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Speaker 1: They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: check podcast. It is a Wednesday in an even numbered year,
Speaker 1: which means were the day after a Tuesday, which means
Speaker 1: if it's Tuesday, somebody was voting somewhere the somewheres that
Speaker 1: I that we should be paying attention to special election
Speaker 1: to place Marjorie Taylor Green. That it was an all
Speaker 1: candidate jungle primary. That's why you see the Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: looking like they did really well. There was a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of Republicans. This now goes to a runoff. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't hold my breath about Democrats there. They you know,
Speaker 1: if they lose by single digits, it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: This is still a very conservative district. And in fact,
Speaker 1: I think I read one stat that even in those
Speaker 1: big Public Service Commission races in November of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: I believe the Democratic candidate's it's still underperformed by some
Speaker 1: thirteen points in this district. So it's a it is
Speaker 1: a very conservative district, and it is it is going
Speaker 1: to be. It is going to go to the Trump
Speaker 1: endorsed candidate. But you know it again, to me, single
Speaker 1: bidgets would be a big deal come the runoff, and
Speaker 1: it will be a low turnout situation. So the likelihood
Speaker 1: of it being closer than it should be is is higher.
Speaker 1: There in Mississippi, we had no really major primaries. Bennie Thompson,
Speaker 1: the longtime Democratic member of Congress there was challenged by
Speaker 1: someone younger that was not It's competitive, but not that close.
Speaker 1: He survives. I'm gonna have a little bit more to
Speaker 1: say about the battle for the Senate because we had
Speaker 1: a big, a big change with the Montana News. I
Speaker 1: actually have a little bit of an update on where
Speaker 1: I think Montana stands in the battle for the Senate.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, it is in play. The question is
Speaker 1: how in play is it. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a complicated issue for the National Democratic Party because of
Speaker 1: the strength potential strength of this independent candidate in the
Speaker 1: former University of Montana military veteran Seth Bodner. I also
Speaker 1: because it's Mississippi primary day, I decided. I told you
Speaker 1: I've been sitting on some book research for years that
Speaker 1: is about featuring and showcasing the all time greatest campaigns
Speaker 1: in every state. Well it's Mississippi week, so I thought
Speaker 1: I would reveal my top five all time campaigns in
Speaker 1: Mississippi history. And it's got a bit of a twist.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a history lesson and a
Speaker 1: little bit of a showcase. And I think it shows
Speaker 1: you how far where Mississippi was, where it has been,
Speaker 1: where it's headed, and where it is now. But if
Speaker 1: you're a political junkie, I think you'll enjoy it. And
Speaker 1: as always, if you disagree with my order, let me
Speaker 1: know what I missed. I'd love to this to me,
Speaker 1: is open source history, lesson here on that stuff. Then
Speaker 1: of course I'll take some questions. But let's begin with
Speaker 1: what is now consuming this presidency and what may devour
Speaker 1: this presidency, and that is the war of choice. And
Speaker 1: that's what this is, and this is what makes it
Speaker 1: so precarious politically for Donald Trump. His war of choice
Speaker 1: in Iran. We're more than a week into it, and
Speaker 1: depending on which part of the administration you listen to,
Speaker 1: this war is either going to end very quickly, extend
Speaker 1: for quite some time, or evolve into something else entirely.
Speaker 1: And that uncertainty alone would be enough to rattle markets
Speaker 1: and policymakers. But boy, the first two days of this
Speaker 1: week revealed something else that may be even more destabilizing,
Speaker 1: a massive credibility problem, not just with allies, not just
Speaker 1: with Congress, but with financial markets. We've now had two
Speaker 1: days of trading since this war started this week, right,
Speaker 1: and both days the administration appeared to want to manage
Speaker 1: or manipulate the markets. So on Monday, right, we had
Speaker 1: this interesting glimpse of how this residency is operating during
Speaker 1: this crisis. Financial markets open the day already rattled by
Speaker 1: the war, oil prices surged amid fears that the conflict
Speaker 1: was going to disrupt global supply. The White House quickly
Speaker 1: moved to calm those fears. President Trump suggested, I called
Speaker 1: up the CBS News correspondent and he suggested to her
Speaker 1: that the war might end sooner than expected. Remarks that did.
Speaker 1: What by the way, he did this interview before the
Speaker 1: markets closed at four pm Eastern time, and those remarks
Speaker 1: helped ease market anxiety, pushed oil prices lower, pushed the
Speaker 1: markets higher. And then hours later he speaks in front
Speaker 1: of House Republicans, and what, by the way, what a
Speaker 1: disastrous speech that was. If he's trying to rally the
Speaker 1: troops or the midterms. I don't know if the troops
Speaker 1: are going to go through a paper mache wall, let
Speaker 1: alone one that is going to have bricks in it.
Speaker 1: But I digress. By the evening, the President was warning
Speaker 1: that the United States was prepared to escalate the conflict
Speaker 1: and continue fighting until Iran was, in his words, totally
Speaker 1: and decisively defeated. Now it's possible he was reading for
Speaker 1: an old speech script. Maybe his mind he was trying
Speaker 1: to speed up the end of this thing, and then
Speaker 1: he had prepared remarks for the House Republican retreat. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's the thing with this administration, right, can you trust
Speaker 1: anything they do? Can you at all trust what's coming
Speaker 1: out of their mouth means something for more than an hour.
Speaker 1: So in the same day on Monday, we got both
Speaker 1: reassurance and ended with escalation. So markets in the morning,
Speaker 1: military messaging in the evening. Is that what we're supposed
Speaker 1: to take away from this? Not one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: it was really anything other than do whatever it took
Speaker 1: to calm the markets down and we'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This feels like they are managing this by the day,
Speaker 1: by the hour, right, and we know the only guardrail
Speaker 1: that moves Trump at all is the markets. He's been
Speaker 1: unusually sensitive to market reactions, you know, care Off day.
Speaker 1: If he could pull it undo the start of this war,
Speaker 1: I think he already would have, just like he did
Speaker 1: with his tariffs on Liberation Day. But you can't unbomb
Speaker 1: the country Kenya. So now it appears the presidency is
Speaker 1: now chasing the markets, and this kind of rapid shift
Speaker 1: suggests something important about how this administration is govering. Right now,
Speaker 1: it looks a lot less like a carefully sequenced strategy
Speaker 1: and more like a presidency that is operating by the
Speaker 1: seat of their pants reaction instead of direction. It's just
Speaker 1: what I said on Monday. Welcome to quicksand. This presidency
Speaker 1: is getting devoured ever so slowly by the quicksand of
Speaker 1: this war in Iran. Every attempt to stabilize one part
Speaker 1: of the situation creates risking instability somewhere else. That was Monday.
Speaker 1: Then Tuesday, a social media post from the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Energy briefly suggested that the US naval forces had successfully
Speaker 1: escorted oil tankers through the straight of hormones. Well, guess what.
Speaker 1: Markets loved it. They reacted instantly. Oil prices plunged in
Speaker 1: just a few minutes in exchange traded fund tied to
Speaker 1: oil futures lost roughly eighty four million dollars in market value.
Speaker 1: Little manipulation of the markets. Huh. And then the post
Speaker 1: was suddenly deleted. The explanation, Ah, the caption was wrong.
Speaker 1: A staffer may have done it. They want to check
Speaker 1: that staffer's investment brokers account. By the way, maybe that's true.
Speaker 1: Do you trust them? Credibility matters big time at a
Speaker 1: time of war, and this administration has burned through so
Speaker 1: much of its credibility with the average American that you
Speaker 1: are going to see a lot of questions about everything
Speaker 1: they do or say, because what they say is not
Speaker 1: what they do, and what they do is not what
Speaker 1: they say. This administration has spent years eroding trust with institutions. Proactively.
Speaker 1: They go out of their way to make sure you
Speaker 1: don't us certain institutions. Look what they've done to the FBI.
Speaker 1: They want the FBI distrust it, they want the irs
Speaker 1: distrust it, and they've done it. They've made allies question
Speaker 1: what we do. And now the markets what are they
Speaker 1: supposed to believe? So when something like that happens, whether
Speaker 1: it's intentional accidental, the benefit of the doubt is gone.
Speaker 1: This is two days in a row. Look, we always
Speaker 1: had the rule of three for deciding something's a trend.
Speaker 1: So we've had two. But let's just say we're all
Speaker 1: watching on Wednesday to see are they going to play
Speaker 1: this game again? And markets do assume the government is
Speaker 1: trying to move prices, and it's a dangerous place when
Speaker 1: the global energy system is already under pressure for more
Speaker 1: because eventually markets will stop reacting to government reassurance they
Speaker 1: will only react to reality, and that's a scarier place
Speaker 1: to be. I've noticed Secretary Treasury has been quite quiet.
