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Speaker 1: Well, joining me now is somebody I've known personally and

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Speaker 1: professionally a long time, a couple deck together in and

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Speaker 1: around the Atlantic. It's James Bennett. He is currently the Lexington,

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Speaker 1: a senior editor at The Economist. He writes the Lexington Column,

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Speaker 1: basically what the Hell, the column that tells the rest

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Speaker 1: of the English speaking world what the hell is going

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Speaker 1: on in America?

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Speaker 2: Perhaps, or at least that's the north star. That's the job.

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Speaker 2: Is that fair, that's the aspiration. Yeah, it's great to

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Speaker 2: see you, Chuck, and really nice to be with you.

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Speaker 1: It's good to see you. I want to talk more

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Speaker 1: about what's happening, but and then in sort of the

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Speaker 1: role of America and what's happening around the world. But

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Speaker 1: at some point I want to talk about how we

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Speaker 1: all consume information, since you've been in so many parts

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Speaker 1: of that debate as well, both at The New York

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Speaker 1: Times at The Atlantic, and yeah, and then some look,

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Speaker 1: this is a week where we saw we're taping here,

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Speaker 1: this is going to hit on Monday.

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Speaker 2: We're taping on a Thursday.

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Speaker 1: We've had the big you know, essentially the global the

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Speaker 1: meeting of global leaders that happens every September, and I

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Speaker 1: guess the most striking thing is just how much of it.

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Speaker 1: While the meeting took place in the United States, the

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Speaker 1: President of the United States was the guy on the

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Speaker 1: outside looking in, was he not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, he and very much presenting himself that way, right,

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Speaker 2: lecturing all the rest of the world on everything that

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Speaker 2: they're doing wrong, and you know, attacking United Nations itself

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Speaker 2: as a failing institution, which is the approach he's taken

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Speaker 2: to a lot of institutions in the US. And as usual,

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Speaker 2: he's not wrong in his critique in every respect, and

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Speaker 2: it's hard to make the case that the UN has

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Speaker 2: covered itself in glory in recent years in terms of

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Speaker 2: solving global conflicts. As always, he pushed it pretty far

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Speaker 2: and didn't necessarily offer a very clear alternative that seemed constructive.

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Speaker 1: He came across in ways we've seen other sort of

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Speaker 1: leaders who are trying to be outsiders, who are trying

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Speaker 1: to go against the establishment. And yet as anti establishment

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Speaker 1: as he sounded, I mean, the UN can't.

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Speaker 2: Function without the United States.

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Speaker 1: Most of these countries sort of are tied in to

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Speaker 1: the United States in one way or the other.

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Speaker 2: So while you know, I think back to.

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Speaker 1: Like Hugo Chavez giving a crazy speech or the president

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Speaker 1: of Iran. Right, And I'm not trying to say that

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Speaker 1: Trump is like Hugo Chavez, but he's behaving the way

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Speaker 1: a Hugo Chavez did, like seeing conspiracy and just attacking

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Speaker 1: everybody around him and not believing there's anybody worth working

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Speaker 1: with and all of that. But you know, I got

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Speaker 1: these messages. Europe is still going, what the hell is

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Speaker 1: going on here? And they still can't seem to figure

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Speaker 1: it out. What my answer is, man, We're still trying

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Speaker 1: to figure it out too, to those years.

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Speaker 2: What do you say to that? Yeah, I mean, and

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of muscle memory in that institution and

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Speaker 2: in a lot of the states in that institution to

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Speaker 2: look to the US for leadership. As you said, you know,

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Speaker 2: we were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations

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Speaker 2: and have been this central, the indispensable state in terms

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Speaker 2: of maintaining what was understood to be the post war order.

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Speaker 2: And Donald Trump doesn't have a lot of patience for

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Speaker 2: any of that stuff. He's a bilateralist, not a multilateralist,

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Speaker 2: and he's very concerned, you know, obviously with national interest

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Speaker 2: as he perceives it. You know, he confuses everybody because

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Speaker 2: people think he's an isolationist. He's not an isolationist, he's

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Speaker 2: I think, I don't know if you feel he's the

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Speaker 2: most interventionist president of my lifetime.

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Speaker 1: He has no ideology other than transaction. Right, everything is

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Speaker 1: it's just I look at it. He's he's an what's

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Speaker 1: another word. It's not isolationists, and it's not internationalists. It

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Speaker 1: really is sort of a Trump list.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's always about him, right, if he can

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Speaker 1: get enriched, or why is he intervening in Argentina because

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Speaker 1: he's a political ally? Why does he care about free

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Speaker 1: speech in Europe in one moment but doesn't care about

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Speaker 1: a country's acting unilaterally in Brazil? Right, It's all through

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Speaker 1: the prism of him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, a slightly more generous way to put

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Speaker 2: that would be it's through what he perceives to be

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Speaker 2: the national interest. But for him, there's no separation between

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Speaker 2: the Trump interest and the national interest. So he if

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Speaker 2: you're a friend of Donald Trump's, if you're Javier Malay

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Speaker 2: in Argentina, he will rush to your rescue, you know,

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Speaker 2: if you if you're if you're if you're Jay or

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Speaker 2: Bosonaro in Brazil, He'll turn around and say, I respect sovereignty,

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Speaker 2: I'm against intervention blah blah blah, but you ziling and

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Speaker 2: proposed tariffs on you because I don't like what your

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Speaker 2: justice system is doing to my buddy. So is that

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Speaker 2: in the American national interest? I don't really understand how

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Speaker 2: that is, but I think that's the story he tells

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Speaker 2: himself and that his followers accept.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I find when I think

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Speaker 1: about sort of where both you and I have lived professionally,

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Speaker 1: a lot of those institutions, The Atlantic, the Times, NBC economists,

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Speaker 1: there's this.

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Speaker 2: You know, what are we seeing?

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Speaker 1: Are we should we be sounding an alarm about the

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Speaker 1: law losing the democracy or should we be less alarmist

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Speaker 1: and more focused on the fact that the public doesn't

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Speaker 1: like what's being sold right now by the leader right

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Speaker 1: like you sort of see, Like I think sometimes we

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Speaker 1: underestimate the voter in all of our handwringing about what

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Speaker 1: Trump is doing in the moment, Like I think there's

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Speaker 1: a you know, I can't tell you how many people

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Speaker 1: say to me, well, you keep saying that the voter

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Speaker 1: will eventually get it right, but he's going to cancel

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Speaker 1: elections and so we're not going to be able to

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Speaker 1: do this. Where are you on that scale of totally

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Speaker 1: alarmed being ten, totally.

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Speaker 2: Blase, being zero. I think it's the hardest thing for

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Speaker 2: us as journalists right in the Trump era is calibrating

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Speaker 2: that because you don't want to be hysterical. It said, well,

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Speaker 2: you don't want to be hysterical, period. It's just not

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Speaker 2: terribly constructive.

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Speaker 1: Well, there's some news organizations out there that have been

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Speaker 1: at a you know, to do the spinal tap thing,

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Speaker 1: that are at eleven all the time. Yeah, my friends

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Speaker 1: at the Bulwark, Oh bless them, man, every single day.

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Speaker 1: This is the end, right, And you're like, is anybody listening?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they look they do a lot of good work.

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Speaker 2: There's also been a very good business and being either

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Speaker 2: a total alarmist about Donald Trump or being totally against

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And the number of journalism organizations that have

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Speaker 2: managed to keep their poise and not be led down

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Speaker 2: one path or the other is diminishing by the day.

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Speaker 2: But some of that reflects reality in that, like the

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Speaker 2: last couple of weeks, Chuck have worried me a lot,

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Speaker 2: you know, like things got pretty dark again. Like with

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump. It's so hard to tell what I actually

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Speaker 2: wrote about this this week. You know, I'm really worried

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Speaker 2: about the way Trump is changing the incentives of our

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Speaker 2: politics right now, the prosecutions. You know, the more we

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Speaker 2: see this turning political opponents into enemies and they'll claim

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Speaker 2: the Democrats struck first. Whatever what he's doing is without precedent.

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Speaker 2: Now for an American president Nixon era, the stakes become

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Speaker 2: existential for holding onto power. For everybody in Donald Trump's

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Speaker 2: govern right, they're going to be now at risk of

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Speaker 2: prosecution if a Democrat comes in. There's no way not

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Speaker 2: to think that's a possibility. And so these stakes that

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Speaker 2: have been rising for years now for hyperpartisans on both

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Speaker 2: sides feel to me like they're reaching a level that

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Speaker 2: is really dangerous to the democracy. And so it just

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Speaker 2: concerns me a lot. There's a long winded answer your

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Speaker 2: question that you know, I think there's a non hysterical

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Speaker 2: way to try to take people by the lapels and

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Speaker 2: say this is a really really bad idea.

