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Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: The Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I am not
Speaker 1: in studio. I am traveling. I am in Miami. I'm
Speaker 1: on a sort of a three city excursion here. I'll
Speaker 1: be in Miami, I'll be in Charlotte. I got a
Speaker 1: trip to New York all this week. I just came
Speaker 1: from Austin. I want to actually give a report on that.
Speaker 1: It was a participant at the Texas Tribune Festival where
Speaker 1: I interviewed Wes Moore. Actually, a part of that conversation
Speaker 1: I'm going to have in the feed later this week,
Speaker 1: so you will get a full opportunity to hear that conversation.
Speaker 1: Let me just give a quick rundown of what to
Speaker 1: expect on this episode. Long interviews with a gentleman by
Speaker 1: the name of David Lesh. He is the subject of
Speaker 1: an interesting book that those of you that know me
Speaker 1: know I'd be a sucker for. It's called From Dodgers
Speaker 1: to Damascus. It's about a one time major league pitching
Speaker 1: prospect who got injured in the minors, ended up. I
Speaker 1: think I think may have had a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: and the majors. We'll talk about it. We have that
Speaker 1: conversation and instead became an expert on the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Hence Dodgers to Damascus. Actually found himself to be in
Speaker 1: the room with Asad at times and really is an
Speaker 1: expert in particular on Syria. So really that's a big
Speaker 1: part of our conversation is sort of where's the Middle
Speaker 1: East headed? What could the next three to five years
Speaker 1: look like, and what could the next ten to twenty
Speaker 1: years look like. It's a terrific conversation, and David Lesh
Speaker 1: is a wonderful It was a wonderful interview to have,
Speaker 1: and I do think you'll learn quite a bit. But yes,
Speaker 1: the hook was the Dodgers in baseball. Right, you go
Speaker 1: from there to the Middle East? Right?
Speaker 2: What is there any better home.
Speaker 1: Than the check podcast for something like that it's also Monday,
Speaker 1: which means it's time Machine day, and boy, do I
Speaker 1: have a doozy for you in the Toddcast time machine
Speaker 1: or we'll go back. This is a fascinating week. Here's
Speaker 1: what I'll just tell you. This week in history is
Speaker 1: basically the greatest week. If you're a conspiracy theorist, this
Speaker 1: is your going to be your favorite week in history.
Speaker 1: I will just simply leave you with that tease. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'll take some questions, and let's just say I have
Speaker 1: a lot to say about college football the playoff, and
Speaker 1: I've got a whole bunch of advice for the college
Speaker 1: Football Playoff Committee in the ESPN executives who are going
Speaker 1: to be making these decisions. Hopefully they will actually care
Speaker 1: about what happened on the field rather than the machination
Speaker 1: that they usually care about off the field. But there's
Speaker 1: a few issues that I think that they have to
Speaker 1: take up, and we'll see how serious they are about
Speaker 1: trying to actually find the most worthy teams versus those
Speaker 1: that they want to just feature in a television show.
Speaker 2: But with that, let me get started with.
Speaker 1: A quick little take on where we're at at the
Speaker 1: moment in our current politics, and where we're at is
Speaker 1: we have a president who is in the midst of
Speaker 1: a feeding frenzy, and it is a feeding frenzy that
Speaker 1: he can't control, and he is flailing. We've been in
Speaker 1: these positions with him before and he always navigates his
Speaker 1: way out of it.
Speaker 2: But this time is different.
Speaker 1: As I said in our previous episode, we've got a
Speaker 1: struggling economy, something that he's actually reacting to that's fascinating
Speaker 1: and I want to get to that also in this episode.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, his.
Speaker 1: What he's doing and how he's react acting to this
Speaker 1: Epstein situation is not exactly the way somebody who's innocent
Speaker 1: would be reacting it is. There's so many aspects of
Speaker 1: this that are strange when it comes to the way
Speaker 1: he's treated this story. I mean, I'll go back to
Speaker 1: something and I know, just set aside everything you know
Speaker 1: about the story, but think about it in this way.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has the ability to be as his way
Speaker 1: out of you know, he lies, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: the way water flows out of a faucet, right, He's
Speaker 1: very comfortable doing that, and he'll say whatever it takes
Speaker 1: today to put off something that may be coming tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and if he's got to say something else tomorrow, I'll
Speaker 1: say something else tomorrow. The big head scratcher here on
Speaker 1: this one is why he has chosen to be so
Speaker 1: lenient on Glene Maxwell. And to me, this is the
Speaker 1: part I want to focus on first. And then I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to what is clearly an over action
Speaker 1: to Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey, and I'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a second, but I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to this Gallaine Maxwell. And again when you get when
Speaker 1: we get to my time the time Machine segment today,
Speaker 1: you'll see where I'm going. But the reason there's an
Speaker 1: assumption he's lying about something is because there's so many
Speaker 1: politicians that have preceded him over the last fifty years
Speaker 1: that have always lied to protect themselves first, and eventually
Speaker 1: the truth would come out. It just sometimes would take
Speaker 1: years and in some cases decades. What's a head scratcher
Speaker 1: about the way he has treated Gallaine Maxwell is he
Speaker 1: seems to fear her. And the question is why does
Speaker 1: he fear her? She's in jail number one, number two.
Speaker 1: She was convicted of essentially helping Epstein traffic underage women.
Speaker 1: He could easily be wanting to throw the book at her,
Speaker 1: and instead of putting her in a club fed, he
Speaker 1: could have been putting her in solitary or making her
Speaker 1: life even more miserable, rather than trying to be lenient.
Speaker 1: And for whatever reason, he really wants her not to
Speaker 1: say anything bad about him, even though if she did,
Speaker 1: he could just simply say she's lying. She you know
Speaker 1: that he had a story that was plausible enough that
Speaker 1: would likely have kept everybody on his side. Right. The
Speaker 1: story was Epstein was being a creep, He was recruiting.
Speaker 1: He and Glaine were recruiting women from mar Alago. He
Speaker 1: had had enough, he kicked him out. And of the relationship,
Speaker 1: why is he keep pulling Glaine Maxwell back into his orbit?
Speaker 1: And I'll just say this, there is something else in
Speaker 1: his life. There is something that she knows about, perhaps
Speaker 1: as there's something she assisted him with. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: relationship he has or had with somebody. But there is
Speaker 1: something that he has that hasn't come out that he
Speaker 1: apparently is petrified of that she knows, because there really
Speaker 1: seems to be no other explanation, because he could be
Speaker 1: behaving the exact opposite way, and the fact that he
Speaker 1: isn't is a head scratcher, and someday, maybe sooner, maybe
Speaker 1: it'll take a while, we'll find out for sure. Maybe
Speaker 1: she knows the origin story of his personal life, Maybe
Speaker 1: she knows things that we don't know about the origin
Speaker 1: story of his marriage. None of us know for sure.
Speaker 1: His behavior is making it easier to go down conspiratorial lanes,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like he is he is either purposely
Speaker 1: doing this just to try to create more fog, which
Speaker 1: is not totally out of character for him, or there's
Speaker 1: something that Maxwell has that he just can't he just
Speaker 1: can't risk, and so he's got to figure out. So
Speaker 1: we'll see. Look, if he commutes her sentence and releases her,
Speaker 1: that will be you know, not just one red flag, right,
Speaker 1: that would be a thousand red flags. But let's go
Speaker 1: to the other part of this story, which is his
Speaker 1: decision to punish Marjorie Taylor Green unindorse her. We already
Speaker 1: know he's sicked his political machine on Thomas Massey trying
Speaker 1: to primary him. There's an interesting pattern here Trump. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who is Trump dumped or pulled
Speaker 1: his endorsement from, or tried to defeat in his side
Speaker 1: of the aisle who disagreed with him on an issue
Speaker 1: of substance. Right, he went after those that voted to
Speaker 1: impeach him after January sixth, right, the ten, and he
Speaker 1: is he doesn't want to forget those. He's still got
Speaker 1: vendettas against anybody that voted to convict him in the Senate.
Speaker 1: Hence why I think there's still no endorsement for Bilcassidy,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there will ever be an endorsement
Speaker 1: for bil Cassidy in his Senate see but none of these.
Speaker 1: He is angrier at Massy and Green for simply voting
Speaker 1: for transparency on the Epstein files. Then he's as angry
Speaker 1: at them as he was against the ten House Republicans
Speaker 1: that voted to impeach him after January six It is,
Speaker 1: it is if this is this, and the irony is,
Speaker 1: he's got plenty of ways that they're likely going to
Speaker 1: kill this. Right, he's got the Senate, we'll see. Look,
Speaker 1: I think if there's a hundred or more House Republicans
Speaker 1: that vote with the Democrats on this, and I think
Speaker 1: there will be that many. I do think that once
Speaker 1: this vote goes on the record, there's a reason Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson wanted to try to just release the files as
Speaker 1: a unanimous consent because he doesn't want a recorded vote.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of House Republicans that don't want
Speaker 1: to have to vote against the president on this, but
Speaker 1: they're more petrified of not voting to release files having
Speaker 1: to do with a pedophile. So that's one. The second
Speaker 1: way they could kill it is maybe in the Senate,
Speaker 1: but if it gets one hundred or more House votes,
Speaker 1: I think there are thirteen Senate votes. Now maybe leader's
Speaker 1: Senate leadership just finds different ways never to bring it
Speaker 1: to the floor. But somebody's going to bring this to
Speaker 1: the floor. Somebody's going to be able to introduce it,
Speaker 1: and then it's possible Trump could be to it. But
Speaker 1: don't underestimate what the Justice Department just did with this
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump railed ranted on social media demanding that
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi started an investigation into Democrats in their relationship
Speaker 1: with Epstein. Because here's what's likely to happen. If there's
Speaker 1: an open and vestigation that the Justice Department is conducting
Speaker 1: having to do with people in their associations with Epstein,
Speaker 1: then it's likely they go to a court and say hey,
Speaker 1: we can't have these files released because it's currently a
Speaker 1: part of an investigation. Right there's been a lot of conversation.
Speaker 1: One of the knee jerk right wing talking points is, well,
Speaker 1: the Biden folks could have released this, Well, they were
Speaker 1: in the middle of an investigation, so they couldn't release
Speaker 1: any files at the time. Now the investigation, in theory
Speaker 1: is over. But if they're reopening an investigation, then suddenly
Speaker 1: that likely will mean that will be used. This quote
Speaker 1: open investigation will be used as saying, hey, we can't
Speaker 1: release any of this material. It may matter in an
Speaker 1: investigation and we don't want to have to put all
Speaker 1: that out earlier. So it's there's a lot of paths
Speaker 1: I think for this to have these files prevented from
Speaker 1: being released to the public. There's a handful of ways.
Speaker 1: You can see how it could be Senate leadership that
Speaker 1: does it. It could be that President Trump vetos it,
Speaker 1: or it could simply be the Justice Department goes to
Speaker 1: court to say they can't because there's an open investigation.
Speaker 1: Because Pam Bondi agreed to open investigation just to investigate
Speaker 1: Democrats in their relationship with Epstein.
Speaker 2: So the point is it's how much, it's.
Speaker 1: How rattled he is on this. And when he's rattled,
Speaker 1: this is when mistakes get made, and he's rattled at
Speaker 1: a time when the other parts of his job aren't
Speaker 1: going very well. Right, you have, it's pretty clear that
Speaker 1: this economy is not working for people that don't have money.
Speaker 1: He is realizing how badly the inflation issue is impacting,
Speaker 1: particularly his voters, because he's doing something he said he'd
Speaker 1: never do. He's getting rid of tariffs on food and coffee. Now,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is how all of his surrogates went out
Speaker 1: on the Sunday shows and they won't say that they're
Speaker 1: getting rid of the tariffs, like they keep not trying
Speaker 1: to use the word, or they keep saying, no, we're
Speaker 1: lowering costs. Oh, you're getting rid of the tariffs. So
Speaker 1: the terroifts raised costs. No, the teriffs didn't raise any costs.
Speaker 1: But we're going to lower costs on food. There's this
Speaker 1: weird they don't you know. Donald Trump can't ever admit
Speaker 1: he's wrong. And the fact of the matter is these tariffs.
Speaker 1: Foreigners didn't pay these fees. You and I did. We've
Speaker 1: been paying this if you've bought up banana recently, you
Speaker 1: paid tariffs. So if he's going to sit here and
Speaker 1: refund this to some people, and we'll see if they're
Speaker 1: even able to do that, we're going to find out
Speaker 1: soon enough. He's likely to lose at least some of
Speaker 1: this tariff authority in court. He probably will try to
Speaker 1: find another way in the law to try to to
Speaker 1: try to implement some of these tariffs, and I think
Speaker 1: there are a few other levers he can pull that
Speaker 1: he'll be able to do this. But the reality is
Speaker 1: is that, you know, despite everything he claimed that somehow
Speaker 1: Americans weren't going to be paying this tax, Americans have
Speaker 1: paid this tax. We have been getting more tax on food,
Speaker 1: particularly fruits, vegetables, stuff that comes from overseas, plus coffee.
Speaker 1: So the fact that they're dropping them shows you that
Speaker 1: there's a bit of an acknowledgment that number one, prices
Speaker 1: haven't calmed down, they've gone up, and number two, he's
Speaker 1: been the reason why prices have gone up.
Speaker 2: And then finally he's got to deal with this healthcare.
Speaker 1: Issue and the fact that premiums are everybody now that
Speaker 1: is on the Obamacare exchanges is seeing that the premiums
Speaker 1: are about to go up if they were getting some
Speaker 1: of these subsidies. It looks to me like there's going
Speaker 1: to be an extension of these subsidies. Is it a year,
Speaker 1: is it a year with a few extra strings attached.
Speaker 1: I think all of those things are possible, But I
Speaker 1: do want to highlight something Rick Scott said. Rick Scott
Speaker 1: made it crystal clear in a Sunday Show interview earlier
Speaker 1: that they were not going to repeal Obamacare and that
Speaker 1: you know, there was not going They were not that
Speaker 1: they that all insurance was going you know, they weren't
Speaker 1: going to repeal the pre existing condition issue. Because the
Speaker 1: only way to save money on this on on these
Speaker 1: insurance exchanges in Obamacare is if you let insurance companies
Speaker 1: essentially cherry pick who they get to cover and if
Speaker 1: you don't have a pre existing condition, and they can
Speaker 1: shift people with pre existing conditions and make them pay
Speaker 1: higher rates but have healthy people pay super low rates.
Speaker 1: That's you know that that's the system we had before,
Speaker 1: which didn't work for anybody. So the fact that Rick
Speaker 1: Scott is saying we are not going to do that
Speaker 1: because you cannot have insurance companies be able to to
Speaker 1: not accept clients because of a pre existing condition. This
Speaker 1: is why the system didn't work before. But the talking
Speaker 1: point that is really bizarre to me, as they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: they don't want to give this money to the insurance companies,
Speaker 1: are going to give it to the American people. Well,
Speaker 1: where do they think the American people is going to
Speaker 1: spend this money? Can you get health insurance coverage without
Speaker 1: paying an insurance company? I mean, I guess unless we're
Speaker 1: going to be doing Medicare.