Speaker 1: He normally loves to jump in and play the game himself. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the reality of the war is already becoming clear. This
Speaker 1: was amazing. During their brief into Congress, we learned we
Speaker 1: had already heard that the first week of the war
Speaker 1: was costing at least six billion dollars worth of munitions. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently they told Congress they burned through five point six
Speaker 1: billion dollars worth of munitions in the first two days
Speaker 1: of fighting alone. Two days. That's not a cost of
Speaker 1: the war. That's just the cost of the ammunition. That
Speaker 1: doesn't count the fighter jets that were lost to friendly fire. Right,
Speaker 1: we know that's millions and millions of dollars just the ammunition.
Speaker 1: And now the Pentagon's reporting roughly one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: American service members have been wounded, most with minor injuries.
Speaker 1: But it is pretty clear what a RAN's up to.
Speaker 1: Iran is borrowing a playbook that overmatched countries have used
Speaker 1: with success in the past. Whether it was what we
Speaker 1: had to face in Vietnam, what Russia had to face
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. What the Taliban did to us in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: the insurgency that we dealt with in Iraq. This is
Speaker 1: the asymmetrical part, the uncoordinated part of the Iranian Republican Guard.
Speaker 1: This is why we are dealing now with an asymmetrical
Speaker 1: fighting enemy, and that is a scary place to be.
Speaker 1: Recent history tells us why. So meanwhile, the economy, So
Speaker 1: you have rising oil prices which will impact inflation, a
Speaker 1: potentially shrinking jobs market. Right. That was also happened last week,
Speaker 1: and it has made the s word start to appear
Speaker 1: stagflation fear because you've got oil prices surging, shipping routes
Speaker 1: to the golfer under pressure. That's going to screw with
Speaker 1: the supply chain. We saw what that did during COVID.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have the same supply chain issues going through
Speaker 1: the straight upore moves. Energy infrastructure across the region has
Speaker 1: become a target. Even Pete Haig said that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: was trying to push back on what the Israelis have
Speaker 1: been doing and bombing too much of the energy infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Aron's targeting energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Ua and Katar
Speaker 1: They want to make this as painful as possible in
Speaker 1: order to have our allies pressure the United States and
Speaker 1: Israel to back off because of what they're going to
Speaker 1: do to the global economy and if we end up
Speaker 1: with stagflation rising prices combined with slowing economic growth. As
Speaker 1: Austin Goulesby, he was president of the Chicago Fed one
Speaker 1: time Obama economic advisor, he warned recently that when rising
Speaker 1: unemployment collides with an oil shock, it creates the exact
Speaker 1: kind of environment central banks fear the most. It's hard
Speaker 1: to deal with. This is what life was like in
Speaker 1: the seventies, and it sucked. Okay, My memories are sitting
Speaker 1: in gas lines every other day, depending on if you're
Speaker 1: an even number and odd number in your life plate,
Speaker 1: and you had a weight in line to get if
Speaker 1: it was your day for gas, and guess what, there
Speaker 1: was always a line on that front. Yet the administration
Speaker 1: is reporting exploring ways to bring gas prices down, as
Speaker 1: they should. Right, You've got to try to do something. Now,
Speaker 1: what they may try to do may risk unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: They want to intervene. Somebody has thrown out this is
Speaker 1: such a classic Trump move. I know Trump hasn't put
Speaker 1: his fingerprints on it yet, but this feels like him.
Speaker 1: He wants to intervene in the oil futures markets, basically
Speaker 1: use US treasuries to mess around with the futures markets
Speaker 1: to try to drive down the price of oil. Let's
Speaker 1: just say economists reacted with alarm. One anaists warned it
Speaker 1: could trigger the mother of all short squeezes because the
Speaker 1: truth is simple. The Federal Reserve can print reserves. They
Speaker 1: can print money, right and the Treasury can print money.
Speaker 1: Neither one of them can print oil. And if they
Speaker 1: try to use that money to manipulate the oil markets,
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Speaker 1: Slash the Chuck toodcast use that code. Now, Democrats better
Speaker 1: be careful of something here right now because of the
Speaker 1: current shutdown involving TSA agents, right, especially as the war
Speaker 1: sort of consumes Remember the underlying issue that was driving
Speaker 1: the shutdown of the partial shutdown of DHS and the
Speaker 1: first right, So while we have all these unfolding events
Speaker 1: overseas and in global markets, we are still sitting with
Speaker 1: this partial shutdown of DHS. TSA agents are now facing
Speaker 1: the possibility of missing their second paycheck this week. I
Speaker 1: have flown this week. TSA agents are getting kind of grumpy.
Speaker 1: All of fellow travelers couldn't have been. You could hear it.
Speaker 1: Everybody's been extra nice hanging there. Thanks for coming to work,
Speaker 1: That's what I said. That's what a lot of people said.
Speaker 1: But they're not getting paid. We've got spring break. Travel
Speaker 1: is just starting to kick in. This is going to
Speaker 1: be one of those things where public inconvenience is not
Speaker 1: going to care about the political reasons why we're in
Speaker 1: the situation that we're in. So Democrats have had leverage
Speaker 1: in this fight, right the unpopularity of immigration enforcement of DHS.
Speaker 1: But Christy Numb's been fired. There's kind of a focus
Speaker 1: on a whole bunch of other stuff. So in some ways,
Speaker 1: when do Democrats declare victory on this, they got numb fired.
Speaker 1: They're going to get some changes, They're probably going to
Speaker 1: get mull into at least agree to some things. That
Speaker 1: is confirmation hearing this is just like that last shutdown.
Speaker 1: They've made their point, they got some action. They certainly
Speaker 1: have the public confirmation by the administration to the American
Speaker 1: public that all was not right with the HS. They
Speaker 1: better be careful here right right now. They don't want
Speaker 1: to do it. You know, this is one of those
Speaker 1: classic case when you're just just look at the politics
Speaker 1: of the situation. The party you're running against is just
Speaker 1: imploding on itself. This war with Iran is going to
Speaker 1: be a weight around the ankle of every Republican running
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. So this is a classic case
Speaker 1: where get out of the way, don't offer up your
Speaker 1: opponent a lifeline, and sticking to their guns too long
Speaker 1: on this partial shutdown, which is doesn't deal directly with
Speaker 1: the part of DHS they want to be dealing with
Speaker 1: that's already been funded. You're punishing the flying public, you're
Speaker 1: punishing college kit, you're punishing families wanting to go visit
Speaker 1: Grandma on Grandpa or Easter in passover. So I think
Speaker 1: their calculation needs to shift here sooner rather than later,
Speaker 1: because this is this is one of those again, when
Speaker 1: the public is inconvenience, politics doesn't become very clean anymore.
Speaker 1: And if airline airport lines starts stretching two or three
Speaker 1: hours during the spring break travel season, people who normally
Speaker 1: ignore the Washington mess start paying attention. So it's this
Speaker 1: is a Democrat forced shutdown of DHS. And you know
Speaker 1: there can point finger point all this and back and forth,
Speaker 1: but they ought to be a bit aware of this
Speaker 1: and ask themselves do they want to get in the
Speaker 1: way of right now is a never ending set of
Speaker 1: negative headlines impacting elected Republicans. But let's go back to
Speaker 1: Iran a minute, because the bigger challenges. I do think
Speaker 1: if he can undo this, see what this is not
Speaker 1: going well? And there's because the problem is the enemy
Speaker 1: always gets to say and Iran is not. This idea
Speaker 1: that he was going to pull a venezuela is clearly
Speaker 1: what he thought and now that ain't gonna happen. By
Speaker 1: the way, this Kamane son, are we going to see him?
Speaker 1: Is he alive? Is he in the hospital. Was he is?
Speaker 1: He just sort of up up front for the Republican
Speaker 1: Guard here? What's going on? Do we need this is there?
Speaker 1: I think if if the Iranian regime wants some credibility still,
Speaker 1: they probably need to have some proof of life here
Speaker 1: on the Kamani Sun. It is interesting that he's been
Speaker 1: named the third leader of Iran since the Islamic Revolution
Speaker 1: in seventy nine, but we've not seen or heard from him.
Speaker 1: Just something to keep in mind. But that gets us
Speaker 1: back to how does this end? What does victory look like?
Speaker 1: President has offered several versions. Ran must surrender. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're going to do that anytime soon. Iran must
Speaker 1: be rendered militarily useless. Well, how much do you bomb Tehran?
