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Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.240 percent off your entire order, So go to gtsold dot 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.319 com use the promo code toodcast. Don't forget that code. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.160 That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.560 Hello there, Happy Wednesday. Welcome to another. 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:25.880 Episode of the Chuck Podcast. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.160 Were give you a quick rundown of what we have today. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.640 I have a new candidate for you to take a 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:38.160 listen to. It's a first time candidate for office named 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.199 Joel Willett. He's running in Kentucky for the US Senate. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.240 He is a former essentially career national security person, worked 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.800 in the intelligence community and sort of gotten decided to 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.320 get involved in politics, and within a couple of days 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:58.200 of that, lost his security clearance via the political purge 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.080 that was orchestrated by the current head of the department, 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.640 the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsea Gabbart, and the whole 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.800 sort of the the political retribution aspect of the Trump 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.880 administration sort of going after the intelligence community and anybody 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:23.880 that he believes somehow that that was involved in surfacing 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:30.680 the concerns of the intelligence community about how certain unfriendly 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.280 nations to the United States seem to have access to 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:40.400 Trump's inner circle. He obviously still is angry about that. 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.679 But what's interesting about Joe Willett is that he's not, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.720 in some ways not a typical candidate for office, and 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.800 I think and has an interesting background that will seem 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.359 quite familiar to people who read the book. He'll billiology 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.040 by jd Vance for what it's worth. But what was 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.760 really helpful I had conversation after the deal was done 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.120 in the shutdown was to hear how a Senate candidate 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.360 was responding to the shutdown, and just about like every 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.240 other Senate candidate, he was pretty negative on the deal, 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.960 while he wasn't personally trashing Chuck Schumer the way other 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.960 Senate candidates seem to be wanting to flex their anti 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.760 Schumer muscles, as you've seen in so many Democratic primaries 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.400 just in the last twenty four hours. I think he 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:34.920 does give voice to at least I think he's a 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:39.680 good example of explaining who the voters, the candidates think 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.840 that are running for office in primaries think they're talking to. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.680 And that's I think probably the best way to understand 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.480 the initial reaction by those that are running for office, 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.760 those that are running in Democratic primaries, those that want 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.520 to be leaders within the Democratic Party, versus they have 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:01.960 reacted the way they've reacted. 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:02.200 Right. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:07.640 In some ways, you are what's your electorate, you know, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.600 you tell me you're electorate, and I'll tell you your 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.280 position on the shutdown, right. And if you're electorate, if 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.880 it's an electorate where you're more worried about the general 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.320 the swing voter, you were probably on the side of 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.479 figuring out how to do a pause in the shutdown. 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.240 And if you were somebody who's got to worry more 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.240 about a primary voter, then you were going to be 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.039 emphatic against cutting this steel. And I think the reaction 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.920 is a reminder that this was not about healthcare, right. 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:37.320 This was about. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.960 Taking on finally confronting Trump on something right, and the party. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.560 Democratic Party hadn't done any decent confrontation. 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:47.039 Really. 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.719 A few governors had in trying to fight back on 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.760 National Guard efforts and things like that, but there hadn't 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.880 been a real showdown between the party and Trump, and 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:03.520 the shutdown provided that and politically in the last forty days, 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.240 it energized the base of the Democratic Party and they 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.680 felt good about that energy and it because the elections 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.880 went well last week. It can it seemed to provide 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.280 the confirmation you know, a sort of form of confirmation bias. Hey, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.800 this shutdown seems to be working. Look at how well 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.360 our candidates did. Why give up this this idea now 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.760 when at the end of the day, you know, you know, 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.280 things can turn quickly if you're not careful. And already 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.840 some polling a surfaced about how as this shutdown was 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.800 impacting more and more Americans, blame was starting to get 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.960 shared more and more between both parties. Yes, Republicans were 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.719 taking the run of the blame. Yes, Mike Johnson and 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:49.040 Donald Trump were actually making it easier for Democrats to 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.040 politically win the shutdown by their own maneuvers and their 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.960 own decision making there. But ultimately, as I've stated in 0:05:58.000 --> 0:05:59.880 a few other places that I've spoken in the last 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.680 forty eight hours, there is a large chunk of voters 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.120 in the middle who don't pay attention to day to 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.800 day massinations, but that will pay attention when the proverbial 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.719 government toilet is clogged, you know, and not being able 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.200 to travel around Thanksgiving at a time when we have 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.560 almost no choice but to use their airplanes in order 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:22.080 to get where we want to get in a short 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.200 weekend was a way that you were suddenly going to 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.039 start impacting people that don't normally pay attention to the 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.719 day to day machinations, and that actually can become long 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.159 term more politically damaging than anything you think is going 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.120 for you in the short term. So that's my basic 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.160 way to explain the situation we're in. 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:43.080 Now. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.919 What's funny here is leave it to the Democrats that 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:50.800 come across. As you know, they're essentially divided over tactics. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.279 They're not divided over any issue. They all believe in 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.440 this healthcare issue. They all believe Trump needs to be confronted. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.880 They all believe they've got to shift their messaging to 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.359 cost of living issues. Right, So this is a party 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.400 that is fighting over tactics. You know, do they have 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.840 the right leaders? They probably don't. Just changing leaders change 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.800 the debate on tactics. I don't know if it really does, 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.720 but I will say this, once you have lost the 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.840 trust of the people you're trying to lead, you probably 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.400 ought to leave, right, you know. And and the best 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.440 thing for the party would be if Chuck Schumer went 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.360 out on his own, not forcing more groups to come 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:34.520 out calling for his resignation and all this stuff. But ultimately, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.320 I don't know if it changes. You know, you're still 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:42.760 going to have a leader that's got to be thinking about, Hey, 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.440 there's the base wants one thing, but you still got 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.200 to appeal to swing voters if you actually want to 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.360 win enough seats to actually be in charge of governing something. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.960 So I think that tension would exist whether it was Schumer, 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.000 whether Brian Schatz is there, whether it's Chris Murphy, whether 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.960 it's Amy Klobashar, whether it's Patty Murray. Right, we could 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:02.680 come up, you know, And I think if you know, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:04.720 this is one of those moments where if Schumer just 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.720 decided in the next week to sort of you know what, 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.800 all right, you know, I'm not wanted here, I'll take 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.160 a step back. My gut is Patty Murray would replace him, 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.720 because she'd be seen as a quote unquote caretaker majority leader. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.960 She's at this point the senior most member of the 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.360 Democratic Senate, and nobody would cross her right, and she 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.640 really has the respect of sort of all wings of 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.760 the party. I think she'd be seeing the original mom 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:34.880 and tennis shoes, you know, as she ran as a 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.760 sort of a populist candidate of her day in nineteen 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.600 ninety two when she first came on the national scene. 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.120 I think she would be seen as somebody that would 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.000 would be less of a public face for the party. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.480 And in some ways, I think many senators wouldn't mind 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.880 that and would likely embrace that. But let's be realistic, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.880 you may not see any change in the short term. 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:00.640 To me. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.880 The you know, while it's easy to cover this tactical 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.440 split inside the Democratic Party because it's sort of easy 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.360 to do. It's easy to create a cable news segment 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.400 on it. It's easy to find people to criticize, you know, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.280 it's sort of an easy debate to have. It's not 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.600 really that big of a divide because it's not over 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.280 some sort of fundamental ideology ideological disagreement, you know, where 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.800 for instance, like things with Mamdani, those are fundamental ideological 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.080 disagreements about you know, how involved government should be in 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.560 the economy. That's that's that's a larger divide that I 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.520 think doesn't really get dealt with in the Democratic Party 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.560 until the presidential primaries take shape. But I'd tell you, 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.560 even as everybody's focused on the dem divide here, don't 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.240 take your eye off the ball of a growing Republican divide. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.760 I think that is coming. I think that right now, 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.720 if you're a Republican elected official in Congress, you should 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.880 You're trying to figure out what do I do when 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:08.680 the leader of the party is not accepting reality. And 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.079 Donald Trump's inability to accept the reality that this economy 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.679 sucks for a lot of his supporters is going to 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:20.000 cause a much bigger problem for the Republican Party than 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.480 anything the Democratic Party is going through at the moment, 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.520 because ultimately, because they're in the minority and because they're 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.079 in the opposition, you know, I mean, they're going to 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.400 have a unity of message, They're going to have a 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.800 unity of focus. They may disagree on how to deal 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.040 with Trump in the moment, but they're not going to 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.520 disagree on how to court the voters in twenty twenty six. 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.840 That's a divide that I think that is not the 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.080 case on the Republican side of the aisle. As this 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.040 economy weakens for those without money and essentially with those 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.280 about real savings. And that's what we're seeing here right. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.160 This is a This is the very definition of a 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.360 trickle down economy where Donald Trump is hoping that the bang, 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.640 the stock market success is going to somehow trickle down 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.640 and help everybody else. There's not a lot of evidence 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.640 that that ever works. You can just go back one 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:13.959 hundred years and see how that worked out. The last 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.960 time we sort of tried to put together an economy 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.920 where government and big business fused itself together like it 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.360 did in the early parts of the industrial and the 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:25.280 Industrial Age. 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:26.400 That didn't end well. 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.040 We got a great depression, and then finally government decided, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.200 the people decided, hey, they wanted government. They wanted more 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.800 guard rails on big business, more guardrails on the economy 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.360 than what we had at the time. And I have 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.319 a feeling we're going to end up in a similar 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:47.080 situation where we're going to have a downturn caused by 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.960 what we're seeing, this fusion of big tech and government, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.160 and that is going to awake awoke in a bunch 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.880 of people who are going to want more guardrails put 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.439 on our economy, necessarily leaving capitalism, but something more akin 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.360 to what the two Roosevelts fought for, both Teddy and 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:13.800 Franklin in their very different ways. But I did get 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:15.920 a lot of questions on the shutdown, so I decided 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:17.840 that before we get to the interview that I would 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.520 answer all the shutdown related q and as in this 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.400 part of the podcast, we'll have our individual will it 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.440 then I'll do my top five list this week. It's 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.680 where I the top five Senate seats most likely to flip. 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.120 It's let's just say the top five has changed. Just 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.720 like in college football, what the top five was at 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:40.640 the beginning of October is a lot different than what 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.040 the top five is at the beginning of November. So 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.680 goes my list of top five most likely most vulnerable 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.160 Senate seats in twenty twenty six. But before we get 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.120 to all that, and I'll do some q and as 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.400 on other topics that were not shut down related. So 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.040 we'll begin with this. This comes from Tim, and he asks, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.600 I don't I understand why the Democrats are being blamed 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.640 for the shutdown. If the Speaker will not convene the House, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.559 how can the Dems vote against it? Also, if the 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:07.360 Republicans control the House, why can't they just. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:08.160 Vote to pass it. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.400 I think too many times that reporter. Too many times 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.280 reporters assume that people know the cause of the most 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.880 basic facts about an issue, or maybe this was reported 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.360 at the beginning of the shutdown, so they don't need 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.200 to reiterate those facts. I think it has helpful to 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.960 remind people periodically of those basic facts. Thanks Tim, Tim, 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.040 You're absolutely right. This is a pet peeve of mine. