Speaker 1: Happy Thursday, and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todcast.
Speaker 1: I got to a pretty packed episode for you. We're
Speaker 1: going to do a rundown of what's going on around
Speaker 1: the country and the states, some state politics, of what's
Speaker 1: happening with AI, and in fact it ties into something
Speaker 1: else I'm going to get to in a minute, the
Speaker 1: big beautiful Bill and whether what it's going to look
Speaker 1: like and whether it has any chance of ever becoming popular.
Speaker 1: But look, I'm going to start with what is still
Speaker 1: a seismic earthquake inside the Democratic Party, and that is
Speaker 1: the victory by Zoron Mom Donnie in the Democratic primary,
Speaker 1: apparent victory. I mean, we got to remind folks we
Speaker 1: still haven't had the retabulation in the New York City
Speaker 1: mayor's race. You know, let me throw a bizarre what
Speaker 1: if out there. There's an assumption, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a correct assumption based on the polling we've seen and
Speaker 1: certainly the campaign strategies the candidates had of trying to
Speaker 1: convince their supporters not to even rank Cuomo in some
Speaker 1: places and things like that. But let me just throw
Speaker 1: out a here. If Cuomo closes the gap to just
Speaker 1: a couple of points and ends up losing the primary
Speaker 1: after rank choice voting more like that fifty one to
Speaker 1: forty nine or fifty two forty eight. Is that what
Speaker 1: they're waiting for to see whether Cuomo will decide to
Speaker 1: run in a general election. But look, let's it. Certainly
Speaker 1: everybody is behaving today as if that's not going to
Speaker 1: happen in that Mandani is going to be the Democratic nominee.
Speaker 1: The question is what kind of general election is it
Speaker 1: going to be. But before we get to that, on
Speaker 1: the New York City side of things, it's been interesting
Speaker 1: how Democrats have reacted, right it's around the country. You've
Speaker 1: had some in New York, including the two leading Democratic
Speaker 1: figures in New York who happen to hold the two
Speaker 1: most important positions in Congress for the Democrats, Senate Democratic
Speaker 1: Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Akim Jeffries. They
Speaker 1: both congratulated Mandani, but they did not endorse Mamdani. Maybe
Speaker 1: they will eventely, but they have not made that decision yet.
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders came out gloated and said, Hey, the Democratic
Speaker 1: establishment has some explaining to do, and I really think
Speaker 1: they do. In fact, I want to quote a column
Speaker 1: that I thought was just outstanding, and it sort of,
Speaker 1: I think, summed up how the Democrats have really blew
Speaker 1: this when it came to when it came to how
Speaker 1: they've gotten involved over the last couple of cycles. It
Speaker 1: was a column written by Julie Roginsky, and it was
Speaker 1: it was expressing her frustration. And I'm going to read
Speaker 1: it in part here word for word, because these are
Speaker 1: her words, not my words. What were voters in New
Speaker 1: York to do? This is what she wrote. When I
Speaker 1: filled out my ballot yesterday, I did not rank either
Speaker 1: Cuomo or a Mom Dannie because I, again her words,
Speaker 1: I won't vote for a sexual predator, and because I
Speaker 1: won't vote for a deeply inexperienced candidate who refuses to
Speaker 1: knowledge that quote globalized the Intifada is an offensive term
Speaker 1: to his Jewish constituents. She adds, I knew that my
Speaker 1: vote was wasted, that the five people I ranked had
Speaker 1: no shot of winning, and for this I blame the
Speaker 1: Democratic establishment. And she goes on when Cuomo popped up
Speaker 1: his head to run, all the establishment figures who flocked
Speaker 1: to him could have said no, They could have looked
Speaker 1: at other competent leaders who did not have Cuomo's baggage.
Speaker 1: Raginsky suggests Police Commissioner Jessica Tish was somebody that came
Speaker 1: to mind. I've heard that name quite a bit today. Instead,
Speaker 1: they did what they do best, tried to impose a
Speaker 1: deeply flawed candidate with a disconnected message on their own voters.
Speaker 1: Let me repeat that last phrase, because this, to me
Speaker 1: is the key to how the Democratic Party has lost
Speaker 1: its way. They tried to impose a deeply flawed candidate
Speaker 1: with a disconnected message on their own voters. Hmmm, where
Speaker 1: have they done that before? Oh? Maybe restraight presidential elections.
Speaker 1: Remember this is a Democratic party and a Democratic establishment
Speaker 1: that has chosen candidates on behalf of the voters and
Speaker 1: not let the voter's way in in a good decade, right,
Speaker 1: trust me. If the Democratic establishment had its way, Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton would have been the nominee in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: But they let that go. There wasn't. In fact, some
Speaker 1: of the establishment were divided enough that hey, Obama and
Speaker 1: Clinton both had affair shot at it, and the voters
Speaker 1: chose Obama in twenty sixteen. The voters weren't given that
Speaker 1: kind of choice. Barack Obama put his arm around Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1: It convinced a whole slew of other potential candidates not
Speaker 1: to run, and only this unknown senator from Vermont decided
Speaker 1: to throw his hat in the ring. Bernie Sanders. People
Speaker 1: forget Bernie Sanders did not have any sort of name
Speaker 1: ID back then. The question has always been did his
Speaker 1: message truly resonate or was the fact that he wasn't
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton why he resonated or was it a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. But things sort of went her way,
Speaker 1: and there was a feeling that the Democratic primary voters
Speaker 1: really didn't get a fair shot to decide who they
Speaker 1: really wanted as their nominee because the establishment essentially shoved
Speaker 1: a whole generation of Democrats aside. All right, an entire generation.
Speaker 1: Let's move to twenty twenty Joe Biden. This time, there
Speaker 1: were a whole slew and then COVID hit and the
Speaker 1: establishment came in, and there was a fear that what
Speaker 1: a progressive named Bernie Sanders was going to win this
Speaker 1: nomination if a whole bunch of people didn't quickly get
Speaker 1: out and consolidate around Joe Biden. A m clobashar got
Speaker 1: out and consolidated around Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke did, Pete
Speaker 1: Budaget did, and there was this consolidation. Again, the establishment spoke.
Speaker 1: Jim Clyburn did his famous endorsement, and they spoke, and
Speaker 1: then they did it again in twenty four. Right first,
Speaker 1: the establishment said, anybody that dare question Joe Biden's capability
Speaker 1: of doing a second term is only doing the bidding
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. Just look at how that Dean Phillips,
Speaker 1: the former member of Congress who did decide to challenge Biden,
Speaker 1: who openly said he didn't want to be the candidate
Speaker 1: running but believed but it would if nobody else would
Speaker 1: step in, and he tried to recruit plenty of governors
Speaker 1: to do just that. Nobody would get in the Establishment
Speaker 1: labeled him some sort of secret Trump surrogate. Okay, they
Speaker 1: were able to protect Biden, and of course we now
Speaker 1: know what happened, and the voters never got to choose
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris was essentially chosen for them as
Speaker 1: the nominee. And this is essentially what Julie Roginsky is
Speaker 1: saying happened in New York City. For the life of me,
Speaker 1: and I've written about this. You can go back a
Speaker 1: couple of substack colms and go, why the heck did
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo just sort of get o laid into this field?
Speaker 1: And I think it really does mean that the establishment,
Speaker 1: whether it's guys like Chuck Schumer, King Jeffrey's other major Democrats,
Speaker 1: just didn't fully appreciate how unpopular Andrew Cuomo was. Thought, well,
Speaker 1: his name, I d the amount of money he'll raise,
Speaker 1: he's got. You know, older voters, they'll vote for the
Speaker 1: familiar name. It'll be too hard to push him out.
Speaker 1: We don't want to have that fight with him. That's
Speaker 1: only going to be ugly too. So they just sort
Speaker 1: of acquiesced when it was obvious he had major character
Speaker 1: flaws and the fact that he never apologized for what
Speaker 1: happened or explained himself in an honest and straightforward way,
Speaker 1: and instead said he regretted resigning. You know, I wrote this.
Speaker 1: I regret that he resigned too, because he he didn't
Speaker 1: get due process, and the voters never got due process.
Speaker 1: And this is why I think if you resign in
Speaker 1: order to avoid an investigation, whether it's a House ethics
Speaker 1: committee or it's an impeachment inquiry, in your state legislature,
Speaker 1: be barred from running for any office for a decade
Speaker 1: because you're breaking your compact with voters. You were elected
Speaker 1: to do a job for four years and you're walking
Speaker 1: away in less than four years. There should be some penalty,
Speaker 1: but there was none. Guess what, there's a penalty. Now
Speaker 1: his political career is over. Now does he contemplate running
Speaker 1: as independent? He might, But do you really want to
Speaker 1: take two losses? Look, I will say this with Mam Dannie.
Speaker 1: I think I think you're sort of seeing two reactions
Speaker 1: right now. You have a whole bunch of Democrats try
Speaker 1: not to say anything. You have an entire Republican messaging
Speaker 1: machine that is trying to weaponize Mamdanni and turn him
Speaker 1: into you know, the grandson of Vladimir Lenin and trying
Speaker 1: to make the hammer and sickle, you know, call him
Speaker 1: a communist and all of these things. And look, and
Speaker 1: I've warned and I've showed you this. If you don't
Speaker 1: think this is an effective strategy, if Democrats don't know
Speaker 1: how to figure out how both to embrace embrace his
Speaker 1: victory and at the same time say hey, we disagree
Speaker 1: on this issue, this issue, in this issue or some
Speaker 1: form of that. They're going to tie themselves into knots
Speaker 1: and they're going to essentially allow the weaponization to take hold.
Speaker 1: All you have to do, and this is what I
Speaker 1: pointed out yesterday is look at what happened to the
Speaker 1: Democrats in the state of Florida when they nominated somebody
Speaker 1: friendly with democratic socialism. The S word just totally destroyed
Speaker 1: the Democratic brand in Florida, and now Florida is a
Speaker 1: red state. The fact is that the Mayor of New
Speaker 1: York City is I would argue, the second or third
Speaker 1: most famous elected official in the country. I promise you
Speaker 1: if you did it, you know over time, after the
Speaker 1: president and vice president. I think that most people have
Speaker 1: a better shot at naming the Mayor of New York
Speaker 1: City than the Speaker of the House. So it is
Speaker 1: one of the more symbolically, certainly one of the bigger names.
Speaker 1: And that's why this is symbolically such a huge victory.
Speaker 1: But it is, it absolutely is. I think the it's
Speaker 1: the first shot in the big fight between sort of
Speaker 1: the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party. If you want
Speaker 1: to call it again, they need a better descriptor. Right.
Speaker 1: Establishment is a terrible thing. Nobody wants to be the establishment.
Speaker 1: Sounds like they're the incumbent. You know, if you say mainstream,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're saying there. You know, it's so.
Speaker 1: And as far as the voters were concerned, Mom, Donnie's
Speaker 1: the mainstream, or he wouldn't have won the nomination. So
Speaker 1: I think that's I will admit there needs to be
Speaker 1: so you know, center left, maybe we call it that
Speaker 1: the center left Democrats, the non progressive Democrats. They've they
Speaker 1: don't know, they've got to sort of stop supporting ancient names,
Speaker 1: you know, family dynasties. And I think part of it
Speaker 1: is you sort of have an actre feed class of
Speaker 1: Democrats who I think are being advised by the same
Speaker 1: you know, five or six consultants, They get their funding
Speaker 1: from the same five or six sources, and it becomes
Speaker 1: sort of I think they've become their own bubble and
Speaker 1: they fully don't see it. And yes, the positions that
Speaker 1: Mamdani holds are not popular overall with swing voters. The
Speaker 1: ideas are, but sort of the paying for them are right,
Speaker 1: Like okay, free groceries, Yeah, how does that going to work?
Speaker 1: And who pays for it? I do think that he
Speaker 1: is going to Mamdani. If he does become mayor, is
Speaker 1: going to somebody's going to educate him that the tax
Speaker 1: base of New York City is actually, you know, seventy
Speaker 1: to eighty percent of it comes from a very small
Speaker 1: group of people, and be careful taxing them to the
Speaker 1: point where they decide to leave. Now, I think some
Speaker 1: of this stuff's overblown, right, like all the people that
Speaker 1: we're going to flee to Canada if Donald Trump got
Speaker 1: to like that, I don't think. I think ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of the people that claim they're leaving New York
Speaker 1: City if Mom Donnie becomes mayor, are not going to leave.
Speaker 1: But the story is not you know, it's not a
Speaker 1: good narrative. It's certainly not a good you know, a
Speaker 1: good look, and you're going to have a lot of
Speaker 1: squeaky Wall Street people. But if your mom Donnie politically,
Speaker 1: if Wall Street's upset, then you're winning, right as far
Speaker 1: as your voters are concerned. So you got how he
Speaker 1: had to actually be careful if you're in the if
Speaker 1: you're in the wealthy wing of the Democratic Party or
Speaker 1: the wealthy wing of New York City, how you go
Speaker 1: about criticizing I speak to you Bill Ackman, who I
Speaker 1: don't think has a full self awareness gene in him
Speaker 1: at all times. And so I, you know, I do
Speaker 1: think that that that some of the complaints come across as, oh,
Speaker 1: it must be tough for you, for you folks that
Speaker 1: have to fly private in and out of New York City,
Speaker 1: But you know it is. Look, it is a party
Speaker 1: that's very nervous about more about the fact that they
Speaker 1: have no confidence in their own party at figuring out
Speaker 1: how to embrace mom Donnie without owning all of his positions.
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is a Republican Party struggled
Speaker 1: with this with Donald Trump from twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and twenty seventeen until guess what, Donald Trump just eviscerated
Speaker 1: the establishment. Look at the people that were still around, right,
Speaker 1: You had this sort of uncomfortable alliance between sort of
Speaker 1: the Paul Ryan wing that was still alive in twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen and twenty eighteen and the Donald Trump wing of
Speaker 1: the party. Well, five years later, all of those folks
Speaker 1: are gone. It's Donald Trump's party. Are there still some
Speaker 1: few remaining members of that old establishment? Rich McConnell's on
Speaker 1: his way out. John Thune is trying hard not to
Speaker 1: look like he's part of the old guard, and we'll
Speaker 1: see John Cornyn is struggling. As you can see, he's
Speaker 1: about perhaps going to see the end his political career.
Speaker 1: He's somebody that's been around. So it may be that
Speaker 1: what Republicans dealt with in twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: maybe what's going to be happening here and maybe this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of a revolt of sort of a
Speaker 1: secondary revolution of sorts. I do want to point out
Speaker 1: another piece of commentary that I retweeted earlier today, but
Speaker 1: I want to read. It comes from somebody who's going
Speaker 1: to be on the podcast pretty soon, Kristen Sultis Anderson.
Speaker 1: She's a Republican polster, really good, and she highlighted this
Speaker 1: quote from Politico's Playbook. It was from an anonymous centrist Democrat.
Speaker 1: It was a hot take, and it was this quote.