Speaker 2: For all, is that the plan.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to be the plan that
Speaker 1: comes from the Republican side of the aisle. But if
Speaker 1: you don't want to pay insurance companies, who else do
Speaker 1: you pay? And if you would like to get rid
Speaker 1: of the insurance companies, if you hate insurance companies, Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders would love to talk with you. He's got a plan, Republicans.
Speaker 1: If you don't like insurance companies and you don't want
Speaker 1: to pay insurance companies, He's got a terrific idea, just
Speaker 1: do it straight with the government. So it's a strange
Speaker 1: talking point that they're using. But the point is they
Speaker 1: know this is not good politics for them. They know
Speaker 1: that they have to deal with this, and I think
Speaker 1: they're going to deal with this soon. But this Epstein thing,
Speaker 1: I it's a When I was growing up, there was
Speaker 1: a deodorant commercial for a deodorant called Sure. And this
Speaker 1: is back when we had aerosol deodorance, and you know
Speaker 1: that the aerosol deodorance was gross, you know, thankfully, you know,
Speaker 1: we had such a we were so worried about the
Speaker 1: ozone layer back then. They finally got rid of those things,
Speaker 1: which is there's a whole bunch of us that are
Speaker 1: thankful for that. That was just gross. You walk into
Speaker 1: a gem and you'd always smell that sort of aerosol deodorant.
Speaker 1: It was disgusting. But the Sure, I always said, never
Speaker 1: let them see a sweat was sort of the tagline
Speaker 1: for Sure deodorant. Well, Donald Trump is letting all of
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Speaker 1: He is clearly nervous about all things ups. It is
Speaker 1: his personal obsession. He is trying to enact political and
Speaker 1: vendettas having to do with it. He is making Marchie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green a martyr. He is giving, he is helping
Speaker 1: get her mainstreamed with independency. She is proudly calling herself,
Speaker 1: you know, Mago without him, And that's.
Speaker 2: The thing, like he is not. You know.
Speaker 1: I do think Thomas Massey, who was a sort of
Speaker 1: America first Conservative before Donald Trump ever showed up. Margie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green's beliefs clearly aligned closer with with a conservative
Speaker 1: that's more in line with Massy than she is with Trump.
Speaker 1: Trump is always as many a Trump advisor will quietly
Speaker 1: let me know, he's always the least Mega person in
Speaker 1: any room you walk into, wherever you go with Maga,
Speaker 1: Trump's the least Maga. And he's become obsessed with the
Speaker 1: deal making overseas he's become obsessed with all the money
Speaker 1: he's making off of his off of his influence in government.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the opposite of what the true believers
Speaker 1: in MAGA, those that did want to go after the elites,
Speaker 1: who thought the elites were using government to enrich themselves,
Speaker 1: And what's Donald Trump doing using government to enrich himself.
Speaker 1: So look, I wrote it my substeck last week, and
Speaker 1: I think that so far everything is playing out sort
Speaker 1: of exactly out I sort of was laying it out,
Speaker 1: and I think we're going to continue to see it.
Speaker 1: His influence is waning. More Republicans discover every day that
Speaker 1: he will never be on a ballot again, and just
Speaker 1: keep an eye on. So he's already gone after Massi
Speaker 1: and it's not really going that well. Thomas Massey's primary
Speaker 1: is going is May nineteenth, and that's fairly early in
Speaker 1: the primary season. There's a lot more though, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a few states in March, a couple of
Speaker 1: states in April, but most of the primaries are in June,
Speaker 1: than a big chunk in August, and are remaining a
Speaker 1: few in September. If Massi wins, And right now, I'd
Speaker 1: rather be Massy than anybody else in that Republican primary.
Speaker 1: He's had a hard time finding anybody. It's yet going
Speaker 1: to be another reminder that the Emperor is losing his clothes.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say the Emperor has no clue
Speaker 1: at the moment, but I think the Emperor is starting
Speaker 1: to shed some clothes at the moment. And if he
Speaker 1: is trying to punish somebody and he can't do it right,
Speaker 1: he already lost one big one with Brian Kemp. And
Speaker 1: remember why he turned on Brian Kemp. He turned on
Speaker 1: Brian Camp over January sixth. In the election. He turned
Speaker 1: on Brian Camp because Brian Kemp wouldn't do an illegal
Speaker 1: act right, Brian Kemp wouldn't abide by his by Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's wishes. So again this pattern. The only time Donald
Speaker 1: Trump wants to punish a fellow Republican is when they
Speaker 1: won't go along with something that just is bullshit. Right.
Speaker 1: They won't go along on the Epstein files, they won't
Speaker 1: go along on January sixth, they won't go along on
Speaker 1: the election. And whether they're it's the only time he
Speaker 1: turns on folks. He doesn't ever really turn on him
Speaker 1: over policy. Disagreements. He only turns on him if he
Speaker 1: thinks other people are going to embarrass them him because
Speaker 1: because they won't keep his lie up. And when Massey
Speaker 1: wins that primary in May, it's yet going to be
Speaker 1: another chink in the armor, and it's going to continue
Speaker 1: to open the store and everybody is it's just getting
Speaker 1: easier and easier to separate yourself from Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: there's going to be these different lease a little small.
Speaker 1: The Epstein vote is going to be a step in
Speaker 1: that direction, and you're going to see one hundred or
Speaker 1: more House members do it. When the Supreme Court rules
Speaker 1: against his tariffs, you're going to see a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of Republicans suddenly find their free trade spines again, and
Speaker 1: they'll put out releases talking about following the Constitution. So
Speaker 1: these little and then you're going to see, you know,
Speaker 1: as people are upset about the costs rising costs, you're
Speaker 1: going to see more in Republicans look for ways to
Speaker 1: potentially separate themselves from the way House, but certainly to
Speaker 1: more directly appeal to voters, either in different ways to
Speaker 1: try to get rid of terrorists the lower costs, or
Speaker 1: to question big tech and what they're doing to raise
Speaker 1: our electric bills with all these data centers that are
Speaker 1: going up all over the place. So I do think
Speaker 1: we are witnessing, like I said before the beginning of
Speaker 1: the lame ducification of Donald Trump. One other thing before
Speaker 1: we get to the interview that I want to get to.
Speaker 1: So I spent Thursday and Friday in Austin, Texas the
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune Festival.
Speaker 2: They have it every year. I've been to it a
Speaker 2: few times.
Speaker 1: They asked me to moderate a conversation with Maryland Governor
Speaker 1: Wes Moore. I think I told you I was doing
Speaker 1: that while I was there. I also it kind of
Speaker 1: unofficially became a bit of a cattle call for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight presidential candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle.
Speaker 1: Wes Moore was there, Pete Bootagige there, Tim Walls was there,
Speaker 1: Chris Murphy was there. So, you know, while I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit here and say it was, you had
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people looking for twenty twenty eight candidates.
Speaker 1: I think they were there looking for people to fight
Speaker 1: Donald Trump more than anything else. It was interesting the
Speaker 1: various conversations that were had looked. I would say, the
Speaker 1: attendees at the Texas Tribune Festival were folks looking to
Speaker 1: fight Trump. These were folks that are you know, fall
Speaker 1: on the left side of the aisle. They were there
Speaker 1: looking for They're looking for hope, you know, looking for
Speaker 1: a stronger vision in the Democratic Party looking in some cases,
Speaker 1: I think many of them probably were a little further
Speaker 1: to the left than probably the average rank and file
Speaker 1: member of the Democratic Party. And like I said the
Speaker 1: wes More conversation, you know, I was intrigued by the
Speaker 1: sort of the tone he took. He knew this audience
Speaker 1: was very liberal, and yet he didn't try to play
Speaker 1: to the audience. He really hugged the center lane in
Speaker 1: ways that I didn't fully expect him to hug it.
Speaker 1: He made it clear that, you know, he didn't view
Speaker 1: himself as tied to the Democratic Party. He was a Democrat,
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean he would abide by everything the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party was for. I thought that was an interesting distinction.
Speaker 1: Always a little bit easier for governors to say that
Speaker 1: than any other officeholder, but he went out of his
Speaker 1: way to say that. I thought that was intriguing, and
Speaker 1: I do think it's you know, when he goes through.
Speaker 1: I mean, his military experience is you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's some you know, John Kerrey used to get criticized
Speaker 1: by some who thought that he used his military he
Speaker 1: went into the military for political purposes. I don't care
Speaker 1: if somebody went into the military for political purposes. That
Speaker 1: doesn't bother me. But some people think, oh, you're doing
Speaker 1: it to check a box. That isn't why Wes Moore
Speaker 1: joined the military, and that's what he got in.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I I'm not going to sit here and question the
Speaker 1: motive of somebody that chooses to put themselves in a
Speaker 1: position where they could put themselves in harms way because
Speaker 1: they think it'll look good on a political resume. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying some haven't thought about it that in those terms.
Speaker 1: But if you're willing to do that, then I've got
Speaker 1: no problem with that. I appreciate that you're trying to
Speaker 1: have a variety of experiences in order to in order
Speaker 1: to be a better leader if you do get a
Speaker 1: shot at being a small, de democratic leader of this country.
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's a huge deal, but I
Speaker 1: do think his military experience a little bit different. Right
Speaker 1: when you join at seventeen and he was already had
Speaker 1: gone to military school. So I just think he I
Speaker 1: don't think he's a conventional liberal Democrat, is my point.
Speaker 1: And I didn't fully appreciate that until you had, until
Speaker 1: you have this longer conversation, I was intrigued by him.
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought some of his answers,
Speaker 1: his defensive capitalism was quite interesting. Again, later this week,
Speaker 1: we're going to drop this into the feed, So if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to this conversation, you can listen
Speaker 1: to the whole conversation. I actually used it also this
Speaker 1: week in my new sphere, so those of you that
Speaker 1: are a member of Newsphere, you can check out Sunday
Speaker 1: Night with Chuck Codd. That was a big chunk of
Speaker 1: that interview appeared there as well. But there was one
Speaker 1: other thing I wanted to bring up because both he
Speaker 1: and Tim Walls. I saw Tim Wall's conversation. He was
Speaker 1: in conversation with Jennifer Paul Mary, a longtime Democratic operative,
Speaker 1: and I asked both. Jen asked Tim Walls a question
Speaker 1: about sort of what does Trump do well? And I
Speaker 1: asked a question, what does Trump get right? You know?
Speaker 1: To Wes Moore, some version of it and they both
Speaker 1: said the same thing. You know, he acts, it's moved,
Speaker 1: he moves quickly. I think Tim Wall said, he moves
Speaker 1: quickly and he goes. You know one thing Trump does well,
Speaker 1: what Wes Moore said, is that there's always action. Right.
Speaker 1: He doesn't wait around for a commission. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: a committee to study something before trying to implement it.
Speaker 1: A lot of times he tries to implement things even
Speaker 1: when he doesn't have the authority to do it. But
Speaker 1: he's always but the voter sees him trying to do something,
Speaker 1: sees him trying to fulfill a promise that he made,
Speaker 1: even if it's ends up being kind of an empty fulfillment,
Speaker 1: he still attempts to do it. It tells me that
Speaker 1: the next Democratic president is if there's one thing they're
Speaker 1: going to attempt to emulate from Trump, You're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot more signing ceremonies, a lot more public
Speaker 1: signing ceremonies, a lot more executive orders, a lot more
Speaker 1: attempts at doing rather than studying, and maybe even trying
Speaker 1: to do too much rather than looking back like I
Speaker 1: think many in the Obama years do. And wonder was
Speaker 1: that was the two years that he had full where
Speaker 1: he had fifty nine to sixty Senate seats. He had
Speaker 1: sixty for a while, then it was back to fifty nine.
Speaker 1: A fairly large House majority was that did he was
Speaker 1: getting healthcare? Was great? Should he have just kept pushing
Speaker 1: the envelope, tried to get cap and trade, just pushed, pushed, pushed,
Speaker 1: and because no matter what there was going to be,
Speaker 1: they were going to lose the mid terms, no matter what.
Speaker 1: So you might as well have done as much as
Speaker 1: you can. Because what's the lesson Donald Trump has taken?
Speaker 1: Do as much as you can while you can, because
Speaker 1: you're really there or know how long you're going to
Speaker 1: be there. And I think the fact that both Wesmore
Speaker 1: and Tim Walls that that's one of the lessons those
Speaker 1: that's the initial and when they're asked what does Trump
Speaker 1: do well or what does Trump get right? That both
Speaker 1: of them and I don't think they talk to each
Speaker 1: other about this. I don't think either. I don't think
Speaker 1: More the Wall said at first. I don't think More
Speaker 1: heard Tim Walls say this. It didn't really go viral
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So I don't think he's alone.
Speaker 1: And I've heard this from quite a few other Democrats
Speaker 1: that that they get frustrated. They think when you know, well,
Speaker 1: he's he's signing these executors, they're kind of meaningless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ninety percent of them are meaningless. But the message to
Speaker 1: the voters is he's trying that he's making an effort,
Speaker 1: that he's doing something. Nobody ever wonders whether you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's why Trump's erratic health isn't hurting him
Speaker 1: quite yet as much as it hurt Biden, because Biden
Speaker 1: didn't look like he was doing as much. So then
Speaker 1: you wondered, why is an age doing as much? So
Speaker 1: it is it is. It was just intriguing that that
Speaker 1: was singled out.
Speaker 2: But again I go back.
Speaker 1: My big takeaway from Wes Moore is that he is
Speaker 1: he is definitely not going to be running as a
Speaker 1: mainstream liberal Democrat. I think he is going to be
Speaker 1: running as something a bit different. And those that are
Speaker 1: thinking this is the second coming of Obama, I would say,
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely the second coming of Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton than it is Barack Obama. For what it's worth.
Speaker 1: All right with that, let me sneak in a break
Speaker 1: and when we come back, my conversation with former Major
Speaker 1: League prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. David Lesh, who
Speaker 1: ended up a life as an expert on the Middle East,
Speaker 1: hanging out with the assads every once in a while
Speaker 1: in Syria. So with that, let's sneak in the break
Speaker 1: and when we come back, David Lesh, there's a reason
Speaker 1: results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason.
Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For
Speaker 1: the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion
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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. Well here at
Speaker 1: the check podcast. When you get a book proposal to
Speaker 1: interview somebody, and the book is called Dodgers to Damascus,
Speaker 1: it's almost as if the publication was trying to identify
Speaker 1: me as the target's interview e as a Dodger fan,
Speaker 1: growing up as a political junkie. Now policy junkie a story,
Speaker 1: and this is a biography. The book itself as a
Speaker 1: biography of my guest today, David Lesh, who is who
Speaker 1: began his studies of the Middle East by being a
Speaker 1: prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Well let him in
Speaker 1: some ways, that's exactly what it was, the dream of baseball.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of aspiring baseball players, injuries can sometimes
Speaker 1: get in the way of a career, and you use
Speaker 1: another part of your body, your brain, to pursue another passion,
Speaker 1: which is what David Lesh did. And it's a fascinating
Speaker 1: story and the book is fascinating but sort of lessons
Speaker 1: from baseball to help resolve the Middle East crisis or
Speaker 1: crises plural. So David Lesh joins me now the subject
Speaker 1: of the book. David, welcome to the podcast. It's nice
Speaker 1: to meet you.