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.240 I talk about this to new journalists or those folks 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.640 in journalism school where I remind people because I learned 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.880 this from interacting with viewers during my time at Meet 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.880 the Press. Is how often a viewer, particularly a first 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.160 generation American, would come up to me and say that 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.400 they watch Meet the Press to sort of understand how 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.720 the American government works. And every time I would get 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:51.880 a response like that, it would remind me that, hey, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.640 we're in the education business first. That's first and foremost 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.600 what a journalist is. They're educating the public. We shouldn't 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.200 forget that. And you know, I had a viewer one time, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.880 I think it was somebody on social media one time 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.040 respond you know, somebody was lamenting the fact that people 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.199 didn't know that there were nine members of the Supreme Court, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.080 or how all that worked? Somebody said how often do 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.480 you put it in your stories? And I thought, you know, 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:24.200 that person's right. We sometimes don't reiterate basic facts about 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.800 government because we go through this well, people already know that, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.160 or the people that are paying attention to this story 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.560 are already going to know those things. And you're like, well, 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.880 what about the Joe Demaje. You know, there was a 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.400 great saying by Joe Demaggio. He used to say he 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.040 played hard every game because he thought that there might 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:43.720 be somebody in the stands who was coming to see 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.240 him for the very first time. And guess what, there's 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.400 somebody reading your story. There's somebody listening to my podcast, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.800 there's somebody you know, reading your commentary. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:55.280 For the very first time. 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.080 And if they don't understand it, they're not going to 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.200 to read you again, right, or they may not be 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.040 as they may not follow the topic you're trying to 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.000 get them to follow because you didn't help them understand 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:14.080 how it works. So I look, I believe in this, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.960 you know, I look at my college football writers. They 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:18.880 spend a lot of time explaining how the college. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:19.680 Football playoff works. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.360 So college football fans all know how the college football 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:24.600 playoff works. But it's not because they went out to 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.720 look forward. It's because the new stories and the news 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.600 commentators and ESPN in particular constantly wants to remind people 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.280 how it works. Now they have an incentive, they're trying 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.280 to make a bigger deal out of it. Well, we 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.640 ought to take that same premise there. So you're asking 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.240 why did the Democrats get Why should the Democrats get 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.240 blames to their shutdown? Well, it was technically Democrats that 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.760 withheld just enough votes where the Continuing Resolution to keep 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.120 the government open couldn't pass the Senate. Now, in the House, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.840 Mike Johnson got a party line vote and he passed 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.960 the continuing Resolution and in the House, so what they 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.160 did is he passed that bill and then they want 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:06.880 to This is a case where the House wanted to 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.600 jam the Senate and they didn't want to. And his 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.240 thesis was, I'm not even going to come. I'm not 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.840 going to convene the House until the Senate deals with 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.440 the bill that we gave them. And we gave them 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.600 a bill to keep the government open. It's up to 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.960 them to get that bill passed. So this is the 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.480 whole the House passed its version. So no, you're right, 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.840 the House didn't didn't convene while the government was shut down. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:34.160 But what Johnson's thesis was they didn't need to because 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.600 there was no legislation. Now, why else did he keep 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.840 him out, Well, because he didn't want his members, you know, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.960 board showing up on cable TV saying things that would 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:45.480 cause them political pain. 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:46.200 Et cetera, et cetera. 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.640 But it was also a tactic, and this is something 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.600 that happens. You know, there's there's always a joke in 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.520 Congress that you know that the real divide in Congress 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.520 is not Democrats versus Republicans, it's the House versus the Senate. 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.920 And so you know, the House was essentially jamming the 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.240 Senate and jamming John Thune. So it was up to 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.840 John Thune, who had fifty three Republican senators, actually fifty two, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.640 because Rand Paul indicated he was going to vote against 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.600 this deal, he had to go find eight Democrats. So 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.159 in that sense, this is why in theory, because it 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:24.000 needed sixty votes when Democrats withheld their votes, unless the 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.160 Republicans are willing to get rid of the filibuster, which 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.200 was something Donald Trump talked about then the only way 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.680 the government could get reopened is if eight Democrats joined 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:40.400 fifty two Republicans to reopen the government. So I think 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.760 what you're right about is every time that the story 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.160 was reported that would not be explained at the top. 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.240 And I think it's a bad habit professional journalists, particularly 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.920 Washington journalists, have come. I always say that a lot 0:17:54.920 --> 0:18:00.280 of times Washington reports for Washington or producers produced segments 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.679 for producers, they don't think about sort of are we 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.040 educating somebody who's tuning in for the very first time? 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.000 And you know, in that sense, I think that's something 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.200 that we all need to do better on. In this way, 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.520 I love the podcast format where I can feel like 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.240 I'm not I don't have some sort of time constraint 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.359 where I have to take a shortcut on something because 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.560 the main thing I need to convey needs a certain 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.879 amount of time to explain, and I don't want to 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.679 take away from that by having to explain the basics 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:37.000 and yet not explaining the basics all the time is 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.560 what makes politics inaccessible to people. And I've always said 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.560 my real goal, and I've had this goal ever since 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.320 I entered journalism is, and political journalism is. I love politics, 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.439 and my job is to explain it in such a 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.320 way that it's more accessible to people. You know, there 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.240 there was another person who used to go out of 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.760 his way to talk about the Gang of five hundred 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.280 and maybe politics inaccessible and would claim that politics was 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:08.159 an exclusive club and only those in the know understood it. Yeah, 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.399 there's people that want politics to be that way, so 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.560 that way they are not subject to what the actual 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.639 democracy wants, small d democracy wants, and so in that sense, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.119 I'm a populous when it comes to information, and I 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.359 think we need to make politics more accessible, more understandable, 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.600 so more people understand how much it's impacting their lives. 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.040 I hope that helped you as to understand why in 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:38.320 this case democrats had skin in the gament. 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:41.000 There's a reason. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.760 Results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason. 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.320 Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.440 the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.560 dollars for more than half a million clients. It includes 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.359 cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just hoping 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.040 to get away with paying as little as possible. And 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.600 Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact, in Pennsylvania, 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.879 one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, which was 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.359 a staggering forty times the amount that the insurance company 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.520 originally offered. That original offer six hundred and fifty thousand 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.440 dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.600 So with more than one thousand lawyers across the country, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.360 they know how to deliver for everyday people. If you're injured, 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.040 you need a lawyer, You need somebody to get your back. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.199 Check out for the People dot com, Slash podcast or 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:32.800 Dow Pound Law Pound five to two nine law on your 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.440 cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same. 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.639 So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:44.399 unless they win. All right, next question comes from Brian 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.240 in New England. Right, So, I can't help but notice 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.120 all of the liberal political commentators seem to think they 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.760 have lost the shutdown fight. Likewise, all of the conservative 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.120 political commentators believe they somehow won the shutdown fight, assuming 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.639 no last minute silliness by Senator Ran Paul. Yet all 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.680 of the more moderate political commentator seemed to paint a 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.399 vast different picture as to who won and lost, and 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.760 most seem to think Democrats got most out of the shutdown. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:06.760 So this brings up a good question, how do you 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:08.560 win a shutdown fight? How do you know who won 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:10.720 the shutdown fight? Can you even win a shutdown fight? 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.520 Or is it really just a lose lose lose for 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.399 everyone involved? Or at the end of the day, is 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:16.200 who won or lost? 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:16.720 A shutdown? 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.520 All just vibes and fuzzy feelings anyway? To me, it 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.320 kind of feels like the old whose line is at 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:21.639 any way? 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:22.280 TV? Show? 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.320 Everything is made up and the points don't seem to matter. Well, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.440 look this is you know, if you really want to 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:33.639 wind me up. The entire shutdown process is a manufactured 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:39.000 political circus. The idea that the most important government on 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:40.720 the face of the earth. 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:42.320 Has a. 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.000 Has a bug in it that allows for parts of 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.119 the government to just simply shut down when there is 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.199 a political dispute over funding levels is got to be 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.600 one of the dumber things anybody does. The idea that 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.840 you know, I just think that the legal interpretations and 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:05.680 I went through this for those of you that wanted 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.800 to go off, you know, I am, but let me 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.199 just tell you, I am furious that there is not 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.960 a single effing member of Congress in the center of 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.240 the House that is rallying around the idea that we 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.000 need to prevent shutdowns from ever happening again. It is 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.240 absurd that we are hiring people to be air traffic 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.639 controllers and part of the process is, hey, you know, 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:29.840 every couple of years there's going to be a political 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:31.200 fight and you're not going to get paid for about 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.920 a month or two. Are you okay with that? What 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.880 kind of circus are we running here? I mean, that's 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:43.520 just you know, deciding to run to intentionally create a 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:48.879 shit show government. It's stupid, it's unnecessary, and it shouldn't be. 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:55.119 It's dumb, it's it's and it all. The only people 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.600 that benefit from a shutdown are elected officials who are 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:00.719 trying to make a name for themselves. You asked who 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:06.000 wins in a shutdown? Individuals win, No party wins. Nobody 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:07.960 likes the result of the shutdown at the end of 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:13.440 the day, everybody collectively hates the process of it, right, 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:17.000 But the winners are individuals. You know, Ted Cruz, you know, 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:22.760 So take the twenty thirteen shutdown. Republicans quote unquote are 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.920 seen as having lost that shutdown, right, because politically they did. 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:28.360 If it wasn't for the shutdown, Republicans would have won 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.840 a governor seat in Virginia that year, and instead Democrats 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.960 won the governor seat. So you could look at just 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.159 sort of the tactics and say up, Republicans lost and 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:41.080 Ted Cruz was unpayable. Yet Ted Cruz built a political following. 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:43.520 Ted Cruz was trying to run for president in twenty 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:46.439 sixteen and build a national following. So it worked for 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:50.800 Ted Cruz. And that's who the shutdowns are for. They're 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:55.920 for partisan actors, pure and simple, to try to make 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:58.560 a name for themselves. That's so the only people that 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.320 have ever come outquote unquote ahead. Right, it becomes about 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.520 who can raise the most money off of the silliness 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.159 of the shutdown. And I'm sorry, I just think the 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.439 idea that it's a practice that is somehow allowed and 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:17.360 the only the only reason to have it is to 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:19.439 figure out a way to bring more attention to a 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:26.440 funding dispute. Guess what, perhaps we shouldn't put three hundred 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:32.080 and fifty million people in the crosshairs of a of 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:37.600 a political disagreement over funding levels. That seems like a 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.800 waste of a superpower's time. It actually makes us more 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:48.159 vulnerable as a nation on national security. It is certainly 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:52.399 a huge sign of weakness. And again there's you know, 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:58.200 so a responsible democracy and a responsible government wouldn't put 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:01.520 put us in a situation where we can just easily 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:05.760 have a couple of people decide that the government is 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:08.320 just going to close its doors. And then, of course 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.240 we've exempted so many aspects of the shutdown that if 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:15.719 the initial idea of the shutdown was to you know, 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:17.919 it was going to be so painful that everybody wouldn't 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:20.560 want it to be be for more than a day 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:23.159 or two. But when you take away you know, when 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:24.840 you decide, well, social security isn't going to be a 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:27.200 part of it, and we'll exempt military pay, and we'll 0:25:27.240 --> 0:25:30.080 exempt this, and we'll exempt that, then it becomes easier 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:32.920 to do the political theater. So I have to say, I, 0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:35.679 as a as a voter who would like to have 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:40.040 less dysfunction in our politics, am sorry that there's not 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:44.400 a single elected member of Congress Democratic Republican currently advocating 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:47.680 a no shutdowns bill. They've existed in the past. Where 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.680 are they now where are they today? Instead, everybody wants 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:53.600 to perform for the frickin' basis of each party because 0:25:53.640 --> 0:25:57.119 of how stupidly we've gerrymandered everything and our partisan primaries, 0:25:57.160 --> 0:25:59.399 all of those things, right, we have all of our 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:02.040 incentive struck or for politicians to only pay attention to 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:07.879 the base. And it's just so the people that hate 0:26:07.880 --> 0:26:10.000 this shutdown stuff the most are the ones that aren't 0:26:10.040 --> 0:26:13.879 partisan activists. And it doesn't seem like there's a single 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:18.919 person in the in Congress that represents the constituency that 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:23.760 just doesn't want the goddamn toilet clogged purposely, and instead 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:27.240 this is what we have. So I don't know if 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:29.000 I answer your question right, I don't think anybody won 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:32.800 the shutdown fight. And if you're wondering to me, you know, 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:38.240 it is one of those where the only time anybody 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:40.600 gains from it is if they're trying to if it's 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:44.240 somebody individually trying to build their own following for some 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:47.600 sort of national political purpose, you know. And the best 0:26:47.640 --> 0:26:51.480 example of that Ted Cruise twenty thirteen. He shut down 0:26:51.480 --> 0:26:54.320 I was seen as a loser, but actually gave Ted 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:58.000 Cruise a constituency, all right, next question comes from Kenny 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:00.439 from Long Islanding Rights. My question for you about the 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:02.399 deal that seems to have been struck. It seemed to 0:27:02.400 --> 0:27:04.440 me that the Democrats traded their leverage for a campaign 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:06.600 at the Republicans will not have to take the tough vote, 0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:09.400 but will inevitably vote down the Obamacare subsidies. And that's 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:11.920 about it. Snap resumes, payments resumed, no one gets fired. 