Speaker 1: It is extremely alarming that the only candidates who genuinely
Speaker 1: excite our voters are the ones making absolutely insane promises
Speaker 1: on politically toxic positions, one strategist tells Playbook, leaving us
Speaker 1: in the spot of trying to execute on bad policy
Speaker 1: and losing terribly or failing to keep our promises and
Speaker 1: reinforcing the idea that all politics is bullshit. Well, Kristen
Speaker 1: Sultius Anderson put this little note above that quote, and
Speaker 1: she said, change the party label from DEM to GOP.
Speaker 1: And this reminds me of a quote you'd read in
Speaker 1: the summer of twenty fourteen. Well, the summer of twenty fourteen, right,
Speaker 1: was the sort of the second big tea party election, right,
Speaker 1: that last midterm of Obama. And it really those that
Speaker 1: came in there. Josh Holly was a twenty fourteen elected Republican,
Speaker 1: for instance. The beginnings of what is now sort of
Speaker 1: the mainstream MAGA coalition that is very supportive of the
Speaker 1: Trump agenda started to come in in twenty a little
Speaker 1: bit in twenty ten, more so in twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 1: it was the same concerns you had. Mainstream Republicans. Establishment
Speaker 1: Republicans just panicked, and some of these candidates were so
Speaker 1: bad it did cost them Senate races.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Why why are Democrats as close to having the Senate
Speaker 1: majority and in fact just had it for two cycles
Speaker 1: that arguably they shouldn't have had it for It's because
Speaker 1: of how poorly many of these candidates did the first
Speaker 1: time they ran. But as you saw, over time, eventually
Speaker 1: those candidates were able to become seen as mainstream Republicans
Speaker 1: as Donald Trump changed the Republican Party electorate itself, right,
Speaker 1: what you know, those Republicans that rejected some of those
Speaker 1: Tea Party candidates in twenty fourteen, for many of them,
Speaker 1: that was the last time they voted Republican. Right, They
Speaker 1: ended up becoming the new suburban Democratic voters. And this
Speaker 1: is the challenge that I think the Democratic Party has.
Speaker 1: They have been growing support in the wealthier suburbs around
Speaker 1: pretty much every major metropolitan arean America. But these folks
Speaker 1: are not keen on the policies of democratic socialists, you know.
Speaker 1: So this is going to be the uncomfortable alliance that
Speaker 1: I don't know how the two of them are going
Speaker 1: to coexist. Perhaps there's a way that happens. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a temporary alliance. You know, for a long time, this
Speaker 1: stuff was papered over by just being angry at Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: But I think now after sort of eight years of
Speaker 1: conducting campaigns that paper over this divide between essentially a
Speaker 1: business wing of the Democratic Party and a progressive populist
Speaker 1: wing of the Democratic Party that really I think culturally
Speaker 1: they see things eye to eye and some social issues,
Speaker 1: but not on economic policy, and this is where there's
Speaker 1: this sharp divide and a little bit unfeigned policy. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think sometimes we over highlight the Israel
Speaker 1: issue as a primary voting issue. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: of evidence that voters themselves vote on this issue. That
Speaker 1: instead they're voting on pocketbook issues. So you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: now now that Trump I mean, look, Cuomo tried to
Speaker 1: use the Trump card in order to gain traction with
Speaker 1: Democratic primary voters, and it's pretty clear Democratic primary voters
Speaker 1: are tired of that messaging. They want to hear something
Speaker 1: that's for them. They want to hear something that feels
Speaker 1: like fighting. They want to have something that feels like
Speaker 1: pushing back in one form or another. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what Mam Doni I think gave voters in a
Speaker 1: way that Cuomo never did. But this is where I
Speaker 1: think we all have to sort of take a breath.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can sit here and say for
Speaker 1: sure that Mam Donnie's nomination is. It means the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party wants to go in a very progressive direction on
Speaker 1: economic policy. I think this right now one is not
Speaker 1: a trend. Let's see if this happens in multiple races,
Speaker 1: and then we can have another conversation. But I think
Speaker 1: this had more to do with in Cuomo becoming the
Speaker 1: quasi incumbent to voters right he was seeing the establishment
Speaker 1: and incumbency feels like one and the same these days.
Speaker 1: He ran a terrible race. He wasn't talking about economic issues,
Speaker 1: and he also ran an old race. What do I
Speaker 1: mean by that? Well, they just ran an old campaign,
Speaker 1: a lot of TV ads, a lot of sort of slickness,
Speaker 1: sort of the sort of traditional events, getting the proper
Speaker 1: endorsements and proper endorsements like you know, Jim Clyburn worrying
Speaker 1: too much about those endorsements, versus a mom Donnie who
Speaker 1: by necessity had to come up with different ways to
Speaker 1: run because he didn't have that amount of money. Ran
Speaker 1: a more modern twenty twenty esque the twenty twenties. What
Speaker 1: sort of media is today? Hey, I'm you know, independent media, streaming,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to refer to it. He was all
Speaker 1: of the above. He was showing up everywhere. He would
Speaker 1: certainly do plenty of legacy cable television, but he also
Speaker 1: would do plenty of new media as well. Cuomo wasn't
Speaker 1: doing any of that. I mean, I think I said
Speaker 1: it earlier. I believe he did two podcasts and one
Speaker 1: of them was his brothers. Right. He wasn't exactly looking
Speaker 1: to talk to new vote and sort of let loose,
Speaker 1: and I think part of that, frankly, the reason they
Speaker 1: hit him, right, the reason we never saw Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is that they were afraid he really couldn't reassure people
Speaker 1: that he was all all on the up and up,
Speaker 1: which is why we rarely saw him in interviews, and
Speaker 1: he was very protected. I think with Cuomo, they just
Speaker 1: wanted to duck questions about the circumstances with which he
Speaker 1: decided to resign his governorship. And that was a mistake, right,
Speaker 1: not confronting these things. You know, he could have taken
Speaker 1: a page from Trump's book and gone right at it
Speaker 1: and sort of owned it or not owned it, but
Speaker 1: dealt with it. Whatever you think of Trump, he tries
Speaker 1: to deal with all of it. Sometimes obviously, sometimes he
Speaker 1: lies about it, makes up, but he's constantly trying to
Speaker 1: deal with it, and it sends a message to voters
Speaker 1: that he's at least acknowledging the elephant's plural in the room.
Speaker 1: Cuomo never did any of that, So I think I
Speaker 1: would caution, assuming this is some sort of leftboard lurch
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party, what were the alternatives. He ran
Speaker 1: a better race, He talked about the issues that voters
Speaker 1: cared about. Cuomo was the front runner. He behaved like
Speaker 1: an incumbent, and he lost. He was sort of and
Speaker 1: it felt like he was out of touch. He didn't
Speaker 1: even live in the city. He didn't even know how
Speaker 1: to His bagel order was an English muffin. I mean
Speaker 1: that alone, to some people, was grounds for never being
Speaker 1: elected mayor of New York City. So it is. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very possible that Mom Donnie won for very mundane
Speaker 1: reasons that have nothing to do with ideology and nothing
Speaker 1: to do with any big shift that bread and butter issues.
Speaker 1: One guy was talking about bread and butter and the
Speaker 1: other one wasn't pure and simple. But here's what I
Speaker 1: would say. I do think that I think Senate Democrats,
Speaker 1: I think Democratic Party is a real problem with Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 1: Right now I say this, it's going to sound like
Speaker 1: I'm picking on him, But you know there was a
Speaker 1: new candidate jumped into the US Senate race in Texas,
Speaker 1: and the first thing he did to say, you know
Speaker 1: he's running is a This is the astronaut, former astronaut
Speaker 1: who decided to run first time he's run for office,
Speaker 1: running as a Democrat, and he and he took a
Speaker 1: and he named Check Schumer as the Democrats who aren't
Speaker 1: doing enough, who aren't fighting, who don't know what they're doing,
Speaker 1: Rocanna who wants himself a congressman out in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners of the Chuck podcast know that I've had
Speaker 1: him on and we've we've we've we've, we've had conversations
Speaker 1: a few times on this broadcast. He regularly named checks
Speaker 1: Schumer in a negative way these days as part of
Speaker 1: the problem on the he's becoming the punching bag for
Speaker 1: Democrats to show that they they are getting the message.
Speaker 1: So it's really I think he's becoming the now symbol.
Speaker 1: It's not Jeffries, it's not the DNC chair that probably
Speaker 1: most people can't remember the name of right now, it's
Speaker 1: Martin in case you're asking yourself right now, it is
Speaker 1: sort of Chuck Schumer. Some of this maybe some of
Speaker 1: the criticism is unfair, but basically he is the remaining
Speaker 1: member of the sort of the group of Democrats that
Speaker 1: it feels like they've been running the party since Obama left. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, Clinton is no longer there, Biden is no
Speaker 1: longer there, but Chuck Schumer. You know, Nancy Pelosi is
Speaker 1: no longer there, but Chuck Schumer is still there. Right,
Speaker 1: Harry Reid is no longer there, but Chuck Schumer is
Speaker 1: still there. Stanny Hoyer is no longer there, but Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer is still there. So he is I think going
Speaker 1: to become an even bigger magnet. The question. Now, the
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats are very you know senators in general, they're
Speaker 1: not They don't they don't act rashly. You know, they
Speaker 1: usually are very They want to they want to take
Speaker 1: their time on dealing with things. So I don't know
Speaker 1: that he's in trouble and that there would be some
Speaker 1: move against him. In fact, it would be very unsenate
Speaker 1: like to see something like this. But I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that conversation I had with the Democratic senator very recently
Speaker 1: who was really upset that Michael Bennett decided to run
Speaker 1: for governor, and I think I shared this with you
Speaker 1: that a form of this, but it was this senator
Speaker 1: was saying, look, we've got to replace Schumer. We all
Speaker 1: know it, but there's no obvious person. I thought Michael
Speaker 1: Bennett was the obvious replacement, and and and the senator
Speaker 1: you know, said, look, you know, he decided he wanted
Speaker 1: to be governor. He's frustrated working in the Senate. He
Speaker 1: gets it, but you know, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like if you're going to shoot the king, who you're
Speaker 1: going to replace him with? Right? You know? Is it?
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking about running for president in the
Speaker 1: US Senate, the last thing you want to be is
Speaker 1: in leadership. Right, maybe it's better off of Brian Shatz,
Speaker 1: who is a Senator from Hawaii who seems to be
Speaker 1: one of the few that has figured out how to
Speaker 1: how to talk to both the progressive wing of the
Speaker 1: party in a in a way that's authentic and the
Speaker 1: and the and the sort of center left wing of
Speaker 1: the party party where I think he's decidedly a bit
Speaker 1: more progressive. But it's very respectful. You know, when you
Speaker 1: replace Daniel inn Away in the Senate, you're sort of
Speaker 1: respectful of how of the different wings of the party itself.
Speaker 1: It might behove the party to essentially listen to the
Speaker 1: base of the party and say, you know, and here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Schumer's one of the most self aware politicians
Speaker 1: I've ever met. He has made ruthless decisions in the past,
Speaker 1: nominees to let loose in Senate races where you're just
Speaker 1: trying to save the Senate in another state and you
Speaker 1: can't fulfill a promise. He knows how to make tough decisions.
Speaker 1: He's done it before. He's pulled the plug on candidacies
Speaker 1: that you know, made a lot of people mad. But
Speaker 1: somebody has to make those decisions. There might be a
Speaker 1: moment where the best thing for him to be is
Speaker 1: to sort of say, you know what, I shouldn't. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody saying he should leave the Senate, but that he
Speaker 1: steps aside as party leader and sort of sends the
Speaker 1: message that the Democrats do want to sort of turn
Speaker 1: the page, do want a new set of leaders. I
Speaker 1: think Jeffreys is still considered new to the post, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and Nancy Pelosi is still there right, still
Speaker 1: sort of walks the halls and some I've talked to
Speaker 1: some House Democrats who think that she's she needs to
Speaker 1: lay lower than she has been, and she's actually laid
Speaker 1: pretty low here. It is interesting who did decide to endorse,
Speaker 1: who did decide to endorse Mom Donnie today and who
Speaker 1: did not. The first member of the New York City
Speaker 1: Congressional delegation to endorse Mom Donnie Jerry Nadler, and he's
Speaker 1: he is Jewish. It's a big endorsement. He called it
Speaker 1: a seismic election. He compared Mom Donnie's victory to Obama's victory.
Speaker 1: And here's what he said when it came. He said
Speaker 1: on and whether he had any concerns about some previous
Speaker 1: statements that Mam Donna he had made as a Jewish American,
Speaker 1: and he said, quote, I've spoken to him today about
Speaker 1: his commitment to fighting anti Semitism, and we'll work with
Speaker 1: all New Yorkers to fight against all bigotry and hate.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm going to be curious to see.
Speaker 1: I think Mom Donnie, we're going to find out. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes insurgent candidacies don't know how to then not be
Speaker 1: an insurgent like Bernie Sanders. I would argue, he's now
Speaker 1: an establishment leader of the party. But he never wants
Speaker 1: to be seen as an establishment member of the party,
Speaker 1: which is why he continues to back out of his promises.
Speaker 1: He is multiple times promised he was going to register
Speaker 1: as a Democrat and never did because I don't think
Speaker 1: he ever wants to be seen as quote unquote part
Speaker 1: of the establishment. But you could argue, because he's been
Speaker 1: the leader of the progressive movement arguably now for a decade,
Speaker 1: that he is certainly the establishment member of that. But look,
Speaker 1: I do think that there's he's never been able to
Speaker 1: figure out how to be bigger than just his movement.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a challenge from mom Donnie. Right.
Speaker 1: Governing that city is incredibly difficult. It has been referred
Speaker 1: to as the second hardest job in politics. And he
Speaker 1: actually has an opportunity here over the next three or
Speaker 1: four months where the bar's kind of low, right, you're
Speaker 1: going to have a lot of skeptical moderates, skeptical business
Speaker 1: leaders about him. How does he he's had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to sort of make a new first impression with some
Speaker 1: of these folks. What's he like behind the scenes, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of like sometimes insurgent politicians don't
Speaker 1: know how to be sort of diplomats. When you have
Speaker 1: to be a diplomat, you need to sometimes do diplomacy
Speaker 1: even in domestic politics. Right, it's a challenge that's taking
Speaker 1: place in Syria with the new president there. Right, he
Speaker 1: was a rebel and then suddenly you're now in charge
Speaker 1: and you have to govern everybody, including people that may
Speaker 1: not have wanted you in that position. Can you meet
Speaker 1: the moment, can you handle the moment, and can you
Speaker 1: say no to a supporter if it's for the greater good? Right,
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see that challenge, see how
Speaker 1: he handles that challenge going forward. But look, there's no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. This is an earthquake. And one final
Speaker 1: point I'll make on this, I did a little quick
Speaker 1: research here. There are fifteen members of Congress that are
Speaker 1: seventy years old or older. I do think Mom Donnie's
Speaker 1: victory is going to inspire primary challenges to many of
Speaker 1: these folks. And if you've been in Congress, you're over
Speaker 1: the age of seventy and you've been in Congress more
Speaker 1: than two decades, you really ought to look in the
Speaker 1: mirror and ask yourself whether you really do you want
Speaker 1: to end this way because I think there's going to
Speaker 1: be real vulnerability. It's clear there is a hunger for new.
