Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday. It is Columbus Day Indigenous People
Speaker 1: Day depending on the state you live in. Yes, both
Speaker 1: are used. At the end of the day, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have today off, which should mean quite a
Speaker 1: few of you have more time to be listening. So welcome.
Speaker 1: For those of you trying the podcast out for the
Speaker 1: first time, Thank you appreciate it. We've loved our growth lately.
Speaker 1: A few pieces of housekeeping. The biggest thing in the
Speaker 1: podcast household is we have a new dog, rescue Dog two.
Speaker 1: She's a poodle mix. I bring it up because she
Speaker 1: may or may not make her presence known during this
Speaker 1: portion of my recording. That's mostly why I'm sharing. I'm
Speaker 1: sharing that news with you. Those of you that follow
Speaker 1: me very closely on social media know at the end
Speaker 1: of June we lost we lost a dog that we
Speaker 1: had for fourteen years, Ruby. She was a standard Poodle.
Speaker 1: She was terrific and lived a very full life until
Speaker 1: the end. So we've been waiting for the summer. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, and I wanted to make sure it was
Speaker 1: a rescue. This time. We didn't have kids in the house,
Speaker 1: so you feel like you can be a little more
Speaker 1: accommodating two more rambunctious dogs. Shall we say. She's got
Speaker 1: a ton of energy. She's got the puppy energy of
Speaker 1: a two year old. And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: I probably only have like six to nine months of
Speaker 1: this rather than the three years of puppy behavior that
Speaker 1: many of you I know are used to when you
Speaker 1: get a new dog. Anyway, so that is my daughter's
Speaker 1: in town visiting for fall break, and so she's been
Speaker 1: a big help here. My son comes for fall break
Speaker 1: to meet her. He's a bit bumped that he wasn't
Speaker 1: here for, but hey, she came a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: than we expected. When you're on a rescue list, you
Speaker 1: never know when they're going to say yes. Big thanks
Speaker 1: to the folks in DC at City Dogs Rescue. They
Speaker 1: do great work. It's almost all volunteers, as anybody knows.
Speaker 1: You know. I hope if you're a pet lover you
Speaker 1: help out any sort of dog and cat rescue in
Speaker 1: your community. We know they do terrific work and it
Speaker 1: is done simply. Most of the volunteers are there just
Speaker 1: for the love of the animals. So big thanks to
Speaker 1: City Dogs in Washington, d C. China. In the United
Speaker 1: States had a escalating set of threats for the trade war,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent tariffs and responds to protectionism with the
Speaker 1: minerals in China. For what it's worth, all of it
Speaker 1: seems to be posturing before the actual negotiation between the
Speaker 1: two world leaders takes place in the next few weeks
Speaker 1: weeks to a month. So even though the markets are reacting,
Speaker 1: and it is interesting, when do the markets react to
Speaker 1: Trump tariff threats, it appears whenever it's about China. Any
Speaker 1: other aspect of tariff threats don't seem to impact the
Speaker 1: stock market China. That's enough. Another story which I think
Speaker 1: tells you how important the Chinese economy is to the
Speaker 1: world economy. Right, we are the dominant economy in the world,
Speaker 1: but we're not alone, and you know we can have
Speaker 1: We can have a lot of impact, and so can China.
Speaker 1: So I think we're learning here and each country is
Speaker 1: feeling each other out. I think each country thought they
Speaker 1: could quote unquote when this trade war, and I think
Speaker 1: both countries are finding out in some ways this is
Speaker 1: an unwinnable trade war. I'll get to more of it
Speaker 1: before we get to my interview with Sandy, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to get that out of the way. But look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to begin with what we've been talking about
Speaker 1: for some time, and that is where we are in
Speaker 1: the government shutdown. And I will tell you this, We're
Speaker 1: nowhere near We're nowhere close to seeing this resolved. And
Speaker 1: the biggest reason is Donald Trump's not involved. Whatever you
Speaker 1: think of Donald Trump, these days, you cannot negotiate with
Speaker 1: Congressional Republicans without the sign off of Donald Trump. Congressional
Speaker 1: Republicans cannot sign off on anything without getting permission from
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. What do I mean by that? Permission? Sounds
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like I'm being snarky. But the
Speaker 1: fact is, if Trump doesn't like something, he can absolutely
Speaker 1: pull the rug out underneath from Republicans, as he has
Speaker 1: right as he did, as he does to his own
Speaker 1: cabinet secretaries. He just did a big one on Howard Lutnik,
Speaker 1: who was about to amp up tariffs on international pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: companies until Donald Trump stepped in and said, nah, we're
Speaker 1: not going to do that because he's paranoid about price
Speaker 1: hikes and uncertain things. Right, prescription drugs is one that
Speaker 1: he's ultra sensitive to. He doesn't seem to be sensitive
Speaker 1: to some things where his tariffs raise prices, but on
Speaker 1: pharmaceuticals he is sensitive to that. I think it gets
Speaker 1: what he believes is a big part of his constituency, older,
Speaker 1: culturally conservative Americans who have been voting Democrat for most
Speaker 1: of most of this twenty first century until Donald Trump
Speaker 1: essentially promised that he wasn't going to be a Republican
Speaker 1: that tried to cut sold security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're going to about to litigate a midterm election over
Speaker 1: whether what the Republicans did is a cut to Medicaid
Speaker 1: or not, and what voters think of the medicaid policy
Speaker 1: that Republicans have put in. But it's just a fact.
Speaker 1: And with Donald Trump really not engaged yet in the
Speaker 1: government shutdown at all, he is in the Middle East
Speaker 1: as I record this, essentially or on his way to
Speaker 1: the Middle East, getting ready for a victory lap. And frankly,
Speaker 1: it's a victory lop he deserves on this one, because
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at his style of diplomacy,
Speaker 1: it's not a good style of diplomacy to deal with
Speaker 1: the Europeans. It is not a good style of diplomacy.
Speaker 1: To deal with Southeast Asia, China, East Asia, you name it.
Speaker 1: Not a good way. Maybe you could argue his style
Speaker 1: works sort of kind of with the Indians, but that
Speaker 1: so far has been a bit problematic. The one place
Speaker 1: where his style of diplomacy I think can work is
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. He's transactional, where many other of
Speaker 1: an American president wouldn't feel comfortable, sort of doing the
Speaker 1: kind of sleazy financial deals that are being done with
Speaker 1: the Gulf States right now that get them engaged in
Speaker 1: helping to pay for the rebuild of Gaza, get them
Speaker 1: engaged with working with Israel. And if the Trumps make
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks off of it, what does Donald
Speaker 1: Trump care? And all of this right that it is
Speaker 1: this sort of scratch my back, scratch your back kind
Speaker 1: of mindset. It's unethical. It's something that I think we're
Speaker 1: not comfortable our government doing, but it's going to get
Speaker 1: the job done in some ways because there are no
Speaker 1: rules in the Middle East at times. I think that
Speaker 1: that's why you're seeing this style where ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the time it's ineffective, but in this case it's an
Speaker 1: effective way to go. I don't know if another American
Speaker 1: president could have bullied Netnahu into taking this deal. He
Speaker 1: didn't want to take any deal because his right flank
Speaker 1: wasn't going to accept any deal. Any deal that stopped
Speaker 1: this war clearly wasn't going to be acceptable to the
Speaker 1: far right. One thing Donald Trump wanted was a victory, right,
Speaker 1: He wanted to take the win. And it's an interesting
Speaker 1: parallel because he basically it was interesting when they announced
Speaker 1: the deal. Hamas accepted, but not quite on the terms
Speaker 1: that Israel wanted. Trump went ahead and said, great, great
Speaker 1: job Hamas, glad you took this deal. And it left
Speaker 1: Netnah who completely naked, right, he yanked the rug. Bibi
Speaker 1: did not want to say that Hamas agreed to those terms.
Speaker 1: He wanted to continue to press forward, and Trump essentially
Speaker 1: told him, no, you're not going to do it. Take
Speaker 1: the win and move on. Now. Of course, the question
Speaker 1: is going to be whether politically BB can survive without
Speaker 1: having the threat of war right, Who's entire political career
Speaker 1: has been about playing off of fear, fear of a Ran,
Speaker 1: fear of Hamas, fear of Hesbelah. But it's always been
Speaker 1: fear fear, fear. In some ways he's had, you know,
Speaker 1: the last two years incredibly successful dealing with Iran, dealing
Speaker 1: with Lebanon and Hesbela essentially is kneecapped Hesbela completely. Even
Speaker 1: the uties are laying off, You're seeing diplomatic ties being
Speaker 1: forged with many a Gulf state, and with all of
Speaker 1: those fear factors off the table, it is likely going
Speaker 1: to mean that the This is probably the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end of bb NET. Now, who's political career is.
Speaker 1: Does he have another six months? Does he stretch this
Speaker 1: a year? We'll see. I told you about that poll
Speaker 1: last week that showed two thirds of Israeli voters believe
Speaker 1: he should resign. About two thirds of those wanted him
Speaker 1: to resign immediately, another third we're willing to wait till
Speaker 1: the war is over. Well, the war is essentially on
Speaker 1: its way to being over. So we are now up
Speaker 1: to two thirds of Israelis believe he needs to take responsibility.