Speaker 3: Nice to meet you, too supposed to be. I'm glad
Speaker 3: the book found its way across your desk. That's great.
Speaker 3: So let me ask this. What's it like?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is this. You didn't write the book,
Speaker 1: you participated. It is an authorized biography. That's it's almost.
Speaker 2: Like you're you you you.
Speaker 1: I always say it's sort of it's going to be awkward,
Speaker 1: but it's like you are willing to expose yourself to
Speaker 1: the to the world. And I think when you're when
Speaker 1: somebody writes a biography of somebody that's still alive, right,
Speaker 1: You're You're, that's a lot of you got to You're
Speaker 1: You're always being asked to give more and more. What
Speaker 1: did it feel like to read about yourself through a
Speaker 1: third person?
Speaker 3: It was weird. You definitely are identifying the awkwardness of
Speaker 3: it for me. If I Catherine Cook, who did such
Speaker 3: a wonderful job as an accomplished author, who wrote this
Speaker 3: book and She called me one time. She said, David,
Speaker 3: I'm having trouble writing the last chapter. And I said
Speaker 3: why and she said, because you're still alive.
Speaker 1: You know, that's would be my challenge as a writer
Speaker 1: if I had this assignment. You know, you're you.
Speaker 2: You want to make a.
Speaker 1: Conclusion about somebody's life or legacy, and if they're still alive,
Speaker 1: how do you word it in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: make them either feel like you're doing their obituary or
Speaker 1: you're taking a shot at them.
Speaker 3: Well, that my wife is over now, you know, I
Speaker 3: can't do anything else. But I'm still active and I
Speaker 3: have a lot to look forward to, I hope. But
Speaker 3: she did a good job. In fact, the last chapter
Speaker 3: is entitled Stay Tuned, which hopefully is a metaphor for
Speaker 3: better and bigger things that I can accomplish in my
Speaker 3: life as we go forward. In all in all ways,
Speaker 3: but it was a very weird experience, and I was
Speaker 3: compelled to be introspective in a way that you know,
Speaker 3: at this age of my life, I didn't, you know,
Speaker 3: figure i'd be doing. And it forced me to look
Speaker 3: at a lot of situations throughout my life. It was
Speaker 3: interesting to see because she interviewed like fifty sixty you know,
Speaker 3: colleagues and friends, family acquaintances, and it was interesting to
Speaker 3: see what they thought of me, and which was much
Speaker 3: better than that I had anticipated, by the way. But
Speaker 3: so it was in a writing experience. It was emotional
Speaker 3: at times because I had to revisit some periods and
Speaker 3: events in my life that you know, had a great
Speaker 3: deal of impact in positive and negative ways. But it
Speaker 3: was really I thought, you know, well done by Catherine.
Speaker 3: A very positive experience overall.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what what what's drawn you to become,
Speaker 1: you know, the essentially to do all the scholarship that
Speaker 1: it takes to become a Middle East expert. And I
Speaker 1: always I put experts in quotes because an expert of
Speaker 1: what these days it's almost in some ways you're an anthropologist, right,
Speaker 1: You're a civilization you're trying to understand and what it
Speaker 1: really is is, you know, I have my own opinions
Speaker 1: about how we just don't people don't understand the history
Speaker 1: of the Middle East before nineteen forty eight, Right, that's
Speaker 1: my largest frustration in sort of the coverage of stuff.
Speaker 1: But what drew you to it? Why did you want
Speaker 1: to make this your area of expertise.
Speaker 3: Well, I struck out of everything else, chuck.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, there you go. There's the dad pun striking
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 3: It is no I think as in most cases, and
Speaker 3: what I hope I'm doing to some of my students
Speaker 3: as a professor now is I had a couple of
Speaker 3: wonderful professors after I, you know, flamed out at baseball
Speaker 3: with the injury, and I went back to undergrad school
Speaker 3: and I had two wonderful, wonderful professors. It was just
Speaker 3: pure luck. I was always extendent International relations. Lou Cantori
Speaker 3: and Robert Freeman were the two. They were well known
Speaker 3: in the field, and they just turned me on to
Speaker 3: a subject that at that time, you know, the seventies
Speaker 3: early eighties, as you well know, it was not covered
Speaker 3: very well or objectively. And so I did the more
Speaker 3: I started studying it, and more importantly, when I started
Speaker 3: traveling there, I just became enamored with that history, with
Speaker 3: the people and why things you know, went off the track,
Speaker 3: so to speak, so much in so many areas in
Speaker 3: the Middle East. I wanted to understand that and hopefully
Speaker 3: later on, as I hope I've done in my books
Speaker 3: to help explain it to an audience.
Speaker 1: So I have a bit of a snarky sort of
Speaker 1: take on when it comes to sort of our what
Speaker 1: I think is our ignorance about the Middle East, which
Speaker 1: is and it comes from being a Jewish American, and
Speaker 1: I'm not a very religious person, but I get I've
Speaker 1: always felt I've never felt as if that part of
Speaker 1: my identity mattered until a whole bunch of other people
Speaker 1: want to tell me it's supposed to matter, and I
Speaker 1: get sort of if I get my back up, I
Speaker 1: joke anytime I hear the word populace, whether it's left
Speaker 1: wing populism or right wing populism, I know the first
Speaker 1: thing they're doing is coming for the Jews. But you know,
Speaker 1: I realized in sort of the in the this was
Speaker 1: began before October seventh, but certainly post October seventh, the
Speaker 1: amount of people that didn't understand the Middle East pre
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, and that really the biggest problem we
Speaker 1: had generationally was And then it realized, well.
Speaker 2: How are we taught World War One and World War Two?
Speaker 1: And I think about World War One and we're I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you had a similar grade school experience that I did.
Speaker 1: You're a little bit older than me. But we basically
Speaker 1: I think, you know, probably that fairly consistent education there,
Speaker 1: which was we're taught World War One through the prism
Speaker 1: of World War Two. You know, we screwed Germany too much,
Speaker 1: made him angry and it started the Second War. We
Speaker 1: never talked about the other part of World War One,
Speaker 1: which was the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the
Speaker 1: fact that in some ways, and a couple as I joke,
Speaker 1: a couple of drunk Frenchmen and Brits decided to draw
Speaker 1: straight lines and say you get a country you don't
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden it's the United States. It's
Speaker 1: left to deal with this mess. Again I'm being it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a snark, but it's it does get
Speaker 1: at what I think is the root issue of our
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of a lot of the Middle East issues, which
Speaker 1: is not understanding how it all broke apart after the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. My pet peeve is that Americans in general, Westerners,
Speaker 3: especially Americans, have had this telescopic view toward the Middle East,
Speaker 3: and we need a microscopic view. And the telescopic view
Speaker 3: is quite prejudiced and biased in many different directions.
Speaker 1: Incomplete, absolutely and complete is the best description I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you need that microscopic view. But in today's
Speaker 3: especially as time has gone on, in today's media, as
Speaker 3: you will know, and sound bites and social media and
Speaker 3: so forth pull on information in small bites and small packets,
Speaker 3: and even foreign leaders, you know, they want that one
Speaker 3: page brief less than one page brief instead of reading
Speaker 3: a whole executive summary, even of a particular problem, especially
Speaker 3: a country like the United States, which has so many
Speaker 3: issues all over the world and responsibilities and objectives. For
Speaker 3: a president to focus on one single thing and really
Speaker 3: understand it is very, very unusual unless they have a
Speaker 3: background in it. But yeah, I mean the Ottoman Empire
Speaker 3: and you talk about the two drunk frenchmen that Jordan
Speaker 3: was always said a joke was that Winston Churchill had
Speaker 3: a hiccup and drew that part of Jordan that sticks out.
Speaker 3: But the reality is it was to connect pipelines from
Speaker 3: the Version Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. So there was
Speaker 3: all strategic reasons behind all of this. And one of
Speaker 3: the things people understand, I think the British and the
Speaker 3: French obviously allied on the Tient powers in World War One,
Speaker 3: but they always saw each other as potential enemies.
Speaker 1: After the war, they were competing for reasons in the
Speaker 1: Middle least, right exactly.
Speaker 3: And so you know, Syke's Pico and all these infamous
Speaker 3: secret wartime agreements were always you know, from each side
Speaker 3: aimed at the other for what they hope would be
Speaker 3: victory and defeating the central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 3: But you're right, I mean, the fall of the Ottoman
Speaker 3: Empire is sort of glossed over, and it's the Eurocentric
Speaker 3: orientalist view of World War One and what happened with
Speaker 3: the artificial divisions in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: This is also this week is the anniversary of Panamanian independence,
Speaker 1: and essentially Panamanian independence came because Teddy Roosevelt cut a
Speaker 1: deal because he wanted to a strip of land to
Speaker 1: build the Panama Canal. So they basically created Panamanian independence, right,
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of sort of how the Europeans
Speaker 1: dealt with the Middle East. It's the same way the
Speaker 1: United States has dealt with Latin America essentially for the
Speaker 1: last hundred years, which is what can you do in
Speaker 1: the region for us? Not what can we do for
Speaker 1: you in the region? Is that.
Speaker 2: Simplistic view?
Speaker 1: But is that how you you would sort of describe
Speaker 1: sort of the Eurocentric relationship with the Middle East over
Speaker 1: the last hundred years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought you were going to say, not the
Speaker 3: one hundredth year, but the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Speaker 1: As we were to that company too agreements.
Speaker 3: But yeah, absolutely, I mean, all countries act in their
Speaker 3: own national interests and if they have leverage in terms
Speaker 3: of those interests, they're going to exercise that leverage. And
Speaker 3: what Israel has done, you know, ever since it came
Speaker 3: into being in nineteen forty eight, And what all countries do,
Speaker 3: the British, the French, the Americans, the Russians, and without
Speaker 3: taking into consideration or very much consideration, the wants and
Speaker 3: needs of the local populations other than that which will
Speaker 3: feed their own strategic interests. And so's that's very, very true.
Speaker 3: And it's you know, the countries in the Middle East
Speaker 3: they lack in many ways of national identity, They lack
Speaker 3: the rulers, lack legitimacy. A lot of that goes all
Speaker 3: the way back to the artificiality of the heartland of
Speaker 3: the Middle East.
Speaker 1: We just created archies right out of these tribal leaders.
Speaker 3: Right monarchies and so called Arab republican regimes that act
Speaker 3: like monarchies because they want to be. You know, the
Speaker 3: Mcadafi and Nassir and Lbark and Osad, they all wanted
Speaker 3: to be. They all wanted to be and were in
Speaker 3: some cases succeeded by their sons, so they turned out
Speaker 3: to be monarchies in effect.
Speaker 1: So who did you have? Which aside did you have
Speaker 1: did you start to strike up her I don't want
Speaker 1: to say relationship, but sort of a conversation with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was Bisharl Ossad, who came to power in
Speaker 3: two thousand after his father died. And you know, I'd
Speaker 3: been going to Syria quite some time, and you know,
Speaker 3: I like to consider myself a Middle Eat specialists in
Speaker 3: mediaprent areas, but Syria's is definitely my number one specialty.
Speaker 3: And I traveled the over thirty thirty five times over
Speaker 3: the years, and so I knew I had a pretty
Speaker 3: good network in Syria, particularly in mine academics. And when
Speaker 3: Osade came to power in two thousand, he brought academics
Speaker 3: into the government, which some thought, as you know, hope
Speaker 3: for the future, other things.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, there was a brief period
Speaker 1: where they thought maybe he'll be a modernizer, maybe he'll
Speaker 1: be king using right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, and or a faisal in Saudi Arabi even
Speaker 3: you know, back in the seventies and and you know
Speaker 3: he was young. He liked Western music, he liked Western
Speaker 3: you know, technological toys. Uh, you know, he was a
Speaker 3: computer nerd.
Speaker 1: And everyone was educated in London, right educated.
Speaker 3: He received uh you know, he was trying to get
Speaker 3: his what is essentially his boor certification ophthalmology in London.
Speaker 3: But people have to remember he only spent you know,
Speaker 3: two years in London. And even though he liked the
Speaker 3: Electric Light Orchestra and Phil Collins and the Beatles, you know,
Speaker 3: his upbringing was molded by, you know, being a child
Speaker 3: of the Arab Israeli conflict, a child of the super
Speaker 3: power conflict when Syria was on the side of the
Speaker 3: Soviet Union in Russia. And mostly most importantly a child
Speaker 3: of Havazalasat, his father, who had a very particular brand
Speaker 3: of authoritarianism in Syria. So those are the things that
Speaker 3: shaped his worldview, and I was very interested in, you know,
Speaker 3: his transition from enthalmologists to ruler. And so I contacted
Speaker 3: one of these academics he brought in who happened to
Speaker 3: be the good friend of mine who was in the
Speaker 3: Minister of Higher Education, and said, hey, you know, I
Speaker 3: like to write a book on him. Can I meet
Speaker 3: with Mischard Alasad? And that's how it all started, and
Speaker 3: a couple of years later, in two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: came into being.
Speaker 1: He's done this with a few Americans over the years,
Speaker 1: like he seems to constantly. You know, there's there's been
Speaker 1: a handful of Americans that I feel like I've had
Speaker 1: that he does want to reach out to the Western side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he did, and so timing, Yeah, when you
Speaker 3: reached out to me in two thousand and four through
Speaker 3: his ambassador in the United States, he was also a
Speaker 3: friend of mine. It was not a coincidence at that
Speaker 3: time because it was right after the US led invasion
Speaker 3: of Iraq and Syria was slowly turning into a target,
Speaker 3: not slowly, actually quickly turning into a target, whereas before
Speaker 3: the invasion. Right after nine to eleven, American officials were
Speaker 3: saying Syria was helping to save lies with intelligence cooperation
Speaker 3: on El Kaeda. After two thousand and three, now Syria
Speaker 3: was costing American lives because they were allowing Jahadas to
Speaker 3: go through their country and into Iraq, which caused problems
Speaker 3: for the US and its allies. And so you know,
Speaker 3: I was, I was very interested in that transition, but
Speaker 3: he was interested in portraying a more positive image just
Speaker 3: when Syrian US relations, I think were deteriorating quite a bit.
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward. What do you think of what's
Speaker 1: happening in Syria right now? And what kind of faith
Speaker 1: do you have in this new leader? You know, to
Speaker 1: go from a you know, essentially the insurgency to the establishment,
Speaker 1: right whether no matter your political situation, no matter your country,
Speaker 1: insurgents usually have a tough time governing.
Speaker 3: That is the question, isn't it? That is one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars question. I get asked it all the time.
Speaker 3: I ask other people who know the president much more
Speaker 3: intimately than the new president, much more intimately that I do,
Speaker 3: and I still get different responses because we really don't know.
Speaker 3: As you just said, going from revolutionary to ruler is
Speaker 3: a trying process it's not always successful. The revolutionary can't really,
Speaker 3: you know, rule in a way that is different from
Speaker 3: the way that he handled things beforehand. Plus, and this
Speaker 3: is throughout history. When rulers of opposition movements they come
Speaker 3: to power, those that help them come to power want dividends.
Speaker 3: They want you know, they want positions in the in
Speaker 3: the government. They have a certain way of looking at things,
Speaker 3: especially if they come from.