Speaker 1: How much infrastructure do you get rid of? The more
Speaker 1: infrastructure you get rid of, the more we're going to
Speaker 1: have to pay to rebuild. And this idea that we're
Speaker 1: not going to pay to rebuild a country we've bombed,
Speaker 1: it's pretty un American of us. We rebuilt Japan, we
Speaker 1: rebuilt Germany. This is what we do. This is how
Speaker 1: we keep credibility in the world as leader of the
Speaker 1: free world. Maybe this is not the way Donald Trump thinks,
Speaker 1: but it will be a stain on America if we're
Speaker 1: not involved in this. Now he's also said Iran must
Speaker 1: be totally defeated. What does that look like? They're powerful phrases,
Speaker 1: but they're not strategies. Regional officials people in Turkey are
Speaker 1: warning that Iran and its allies have enough drones and
Speaker 1: missiles to sustain months of fighting. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Iranians have a lower level of what victory looks
Speaker 1: like for them. The regime surviving is victory, so we
Speaker 1: could pummel them to death. This is like a bad
Speaker 1: version of Ropodote. Right. If they're still in power despite
Speaker 1: holy hell terror that has been dropped upon them by
Speaker 1: the US military, in the Israeli military, and the regime
Speaker 1: is still in power, that becomes a symbolic victory against
Speaker 1: in a way way that that that that is hard.
Speaker 1: I don't think we fully appreciate. It's like what happened
Speaker 1: with US in Vietnam and with the Russians in Afghanistan. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump can he handle months of this? Even
Speaker 1: the Iranians just surviving months will do huge We'll have
Speaker 1: a huge negative impact on the global economy, gigantic impact
Speaker 1: on the global economy which will hit us. Does it
Speaker 1: cause a recession? Right? If we're in this four months.
Speaker 1: The problem he's got is he doesn't want to send
Speaker 1: in any ground troops and the and the reality is
Speaker 1: if you talk to military leaders, they are going to
Speaker 1: tell you you're not gonna be able to resolve this
Speaker 1: situation in the way he wants to resolve it, probably
Speaker 1: without putting in troops on the ground. And yet you
Speaker 1: want to talk about a catastrup probably the point where
Speaker 1: he would lose. Many Republicans on the record that are
Speaker 1: elected office against thing like that, so they don't want
Speaker 1: to risk that. But that's the problem. When you start
Speaker 1: a war where you automatically box yourself in on things
Speaker 1: you won't do well, then you limit your ability to
Speaker 1: actually win the thing. This is why there were so
Speaker 1: many people trying to pull him back, including the Chairman
Speaker 1: of the Joint Chiefs. Let's not forget he was doing
Speaker 1: everything he could to make sure they were are you
Speaker 1: sure you want to do this, because it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be clear how this was going to end, especially
Speaker 1: since we worked did not work. There was no coordination
Speaker 1: with there was no opposition to coordinate with, and what
Speaker 1: opposition there was might have been killed by the regime
Speaker 1: during the protests. So this fantasy that Trump had that
Speaker 1: this was going to be he could find his Delci
Speaker 1: Rodriguez is Iatola Rodriguez, is just that a fantasy. I
Speaker 1: do you want to point out a few other things,
Speaker 1: probably the surreal moment of the week, the old Russians
Speaker 1: and Witkof and this sort of clown show that is,
Speaker 1: these negotiators that all are doing business with these Middle
Speaker 1: Eastern countries and then magically are somehow the negotiators here right. Well,
Speaker 1: President Trump held a phone call with Vladimir Putin this
Speaker 1: week and according to the Kremlin, Putin offered several proposals
Speaker 1: to help end the war with Iran. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, apparently one of Trump's envoys, this is Steve Whitcoff.
Speaker 1: He was asked on television whether Russia might be sharing
Speaker 1: intelligence with Iran and he said, well, they reassured us,
Speaker 1: and Putin reassured him in the call with Trump that
Speaker 1: they weren't. And Witkoff said, with a straight face to
Speaker 1: a CNBC anchor, we can take them at their word.
Speaker 1: So again this is the same guy would not take
Speaker 1: the Iranians at their word, but we'll take the Russians
Speaker 1: at their word. If your strategy depends on taking Vladimir
Speaker 1: put at his word, you may not have much of
Speaker 1: a strategy. So, yes, the Iranians may be getting intelligence
Speaker 1: helped from the Russians. There's no doubt the Russians want.
Speaker 1: The best thing to happen to Russian this war with
Speaker 1: Ukraine is for the United States to be using up
Speaker 1: munitions that we're going to get rerouted to Ukraine and
Speaker 1: instead we're using them up and it starves Ukraine of resources.
Speaker 1: So of course Putin's going to play all sides of
Speaker 1: this thing. Of course he's going to do what he
Speaker 1: can to help Iran extend this war and keep the
Speaker 1: United States distracted from helping Ukraine, even though he already
Speaker 1: has a presidential leader who has little interest in helping Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But you do have a majority of the US government
Speaker 1: that actually does want to help Ukraine. Finally, there was
Speaker 1: a story this week that's getting attle bit overshadowed, but
Speaker 1: it really erodes whatever credit. You know, Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: trying to always be this idea that he was going
Speaker 1: to get big government and big tech and big business,
Speaker 1: and he was going to be pretty tough on them,
Speaker 1: and he was going to have a strong antitrust regime.
Speaker 1: And certainly JD. Vance whose credibility right, This was the
Speaker 1: guy that said no, there will be no new wars
Speaker 1: under a Donald Trump. And then he was the one
Speaker 1: that said he loved Lena Khan and there was going
Speaker 1: to be some really tough antitrust investigations of certain companies. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what. The Justice Department abruptly reaches a settlement with
Speaker 1: Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, in the middle
Speaker 1: of its anti trust trial. Just a year ago. The
Speaker 1: government was trying to break up the company for for
Speaker 1: operating and what many believe was an illegal monopoly when
Speaker 1: it came to live events and concerts. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: a deal. There's no breakup, just a handful of modest restrictions.
Speaker 1: Even the federal judge overseeing the case expressed anger at
Speaker 1: how this settlement appeared without warning. He didn't know they
Speaker 1: were still in talks. Well, guess what happened. We know
Speaker 1: you the fact that we have reporting confirming this. You
Speaker 1: didn't even know that you knew exactly what happened. Live
Speaker 1: Nation lobbyists went directly to senior Trump officials. They bypassed
Speaker 1: Justice Department lawyers because in this case it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like the Justice Department was interested in settling. Nope, they
Speaker 1: went ahead and did a deal behind the back of
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. They stepped in to protect a ticketing
Speaker 1: monopoly that millions of Americans complain about every time they
Speaker 1: try to buy a concert ticket. This is another one
Speaker 1: of these things, just like he did to the Maha people, right,
Speaker 1: and signing that pesticide executive order allowing that pesticide in.
Speaker 1: He talks a big game unpopulism, and when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, if a lobbyist gets his ear and more
Speaker 1: than just his ear, and it comes with some sort
Speaker 1: of financial contribution attached and whatever slush fund he wants
Speaker 1: it contributed to. But we see that this is a
Speaker 1: absolute pattern. Right, Monsanto had never given money. They gave
Speaker 1: a million dollars. They get this executive order. Right. We've
Speaker 1: seen it with the crypto guys, We've seen it with
Speaker 1: the pardons. Now you've got this Live Nation thing. I
Speaker 1: think it under mines. You know, we have some interesting
Speaker 1: new polling from my friends at NBC News and they
Speaker 1: mostly it was mostly on the on the Iraq War
Speaker 1: and Iraq War oops, Iran War. I don't know how
Speaker 1: many times I'm gonna Freudian slip that one. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting in some of the studies they've done is there
Speaker 1: is this group of hard independence. It's about thirteen to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of the electorate. They're mostly young men, not
Speaker 1: college educated, pretty diverse group of men. This is not
Speaker 1: white men. I mean, there's a chunk of white men
Speaker 1: in it, but it's pretty diverse between white men, black men,
Speaker 1: and Hispanic men, mostly younger, sort of under fifty. And
Speaker 1: these were the deciders, right, they went with Trump in
Speaker 1: twenty four and it's these policies that they don't like. Right,
Speaker 1: they're skeptical of corporations, but they're skeptical of the cultural
Speaker 1: progressivism of the left too. But Trump continues to sort
Speaker 1: of let them down, or at least remind them that
Speaker 1: he's not on their side. He may say things that
Speaker 1: sound like he's on their side, but his actions always
Speaker 1: put him on the side of the biggest donor or
Speaker 1: the wealthiest person that gets into the room. A few
Speaker 1: notes on the polling about Iran and I thought i'd
Speaker 1: leave that, and then I'm gonna we'll get to my
Speaker 1: interview with John Adams. What's interesting here in this new
Speaker 1: NBC News poll is that the numbers no matter how
Speaker 1: you ask the question whether you do you think the
Speaker 1: United States should have or should not have taken military
Speaker 1: action against Iran, forty one percent say the US should have,
Speaker 1: fifty two percent they should not. Then, when you ask
Speaker 1: the question, do you approve or disapprove of President Trump's
Speaker 1: handling of the situation Iran, forty one percent approve, fifty
Speaker 1: four percent disapproved. So basically you're looking at identical numbers.