Speaker 1: That it was on his watch that an exposed Israel
Speaker 1: got attacked by Jamas and all of it. You know,
Speaker 1: it was strange much of the military strategy that bb
Speaker 1: signed off on dealing with Iran. The hooties or hesblah,
Speaker 1: we're all really smart and savvy. He never dealt He
Speaker 1: never listened to his military advisors on how to deal
Speaker 1: with Gaza and Hamas, which is arguably why it was
Speaker 1: so brutal, was so terrible, why it was so poorly
Speaker 1: thought out, and why it is made Israel among the
Speaker 1: most isolated nations in the free world. And that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's sad. For It's just sad. I'm very sad about
Speaker 1: the fact that Israel is so isolated. I'm relieved that
Speaker 1: many of the threats are gone, but how you conduct
Speaker 1: yourself over time has a huge impact long term, and
Speaker 1: we're going to see what kind of long term penalty
Speaker 1: israel Is is going to have to pay for. How
Speaker 1: for the horrendous way that BB and his team conducted
Speaker 1: the war in Gaza. Everywhere else was much more precision efficiency,
Speaker 1: sort of the the the way the Israelis had been
Speaker 1: in some ways admired by militaries around the world for
Speaker 1: their for their Saturday savvy and their strategy. Nobody was
Speaker 1: admiring what they were doing in Gaza. There was nothing
Speaker 1: like that, and in some ways that was driven by
Speaker 1: just a far right fringe that was keeping BB in power.
Speaker 1: But still that is what President Trump is doing right
Speaker 1: now he's taking a victory, Levet. What he is not
Speaker 1: doing is in the room on the shutdown, and that
Speaker 1: at the end of the day is why we are
Speaker 1: going to be here until he engages and at this point,
Speaker 1: and this is this sort of gets to the theme
Speaker 1: I want to hit on today, and that is the
Speaker 1: sort of next level ugliness of our politics. You know,
Speaker 1: there's always been this. Obviously politics and governing blur, but
Speaker 1: there is a point where every successful government, no matter
Speaker 1: which why you were governed, why you were elected. You
Speaker 1: were elected because you're a liberal, you're elected because you
Speaker 1: were a conservative, that ultimately, when you're governing you have
Speaker 1: to do what's in the best interests of everybody. That
Speaker 1: when you're governing, you don't just worry about your supporters,
Speaker 1: you actually worry about the electorate as a whole. That's
Speaker 1: the hallmark of this democracy. This administration governs has weaponized
Speaker 1: everything through a political lens. When you look at what
Speaker 1: Russell Voyd is doing at the Budget Department, this is
Speaker 1: not a left right thing. This is dangerous behavior. Because
Speaker 1: the minute we decide that you should govern politically and
Speaker 1: only govern for those that support you, that is the
Speaker 1: end of the republic as we know it is the
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that our democracy ends, but what it
Speaker 1: becomes is that each time one party gets elected, they
Speaker 1: get in there and decide to purge the other party
Speaker 1: and purge the government of You've heard Donald Trump say
Speaker 1: that he wants to just lay off the Democrat part
Speaker 1: of the government, right, which is why you know, in
Speaker 1: their first round of doing this, Russell Voyd, who is
Speaker 1: as usual, is sloppy with his initial you know, he
Speaker 1: comes across as somebody that's very precise. But it's shocking
Speaker 1: how often they do a lot of stupid things when
Speaker 1: they try to do these layoffs or reduction the reduction
Speaker 1: in force, and that they overfired at CDC and they
Speaker 1: overfired at HHS and why did they target, right, HHS
Speaker 1: is considered a democratic cabinet agency. Right, It's obvious they
Speaker 1: do that when you look which ones they consider the
Speaker 1: democratic agencies and which one they consider the republican agencies.
Speaker 1: Like nobody has essentially hardly anybody's been furloughed or laid
Speaker 1: off from the Department of Olymit Security, but quite a
Speaker 1: few have been laid off at the Department of Labor.
Speaker 1: And they went with a hatchet at the Department of HHS,
Speaker 1: specifically at CDC, and then they realized, oh wow, all
Speaker 1: these people are experts at certain things. These aren't political hacks.
Speaker 1: These are reputable sciences that have incredible expertise in a
Speaker 1: lot of areas that are crucial for the US government
Speaker 1: to be involved in. Public health is something government has
Speaker 1: to be involved in. This is not something you can privatize, certainly,
Speaker 1: and so it is this is what is so scary
Speaker 1: about what's happening. And in some ways Lindsay Graham gave
Speaker 1: a piece of this in a recent appearance on Meet
Speaker 1: the Press, and this goes at the weaponization of the
Speaker 1: Justice Department, where essentially he justified what Trump was doing
Speaker 1: by saying, but they went after Trump, and because Letitia
Speaker 1: James went after Trump and went over the top something
Speaker 1: that I look, I don't disagree that she shouldn't have.
Speaker 1: She shouldn't have gone there. She could have, but she
Speaker 1: went there for solely political reasons. You know, there it is.
Speaker 1: It's certainly that doesn't mean he didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty clear she went after him. To quote,
Speaker 1: get Trump on that front. But if you are upset
Speaker 1: about the weaponization law of law enforcement. Then the last
Speaker 1: thing you ought to be doing is then weaponizing law enforcement.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what they're doing right. Pam Bondi's just
Speaker 1: despicable appearance in front of the Judiciary Committee last week,
Speaker 1: where you know we now have learned thanks to some
Speaker 1: photographs that sort of leaked she wrote down. She clearly
Speaker 1: had her staff she so cares about politicizing the Justice
Speaker 1: Department that she prepared for her testimony with one line
Speaker 1: Zingers to go after any Democrat that questioned her in
Speaker 1: a tough way. So she like had some pre made
Speaker 1: attacks on Sheldon Whitehouse and pre made attacks on different
Speaker 1: Democrats that questioned what she was doing over there. And
Speaker 1: it just just take a step back, take your partisan
Speaker 1: hat off, or put your partisan hat on, and say
Speaker 1: if that is how Merret Garland had behaved, okay, and
Speaker 1: it sent a Judiciary Committee, it's just coming up with
Speaker 1: these spending time, taxpayer dollars to get her get his
Speaker 1: staff to write one line zingers. Republicans would be rightfully
Speaker 1: apoplectic at the politicizing of the Justice Department. But that's
Speaker 1: exactly what Pam Bondi did. She literally spent taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: coming up with one liners and zingers to go after
Speaker 1: rather than explaining if they're because she had no legal
Speaker 1: rationale for what they did to Jim Comey, She had
Speaker 1: no legal rationale for what they're doing to Leticia James.
Speaker 1: She had no legal rationale to how they're just firing
Speaker 1: US attorneys if they don't abide by the president's words.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is another story that sort of
Speaker 1: has gotten lost. The Washington Post has since reported and
Speaker 1: got multiple sources to confirm that when in the infamous
Speaker 1: Donald Trump truth social posts, that is going to probably
Speaker 1: get the Jim Comy case thrown out of court, and
Speaker 1: likely we'll get the Leticia James thrown out of court
Speaker 1: because of the obvious buy that was used to get
Speaker 1: them and diet it. And if I remind you, the
Speaker 1: truth social Post stated this, Pam, I have reviewed over
Speaker 1: thirty statements in posts saying that essentially quote same old
Speaker 1: story as last time, all talked, no action, nothing is
Speaker 1: being done. What about Kmy, Adam, Shifty Shift, Letitia, They're
Speaker 1: all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.
Speaker 1: Then we almost put a Democrat supported US attorney in
Speaker 1: Virginia and with a really bad Republican past awoke rhino
Speaker 1: who is never going to do his job. That's why
Speaker 1: two of the worst DEM senators pushed him so hard,
Speaker 1: referring to Mark Warner and Tim Kaine for agreeing to
Speaker 1: have to confirm that US attorney even lied to the
Speaker 1: media and said he quit and that we had no case. No,
Speaker 1: I fired him, and there is a great case, and
Speaker 1: many lawyers in legal pundits say so, Lindsay Halligan is
Speaker 1: a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We
Speaker 1: can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and our credibility.
Speaker 1: They impeach me twice, induited me five times over nothing
Speaker 1: just as must be served now. President DJT this because
Speaker 1: we now know this was never intended to be a
Speaker 1: public truth social post, so believe it or not, in
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty five, your United States government, the
Speaker 1: President of the United States sends a private direct message.
Speaker 1: Although he didn't the seventy nine year old techno expert
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do it right. Pretty much all
Speaker 1: of our some of us in our fifties have been there,
Speaker 1: but certainly many people in there. Was this supposed to
Speaker 1: be public. I didn't know, but apparently he was trying
Speaker 1: to send her a private message. Apparently the only way
Speaker 1: he can send a private message to the sitting Attorney
Speaker 1: General of the United States is through his truth Social app. Seriously,
Speaker 1: but apparently that's what it was, because this was never
Speaker 1: meant for the public. This was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: direct message. This is how your president of the United
Speaker 1: States communicates with our attorney general. Our president is doing
Speaker 1: is communicating this way. How what kind of direct messages
Speaker 1: have gotten through? This is how he communicates even to
Speaker 1: his own staff. Look, he was clearly threatening her and like, hey,
Speaker 1: you better get it done. I already fired in a
Speaker 1: US attorney that wouldn't do what I asked. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is not hard to jump to the conclusions that
Speaker 1: he was using this. You know, he didn't. He didn't
Speaker 1: give her any any sort of honorific It was Pam,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what you're going to do. But
Speaker 1: I don't think we have had nearly the amount of
Speaker 1: focus and attention to the fact that the president is
Speaker 1: communicating with his staff on a completely unsecured truth. Trust me,
Speaker 1: you think truth socials are really secure, just up to snuff,
Speaker 1: right that Devin Newness man. That guy is a real
Speaker 1: sharp guy, right, you trust him with your cybersecurity, You
Speaker 1: trust him with the government cybersecurity. This is the way
Speaker 1: the president. You Look, did you have any did you
Speaker 1: have an issue with Hillary Clinton's emails and her private server?
Speaker 1: This is a hundred times worse. Look, this was why
Speaker 1: some of us thought what Hillary Clinton did was wrong.
