Speaker 1: Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Check Podcast. It is October first, and apparently what
Speaker 1: that means. It's October first, twenty twenty five. Do you
Speaker 1: know if your government's open? Well, the answer is there
Speaker 1: are portions of the government not open today. What does
Speaker 1: it mean? Well, you heard, if you heard my last
Speaker 1: monologue about this, you know this is a manufactured moment.
Speaker 1: This is a created political a manufactured political drama based
Speaker 1: on legal interpretations of two Justice departments that go back
Speaker 1: to the Carter and Reagan era, and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of members of Congress who claim they don't like these
Speaker 1: shutdowns but have refused to pass legislation that actually would
Speaker 1: make these showdowns moot. So I'm not going to bother
Speaker 1: to rehash that, but it really bothers me how that
Speaker 1: New York Times did a story about sort of, oh,
Speaker 1: we've had fifty years of this polarizing and sort of
Speaker 1: didn't sort of glossed over the fact that this is
Speaker 1: simply an interpretation. There's no law in the Constitution that
Speaker 1: says the government is open or closed on October first,
Speaker 1: depending on when you pass appropriations bills. This is essentially
Speaker 1: a decision that people in power made in order to
Speaker 1: create a point of drama or leverage, apparently for no
Speaker 1: particular good that's come from it. Right, this has just
Speaker 1: been a disaster. And I think this is the challenge
Speaker 1: that Democrats have being the instigators of this, which is
Speaker 1: for my entire adult lifetime, it has been the Republicans
Speaker 1: that have been the instigators of the shutdown we've had these.
Speaker 1: It was when there was a Democratic president that we
Speaker 1: had it in the nineties, democratic president, when we had
Speaker 1: it during Obama. It is with Trump. That's the first
Speaker 1: time we've had this with a Republican Now, the first
Speaker 1: time it was Republican. This is now the second time
Speaker 1: we've had a shutdown with Trump as president and Republicans
Speaker 1: in charge of both the House in the Senate now
Speaker 1: because of the filibuster. And I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute, because you got to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what if this is what ends the filibuster. I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: to see what the reaction would be among some of
Speaker 1: the left who've been agitating for getting rid of the
Speaker 1: philibuster for some time. Imagine if this is the trigger
Speaker 1: for it, just something to put a pin in that right,
Speaker 1: let's just file this away for a second. But we're here,
Speaker 1: and I think the issue and it's reflective. I've got
Speaker 1: some pull numbers I want to go through that are
Speaker 1: actually well timed, sort of end of September polls. They're
Speaker 1: well timed. But they we get at this question of shutdowns.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Democrats have messaged for twenty years
Speaker 1: the shutdowns are bad, and now here they are on
Speaker 1: the other side saying passing up the opportunity for a
Speaker 1: clean of temporary six week extension to keep the government
Speaker 1: open because you know they want their And this is
Speaker 1: I said this before. I think tactically they made a
Speaker 1: mistake not accepting this continuing resolution to November. I think
Speaker 1: they would be better off having this showdown over the
Speaker 1: exact same issue healthcare subsidies, the Obamacare subsidies. They'd have
Speaker 1: been better off, I think starting that fight in November
Speaker 1: after the twenty twenty five elections in Virginia, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: New York, et cetera. But here's you know, here's what's interesting.
Speaker 1: So the time says this new pulling out and let
Speaker 1: me read you one of a couple of the questions
Speaker 1: that had to do with the with a shutdown, who
Speaker 1: would you blame if there is a shutdown? The Democrats
Speaker 1: in Congress, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress, both
Speaker 1: or both parties equally or all entities equally. Now they
Speaker 1: combined Republicans and Donald Trump into one column. There's other
Speaker 1: polling out there that has put Democrats in Congress, Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress, and Donald Trump as separate three you know,
Speaker 1: three categories. So essentially, when you start to see it
Speaker 1: that way, if you separate it out, more people blame
Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress than Trump. But if you combined Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress and Trump, you see where I'm going. But
Speaker 1: there's essentially a third, a third and a third right.
Speaker 1: A third are saying it's one party's fault, a third
Speaker 1: are saying it's the other party's fault, and a third
Speaker 1: just blame everybody type of mindset. But I thought this
Speaker 1: was interesting. They just asked a straight up question, which
Speaker 1: statement comes closer to you view your view, even if
Speaker 1: neither is exactly right. The Democrats should shut down the
Speaker 1: government if their demands are not met. Twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: agreed with that statement. The Democrats should not shut down
Speaker 1: the government even if their demands are not met. Sixty
Speaker 1: five percent agreed with that statement. That's the uphill battle
Speaker 1: here that I think Democrats are dealing with because you've
Speaker 1: got you've got a sort of a you've got a
Speaker 1: confluence of things that have happened over the last twenty
Speaker 1: years that frankly, have conditioned the public about shutdowns. One
Speaker 1: is they're not that serious. I explained this to you
Speaker 1: in the last episode. They exempt social Security, they exempt
Speaker 1: military pay, they exempt TSA, They're not going to disrupt
Speaker 1: the flights, They exempt food inspectors, they exempt so many
Speaker 1: things that it's sort of like, all right, it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of the operational part of government that matters, matters
Speaker 1: a lot. People will notice over time when those parts
Speaker 1: of government are shuttered, but they don't notice in the
Speaker 1: immediate right. So anything that the public might notice immediately,
Speaker 1: politicians over the years have tried to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: shield that right. So that's how you've had these military
Speaker 1: gets paid. Back pay for federal government workers is now guaranteed.
Speaker 1: You know, you have all these little things in there
Speaker 1: that are done to sort of mitigate the consequences of
Speaker 1: a shutdown in the moment. But as I've said, what
Speaker 1: it's done is lowered the consequences for a shutdown, if
Speaker 1: the consequences were much higher, as in Social Security checks
Speaker 1: don't go out tomorrow morning, heart stop, Military doesn't get
Speaker 1: paid next Friday, heart stop. I promise you there'd be
Speaker 1: more urgency to this. But they took all of that out,
Speaker 1: which is again and so the public has gotten used
Speaker 1: to it that these shutdowns are annoying, their distractions. You know,
Speaker 1: they over time impact the economy negatively. They're not good.
Speaker 1: They slow down. I told you all the wasted government money,
Speaker 1: wasted time for people, particularly in your fear in a
Speaker 1: public private defense contractors have time wasted. They still get
Speaker 1: paid but and the government will eventually remburse him, but
Speaker 1: they don't do the actual work. And this could be
Speaker 1: this could be, could be a few weeks, could be longer.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what the exit ramp is here
Speaker 1: for anybody. It does seem as if the Trump administration
Speaker 1: would love to try this out. And the threats that
Speaker 1: Trump has made actually showcase an issue that I wish
Speaker 1: more voters cared about, which is Donald Trump does not
Speaker 1: believe he should govern for people that didn't vote for him,
Speaker 1: and if anything, he wants to punish anybody by getting
Speaker 1: rid of any program that the government funds that doesn't
Speaker 1: benefit him somehow politically. And he's essentially telegraphed this. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to reverse some things that
Speaker 1: they're never going to be able to get back. He
Speaker 1: is almost excited about the opportunity to govern with a
Speaker 1: political lens and a harsh one at that. Next week,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have an interview with the mayor of
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. But I want to give you a little
Speaker 1: preview of something he said, which is, this is the
Speaker 1: consequences of these partisan primaries and the way we nominate people.
Speaker 1: If you're if you have to answer to everybody all
Speaker 1: the time in your voters, if you're a member of
Speaker 1: Congress and you're facing all voters in a primary rather
Speaker 1: than just this small slice of obsessed partisans, you're going
Speaker 1: to have a different incentive of who If you have
Speaker 1: to win over a middle of the road voter to
Speaker 1: get a nomination to get to the second uh, to
Speaker 1: get to actual general election, well you're going to comport
Speaker 1: yourself a hell of a lot differently than if all
Speaker 1: you have to do is deal with a partisan set
Speaker 1: of voters. And you know, for him, it was his
Speaker 1: explanation of my mayor's or the least polarized executive that
Speaker 1: you have in the country, that all across the country
Speaker 1: where where the Republican mayors or Democratic mayors, almost all
Speaker 1: of them treat a pothole as a pothole. They don't
Speaker 1: look to see what the precinct, how which way the
Speaker 1: precinct voted before deciding to fill the pothole. Now I
Speaker 1: know that they're back in the days of the machine
Speaker 1: political machines of Chicago and New York, there was always
Speaker 1: rumors that, you know, the daily wards got their potholes filled,
Speaker 1: and if you weren't a daily guy, you didn't get
Speaker 1: your pothole filled. But you can't get away with that
Speaker 1: being a mayor of a city these days, and you
Speaker 1: don't do that. But it is remarkable to me how
Speaker 1: often we're seeing some partisans governed this way as governors
Speaker 1: and as president. And it's particularly a hallmark of magga
Speaker 1: driven politicians because the whole owned the Libs like it's ok,
Speaker 1: you know, we're if if we're suffer, if we all suffer,
Speaker 1: and it makes the Libs cry, then it's a worthy
Speaker 1: cause to do anyway. That's sort of this mindset at
Speaker 1: times on the own the libs mentality, and so it's
Speaker 1: a it is this is the fact that Trump's going
Speaker 1: to do this. But the point is this gets to
Speaker 1: sort of all the times you have confrontations with Trump.
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I do think that that
Speaker 1: Trump respects a fight er more than he respects a capitulator.
Speaker 1: So I do think that in some ways, if if
Speaker 1: the more resistance they put up in certain areas, that
Speaker 1: in a weird way, Trump will will will respect that
Speaker 1: because he's a he likes to be resistant, but he's
Speaker 1: also got a higher tolerance for this pain.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care how the mainstream media coverage goes. In
Speaker 1: his mind, if if a major you know, if the
Speaker 1: New York Times polling is showing it somehow it's Republican's fault.
Speaker 1: He sees that as a political asset, not a political liability.
Speaker 1: And you know, as long as his base is happy,
Speaker 1: he believes his politics are doing well. And you sort
Speaker 1: of see that his base is happy, but the rest
Speaker 1: of the country is pretty sour in his leadership. This
Speaker 1: latest New York Times Santa Pol shows he is basically
Speaker 1: at his presidential average. He's sitting at forty three percent
Speaker 1: job approval in this bowl. It's about what he was
Speaker 1: the last time. It's about what he was for just
Speaker 1: about the entire first term that he had from seventeen
Speaker 1: to twenty. You know, he's never he's never really sniffed
Speaker 1: fifty percent. And in order to do that, you'd have
Speaker 1: to have at least fifty percent of independence happy. And
Speaker 1: that's the problem he's having. Is that independence or more
Speaker 1: sour about his presidency? Then you know they look they don't.
Speaker 1: They're not as they're not as sour at his presidency
Speaker 1: as Democrats, but they're closer to looking like Democrats than
Speaker 1: they do Republicans when it comes to this. So I'll
Speaker 1: fully confess here, I have no idea when this ends,
Speaker 1: or how this sends, whether in what kind of stomach
Speaker 1: senate Democrats are going to have for how long are
Speaker 1: they going to go on this? When I think about
Speaker 1: who the seven votes would be, we know Fetterman's one,
Speaker 1: Jean Shaheen could be two, she's retiring. Would Tina Smith
Speaker 1: be three as a retiring senator? I don't know uh
Speaker 1: as as a third one, Gary Peters. He could be right,
Speaker 1: you see where I'm going here that some of them
Speaker 1: who are not going to be in ballots could could
Speaker 1: do this, uh, if they so chose to. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's seven that are that are ready
Speaker 1: to break completely. But ask me again in a week,
Speaker 1: ask me again in two weeks. How aggressive does Russell Voight,
Speaker 1: the O and B director get and trying to potentially
Speaker 1: fire furloughed government employees? Is it? Is it aggressive? So
Speaker 1: I think some of the reaction and some of the
Speaker 1: stiffness of the spine. How stiff will the democratic spine
Speaker 1: be depends I think on how aggressive omb is in
Speaker 1: using the shutdown to maybe reorient government permanently in some
Speaker 1: form or another. So we're, you know, like with many
Speaker 1: things with Trump urban uncharted territory. Unlike the previous shutdown.
Speaker 1: With Trump, he's got a he's got two aids who
Speaker 1: know their way around the bureaucracy. Russell Void's been thinking
Speaker 1: about this for years as the author of Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, and Stephen Miller understands how to manipulate the
Speaker 1: bureaucracy in ways that are pretty much second to none
Speaker 1: of any presidential aid I've ever covered. Regardless of what
Speaker 1: you think of his politics, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable on how
Speaker 1: to on the co essentially the legal code, and on
Speaker 1: the ability to sort of tinker with the federal government.
Speaker 1: We saw it during the pandemic, how he used it
Speaker 1: to shut down the border, came up with sort of
Speaker 1: some interesting unique ways in rationales to do it. And
Speaker 1: so you know, that's that to me, is the uncharted
Speaker 1: territory that we're entering and that we don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about, and we don't know how aggressive and where
Speaker 1: this has headed. But I think if there's a big
Speaker 1: danger for the Democrats besides what I just outlined with
Speaker 1: the aggressiveness of Trump, the other one is whether the
Speaker 1: public is just paying attention, whether even the activists, whether
Speaker 1: this is turning into action, whether it does fire up folks,
Speaker 1: or if there's sort of an exhaustion that comes with this,
Speaker 1: because again, the Democrats have never been on this side
Speaker 1: of a government shutdown, and we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot of conservative media sites re treading all these quotes
Speaker 1: from the Chuck Schumers over the years of Nancy Pelosi's
Speaker 1: talking about clean CRS. Government shutdowns are bad, they should
Speaker 1: never happen, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: And that could take a toll as well, and how
Speaker 1: much of all of that gets traction. But this gets
Speaker 1: into a larger issue, which is actually what I tackle.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's worth noting the Pew Center came
Speaker 1: out with some new poll polling that happened to hit today,
Speaker 1: and what they had is they had some favorable unfavorable
Speaker 1: ratings on the congressional leaders. And what's interesting is just
Speaker 1: how unpopular Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is the new Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell was always the most unpopular of the four
Speaker 1: political leaders. When it was McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and McCarthy.
Speaker 1: McConnell was always far and away the most unpopular because
Speaker 1: McConnell was the only one that had negative ratings among
Speaker 1: Democrats and negative ratings among Republicans. Well, Chuck Schumer, welcome
Speaker 1: to Mitch McConnell country. He not only has negative ratings
Speaker 1: among Republicans, but he has a negative ratings just narrowly
Speaker 1: thirty nine unfavorable, thirty five favorable among Democrats. By the way,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's numbers are not bad overall, he's got good numbers
Speaker 1: among Democrats two to one on that favorable rating overall.
Speaker 1: That allows him to have a thirty to twenty four,
Speaker 1: so he's he's got some he's got some room here.