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Speaker 1: Well, like I get I throw myself into into reform, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: it's clear that if Trump got elected president, our system

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Speaker 1: was breaking anyway. Right, Like, if the system had been functional,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't become president. So I do think, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the rational way to address this is saying, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what is wrong with our institutions.

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Speaker 2: They're not working. Let's take the justice system.

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Speaker 1: The fact is in this, in the current way we

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Speaker 1: conduct politics, you can't have the attorney general be a

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Speaker 1: political a direct political appointment of the president.

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Speaker 2: I think that's just we've got it. I actually think

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Speaker 2: we need to figure out a different way.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's like the Federal Reserve, but a different way

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Speaker 1: that there is a little distance between the where the

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Speaker 1: president certainly nominates, but that doesn't necessarily fire at any

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Speaker 1: one time.

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Speaker 2: And we've got to create a.

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Speaker 1: System that maybe staggers when different terms of the FBI

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Speaker 1: deputy ags.

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Speaker 2: Because what we're.

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Speaker 1: Doing if we already had half the country, right, Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump spent five years convincing half the country the justice

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Speaker 1: system was rigged. Now he's rigging the justice system. That

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Speaker 1: will in turn tell the other half, well, now it's rigged. Okay,

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter when you believed it got rigged. Now we've

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Speaker 1: got one hundred percent of people thinking the whole thing

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Speaker 1: is rigged, and if you lose the rule of law.

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Speaker 2: You lose your country. Yeah, you know, and you cite

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Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve as the example, but of course that

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Speaker 2: an institution that's now in the process before our eyes

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Speaker 2: of being.

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Speaker 1: This is such an important moment. I think this is

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Speaker 1: this is the single most important moment for the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court yet. Right, We've had quite a few of them.

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Speaker 1: But if if they let this Lisa Cook thing go through,

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Speaker 1: that's a change in the in the in the unitary executive.

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Speaker 1: I mean that that's there's no going back under this

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Speaker 1: without constitutional amendments to fix this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And what we've seen over and over again is

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Speaker 2: there's a pretty strong majority on this court for the

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Speaker 2: idea that the executive has a lot more power than

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Speaker 2: the norms of American politics have allowed a president up

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Speaker 2: till now.

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Speaker 1: I am very I think Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett are

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Speaker 1: going to be fascinating on this. I think they're going

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Speaker 1: to you know, they Roberts fairly or unfairly. He so

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Speaker 1: it strikes me he's so determined not to have a

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Speaker 1: constitutional crisis with with Trump that he's always looking for

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Speaker 1: a way out.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: He always postpones the confrontation, you know, like when he

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Speaker 1: put a warning in there, he tried to tell Trump,

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Speaker 1: don't do the fed thing. We're going to treat that differently.

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Speaker 1: Well he did it anyway. We're going to see if

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Speaker 1: they treat it differently. I think we know where Roberts

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Speaker 1: is going. But does can he bring Barrett or Kevinaugh

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Speaker 1: with him? That's what we're going to find out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like his idol Marshall, who managed to manage

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Speaker 2: his politics in a way that assured the independence of

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Speaker 2: the Court but at the same time didn't piss the

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Speaker 2: President off too much. I think he thinks he can

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Speaker 2: navigate through this and I hope and preserve the legitimacy

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Speaker 2: in the mid Court, I hope. So whether we're going

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Speaker 2: to wind up with a radically I think we already

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Speaker 2: are seeing a radical revision of what we've understood up

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Speaker 2: till now to be the balance of powers, and of course,

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Speaker 2: with the soup hine Congress not choosing to exercise any

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Speaker 2: of its authority. I think the view from the Supreme

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Speaker 2: Court is like Congress is supposed to be a coequal

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Speaker 2: branch of government, not a bunch of White House interns.

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Speaker 2: But what they're getting right now is White House interns

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Speaker 2: can what you said about reform like that is the

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Speaker 2: hopeful way and to imagine kind of the constructive outcome here,

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Speaker 2: which is what happened after the Watergate era, you know, and.

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Speaker 1: It also what happened after the Gilded Age, you know.

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Speaker 2: R two.

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Speaker 1: If you actually look at the two I've been I've

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Speaker 1: been obsessed with looking think about when a lion's share

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Speaker 1: of new constitutional amendments have happened in this country. They've

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Speaker 1: really only like we basically had three chunks right right

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Speaker 1: after the Civil War, right when we had another chunk

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Speaker 1: basically between you know, nineteen ten and nineteen you know, forty,

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Speaker 1: you know, and then we really haven't had any sinse arguably,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've yessed the eighteen year olds to vote.

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Speaker 1: I think the twenty eighth amendment has something to do

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Speaker 1: with pay raises, which is a very like ourt gain

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Speaker 1: one that's sitting there.

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Speaker 2: So civil rights, I mean, all the environmental reforms and

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Speaker 2: the way, but.

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Speaker 1: They're not constitial amendments. Oh I'm sorry, constitutional I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's what I mean. So if you look right like

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Speaker 1: if you believe we're sort of in a simil, Like,

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Speaker 1: I look at this period and it's sometimes I think

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Speaker 1: it's the eighteen eighty sometimes I think it's the nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: But actually that whole era is very similar. Right from

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Speaker 1: about eighteen eighty to FDR. You know, we had a

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Speaker 1: pandemic in the middle of it that made us go crazy.

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Speaker 1: We did prohibition right after the pandemic. I now understand

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Speaker 1: how that happened. Right, Look at how crazy we've gone

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Speaker 1: after our pandit. You're like, oh, right, Like you know,

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Speaker 1: prohibition has always been one of those things you're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: people bring up the pandemic, but until you experience a

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Speaker 1: pandemic and watch the crazy, you're like, oh, that's how

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Speaker 1: prohibition happened. Okay, I get it now. So that's where

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Speaker 1: I do have some hope, right, is that we did right.

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Speaker 1: The first reform of the media happened with the muckrakers,

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Speaker 1: arguably in the early part of the twentieth century, and

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Speaker 1: in some ways, I think what's happening now with our

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Speaker 1: current media ecosystem is we're in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: resorting of it and the muckrakers now are on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting, right, I mean the Society of new

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Speaker 2: Newspaper Editors was created in I think like nineteen twenty two,

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Speaker 2: and that was the first effort to really professionalize the industry.

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Speaker 2: It was partly coming out of this experience of World

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Speaker 2: War One and feeling like we were being manipulated day

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Speaker 2: by day by the government. We're confusing our readers and

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Speaker 2: that's you know. One of their first principles was you

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Speaker 2: need to separate news and opinion, and that sort of

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Speaker 2: led to what then was this kind of golden age

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Speaker 2: which may turn out, chuck, just to be an aberration,

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Speaker 2: you know, that periodic idea of journalism in America, because

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Speaker 2: before that it looked much more like what we're living

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Speaker 2: with now, which is fragmentation and partisanship.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, one of my one of the questions

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Speaker 1: I keep asking, right, you and I grew up in

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Speaker 1: a we might have grown up in an outlier era.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right. I think about the fall of.

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Speaker 1: The Berlin Wall, and I think about the Cold War,

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Speaker 1: And now I look back on the Cold War and

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Speaker 1: realize what a stabilizing force it was for our two parties.

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Speaker 1: It kept the isolationist extremists and the right the socialists

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Speaker 1: on the left. We're kept from power by sort of

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Speaker 1: the the you know, I think sort of the focus

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Speaker 1: on the Soviet Union, the focus on the fight for

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Speaker 1: you know, essentially for protecting democracy. And I do wonder

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Speaker 1: if you, you know, go I express it this way.

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Speaker 1: Six of our seven presidential elections a century have been

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Speaker 1: decided by five points or less. We only had five

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Speaker 1: in the entire twentieth century decided by five points or less.

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Speaker 2: But in the nineteenth.

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Speaker 1: Century it's something like ten of We had two periods

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Speaker 1: of like five or six in a row that were

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Speaker 1: decided by five points or less. So in some ways

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Speaker 1: our is our natural state in this country polarization. And

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Speaker 1: the period basically from Truman to i'd say nine to eleven, right,

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Speaker 1: you sort of like a ten year from Truman to Clinton, right,

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Speaker 1: Truman to the two thousand election, where we only had

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Speaker 1: two elections decided by five points or less in that

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Speaker 1: period of time. Sixty eight sixties have three Sidney, sixty eight,

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Speaker 1: sixty and seventy six.