Speaker 1: Don't set these precedents. Don't sit here and say no, no, no.
Speaker 1: But it's okay for me because I'm somehow I'm not
Speaker 1: you know, I know what is what belongs in the
Speaker 1: public record, and what doesn't. And this is what happens. Right,
Speaker 1: We do these slippery slopes, and every time somebody decides
Speaker 1: to change the way we do certain things, everything moves.
Speaker 1: And now this guy has decided to have carte blanche.
Speaker 1: He has no morals or ethics at all. There are
Speaker 1: actually laws. These are again more laws that he's breaking. Here.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to prosecute him for the Presidential Records Act.
Speaker 1: We we thought about trying to do that during the
Speaker 1: uh UH, during the term that he was not serving,
Speaker 1: when he clearly took classified material that belonged to the government.
Speaker 1: Not Donald J. Trump, but he of course, does not
Speaker 1: see the presidency as any different other than an extension
Speaker 1: of himself, and he doesn't see any of it that plucky.
Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like
Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury
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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,
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Speaker 1: are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan.
Speaker 1: Their fee is free. Unless they win a US Congress
Speaker 1: with any other president, oversight hearings would be set. Look
Speaker 1: at all the hearings we had with Hillary Clinton's email
Speaker 1: server where she was up there for hours being grilled
Speaker 1: about the use of it. And again, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: think she did have to answer for that because it
Speaker 1: was wrong that she did it, because I know why
Speaker 1: she did it. She did it to avoid Freedom of
Speaker 1: Information Act requests. Okay, but she but she was held accountable,
Speaker 1: and then some nobody's holding Donald Trump accountable for But
Speaker 1: it is a brazen violation of the Government Records Act
Speaker 1: one two, exposing all sorts of security issues by using
Speaker 1: an unsecure truth Social app to communicate with a member
Speaker 1: of the National Security Council. The Attorney General is a
Speaker 1: member of the National Security Council, so in theory, much
Speaker 1: of what they discuss is classified information all somehow in
Speaker 1: this stew again of that, you know, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: many people feel comfortable. If you feel comfortable with the
Speaker 1: security of truth Social go ahead and direct message your
Speaker 1: social security number Donald Trump. Tell me if you would
Speaker 1: be comfortable doing that. I don't think you would. But
Speaker 1: this is something that is just completely completely insane, and
Speaker 1: we're like totally glossed over it because we're so used
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump not sort of abiding by norms or
Speaker 1: following the law. You know, when we say abiding by norms,
Speaker 1: that's code for not following the law. Sort of totally
Speaker 1: dismissive of laws in the US Congress's past. But of
Speaker 1: course we have a Congress. This current Republican control Congress
Speaker 1: is the single weakest Congress we have had easily going
Speaker 1: back to the FDR and the New Deal. Right, but
Speaker 1: he at least had numbers on his side. That's why
Speaker 1: he was overwhelmingly getting Congress to essentially do what he wanted.
Speaker 1: He actually won a large political argument which gave him
Speaker 1: a large majority. Donald Trump has never won a majority
Speaker 1: of anything. Even winning the popular vote, he didn't get
Speaker 1: fifty percent. He didn't get over fifty percent. And this
Speaker 1: Congress is just rolling over and again. The concern is
Speaker 1: we are just setting all sorts of new precedents and
Speaker 1: there are going to be this this Donald Trump's decision
Speaker 1: to weaponize and ruin the credibility whatever was left of
Speaker 1: the FBI. It is gone. Right, he is cash Ptel
Speaker 1: is literally making Hoover seem like a statesman. We are
Speaker 1: completely destroying the reputation of the rule of law in
Speaker 1: this country, all because Donald Trump can't can't accept the
Speaker 1: fact that he won. That's what's strange here. Right, he
Speaker 1: lied to the country when he said he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: focused on retribution. Right, he clearly was focused on retribution.
Speaker 1: And in his own way, he thinks like a He
Speaker 1: thinks like a movie mobster. Okay, not a real mobster, right,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, everything in him is sort of imaginary in
Speaker 1: many ways, so he thinks like a movie mobster. And
Speaker 1: in the movie, the mobster send a message, so no,
Speaker 1: everybody knows you don't do this again. He goes after
Speaker 1: certain people so that he can make sure other people
Speaker 1: abide by his wishes. This is movie mobster stuff, and
Speaker 1: is it really is deteriorating what is left of political
Speaker 1: discourse in this country. It is deteriorating the reputation long
Speaker 1: term of the Republican Party. And the thing is, you
Speaker 1: know who knows it? About half of the elected Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress, they all know this is ridiculous. They all
Speaker 1: know that if the roles were reversed, they would be apoplectic.
Speaker 1: Sometimes every once in a while they admit it. The
Speaker 1: governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, is one of the few
Speaker 1: Republican governors questioning the decision by Greg Abbott to send
Speaker 1: National Guard troops for the president's use in the state
Speaker 1: of Illinois. As he said, if Joe Biden sent National
Speaker 1: Guard troops from the state of Illinois and Oklahoma, there'd
Speaker 1: be a problem in Oklahoma, and a lot of Republicans,
Speaker 1: a lot of Oklahoma's have a problem with that. Good
Speaker 1: for Kevin Stitt for speaking out the lack of people
Speaker 1: and again, I understand the political fear many of these
Speaker 1: Republicans have, but this stuff is not conservative, and this
Speaker 1: stuff is eroding, eroding the reputation of the US government,
Speaker 1: eroding the reputation of democracy around the world. Right, Because
Speaker 1: if the US government, which is the United States, which
Speaker 1: is considered the leading democracy around the world, starts to,
Speaker 1: you know, essentially be abusive in its way and its
Speaker 1: attempts to dibort people, who who are we to talk
Speaker 1: about human rights violations to take place in Turkey, right,
Speaker 1: or human rights violations to take place in China, where
Speaker 1: the Wigers are clearly clearly being ex being forced basically
Speaker 1: enforced labor camps. But we have no credibility on these
Speaker 1: issues anymore because of how our democracy has behaved. We
Speaker 1: have made no legal We've really not given any legal
Speaker 1: justification for bombing boats that come out of Venezuela. I
Speaker 1: had an interesting conversation with Jim Stevriti's for my new
Speaker 1: sphere show. Please check it out and on oh Sphere
Speaker 1: if you haven't tried it, do a free trial and
Speaker 1: check out the interview. Sta Vradis was terrific. We talked,
Speaker 1: We did a whole you know, we we did a
Speaker 1: tour of the world, but we also talked about what
Speaker 1: would military leaders do. What would he do? He was
Speaker 1: the former head of Southern Command and if he was
Speaker 1: given the orders that Southern Command has been given in
Speaker 1: Venezuela so far. I asked him how would he handle it?
Speaker 1: And the first thing he did, get his lawyer, he said,
Speaker 1: his jag lawyer, which would then and if there was
Speaker 1: some question about the legality of it, he would go
Speaker 1: back to the Secretary of Defense and say what is
Speaker 1: the legal justification of this? And if they created if
Speaker 1: they had a legal justification that he felt that that
Speaker 1: was defensible. He would follow the order, but if he
Speaker 1: couldn't follow the order, he would resign. And I asked him,
Speaker 1: I said, that's what is the if? What is the
Speaker 1: most likely scenario if a high level general or admirals
Speaker 1: given what they believe is an illegal order? And he said,
Speaker 1: they'd likely resign without saying it in public, just simply resign.
Speaker 1: There's there's that in his His explanation was there is
Speaker 1: such a high level of belief in staying out of
Speaker 1: the political fray that many a general or admiral would
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable making themselves the story in something like that.
Speaker 1: I know some of you may hear that, because I
Speaker 1: told the story to a few others and they were
Speaker 1: disappointed to hear that. Many of these generals and admirals,
Speaker 1: if they choose resignation, would probably do so silently and
Speaker 1: not not go public right away why they were resigning.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd eventually go public, but not right away. But
Speaker 1: that's just the that's that's how seriously many in the
Speaker 1: military take the a political status of the military, and
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump's trying to do right now by politicizing
Speaker 1: the military by trying to turn the military. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me to see the story about
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the Washington Post where Biden was really
Speaker 1: seething apparently at how Donald Trump in that in that
Speaker 1: speech in front of the military leaders, seemed to run
Speaker 1: down Biden personally like eight or nine times, right, totally nope. Again,
Speaker 1: before Donald Trump, presidents drew the line at at sort
Speaker 1: of dehumanizing previous presidents. Right, you may criticize previous policies,
Speaker 1: but there was always there was some sort of respect
Speaker 1: given to the person that once held the office. And
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's lack of respect and and and a supper
Speaker 1: order will tell me he's he's treating Biden the way
Speaker 1: he thinks Biden treated him. Of course, Biden gave Trump
Speaker 1: a post election oval office meeting. Donald Trump did not
Speaker 1: do that. Joe Biden accepted the results of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election. Donald Trump didn't accept the results of
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election. But he has just runs down everybody. Shoot,
Speaker 1: he's runs down pretty much every president before him except
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, and then sort of has these has this
Speaker 1: weird obsession with saying he's better. Some people think he's
Speaker 1: greater president than Lincoln. He's lucky. Some people don't think
Speaker 1: he's being compared with James Buchanan, and I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at that. But it is this politicizing of everything right,
Speaker 1: using the government shutdown to only attack Democrats. He's supposed
Speaker 1: to govern for the entire United States of America. And
Speaker 1: you've heard me rant about this before, but this inability
Speaker 1: to want to go again. If a democratic administration refused
Speaker 1: to govern for Republicans refute, tried to find a way
Speaker 1: to prevent government congressionally approved government money from going to
Speaker 1: a constituency that votes more Republican than Democrat, there would
Speaker 1: be impeachment proceedings, and by the way, it would be justified.