0:27:12.160 --> 0:27:13.960 But all that is the standard course of events for 0:27:13.960 --> 0:27:16.000 the end of a shutdown. The only thing Senator Schumer 0:27:16.000 --> 0:27:17.720 seems to have extracted here is a tough vote. Am 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:19.960 I reading this correctly? If so, why on earth would 0:27:19.960 --> 0:27:21.800 he have fought this hard and held out this long 0:27:21.840 --> 0:27:23.879 only to give up and walk away with nothing to 0:27:24.040 --> 0:27:25.919 show for it. Lastly, I agree and disagree with your 0:27:25.920 --> 0:27:28.600 assessment about President Trump entering this lame duck era. I 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:32.760 agree that's the biggest takeaway for the shutdown resolution. To me, though, 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:35.520 it's not because of the defiance. It's because they negotiated 0:27:35.560 --> 0:27:37.879 a solution without them in the Senate. At least, the 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:40.520 President disengaged and made it easy for this to play out, 0:27:40.520 --> 0:27:43.040 but ultimately Senator thoonstruck the deal. I love the new 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:45.439 format and I feel as though I'm learning so much 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:47.200 more about the inside game when it comes to politics. 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:49.560 Thank you for the scoop, all right, Kenny. I appreciate 0:27:49.600 --> 0:27:57.640 the construction constructive critique there on that front. It's interesting. 0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:01.200 I guess I could word it, you know, and again 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:04.239 I would word it differently. I don't think there's a 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:09.320 cave here. I think there is. I think Warnock said it. 0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:12.560 He said, if you're going to say that the Democratic 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:17.160 Party seems to care about those on snap benefits more 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:20.120 than the Republican Party cares about then I think he said, 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:23.240 guilty is charged, right, that that's not a And I 0:28:23.240 --> 0:28:26.320 think if you're you know, again, a better leader and 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:31.800 a better communicator would not have would not have signaled 0:28:31.840 --> 0:28:33.479 that this is over, would signal it. 0:28:33.920 --> 0:28:34.159 You know what. 0:28:36.880 --> 0:28:39.000 I think we've we've gotten more people aware of this 0:28:39.080 --> 0:28:43.640 healthcare issue. We're sorry that the president wants to irresponsibly 0:28:43.840 --> 0:28:48.640 punish people that have nothing and weaponize the FAA and 0:28:48.720 --> 0:28:51.120 all of this, and so we're not going to let 0:28:51.160 --> 0:28:53.920 him do that. So we're going to take a pause 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:56.560 in this over the next two months. We're going to 0:28:56.600 --> 0:29:00.320 make sure people can travel for the holidays and come January, 0:29:00.440 --> 0:29:03.920 there's another vote to reopen the government and there's Obamacare subsidies. Okay, 0:29:04.000 --> 0:29:07.160 so I don't think they gave away any leverage. I 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:10.760 think they still have leverage in January to essentially shut 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:15.320 down government again if they want to, if these Obamacare 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:20.160 subsidies don't get passed for a year. I think I 0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:25.000 think that there's going to be a majority of the 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:27.640 US House that votes for these Obamacare subsidies. Not a 0:29:27.640 --> 0:29:30.720 majority of Republicans, but a majority of the House. I 0:29:30.760 --> 0:29:35.120 think you will see somewhere between thirty and forty Republicans 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:38.760 who do this. I think you will see ten to 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:42.640 fifteen Senate Republicans wanting to be for this. So I 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:44.960 think it's going to happen. I think the results of 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:47.320 the I mean, I think the biggest impact on the 0:29:47.840 --> 0:29:53.400 healthcare subsidies was the twenty five election results. The fact 0:29:53.440 --> 0:29:56.280 that it was a romp, the fact that cost the 0:29:56.360 --> 0:29:59.200 living issues and Democrats didn't even have the healthcare issue 0:29:59.240 --> 0:30:00.920 yet and it was working for them. We already know 0:30:00.960 --> 0:30:04.920 how well healthcare works as an opposition issue when you're 0:30:04.920 --> 0:30:07.240 messing with it. We just saw it in twenty eighteen. 0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:09.840 That benefited the Democrats and back in twenty ten when 0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:13.880 it benefited the Republicans. Anytime you mess with the status 0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:16.200 quo of healthcare, the party messing with the status quo 0:30:16.280 --> 0:30:18.440 gets punished, and in this case that's going to be 0:30:18.480 --> 0:30:23.600 now the Republicans. And so I guess I don't accept 0:30:23.600 --> 0:30:26.520 the premise that they got rid of. 0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:30.400 Any of their leverage. 0:30:30.560 --> 0:30:33.880 And I think this is why I could argue, this 0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:36.520 is why Schumer should go, because he's a terrible communicator 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:38.120 and he couldn't communicate. 0:30:37.600 --> 0:30:38.120 That they won. 0:30:39.120 --> 0:30:42.320 They won if you want him, you know, and he's 0:30:42.400 --> 0:30:46.040 trying now. But he just doesn't have credibility with anybody anymore. 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:46.480 Right. 0:30:46.600 --> 0:30:49.120 It's like, like I said, I keep comparing Schumer to 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:51.840 Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick. They used to have credibility 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:54.000 with the players they coached. Now they don't anymore. 0:30:54.720 --> 0:30:55.320 That happens. 0:30:55.400 --> 0:30:59.040 It happens in every walk of life. It happens to 0:30:59.080 --> 0:31:01.520 political leaders all the time. Time there's a moment when they 0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:04.080 have uber leverage over the entire party, and there's moments 0:31:04.120 --> 0:31:05.360 where nobody will listen to them. 0:31:05.680 --> 0:31:06.200 George W. 0:31:06.320 --> 0:31:08.440 Bush had so much influence over his party for a 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:11.160 period of time until he had no influence over his 0:31:11.160 --> 0:31:15.480 party for a period of time. Right, it is political 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:19.600 capital is elusive. When you have it, you better spend 0:31:19.640 --> 0:31:23.320 it because if you try to save it, it'll disappear. 0:31:25.640 --> 0:31:30.320 So I guess I'm not I think they could have 0:31:30.360 --> 0:31:35.120 communicated this in such a way where they could have 0:31:35.200 --> 0:31:37.680 been seen as the adult in the room and not 0:31:37.800 --> 0:31:41.800 giving up their fight on healthcare, because technically they've given 0:31:41.880 --> 0:31:49.920 themselves opportunities before the State of the Union in February 0:31:48.840 --> 0:31:55.640 to make this a showdown vote one more time. All right, 0:31:55.720 --> 0:31:59.440 last question comes from David Crowder, and then we'll get 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:01.280 to the interview with Joe Willett. I like your work 0:32:01.280 --> 0:32:03.560 in thoughtfulness. Thank you saw your podcast at sam First 0:32:03.560 --> 0:32:05.920 Info and Jay Jones came out in mid October. Virginia 0:32:06.200 --> 0:32:08.440 begins early voting mid September. You get my point. Second, 0:32:08.440 --> 0:32:13.280 the shutdown argument pre pandemic. Some twelve millions participated in 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:16.320 the bill. Their subsidies remain with premium increases. It's not 0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:17.840 a big deal. The big deal is the twelve million 0:32:17.880 --> 0:32:21.040 who enrolled post pandemic who did not qualify financially for 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:24.040 pre pandemic for subsidies they lose the subsidies. Is that 0:32:24.120 --> 0:32:25.800 disconnect worth shutting down the government. 0:32:25.920 --> 0:32:26.400 I don't know. 0:32:26.720 --> 0:32:29.800 Seems like some form of a subsidy could be agreed upon. Finally, 0:32:30.040 --> 0:32:32.280 the tax breaks that were scheduled to expire were extended. 0:32:32.320 --> 0:32:38.200 The differences the subsidies weren't scheduled to expire. It's all crap, David. 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:45.240 You've summarized the poor legislative process quite well, right. You 0:32:45.280 --> 0:32:47.520 know the fact that we have such a dysfunctional way 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:51.240 that we make laws now, and we have such distrust 0:32:51.280 --> 0:32:54.720 of the two parties that they there's always a weird 0:32:54.760 --> 0:32:56.160 poison pills in different ways. 0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:56.400 Right. 0:32:56.520 --> 0:32:59.520 The subsidies, they can't you know. Did Democrats want those 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:00.920 subsidies in perpetuity? 0:33:00.920 --> 0:33:01.360 They did? 0:33:01.640 --> 0:33:03.720 Could they not get enough votes to get them without 0:33:03.800 --> 0:33:06.200 putting some sort of time stamp on it. They couldn't 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:10.440 dinal with the tax cut, right, they couldn't. Trump couldn't 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:14.040 get it permanent, so instead he had an expiration date 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:19.360 on it, hoping that the expiration would serve as a 0:33:19.400 --> 0:33:21.800 fear of a tax hike and then that somehow would 0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:24.560 get people to renew them. The Bush tax cuts work 0:33:24.640 --> 0:33:27.520 this way, right, these ten year increments. We do this 0:33:27.640 --> 0:33:30.720 sort of funny business accounting when it comes to the 0:33:30.760 --> 0:33:33.920 impact on the deficit with these funny numbers with the 0:33:33.920 --> 0:33:38.000 Congressional Budget Office and these estimates that are all that 0:33:38.080 --> 0:33:41.760 are all just sort of make assumptions that nobody can 0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:44.880 assume when it comes to the actual state of the economy. 0:33:45.880 --> 0:33:49.080 But we make these deficit projections in such a way 0:33:49.120 --> 0:33:54.400 that it encourages these sort of false expiration dates. Right, 0:33:54.520 --> 0:33:58.240 some will have them, some will don't. They're usually time 0:33:58.400 --> 0:34:02.520 to make it politically difficult to somehow not extend the deadline, 0:34:02.560 --> 0:34:05.120 whether it's on a on a tax rate, or whether 0:34:05.200 --> 0:34:12.719 it's on a subsidy or whatever it is. So you know, 0:34:12.760 --> 0:34:16.239 this goes to the this is what you get when 0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:20.320 you when you don't have a functioning committee process in Congress. 0:34:21.040 --> 0:34:26.160 And not to get really dorky here, but essentially when 0:34:26.200 --> 0:34:30.480 we totally polarized the US Houses, which which really began 0:34:30.640 --> 0:34:36.799 sort of late eighties, early nineties, right, and you know, 0:34:36.840 --> 0:34:39.839 there's those on the right blame Jim Right and the Democrats, 0:34:39.880 --> 0:34:42.319 those on the left blame Newt Gingridge and the Republicans. 0:34:43.200 --> 0:34:45.440 I think I think sort of there was there was 0:34:45.520 --> 0:34:49.160 certainly power plays that Jim Right made that new Gingridge 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:53.239 then emulated and took to took to an took even 0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:59.279 further that ultimately destroyed the committee process and the destruction 0:34:59.640 --> 0:35:02.680 of the congressional committee process both in the House and 0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:07.680 the Senate. Is why we get such poorly written legislation 0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:12.480 which used, so I think eloquently pointed out with the 0:35:12.480 --> 0:35:16.680 way you worded your question, the fact that the question 0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:19.239 was a bit confusing. I don't put on you, I 0:35:19.320 --> 0:35:22.440 put on Congress because this is how they legislate now, 0:35:22.480 --> 0:35:27.000 with these sort of weird expiration dates. It's all designed 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:30.000 to create sort of political poison, almost almost like these 0:35:30.840 --> 0:35:34.080 sort of delayed bombs that suddenly explode and you have 0:35:34.120 --> 0:35:37.360 no choice but to continue a policy that maybe you 0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:40.239 were never in favor of. You know, Obama didn't want to. 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:42.600 Obama ran on getting rid of the Bush tax cuts. 0:35:42.840 --> 0:35:44.480 Turns out he couldn't get rid of them because of 0:35:44.480 --> 0:35:47.360 what kind of impact it would have had on a 0:35:47.480 --> 0:35:50.440 number of people seeing their tax bills go up, and 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:52.759 he didn't want to politically put himself in that situation. 0:35:53.160 --> 0:35:54.920 He had made a pledge not to raise taxes on 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:59.080 anybody over I think it was four hundred thousand dollars. 0:35:59.480 --> 0:36:06.799 So the new line that they drew on that. So ultimately, 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:10.600 you know, someday we're going to have a Speaker of 0:36:10.600 --> 0:36:14.320 the House and a Senate Majority leader that actually wants 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.640 to make the legislative branch great again. But until that 0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:23.840 time comes, we're going to continue to have this poor, 0:36:24.440 --> 0:36:30.680 horribly dysfunctional legislative process that we've now seen that for 0:36:30.800 --> 0:36:35.520 many of you feels like the normal way Congress works, 0:36:35.640 --> 0:36:39.320 because trust me, this was not the intent. How Congress 0:36:39.360 --> 0:36:42.840 has worked the last thirty years is not the way 0:36:43.080 --> 0:36:46.000 that Congress was intended to work in the previous two 0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:49.800 hundred and twenty years. All right, So with that, there's 0:36:49.920 --> 0:36:54.000 all the shutdown, Q and a's that I got. We're 0:36:54.040 --> 0:36:55.839 going to take a pause when we come back, meet 0:36:56.520 --> 0:37:00.920 a candidate for Kentucky Senate, basically somebody who I think 0:37:01.000 --> 0:37:03.080 was a political independent who chose to pick a side. 0:37:03.480 --> 0:37:08.200 Here's motivation, how he did it. I'm always intrigued by 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:11.360 first time candidates because I think they come they literally 0:37:11.400 --> 0:37:13.279 come at things with a fresh set of eyes, and 0:37:13.360 --> 0:37:14.960 I think it's always important to hear what a fresh 0:37:15.000 --> 0:37:19.800 set of eyes has to say about the current political system. 0:37:20.080 --> 0:37:22.160 So with that, we'll take a break. 0:37:22.400 --> 0:37:27.920 See on the other side. This episode of the Chuck 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:30.600 Podcast is brought to you by Wildgrain. Wild Grain is 0:37:30.640 --> 0:37:35.560 the first Bake from Frozen subscription box for arteasonal breads, 0:37:35.760 --> 0:37:40.359 seasonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all items conveniently bake 0:37:40.560 --> 0:37:44.200 in twenty five minutes or less. 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Free croissants in every box, thirty dollars 0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:48.560 off your first box when you go to wildgrain dot 0:38:48.600 --> 0:38:52.680 com slash toodcast that's wildgrain dot com slash toodcast, or 0:38:52.920 --> 0:38:57.080 simply use the promo code toodcast at check out. Always 0:38:57.239 --> 0:39:01.600 use the code, get the discount. I'm telling you it's excellent, excellent, right. 0:39:05.600 --> 0:39:07.040 Well, joining me now is a. 0:39:08.640 --> 0:39:11.600 I guess you could argue a new politician to the scene. 0:39:11.640 --> 0:39:14.160 His name's Joel Willett. He's running for the US Senate 0:39:14.200 --> 0:39:14.880 in Kentucky. 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:16.600 He got on my radar. 0:39:16.719 --> 0:39:20.440 He's kind of out of nowhere. Where Telsea Gabbert took 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:23.640 away a whole bunch of people's national security clearances, even 0:39:23.680 --> 0:39:26.879 folks who were had served in the intelligence community were 0:39:26.880 --> 0:39:30.160 in the private sector but still had some, you know, 0:39:30.239 --> 0:39:34.160 some clearances because that is a normal thing we've done 0:39:34.160 --> 0:39:35.680 in our government for decades. 0:39:36.360 --> 0:39:36.480 Uh. 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:38.960 And there appeared to be some sort of connection. The 0:39:39.000 --> 0:39:43.600 minute mister Willett agreed to think about running for office, 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:48.920 Suddenly it seemed as if the government decided to give 0:39:48.960 --> 0:39:51.000 him another headline in some ways. I think they may 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:55.160 have even given him an assistance with getting more attention 0:39:56.040 --> 0:40:00.279 in some ways for his candidacy. But he's all so, 0:40:00.360 --> 0:40:03.000 you know, we want to highlight interesting first time candidates 0:40:03.040 --> 0:40:05.640 who are not coming from sort of a typical place, 0:40:05.880 --> 0:40:09.640 hard left, hard right, things like that, and Joe Willett 0:40:09.680 --> 0:40:12.200 got on my radar and he agreed to sit down. 0:40:12.239 --> 0:40:14.759 Mister Willett, nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you, Chuck. 0:40:15.800 --> 0:40:18.319 So let's start with how you got into service. Look, 0:40:18.840 --> 0:40:22.279 we're taping just before Veterans Day. You're a veteran. I'm 0:40:22.320 --> 0:40:25.760 a huge advocate. That feels as if that the people 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:31.520 best equipped to what I call to I'm looking for 0:40:31.560 --> 0:40:35.120 more pastors for patriotism in this country that I think 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:38.560 the military community and the intelligence community, where you have 0:40:38.600 --> 0:40:40.560 to be Team America before your Team Red or Team 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:43.360 Blue is probably as good of a place to find 0:40:43.360 --> 0:40:46.440 these pastors for patriotism as you can find. But tell 0:40:46.480 --> 0:40:49.280 me how you got what got you into service? 0:40:50.080 --> 0:40:52.640 Yeah? I love that term. Atn't heard it before, so 0:40:52.680 --> 0:40:54.480 I'm probably going to steal. Well, I'm using it over 0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:54.799 and over. 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:57.000 I'm obviously a little proud of it, so I'm going 0:40:57.040 --> 0:40:58.640 to use it, probably too much. 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:03.120 But you know, well, my grandmother took me to church 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:06.960 every weekend growing up and was heavily involved with my 0:41:07.040 --> 0:41:10.040 church for a long time, so it resonates. So yeah, 0:41:10.120 --> 0:41:13.040 thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. I 0:41:13.040 --> 0:41:15.240 am Joel Willett running for the US and in Kentucky. 