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be worthy to note which groups is
Speaker 1: it is the is the should have versus should not?
Speaker 1: If should have ahead of the should not have. Here's
Speaker 1: where should have bombed Iran is ahead of the should
Speaker 1: not have bonbed Iran among voters fifty to sixty four.
Speaker 1: That's gen X, that is in young baby boomers, that
Speaker 1: continues to always be the strongest supporting group of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and MAGA. Yes it is. I am self aware
Speaker 1: that this is my generation. White voters narrowly forty seven
Speaker 1: six and of course self described Republicans seventy seven fifteen.
Speaker 1: But it's under eighty. As I told you, you know,
Speaker 1: eighty is a big deal. What is interesting this goes
Speaker 1: to the same thing I think I told you I
Speaker 1: hinted about this. Those that say they're a part of
Speaker 1: MAGA more than they are the GOP, they are more
Speaker 1: supportive of these strikes. Right, MAGA influencers are pretty against
Speaker 1: this decision to strike Iran. But the rank and file,
Speaker 1: if Trump says this is what should be those that
Speaker 1: say they are more of a MAGA supporter than Republican
Speaker 1: are right there with Trump on whatever he says. What's interesting,
Speaker 1: And according to the NBC News data, and frankly, this
Speaker 1: is the other polling I've seen, Republicans who do not
Speaker 1: call themselves supporters of the Mega movement are much more
Speaker 1: skeptical about this Iran decision. Just fifty four percent support
Speaker 1: say the United States should have bombed a run. It's
Speaker 1: still a majority, but it's ninety percent among those that
Speaker 1: call themselves MAGA Republican, and it's only fifty four percent
Speaker 1: among those that don't. So it is, as you can see,
Speaker 1: it's barely It's basically the core parts of the MAGA
Speaker 1: Trump coalition are the only ones that even have a
Speaker 1: bare majority supporting what he's doing. I mean it is that.
Speaker 1: That's what you learn from this polling, and that's on
Speaker 1: the again. This poll was done after the best news
Speaker 1: of this war had hit the voters, which was the
Speaker 1: death of the Ayatola. What new information is going to
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Speaker 1: is normally this is a Wednesday episode, which means I
Speaker 1: have a new top five list, And in honor of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Primaries, I thought I would give you a
Speaker 1: little bit on my top As I told you for years,
Speaker 1: I was working on a book about the you know,
Speaker 1: tales from the trail craziest campaigns in American history. Every
Speaker 1: state has that wait to hear the story about this one.
Speaker 1: So last week I gave you the five my all
Speaker 1: time five greatest statewide campaigns in Texas history. Today, I decided,
Speaker 1: with Mississippi on the ballot on Tuesday, i'd do the
Speaker 1: top five top five top And by the way, who
Speaker 1: knows if this Senate race in the general election Sidney
Speaker 1: Hyde Smith the Republican incumbent District Attorney Scott Colem who
Speaker 1: Sidney Hyde Smith blocked from becoming a federal judge. So
Speaker 1: he decided, SCREWT now, I'm gonna run against her. Who
Speaker 1: knows right. If he somehow pulls off a victory, this
Speaker 1: race will suddenly break into a top five because it
Speaker 1: would be one of the greatest upsets in Mississippi history.
Speaker 1: But I do expect this race, Sidney hight Smith that
Speaker 1: you know, in a special election back in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: against Mike eSPI didn't break fifty five percent. You know,
Speaker 1: Mississippi is one of those where Democrats can get to
Speaker 1: forty six forty seven actually fairly easily, not all of this,
Speaker 1: but fairly easily. The problem they got is at last
Speaker 1: three or four. You think it's hard to break the
Speaker 1: barrier in Texas, it's really hard to break the bary
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. Although it would cost less to do the
Speaker 1: ground in Mississippi that the State Party and the National
Speaker 1: Party have paid lip service to over the years but
Speaker 1: have never actually done so. With that, though, it was
Speaker 1: interesting and putting together this top five list, there was
Speaker 1: there's sort of one election cycle in Mississippi history that
Speaker 1: sort of you can't really categorize. And this is so
Speaker 1: before we get to my top five, I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about the eighteen seventy five Mississippi elections because
Speaker 1: it did essentially end reconstruction. Eighteen seventy five. It was
Speaker 1: called what historians have called this the Redemption elections in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: At the time, the state was being governed by a
Speaker 1: Republican coalition built during Reconstruction, supported heavily by newly enfranchised
Speaker 1: black voters. The governor was Adelbert Ames, a former Union
Speaker 1: general who had moved south after the Civil War, one
Speaker 1: of the so called carpetbaggers, as Southerners would call these guys,
Speaker 1: and he became one of the most powerful reconstruction politicians
Speaker 1: in the state of Mississippi. White Democrats, though, organized a
Speaker 1: coordinated campaign known as the Mississippi Plan in eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: This wasn't just about politics. It was about intimidation. Armed
Speaker 1: rifle clubs appeared at Republican rallies. Black voters were threatened, beaten,
Speaker 1: and sometimes killed. Polling places were surrounded. Ames asked Washington
Speaker 1: for federal troops to protect the vote, but the troops
Speaker 1: never came. Democrats captured the legislature and soon forced Aims
Speaker 1: to resign. Reconstruction in Mississippi effectively ended in eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: but the consequences didn't stop at the state line. The
Speaker 1: strategy used in Mississippi in eighteen seventy five became the
Speaker 1: blueprint for Southern Democrats across the South in eighteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: A year later, the country faced the first of what
Speaker 1: would become a handful of disputed presidential elections in our history,
Speaker 1: this one in eighteen seventy six between Samuel Tilden, the
Speaker 1: Democratic governor of New York, and RUTHERD. B. Hayes, the
Speaker 1: Republican governor of Ohio. That crisis was resolved by the
Speaker 1: Uncomfortable Compromise of eighteen seventy seven, which ended federal enforcement
Speaker 1: of reconstruction across the South. In some ways, Mississippi had
Speaker 1: already ended reconstruction two years before the rest of the
Speaker 1: country admitted it. For the next ninety years, Mississippi functioned
Speaker 1: as a one party democratic state, the political system known
Speaker 1: as in the Solid South. Everything on our list today
Speaker 1: happens inside a political structure that was created in that
Speaker 1: moment in eighteen seventy five. So it's hard to deal
Speaker 1: with the rest of campaign history in Mississippi without dealing
Speaker 1: with the eighteen seventy five elections that up basically ended reconstruction.
Speaker 1: So with that being said, the top five most consulate,
Speaker 1: and it's a combination. Look what you decide is you
Speaker 1: know these are these are consequential elections, and that's why
Speaker 1: they made the top five list. Number one on my
Speaker 1: list is the nineteen to fifty nine race for Governor,
Speaker 1: Ross Barnett and the politics of defiance. This is the
Speaker 1: first campaign that takes us to the height of the
Speaker 1: civil rights era. The candidate was Ross Barnett. He was
Speaker 1: a Jackson trial lawyer who'd already run for governor twice
Speaker 1: and lost. Barnett was also a proud member of what
Speaker 1: was a successor to the Klan called Citizen Councils, this
Speaker 1: segregationist organization that emerged after the Supreme Court under Chief
Speaker 1: Justice or A. Warren, ordered school desegregation in Brown versus
Speaker 1: Board of Education. Barnett's campaign message was blunt. He told
Speaker 1: crowds the good Lord was the original segregationist. Barnett finished
Speaker 1: first in the Democratic primary, then won the runoff against
Speaker 1: the Lieutenant governor, Carol Garden. Barnett won the runoff with
Speaker 1: about fifty five percent of the vote. No, there was
Speaker 1: no Republican This was the old Democratic primary decided who
Speaker 1: was governor in the South in a lot of places,
Speaker 1: so Barnett was basically unopposed even at A campaign song
Speaker 1: that became the song of the state of Mississippi was
Speaker 1: called Roll with Ross. Supporters would sing it at rallies
Speaker 1: across Mississippi, and after Barnett won, the melody eventually became
Speaker 1: the official state song, Go Mississippi. But this campaign promising
Speaker 1: to enforce segregation wasn't just theater. Barnett was governor in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two when a Black Air Force veteran named
Speaker 1: James Merrith excuse me applied to the University of Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Barnett personally tried to block Meredith from enrolling. Riots erupted
Speaker 1: on campus. Two people were killed, hundreds were injured. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the President John F. Kennedy sent federal troops to enforce
Speaker 1: the court order. Barnett's nineteen fifty nine campaign was the
Speaker 1: political mandate behind that confrontation. Mississippi voters didn't stumble into definance.