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Speaker 2: Is that the outlier period of American history? Yeah? And

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Speaker 2: you know, it's strange about it, Chuck. It's going to

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Speaker 2: sound so stupid when I say this, but I've actually

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Speaker 2: gone to political sciences to try to explain this, and

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Speaker 2: I can't get a good explanation. Why is it, Why

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Speaker 2: is it that there's this kind of homeostatic quality, thermostatic

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Speaker 2: quality that we do remain so evenly divided, You know,

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Speaker 2: why wouldn't it go to sixty forty at some point

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Speaker 2: or seventy we come back to it, just it's split

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Speaker 2: down the middle with knife's heads. And some of that

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Speaker 2: is now jerrymandering and redistricting and so forth, but kind

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Speaker 2: of knife's edge margins in the House, and for the

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Speaker 2: presidency being traded back and forth, you'd think at one

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Speaker 2: point it would tip one way or the other.

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Speaker 1: Well, because it did tip. That is the way it

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Speaker 1: worked during the Cold War argument, Yeah, we would have

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Speaker 1: these periods where no Democrats waive, no Republican Reagan revolution, right,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. One theory I've had is that

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Speaker 1: our two parties are too big, but we have stuffed

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Speaker 1: We're really a four party country, stuffed into a two

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Speaker 1: party system because of the duopoly. And so where there's

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Speaker 1: really been a ton of change is within the two parties. Right,

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Speaker 1: the two parties vacillate between pragmatism and their base. Right,

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Speaker 1: they go back and forth between who's in charge of

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Speaker 1: their party, and then that in turn sort of has

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Speaker 1: sort of driven the other part. The other party almost

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Speaker 1: reacts in the same way. The more pragmatic Republicans are,

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Speaker 1: the more pragmatic Democrats are vice versa. Right, And now

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Speaker 1: I do think you're seeing. I had a progressive friend

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Speaker 1: of mine say to me the other day, I'm looking

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Speaker 1: for my own Trump. Now I'm done trying to win

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Speaker 1: from the ground up. And I went just a big sigh.

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Speaker 1: You're like, oh boy, this is exactly my fear. Is

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Speaker 1: that every political physics, he said, right, every action, you're

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Speaker 1: going to get an equal in office of reaction.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's what I mean about the prosecutions. Now,

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Speaker 2: it's like redistricting. It's it's just such an appetite in

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Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. It's like if you talk about bipartisanship,

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Speaker 2: if you talk about not if you talk about not

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Speaker 2: responding in kind, that's considered like a weak and pathetic,

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Speaker 2: And there's a huge appetite for, as you say, you know,

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Speaker 2: among Democrats, for their own version of Trump. I think

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Speaker 2: you're so right about the you know, the fall of

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Speaker 2: Berlin Wall. It's like the Great crack up. And I

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Speaker 2: don't think I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time

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Speaker 2: that the nineties were this sort of wonderful time away.

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Speaker 1: Since that literally there's our houseyon days where the nineties

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Speaker 1: who knew?

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Speaker 2: But you think in the way it's underwear, right like

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Speaker 2: that you get in that election in ninety two, you

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Speaker 2: get Ross Perrot and you get Buchanon, right, And there

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Speaker 2: are these two strains that have become dominant, you know,

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Speaker 2: in our politics. And it took some time, and then

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Speaker 2: I think Donald Trump's recognition in some ways that all

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Speaker 2: these institutions were a lot more fragile than they seemed.

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Speaker 2: And you know, the tremendous dissatisfaction in the country, like

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Speaker 2: we've had wrong track numbers for basically this whole century,

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Speaker 2: right so far. Yeah, people have felt the governments on

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Speaker 2: the wrong American.

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Speaker 1: Well, and it's created And this is where I've been,

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Speaker 1: you know, obsessively studying the nineteenth century election patterns because

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Speaker 1: we've been voting against we have not voted you know,

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Speaker 1: I think in O eight we voted for Obama.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Every other election has been a bit more or it

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Speaker 1: felt like the last voters voted against right, they voted,

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Speaker 1: they were they were clear what they didn't want. They

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Speaker 1: weren't necessarily clear what they wanted, but they knew what

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Speaker 1: they didn't want. And that really is the hallmark of

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Speaker 1: those nineteenth century elections, every one of them, I mean

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Speaker 1: between you know, we had we had seven presidents in

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Speaker 1: twenty eight years, between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. In

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Speaker 1: each one of them, in their own way, won by promising, well,

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Speaker 1: they were going to try to this is how they

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Speaker 1: were going to bring unity, and this is how they

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Speaker 1: were going to do this.

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Speaker 2: And you know, they were.

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Speaker 1: All and it's very similar to what we're seeing today,

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Speaker 1: just over a different issue, where each president is promising,

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Speaker 1: you know, that they're going to be able to break

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Speaker 1: this gridlock or they're going to be able to break

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Speaker 1: this polarization, and you know, unfortunately, you know, the question

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Speaker 1: really is are we going to get through this period.

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Speaker 1: One of my favorite expressions is I'm short term pessimistic,

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Speaker 1: long term optimistic. I'd just said the same thing in

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, and I'd have been right, but the

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Speaker 1: short term was really messy, right, But by nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: six that was you could be really optimistic, and the

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Speaker 1: question is do we get through this without violence, without

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Speaker 1: mass violence, and only with isolated violence.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's the you know, that's my sort

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Speaker 2: of blunt way of putting it. So when you look

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Speaker 2: back at the say, the progressive era, what do you

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Speaker 2: see as creating the conditions for.

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Speaker 1: For There's a reason results matter more than promises, just

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Speaker 1: like there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest

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Speaker 1: injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've

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Speaker 1: recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a

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Speaker 1: million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next

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Speaker 1: to nothing, just hoping to get away with paying as

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Speaker 1: little as possible. Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up

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Speaker 1: winning millions. In fact, in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded

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Speaker 1: twenty six million dollars, which was a staggering forty times

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Speaker 1: the amount that the insurance company originally offered. That original

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Speaker 1: offer six hundred and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So with more than

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Speaker 1: one thousand lawyers across the country, they know how to

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Speaker 1: deliver for everyday people. If you're injured, you need a lawyer.

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Speaker 1: You need somebody to get your back. Check out for

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Speaker 1: Thepeople dot Com, Slash podcast, or dial Pound Law Pound

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00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,719
Speaker 1: five to two nine law on your cell phone. And

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Speaker 1: remember all law firms are not the same, So check

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Speaker 1: out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: Back then, you had, you know, you had a lot

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Speaker 1: of movements that were sort of in place for a while. Right,

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Speaker 1: you had the movement to get women the right to

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Speaker 1: vote that had been sort of percolating for a while.

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Speaker 1: Also the temperance movement right that was percolating for some time.

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Speaker 1: So you had some So you had the muck rakers.

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Speaker 1: That's the problem of what we're missing. There isn't really

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Speaker 1: a big movement for reform. I'm surprised there hasn't been

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Speaker 1: a bigger call for a constitutional convention, for instance, like

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Speaker 1: where we arguably are due for one. But there's always

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Speaker 1: there's this weird fear on the left of one. You

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Speaker 1: have more interest on it from those you know, from

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Speaker 1: people on the right than you do on the left,

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Speaker 1: when arguably, if you look at the biggest grievances of

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Speaker 1: the left, almost all of their grievances are only going

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Speaker 1: to be solved with constitutional amendments. There are no laws

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Speaker 1: that are going to solve this when it comes to

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Speaker 1: campaign money or some of the existential things.

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Speaker 2: That they care about. And so you're right.

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Speaker 1: Other than the conditions being similar, right where you have

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Speaker 1: a new economy, we were going from an agrarian to

434
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: an industrial. Now we're going from industrial to this to

435
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: this new economy. There are these five or six lords, right,

436
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: you know, sort of you know, the robber barons of today.

437
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: So in that sense, I think, and you you know,

438
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: we don't have our Teddy Roosevelt yet, but I do

439
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: think people but I do think people are looking for

440
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 1: him or her.

441
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. The idea of it. Honestly,

442
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 2: it's the it's so hard to imagine a productive constitutional

443
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 2: convention in a country.

444
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,679
Speaker 1: That's the pass legislation anymore.

445
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 2: Like it's all one big, beautiful mail because it's the

446
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 2: only way to do it. Stuff everything into you know.

447
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 2: But you know, it's it's funny.