Speaker 1: What Donald Trump is doing is illegal, will likely get
Speaker 1: reversed by the courts, but in the meantime, he is
Speaker 1: setting some precedents that this is somehow acceptable politics and
Speaker 1: the lack as always and I know I'm just sort
Speaker 1: of old man yelling at cloud here, but the inability
Speaker 1: of what's left of the principled elected Republicans out there
Speaker 1: who cannot bring themselves to say this is wrong because
Speaker 1: they know it's wrong, all because they are just trying
Speaker 1: to survive politically because oh, you know, some of them say, hey,
Speaker 1: if if you got rid of me, somebody crazier would
Speaker 1: replace me. That's just that's just wishful thinking. Nobody is irreplaceable, Nobody,
Speaker 1: even James Franklin at Penn State, right, nobody is irreplaceabent.
Speaker 1: How'd you like that? Right? Giving you a hint a
Speaker 1: little bit of what I'm gonna chat about in football
Speaker 1: after the interview, but it is really they'll let you know, Look,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of crazy stuff that's happening right
Speaker 1: now with the way he's conducting this government. But the
Speaker 1: idea that he communicates with his staff via direct message
Speaker 1: on truth social that sometimes can't make it out. He
Speaker 1: has put you know, so so much of national security
Speaker 1: at risk by by by doing that, and again god
Speaker 1: only knows how other what other bad idea ways that
Speaker 1: they're communicating with each other, including members of the national
Speaker 1: security staff. And then the second thing is the lack
Speaker 1: of outrage or concern that Again, this goes to the
Speaker 1: whole two wrongs make a right. Donald Trump governs as
Speaker 1: if two wrongs make a right, so weaponizing so if
Speaker 1: he believes that, Leticia James unfairly prosecuted him. He's gonna
Speaker 1: unfairly go after her. Well lucky for both Jim Comy
Speaker 1: and Leticia James. Donald Trump said the quiet part out
Speaker 1: loud because he didn't know how to send a direct
Speaker 1: message to Pambondy on truth Social. But imagine being a
Speaker 1: cabinet secretary and realizing before you go to bed, oh god,
Speaker 1: did I check my direct messages on truth Social to
Speaker 1: see if I have any new orders to follow from
Speaker 1: dear leader. That's an this is this is this is
Speaker 1: how we're running the country. Anyway, Before I get to
Speaker 1: Mark Xandy, as I said, a few little updates on
Speaker 1: the economy, I do again the one hundred percent tariff threat. Look,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that our trade relationship with China was
Speaker 1: a mess. Is a mess, has been a mess before
Speaker 1: Trump got there has been a mess. Trump knows one
Speaker 1: way of trying to deal with them tariffs, sledgehammer. Biden
Speaker 1: kept many of them in place. Right. This is a
Speaker 1: very antagonistic relationship. But what we're both finding out is
Speaker 1: we both need things from each other, and we're going
Speaker 1: to end up having a trade deal that gives away
Speaker 1: some things that neither side's going to be happy about.
Speaker 1: But that's the reality of the situation. And if we
Speaker 1: because if we don't do that, we're going to go
Speaker 1: to war. And but this is a reminder when you
Speaker 1: start a trade war, it is really hard to win
Speaker 1: a trade war. And we've started a trade war, and
Speaker 1: we're having a really hard time quote unquote trying to
Speaker 1: win this trade war. There are real reasons why we've
Speaker 1: got to we've got to recalibrate our economic relationship with China,
Speaker 1: but much of it has to do with what we
Speaker 1: need to do here, right And and one thing Donald
Speaker 1: Trump another thing that you know, Look, I will point
Speaker 1: out when I think Donald Trump does things that are correct.
Speaker 1: This Midi Steel, I think is one that only he
Speaker 1: could have pulled off given the characters involved here. But
Speaker 1: he signed an executive order basically trying to jump start
Speaker 1: UH production and research and UH and frankly the mining
Speaker 1: of rare earth metals in the United States. And it
Speaker 1: is what is motivating the quote the purchase of Greenland,
Speaker 1: and that we are way too reliant on China for
Speaker 1: these rare earth minerals. Look, if we had if we had,
Speaker 1: if we knew how to conduct better form policy with
Speaker 1: Latin America over for the last fifty years. And I
Speaker 1: say we, I mean the United States. This is not
Speaker 1: just something that Trump doesn't do well. This is something
Speaker 1: every president hasn't done well. We could likely have dominance
Speaker 1: in our own hemisphere, but we have so blown our
Speaker 1: relationships down in South America, with Brazil in particular, Mexico
Speaker 1: slightly improved there, and within Canada. All these antagonistic relationships
Speaker 1: we're creating. Our own hemisphere likely could be the answer
Speaker 1: to many of the rare earth metals that we could use,
Speaker 1: but we've been short sighted there either way. Figuring out
Speaker 1: how to either try to find these rare earth metals
Speaker 1: domestically or diversifying our supply chain around the world will
Speaker 1: allow us to be tougher on China. But right now
Speaker 1: we have we really can't uh. And that's the that's
Speaker 1: the uncomfortable that's the uncomfortable truth. There. It is Monday,
Speaker 1: which also means we're going to go back into the
Speaker 1: podcast time machine. Do I need to do a right
Speaker 1: I don't know how. If you guys have you know,
Speaker 1: I hope you like our little music interlude on this
Speaker 1: you should. You should know that the inspiration I was
Speaker 1: looking for was sort of Huey Lewis meets you know,
Speaker 1: without you know, without having to pay Huey Lewis rights
Speaker 1: for you know, Huey Lewis adjacent to give you the
Speaker 1: vibe of of of back to the future. So the
Speaker 1: time podcast Time Machine has actually got a financial theme
Speaker 1: to it. I figured, you know, we're talking a lot
Speaker 1: of things having to do with money the economy. Well,
Speaker 1: on October nineteenth, nineteen eighty seven, that's where we're going back.
Speaker 1: It's now called Black Monday. That was the day that
Speaker 1: the US stock market lost twenty two point six percent
Speaker 1: in a single trading day. It was one of the
Speaker 1: most sudden and alarming crashes and financial history. And today
Speaker 1: as we move in October twenty twenty five, we're in
Speaker 1: the middle of it, with a lot of people wondering
Speaker 1: is how bubblicious is this AI driven stock market? Right?
Speaker 1: It's worth re examining the moment and asking could history
Speaker 1: teach us anything relevant for this market? And what risks
Speaker 1: lurk in twenty twenty five that echo nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: and are there safeguards that are missing? I have to
Speaker 1: tell you this, we have a lot of safeguards today
Speaker 1: because of the nineteen eighty seven black market. But here's
Speaker 1: what you need to know about how it happened, and
Speaker 1: I'll just be honest it that eighty seven crash. I
Speaker 1: was fifteen. My dad would die thirty fourteen months later.
Speaker 1: He was a modestly successful financial advisor. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: all his clients lost a lot of money that day.
Speaker 1: Whatever savings my parents had were gone that day never
Speaker 1: recovered at that point and led to sort of So
Speaker 1: I've it has always been a it was sort of
Speaker 1: I've always pinpointed it, even though my dad had not
Speaker 1: been diagnosed yet, always have pinpointed it as sort of
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end for my father. So there
Speaker 1: is a for me. This is both personal and professed
Speaker 1: and certainly had an impact on how I think about
Speaker 1: markets and how I think about the economy, and how
Speaker 1: I think about how you what you think the stock
Speaker 1: market and how much you should react, underreact, overreact, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But let me give you sort of a larger look
Speaker 1: at what the economy was looking like back then. In
Speaker 1: mid eighty seven, market had already been running up big time,
Speaker 1: valuations were stretched, growth was decelerating, while inflation and interest
Speaker 1: rates were starting to rise again. Yet international currency was
Speaker 1: a contributor to this one. The eighty five Plaza Accord,
Speaker 1: which sought to push the US dollar lower, that had
Speaker 1: a contribution there, and by eighty seven markets were uneasy
Speaker 1: about the coordination under a follow up accord called the
Speaker 1: Louver Accords. And what was interesting is that in the
Speaker 1: week leading up to the crash, it was a crash
Speaker 1: happened on a Monday, markets had already been seeing some sharp,
Speaker 1: sharp decline, so there was definitely pressure to sell more
Speaker 1: and more we're thinking about selling. So when you look
Speaker 1: at you know, when you look back in history, the
Speaker 1: biggest structural culprit to the sort of near to this
Speaker 1: crash was something called portfolio insurance or dynamic hedging. This
Speaker 1: was sort of the first iteration of computerized, computer based
Speaker 1: programs that automatically triggered trades. So as prices fell, it
Speaker 1: automatically increased short positions i e. Futures that were then
Speaker 1: to hedge, and it effectively was selling into a weak
Speaker 1: market and it would sort of ballooned on itself. It
Speaker 1: triggered all sorts of horrible feedback loops, falling prices more hedge, hedging,
Speaker 1: more selling, more downward pressure, more hedging, right, and it
Speaker 1: was it was sort of it was what it was
Speaker 1: the first time we were warned of what happened when
Speaker 1: you start to attempt to automate certain trading decisions, right,
Speaker 1: you automatically buy if you see a number here, automatically
Speaker 1: do this if you see a number there. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, quickly liquidity and and got stressed immediately.