Speaker 1: He's sort of got a net positive view, which is
Speaker 1: rare for a gouvernile. John Thune, the least known of
Speaker 1: the of the of the current set of four, also
Speaker 1: has a net positive. He's narrowly net negative. Je excuse me,
Speaker 1: I read this wrong. Jeffreys is narrowly net negative. But
Speaker 1: his positive rating with Republicans is with Democrats, is better
Speaker 1: than for instance, Thunes p a a rating is among Republicans.
Speaker 1: Sorry for confusing that there a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: real headline of this is Chuck Schumer is unpopped more
Speaker 1: unpopular among Democrats than he is popular among Democrats. And
Speaker 1: that also means he's going to be really resistant to
Speaker 1: caving because he's really afraid of the base. It's the
Speaker 1: base that's the most angry with Schumer. He sort of
Speaker 1: mismanaged the communication of the first one. I think he
Speaker 1: made the right call, but he spent a day talking
Speaker 1: up a shutdown and then completely reversed course, which is
Speaker 1: what really I think angered the left. He sort of
Speaker 1: he led him on and then he yanked the carpet
Speaker 1: from underneath them. I think on this one, he's going
Speaker 1: to want to stick it out longer. Well put it
Speaker 1: this way, If he's interested in running again and he's
Speaker 1: up in twenty twenty eight, he's going to probably care
Speaker 1: more about what the base thinks of this shutdown than
Speaker 1: what swing voters think of this. Show them. But this
Speaker 1: gets to the sort of larger dilemma that I think
Speaker 1: democrats face, and it's the subject of my substack column.
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Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. But in the
Speaker 1: substec I talk about this democratic dilemma, and that is
Speaker 1: if Democrats want if a Democrat wants to win the
Speaker 1: White House in twenty twenty eight, just saying Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is an existential threat and a dictator and a fascist
Speaker 1: isn't going to cut it, because in order to win
Speaker 1: the presidency, you're going to have to win over some
Speaker 1: Trump voters. So and in order to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with us Trump voters, you're going to have to admit
Speaker 1: that Trump was right about some things. And you can
Speaker 1: do it in a way. You know that Trump has
Speaker 1: identified problems, He's just been terrible at solving them. In fact,
Speaker 1: his solutions make things worse in some cases. Right, he's
Speaker 1: trying to return manufacturing back to America. His transactional tariff policy,
Speaker 1: which is turning us into a kleptocracy, is a horrendous
Speaker 1: way to do this, Terrible for the economy, terrible for
Speaker 1: the consumer, and doing nothing to bring manufacturing back. But
Speaker 1: what the voters. You got to sort of understand what
Speaker 1: the voters were voting for when they voted for Trump
Speaker 1: in sixteen, and then they did it again in twenty four.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the old Verizon commercial. Can you hear me? Now?
Speaker 1: You know, Democrats misinterpreted the twenty twenty election. They thought
Speaker 1: the voters were like, Yep, Donald Trump was a mistake.
Speaker 1: This is an accident of history, and he needs to
Speaker 1: be Trump and Trump is that needs to be excommunicated
Speaker 1: essentially from mainstream American political debate. That's not what the
Speaker 1: voters were saying. By the way, if Joe Biden had
Speaker 1: had four hundred electoral votes, you could have made the
Speaker 1: case that that's what the voters were saying. If he
Speaker 1: did have, but Joe Biden, while he won every swing
Speaker 1: stay but North Carolina, it only would have taken a couple,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of hundred thousand, basic, about one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand plus votes for Trump to win the electoral college. Right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't a landslide. It wasn't some sort of massive
Speaker 1: repudiation of trump Ism. What it was was a bunch
Speaker 1: of swing voters exhausted from COVID and wanting off the
Speaker 1: roller coaster. But it wasn't a repudiation of the reason
Speaker 1: why Trump got elected in the first place. You know,
Speaker 1: and I think when you now, I think we have
Speaker 1: to view Trump's election and this and this is sort
Speaker 1: of the blueprint that I think any successful Democrat in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight has to follow. And that is, you know,
Speaker 1: in fifteen, when Donald Trump essentially launched his candidacy by
Speaker 1: going after John McCain and the Bush family, many of
Speaker 1: us stuck in some conventional thinking, myself included, thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's a mistake. Republicans are not going to tolerate that.
Speaker 1: They're going to punish him for that. It turns out,
Speaker 1: and I don't think Trump knew this is what he
Speaker 1: was doing by doing it. He just did it because
Speaker 1: it was his instinct. He just got angry at people
Speaker 1: who didn't take him seriously. This was no strategy. But
Speaker 1: you know, and I think the biggest sometimes we all
Speaker 1: try to look for a strategy, and with Trump, Trump
Speaker 1: just sort of stumbles into these things. But the voters
Speaker 1: have a strategy, okay, And that's where I think Democrats
Speaker 1: in general have to respect voter decision here a lot
Speaker 1: better than they go about doing it right now, by
Speaker 1: signaling that he was willing to take on McCain and Bush.
Speaker 1: He signaled he was a different type of Republican, that
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to be the same type of Republican
Speaker 1: that they were used to that was doing essentially nothing
Speaker 1: but losing elections for them, Going back to George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: Bob Dole, George W. Bush winning only the popular vote
Speaker 1: once right, John McCain met Ronniey. It singles that he's different,
Speaker 1: he's willing a bucket. Party made him, gave him an
Speaker 1: independent credential. So suddenly you had non Republicans going, huh,
Speaker 1: I'm curious what that guy's up to. I want to
Speaker 1: check that out. And so, yes, the sixteen election was
Speaker 1: more of a vote against Clinton than it was a
Speaker 1: vote for Trump. But Trump was a vehicle to say, no,
Speaker 1: we don't want establishment status quote politics.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Biden essentially won promising status quot politics because the pandemic
Speaker 1: had so exhausted everybody from Trump's roller coaster that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what the public wanted. Now, Biden didn't bring that, right,
Speaker 1: Biden didn't do that. Biden instead governed very aggressively farther
Speaker 1: to the left than he had a mandate for, and
Speaker 1: they attempted repudiation in their form of Essentially, the movement
Speaker 1: wanted to excommunicate Trump and trump Ism. And I think
Speaker 1: the reason the voter ended up rallying around Trump was
Speaker 1: not because they liked Trump, but they didn't want all
Speaker 1: of us to forget the initial message in the first place,
Speaker 1: the same power, the same message that was sent by
Speaker 1: electing Barack Obama, the same message that was sent by
Speaker 1: electing Donald Trump, which is, we don't want the same old,
Speaker 1: same old. We want something entirely different. We want not
Speaker 1: restoration preservation, We want annihilation, if you will, of the
Speaker 1: way things work, and a rebuilding and a renewal of
Speaker 1: some sort. And in order to talk to that voter
Speaker 1: that didn't like the way things have been going, who's
Speaker 1: been a Literally they voted Obama, they voted Trump, they
Speaker 1: voted Biden, they went back to Trump. Right, who are
Speaker 1: these unsatisfied people?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: They feel they don't love their ability to move up
Speaker 1: the economic ladder. It feels like there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of rungs missing between them and the upper middle class,
Speaker 1: Like they'd love to reach for it, but they can't
Speaker 1: even get there. Income inequality has gotten worse, So there's
Speaker 1: I think it's that disconnect that a future. So I
Speaker 1: say this and that in order to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with the very voters that reluctantly voted for Trump. These
Speaker 1: people don't like them. This is great. I was telling
Speaker 1: you about a focus group last week that I observed
Speaker 1: out of Michigan of Biden Trump voters. And there's one
Speaker 1: voter going on and on not liking all the power
Speaker 1: that he's accumulating. I worry he wants to be a dictator,
Speaker 1: this voter said. And then like, well, do you approve
Speaker 1: of the job he's doing? Yeah, i'd say it. Do
Speaker 1: you regret your vote? No? I don't regret my vote.
Speaker 1: So they, you know, they kind of already know that
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have the temperament for the job and
Speaker 1: isn't really and is going too far in what they
Speaker 1: want him to do the latter, but they wanted something.
Speaker 1: They wanted somebody to attempt something. Their biggest fear on
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris was that she wasn't going to change things.
Speaker 1: She was gonna be status quo. And you know, look
Speaker 1: it was revealing in her own memoir when she said
Speaker 1: she underestimated the need that people wanted to know she
Speaker 1: was going to be a lot different from Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: She thought her mere presence was enough to indicate she'd
Speaker 1: be different from Joe Biden. I think we've learned in
Speaker 1: politics you got to say something over and over again,
Speaker 1: and you sometimes have to make a symbolic sacrifice at
Speaker 1: the altar of sorts in order to prove to this
Speaker 1: group of voters no, no, no, no, you're going to be
Speaker 1: different in one form or another. And I say all
Speaker 1: that in that I know that some on the left
Speaker 1: don't want to hear that. That you can't acknowledge that
Speaker 1: Trump's gotten has identified some issues that the Democrats have
Speaker 1: failed to address, and that the threat to democracy that
Speaker 1: he presents is such a front and center threat that
Speaker 1: that needs to be the focal point. The problem is,
Speaker 1: I don't think the voters you need to win are
Speaker 1: interested in that conversation, and they still want to know
Speaker 1: what are you going to do for them? They understand
Speaker 1: what he's doing, it's still going to come back of
Speaker 1: what are you going to do for me? And what
Speaker 1: are you going to do about these problems he's identified?
Speaker 1: Are you going to do something about it? So you know,
Speaker 1: I think about it going back to Bill Clinton in
Speaker 1: the eighties. The Democrats spent the eighties trying to repudiate
Speaker 1: Reagan and Reaganism. Even in eighty eight, the campaign wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to sort of accept the premise that Reagan was
Speaker 1: a successful two term president. There was still the DNA
Speaker 1: of the Democrats in eighty eight was no, the Republicans
Speaker 1: were wrong about everything. By ninety two, after another shellacking
Speaker 1: in eighty eight, Bill Clinton's was not sitting here repudiating
Speaker 1: everything Reagan did. In fact, I always say that you know,
Speaker 1: you knew Reagan won the argument when in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five Bill Clinton said the air of big government is
Speaker 1: over right when a Democrat said that, just like I
Speaker 1: believe in some ways. Barack Obama won the argument on
Speaker 1: entitlements when Donald Trump is out there campaigning saying Social
Speaker 1: Security and Medicare cannot be touched, right, that is you know,
Speaker 1: that was the central argument he said of the twenty
Speaker 1: twelve campaign between Obama and Romney. Ryan and Donald Trump said,
Speaker 1: you know, Obama was right. He doesn't say it that way,
Speaker 1: but he's essentially saying it, which opened the door for
Speaker 1: him to have a conversation with a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other voters who basically, while they may have agreed with
Speaker 1: Republicans and a lot of the cultural issues, just didn't
Speaker 1: trust them on issues like social security and healthcare. And
Speaker 1: then Donald Trump found a way to have that conversation
Speaker 1: by saying no, no, no, I hear you on that.
Speaker 1: It's a similar vibe. You got to get somewhere where,
Speaker 1: whether it's crime in the cities, security at the border,
Speaker 1: skepticism of big tech, getting other countries to share the
Speaker 1: burden of global security. You do it in a way.
Speaker 1: You could say, hey, look, he's identified these problems, but
Speaker 1: he's chosen ways that actually make it worse, doesn't make
Speaker 1: it better, or he you know, Essentially, Democrats would be
Speaker 1: better served by running Trump against Trump, saying, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump said he was going to do this. I was
Speaker 1: hoping that he actually might follow through on something. The
Speaker 1: guy never follows through in everything. But it's too bad,
Speaker 1: and here's something but I And then you have days
Speaker 1: like what happened Tuesday, where Trump behaves in such an
Speaker 1: Unamerican way, behaves in pretty much the worst way a
Speaker 1: commander in chief could ever behave in front of America's
Speaker 1: uniformed military leaders. And I understand why there are some
Speaker 1: on the left that just can't stomach the idea that
Speaker 1: gift accept the premise that there are some things his
Speaker 1: presidency has identified that voters like. All Right, I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean what he did in front of the uniform
Speaker 1: military was outrageous, the essentially declaring war on American citizens.
Speaker 1: You know, he's really put these military leaders in an
Speaker 1: impossible situation. None of them have been given an illegal
Speaker 1: order yet, and I think the moment, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're wondering, why aren't there should there be mass resignations.
Speaker 1: I've talked to plenty of my friends that have served,
Speaker 1: and I've asked them about this, whether they're they're disappointed
Speaker 1: that there hasn't been resignations in the upper echelons and
Speaker 1: military rank to this just clown show that is Pete
Speaker 1: hag Saith and what Trump has been doing by essentially
Speaker 1: desperately trying to politicize the military, pit the military, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially say the military has to be pro MAGA and
Speaker 1: they say, you know, until he until he issues an
Speaker 1: un constitutional order, unlawful order. You know, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: if the whole goal of the military is to stay
Speaker 1: above politics, a political you salute whoever the people of
Speaker 1: the country decide to elect to that office. Then the
Speaker 1: way they behave today is exactly correct, or excuse me,
Speaker 1: behaved on Tuesday is exactly correct. Yes, I'm doing this
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday evening going into tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: It's it's frankly, I think we should be proud of
Speaker 1: the fact that they stood there silently. They made it
Speaker 1: as awkward as possible for hag Seth and Trump up there.
Speaker 1: They put the country first. They put their rank and
Speaker 1: file first. They put the military ahead of politics, ahead
Speaker 1: of ahead of whatever they thought they had to do.
Speaker 1: They showed up because they were ordered to. Now, it's
Speaker 1: kind of pathetic that that hag Seth is trying to
Speaker 1: lecture a whole bunch of people that have gotten a
Speaker 1: whole lot of more promotions than he ever got went
Speaker 1: in the military, and he's trying to lecture these guys
Speaker 1: about what a warrior ethosays, Oh to be a oh
Speaker 1: to be a fly in their brains as they were
Speaker 1: thinking about about about this, but just think about where
Speaker 1: you don't you don't really you didn't earn the respect,
Speaker 1: but you have to beg for it. You have to
Speaker 1: demand it. Man whoever wants to be in a position
Speaker 1: where they have to beg for respect. If you are
Speaker 1: in a position of leadership and you have not earned
Speaker 1: the respect of the people you're leading, it's on you.
Speaker 1: You've done something wrong here. So today's spectacle is and
Speaker 1: it is it is alarming. It is everything that folks
Speaker 1: that plenty of folks are saying, and it is going
Speaker 1: to be the counter that many have to what I'm
Speaker 1: saying about. If you're gonna if you're gonna sort of
Speaker 1: win back voters who left the Democratic Party, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge the reason why they left, and you're
Speaker 1: going to have to acknowledge that there were some things
Speaker 1: that Trump tapped into that the Democrats failed on. So
Speaker 1: it's I get it instinctively, you're alarmed and want to
Speaker 1: fight over here. But in some ways he's the one
Speaker 1: trying to bait everybody. He wants those debates on his terms.