448
00:23:57,920 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: It's like, I also, look, I think one of the

449
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: to solve this is to double the size of the

450
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: House uncap the House, which ironically was shut down in

451
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties.

452
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 2: It was a dispute over by.

453
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,199
Speaker 1: The way, you want to talk about our polarization. The

454
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: reason we stopped expanding the House is because they disagreed

455
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: on which states should get the extra members of Congress

456
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:22,959
Speaker 1: back in nineteen twenty. They couldn't resolve it for an

457
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: entire decade, so they just capped it and said, o R,

458
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: We're going to wash our hands of this in nineteen thirty.

459
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: And you know, now, I mean, now we're stuck with

460
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: this system where the irony is the Senate is now

461
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: more apt you know, is the state legislatures will decide

462
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 1: control of the House of Representatives while the people decide

463
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 1: the Senate, when the founders actually had it the other

464
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: way around. Yeah, yeah, let me ask you this on

465
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 1: because you have to you look at sort of America

466
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 1: through the the economist has to look at it through

467
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: a little bit more of an international prism. The last

468
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: time we had sort of a protect a race, a

469
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: protectionist race, if you will, it did end up.

470
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 2: In a World war.

471
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: Why why aren't there more people worried about this rise

472
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: of Because nationalism and protectionism is contagious and we're already

473
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: seeing it.

474
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we are seeing it. And no, I mean

475
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 2: you know, the Economists has been terribly worried about this

476
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 2: for quite a while, and there's been and you know

477
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 2: that the Economists was founded in the middle of the

478
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: nineteenth century to oppose tariffs in the UK. So this

479
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 2: is particularly, you know, something subject it's obsessed with and

480
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 2: you know, as a bunch off, if it wasn't for tariffs,

481
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 2: the UK would still be an empire, right Well, I

482
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 2: don't know. I think it might have caught up with them.

483
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 2: Other issues might have cracked with them eventually.

484
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: But perhaps, but look at we wouldn't have a country

485
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: without UK tariffs.

486
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 2: So God bless it's true. It's true, and the truth

487
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 2: there is as you know, I mean, there have tariffs

488
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: are you know, we've had tariffs imposed by for one

489
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,360
Speaker 2: reason or another. It's not nothing new under the sun

490
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 2: in that sense. But what is it goes back to

491
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 2: what we were talking about at the outset, is this

492
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 2: idea that we're no longer living in what we understood

493
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 2: to be the rules based international order after that war,

494
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 2: you know, after World War Two, and each country is

495
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 2: we're back to a kind of nineteenth century idea of

496
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 2: great power struggle. And that's tremendously destabilizing, you know, and

497
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 2: that's where it's a little harder to be a long

498
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 2: term optimist because of what history has taught us about

499
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: what happens when you no longer have systems that are

500
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 2: capable of kind of because you know, people recognize that

501
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 2: this sort of order served everybody better, and a trading

502
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 2: environment in which you know, alls had a chance to

503
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 2: rawse we've just a been and the we're in the process.

504
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 2: I think of really backing away from those ideas well.

505
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: I think when you combine that with the ease with

506
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: which a medium sized power or even a small country

507
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: can inflict major damage, right, the fact that you can

508
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: essentially fight with robots, I mean the Clone war, you know,

509
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: the Clone Wars, right, if you're a Star Wars fan,

510
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: the Clone Wars are here. I mean I had Dexter

511
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: folcns on and a couple a couple of weeks ago,

512
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: and he was sounding the alarm about this change in

513
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: warfare and just how And of course I've noticed over

514
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,360
Speaker 1: the last week where so more people are noticing, hey

515
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: that the Russia Ukraine war is a drone war now

516
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: and this is the future of warfare. And you know,

517
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia are able to what normally would be

518
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: a reason to come to the negotiating table. You're running

519
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: out of troops, you're running out of physical resources, human resources.

520
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: If you don't need human resources to fight wars, you're

521
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: more likely to fight wars.

522
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. And again in an environment where

523
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 2: the US is asserting its ability to kill these suspected

524
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 2: drug runners at sea with no due process whatsoever. It's

525
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: it's tough political proposition. The politics are probably good for him.

526
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,239
Speaker 2: The long term consequences of that. For any idea that

527
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 2: there are rules that govern our behavior, they weren't created

528
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 2: for naive reasons. You know, they weren't created because we

529
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 2: all believe people were angels. Quite the opposite, right, I know,

530
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 2: it's because we knew they weren't, and you know they

531
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 2: had their better angels that maybe coaxed out I chuck,

532
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 2: you know this week, that's part of this tragedy in

533
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 2: some ways of Donald Trump watching him at the UN

534
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: ranting I'll use that word about immigration and excoriating all

535
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 2: these nations for is like, refugee flows are a deep

536
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 2: problem in the world right now, and it's not happening

537
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 2: because people invited them in it's happening because of war instability,

538
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 2: smartphones that help people navigate in ways they couldn't communication

539
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: we didn't have. They are all sorts of forces driving this.

540
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 2: And the Refugee Convention, which dates to nineteen fifty one,

541
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 2: is totally out of date. Here is something the US

542
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 2: could lead on, you know, like this is, this is

543
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump is actually, by virtue of his politics,

544
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 2: is particularly well equipped to provide that leadership. But it's

545
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 2: not going to happen.

546
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: So for us, this problem, right, No, I mean, this

547
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: is the problem. Like we kind of all know what

548
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: our problems are, what American leader the role American leadership

549
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: can play. But if the leader of America doesn't want

550
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: to lead, what are you supposed to do?

551
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 2: Right? Right?

552
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: And that's you know that, for the life of me,

553
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: he's always campaigning, he's never thinking about leading. He doesn't

554
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: care if he's got a fifty percent job, right, let

555
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: alone a sixty percent. I used to say, what made

556
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: our twentieth century politics work is that we the incentive.

557
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: Presidential incentives were to succeed, you had to be at

558
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: a sixty percent approval, So you governed to get to

559
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: sixty even if it meant you only won fifty, but

560
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: you always tried to govern a little bit above your party,

561
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: you know, and win over some people on the other side.

562
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 2: And and you were rewarded for it.

563
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:38,479
Speaker 1: Politically, we have you know, I sort of I've been

564
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: quoting a lot of Milton Friedman lately, where he famously said,

565
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's not about electing the right people, it's

566
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: about having the right and bad people will do good

567
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: things if the incentives are aligned correctly. And this gets

568
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: it to what we really need are better incentives, not

569
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: better people.

570
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 2: But so, Seranda, what you're saying about Trump when you

571
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 2: say he's always campaigning, that he's campaigning for his base

572
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: because he has hacked our politics like he's understood good.

573
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 2: That's what keeps him alive.

574
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: Right, That's what keeps him politically alive and politically powerful.

575
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 2: Right.

576
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: How is it that he has tamed the Republicans in

577
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: Congress because he's convinced him.

578
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 2: I'll go back to a quote I've quote quote Tom Cole.

579
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: I've had this.

580
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with Tom Cole about this right

581
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: after January six because he he had the most Tom

582
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: Coles January sixth statement is the most incredible statement because

583
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: it was a fascinating attempt at walking a tightrope. He said,

584
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: I'm not going to vote to certify the election because

585
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: my constituents don't want me to, and I'm in a

586
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: representative democracy. He did not say it was right or wrong.

587
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:52,959
Speaker 1: He just simply said, I'm doing this because my constituents

588
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 1: have asked me. And I said, and I went to

589
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: him and I said, you know, you have you got

590
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: I think it was in his district he got sixty

591
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: four percent and Trump got sixty two. And Cole says

592
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: to me, he goes, and if I oppost Trump, He's

593
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: going to take his sixty two and I'll keep mine too.

594
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: And you know, now, I love.

595
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,479
Speaker 1: Tom is a just one of He's just I've known

596
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: him thirty years. You know what he was before he

597
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: was a member of Congress or an elected of Fisher

598
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: who is a pollster.

599
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: So the guy is a very very much you're kind

600
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 2: of guy.

601
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he but unfortunately I think he's thought, you know,

602
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: he he he didn't want to take the risks, right,

603
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: That's essentially what he was telling me, Hey, it's too

604
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: risky and he's got control of the base, and that's

605
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: what's broken about our politics? Right, if you control the

606
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: base of the party, you can control your party even

607
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: if a majority of the country doesn't want you.

608
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 2: Like, think about this.

609
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: You are the Beerau chief in Jerusalem, so let me

610
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: let me throw a question at you that I enjoy

611
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: more of a retal. But did we export our politics

612
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: to Israel? Or did Israel export its politics to us?