Speaker 1: I do think the key to Mom Donnie as he
Speaker 1: was new Cuomo, was old, pure and simple. And those
Speaker 1: fifteen members of Congress who have allved so far have
Speaker 1: said they're going to run for reelection, whether it's a
Speaker 1: Maxine Waters in Los Angeles, Stenny Hoyer in Maryland, a
Speaker 1: Bill Pascrell in New Jersey, and Al Green in Texas,
Speaker 1: A Jerry Nadler in New York City, which may explain
Speaker 1: why he quickly jumped on the Mom Donnie bandwagon. He's
Speaker 1: seventy seven and has had to deal with his sheriff
Speaker 1: primary pro Progressive primary challengers before. So that's the door
Speaker 1: that I expected. You know, this is what David Hogg
Speaker 1: had promised he wanted to do. And it is interesting
Speaker 1: when I look at the fifteen House members, none of
Speaker 1: them are in swing seats except for one that I
Speaker 1: can see here, Marcy Captor. Beyond that, everybody else is
Speaker 1: in fairly safe democratic seats. This could be This could
Speaker 1: be the sea change. A sea change is coming. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one other one that might want to
Speaker 1: be careful here, and that is there is one senator
Speaker 1: who is up for reelection in twenty twenty six who
Speaker 1: is running that's over the age of seventy five, and
Speaker 1: that's Ed Markey. Now, he survived a primary challenge when
Speaker 1: he was an appointed senator from from young Joe Kennedy,
Speaker 1: the third but Kennedy kind of ran to his right,
Speaker 1: ran a primary challenge from his right, which, as we
Speaker 1: all know, in a Democratic primary, that usually doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But that's another one. The point is is that I think,
Speaker 1: I don't think if you're an incumbent Democrat and you've
Speaker 1: been in office for more than a decade, watch out.
Speaker 1: That's probably the number one message. Watch out quick update
Speaker 1: on the big beautiful bill that the president's trying to
Speaker 1: get through, and you have all these folks trying to
Speaker 1: sort of jam, if you will, The Senate's trying to
Speaker 1: jam the House. They still want to rush this vote.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how unpopular this bill continues to be. And
Speaker 1: there's been a couple of just sloppy comments that that
Speaker 1: I have a feeling are going to come back to
Speaker 1: haunt congressional Republicans. And that is one, of course, was
Speaker 1: the one Joni Ernst made Everybody's going to die. And
Speaker 1: another is a comment that Mitch McConnell was quoted as
Speaker 1: saying on Medicaid cuts when he said, when he was
Speaker 1: quoted Tom Tillis, who is up for reelection, is concerned
Speaker 1: about the severity of some of these Medicaid cuts. Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: apparently in the same meeting said, yes, he's been hearing
Speaker 1: the same in Kentucky. But they'll get over it. I
Speaker 1: just that phrase. They'll get over it. And we all
Speaker 1: know how whether one thing, it's one thing for Joni Earnst,
Speaker 1: somebody who outside of Iowa, most people don't know who
Speaker 1: she is. Mitch McConnell, that's somebody a lot of people
Speaker 1: have heard of. I just have a feeling that quote's
Speaker 1: going to become famous. The biggest problem Trump has, and
Speaker 1: I know he's promised to do a tour of the
Speaker 1: country to try to top this bill, is this bill
Speaker 1: starts out enormously unpopular. It has been so defined as
Speaker 1: a cutting Medicaid bill. It is not on other stuff
Speaker 1: at all. It is it is. I don't know know
Speaker 1: how they turn this thing around as a political asset,
Speaker 1: but you know what this is what happened to Biden
Speaker 1: and the Democrats. They eventually got their bill passed, but
Speaker 1: it was such an ugly, painful process, so many ugly
Speaker 1: negotiations and various Democrats trashing different proposals, allowing quotes to
Speaker 1: be used in the elections to sort of make it
Speaker 1: make Democrats uncomfortable trying to sell it. They had a
Speaker 1: you know, it was not a political asset in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, It just wasn't to the voters. I think
Speaker 1: that's the situation that Republicans face with this bill in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Look, not passing the bill would still
Speaker 1: be worse politics than passing this bill. But there's I
Speaker 1: don't know what they get to sell out of this
Speaker 1: that's positive. I really don't. It's becoming harder and harder.
Speaker 1: And speaking of which, and this May, it's an important
Speaker 1: poll number that I wanted to share with you that
Speaker 1: I just saw recently, and it's a CNN poll and
Speaker 1: it was just out. There's a there's a certain question
Speaker 1: that we've tracked, we tracked at NBC for years. It's
Speaker 1: an important question. CNN had it on their poll on
Speaker 1: their on their most recent May twenty twenty five poll,
Speaker 1: and the question is simply this. It's a question we've
Speaker 1: tracked for generations and it's fascinating. The pattern here government
Speaker 1: is it doing too much? Or should government do more?
Speaker 1: And the pattern is this, whenever Democrats and are in
Speaker 1: the White House, they're a majority of voters believe government
Speaker 1: is doing too much, And whenever Republicans are in the
Speaker 1: White House, the number starts to increase the government that
Speaker 1: the government needs to do more. Well, we are at
Speaker 1: a near high fifty in CNN's polling, fifty eight percent
Speaker 1: saying that the government needs to do more. At the
Speaker 1: at the beginning of twenty twenty three, it was a
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine. Now government does more versus government
Speaker 1: does too much is fifty eight forty one. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting here is nearly forty percent of Republicans believe that
Speaker 1: government should actually do more, not less. Why am I
Speaker 1: singling that number out because in every previous pull that
Speaker 1: number has never been over thirty before, and it's over
Speaker 1: forty percent. This gets to the Josh Holly point, right,
Speaker 1: a Republican senator in Missouri who's worried about these Medicaid
Speaker 1: cuts because he knows the elect Donald Trump changed the
Speaker 1: electorate right. The single most important political decision he made
Speaker 1: in order to become president of the United States was
Speaker 1: taking the idea of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
Speaker 1: off the table. Now we're having a big argument, now
Speaker 1: what's a cut what isn't? And I think the country
Speaker 1: believes Medicaid is getting cut. And it certainly looks, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at it, they are making cuts to Medicaid.
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to try to claim it is just
Speaker 1: simply cleaning up Medicaid, that there aren't cuts to actual beneficiaries.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter. Voters think government, no matter what
Speaker 1: government's doing, they should do more. So perhaps if your mom, Donnie,
Speaker 1: and you're offering to have government do even more, maybe
Speaker 1: this is a reminder that there's a fairly large constituency
Speaker 1: out there of people who think government should do more
Speaker 1: and not less. All right, I hope you enjoyed the
Speaker 1: NBA Draft last night. This is my favorite stat for
Speaker 1: how crazy the NBA draft is. Of the final eighteen picks.
Speaker 1: If you paid attention to the first round last night, only
Speaker 1: one of the final eighteen first round picks belonged to
Speaker 1: its original owner. That's how often and how many of
Speaker 1: these picks have been traded back and forth. The Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics at number twenty eight the only team, the only
Speaker 1: team after the top I think it was like seven
Speaker 1: or eight picks. Top ten would be top twelve picks,
Speaker 1: the only team to be an original owner of that pick.
Speaker 1: That all seventeen of the final eighteen picks in the
Speaker 1: first round had been traded. I can't say the NBA
Speaker 1: isn't interesting. I think that's part of the NBA's problem.
Speaker 1: There are times where the off season or the stuff
Speaker 1: on Twitter is sometimes as exciting, if not more exciting,
Speaker 1: than sometimes they play itself. All right with that, I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed my conversation with my friend Read Wilson.
Speaker 1: We've worked together for years. He's an ex hotliner, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, he runs one of the smartest, most important
Speaker 1: news organizations you might not have heard of yet. It's
Speaker 1: called Pluribus, tracks what's going on on the state level.
Speaker 1: More and more your life is being impacted by what
Speaker 1: state legislatures decide to do or not do. And in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the big parts of the conversation we have
Speaker 1: is about AI regulation, which of course Congress. Congressional Republicans
Speaker 1: are trying to protect big tech from any regulation in
Speaker 1: the States for ten years. It is a part of
Speaker 1: the big beautiful bill that is extraordinarily controversial, and this
Speaker 1: could be the section two thirty piece of legislation. And
Speaker 1: Republicans do end up doing this that gets hung around
Speaker 1: their neck in a few years. If AI goes sideways
Speaker 1: on HI with that, let me sneaking a break and
Speaker 1: we'll bring on Read Wilson we joining me now is
Speaker 1: a long time friend of mine, colleague, an ex hotliner
Speaker 1: and all of you know how I feel about X
Speaker 1: hotliners on this there is yes, I will always over
Speaker 1: index on X hotliners on the Chuck podcast. Read Wilson,
Speaker 1: a former editor in chief himself, got started there when
Speaker 1: I was there. He is now runs what I think
Speaker 1: is one of the must reads every morning for me.
Speaker 1: It's called Pluribus and what it is is it covers
Speaker 1: what's happening in state legislatures, in state law, and as
Speaker 1: we all know, there is with so much inaction in
Speaker 1: the federal level of the government, with one of the
Speaker 1: weakest legislative branches in the history of the United States,
Speaker 1: and the sort of the self weakening that Congress has done.
Speaker 1: It is actually strengthened legislative chambers and legislative action all
Speaker 1: over the country because of the polarization and inability and
Speaker 1: whatever you want to have it. And so in many ways,
Speaker 1: the laboratories of democracy is what we've always referred to
Speaker 1: as the states. Well, those labs are very busy these days.
Speaker 1: And whether it's on voting rights, whether it's on cooperation
Speaker 1: with the federal government, whether it's about medicaid funding, AI regulation.
Speaker 1: Reid Wilson knows all of these things these days. Plus
Speaker 1: you know he's a long suffering Seattle SuperSonics fan. We're
Speaker 1: going to you like that I went SuperSonics on you.
Speaker 1: It's I had Leibovich on recently read and he came
Speaker 1: on the program wearing not a Seattle Sonics T shirt,
Speaker 1: SuperSonics T shirt. It was old school. It was green.
Speaker 1: It was that faded green yellow was kind of you
Speaker 1: could see the space needle and you know in the
Speaker 1: background you saw Shay, Oh, never mind, sorry, I look,
Speaker 1: we're I'll be honest, we're taping before game seven. This
Speaker 1: will air after Game seven. Do you care about the
Speaker 1: thunder and all?
Speaker 3: Are you?
Speaker 1: Like? Are you negative about them, or do you not
Speaker 1: hold it against Oklahoma City fans for how Howard Schultz
Speaker 1: destroyed the Seattle super.
Speaker 3: It's not Oklahoma City's fault. It's Howard Schultz's fault. It
Speaker 3: always will be. Let me tell you a funny story though.
Speaker 2: So I was I was back home over the Fourth
Speaker 2: of July, and I took my kid to a Fourth
Speaker 2: of July parade and the gubernatorial candidates came through, and
Speaker 2: Bob Ferguson, then the attorney general, now the governor stops
Speaker 2: right in front of me, in front of a guy
Speaker 2: with a Sonic shirt, and he says, hey, we're not governor,
Speaker 2: We're going to get the Sonics back. I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: that feels pretty much done. And you had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it. It was just it was the most blatant
Speaker 2: pandering i'd.
Speaker 1: Ever hey man called pandering. You're at a parade? What that?
Speaker 1: What parades are full? You really feel that confident? It's
Speaker 1: just a done deal. It's just about whenever they decide
Speaker 1: to get Vegas the basketball team, they have to do too,
Speaker 1: so ergo it'll be Seattle or bust.
Speaker 3: And we got the facilities for it. We don't need
Speaker 3: to build a new stadium.
Speaker 2: I'm generally negative on using public funds to build stadiums,
Speaker 2: which by the way, is a pretty big trend in
Speaker 2: the States right now that we can talk about.
Speaker 3: If you want. But we've got the facilities already, we
Speaker 3: just need the team.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting on that front. So I was,
Speaker 1: actually i've been I've been sort of going back to
Speaker 1: my sports business routes a little bit as I'm trying
Speaker 1: to build a you know, I have this thesis that
Speaker 1: local sports and youth sports could be what can become
Speaker 1: the revenue stream to build local to sort of build
Speaker 1: back local news. And I'm pretty the more I look
Speaker 1: into it, the more the more bullish I am on this.
Speaker 1: But it's allowed me to sort of I've gotten I've
Speaker 1: sort of reacquainted myself with the industry, gotten to know
Speaker 1: a lot of these key players. And is that a
Speaker 1: an off the record conversation And I don't want to
Speaker 1: say where because I don't want to give away that
Speaker 1: part of it, but generally it was interesting. The essentially
Speaker 1: what the goal now is in these public funds debates
Speaker 1: about stadiums is don't go to the voters now right now?
Speaker 1: The voters are always it's easier to vote them down
Speaker 1: than vote for them. What's funny about these things is,
Speaker 1: like take Washington, DC is a great example. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of controversy about whether Nationals Park should be
Speaker 1: done the way it was done. Twenty years later, everybody
Speaker 1: looks at what's been done to the waterfront to that
Speaker 1: area and says, oh my god, this has been transformational
Speaker 1: and so which is why it was they're going to
Speaker 1: get the Commanders deal done because they see what it
Speaker 1: has meant it really, you know, because sometimes you make
Speaker 1: these projects and they do not deliver on the extra
Speaker 1: jobs and the extra this. But it does seem as
Speaker 1: if if you do it in a city, you know,
Speaker 1: you try to do it in a suburbs and you're
Speaker 1: not going to get the return on investment those promises, don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is rare. Maybe the Braves thing is
Speaker 1: an exception to the rule, but usually suburban developments don't
Speaker 1: work as well as actual city developments doing these things.
Speaker 1: But what are you seeing as a trend and do
Speaker 1: you see more of these local governments going all right,
Speaker 1: we'll do this, but we cannot essentially make it a
Speaker 1: referendum with the voters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody wants to go to the voters. Take a
Speaker 2: look at what happened in Kansas City. The voters there
Speaker 2: voted down in incremental sales tax. I think it was
Speaker 2: five to eighths of a cent of a sales tax
Speaker 2: to keep the chiefs and the royals in town. Now,
Speaker 2: the legislature just passed something last week to get that
Speaker 2: project done. Same things happening in Ohio with the Cleveland
Speaker 2: Brown Stadium. And I think the big trend that you're
Speaker 2: seeing here is not that legislatures are doing are giving
Speaker 2: money to rich owners to build new stadiums. That's happened
Speaker 2: over time. They're building more than just stadiums though. They're
Speaker 2: building these entertainment districts own the stadium. To talk about
Speaker 2: DC en sure that that sort of Navy yard area
Speaker 2: has all built up.