Speaker 1: Some stocks even open late, they were halted. Sometimes bids
Speaker 1: disappeared because remember some things are computerized, some things weren't,
Speaker 1: and then the structure of the market couldn't absorb all
Speaker 1: the orders. I mean it basically, if you think about
Speaker 1: what happened in October of eighty seven, and you know
Speaker 1: the movie Trading Places, when they're having that when those
Speaker 1: guys are on the floor, when everything's panicking and they're
Speaker 1: having heart attacks, theyll sell and the whole frozen orange
Speaker 1: juice concentrate business. If you can imagine that, that's kind
Speaker 1: of how it looked there, and that's still the way
Speaker 1: trading was done on that floor, and it was it
Speaker 1: certainly led to a lot of safeguards being put in,
Speaker 1: but the crash Interestingly about this crash is it wasn't
Speaker 1: rooted in sort of a singular catastrophic macro shock like
Speaker 1: the collapse of Layman Brothers right in the Great Recession.
Speaker 1: There was no war, there was no overnight dead crisis.
Speaker 1: The ferocity came simply from the market's of fragility, leverage,
Speaker 1: and mechanical strategy. It was a bit over leveraged trust.
Speaker 1: Me as a kid, I knew. I knew that it
Speaker 1: was a tripping triple witching Friday. It was something like
Speaker 1: when option Friday coincided with a report. I can't remember
Speaker 1: what all of that lingo meant, but I know it
Speaker 1: would make my father's mood either good or bad, depending
Speaker 1: on the situation. Let's just say he never had another
Speaker 1: good mood after that. Again, the good news about that
Speaker 1: crash is that, because it was essentially a mechanical crash,
Speaker 1: I guess the way to put it, it didn't provoke
Speaker 1: a broader banking crisis. Right. There wasn't a run on
Speaker 1: banks like we had during the Great Recession, and we
Speaker 1: didn't end up in a deep recession unlike two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight or even after nineteen twenty nine. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, It took only two sessions after the crash
Speaker 1: for the DOW to claw back fifty seven percent of
Speaker 1: its drop. The market fully regained its prior high by
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighty nine, less than two years later, and
Speaker 1: then afterward regulators and exchanges added mechanisms like circuit breakers
Speaker 1: trading halts to slow panic in future crashes. Look, it
Speaker 1: was the first lesson I ever got, which was, hey,
Speaker 1: don't panic, you know, close your eyes. If you're younger,
Speaker 1: close your eyes. Eventually the market is going to come
Speaker 1: back because the market always you can see it, right,
Speaker 1: there's always this upward trajectory, and in some ways many
Speaker 1: people behave that way anyway. Now, the question is where
Speaker 1: are we sitting now? Right? Is this a bubble? Do
Speaker 1: we only have? Right? The S and P five hundred
Speaker 1: keeps going gangbusters? That down not so much, right, There's
Speaker 1: all sorts of things that could be happening here that
Speaker 1: were not quite one hundred percent sure of. Right. Why
Speaker 1: are the large stocks continue to go up? Is this
Speaker 1: all due to AI investment? How much of this is
Speaker 1: due to people who've gotten who are sort of heavy
Speaker 1: into crypto. It got essentially legalized by the government, and
Speaker 1: they've quickly got out of crypto and then bought Microsoft, Google,
Speaker 1: you know, all the large cap stocks in order to
Speaker 1: take this imagined money and turn it into a real asset.
Speaker 1: We shall see, but there's certainly a lot going on
Speaker 1: in this market that for those that are not experts
Speaker 1: in it are wondering, are you sure you're not missing something?
Speaker 1: Are we sure this isn't a bubble? Are we sure
Speaker 1: we're not going to end up in a situation like
Speaker 1: what we saw in two thousand and eight or what
Speaker 1: we saw in nineteen eighty seven, in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: so the question is you know what parallels are out there, Well,
Speaker 1: we do have an algorithmic parallel, right that you could
Speaker 1: be their markets are even more dominated by algorithmic trading,
Speaker 1: quant strategies and AI and models, and it raises the
Speaker 1: risk of algorithmic collisions or systemic feedback loops. We supposedly
Speaker 1: are constantly looking to make sure this doesn't happen again,
Speaker 1: but so much is automated. Remember we had that flash
Speaker 1: crash this is probably about eight years ago now, which
Speaker 1: we had that thousand point drop out of nowhere because
Speaker 1: of a glitch in one of these automated things. And
Speaker 1: so you can't help but wonder. And then of course
Speaker 1: there's the fact that could a nefarious actor hack into
Speaker 1: one of these large private equity funds and sort of
Speaker 1: trigger trigger a flash crash of some sort, right, and
Speaker 1: trigger a market collapse essentially by redoing an algorithm. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things here that we ought
Speaker 1: to be worried about. The other parallel is the sort
Speaker 1: of concentration risk, right in twenty twenty. So far this year,
Speaker 1: valuations in certain sectors, particularly I in tech are under
Speaker 1: a ton of scrutiny. Central banks are worrying about overvaluation,
Speaker 1: structurally fragile markets. The equity markets are increasingly concentrated, meaning
Speaker 1: it's just a few big, mega tech names that carry
Speaker 1: outsized weight. Right. If Palenteer is in Navidia are somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, exposed to be something that they're not. And
Speaker 1: I'm not implying that they are, right, but if they
Speaker 1: somehow were the contagion of something like that, right, it
Speaker 1: would impact your Microsoft's, it would impact Google, it would
Speaker 1: impact Amazon. I mean, the contagion effect of this is
Speaker 1: something that you do have a lot of people worried about.
Speaker 1: And then, of course the other part of this is
Speaker 1: something we didn't have in eighty seven that we do
Speaker 1: have today, concerned about the politicizing of the FED, which
Speaker 1: could manipulate markets, which in turn could cause a trash,
Speaker 1: cause a crash. Now some of the differences, right, why
Speaker 1: eighty seven is not really a corollary to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Market infrastructure is a lot more mature. We have a
Speaker 1: lot more exchanges that are resilient. There are more circuit
Speaker 1: breakers in case they are halts that are baked in
Speaker 1: in case we do have a flash crash, in case
Speaker 1: an algorithm does go haywire. Information is a lot more transparent,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more real time. Every investor has more
Speaker 1: tools at their own disposal. You know. That's both good
Speaker 1: and bad. It means everybody could make their own run
Speaker 1: on a bank. You don't have to go find a
Speaker 1: trader to do it for you. And in some ways,
Speaker 1: because the markets are so global and so interconnected that
Speaker 1: in many ways, we all either rise and fall together. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not as if this would be an American problem,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be a problem everywhere else. In a
Speaker 1: weird way, if we're all in it together, is that
Speaker 1: a good thing? Or will we somehow take the blame
Speaker 1: if we somehow bring down the world the world economy.
Speaker 1: But either way, that's the way back machine. Nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Black Monday. It has a particular resonance for me because
Speaker 1: it was it was for me sort of the beginning
Speaker 1: of the end for my father and for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons. But it also taught me some lessons about
Speaker 1: the market. And you know, there are people that were
Speaker 1: close to my father were very angry about how the
Speaker 1: market acted that day and not paying attention to the
Speaker 1: fact that if they had just taken a breath, they'd
Speaker 1: have been in a better place two years later than
Speaker 1: they were on the day of the crash. And it's
Speaker 1: something I've learned over the years. Never panic right away
Speaker 1: when it comes. If you're investing money is don't invest
Speaker 1: money you need right away. If you're investing money, it's
Speaker 1: just that let it, let it do its work, and
Speaker 1: you know the long term rise. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be volatility in the middle, and you've got to if
Speaker 1: if you have us, if you're invested soundly, the volatility
Speaker 1: should should be in some ways minimized. Sometimes the worst
Speaker 1: thing we have these days is it's too easy to
Speaker 1: follow all of this right, So there's a history lesson
Speaker 1: for the day. So with that, let me turn to
Speaker 1: a few questions ask Chuck. First question comes from Brian Chuck.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy listening to your show. For some reason,
Speaker 1: all of our local, state, and even city political parties
Speaker 1: all seem to be affiliated with the two national parties.
Speaker 1: You've had independent candidates running for governor in certain states
Speaker 1: that say they can't be a Democrat or Republican because
Speaker 1: that brand name is toxic in that state. Here's my question.
Speaker 1: Would it make more sense for the Democratic Party of
Speaker 1: Idaho or the Republican Party of Massachusetts and similar situations
Speaker 1: to change their name to something different than the Democrat
Speaker 1: or Republican or to carve off the state political party
Speaker 1: from the national political party names and run state candidates
Speaker 1: for legislature for governor under a different name. Regards to Brian, well,
Speaker 1: actually that's the state of Minnesota. It's the Demoocratic Farm
Speaker 1: Labor Party and the Republican Party until recently used to
Speaker 1: be known as the Independent Republican Party. Those two state parties,
Speaker 1: and in fact, there were two parties at one time
Speaker 1: in Minnesota that make up the Democrat and Farm DFL.
Speaker 1: It was known as Democratic Farm Labor Party. I have
Speaker 1: often wondered why parties haven't done this, and that, actually,
Speaker 1: to me, isn't such a crazy notion to this day.
Speaker 1: You know, look, the word independent is totally I can
Speaker 1: create a halo effect. And I remember, look, Minnesota always
Speaker 1: had a different type of Republican that could win because
Speaker 1: they were a member of the Independent They were I
Speaker 1: are Independent Republican Party of Minnesota. And you had guys
Speaker 1: like Dave Durnberger Rudy Boschwitz that could win in Minnesota
Speaker 1: probably couldn't have won in many other places as a Republican.
Speaker 1: But I think if I I think this would make sense,
Speaker 1: I think it would make a ton of sense. Because again,
Speaker 1: especially if you want to believe all politics is local.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately all politics has become national. But all politics should
Speaker 1: be localized again. And one of the better ways to
Speaker 1: do it is to in some ways be your own brand. Say, look,
Speaker 1: we're affiliating for fundraising purposes with the National Democrats or
Speaker 1: with the National Republicans, but we're kind of an independent organization.