Speaker 1: He would love for people to spend all this time
Speaker 1: criticizing him about military and how he's trying to use
Speaker 1: it to deal with crime in the streets. What he
Speaker 1: would be have a harder time dealing with is when
Speaker 1: you're like, boy, you know, well, he's right about getting manufacturing.
Speaker 1: He's too bad. He's taking too many bribes from companies
Speaker 1: in different ways that he's been that he's had his
Speaker 1: own personal wealth enhands in lieu of actually doing what
Speaker 1: he promised to do. So you're better off, particularly in
Speaker 1: a democracy that I still think is functioning here. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know it's we are not in a great place.
Speaker 1: By the way, the number two most important issue to
Speaker 1: voters who volunteered, the New York Times did not give
Speaker 1: them a list. Number one was the economy and number
Speaker 1: two was political division. It was the only two issues
Speaker 1: that got double digits. And again I liked the way
Speaker 1: the Times did it. They did not offer a list
Speaker 1: of issues and asked the respondents to pick. They said,
Speaker 1: what's the most important issue, and they just waited for
Speaker 1: them to say. It is the better way to figure
Speaker 1: out what are the issues that voters care about most?
Speaker 1: You ask them and you let them. You don't prod them,
Speaker 1: you don't push them, You let them tell you. The
Speaker 1: fact that political division was two. The fact that we
Speaker 1: are now this poll and another one over sixty percent
Speaker 1: think we have a problem with political division in this country.
Speaker 1: Another poll identified it as a political crisis. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that that that that the country is going to
Speaker 1: be looking for a leader that's going to figure out
Speaker 1: how to bring us together. But part of being able
Speaker 1: to bring us together is acknowledging you know what it
Speaker 1: is that that Trump tapped into that the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: needs to lean into more. So we'll see, UH coming up,
Speaker 1: I have a terrific interview with a journalist, Leland Vittert.
Speaker 1: He is an anchor and reporter for News Nation, used
Speaker 1: to be with Fox News UH, and he wrote a
Speaker 1: personal story he dedicated to his UH. It's called Born Lucky,
Speaker 1: A dedicated father, grateful son, and my journey with autism. Obviously,
Speaker 1: autism has been in the news a lot with with
Speaker 1: Kennedy and Trump out there trying to UH claim that
Speaker 1: that maybe they have found the cause of autism. And
Speaker 1: I think what Leland's story is, and I really I
Speaker 1: think you'll find it inspiring, is you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of as the saying goes in the in the in
Speaker 1: the world of autism, when you've met one person with autism,
Speaker 1: you've met one person with autism, that every journey is different,
Speaker 1: every ability sort of ceiling is different, and in many ways,
Speaker 1: I think what what Leland and his father are trying
Speaker 1: to say is, look, the regular programming codes to raising
Speaker 1: a kid without autism didn't work with a kid with autism.
Speaker 1: But Leland's dad essentially figured out another code and another
Speaker 1: way to do this. And Leland's a very successful journalist,
Speaker 1: is married, is going to have is. So it is
Speaker 1: a remarkable story, particularly if you've got somebody in your
Speaker 1: family or you've dealt with this. I think the book
Speaker 1: is worthwhile because it's Look, it's not a book that
Speaker 1: tells you this is how you do it. It's simply
Speaker 1: a book that shares their story. So anyway, for those
Speaker 1: of you listening for the full thing, this is definitely
Speaker 1: that's what's coming up next. We'll sneak in a break
Speaker 1: and after the break my conversation with Leland and Vitter. Well,
Speaker 1: joining me now is a familiar face to many of you.
Speaker 1: It's Leland Vitter. He is a anchor at News Nation,
Speaker 1: long time before that, longtime correspondent and journalist for Fox News,
Speaker 1: and he's out with a new personal memoir of sorts.
Speaker 1: It's called Born Lucky. A dedicated father, a grateful son,
Speaker 1: and my Journey with autom It's a very moving book.
Speaker 1: And if you're somebody, if you're a parent, if you
Speaker 1: have a child struggling with some of these issues, I
Speaker 1: think you're going to find this story in this book
Speaker 1: quite inspiring. And with this issue in the news, it
Speaker 1: is worth looking at how families deal with this, not
Speaker 1: how governed. We're going to look at this from a
Speaker 1: family perspective, not necessarily a government perspective. Leland, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 2: Nice to see you, Dot, Great to be with you.
Speaker 2: I think we would say, as I've watched you for
Speaker 2: many many years on radio, they would say, right, you know,
Speaker 2: longtime listener, first time call. So it's great, great to
Speaker 2: be with So, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I had a I found your book very compelling
Speaker 1: and it reminded me of my friend and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know this story because you're probably familiar with them,
Speaker 1: with my friend Ron Fournier, longtime political journals that the
Speaker 1: Associated Press, who wrote a book about his journey with
Speaker 1: his son and the battle that they had and how
Speaker 1: and just your stories about how Principles were treating you
Speaker 1: and your parents and there and it's just it's just
Speaker 1: such a reminder how little the public does understand autism,
Speaker 1: understand childhood development issues, and how little we understand is
Speaker 1: how you can overcome.
Speaker 2: Them, right, And I think yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that to me feels like the purpose
Speaker 1: of this book.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, Look you said it right, and I think
Speaker 2: you've picked up on it. Chuck when you said, for
Speaker 2: any parent, grandparent, aunt uncle, who has a kid who
Speaker 2: is struggling, because it goes way beyond autism to ADHD, anxiety,
Speaker 2: physical disabilities, just the general bullying that goes on now
Speaker 2: and is so aggressive, and there's so many kids who
Speaker 2: are struggling having such a hard time. And when I
Speaker 2: was diagnosed, you know, when my parents I write this
Speaker 2: in the book, right, they know there's something wrong with me.
Speaker 2: If a kid would touch me, I'd turn around and
Speaker 2: slug them. I was really repellent to kids. And they
Speaker 2: go into one of those little psychology testing centers, you know,
Speaker 2: linoleum floors, crummy chairs, we've all been there, stale coffee,
Speaker 2: old magazines. And they bring me back and take one
Speaker 2: to take me over to, you know, play with blocks
Speaker 2: or whatever. They talk to my parents and they look
Speaker 2: at my parents, they said, we really can't imagine what's
Speaker 2: going on inside his head, and my dad goes, is
Speaker 2: there anything we can do? Anything? You know, he's desperate,
Speaker 2: and she goes, generally, not, what year is this? This
Speaker 2: is the mid eighties, right, nism wasn't understood what it was.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: I was my under I felt like this is a
Speaker 1: classic story of the eighties. I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: response the school gives you. If this is two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven or two thousand and eight, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's I think that's fair. I think
Speaker 2: those still to this point there are so many parents
Speaker 2: who feel helpless because there is this idea, right in
Speaker 2: my days, is there anything we can do? And she
Speaker 2: said generally not, But you know, if the kids smart
Speaker 2: me once it there are a few things. But there
Speaker 2: is now even more in our society, this desire to
Speaker 2: put kids who have any type of special need in
Speaker 2: bubble wrap, right, to give them medicine, and to say
Speaker 2: meet them where they're at, and you have to accept
Speaker 2: them as who you are they are, and you have
Speaker 2: to tell them that this is their superpower. And all
Speaker 2: of these things that if my dad had done to me,
Speaker 2: I would have had no chance to operate in the
Speaker 2: world that I operate in now, because his method was
Speaker 2: not about adapting the world to me. It was about
Speaker 2: adapting me to the world. And he was brutally honest
Speaker 2: about it, right, Chuck, And that's not something parents are
Speaker 2: told to do. You know, when I was in seventh grade,
Speaker 2: I wanted to play tennis. My dad was a phenomenally
Speaker 2: gifted athlete still and I writing born lucky. How he
Speaker 2: took me to a couple of tennis lessons and after
Speaker 2: the third or fourth one, he looked at me and
Speaker 2: he said, I'm your father. I love you. I will
Speaker 2: come to every tennis lesson. I will drive you, I
Speaker 2: will cheer you on. You will never be able to
Speaker 2: play tennis. You just can't do it. You don't have
Speaker 2: the coordination, you don't have the hand eye coordination, you
Speaker 2: don't have the depth perception, you don't have the motor skills.
Speaker 2: It's never going to work. Which, considering I really hope
Speaker 2: that tennis was my way into asking this girl out.
Speaker 2: I was heartbroken, but I knew then my dad would
Speaker 2: always tell me the truth. And then when he said
Speaker 2: you can do something, boy, that meant something.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it's interesting what you just said
Speaker 1: about you felt. You said your dad wanted you to
Speaker 1: adapt to the world that you live in, not make
Speaker 1: the world adapt to you. Right, boy, if this is
Speaker 1: not sort of what I would argue. You know, we
Speaker 1: sit here and we have these these fights sometimes through
Speaker 1: left right prisms, but I don't I think we're having
Speaker 1: left these are because that's how in many ways, that's
Speaker 1: how I was raised where and now, you know, especially
Speaker 1: if you're from a if you're if you're seen as
Speaker 1: from a group that isn't part of the majority, whether
Speaker 1: it's a religious minority, whether it's a gender minority, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, something else. Those that succeed are the
Speaker 1: ones that learn how to adapt to the world as
Speaker 1: it is and then slowly but surely fight for acceptance
Speaker 1: versus trying to turn you know, three hundred and forty
Speaker 1: nine million people to your way right right, which is
Speaker 1: which is something that you know, if everybody behaved that way,
Speaker 1: we'd never get anything done as a country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a perfect point. And I think
Speaker 2: it's one of those things, right, You've got to meet
Speaker 2: people where they're at, and the world is where it's at,
Speaker 2: especially you know, when I was a little kid, and
Speaker 2: I think about this story for fifth grade about my
Speaker 2: dad really realizing there's a problem fifth grade going to
Speaker 2: a small private school. He comes over to check on me.
Speaker 2: I'm getting bullied every day. I'm coming home crying every
Speaker 2: day my sister.
Speaker 1: And this is that private school. Yeah, your parents are
Speaker 1: paying Yeah, in theory extra right, well, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: or at least more personalized more. I mean, why did
Speaker 1: we move from public to private? It was for that
Speaker 1: right too, to be.
Speaker 2: Fair, though, you know, my parents didn't tell anybody. They
Speaker 2: didn't tell anybody that I was diagnosed with anything because
Speaker 2: my dad said, I didn't want you to be defined
Speaker 2: by it, and I didn't want you to all have that.
Speaker 2: And I think people can say, you know, good things
Speaker 2: are bad things about that, but it certainly was a
Speaker 2: different way, and it now forced me to know that
Speaker 2: I could work through anything. But fifth grade private school.
Speaker 2: He comes into c the pe teacher. I'm in Pe,
Speaker 2: and my dad goes, hey, how's he doing in this
Speaker 2: guy who he knew, big, big former football player, knew
Speaker 2: my dad from football. He said, I think he's doing
Speaker 2: better today, you know, better this week. But he goes great,
Speaker 2: let's go, let's go see him in pee. And the
Speaker 2: guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea, and
Speaker 2: they're looking down on all the fields and dad goes
Speaker 2: wise as well. He says, I've had to put him
Speaker 2: with the girls because I had to protect him from
Speaker 2: all the boys. So you think about that from a
Speaker 2: father's perspective, a fifth grade father hearing that the only
Speaker 2: way for the pe teacher to protect his kid is
Speaker 2: to put him with the girls. My dad said okay,
Speaker 2: thanks and walked off. But I think that sort of
Speaker 2: shows you where I was at in my social ability
Speaker 2: to interact with Some people were sort of magnetic in
Speaker 2: their attraction of friends and kids. I was repellent.
Speaker 1: So I remember my friend Ron describing the issue with
Speaker 1: his son, which was you know that you had to
Speaker 1: learn social cues, right, It sounds like that's what you
Speaker 1: that's what you your father really helped you with, which
Speaker 1: is sure how to how to read other In some
Speaker 1: way ways we don't realize that we're we quickly learn
Speaker 1: how to read people, but not everybody can. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you just like you might need extra help to learn
Speaker 1: actually read words. Some people need extra help to read
Speaker 1: social cues. Right, is that a fair description?
Speaker 2: Very fair? And I needed both, you know, two halves
Speaker 2: to an IQ test, twenty points spread between the two
Speaker 2: halves represents a learning disability. I was between genius and
Speaker 2: mentally retarded, so half the test I was genius. Half
Speaker 2: the tests test I was mentally retarded, so seventy plus
Speaker 2: points spread. So I needed a lot of help learning
Speaker 2: how to read words and forcing through that. And then
Speaker 2: also you pointed out social skills. So one of the
Speaker 2: things my dad did was he would take me to
Speaker 2: lunch with mister Todd, right. And it was easy because
Speaker 2: I didn't have any friends. I didn't have anything else
Speaker 2: to do with my life. My dad was my only friend.
Speaker 2: And I loved interacting with adults because I could talk
Speaker 2: to them about things that I talked to my dad
Speaker 2: about about politics, about sports out I think that's much sports,
Speaker 2: but politics, business, all that kind of stuff. And we'd
Speaker 2: go to munch with mister Todd. And this is a
Speaker 2: perfect example because I would just be badgering the hell
Speaker 2: out of you with questions, how do you book your guests,
Speaker 2: how do you decide what politician's telling the truth? How
Speaker 2: do you come up with your questions on and on
Speaker 2: and on, and my dad rather than sort of saying
Speaker 2: you know, okay, lucky, stop or enough, he would tap
Speaker 2: his watch, and that was my moment to be.
Speaker 1: That was a social cue. He was teaching you.
Speaker 2: That was a social que. So to tap his watch,
Speaker 2: that's my method message to stop talking, but also to bookmarket, right,
Speaker 2: because then we would go back and he'd say, okay,
Speaker 2: mister Todd was talking about going on vacation with his
Speaker 2: kids or taking his wife out to dinner on Saturday night,
Speaker 2: Why do you think that was the right time to
Speaker 2: ask him about his show or politics or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: And it was teaching me how to understand and see
Speaker 2: the world through, as you point out, the natural social
Speaker 2: skills that so many other people have. It's a small example,
Speaker 2: but it was a way to actually teach me in
Speaker 2: real time what was happening, rather than just say, look,
Speaker 2: you know, he can't he can't come out with anybody,
Speaker 2: which at the time I really couldn't. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, if you say to a kid okay, stop, okay,
Speaker 2: not now, okay, whatever, it embarrasses the kid. And so
Speaker 2: that was the line he had to tell.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment for you where it was like
Speaker 1: I get it, you read got it? Yeah? Or is
Speaker 1: this a gradual thing where all of a sudden your
Speaker 1: dad said, do you realize that, you know, you're no
Speaker 1: different than anybody else out there in the world.
Speaker 2: Look, he always made it clear to me that I
Speaker 2: was different and what he would tell me, you know,
Speaker 2: through the bullying and isolation of high school. I have
Speaker 2: had a teacher in eighth grade who said to me
Speaker 2: in an art class, you know, tables and art around,
Speaker 2: you know, in front of the whole class. He said,
Speaker 2: you know, if my dog was as ugly as you,
Speaker 2: I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards. And
Speaker 2: I came home that night and just, yeah, yeah, try
Speaker 2: that one on for size.