Speaker 3: Around the stadium.
Speaker 2: You're going to see the same thing like the like
Speaker 2: the power and Light district in Kansas City. Uh, those
Speaker 2: sort of entertainment districts building up around a stadium so
Speaker 2: that it's more than just someplace that people go for
Speaker 2: you know, eight football games a year.
Speaker 3: It's a place where you go to have dinner and
Speaker 3: walk around a city.
Speaker 1: Well, what's interesting is that the sports franchises themselves realize
Speaker 1: they have to create a destination they that you know,
Speaker 1: you're competing. And I always say this with football man,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to get me to go to
Speaker 1: a game, because I is there a better view than
Speaker 1: your big screen television in your own house right, the
Speaker 1: ability to see the replay, the ability to do all
Speaker 1: those things right. And you know, when you go to
Speaker 1: a game, especially college football, and the extraordinarily lengthy TV
Speaker 1: timeouts that can sit you know, it isn't a great
Speaker 1: So you really have to do a lot of other
Speaker 1: You've got to make the experience big than just the
Speaker 1: two to three hours in the in the action itself.
Speaker 1: So I think in many ways the franchises are incentivized
Speaker 1: to think bigger and then actually that does create payoff
Speaker 1: for the for the for the local government, because when
Speaker 1: you think bigger, then you do get hotel taxes, you
Speaker 1: do get the tourist stuff, you do get just basic
Speaker 1: sales tax and property tax return, where if it's just
Speaker 1: the stadium, you don't see any kind of return. Ask
Speaker 1: Maryland what kind of return they got from from ral John? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, which is no longer roll John whatever that,
Speaker 1: you know. But but you know, in Landover with that stadium,
Speaker 1: they didn't get the return they expected because Landover wasn't
Speaker 1: a destination, pure and simple.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, by the way, a big thing that
Speaker 2: a lot of states are dealing with right now is housing.
Speaker 3: And you build an.
Speaker 2: Entertainment district like that, and hey, that's you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of thousand new housing units something that all these pass.
Speaker 1: You and I both see Mayor Bouser keeps bringing that up. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're building this many new units in to this this stadium,
Speaker 1: and that is what I think has made these things
Speaker 1: go down a little bit easier. And again, voters don't
Speaker 1: like it. You know. Look, I'm a cranky voter. I
Speaker 1: almost always vote against these these tax asks referendums in
Speaker 1: my county, you know, if it's you know, unless it's
Speaker 1: for schools or parks, like that's the up school in Barts. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm one of those voters. But I'm always
Speaker 1: a little skeptical. Why are you always going to borrow?
Speaker 1: Why do you always want to borrow? Can you can
Speaker 1: you do this another way? You know? Type of mindset.
Speaker 1: I'm probably not alone in that, which is why all
Speaker 1: of these things are always what fifty one forty nine
Speaker 1: and usually in the negative, right, And.
Speaker 2: I mean think about it, that people getting the money
Speaker 2: are billionaires, right, the billionaire sports owners.
Speaker 3: It's the it's the.
Speaker 2: Easy, easy ad campaign, privatization of gain and the socialization
Speaker 2: of cost.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, no, there's no doubt about it. Look,
Speaker 1: one of the things that motivated me to get you
Speaker 1: on sooner rather than later recently one is just because
Speaker 1: I know we can talk a lot of politics outside
Speaker 1: of Washington, which I'm constantly interested in. But it's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me how members of Congress are now realizing they
Speaker 1: read the fine print of the big, beautiful bill, which
Speaker 1: you know, I went on and ran on this. I'm
Speaker 1: not asking every member of Congress read every bill, but
Speaker 1: can you read the one big one every year that
Speaker 1: you got to vote on, Right, Like when you were
Speaker 1: in college, you knew which books you didn't have to read,
Speaker 1: but there was always one you had to read, right, Yeah, at.
Speaker 3: Least running through chat GPT right, get the summary.
Speaker 1: Get it summary. Although I think the submaries didn't know
Speaker 1: that this bill was going to take AI regulation power
Speaker 1: away from the states. Which I remember when I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that is boy AI thinks they can get These AI
Speaker 1: companies think they're going to get anything they want, And
Speaker 1: it was amazing how they did get it into part
Speaker 1: one of that legislation. Now I think it's definitely going away,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 2: I would imagine so, especially because we've seen such outcry
Speaker 2: from the States.
Speaker 3: There was a bipartisan letter.
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago from a couple of hundred
Speaker 2: state legislators, even numbers of Democrats and Republicans and even
Speaker 2: a couple of independents out there who.
Speaker 3: Said they wanted the power.
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing about this is the states have
Speaker 2: really taken a lead on it, and it's it's a
Speaker 2: bipartisan cause there's this there's this caucus of legislators led
Speaker 2: by a guy named state senator in Connecticut named James
Speaker 2: Maroney the state of Rapid Texas named Giovanni's Capriglione uh
Speaker 2: and and they're they're taking very different approaches, but they're
Speaker 2: sitting there and they're talking about it and learning about
Speaker 2: AI and uses in state government guard rails around safety
Speaker 2: and discrimination. UH. It's it's been a huge conversation in
Speaker 2: the states and they want to keep that power.
Speaker 3: I think it's I.
Speaker 2: Think it's you know, there's a there's At the same time, though,
Speaker 2: we're seeing the growth of a new set of very
Speaker 2: moneyed interests playing in politics these days. You know, in
Speaker 2: the old days, it was it was you know, pharma
Speaker 2: and big tobacco and you know, the boogeyman. Today it's
Speaker 2: crypto and it's AI, and they're starting to play federal races.
Speaker 2: We saw that in you know, the Ohio Senate race,
Speaker 2: the Pennsylvania Senate race, where the crypto community came in
Speaker 2: hard for the Republicans.
Speaker 3: And now we're seeing it in state legislators too, where
Speaker 3: you know, open.
Speaker 2: Ai and Meta and Google are are they're spending a
Speaker 2: lot of money lobbying mostly against these bills through a
Speaker 2: number of interesting cutouts.
Speaker 3: You know, there's like the liberal tech interest group will go.
Speaker 2: Play in California and the conservative tech interest group will
Speaker 2: go play in Texas.
Speaker 1: And the money comes from the same pot, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Money comes from the same pot.
Speaker 2: And they don't really you know, there's no real difference
Speaker 2: other than they call themselves liberals or conservatives.
Speaker 3: But they all they all.
Speaker 2: Sort of carve it up and then and then the
Speaker 2: moderate the libertarian guys come in and sew when something
Speaker 2: actually passes.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the sad new realities in Washington
Speaker 1: lobbying is that there's it's rarely now big corporations versus citizens.
Speaker 1: It is usually one industry versus another industry, and they
Speaker 1: hide behind the people, right, they try to use voters,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's you know, we're seeing it with
Speaker 1: the with with pharma, right, it's like one you know,
Speaker 1: it's really too moneyed interest going after each other. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the citizens have any role in this whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Who's the you know, is there any entity pushing back
Speaker 1: against big tech on their aggressive AI? Is there another
Speaker 1: industry stepping into sort of to try to slow down
Speaker 1: AI's ability to basically get governments to do whatever the
Speaker 1: hell they want now?
Speaker 3: I don't see an industry group.
Speaker 2: I do see a lot of the AI companies sort
Speaker 2: of feuding with each other, although mainly on sort of
Speaker 2: other issues around tech, social media, digital privacy, things like that.
Speaker 2: A big example is the push for age verification rules.
Speaker 2: You know, your kid downloads an app, whose responsibility is
Speaker 2: it to verify that used age?
Speaker 3: Is it? You know, is it the app people themselves, Facebook.
Speaker 2: Snapchat, something like that, or is it an app store
Speaker 2: Apple and Google Apple? And right now a lot of those,
Speaker 2: a lot of states are fighting over so.
Speaker 1: In that sense, you get those two big moneyed fights,
Speaker 1: right It's usually there's a lot of Apple versus meta stuff.
Speaker 1: I am curious since Apple is sort of the lagger
Speaker 1: when it comes to sort of AI at this point,
Speaker 1: are they at all funding the other side of this
Speaker 1: or no, you know, not.
Speaker 3: That I've seen.
Speaker 2: I mean, the other side is mostly privacy groups, good
Speaker 2: government groups, common cause people like that.
Speaker 1: Who you know, truly the citizen groups, the original citizen
Speaker 1: lobbyist type.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as opposed to as opposed to the big companies
Speaker 2: fighting over AI itself.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting when you just pointed out about
Speaker 1: how it's a bipartisan pushback right from the states on
Speaker 1: the against the Feds. And this is one of the
Speaker 1: things while you know, we talk a lot on a
Speaker 1: macro level when we look at state legislatures about oh, look,
Speaker 1: this is a one party control here, one party control there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And from sixty thousand feet that's what looks like. And
Speaker 1: then when you look closer you see a place like
Speaker 1: Texas right where the Texas House is actually split into
Speaker 1: three right, it's a three party apparatus these days, and
Speaker 1: there's sort of coalitions working themselves out and you see
Speaker 1: these Is there more bipartisanship on the state level than
Speaker 1: on the federal level or am I just being pollyanniship? No?
Speaker 3: There is, but it's it varies by state.
Speaker 2: So in Texas it is tradition that the Texas House
Speaker 2: alexis speaker unanimously. You know, the Dems will vote for
Speaker 2: whatever Republican gets the nomination, assuming it's sort of the
Speaker 2: moderate Republican and not the ultra conservative.
Speaker 3: And in other.
Speaker 2: States, you know that Illinois was in Illinois, no, somebody
Speaker 2: else just passed a budget with on a pretty bipartisan vote.
Speaker 3: Arizona is going to do a bipartisan budget too.
Speaker 2: They need to because they've got Republicans have narrow control
Speaker 2: and there's a democratic governor. In other states, the vitriol
Speaker 2: is at the same level that it is at the
Speaker 2: federal government.
Speaker 3: Wisconsin, the RS and the D's barely talk to each other.
Speaker 1: Wisconsin is sort of ground zero. I always say Wisconsin's
Speaker 1: polarization started before America. Yeah, I think they were they
Speaker 1: were the shot heard around the world on this But anyway,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 2: But but you know, by partisanship does exist, and let
Speaker 2: me tell you it exists across state lines too. You know,
Speaker 2: if I go to the National Conference of State Legislatures,
Speaker 2: I'll sit next to a a very liberal Democrat from
Speaker 2: Maryland and a very conservative Republican from Utah, and they
Speaker 2: have a perfectly pleasant conversation about education policy or whatever
Speaker 2: it happens to be.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I think largely that's because they're not
Speaker 3: competing with each other.
Speaker 2: There's no chance those two will ever run against each
Speaker 2: other or seek control by trying to beat the other person.
Speaker 3: So there is that level of comedy in most states,
Speaker 3: but certainly not everywhere.
Speaker 1: And would you say, you know, one of the other
Speaker 1: interesting trends, and you were you were early on spotting
Speaker 1: this is that you know, the better members of Congress
Speaker 1: are the ones that were in state legislatures and the
Speaker 1: basically the crop members, the performers, usually the ones that
Speaker 1: weren't in state legislatures. That's still the case. Are we
Speaker 1: starting to are we starting to see the performance influencer
Speaker 1: mindset infecting state legislatures now too?
Speaker 2: No, I think it's it's it is still the case,
Speaker 2: largely because you know, I think the people who are
Speaker 2: most effective are the ones who understand the rules. That's
Speaker 2: sort of my guiding prints of politics. The people who
Speaker 2: get the rules are the ones who actually get stuff done.
Speaker 3: And I think, hey, that was.
Speaker 1: True with Mitch McConnell, right, that dude knew how to
Speaker 1: knew how to manipulate the rules. Sometimes did it with
Speaker 1: the Nancy Pelosi. I mean, you're right if you understand
Speaker 1: the rules, particularly of your chamber, better than the person sponsoring,
Speaker 1: you know, a BILLI you don't like, now you got
Speaker 1: some leverage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I always go back to the
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight Democratic primary, right when the Clinton
Speaker 2: campaign understood and didn't understand the delegate rules as well
Speaker 2: as the Obama campaign did. And so you know, Obama
Speaker 2: was going around picking off delegates here and there and
Speaker 2: ended up ended up winning the race.
Speaker 1: Of course. So going back on AI on what are
Speaker 1: what is the most what has been the easiest regulation
Speaker 1: to get passed on the state level on the AI front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing that most people are are doing now
Speaker 2: and that that is the bipartisan trend between the you know,
Speaker 2: the Connecticut version of Bill and the Colorado version of
Speaker 2: Texas version has been to limit algorithmic discrimination. So if
Speaker 2: you're you know, seeking housing or or a medical care
Speaker 2: or something like that, a lot of states are passing
Speaker 2: rules that say that AI cannot deny you.
Speaker 3: Without the oversight of a human.
Speaker 2: So a human has to go in and make sure
Speaker 2: that your application isn't isn't denied for unfair reasons.
Speaker 3: You know, these algorithms they learn.
Speaker 2: Things and and they learn from us, and you know,
Speaker 2: society has its problems with racism and sexism and things
Speaker 2: like that. So it's it's going to deny people based
Speaker 2: on things that it shouldn't deny. So that's I think
Speaker 2: that's been the real common thread. That's the low hanging fruit.
Speaker 1: Who regulates that though, I mean, I look, I want
Speaker 1: it too, but I have not found the federal government
Speaker 1: like I look, I think all algorithms should go away.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any upside to it, or certainly
Speaker 1: algorithms should be only allowed only allowed to work based
Speaker 1: on users giving permission versus the other way around. Right
Speaker 1: right now, the other way around is you know, they
Speaker 1: see you know, it's like we have to uh, agree
Speaker 1: to the parameters that they set in order to use
Speaker 1: a product versus the other way around. Right, We've just
Speaker 1: this is unfortunately the mindset. So, I mean enforcement seems
Speaker 1: to me the part of this that I don't that
Speaker 1: isn't obvious to.
Speaker 2: Me, right, And the enforcement usually takes place within within
Speaker 2: an agency itself or with the with the attorney generals.
Speaker 1: What state has this kind of uh what state has
Speaker 1: this kind of brain power to do this? No offense?
Speaker 1: But I mean we all know on a government salary,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get the people that understand that
Speaker 1: understand code as well as the people writing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Sure, but I think in this case it's it's more
Speaker 2: a sort of a policy examiner. So if it has
Speaker 2: to do with housing, you're going to have the housing
Speaker 2: agency overseeing, uh that kind of decision. If if it
Speaker 2: has to do with medical care, you know you're going
Speaker 2: to have the state Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 2: overseeing something like that.
Speaker 3: You don't I don't think you need the AI coder.