Speaker 1: They elected it. He basically promised that he was never
Speaker 1: going to desegregate Mississippi schools, and that fifty nine campaign
Speaker 1: gave us the showdown at Ole, miss in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: Second campaign on my list is the nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 1: Senate r This had some drama in it is the
Speaker 1: first Republican to break to crack the solid South, and
Speaker 1: it reshaped Mississippi's party. It basically created a two party system.
Speaker 1: In seventy eight, long time Democratic Senator James Eastland decided
Speaker 1: to retire after nearly four decades in office. The Democratic
Speaker 1: nominee was Maurice Danton. The Republican nominee was Dad Cochrane.
Speaker 1: He was a Congressman from Jackson. But the race had
Speaker 1: a third candidate, Eddie McBride, an independent that was supported
Speaker 1: by Charles Evers, the mayor of Fayette. Charles Evers was
Speaker 1: also the brother of Medgar Evers, the NAACP Field Secretary
Speaker 1: of Mississippi, who was assassinated outside as Jackson Home in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. McBride siphoned off enough Democratic votes to
Speaker 1: fracture that old coalition, Dad Cochrane won the Senate seat.
Speaker 1: There were no runoffs for a general election back then.
Speaker 1: Dad Cochran won with forty five percent, Maurice Danton got
Speaker 1: forty three percent, and Eddie McBride, with the support of
Speaker 1: Charles Evers, got eleven percent. And that's how the first
Speaker 1: Republican was elected to the US Senate in Mississippi since reconstruction.
Speaker 1: Cochran would serve forty years in the Senate, eventually chairing
Speaker 1: the Appropriations Committee. But Mississippi's political realignment began with a
Speaker 1: race that at the time nobody expected Republicans to win.
Speaker 1: Forty five percent was about their ceiling back then, but
Speaker 1: when you throw a third party into the race, forty
Speaker 1: five percent became a winning number. Third campaign on my list.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy nine Governor. This is one of these positive
Speaker 1: reform story. William Winter. He was a moderate Democrat from Granada, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: He ran for governor in sixty seven and lost. He
Speaker 1: ran again in seventy five, and he lost again. In
Speaker 1: seventy nine, he finally won and he won big sixty
Speaker 1: one percent. The Republican Now when he got thirty nine
Speaker 1: percent Democratic primary of course was the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: the significance wasn't just the victory. It was what Winter
Speaker 1: did after, and it's a big deal in Mississippi. At
Speaker 1: the time, Mississippi had no statewide kindergarten system and no
Speaker 1: compulsory school attendance law. Believe it or not, Winter pushed
Speaker 1: through a sweeping education reform package after months of campaigning
Speaker 1: for the plant across the state. The Education Reform Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty two passed the legislature by just one vote,
Speaker 1: but that one vote created public kindergarten dramatically expanded Mississippi
Speaker 1: school system. Clarion Ledger called it the Mississippi Miracle, and
Speaker 1: it has been. You know, look it is Mississippi trailed
Speaker 1: for a long time, but most recently you heard here
Speaker 1: from Marama Manuel how the continued investment in their public
Speaker 1: education system now has thanks to new funding and a
Speaker 1: new reading program by Jim Barksdale, founder of Netscape, they're
Speaker 1: in the top five in the country when it comes
Speaker 1: to third grade reading. Fourth campaign on My List nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, Governor, This was a weird election. Mississippi once
Speaker 1: had one of the strangest gubernatorial election systems in America.
Speaker 1: It's kind of their own version of the electoral college.
Speaker 1: To win the governorship, a candidate had to win a
Speaker 1: majority of the statewide vote and a majority of the
Speaker 1: House districts state house districts, and if nobody achieved both,
Speaker 1: the election went to the Mississippi House of Representatives. The
Speaker 1: rule dated back to the eighteen ninety constitution, written during
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow era. It was all about making sure
Speaker 1: no Republican or black candidate could win. That's what member
Speaker 1: every runoff rule, all the runoff rules in the South
Speaker 1: were all about denying black candidates an opportunity to win
Speaker 1: statewide and win in pluralities. So this was one of
Speaker 1: these weird things they put into their constitution. And again
Speaker 1: when they did, it tells you everything you need to know.
Speaker 1: Eighteen ninety right, and smack dab in Jim Crow. But
Speaker 1: it never actually came into play until the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine It would come into play one more time, and
Speaker 1: I'll get to it in a minute. The candidates were
Speaker 1: Ronnie Musgrove, Democratic Lieutenant governor and a Republican congressman named
Speaker 1: Mike Parker. Musgrove wins forty nine point six percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, Mike Parker got forty eight point five percent
Speaker 1: of the vote. Two percent went to others. Musgrove won
Speaker 1: the popular vote, but the House district count ended sixty
Speaker 1: one districts for Musgrove, sixty one districts for Parker. It
Speaker 1: was a time and under the state constitution, the election
Speaker 1: went to the Mississippi House. Well, this was nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: but believe it or not, the Democrats still controlled that chamber.
Speaker 1: There were a few chambers they controlled into the early odds.
Speaker 1: Mississippi was one of them. Oklahoma was one of them. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they narrowly elected Musgrove governor, but it remains the only
Speaker 1: time in modern Mississippi history that the legislature chose the
Speaker 1: governor instead of the voters. And in twenty twenty, Mississippi
Speaker 1: voters themselves finally abolished that system. Number five on my
Speaker 1: list is in a pretty important race because I think
Speaker 1: it was a preview of something that the Republican Party
Speaker 1: was about to do. It was the twenty fourteen Senate
Speaker 1: Republican primary. It was the final campaign for Thad Cochran.
Speaker 1: He'd been in the Senate thirty six years. The challenger
Speaker 1: was a Tea Party supporting state senator named Chris McDaniel.
Speaker 1: First prime first round of the primary vote shocked people.
Speaker 1: McDaniel just missed avoiding a runoff. He got forty nine
Speaker 1: point five percent of the vote. That Cochran got forty
Speaker 1: nine zero percent of the vote, So no candidate got
Speaker 1: fifty percent a runoff was required. This looked like Cochrane
Speaker 1: was a dead duck. Right runoffs, fewer voters show up,
Speaker 1: the more conservative candidate usually wins. In this case, it
Speaker 1: was McDaniel, and yet Cochran won the runoff narrowly fifty
Speaker 1: point eight percent. McDaniel got forty nine point two percent
Speaker 1: he wanted, by about seventy six hundred votes. Cochran survived
Speaker 1: by mobilizing a bunch of crossover voters, black voters in
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Delta who had not participated in the Democratic primary.
Speaker 1: Remember this was the same this is the same issue
Speaker 1: I've been bringing up about what John corn faces in Texas.
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of voters who voted early in the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary now and are not available to Cornyn, the
Speaker 1: more moderate of the two candidates against Paxton, for him
Speaker 1: to potentially message to and get them to vote. Well.
Speaker 1: This is what they advantaged Cochrane had. So the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary was not really that well contested, so there wasn't
Speaker 1: a huge turnout of Democrats for that primary, So there
Speaker 1: was a whole bunch of voters who hadn't voted, so
Speaker 1: in theory they could vote in the Republican run off.
Speaker 1: It was an ugly race. The race produced one of
Speaker 1: the strangest scandals in modern politics, and McDaniel's supporter broke
Speaker 1: into the nursing home to photograph Cochrane's bedridden wife in
Speaker 1: an attempt to embarrass the senator because he was living
Speaker 1: with another woman while his wife for years was dealing
Speaker 1: with this health issue. Four people ended up arrested. But
Speaker 1: the bigger deal of this race is that this is
Speaker 1: think about it. It's twenty fourteen. Tea Party was on
Speaker 1: the move. That wing of the party was on the move.
Speaker 1: Cochrane beat it back barely having to use Democrats. Twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump would get elected president. Looking back, here was
Speaker 1: one of your canaries in the coal mine in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Now I will there were a few honorable mentions campaigns
Speaker 1: that didn't make my top five. I do want to
Speaker 1: mention Blanche Bruce. He was elected to the Senate by
Speaker 1: the Mississippi legislature in eighteen seventy four, year before the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five those eighteen seventy five reset elections. He
Speaker 1: was the first African American elector to a full Senate term,
Speaker 1: and he was the first Black American to preside over
Speaker 1: the United States Senate. Kirk Fordyce elected governor in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, he became the Mississipp's first Republican governor since reconstruction.
Speaker 1: He won with fifty points eight percent of the vote
Speaker 1: in ninety one. By the way, twenty eighteen centate runoff
Speaker 1: was a fascinating one because you had Sidney Hyde Smith
Speaker 1: and Mike esb The race was, you know, not a
Speaker 1: blowout fifty four to forty six, but whoever was going
Speaker 1: to win was going to make history. Mike sp if
Speaker 1: he had won, would have been the first black Senator
Speaker 1: since Blanche Bruce in Reconstruction. And Sydney Hyde Smith would
Speaker 1: turn out to be the first woman ever elected to
Speaker 1: Congress in the state of Mississippi. And then, of course
Speaker 1: there were there were two controversial flag referendums that really
Speaker 1: divided the state. Two thousand and one, voters kept a
Speaker 1: Confederate era flag by a landslide sixty four to thirty six.