Speaker 1: And you know, now maybe the national parties are you know,
Speaker 1: don't want their state chapters having that kind of independence,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's a way to sort of test splintering
Speaker 1: off and see how it goes on that front. But
Speaker 1: I think it's an absolute worthy experiment. If you're the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party in South Dakota, the Republican Party in Delaware.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, you can it's a cheap experiment,
Speaker 1: you know, because you can experiment in these smaller states,
Speaker 1: you know, these smaller sort of one party states, and
Speaker 1: see if it does have an impact, See if you're
Speaker 1: able to sort of recruit a different type of candidate.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you might win more local elections. And ultimately, the
Speaker 1: more local elections you win, the more credibility you might
Speaker 1: get in statewide elections. And to me, if you really
Speaker 1: want to grow your state party, the goal is to
Speaker 1: win the governorship. The goal isn't to win Senate seats,
Speaker 1: the goals when once you prove you can win races
Speaker 1: locally in the state legislature and governor, everything else will
Speaker 1: take care of itself in the state. So, Brian, I
Speaker 1: think this is a great idea, and again it's it's
Speaker 1: actually been done before. The Minnesota was sort of the
Speaker 1: prime example in the twentieth century. Both I think now
Speaker 1: they're both have gotten rid of those older names, but
Speaker 1: they were. They had their own distinct brand, and they
Speaker 1: prided themselves. You know, you'd have politicians in Miniicina. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not a Democrat. I'm a member of the Democratic
Speaker 1: farm Land Party and that was a point of pride. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not a National Republican. I'm a member of the
Speaker 1: Independent Republican Party in Minnesota. That branding helped both parties,
Speaker 1: both helped candidates in both parties in that state. And
Speaker 1: Minnesota is no small state, right and they're kind of
Speaker 1: swing ish, you know, it could be a swing state.
Speaker 1: It's not quite there. I think a non Donald Trump
Speaker 1: led Republican Party could make Minnesota a bit more competitive
Speaker 1: and D versus are. For what it's worth, I think
Speaker 1: Trump is just a hard sell in the suburbs of
Speaker 1: Minnesota for people. But anyway, I think it's a again.
Speaker 1: It's been tried and it probably should be tried again.
Speaker 1: Great suggestion, Brian. Next question comes from Jason with a
Speaker 1: w Y from California. Hy Chuck, Hearing your take on
Speaker 1: the two party system and how big these tents can
Speaker 1: get makes me wonder why more small parties are independents
Speaker 1: haven't emerged, You and me both brother huge overlooked reason
Speaker 1: seems to be battle access. Oh yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's an overlooked reason. I think it is the reason.
Speaker 1: But battle access is costly and time consuming, so only
Speaker 1: candidates back by a major party usually make it getting
Speaker 1: on the ballot. We're easier, we'd likely see more options
Speaker 1: and less polarization. It's California. I am weary of a
Speaker 1: race with one hundred plus candidates. Hello, twenty ZHO three
Speaker 1: recall election. Ah, yes, remember we had Gary Coleman, Arianna Huffington.
Speaker 1: I think there was at least one prostitute in that
Speaker 1: race as well. Some might argue that if you're elected official,
Speaker 1: you've already prostituted yourself, but I will leave that there anyway,
Speaker 1: I keep injecting my own commentary into Jason's question. My
Speaker 1: apologies there. Back to Jason's question, But our system right now,
Speaker 1: where parties serve as king makers and create the rules
Speaker 1: that block other parties from gaining access or individuals from
Speaker 1: getting on the ballot, seems like an understated cause for
Speaker 1: increasing polarization. What best practices would use suggest to reform
Speaker 1: battle access and open the field. Thanks Jason from California. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I'd like to try some better legal strategies. I think
Speaker 1: that there's an equal protection argument, and that it is
Speaker 1: if you can't you know the fact that there that
Speaker 1: that a third party doesn't have an equal shot at
Speaker 1: making the ballot as the two major parties doesn't. There's
Speaker 1: no there's no mention of a political party in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: I also think taxpayer funded partisan primaries are likely unconstitutional
Speaker 1: because they they leave out they intentionally leave people out
Speaker 1: from participating unless you're a member of this private club
Speaker 1: known as either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: So I look, I think there are better legal arguments
Speaker 1: to make. But here's here's the problem. Right, you want
Speaker 1: to talk about a system that's rigged. Even the judiciary
Speaker 1: is rigged by the two party system. Why they're all
Speaker 1: appointed by members of the two parties. But I do
Speaker 1: think a high profile effort to make this argument. I
Speaker 1: think banning partisan primaries is probably if you could ask me,
Speaker 1: what's one thing we could do to chip away at
Speaker 1: polarization in America, banning partisan primaries pure and simple, having
Speaker 1: none of it. I mean, I go back to what
Speaker 1: David Holt said. I'm guessing you guys devoured that entire
Speaker 1: episode with the mayor of Oklahoma City. The least polarizing
Speaker 1: executive elected officials in the country are mayors, and it's
Speaker 1: because of how mayors are elected. They're not Most of
Speaker 1: them are not elected in partisan primaries. They're elected in
Speaker 1: all party primaries. They don't run with a party ID
Speaker 1: next to their name. Yes, people know who's liberal or conservative,
Speaker 1: but they don't run with a party ID next to
Speaker 1: their name, and they don't end up governing as polarizing
Speaker 1: as now partisan governors do or partisan presidents. And here
Speaker 1: we are, so partisan primaries is the virus. It's a
Speaker 1: big one, and we need to if we need to.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things. There's a lot of things
Speaker 1: I'd like to do to open up the ballot, but
Speaker 1: you know, in some ways, let's singularly focus on what
Speaker 1: would help in the very very very near term banning
Speaker 1: partisan primaries. So let's start there. Chris k from South
Speaker 1: Carolina Rights, is it un American to feel that control
Speaker 1: of TikTok may be less risky in the hands of
Speaker 1: China than in the hands of a few powerful of a
Speaker 1: few powerful Americans. Eke, I know where you're going here.
Speaker 1: The current risk is unregulated propaganda and data harvesting. Than
Speaker 1: I am not sure Corporate America has made the case
Speaker 1: they would be better actors to Shay to add to
Speaker 1: the turmoil. Fourteen billion dollars sound shady, by the way,
Speaker 1: go hawks, Do we know who is good yet? Maybe?
Speaker 1: Or oh this is a separate question, and he has
Speaker 1: a separate question, do you know who's good ed yet?
Speaker 1: On college football? I'm going to get to college football
Speaker 1: in a minute. So it was a two part question.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it that. But look, the
Speaker 1: TikTok thing, I I don't understand why TikTok's legal Congress
Speaker 1: passed the law and and somehow Donald Trump is going
Speaker 1: to agree to an ownership structure for TikTok. That doesn't
Speaker 1: solve the initial problem, which is China controls the algorithm
Speaker 1: hard stop. China controls the algorithm concentrated. Look, we're now
Speaker 1: going to have the Ellisons owning CBS News, perhaps CNN
Speaker 1: and TikTok. That's a pretty large chunk of the news.
Speaker 1: I mean, the public information systems shouldn't be owned by
Speaker 1: a select few people. And yet the concentration of power
Speaker 1: in our in the in the ownership of platforms, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at we talk about independent media. Most
Speaker 1: of us though, are basically on two platforms, Google owned
Speaker 1: YouTube or substack. Right, there's there's not a diversity per
Speaker 1: se of platform there are. You know, we probably need
Speaker 1: to diversify. There's no doubt there is too much monopolizing
Speaker 1: of the distribution system, let alone on the content side.
Speaker 1: We're starting to see consolidation. Uh, and it's quite a
Speaker 1: bit of consolidation on the content side. So I think
Speaker 1: both of them ought to concern us. And with TikTok,
Speaker 1: it is you're right, it's the but I mean, that's
Speaker 1: always what made the It was really frustrating to hear
Speaker 1: many members of Congress correctly point out the propaganda potential
Speaker 1: of TikTok and frankly the propaganda accomplishment of TikTok. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, if you if you somehow point
Speaker 1: out what the Chinese do with the wigers, you know, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody ever sees that. The fact that it seems to
Speaker 1: the algorithm re wards anti Israel messaging just automatically, no
Speaker 1: matter what it is how do I know this. We
Speaker 1: did our own polling on this where TikTok users between
Speaker 1: eight and eighteen and thirty had a unfavorable rating of
Speaker 1: Israel that was twenty points higher than if you didn't
Speaker 1: regularly use TikTok. So this was already and so I
Speaker 1: think what was so frustrating. Hear you're worried about TikTok,
Speaker 1: but you're doing nothing about X or YouTube or Instagram
Speaker 1: or anything Meta owns, right, And I think that that
Speaker 1: was why there was plenty of TikTok users are going, well, geez,
Speaker 1: I mean Amazon and Google take my data and sell it.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not crazy about that, But how is that
Speaker 1: any more or less nefarious than what the Chinese government
Speaker 1: is doing? At least that was the user experience. So look,
Speaker 1: I think you bring up a lot of important points.
Speaker 1: But I also think that we've this that this is
Speaker 1: another thing that you have elected Republicans who were the
Speaker 1: biggest drivers of this, who are suddenly looking the other way.
Speaker 1: Even though Donald Trump is literally ignoring the rationale for
Speaker 1: why the TikTok ban was put in in the first place,
Speaker 1: which was control of that algorithm. We still don't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. Then Ellison's are not going to hear
Speaker 1: know anything about it there apparently is just going to
Speaker 1: be the data will be housed here. It's not about
Speaker 1: the data to me, it's about the propaganda and about
Speaker 1: that algorithm and how it's used to dial up or
Speaker 1: dial down what China cares about when it comes to
Speaker 1: public opinion. All right, I'll do one more question h here.