Speaker 1: Gosh, that's something you don't forget.
Speaker 2: I guess, no, no, you don't. And I don't forget
Speaker 2: his name either, but we didn't put it in the book.
Speaker 2: I walked across the street back home that afternoon. My
Speaker 2: dad was waiting for me, as he was every every
Speaker 2: time that I came home from school, every day for
Speaker 2: twenty and I was just crying. I said, I was
Speaker 2: just humiliated today and told them what had happened, and
Speaker 2: he talked me through it and worked through it. And
Speaker 2: what was interesting at the end of the conversation every
Speaker 2: night he'd say to me, look, the qualities that make
Speaker 2: you unpopular now and that you are picked on now
Speaker 2: and that make you humiliated now, is what's going to
Speaker 2: be your strength later on. And it wasn't ever about academics.
Speaker 2: It wasn't ever about being smart or successful. It was
Speaker 2: about turn hard work and self esteem was earned, not
Speaker 2: given right. You know, I started as a kid doing
Speaker 2: two hundred push ups a day at six or seven
Speaker 2: years old, because Dad was like, I can teach you
Speaker 2: that hard work is rewarded and that goals matter. So
Speaker 2: that was where he would He was very clear to
Speaker 2: me that I was different. I think you'll appreciate this, Chuck.
Speaker 2: Living where you and I both live now. I used
Speaker 2: to say I never liked anyone who liked high school
Speaker 2: because the values of high school are so screwed up
Speaker 2: that if you like high school, there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 2: And there's a little bit to be said about that
Speaker 2: about Washington too, But if you really.
Speaker 1: Like one student council, I know. I have a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who grew up in Arlington, Leland, you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought there,
Speaker 1: but she loves to remind like she's a native Arlingtonian,
Speaker 1: which means she's grown up in Washington, much different than
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the people that live in this community
Speaker 1: of the DMB. And she said, just remember, everybody who
Speaker 1: comes to Washington wanted to be student council president. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they ever became student council president, but they all wanted.
Speaker 1: So you have. The point is it's a town of busybodies,
Speaker 1: right like it is. It is, it is, it is.
Speaker 1: It is that very part of high school on steroids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you know the best training for a Washington
Speaker 2: newsroom may have been middle school.
Speaker 1: I think some people in Congress would say that as well.
Speaker 2: I think Congress is the only one who has a
Speaker 2: lower approval rating in the media right now.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting you say this about about high school
Speaker 1: and about Let me ask this, though, why did you
Speaker 1: go public with the story? You know, I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't know this, and I wouldn't have I would have
Speaker 1: never picked up You know, sometimes I'd like to think,
Speaker 1: oh so and so you know, you hear this phrase
Speaker 1: on the spectrum. And at this point I don't love
Speaker 1: the phrase because aren't we all on the spectrum? It
Speaker 1: just depends, right, I mean, yeah, all on the spectrum.
Speaker 1: So it's this weird shorthand that we've given to Hey,
Speaker 1: they're a little bit off center from whatever the spectrum
Speaker 1: is and all this stuff. But why'd you choose to
Speaker 1: share your story? Because in some ways it sounds like
Speaker 1: your dad's goal was to help you adapt so that
Speaker 1: you didn't have to constantly say I'm different, treat me different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, I mean you think about where my
Speaker 2: dad was. I think you have to sort of baseline
Speaker 2: this seventh grade start a new school. My parents are
Speaker 2: hoping for this change, sitting in the they get called
Speaker 2: in two or three weeks into school, thinking like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is just a normal check in, right, you have kids,
Speaker 2: you know what you know this is like? And everybody
Speaker 2: sat in the principal's office and the principal looks, starts
Speaker 2: the meeting off cold of my parents, you know, most
Speaker 2: of the school here. In fact, everybody here really thinks
Speaker 2: Lucky is quite weird. That's a seventh grade prince Walchetize.
Speaker 1: You know, I saw that line, you know, and you're
Speaker 1: just sitting there going, yeah, how do you become a
Speaker 1: principal writing about a kid that way? Yeah? Like it
Speaker 1: really well, I'm not trying to like, you know, sound
Speaker 1: like you fire all these people, but my god, right.
Speaker 2: And then right? And then you know, so arrow number
Speaker 2: one through my parents' heart and and look, they know
Speaker 2: that in some ways it's true that I was really
Speaker 2: different and really odd. And then she follows up with
Speaker 2: and I think he and frankly, I think he's pretty
Speaker 2: weird too. So what told you is that people were
Speaker 2: supposed to protect me weren't going to and thought it
Speaker 2: was my fault. Again, great training for a newsroom. But
Speaker 2: the reason I went public with it is because I
Speaker 2: think we are in a reckoning about parenting in America,
Speaker 2: and I think parents need to know there is real hope.
Speaker 2: George Will wrote the forward to this, and he said,
Speaker 2: this is the proof of the mountain moving power of
Speaker 2: parntal love. And I think parents have been told for
Speaker 2: so long, you know, let the village raise your kid,
Speaker 2: you know, but let your kid be them and and
Speaker 2: sort of the experts know better, and there's this new
Speaker 2: methodology and on and on and on and told parents
Speaker 2: basically not to take control, and mine did. And I
Speaker 2: thought it was a really important story for people to hear.
Speaker 1: I well, that is a that is a great way
Speaker 1: to frame it, because you know, the fact is this
Speaker 1: is true not just when it comes to parenting, which
Speaker 1: is the parents need to take more control, right, And
Speaker 1: there's there is this perception that somehow you don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to change things. It's also true with the
Speaker 1: healthcare system, right if you if you don't take control
Speaker 1: of your own medical care. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: remember that the doctors work for you. You don't work
Speaker 1: for the doctors. These people work for you. You don't
Speaker 1: work for them type of mindset. But you, the parent
Speaker 1: have a lot more station here and that you also
Speaker 1: have a lot more responsibility when it comes to your kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love it when you when you it
Speaker 1: feels like we have a a lot of broken young
Speaker 1: men out there right who are susceptible to all sorts
Speaker 1: of violent ideologies or violent actions. Perhaps some of this
Speaker 1: is social media or you know, whatever we're doing here,
Speaker 1: but you know, there is a through line that I
Speaker 1: notice in some of these people, whether it's a school
Speaker 1: shoot or all that is, there is some sort of
Speaker 1: lack of parenting, or a parent not in the picture,
Speaker 1: or a parent sort of not seeing things. What I
Speaker 1: find your story to be inspiring, it's it's a reminder
Speaker 1: that the parent needs to take control here, because nobody
Speaker 1: else is going to love this kid enough to do
Speaker 1: the kid right. Only the parent.
Speaker 2: One thousand percent. I mean, there's so many different ways
Speaker 2: to go with that. Right when I was diagnosed with autism,
Speaker 2: I said this, you know, in the book, they didn't
Speaker 2: really know what it was. It wasn't a spectrum. Was
Speaker 2: either you're profoundly autistic, or you're nothing and a pervasive
Speaker 2: elemental dislay. Whatever. Now it's one in thirty one kids, boys,
Speaker 2: one in twelve.
Speaker 1: Do you think, by the way, communities, what is what
Speaker 1: is your understanding of it? Are we learning to diagnose
Speaker 1: it better? Or is it increasing in the society.
Speaker 2: I think the answer to that is both. And what
Speaker 2: I find interesting is is that there's there's lots of
Speaker 2: theories about what autism. What it's not. You know, Oh no,
Speaker 2: it's not rising, it's just we're diagnosing more. Oh no,
Speaker 2: it can't be vaccines don't know this. There's nobody who
Speaker 2: will tell you definitively, this is what it is. This
Speaker 2: is why we're seeing this. And by the way, you Leland,
Speaker 2: who clearly was diagnosed with what we now know to
Speaker 2: be autism, just got married to this wonderful woman who
Speaker 2: you want to have kids with. Here's we know that
Speaker 2: it's a higher chance that I will have an autistic child,
Speaker 2: but we don't know why, and we don't know if
Speaker 2: there's anything that can be done either during.
Speaker 1: Pregnancy or I mean that implies it's genetic.
Speaker 2: There's some genetic component, right, But at.
Speaker 1: The same time we are having this debate about is
Speaker 1: it outside chemicals or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean I think the answer is we
Speaker 2: don't know, and I think, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: intel science can tell us the answer to that. We
Speaker 2: need to keep looking. It should be you know, we've
Speaker 2: cured a not cured. You can live now with AIDS.
Speaker 2: Is no longer descence dozens of cancers you can live
Speaker 2: with over the past forty years that we're descence. Is
Speaker 2: we can replace your joints and have you become a
Speaker 2: bionic man. Diabetes, all this stuff and autism.
Speaker 3: They're like, you know it, it's not vaccines, but it
Speaker 3: could be like come on guys.
Speaker 1: Well, I just interviewed Michael Osterholme. It was an expert
Speaker 1: on pandemics and all this stuff, and he has a
Speaker 1: very good way that he described science. He says, science
Speaker 1: isn't truth. Science is the pursuit of truth. And we
Speaker 1: also have to be humble about science, meaning it does
Speaker 1: change as we learn more, right, And that's it. And
Speaker 1: the fact is, like we thought AIDS was a death sentence,
Speaker 1: as you point out, we thought cancer itself was a
Speaker 1: death Now now all cancers aren't. You know, we're getting that.
Speaker 1: It's from my father died of hepatitis C in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight. If he gets diagnosed with hepatitis C. Today
Speaker 1: you take a pill and you're fine. But in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, by the way modern medicine we sort of
Speaker 1: you know, in the eighty eight you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have said, oh, the eighties are And yet
Speaker 1: in hindsight, right, that's like, you know, it feels like
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. And it compares point what I.
Speaker 2: Think, you know, I had, I had doctor Jah and
Speaker 2: not doctor Jay Boticharia. I have doctor John tonight. It's
Speaker 2: amazing how TV works that way. But about a Charia
Speaker 2: ahead of the nih That was his message. He goes,
Speaker 2: we have to be humble enough to say we don't know,
Speaker 2: and he said very few scientists are. But to pick
Speaker 2: up on what you were saying about fatherhood and everything else.
Speaker 2: This tells fathers, you can make this enormous difference, and
Speaker 2: you should. And I again, over the past ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen years, fathers have been really sort of told to
Speaker 2: take a back seat and that, you know, not to
Speaker 2: sort of demand more of their sons and demand that
Speaker 2: their sons stand up and take responsibility. And I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, do it two hundred push ups to day
Speaker 2: when you were five or six years old is not
Speaker 2: you know. I'm sure now he would be counseled against
Speaker 2: that because you're, you know, doing whatever. And it was
Speaker 2: a very different way. And I write in the book
Speaker 2: you know and born lucky that how lucky I am
Speaker 2: also that I had two parents eighty you know, and
Speaker 2: a family say together, my parents have married for fifty
Speaker 2: plus years. Tell the story about how they got engaged
Speaker 2: in your rip joint after three dates, but they you know,
Speaker 2: that's not discussed at all. Eighty percent of kids who
Speaker 2: have a disability of some type, right especially autism in
Speaker 2: these other issues, eighty percent of them their parents get divorced.
Speaker 1: It's hard.
Speaker 2: Look, you see nobody talks to Nobody talks about how
Speaker 2: important that is.
Speaker 1: And you do a parent some parent, and look, I
Speaker 1: don't I'm very hesitant to judge those decisions one hundred percent, right,
Speaker 1: because none of us are in that bedroom. But you do.
Speaker 1: We see instances of this where one parent is willing
Speaker 1: to devote themselves and the other parent maybe isn't right,
Speaker 1: or the other parent feels overwhelmed or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and when they walk away, they think are helping and
Speaker 1: they're making it worse. Yeah, I mean it sounds like
Speaker 1: that's the message. I mean, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: into specific examples out of privacy concerns, but there's some
Speaker 1: there's a lot of examples that way where I think
Speaker 1: when you have a single parent where the other parent
Speaker 1: walks away because it's just too hard right in their heads, right,
Speaker 1: it is too disruptive, you know. The sad fact is
Speaker 1: this is the reminder that we don't give out drivers,
Speaker 1: We don't give out the equivalent of a driver's license
Speaker 1: to be a parent, right, And if we did, that
Speaker 1: person probably wouldn't have qualified to be a parent if
Speaker 1: they're willing to walk at the first sign of struggle.
Speaker 1: But that is it is. It's funny you say it
Speaker 1: that you were lucky to be born with two parents
Speaker 1: willing to throw themselves into you, and if you didn't,
Speaker 1: you might not be where you are today.
Speaker 2: One thousand percent. And look, you know, it's important to
Speaker 2: keep in mind. This isn't a prescription, it's not a cure,
Speaker 2: it's not anything else, but it is it is a.
Speaker 1: Sure story, my story for you.
Speaker 2: It's my story. It worked for me, it worked for
Speaker 2: my Dad's a story of hope. And look, you know
Speaker 2: my dad wrote the afterword, which I think is.
Speaker 1: That was the first thing I thought of when I
Speaker 1: started reading, is I wonder how your dad feels about
Speaker 1: all this being public? And then of course you reward
Speaker 1: the reader with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the afterward from my dad and the forward from
Speaker 2: George will and I had to fill two hundred and
Speaker 2: forty pages in the middle. But he noted in the
Speaker 2: afterward that the real hero in this is my mother, right,
Speaker 2: and because she held not only me but him together.
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't know this until I wrote
Speaker 2: the book. Okay, so I decided to write the book
Speaker 2: and tell this story, and I think, you know, try
Speaker 2: to inspire and give people a lot of hope. And
Speaker 2: I told you about all the times that you know,
Speaker 2: I would come home humiliated, bullied, pushed around, isolated at school,
Speaker 2: and I would take it out on my dad. You know,
Speaker 2: we go to my bedroom and he'd sit there and
Speaker 2: listen to me, just hammer away about how angry I
Speaker 2: was and how upset I was and how hard this
Speaker 2: was and why am I having to do this and
Speaker 2: why am I having to go through it? And he'd
Speaker 2: put me to bed or leave and I'd read or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I found this out now twenty five thirty years later.
Speaker 2: He'd go downstairs by ten eleven at night. My mom
Speaker 2: would have been asleep or watching TV, whatever goes to sleep,
Speaker 2: and she'd come out and find him in the living
Speaker 2: room all dark, just sitting on the couch, crying himself,
Speaker 2: having internalized everything that I had been through.
Speaker 1: She was his counselor sound yeah, And then you know.
Speaker 2: He would then talk to her. I mean, it really
Speaker 2: is it. I think, you know, the the amount of
Speaker 2: the role that my mother played and what we talked
Speaker 2: about that I had two parents and that they had.
Speaker 1: Changed your Has this changed your relationship with your mom
Speaker 1: today the more you learned.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a great question. I never went to therapy.