613
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: And here's how I frame it. Israel and the United

614
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: States had the same issue. They've got a controversial leader

615
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: that a majority of the public doesn't want as leader,

616
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: but it's the only thing that majority agrees upon.

617
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a parliamentary system versus a republic,

618
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: right that we the democracy that we have. It feels

619
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 2: like now we have the weaknesses of a parliamentary system

620
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: without its strengths. But you look at Israel and you

621
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 2: can see a politician who's hacked the parliamentary system too,

622
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 2: which is vulnerable in exactly the same way. I mean,

623
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we've learned from each I guess

624
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: who's who's who's learned from who. I think they've reciprocal reciprocally,

625
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: you know, influenced one another.

626
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: I just find it fascinating that Bibe is able to

627
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: get stronger in his position, getting further away from the mainstream.

628
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, he's had to do that, arguably to hold

629
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 2: his coalition together. And it's reflected something that's happened in

630
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 2: Israeli politics, which is that it has moved right as

631
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 2: the coalition you know, for some resolution, a peaceful resolutionist

632
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,919
Speaker 2: conflict has basically collapsed over the course of the last

633
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 2: twenty five years. But it's true. Yeah, I mean it's not.

634
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 2: It's interesting, it it does. You know, it's similar, and

635
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 2: that you wind up within a system that's supposed to

636
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 2: theoretically drive you towards majority resolution of problems, you wind

637
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 2: up with kind of a minoritarian government, right, which is well,

638
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 2: I think that's what we have right now.

639
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't had I mean, we've only had one

640
00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: president this century who's gotten over.

641
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 2: Fifty percent of the vote. It was Obama twice. Right.

642
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 2: It's a shocking fact, isn't it. It's just yeah, Trump

643
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 2: got close this time, but he didn't make it. Yeah. Yeah,

644
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 2: it's really remarkable. And you're right, there's no longer the

645
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:16,720
Speaker 2: same incentive to aim for sixty percent.

646
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: And I don't know how to change. You know, it's funny.

647
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: The answer is, we got to change our incentive structures. Okay,

648
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: how do we do this?

649
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 2: Right?

650
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: It's easy to say, how do you do it? I mean,

651
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: I think partisan primaries probably aren't you Getting rid of

652
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: those are probably an answer. But you know, say, just

653
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,240
Speaker 1: saying you want to get rid of partisan primaries doesn't

654
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 1: mean it's going to happen overnight and basically change the

655
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: rules in fifty different states to pull that on.

656
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, governors still have to campaign that way. Right,

657
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,800
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think who within our system.

658
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: It's also the one place where voters still vote person

659
00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: over party, Right, How else do you explain a Larry

660
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 1: Hogan in Maryland and a Laura Kelly in Kansas. Right,

661
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: But nobody expected Larry Hogan to win a Senate seat,

662
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: And I promise you Laura Kelly's probably not winning a

663
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:15,439
Speaker 1: Senate seat in Kansas, right, right, Right, So we do

664
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: see it there as voters, and that you know, That's

665
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: why I do think. Now here's something Remember maybe I'm

666
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: rambling here, but we had two of the most effective

667
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: late twentieth century presidents were both former governors, Reagan and Clinton,

668
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: who both did strive for sixty percent ism.

669
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no accident, right right now?

670
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: And then the other and then I always say the

671
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: other president that had some success at being bipartisan was Eisenhower,

672
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: who was from the military and kind of a political

673
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 1: You know, that's not an accident either, right, Our more

674
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: partisan or polarizing presidents have been senators or Donald Trump.

675
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, George H. W. Bush looks better and better

676
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 2: in rent spect. Didn't win a second term. Yeah. Well,

677
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: and because it turns out he wasn't a Reaganite, right

678
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 2: because the Conservatives, as they suspected all along, right, they

679
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 2: were right.

680
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: Now, they were always right, you know, he was not

681
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: he was, he was you know, he was a little close.

682
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 2: You know, he was in the the Dewey wing of

683
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 2: the party. I guess he wanted to go backwards like that. Yeah,

684
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 2: or now we would call it the Bush wing of

685
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 2: the party. There was a bushwing in a Reagan wing,

686
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 2: and they were and a true internationalist, you know, at

687
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 2: that moment when the wall was coming down, very concerned

688
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 2: with you know, strengthening you know.

689
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's funny about H. W. Bush's presidency.

690
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: I always thought that if Biden had modeled himself off

691
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: of H. W. Bush, that that was the presidency. You

692
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: know that you can have a successful one term a

693
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 1: if you kind of behave that way, and obviously Biden

694
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: never did. But he had an opportunity to be the

695
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: Democrats version of that. He just you know, perhaps it

696
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: was just he was too late in his life to

697
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: figure out how to.

698
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 2: Do it and that so that mistake was what going

699
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: too far left or.

700
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: Totally on misunderstanding the twenty twenty mandate twenty twenty election. Now,

701
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: I think, I really think it's pretty obvious that the

702
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election was voters saying, I want off the

703
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: roller of the Trump roller coaster.

704
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 2: We knew that at the time. Of course, we didn't

705
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,280
Speaker 2: clean things downes.

706
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: Please I'm tired. I feel like I'm throwing up all

707
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: the time. I just right, get me off the roller coaster.

708
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: And and instead, you know, somebody whispered in his ear

709
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:38,959
Speaker 1: that he could be FDR and he and he did.

710
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: I mean, this is that the first two years of

711
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 1: his presidency or just the just a colossal mistake, you know,

712
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: just when you look back on it, just it is

713
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: just opportunity that he had to bring the country together

714
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: and he blew it.

715
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, really did. Yeah, he started inviting all those historians

716
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 2: to the White House. You know Clinton did that too,

717
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 2: and you want God knows, we want to learn from history.

718
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 2: But if the point is to figure out how do

719
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 2: I like compete with FDR and establish myself to be

720
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 2: it feels like again you start creating some troubling incentives there.

721
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 2: I don't know.

722
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: The minute you're trying to be more than one page

723
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: in a history book as president is when you're going

724
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: to blow it, then you because then you know you're

725
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: going to be more than one page.

726
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 2: But for all the wrong reasons. Yeah, yeah, overreach in Hubrews.

727
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 2: Who's the I'm curious.

728
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: Let's do a little bit of media landscape here in

729
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: the last last ten minutes here, who do you believe

730
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: you're talking to when you write for the Lexington at

731
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:44,800
Speaker 1: the Economist. Who's your who's your reader? Who is our reader?

732
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: I mean we have a global readership, you know, in

733
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: the English language. They are English, the English language.

734
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 2: Mostly English language, And yeah, I think that's fair to say.

735
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 2: Increasingly we're translating the stuff and to other languages. Is

736
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 2: one of the things that AI is going to allow

737
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 2: us to do at greater scale, which is excited, exciting

738
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 2: things right, all right, And by the yeah, not just

739
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 2: text but podcast, video, all that stuff. All of a sudden,

740
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 2: there's a real opportunity to get my view is really

741
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 2: high quality, you know, reporting in front of a lot

742
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 2: more people. So that's that's good. But I don't, you know,

743
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 2: it's a mix. It's a we do a podcast checks

744
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 2: and balance and do a reader questions periodically or listener

745
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 2: questions periodically, And it's always thrilling to me to here.

746
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 2: Like there's a guy, you know, he listens to the

747
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 2: podcast when he's driving his tractor on his farm in Australia.

748
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 2: Like it's how he keeps in touch with his combine,

749
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 2: you know, in his cabin. It's how he keeps in

750
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 2: touch with American politics a little bit. So for what

751
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 2: I do, I guess I'm thinking about how, as you said,

752
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 2: how do you We have a very big readership in

753
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 2: North America too, so it's a tricky thing, like, you know,

754
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 2: how do you sound you know, relevant enough to readers

755
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 2: who are pretty steeped in our politics, but still you know,

756
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 2: accessible to people who aren't.

757
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: Are you the first American that has done the Lexington

758
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: or is the Lexington always.

759
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 2: Been written by somebody you know? Yeah, I am the

760
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 2: first American. I don't think that's a good thing. Actually,

761
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 2: I mean it's something they made an announcement about when

762
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 2: I got the when I you know, I was grateful

763
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 2: to get the gig. I think one of the strengths

764
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,720
Speaker 2: of the column has always been that it is written

765
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 2: by an outsider.

766
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: Well, the tell call understood is better than any American. Yeah,

767
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: I completely agree.

768
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 2: For me, it's been a great opportunity to get some detachment.