Speaker 1: The next one comes from warn. Hey, I haven't heard
Speaker 1: any status about infrastructure projects that were started before the
Speaker 1: current administration where they defunded as part of BBB or
Speaker 1: are they still in progress? Thank you well, Warren, some
Speaker 1: of them have been sort of interrupted. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of it. The Biden administration tried to move a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of money out the door before January twentieth,
Speaker 1: but some of it has been cut via the recisions,
Speaker 1: which is arguably a part that has triggered the real
Speaker 1: shutdown showdown between Democrats and Republicans here. So that's one.
Speaker 1: The second is you've had some of the money the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has enough authority over that they've essentially redirected
Speaker 1: it to projects that they would prefer as opposed to
Speaker 1: some of it is, for instance, going to be I
Speaker 1: think some of these projects pushed to building some of
Speaker 1: these data centers and things like that. And then some
Speaker 1: of it is projects that the Trump administration is claiming
Speaker 1: are their ideas and they actually come from what was
Speaker 1: passed by the Biden administration and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, a lot of particularly the
Speaker 1: energy projects in particular, this is what Russell Voyd's been targeting.
Speaker 1: The This is the goes back to my introduction in
Speaker 1: this in the in the full episode here today, the
Speaker 1: political targeting, you know, using what was legally passed legislation
Speaker 1: and essentially only trying to cut off Democratic funds, I
Speaker 1: guess right. And you know he pulled funding of certain
Speaker 1: clean energy projects from any state that was carried by
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, sort of ignoring the fact that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans in those states. You know, more people,
Speaker 1: I think more people voted for Donald Trump in La
Speaker 1: County than I think in all of Idaho or certainly
Speaker 1: all of Wyoming and a few other states like that.
Speaker 1: So it is not very smart how they do this,
Speaker 1: but it is all about getting the headline and owning
Speaker 1: the Libs and feeding the magabase who thinks this kind
Speaker 1: of weaponization of the democracy is somehow healthy and the
Speaker 1: right thing to do is they have convinced themselves that
Speaker 1: the Democrats have governed this way. And again, it's just
Speaker 1: because your feedback loops says they did this doesn't mean
Speaker 1: the facts actually match your feedback loop. But either way,
Speaker 1: if what you think the Biden administration did was wrong,
Speaker 1: why are you cheerleading the same behavior on the right.
Speaker 1: I will pivot to my little rant of the weekend
Speaker 1: in college football. It was sort of a relaxed weekend
Speaker 1: for me personally. Miami Hurricanes were idle. But here's my
Speaker 1: favorite stat of the week. When it comes to college football.
Speaker 1: Nine of the top seventeen teams in the preseason AP
Speaker 1: pole are unranked this week. How about that nine? Essentially
Speaker 1: the more than half of the top seventeen teams. So
Speaker 1: of course your first reaction may be, well, why do
Speaker 1: they bother with a preseason ape pole? Well, if AP
Speaker 1: didn't do it, somebody else would do it, and there'd
Speaker 1: always be somebody trying to do preseason polls. And if
Speaker 1: nobody was doing a shoot, I'd be doing it, right.
Speaker 1: We'd all want to do it. We all think we're
Speaker 1: we all think we're we're we follow this stuff enough.
Speaker 1: By the way, I have a correction from my Thursday podcast,
Speaker 1: courtesy of my son I kept talking about. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you should make a bet on Justin saying for the heisman.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing that you couldn't find a Justin saying
Speaker 1: to make a bet on for the heisman because his
Speaker 1: name's Julian. And those of you that knew his name
Speaker 1: was Julian when I was saying it, we're probably going
Speaker 1: you dumb and that or how do you not know
Speaker 1: it's Julian not Justin, etcetera, etcetera. Well, just so you know,
Speaker 1: my son was on the case. So thank you Harrison
Speaker 1: for that correction. I said I would give him for
Speaker 1: that correction. But here's where we are in college football.
Speaker 1: When you have essentially fifty programs spending somewhere between fifteen
Speaker 1: and twenty five million dollars for roster construction, you are
Speaker 1: now professional league right among this top forty, so among
Speaker 1: those sort of seventeen, you know, among the top twenty five.
Speaker 1: Pretty much everybody Indiana spends money on roster construction. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't spend as much money yet as organ
Speaker 1: or penn state, but they're spending a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I know Miami spends a lot of money. Florida spends
Speaker 1: a lot of money, Clemson spends a lot of You
Speaker 1: get the drift the rules of change, but in some ways,
Speaker 1: everybody's spending. And so the first couple of years, not
Speaker 1: everybody spent, and it allowed your TCUs to sort of
Speaker 1: come from nowhere and jump up right and bite everybody.
Speaker 1: And then they immediately disappeared because suddenly more people, more entities,
Speaker 1: started spending. And now we're sort of almost already at
Speaker 1: a major power or parody in spending. And so what
Speaker 1: that means is just like it's just like the NFL,
Speaker 1: which which is a year to year league, and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's spending about the same amount of money. It is
Speaker 1: really hard. Yes, you have two or three or four franchises,
Speaker 1: are you know, can can can be in the can
Speaker 1: be in the top tier of the league for four
Speaker 1: or five years at a time. But you're gonna have
Speaker 1: teams go in and go out, and you're also going
Speaker 1: to have sort of chapters to your seasons. Like I
Speaker 1: also think it's a little early for us to assume
Speaker 1: we know that the two lost, two loss teams now
Speaker 1: are terrible and that the undefeated teams now are going
Speaker 1: to be the ones that make the playoff. Right, You
Speaker 1: now have a situation where you're gonna have ebbs and
Speaker 1: flows right and one, and you can you know, teams
Speaker 1: may lose. Look, Florida State's lost three in a row.
Speaker 1: Penn States lost three in a row. U I didn't
Speaker 1: see it coming with Florida State, by the way, that
Speaker 1: has not been very popular in my household, as some
Speaker 1: of you may be aware. But they also certainly had
Speaker 1: some holes in their roster construction, and nobody should have
Speaker 1: expected them to go from a two and ten season
Speaker 1: to playoff contention right away. But they pull an early upset,
Speaker 1: and so everybody sort of got over enthused, kind of
Speaker 1: like you know what happens to a two and o team.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, wow, like last year the New Land
Speaker 1: Saints for two and oh they suddenly were terrible. Right, So,
Speaker 1: just like in the NFL, you don't know who's good early.
Speaker 1: Are the Chargers a good team or not? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: They almost lost to the Dolphins today. They did lose
Speaker 1: last week, but they started off too, and oh and
Speaker 1: looked amazing. My Packers looked amazing the first two weeks.
Speaker 1: Then they lost a game to Cleveland tie Dallas. We'll
Speaker 1: find out how they do the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: So I do think that college football now is going
Speaker 1: to look more and more like the NFL. There's there's
Speaker 1: more parody. So you're going to have a year where
Speaker 1: a couple of years where in Indiana is contending, and
Speaker 1: then they may, you know, fall short on their ability
Speaker 1: to find the right defensive lineman and offensive linemen they
Speaker 1: need to sort of keep in the top tier, and
Speaker 1: so they may slip back. Right, That's what happened to
Speaker 1: Florida State, That's what's happened in to a Clemson. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got to sort of prepare for that with Miami.
Speaker 1: And I think this idea that you can expect your
Speaker 1: team in college football to win ten games or more five, six,
Speaker 1: seven years in a row is totally unrealistic because nobody
Speaker 1: has depth anymore. Right, Georgia and Alabama, Miami and it's heyday,
Speaker 1: they could stock bile talent. The greatest college football team
Speaker 1: of all time might be the two thousand and one
Speaker 1: Miami Hurricane National championship team. I say, might I accept
Speaker 1: the twenty nineteen LSU team as a contender for that spot. Right,
Speaker 1: Miami had a third string running back named Frank Gore
Speaker 1: on that team. Right. The first string running back was
Speaker 1: and Portous, His backup was a guy named Willis mcgahey,
Speaker 1: and the third string one was Frank Gore, who's going
Speaker 1: to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. So the
Speaker 1: point is is that in this day and age of nil,
Speaker 1: Frank Gore doesn't stick at Miami for two years waiting
Speaker 1: his turn. He's probably in another roster. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what you're going to see with college football, and
Speaker 1: that's probably why we're seeing where because you cannot you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have the depth, and it's really now a
Speaker 1: war of attrition. The teams that can stay the healthiest
Speaker 1: or the ones that are going to be there and
Speaker 1: the teams that sort of end up with some injuries
Speaker 1: or bad luck or the wrong you know, turns out
Speaker 1: somebody just wasn't as good of a quarterback as they
Speaker 1: thought they were going to be, or wasn't as good
Speaker 1: of a receiver as you thought they were going to be.
Speaker 1: There goes your season because there isn't a guy waiting
Speaker 1: in the wings that you could just tap into, and
Speaker 1: I think in some ways that's what we should be realized.
Speaker 1: Thing is that college now that college football has been professionalized,
Speaker 1: it's going to resemble the quirks of the NFL. And
Speaker 1: in many ways I would argue that college football in
Speaker 1: the sort of the top forty programs looks a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot like the NFL, more like the NFL
Speaker 1: than it does what college football look like even six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight years ago. As for who's good, I think everybody
Speaker 1: agrees that Ohio State and Miami seem to be good.
Speaker 1: They look good statistically, and they've looked good on the field.
Speaker 1: I could make an argument if I really, if I
Speaker 1: really want, I don't want Miami to be ranked number one.