Speaker 1: And yet in twenty twenty voters adopted a new Magnolia
Speaker 1: flag in a bigger landslide seventy three twenty seven. Same issue,
Speaker 1: but it was two very different Mississippis. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a good way to end there. Two thousand and
Speaker 1: one told you that Mississippi wasn't ready to move on
Speaker 1: from its from its past. By twenty two, Mississippi was
Speaker 1: ready to move on. So look, Mississippi's political history is
Speaker 1: pretty clear. The elections of eighteen seventy five created a
Speaker 1: system that lasted nearly a century. But the campaigns we
Speaker 1: walked through show how that system slowly cracked, shifted, and
Speaker 1: eventually transformed from segregation to realignment the modern populism. It
Speaker 1: is worth noting Mississippi's election often foreshadow changes that later
Speaker 1: appear across the country. Anyway, So there's my top five list.
Speaker 1: Let me go back through them one more time for
Speaker 1: the campaign geeks out there like me. Number one for
Speaker 1: May fifty nine governor, the election of an avowed segregationist
Speaker 1: that ends up giving us the showdown at Ole, miss
Speaker 1: seventy eight Senate Pad Cochrane's shock election thanks to a
Speaker 1: third party candidate that siphon votes away from the Democrat
Speaker 1: seventy nine governor, which gave elected a a Democrat who
Speaker 1: would transform Mississippi's education system that is still paying dividends today,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine governor. They're a weird electoral college system
Speaker 1: produces ends up being used by the legislature, and I
Speaker 1: think people were so grossed out by it that it
Speaker 1: was like there was always it was the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end of that system. It took two decades later
Speaker 1: for it to be gone, but it would be gone.
Speaker 1: And then, of course number five on my list the
Speaker 1: Senate Republican primary from twenty fourteen. If you don't like
Speaker 1: my list, send me your thoughts, ask Chuck. All right,
Speaker 1: it is time for questions, a little ass check. And
Speaker 1: the first one it's perfect. It's almost a derivative. It says, hey,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the five most consequential Texas elections. Do you
Speaker 1: have a list for New Jersey by any chance? And
Speaker 1: I do. I'm not going to give you the full
Speaker 1: list now, but needless to say two that will definitely
Speaker 1: be on this list are Bill Bradley's first race in
Speaker 1: seventy six, he knocked off an incumbent senator. It is
Speaker 1: worth noting Harrison Williams, so that is one. The first
Speaker 1: Tom Caine victory probably is going to get in there,
Speaker 1: and the crazy Torrisselly replacement race, right, all the crazy
Speaker 1: Trrisselly in Lautenberg and all of that business. So that's
Speaker 1: just a taste. There's a couple others that we get there.
Speaker 1: I think the first Christy race is probably going to
Speaker 1: make my list, but it is you start. You know,
Speaker 1: Bill Bradley, by the way, I have and I have
Speaker 1: another book that I've I have a lot of books
Speaker 1: I've never written, but I'll tell you that this one
Speaker 1: is I can't Believe they didn't become President book. And
Speaker 1: there'd be like, I think there's eight or ten people
Speaker 1: that are I can't believe they never became president. Bill
Speaker 1: Bradley is one of them. John Glenn is another one
Speaker 1: of them. We may put Romney on that list someday, right,
Speaker 1: we may put in let me think, who else that
Speaker 1: I can't believe they didn't become president? List? Right? Hillary Clinton?
Speaker 1: One hundred years from now, people may say she should
Speaker 1: be on that list as well. But Bill Bradley, I think.
Speaker 1: I think what we found out is Bill Bradley's resume
Speaker 1: was more charismatic than Bill Bradley himself. And I say
Speaker 1: that with love, and I know Senator Bradley a little bit.
Speaker 1: He was always couldn't have been more charming, more nice,
Speaker 1: but he was a guy that didn't didn't command a
Speaker 1: room in the way that you would and he just
Speaker 1: can't put your finger on it. In some ways he
Speaker 1: was too cerebral, I think. But when you look at
Speaker 1: that resume, Princeton Rhodes, scholar, all time great New York nick,
Speaker 1: all of that business, right, he should have had all
Speaker 1: the markings of somebody that the country would want to
Speaker 1: be as the representative of America for the world. John
Speaker 1: Glenn's same thing, but he also was a bit charismatically
Speaker 1: challenged at times. His presidential hopes I've had some people
Speaker 1: say came to an end even before he ever ran
Speaker 1: in eighty four when he gave a lackluster keynote speech
Speaker 1: at a DNC convention. I believe it was in seventy six,
Speaker 1: so anyway, but yes, I'll have more on New Jersey
Speaker 1: as we get closer, but you got to let me
Speaker 1: roll these out a week at a time, so give
Speaker 1: you a little taste. Obviously, torus Elly right, all things
Speaker 1: Porchs are going to be there, the Torch Song trilogy
Speaker 1: as we used to call it back in the Hotline days,
Speaker 1: the crazy Lotenberg stuff, all of that. But in fairness
Speaker 1: to Jersey, I would argue it's great characters have all
Speaker 1: been in the last forty years, fewer great characters in
Speaker 1: the first fifty years. But I know my friend Bill
Speaker 1: Baroni will have a lot of thoughts on this, and
Speaker 1: I have to finish consulting with him. And I know
Speaker 1: you're listening, Bill, so get your I know you you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of opinions about this, So we'll
Speaker 1: get that going, all right, And I promise that's coming soon.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Don L. Saganaw Texas. Hey, check,
Speaker 1: appreciate listening to the podcast on Monday mornings while I
Speaker 1: try to reconnect with the brain cells necessary to serve
Speaker 1: my bride coffee in bed. Well, good for you, coffee
Speaker 1: in bed. You're a better husband than me, As I
Speaker 1: recall from my Texas public school education background, the last
Speaker 1: time the US declared war was in nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1: One could argue that America has gone to war multiple
Speaker 1: times since that time without declaring it. Since only Congress
Speaker 1: is the power to declare war, could you explain how
Speaker 1: this continues to happen. Well, you've got this idea that
Speaker 1: in these you know that these are I guess you
Speaker 1: could say that they are abusing the part of the
Speaker 1: Constitution about a president having a certain amount of authority
Speaker 1: to quote, defend the interests of the United States without
Speaker 1: having to go to Congress. Were we ever fighting Vietnam
Speaker 1: or were we fighting the Russians and the Chinese who
Speaker 1: were helping the North Vietnamese that situation. Now, Congress did
Speaker 1: authorize the use of force in Iraq both times. So no,
Speaker 1: we never declared war on those countries, but at least
Speaker 1: there was an authorization of use of force there. But look,
Speaker 1: your larger point is the more important one, which is
Speaker 1: the inability of Congress to do its job to assert
Speaker 1: its authority. And I think in some ways I choose
Speaker 1: to be I choose to look at the Trump presidency
Speaker 1: as a necessary MRI. I think it has been an
Speaker 1: incredible MRI. Right, we have learned about a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of entities, a lot of institutions. Right when
Speaker 1: tested by Trump, which one of them who could stand
Speaker 1: tall and who would fold like a cheap suit? And
Speaker 1: I do think you have Rand Paul In a handful
Speaker 1: of other Republicans wanting to reassert congressional authority. I there's
Speaker 1: this could be the silver lining of this, you know,
Speaker 1: him stumbling into this Iran conflict which may not have
Speaker 1: a clean ending anytime soon. Right, we may pull back
Speaker 1: on how much we bomb the country, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like what's been started is going to easily be stopped.
Speaker 1: That you will have a different type of Congress and
Speaker 1: members of Congress who decide that they will read the
Speaker 1: Constitution and understand what Article one powers mean for them.
Speaker 1: That is that is my hope of what is the
Speaker 1: silver lining of what has been this? We now understand
Speaker 1: why why did the founders want these constraints around a
Speaker 1: run potential for a runaway executive? Just that to stop
Speaker 1: the potential of a runaway executive? Right, the whole point
Speaker 1: was to prevent a rogue monarch. Shall we say, we
Speaker 1: have all the tools to prevent this, We just have
Speaker 1: let our ability to use those tools atrophy. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: this decision to do what he's doing in Iran will
Speaker 1: finally be the line that's crossed that gets more members
Speaker 1: of Congress realizing they have a large responsibility here and
Speaker 1: they need to get their act together. But it starts
Speaker 1: with a speaker. You've got right now. You got a
Speaker 1: speaker in Mike Johnson who has no idea what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He's a spino right speaker name only Donald Trump. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, he's at the whims of whatever Trump wants.
