

1434
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:21,160
Speaker 1: at best are in the low forties. That's why we're

1435
01:27:21,400 --> 01:27:25,000
Speaker 1: on the verge of having a record number of lawmakers

1436
01:27:25,040 --> 01:27:27,920
Speaker 1: say I'm out of Trump's Washington, get me out of here.

1437
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:30,600
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, it's interesting about these retirees,

1438
01:27:31,760 --> 01:27:38,280
Speaker 1: right those that there's about thirty retirements Republican retirees so

1439
01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:42,680
Speaker 1: far this cycle, Essentially half of them are retiring to

1440
01:27:42,760 --> 01:27:44,439
Speaker 1: run for higher office, and the other half of them

1441
01:27:44,479 --> 01:27:47,360
Speaker 1: are just walking away from politics. Well, the lion's share

1442
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:49,160
Speaker 1: of those that are just walking away from politics all

1443
01:27:49,200 --> 01:27:53,120
Speaker 1: Republicans elected before twenty sixteen. Those that are doing the

1444
01:27:53,200 --> 01:27:56,519
Speaker 1: upper out are just about all Republicans elected twenty sixteen

1445
01:27:56,600 --> 01:28:02,559
Speaker 1: or later. The old Republican Party that accommodated Trump. More

1446
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:06,200
Speaker 1: and more of them are having trouble accommodating him. And

1447
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:10,080
Speaker 1: like I said, every week somebody he crosses the line

1448
01:28:10,200 --> 01:28:15,120
Speaker 1: for somebody else. He is not gaining any new support.

1449
01:28:15,360 --> 01:28:21,800
Speaker 1: Every week Donald Trump loses more support. Next question comes

1450
01:28:21,840 --> 01:28:25,439
Speaker 1: from Rico from Sequoia National Forest. All right, well, here

1451
01:28:25,439 --> 01:28:27,479
Speaker 1: we are two big baseball fans gearing up for another

1452
01:28:27,479 --> 01:28:29,200
Speaker 1: on hundred and sixty two game season. But I still

1453
01:28:29,200 --> 01:28:31,479
Speaker 1: can't get over what I think is the dumbest rule

1454
01:28:31,520 --> 01:28:33,559
Speaker 1: in sports, the intentional walk of teams want to pitch

1455
01:28:33,600 --> 01:28:36,080
Speaker 1: around guys like Otanni. Fine, but make it cost two

1456
01:28:36,080 --> 01:28:39,080
Speaker 1: bases instead of one. I like where you're going there.

1457
01:28:39,240 --> 01:28:41,280
Speaker 1: MLBE keeps talking about speeding up the game. So why

1458
01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:44,080
Speaker 1: not fix this? What say you keep the cowardice or

1459
01:28:44,240 --> 01:28:49,720
Speaker 1: change the rule? Wow? Two bases for intentional walks? You

1460
01:28:49,760 --> 01:28:55,800
Speaker 1: know I could see I could buy into that. You know,

1461
01:28:56,280 --> 01:29:02,400
Speaker 1: maybe it's something like you get it. You can't you

1462
01:29:02,439 --> 01:29:08,439
Speaker 1: can only intentionally walk a player once again, and and

1463
01:29:09,479 --> 01:29:12,479
Speaker 1: you know you can so because I think what's first

1464
01:29:12,479 --> 01:29:14,040
Speaker 1: of all, it's bad for the fans, right, we want

1465
01:29:14,080 --> 01:29:16,040
Speaker 1: to see Otani hit. So let's just you know, I

1466
01:29:16,040 --> 01:29:17,880
Speaker 1: remember this with Bonds too, but let's just say it

1467
01:29:17,880 --> 01:29:21,040
Speaker 1: with Otani. You know, you know, Tani is like, you know,

1468
01:29:21,240 --> 01:29:23,880
Speaker 1: a version of the NBA on the road, right, you know,

1469
01:29:24,000 --> 01:29:27,439
Speaker 1: NBA in the regular season and Lakers come to town.