769
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 2: And my editors are fabulous and they have you know,

770
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 2: they've kept their poise through this nutty period, and so

771
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 2: it's you know, our internal editorial conversations are outside of

772
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 2: the mosh pit, you know. But I do think it's

773
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 2: always been, you know, a strength of the of the column.

774
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 2: And there's we're not byline. The column is up byline.

775
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 2: My joke is, I'm like the dreadpire Roberts. You know,

776
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 2: every there's different one of us every but I, as

777
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 2: an American, I've had I've tried to work hard to

778
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 2: honor that bad spirit, which is not just about funny spellings,

779
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: you know, which is also part of it all. Those

780
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 2: OUs and.

781
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 1: So that that you can just let the that's something

782
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: that a I can fix. Hey like this put this

783
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 1: in the form of the of the economists. Fine, oh

784
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 1: you're all every oh, we'll have a U after it now.

785
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but it is it is, it is. I

786
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 2: do try to try to think about that about a

787
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 2: global audience when I'm writing.

788
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: That's what I was curious, is like, is it is

789
00:42:57,800 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: it You're trying to explain America to the world or

790
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: explaining the world to America.

791
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, at this at this time, Chuck, Honestly, I'm

792
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 2: out there trying to explain it to myself most of

793
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 2: the time, you know.

794
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: I mean, now, by the way, I've been calling myself

795
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: a political anthropologist, because that's I kind of feel more

796
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: that way now than anything else. I'm trying to understand

797
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: how these various American tribes interact with each.

798
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 2: Other, which is why this should be a great time

799
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 2: to be a journalist, right, Oh, I completely in that sense. Yes,

800
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: I agree that this is why we got into the business.

801
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 2: And if you're curious and you understand, want to understand

802
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 2: what's going on. There's been a lot going on that

803
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 2: I don't understand, and so I'm, you know, I'm trying

804
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:44,800
Speaker 2: to use the column for that purpose.

805
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: But if you had more resources to cover America, what

806
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: would where would you be focused and what would you

807
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: be focused on?

808
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 2: I would be spending a lot more time out in

809
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 2: the country than I am. I'm trying to travel a

810
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 2: fair amount. I haven't been able to the last couple

811
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 2: of months. I've been in, you know, in DC and

812
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 2: New York too much, but I would. And it's it's

813
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 2: a little hard when you're writing on a very regular

814
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 2: pace to get out spend the time you want to

815
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: spend reporting. But this is this is where I've found

816
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 2: my you know, the most value kind of you know,

817
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 2: for in my own work is just I you know,

818
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such an obvious thing to say, but

819
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 2: it's spending time in Texas and Florida and Ohio and

820
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 2: I want to get I haven't gotten to Alaska. I

821
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 2: want to get to Alaska. It's and getting a better

822
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 2: sense of how people are processing the national politics in

823
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 2: their own lives. I don't know, how do you answer

824
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 2: that question, Well.

825
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: I definitely think it's it's just more of everything outside

826
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 1: of Washington and New York, right, Like I think this

827
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 1: is and unfortunately legacy media is stuck shrinking and so

828
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: therefore they have fewer resources, so they're gonna you know,

829
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: I feel like they're retreating from this. The upside of

830
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: the sub stacification of journalism is that in theory, you've

831
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,879
Speaker 1: got people living in Kansas City or Lansing that are

832
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: going to then try to start their own reporting outlets

833
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: or their contributions. And I think there's I mean, I

834
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: do because I do view journalism's problem as I do it,

835
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: I view it through the prism of Craiglist, which was,

836
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: you know, as soon as we made classifieds free, we

837
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: just we ended up gutting the foundation of journalism in America,

838
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 1: which was local journalism. If you actually read to tokfol

839
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: he was fascinated by how fascinated we were by local politics.

840
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: Well why did that exist? Because every community had not

841
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 1: one paper, every community had three papers, two papers, you know,

842
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: depending on some places for papers, you know, you might

843
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: have a black newspaper, a democratic newspaper, a Republican newspaper,

844
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: and a wig paper or you know something else.

845
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 2: Right, And.

846
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: When we lost that local politics, it it really it

847
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: gutted the foundation of journal So it's clear we have

848
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: to go local. Now I'm trying to see if there's

849
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: a way to scale it, you know, is there a

850
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: way to both incubate it and scale it and and

851
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: share some of the resources in order to get some

852
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: of these locals to thrive. But ultimately, you know, we've

853
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 1: we you know when we talk about our lost communities,

854
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: right that we've we've lost community. Well, the thing one

855
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: of the community glues used to be the local paper.

856
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying we can bring newspapers back, but

857
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: if if you unbundle the newspaper and think about all

858
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: the different things the paper did for different aspects of

859
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: the community, then you, as a publisher of a local

860
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: information ecosystem, ought to be thinking about how do I

861
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: give something to every segment of my community so that

862
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: they all come back to this one entity called the

863
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: local paper, whether it's high school box scores or places

864
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: to save money on on groceries, or know where the

865
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: concerts are tonight, or micro forecasting. Because you have the

866
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: tools to do this, we know it's going to you know,

867
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: rain harder in this zip code than it is in

868
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: this zip code. And oh, by the way, your city,

869
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: here's who's corrupt on your city council.

870
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 2: I just I could not agree more. I just think

871
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: and it's a hard story to tell because it's it's

872
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,839
Speaker 2: a story, as we'd say, about a dog that's not barking, right,

873
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 2: It's about something that's gone away. But when you think

874
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 2: about the devastation at the local level to wipe out,

875
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 2: and many of them are ghost newspaper ones that are

876
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 2: left are barely staffed. People aren't able to go out

877
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 2: into the streets and interview anybody. There's no stories of corruption,

878
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 2: the poddles that aren't getting filled, the stories that just

879
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 2: make you empathize with your neighbor because of what they're

880
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 2: going through. Oh that's gone. There's some really good experiments

881
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 2: out there, but chuck. You know one thing, but journalism

882
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: for journalists. That's my biggest complaint, which is most of

883
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 2: the local experiments are journalism. But posts. Yeah, I mean

884
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 2: by that, do you mean that there's too much media coverage.

885
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:06,439
Speaker 1: Or no, it's more of you know, they're they're they're

886
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: you know, they're covering stories of marginalized communities.

887
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:11,959
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, oh they're not tough driven y, Yes,

888
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:14,280
Speaker 2: they're justice stuff or whatever, right, Yeah.

889
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,919
Speaker 1: They're all as this as a friend of mine says,

890
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: you know they you know, they all got drunk watching

891
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: Woodward and Bernstein, you know, and all the president's men.

892
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 2: You know, Well, that's a curse of our business generally

893
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:26,919
Speaker 2: right now. I think it has been for many years. Yeah,

894
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 2: you're totally right. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. Yeah,

895
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 2: and the other thing, you know, it drives me crazy, Chuck,

896
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: and you and I spent a lot of time covering

897
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: white houses, and I'm not faulting anybody for doing that,

898
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 2: but you look at the white images from the White

899
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 2: House briefing room. You would not imagine this was an

900
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 2: industry and existential crisis. You know, with any kind of

901
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 2: resource constraints. That room is more packed than it has

902
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 2: ever been. Right, And I even when I you know

903
00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 2: that is not you'll learning a lot in the way. Again,

904
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 2: I'm not faulting anybody. I've done that well. But but

905
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 2: this goes to this.

906
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: I always say, you know the problem with journalism in America,

907
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: there's too many journalists in Washington and not enough in America.

908
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, Ok, And.

909
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: I benefited from that, I always joke. I mean, I

910
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: didn't start local I started at the hotline. You know,

911
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: I was able to shortcut my way. I didn't have

912
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: to go to the city the city hall beat to

913
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 1: the state house beat, and you know, that's there are

914
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: times that I think that I regret I didn't have

915
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: that route. Then again, I got to where I got

916
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: without that route. But maybe it's because I was benefiting

917
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,399
Speaker 1: from a system that was atrophying at the time, which

918
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: it was right. Newspapers were consolidating in the nineties. Local

919
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,759
Speaker 1: political reporters are getting laid off left and right, and

920
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: so the people doing politics were all in Washington.