Speaker 1: Certain superpowers, believe they should get a little little extra
Speaker 1: something as well all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they want not just a little they want on
Speaker 3: everything that so Ama Shaddah, the new president. You know,
Speaker 3: on the one hand, the Israelis, quite frankly, they're skeptical
Speaker 3: and after October seven, twenty twenty three, and this mcbunker
Speaker 3: mentality that they have now, they're want to air in
Speaker 3: the side of caution. And most of the Israelis I've
Speaker 3: talked to in the military and politically, you know, they
Speaker 3: see that Ahma Shada's turn toward moderation, pragmatism, wanting inclusive
Speaker 3: government is more a tactical maneuver than something that represents
Speaker 3: a true change. That he's going to revert to his
Speaker 3: Jahada's roots at some point. And yet others I've talked
Speaker 3: to that know him actually personally. One NGO in London
Speaker 3: knew him for ten years and they are convinced he
Speaker 3: is pragmatic. He has changed. You know, he's going to
Speaker 3: be visiting Washington a week from today and meeting with
Speaker 3: Trump and they'll probably serial will sign on to the
Speaker 3: Anti ISIS coalition, which is supposed to be a big deal.
Speaker 3: But they've been helping in terms of intelligence cooperation with
Speaker 3: the US and tracking down Okada and isis outbart Is
Speaker 3: when he was an IDLIB for the last decade. Now,
Speaker 3: he did that because he wanted to clear out and
Speaker 3: he helped clear out an any opposition or COMPETI zone.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, this is a classic
Speaker 1: case the enemy of my enemy as my house exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: But we've had this relationship with him for a while
Speaker 3: that has been tactical and opportunistic. I mean all leaders
Speaker 3: are opportunistic, they want power, they're egotistical. But if it
Speaker 3: could be molded and it couldn't raise, so to speak,
Speaker 3: in a way, the population stability than Okay, So the.
Speaker 1: First person that popped in my head when you were
Speaker 1: talking about this debate, you know, no he's a secret
Speaker 1: jihadis No, he's a pragmatist. Was air to one? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: we've had the same debate about air to one now
Speaker 1: for almost twenty years.
Speaker 2: No, he can be dealt with.
Speaker 1: No, he's you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: he's still Muslim brotherhood, right, Like, there's this and yet
Speaker 1: you know Israel at times doesn't want to deal with him.
Speaker 2: But he's a necessary you.
Speaker 1: Know, he's also the head of a country that's a
Speaker 1: member of NATO, right, Like, there's this necessity. How would
Speaker 1: you characterize the new leader of Syria through the prism
Speaker 1: of air to wore like is he? Is it the
Speaker 1: same type of unsurreness about where their real biases lie?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so. I mean, I think we're on
Speaker 3: the road to a sectarian majoritarian state where his Sunni faction,
Speaker 3: particularly a much more conservative branch of Sunni is Law,
Speaker 3: are going to dominate things in Syria.
Speaker 1: If the actually does this mean he's going to get
Speaker 1: a lot of funding from MBS ANDBZ and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, as.
Speaker 3: He did as they did during the opposition times and well,
Speaker 3: you know, this reminds me you were talking about. This
Speaker 3: reminds me nineteen fifties, when we're talking about history in
Speaker 3: the Middle East, there was this wonderful political science term
Speaker 3: that the US applied to these authoritarian leaders. It was
Speaker 3: called transitional authoritarianism, where you know, we support these guys
Speaker 3: because they support US interests with military, political aid to police.
Speaker 1: It's why they all hate us. In Latin America, we
Speaker 1: always supported whoever was on our side, not whether they
Speaker 1: were smalldy democrats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we thought they would transition, right, that they
Speaker 3: would transition to democracy. But yeah, oh wow, they live power.
Speaker 3: They want to stay in power. And this is how
Speaker 3: we got with the Shavaran as well, you know, all
Speaker 3: these other guys. So you know, I see this playbook
Speaker 3: again happening with Syria. We're going to be acting in
Speaker 3: our strategic interests as well as Israel. We want to
Speaker 3: keep Iran out, we want to keep the Russians at
Speaker 3: bay in Syria and hope that it just doesn't implode
Speaker 3: into another civil war.
Speaker 1: So can Syria become a democracy pledgling democracy all our
Speaker 1: rock can it?
Speaker 3: Sure? Absolutely, they all can become democracies under certain circumstances.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, those circumstances ever arise and not just
Speaker 3: the you know, the larger ones, big ones, but in
Speaker 3: terms of literacy, literacy rates, in terms of civil society,
Speaker 3: all of these things that happen, in terms of economic
Speaker 3: output and economic opportunity, all these things have to happen
Speaker 3: before we get to the big questions of you know,
Speaker 3: who can vote and how many people get to vote,
Speaker 3: so you know it can happen. But you know, ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the country is in the poverty rate. The
Speaker 3: country has been dealing with fifteen years of withering international sanctions.
Speaker 3: It's a population that's highly fragmented and militarized, with independent militias,
Speaker 3: with drug mafias, with a rapacious warlords roaming around that
Speaker 3: have more power than the national army. And you have
Speaker 3: these sectarian fortresses which were created with the breakdown of
Speaker 3: the state during the Syrians of a war. They you know,
Speaker 3: you naturally retreat into your sectarian fortress and you look
Speaker 3: at the other sex as a heathen scum that must
Speaker 3: be eliminated from the world. And so how do you
Speaker 3: piece all that together? And it's gonna take a long time.
Speaker 3: A lot of patients. It may have to go through
Speaker 3: various iterations of who is in power and hopefully not
Speaker 3: another all out of civil war.
Speaker 1: So the what is I mean, what country has a
Speaker 1: shot at trying democracy next after a rock? And why
Speaker 1: are you surprised that Iraq is still sort of a democracy.
Speaker 3: Sort of being the operative.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's not not a democracy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not Egypt.
Speaker 2: You know what is?
Speaker 3: Are we a democracy? You know? We have electoral college?
Speaker 3: You know something?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, do the people have an advanced
Speaker 1: to change the government in this country? And I still
Speaker 1: say the answers.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah. And so in Iraq. One of the problems,
Speaker 3: and this may be the future of Syria is you
Speaker 3: have the Kurdish Autonomous Zone in the north.
Speaker 2: I want to bring up the Kurds in a minute
Speaker 2: here yet.
Speaker 3: Which is virtually an independent country and actually doing much
Speaker 3: better than the rest of them.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we don't support a Kurdistan. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know why we don't because Turkey loses.
Speaker 3: Turkey Walton, Iran walten, Iraq walten.
Speaker 2: Why you know, all those countries don't want it.
Speaker 1: But you know, isn't the isn't the exposure of Iran
Speaker 1: of being a paper tiger make the idea of a
Speaker 1: Kurdistan more possible.
Speaker 3: I think think so in the sense that they won't
Speaker 3: cause as much trouble in a Rock. And that goes
Speaker 3: for what you were saying earlier, the possibility of Rock
Speaker 3: becoming more of a democracy. I think Iran's being exposed
Speaker 3: and being severely weakened has helped or increase the possibility
Speaker 3: of a Rock becoming a functioning democracy, has increased the
Speaker 3: possibility of Lebanon becoming a functional democracy, and maybe maybe Syria,
Speaker 3: you know, down the road. But you know, at this point,
Speaker 3: you know, I have a low bar of successors.
Speaker 1: How any Middle East expert is it going to ever
Speaker 1: be too?
Speaker 3: Sadly, I just want stability and you know, benevolent governance
Speaker 3: in these countries.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I have a colleague who just came back from Iran,
Speaker 1: spent about two weeks here doing some reporting, touching base
Speaker 1: with some sources again, and he came back pretty convinced
Speaker 1: that the Iatolas are not going to be able to
Speaker 1: hold power when this one dies. That is that this
Speaker 1: is the next big crisis in the Middle East is
Speaker 1: going to be Iranian instability, and that it's sort of
Speaker 1: the It is, on one hand, something we've been wanting
Speaker 1: right as a policy outcome, and yet are we really
Speaker 1: ready for it?
Speaker 3: What say you, Yeah, be careful what you want right, right,
Speaker 3: and careful what you wish for. I guess that's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why you know, NBS in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 3: wants that security pack so desperate, as well as access
Speaker 3: to nuclear technology because of that anticipation of instability perhaps
Speaker 3: in the future in Iran, and what might what might
Speaker 3: take over in Iran if the iatolas fall? You know,
Speaker 3: will it becomes Sometimes when the boogeyman falls, it's not
Speaker 3: necessarily what we want comes into power, something even perhaps worse.
Speaker 2: Well, we saw that in Egypt.
Speaker 3: We saw that in Egypt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, suddenly you're like, well, wait a minute, we'd like
Speaker 1: that military dictatorship back please.
Speaker 3: Yeah, democracy is great as long as they left the
Speaker 3: person we like, right, And but Iran I agree with that.
Speaker 3: I agree with your colleagues observation. I think Iran is
Speaker 3: on the precipice.
Speaker 1: You know that this was a really it's really the
Speaker 1: unpopularity of the of the aetolas are huge, the distrust
Speaker 1: and then the fact that they so easily folded right,
Speaker 1: there was just there's no longer I mean, yes, they're
Speaker 1: still brutalizing opposition, domestic opposition. They're still trying to be
Speaker 1: an authoritarian state. But they've certainly there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of fear anymore of the Iotolis.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's not so they folded. It's not so
Speaker 3: much that they were beaten, they were obliterated.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, despite all of this, you know, supposed deterrence
Speaker 3: between Israel and Iran, and then Israel goes and takes
Speaker 3: out his Belah in the most and most unique way,
Speaker 3: and then a sad falls and the only viable and
Speaker 3: then Hamas of course is terribly weakened. The only viable
Speaker 3: you know, proxy militia is the Huthis now and Yemen.
Speaker 3: But Iran is weakened their image. I think even more importantly,
Speaker 3: their image has just gone down the tubes with regional powers. Uh.
Speaker 3: And I think we can see a real clignment of this.
Speaker 3: But what will happen in Iran? Iran has always been
Speaker 3: reviewed as the prize, along as already being the Gulf,
Speaker 3: So there are gonna be a lot of eyes the prize.
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at it as if Iran ever
Speaker 1: decides to be a Western democracy, watch out. They're going
Speaker 1: to be an economic powerhouse.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, And I mean they've got the largest natural
Speaker 3: gas reserves in the world, large oil reserves, and they
Speaker 3: have the minerals if they can just get their act together.
Speaker 3: Of course, we could say it about Venezuela. We could
Speaker 3: say it about you know, you didn't say it about Syria,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean Syrians for years have always told
Speaker 3: me we'd be much better allies than the Israelis, would
Speaker 3: you know we would. We wouldn't undercut you as much
Speaker 3: as the Israelis have done, and I'm sure the Iranians
Speaker 3: would would try to do it after all. I mean
Speaker 3: it's a you know, far COO's Arabic script is an
Speaker 3: Indo European language, you know, and they have this past
Speaker 3: that aligns with the West in some ways.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of the of this, of
Speaker 1: this idea that the Middle East is essentially now the
Speaker 1: rules are being written by the Israelis and the Gulf States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I think
Speaker 3: Israel is at its at its apex of power in
Speaker 3: the region.
Speaker 1: Well it's funny apex of military power, but at a
Speaker 1: nator in influence, right.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that because
Speaker 3: military power speaks a great deal on that part of
Speaker 3: the world. Yeah, and they are isolated international, but how
Speaker 3: often does diplomatic isolation last when you need them, you know,
Speaker 3: when they when they are on your strategic side, and
Speaker 3: that goes out, that was out the window. So I
Speaker 3: don't I don't think the Israelis ever really worry about
Speaker 3: that too much. They're going to do what they want
Speaker 3: to do. They they're going to do what they feel
Speaker 3: is in their strategic objectives, and and they have done that.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at this, Chuck, I mean that they
Speaker 3: bomb Cutter.
Speaker 1: I think it's remarkable. You know, look, it's really frustrating
Speaker 1: to me because you know, look, if they had the
Speaker 1: way they managed the way they did the war in
Speaker 1: Gaza versus the way they did Hesbela, it's like night
Speaker 1: and day. Right, it was the you know, you could tell,
Speaker 1: as I said, bb let IDF do its thing with
Speaker 1: Iran and with with Hesbelah. They micro managed all things
Speaker 1: Gaza through the lens of domestic politics, which is why
Speaker 1: that's turned into an utter nightmare. Right.
Speaker 3: No, I agree, I mean they strategically took out his
Speaker 3: blow in a very phase step way, very strategic way,
Speaker 3: brilliant way in the same.
Speaker 1: Thing the way that we had come to be exactly
Speaker 1: that many admire the Israelis about like they did with Munich.
Speaker 1: They treated Hesbelah like they did the Munich terrorists, you.
Speaker 3: Knoweah, exactly, and they use the bulldozer in Ghaza, and.
Speaker 1: Which is why they have this weird moment where they
Speaker 1: have maximized military power but problems with you know, but
Speaker 1: they're pretty isolated in the in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, they bomb Cutter, and no Arab countries that
Speaker 3: are at peace with Israel break relations with it, you know,
Speaker 3: not even Cuting.
Speaker 2: You're right, it's astonishing. It was so brazenishing moment.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing moment. And and talks about how those
Speaker 3: shifts have occurred in the region UH and UH and
Speaker 3: the and the importance of the Gulf state's intelligence cooperation,
Speaker 3: economic cooperation that they've had with th REELL for for
Speaker 3: years prior to you know, some of them establishing relations.
Speaker 3: So this is this is absolutely a sea change for me.
Speaker 3: And I see Syria coming on board if this current
Speaker 3: uh UH government stays in power and follows along the
Speaker 3: line they're doing at least signing a security arrangement with
Speaker 3: Israel and then once society has crossed the line, which
Speaker 3: they were they were gonna do probably if October seventh
Speaker 3: didn't happen, which is one of the reasons, as you know,
Speaker 3: the Hamas did. October seventh was.
Speaker 1: No, it was the you know, it's interesting, it was
Speaker 1: you know the way Washington works, you know, in the
Speaker 1: sort of everything is a deal. You know, the Saudis
Speaker 1: were going to give Biden this, Yeah, this was going
Speaker 1: to be Biden's like they weren't going to hold you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump people were pressuring them to to basically wait
Speaker 1: until Trump was there to add Saudi to the Abraham Accords,
Speaker 1: and they were.
Speaker 2: Gonna because the Saudi's weren't. They're not stupid.
Speaker 1: They want to play bipartisan American politics here. They want
Speaker 1: to everybody because they frankly knew, unlike Bebe, the Saudis
Speaker 1: knew they had a problem in America's left and that
Speaker 1: they were better off trying to appease the American left
Speaker 1: rather than fight it. BB wants to fight it rather
Speaker 1: than appease. But I'll but we could set that aside.
Speaker 1: And October seventh, obviously made that impossible. But where talk
Speaker 1: to my friends that are going to be listening to
Speaker 1: this and say, I can't stomach MBS. Why should we
Speaker 1: help him? What's say, give me the give me the
Speaker 1: academic view of why we've Why would they're a necessary partner?