0:41:15.680 --> 0:41:18.239 Your listeners can catch all the parts of the story 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:20.640 at joelfer Kentucky dot com if I missed something here. 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:23.640 But I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and my path 0:41:23.680 --> 0:41:27.760 to service was perhaps common in some ways and uncommon 0:41:27.760 --> 0:41:30.920 in others. My dad was a Union iron worker. He 0:41:31.000 --> 0:41:33.080 was a Golden Gloves boxer. My mom worked in hospitals 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:36.400 taking care of people. But we had some Kentucky struggles 0:41:36.400 --> 0:41:39.480 growing up. The lights didn't always come on when I 0:41:39.520 --> 0:41:41.440 got home from school. I learned, you know, early in 0:41:41.440 --> 0:41:43.839 my adolescence that both of my parents were struggling with 0:41:43.880 --> 0:41:46.160 addictions to opioids, and I would eventually lose my father 0:41:46.280 --> 0:41:49.080 to a fenteral overdose in twenty nineteen. It wasn't just 0:41:49.160 --> 0:41:51.160 my family, it was you know, tens of thousands of 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:55.520 Kentucky families over the past couple of decades. But I 0:41:55.560 --> 0:41:58.480 was one of the lucky ones because I had incredible 0:41:58.560 --> 0:42:00.960 grandparents on both sides of my family. I had my 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:03.920 grandmother's church, but I also had the institutions of this 0:42:04.000 --> 0:42:08.160 country public education, our military, our civil service, some of 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:10.080 these things that I believed to be some of the 0:42:10.120 --> 0:42:14.360 greatest tools for achievement and economic mobility in the world. 0:42:15.120 --> 0:42:17.640 And when the attacks of nine to eleven happened, I 0:42:17.760 --> 0:42:19.920 was a senior in high school and a few months 0:42:19.920 --> 0:42:22.160 after that, after months of begging my mom to sign 0:42:22.239 --> 0:42:25.320 the paperwork, she relented and did and I joined the 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:28.759 Army National Guard when I was seventeen years old, and 0:42:28.960 --> 0:42:31.000 I served in the Military Police Corps. I was able 0:42:31.040 --> 0:42:33.160 to graduate from the University of Louisville and from the 0:42:33.280 --> 0:42:36.600 University of Kentucky, and that launched a career. Once I 0:42:36.680 --> 0:42:40.040 left the Army in the intelligence community, I spent some 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:42.320 time with the FBI working on canterterrorism and then was 0:42:42.360 --> 0:42:46.239 recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency into the Director to Operations, 0:42:46.239 --> 0:42:49.760 where I represented this country here at home and abroad 0:42:49.800 --> 0:42:53.719 in the Balkans, Baltic, Southeast Asia, Western European capitals. I 0:42:53.760 --> 0:42:58.880 speak Russian. Do without what you will, and you know, 0:42:59.640 --> 0:43:01.520 finished my last year in government in the White House 0:43:01.560 --> 0:43:05.640 Situation Room as a nonpartisan civil servant, there to provide 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:08.880 intelligence and crisis management support to the president who was 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:12.239 then President Obama and Vice President Biden. There to serve 0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:15.480 the presidency, not the president, and the true spirit of 0:43:15.520 --> 0:43:18.399 our civil service. I left government twenty fifteen in part 0:43:18.400 --> 0:43:20.040 to be able to take care of a lot of 0:43:20.040 --> 0:43:22.800 my family that remained in Kentucky. Went into the private 0:43:22.800 --> 0:43:25.200 sector have since been running businesses that have put hundreds 0:43:25.200 --> 0:43:27.920 of people to work every day. So, Chuck, I truly 0:43:27.960 --> 0:43:33.160 got to live my American dream and have been living 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:35.839 that life as a private citizen for for some time now, 0:43:36.440 --> 0:43:39.520 and it's been increasingly hard to set on the sidelines 0:43:39.520 --> 0:43:42.440 and watch working families across this country, working families like 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:44.719 the one that I grew up in, getting steamrolled by 0:43:44.760 --> 0:43:47.319 a political and economic system that I think continues to 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:50.239 treat them as acceptable losses. So, as you said, I 0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:53.359 started exploring a run for the Senate. This administration found 0:43:53.400 --> 0:43:55.239 out about it, and as it is wont to do. 0:43:56.040 --> 0:43:59.399 Began trying to act revenge on people, no matter how 0:43:59.440 --> 0:44:01.880 long they'd or no matter what they had served, but 0:44:02.560 --> 0:44:05.560 because they had said mean things about Donald Trump, and 0:44:05.600 --> 0:44:08.759 we're thinking about standing up against some of what we're 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:11.920 saying today, and they revoked a security clearance, and you know, 0:44:12.360 --> 0:44:15.280 came after me the way they've come after so many others. 0:44:15.600 --> 0:44:19.959 What made your democrat? Why'd you pick a party? Yeah? 0:44:19.960 --> 0:44:21.640 When did you pick a party? Do you remember when 0:44:21.640 --> 0:44:22.920 you've said, you know what I think? I am a 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:26.560 Democrat and this is why I'm doing it. What give 0:44:26.560 --> 0:44:27.440 me your reasoning for? 0:44:28.000 --> 0:44:33.040 Yeah? It was a it was a long, maybe a 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:36.520 short evolution out of being a conservative, which is, you know, 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:39.879 I would freely admit to holding some conservative views as 0:44:39.920 --> 0:44:42.760 a as an interested teenager or even in high school. 0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:47.319 But my journey away from that came, perhaps shockingly to 0:44:47.360 --> 0:44:51.520 some people, through military service. The military exposed me to 0:44:51.560 --> 0:44:57.239 people from all walks of life, nationalities, sexual orientations, all 0:44:57.280 --> 0:45:02.040 of that, and I began seeing, you know, what I 0:45:02.080 --> 0:45:04.200 have since come to believe is, you know, this source 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:06.319 of strength in our military and in our country, which 0:45:06.360 --> 0:45:08.960 is the diversity that we have. But it was also 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:13.080 seeing the lies of the Iraq War. I, you know, 0:45:13.400 --> 0:45:18.560 I could see something very different than what the George W. 0:45:18.600 --> 0:45:22.520 Bush administration was saying publicly, you know, about this status 0:45:22.600 --> 0:45:24.640 or the state of our military, our readiness to fight 0:45:24.719 --> 0:45:26.520 such a war. And then you know, we we we 0:45:26.600 --> 0:45:31.200 later come to learn that much of the rationale for 0:45:31.360 --> 0:45:33.120 going to war in Iraq was a house of cards, 0:45:33.120 --> 0:45:35.520 and I continue to see that, you know, some twenty 0:45:35.600 --> 0:45:39.200 years later, as one of the most disastrous foreign policy 0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:42.960 decisions we've made, certainly in my lifetime. So that began, 0:45:43.440 --> 0:45:45.880 you know, a period of reassessment for me away from 0:45:46.080 --> 0:45:49.799 you know, what was the Republican Party or conservative viewpoints. 0:45:49.840 --> 0:45:52.759 And I would say that the journey into being you know, 0:45:54.400 --> 0:45:57.880 a Democrat is something that happened much later. I you know, 0:45:57.960 --> 0:45:59.719 I'm sure somebody will fact check me on this, but 0:45:59.719 --> 0:46:02.120 if my memory serves me, the first time I registered 0:46:02.160 --> 0:46:04.840 as a Democrat to vote was in twenty sixteen, and 0:46:04.880 --> 0:46:07.560 it was in response to what I saw as the 0:46:07.560 --> 0:46:10.000 clear and present danger of Donald Trump. And I have 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:14.239 been proudly a Democrat since that time because that is 0:46:14.239 --> 0:46:18.400 the party that I see standing up for a strong America, 0:46:18.520 --> 0:46:20.480 for an America that works for everybody and not just 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:21.120 the wealthiest. 0:46:21.719 --> 0:46:25.240 You know, hearing your story, talking about your personal story, 0:46:25.280 --> 0:46:28.320 your parents struggles with opoioid's, the tragedy of your father, 0:46:28.840 --> 0:46:31.480 the strength of your grandparents, I'm sure I'm not the 0:46:31.520 --> 0:46:35.360 only person who they start to think. I wonder what 0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:39.200 he thought of Hillbill the book Hillbilly Elegy by a 0:46:39.239 --> 0:46:42.200 gentleman by the name of jd Vance. Some people may 0:46:42.239 --> 0:46:45.360 recognize him as the current Vice President, and some people 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:48.360 may wonder if the same person wrote that book. And 0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:52.840 I'll set that aside. I'm curious what you made of 0:46:52.840 --> 0:46:57.680 that book and how much of what jd Vance shared 0:46:57.800 --> 0:46:59.279 in that book resonated with you. 0:47:00.680 --> 0:47:04.279 Yeah. I first became aware of that book in twenty 0:47:04.400 --> 0:47:06.520 nineteen when I lost my father, and then, you know, 0:47:06.520 --> 0:47:09.439 an attempt to process my own emotions around that, because Chuck, 0:47:09.480 --> 0:47:11.440 it was, you know, one of the most debilitating things 0:47:11.480 --> 0:47:13.799 that had ever happened to me, because no matter how 0:47:13.840 --> 0:47:17.040 long I had expected that phone call, nothing really prepares 0:47:17.080 --> 0:47:19.160 you for it. And I would say, my life for 0:47:19.280 --> 0:47:21.600 six years has been a project and trying to understand 0:47:21.600 --> 0:47:24.919 how this country could you know, create my life, which 0:47:24.960 --> 0:47:27.640 I see as a truly uniquely American life, coming from 0:47:28.360 --> 0:47:30.640 Valley Station, Kentucky to the halls of the West Wing 0:47:30.680 --> 0:47:35.800 in twelve years to leadership and business. If my life 0:47:35.840 --> 0:47:38.680 is uniquely American, so too was my father's death. Because 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:41.400 people do not die from fentonyl overdoses in a statistically 0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:43.640 significant way in other parts of the world, yet it's 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:45.319 the leading cause of death, I believe, in the United 0:47:45.360 --> 0:47:48.799 States for people ages eighteen to forty four. So I 0:47:48.840 --> 0:47:51.200 became aware of hillbili elogy during that time. And I 0:47:51.200 --> 0:47:53.719 would say there are a lot of similarities between my 0:47:53.800 --> 0:47:58.440 story in JD. Vance's. My heart aches for you know, 0:47:58.480 --> 0:48:01.520 the life that he described, you know, living growing up, 0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:03.600 and so much of it resonates with me. And I 0:48:03.680 --> 0:48:06.920 understand that, you know, he similarly felt a need to 0:48:07.400 --> 0:48:12.040 serve his country. And you know, I will have to 0:48:12.160 --> 0:48:14.920 transition now to say that there are major differences between 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:17.480 my story and JD. Vance's, and that being that I 0:48:17.480 --> 0:48:19.680 didn't turn into a giant asshole at the end of it. 0:48:23.040 --> 0:48:24.840 Boy, I didn't see that landing. I didn't see the 0:48:24.840 --> 0:48:29.520 plate landing that abruptly. That was quite we may have crashed. 0:48:29.280 --> 0:48:29.759 It a little bit. 0:48:29.960 --> 0:48:31.040 I was just going to say I had one of 0:48:31.040 --> 0:48:34.440 those landings yesterday actually, while flying back from Miami, where 0:48:34.760 --> 0:48:36.480 it was the first I think a runway that he 0:48:36.560 --> 0:48:37.640 wasn't used to using it. 0:48:37.560 --> 0:48:39.840 It was like boa, like we all hit the ground 0:48:39.840 --> 0:48:42.320 and road. Whoa. That was an early morning flight, so 0:48:42.320 --> 0:48:44.880 it woke me up. No. 0:48:45.080 --> 0:48:50.560 I mean, look, it is very hard to square jd Vance, 0:48:50.960 --> 0:48:56.880 the author jd Vance, the conservative pundit of twenty sixteen, 0:48:57.840 --> 0:49:00.279 right right with the person that ended up in the 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:04.400 United States Senate, you know, sort of making a what 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:08.440 appears to be a political deal, right, And look, that's yeah. 0:49:08.680 --> 0:49:12.520 I've always slightly hesitant on motive, in assuming motive, because 0:49:12.560 --> 0:49:15.560 none of us can crawl inside anybody's head right on motive. 0:49:15.880 --> 0:49:18.120 But he just looks from the outside. O. This stuff 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:22.840 doesn't doesn't compute. But what does compute, frankly, is the 0:49:22.880 --> 0:49:27.399 fact that these so many of these stories exist and 0:49:29.600 --> 0:49:33.080 why politicians have had a hard time figuring out how 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:35.120 to use government to fix this. 0:49:35.320 --> 0:49:36.600 So let's talk about that. 0:49:36.800 --> 0:49:39.360 Like I would assume for you, if you get elected 0:49:39.360 --> 0:49:41.640 that a priority is going to be Okay, how do 0:49:41.719 --> 0:49:44.839 we deal with it? I mean, take the issue of fentyl. 0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:50.160 You got a president who's manufacturing, is using the fentyl crisis, 0:49:50.160 --> 0:49:53.359 which is real, and ascribing it to the Venezuelans, which 0:49:53.400 --> 0:49:56.160 have nothing to do with this, right, and getting us 0:49:56.200 --> 0:50:00.480 potentially to screw up yet another Latin American country with 0:50:00.560 --> 0:50:05.080 interventions that will only cost us cause this country problems 0:50:05.080 --> 0:50:08.400 for decades to come, and our distrust in that region 0:50:08.400 --> 0:50:10.719 of the country. And it's like, how many times do 0:50:10.760 --> 0:50:15.320 we have to screw up our relationships with Latin America 0:50:15.880 --> 0:50:20.600 with this? But what is you know, you've it sounds like, 0:50:20.680 --> 0:50:23.840 for the last six years in particular, you've really wanted 0:50:23.880 --> 0:50:28.000 to understand both the struggles people have with ventanyl, how 0:50:28.080 --> 0:50:31.000 it gets into this country. What should we be doing 0:50:31.040 --> 0:50:35.160 differently to stop ventanyl from getting into this country? And 0:50:35.320 --> 0:50:38.799 is it possible? You know, are we trying to like 0:50:38.880 --> 0:50:40.359 stop the weather right? 0:50:40.480 --> 0:50:40.560 Like? 0:50:40.680 --> 0:50:45.200 Is this impossible? And instead we've got to go about 0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:46.000 this another way. 0:50:47.440 --> 0:50:50.839 Yeah, I think we certainly have to go about it 0:50:50.880 --> 0:50:53.640 in a different way than we've attacked this problem or 0:50:53.680 --> 0:50:56.440 any other of the drug crises that we've had in 0:50:56.480 --> 0:50:59.560 this country over the years. But you know, let me 0:50:59.600 --> 0:51:02.959 start with kind of the supply side of this, where 0:51:02.960 --> 0:51:05.560 we you know, that's where Donald Trump's conversation around it 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:10.160 seems to end. And unfortunately for many Americans, he's not 0:51:10.200 --> 0:51:15.320 the only president that has stopped the conversation. There. We 0:51:15.880 --> 0:51:19.000 talk about, you know, a drug war, and usually what 0:51:19.040 --> 0:51:21.200 we mean there is attacking the supply and where the 0:51:21.239 --> 0:51:24.360 stuff is coming from. Yes, we have to secure our borders. 0:51:24.440 --> 0:51:27.680 Yes we have to go after and chase to the 0:51:27.760 --> 0:51:30.319 ends of the earth the supply of this stuff, whether 0:51:30.400 --> 0:51:32.520 we find it in a factory in Beijing or whether 0:51:32.560 --> 0:51:35.640 we find it being pushed from boardrooms in some of 0:51:35.640 --> 0:51:39.040 the largest companies and richest families in this country. And 0:51:39.440 --> 0:51:42.520 you know, we've had many, many Kentuckians lose a father 0:51:42.680 --> 0:51:48.359 or a brother because of unregulated capitalism and doctors who 0:51:48.360 --> 0:51:52.319 had very perverse incentives to continue pushing highly addictive opioids 0:51:52.320 --> 0:51:55.120 and poison into our community. So I think we've we've 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:58.240 got to pursue the supply of this in many different directions. 0:51:58.280 --> 0:52:03.280 We've made some progress on that, but it's the demand 0:52:03.400 --> 0:52:07.400 side of it. Why are people turning to these drugs? 0:52:07.400 --> 0:52:09.960 Why do people want to use them? And I think 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:12.560 it is that that we need to that there is 0:52:12.600 --> 0:52:15.080 so much more that this country could do. When I 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:18.520 talk to, you know, friends in Europe about, you know, 0:52:18.680 --> 0:52:22.440 what's going on with drugs and addiction here, and they're like, 0:52:22.719 --> 0:52:26.279 wait a minute. Drug addicts, you know, they often not 0:52:26.280 --> 0:52:28.680 because they're terrible people, but because they're literally out of 0:52:28.719 --> 0:52:32.960 their minds while using do some destructive things, whether they 0:52:32.960 --> 0:52:36.000 steal or are a public nuisance or wrecked cars and 0:52:36.080 --> 0:52:38.920 all these things. These are stories that are just so 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:43.080 vividly remembered in my life and in my family's life, 0:52:43.120 --> 0:52:45.640 and European friends are like, wait, you send those people 0:52:45.719 --> 0:52:48.719 to jail. Why don't you send them to the hospital, 0:52:49.160 --> 0:52:52.120 because it sounds like that's probably what they need. In Kentucky, 0:52:52.280 --> 0:52:57.160 we've had three years of declining overdose deaths from syntheticopioids. 0:52:57.160 --> 0:53:00.719 We've got down to like fourteen hundred and ten this 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:03.320 past year. A lot of that progress was made because 0:53:03.360 --> 0:53:07.279 we invested heavily in this state and medicaid expansion, and 0:53:07.719 --> 0:53:11.440 it was access to medicaid that paid for treatment, that 0:53:11.520 --> 0:53:16.719 helped people, paid for some NARCAN community awareness, and also 0:53:16.760 --> 0:53:19.160 paid for treatment for addicts. And I do think that 0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:23.720 is just something we have to invest more in because 0:53:24.880 --> 0:53:27.560 we want people to have good lives and good opportunity 0:53:27.600 --> 0:53:32.360 in this country. And you know, young men especially account 0:53:32.440 --> 0:53:35.240 for I think eighty percent of what we call deaths 0:53:35.280 --> 0:53:39.560 of despair, which are deaths from overdoses of some form 0:53:39.640 --> 0:53:42.560 or another or from suicide. And I think this can 0:53:42.600 --> 0:53:45.440 all be tied back to people who see their prospects demming, 0:53:45.960 --> 0:53:48.000 who see that no matter how hard they work, they're 0:53:48.040 --> 0:53:51.640 not going to be able to get ahead. And that's 0:53:51.640 --> 0:53:54.399 something that has to change. And I think that once 0:53:54.400 --> 0:53:57.120 we have a sane economic policy in this country for 0:53:57.200 --> 0:54:00.000 the working class upon whose backs all of this prospects 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:02.680 already was built, only then we be able to truly 0:54:03.120 --> 0:54:05.000 address these problems with addiction. 0:54:06.040 --> 0:54:09.560 So when you think about the things that could have 0:54:09.960 --> 0:54:13.719 helped your father, you know, what's what's an intervention that 0:54:13.760 --> 0:54:16.520 we're doing now? I mean, you know, I lost my 0:54:16.560 --> 0:54:23.360 father at sixteen. I'm sorry alcoholism and hepatitis C in 0:54:23.400 --> 0:54:25.319 the late eighties when we didn't have a pill to 0:54:25.400 --> 0:54:26.839 take to sol hepatitis CE. 0:54:26.880 --> 0:54:27.480 You just died. 0:54:29.520 --> 0:54:31.719 So you know, I've got it's always one of for me, 0:54:31.800 --> 0:54:33.560 the what if is, oh, my goodness, if you just 0:54:33.600 --> 0:54:35.640 lived ten years longer than there'd have been a cure 0:54:35.719 --> 0:54:38.880 and he would have survived. When you think about the 0:54:38.920 --> 0:54:42.400 things that we're doing now, if they had been available 0:54:42.400 --> 0:54:44.120 even ten years ago, do you think your father. 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:48.240 Would still be alive? Well, I know that as a 0:54:48.280 --> 0:54:52.040 civil servant, you know, living on an okay salary, but 0:54:52.080 --> 0:54:54.719 in a very expensive city in Washington, d C. It 0:54:54.840 --> 0:54:58.840 was very tough to get access to resources. And so 0:54:59.080 --> 0:55:01.960 I always say, you know, we confronted my father and 0:55:02.080 --> 0:55:07.000 checked him into you know, dollar Store Rehab and Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 0:55:07.080 --> 0:55:09.239 You know it was there were professionals there were doing 0:55:09.280 --> 0:55:11.040 the best they can, but it wasn't the most well 0:55:11.080 --> 0:55:14.520 resourced facility, and a lot of desperate people showed up there. 0:55:14.520 --> 0:55:17.640 But even that bought us some valuable years with my dad. 0:55:17.920 --> 0:55:20.839 He was able to see his granddaughter, you know, grow up. 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:23.759 In his best moments, you know, in my in my 0:55:23.880 --> 0:55:27.120 recollection were always when he was a heavily involved father. 0:55:27.680 --> 0:55:30.560 And it was as my you know, my life and 0:55:30.600 --> 0:55:33.040 his started going in very different directions when I was 0:55:33.080 --> 0:55:35.560 a teenager. And this is because you know, there was 0:55:35.600 --> 0:55:38.080 a free fall that happens in this country. You know, 0:55:38.440 --> 0:55:41.279 you you grow up, you have some roof over your 0:55:41.320 --> 0:55:44.040 head or some access to basics, you get good public education. 0:55:44.080 --> 0:55:47.560 You've got some opportunities if you make just even marginally 0:55:47.600 --> 0:55:51.400 okay choices in this country. And my dad's path, you know, 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:53.840 wound through a union and I got him jobs that 0:55:53.840 --> 0:55:56.000 were relatively you know, well paying when he could work. 0:55:56.040 --> 0:55:57.839 But you know, obviously there were mornings in the union 0:55:57.840 --> 0:56:01.160 hall where he didn't have work and the earlier mid nineties, 0:56:01.160 --> 0:56:03.839 but it was it was you know, surgeries and things 0:56:03.840 --> 0:56:06.200 like that that started to get these pain pills into 0:56:06.200 --> 0:56:09.399 his system. And then as his economic prospects dimmed, those 0:56:09.520 --> 0:56:11.360 that became a way to medicate away some of what 0:56:11.400 --> 0:56:13.520 I'm sure was existential pain for him. I was going 0:56:13.560 --> 0:56:15.200 to provide for his family. I was going to provide 0:56:15.640 --> 0:56:17.880 for his kids, for son and his daughter, my sister. 