Speaker 2: Uh to go in and make sure that you know,
Speaker 2: John Doe's medical procedure was denied for a you know,
Speaker 2: incorrect reason.
Speaker 3: You need an insurance examiner a medical examiner or something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: So this is but to your broader point, this is
Speaker 2: a huge deal that every state is dealing with. They
Speaker 2: know that the you know, the wave of the future.
Speaker 2: What's the old line, like, your job isn't going to
Speaker 2: be taken by AI, but your job is going to
Speaker 2: be taken by somebody who understands AI. And a lot
Speaker 2: of states are looking for that workforce. Who in the
Speaker 2: workforce that's going to understand the AI of the future,
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of things that that AI
Speaker 2: could streamline, a driver's license renewals, or just the basic
Speaker 2: government functions of the sort of lower level of intro
Speaker 2: employee new employee that could be made more efficient, so
Speaker 2: long as you have the workforce there that understands how
Speaker 2: to create those efficiencies. And I think that's where that's
Speaker 2: where we're seeing a bit of a problem in state workforces.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: There's a huge wave of baby boomers who are retiring
Speaker 2: and there are not a ton of people who are
Speaker 2: coming in to take those jobs.
Speaker 1: So AI is almost there's almost an urgency to get
Speaker 1: it going in order to fill gaps that they see
Speaker 1: right now due to retired government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to streamline government, make it more efficient.
Speaker 2: That's something that I could could do in a positive way,
Speaker 2: so long as you have those algorithmic discrimination protections over.
Speaker 3: The top of it.
Speaker 1: A derivative of the AI issue is access to power.
Speaker 1: And you may be loosening regular relations for small nuclear
Speaker 1: power plants, right and things like this. What what is
Speaker 1: the trend? And is our legislatures basically rolling over for
Speaker 1: for the for these industries to to hand them any
Speaker 1: anything they want in order to experiment with power or
Speaker 1: or is it is there is there some pushback?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of different things are happening here
Speaker 2: that the AI AI uses compute. Compute requires power, you know,
Speaker 2: electricity run These massive data centers are blowing up absolutely everywhere.
Speaker 2: There are some states that are that are moving to
Speaker 2: create as much power capacity as possible.
Speaker 3: Some and the and the projections.
Speaker 1: Are are those states that are doing that.
Speaker 2: Utah, Michigan, and Virginia are moving forward on the small
Speaker 2: module reactors, although those reactors they're going to take a while.
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Meta, I think it was Meta signed a big
Speaker 2: deal with with three Mile Island to restart the good
Speaker 2: luck with that. Yeah, it's amazing that what.
Speaker 3: It's requiring there.
Speaker 2: There are some states that are moving and Mississippi is
Speaker 2: a good example here where they have they have approved
Speaker 2: so many data centers sort of as a backdoor way
Speaker 2: to create new power, to create the demand for new
Speaker 2: power that will then create the demand for coal and
Speaker 2: and sort of traditional power plants, if you will. The
Speaker 2: really sort of the third degree impact here though, is
Speaker 2: that these data centers are starting to cost states a
Speaker 2: lot of money.
Speaker 3: And not just like.
Speaker 2: You in Virginia where you live in Virginia, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know this, Chuck, there is a there
Speaker 2: is a greater concentration of data centers in northern Virginia
Speaker 2: than there is anywhere else in so.
Speaker 1: Oh reed, Look, let me tell you a little something
Speaker 1: about our alma mater. Yeah, and w owns a bunch
Speaker 1: of land out there, loud m It is the last
Speaker 1: piece of land that is zoned for a data center.
Speaker 1: It is worth a bunch of extra money now because
Speaker 1: there's suddenly nobody wants to give more permission for this,
Speaker 1: right there is suddenly what you just described. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1: There's a look, you know, universities are looking for new
Speaker 1: pockets of money asap, right, so they It may be
Speaker 1: good news for GW, but it is interesting. It's funny
Speaker 1: you brought this up because I've learned this that you know,
Speaker 1: Louden was very open to this until they weren't. Right
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, now Louden residents are fighting this
Speaker 1: and there are others that don't want Suddenly there's a
Speaker 1: pushback against these data centers.
Speaker 3: Correct, and yes there is.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's being led in the Virginia
Speaker 2: legislature by another former Hotliner stay centered, Danica Rome.
Speaker 1: Oh, Danica, you're right, thelight boy. We cast so much trouble, don't.
Speaker 2: We because she keeps bringing all these anti data center
Speaker 2: bills and haven't haven't passed yet.
Speaker 1: But she reps Louden, I believe, right, a big chunkle
Speaker 1: loud Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a funny story when when she worked
Speaker 2: at the hotline, uh, you know, we had to be
Speaker 2: in the off is at six am. Right. Of course,
Speaker 2: she was late frequently and I you know, got mad
Speaker 2: and yelled at her once. Well you know Route twenty eight,
Speaker 2: Route twenty well, you know, to her credit, she ran
Speaker 2: her entire first campaign promising to fix the Route twenty
Speaker 2: eight right.
Speaker 1: So it turns out she wasn't b s U right,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't just like my dog ate my homework.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me let me make one more point on
Speaker 2: these data centers, which which I think is interesting. They
Speaker 2: are they are starting to cost states a lot more
Speaker 2: money in the incentives. Like we talked about with the stadiums,
Speaker 2: the amount of money that states are paying to locate
Speaker 2: these data centers in their areas is through the roof.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not a lot of jobs associated with
Speaker 1: not right, and it was a automated crap.
Speaker 2: I mean, and we're talking, you know, close to half
Speaker 2: a billion dollars this year in subsidies alone. So these
Speaker 2: states passed a lot of incentives four or five years
Speaker 2: ago that now these data centers are realizing, hey we
Speaker 2: can we can claw back a whole bunch of tax
Speaker 2: revenue and things like that, and so they're building it.
Speaker 3: And now that now the.
Speaker 2: State budgets are exploding because of these data centers. So
Speaker 2: I think in the next couple of years you're going
Speaker 2: to see legislators trying to sunset a lot of these
Speaker 2: incentive backs.
Speaker 1: Two more hot button issues that I know are royaling
Speaker 1: multiple state legislatures. One is housing and zoning. And you know, look,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever neighborhood if you live, you know, suburban
Speaker 1: neighborhoods have these fights. This is county level stuff. But
Speaker 1: then states are trying to deal with it. We we
Speaker 1: know California is you know, how do you? San Jose
Speaker 1: has these where you can take your backyard garage and
Speaker 1: turn it into an apartment, standalonepartment. I think they are
Speaker 1: actually going to sell these things, of these little micro properties.
Speaker 1: I think they call them ad us.
Speaker 3: Well huge right legislatures.
Speaker 1: And so is that is how is that a polarizing issue? Uh?
Speaker 1: And is it? I assume it's pitting geographic areas against
Speaker 1: each other rather necessarily than partisan ship. Correct, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing we're seeing something very clever is happening
Speaker 2: right now. A lot of states have taken up big
Speaker 2: housing packages in recent years. Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico, Uh,
Speaker 2: your home state of Florida, my home state of Washington
Speaker 2: both changed single family zoning laws recently, uh in certain
Speaker 2: cities to allow more you know, multi multi family housing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this becomes a huge nimbi issue, right Uh,
Speaker 2: where the locals don't want new housing coming in because
Speaker 2: it I don't know, devalues their housing, their housing market
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they think it does it. You know, well I
Speaker 1: know this. Over time, all it does is increase you know,
Speaker 1: increase value. It also does it always.
Speaker 2: The clever thing that's happening in a lot of these
Speaker 2: states is that the city councils in some of these
Speaker 2: areas where the nimbi's are strong, will go to the
Speaker 2: legislator I talked to. I talked to a legislator in
Speaker 2: Colorado about this. She told me she was getting a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of phone calls from the city councils in
Speaker 2: all the mountain towns saying, you guys have to preempt
Speaker 2: up now.
Speaker 3: Ordinarily you know this. Cities hate being funny by the state.
Speaker 1: Because they said they knew it's a popular like, look,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be able to deal with this. Don't
Speaker 1: make us do it. If it's right.
Speaker 3: The state is the one setting the rules.
Speaker 2: The local guys get to say, look at the big
Speaker 2: bad guys up there at the state capitol.
Speaker 3: It's not us they get. You know, the locals get reelected.
Speaker 2: The state legislators mostly get re elected because they're in
Speaker 2: Denver or Boulder.
Speaker 3: Or wherever, and you get more housing in these mountaintowns.
Speaker 2: So those those conversations happen behind closed doors, and more
Speaker 2: and more housing comes to these areas. So we're seeing
Speaker 2: I mean, we're seeing a lot of big housing packages
Speaker 2: that focus on zoning, that focus on those alternatives.
Speaker 3: Dwelling units, things like that.
Speaker 2: But I mean, there's no question there's a massive housing
Speaker 2: crisis across the country. I mean, in Rhode Island, there's
Speaker 2: a story in the Providence Journal today that the median
Speaker 2: housing cost in Rhode Island for a single family home
Speaker 2: is now north of half a million dollars.
Speaker 3: You know, in California it's north of a million dollars.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's every state knows they've got to build
Speaker 2: this housing as as possible.
Speaker 3: The problem is to take so long.
Speaker 1: You know. Rita was funny. Every member of Congress I
Speaker 1: talked with last year, and I would say, hey, what's
Speaker 1: an issue you never talk you never bring up, but
Speaker 1: your voters always bring up to you. And they all
Speaker 1: set housing. You know, it was one of those they say,
Speaker 1: we don't talk about enough. You guys don't ask meaning
Speaker 1: us in the national media. We don't ask enough about it,
Speaker 1: and partially because we all know it's a local issue, right,
Speaker 1: you know, there's not really much the FEDS can do
Speaker 1: about it. But that doesn't mean people don't go to
Speaker 1: their congressmen and complain about local things. Right, You're like,
Speaker 1: come on, like, we've got a problem here. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's necessarily something the FEDS can
Speaker 1: deal with, as much as this really is a state
Speaker 1: local issue. The other one is the privatization of the
Speaker 1: public school system, which seems to be certainly that is
Speaker 1: probably a partisan that obviously is falling along partisan lines.
Speaker 1: But you know, the destruction of the public school system
Speaker 1: in Miami has just been just heartbreaking for me and
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And it's all over Florida's got
Speaker 1: huge gaps here. Texas is about to go on this
Speaker 1: and they've already had a very antiquated public school where
Speaker 1: basically you and I could say, hey, we're starting a
Speaker 1: school district, not just the school, you know, not just homeschool.
Speaker 1: You can start your own school district in Texas and
Speaker 1: then suddenly collect public tax dollars and that you may
Speaker 1: or may not have to account for. So obviously I
Speaker 1: have strong feelings about this because I just think we
Speaker 1: have problems in our public school system. This is not
Speaker 1: the way to address it. That's my frustration with this.
Speaker 1: But is a is in these conservative legislatures? Is this
Speaker 1: just a I mean, it's just an avalanche that's coming
Speaker 1: and the privatization of our public education system is only increasing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this is why Player of US News exists.
Speaker 2: Like we our goal here is not to cover, you know,
Speaker 2: everything that happens in one state's legislature, to spot the
Speaker 2: trends that happened across the country. And the very first
Speaker 2: trend that we started following three years ago when we
Speaker 2: kicked off, was this push to expand school vouchers. And
Speaker 2: Iowa was the first state. And by the way, this
Speaker 2: is why it's important to pay attention to more than
Speaker 2: just California and Texas.
Speaker 3: And New York.
Speaker 2: You know, Iowa is a real leader these days in
Speaker 2: conservative policy. They were the first ones to kick off
Speaker 2: this voucher push. Governor Reynolds signed the bill like two
Speaker 2: weeks into session.
Speaker 1: Of course, Jeb Bush started this and Flay I did,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody is this is derivative of the Florida Plan.
Speaker 2: This is the latest This is the latest push, and
Speaker 2: after Iowa did it, about two dozen states followed suits,
Speaker 2: most recently in Texas.
Speaker 1: Iowa has a Democratic governor in eighteen months. It'll be
Speaker 1: because of this issue, I.
Speaker 2: Believe very well. Maybe. But the interesting thing that we're
Speaker 2: seeing now, so this happens in steps. First of all,
Speaker 2: you establish a program usually for people who are three
Speaker 2: hundred to four hundred percent of the medium by the
Speaker 2: poverty level, poverty level which is what eighty to one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars total. Then the pool begins to expand,
Speaker 2: and you expand it to people who make up to
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand, are up to five hundred thousand, and
Speaker 2: then everybody who you know had disabled students or special
Speaker 2: needs students are included too. And then we go universe.
Speaker 2: And that's the that's the latest thing that we've seen
Speaker 2: here is a number of states expanding that eligibility pool
Speaker 2: to all kids in their state, places like New Hampshire, Iowa,
Speaker 2: Arkansas just did it.
Speaker 3: Texas is taking that first step.
Speaker 2: After you talked about the three parties in Texas well,
Speaker 2: the Texas House, the Republican held Texas House, was where
Speaker 2: voucher bills went to die Unbitt spent a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of money primary ing all the anti voucher members.
Speaker 3: And he finally got it through this year.
Speaker 2: So the just like we talked about with the data
Speaker 2: centers here, when you go to that universal eligibility like
Speaker 2: Iowa did, the amount of money that that costs the
Speaker 2: public school systems explodes. We're talking, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: fifty sixty seventy million dollars over what states had budgeted
Speaker 2: in small states like Iowa and Arkansas, so legislators are
Speaker 2: having to go back to the well, spend more money
Speaker 2: on these on these.
Speaker 3: Programs, and it's costing a whole bunch of money.
Speaker 2: The other funny thing that happens is that the schools
Speaker 2: themselves respond. So in Iowa, there was a you know,
Speaker 2: there's a maximum amount that students can receive for these vouchers.
Speaker 3: I think it's nine thousand dollars a year somewhere around there.
Speaker 2: Well, funny enough, all the Catholic schools in Iowa change
Speaker 2: their tuition rates to about that nine thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: So schools themselves are raising tuition to capture as much
Speaker 2: as that of that money as possible, which again no it's.
Speaker 1: Just a wealth transfer. It's not actually doing it's not
Speaker 1: doing what the original do gooders thought what they were
Speaker 1: trying to do, right, which is, you know, how do
Speaker 1: you you know, how do you allow parents who are
Speaker 1: trapped in a bad school district to get out of
Speaker 1: that school district? Right? That's the original problem. And nobody
Speaker 1: ever thought, let's fix the school. Everybody is always like,
Speaker 1: let's abandon the school. And I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how this is. You know, when you keep abandoning these schools,
Speaker 1: where in rural America? Are we building more schools in
Speaker 1: rural America to create school choice?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is the reality that I
Speaker 1: think Texans are going to run into and why I
Speaker 1: actually think this is going to turn into and why
Speaker 1: for instance, in Iowa this is more polarizing than you
Speaker 1: think it would be because you know, in theory, many
Speaker 1: of these conservative voters agree with the premise, and then
Speaker 1: the reality sets in, well, oh so I have to
Speaker 1: go thirty miles away or then or somebody says I'm
Speaker 1: going to start a school, right, and that's what you're getting.