1470
01:29:27,439 --> 01:29:30,080
Speaker 1: All right, I want to see Lebron. Oh, Lebron's resting tonight,

1471
01:29:30,240 --> 01:29:32,679
Speaker 1: you know, you know, with the with the with the

1472
01:29:32,760 --> 01:29:34,560
Speaker 1: with the minute. So it's not very fan friendly. And

1473
01:29:34,600 --> 01:29:36,599
Speaker 1: you spend all this money, you think take your kid

1474
01:29:36,640 --> 01:29:38,439
Speaker 1: to see Lebron the one time a year that Lebron

1475
01:29:38,479 --> 01:29:40,479
Speaker 1: shows up, particularly if you're in the Eastern Conference. Right,

1476
01:29:41,040 --> 01:29:44,559
Speaker 1: So nobody wants to go to a game all excited

1477
01:29:44,560 --> 01:29:46,280
Speaker 1: to see Otani play for the first time, only to

1478
01:29:46,280 --> 01:29:51,559
Speaker 1: see him intentionally walk three times. So I think an

1479
01:29:51,600 --> 01:29:53,519
Speaker 1: addendum I would make to your rule is I think

1480
01:29:53,520 --> 01:29:57,240
Speaker 1: it's one that you can't intentionally walk any player more

1481
01:29:57,280 --> 01:30:00,200
Speaker 1: than once a game. And if you do I want

1482
01:30:00,240 --> 01:30:04,920
Speaker 1: to intentionally walk, it's it's it's two. It's two bases,

1483
01:30:07,880 --> 01:30:11,200
Speaker 1: I think. I guess I look at it this way.

1484
01:30:11,280 --> 01:30:14,679
Speaker 1: Rico and my dog here has a very strong opinion

1485
01:30:14,680 --> 01:30:17,400
Speaker 1: about this too. Speaking of intentional walks, she would like

1486
01:30:17,439 --> 01:30:21,800
Speaker 1: to be intentionally walked. Right after I finished taping this episode.

1487
01:30:21,880 --> 01:30:24,759
Speaker 1: But I think I don't think you will get support

1488
01:30:24,800 --> 01:30:27,599
Speaker 1: for just doing all intentional walks two bases. But I

1489
01:30:27,640 --> 01:30:31,599
Speaker 1: do think if you make it one per game per player,

1490
01:30:32,520 --> 01:30:34,599
Speaker 1: that might be a better way to do things, all right,

1491
01:30:34,640 --> 01:30:38,960
Speaker 1: last question, Like I said, I gotta intentionally walk Cali

1492
01:30:40,080 --> 01:30:42,439
Speaker 1: just wanted to toss out a new name that scandal

1493
01:30:42,520 --> 01:30:46,280
Speaker 1: headlines Okay, here it is, the Abu Dhabi crypto affair,

1494
01:30:47,160 --> 01:30:52,639
Speaker 1: all right, the Maga coin con okay, the shake Steak

1495
01:30:52,800 --> 01:30:57,760
Speaker 1: scandal kind of sizzling, right if the words sizzle in there, right,

1496
01:30:58,479 --> 01:31:01,120
Speaker 1: hope one of these sticks best. Chase from Little Rock, Arkansas.

1497
01:31:02,000 --> 01:31:05,120
Speaker 1: He claims it's he keeps saying the five Timers Club, Chase.

1498
01:31:05,160 --> 01:31:07,160
Speaker 1: I think we're up to six or seven Timers Club

1499
01:31:07,280 --> 01:31:10,800
Speaker 1: on this. So well, there it is. That's a good

1500
01:31:10,800 --> 01:31:13,479
Speaker 1: way to end this, end this episode. Let's see what

1501
01:31:13,479 --> 01:31:16,400
Speaker 1: you guys come up with. He's trying Abu Dhabi crypto affair,

1502
01:31:17,479 --> 01:31:24,920
Speaker 1: the Maga coin con, and the Shakesteak scandal and Chase.

1503
01:31:25,000 --> 01:31:29,559
Speaker 1: I would probably say, let's go back to the drawing boarder.

1504
01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:31,880
Speaker 1: Let's get some more nominees out there. That's all I'm saying.