0:56:18.200 --> 0:56:21.359 So to answer your question specifically, yeah, we are doing 0:56:21.360 --> 0:56:24.040 a lot more today. There's a lot more awareness about 0:56:24.080 --> 0:56:28.040 it than there was before. This is an uncomfortable thing 0:56:28.080 --> 0:56:30.520 to talk about, is I'm sure it has been for you, 0:56:30.520 --> 0:56:33.759 you know, opening up and and it takes Look, you're 0:56:33.800 --> 0:56:34.719 never going to get over it. 0:56:34.960 --> 0:56:37.399 I you know, I want My wife and I both 0:56:37.400 --> 0:56:39.920 lost parents at different times of our life, and we 0:56:39.920 --> 0:56:43.040 always say, you know, the thing, the thing that you 0:56:43.120 --> 0:56:45.560 learn when you lose somebody like that. No matter when 0:56:45.600 --> 0:56:48.759 you lose it, it doesn't matter. It's always painful in it. 0:56:49.080 --> 0:56:51.480 You never get over it. You just sort of you 0:56:51.560 --> 0:56:54.080 live with it, right, Right, That's what we did. You 0:56:54.120 --> 0:56:55.600 just learn to live with it, and then you wonder, 0:56:55.960 --> 0:56:57.480 what can how do you learn from it? 0:56:57.560 --> 0:56:57.719 Right? 0:56:57.800 --> 0:56:59.600 How do you how do you try to try to 0:56:59.719 --> 0:57:03.840 try to move on? You know, you brought up Medicaid. 0:57:04.080 --> 0:57:06.200 I mean you feel your I take it your concern 0:57:06.239 --> 0:57:08.160 that these Medicaid cuts are just going to make it 0:57:08.160 --> 0:57:11.240 that much harder. You know, do you feel like Kentucky 0:57:11.280 --> 0:57:16.240 needs more facilities that do rehab or they have enough facilities, 0:57:16.280 --> 0:57:19.320 they need more resources to staff those facilities. 0:57:20.720 --> 0:57:22.920 I think it's both, and I'll just zoom out to 0:57:23.000 --> 0:57:27.600 healthcare large. We need more doctors, we need more health 0:57:27.600 --> 0:57:32.000 care facilities. Uh. This administration passed an unconscionable four trillion 0:57:32.040 --> 0:57:35.240 dollar tax cut to put money back in the pockets 0:57:35.240 --> 0:57:37.920 of the already ultra wealthy, like the ten billionaires that 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:40.800 serve in Donald Trump's cabinet. I'm fond of saying those 0:57:40.800 --> 0:57:43.360 billionaires are not like the average Kentucky voter. They do 0:57:43.440 --> 0:57:46.640 not like the average Kentucky voter. And they paid for 0:57:46.720 --> 0:57:49.760 all of this by taking money out of healthcare programs 0:57:49.800 --> 0:57:53.360 that as as our governor has been front and center 0:57:54.200 --> 0:57:56.880 in the press sounding the alarm about this. These cuts 0:57:56.920 --> 0:58:00.000 put thirty five rule hospitals pills in this state under 0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:04.600 threat of closure for people, you know, to lose access 0:58:04.640 --> 0:58:08.960 to that healthcare. Even people who maintain health insurance through 0:58:08.960 --> 0:58:11.400 their employers are going to have to drive farther, wait longer. 0:58:11.640 --> 0:58:14.240 These communities are going to lose you know, one of 0:58:14.280 --> 0:58:17.760 the largest employers in their communities. So yeah, we have 0:58:18.520 --> 0:58:21.760 a shortage of health care access in the state of 0:58:21.840 --> 0:58:24.240 Kentucky and in many parts around the country. And I 0:58:24.240 --> 0:58:29.840 think Republicans in this administration have shown just play in 0:58:29.880 --> 0:58:33.720 simply in recent months that they do not care. So 0:58:34.080 --> 0:58:36.360 I do think that we need to increase the supply 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:38.440 of health care. We need to invest in more of 0:58:38.440 --> 0:58:41.120 what people actually need, and in Kentucky that does mean 0:58:42.160 --> 0:58:47.240 you know, more access to addiction treatment and overdose prevention. 0:58:48.080 --> 0:58:50.040 But again, I think the root causes of all this 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:53.280 happened way earlier in life, and I would again tie 0:58:53.320 --> 0:58:59.120 it to increasing inequality and dimming prospects for working. 0:58:58.880 --> 0:59:04.680 Families having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know 0:59:04.760 --> 0:59:08.000 from personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away. 0:59:08.040 --> 0:59:10.440 We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in 0:59:10.480 --> 0:59:14.840 the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow, myself 0:59:14.960 --> 0:59:16.720 sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to 0:59:16.760 --> 0:59:19.919 pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had 0:59:20.000 --> 0:59:23.160 one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot, 0:59:23.520 --> 0:59:26.200 but it was important at the time, and it's why 0:59:26.360 --> 0:59:29.560 I was able to go to college. Little did he 0:59:29.640 --> 0:59:32.440 know how important that would be in that moment. 0:59:33.200 --> 0:59:33.880 Well, guess what. 0:59:34.200 --> 0:59:36.680 That's why I am here to tell you about Etho's life. 0:59:37.120 --> 0:59:39.480 They can provide you with peace of mind knowing your 0:59:39.520 --> 0:59:42.800 family is protected even if the worst comes to pass. 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:46.440 Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance 0:59:46.440 --> 0:59:49.560 fast and easy, all designed to protect your family's future 0:59:49.600 --> 0:59:53.120 in minutes, not months. There's no complicated process, and it's 0:59:53.240 --> 0:59:57.400 one hundred percent online. There's no medical exam require you 0:59:57.520 --> 0:59:59.880 just answer a few health questions online. 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Application times may vary and the rates themselves 1:00:33.840 --> 1:00:36.760 may vary as well, but trust me, life insurance is 1:00:36.800 --> 1:00:39.720 something you should really think about, especially if you've got 1:00:39.760 --> 1:00:40.520 a growing family. 1:00:44.200 --> 1:00:44.840 So let's talk. 1:00:45.160 --> 1:00:49.200 You know, it's interesting, I know that the next and 1:00:49.640 --> 1:00:53.600 perhaps you know, the fear of AI displacement for sort 1:00:53.600 --> 1:00:58.000 of middle class white collar workers is now you know, 1:00:58.040 --> 1:00:59.720 there's like a whole new group of folks that are 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:04.640 learning what blue collar workers were worrying about during audit 1:01:04.680 --> 1:01:08.040 the rise of the initial rise of automation and robotics 1:01:08.560 --> 1:01:11.840 right plus the global the global trade system in the 1:01:11.960 --> 1:01:16.040 nineties and in the early odds, and that created this displacement. 1:01:18.600 --> 1:01:21.120 Now we've got AI displacement's going to hit another chunk 1:01:21.160 --> 1:01:26.080 of workers. This attempt to bring manufacturing back. Frankly, doesn't 1:01:26.120 --> 1:01:30.240 involve many individuals, right, It is more of a robotics 1:01:30.240 --> 1:01:35.360 and automated situation. So, you know, how do we You know, 1:01:35.440 --> 1:01:39.080 we can't go backwards. We're not going to force companies 1:01:39.120 --> 1:01:43.520 to use humans if it's cheaper to do an automated thing, Right, 1:01:43.640 --> 1:01:47.760 That's just not how capitalism works. But what's what should 1:01:47.760 --> 1:01:51.160 we you know, what what is what are the jobs 1:01:51.160 --> 1:01:52.960 in the next twenty years that we ought to be 1:01:53.160 --> 1:01:57.640 trying to get our communities prepared for, get our public 1:01:58.440 --> 1:02:02.600 education system geared towards you know, because I think about 1:02:02.960 --> 1:02:05.040 think about the last thirty years, and we thought all 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:08.080 of our kids needed to learn to code, right, And 1:02:08.120 --> 1:02:10.840 it turns out whatever coding you've learned, it doesn't matter anymore. 1:02:10.840 --> 1:02:11.680 AI is going to do it. 1:02:12.440 --> 1:02:15.440 And so I can tell you this as a parent. 1:02:15.520 --> 1:02:19.680 You're petrified my kids. You know, my kid's going to 1:02:19.720 --> 1:02:22.280 have a future and what does that look like? It 1:02:22.280 --> 1:02:24.360 sounds like you have younger kids, both of mine are 1:02:24.360 --> 1:02:28.920 in college. What do you think about is the jobs 1:02:28.920 --> 1:02:31.640 of the future and how should government be thinking about it? 1:02:32.400 --> 1:02:35.320 Yeah, for the record, my son is sixteen and this 1:02:35.480 --> 1:02:37.880 is obviously a very uh. 1:02:37.760 --> 1:02:41.840 Yes, you're right. At the moment conversation. Yes, I have 1:02:41.880 --> 1:02:43.480 a freshman. I have a senior in college and a 1:02:43.520 --> 1:02:44.280 freshman in college. 1:02:44.360 --> 1:02:49.280 Oh wow, yeah, good stuff. So look, we've always had 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:52.600 I mean, America is the innovation engine of the world. 1:02:52.640 --> 1:02:56.720 We have always innovated and with every wave of you know, 1:02:56.800 --> 1:03:00.000 innovation from you know, the industrial age too, you know, 1:03:00.120 --> 1:03:04.240 the assembly line, to even modern management theory and efficiency 1:03:04.320 --> 1:03:07.840 in factories and in business, there's there's always been displacement 1:03:08.160 --> 1:03:12.240 and we've always found, uh, you know, ways to innovate 1:03:12.320 --> 1:03:15.160 even around that, and people have always found, you know, 1:03:15.240 --> 1:03:19.360 new ways to to to to labor and to work. 1:03:19.920 --> 1:03:23.120 And I think there is some really, there are some 1:03:23.200 --> 1:03:25.320 reasons to believe. And I'm someone who has spent a 1:03:25.360 --> 1:03:27.960 lot of time, you know, running a technology company. Over 1:03:27.960 --> 1:03:30.160 the past couple of years, I've had the chance to uh, 1:03:30.200 --> 1:03:33.680 you know, I when I lost my security clearance, some 1:03:33.760 --> 1:03:37.960 of the you know, the most strident and well known 1:03:38.040 --> 1:03:41.320 right wing trolls on Twitter told me that I should 1:03:41.400 --> 1:03:43.960 learn to code. I'm like, yeah, thanks, I did that 1:03:44.000 --> 1:03:47.920 six years ago. You know already did that. So I 1:03:48.320 --> 1:03:50.760 say that only to say that I've you know, spent 1:03:50.800 --> 1:03:55.320 a lot of time uh playing around experimenting with and 1:03:55.520 --> 1:03:58.800 understanding AI tools and you know their implications in the workplace. 1:03:58.880 --> 1:04:04.000 I I am less bullish about the immediate, you know, 1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:06.760 wide scale impacts of this because there are a lot 1:04:06.760 --> 1:04:09.320 of implementation issues. There are a lot of data quality issues, 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:12.160 hallucination issues, and all these sorts of things that I 1:04:12.200 --> 1:04:14.439 think even companies who have made a decision to lay 1:04:14.440 --> 1:04:16.520 off and displaced workers thinking they're going to be replaced 1:04:16.520 --> 1:04:20.000 with AI, are going to see and relatively short order 1:04:20.040 --> 1:04:22.040 that that it is not the panacea that they might 1:04:22.080 --> 1:04:25.240 think it is. Even still, I do accept the premise 1:04:25.280 --> 1:04:27.800 that we are going to have some massive changes in 1:04:27.800 --> 1:04:30.480 the economy, uh and in the jobs that are available 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:32.720 to people. And I think that there are there are 1:04:32.880 --> 1:04:35.040 two things we need to wrestle with. Is one like, Okay, 1:04:35.040 --> 1:04:40.040 if a business finds a more efficient way to do something, well, great, 1:04:40.080 --> 1:04:42.360 they're going to have more profits. But now we're going 1:04:42.400 --> 1:04:44.680 to have more people on snap benefits. Now we're going 1:04:44.760 --> 1:04:47.680 to have more people, you know, needing Medicaid because they 1:04:47.680 --> 1:04:49.960 don't have healthcare. Because you know, all this activity in 1:04:49.960 --> 1:04:52.720 the economy has to come from somewhere. It has to come, 1:04:52.840 --> 1:04:55.360 you know, from from consumers. Buying things. And what I'm 1:04:55.360 --> 1:04:58.840 increasingly worried about is just that that the broad consumer 1:04:58.920 --> 1:05:01.400 base in this economy is just going to be completely 1:05:01.480 --> 1:05:04.000 left behind because the wealthy have enough at the top 1:05:04.040 --> 1:05:07.520 to continue pumping money into these businesses and these experiments 1:05:07.560 --> 1:05:09.480 and buying really expensive things. 1:05:09.840 --> 1:05:12.520 Now we're seeing it right now, where the high end 1:05:12.720 --> 1:05:16.360 consumer market is doing just fine. Yeah, but middle and 1:05:16.720 --> 1:05:19.880 long people are pulling back. People are saving money. And 1:05:19.920 --> 1:05:23.520 it's like this income and equality line is gap is 1:05:23.640 --> 1:05:25.360 just getting bigger and bigger. 1:05:26.000 --> 1:05:30.200 Yeah, And so tax policy is I think the number 1:05:30.200 --> 1:05:33.480 one thing that can address this. You don't have a 1:05:33.520 --> 1:05:37.400 situation where, you know, the America's first billionaire he died 1:05:37.440 --> 1:05:40.720 a billionaire, John Rockefeller, in nineteen thirty seven. Bill Gates 1:05:41.640 --> 1:05:45.120 fifty years later became the fifteenth billionaire, and thirty eight 1:05:45.200 --> 1:05:48.400 years since then, we now have seven hundred and fifty, right, 1:05:48.760 --> 1:05:51.760 and you know, all of the gains in the economy 1:05:51.800 --> 1:05:53.880 since the early nineties or like fifty two percent of 1:05:53.880 --> 1:05:56.160 them have been captured by the top one percent. So 1:05:56.560 --> 1:05:59.560 there has to be a reckoning with this growing inequality. 1:06:00.200 --> 1:06:02.800 It's in moral but to anywhere in the world in 1:06:02.920 --> 1:06:05.600 history where you see fascism grow. It does so in 1:06:05.640 --> 1:06:09.600 the fertile fields of wealth inequality, and people get desperate. 1:06:09.640 --> 1:06:11.880 They turn to strong men who say I alone can 1:06:11.920 --> 1:06:12.280 fix it. 1:06:12.400 --> 1:06:14.680 Right, No, I mean, I look at I talked about 1:06:14.680 --> 1:06:17.680 the fall of Turkey in Venezuela all the time to 1:06:18.080 --> 1:06:23.160 former democracies. I guess you could take Turkey is slightly 1:06:23.520 --> 1:06:27.120 higher on the democracy rating scale than Venezuela is, but 1:06:27.240 --> 1:06:32.520 a right Erwan and Hugo havez before Maduro, but Ugo 1:06:32.560 --> 1:06:35.160 shaves who sort of started this revolution. Both of them 1:06:35.280 --> 1:06:40.000 used frustration in poor communities to go after the so 1:06:40.080 --> 1:06:44.120 called elites, right in Istanbul or Caracas. I mean, look, 1:06:44.240 --> 1:06:48.160 I assume this is your experience overseas that this is 1:06:48.200 --> 1:06:51.840 there's a pattern here right where they when there's a 1:06:51.840 --> 1:06:54.480 belief when the gap between rich and poor gets so big, 1:06:55.320 --> 1:06:58.360 you can weaponize the poor against the elites and the 1:06:58.360 --> 1:07:02.840 pitchforks will come. But democracy leaves. 1:07:02.640 --> 1:07:07.160 Yeah, and it's replaced with corruption and crony capitalism every 1:07:07.240 --> 1:07:11.920 timepocrisy of some sort. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we do 1:07:12.000 --> 1:07:14.040 have to reckon with our tax policy that that I 1:07:14.040 --> 1:07:16.800 think has concentrated wealth at the top, that you know 1:07:17.160 --> 1:07:18.520 is certainly what does that look like. 1:07:18.680 --> 1:07:21.160 Because I've heard this before and the frankly, you know 1:07:21.760 --> 1:07:24.040 we you know, this is what we did one hundred 1:07:24.120 --> 1:07:26.880 years ago when we had all these robber barons. We 1:07:26.960 --> 1:07:29.040 passed the Amendment on the income tax. That was not 1:07:29.120 --> 1:07:32.560 about taxing Americans. That was about tax making sure the 1:07:32.760 --> 1:07:36.480 rich paid something back to this country that they were 1:07:36.520 --> 1:07:41.160 taking from it. And that's when property taxes became mainstream 1:07:42.040 --> 1:07:46.280 was back then? So what what is what is today's answer? 1:07:46.320 --> 1:07:48.960 Because I agree that tax policy is probably the that's 1:07:49.000 --> 1:07:52.160 what a small d democracy should do, and that sort 1:07:52.160 --> 1:07:54.200 of capitalism with guardrails. 1:07:54.840 --> 1:07:56.920 What what what large. 1:07:56.680 --> 1:07:59.800 Areas are you thinking when it comes to comes to 1:08:00.240 --> 1:08:03.720 tax policy and trying to close the income inequality gap 1:08:03.960 --> 1:08:05.919 without it coming across this redistribution. 1:08:06.080 --> 1:08:11.400 Right, there's that fine line there, right, sure. Well, one 1:08:12.120 --> 1:08:15.280 easy answer is something that that Ronald Reagan actually did 1:08:15.480 --> 1:08:18.000 and then in the late part of his second term, 1:08:18.040 --> 1:08:23.000 which is ensure that capital gains, you know, gains from 1:08:23.040 --> 1:08:26.799 investment were taxed at the same rate as your labor. 1:08:26.880 --> 1:08:30.840 I see no reason why people working forty sixty hours 1:08:30.880 --> 1:08:34.519 a week and are subject to payroll taxes, and you know, 1:08:34.560 --> 1:08:36.680 even if they don't make enough money to actually be 1:08:36.720 --> 1:08:39.479 subject to income taxes. They're paying a lot into to 1:08:39.600 --> 1:08:43.120 FIKA and into payroll taxes. And even in the you know, 1:08:43.240 --> 1:08:44.960 Reagan years, they found a way to say, hey, no, 1:08:45.040 --> 1:08:47.280 we're going to make sure that Okay, if you're if 1:08:47.320 --> 1:08:50.040 you're just putting money, you're making money off of money, 1:08:50.520 --> 1:08:52.320 well that's going to be taxed in the same way 1:08:52.479 --> 1:08:54.720 that making money off of you know, your labor or 1:08:54.720 --> 1:08:58.960 breaking your knees, you know, welding iron together and setting iron. 1:08:59.080 --> 1:09:00.680 Is that we're going to tax the same And that 1:09:00.720 --> 1:09:03.640 actually happened in this country for two years until George H. W. 1:09:03.720 --> 1:09:06.000 Bush undid that policy. And I don't remember if it 1:09:06.040 --> 1:09:07.880 was eighty eight or ninety, but one of those years 1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:10.640 check up on me. I think that that is a 1:09:10.680 --> 1:09:13.160 fairly easy place to start. And then the second thing, 1:09:13.280 --> 1:09:16.160 you know that we just have to deal with or 1:09:16.360 --> 1:09:20.080 you know, the strategies that the ultra wealthy use to 1:09:20.520 --> 1:09:24.960 live off of their unrealized gains. You know, people will say, 1:09:25.000 --> 1:09:27.799 if if I have stock and it appreciates in value, 1:09:27.840 --> 1:09:29.680 but I haven't sold the stock, I didn't actually make 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:33.840 any money. That's true, except that you also collateralized that 1:09:33.920 --> 1:09:35.840 stock and borrowed a lot of money from banks to 1:09:35.880 --> 1:09:38.000 be able to live off of you know, you you 1:09:38.360 --> 1:09:42.479 accessed some value from that appreciation and that gain, and 1:09:42.520 --> 1:09:45.200 so I think even a simple policy like removing this 1:09:45.280 --> 1:09:50.400 by borrowde wealth preservations strategy that wealthy people use could 1:09:50.400 --> 1:09:55.640 also go some way in curing or making this a 1:09:55.720 --> 1:10:01.200 more equitable system. Basically, if you if you obtain cash 1:10:01.240 --> 1:10:03.960 flow from those unrealized gains in any way, at that point, 1:10:04.000 --> 1:10:05.479 it would be subject to tax. So these are kind 1:10:05.520 --> 1:10:07.639 of simple things. I think there's a lot of other 1:10:07.640 --> 1:10:11.879 complicated things that I'm sure academics and tax policy experts 1:10:12.320 --> 1:10:15.519 have a spectrum of disagreement about. But I think, you know, 1:10:15.520 --> 1:10:18.320 to your last point about redistribution, this is where Democrats 1:10:18.360 --> 1:10:20.760 often get in trouble because everybody sees that, oh, well, 1:10:20.760 --> 1:10:23.519 we're going to tax, we're going to tax everybody more, 1:10:24.400 --> 1:10:26.240 you know, hard working people, and then we're just going 1:10:26.320 --> 1:10:28.479 to do handouts to people who don't want to work. 1:10:28.880 --> 1:10:31.880 And this is just silliness, right. I believe that that's 1:10:31.920 --> 1:10:34.519 a myth for the most part, that most people receiving 1:10:35.080 --> 1:10:37.439 whether they're snap benefits or medicaid or whatever, actually do 1:10:37.479 --> 1:10:39.760 want to work. And I think forty million people on 1:10:39.760 --> 1:10:42.000 snap benefits, fifteen million of them do work full time. 1:10:42.000 --> 1:10:46.040 They don't make enough to actually be able to afford groceries. 1:10:46.080 --> 1:10:48.160 So I think we got to do away with some 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:50.879 of those myths about the working poor in this country. 1:10:51.479 --> 1:10:55.720 But separately, rather than handing people you know, money to 1:10:55.800 --> 1:10:58.280 go buy things, we as a country need to invest 1:10:58.360 --> 1:11:01.439 some of those proceeds into building more. We don't have 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:04.880 enough high quality education in this country. We have an 1:11:04.960 --> 1:11:08.479 energy grid that is increasingly falling behind for the demands 1:11:08.479 --> 1:11:10.439 that are going to be placed on it by an 1:11:10.439 --> 1:11:14.479 ai centric economy. We don't have enough hospitals and doctors, 1:11:14.520 --> 1:11:16.360 as I alluded to earlier. We need to invest in 1:11:16.600 --> 1:11:18.920 all of these things heavily and infrastructure in this country. 1:11:20.200 --> 1:11:22.720 No, and it it does seem though that there is 1:11:22.760 --> 1:11:27.280 a collective agreement on that. And yet you've seen this. 1:11:27.280 --> 1:11:30.799 This Congress doesn't function very well at the moment because 1:11:30.800 --> 1:11:33.759 we're in this you know, we're in this like forever 1:11:33.840 --> 1:11:35.719 Cold War between red and blue. 1:11:37.040 --> 1:11:41.080 Yeah, and it is very dysfunctional. And even when you 1:11:41.120 --> 1:11:44.200 can have consensus, or even when you have you know, 1:11:44.360 --> 1:11:48.599 broad agreement on issues, you know, progress remains elusive, and 1:11:48.680 --> 1:11:51.439 I believe that it is just that this system has 1:11:51.479 --> 1:11:55.120 been captured by the political and economic elites that are 1:11:55.240 --> 1:11:58.960 entrenched interests. We have campaigns, you know, bought and paid for, 1:11:59.080 --> 1:12:03.920 Elon Musk invests to forty something million dollars in getting 1:12:03.960 --> 1:12:08.280 President Trump reelected, and all of these parties you know, 1:12:08.320 --> 1:12:10.120 are looking out for their own interests and they are 1:12:10.160 --> 1:12:13.120 the ones you know, funding politics. And we have tried 1:12:13.400 --> 1:12:17.679 to have grassroots campaigns over the you know, the past decade, 1:12:17.760 --> 1:12:20.680 but these relentless text messages and emails and candidates like 1:12:20.720 --> 1:12:24.360 myself have to send two people who already probably don't 1:12:24.400 --> 1:12:27.280 make much and know, chip in five bucks to save democracy, 1:12:27.320 --> 1:12:29.120 and then a lot of that just goes back to, 1:12:29.320 --> 1:12:33.040 you know, paying for campaign consultants and all. It's absolutely 1:12:33.040 --> 1:12:37.599 fundraiser makes the money. Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. And I 1:12:37.640 --> 1:12:41.519 think that that, you know, we have to start electing 1:12:41.520 --> 1:12:45.200 people to the Senate who understand the struggles of the 1:12:45.240 --> 1:12:49.000 working poor in this country. We talk about how much 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:52.479 representation matters, you know, especially as Democrats, and we mean 1:12:52.520 --> 1:12:54.439 that in a variety of different ways, but one way 1:12:54.439 --> 1:12:57.479 in which we don't explicitly talk about it is do 1:12:57.600 --> 1:12:59.960 poor people see themselves in any of the people that 1:13:00.080 --> 1:13:03.160 are elected to represent them, And I would say that 1:13:03.200 --> 1:13:07.320 they do not, because you know, many people who seek 1:13:07.360 --> 1:13:10.920 office year after year, cycle after cycle and win or lose. 1:13:12.080 --> 1:13:13.720 I just don't think they have much in common with 1:13:13.760 --> 1:13:16.640 the people who who they are trying to represent. And 1:13:16.680 --> 1:13:18.439 I think that that representation matters a lot. 1:13:19.120 --> 1:13:23.080 So And I'm not like asking you to throw shade 1:13:23.120 --> 1:13:26.880 at at potential primary opponents, but I may already have. 1:13:27.560 --> 1:13:30.559 It's sorry, why did why does Andy Basheer succeed? And 1:13:30.600 --> 1:13:33.240 why did an Amy McGrath fail in twenty twenty? 1:13:34.720 --> 1:13:37.640 Yeah, I mean there's there are a lot of you know, 1:13:37.680 --> 1:13:41.000 contributing factors, and you know why you should ask a 1:13:41.120 --> 1:13:43.960 me what her assessment of that race is. I'm sure 1:13:43.960 --> 1:13:46.320 that she should all the money in the world, all 1:13:46.400 --> 1:13:47.240 that money in the world. 1:13:47.360 --> 1:13:49.479 This was not a she didn't. This was not a 1:13:49.520 --> 1:13:55.160 financial issue. So this became a you know, the you know, 1:13:55.479 --> 1:13:58.479 an old marketing slogan was that the dog that doesn't 1:13:58.520 --> 1:14:00.439 matter how much money you throw behind the dog food. 1:14:00.439 --> 1:14:02.960 If the dog won't eat the dog food, you know 1:14:03.160 --> 1:14:05.920 it's not going to work. Why didn't it work? 1:14:06.680 --> 1:14:09.920 Yeah? Again, she would probably be much more you know, 1:14:10.000 --> 1:14:12.559 qualified to share an assessment with you on that. I 1:14:12.600 --> 1:14:15.559 will say Amy McGrath. McGrath has an incredible life story. 1:14:15.600 --> 1:14:17.519 She's a patriot that you know, has served her country 1:14:17.560 --> 1:14:21.000 and she she's been in this fight. I think my 1:14:21.080 --> 1:14:25.439 assessment is that in a place like Kentucky, it's a 1:14:25.439 --> 1:14:29.800 state that has been you know, that has put its 1:14:29.800 --> 1:14:32.400 faith in its trust in Donald Trump. You know, three 1:14:32.439 --> 1:14:35.080 three times three three elections in a row, and it 1:14:36.040 --> 1:14:39.080 you know, voters here believed the promises that he made 1:14:39.080 --> 1:14:41.920 and believed that he was going to be looking out 1:14:41.960 --> 1:14:45.320 for them. And when when Democrats don't actually offer an 1:14:45.320 --> 1:14:48.559 alternative vision, when they when they sometimes speak in ways 1:14:48.560 --> 1:14:51.559 that sound just kind of Republican but just a little 1:14:51.640 --> 1:14:54.320 less republican, I don't think voters can really tell the difference. 1:14:54.360 --> 1:14:56.400 And so if you got people on the fence, they're 1:14:56.400 --> 1:14:59.160 going to just vote for the Republican. Uh and Andy, 1:14:59.200 --> 1:15:01.840 butsheer didn't you know, do that. This is a governor 1:15:01.880 --> 1:15:04.120 who led with his values in both of his campaigns. 1:15:04.120 --> 1:15:06.320 He didn't shy away from talking about hard things, but 1:15:06.360 --> 1:15:11.719 he explained his choices, his decisions and reasons for different 1:15:11.760 --> 1:15:13.760 things and decisions he would make and policies he would 1:15:13.760 --> 1:15:16.960 advocate for. And even people who disagreed with Andy Bushier 1:15:17.360 --> 1:15:19.360 said that they trusted him and they thought that he 1:15:19.360 --> 1:15:21.800 would look out for them. And then he has shown up. 1:15:22.360 --> 1:15:25.080 We've had fourteen natural disasters or something declared in the 1:15:25.080 --> 1:15:27.960 state of Kentucky over the past couple of years or 1:15:28.200 --> 1:15:30.519 during his administration. This isn't a guy who hides in 1:15:30.560 --> 1:15:33.920 the governor's mansion. He's been out, He's been present with people, 1:15:33.960 --> 1:15:36.479 and I think that even when they disagree with them, 1:15:37.280 --> 1:15:40.479 are in, you know, marginal things, that he has their 1:15:40.520 --> 1:15:43.240 back on the major things. So I think that that's 1:15:43.280 --> 1:15:44.240 probably the big difference. 1:15:44.600 --> 1:15:46.439 What do you think is the best way to win 1:15:46.840 --> 1:15:49.120 win over somebody who voted for Donald Trump in twenty 1:15:49.120 --> 1:15:52.200 twenty four to vote for Joel Willett in twenty twenty six. 1:15:53.120 --> 1:15:57.320 Yeah, I would just ask those voters do they see 1:15:57.360 --> 1:16:00.400 more of themselves in Joel Willett or in Donald Trump. 1:16:00.760 --> 1:16:04.519 Donald Trump's net worth has increased three billion dollars according 1:16:04.560 --> 1:16:07.479 to the most recent estimates since January twentieth. How's your 1:16:07.520 --> 1:16:11.679 bottom line doing? Kentucky? Wages are stagnant, costs are up. 1:16:12.080 --> 1:16:15.479 You can't afford groceries. They're actively trying to take your 1:16:15.520 --> 1:16:18.200 health care. This man went to the Supreme Court this 1:16:18.320 --> 1:16:21.960 week to try to get permission to not give people 1:16:22.040 --> 1:16:25.559 money to buying groceries. And this administration made sure that 1:16:25.640 --> 1:16:29.480 Republicans in the Senate couldn't negotiate a deal with Democrats 1:16:29.720 --> 1:16:32.479 so that Americans wouldn't be faced with this unconscionable choice 1:16:32.520 --> 1:16:35.839 between being able to afford groceries or seeing a doctor 1:16:36.160 --> 1:16:39.040 when they get sick. And I would just ask voters 1:16:39.040 --> 1:16:42.559 to keep asking themselves why that is. Do you believe 1:16:42.600 --> 1:16:45.439 that this man has your back? And I think there 1:16:45.520 --> 1:16:48.840 is ample evidence at this point between his ballrooms, his 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:52.280 own increase in his wealth, and these other policies he 1:16:52.360 --> 1:16:54.320 does not definitely. 1:16:53.920 --> 1:16:57.400 Has a gilded age feeling to it. Doesn't it like, yeah, 1:16:57.520 --> 1:17:00.240 let them cake whatever you want to, whatever cliche you 1:17:00.240 --> 1:17:00.800 want to pick it. 1:17:01.000 --> 1:17:06.599 It feels it like you're just like, yeah, the pictures 1:17:06.600 --> 1:17:07.200 are jarring. 1:17:14.680 --> 1:17:17.800 Well it leads me, and look, this is by the 1:17:17.840 --> 1:17:20.519 time this airs, the shutdown is over, it's behind us. 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:22.320 So we're in the we're taping when they're in the 1:17:22.320 --> 1:17:26.639 middle of it ending. And I'm one of those who 1:17:26.680 --> 1:17:29.880 are empathetic to I get I understand the rationale on 1:17:29.920 --> 1:17:34.080 both sides of this argument inside the Democratic Party. One 1:17:34.120 --> 1:17:37.800 that says, hey, they're squirming, why give up now? The 1:17:37.840 --> 1:17:42.840 other that says, he's he's taking away snap benefits, he's 1:17:43.000 --> 1:17:50.960 putting the travel system under duress. Somebody's got to be 1:17:51.040 --> 1:17:53.599 the adult in the room here. And oh, by the way, 1:17:53.720 --> 1:17:56.519 if you're trying if the whole point of this was 1:17:56.560 --> 1:18:01.040 to bring more attention to healthcare, that's been a mission accomplished, 1:18:02.200 --> 1:18:04.720 and then now the burden is on them to either 1:18:04.760 --> 1:18:07.519 deal with this or watch out. In twenty twenty six, 1:18:07.600 --> 1:18:11.960 this becomes certainly a populist issue. So obviously you could 1:18:11.960 --> 1:18:13.960 see I can argue one side of this. I understand 1:18:13.960 --> 1:18:17.360 the other that, hey, the shutdown's gone politically really well 1:18:17.400 --> 1:18:20.640 for the Democrats, and Trump has made all sorts of 1:18:20.680 --> 1:18:24.400 mistakes like advocating to not pay snap benefits even when 1:18:24.400 --> 1:18:26.760 a judge says to do it, and the Speaker of 1:18:26.800 --> 1:18:30.280 the House is abdicated responsibility, right Like, I can I 1:18:30.400 --> 1:18:34.880 get the arguments and I couldn't I hear both of them. 1:18:35.800 --> 1:18:39.240 Where do you fall on this argument? And I'm mindful 1:18:39.280 --> 1:18:41.320 that you're in a Democratic primary in the moment. 1:18:42.160 --> 1:18:45.720 Yeah, but I'm not someone who is going to ever 1:18:46.000 --> 1:18:48.240 play hide the ball with the people that I want 1:18:48.240 --> 1:18:49.920 to vote for me and the people that I want 1:18:49.960 --> 1:18:55.320 to represent. So in that spirit, I believe that the 1:18:55.360 --> 1:18:57.920 deal that was just struck is a betrayal of working 1:18:57.960 --> 1:19:03.240 families in this country. And I'm absolutely disgusted by this 1:19:03.360 --> 1:19:07.400 choice with the with the eight Democrats who who broke 1:19:07.520 --> 1:19:10.360 pretty angry about this, I am very fired up, Chuck. 1:19:10.400 --> 1:19:13.360 I went to bed mad and angry last night. I 1:19:13.439 --> 1:19:17.200 woke up this morning, uh, the same exact way. And 1:19:17.240 --> 1:19:20.519 while yes, there are you know arguments there, I you know, 1:19:20.520 --> 1:19:23.360 we're fond of, you know, saying in sports, and when 1:19:23.360 --> 1:19:25.720 we're trying to encourage people to to you know, get 1:19:25.760 --> 1:19:28.160 in there and and fight and play a game, we say, well, hey, 1:19:28.160 --> 1:19:30.400 you can't win if you don't play. But I want 1:19:30.400 --> 1:19:33.519 to quote my favorite, probably one of my favorite TV 1:19:33.640 --> 1:19:35.880 series of all times, The Wire, And I'm sure this 1:19:36.000 --> 1:19:39.240 was a David Simon line, but one of the characters 1:19:39.280 --> 1:19:43.040 told the police chief, you can't lose if you don't play, 1:19:43.600 --> 1:19:46.000 and that is I think some of the energy Democrats 1:19:46.080 --> 1:19:49.160 needed here. If the Republicans wanted the government open, they 1:19:49.200 --> 1:19:51.680 found ways to force through the you know, the big 1:19:51.720 --> 1:19:55.920 bullshit bill back in July. They did that right with 1:19:55.920 --> 1:19:59.960 with UH without getting the support that you know, they 1:20:00.080 --> 1:20:03.080 they wanted from Democrats. They could have funded and reopened 1:20:03.080 --> 1:20:04.800 the government the same way. Not sure there would have 1:20:04.800 --> 1:20:07.360 been some procedural issues and delays and things like that. 1:20:07.400 --> 1:20:09.240 They could have gotten it done if they wanted to. 1:20:09.360 --> 1:20:12.840 Democrats did not need to go support this. And yes, 1:20:12.920 --> 1:20:18.120 it is terrible to watch people potentially lose their SNAP 1:20:18.200 --> 1:20:20.240 or food stamp benefits. I was on food stamps as 1:20:20.280 --> 1:20:22.680 a kid. I know what that's like. You know, when 1:20:22.720 --> 1:20:24.360 my parents had to make decisions between being able to 1:20:24.360 --> 1:20:26.599 afford groceries or putting gas in the car to get 1:20:26.600 --> 1:20:28.280 to a job so they could make money to buy 1:20:28.520 --> 1:20:31.400 more food. I get that personally, But it is not 1:20:31.520 --> 1:20:34.440 Democrats that have made those choices. It was not Democrats 1:20:34.479 --> 1:20:38.559 going to the Supreme Court to try to get permission 1:20:38.600 --> 1:20:42.200 to not pay SNAP benefits. That was Donald Trump. That 1:20:42.280 --> 1:20:46.479 was Republican enablers in Congress. Democrats had a very radical 1:20:46.520 --> 1:20:50.000 idea throughout this shutdown. Maybe in the most prosperous country 1:20:50.040 --> 1:20:54.040 on earth, with thirty trillion dollars in GDP, we can 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:57.479 have a country where people can afford groceries and be 1:20:57.520 --> 1:20:59.519 able to see a doctor if you get sick. That 1:20:59.600 --> 1:21:01.840 seemed like a pretty noble fight to me. And I 1:21:01.840 --> 1:21:04.679 don't understand, you know, when we've had millions of voters 1:21:04.680 --> 1:21:07.320 across this country in Virginia and New Jersey, in California 1:21:07.360 --> 1:21:11.559 and New York show up just this week, right, you know, 1:21:11.560 --> 1:21:15.000 over the past seven days, rather to support a party 1:21:15.040 --> 1:21:17.960 that it's a fighting for them, to just immediately turn 1:21:17.960 --> 1:21:18.400 it out. 1:21:18.200 --> 1:21:20.000 To say why, why do you assume the fight's over? 1:21:20.120 --> 1:21:23.120 I mean, this is a temporary opening, you know. I 1:21:23.160 --> 1:21:26.160 could if you made me have to message it on 1:21:26.760 --> 1:21:30.040 sort of on your I would say something like, look, 1:21:30.120 --> 1:21:33.040 we're not gonna we're not going to make people have 1:21:33.120 --> 1:21:37.760 to ration food because this administration is going to do it. 1:21:37.800 --> 1:21:40.840 But we're going to keep fighting for healthcare and come January, 1:21:40.920 --> 1:21:43.080 if they don't do this, we're shutting this place down again. 1:21:43.880 --> 1:21:49.000 And what's wrong? What is wrong with that strategy because 1:21:49.080 --> 1:21:51.400 you do sort of try to strike I could argue 1:21:51.439 --> 1:21:55.560 that it strikes the balance between you know, helping in 1:21:55.600 --> 1:22:00.360 the immediate term, and again I think, look, we're playing 1:22:00.360 --> 1:22:02.679 with fire with what's going on with their traffic control 1:22:02.760 --> 1:22:05.280 and not paying these folks and and all of this stuff. 1:22:05.280 --> 1:22:07.160 And I take it we had a we had a 1:22:07.200 --> 1:22:09.400 crash here, and we don't. 1:22:09.200 --> 1:22:12.640 Know that had what's that impacted by? Right, And we 1:22:12.680 --> 1:22:15.200 can't say for sure, but we know we've put these 1:22:15.240 --> 1:22:17.680 people under duress, meaning they've got to work with a 1:22:17.720 --> 1:22:22.360 promise to be paid right, which I've never met the 1:22:22.439 --> 1:22:24.960 landlord that said that, Hey, I'm going to post date 1:22:25.040 --> 1:22:27.240 this check just you know, I just don't know when 1:22:27.240 --> 1:22:30.680 I have to get to post date it. Do you 1:22:30.720 --> 1:22:33.280 not accept the premise that there's time to fight keep 1:22:33.360 --> 1:22:37.080 fighting for this in two months? 1:22:37.640 --> 1:22:40.800 I think when you look at the eight Democrats who 1:22:40.880 --> 1:22:45.240 voted for this, it sort of betrays the parties thinking 1:22:45.320 --> 1:22:48.000 that they don't really buy this premise either. None of 1:22:48.040 --> 1:22:51.080 those people are facing reelection next cycle. To my knowledge, 1:22:51.760 --> 1:22:54.720 find me one person who wants to run on this 1:22:54.800 --> 1:22:57.679 compromise right now next cycle. I don't think you find 1:22:57.760 --> 1:22:58.880 that Democrat anyway. 1:22:58.880 --> 1:23:01.120 What's the run on the compromise? The question is whether 1:23:02.320 --> 1:23:04.719 you're running. You know, you get to keep running on healthcare? 1:23:04.760 --> 1:23:06.879 I would argue you do, oh. 1:23:06.720 --> 1:23:10.599 Sure, because but the problem is you've got tens of 1:23:10.600 --> 1:23:13.679 millions of Americans who are absolutely now going to see 1:23:13.680 --> 1:23:16.800 premium increases or they're going to go without health care. 1:23:16.800 --> 1:23:18.920 That is now a fact that is going to happen. 1:23:19.320 --> 1:23:21.479 And you know a lot of people are like, oh, 1:23:21.560 --> 1:23:23.400 do you trust Republicans that they're actually going to give 1:23:23.400 --> 1:23:25.400 you a vote on this or whatever. It's like, Okay, 1:23:26.000 --> 1:23:29.280 I think you know. Fune has been very public that 1:23:29.320 --> 1:23:30.559 there is going to be a vote and it's going 1:23:30.600 --> 1:23:32.120 to happen on such and such date and all that. 1:23:32.160 --> 1:23:33.160 So take them out the where there's going to be 1:23:33.200 --> 1:23:34.880 a vote. What is that going to accomplish? Do you 1:23:34.920 --> 1:23:41.480 think magically Republicans are going to extend these enhanced subsidies. 1:23:41.680 --> 1:23:44.400 I think would be enough because I think they're petrified 1:23:44.400 --> 1:23:47.599 of this. I think they're absolutely petrified of the impact 1:23:47.640 --> 1:23:50.000 com mess. I think they look at for a way out. Yeah, 1:23:50.040 --> 1:23:53.320 well right, And so I don't have that level of 1:23:53.360 --> 1:23:56.240 faith right now because they are beholden to Donald Trump. 1:23:56.560 --> 1:23:59.840 And this is a man who found his affordability in 1:23:59.840 --> 1:24:03.320 the rative for a maximum of five hours one night 1:24:03.360 --> 1:24:05.640 before he the next day said don't talk to me 1:24:05.680 --> 1:24:09.200 about affordability. I mean they are going to do whatever 1:24:09.320 --> 1:24:11.880 he says, and until he's out there saying the personation 1:24:12.000 --> 1:24:14.960 is noted there, Joel, I see that. It's incredible. Check 1:24:16.160 --> 1:24:20.000 you know you got to keep that up. What more? 1:24:20.120 --> 1:24:20.400 Is it just? 1:24:20.760 --> 1:24:23.439 Or do you have others that you're pretty good at? Oh? Well, 1:24:23.479 --> 1:24:27.840 we'll save those for future episodes. My wife hates my impersonations, 1:24:27.840 --> 1:24:30.759 by the way. Oh she's got to be the biggest 1:24:30.760 --> 1:24:32.800 fat She can't do that to you. I just want 1:24:32.800 --> 1:24:33.479 to discourage it. 1:24:33.800 --> 1:24:36.479 And I've got a shared brown impersonation that I've always 1:24:36.520 --> 1:24:39.559 been really proud of ground to be a I just need, 1:24:39.600 --> 1:24:41.320 you know, with the men and the working men and wave. 1:24:41.520 --> 1:24:44.559 You know, you gotta you gotta have the dignity of work. 1:24:44.400 --> 1:24:48.040 There, Joel. That that is very good and quick aside. 1:24:48.080 --> 1:24:52.880 I was I was able to uh see Carl Rove 1:24:52.920 --> 1:24:58.880 and Paul Lagala do a fireside chat last last fall, 1:24:59.439 --> 1:25:03.080 and I mean, Carl Rove hasn't uh, you know, an 1:25:03.080 --> 1:25:06.200 incredible impersonation Donald Trump and an even better one of 1:25:06.439 --> 1:25:09.120 George W. Bush, the president that that he serves so firstly, 1:25:09.439 --> 1:25:12.599 and Paul Lagalla busted into a Bill Clinton, uh that 1:25:12.760 --> 1:25:15.720 would deceive anyone. And I just thought that was very 1:25:15.760 --> 1:25:17.760 impressive that the presidents that they had served, that they 1:25:17.760 --> 1:25:21.080 had just kind of embodied their voice so realistically. 1:25:20.520 --> 1:25:22.599 Well, it makes you wonder did they embody their voice 1:25:22.640 --> 1:25:25.160 or did the do the presidents embody the voices of 1:25:25.240 --> 1:25:28.600 their chief strategists? Yeah, you know who's pulling this strength now, 1:25:28.640 --> 1:25:34.439 I'm kidding. I'm kidding on that front. So I take 1:25:34.479 --> 1:25:36.880 it that if there's no deal on healthcare, you'd say, 1:25:37.080 --> 1:25:40.000 you think that this that these that shut down the 1:25:40.040 --> 1:25:43.400 government in January again, right, Yeah. 1:25:43.240 --> 1:25:45.880 I don't see what choice. I mean, look, I say 1:25:45.880 --> 1:25:48.200 this as a civil servant, and and and perhaps I 1:25:48.439 --> 1:25:54.000 should you know, lead with uh my, you know, I 1:25:54.080 --> 1:25:56.759 understand I've lived through shutdowns. I had I was always 1:25:56.800 --> 1:26:00.360 a you know, a an essential implay all you doing 1:26:00.360 --> 1:26:03.479 government shutdowns and had you know, pay at risk and 1:26:03.840 --> 1:26:07.160 got paid. Yeah, it always came back. But even if 1:26:07.160 --> 1:26:09.960 there was like a you know, a temporary you know, 1:26:10.280 --> 1:26:13.000 bulip in it, you you're you're not getting paid that 1:26:13.080 --> 1:26:15.800 much anyways, right, and you you continue to show up 1:26:15.840 --> 1:26:17.559 and it's it's work that you care about. But ultimately, 1:26:17.560 --> 1:26:19.439 you know, you've got to be able to afford things. 1:26:19.439 --> 1:26:22.880 And I don't want to use public servants as a 1:26:22.880 --> 1:26:25.479 as a political football in that way. But we cannot 1:26:25.520 --> 1:26:28.840 be the only party that cares about that one. One 1:26:28.920 --> 1:26:31.360 side of the spectrum right now is letting Donald Trump 1:26:31.439 --> 1:26:34.160 just run rough shot over the entire federal government, dismantling 1:26:34.160 --> 1:26:37.639 the civil servants, civil service that we fought so hard 1:26:37.680 --> 1:26:40.040 to build in an a political way in this country. 1:26:40.120 --> 1:26:42.639 And uh, you know, so I get Tim Kane when 1:26:42.720 --> 1:26:45.600 when he's trying to support federal workers, but you know 1:26:45.680 --> 1:26:48.599 the same is true from our corner. And so I 1:26:48.640 --> 1:26:51.320 do think this is uh, we we have to keep fighting. 1:26:51.320 --> 1:26:55.439 But like Democrats have to read the room the do 1:26:55.439 --> 1:27:01.120 you think Schumer should resign as party leader? H I 1:27:01.120 --> 1:27:04.120 I think that there are very valid and open questions 1:27:04.160 --> 1:27:06.880 about that. I want I don't know Chuck Schumer. I've 1:27:06.920 --> 1:27:11.880 not met with Chuck Schumer. You know, I get that 1:27:12.200 --> 1:27:15.639 you know there is a lot going on behind the scenes, 1:27:15.680 --> 1:27:17.880 and you know, for a party that is out of power, 1:27:18.439 --> 1:27:22.519 and so you know that's that's not something I'm prepared 1:27:22.560 --> 1:27:24.720 to say, as we said here, but it is an 1:27:24.720 --> 1:27:25.719 open question. In my mind. 1:27:26.960 --> 1:27:29.439 Doesn't sound like somebody, if you won, you would support 1:27:29.520 --> 1:27:30.840 keeping Chuck Schumer as a leader. 1:27:30.880 --> 1:27:33.880 If you had a vote, it would be a difficult 1:27:33.960 --> 1:27:35.479 vote for me to take today. I will say that 1:27:36.920 --> 1:27:37.720 before I let you go. 1:27:37.800 --> 1:27:40.759 I'm just curious, you know. I just interviewed Governor Basheer 1:27:42.040 --> 1:27:44.559 earlier this weekend. It's on a new sphere, which is 1:27:45.080 --> 1:27:49.799 another sort of independent media outlet, and he said something interesting. 1:27:49.840 --> 1:27:55.439 I said, you know. I said, he was talking about tariffs. 1:27:56.240 --> 1:27:59.559 And this is a case where Andy Basheer, Mitch McConnell, 1:27:59.600 --> 1:28:01.120 and Ran all are all on the same page. 1:28:01.120 --> 1:28:02.200 And he basically said. 1:28:02.040 --> 1:28:04.360 If all three of us are agreeing on something, maybe 1:28:04.360 --> 1:28:05.360 there's something there. 1:28:05.760 --> 1:28:08.240 What do you make of Rand Paul? And I say 1:28:08.320 --> 1:28:10.799 this because if you win, that's. 1:28:10.600 --> 1:28:13.880 A senator, you know, the States senators, you know, no 1:28:13.880 --> 1:28:15.720 matter even if you're from different parties, at times you 1:28:15.720 --> 1:28:16.479 need to work together. 1:28:16.840 --> 1:28:17.720 What do you make of him? 1:28:17.760 --> 1:28:20.280 And what do you make of his attempts at seeking 1:28:20.320 --> 1:28:22.800 a little bit of distance from from Trump World in 1:28:22.800 --> 1:28:24.880 a way that we haven't seen in the past. 1:28:26.080 --> 1:28:31.679 I Ran Paul is an idiosyncratic senator to say the least. 