Speaker 1: So he's a weak speaker. We've had a series of weeks.
Speaker 1: Pelosi was a strong speaker, but she was a bit
Speaker 1: too deferential to Democratic presidents. You know, this is only
Speaker 1: going to work is if the next speaker, when their
Speaker 1: party is in the White House, if they as certain
Speaker 1: congressional authority over partisan concerns. And we haven't had a
Speaker 1: speaker do that in my lifetime. All right, next question
Speaker 1: comes from Donovan PG County, Maryland Go Army beat Navy.
Speaker 1: Woo can you say that in Maryland? I feel like
Speaker 1: we're Maryland, you know, I kind of I treat Navy
Speaker 1: as semi home home time root form and all the
Speaker 1: conference stuff, you know, is kind of a local ish team, right,
Speaker 1: Annapolis is local enough for me. But anyway, anyway, good
Speaker 1: for you, Donovan. I think I know, I think I
Speaker 1: know which Donovan this is. But I'll I'll be careful,
Speaker 1: so I'll say go army on this one, he says, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Given the significant erosion of America standing on the world
Speaker 1: stage in recent years, what do you think it will
Speaker 1: realistic take both from our next president and from US
Speaker 1: as a country to rebuild the trust incredibility needed to
Speaker 1: reclaim our role as global leader that kind of restoration
Speaker 1: even possible anymore, or as the window for America to
Speaker 1: be seen as the anchor of the international order permanently
Speaker 1: In all seriousness, Donovan, I don't think anything's permanently closed,
Speaker 1: but I think it's going to be years before we're
Speaker 1: seen as the credible leader here. It's going to take
Speaker 1: presidents of let's just take our relationship with Europe. Before
Speaker 1: Europe fully trusts America again to be as sort of
Speaker 1: security umbrella and be willing to sort of restore the
Speaker 1: sort of Cold War order of sorts, they're going to
Speaker 1: have to see us have a succession of presidents, regardless
Speaker 1: of whether they're Democrats are Republicans, but basically two presidents
Speaker 1: in a row from both parties that treat Europe with respect,
Speaker 1: treat our allies with respect, don't want to empire, build,
Speaker 1: don't want to do I mean and so, so I
Speaker 1: think this is you know, we're at least a couple
Speaker 1: of decades away. Look at christ sis can change things overnight. Right,
Speaker 1: America still has resources that many other countries don't, but
Speaker 1: it's going to take us. We're going to have to
Speaker 1: do more to win back the hearts and minds of
Speaker 1: the world. Right when there's a natural disaster, we better
Speaker 1: always be the first boats there and the first you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to take a lot more international largess, the
Speaker 1: restoration of USAID, the restoration of soft power, but none
Speaker 1: of that happens overnight. So we're sadly probably a generation
Speaker 1: away from that. The next president can begin the healing.
Speaker 1: The president after that can do it. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of you know it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let you know, you can flip the switch on the
Speaker 1: treatment of African American voters in nineteen sixty four, but
Speaker 1: it but it really took another thirty or forty years
Speaker 1: before there was full, trust full, So it just takes time.
Speaker 1: And on this one, it's going to take the American
Speaker 1: public electing presidents of both parties in successive elections who
Speaker 1: behave essentially the same way internationally, not necessarily with the
Speaker 1: same philosophies, but that we treat our allies with respect,
Speaker 1: that we just the basic things that Trump has thrown away. Look,
Speaker 1: I kind of think we're going to need it by
Speaker 1: necessity to try to restore these things. So it's going
Speaker 1: to it's better for our security and it's better for
Speaker 1: our economy. But thanks for asking pretty much the hardest
Speaker 1: question somebody is asked. But like I said, I think
Speaker 1: I know who this is and I appreciate the curveball.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Roger and Farmington, Minnesota. Chuck, will
Speaker 1: abortion emerges as a national issue in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six midterms or as jobs effectively taking it off the
Speaker 1: table and made it a state by state issue the
Speaker 1: next generation? I I don't think. I still think that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stand by a prediction I made five years
Speaker 1: ago that I think, but by the end of the decade,
Speaker 1: Congress will cadify Row and I think if Democrats get
Speaker 1: the majority, in both the Senate and the House, they'll
Speaker 1: do this, and if they don't, and if they don't try,
Speaker 1: I think they could pay a political price on that front.
Speaker 1: But I think with so many other issues, you know,
Speaker 1: abortion will come back to being an issue when the
Speaker 1: you know, cultural issues, and abortion is it's a healthcare issue,
Speaker 1: but it's also a cultural issue, and it's also you know,
Speaker 1: those issues rise up when the economy is health those
Speaker 1: issues get pushed down when the economy is unhealthy. And
Speaker 1: this is an unhealthy economy, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fear out there about economic well being, job displacement. So
Speaker 1: while I expect abortion to be used in a handful
Speaker 1: of campaigns, I don't think it's a big issue in
Speaker 1: these midterms. Across the board, we're not seeing as many
Speaker 1: referendums and things like that. But I think this becomes
Speaker 1: an interest if Democrats win both the House and the Senate.
Speaker 1: How aggressive do they get at trying to codify ROW?
Speaker 1: And is there a version of codifying ROW that can
Speaker 1: get whatever number of Republican Senators they need. Let's let's
Speaker 1: say they have a majority by two seats. Let's say
Speaker 1: it's a fifty two forty eight can they find eight
Speaker 1: Republicans to go along with them on a version that
Speaker 1: codifies Row, that says has a you know that gets
Speaker 1: some Rakowskian board because she'll be there. Do you get
Speaker 1: do you get something that gets a hand a handful
Speaker 1: of some of these? I don't know, or do we
Speaker 1: see the philibuster gone? And I think it's very possible
Speaker 1: that if you have a younger set of Senate leaders,
Speaker 1: we may see the legislative philibuster go. Regardless of whether
Speaker 1: it's a deer or in our administration, it does feel
Speaker 1: as if right the momentum Republicans had to almost get
Speaker 1: rid of it, the momentum Democrats had to almost get
Speaker 1: rid of it. It feels like that sooner rather than later,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a change in the filibuster rule
Speaker 1: that gives Democrats a shot and codifying Row, which is again,
Speaker 1: what would I think the simplest, the most straightforward way
Speaker 1: they could go codifies Row into law. I think they
Speaker 1: could find eight Republican senators on that. Next question comes
Speaker 1: from a mirror from Denver and he writes, hey really
Speaker 1: appreciate the new format and especially enjoyed your two twenty
Speaker 1: three episode. Your time machine. Segment of how how Hitler
Speaker 1: used legal processes to consolidate power was compelling, but it
Speaker 1: left me wondering how you square that with your critique
Speaker 1: of Democratic legislators pushing back against red state redistricting efforts.
Speaker 1: If a party sees authoritarianism coming, is it wrong to
Speaker 1: use every tool available, even if it bends norms, to
Speaker 1: try to stop it. How should we think about the
Speaker 1: leaders today who use power aggressively to prevent something worse
Speaker 1: down the line? Best a mirror from Denver. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this a lot. I've got to
Speaker 1: vote in this election in April. They're trying to redo
Speaker 1: the constitution here in Virginia to allow them to re
Speaker 1: redistrict in the middle and not use the fair district
Speaker 1: the fair district parameters that were passed into the state's constitution.
Speaker 1: And you know, I thought i'd use this. I've actually
Speaker 1: been This is something I meant to say earlier in
Speaker 1: the podcast, and this is actually a good way for
Speaker 1: me to bring them to close the podcast with it,
Speaker 1: because I do think I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: so called save Election Bill that Republicans are trying to pass.
Speaker 1: As I've said to you before, it is an unseerious
Speaker 1: attempt at election reform, a serious If Republicans cared just
Speaker 1: about voter ID, they could get voter ID passed if
Speaker 1: they just made it standalone. Voter I D not voter
Speaker 1: ID that says every married woman has to get their
Speaker 1: name changed in order for their voter registration roles to match.
Speaker 1: Right where you have to go back to the DMV
Speaker 1: and all I mean, the ridiculous parts of the bill
Speaker 1: that some are pushing with birth certificates and citizenship checks
Speaker 1: and all of this nonsense, you know, is not a
Speaker 1: serious It shows you that this is not a serious issue.
Speaker 1: That if anything, my great fear is that Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: he is advocating for an unrealistic election bill, which he
Speaker 1: himself has said if they pass it, Democrats will never
Speaker 1: he hopes it means Democrats will never win an election
Speaker 1: for another fifty years, which you know, kind of says
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud, right. They think they've not
Speaker 1: put together a bill that makes elections fair for the country.