Speaker 2: Right now now every kid has a therapist, and on
Speaker 2: and on and on, Nora.
Speaker 1: Look, I that's you know, and to me, if you
Speaker 1: have somebody to talk to, you have a therapist.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's what therapy need is for us for
Speaker 1: those that don't have somebody to talk.
Speaker 2: No, I don't don't either. But it was just it
Speaker 2: was just funny, you know, the typically in these situations,
Speaker 2: and even I think kids who have great parents they
Speaker 2: have a therapist. And but anyway, I never ad anything.
Speaker 2: So this has been like going to therapy on national television. Right.
Speaker 2: But my dad and I still talk three or four
Speaker 2: times a day. I still call him every night to
Speaker 2: say good night. He is still my best friend. And
Speaker 2: that's just him and I. I don't know how else
Speaker 2: to say it. His our relationship changed because of it. No,
Speaker 2: I think certainly in the in the course of writing
Speaker 2: this book, and I talk about and tell the story
Speaker 2: of Rachel and I meeting and her sort of realizing
Speaker 2: that as we got to know each other, better that
Speaker 2: there were clearly moments that I revert back and there
Speaker 2: still are right to sort of my old tendencies when
Speaker 2: I'm less disciplined than I should be, and her learning
Speaker 2: to accept that. So yeah, I mean, I think I've
Speaker 2: gained through hearing the stories and experiencing the emotion, not
Speaker 2: as a kid living in it, but reliving it as
Speaker 2: an adult. I've gained an enormous more amount of respect
Speaker 2: and gratitude for my parents than I already had, which
Speaker 2: was significant.
Speaker 1: So you offer it up, so I would love for
Speaker 1: you to share how did how did you decide how
Speaker 1: to share your autism with your now wife?
Speaker 2: I think it just sort of came up, right. My
Speaker 2: parents didn't tell me until I was like twenty four,
Speaker 2: twenty five that I had been diagnosed with what we
Speaker 2: now know to be autism. Right, and Rachel and I
Speaker 2: met and we got set up on a blind date.
Speaker 2: Somebody said I'm gonna find you your wife. The next
Speaker 2: day that person sent me a picture of Rachel and
Speaker 2: said I found your wife, And there you go. I
Speaker 2: don't remember, like a Okay, we need to talk, you know,
Speaker 2: turns out that I have whatever it was, I think
Speaker 2: probably just came up in conversation, but she has an
Speaker 2: e Q that's off the charts. Mine was near freezing.
Speaker 1: Probably did she pick up on it.
Speaker 2: I think she picked up on that. There was, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of a peculiar you know, So there were there
Speaker 2: were different tendencies, and I've gotten pretty good at hiding them.
Speaker 2: It still comes out sometimes, and there's times that she'll say, Okay,
Speaker 2: like you know, you're not seeing this rite or hey,
Speaker 2: you need to be more thoughtful about whatever, that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. And you know, I tell for people who
Speaker 2: watch this and are interesting. I tell the story in
Speaker 2: the Book of the Faithful interview on Fox News after
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty election when I went at it with
Speaker 2: Aaron Prainey, who was a Trump spokesperson over the Trump
Speaker 2: claims that he had won and was just going after her.
Speaker 2: And look, I think probably in the moment, did I
Speaker 2: know that that wasn't really what Fox wanted me to do. Probably,
Speaker 2: But I think there's part of condition personality, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it, that I kind of didn't care.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd always been taught to do the right thing.
Speaker 2: My dad always said, do the right thing, no matter
Speaker 2: the consequences, and I you know, it's sort of all
Speaker 2: social graces and social stop points in your brain were lost.
Speaker 2: Can I blame that on autism? I don't know, but
Speaker 2: it certainly goes to there's times that sort of there
Speaker 2: are miss social cues.
Speaker 1: So you thought you missed a social cue in that moment.
Speaker 2: I think if you go back and watch the tape,
Speaker 2: it's pretty clear that all of a sudden the guardrails
Speaker 2: came off.
Speaker 1: What and so you do you attribute it to your autism?
Speaker 1: What do you attribute it to? Here's a piece of
Speaker 1: information you know to be true and you can't believe
Speaker 1: someone is denying it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that. I think that there's a there's
Speaker 2: an indignity to that that comes over me and sort
Speaker 2: of and I find it. And maybe it was because
Speaker 2: my dad taught me for so long how important telling
Speaker 2: the truth was and standing up.
Speaker 1: About blunt truth that you got from your father, right,
Speaker 1: and so in some ways that's going to get passed on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I found it sort of offensive that she
Speaker 2: kept saying something that was just objectively untrue. And there
Speaker 2: you go. I don't ever like to blame you know,
Speaker 2: I blame my autism, but I mean I'll give you
Speaker 2: another example that you know, people say, you know, well
Speaker 2: are you you know, how did you get over autism? Well,
Speaker 2: you never over it. You know. Two or three weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I was with my father in law at his golf
Speaker 2: club and I was putting my golf clubs in my
Speaker 2: travel bag and I was late, and I was focused
Speaker 2: on something else, and this older gentleman come over and
Speaker 2: wanted to talk. And one of the very you know,
Speaker 2: classic tendencies of autism is that you just sort of
Speaker 2: focus on a task and you just everything else gets
Speaker 2: blocked out and you kind of become obsessive. And I
Speaker 2: was obsessive by getting my golf backpacked, and I was
Speaker 2: horrifically rude to him.
Speaker 1: To the point that even he disrupted your routine in
Speaker 1: that moment, you were like, I can't be disrupted, and
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 2: Was focused on I have to get the backpacked. And
Speaker 2: I was really rude, and I afterwards thought, you almost
Speaker 2: in the moment, I knew I should have just stopped
Speaker 2: what I was doing and if I was five minutes late, fine,
Speaker 2: and I just didn't. And it was just and I
Speaker 2: thought to my you know, boy, you're better than this.
Speaker 2: You know, your dad really taught you and it so
Speaker 2: it's still there very much so.
Speaker 1: But you knew yeah in the moment.
Speaker 2: And almost couldn't help myself.
Speaker 1: But not not, but not all folks that have autism
Speaker 1: know that this is happening to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think I think it's very true. And
Speaker 2: again born unlucky, not a cure, not a prescription. In
Speaker 2: my story, I can't remember IF's autism Society Autism speaks
Speaker 2: but says, you know, if you've met a kid with autism,
Speaker 2: you've met one kid with autism. Yeah, so that you
Speaker 2: have to meet. You have to understand where people are.
Speaker 1: So when you are where is it? What do you
Speaker 1: feel like you? Where is it showcased itself as this
Speaker 1: superpower for you?
Speaker 2: I don't know, because I don't know what it's like
Speaker 2: to live without it. I'm always me.
Speaker 1: I give that. I give that same answer when somebody says,
Speaker 1: when I tell people that my dad died when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, oh, what was that like? I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, because I don't know any other way.
Speaker 2: Well, you right, you.
Speaker 1: Just don't know, right, you don't know the other way.
Speaker 1: You just go right, And that's what you're saying is yea.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the second I answer the question, you
Speaker 1: answered that way, I almost That's why I just knocked
Speaker 1: myself for it, because I know exactly you don't know
Speaker 1: any different because you're living your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, you know you you write you just
Speaker 2: talked about your dad dying when sixteen that was really
Speaker 2: the defining moment in my dad's life.
Speaker 1: It's the fork in the road for me. Everything goes
Speaker 1: back to that moment. For me. It's now I'm fifty three,
Speaker 1: and I still like that. It's a yesterday moment I have.
Speaker 1: You know, the weirdest thing that I'm going through now
Speaker 1: is my son is now older than I was, and
Speaker 1: so now I'm having experienced father son experiences with my
Speaker 1: son as a freshman in college that I have nothing
Speaker 1: to compare it to with my relationship with my father
Speaker 1: because he wasn't there, So now they're all new to me.
Speaker 2: Well dad, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think about this all the time because I wonder,
Speaker 1: am I screwing something up? What about what if I
Speaker 1: do it? You know, I don't have any role model anymore, right, I,
Speaker 1: in my head always had a role model up to
Speaker 1: a point.
Speaker 2: I hear you, I'm not a father I think this
Speaker 2: is the first parenting book ever written not by a
Speaker 2: father but by the kid, and.
Speaker 1: Which I think is makes it more compelling because we
Speaker 1: do a lot of these parenting books are written from
Speaker 1: the parent's perspective and you don't know whether it really
Speaker 1: worked or not for the child. And I think this
Speaker 1: book is in some ways more powerful because it's written
Speaker 1: from your perspective rather than And you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things I'd love to someday ask your father
Speaker 1: how he would have you know, now that he saw
Speaker 1: your version of this, does it change how he may
Speaker 1: describe what he did, if that makes sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does. Good luck getting to talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: I imagine if you were willing to talk, the two
Speaker 1: of you would be here together. But yeah, this is
Speaker 1: your story to tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what he said. And he really objects to
Speaker 2: me calling him a hero, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, he lost his dad at sixteen. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I think it speaks exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: We got about five or so minutes here. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about our industry, the media industry. I'm really rooting hard
Speaker 1: for News Nation, thank you. And it's because what you
Speaker 1: know there is no one answer to our media problem. Right,
Speaker 1: we need more voice, Yes and right. It's a yes
Speaker 1: and situation. And yet what you guys are trying to do,
Speaker 1: what I'd like to think I'm trying to do, and
Speaker 1: what I tried to do before, and the media industry
Speaker 1: fights against us, which is, Hey, you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: person who looks at politics through the prism of incrementalism,
Speaker 1: Meaning when you're trying to govern three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million people who are pretty evenly divided, you can't do
Speaker 1: anything rashly. Right, if you want to turn an aircraft carrier,
Speaker 1: you do it slowly, and you do it sort of
Speaker 1: a little bit at a time, because you want to
Speaker 1: bring everybody along. If you do it too fast, you
Speaker 1: will do one step forward, two steps back. And yet
Speaker 1: we know in news or and information is I always
Speaker 1: say the people most interested have strong opinions. The people
Speaker 1: least interested are watching sports or are watching something else. Right,
Speaker 1: And yet I get the sense you're trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to that person somewhere between the thirty five yard lines.
Speaker 1: It's center left, center right. I'd like to say I'm
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. And yet we know the business
Speaker 1: is driven by those between the goal line and the
Speaker 1: thirty yard lines. Right.
Speaker 2: I think it's an excellent analysis.
Speaker 1: What do you think works and what do you think
Speaker 1: has been a struggle in this idea of trying to
Speaker 1: create something that's a bit more I don't know if
Speaker 1: you want to call it centrist, moderate, everybody's got their
Speaker 1: own description of it, but sort of somewhere broader than
Speaker 1: what we've seen on traditional cable.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say a few things. Number one, I
Speaker 2: think your analysis is right, yes, And I will add
Speaker 2: to it that the economic incentives have changed in media, right,
Speaker 2: because when there were three television networks, broadcasters and broadsheet
Speaker 2: newspapers one per town. In order to make money, they
Speaker 2: had to appeal to everybody.
Speaker 1: You wanted to pick up audience as possible.
Speaker 2: Then, as technology has changed, we've gone from broadcasting to cable,
Speaker 2: to narrow casting to YouTube everything else. So now nobody
Speaker 2: has to watch anything that questions their worldview or makes
Speaker 2: them uncomfortable or whatever it is, because of social media
Speaker 2: algorithms is actually sort of tailored to you personally. So
Speaker 2: what has been underserved is the Center because people mistook
Speaker 2: the Center for being bored and uninvolved and uncaring and
Speaker 2: watching sports and just sort of uninterested. And I think
Speaker 2: what we've found is that there is a radical center.
Speaker 2: There are people who are upset with both sides and
Speaker 2: that sleeping giant of the of most of America that's
Speaker 2: between the thirty five yard lines, as you point out,
Speaker 2: that's in a bell shaped curve. That's where most people live.
Speaker 2: They've been awoken and they don't they do care about sports,
Speaker 2: but now they're scared. They're scared of the extreme left
Speaker 2: and they're scared of the extreme right. So we're at NewsNation.
Speaker 2: We try to be is in the middle, calling out
Speaker 2: both sides. Both sides get a hard get a hard time,
Speaker 2: And I think, what's different about my show? And you
Speaker 2: know I say this, I got asked or invited not
Speaker 2: to return to Fox News because I've went after Donald
Speaker 2: Trump and I have had Trump send down the White House,
Speaker 2: send out stories and commentaries I've done and said, look,
Speaker 2: see how great of a job we're doing. Leland says,
Speaker 2: we're doing a great job. So to me, that's what
Speaker 2: a journalist should be. And I think people are yearning
Speaker 2: for and that radical center, for somebody to call balls
Speaker 2: and strikes in a sense on both sides so that's
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do. Book. So far, it's working
Speaker 2: two ways. One, ratings are up significantly. We beat MSNBC
Speaker 2: and CNN across the board last weekend. And two, I
Speaker 2: think when I meet people and see them. It used
Speaker 2: to be when I left Fox, like what happened to you? Oh,
Speaker 2: I went to News Nation News, And now I have
Speaker 2: people coming up to me saying, I see you on
Speaker 2: News Nation, and I love that you give both sides
Speaker 2: a hard time, and I love that I don't agree
Speaker 2: with you all the time. And it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: so it must be working.
Speaker 1: That's a that's A. That second part. I mean, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, frankly, I experienced a brief period
Speaker 1: of that, like you know, for a while too, where
Speaker 1: have you gone?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And then now just suddenly people saying, boy, you're in
Speaker 1: my feeds all the time. I now see you. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm this This thing is is working. Breaking, it is,
Speaker 1: but it is a It does feel like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite expressions is peeing and a hurricane.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels I'm a look, I grew up so
Speaker 1: far south. It's north, you know, Miami is the sixth
Speaker 1: Borough of New York, right and Florida. You know, I joke,
Speaker 1: we're so backwards in Florida to go you have to
Speaker 1: go north, to go south, because culturally, the farther north
Speaker 1: you go the But I love me a good Southern
Speaker 1: expression like that, and I cleaned it up a little bit,
Speaker 1: But that is the sense sometimes, right, you you sit
Speaker 1: here and I'll watch I'll watch a story go Haywire
Speaker 1: on cable, and I'll sit there and say, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other bigger stories happening that are
Speaker 1: much more consequent, and yet we're obsessing over a vote.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to be dismissive of the Epstein story.
Speaker 1: I'm not dismissive of it. I'm not dismissive of what
Speaker 1: happened to the victims. I think they deserve their say.