1:28:31.720 --> 1:28:36.040 You know, his views will sometimes overlap in very weird 1:28:36.200 --> 1:28:39.240 or align, you know, in very strange and unexpected ways. 1:28:39.280 --> 1:28:42.960 It's a weird ven diagram, isn't it it very much 1:28:43.080 --> 1:28:44.840 is I mean? But we have this in Kentucky with 1:28:44.880 --> 1:28:47.800 Thomas Massey as well. You've got liberals across the state 1:28:47.880 --> 1:28:53.320 celebrating Thomas Massey's willingness to stand up, you know, for 1:28:53.880 --> 1:28:56.040 the release of the Epstein files, which, by the way, 1:28:56.080 --> 1:28:59.000 this issue is not going to go away either. Those 1:28:59.040 --> 1:29:01.599 finals I believe will see the light of day. They 1:29:01.640 --> 1:29:04.920 have to. Voters are demanding it. But you make a 1:29:04.960 --> 1:29:07.800 broader point just about you know how we have to 1:29:07.840 --> 1:29:11.479 work together. No one senator can promise to get anything 1:29:11.640 --> 1:29:14.200 done on their own. You have to build relationships. You 1:29:14.280 --> 1:29:16.160 have to be able to work across the aisle. And 1:29:16.439 --> 1:29:19.000 I'm not somebody who presents just to be some above 1:29:19.000 --> 1:29:21.479 it all centrist. I am not, and I, like I said, 1:29:21.520 --> 1:29:23.920 We'll always tell voters you know where I stand on things, 1:29:23.920 --> 1:29:25.640 and my mind is made up on something. I'm not 1:29:25.680 --> 1:29:28.240 going to hide from you what I believe about it. 1:29:28.760 --> 1:29:32.320 But that doesn't absolve me, or any senator or any 1:29:32.439 --> 1:29:37.040 congressman of a responsibility to represent all the people in 1:29:37.080 --> 1:29:39.680 our states, because it is inevitable in a state like 1:29:39.760 --> 1:29:43.160 Kentucky if I win, you know, there are going to 1:29:43.200 --> 1:29:45.479 be lots of people here who did not vote for me, 1:29:45.680 --> 1:29:48.960 and they deserve a voice and they deserve representation as well. 1:29:49.760 --> 1:29:52.160 The problem that we have right now in this country 1:29:52.439 --> 1:29:57.240 is that, you know, you can have seventy five million 1:29:57.280 --> 1:30:02.400 people vote for Kamala Harris and marginally more millions vote 1:30:02.439 --> 1:30:05.160 for Trump, and they pretend that the score was one 1:30:05.240 --> 1:30:07.559 hundred to nothing, I know, and that all the other 1:30:07.600 --> 1:30:09.599 people didn't exist. You don't, you didn't win. 1:30:09.680 --> 1:30:12.200 Actually not what our founders intended. They assumed it was 1:30:12.240 --> 1:30:15.000 going to be a messy compromise constantly. 1:30:15.520 --> 1:30:18.360 Yeah, and so you know, we have to be able 1:30:18.360 --> 1:30:20.200 to do that. So, you know, I would I would 1:30:20.680 --> 1:30:23.840 work with you know which who would then be the 1:30:23.880 --> 1:30:26.599 senior Senator from the state of Kentucky to take care 1:30:26.600 --> 1:30:29.320 of working families in this state. They deserve a voice, 1:30:29.320 --> 1:30:34.880 they deserve representation, and we need solutions minded politicians. And 1:30:34.920 --> 1:30:35.960 that's exactly what I would be. 1:30:36.720 --> 1:30:39.880 Outside of Kentucky. Who's the US Senator that so far 1:30:39.960 --> 1:30:41.120 you've been the most impressed with. 1:30:43.600 --> 1:30:46.680 You know, It's funny, somebody asked me, asked me that 1:30:46.800 --> 1:30:48.360 question a few weeks so, not who I was most 1:30:48.360 --> 1:30:50.320 impressed with. I was able to say a few, But 1:30:50.920 --> 1:30:55.080 I'm gonna. I'm going to continue to give Chris Murphy props. 1:30:55.200 --> 1:30:58.679 I have appreciated, you know, he's been a very level 1:30:58.720 --> 1:31:04.639 headed senator. He speaks passionately about you know, a lot 1:31:04.640 --> 1:31:07.519 of issues, but you know, particularly he's someone you know, 1:31:07.560 --> 1:31:10.240 I talked about, you know, my dad dying a uniquely 1:31:10.240 --> 1:31:13.360 American death from finandol. Well, there's another uniquely American death, 1:31:13.800 --> 1:31:17.800 and that's to get killed atra elementary school. And you know, 1:31:17.920 --> 1:31:20.759 when you've got senators, you know, who are completely owned 1:31:21.960 --> 1:31:24.120 by the NRA that that aren't even looking out for 1:31:24.160 --> 1:31:27.760 response responsible gun owners anymore. You know, I've just been 1:31:27.760 --> 1:31:29.840 impressed with, you know, his leadership on that issue and 1:31:30.080 --> 1:31:32.439 other things, and somebody who I think is intelligent, whose 1:31:32.439 --> 1:31:36.080 heart's in the right place. And yeah, so I admire it, 1:31:36.200 --> 1:31:37.000 admire that guy. 1:31:37.240 --> 1:31:40.160 And I take it that Governor Bursheer is your pick 1:31:40.200 --> 1:31:42.360 for president in twenty twenty eight because you got you're 1:31:42.360 --> 1:31:43.320 going to be a home state guy. 1:31:43.760 --> 1:31:46.760 Is he is he running? Is he running? I don't know. 1:31:46.880 --> 1:31:47.479 I don't think he's. 1:31:47.560 --> 1:31:47.680 Uh. 1:31:47.880 --> 1:31:48.879 I don't think he said. 1:31:48.720 --> 1:31:51.000 Yeah, look at you doing doing a little bit of 1:31:51.240 --> 1:31:52.280 blocking and tackling that. 1:31:52.600 --> 1:31:55.560 I don't know, look at twenty twenty six. Right, yeah, 1:31:55.560 --> 1:31:57.559 of course, but and that does have to be our folks. 1:31:57.600 --> 1:32:02.400 I will tell you this. I do not believe, and 1:32:02.600 --> 1:32:04.720 I know Gavin Newsom has been very public in saying this. 1:32:04.800 --> 1:32:07.560 I've been saying it privately for months, that this administration 1:32:07.600 --> 1:32:10.360 intends to have free and fair elections in twenty twenty eight. 1:32:10.439 --> 1:32:13.559 And so if your listeners care at all about our 1:32:14.160 --> 1:32:17.240 two hundred and fifty year experiment with democracy here or 1:32:17.280 --> 1:32:20.360 liberal democracy in America, it is imperative that we turn 1:32:20.360 --> 1:32:23.000 out in massive numbers in twenty twenty six. I believe 1:32:23.000 --> 1:32:26.400 it's one of our last chances to provide accountability for 1:32:26.439 --> 1:32:30.519 this administration and to ensure that Americans have a free 1:32:30.560 --> 1:32:32.519 and fair choice, whether that be for Andy Basheer or 1:32:32.560 --> 1:32:34.320 anyone else in twenty twenty eight. So I don't think 1:32:34.320 --> 1:32:36.200 the stakes could be any higher. And I will say 1:32:36.240 --> 1:32:39.120 Andy Basheer has been an incredible governor of this state, 1:32:40.040 --> 1:32:42.280 and he's shown it path to victory here for Democrats 1:32:42.320 --> 1:32:44.559 who want to lead with their values to respect him 1:32:44.600 --> 1:32:44.880 for that. 1:32:45.680 --> 1:32:47.679 Let me get chatting here on this. Because you worked 1:32:47.680 --> 1:32:49.960 in the intelligence community, and I've been working with some 1:32:50.000 --> 1:32:53.880 people former members of the intelligence community on an exercise 1:32:53.880 --> 1:32:56.559 on trust and media. And it's not just about media 1:32:56.640 --> 1:33:00.960 and journalists. It's more about the information ecosystem and what 1:33:01.160 --> 1:33:04.200 happens if you have bad intelligence. Like I'm working with 1:33:04.200 --> 1:33:07.240 people who are nervous that the information you know, we 1:33:07.479 --> 1:33:10.960 already know there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there, 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:14.920 and that if we don't figure out clean ways to 1:33:14.960 --> 1:33:18.560 get information, then we're going to make terrible national security decisions. 1:33:18.600 --> 1:33:22.840 Like how bad is the flow of intelligence these days? 1:33:22.840 --> 1:33:27.200 Do you is it in considering sort of how much 1:33:27.240 --> 1:33:30.360 we've alienated some of our key allies, you know, in 1:33:30.400 --> 1:33:32.360 the in the world of the Five Eyes, all the 1:33:32.400 --> 1:33:37.520 English language allies of ours that I get the impression 1:33:37.560 --> 1:33:40.519 that there's either concern that, you know, we've got too 1:33:40.520 --> 1:33:43.400 many leaks in our system or all of our stuff. 1:33:43.439 --> 1:33:47.000 There's one country in particular that gets access to intelligence 1:33:47.120 --> 1:33:49.880 without telling them what what is? What do you feel 1:33:49.880 --> 1:33:53.960 like is the state of America, the American the intelligence 1:33:54.000 --> 1:33:59.120 that are are the intelligence community is getting these days? 1:34:00.120 --> 1:34:02.880 Yeah? I appreciate that question more than you know, and 1:34:04.040 --> 1:34:06.440 you know, would would love to have an extended conversation 1:34:06.520 --> 1:34:08.920 about it, because I think that there are a lot 1:34:08.960 --> 1:34:13.680 of different forces that are polluting the information environment and 1:34:13.760 --> 1:34:17.280 leading to very poor information hygiene, not just in you know, 1:34:17.400 --> 1:34:21.760 our federal government with policymakers, but with our kids, and 1:34:21.800 --> 1:34:25.560 with with school age kids and people in university and 1:34:25.720 --> 1:34:29.639 and everything else. I would just turn to Russia as 1:34:29.640 --> 1:34:32.920 an example of this. During COVID, you may recall some 1:34:32.960 --> 1:34:36.360 of these images of Vladimir Putin setting at the end 1:34:36.400 --> 1:34:38.400 of a you know, a thirty foot table and an 1:34:38.439 --> 1:34:41.439 advisor you know, at the other end, and I, you know, 1:34:41.479 --> 1:34:44.760 equipped at the time that he had entered the late 1:34:44.840 --> 1:34:49.120 stage Howard Hughes phase of his government, his governing. 1:34:49.400 --> 1:34:51.559 Have you noticed his nails are suddenly super long? 1:34:51.640 --> 1:34:54.320 Oh no, no, right yet? Yeah, well, when he grows a beard, 1:34:54.360 --> 1:34:59.400 we'll know that the transformation leaden beard. Yeah, yeah, but 1:34:59.640 --> 1:35:04.840 it is it is an isolated autocrat who behaves the 1:35:04.840 --> 1:35:07.559 way that he did during COVID, who also then makes 1:35:07.560 --> 1:35:11.080 the decision to invade Ukraine. And when you listen to 1:35:11.120 --> 1:35:14.840 Vladimir Putins speak about, you know, his reasons for invading Ukraine. Yes, 1:35:14.880 --> 1:35:19.680 he has this sort of imperialistic worldview about Russia and 1:35:19.760 --> 1:35:21.960 you know, glory of Russia and all these sorts of things. 1:35:21.960 --> 1:35:25.240 But he also routinely just says things that are untrue, 1:35:25.960 --> 1:35:28.760 and you don't know if that's propaganda. I believe at 1:35:28.760 --> 1:35:32.280 this point that Vladimir Putin's information environment has become massively 1:35:32.280 --> 1:35:40.800 polluted because everybody in the Siliviki and the intelligence community 1:35:40.800 --> 1:35:43.000 in Russia has figured out that like, this is what 1:35:43.040 --> 1:35:45.120 this man believes, this is what this man wants to hear, 1:35:45.200 --> 1:35:48.280 and that's what they tell him, and he's manipulated in 1:35:48.320 --> 1:35:52.599 those ways. So there are very real examples of the 1:35:52.640 --> 1:35:56.720 consequences of that type of government that we see with 1:35:56.880 --> 1:35:59.439 Russia and the atrocities that are being committed in Ukraine. 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:03.479 So let's go from Russia to the US intelligence community, 1:36:03.520 --> 1:36:07.479 and then I'll just finish my response with kids. My 1:36:07.560 --> 1:36:09.599 security clearance was revoked, as we talked about it at 1:36:09.640 --> 1:36:11.960 the top of the show, and it was revoked because 1:36:12.000 --> 1:36:14.080 I said something mean about Donald Trump six years ago, 1:36:14.120 --> 1:36:15.839 and because they found out I was going to exercise 1:36:15.840 --> 1:36:19.439 political speech by potentially, you know, by considering a run 1:36:19.479 --> 1:36:20.360 for the US Senate. 1:36:20.320 --> 1:36:23.960 Just astablishing something you said six years ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:25.920 that's what they us. I mean, that is just like 1:36:26.120 --> 1:36:28.800 thought police stuff. That's write out all the while. Yeah, 1:36:28.880 --> 1:36:30.080 it truly is. 1:36:30.200 --> 1:36:32.360 And uh, you know it was right wing Twitter that 1:36:32.439 --> 1:36:34.880 started that dug up some of this and started attacking me, 1:36:35.000 --> 1:36:38.360 And then I guess right wing Twitter runs our intelligence community. 1:36:38.400 --> 1:36:40.800 Now it's a very dangerous thing. Or a loomer the 1:36:40.920 --> 1:36:45.080 CIA chief apparently, Yeah, exactly, And so what do I 1:36:45.080 --> 1:36:47.320 think the follow on effects of something like what happened 1:36:47.320 --> 1:36:49.160 to me? But it is since I mean James Comy 1:36:49.200 --> 1:36:53.040 being indicted and other people who were actively serving in 1:36:53.080 --> 1:36:57.840 the CIA being walked out by security because they ended 1:36:57.920 --> 1:37:00.519 up on some list that nobody knows how well. So 1:37:00.760 --> 1:37:04.719 this is going to and perhaps already has a massive 1:37:04.800 --> 1:37:07.200 chilling effect throughout our federal government. And it's not just 1:37:07.240 --> 1:37:09.519 the intelligence community. I mean Donald Trump went to war 1:37:09.560 --> 1:37:12.679 with a weather forecast during his first administration. We might 1:37:12.720 --> 1:37:15.439 recall where he modified the course of a map rather 1:37:15.479 --> 1:37:18.000 than just saying, you know, I accidentally added an extra 1:37:18.040 --> 1:37:20.920 state in my comment. Right, So, up and down the 1:37:20.920 --> 1:37:23.040 civil service, you have people who know that if they 1:37:23.080 --> 1:37:26.160 speak truth to power like they're supposed to, they're just 1:37:26.200 --> 1:37:28.400 going to be out a job. And so that is 1:37:28.479 --> 1:37:32.679 dangerous for national security. It's dangerous for domestic security to 1:37:32.680 --> 1:37:35.519 not have expertise in the civil service, and. 1:37:35.479 --> 1:37:38.040 What would you do if you're in that situation? You 1:37:38.040 --> 1:37:42.479 know you have the So literally a week before the 1:37:42.520 --> 1:37:45.320 head of Southern Command decided to resign rather than carry 1:37:45.320 --> 1:37:47.599 out these orders on these on these Venezuela on these 1:37:47.600 --> 1:37:51.320 boats outside of the coast of Venezuela. I'd ask Jim Stavertez, 1:37:51.360 --> 1:37:54.160 former NATA supremat like commander, former head of Southern Command. 1:37:54.400 --> 1:37:56.200 I said, what happens if you get an order you're 1:37:56.240 --> 1:37:56.960 not on our pcent? 1:37:57.000 --> 1:38:01.000 Sure is legal? Right? We know we know that. You 1:38:01.040 --> 1:38:03.439 know if if you follow an illegal order, you're going 1:38:03.479 --> 1:38:05.760 to be held accountable to right. We have made that 1:38:05.840 --> 1:38:07.360 clear in our in our law. 1:38:07.840 --> 1:38:10.280 And he goes, well, you would, he goes, I'd probably 1:38:10.320 --> 1:38:13.080 resign and not go public about why I resign. 1:38:13.120 --> 1:38:14.120 I'd simply resign. 1:38:14.479 --> 1:38:17.640 Let others And you know, there's there's this sort of 1:38:18.080 --> 1:38:21.479 there's always that that sort of a would you if 1:38:21.520 --> 1:38:23.759 you were in a similar situation, would you simply resign? 1:38:24.680 --> 1:38:27.200 Would you resign with a bullhorn or do you try 1:38:27.240 --> 1:38:29.360 to keep working within the system Because it feels like 1:38:29.400 --> 1:38:31.479 there's no there's no perfect answer here. 1:38:32.560 --> 1:38:36.000 There is not, and I just want your listeners and 1:38:36.080 --> 1:38:39.160 American voters at large to understand that the admirals and 1:38:39.200 --> 1:38:42.839 the generals and the private first classes, they're the privates 1:38:42.840 --> 1:38:45.800 first class. They're not coming to save you. If you 1:38:45.840 --> 1:38:48.639 think there is some massive resistance that's going to build 1:38:48.720 --> 1:38:51.280 up in this way, you are mistaken. And it's because 1:38:51.320 --> 1:38:55.200 these are gut wrenching decisions that have extreme amounts of 1:38:55.240 --> 1:38:56.840 personal consequence to you. 1:38:56.920 --> 1:38:59.439 The culture it tells you, look, if you've got an issue, 1:38:59.479 --> 1:39:02.120 then you go ahead and resign, but you need to 1:39:02.120 --> 1:39:03.960 do it on your terms, right, Yeah. 1:39:03.720 --> 1:39:07.320 And civil servants have an obligation I think, to resign 1:39:07.560 --> 1:39:10.200 rather than you know, carry out those things. Whether they 1:39:10.200 --> 1:39:12.439 speak about it at public or not would depend on like, well, 1:39:12.479 --> 1:39:14.240 this is a super classified thing. What can I say? 1:39:14.640 --> 1:39:18.400 You know, there's whistleblower things. We have ostensibly protections in 1:39:18.400 --> 1:39:19.280 this country. 1:39:18.960 --> 1:39:21.719 For that, but you're still all of those inspectors general, 1:39:21.800 --> 1:39:25.320 so it's not even clear who you would report violations. 1:39:24.720 --> 1:39:27.640 Of the constitution to. Yeah, exactly. In the military, you 1:39:27.680 --> 1:39:29.880 don't have the luxury of always just being able to resign, 1:39:29.960 --> 1:39:31.800 you know, admirals and generals and those sorts of things, 1:39:31.880 --> 1:39:35.520 or at various stages of their you know, contractual commitments 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:38.800 to the country, but they can you know, resign and 1:39:39.120 --> 1:39:39.800 make a show of it. 1:39:39.800 --> 1:39:41.400 Look, the fact that the head of Southern camp and 1:39:41.520 --> 1:39:43.439 resign should have been a much bigger deal with the 1:39:43.439 --> 1:39:44.160 American public. 1:39:44.479 --> 1:39:45.680 Yeah, I mean I don't think we. 1:39:45.840 --> 1:39:48.320 I don't think that whatever's left of legacy media made 1:39:48.320 --> 1:39:49.360 a big enough deal about it. 1:39:49.760 --> 1:39:53.519 No, And the Defense Intelligence Agency, who you know, the 1:39:53.880 --> 1:39:57.439 director there also gone because of you know, questioning the 1:39:57.479 --> 1:40:01.559 efficacy of the military strikes that we on Iran. So 1:40:01.760 --> 1:40:03.439 there are a lot of a lot of things there, 1:40:03.479 --> 1:40:05.720 and there are a lot of problems. But I do 1:40:05.800 --> 1:40:08.160 think that, you know, you do have obligations to not 1:40:08.200 --> 1:40:11.000 carry out lawful orders. And it's easy for me to 1:40:11.000 --> 1:40:12.960 say from the cheap seats over here at the stage 1:40:12.960 --> 1:40:16.240 of my life, I only, you know, hope that I 1:40:16.280 --> 1:40:18.280 would have had the courage of putting the same situation 1:40:18.400 --> 1:40:20.439 that i'm that I am asking other people to exhibit 1:40:20.479 --> 1:40:20.760 a day. 1:40:22.439 --> 1:40:24.400 Joe Willett, it's been a pleasure to get to know you. 1:40:25.320 --> 1:40:28.760 I sort of you come at this with a with 1:40:28.880 --> 1:40:31.760 a style that that is very appealing to me, I hope. 1:40:31.760 --> 1:40:34.800 But in that you seem like you think this stuff through. 1:40:35.200 --> 1:40:38.000 It seems like you think before you speak. There's not 1:40:38.080 --> 1:40:39.679 many politicians that do that these days. 1:40:40.080 --> 1:40:43.280 Yeah, I try. Chuck's been watching you for years. You know, 1:40:43.800 --> 1:40:45.800 I've only probably yelled at you through the television a 1:40:45.800 --> 1:40:49.559 few times, but you know, really appreciate you having me 1:40:49.600 --> 1:40:51.599 on and for having a thoughtful conversation. I am. 1:40:51.760 --> 1:40:55.800 I am a as I say. It's like, I'm as 1:40:55.800 --> 1:40:57.400 long as you're not yelling at me the whole time. 1:40:58.240 --> 1:41:03.760 I didn't. Yeah, and my campaign, and my campaign will 1:41:03.760 --> 1:41:05.160 fire me if I don't remind people to go to 1:41:05.240 --> 1:41:09.160 Joelferkentucky dot com if you're at all interested in supporting 1:41:09.200 --> 1:41:09.559 this camp. 1:41:09.880 --> 1:41:12.880 Are you concerned that the big money people in DC 1:41:13.400 --> 1:41:15.800 won't invest in Kentucky because of what happened in twenty 1:41:15.800 --> 1:41:17.120 twenty with all that money. 1:41:17.520 --> 1:41:22.160 Yes, I'm very concerned about that. You know, we invested 1:41:22.200 --> 1:41:24.519 on you know, ninety four million dollars in the in 1:41:24.560 --> 1:41:28.439 the race here and got results worse than we'd ever 1:41:28.800 --> 1:41:32.439 gotten before, and I think that is on people's mind spot. 1:41:32.560 --> 1:41:35.360 There's an important difference here now. Andy Basheer has shown 1:41:35.360 --> 1:41:37.920 this path to victory, and we just have to have 1:41:37.960 --> 1:41:39.240 the right candidate walk down that. 1:41:39.200 --> 1:41:43.719 Path, Joe Willett, We'll be watching your primary, that's for sure. 1:41:44.240 --> 1:41:46.080 I know fairly early, right may right. 1:41:46.520 --> 1:41:50.559 Yeah, leave me soon that is that is six months 1:41:50.600 --> 1:41:53.360 are going to fly by, so be safe for the trail. 1:41:53.760 --> 1:42:01.760 Thank you so much, Chack, have you got it well? 1:42:01.800 --> 1:42:04.400 I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Joe Willett. I 1:42:04.439 --> 1:42:08.479 know I'll be following his candidacy to see see how 1:42:08.520 --> 1:42:11.000 that all works out. So, speaking of the Senate, it 1:42:11.080 --> 1:42:13.879 is that time I said every month I would update 1:42:14.040 --> 1:42:22.800 my top five, top five, top top top five, just 1:42:22.840 --> 1:42:25.760 a reminder in October and the way I do this 1:42:26.320 --> 1:42:28.120 and my ranks have been doing this since I wrote 1:42:28.640 --> 1:42:31.559 a column called on the Trail back during my National 1:42:31.680 --> 1:42:35.280 Journal dot com outline days, which was I like to 1:42:35.400 --> 1:42:39.280 order these races are most likely to flip parties, so 1:42:39.800 --> 1:42:42.760 not in the toss up Lean ar Lean d category, 1:42:42.800 --> 1:42:46.320 but most likely to flip to least likely to flip. Obviously, 1:42:46.360 --> 1:42:48.960 by keeping it to five, you know all of them 1:42:48.960 --> 1:42:51.600 are going to be somewhat competitive races that crack the 1:42:51.600 --> 1:42:52.120 top five. 1:42:52.400 --> 1:42:54.080 So to remind you, the last. 1:42:53.800 --> 1:42:57.040 Time my top five was North Carolina one, Georgia two, 1:42:57.439 --> 1:43:00.360 Michigan three, Main four, New Hampshire five. 1:43:00.479 --> 1:43:02.160 So the idea was I. 1:43:02.120 --> 1:43:06.879 Had the assumption was the open seat in North Carolina 1:43:07.640 --> 1:43:10.840 with the big recruit there. North Carolina, Georgia's the Democratic 1:43:10.840 --> 1:43:13.360 health seat of John Ossoff. Michigan, of course, the open 1:43:13.400 --> 1:43:17.719 seat Gary Peters Democrat is vacating. Maine is Susan Collins. 