Speaker 1: That they're trying to put together a bill that they think,
Speaker 1: in their minds creates an uneven playing field advantage to
Speaker 1: the Republicans. Now, the irony to This is one I
Speaker 1: do think if they passed this restrictive measures, Democrats would
Speaker 1: more likely follow get all the get all their paperwork
Speaker 1: in order before a lot of Trump's voters would On
Speaker 1: this front, We've seen this, right, Democrats pay more attention
Speaker 1: to win special elections are these days and all that.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you look at sort of conforming
Speaker 1: to the rules and all that, I think that the
Speaker 1: irony is if the save AC passed, I think it
Speaker 1: would hurt Republican turnout more than it would hurt Democratic turnout.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the same way that Democrats weren't
Speaker 1: serious about their election reform bill at HR because they
Speaker 1: threw in stuff like publicly funding congressional elections and some
Speaker 1: things that just don't have majority support in the country,
Speaker 1: let alone majority support in the Senate. You know, it
Speaker 1: was a messaging bill, right it was. They wanted a
Speaker 1: talking point. And it's clear Republicans, this is a messaging bill.
Speaker 1: He wants a talking point. And I fear what Trump
Speaker 1: really wants is a rationale not to accept the results
Speaker 1: of the midterms. Even when I say not accept the
Speaker 1: results of the midterms, there's nothing he can do to
Speaker 1: prevent the swearing in of the new Congress. And there
Speaker 1: is one scenario I fear that a Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House couldn't outgoings speak of their house, could insert themselves
Speaker 1: in a situation, but only if the House majorities were
Speaker 1: really narrow I doubt. I think if Democrats right now,
Speaker 1: if the election were held today, they'd win the House
Speaker 1: by a big enough margin that Mike Johnson couldn't do
Speaker 1: anything to mess with it. But if Donald Trump wants
Speaker 1: to soothe himself by maybe he'll blame his own party
Speaker 1: for not passing the bill and say, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, everything is usually about deflecting blame for himself,
Speaker 1: So I think he sees this save act as a
Speaker 1: way to have a built in excuse for why his
Speaker 1: party's not going to do well in the midterms, and
Speaker 1: I do think he may use it as a way
Speaker 1: not to accept the results in his own mind. Again,
Speaker 1: isn't going to stop people from getting sworn in. It
Speaker 1: isn't going to stop Democrats if they end up winning
Speaker 1: control the House in the Senate, from getting control the
Speaker 1: House in the Senate. But as we know, it's important
Speaker 1: to him for him to create a fantasy world. You know,
Speaker 1: this fantasy world that he is, that he won somehow
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty because he doesn't want to count mail
Speaker 1: in ballots during a pandemic, and that he you know,
Speaker 1: so he likes to build these mythologies in order for
Speaker 1: him to Maybe it's a self soothing mechanism. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is what he does instead of therapy. I don't know
Speaker 1: what goes inside his head, but he can never He
Speaker 1: is so obsessed with this idea never admit defeat and
Speaker 1: never admit you've lost, and never admit you've made a mistake,
Speaker 1: and never apologize, all of that sort of dumb advice
Speaker 1: that salespeople used to get back in the fifties. Right,
Speaker 1: These are like, you know, never take no for an
Speaker 1: answer type of mindset. And that's fine if you're trying
Speaker 1: to sell property. It becomes gas lighting when you're trying
Speaker 1: to sell it politically on this front. Now, as for
Speaker 1: your specific question about the Democrats, here's this look. I
Speaker 1: just think this re redistricting decision by the Democrats fight
Speaker 1: fire with fire. It's going to help them in the
Speaker 1: short term, but I don't think they ever would have
Speaker 1: needed it. They could have kept their high ground and
Speaker 1: probably still won't control of the House. They could have
Speaker 1: kept their high ground and probably still watched Texas do
Speaker 1: a dummy mander. But now Democrats have given up whatever
Speaker 1: reform credentials they had been developing over the last fifteen
Speaker 1: years by being the party in favor of quote fair districts.
Speaker 1: They're no longer a party that's in favor of this.
Speaker 1: And I don't accept the premise of what when you
Speaker 1: have to suspend a constitutional rule in order to do
Speaker 1: that is a slippery slope. And that's the issue I
Speaker 1: have with this. It's a slippery slope. But let me
Speaker 1: make another point. Fair districts means you have the opera.
Speaker 1: You will see a different type of person elected. Maybe
Speaker 1: someone who's center right might win in a closely contested
Speaker 1: Republican leaning seat, and maybe that member of Congress is
Speaker 1: a Don Bacon type and stands up to the Republican
Speaker 1: Party in a moment that it's necessary to have bipartisan pushback.
Speaker 1: And now what you're going to do is you're going
Speaker 1: to create a situation where the only Republicans that get
Speaker 1: elected in Virginia are going to be somebody who's pretty
Speaker 1: out of the mainstream. And you know, I fear what
Speaker 1: we're happening here is across the board, we're going to
Speaker 1: get fewer sort of incrementalists, you know, the pragmatists in Congress,
Speaker 1: and more ideologues. So I don't think it's I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole point of fair districts is to try to
Speaker 1: have districts that are more representative of the larger pragmatic
Speaker 1: majority that is in America. And so I can't I
Speaker 1: understand the reaction. I understand, and if you're a hardcore partisan,
Speaker 1: then yes, this feels like the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: But this feels like the law of undertended consequences is
Speaker 1: going to bite the party in the ass here on this,
Speaker 1: and I think they are going to regret losing the
Speaker 1: high ground on the reform issue. This is why I
Speaker 1: think I think very highly of these independent candidacies in
Speaker 1: Nebraska and Montana, the new one in California with Kevin Kyleie,
Speaker 1: a former Republican congressman, dropping the party label. I just
Speaker 1: I think all you're doing is giving more credibility to
Speaker 1: those that rip on both parties. Democrats had higher ground
Speaker 1: on the reform issue when it came to elections. Doing
Speaker 1: all of this fighting fire with fire just partisanizes it all.
Speaker 1: And I think you know this idea that, oh, it's
Speaker 1: temporary and we'll come back and do it. Well, politicians
Speaker 1: don't have the trust of the public. And how often
Speaker 1: do they come back and do something. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: they won't. I'm no, you know, but I have to
Speaker 1: tell you recent history tells me that once parties see
Speaker 1: no penalty for giving up something, they're not going to
Speaker 1: somehow voluntarily. Right. Do we really think Virginia Democrats, if
Speaker 1: they have a nine to two or ten to one advantage,
Speaker 1: are going to want to voluntarily give back that advantage.
Speaker 1: Prove me wrong. I hope to be proven wrong. I'll
Speaker 1: eat whatever crow a Democrat wants to feed me on this.
Speaker 1: But I think that I just I don't. I think
Speaker 1: this is a huge mistake, and I think this is
Speaker 1: why there's so much energy with more and more voters
Speaker 1: looking for an alternative to both parties these days, and
Speaker 1: in this case, this is Democrats help accelerate. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has been an accelerant on the right, fighting this fighting
Speaker 1: fire with fire business might end up being an unintended
Speaker 1: consequence accelerant of this movement of center left voters as well.
Speaker 1: All right with that, but I'd love to I'm still
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I'm closing being shell shocked by the
Speaker 1: Bam out of Bio eighty three point. Of all all
Speaker 1: the NBA players, where would Bam out of Bio have
Speaker 1: been on your list of NBA players most likely to
Speaker 1: score more points in a game than Kobe Bryants eighty one.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're ever going to get to
Speaker 1: the damn Wilt Chamberlain one hundred moment, but tell me
Speaker 1: there is no chance shoot Even on the Heat, Tyler
Speaker 1: Hero would probably be considered more likely to get to
Speaker 1: top eighty one points then Bam out of Baio, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, got seven three pointers according to the
Speaker 1: box score, but he sort of did it the Wilt
Speaker 1: Chamberlain way, right. Sure, twenty one of his eighty three
Speaker 1: came from the three point line, but sixty two sixty
Speaker 1: two came from two points. Now, imagine Bam out of
Speaker 1: Bio next to Giannis. Sorry, you know, the Heat is
Speaker 1: a team that I you know, I jump on the
Speaker 1: Heat's bandwagon when they're good as a as a Miami native,
Speaker 1: even though they really they really weren't much of a
Speaker 1: franchise when I you know, they'd only been born about
Speaker 1: a year before I graduated high school, or two years
Speaker 1: before I graduated. But you know, I want the Heat
Speaker 1: to succeed. I love Spoe, so anyway, I'm happy for Bam,
Speaker 1: the sneaky Heat man. They can be. They're going to
Speaker 1: be a joyous pain in the ass to the rest
Speaker 1: of the Eavestring Conference in the playoffs, and that's when
Speaker 1: I enjoy rooting for the Heat the most. All right
Speaker 1: with that, I'll see in twenty four hours. Thanks for listening.