Speaker 3: Oh, he's the only game in town right now for
Speaker 3: a very important strategic country. And and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't at all like some of the things he's on,
Speaker 3: especially to you know, Koshoji and uh In in assassinating
Speaker 3: and dismembering him, some of these things. But uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm all more of a realistic understand that. You know,
Speaker 3: tomorrow is a different day, and the Saudis an NBS
Speaker 3: may be very much needed. You know now that now
Speaker 3: that you know Iraan is perhaps weaken We always thought
Speaker 3: of them at the Saudis as a counterway to Iran,
Speaker 3: But we have to see what's going to happen with Iran.
Speaker 3: It'll be interesting in the future. This will be interesting
Speaker 3: if ten fifteen years from now, Iran does get rid
Speaker 3: of the Ietolas, does stabilize, does become this potential economic
Speaker 3: power is you know, much like Germany in mainland Europe.
Speaker 3: You know, what will happen with the Saudis relationship and
Speaker 3: so forth? Can the two mutually coexist with US interests?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You could see three economic powers in the Middle East Israel,
Speaker 1: a democratic Iran, and this sort of religious monarchy in
Speaker 1: the Gulf, right with the Saudis, and they are they
Speaker 1: going to be alliance? Are they going to be competitors? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and that will be interesting to see
Speaker 3: and so many, so much more history will occur before.
Speaker 1: We can answer that question. So let's move backwards about
Speaker 1: your baseball career and how you you.
Speaker 2: Know, tell me how you fused it? You know, what
Speaker 2: is it? What are the lessons? You know?
Speaker 1: I'm a huge advocate of sports in general, youth sports.
Speaker 1: It teaches human interaction, it teaches there's so many lessons
Speaker 1: from team sports. In particular. I think football is ideally
Speaker 1: the most incredible team sport to deliver because eleven people
Speaker 1: have to do their job for success. In baseball, everybody
Speaker 1: has to do their job. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: individual talent, right, you know that you can, but ultimately
Speaker 1: you don't win with that. You could be the greatest
Speaker 1: player in the world, Tad Williams, but if you don't
Speaker 1: have enough good baseball players around you, You're not going
Speaker 1: to win a World Series. So you know how when
Speaker 1: somebody says the lessons of baseball helped me become a
Speaker 1: better give me better perspective about the Middle East? You
Speaker 1: answer this question half.
Speaker 3: Because I failed so many times in baseball. I mean,
Speaker 3: as you and.
Speaker 2: Mist in the Middle East is a lot of failure,
Speaker 2: A lot of failure.
Speaker 3: I mean, failure is at the core of sports. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, what do you have to hit to reach
Speaker 3: the Hall of Fame in Major League Baseball?
Speaker 1: You only have to fail seven out of ten times.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And so you have to keep coming back as
Speaker 3: a pitcher. Of course, I was a hitter as well
Speaker 3: early on, but in professional baseball was a pitcher. And
Speaker 3: you know, one inning you give up a home run.
Speaker 3: The next inning, you know you have a chance to
Speaker 3: rectify the situation or the next game, and so you
Speaker 3: constantly fail. And I played basketball and tennis and all
Speaker 3: in football when I was young, and you were constantly tested,
Speaker 3: and you developed this resiliency which Sanjay Gupta I read
Speaker 3: the other day says resiliency is like strength training for
Speaker 3: the brain, you know, and it helps you get through
Speaker 3: personal traumas it helps you get through failures later in life,
Speaker 3: and as I've become a conflict resolution person involved in
Speaker 3: high level negotiations and air BISAREELI stuff, steering, civil war.
Speaker 3: You fail all the time, I mean, but you have
Speaker 3: to learn from it, and you have to have that resiliency,
Speaker 3: that persistence, perseverance to get through it and try again,
Speaker 3: and try again and try again. Now you don't want
Speaker 3: to make you know, Einstein's theory of insanity correct, but
Speaker 3: you you, you know, learn from it and it just
Speaker 3: and sometimes things just out of out of your control,
Speaker 3: ruins everything and brings you back to ground zero. And
Speaker 3: that's what happens in sports as well. And you just
Speaker 3: have to have that resiliency. And so, you know, one
Speaker 3: of my mantras is keep trying, don't eliminate yourself, and
Speaker 3: keep trying. And that I had to think. That's what
Speaker 3: I got from baseball and sports in general.
Speaker 1: When you you know, do you look back on your
Speaker 1: injury and think, boy, if it happened today, you know,
Speaker 1: the technology would have given me another chance.
Speaker 3: Jock, you be interviewing the lead comment of the World
Speaker 3: Series right now, the lead analyst after a twenty year,
Speaker 3: brilliant Hall of Fame career at the injury.
Speaker 1: Now that's the what if in your head?
Speaker 2: How do you not think about that?
Speaker 1: What if?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm all the technological advancements. I mean, you know, Sandy
Speaker 1: Kofax's career ends. You know, show has already had two.
Speaker 2: Tommy Jones, Yeah, I think, right, you know.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's remarkable, right, Like Sandy Kofex might have
Speaker 1: had another five great years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I had a rotator cuff
Speaker 3: injury and rotator cuff surgery by Frank Joe, but the
Speaker 3: Dodgers didn't really perfect itself for another five ten years. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I really don't think of that because I've
Speaker 3: had a fulfilling, you know, career in many ways more fulfilling,
Speaker 3: and I have a wonderful wife and family and so forth,
Speaker 3: so you know, all those If I become a major
Speaker 3: league player, that wouldn't have happened and wouldn't have met
Speaker 3: these one of the people. But I don't really think
Speaker 3: of that. But but you know, sometimes, you know, I
Speaker 3: think I would have made a lot more money. That's
Speaker 3: rich there being a major league pitcher. But drafting pictures
Speaker 3: is the worst investment in all of sports. That's why
Speaker 3: you got a draft about ten or fifteen of them.
Speaker 3: Hopefully one gets through because of all the injuries, because
Speaker 3: everything you do physiologically pitcher is wrong against normal you know, physiology.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny you say that I got you know.
Speaker 2: I think I told you off camera.
Speaker 1: I was The Dodgers were the team of my youth,
Speaker 1: so I used to just I know a lot of
Speaker 1: the history of the Dodgers in general, and any any
Speaker 1: individual player that sort of had made a name for themselves.
Speaker 1: I always have some curiosity about and the relief pitcher
Speaker 1: Mike Marshall, who I believes the first ever relief pitcher
Speaker 1: to win this ion. He spent the last twenty years
Speaker 1: of his like obsessed with changing the motion of pictures
Speaker 1: for the very thing you just said said, like the
Speaker 1: way that we've taught pitching is actually asked the arm
Speaker 1: to do something it shouldn't be doing, and that if
Speaker 1: you change the motion, you could actually limit injuries. And
Speaker 1: I believe his method did produce one major leaguer who
Speaker 1: got into the majors. But given when you came up,
Speaker 1: it was sort of tail end of Marshall's career there.
Speaker 2: Did you ever follow that.
Speaker 1: That whole like, oh the case he had?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I was. I was just thinking
Speaker 3: about this yesterday when I was talking to someone. If
Speaker 3: I had to change something with my motion I was
Speaker 3: in college and then drafted in the pros, it would
Speaker 3: be throwing more side arm. I was a straight overhand pitcher,
Speaker 3: and the more straight overhand you throw, the more pressure.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it's right on your shoulder. Like this
Speaker 1: kid at the Blue Jays. Now, I just heard, right,
Speaker 1: this kid with the Blue Jays, You savage.
Speaker 2: Don't you watch him throw and think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, buddy, in about two years, you're going to have soldiers. Suit.
Speaker 3: It's going to happen, and they're all throwing so hard
Speaker 3: and putting so much stress on their extra ligaments in
Speaker 3: their forearm that they're all getting Tommy John surgery. I mean,
Speaker 3: as you said, Otani had two, it's like everyone has one.
Speaker 3: They're having them now in high school and college. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you know something that has to happen before, well,
Speaker 3: isn't it you? Now?
Speaker 1: Rarely will an MLB team draft a high school pitcher anymore? Right?
Speaker 1: They almost want the college level get your Tommy John out.
Speaker 1: Get LSU to pay for the Tommy John, right, Get
Speaker 1: cal State Fullerton to pay the Tommy John, you know
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and then we'll.
Speaker 3: Off, you know, and come back for twenty three or
Speaker 3: you know, something like that. And it's so much stress
Speaker 3: on the body in the arm. But throwing sidearm, if
Speaker 3: I had to go back, I do that because I
Speaker 3: did throw a sidearm every now and then just to
Speaker 3: cross up the hitter. I crossed up my catcher as well.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was effective, and I threw actually even harder.
Speaker 3: I mean I had a low nineties, high eighties fastball,
Speaker 3: you know, peaked at ninety five, which in those days
Speaker 3: actually meant something. Can you believe change ups today are
Speaker 3: ninety miles hour change The whole goal.
Speaker 2: Of a change up is what it has to be ten.
Speaker 3: Miles less than your fast ball, exactly right.
Speaker 2: So if you're throwing a hundred, then yeah, right.
Speaker 3: That's just unfathomable to me. And sliders at ninety miles
Speaker 3: an hours, I don't know how these hitters are doing it,
Speaker 3: how they can hit these things, But.
Speaker 1: I know there's this point where you wonder, when does
Speaker 1: the ligament just when does the body we have reached
Speaker 1: the peak performance of the body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, I think there's going
Speaker 3: to be a trend. This is getting so it's a
Speaker 3: pandemic of Tommy John surgery. I think there's going to
Speaker 3: be a trend to go back to the great Maddis
Speaker 3: Maddox type of pitching, you know, high eighties, maybe low
Speaker 3: nineties at best, movement on the ball, placement, pitch longer.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we were talking off camera and
Speaker 3: Jim Palmer and right Bob Gison's guy. They threw three
Speaker 3: hundred innings year after year, twenty complete games. So I.
Speaker 2: Love Fernando.
Speaker 1: Fernando was you know, I was ten when he came
Speaker 1: up right like that was peak, you know, and he
Speaker 1: was so much fun that World Series in eighty one
Speaker 1: and following his career and you look at his year
Speaker 1: stats and it was always like I always thought he was.
Speaker 1: I always thought he belonged to the Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: before everything else he did. And when you look at
Speaker 1: his eight year sort of his eight year peak, Nope,
Speaker 1: he always threw three hundred innings.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The joke was Tommy, you know, ruined his career by
Speaker 1: leaving him into always way too long, and that he
Speaker 1: that he basically his eight years was the equivalent of
Speaker 1: what would be a seventeen year career today per number
Speaker 1: of innings you pitch.
Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly. Remember the Braves, you know when they had
Speaker 3: Smolds and Maddocks and glad Lavin. Yeah, they all pitched,
Speaker 3: you know, every four days. They pitched long, you know,
Speaker 3: deep into the game. And analytics have, in my mind,
Speaker 3: screw things up with that regard. And you know, you
Speaker 3: can't face a batter more than two times or the
Speaker 3: third time they're going to catch on to you. But
Speaker 3: this is what pitching is all about, if you have
Speaker 3: enough pitches and and uh yeah, Maddox.
Speaker 1: I love those stories of Maddox, you know, and hear
Speaker 1: stories and he says, yeah, I let this guy see
Speaker 1: this pitch because I know I'm facing him in the
Speaker 1: playoffs and he's gonna think I'm gonna throw it again,
Speaker 1: and I'm never going to do Like Maddox was always.
Speaker 2: Game planning on that bat.
Speaker 1: The next at bat when he was facing the current batter,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make him pop this one up, And sure
Speaker 1: enough he could do that. Like that's just that's pitching.
Speaker 1: That's that's strac.
Speaker 3: Actually thinking, actually thinking on the mound, you know. And
Speaker 3: and maybe that's why I'm into academia, Chuck. They always
Speaker 3: thought think.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine do they having an earpiece, oh where
Speaker 1: somebody's telling you what pitch to throat?
Speaker 3: That would be insulting to me. You know, I call
Speaker 3: the game. I think is it shirt ser you mentioned
Speaker 3: him Searcher actually shirts his own game. Don't ever get
Speaker 3: me one of these things, you know.
Speaker 2: And now Max is the left.
Speaker 1: Max, it feels like we're about to see the end
Speaker 1: of the last era of sort of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: style of pitching. We're moving to this, right. Susier was
Speaker 1: always a throwback, you know. He never wanted to go
Speaker 1: less than seven, right, He always wanted to keep going.
Speaker 1: Your Verlanders, your Sugiers, your Kershaws, and here they are.
Speaker 1: They're all basically probably I kind of think Max, I
Speaker 1: want him to retire. Now he gets to say he
Speaker 1: pitched the last gave me pitch was a series. But
Speaker 1: it's hard to walk away, right, Like, how often did
Speaker 1: you wish you had one more year?
Speaker 3: I wish I wish I had I wish I had
Speaker 3: one year in the majors. I mean, as you know,
Speaker 3: I flamed out the miners. I wish I would have
Speaker 3: stayed healthy enough to God, because I went up against
Speaker 3: these guys in spring training and batting practice.
Speaker 2: And you knew you had your stuff. It was just
Speaker 2: the injury that never gave me the shot I help, So,
Speaker 2: you know, I.
Speaker 3: Mean there's lots of ifs and what ifs, and sure
Speaker 3: I think I had the basic stuff. That's why I
Speaker 3: was drafting number one, I think, and by the Dodgers,
Speaker 3: so I like to think, I you know, if not, they.
Speaker 1: Were always a little bit better at identifying young pictures.
Speaker 1: I mean that was their thing. That's what they did.
Speaker 3: That's what they did. But you still got to get
Speaker 3: a bunch of them because you just never know when
Speaker 3: the body's going to give out, and it will give
Speaker 3: out unless you're Clemens or Nolan Ryan has to be a.
Speaker 1: Bionical I read, is it Nolan Ryan that doesn't have
Speaker 1: the the the tendon that would snap or something like?
Speaker 1: He was basically literally a gift from.
Speaker 2: God type of I know, I know, elbow it's the key.
Speaker 3: You know, if you want your kid to become a pitcher,
Speaker 3: take out, take out the flexor tendon or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like, don't even have it. It turns out it's an impediment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, but look at his legs,
Speaker 3: you know, uh Nolan Ryan and Tom c they're huge,
Speaker 3: and he got a lot of his power. It got
Speaker 3: low and pushed off and that's what a lot of
Speaker 3: pictures it.
Speaker 1: Certainly it looks like he's built that way. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: He's built bottom up. And if you told me, if
Speaker 1: I told you, he never It's interesting, by the way,
Speaker 1: a guy like Max Scherzer's never had a Tommy John
Speaker 1: and neither's Kershaw. Right, what does it tell you if
Speaker 1: you've never had one these days.