Speaker 1: I don't like the statistic that's out there already that
Speaker 1: says Miami is the best chance of finishing undefeated. Look,
Speaker 1: I am well aware. You know, despite what the SEC thinks,
Speaker 1: everybody's conference road games are hard. It's not just in
Speaker 1: the SEC conference. Road games mean more in every conference
Speaker 1: and they're very difficult. And Miami has only had to
Speaker 1: play one road game so far. So I am fully
Speaker 1: on upset alert for the rest of the season. If
Speaker 1: we can just get through the season with one loss,
Speaker 1: we'll be fine, thankfully. That's how the college football playoff
Speaker 1: system has now made it where you don't have to
Speaker 1: be perfect if you're not a member of the SEC
Speaker 1: like you were even when we were in our top four, right,
Speaker 1: and sometimes perfection only doesn't work if you lose your
Speaker 1: starting quarterback, as Florida State found out. Because the ESPN
Speaker 1: Invitational is just that, it is an invitational, and even
Speaker 1: at twelve teams, it's still an invitational. And clearly what
Speaker 1: the matchups are, etc. Are going to have the networks
Speaker 1: are going to have to say on all that. But
Speaker 1: I think we know this much. We know how State's good,
Speaker 1: we know Miami's good. Is Indiana in that top three
Speaker 1: or not? Right, you start doing the you know, I
Speaker 1: think Indiana has looked impressive. I think they do. I
Speaker 1: think they're part of it. But if you want a
Speaker 1: question Indiana by saying, well, Oregon beat a Penn State
Speaker 1: team that turned out to be terrible, are they terrible?
Speaker 1: Are they just missing Tyler Warren? I do think that's
Speaker 1: something we have to realize, right Tyler Warren was so
Speaker 1: good at Penn State, and without him there, it's it
Speaker 1: is set Drew allerback. Obviously, now he's injured, so he's
Speaker 1: totally set back for the season. But even before he
Speaker 1: got injured, he didn't look like the same quarterback. Tyler.
Speaker 1: Warren made every made that team, made that offense incredibly
Speaker 1: hard to stop. He was a unicorn. How good is
Speaker 1: he He's turned He's helped turn the Indianapolis Colts into
Speaker 1: a top tier NFL team this year. So clearly they
Speaker 1: miss him and miss him a lot. But I think
Speaker 1: those are the you know, you look at those three
Speaker 1: teams and then after that, oh Miss almost lost to
Speaker 1: Washington State, a group of five teams. You know, I
Speaker 1: guess they're still you can say they're they're still technically
Speaker 1: member of the two right now. But this is a
Speaker 1: team that has just been devastated by the portal. Right
Speaker 1: They've lost their last two starting quarterbacks, Scamboard to Miami,
Speaker 1: John Mitteer to Oklahoma, and they lost their coaching staff.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're great offensive coordinator to Oklahoma as well
Speaker 1: with matir Uh And yet they went into Oxford and
Speaker 1: almost beat Ole Miss. I guess The good news is,
Speaker 1: if you're a long time Lane Kiffin watcher, you could
Speaker 1: argue the way I argue so far with Mario, which is, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin blows that game two years ago. At least
Speaker 1: he didn't blow it this time. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: the way I look at it. I still think Old
Speaker 1: Miss is going to be there at the end. And
Speaker 1: I think text A and M is the best team
Speaker 1: in the SEC. And I think they're better than Ole
Speaker 1: Miss by a by a little bit more than than
Speaker 1: than the than the rankings indicate Alabama is certainly vulnerable.
Speaker 1: They're not. They're not, and and limp, can I just
Speaker 1: say this, Georgia only won because of the official in
Speaker 1: that Auburn dorga game that was an atrociously officiated game.
Speaker 1: And you know, normally, normally most games where fans complain
Speaker 1: about the officiating, myself included, you know, you're only seeing
Speaker 1: the calls that go against you. You're not really processing
Speaker 1: the calls that go for you or the calls that
Speaker 1: go against the opponent. You don't really sort of have
Speaker 1: the same emotional and I do think it's sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, those that judge officiating as fans are like
Speaker 1: partisans trying to claim they can identify media bias. Right,
Speaker 1: no partisan. I always laugh at people that accuse me
Speaker 1: of bias. It's always somebody from the from hard left
Speaker 1: or hard right, And I'm like, how do you guys
Speaker 1: know what bias looks like? Right? You're upset if people
Speaker 1: aren't biased in your direction. That's what you view as
Speaker 1: political bias. Like those that clown show that the Bozell
Speaker 1: family that has turned into a family grift. It's some
Speaker 1: sort of grifting business that that thing in the entire
Speaker 1: Bozell family makes money off of this off this group
Speaker 1: that claims there's there's somehow left wing bias hidden everywhere
Speaker 1: in America, and a whole bunch of right wingers like
Speaker 1: Bozell who thought Nixon didn't commit crimes. The old Man
Speaker 1: is somehow an arbiter of neutrality. Anyway. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: there's not biased in different places. I'm saying the Bozells
Speaker 1: don't have the qualifications to identify it. And it's that
Speaker 1: way with many fans. We don't have the qualifications to
Speaker 1: identify I didn't really have a I didn't really have
Speaker 1: a rooting interest in Georgia Auburn. I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of in laws that are Auburn fans, so I want
Speaker 1: to see Auburn do well. But I hate Hugh Freeze.
Speaker 1: I don't like that guy, I'll admit, so I struggle
Speaker 1: with you know, with my with my in laws on that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, okay, but why Hugh Freeze. But you
Speaker 1: know what, ask any Auburn fan and they sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you Freeze. They're not they they know it, right, But
Speaker 1: those were just some terrible calls, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: Georgia gets I certainly hope the following isn't happening that
Speaker 1: somehow SEC officials because this is not a great year
Speaker 1: for the SEC. It doesn't appear they have four or
Speaker 1: five great teams ap peers. They might have one great
Speaker 1: team in Texas A and M, and a couple of
Speaker 1: good teams. No different than the Big Ten, no different
Speaker 1: than the ACC, no different than the Big twelve. They
Speaker 1: just look like another conference this year. They don't look
Speaker 1: like the SEC. Right, But how badly does the SEC
Speaker 1: want to protect its big brands? Right? Are Alabama and
Speaker 1: Georgia going to continue to get calls for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year like this? You know, and is Texas
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma sort of in that same category where those
Speaker 1: teams will get calls more likely, right, Oklahoma got it
Speaker 1: against Auburn. Now Auburn, you know, didn't get a call
Speaker 1: against Georgia. I hesitate to see how the refereeing looks
Speaker 1: when Auburn has to play Alabama. But my good, the
Speaker 1: refs decided that game when they didn't award that touchdown
Speaker 1: to Jackson Arnold and they gave it a turnover that
Speaker 1: it flipped the game completely. Instead of seventeen to nothing
Speaker 1: at halftime, it was ten to three. And that was
Speaker 1: a massive, massive swing. By what was again, I mean
Speaker 1: you break the plane period, right it is? And by
Speaker 1: the way, guys, in this day and age, can we
Speaker 1: please create some sort of new barrier right where and
Speaker 1: a chip in the ball so that the second it
Speaker 1: crosses that goal line, you know right that, you know it,
Speaker 1: you see it. You can't tell me we don't have
Speaker 1: the technology to be able to do that rather than
Speaker 1: having all of these days, because here's the other thing
Speaker 1: you have is that not every every NFL game has
Speaker 1: every camera angle that you would want for replay, but
Speaker 1: not every college game has that. The big time college
Speaker 1: games right that are gonna get covered in primetime by
Speaker 1: your Fox, your NBC, your your NBC, and your Fox
Speaker 1: at CBS and ESPN. They there's about six or seven
Speaker 1: games that'll have seventeen eighteen different cameras, but most of
Speaker 1: the other games don't have that many cameras because the
Speaker 1: networks are wanting to spend that kind of money for
Speaker 1: what might be a streaming game, or what might be
Speaker 1: an ESPN two or CBO Sports Network or if this
Speaker 1: one peacock you get it right. So, like I was
Speaker 1: watching the Florida State pit game. They didn't have a
Speaker 1: camera angle right down the goal line, so they couldn't
Speaker 1: tell for sure. They did a review of a touchdown
Speaker 1: that I'm pretty sure was a touchdown, but they didn't.
Speaker 1: It's because they didn't have a camera angle to dispute
Speaker 1: it even if you wanted to dispute it. That seems like, look,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do replay and we have the ability,
Speaker 1: my god, we can put GoPros everywhere. Now. This is
Speaker 1: not a high cost the way it even was just
Speaker 1: five or six years ago. If you do care about
Speaker 1: the outcomes of these games and you want to make
Speaker 1: sure we always get it right. Let's make sure we
Speaker 1: have all the equipment at all the games that are
Speaker 1: getting televised and that are going to use replay. You
Speaker 1: can't just sort of be glad that, oh well, hey,
Speaker 1: because believe it or not, I don't know if we
Speaker 1: would have had that camera angle that Georgia Auburn had
Speaker 1: which showed Arnold the ball crossing the goal line before
Speaker 1: it was punched out. I don't know if you would
Speaker 1: have had that at the U. Mass Can't State game.
Speaker 1: Then again, maybe we didn't need any replay officials for
Speaker 1: the U. Mass can Stake game. All right, there's my
Speaker 1: college football rant for the week. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it, Appreciate you here. I hope you enjoy If
Speaker 1: you have a holiday today, I hope you're enjoying it.
Speaker 1: For those that are nervous about getting their paycheck due
Speaker 1: to the government shutdown, I'm sorry. I hope this podcast
Speaker 1: and the attention that we give to it serves as
Speaker 1: at least something that can be done there and maybe
Speaker 1: at worst or at best, my podcast is a distraction
Speaker 1: for the day. So with that, thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: Thank you for liking and subscribing. Thank you for all
Speaker 1: those five star reviews hint, and with that, I'll see
Speaker 1: you in forty eight hours.