Speaker 1: You're getting and some of them are good, and some
Speaker 1: of them are are crooked. And what I've not What
Speaker 1: I've also noticed is that there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: any good regulatory model to find out are these startup
Speaker 1: schools stealing tech expayer money or actually putting it to
Speaker 1: good use.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a there's a just just as we talked
Speaker 2: about in AI and these big tech companies. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a booming business behind this. It's not just the
Speaker 2: charter schools. It's the firms that administer the education savings
Speaker 2: accounts or vouchers, whichever they are. You know, that's that's
Speaker 2: like the biggest sexy thing in the world. You're never
Speaker 2: going to see that on TV, but that's that's a
Speaker 2: lot of money right there.
Speaker 1: And that well, that's the thing. Like you know, look,
Speaker 1: I have a friend of mine who's an education lobbyist
Speaker 1: in Florida who was telling me that, you know, they
Speaker 1: keep they keep sort of starving the public school and
Speaker 1: they do this and then there's no there's no agency
Speaker 1: that holds the private charter accountable and there's no auditing
Speaker 1: of that money. The public school system gets audited all
Speaker 1: the time, right you know, there's a school board that
Speaker 1: oversees it. There's multiple layers of of watchdogs on that money.
Speaker 1: And you know, as these voucher systems have been expanded,
Speaker 1: there's been very little expansion of oversight welso on how
Speaker 1: this money is being spent.
Speaker 2: And this brings up another thing that legislators are doing
Speaker 2: these days. Chuck, define for me an educational expense because
Speaker 2: in Utah right now, you can pay for a ski
Speaker 2: pass with your education savings account and you can you know,
Speaker 2: there are whole forums on Reddit and things like that
Speaker 2: where you can use.
Speaker 1: So signing my kids up for any sport then becomes
Speaker 1: an educational expense because guess what, if they're good at
Speaker 1: the sport, they actually might get money for it.
Speaker 2: Hey. I mean, you know, Chuck, if you're using YouTube
Speaker 2: for an educational purpose, why not. I think you need
Speaker 2: a big screen TV, don't you. I mean that's like
Speaker 2: people are gaming the system to buy things like big
Speaker 2: screen TVs and toys and video games and things like that.
Speaker 2: So now legislators are going back and further defining what
Speaker 2: you can actually spend that money on.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'll take I'll take a ski pass
Speaker 3: and a big screen TV if you know, for my kid.
Speaker 1: All right, let me tackle this school issue in other way.
Speaker 1: Is there anybody actually saying, hey, let's rethink the public's
Speaker 1: you know, the public education sytemm, but in a public
Speaker 1: funded way, like you know, look, I do believe we
Speaker 1: haven't changed the I understand the frustration, right. We haven't
Speaker 1: really changed the premise of our public education system since
Speaker 1: we created it over one hundred years ago. It's basically
Speaker 1: the same premise property taxes, funded district stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I have no doubt. And and you know, we're
Speaker 1: we do everything by age. And I think now all
Speaker 1: the all the research indicates that learning, you know, that
Speaker 1: that is a you know, that is not always the
Speaker 1: best way to go, and that you need to have
Speaker 1: some of that flexibility.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 1: Smaller class sizes help with that all those things, right,
Speaker 1: and certainly those with means can go to a private
Speaker 1: school and get a form of that. But I guess
Speaker 1: that's the is there is there any legislature, Is there
Speaker 1: any leader in this space thinking about how to create
Speaker 1: this flexibility in the publics, in the public sector rather
Speaker 1: than just farming out tax to the private sector.
Speaker 3: Uh, not that I can think of.
Speaker 2: I mean, this strikes me as one of those issues
Speaker 2: that sort of sort of like housing that it is
Speaker 2: so it is so big structurally that you would need
Speaker 2: a I mean, this is why we're never going to
Speaker 2: get a real tax reform package passed through Congress.
Speaker 3: You know, it's so big that anything you do is
Speaker 3: going to create an enemy.
Speaker 2: This it sort of reminds me of what they did
Speaker 2: in Colorado a couple of years ago with their housing package.
Speaker 2: They put all the bills together in one, one big
Speaker 2: omnibus bill, and it gave everybody just enough to hate
Speaker 2: that they voted it down. Well, the next year they
Speaker 2: came back and they introduced a lot of the same
Speaker 2: bills as piecemeal bills, and if you hated this one,
Speaker 2: you could vote against it, but you could vote for
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: Suddenly everything passed.
Speaker 2: This is you know, it's really hard to get a
Speaker 2: massive structural change through a legislature because you're giving everybody
Speaker 2: just enough to hate that they can vote against it
Speaker 2: as opposed to little piece meal stuff. And education is
Speaker 2: so huge, huge, I mean, you're not going to change
Speaker 2: the system with piecemeal stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting read. I actually think this is
Speaker 1: an underrated issue for a presidential candidate to tackle. Like
Speaker 1: I can tell you this, I know, Bill Clinton, if
Speaker 1: this were nineteen ninety one, he'd be talking about this
Speaker 1: no one. You know, he knows that this is this
Speaker 1: is something that cuts across parties, party line. So it's
Speaker 1: a way that you could actually have a conversation with
Speaker 1: voters from different ideological stripes if you come at it
Speaker 1: from a hey, we know it's a problem. We need
Speaker 1: to we need to figure out a better way. I
Speaker 1: don't have the answer yet, but I know we got
Speaker 1: to tackle it. I actually think simply leaning in on
Speaker 1: that a little bit it's probably good politics right now.
Speaker 2: It strikes me as something like Simpson's bowl. Simpson bowls
Speaker 2: where you know, and when Simpson bowls it, I get
Speaker 2: you on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's just it's.
Speaker 2: So big that everybody's going to find a reason to
Speaker 2: hate it.
Speaker 1: It's possible, I hear you on that, and it can
Speaker 1: get weaponized quite easily. All let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: of politics in the States. You know, I can't stand
Speaker 1: so much of the political analysis these days nationally, particularly
Speaker 1: when it comes to sort of projecting the politics of
Speaker 1: a state, where there's always this assumption that what it
Speaker 1: is today is what it'll be in four years. You know,
Speaker 1: there's all this doom and gloom on the left about
Speaker 1: the Democrats are never going to control the Senate again
Speaker 1: because of the trend lines in different states. And I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting there going, God, does anybody think about history right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: You know, what seems absolutely certain today can change within
Speaker 1: a cycle. So with that said, which states that are
Speaker 1: perceived to be you know, fairly reliably red or fairly
Speaker 1: reliably blue that there's some tumult underneath that we ought
Speaker 1: to pay attention to these midterms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd pay attention to a state like Wisconsin, which
Speaker 2: just went through a rediscerpt.
Speaker 3: I know, I'm just going to list all the swing states.
Speaker 1: You don't get to. Don't give me a presidential swing state.
Speaker 1: I said, reliably read reliably blue. You don't get to
Speaker 1: come back maybe with Wisconsin. Man. And you know what,
Speaker 1: because I know you, I can say that, See this
Speaker 1: is why you got to bring people on your pie.
Speaker 1: And you know, God, damn it read anyway, Sorry, kiddy,
Speaker 1: Thanks Jack, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You bring up Iowa. Iowa was a good one. Rob
Speaker 2: sand is the state audit there. He's runner for governor,
Speaker 2: the only Democrat left in state wide office. He's young dynamic.
Speaker 2: He looked forgive me rob if you listen to this,
Speaker 2: but he looks like a teenager.
Speaker 1: But he's you know those blue eyes. Man, he's like,
Speaker 1: oh blue eyes. You know you're waiting for him to
Speaker 1: sing Sinatra at you. But man, he's also he's also
Speaker 1: like a like he's an uncomfortable Democrat and he says it,
Speaker 1: which might be the right, might be the right persona
Speaker 1: to have this scle.
Speaker 2: The thing that's always interested in me about states is
Speaker 2: about the state politics.
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: People vote for governor differently than they do for US
Speaker 2: Senate seed to US House seats.
Speaker 1: Just go to Kansas, right, you'll find that.
Speaker 2: Look, yeah, Larry Hogan can win a governorship in Maryland,
Speaker 2: but he couldn't win a Senate seat. You know, same
Speaker 2: thing with Phil Bredeson and Tennessee or or I don't know.
Speaker 3: Dave. Did Dave run for governor percentate? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: But Freudenthal did and he didn't win. No, I mean absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think they did try to get him and he
Speaker 1: didn't and it didn't work.
Speaker 2: So, I mean there are always going to be interesting
Speaker 2: opportunities for ds and rs to pick up seats that
Speaker 2: that they they otherwise. I mean Phil Scott has been
Speaker 2: the governor of Vermont for four two year terms. Now,
Speaker 2: last time he won with seventy something percent of the vote.
Speaker 2: He didn't run a television ad. He a Republican winning
Speaker 2: in Vermont without running a TV ad.
Speaker 1: Every two years. Yeah, you know that's a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: well would I would say highly uh highly news literate state?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Well, so you know a state like Oregon
Speaker 2: is going to be interesting because there are you know,
Speaker 2: there there's a lot of unhappiness with with Democrats in Portland,
Speaker 2: and and you know Governor kotech Is is going to
Speaker 2: run for reelection.
Speaker 1: What are we up to? Are they the second longest
Speaker 1: streak after your home state of white party governorship?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Sorry, third, third longest.
Speaker 2: South Dakota is the longest Republican streaky a Democrat in
Speaker 2: the seventies. Washington last elected a Republican in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: Oregon in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're both longest. Idaho Is Idaho not in
Speaker 1: that top four?
Speaker 3: Who did Idaho have? Idaho? I had a republic a
Speaker 3: Democratic governor in the in the ninet nineties. I'm going
Speaker 3: to blank on who was.
Speaker 1: There was a guy named Larry Echohawk that always would
Speaker 1: come really close, but never never, never quite get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those Mountain West states are becoming increasingly difficult for Democrats.
Speaker 1: All right, when look this cycle, it's New Jersey, right,
Speaker 1: this is the quote reliably blue state that feels like
Speaker 1: it's going to be a real swing state.
Speaker 3: This, I'll make you bet, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I was talking to a Republican stratge out in Vermont
Speaker 2: in Virginia yesterday, and then he was talking, he was
Speaker 2: talking up his Well I can say this because he
Speaker 2: posted it.
Speaker 3: It's your your doppelganger, Brent Todd.
Speaker 2: Is working on He posted something on his blog about
Speaker 2: Republican chances in Virginia is here.
Speaker 1: I will bet you New Jersey will be closer than Virginia.
Speaker 1: I I, you know, sorry, but said that. I think
Speaker 1: I've already said that on my my pot a few times. Oh.
Speaker 1: I think Virginia is going to be double digits on
Speaker 1: the top part of the ticket probably. You know, when
Speaker 1: I say double digit, somewhere between that right around that
Speaker 1: Ralph Northam, you know, somewhere between eight and eleven. I
Speaker 1: mean just the federal worker stuff alone. The question is,
Speaker 1: is you know the and I assume Brad Todd has
Speaker 1: one race he cares about in Virginia. I think he's
Speaker 1: got the AG right, who's the only incumbent on the ballot,
Speaker 1: and that'll be the test, right, how strong are Spamberger's coattails?
Speaker 1: Does does the AG winner loose?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I think it's a it's you know, I don't
Speaker 1: it's not the strongest down ballid ticket Democrats could have nominated.
Speaker 1: But guess what, it's not exactly a strong top of
Speaker 1: the ticket on the Republican side. So it's an interesting
Speaker 1: I do think Virginia AG will be in Virginia LG
Speaker 1: will both be weirdly closer, will be really perhaps fairly
Speaker 1: competitive on that front. But New Jersey there's no to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, and we were seeing this, I mean New
Speaker 1: Jersey has that you know, there was a you know,
Speaker 1: it has it has that blue collar Democratic labor voter
Speaker 1: that's culturally a bit more conservative than the average Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Republicans have had have sort of harbored the
Speaker 2: hopes of winning there for a long time.
Speaker 3: You'll remember this better than I did. Dick Cheney make
Speaker 3: it last minute stop in Jersey in two thousand or four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, New Jersey's always one of those states it polls,
Speaker 1: you know, remember you and I used to talk about
Speaker 1: this all the time. It always polls close because there's
Speaker 1: always a high undecided, right, it's a weird. There's no
Speaker 1: media market. It's all bleeding in. I always say I
Speaker 1: feel sorry for New Jersey's reputation because the only reason
Speaker 1: they have the reputation is sort of a scandal plague
Speaker 1: state is because the Philadelphia media market and the New
Speaker 1: York media market only covers New Jersey politics when there's
Speaker 1: something bad that happens. They never cover the day to
Speaker 1: day stuff. They cover the day to day of their
Speaker 1: own states, but they never cover So the outsized coverage
Speaker 1: of the negative of New Jersey creates this negative vibe
Speaker 1: unfortunately for for I think New Jersey politicians, which you know,
Speaker 1: it's actually a fairly competent state government, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it was Christian charge, Murphy in charge, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: it does have this this reputation. Some of it is,
Speaker 1: you know, an old reputation. Some of it is basically right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the party boss stuff that got rid of that, which
Speaker 1: is a you know, Andy Kim is never a US
Speaker 1: senator without it, you know, on that front. But there's
Speaker 1: definitely Jersey. Let me ask a few other states that
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if their legislatures have sort of pushed the
Speaker 1: envelope too much to give the other party a chance here.
Speaker 1: So do we see any green shoots for the Republicans
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts this cycle? They're going to go to maga
Speaker 1: on there there are.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are, there are such.
Speaker 2: Small you know, Republican Republican caucus in Massachusetts is so
Speaker 2: small that even even if they do well, you know,
Speaker 2: they get two or three more seats.
Speaker 3: And that's I mean, it's such a such a little.
Speaker 1: And as a Charlie Baker's not walking through that door.
Speaker 2: No, No, Charlie Banker and Republicans had a remarkable streak.
Speaker 2: But they've had They've had six of.
Speaker 1: The I think they've had more Republican governors in the
Speaker 1: last thirty years than Democratic governments.
Speaker 3: They certainly have, But that takes a Charlie Baker, a
Speaker 3: Mitt Romney something like that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I am. I think Tommy, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the three US Senators running for governor. Tommy Tapperville, Alabama,
Speaker 1: Michael Bennett Colorado, Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee? Am I leaving somebody out?
Speaker 1: Those are the no But I don't think Blackburn has
Speaker 1: technically gotten in yet. But we all know, right, but
Speaker 1: she's already run ads like I'm sorry, Like I'm not.