Speaker 1: But because of the way the incentive structure works in media,
Speaker 1: there was this obsession over covering it, and it was
Speaker 1: across the board. It didn't matter whether it was on
Speaker 1: sort of the legacy cable channels or on this And
Speaker 1: You're sitting there going, you know, these tariffs are a
Speaker 1: much bigger story. What's happening with the Venezuela, whether or
Speaker 1: not the president has authority to bomb a boat in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: whether or not. You know, there are much more consequential stories,
Speaker 1: but they're not as entertaining as Epstein, like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you fight that? I've got the luxury
Speaker 1: where I don't have to have a boss these days,
Speaker 1: But I if I look, I remember those days where
Speaker 1: all right, I want to do this and if I
Speaker 1: want to do this story, I got to sort of
Speaker 1: do this story so that I can do this story.
Speaker 2: Look, I totally hear you. And that's the challenge in
Speaker 2: a newsroom every day. And and I think to a
Speaker 2: certain extent, you know, it's the challenge for all of
Speaker 2: us of what is important, right, because there.
Speaker 1: Is we're all curators. I look at it this way.
Speaker 1: In some ways, we're all the same, and that we're
Speaker 1: all trying to curate what we think people should be
Speaker 1: focusing on. Yeah, and you know, and and now there's
Speaker 1: a lot of curators out there. We used to have three.
Speaker 1: As you point out, it was Walter, it was mister Brinkley, right,
Speaker 1: and it was whatever combination of of unknown people. ABC
Speaker 1: would come up with, well said, right, yeah, un till
Speaker 1: Jennings really right, NBC and ABC had had some NBC
Speaker 1: and CBS had real stability, ABC less so because they
Speaker 1: were always the number three, right, they were always trying
Speaker 1: to catch Walter or mister Brinkley. I always call him
Speaker 1: mister Brinkley. I used his desk at NBC, so I
Speaker 1: have a very fond I I Brinkley at Russer type
Speaker 1: of mindset there. But but it is a Now there's
Speaker 1: a thousand of US curators.
Speaker 2: Yeah or more. Look, I think it goes back to
Speaker 2: all news is biased, right, because it's done by humans,
Speaker 2: and it's also you.
Speaker 1: Know what I like to do. I checked my pulse
Speaker 1: and people ask me about bias, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all born with original bias, right, No, you just
Speaker 1: talked about you had two parents. Not everybody's born to
Speaker 1: two parents. Not everybody's born right, like you know, not
Speaker 1: everybody's born in a situation that can survive a challenge
Speaker 1: that's in health or whatever, and it shapes you. I
Speaker 1: would call that a bias, right the fact.
Speaker 2: Look, I was always told bias isn't having an opinion,
Speaker 2: it's excluding opinions. That's how That's how I was taught,
Speaker 2: and I keep that in mind actually sort of as
Speaker 2: a north Star. And look, bias isn't so much how
Speaker 2: you cover the news, it's what you cover. Is you
Speaker 2: just pointed out because of all your cover is Epstein,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of other stories out there that have different.
Speaker 1: You've made a decision not to right right.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I think it is. It's huge
Speaker 2: in terms of what is decided to be covered. What
Speaker 2: I think I try to think about, and you know,
Speaker 2: I grew up in Missouri. I come from you know,
Speaker 2: middle class, upper middle class family.
Speaker 1: In the city or Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: Saint Louis, but I spent a lot of time outside
Speaker 2: of Saint Louis and I and I kind of try
Speaker 2: to go back and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: in local news and small markets, and I spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time, you know, in Colorado in small markets.
Speaker 2: So I I think that I tend to go back
Speaker 2: to when people are drinking with their buddies on Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 2: wh they're watching college football, when they're playing golf, what
Speaker 2: are people talking about, how is it how are their
Speaker 2: lives being changed and affected? And in trying to cover
Speaker 2: it through that prism. You know why why this matters.
Speaker 1: You came up through the business, through local markets.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Most people younger than you have not. I know, it's terrible,
Speaker 1: I and I didn't. I came in a different way.
Speaker 1: I was a I worked on a trade publication about
Speaker 1: campaign politics. I remember there was a moment.
Speaker 2: In the house, well I'm going to give you one
Speaker 2: quick thing, But you were out in the field. Sure
Speaker 2: know what it's like to hustle the stories, not in Washington, not.
Speaker 2: You know what it's like to be on the trail.
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring up local is that I
Speaker 1: really believe the loss of local is why they don't
Speaker 1: trust us as much as they used to do, because
Speaker 1: local was our character reference to the national. Right, your
Speaker 1: local people knew who the local journalists were. People's families knew,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, my son goes to school with his daughter
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, right, they knew they were members
Speaker 1: of the community, and that created a level of trust
Speaker 1: locally that could never be matched nationally because the national
Speaker 1: didn't live there, right, the local lived there. And I
Speaker 1: also view that local journalism is different from national journalism
Speaker 1: in that on the local level, you're there to help
Speaker 1: people live their lives. Ninety percent of the stories local
Speaker 1: news does is to help people live navigate their life
Speaker 1: in that community. National news is different, right, It's about
Speaker 1: telling you what you need to know in civics, like
Speaker 1: what you need to know about the country as a whole, which,
Speaker 1: of course in and out of itself, is more divisive.
Speaker 1: Local news much less divisive. But I think the loss
Speaker 1: of local news, as I joke, a man named Craig
Speaker 1: came along and said, you know, classified ads ought to
Speaker 1: be free. YadA, YadA, YadA. We destroyed the entire local
Speaker 1: news ecosystem, right. We didn't fully appreciate how much that
Speaker 1: revenue stream kept so many local publications together. And yet
Speaker 1: I look at our media problem today and I think
Speaker 1: the loss of local is what is the biggest. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like a house can stand up, but there's
Speaker 1: always one pillar that is keeping the whole thing up together.
Speaker 1: And it turned out local news was that pillar. And
Speaker 1: when we wiped it out, it collapsed the entire information
Speaker 1: ecosystem as far as I'm concerned, which given your experience
Speaker 1: coming through local, how would you revitalize it? O.
Speaker 2: Look, I got taught in one of the best parts
Speaker 2: of writing born lucky is having been able to say
Speaker 2: really nice things about people who helped me, who understood
Speaker 2: that I was a weird kid and socially awkward and
Speaker 2: therefore was a target and protected me or took a
Speaker 2: chance on me in one way or another. So we
Speaker 2: used the names of all the really nice people, and
Speaker 2: I didn't use the names of anybody who was mean
Speaker 2: to me, because it wasn't about settling scores, and I
Speaker 2: thought that was important.
Speaker 1: Some people would have done it the exact opposite way.
Speaker 2: Well, I am my father's son, but a guy named
Speaker 2: Brad Remington who was my first news director in Saint Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 2: when I was an intern at KTBI, and then hired
Speaker 2: me as an anchor at KTVR and Denver. Content drives viewers.
Speaker 2: If you put out good content, they will come because
Speaker 2: people are the viewer, and people are smart. They are
Speaker 2: extraordinarily interested in their own city, town, state, country, and
Speaker 2: that you if you fill that void with good, meaningful
Speaker 2: news and information, people will respond to it. And I
Speaker 2: think that that is the lesson that good journalism is
Speaker 2: rewarded because it's something that people crave and always have.
Speaker 2: People always want to know what the news is, and
Speaker 2: I so, yes, it's become commoditized. The flip side of
Speaker 2: that is, I think that if you if you offer
Speaker 2: something special, if you if you really offer people compelling,
Speaker 2: must read, must know information. I remember there was research
Speaker 2: done in the nineteen nineties about why people watch local news.
Speaker 2: The number one reason was the weather the number two
Speaker 2: and so they didn't sound stupid at the water cooler.
Speaker 2: So if you can provide them that information in that context, well,
Speaker 2: that's always a thing.
Speaker 1: That's always a reminder that what we really are as educators,
Speaker 1: we just never call ourselves that. I like that because
Speaker 1: ultimately we're helping. We're giving people information they didn't know. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: if we're a good teacher, we're putting it in context.
Speaker 1: If we're a great teacher, we're explaining, you know, the
Speaker 1: origin of it and all those things. But ultimately we're
Speaker 1: educators and are you are we good at Are you
Speaker 1: a good educator? Are you a bad educator? But you're
Speaker 1: educating no matter what you're doing when you're in the
Speaker 1: news and information business. Hey, Leland, I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to get to know you because reading
Speaker 1: the book, I find it, I find it weirdly unfair
Speaker 1: in a situation like this, Suddenly I feel like I
Speaker 1: know a lot about you right in this situation, and
Speaker 1: it almost feels upside down. I mean, you've put yourself
Speaker 1: out here well and so people and I admire it,
Speaker 1: but it's you gave up a little privacy.
Speaker 2: Well, if it helps people, and if it helps parents
Speaker 2: and family members of kids who are struggling, whatever it was,
Speaker 2: to be more supportive, to show up more for those
Speaker 2: kids to know that they're really making a difference, it's
Speaker 2: worth it.
Speaker 1: Look the number, you know. The simplest way I've described
Speaker 1: it is that this is a reminder that parenting is.
Speaker 2: Everything well, and I hope that there's enough parents who
Speaker 2: gain something from it that it makes it so that
Speaker 2: there's some lives that have been changed, and that then
Speaker 2: it'll be worth it. So, I mean, Born Lucky is
Speaker 2: my story. I always say, you know, it is my book.
Speaker 2: It's about me, but it's not for me. It's for
Speaker 2: parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who have a kid.
Speaker 2: And what parent doesn't want to help their kid.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. That's a reminder what we all have
Speaker 1: in common. He Leland, congratulations, Thanks Chew. Like I said, uh,
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Leland and if
Speaker 1: you want to check him out and check out his reporting,
Speaker 1: he's on News Nation in prime time. Formally, it's on
Speaker 1: the what used to be WGN, and Hey, as a
Speaker 1: baseball fan when I hear WGN, I think of the
Speaker 1: Cubs and Hey, we're in the middle of baseball season.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It is Wednesday, which also means I've got a new
Speaker 1: top five list.
Speaker 2: The top Jest, Top five, Top top Jest.
Speaker 1: Top And here's something that I am pledging to do
Speaker 1: is that the first the first Wednesday of every month
Speaker 1: when I have in which is October first, I will
Speaker 1: do Senate races up until November of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and the second Wednesday of every month, I'll do a
Speaker 1: top five involving governor's races. So my top five involving
Speaker 1: center races today are simply this the top five center
Speaker 1: races that are most likely to switch parties. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying any of these five are going to switch parties,
Speaker 1: but they're the in order of most likely to switch
Speaker 1: to Essentially, in this case, it's the five most competitive
Speaker 1: races in the country, but in the order of most
Speaker 1: likely to flint. So number one on that list is
Speaker 1: North Carolina, the open seat. There. We've had a little
Speaker 1: bit of early polling. You've got somebody who's held state
Speaker 1: wide office versus somebody who hasn't. Right, Michael Wattley has
Speaker 1: it as essentially the Republican nominee to be and the
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee to be. Roy Cooper has one state wide
Speaker 1: office multiple times. But you already see it's I think
Speaker 1: I've seen two different polls and they both basically have
Speaker 1: shown the same thing. Cooper's got a lead, but it's
Speaker 1: all within the margin of era forty six, forty two,
Speaker 1: forty seven, forty four. And guess what, that's what the
Speaker 1: numbers are going to be between now and November. This
Speaker 1: will be, as the cliche goes, all about turnout. But
Speaker 1: I do think since this is a Republican held seat,
Speaker 1: the Democrats a slight favorite, right, I would probably make
Speaker 1: if you want to do it as point spreads here,
Speaker 1: I'd probably make Cooper a one and a half point
Speaker 1: favorite here a little bit, but you know that's when
Speaker 1: you're talking about margins that small. It doesn't take much
Speaker 1: to lose this race. But when you look at it
Speaker 1: for the rest of the map, and I think it
Speaker 1: shows you how tough the path is for Democrats to
Speaker 1: pick up the four seats they need to win the
Speaker 1: Senate when the best shot at flipping a seat that
Speaker 1: they have is essentially a coin flip on its own, right,
Speaker 1: you need your third or fourth seat to be the
Speaker 1: coin flip. And the fact is they're not anywhere near that.
Speaker 1: They might get there. We'll see with recruiting. So right now,
Speaker 1: this one year and one month out from election day
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, number one most likely Senate seat to
Speaker 1: flip North Carolina number two. I didn't put an open
Speaker 1: seat there. I think the last time I did this,
Speaker 1: I said, I usually prioritize open seats, but I have
Speaker 1: as off there. I think the John Assoft seat Georgia's
Speaker 1: Senate seat is all the polling have indicated. He's got
Speaker 1: a narrow lead, just like Cooper, right, nothing's big I am.
Speaker 1: I am not as convinced as others that George's a
Speaker 1: pure swing state. I think Georgia is a organizing state
Speaker 1: that Democrats, you know, sort of have to a lot
Speaker 1: of things have to go right for them to win
Speaker 1: statewide races. The last time John Osoft was on the ballot,
Speaker 1: Rafael Warnock was also on the ballot with them when
Speaker 1: we had the two Senate seats at the same time.
Speaker 1: How much did that matter with mobilizing African American vote.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth something can Assoff generate the same
Speaker 1: enthusiasm as Reverend Warnock. That's an open question. When you
Speaker 1: look at other statewide races in Georgia, right, it is, Yes,
Speaker 1: Biden carried it in twenty twenty, Harris got close but
Speaker 1: lost it. One governor's race there has been fairly close,
Speaker 1: but the second but the one in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: wasn't that close. It's still an uphill battle for Democrats
Speaker 1: to win. State wide race is sort of in a
Speaker 1: generic environment. I'm not saying this is going to be
Speaker 1: a generic environment, and a lot of this may depend
Speaker 1: on who the primary is. But when you just look
Speaker 1: at the demographics of the state and sort of just
Speaker 1: by the pure numbers, I put Georgia as the second
Speaker 1: most likely to flip. And again the fact that Georgia
Speaker 1: is above other Republican held seats. You know, this is
Speaker 1: why the Democratic path to winning four seats to get
Speaker 1: control of the Senate. The path is so narrow that
Speaker 1: right now it's not visible. I'm not saying it might
Speaker 1: not become visible, but right now it is not visible.
Speaker 1: Number Three, I'm the most likely to flip. I put
Speaker 1: the open seat in Michigan. Mike Rogers is not going
Speaker 1: to have a primary. That's a big advantage. The Democratic
Speaker 1: primary is gonna be messy, it's going to be fascinating,
Speaker 1: it's going to be telling in many ways. I think
Speaker 1: it's a preview of what to expect in a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight Democratic presidential primary. You have sort of different flavors.
Speaker 1: You have sort of an establishment favored in Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 1: You're going to have sort of an outsider but sort
Speaker 1: of in the mainstream wing of the party in Molly McMorrow.
Speaker 1: And then you have a more progressive candidate Abdul Sayed.
Speaker 1: And so I'll do ALLOL sayat sorry, And I think
Speaker 1: that's very representative of what you're going to see. Some
Speaker 1: outsiders that are mainstream. You're going to see some progressives
Speaker 1: that are exciting the base and could create a very
Speaker 1: messy primary. It could be very hard to unify. But
Speaker 1: we don't know yet. And I still think there's a
Speaker 1: slight blue lean to Michigan generically, which is why I
Speaker 1: have it further down on the list than Georgia on there.