Speaker 3: That if you pitch the right way, if you don't
Speaker 3: worry about throwing, use your legs now, use your legs,
Speaker 3: use your body. And there's all sorts of mechanics now
Speaker 3: to align your body. There's so much more technology. Perhaps
Speaker 3: when I was playing, if they had that technology, they
Speaker 3: would have aligned my body my motion more. I put
Speaker 3: less stress on the elbow shoulder for me. So you
Speaker 3: know they can do these things. But man, if you're
Speaker 3: throwing one hundred miles an hour, your arm is going
Speaker 3: to give out. You just cannot take that type of pressure.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, you know, hitters are they catch up,
Speaker 3: they're hitting these balls. And I've leuis, how many teams
Speaker 3: your favorite teams? And a guy Jamie Moyer, you know,
Speaker 3: who's forty he pitched forever eighty two miles an hour,
Speaker 3: eighty five miles an hour, and he pitches a shout
Speaker 3: out because hitters aren't used to that type of thing.
Speaker 3: You know, they're not used to eighty eighty with with
Speaker 3: motion and with the motion in the ball and with targeting,
Speaker 3: you know, target to pitching. So it's I think there
Speaker 3: there's room for both. And I think I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think we're gonna trend sort of in a in
Speaker 3: another direction. I hope, I hope.
Speaker 1: Well, it was exciting to see Amamoto throw a complete game.
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, that used to be a big that
Speaker 1: used to not be as big of a deal. A
Speaker 1: complete game of the World Series.
Speaker 3: It must be a different Yamamoto, you know at some point.
Speaker 3: But and then he comes back the day after and
Speaker 3: throws you know, three innings, you know, after he throws
Speaker 3: a I mean, it's unbelievable, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 3: hope his arm is Okay, uh, you know, I'm sure,
Speaker 3: having invested gazillion dollars in him, they're not going to
Speaker 3: ruin him.
Speaker 1: But I'm sorry as a as a Natch fan who
Speaker 1: watched the team make the decision not to use their
Speaker 1: young star pitcher in a run to the playoffs, and
Speaker 1: then they decided to over use them in their eventual
Speaker 1: run to the World Series. They you know, the price
Speaker 1: of the world. I mean, Steven Strasburg never recover from
Speaker 1: that overuse.
Speaker 3: That's true, That's true.
Speaker 1: I mean it ended his career. Now, the question is,
Speaker 1: as a franchise, if the ultimate prize is winning the
Speaker 1: World Championship? Is it worth it?
Speaker 3: Would you take that? Is that? Is that? Is that? Well?
Speaker 2: They did? That's the disc Basically, the Nats made that
Speaker 2: worth it.
Speaker 3: As a Gnats fan, are you is that worth it?
Speaker 1: It's a great question I'm glad to have had. I
Speaker 1: I tell this to my son because he's so depressed
Speaker 1: about the state of the Nats and it's an ownership
Speaker 1: group that doesn't look like they want to keep up
Speaker 1: with the Joneses or the Guggenheims, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Right, right, correct, But.
Speaker 1: I tell him, you know what's what makes fandom fantastic
Speaker 1: because you experience a low for so long that when
Speaker 1: you get the taste of the high, it's so much
Speaker 1: it tastes so much better.
Speaker 3: Well, you're talking to as I said before, I grew
Speaker 3: up in Baltimore, a lifelong Orioles fan. We haven't won
Speaker 3: the World Series since eighty three. If we had an opportunity,
Speaker 3: if we were in the World Series this year, throw
Speaker 3: cost win, throw right the top pitchers every every inning.
Speaker 3: I don't care. You know everything you know, and I'm
Speaker 3: a pitcher. I realized what could happen with overuse?
Speaker 1: You know? So let me ask the Otani question to you,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you get a version of it, But
Speaker 1: let me ask it this way. Why is this so unusual?
Speaker 1: I why why haven't more pitchers been more successful hitters
Speaker 1: in the past.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think I think you're going to see this.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that most people don't realize
Speaker 3: is that major league pitchers, almost all of them, I
Speaker 3: would say, were really great hitters.
Speaker 1: In little They were probably the best team in their
Speaker 1: little league. Best. They played every If they weren't pitching,
Speaker 1: they were playing shortstop.
Speaker 3: Right on my high school team, I was the best hitter.
Speaker 3: I was the best pitcher in college. It happens. But
Speaker 3: in college you start getting weeded out and you get
Speaker 3: into specialization. I remember, even when I was playing in
Speaker 3: the minor leagues, only the Cincinnati Reds, even in the
Speaker 3: minor low one near leagues, allow pitchers to hit. But
Speaker 3: otherwise you're you know, DH four, and you never practice,
Speaker 3: you never take hitting practice. And so just like anything,
Speaker 3: you do skill and so the specialization of it. But
Speaker 3: I did when a little league game, I did pitch
Speaker 3: a complete game, six inning shutout and hit a home
Speaker 3: run in the game. So and it was a legitimate
Speaker 3: home run, not a little league Yeah, you get a
Speaker 3: show exactly, but I do.
Speaker 1: It was always one of those I never understood why
Speaker 1: more pitchers couldn't take batting practice on their off days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know it. I don't know. Maybe the Union
Speaker 3: got together and this is this is conspiracy theory talk,
Speaker 3: and they said they want these older guys who can
Speaker 3: want jobs.
Speaker 2: A conspiracy theory. No, no, no, no. The argument the
Speaker 2: DH is more jobs.
Speaker 3: He Aaron, Tommy Davis, you know these these older guys
Speaker 3: that can't play in the field, and and they want
Speaker 3: more offense. I mean, that's the that's the key. You know,
Speaker 3: they want more runs, they want more offense. It was
Speaker 3: a business decision. And all the National League, of course
Speaker 3: is designated hit her and I missed the strategy of
Speaker 3: the picture hitting and all of that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And but and there were some good there were some
Speaker 3: good pictures some you know who who hit as well.
Speaker 3: So I miss So.
Speaker 1: Could you know there's there's a team Israel in the
Speaker 1: World Baseball Classic, but baseball's never really taken in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. There is some cricket. Could you ever imagine
Speaker 1: being able to get more people interested in baseball in
Speaker 1: the Middle East?
Speaker 3: I think I'd like to get more people interested in
Speaker 3: baseball in the United States.
Speaker 1: With first, well, I.
Speaker 2: Know my son is My son tells me this all
Speaker 2: the time. He goes.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm the only one of my friends that
Speaker 1: actually follows baseball like they're Nats fans, but they weren't
Speaker 1: really Like he's now at school in Dallas, and the
Speaker 1: first thing he did was he wanted to go check
Speaker 1: out a Rangers game. He'd never been. And he had
Speaker 1: the hardest time convincing somebody to go with them to
Speaker 1: a baseball.
Speaker 3: Game because it's it's long, it's you know, to some
Speaker 3: that it's boring. There's not as much action. There's a
Speaker 3: lot more lot into it. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 3: take the George Will you know view toward yeah, base
Speaker 3: I think about every pitch where the fielders are, and
Speaker 3: so it's it's a lot of fun in my mind.
Speaker 3: But we're baseball aholics, you know. But for this generation
Speaker 3: and the recent generations, uh, you know, they want more action,
Speaker 3: more scoring, which is why baseball, you know, went to
Speaker 3: the home run and steroids and looked the other way
Speaker 3: and all this stuff to get more runs on the board.
Speaker 3: But we'll take in the Middle East, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Saudi's play it. But that's a bunch
Speaker 3: of a Ramco kids, you know that that's all right.
Speaker 1: It is cricket close enough that you could use it
Speaker 1: as a gateway or not.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think it's a very different game. And
Speaker 3: people look at the history of baseball and they think
Speaker 3: it comes from cricket. It really doesn't. It comes from rounders,
Speaker 3: which is much more like baseball. But I don't think
Speaker 3: I can't even understand cricket, and cricketers can't understand baseball either.
Speaker 2: But I've tried to.
Speaker 1: I've like, you know, uh, you know, sometimes you're just
Speaker 1: traveling overseas and you're stuck a hotel and there's nothing
Speaker 1: to watch other than either a rugby match or a
Speaker 1: cricket match. So you know, I would sit there and
Speaker 1: try to figure it out, and you're just like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you know.
Speaker 3: While you make an interesting point, show maybe in the
Speaker 3: Middle East and elsewhere, and maybe baseball has more of
Speaker 3: a chance because their favorite sports, you know, soccer or
Speaker 3: football and cricket. You know, they're they're long soccer and
Speaker 3: they're low scoring.
Speaker 1: So maybe, right, and it is about strategy that you know,
Speaker 1: in some ways the mentality of sports, especially in sort
Speaker 1: of Southeast Asia with cricket and soccer, and at least
Speaker 1: with cricket and soccer. I mean you're right, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe we're stumbling onto something and that they enjoy the
Speaker 1: patience of the success. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We just we just need baseball. I mean obviously it's
Speaker 3: it's very popular in Latin America and in East Asia.
Speaker 3: We just need baseball to enter into Europe and the
Speaker 3: and the Middle East and do what the NFL I
Speaker 3: think has been doing. You know, we of course we
Speaker 3: hold games in Mexico and and uh and have exhibitions
Speaker 3: and Stasi and so forth, or actually had some regular
Speaker 3: season games in Japan this this past year. So you know,
Speaker 3: I think one of the things, one of the things
Speaker 3: which changes everyone's perception in the particular region world out
Speaker 3: of sport, United States, if someone from that region becomes
Speaker 3: a star and it becomes a guiding light like a
Speaker 3: show Atani or you know earlier Japanese players and Korean players.
Speaker 3: We just need some some Middle East.
Speaker 1: You know, we almost had it in you Darvish, Yeah, Japanese, Iranian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly. So you know, if we get one
Speaker 3: of those these these you know, lightning rods that can
Speaker 3: that can act as a uh, you know, a form
Speaker 3: of attraction to your day, and and then you start
Speaker 3: to get youth baseball and stuff like that. May take
Speaker 3: a generation, but that's what it'll take.
Speaker 1: Let me get let me get you out of here.
Speaker 1: On the issue of Islamophobia, okay, because as somebody who
Speaker 1: spent so much time in in Middle East, in the
Speaker 1: Arab world in general, and obviously there's you know, not
Speaker 1: all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims or Arabs
Speaker 1: and so forth. But Islam a phobia is one of
Speaker 1: those phobias that is like anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: It has it's on the left and the right. It
Speaker 2: can be a type of unifier.
Speaker 1: That's not a healthy thing for a democracy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Just tell me about your experience of sort of learning
Speaker 1: the culture that sort of got rid of or didn't
Speaker 1: allow a phobia to take to take in you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's because of travel. And this is
Speaker 3: why I'm such a big advocate of travel abroad in college.
Speaker 3: Just to go places and not to an English language place,
Speaker 3: you know, were unit a language. Go someplace that makes
Speaker 3: you feel uncomfortable, Go someplace where you don't know the
Speaker 3: culture or learn the language, immerse yourself, and that's when
Speaker 3: you really start to understand that these people, even though
Speaker 3: they follow in all the religion and have many different
Speaker 3: habits and customs, they're like you in many different ways.
Speaker 3: They want many of the same things. And I bring
Speaker 3: students and I brought groups over to the Middle East,
Speaker 3: and that's what they find out when they really interact
Speaker 3: with people and not just stay in the five star
Speaker 3: resort hotel. They go around to the rural areas, They
Speaker 3: need people. They spend you know, an evening or even
Speaker 3: overnight at some house and they learn about their lives
Speaker 3: and that is the best way to get rid of
Speaker 3: these phobias and all of this misinformation that exists regarding Islam.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there's we're seeing more Muslim Americans run
Speaker 1: for office over the next ten years, and you're going
Speaker 1: to see it. It is the tension that shows up
Speaker 1: in these communities, and it ends up being it could
Speaker 1: be New York City, it could be Minneapolis, it could
Speaker 1: be La like it's you do in it. It's definitely
Speaker 1: a tougher barrier to break than I think I fully appreciate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Jimmy Carter said something that was very
Speaker 3: interesting when a bot Warack Obama became president and a
Speaker 3: lot of this latent racism came out because he was
Speaker 3: the first African American president, and Jimmy Carter said, you know,
Speaker 3: this is a good thing. People were afraid. He said, no,
Speaker 3: this is a good We needed to come out and
Speaker 3: only then can we address it. So maybe all of
Speaker 3: these things, more Muslims becoming involved in the community. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's causing some distress intentions and people are afraid of this, that,
Speaker 3: and the other thing in sharia law coming in, which
Speaker 3: is ridiculous. Maybe all of this has to happen. We
Speaker 3: need to get through this and have these discussions and
Speaker 3: hopefully through education and reasonable people making reasonable decisions that
Speaker 3: we can get past it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember Collin Powell when he endorsed Obama the first time,
Speaker 1: and he said, but his answer to that is lucky
Speaker 1: he's not Muslim, But so what if he was?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1: He tried.
Speaker 2: It was like, why it doesn't if he was, it
Speaker 2: wouldn't matter, right, this is it.
Speaker 3: And there are many Muslims that are as Muslim as
Speaker 3: I am Roman Catholic, which is not very much anymore, right,
Speaker 3: called it's.
Speaker 2: More of a how you. It was more about your upbringing,
Speaker 2: that your prep you now, how you live.
Speaker 3: What type of person you are, these type of values
Speaker 3: and and you know, it just takes understanding, it takes listening,
Speaker 3: it takes empathy, and we're in short supply of all
Speaker 3: these things these days. But hopefully that'll change.
Speaker 2: So you still hang your hat in San Antonio.
Speaker 3: I do, I do, and probably we'll it'll be on
Speaker 3: my grave, my grave site as well, because I love
Speaker 3: it here it's a you know, big city with a
Speaker 3: small town atmosphere.
Speaker 2: I have to say San Antonio, this San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Austin megaopolis that's developing, right, I mean, you know, it
Speaker 1: feels like it's feels very similar to d C Baltimore
Speaker 1: or Dallas Fort Worth.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it's coming together, much more dominated by
Speaker 3: Austin in the last decade than.
Speaker 2: But I feel like, you know, maybe Wemby will change things, right.
Speaker 3: I think so hopefully the team stays here long enough.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, I mean, you know, the Austin desperately
Speaker 1: wants a basketball team. I think they have a better
Speaker 1: shot at getting a baseball team. Like I love the
Speaker 1: idea of San Antonio getting having football and basketball and
Speaker 1: let Austin have the baseball.
Speaker 3: I would have loved San Antonio instead of building their
Speaker 3: recent basketball arena where it is in the East Side,
Speaker 3: to build it like about not maybe not halfway, but
Speaker 3: a little bit more closer on I thirty five North.
Speaker 2: Well, is it that halfway between Austin and San Antonio
Speaker 2: becoming its own city?
Speaker 3: Yeah, San Marcos and le bron Fels. It's it's as
Speaker 3: you said, it's a megalopolis, and that would have drawn
Speaker 3: from both cities, and therefore, you know each team. I
Speaker 3: don't even care if they call it the San Antonio
Speaker 3: Austin Spurs or something. Just right, keep them here, draw
Speaker 3: from both cities, and that would have been great. But
Speaker 3: now we have a proposition going out to being elected
Speaker 3: on tomorrow that will decide whether or not the Spurs
Speaker 3: build a downtown arena. And if it doesn't pass, who knows,
Speaker 3: they may become the Austin Yeah.