Speaker 1: You know, she's already run ads for it. So please,
Speaker 1: is there a fourth that I'm missing? Right on took
Speaker 1: himself out of New Mexico. I know there was some
Speaker 1: chatter there where else was there chatter?
Speaker 3: I was thinking about it too. But he's not going
Speaker 3: to run No. I think that's all.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's look at those three. Bennett looks like,
Speaker 1: what's what am I missing? This looks like he's going
Speaker 1: to a walk in the park. What would prevent that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Republicans haven't been I mean in Colorado is one
Speaker 2: of those states that gets to your point about about
Speaker 2: you know, sort of the evolution, right.
Speaker 3: It was a conservative state. Now it is a liberal state.
Speaker 1: And but that's too liberal. It's always what you can't
Speaker 1: go too far. I mean, like polis knew what he
Speaker 1: could and couldn't do during COVID, for instance, Right, I
Speaker 1: think I think he was the I think no governor
Speaker 1: handled COVID politically better than Jared Polis. Polis is given
Speaker 1: a lot of credit, but DeSantis didn't help his national reputation.
Speaker 1: Polis helped both his local and national reputations.
Speaker 3: I think, I think what we're going to see, what
Speaker 3: if if Polish runs for president, he's going to be.
Speaker 1: The centrist.
Speaker 2: I'm a most conservative person, democratic feed, pro business. Polis
Speaker 2: was never a liberal. He was He's never been a liberal.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: No. He was the boulder Boulder thing, being a bolder congressman,
Speaker 1: which used to be the kiss of death for state
Speaker 1: wide office in Colorado. I always wonder to that about him.
Speaker 1: But his background was you know, he was a tech guy, right,
Speaker 1: and he made a bunch of money. I always say,
Speaker 1: do you remember in the early days of the internet
Speaker 1: the musical greeting cards? Right? That was him. You know.
Speaker 1: Alabama is the one that I think Tommy Tupperville is
Speaker 1: just not a good political athlete. He may be a
Speaker 1: good football ex football coach, but he doesn't He steps
Speaker 1: in it quite a bit. And as you point out,
Speaker 1: voters take governor's racist more seriously by the person than
Speaker 1: by the party. If Doug Jones runs for governor, why
Speaker 1: do I think that's a competitive.
Speaker 2: Race, it'll be competitive. I don't think it'll be I
Speaker 2: think Tupperville probably still wins. But by the way, he's
Speaker 2: a football coach. I haven't heard him mention that fifty
Speaker 2: times in the last hour.
Speaker 1: Fairly, I think one of the most. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't make any look, he was a he was a
Speaker 1: really good assistant coach at the University of Miami. You know,
Speaker 1: back in the day, you know, there's I will just say,
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of family that's big Auburn fans.
Speaker 1: Nobody shed a tear when that dude left. Nobody shed
Speaker 1: a teer when that.
Speaker 3: Dud There are always politicians who lean so heavy into
Speaker 3: their into their backstory that it I mean, it's I
Speaker 3: don't want to mock people, but it's it's pretty easy though.
Speaker 1: That's my point with him, Like he does it. Look, dude,
Speaker 1: you weren't that successful. You weren't the worst coach. They
Speaker 1: were the worst, but you weren't the best. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: riker to ever tell you you caught the Green River killer?
Speaker 1: I mean, howay, but that you know what, at least
Speaker 1: that has something to do with your job. Okay, at
Speaker 1: least that was a public service. Okay, I don't think
Speaker 1: football coach applies to that. And you know, look, Tennessee
Speaker 1: is one of the more remarkable states if I you know,
Speaker 1: when I was first coming up professionally in politics, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Georgia, when you said new South, it was Virginia, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Georgia. Well, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia definitely sort
Speaker 1: of is in one direction, but Tennessee didn't go in
Speaker 1: that direction now, and it's you know, it's it is.
Speaker 1: You know, part of it was the strength of the
Speaker 1: Eastern Tennessee Republicans to sort of prevent too much democratic
Speaker 1: encroachment early on. But that's my only question. There is
Speaker 1: there a point where Nashville grows so much that Blackburn
Speaker 1: is seen is slightly too far to the right. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but I'm just curious what you're seeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I think the difference between the first three
Speaker 2: states to outline there, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia and
Speaker 2: Tennessee is that those first three states are becoming a
Speaker 2: sort of a second Silicon Valley. They're becoming homes to
Speaker 2: the big growing industries of today. You know, the demographics
Speaker 2: that that changed Virginia. Weren't the federal workers. They were
Speaker 2: the they were the data center workers, right, folks around
Speaker 2: the Richmond suburbs exactly. And I'm up in Charlottesville and
Speaker 2: Northern and the and the Ampton Roads, and the same
Speaker 2: thing is happening in you know, around the fintech sector
Speaker 2: in Charlotte and Raleigh, uh and the tech sectors establishing
Speaker 2: a base in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: You're not seeing the same thing in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: And so I think I think that sort of broader
Speaker 2: changing economy uh is is what's brought in the younger workers,
Speaker 2: and those younger workers that tend to be more liberal.
Speaker 2: Of course, the natural flow of this is, you know,
Speaker 2: this brings up what about Texas? What about Austin, San Antonio?
Speaker 2: You know, the fastest growing states in America, But take
Speaker 2: a look at the Census Bureau puts out a list
Speaker 2: every year of the fast growing cities in America, and
Speaker 2: they're all to the sun Belt sun Belt areas. You
Speaker 2: know that they're in Texas, They're in the Phoenix suburbs
Speaker 2: or something like that. And hey, look, you know Arizona
Speaker 2: has two Democratic senators. Now, North Carolina is always going
Speaker 2: to be competitive. Georgia has two Democratic senators for the moment,
Speaker 2: so you know, Texas, Texas should be on that list.
Speaker 2: But it's I feel like it's it's the Democratic version
Speaker 2: of Republicans New Jersey where it's always loosey in the football.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, and it's and it's so and the
Speaker 1: and look, Republicans probably could if they spent more time
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, probably could keep it competitive. But it's
Speaker 1: such an expensive proposition. And that's what happens to Democrats
Speaker 1: with both Florida and Texas, Like it's a lot of
Speaker 1: work to keep it up right, and they just and
Speaker 1: of course then you throw in bad state party leadership,
Speaker 1: right and there's just nobody. There's nobody, there's you know,
Speaker 1: there is no None of these mayors in Texas and
Speaker 1: none of the mayors in Florida have become party leaders,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It becomes sort of that
Speaker 1: North Star, the way Bob Graham was able to and
Speaker 1: even Bill Nelson to a lesser extent, keep the state
Speaker 1: party competitive in a float, or the way you know, frankly,
Speaker 1: not since Lloyd Benson was there a Democrat that could
Speaker 1: be a magnet for money in the state party to
Speaker 1: to have the to have the resources do that. And
Speaker 1: that's the same problem in New Jersey, right, there was
Speaker 1: no one Republican to invest in to get that part
Speaker 1: because it was just no other officeholders that they had there.
Speaker 1: Interesting take on Tennessee. I also think that Memphis is
Speaker 1: just such a an ignored area by the state to
Speaker 1: try to redevelop, right And and ironically it's almost like
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that thinks the Republicans in
Speaker 1: Nashville are afraid that they don't want to create a
Speaker 1: second Nashville. Yeah, yeah, right, and Memphis.
Speaker 2: Talk about talking about preemption. By the way, Tennessee is
Speaker 2: working on a bill. I don't know if it's past yet,
Speaker 2: but it would effectively preempt Nashville from naming its own airport. Uh.
Speaker 3: And hey, you want to take a gas or they
Speaker 3: want to name the airport after.
Speaker 1: Well why, I mean, look, you do it after If
Speaker 1: it isn't Peyton Manning's airport, then I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear about it.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm shocked, really, I'm shocked. I'm sure, Well, somebody's
Speaker 1: going to get you know, it's going to get the
Speaker 1: Trump Airport. When is Obama getting an airport, right, and
Speaker 1: we went down that. Yeah, I mean I couldn't actually
Speaker 1: tell you who O'Hare was exactly at this point? Do
Speaker 1: you turn it all? Right? Harry Reid took over Vegas? Right,
Speaker 1: George Bush? I remember my cousin one time left the
Speaker 1: country for six months and he goes, I flew out
Speaker 1: of National change planes in Houston, and then I came
Speaker 1: back and I flew from Bush to Reagan. It was
Speaker 1: like both happened like within six months of each other.
Speaker 3: Now here's some contrivia for you. What president's name is on?
Speaker 2: Now let me say what airport named for a president
Speaker 2: is the smallest in America based on passenger traffic.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm going to say Grand Rapids.
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln Airport in Springfield, Illinois.
Speaker 1: Oh a B Lincoln. Ab Lincoln has the naming rights. Huh.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for airports to auction off their naming rights
Speaker 1: like football stadium right, you know you're changing played at
Speaker 1: Hartsfield Why Hartsfield Jackson? No, No, no, come on, Amazon, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm now changing planes in the Amazon Airport. I'm not
Speaker 1: you think I'm kidding. I you know, at some point, right,
Speaker 1: you know what do you think toll roads were at
Speaker 1: one point? What do you think rest stops are about.
Speaker 1: It's about state governments getting you know, Hey, you want
Speaker 1: to be at our rest stop, you got to pay us.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I think this is coming to airports. We're probably twenty
Speaker 1: years away, but I bet it's coming. Well.
Speaker 3: UPS will take over Louisville. That's their big distribution hub.
Speaker 1: Right, maybe you sell the naming rights of terminals first, Right,
Speaker 1: you don't quite do the whole airport, but you do that, Okay,
Speaker 1: the Amazon terminal, the Apple terminal, the UPS terminal.
Speaker 2: Amazon does a ton of business at BWI. Although I
Speaker 2: kind of like the THIRDD.
Speaker 3: Marshall name, I.
Speaker 1: Hope I do too. I mean, I look, the reason
Speaker 1: I like to see stuff named after politicians is sort
Speaker 1: of a force history on people. Sometimes. I always say, look,
Speaker 1: you need to accidentally teach people about history. If they're
Speaker 1: not that interested in it, that's fine. Not everybody should be.
Speaker 1: But then if you name stuff after people that were elevant,
Speaker 1: you know, then it's a way to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: It's a way to spark a conversation. And oh why
Speaker 1: do they call it this? And you might go read
Speaker 1: a plaque and oh, you might have educated yourself by accident.
Speaker 1: And we can remain very, very in favor of these things.
Speaker 2: We can rename things that are named after terrible people
Speaker 2: like you know, Pat McCarran was a kind of a jerk,
Speaker 2: and you know, Harry Reid.
Speaker 1: Is now there you go, well so, but sometimes Harry
Speaker 1: Reid thought I was a jerk. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: having worked for you, you know, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: are the Mariners ever going to make the playoffs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, I mean, are you guys with the longest route? Right?
Speaker 3: Well, so we made it the other year in the
Speaker 3: last two years to get in.
Speaker 1: Okay that for that one game playoff business, whatever it was, it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't count for me. Now where Look, I've haken. I've
Speaker 2: got an eight year old.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about cal Raley? I mean, is
Speaker 1: this like the greatest thing ever?
Speaker 3: I love?
Speaker 2: He's fantastic, But I've got an eight year old. I've
Speaker 2: taken him to ten Seattle games and nine Mariner games.
Speaker 2: In a Seahawks game, they lost the first nine, They
Speaker 2: lost the first nine. He finally saw the Mariners beat
Speaker 2: the Nationals last year and I was like, look, can
Speaker 2: this this is teaching you to be a good loser,
Speaker 2: which is just as import as it is to be
Speaker 2: a good.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I always said this. You know, you
Speaker 1: know people think I'm a bandwagon Packer fan. It's like, no, man,
Speaker 1: when I was a Packer fan, they sucked, man, we were,
Speaker 1: we were. In fact, there was a sports writer for
Speaker 1: Newsweek that used to call the annual Packers Buccaneers game
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs. It was because neither team made
Speaker 1: the playoffs for like ten years. It was just you know,
Speaker 1: below five hundred football, and you're right when you when
Speaker 1: you lose and then you win, it's some as it
Speaker 1: is you fork and and so uh it's uh. The
Speaker 1: Mariners are a frustrating you guys. Have I love the
Speaker 1: players that go in and out of that franchise and
Speaker 1: you're like, what, why can't it all be put together?
Speaker 1: Jay Rod drives me crazy. He's he's always won for four.
Speaker 1: I have enough fantasy team. He's always won for four.
Speaker 1: You has ever three for four? You know, he's not
Speaker 1: an over for guy. But it's like I keep waiting
Speaker 1: for him to be a Kuna and he's not a Kuna.
Speaker 1: But he's all the Kunah talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah you've been You've been hot on him longer than
Speaker 3: I have been.
Speaker 1: I know, have you given up on him? He's just
Speaker 1: he is who he is a very good player. But
Speaker 1: not Ken Griffy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh yeah, nobody, nobody will ever be Griffy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well, the cal Raley, I mean, if we have
Speaker 1: a home run you know, he gets to be in
Speaker 1: the home run derby, that'll be exciting for your for
Speaker 1: your son. I mean, that'll be fun to route for
Speaker 1: hopefully James.
Speaker 3: Wood's right, Yeah, no, he would like that. That's coming
Speaker 3: up in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, the home run. Look, every the MLB All
Speaker 1: Star it's like the NBA All Start, every other every
Speaker 1: event is fun except the game itself, you know, right,
Speaker 1: everything else is awesome. The home run contest, I like that,
Speaker 1: even the celebrity game, right, it's kind of fun, right,
Speaker 1: it's interesting the player show. The game itself sucks.
Speaker 3: I got to go to the game.
Speaker 2: I got to go to the game in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one when it was in Seattle and cal Rip
Speaker 2: can hit that groove fastball's Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's thank you, thank you, deeo Nomo.
Speaker 1: Good for him? Good for him anyway, read Wilson Pluribus
Speaker 1: Business good I assume, right. The more action in the States,
Speaker 1: my gosh.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's it's been great.
Speaker 2: We're actually now a part of the State Affairs Network,
Speaker 2: so you can check that out at state affairs dot com.
Speaker 1: People find it, yeah, yeah dot com. Sign up for
Speaker 1: your other socials? Are you all over the place? Where
Speaker 1: should people find at.
Speaker 2: Pluribus news everywhere you can. You can think of on
Speaker 2: blue Sky, on Twitter x whatever it is, Facebook, all
Speaker 2: that stuff. Yeah, we send out a morning newsletter that is.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you used to read the Hotline,
Speaker 2: you're going to see very strong notes of hotlinification in there.
Speaker 3: But every morning you.
Speaker 1: Talking like a wine guy, you'll see notes of behind
Speaker 1: in there, with a dab of roll call and a
Speaker 1: tiny splash of the hill right.
Speaker 2: Well, and look our I would credit a good friend
Speaker 2: of both yours and mine, Danielle Jones, with infusing a
Speaker 2: lot of the flavor of RBUS news. I try to
Speaker 2: I try to emulate sort of her amazing sense of
Speaker 2: humor and all that in our daily news.