1505
01:31:31,920 --> 01:31:34,320
Speaker 1: Let's get some Let's get some more nominees out there.

1506
01:31:35,760 --> 01:31:39,640
Speaker 1: So with that, hey, listen, I I'm going to be

1507
01:31:40,640 --> 01:31:43,280
Speaker 1: a cheerleader for one thing, and that's Team USA. I

1508
01:31:43,400 --> 01:31:49,800
Speaker 1: love you know, I give my old, my old, my

1509
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:51,880
Speaker 1: old workplace, a lot of grief on what they've done

1510
01:31:51,920 --> 01:31:54,120
Speaker 1: to the new side of things. I'm not gonna walk,

1511
01:31:54,280 --> 01:31:59,240
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna relitigate what's happened on that front. I

1512
01:31:59,360 --> 01:32:01,960
Speaker 1: just want to give a lot of kudos and credit

1513
01:32:02,000 --> 01:32:04,439
Speaker 1: to the coverage of the Olympics by my old employer.

1514
01:32:04,439 --> 01:32:07,599
Speaker 1: I think IBC Sports do a terrific job. They have finally,

1515
01:32:07,720 --> 01:32:10,120
Speaker 1: I think, and you saw it with the last you

1516
01:32:10,200 --> 01:32:14,639
Speaker 1: really saw it in twenty twenty four, with the gold

1517
01:32:14,760 --> 01:32:17,559
Speaker 1: Zone and everything they've done. But they have really figured

1518
01:32:17,600 --> 01:32:22,200
Speaker 1: out I mean the Olympics and this streaming moment, right like,

1519
01:32:22,240 --> 01:32:24,559
Speaker 1: if you talk about a sporting event that was built

1520
01:32:24,680 --> 01:32:26,639
Speaker 1: for this moment that we live in where you can

1521
01:32:26,720 --> 01:32:30,040
Speaker 1: just go find your sport, find your stream, the gold Zone.

1522
01:32:30,439 --> 01:32:33,760
Speaker 1: If you actually want to watch the Olympics for competition,

1523
01:32:34,200 --> 01:32:37,680
Speaker 1: you can just watch a stream that does that. You know.

1524
01:32:37,720 --> 01:32:40,200
Speaker 1: If you do want the stories and sort of the

1525
01:32:40,200 --> 01:32:42,599
Speaker 1: soap opera part of the Olympics that the network always

1526
01:32:42,640 --> 01:32:45,559
Speaker 1: gives you, you can do that too. But I just

1527
01:32:46,000 --> 01:32:51,080
Speaker 1: will say that I am there's no qualification here, guys.

1528
01:32:51,200 --> 01:32:55,960
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. I love what's being done. I love the coverage.

1529
01:32:57,240 --> 01:33:02,280
Speaker 1: It breaks my heart that Team USA and Team Israel

1530
01:33:02,280 --> 01:33:04,160
Speaker 1: gets booed as hard as they are right now in Europe.

1531
01:33:05,439 --> 01:33:08,760
Speaker 1: That that hurts, right, I wish I but I also

1532
01:33:08,840 --> 01:33:11,720
Speaker 1: understand it. And the only word of warning I'd give

1533
01:33:11,760 --> 01:33:14,800
Speaker 1: to my friends at NBC Sports is, you know, I

1534
01:33:14,840 --> 01:33:17,400
Speaker 1: get you want to try to make the games about

1535
01:33:17,400 --> 01:33:24,120
Speaker 1: the games. There's there's there's avoiding politics, but then they're

1536
01:33:24,160 --> 01:33:27,920
Speaker 1: censoring it. Be careful of walking that line. I'm all

1537
01:33:27,960 --> 01:33:31,160
Speaker 1: for avoiding it. You want to showcase the games, but

1538
01:33:31,200 --> 01:33:35,320
Speaker 1: be careful censoring. I think it's important for the audience

1539
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:40,200
Speaker 1: to know how unpopular an American official is. If there

1540
01:33:40,320 --> 01:33:43,439
Speaker 1: is a moment that that happens, all right with that,

1541
01:33:43,720 --> 01:33:44,720
Speaker 1: I'll see in forty eight nine,