Speaker 1: Boy, the timing of that with Wemby on the rise,
Speaker 1: my guess is that probably helps it a couple of
Speaker 1: points I would. I mean, cities usually reject this stuff
Speaker 1: though they don't like taxpayer dotas.
Speaker 3: We don't like it's, especially San Antonio. But you know
Speaker 3: there's in town.
Speaker 2: I'm going to put this on my list of races
Speaker 2: to watch.
Speaker 3: Prop on the proposition A and B.
Speaker 1: They're both key fantastic.
Speaker 2: Hey, Dave, this was great. I appreciate it getting.
Speaker 3: To know you well. I really enjoyed it too, Chuck,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, people should check out the book Dodgers
Speaker 1: to Damascus. Uh.
Speaker 2: It's more of a Middle East book than it is
Speaker 2: a baseball book.
Speaker 3: It is it is I spent a few years in
Speaker 3: baseball and the rest of my life in Middle East.
Speaker 3: So yeah, proportionally appropriate.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's a it's a reminder that that
Speaker 1: sports is part of your education. It's you can't have
Speaker 1: a complete life in some ways, a complete education without
Speaker 1: without sports.
Speaker 3: About sports, I'm having other life experiences. You know, there's
Speaker 3: competition and discomfort and failure.
Speaker 1: So no, it's terrific. Lesson. Congratulations And like I said,
Speaker 1: I I appreciate you exposing yourself because that's what that
Speaker 1: is when you let somebody else write about you while
Speaker 1: you're still alive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, thanks, Jock. I'm a rep in the end.
Speaker 2: But anyway, David, great to know you.
Speaker 3: Okay, take care of them about well.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I think understanding the
Speaker 1: modern Middle East is going to be almost an every
Speaker 1: day exercise. To be frank, it's let's just say, nothing
Speaker 1: feels permanent still, and I don't think anything will feel
Speaker 1: permanent for some time. But let's go into the podcast
Speaker 1: time machine. So it's the week of November seventeenth through
Speaker 1: the twenty third, and you know what I like to do,
Speaker 1: go back in history and we're just looking at this
Speaker 1: these seven days, and believe it or not, this is
Speaker 1: quite I stumbled onto what is conspiracy theory Week? In
Speaker 1: American history? Three moments in particular have anniversaries this week.
Speaker 1: The Jonestown massacre, the kool Aid drinking November.
Speaker 2: Eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: There's, of course, the jfk assassination November twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, and the eighteen and a half minute gap
Speaker 1: in the Nixon tapes was revealed on November twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, three events that on their own would
Speaker 1: be enough to bend the country's imagination, but together, stacked
Speaker 1: on the same week of the calendar, I think they
Speaker 1: tell us something a bit more profound about why Americans
Speaker 1: believe conspiracies and why those beliefs are so durable. And
Speaker 1: by the way, this is also the same energy right
Speaker 1: now fueling our current national fixation on the Epstein files,
Speaker 1: where the fantastical spreads faster than any known fact. But
Speaker 1: we only have one type of person to blame, the
Speaker 1: elected American elected official, right, So let's get to the
Speaker 1: time machine. So we're going to start with Jonestown. That's
Speaker 1: when conspiracy thinking became catastrophic. It's November. We're going to
Speaker 1: go back to November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight in Jonestown. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of people think of Jonestown as a cult tragedy,
Speaker 1: and it is, but it's also the story of how
Speaker 1: a closed information system can destroy a human judgment. Jim Jones,
Speaker 1: the cult leader, didn't just isolate his followers physically. He
Speaker 1: isolated them psychologically, emotionally, and informationally. He convinced them that
Speaker 1: outsiders were coming to kill them. He convinced them that
Speaker 1: only he understood the truth. He convinced them that everyone else,
Speaker 1: from the media to the US government was lying. Perhaps
Speaker 1: he alone could fix it. But I digress. But here's
Speaker 1: the terrifying part. The more erratic Jones became, the more
Speaker 1: his followers trusted him. Because once you buy into total
Speaker 1: this sort of total narrative, once you build your identity
Speaker 1: around a conspiratorial worldview, facts are no longer persued. Facts
Speaker 1: become evidence of the conspiracy against you. Jonestown is not
Speaker 1: a government conspiracy. It's the consequence of conspiratorial thinking, and
Speaker 1: it becomes a template, decades before social media for how
Speaker 1: a charismatic figure can sever followers from reality and create
Speaker 1: a world where the fantastical is accepted without question. It's
Speaker 1: why QAnon didn't surprise psychologists. It's why people fall for
Speaker 1: online calls. Jonestown is a modern cautionary tale of what
Speaker 1: happens when people choose narrative over truth. My god, imagine
Speaker 1: how big jonestown might have gotten with social media. All right,
Speaker 1: let's to the second, the second big conspiratorial event in
Speaker 1: our timeline this week, the conspiracy the public never accepted
Speaker 1: fourteen years earlier, the same week, November twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, John is assassinated in Dallas. If Jonestown shows
Speaker 1: what happens when people buy into a false conspiracy, the
Speaker 1: JFK assassination shows what happens when the official story fails
Speaker 1: to convince the public. The Warren Report was assembled very quickly.
Speaker 1: The evidence was confusing. The single bullet theory sounded well,
Speaker 1: pretty implausible to the average American, and the result was
Speaker 1: a permanent fracture in public trust. In fact, I always
Speaker 1: go back. I mean, if you look at the original
Speaker 1: sin of when did you know? If you look at
Speaker 1: baby boomers today, right, they grew up with this, This
Speaker 1: was their coming of age. Moment was government they believed
Speaker 1: lying to them about what happened to their president, right,
Speaker 1: And then just about every subsequent generation would have a
Speaker 1: little bit more of the government lion to them, and
Speaker 1: we'd chip away, chip away, chip away. But this was
Speaker 1: a big one because the generation before the Baby Boomers
Speaker 1: trusted their government. But for millions of Americans, JFK's death
Speaker 1: marks the moment when they stopped believing the government reflexively
Speaker 1: and started believing the government selectively, not because they wanted
Speaker 1: a conspiracy, but because the government couldn't explain the tragedy
Speaker 1: in a way that felt complete, transparent, or sufficiently humble.
Speaker 1: This is where CIA theory is, mafia theories, castro theories,
Speaker 1: LBJ theories, deep state theories. They all began here. But
Speaker 1: the more important important point is this after JFK, Americans
Speaker 1: no longer needed evidence for conspiracy.
Speaker 2: They only needed doubt.
Speaker 1: JFK didn't create the conspiracy culture, but it created the
Speaker 1: psychological conditions for the next event that did. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to a year that still feels like a wound.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen seventy three, the Nixon tape gap. The conspiracy
Speaker 1: that was well was a conspiracy.
Speaker 2: It was true.
Speaker 1: Two weeks before Thanksgiving, No First, nineteen seventy three, America
Speaker 1: learns that there is an eighteen and a half minute
Speaker 1: gap in one of Nixon's Oval office tapes, the very
Speaker 1: tape that might have shown what he knew about Watergate.
Speaker 1: This is the moment that permanently rewires the American brain.
Speaker 1: After years of being told trust us, after years of
Speaker 1: dismissing accusations as partisan, and after years of insisting that
Speaker 1: critics of Nixon were hysterical, here it was a missing tape,
Speaker 1: not metaphorically literally an erased tape, Thank you, Rosemary Woods.
Speaker 1: And the White House explanation was so implausible secretaries accidentally
Speaker 1: leaning on pedals fingers slipping, that it practically invited conspiracy.
Speaker 1: The lesson for the American public was brutal and simple.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true, and sometimes the cover
Speaker 1: up is even dumber than the crime. And once that happens,
Speaker 1: once government credibility is broken in this specific way, you
Speaker 1: don't get it back through press releases, you don't get
Speaker 1: it back through official investigation, and you don't even get
Speaker 1: it back through prosecutions. And of course we never did
Speaker 1: prosecute you know, I think when I first started my
Speaker 1: time cast time machine, one of the I started with
Speaker 1: the pardon, with Ford's pardon and a mistake. I think
Speaker 1: now we see that was clearly I don't think it's
Speaker 1: it's even a close call anymore, that that was clearly
Speaker 1: a mistake, because we never did get justice for what
Speaker 1: was done. But Watergate taught Americans that powerful people sometimes lie,
Speaker 1: and institutions sometimes protect those lies. And once you know that,
Speaker 1: you never unknow it. And then it just sort of
Speaker 1: sits there, and it chips away and chips away, and
Speaker 1: we wonder why we have a government we don't trust today.
Speaker 2: So let's look at sort of the.
Speaker 1: Modern parallel, right the Epstein files, fast forward to the present,
Speaker 1: and conspiracy is the default. It's not the exception. Look
Speaker 1: at this Epstein moment. We're all living through. People assume
Speaker 1: elites lie, people assume institutions are hiding things. People assume
Speaker 1: the truth is always worse, and people assume if there
Speaker 1: is a conspiracy, it's probably bigger and darker than anything
Speaker 1: the government admits. Now, I'm an Ockham's razor person. I
Speaker 1: think if there was something even darker, deeper, we there'd
Speaker 1: at least be a leak about it somewhere, but we
Speaker 1: haven't gotten that.
Speaker 2: But still.
Speaker 1: Conspiracies persist. But it's because of Johnstown, because of JFK,
Speaker 1: because of Nixon, because of IRAQ WMDs, because of the
Speaker 1: NSA surveillance revelations, because of January six. Americans now process
Speaker 1: every new event through a lens shaped by generations of
Speaker 1: government betrayal, government confusion, and partial truths at best. So
Speaker 1: just look at what we did with Epstein.
Speaker 2: Right, the conspiracy theory arrived.
Speaker 1: First, the facts are We still don't have all the facts,
Speaker 1: do we They're arriving later. The public decides what it
Speaker 1: believes before the evidence even begins to land. It's not
Speaker 1: that people want to believe in sane things. It's that
Speaker 1: the factual world is moving slower than the fantastical one.
Speaker 1: We have more information than ever, but we have less
Speaker 1: trust than ever, and in that environment, speculation fills every
Speaker 1: gap instantly. And then you look look at our ridiculous
Speaker 1: algorithms that sort of reward those that have a new
Speaker 1: theory rather than those that have factual information. Right, if
Speaker 1: I were to say, right now, boy, it's got to
Speaker 1: be that Gallaine Maxwell knows the origin story of Malania
Speaker 1: Trump and how Malania and Donald met boy the algorithms
Speaker 1: would go crazy, and this video could go viral because
Speaker 1: I'd say it, because I'd say that I have no
Speaker 1: evidence of this. Okay, I certainly am trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why the president is hiding so much of this
Speaker 1: and why he seems to be so scared of Gallaine Maxwell.
Speaker 1: So your mind wanders, and unfortunately, because of how poor
Speaker 1: government's been about being transparent about things including the jfk
Speaker 1: assassination being frankly exhibit A, how do you tell an
Speaker 1: American not to go down that conspiratorial rabbit hole? This
Speaker 1: is where we are. So what do we take away
Speaker 1: from this in this week in American history? Here's the
Speaker 1: common threat. We are conspiracy prone, not because we're gullible,
Speaker 1: but because our institutions have repeatedly given us enough reason,
Speaker 1: just enough reason to suspect that we're not being told
Speaker 1: the full story. When leaders lie, even tiny lies, they
Speaker 1: leave behind just enough ambiguity for our collective imagination to
Speaker 1: go to work. And when institutions are slow, opaque, or
Speaker 1: even arrogant, doubt becomes a form of self defense. When
Speaker 1: information drips out instead, of flows out. The vacuum fills
Speaker 1: the narrative, and when the officials story doesn't feel complete,
Speaker 1: the unofficial ones become irresistible. So I'll leave you this.
Speaker 1: We Americans can handle plenty of bad news. What we
Speaker 1: cannot handle is missing news. You got to tell us everything.
Speaker 1: Don't hold back, because if you do, if we find
Speaker 1: out and you held back, it is so much worse.
Speaker 1: The more than institutions give us half truths, delayed truths,
Speaker 1: redacted truths, or contradictory truths or alternative facts, the more
Speaker 1: this week in history becomes every week in our political system.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Enjoy conspiracy Week in the Todd Cash a time machine.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you're looking for some good jonestown documentaries,
Speaker 1: there are a ton of them out there. They're all fascinating.
Speaker 1: There was a couple recently, I think on Netflix that
Speaker 1: definitely is worth your time. My friend Jeff Morley JFK.
Speaker 1: Fax is a terrific substack. He goes through, He goes
Speaker 1: through all the government releases the way you would want
Speaker 1: a reported to do it. You know, yes, he has
Speaker 1: his theories, but he separates the facts from the theories.
Speaker 1: I wish I had a really good place for you
Speaker 1: to go for all things having to do with filling
Speaker 1: the gaps and Watergate. But in some ways, I think
Speaker 1: I think we've filled we have between Garrett Graft's most
Speaker 1: recent book about Watergate, plus everything Woodward and Bernstein has done,
Speaker 1: we have a pretty decent handle on them. So you
Speaker 1: know what this means. It's college football time. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Miami kept up its end of the bargain, had a
Speaker 1: nice I will say I was pleasantly surprised. There's there's
Speaker 1: nothing like a Hurricane's game when the defense sort of
Speaker 1: sparks things and the pick six early set the tone.
Speaker 1: The offense started to hum. Yes, NC State didn't have
Speaker 1: the best of defenses, but the fact is Miami won
Speaker 1: by a margin that they should win by. They covered
Speaker 1: the spread. I think they doubled actually the actual spread.
Speaker 1: So it was a it was a decisive victory. And
Speaker 1: you know, some things went Miami's way as far as
Speaker 1: you know, teams that needed to lose ahead of them,
Speaker 1: A few teams did. Texas lost, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: They're not you know, they're they're not going to get
Speaker 1: in even a victory over Texas. A and m they're
Speaker 1: not a three loss team, is not yet going to
Speaker 1: make the playoff. A couple other things, Boston College had
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech on the ropes. You know, I certainly would
Speaker 1: like to see Miami be able to play itself into
Speaker 1: the playoff, not having to wait to see if their
Speaker 1: body of work will be considered better or worse than
Speaker 1: the body of work of other two loss teams. But
Speaker 1: I want to get to that here in a minute.
Speaker 1: But for the look in fairness, I think it was
Speaker 1: the best game mim he's played since Notre Dame and
Speaker 1: in South Florida, where two which were probably the two
Speaker 1: most complete games they've played all year. Even the Florida game,
Speaker 1: they didn't play a great first half. It was the
Speaker 1: second half that they sort of put that game away.
Speaker 1: But but Notre Dame, they played three great quarters. They
Speaker 1: let they let Notre Dame sort of make the game
Speaker 1: look like it was a close game. And I think
Speaker 1: this this. You know, they basically were ahead by double
Speaker 1: digits most of the game. Notre Dame gets a lay
Speaker 1: touchdown and so the game looked closer than it actually was.