Speaker 1: As remember, right now Michigan is a Democratic held seat,
Speaker 1: but it is you know, if you look at the
Speaker 1: open seats, the Democratic open seats Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Illinois,
Speaker 1: Michigan is the best shot that Republicans have of winning
Speaker 1: one of those open seats. But I still actually think
Speaker 1: Georgia right now is still a better shot for them
Speaker 1: than any of the open Democratic seats. I'll be doing
Speaker 1: these monthly, so this list could change. Number four on
Speaker 1: the list. I tell you I vacillated on this. I
Speaker 1: went back and forth. I had three different seats in
Speaker 1: this slot over the last few hours as I was
Speaker 1: having these debates. I ended up settling on Maine at
Speaker 1: number four. I do think Susan Collins is very difficult
Speaker 1: to beat, but I also think this is Susan Collins
Speaker 1: has never attempted to run for reelection this unpopular before.
Speaker 1: Her favorable ratings are as low as they've ever been.
Speaker 1: Her unfavorable rating in Maine is as high as it's
Speaker 1: ever been. I am not going to underestimate her ability
Speaker 1: to win elections, and this is not a presidential year.
Speaker 1: I always thought she'd be more vulnerable in a presidential year.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. We could have an intense primary here
Speaker 1: if the governor Janet Mills does get in and it
Speaker 1: becomes sort of establishment versus progressive primary with the oyster farmer.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens. I will say this, I think
Speaker 1: if Janet Mills runs, she'd better come across more enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about wanting to be a Senator than she has so far.
Speaker 1: The way that she sort of kept her likely candidacy
Speaker 1: live has been this sort of if it's the mindset
Speaker 1: I have to if you twist my arm. You know
Speaker 1: one thing about Susan Collins, she loves being in the Senate.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it always plays well with voters.
Speaker 1: I get that you may be a reluctant partisan and
Speaker 1: maybe you don't want to do that, but are you
Speaker 1: reluctant to actually do the job. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be in Washington, Okay, then don't run for the office.
Speaker 1: Right So I'm a little I'm gonna be if she runs.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious to see what her rollout is because
Speaker 1: she needs to show a lot more enthusiasm for this race,
Speaker 1: I think to win it. Then she's shown so far
Speaker 1: and in the number five slot. If I vacillated a
Speaker 1: bunch with Maine, I always was gonna have Maine in
Speaker 1: my top five. For this fifth slot, I contemplated three
Speaker 1: different races. New Hampshire right, it's an open seat. Johnny Soon,
Speaker 1: who news being recruited heavily. It looks like he's more
Speaker 1: likely than not. Big baseball card collector, by the way,
Speaker 1: really great collection. His is all pre war. He's real
Speaker 1: super old school in that. Scott Brown has not been
Speaker 1: polling as well. I understand why Republicans think he's he's
Speaker 1: he's not electable there. I still think that he would
Speaker 1: run a competitive race against Chris Pappus, but there's no
Speaker 1: doubt all the polling has shown that, you know, the
Speaker 1: Chris sonun who hangover effect I think has really helped Johnson,
Speaker 1: who's name idea. What's funny is is well Johnson Who's
Speaker 1: no trumpy trumper. He was much more of a conservative
Speaker 1: ideologically than his brother. But his brother's governorship I've seen
Speaker 1: very much through a moderate lens, and I think that
Speaker 1: spillover has really helped because and I think John would
Speaker 1: agree with me, his poll numbers look better today than
Speaker 1: they did when he when he ended up losing reelection
Speaker 1: the last time he ran for the Senate. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if he wants to admit that his younger
Speaker 1: brother might have helped his political political brand a little bit.
Speaker 2: Ohio.
Speaker 1: With Shared Brown in the race, I cond of played
Speaker 1: putting that in five and then Iowa. I ultimately decided
Speaker 1: to go with New Hampshire because Sonunu looks like he's
Speaker 1: more likely to be in And I do think Sonunu
Speaker 1: that's a different ballgame, especially you're going to have real
Speaker 1: investment of a whole bunch of money that comes with it,
Speaker 1: so it'll become self fulfilling and we'll be staring at
Speaker 1: one of these one two three point races in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you my thinking on Ohio. I just don't
Speaker 1: know how Shared Brown gets to fifty, right, I'm not
Speaker 1: ruling it out. I also think Brown has a complicated
Speaker 1: messaging challenge, which I've shared with you before. On tariffs.
Speaker 1: On one hand, the tariffs are are causing a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of consumer pain. On the other hand, tariffs
Speaker 1: are not a bad word to working people in Ohio.
Speaker 1: When it comes to goods, perhaps you'll see a shared
Speaker 1: brown say, the food tariffs are bad, the tariffs on
Speaker 1: autoparts are good, the tariffs on cars are good. They're
Speaker 1: bad on food. And I'm kind of wondering if we're
Speaker 1: going to start to see that split because I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations with labor leaders where you know,
Speaker 1: they like that Trump is willing to use tariffs. They
Speaker 1: liked that Biden was willing to use tariffs, particularly when
Speaker 1: it came to some of the to steal into some
Speaker 1: of those some of the sort of the non food tariffs, right,
Speaker 1: but the tariffs on ag are really causing pain. The
Speaker 1: tariffs on coffee are causing all of us pain. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if you're going to start to see an
Speaker 1: attempt by Democrats who are still trying to win labor
Speaker 1: back and labor union members back, finding a way to
Speaker 1: split at the attack on tariffs and essentially go after
Speaker 1: the food tax, to griffs on agg and what's hurting
Speaker 1: farmers and try to sort of create a create a
Speaker 1: sort of a separate distinction with the steel tariffs and
Speaker 1: the auto tariffs, and then I contemplated Iowa because of
Speaker 1: the open seat. But I will tell you, h look,
Speaker 1: I've been impressed without quickly Republicans have rallied around at
Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson's campaign. I still think this is going to
Speaker 1: be a competitive race. But another reason I kept it
Speaker 1: out of the five slot is I've been following a
Speaker 1: story and I don't know how many of you have,
Speaker 1: but I keep an eye the story about the the
Speaker 1: Moines superintendent who turned out to be not an American
Speaker 1: citizen that came to as a shock to a lot
Speaker 1: of people in des Moines. He was apparently well regarded
Speaker 1: in his job, but somehow he was in this country
Speaker 1: illegally and had a de port deportation notice for over
Speaker 1: a year, and there was sort of an awkward you know,
Speaker 1: as usual. How Ice has been conducting itself has been horrendous,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of unnecessarily confrontational. But it doesn't mask
Speaker 1: the issue that apparently this the now former des Moines superintendent,
Speaker 1: I believe he's resigned at this point, essentially lied to
Speaker 1: the school board of des Moines. Well guess what one
Speaker 1: of the people running for the US, Nate Jackie Norris,
Speaker 1: is on the Des Moines school Board. This story hasn't
Speaker 1: finished playing out, but I wonder how much this sets
Speaker 1: back Democrats in the state. Generically, may not. It may
Speaker 1: end up being a non issue a year from now,
Speaker 1: but it isn't a net positive for the Democratic brand,
Speaker 1: and I think that's fair to say. Again, let's see
Speaker 1: this whole story play out, make sure we have all
Speaker 1: the facts on this, But it was I've been following
Speaker 1: the story pretty closely. It's like, you're just like, wait,
Speaker 1: what when I saw that Ice had detained the superintendent
Speaker 1: of schools? Wait? And he was not an American citizen?
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Right? There's a lot that needs
Speaker 1: to be unpacked with this story. But to say that
Speaker 1: it's it's super high profile in the largest media market
Speaker 1: in the state, so it's going to get its share
Speaker 1: of attentions. In what I would call my others receiving
Speaker 1: votes category, they're not near the top five yet, but
Speaker 1: who's to say they won't get there. Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota
Speaker 1: Republicans have had a surprisingly hard time finding a credible
Speaker 1: candidate in the Minnesota open seat. Alaska and Louisiana still
Speaker 1: waiting for some candidate things to develop there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the five right now most likely to flip my top
Speaker 1: five right now thirteen months from election day North Carolina one,
Speaker 1: Georgia two, Michigan, three, Main four New Hampshire. So with that,
Speaker 1: let's do a few questions.
Speaker 2: Ask Chuck all right.
Speaker 1: First question comes from Luke anyways, Hey, Chuck, technical clarification question.
Speaker 1: I keep hearing Republicans saying that the Democrats are going
Speaker 1: to shut down the government for quote, illegal immigrants to
Speaker 1: get healthcare? Is this true? Are the subsidies in question
Speaker 1: really just for undocumented immigrants? If not, and I suspect not,
Speaker 1: then why is this lie so pervasive and unquestioned? I
Speaker 1: haven't heard left leaning outlets discuss this point, and it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how much of a kernel of truth
Speaker 1: is in the claim that Dems are unwilling to admit.
Speaker 1: Are Democrats able to handle this talking point without fracturing
Speaker 1: what's left of their coalition? Thanks in advance, love the show, Luke.
Speaker 1: So Luke, look, no, the answer is no, it's not true. Now.
Speaker 1: What happened before is that they discovered that some people
Speaker 1: who were here, undocumented people were somehow accessing some benefits
Speaker 1: because perhaps they were with somebody or had a child
Speaker 1: who is an American citizen who was getting benefits. Right,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for the kernel of truth, it's not
Speaker 1: the parents may be here illegally, but their kid is
Speaker 1: here legally. They do have access to the medicaid, to
Speaker 1: these various things, but the parent doesn't. So I'll let
Speaker 1: you decide. Can you say, are the parents that are
Speaker 1: not of legal status in this country benefiting because their
Speaker 1: child who does have legal status is getting a benefit?
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going here. So, if you're looking
Speaker 1: for the kernel of truth, which many on the right
Speaker 1: would say, you know democrats are claiming it's not true,
Speaker 1: but you know they're benefiting from this, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: that's the semantic you'd be debating over. But no, nobody
Speaker 1: who's here illegally is supposed to be eligible for this.
Speaker 1: But if you are an American citizen, and then you are.
Speaker 1: And so where the gray area is is is the
Speaker 1: children who are here who were born here to folks
Speaker 1: who are not of legal status. I hope that helps
Speaker 1: a little bit in the clarification. Next question comes from
Speaker 1: will E says, Hey, Chuck, your commentary was spot on.
Speaker 1: I just don't know which commentary I'll keep going because
Speaker 1: aren't they all sorry? I think that's what you have
Speaker 1: to do as a podcast host now, right, is I
Speaker 1: have to overinflate my ego and how say how smart
Speaker 1: and great?
Speaker 2: I am? Right?
Speaker 1: Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Anyway? I digress,
Speaker 1: But anyway, I went to my first Wisconsin game in
Speaker 1: over fifteen years and it was ugly student section channing
Speaker 1: fi or fickle friends texting me f fickle don't see
Speaker 1: how he makes it for the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: The bye this weekend is going to be our best
Speaker 1: weekend for the rest of the season. Enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: So obviously, what he's saying is my commentary on football
Speaker 1: was spot on. I appreciate, thank you, and I By
Speaker 1: the way, some of you are probably asking me, weren't
Speaker 1: you at a football game this weekend? How come you
Speaker 1: didn't talk about in the last show. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the second here, but I want to get through a
Speaker 1: couple more questions. This next one comes from Deborah You. Hey,
Speaker 1: Chuck love the podcast. Your recent discussion on polls showing
Speaker 1: democrats less interested in talking with Republicans really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: Many of us have tried to have rational, civil conversations
Speaker 1: with Trump supporters, presenting facts, listening, seeking common ground, but
Speaker 1: it feels futile. I consider myself moderate and open to compromise,
Speaker 1: yet too often the loudest up voices drown out dialogue
Speaker 1: with outrage and hypocrisy, leaving me exhausted and disheartened. Well, Deborah,
Speaker 1: I would just say start with people in your family
Speaker 1: that that you know, Start with people you work with,
Speaker 1: or people in your neighborhood that that you that you
Speaker 1: know are on the other side, and try it that way.
Speaker 1: I think if you have some sort of previous relationship
Speaker 1: that isn't political with somebody, that's where you can start
Speaker 1: to break, to sort of break the ice and thaw
Speaker 1: things out a little bit. I try humor, you know. Look,
Speaker 1: I I have over I have my own ways that
Speaker 1: I you know, I consider myself pretty good at reading people.
Speaker 1: I kind of know where I think people will go. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if I don't know somebody very well, I
Speaker 1: usually try to connect on another subject first, sports or
Speaker 1: weather or you know, if you're on an airplane, you
Speaker 1: know the frustrations of flying or something, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of non controversial like that. But I think it feels
Speaker 1: like what you're describing is having a conversation with somebody
Speaker 1: that's super online. And I will say, there's no I've
Speaker 1: tried to have civil conversations with pen pals. I have
Speaker 1: quite a few pen and piles I've I've I've accumulated
Speaker 1: over the years. Some of you may be listening now
Speaker 1: that are regular pen piles with me. Where Frankly, if
Speaker 1: you if you email me, I usually will respond if
Speaker 1: you're fairly civil, even if you're tough and discree. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think you you know, I really you're always
Speaker 1: you know, giving a pass to this side or give
Speaker 1: it a pass to that side. You know, as long
Speaker 1: as you're not like filled with venom, I'm usually going
Speaker 1: to respond and try to have a civil back and
Speaker 1: forth because frankly, I'm always trying to learn. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to understand the you know, what is it that has
Speaker 1: you exercised? Maybe it's something I'm missing, So I always
Speaker 1: think there's something to learn. But when the person's super
Speaker 1: online and they're just sort of you know, you know,
Speaker 1: they spend more time reading cat Turd fifty two or
Speaker 1: whatever that right wing meme, Twitter feed is or TikTok feed.
Speaker 1: I just call them all cat turns, but I think
Speaker 1: one of them is called cat turd fifty two.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's cat turn ninety six. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like they're all Mike Lee, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Senator Mike Lee is like somebody who can't
Speaker 1: have a conversation with anymore because he's just gotten. He
Speaker 1: calls himself based Mike Lee, right, like in weird ways,
Speaker 1: at least admitting that he's, hey, I am drunk on this,
Speaker 1: and he is sort of drunk on online maga, right.
Speaker 1: And I guess he's sort of like the reverse reform smoker, right.
Speaker 1: He was. He was anti he was an anti trumper
Speaker 1: from the beginning, and then when he flipped a maga,
Speaker 1: he decided, I'm gonna smoke four packs a day. You're
Speaker 1: not going to have a rational debate with with somebody
Speaker 1: who's who's that online? So I guess, you know it.