921
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, you could still have a good business

922
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 2: at the local level, and there was still a lot

923
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 2: of good local newspapers, many family owned. Still there was,

924
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 2: but the content consolidation was underway. The hard part of

925
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 2: it is it's not bad faith. It's business and technology,

926
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 2: the incentives of our business, and that period we were

927
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, which now to me looks like a

928
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 2: golden age. People might disagree, but the rise of objectivity

929
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 2: and all of that was driven by I cited propaganda

930
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 2: and journalists coming together to try to do better, which

931
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 2: is true, but it was really about business and technology,

932
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 2: you know, you're able to reach a mass audience for

933
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 2: the first time. In the late nineteenth century with the

934
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 2: invention of the rotary press and radio and television, all

935
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:39,919
Speaker 2: of a sudden, what had been a subscriber business became

936
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 2: an advertising based business. When you're running a big advertising

937
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 2: business at scale, you don't want to alienate by your

938
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 2: readers to be broad. They want to be broad, right,

939
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 2: So that meant just the facts, you know, it meant

940
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 2: a wide range of opinion. If you're going to do opinion,

941
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 2: it meant separating news and opinions so you could be trusted.

942
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:02,399
Speaker 2: All of that was collapsed by the Internet. And now

943
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:05,720
Speaker 2: you can build a really successful business serving a niche

944
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 2: what it wants to hear. And if you're going to

945
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 2: build a subscriber business, by the way, best way to

946
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 2: hold onto your scribers. Reassure them you see the world

947
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 2: the way they do.

948
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know you were a victim of that.

949
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: I felt, frankly, I had I had a show on

950
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:22,919
Speaker 1: on a cable channel that that we had to move

951
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,279
Speaker 1: because the audience was just we weren't ideal, we weren't

952
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 1: ideologically aligned.

953
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 2: You know, how did you hear that from the audience?

954
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 2: Can I ask you that, like, what was that feedback loop?

955
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 1: Like it was all negativity and just like just just

956
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: like it was just hate. You know, how dare you

957
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: put a Republican on? Yeah, you know that sort of thing. Now, Look,

958
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't want to spend our time talking

959
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: about your manifesto, But your manifesto I could have changed

960
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 1: out the name of your organization and put the name

961
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: of my organization and it would have read.

962
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 2: It very similar.

963
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry, Chuck, you know, and it just was like,

964
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 3: you know, you sort of knew and and you and

965
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 3: now everybody sees it, by the way, yeah, right, like

966
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:07,959
Speaker 3: everybody now has this.

967
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: Much clearer picture of what you were going through at

968
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: the time. I think what I went through in different ways,

969
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 1: what some of us were going through. I mean, I

970
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: do I think the you know, we got to this

971
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: moment this week. I always say there were two when

972
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: you think about the Jimmy Kimmel situation, there's sort of

973
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: two original sins here. Original sin one was bullying the

974
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:31,360
Speaker 1: social media companies to deep platform Trump. It is it

975
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 1: is literally the Biff gets the gambling book back to

976
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,440
Speaker 1: the future too moment. I mean, if I could go

977
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: back and change that moment and he and he stays

978
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I think he punches himself. I think what

979
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell was betting on, Right, we all know Mitch

980
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 1: McConnell was betting on Trump was going to punch himself

981
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: out and people were going to tire of it and

982
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: move on. Except we kicked him out of the main stream,

983
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: so nobody if people saw those with social posts and

984
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: a consistent basis in twenty twenty one through twenty twenty four,

985
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: I don't think he's the nominated the Republican Party.

986
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

987
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:15,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the second original sin was was Iger paying

988
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 1: off the George Stephanopuloslawsit like that, just that triggered everything

989
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: that we've been dealing with over the last nine months.

990
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 2: And other people start folding too.

991
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,800
Speaker 1: And because folded, right, it took one to cave, and

992
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: the minute they got one to cave, and then all

993
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: of a sudden, everybody lot whatever whatever was remaining in

994
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: people's spines collapsed.

995
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:39,919
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was thinking about this when you were talking

996
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 2: about the Tom Cole example. You know what you need

997
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 2: is people who are willing to say And by the way,

998
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 2: I was okay with losing because it mattered, you know,

999
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 2: that's right, And I cared about public service. I cared

1000
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 2: about it. Then, Mike, I disagreed my constituents. So I

1001
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 2: led my constituents, you know, rather than I just did

1002
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 2: what they wanted me to do, which is, you know,

1003
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 2: a way to try to make the compromise. Yeah. Yeah,

1004
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 2: And that's how you wind up with very few Liz

1005
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,960
Speaker 2: Cheney's and they wind up where she is, and it

1006
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 2: just that's how you get this cascade of kind.

1007
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 4: Of of of of cowardice. Really, and yeah, the media thing, Chuck,

1008
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:26,440
Speaker 4: the thing about it, Like I think you and I

1009
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 4: both were. We were acting in accordance to what we

1010
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,440
Speaker 4: saw as our journalistic principles and what was good journalism.

1011
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:34,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we were products of the eighties and nineties.

1012
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I know, I still I believe

1013
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 2: in it. I believe in it too. I think we're right.

1014
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 2: But the thing is, even for the activists coming after us,

1015
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 2: not this is not my problem to think about. But

1016
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 2: it was stupid politics too, you know, it's bad journalism

1017
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:52,760
Speaker 2: and stupid politics, and it empowered Donald. It empowered exactly

1018
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 2: the phenomenon. They said, they were so freaked out about right.

1019
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: You don't get an extremist unless you keep the dreamist

1020
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: from having a sec you know.

1021
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 2: Wanted to trade everybody on the other side as an extremist,

1022
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: Like you said, you can't have a Republican on Like really,

1023
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 2: we're living in a country where you can't hear from

1024
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 2: a member of the other you know.

1025
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 1: How dare you platform this person? And you're just like, yeah,

1026
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: I mean, and that was the craziness about January sixth.

1027
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 1: Nobody told me I shouldn't interview the president of Iran,

1028
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:24,760
Speaker 1: but I was told I shouldn't put on Kevin McCarthy

1029
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: because he didn't certify January sixth.

1030
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:30,000
Speaker 2: Seriously, Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that's I mean, at the

1031
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 2: New York Times, I could publish Vladimir Putin, you know,

1032
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 2: I could publish, but I could publish I did. This

1033
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 2: is what I feel. I mean, a talent ban leader,

1034
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 2: but Tom Cotton was beyond the pale, you know. Yeah,

1035
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 2: and again I mean at febreell moments and people are

1036
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 2: but you know, we as journalists, it's in those times

1037
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 2: that we particularly like we owe it to people to

1038
00:55:58,600 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 2: keep our heads.

1039
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 1: Are you jealous of some people may not know that

1040
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: your brother is Michael Bennett, the Senator who wants to

1041
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: run for governor. Are you jealous that he's leaving the

1042
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: SLA Corridor.

1043
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 2: I am envious that he gets to spend all that

1044
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:15,360
Speaker 2: time in Colorado.

1045
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: I had a senator. I had a senator I'm going

1046
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 1: to leave the name out of it. Who's just crestfallen

1047
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: that he's running for governor. Always wanted him to replace Schumer,

1048
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: and now they don't know who the best person is

1049
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:29,320
Speaker 1: to replace Schumer. There's a real movement to try. Schumer

1050
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: would be gone if there was an obvious answer, and

1051
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,879
Speaker 1: there's plenty of Democratic senators that just know that he's

1052
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: sort of he sort of he's punched out right. We

1053
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: can You know, it doesn't matter what you think whether

1054
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:44,279
Speaker 1: Schumer was was once good at this whatever. You know,

1055
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: when somebody you know, you know, when Joe Flacco shouldn't

1056
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 1: be your starting quarterback anymore, it doesn't mean he didn't

1057
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:54,799
Speaker 1: win you a Super Bowl once. But your brother was

1058
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: the consensus candidate, and now there's no consensus candidate.

1059
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 2: Huh uh. I don't know how to respond that. It's

1060
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 2: nice to your nice things said about one's brother.

1061
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 1: I know, I hear you look I don't want to.

1062
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 1: I put you on the spot. And I know I

1063
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 1: don't write about Colorado or about him. I have a

1064
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 1: real I mean I have He is a conflict for me.

1065
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: He is my brother, and uh, you know I I.

1066
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we make two. You know. It's like

1067
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 2: I feel like you two.

1068
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 1: Have always handled that very professionally, and I don't know

1069
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: why that's so difficult for some other entities in our business.

1070
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 2: You know what it's worth on that front. Let me close.

1071
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 2: But the Senate like these you know, sorry, yeah, no,

1072
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 2: go ahead, No, we were gonna say about the Senate.

1073
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,120
Speaker 2: I mean again, not speaking about him or his No, right,

1074
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 2: that is just like these these these uh, there are

1075
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 2: a lot of people leave in the Senate right now.

1076
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 2: You know, I don't blame them.