Speaker 1: Let you do you know, it's funny. I could tell
Speaker 1: your try your You're like, I have a feeling your
Speaker 1: audience doesn't have a sense of humor yet. So you're
Speaker 1: just you're it's baby steps. Your quotes are great, You're
Speaker 1: you're trying to get them there. You're like, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: have a laugh, and hey we.
Speaker 2: Get we get great feedback to the state legislators who
Speaker 2: read us. We'll tell me, you know, keep that funny
Speaker 2: news in there, keep the funny quotes things like that.
Speaker 3: People love that stuff.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I love the quirky stuff. Man, it's you know, I
Speaker 1: borrow it all the time. There's about seven thousand other
Speaker 1: issues we didn't even talk about. Abortion. Is abortion even
Speaker 1: on the radar this legislative season.
Speaker 2: It is? It is, but it's it's largely Blue states
Speaker 2: passing protection lections from providers.
Speaker 1: May not see anything in red states.
Speaker 2: You are, those red states have done as much as
Speaker 2: they can. There are some red states.
Speaker 1: Missouri is trying to undo the voter ballot voter reference
Speaker 1: some other Well that's the other trend that I've noticed
Speaker 1: is that red states are trying to have referendum, are
Speaker 1: trying to everybody either either you do what Florida did
Speaker 1: and try to raise the threshold beyond you know, viability,
Speaker 1: or they're trying to make it hard. This petition signature
Speaker 1: crap in Oklahoma, where you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: base it on population, We're going to base it on
Speaker 1: something else. I mean, the fact that Tulsa or Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City will get punished. I mean, to me, those laws
Speaker 1: are unconstitutional because there's any I think it violates equal protection.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting how fearful these red states are
Speaker 1: of their urban centers creating referendum that they don't like.
Speaker 3: And that's a longer trend than just recently.
Speaker 2: I mean, the progressive era was marked by ballot measures
Speaker 2: in the West that you know, took power away from
Speaker 2: corrupt legislatures that were owned by the timber barons and
Speaker 2: the robber barons and gave power to the people. And
Speaker 2: of course those legislatures tried to undo everything. I feel
Speaker 2: extremely strongly about ballot measures the first political campaign.
Speaker 1: Oh you're a West guy, Look I have my own.
Speaker 1: I think they're all unconstitutional. We're republic, we're not a
Speaker 1: direct we're not a direct democracy. So and I get
Speaker 1: the tenth Amendment, but I think, but that said, if
Speaker 1: it's the law, then it should be you know, hey,
Speaker 1: you know that's the consequence in your state constitution.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of ballot measures, and someday I'll
Speaker 2: write a history of ballot measures that fifteen people will read.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, maybe you can create a TikTok that
Speaker 1: goes viral.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'll that'll definitely help it, you know, so
Speaker 1: you'll get more than fifteen people.
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: Read Wilson. Always a pleasure, my friend.
Speaker 3: Thanks seat, good to see man.
Speaker 1: All right, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with read
Speaker 1: check out pluribus. I mean, you know, I just think
Speaker 1: if you want to truly understand how your life's being impacted,
Speaker 1: you got to pay more attention what's happening in the
Speaker 1: States because Congress is dropping the ball left and right.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little ass Chuck, ask Chuck.
Speaker 1: First question Josh from Baton rugelel go tagas. I love that.
Speaker 1: Give me a little go tigers with the eaux. Is
Speaker 1: there a real path for a Democrat to win the
Speaker 1: US Senate seed in Louisiana in twenty twenty six with
Speaker 1: multiple Republicans lining up to primary Bill Cassidy, who's still
Speaker 1: unpopular with many in the GOP for voting to impeach Trump.
Speaker 1: Could a bruising primary create an opening if John Bell
Speaker 1: Edwards runs and goes unchallenged in the Democratic primary, could
Speaker 1: enough Trump voter sit out or even back edwards tipping
Speaker 1: the race? Should Republicans be nervous? Thank you? So? In
Speaker 1: the old rules of how the elections worked in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: which wasn't that long ago, right, you know where there
Speaker 1: would be a runoff if no candidate got fifty regardless
Speaker 1: of party, in the top two would meet in a
Speaker 1: December runoff. One of the first I remember the first
Speaker 1: in twenty oh two mary Landrew ended up in a
Speaker 1: runoff and pulled out the runoff sort of. It was
Speaker 1: a surprise in twenty oh two, and it was a
Speaker 1: December race down there. It happened again. I believe in God.
Speaker 1: I want to say, you know, a they since you
Speaker 1: know part of the change in how they do they
Speaker 1: everybody used to be on the same ballot, even for
Speaker 1: federal elections. They I guess separated out federal elections. John
Speaker 1: Bell Edwards became governor because of the ability of having
Speaker 1: all those Republicans on the ballot. Then he finished in
Speaker 1: the top two, and it was somebody who was too
Speaker 1: far out of the mainstream on the right, and John
Speaker 1: Bell Edwards was able to win not one but two
Speaker 1: terms that way. Look, if a Democrat is going to
Speaker 1: win in Louisiana again, it's going to be John Bell Edwards.
Speaker 1: He'd probably be the only one. I would I would
Speaker 1: think it would have a chance, and it would have
Speaker 1: to be under a circumstance where it was somebody that
Speaker 1: was closer to that was probably further to the right
Speaker 1: than even the governor is further to the right than Scalise.
Speaker 1: I think you'd have to have a sort of a
Speaker 1: very sort of what I'd call it an undisciplined maga
Speaker 1: Republican because one of the things in Senate races, you know,
Speaker 1: is people really do vote their jersey color. That the
Speaker 1: more voters know now that these these are proxy votes
Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court, right, that who you support here,
Speaker 1: that you know what their vote for a Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justice is going to be, and you're just starting to
Speaker 1: see it, right, Larry Hogan couldn't win it. He was
Speaker 1: very popular in Maryland, a popular governor as a Republican,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't going to win a Senate seat, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't even that close. It was competitive ISHU for
Speaker 1: because he was a respected office a former office holder,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't going to win. And I kind of
Speaker 1: feel the same way about John Bell Edwards. In fact,
Speaker 1: I you know, I actually think he'd have an even
Speaker 1: money odds if he ran for governor. Again, I still
Speaker 1: think it's an uphill battle, not out of the question,
Speaker 1: and certainly I think Chuck Schumer and some other Democrats
Speaker 1: are trying to see if they can convince John Bell
Speaker 1: Edwards to go on the ballot. I know what I
Speaker 1: would do if I were him, if I really wanted
Speaker 1: to be a Senator, I wouldn't run as a Democrat.
Speaker 1: I'd run as an independent. And I just sort of say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm I probably you know type of thing. I probably
Speaker 1: will caucus with them, but I you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm you know, I'm going to be more
Speaker 1: independent on a lot of these issues. You know, Look,
Speaker 1: he couldn't get elected if he wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: in favor of the oil and gas industry. Right, Probably
Speaker 1: hard to be a member of the Democratic Caucus if
Speaker 1: you're going to do that. Look, how uncomfortable Joe Manchin
Speaker 1: was being somebody that was arguing four cole in a
Speaker 1: Democratic party that was shifting away on that issue in particular.
Speaker 1: So I'm more skeptical about a Democrat being able to
Speaker 1: win in a deep red state like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at Alabama.
Speaker 2: It it.
Speaker 1: Was a close race when Doug Jones won, and he
Speaker 1: was running against somebody who was an accused pedophile. Convicted,
Speaker 1: but he was accused, so and it was still quite close.
Speaker 1: So I think Jersey color is such a powerful force,
Speaker 1: such a powerful force in voting in senate races, not
Speaker 1: so much in governor's races. All right, next question, it
Speaker 1: comes from Alex Reck with two k's. I checked. Your
Speaker 1: conversation with Jose Antonio Vargus got me thinking again about
Speaker 1: media literacy. Most people don't really understand what journalism is,
Speaker 1: how sourcing works, what off the record means, or the
Speaker 1: ethics behind reporting, and that makes it easy for them
Speaker 1: to dismiss things as quote fake news. You said, journalists
Speaker 1: are also educators, so why don't more of them explain
Speaker 1: how how their work actually gets done. If trusted media
Speaker 1: needs to be rebuilt, shouldn't part of the back pulling
Speaker 1: back the curtain. Yes, I think. I hope you've noticed
Speaker 1: quite a few people on substack do this. In fact,
Speaker 1: even I've noticed the Washington Post does a better job
Speaker 1: than most news organizations explaining I a source decided to
Speaker 1: be anonymous. The Wall Street Journal is starting to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, explaining why they allowed anonymity with that source
Speaker 1: in order to speak freely or fear of retribution. I
Speaker 1: think that that's important, right if you see somebody decided
Speaker 1: to be anonymous due to fear of retribution. There's an
Speaker 1: interesting idea that the Washington Post announced today that they're
Speaker 1: going to let if on the record sources quotes. You know,
Speaker 1: if you've been quoted in a story and you think
Speaker 1: I think if you you know, if you don't think
Speaker 1: it was in context, they're giving you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: issue a correction it appears, or some form of that.
Speaker 1: I just think it's a you know, anything you can
Speaker 1: do to you know. Look, I always thought it was
Speaker 1: important to always correct a mistake because I think you
Speaker 1: gain more credibility if people know. Hey, when you make
Speaker 1: a mistake, you let people know you've made a mistake.
Speaker 1: On that front versus trying to minimize. I mean, I
Speaker 1: used to get into real fight.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: No, let's just call it a correction. No, it's a clarification,
Speaker 1: or somebody said, don't admit it was a mistake, and
Speaker 1: it would be lawyers would try to get involved. It's
Speaker 1: like they were afraid of and it would be to
Speaker 1: come on, let's just speak English. It's okay, you know.
Speaker 1: But I understood the concern because you do have Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is just filing, you know, absurd lawsuits, and copycat
Speaker 1: people file these absurd lawsuits. So you don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this feeling of don't give them anything,
Speaker 1: type of don't give him. You know, if you admit
Speaker 1: you made a mistake, my god, We're all human beings.
Speaker 1: You're gonna make mistakes, you know.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I've always been a believer that, you know. I was
Speaker 1: never a fan where newspapers used to put all their
Speaker 1: corrections on like the page A two. And if you
Speaker 1: remember in the old days of a newspaper, literally you'd
Speaker 1: go from there to the Nobody ever read A two
Speaker 1: because it was mostly the contents page. What else was
Speaker 1: going on? Maybe there would be a weather map and
Speaker 1: some newspapers there and like the corrections, we'd be down
Speaker 1: on the right hand corner. I am somebody who believes
Speaker 1: if you should correct them, correct the era error sort
Speaker 1: of with the same general audience size that saw the error. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you make the mistake in your lead story on
Speaker 1: the NBA on a broadcast, make the correction on the
Speaker 1: lead story of the broadcast, maybe it's the next day
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, don't bury it at the end
Speaker 1: of that. So, look, I totally agree with the premise.
Speaker 1: I actually think a lot of journalists are trying to
Speaker 1: find more ways to be explanatory in how they do
Speaker 1: their reporting, and I think the more we do that,
Speaker 1: the better. Last question before I let you go, I
Speaker 1: know you know, I don't want to simmons it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do a Bill Simmons and give you
Speaker 1: a two hour plus podcast. But if you want to
Speaker 1: our podcast, let me know after mom, Donnie was when
Speaker 1: in New York City could an outsider like Governor Andy Basheer,
Speaker 1: with his relentless focus on economic populism, be a model
Speaker 1: for candidates to bridge the divide between the establishment and progressives.
Speaker 1: Thanks Josh B. Well, look, I am very right now.
Speaker 1: If I were to buy stock in any potential twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight er. He's somebody stock i'd be buying right now.
Speaker 1: In Basher, You're I'm going. I have now spoken recently
Speaker 1: with two people running for governor in swing states. One
Speaker 1: was Michigan, the other was Florida. These are Democrats, and
Speaker 1: I asked them, you know who's a governor you want
Speaker 1: to you know you're going to lean on for advice.
Speaker 1: The first name both of them, now remember where they're running.
Speaker 1: One out of Florida, one out of Michigan. First name
Speaker 1: out of their mouth, Andy Basheer. I think many, many
Speaker 1: of these sort of presidential hopefuls, you know, these governor
Speaker 1: candis who are trying to win in swing states or
Speaker 1: even in red leaning states or reddish states like Florida,
Speaker 1: look at and want to associate themselves more with Andy Basheer.
Speaker 1: The other governor you hear mentioned a lot would be
Speaker 1: a Joshapiro. What you're not hearing is Gavin Newsom. What
Speaker 1: you're not hearing is JB. Pritzker. You're not hearing you
Speaker 1: know that occasionally you'll hear a Wes Moore every now
Speaker 1: and then. But the red state governor that may run
Speaker 1: for president Bashir has a lot of early buzz from
Speaker 1: some of these, particularly from candidates who are trying to
Speaker 1: send the message to independent voters that they're not a
Speaker 1: base Democrat. So, but you're right, he is an economic populist, right,
Speaker 1: can he somehow be the the sort of a neutralized
Speaker 1: cultural issues right, Perhaps it's on guns, and you know,
Speaker 1: before when Roe v. Wade was Law of the land,
Speaker 1: any butser never could have gotten elected president because he
Speaker 1: was a self described pro life Democrat. Now when the
Speaker 1: story is not about whether abortion is legal, it's about
Speaker 1: simply getting access. Well, he's on the pro access side,
Speaker 1: and as long as you're on the pro access side,
Speaker 1: you're going to be considered a Democrat in good standing.
Speaker 1: So I think he's I think he's got a unique
Speaker 1: way to potentially diffuse some cultural issues, very similar to
Speaker 1: a governor from a state that's quite close to Kentucky.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the last time a Democrat carried the
Speaker 1: state of Kentucky there was a it was a gentleman
Speaker 1: named Bill Clinton was at the top of the ticket,
Speaker 1: and he, of course was at the time the sitting
Speaker 1: governor of Arkansas. So I'm you know, I think Bash's
Speaker 1: somebody out of buy stocking. I'd also buy stock in
Speaker 1: Wes Moore right now, I'd also buy stock in Alexandria
Speaker 1: Cossio Cortez. So I'm not sitting here saying which wing
Speaker 1: or which part of the party will end up ascendant,
Speaker 1: but I think all three of them right now feel
Speaker 1: like safer plays of people that put it this way,
Speaker 1: you know, I definitely think there'll be top three type
Speaker 1: of candidates going forward. All Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pause the conversation there. I will got a couple of
Speaker 1: great episodes coming for you. I think I previewed one
Speaker 1: coming up in the state of Florida. I think you
Speaker 1: will enjoy that conversation. But with that, appreciate it, like subscribe,
Speaker 1: give me some good comments, leave some any questions you have,
Speaker 1: ask Chuck at dchucktodcast dot com, and until we upload again,