Speaker 1: It's certainly a better conversation to be had in person
Speaker 1: then it will be, uh, you know, digitally anyway. But
Speaker 1: it probably is best to start off with somebody you
Speaker 1: might have a pre existing relationship with even if it's
Speaker 1: something as innocuous as you're dry cleaner, or you know
Speaker 1: somebody you just happen to see while you're walking your
Speaker 1: neighborhood all the time. Next question comes from Gail in Woodinville, Washington. Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: so glad I discovered the toodcast me too. Tell your friends, Uh,
Speaker 1: our numbers are growing a lot, that's for sure. You
Speaker 1: know again, I think of Sister paud in my chest.
Speaker 1: We're the fastest growing podcast in you know this section three,
Speaker 1: two four five. So anyway, I'm sort of kidding. I
Speaker 1: know hindsight is twenty twenty, but do you think the
Speaker 1: country would be better off now if Trump had been
Speaker 1: re elected in twenty twenty. I've heard this argument. For
Speaker 1: the sake of argument. Let's forget that many of us
Speaker 1: probably would have died from COVID under his leadership. But
Speaker 1: had he been reelected, Mike Pence would have been VP,
Speaker 1: and we might never have known of J. D. Varans.
Speaker 1: Trump and his clown posse might have been bumbled through
Speaker 1: the second term. With more guardrails. There would have been
Speaker 1: no indictments or prosecutions to trigger his revenge to her.
Speaker 1: There wouldn't have been the four years from twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one to twenty twenty five to develop Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five and give Stephen Miller the opportunity to consolidate power,
Speaker 1: and best of all, Trump would be out of office
Speaker 1: right now. What do you think? Keep up the great work, Gale.
Speaker 1: I have had this conversation. I have humored this conversation
Speaker 1: with various friends of mine on this front. It's a
Speaker 1: it's as as you know, I'm going to have a
Speaker 1: what if series coming up, and what I do is
Speaker 1: sort of forks in the road. You know, what if
Speaker 1: this would have happened instead of this? In the past,
Speaker 1: I've done what if Hillary Clinton had run for president
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four instead of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: which you've actually won the presidency in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: I certainly make the argument that her best chance was
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, more so than eight or sixteen
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. What if Bill Clinton had
Speaker 1: resigned in nineteen ninety eight, as many Democrats wanted him
Speaker 1: do in the peak of Monica Lewinsky, then you would
Speaker 1: have had a President Gore running for a full term
Speaker 1: in two thousand what is that election like nine eleven
Speaker 1: still happens, but this time it's ten straight years of
Speaker 1: democratic So you see how you know, you start to
Speaker 1: go down these roads. And so anyway you have I'll
Speaker 1: tell you this, you have potentially helped preview one of
Speaker 1: the what ifs that I want to go down because
Speaker 1: I think this is it is true. This is a
Speaker 1: more damaging presidency to the sort of guard rails of
Speaker 1: American democracy than if he had served two consecutive terms.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. It's an interesting question though,
Speaker 1: whether I think it's weirdly, I think we need another
Speaker 1: twenty years to figure out whether it was better or not.
Speaker 1: You know, do any of the Biden policies work, And
Speaker 1: if they do, you know you're going to have to
Speaker 1: consider those as well. So I think it's I understand
Speaker 1: where you're coming from. I think there's there's certainly when
Speaker 1: you look at the when you look at this the
Speaker 1: what he's done so far and we're not even through
Speaker 1: year one, and what I've said earlier about Steven Miller
Speaker 1: and we'll see how the shutdown goes. I think it's
Speaker 1: put it this way, Donald Trump is a much weaker
Speaker 1: figure inside the Republican Party if he had won reelection,
Speaker 1: and he'd have been a much weaker figure sooner inside
Speaker 1: the party. And maybe Democrats control the Senate after twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two in a bigger way, not a smaller way.
Speaker 1: Maybe their map is more navigable, right Like, I could
Speaker 1: certainly paint a very rosy picture for Democrats right now,
Speaker 1: but it's a anyway. The point is is I think
Speaker 1: this is a discussion that you should look forward to
Speaker 1: on the Chuck Podcast towards the end of the holiday season,
Speaker 1: when I will do my annual what if series that
Speaker 1: I've done in my previous iterations of the Chuck Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you search them, some of these episodes NBC's taken
Speaker 1: off the website, but some of them you can find.
Speaker 1: But it's I call it my what if series, so
Speaker 1: you can check it off from there. Do one more question,
Speaker 1: and then I'll give you a quick little update about
Speaker 1: my football travels. This next question comes from Cold Tea. Oh.
Speaker 1: The question is, Hey, Chuck, hopefully you've seen this crazy story.
Speaker 1: The Des Moines superintendent was arrested by ice, which is
Speaker 1: crazy enough, but it could also take down a leading
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate candidate, Jackie Norris, who was chair of the
Speaker 1: school board. Wild stuff in Iowa. No one seems to
Speaker 1: know what is true or not. You just summarized everything
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier with my top five list and
Speaker 1: why I didn't put Iowa in that fifth spot because
Speaker 1: I want to see this story finished playing out. It
Speaker 1: is wild. If you don't know the story, it does
Speaker 1: feel it's amazing people that love Look, the superintendent was
Speaker 1: beloved by any people, and they don't want to believe
Speaker 1: the facts that apparently are in this case. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think the the fallout from this could be
Speaker 1: more damaging to the Democratic brand. I again, I'm I
Speaker 1: want to wait. I'm not gonna lie. I want to
Speaker 1: wait a little bit to just let's get all the
Speaker 1: facts out. Let's see what everything looks like. Is he
Speaker 1: is everything that's been said true that he you know
Speaker 1: about a weapon in his car, cash, et cetera. He
Speaker 1: was the second superintendent job. I mean, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like does anybody do any vetting anywhere in this country
Speaker 1: on this front? So there's a there's a more information
Speaker 1: I want to know. But I thought Cole you summarized
Speaker 1: it well. Have you seen this crazy story? You couldn't
Speaker 1: have made up a story like this right as a
Speaker 1: plot line. And this is always a reminder when you're
Speaker 1: whenever I'm trying to write fictional political storyline, for the
Speaker 1: various attempts I've done for political fiction, story like this happens,
Speaker 1: and you're like, how do you manufacture fiction when the
Speaker 1: truth is so much crazier? All right, I will tell
Speaker 1: you I was at that crazy Dallas Green Bay game.
Speaker 1: I think I sort of hinted that I was going
Speaker 1: to that, which in full sort of toodcast behind the
Speaker 1: curtain plotting. You know what that meant is that Monday
Speaker 1: podcast I taped before I left for Dallas on Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: I went down Sunday, came back Monday, so it was
Speaker 1: a quick trip. My son's doing great. Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1: I know some of you are at least thinking that,
Speaker 1: so I thought I would pre answer that question. But
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. I'll we get to the game
Speaker 1: and it feels it felt like sixty forty cowboys to
Speaker 1: Packers fans. There were Packers fans everywhere, and I know
Speaker 1: some of it is like, oh, you know, we're packers,
Speaker 1: so all we're seeing are the other Packers. Fans, But
Speaker 1: when the teams came out, you felt the cheers and
Speaker 1: early on, and of course the Packers got a quick
Speaker 1: start thirteen to nothing, and here they're about to kick
Speaker 1: the extra point, and you could just feel the Dallas
Speaker 1: fans were like, oh, this is going exactly as I feared.
Speaker 1: US Packer fans were as cocky as ever. And then
Speaker 1: they blocked that extra point and run back for two
Speaker 1: points and it's instead of fourteen to nothing, it's thirteen
Speaker 1: to two. And I just sit there and look at
Speaker 1: my son. I'm like, what the second week in a
Speaker 1: row we're getting We get that field goal block with
Speaker 1: the Browns and then this extra point block, so we
Speaker 1: just are stewing from here on out. We stopped and
Speaker 1: joined the game. We're angry at Rich Bisaccia, who's the
Speaker 1: special teams coach, who a bunch of US Packer fans
Speaker 1: have been like, get rid of this guy. The special
Speaker 1: teams is atrocious. It's been atrocious for two years now.
Speaker 1: And then every single time on the kickoff, the Packers
Speaker 1: didn't know the rules. They kept the ball would bounce
Speaker 1: in the landing zone and they'd take it in the
Speaker 1: end zone thinking they were getting it at the thirty five,
Speaker 1: and they did it multiple times, and it comes out
Speaker 1: to the twenty. All these little hidden yardages, and then
Speaker 1: there was the bizarre play calling of Lafleur at the
Speaker 1: end of the first half, end of the regulation, and
Speaker 1: at the end of the overtime. This was one of
Speaker 1: those where so the game ends in a tie and
Speaker 1: the Dallas fans felt like they won something and all
Speaker 1: of us Packer fans felt like we lost. This was
Speaker 1: not one of those where everybody, yeah, and you did.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I didn't leave gone. Boy, that was a
Speaker 1: great game. It was not a great game. The Packers
Speaker 1: played terribly. The Cowboys. It was really interesting. They were
Speaker 1: playing afraid for the first quarter and a half. It
Speaker 1: was like they did not want Michael Parsons to even
Speaker 1: get a chance to sack doacks. They didn't even bother
Speaker 1: to pass the ball, or if they did, it would
Speaker 1: be like a quick strop and a little dump off.
Speaker 1: Then they get this two point conversion. Like Schottenheimer, the
Speaker 1: Dallas coach decided, you know what, there are other plays
Speaker 1: in the playbook, why not? And you know the way
Speaker 1: football is, right, it's like a this this game felt
Speaker 1: like one of those college games where a highly ranked
Speaker 1: team is visiting an unranked team and they let the
Speaker 1: unranked team hang around, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the unranked team realize they have a chance to win
Speaker 1: and they start playing the best game of their lives.
Speaker 1: George Pickens, who's never consistent when he's on a football field,
Speaker 1: paid attention and seem to actually participate in the offense
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent of the plays. And guess what,
Speaker 1: when he's fully paying attention, he's a dangerous threat. The
Speaker 1: Packers couldn't get a pass rush. They were only you know,
Speaker 1: the whole key to the Packers is just that doing
Speaker 1: that four man pass rush, the assumption was they were
Speaker 1: going to get to Dak and they couldn't get to him.
Speaker 1: Really until the overtime did they finally seem to fit
Speaker 1: figure that out. But Schottenheimer out coached Halfley, and we
Speaker 1: hadn't seen Halfley out coach. So the Packers are are
Speaker 1: what are we now? Two to one and one? And
Speaker 1: it just feels off right, And now you got to
Speaker 1: ask yourself, was was the Lions game sort of an
Speaker 1: anomaly where the Packers simply a little bit more ready
Speaker 1: and the Lions weren't they were still in preseason mode,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, they look like the best
Speaker 1: team in that division, and the Packers are not playing
Speaker 1: like the best team in that division. So what I
Speaker 1: have to say, I think it's a full indictment on
Speaker 1: the coaching staff, from Halflee to Lafleor to Bisachia Basacia.
Speaker 1: This is I don't I admire that Lafleur is very
Speaker 1: loyal to his coaches, but he kept the defensive coordinator
Speaker 1: a season too long. And I think it's painfully obvious
Speaker 1: with these new special teams rules that nobody on the
Speaker 1: team seems to know that they probably kept the special
Speaker 1: teams coach a season too long on this front, And
Speaker 1: if you follow Packer, you know, for those of you
Speaker 1: that follow the Packer stuff closely, you know that most
Speaker 1: Packer fans are raging right now about that more than
Speaker 1: ever on the college front. Look, it was just a
Speaker 1: great game, great weekend of games, and it was great
Speaker 1: to not have to worry about the Hurricanes to be
Speaker 1: in that. I will say this, I'm a little bummed
Speaker 1: that Florida State lost that Uva game on Friday night
Speaker 1: because what that sets up is a more desperate Florida
Speaker 1: State team against Miami this Saturday. This is another big
Speaker 1: test for crystabal rights. There was a couple of coaches
Speaker 1: that have high ranked teams that have not been able
Speaker 1: to win the big game. James Franklin at Penn State,
Speaker 1: Mario Cristobal, whether it was at Oregon or at Miami.
Speaker 1: You know, are you going to be able to win?
Speaker 1: Be able to you know, not lose a dumb game.
Speaker 1: I think Christa Ball passed one test against Florida when
Speaker 1: they played not their best game. That's a game they
Speaker 1: would have lost last year, and they figured out how
Speaker 1: to win it this year. This is the first road
Speaker 1: test against a team that's more desperate to win than Miamias.
Speaker 1: You know, can we do? We do? We treat it
Speaker 1: as a business trip and we go up there and
Speaker 1: just out physical them. There's no reason why they shouldn't.
Speaker 1: But Florida State's now a bit more desperate. I would
Speaker 1: have preferred a more hyped up Florida State team thinking
Speaker 1: that they're going to go nose for nose and would
Speaker 1: would have had a little bit more attention on that.
Speaker 1: But it's uh. I'm looking forward to Saturday night in Tallahassee.
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna lie. I wish they had won
Speaker 1: that Friday game because I think in some ways they're
Speaker 1: going to be a bit more desperate, which means they're
Speaker 1: going to be playing whatever that means, right, just slightly
Speaker 1: slightly with more urgent and see more in time, because
Speaker 1: Florid State has to win if they want to get there.
Speaker 1: Because I think one thing we know is true, ten
Speaker 1: and two ACC teams are not getting into the playoff.
Speaker 1: We already found that out. Might be found out the
Speaker 1: hard way. You're going to have to be eleven and
Speaker 1: one in the regular season. You can have two losses,
Speaker 1: but your second loss has to come in in that
Speaker 1: conference title game. So Florida State has to. If they
Speaker 1: accumulate their second loss, I think they go down where
Speaker 1: the only shot they have would be to win the
Speaker 1: conference a la Clemson last year. So we shall see
Speaker 1: that's coming up. By the way, I want to share
Speaker 1: one more totally inane fact and for five of you
Speaker 1: you'll find this funny or weird, or maybe you think,
Speaker 1: why the hell is he sharing this? But I did
Speaker 1: something that I have never done. I swear in my
Speaker 1: entire life. I got to the end of a chapstick too.
Speaker 1: I am one of those people. I never have chapstick
Speaker 1: when I need it. So you go and you're always
Speaker 1: buying new ones, always buying new ones, and then you
Speaker 1: find your old stuff and all this stuff, right, and
Speaker 1: over time I end up with my little sticks of chapstick.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I got one near my my keys are, and one
Speaker 1: in my car, and one near my bed and all
Speaker 1: these different things. Right, Well, I finally worked. I think
Speaker 1: I had this stick of chapstick for three years. I
Speaker 1: didn't know you could ever get to an end of
Speaker 1: a chapstick tube. But I finally, for the first time
Speaker 1: in my life, made it to the end of the
Speaker 1: chapstick tube. I feel like I've finally not wasted money
Speaker 1: for once on all the unused chapstick that I have
Speaker 1: lost over the years. I'm sure it's all with all
Speaker 1: of my missing pairs of sunglasses as well. So with
Speaker 1: that piece of inane trivia that I hear that podcasters
Speaker 1: are supposed to share with their with their listeners and viewers,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it for twenty four hours and we'll
Speaker 1: see it when we upload again.