1077
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 1: I don't blame And Lisa Murkowski is apparently thinking about

1078
00:57:59,040 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: running for governor.

1079
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 2: I don't blamer Yeah.

1080
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:06,240
Speaker 1: Right, You've already got at least three senators, Marsha Blackburn,

1081
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: your brother, Tommy Tupperville, so you might add Lisa Murkowski

1082
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 1: to that. You can't get anything done in the Senate,

1083
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 1: and even if you're a committee chair, only two people

1084
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: matter in the Senate. John Puhne and Chuck Schumer. And

1085
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 1: that's the problem. They control the floor, they control amendments,

1086
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:30,360
Speaker 1: they control, and it is you know, this goes back

1087
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:34,120
Speaker 1: to the dysfunctional Congress where you know, we grew up

1088
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: in an era where committee chairs mattered. You know, Chuck

1089
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: Grassley and Max Bacchus would never have allowed any tariff

1090
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:44,959
Speaker 1: policy that looks like today get through the Senate back

1091
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:46,960
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties just wouldn't have happened.

1092
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the House too, I mean there

1093
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 2: were giants, you know, it's committee chairs like the Dan

1094
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 2: rustin Kowskis of.

1095
00:58:55,320 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 1: The committee chairs were taken seriously, well, if the bill

1096
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:00,080
Speaker 1: can get through committee, then it's got to be brought.

1097
00:58:59,960 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 2: To the floor. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a different model

1098
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:06,560
Speaker 2: of leadership that we've really moved away from, you know,

1099
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 2: a more distributed model in both chambers. And it hasn't

1100
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 2: made our politics more efficient.

1101
00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 1: No, And this is why I mean, I sort of joke,

1102
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: out of the five hundred and thirty five elected members

1103
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:19,520
Speaker 1: of Congress, we only have four that do anything, and

1104
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 1: the other five hundred and thirty one are elected pundits

1105
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:22,080
Speaker 1: if they.

1106
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 2: Choose to be. I mean look at Ted Cruz. He

1107
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:29,960
Speaker 2: has a weekly podcast. Yeah. Should he have that much time? Yeah? Yeah,

1108
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 2: I mean he does.

1109
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: That's the thing, Like he has that much This is

1110
00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:35,640
Speaker 1: not this is like, it's not like he's not doing

1111
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: his job right there?

1112
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 2: What is there to do? Although he used it for

1113
00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 2: good last week when he came out and criticized the

1114
00:59:43,480 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 2: rare Republican saying, I thought when he criticized the administration

1115
00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 2: over the Jimmy Kimmel situation, he showed refreshing consistency.

1116
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 1: I thought, well, this is where I think that Trump

1117
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 1: is actually acquiring a lot of I don't think people

1118
00:59:57,280 --> 01:00:01,440
Speaker 1: realize that. You know, with tariffs, he's quiet got Republicans

1119
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 1: upset with him in the Midwest, right your grass leaves,

1120
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: you're Jerry Moran's you know, the Farm States on free speech.

1121
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: Now it's got Ted Cruz and David McCormick sided with

1122
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:17,080
Speaker 1: him on the extra judicial killings of the boats in

1123
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:22,240
Speaker 1: Venezuela Ran Paul right, like, you know, that's how coalitions

1124
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 1: break apart, and he's thrown so many different things out.

1125
01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 1: You know, his coalition is not they're basically united on

1126
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: culture and that's it. But he's cracking it himself by

1127
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:39,479
Speaker 1: his sort of sloppy, sort of sloppy implementation of these

1128
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 1: various ideas.

1129
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and which is one of the big questions as

1130
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 2: we start looking at the twenty twenty and god knows

1131
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 2: what kind of state the country is going to be

1132
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 2: in and all the rest of it. But if you know,

1133
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 2: is there another figure that can hold this really pretty

1134
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 2: and coherent, you know, set of policies and impulses and

1135
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:05,480
Speaker 2: emotions and grievances together. The way he has history shows no.

1136
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we just talked about Bush forty one, Right,

1137
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 1: he couldn't hold together Reagan's coalition for arguably more than

1138
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: two years. Al Gore couldn't even do it for one election. Yeah,

1139
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 1: Joe Biden basically got to the presidency on the fumes

1140
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:25,640
Speaker 1: of the Obama coalition, right, that didn't hold together. It's

1141
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:31,000
Speaker 1: I would argue that in the TV era, the successful

1142
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 1: presidents have all been cults of personality in some form, right, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton,

1143
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: even w Obama Trump, And the failures have been the

1144
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 1: ones that couldn't be cults of personalities. Carter, Bush forty one, Biden, Johnson, Right,

1145
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: Like you know, the ones that didn't know how to it,

1146
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:54,439
Speaker 1: you know, for one reason or the other.

1147
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's becoming a cultural figure as much as

1148
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 2: a political one in a sense, you know. And and

1149
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 2: that's where I feel. And again one of the great

1150
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 2: failures that it just seems crazy in retrospect how little

1151
01:02:05,760 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 2: he communicated with the American people as opposed to this

1152
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 2: always on presidency that we now have. And I feel

1153
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 2: like that's just the world we're going to be living in.

1154
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 2: You know that to succeed politically, you have to dominate

1155
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 2: attention the way Donald Trump does. It's what Gavin Newsom

1156
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:23,120
Speaker 2: is banking on now, right. Ye.

1157
01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 1: Like, I'm a skeptic, but I you know, I always

1158
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: say I'm a skeptic, but I have an open mind

1159
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: on these things. Like you know, you never know what

1160
01:02:32,680 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: works in America until you see it happen. But it

1161
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: is interesting to watch Newsom try to basically do do

1162
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:44,160
Speaker 1: the Trump thing and have more success. He's having more

1163
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: success at it than I expected.

1164
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too too.

1165
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: Well, All right, do you guys publish every week or

1166
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: is it every other week?

1167
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 2: It feels like every week where every day, Chuck, It's

1168
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 2: like everybody else but the but they call it a paper,

1169
01:02:57,040 --> 01:02:59,400
Speaker 2: by the way, not a magazine. I got a different

1170
01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 2: word for every thing, but this it is.

1171
01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's thinner than magazine paper.

1172
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 2: But we published weekly. Yeah, my column comes out weekly.

1173
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: Hey, is David Bradley's dream of The Atlantic becoming a

1174
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:13,480
Speaker 1: competitor the Economists actually come true?

1175
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:17,680
Speaker 2: Uh? You know you view them as a direct competitor. Now.

1176
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 2: I don't think you'd have to ask my boss that question.

1177
01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 2: I think she would say.

1178
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 1: Or a semaphore, Yeah, I mean everybody, everybody competes with

1179
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: the semaphore definitely.

1180
01:03:27,080 --> 01:03:30,000
Speaker 2: Right. Wants to be kind of a global digital publication

1181
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 2: reaching an audience, much like we do, and everybody's in.

1182
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:38,720
Speaker 2: We are in a competition of all against all for attention. Yeah,

1183
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:40,400
Speaker 2: there's a lot of I think there is a lot

1184
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 2: of overlap. I mean, you know, having been you know,

1185
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:46,320
Speaker 2: working with you at the Atlantic back in the day,

1186
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:51,600
Speaker 2: it's DNA is so fundamentally American, you know, and it

1187
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 2: remains that way today.

1188
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 1: But you remember, I mean at north Star, for David

1189
01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 1: was always the Economist. Yeah, that was his north Star,

1190
01:03:58,240 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: not the New Yorker. That's what people don't know.

1191
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 2: But The Economist was founded by that collective of writers

1192
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 2: back in the eighteen fifties to promote the American idea.

1193
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 2: That was the whole concept. And I think you're doing

1194
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 2: an awesome job of that actually to this day. But

1195
01:04:13,360 --> 01:04:16,440
Speaker 2: that's a different role than the than the economist has,

1196
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:20,400
Speaker 2: so I think that creates some you know, meaningful differentiation.

1197
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: I h I miss you, my friend. I miss I

1198
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: miss you in a newsroom, miss collaborating with you. But

1199
01:04:28,320 --> 01:04:30,479
Speaker 1: I am thankful you're writing that column every week.

1200
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 2: Thanks, Chuck. I'm glad you're doing You're just doing the

1201
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:37,400
Speaker 2: the way you are with you.

1202
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: It's you know, there's you know, it's no fun to

1203
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: just sit back and watch right.

1204
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:49,080
Speaker 2: No, no, no, and it's it's far from over. Yeah,

1205
01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:49,800
Speaker 2: that's for sure.

1206
01:04:50,200 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: All right, brother, Well than great to see