Speaker 1: But this was a pretty complete game they got. This
Speaker 1: was the last home game senior Day, they got two
Speaker 1: more road games, Virginia Tech and then Pit. And let's
Speaker 1: talk about Pitt because Notre Dame now got to face
Speaker 1: a PIT team that did not chose to play an
Speaker 1: exhibition game. Now, I'm not saying the players that actually
Speaker 1: played in the game didn't play hard. They did, but
Speaker 1: the coaching staff made a decision that they were not
Speaker 1: going to play to win this game. Anybody that was
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty you could play, but you know, they'd
Speaker 1: rather have him rest for the conference their last two
Speaker 1: conference games, which are Georgia Tech and Miami. They chose
Speaker 1: to do that. The coach went public earlier in the
Speaker 1: week and said, it doesn't this game was meaningless to them.
Speaker 1: This was akin to a preseason game, an exhibition game.
Speaker 1: They could lose by one hundred, it didn't matter. Their
Speaker 1: path to a playoff did not go through Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Their path to the playoff went through making it to
Speaker 1: the ACC Conference title game. And if they went out,
Speaker 1: they will have a place in the title game, which
Speaker 1: brings me to and then, by the way, same thing
Speaker 1: just happened a week earlier with Notre Dame when they
Speaker 1: played Navy. When Navy decided not to play one of
Speaker 1: their quarterbacks in that game, Horvat saving him because he
Speaker 1: had been somewhat he'd been dinged up a little bit.
Speaker 1: They wanted to basically give him a week off before
Speaker 1: their conference game against South Florida. By the way, that
Speaker 1: was a terrific game. I watched a lot of that
Speaker 1: game that was in my multibox. That was a fun
Speaker 1: game to watch, and it was a shootout and somehow
Speaker 1: South Florida couldn't stop Navy very often. And Navy won
Speaker 1: that game, and they still have a path to the
Speaker 1: college football playoff again through the Group of five playoff slot. Again,
Speaker 1: the Notre Dame game was meaningless to them in their
Speaker 1: attempt to get.
Speaker 2: To the playoff.
Speaker 1: So now Notre Dame and this, you know, I saw
Speaker 1: that ESPN was promoting this win on Pitt as if
Speaker 1: it was an impressive win that hey, they they had.
Speaker 1: They made it part of their ticker lead, and they
Speaker 1: made it seem as if that this they played an
Speaker 1: exhibition game. Pitt did not take this game seriously. And
Speaker 1: I do think the College Football Committee, if there, if
Speaker 1: this committee is serious, and I am I am a
Speaker 1: huge skeptic. Given that three years in a row, they
Speaker 1: have made decisions that were not about football teams that
Speaker 1: were instead about what ESPN wanted or what the SEC wanted,
Speaker 1: which maybe one and the same. Right, we go back
Speaker 1: to the decision not to put Florida State in the
Speaker 1: end of the playoff when they were undefeated after winning
Speaker 1: their conference title game, and they just chose not to
Speaker 1: put Florida State in. Right. So, if you're wondering why
Speaker 1: I have have been so hard on ESPN and the
Speaker 1: SEC about this, is because not that they might do this,
Speaker 1: because they've already done it once and then they arguably
Speaker 1: did it last year. Miami absolutely belonged in that playoff
Speaker 1: and they chose not to put Miami in because they
Speaker 1: didn't want to put in a third ACC team.
Speaker 2: They have decided the ACC isn't.
Speaker 1: Worthy of having two or three teams on any given year.
Speaker 1: That's just a decision they make, period. There is not
Speaker 1: I would argue, not as many metrics that would actually
Speaker 1: argue for that than others want to say. But this
Speaker 1: is the decision, yes, or they're not going to put
Speaker 1: in two Big twelve teams, and they're gonna try really
Speaker 1: hard not to put in two ACC teams. We'll see
Speaker 1: if Miami can sort of force the envelope. But explain
Speaker 1: to me, I mean to me, if you were to
Speaker 1: treat Notre Dame as sort of instead of knowing that
Speaker 1: it was Notre Dame. And I just gave you the
Speaker 1: profile of team A, Team B, Team C, Team D. Right,
Speaker 1: there is no way Notre Dame is a playoff team.
Speaker 1: They don't have a good Their best win is USC,
Speaker 1: who may or may not be a competitor for a
Speaker 1: playoff spot. And then two of their victories are against
Speaker 1: teams that chose essentially to pull some of their starters
Speaker 1: so that they didn't face the toughest version of PITT.
Speaker 1: Miami's going to face the toughest version of PITT. They
Speaker 1: didn't face the toughest version of Navy. South Florida faced
Speaker 1: the toughest version of Navy. So you know, I I
Speaker 1: that that should matter if the head to head isn't
Speaker 1: going to matter. Now, obviously the most important thing ought
Speaker 1: to be the head to head. Notre Dame loses to
Speaker 1: Miami and they're both ten and two, it's obvious what
Speaker 1: any actual tie breaking scenario in any other league, the
Speaker 1: first tiebreaker is head to head.
Speaker 2: Now they don't.
Speaker 1: There is no there are no rules, right, this committee
Speaker 1: has never said what the metrics are to get into
Speaker 1: the playoff. They don't release a criteria. You know what
Speaker 1: that means, because they make up the criteria when they
Speaker 1: when it suits them. Right, If if it's easier to
Speaker 1: make a case for a team to get in because
Speaker 1: of their losses, they'll say, hey, they have great losses.
Speaker 1: And if it's easier to make a case for a
Speaker 1: team to get in because they have great wins, and
Speaker 1: they'll say, hey, they have great wins. Right, But they
Speaker 1: don't seem to have a standardized metric on what matters
Speaker 1: more wins or losses when you're trying to differentiate between
Speaker 1: a ten and two team or three ten and two teams.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're gonna have a lot of this, right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have You may have ten and two Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: ten and two Notre Dame, ten and two, Alabama, uh
Speaker 1: and ten into in Miami. And let's just take a
Speaker 1: look at this. Okay, Alabama, one of their losses is
Speaker 1: a team Miami beat. Do you think that's going to
Speaker 1: matter to the committee. I'm not naive. I know it's
Speaker 1: not going to matter. I'll give Alabama this. They have
Speaker 1: the best win of the four because Alabama beat Georgia,
Speaker 1: so they will get credit for that. Oklahoma has now
Speaker 1: Alabama is their best win, right They lost to Texas,
Speaker 1: a team that Florida beat, a team that Miami whipped
Speaker 1: before Florida was giving up okay, before the whole firing
Speaker 1: and all that business. And then of course when you
Speaker 1: compare Miami Notre Dame, Miami beat Notre Dame. Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: singling those four teams out because I am that if
Speaker 1: they all four ten and two and there's three slots
Speaker 1: for those four teams, I know this committee is going
Speaker 1: to try to keep Miami out. And if you looked
Speaker 1: at him in a blind survey, Miami argue at believest
Speaker 1: the second best of those four. If you're going to
Speaker 1: do that, let alone third or fourth.
Speaker 2: So I all I am.
Speaker 1: I want to try to give the assume that some
Speaker 1: people on this committee take their job seriously and are
Speaker 1: simply trying to get the best teams. The fact is
Speaker 1: Miami's probably got one of the three best rosters in
Speaker 1: the nation, easily, the combination best offensive and defensive lines
Speaker 1: going for whatever reason, the committee decided to overly punish
Speaker 1: Miami for losing a gamed SMU on the road. They
Speaker 1: didn't punish him as much for the first loss to Louisville,
Speaker 1: but they punished him a lot for that SMU loss.
Speaker 1: It was a way over punishments in this idea that
Speaker 1: when you lose somehow should should matter. And I know
Speaker 1: this has always sort of been out there because of
Speaker 1: the of the screwyway college football work. But again, in
Speaker 1: the NFL, your record's your record, and if there's a tiebreaker,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter when that game happened. Right. The head
Speaker 1: to head is the head to head.
Speaker 2: So look, Mimi's got to do its part.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm still you know, you know, the irony is
Speaker 1: that Miami should be undefeated, shouldn't have lost either one
Speaker 1: of those games. Sort of coach farted those games away, arguably,
Speaker 1: and they were both winnable even at the very end,
Speaker 1: but they got coach farted away. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to use that term going forward, coach farting. But
Speaker 1: we'll see what the committee does. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I that I want to see whether this committee is
Speaker 1: taking itself seriously at all, is the fact that Notre
Speaker 1: Dame has two teams on their schedule that decided not
Speaker 1: to play to one, and this is the look Notre
Speaker 1: Dame should be ding for not being in a conference
Speaker 1: playing conference games. The stakes are higher when you don't
Speaker 1: have a conference game, there's no stakes. Yes, the stakes
Speaker 1: are higher, they have to keep winning, but the conference
Speaker 1: game is so much more high pressure. And whether your
Speaker 1: conference road game or hosting a team that just you
Speaker 1: would make their season if they beat you, which is
Speaker 1: just about every team Miami plays in the ACC. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what Miami doesn't do. They don't storm fields
Speaker 1: because when you win national titles, you don't worry about
Speaker 1: storming a field because because it isn't a big deal
Speaker 1: to you until you actually win the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: I tell you, I've been to plenty of Miami games
Speaker 1: where the other team storms the field because it's a
Speaker 1: big deal of them to beat Miami in a regular season.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame knows this feeling. Plenty of teams when they've
Speaker 1: upset Notre Dame on the road, they storm the field.
Speaker 1: But the fact is Miami is playing more high pressure games. Shoot,
Speaker 1: Oklahomas playing more high pressure games. Us every one of
Speaker 1: the power for because of how important this path to
Speaker 1: the playoff is. These conference games are much more high
Speaker 1: stakes and Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: Doesn't have any of them.
Speaker 1: And so I actually think that Notre Dame not the
Speaker 1: arrogance of Notre Dame not being in a conference and
Speaker 1: still wanting to be treated equally compared to what everybody
Speaker 1: else has to go through with these conference schedules. I
Speaker 1: actually think that these athletic directors that are on this committee,
Speaker 1: as much as they want to, you know, do whatever
Speaker 1: they have to do for ESPN for the ESPN Invitational here,
Speaker 1: at the same time, are irritated that Notre Dame doesn't
Speaker 1: have to go through this conference business. So at a minimum,
Speaker 1: Rhys Davis, please ask whoever's going to be that I
Speaker 1: think it's now the Arkansas ad who is going to
Speaker 1: be the spokesperson for the committee. Please ask them whether
Speaker 1: the committee is going to essentially downgrade the two victories
Speaker 1: that Notre Dame had over Navy and pit They should
Speaker 1: be downgraded. They did not face they faced an exhibition.
Speaker 1: They faced two teams that treated the game as an exhibition.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the players themselves did, but the coaching
Speaker 1: staff did. And when you say you don't care if
Speaker 1: you win the game, you know your players hear it.
Speaker 1: So when you're comparing not every ten and two record
Speaker 1: should be treated the same. And I think clearly here
Speaker 1: Notre Dame should be the one that's in much bigger
Speaker 1: trouble in their playoff path right now because they have
Speaker 1: teams that are not taking the Notre Dame game that
Speaker 1: seriously anymore because of how important now the conference pathway is.
Speaker 1: I have to say a few other notes on what
Speaker 1: I saw over the weekend. I get more impressed at
Speaker 1: Texas Tech all the time. I have no idea why
Speaker 1: anybody's ranking Oregon as high as they are. I think
Speaker 1: Oregon I have some questions about Oregon here. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: they have one loss. I'll be this Oregon USC game
Speaker 1: coming up. It's a huge game to see if the
Speaker 1: Big ten can get three teams into the playoffs. But
Speaker 1: Oregon's best win is now Penn State. How good of
Speaker 1: a win is that Oregon needs to blow out USC?
Speaker 1: I think to justify they're certainly to justify how to
Speaker 1: see them at ranked as high high as they are.
Speaker 1: I got to give Texas A and M a ton
Speaker 1: of credit both A and M this week in Indiana.
Speaker 1: Last week, when you should lose a game and you
Speaker 1: figure out a way to win and you're one of
Speaker 1: these undefeated teams, I am in some ways more impressed.
Speaker 1: They didn't play their best game in the first half.
Speaker 1: You know, I gave you that tip last week. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I had heard that with the new offensive coordinator, they're
Speaker 1: worried about losing Lenora Sellers in the portal. There's even
Speaker 1: rumors at Miami he may end up at Miami that
Speaker 1: they were going to open things up a little bit.
Speaker 1: And boy did they and he looked terrific in that
Speaker 1: first half, and A and M shut him down and
Speaker 1: shut everything down in the second half. So I have
Speaker 1: to say A and M impressed me, and impressed me
Speaker 1: quite a bit. They don't have to win another game.
Speaker 1: They will, but they don't have to win another game.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious, and here's going to be something to see.
Speaker 1: Texas got its third loss.
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 1: You know, what's their intensity going to be like for
Speaker 1: the rest of the season, particularly for the A and
Speaker 1: M game at the end of the year. It's exciting
Speaker 1: to see Texas, Texas, A and M play I think
Speaker 1: they're gonna be playing on Thanksgiving weekend, which will be
Speaker 1: kind of nice that And then there's Vanderbilt. You know,
Speaker 1: there's still They're still sitting there at eight and two,
Speaker 1: and you have Utah sitting there and eighty two, both
Speaker 1: ahead of Miami. So don't don't think I haven't. I
Speaker 1: don't have my eyes on them on that front. I
Speaker 1: have a feeling if Miami takes care of business and
Speaker 1: wins by margin in their last two games, that they
Speaker 1: likely leapfrog, because again, Miami does have better wins I
Speaker 1: think than either of those other two teams. But we
Speaker 1: shall see. All in all, I am obviously nervous, I'm willing,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to will every everything I have and making
Speaker 1: sure Miami is treated fairly in this. That's all I'm
Speaker 1: asking is that Miami is treated fairly, because I don't
Speaker 1: think the a c C in general gets treated fairly
Speaker 1: in this, and frankly, until we have a year where
Speaker 1: they are treated fairly, you're going to have a hard
Speaker 1: time convincing any fan of any team in the a
Speaker 1: c C that the that ESPN or the College Football
Speaker 1: Playoff Committee or the ESPN Invitational Committee, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it is going to give an ACC team
Speaker 1: a fair shot. But like I said, I will I
Speaker 1: will pull back some of my critique of the media
Speaker 1: company's influence on this committee if I see some hard
Speaker 1: questioning of the committee chair on this issue of whether
Speaker 1: Notre Dame's two victories over Navy and Pitt ought to
Speaker 1: be downgraded. So with that, I do enjoy trolling my
Speaker 1: friends that are Notre Dame fans on this one. But
Speaker 1: in all seriousness, if I know if somehow this could
Speaker 1: be used as a demerit against an ACC team, this
Speaker 1: committee would be all over it. It's a big name,
Speaker 1: Notre Dame that's doing it. Will they have the guts
Speaker 1: to publicly call out Notre Dame's victories on this one?
Speaker 3: We shall all right with that.
Speaker 1: I hope you even had a good weekend. Hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed your weekend. I'm glad, since I'm traveling a lot
Speaker 1: this week that all of the airports are up and running.
Speaker 1: I thank those TSA agents and those air traffic controllers
Speaker 1: who have been working without pay. Thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your surch of us. Thank you for
Speaker 1: at least doing what you can to keep a government
Speaker 1: that behaves so dysfunctionally, a bit more functional and with
Speaker 1: that until I upload again.
Speaker 3: M m hmmm.