1:43:17.800 --> 1:43:23.160 New Hampshire is the Gene Shaheen seat that she is vacating, 1:43:23.160 --> 1:43:27.639 a Democratic seat there. So look my new top five. 1:43:27.680 --> 1:43:32.040 In some ways, number one hasn't changed. The most likely 1:43:32.280 --> 1:43:36.280 seat to flip is North Carolina. It is an open seat. 1:43:36.320 --> 1:43:39.000 It is the one open seat, you know, one of 1:43:39.040 --> 1:43:42.200 two open seats in the big seven battleground states. Right, 1:43:42.240 --> 1:43:45.519 The big seven battleground states are Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, 1:43:45.600 --> 1:43:49.479 Nevada in sort of the sun Belt, and Wisconsin, Michigan, 1:43:49.760 --> 1:43:52.680 and Pennsylvania. And so when you look at the competitive 1:43:53.920 --> 1:43:57.479 Senate map these days, there's actually, you know, the last 1:43:57.520 --> 1:44:00.519 two cycles, they all seven of those states. We had, 1:44:00.600 --> 1:44:02.200 I think two cycles in a row. We either had 1:44:02.240 --> 1:44:04.479 seven for seven or six of the seven with Senate 1:44:04.520 --> 1:44:07.320 seats this time, right, we'd have nothing in Arizona, nothing 1:44:07.360 --> 1:44:10.479 in Nevada, there's one seat in Georgia, one seat in 1:44:10.479 --> 1:44:14.519 North Carolina, nothing in Pennsylvania, nothing in Wisconsin, and one 1:44:14.520 --> 1:44:17.280 seat in Michigan. So it is the presidential battlegrounds. This 1:44:17.320 --> 1:44:20.720 happens to be the one cycle where we have the 1:44:20.760 --> 1:44:23.760 fewest amount of Senate seats in the presidential battlegrounds. But 1:44:23.760 --> 1:44:26.080 I think you still have to put you know, I 1:44:26.120 --> 1:44:30.600 think what I learned from the twenty twenty five elections, 1:44:30.640 --> 1:44:35.040 and again history being a guide. Every time we've seen 1:44:35.760 --> 1:44:40.240 a route like this by one party, we have seen 1:44:40.360 --> 1:44:45.040 that continue in the following even numbered year. I am 1:44:45.120 --> 1:44:48.360 looking for the time. I mean, twenty thirteen is one 1:44:48.360 --> 1:44:50.880 of the few exceptions where Democrats did well in the 1:44:51.000 --> 1:44:54.720 off off year, but that did not translate to twenty fourteen, 1:44:55.280 --> 1:44:57.760 which was not a good year for Democrats in there 1:44:57.760 --> 1:45:00.559 and again right there was there's a HEAs in twenty 1:45:00.560 --> 1:45:02.920 thirteen is the exception to every single one of these 1:45:02.960 --> 1:45:06.200 trend lines we've been talking about with New Jersey and Virginia, 1:45:06.240 --> 1:45:09.840 et cetera. And you know, certain things I think that 1:45:09.960 --> 1:45:13.640 I took away from the off off years. One, Democrats 1:45:13.640 --> 1:45:17.200 are ready to vote, and you know, the sheer raw 1:45:17.360 --> 1:45:20.720 number of votes that the Democratic candidate got in New 1:45:20.760 --> 1:45:23.599 Jersey versus the Republican candidate continues to blow me away. 1:45:23.680 --> 1:45:26.880 I think it's the single most important statistic that you 1:45:27.000 --> 1:45:29.920 need to understand coming out of these off off year elections. 1:45:30.200 --> 1:45:30.400 Right. 1:45:30.640 --> 1:45:33.760 Jack Chittarelli, the Republican nominee for governor, actually got one 1:45:33.800 --> 1:45:37.120 hundred thousand more votes than he received in twenty twenty one. 1:45:37.200 --> 1:45:40.080 In twenty twenty one, that vote total was good enough 1:45:40.080 --> 1:45:43.479 to only lose by three percentage points. In twenty twenty five, 1:45:43.760 --> 1:45:47.800 where he got more votes, he loses by thirteen percentage points. 1:45:48.280 --> 1:45:51.519 The Democratic candidate Mikey Cheryl got four hundred thousand more 1:45:51.640 --> 1:45:54.719 votes than Phil Murphy got in twenty twenty one. Okay, 1:45:55.520 --> 1:45:58.559 that tells you a whole bunch of Democrats who didn't 1:45:58.600 --> 1:46:01.120 bother to show up in twenty one decided to show 1:46:01.200 --> 1:46:04.080 up in twenty five. I don't think I had anything 1:46:04.120 --> 1:46:07.400 to do with Mikey Cheryl and Jeck Chodarelly, and everything 1:46:07.400 --> 1:46:11.240 to do with the larger national environment. By the way, 1:46:11.400 --> 1:46:14.640 we got that result on Tuesday. If you recall the 1:46:14.760 --> 1:46:17.040 NBC News poll that came out two days earlier that 1:46:17.200 --> 1:46:19.120 I am a big believer of because I trust those 1:46:19.120 --> 1:46:21.600 two pollsters. They had a generic ballot lead for the 1:46:21.640 --> 1:46:23.680 Democrats of eight points. It was the largest lead that 1:46:23.720 --> 1:46:26.880 Democrats had going back to twenty seventeen. Twenty eighteen cycle, 1:46:26.960 --> 1:46:30.519 another pretty good cycle for Democrats. So I throw all 1:46:30.520 --> 1:46:32.599 that in there in that my new top five list 1:46:32.800 --> 1:46:37.920 is skewed a bit towards the Democrats. So number one 1:46:37.960 --> 1:46:41.599 hasn't changed. That's North Carolina. It's not going to change. 1:46:41.720 --> 1:46:43.960 But my number two has. I had Georgia's the second 1:46:44.040 --> 1:46:47.040 most vulnerable seat. After seeing what we saw with those 1:46:47.120 --> 1:46:49.639 Public Service Commission races where there was no money spent 1:46:49.720 --> 1:46:53.639 and Democrats just generically won by a lot, you've got 1:46:54.640 --> 1:46:59.800 a growing divisive Republican primary. I highlighted an add a 1:46:59.800 --> 1:47:02.560 couple of podcasts ago where Derek Dooley, the son of 1:47:02.640 --> 1:47:05.600 Vince Dooley, the former football coach of the Bulldogs, that 1:47:05.680 --> 1:47:08.599 the super pack of Brian Kemp, the sitting governor, was 1:47:09.920 --> 1:47:11.640 running an ad that sort of lumped in the two 1:47:11.720 --> 1:47:15.880 Republican congressmen in the primary and osof as all responsible 1:47:15.920 --> 1:47:18.439 for the shutdown. So you now know what kind of 1:47:18.560 --> 1:47:21.200 campaign Dooley is going to run as the outsider, the 1:47:21.200 --> 1:47:24.360 anti Washington crowd. I think it's a smart place to 1:47:24.400 --> 1:47:29.560 position himself at this point. Though, if Dooley is the nominee, 1:47:30.200 --> 1:47:32.800 I think Osoff's in bigger trouble. But if Dooley is 1:47:32.840 --> 1:47:35.519 not the nominee, and so far he's still the third 1:47:35.560 --> 1:47:39.439 place candidate, I think Osoff is a bit safer than 1:47:39.880 --> 1:47:41.960 I preps. Look, he's still in the top five, but 1:47:42.040 --> 1:47:46.639 he is not number two most vulnerable. I think now 1:47:46.680 --> 1:47:48.600 you have to put in the second most vulnerable. 1:47:48.240 --> 1:47:48.960 Susan Collins. 1:47:49.840 --> 1:47:53.880 I do move Susan Collins up into the second slot there. 1:47:54.320 --> 1:47:58.000 I think when you see what the Democratic turnouts was 1:47:58.080 --> 1:48:01.120 in the Northeast in general, you see the fact that 1:48:03.160 --> 1:48:06.759 in some ways the strength of the oyster farmer Graham Platner, 1:48:06.800 --> 1:48:12.080 the fact that his support is holding and it's not 1:48:12.280 --> 1:48:14.760 hurting the Democrats. The fact that Jay Jones got through 1:48:14.760 --> 1:48:18.200 what he got through in Virginia, I think is only 1:48:18.200 --> 1:48:22.439 going to serve to reassure Platner on there. The anti 1:48:22.520 --> 1:48:25.400 Schumer vibe, the anti establishment vibe, seems to be much 1:48:25.439 --> 1:48:28.920 stronger than the anti character vibe inside the Democratic Party 1:48:29.000 --> 1:48:33.439 right now. And you know Collins is going to be 1:48:33.479 --> 1:48:37.400 defending a bunch of status quo stuff it is. You know, 1:48:37.520 --> 1:48:40.400 do I think if Janet Mills is the Democratic nominee, 1:48:40.439 --> 1:48:44.519 Collins has a better chance of winning. I do, believe 1:48:44.560 --> 1:48:46.479 it or not, but I still think it's going to 1:48:46.479 --> 1:48:48.439 be it's going to be a hard time being an 1:48:48.439 --> 1:48:52.840 incumbent Republican running in twenty twenty six with this likely 1:48:52.880 --> 1:48:57.000 economy that we're staring at and the way Donald Trump 1:48:57.080 --> 1:49:02.320 is positioning the party's brand right, And while Susan Collins 1:49:02.439 --> 1:49:04.560 is never going to be mistaken for a Trump Republican, 1:49:05.280 --> 1:49:07.920 she's still going to have to carry around some of 1:49:07.960 --> 1:49:10.559 that baggage, some of that baggage on tariffs, some of 1:49:10.560 --> 1:49:13.519 that baggage on health. I mean, she's probably going to 1:49:13.520 --> 1:49:16.240 be the loan Republican, you know, one of now she 1:49:16.280 --> 1:49:18.559 won't be the loan Republicans. She's going to be one 1:49:18.600 --> 1:49:22.280 of the lead Republicans trying to get these Obamacare subsidies extended, 1:49:22.560 --> 1:49:26.200 because if they do not get extended, she's done. She's 1:49:26.320 --> 1:49:30.559 completely done. Which is why I am bullish that you 1:49:30.600 --> 1:49:33.720 will see a one year extension at a minimum of 1:49:33.760 --> 1:49:37.439 these Obamacare subsidies, because I think there is no senator 1:49:37.760 --> 1:49:40.280 that would be more vulnerable to a decision not to 1:49:40.320 --> 1:49:44.160 do that than Susan Collins. So number one is North Carolina. 1:49:44.920 --> 1:49:50.920 Number two is main Number three I am going to 1:49:51.000 --> 1:49:53.960 put Georgia. I still think that there is certainly, you 1:49:54.000 --> 1:49:58.880 know it is it is a even state. We've still 1:49:58.920 --> 1:50:02.879 not seen, you know, a demo until these psc elections. 1:50:02.880 --> 1:50:06.400 We hadn't see a Democrat went a down ballot statewide 1:50:06.479 --> 1:50:12.000 contest in Georgia going back more than ten years. But 1:50:12.080 --> 1:50:15.479 the entire political environment in Georgia. I mean, if Georgia 1:50:15.560 --> 1:50:19.719 is indeed you know, I've been vacillating, was Georgia anti 1:50:19.760 --> 1:50:23.439 Trump state or is Georgia simply a swing state that 1:50:23.600 --> 1:50:27.240 demographics have been shifting over time? And I think there's 1:50:27.280 --> 1:50:30.120 now more and more evidence that this is a This 1:50:30.200 --> 1:50:32.880 is a realignment in Georgia. This is the growth of 1:50:32.880 --> 1:50:35.680 the Atlanta suburbs, This is all of those things that 1:50:35.800 --> 1:50:40.400 this is less about. And it may be what we're 1:50:40.400 --> 1:50:43.600 seeing in the Atlanta metro areas. What we saw in 1:50:43.640 --> 1:50:47.040 northern Virginia that went from being an important pocket of 1:50:47.120 --> 1:50:51.439 voters for Virginia Democrats to becoming the most dominant feature 1:50:52.080 --> 1:50:54.639 of the state and of the politics of the state. 1:50:55.240 --> 1:50:57.240 And I think we're starting to starting to see more 1:50:57.280 --> 1:50:59.080 and more of that in Georgia. But I'm still going 1:50:59.160 --> 1:51:02.599 to put it. I'm still going to put it right 1:51:02.640 --> 1:51:09.559 now in the third slot because because of the fact 1:51:09.600 --> 1:51:12.840 that this time Osof isn't going to have be running 1:51:12.840 --> 1:51:16.120 with Rafael Warnock or a presidential campaign, right, He's got 1:51:16.160 --> 1:51:20.960 to do this entire turnout operation on his own. 1:51:20.960 --> 1:51:21.240 There. 1:51:22.240 --> 1:51:27.439 So North Carolina one Main three, Georgia Main two, Georgia three, 1:51:28.160 --> 1:51:30.479 number four on the less, I'm gonna put Michigan, so 1:51:30.560 --> 1:51:34.840 it drops down a slot because I've jumped started Maine there. 1:51:35.520 --> 1:51:41.439 And look, I do think Mike Rodgers is he went 1:51:41.479 --> 1:51:45.000 down a weird road. He decided to claim that somehow 1:51:45.080 --> 1:51:48.280 the twenty twenty four election was rigged, that it or 1:51:48.280 --> 1:51:52.160 he's implying he's opening the door to some conspiracy theories 1:51:52.200 --> 1:51:56.280 as to why he lost in twenty twenty four. Boy, 1:51:56.320 --> 1:51:58.400 that's a long way away from the Mike Rogers I 1:51:58.439 --> 1:52:02.600 first started covering when he was in It's going to 1:52:02.680 --> 1:52:05.960 come as a surprise, I given that he doesn't really 1:52:05.960 --> 1:52:08.880 have any serious primary opposition, the fact that he's going 1:52:08.920 --> 1:52:12.120 down this sort of Trump grievance road on his twenty 1:52:12.160 --> 1:52:15.280 four election is a bit of a head scratcher. Doesn't 1:52:15.360 --> 1:52:17.200 seem as if he needs to be catering to that 1:52:17.240 --> 1:52:21.360 primary voter that enthusiastically. So perhaps he really believes this, 1:52:21.479 --> 1:52:24.400 Perhaps he's going down this rabbit hole. I don't think 1:52:24.439 --> 1:52:30.000 that's good politics for him, but you know, he's still 1:52:30.160 --> 1:52:33.000 the reason I still give him and why I think 1:52:33.040 --> 1:52:35.160 Michigan could be very competitive is We're going to have 1:52:35.200 --> 1:52:39.879 a very messy Democratic primary. Who knows who gets elected? 1:52:39.920 --> 1:52:41.880 Is that the super progressive that gets elected is that 1:52:42.000 --> 1:52:48.280 the outsider and lsied is the progressive. McMorrow is the 1:52:48.360 --> 1:52:52.680 sort of outsider. Stevens is the establishment candidate. They've all 1:52:52.720 --> 1:52:56.719 scrambled to be anti Schumer now, even Stevens on that front. 1:52:56.800 --> 1:52:59.879 So that primary could get messy, and it's an August primary, 1:53:01.120 --> 1:53:03.800 and it means that rogers Is should be in a 1:53:03.840 --> 1:53:07.400 strong position. But I am I do think that's a 1:53:07.439 --> 1:53:10.479 loser to go down the conspiracy road in a swing 1:53:10.520 --> 1:53:12.920 state like Michigan. And then I'm putting a new seat 1:53:12.960 --> 1:53:15.040 at number five. I had New Hampshire in the top 1:53:15.080 --> 1:53:17.240 five before. No longer am I putting New Hampshire there 1:53:17.360 --> 1:53:20.360 because I think the political environment indicates that it's more 1:53:20.439 --> 1:53:23.120 likely another Republican health seat is going to fall before 1:53:23.120 --> 1:53:25.720 a Democratic health seat. And look, I think Johnson new 1:53:25.760 --> 1:53:29.040 is a much stronger candidate than Scott Brown potentially in 1:53:29.120 --> 1:53:33.000 an open seat. But if the wind is blowing left, 1:53:33.720 --> 1:53:36.680 New Hampshire goes with the wind right, you know you 1:53:36.720 --> 1:53:38.799 can still get elected as a Republican in New Hampshire, 1:53:38.840 --> 1:53:41.360 which it needs to be in a either even or 1:53:41.400 --> 1:53:44.320 good Republican year. I don't know if this is a 1:53:44.360 --> 1:53:47.920 winnable race for any Republican Chris or Johnson unhu. If 1:53:47.920 --> 1:53:50.960 the wind is blowing as strongly for the Democrats in 1:53:51.000 --> 1:53:53.840 twenty six as it was blowing for the Democrats in 1:53:53.840 --> 1:53:57.280 New Jersey and in Virginia in twenty five, I can 1:53:57.360 --> 1:54:02.840 just tell you that it knew it. The odds are 1:54:03.080 --> 1:54:07.320 it's going to look more more like a blue state 1:54:08.240 --> 1:54:11.240 in an environment like this than it will a swing state. 1:54:11.720 --> 1:54:15.400 So my new number five is Shared Brown and Ohio. 1:54:16.200 --> 1:54:19.800 John Houstad is the appointed elected senator there. He's been 1:54:19.840 --> 1:54:22.720 doing quite well in some of his union endorsements and 1:54:22.840 --> 1:54:26.000 getting a few union endorsements at Shared Brown, and when 1:54:26.000 --> 1:54:31.000 he was an incumbent senator would get but if you 1:54:31.280 --> 1:54:34.520 just shift, if you believe the electorate in general is 1:54:34.520 --> 1:54:36.400 just going to be five points better across the board 1:54:36.440 --> 1:54:39.960 for Democrats, like it was in Virginia, that basically makes 1:54:39.960 --> 1:54:43.760 Ohio a coin flip. And what we learned about Shared 1:54:43.800 --> 1:54:46.640 Brown in twenty four is he can run three to 1:54:46.720 --> 1:54:51.080 five points ahead of the Democratic of the generic Democratic number. 1:54:51.600 --> 1:54:54.360 He can't run it eight or nine points ahead of 1:54:54.400 --> 1:54:58.960 a Democratic presidential candidate. He's running in a midterm years. 1:54:59.280 --> 1:55:01.640 He has had more success running in midterm years than 1:55:01.680 --> 1:55:05.960 he has in presidential years. And he did win once 1:55:06.080 --> 1:55:08.880 in a presidential year in twenty twelve, but he had 1:55:08.920 --> 1:55:11.160 that Obama had a lot of wind at his back, 1:55:11.480 --> 1:55:14.320 and that was quite helpful to him. In twenty eighteen, 1:55:14.400 --> 1:55:19.400 he was able to win in a Trump year thanks to, 1:55:20.720 --> 1:55:24.240 you know, a combination of a week Republican opponent, but 1:55:24.320 --> 1:55:27.760 also just again it was a good Democratic year. 1:55:28.280 --> 1:55:30.120 So at this point I. 1:55:30.040 --> 1:55:32.160 Put Ohio there, And this means three of the five 1:55:32.720 --> 1:55:36.240 in my five most vulnerable are Republican held seats. So 1:55:36.320 --> 1:55:40.120 if Democrats sweep the five hold for Georgian Michigan and 1:55:40.120 --> 1:55:43.280 flip North Carolina, Maine, in New Hampshire, they are only 1:55:43.320 --> 1:55:46.160 one seat away from the majority. That's where this top 1:55:46.160 --> 1:55:49.360 five list sits right now. That's this is why if 1:55:49.400 --> 1:55:55.240 you want to mess around on the political betting markets, 1:55:55.280 --> 1:55:57.040 one of the best early bets to make right now, 1:55:57.080 --> 1:55:59.320 because it's a sheriff stock, and then you could sell 1:55:59.320 --> 1:56:03.320 that share before the results actually happen. Because if Democrats 1:56:03.560 --> 1:56:06.600 succeed in good candidate recruits in Alaska, a good candidate 1:56:06.680 --> 1:56:10.920 in Kansas, you may see them get six or seven 1:56:10.960 --> 1:56:13.640 Republican held seats in the competitive category. 1:56:13.760 --> 1:56:14.520 Will they win them all? 1:56:14.600 --> 1:56:19.640 No, But if they can put Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, 1:56:19.720 --> 1:56:22.720 they can put three of those five in play in 1:56:22.720 --> 1:56:25.160 addition to the three that I think they already now 1:56:25.160 --> 1:56:28.839 have a either even or slightly better chance at flipping. 1:56:31.080 --> 1:56:32.880 You you suddenly have. 1:56:32.880 --> 1:56:35.760 A path to the Senate majority. There you go. 1:56:35.880 --> 1:56:41.040 The top five list this week. North Carolina, Maine, Georgia, Michigan, 1:56:41.320 --> 1:56:45.080 Ohio the five Senate states most likely to flip this month. 1:56:45.840 --> 1:56:56.240 As far as the Chuck todcast is concerned, All right, 1:56:56.280 --> 1:57:02.200 let's take a couple more questions, ask Chuck. None of 1:57:02.200 --> 1:57:05.240 these will be shut down and related. This one comes 1:57:05.280 --> 1:57:08.920 from a third generation Navy vet John B from Saint Louis, 1:57:08.960 --> 1:57:10.880 and he writes, Hey, thanks for responding to my question 1:57:10.920 --> 1:57:13.920 about the atomic bowl. All right, so it's not a 1:57:13.960 --> 1:57:16.320 first time long time, but at least a second time 1:57:16.360 --> 1:57:18.200 long time. I'm a World War Two in Cold War 1:57:18.280 --> 1:57:20.360 history buff and I think it's crucial to keep conversations 1:57:20.360 --> 1:57:22.840 about those times alive in our modern discourse. We live 1:57:22.880 --> 1:57:25.000 in the shadow of those events. I'm wondering how America 1:57:25.080 --> 1:57:27.320 might have been different during the past fifty years if 1:57:27.320 --> 1:57:29.320 we had not ended the draft falling Vietnam. I think 1:57:29.320 --> 1:57:32.760 we could expand that to include national service in general. Thought, John, 1:57:32.840 --> 1:57:36.800 you are scratching an itch that I'm constantly dealing with. 1:57:36.920 --> 1:57:41.480 I think, you know, I think not having national service. 1:57:42.160 --> 1:57:47.280 I think national service could be a huge advancement of 1:57:47.400 --> 1:57:55.760 trying to depolarize America, right, getting people, getting American citizens 1:57:55.840 --> 1:57:59.240 to believe that they have to that part of your 1:57:59.280 --> 1:58:02.879 citizenship is to give a little bit to this country 1:58:02.920 --> 1:58:05.240 and service. And it doesn't have to be in the military. 1:58:05.240 --> 1:58:07.880 It can be a variety of ways you can give. 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:10.400 It could be working, you know, in home health care 1:58:10.480 --> 1:58:13.600 for an elderly parent without a close knit family. It 1:58:13.640 --> 1:58:17.200 could be cleaning up rivers and streams. It could be 1:58:17.320 --> 1:58:23.080 teaching in underserved communities that need more school teachers. It 1:58:23.120 --> 1:58:27.160 could simply be tutoring, or it could be military service. 1:58:27.560 --> 1:58:28.280 I think anything. 1:58:28.600 --> 1:58:29.280 It's why I. 1:58:29.200 --> 1:58:32.160 Think that in general, you know, I'm speaking on Veterans 1:58:32.240 --> 1:58:35.200 Day here. In general, I'm a big advocate of bringing 1:58:35.240 --> 1:58:39.200 as many veterans as you can into the workforce, into 1:58:39.240 --> 1:58:44.040 any sort of culture because most military veterans, the experience 1:58:44.200 --> 1:58:47.640 of being in the military exposed them to people that 1:58:47.880 --> 1:58:51.480 grew up differently than them, people that worshiped different faiths 1:58:51.520 --> 1:58:54.400 than they did, but they all learn how to have 1:58:54.440 --> 1:58:56.640 a common mission and buy in some ways wearing the 1:58:56.680 --> 1:59:00.280 same uniform. They realize when you wear the same uniform 1:59:00.680 --> 1:59:03.600 you bleed the same red blood, that hey, they're really 1:59:03.680 --> 1:59:09.560 the differences really are are all surface. They're not They're 1:59:09.600 --> 1:59:12.840 not very deep at all. So not to sort of 1:59:13.240 --> 1:59:15.200 try to like, you know, but for the good old 1:59:15.280 --> 1:59:20.960 days kind of mindset, I'm a I'm a huge advocate 1:59:21.000 --> 1:59:24.720 of national service, and I think it could be a again, 1:59:25.360 --> 1:59:27.280 you know, you know, whether it's a way to pay 1:59:27.320 --> 1:59:30.200 for college. There's all sorts of ways that you create 1:59:30.280 --> 1:59:32.320 sort of for every year of national you know, maybe 1:59:32.360 --> 1:59:34.280 everybody has to do one, and every extra year you 1:59:34.320 --> 1:59:36.160 give you get that much more off of your tuition. 1:59:36.760 --> 1:59:38.760 But I think there's a lot of ways, you know, 1:59:38.840 --> 1:59:40.520 or to trade school, whatever you wanted to do it. 1:59:41.480 --> 1:59:45.280 Anything that we could do to sort of get Americans 1:59:45.280 --> 1:59:47.800 from different walks of life to have to have to 1:59:47.840 --> 1:59:51.360 give back for a period of time only strengthens the 1:59:51.400 --> 1:59:53.160 fabric of this country. 1:59:54.280 --> 1:59:57.280 So I'm a huge advocate, all right. 1:59:57.400 --> 1:59:59.720 Next question comes from Chase little Rock, Rockansas and response 1:59:59.760 --> 2:00:01.560 to your uestion about staying on the thirteenth floor in 2:00:01.600 --> 2:00:04.280 game day, if a black cat crossed my path while 2:00:04.320 --> 2:00:05.800 I walked under a ladder on the way out of 2:00:05.800 --> 2:00:08.480 my thirteenth floor hotel room in Fayetteville, I wouldn't have 2:00:08.480 --> 2:00:11.120 batted an eye. This razorback football season has already used 2:00:11.200 --> 2:00:13.320 up every ounce of luck in the entire state. Bobby 2:00:13.320 --> 2:00:15.480 Petrino's come back to or hit all the wrong notes, 2:00:15.480 --> 2:00:18.080 and honestly, Faydeville needs a total due over new coach, 2:00:18.160 --> 2:00:18.640 new schemes. 2:00:18.680 --> 2:00:19.360 I knew everything. 2:00:19.640 --> 2:00:21.680 So at the college football job market heating up, which 2:00:21.720 --> 2:00:23.920 openings do you think are the most tempting and who's 2:00:23.920 --> 2:00:30.040 got the chops or luck to fill them go hogs eventually. Well, look, 2:00:32.280 --> 2:00:36.040 you know, Florida is always the It's one of those 2:00:36.040 --> 2:00:37.880 that you think it should be a bigger power than 2:00:37.920 --> 2:00:40.879 it is. Irony is that the history of Florida football 2:00:40.920 --> 2:00:43.440 is actually quite mediocre. 2:00:43.880 --> 2:00:44.040 Right. 2:00:44.080 --> 2:00:48.080 They've really only had two brief periods of success, one 2:00:48.080 --> 2:00:50.879 with Steve Spurrier, one with urban Meyer and Tim Tebow, 2:00:50.880 --> 2:00:53.000 which really probably have to talk more of Tim Tebow 2:00:53.040 --> 2:00:58.040 than urban Meyer. And they've been mediocre or port and 2:00:58.240 --> 2:01:03.240 every other you know, at any other period. In theory, 2:01:03.280 --> 2:01:06.920 it should be a great job to have. In theory, 2:01:06.960 --> 2:01:10.000 it should be a place that you could become a powerhouse. 2:01:10.560 --> 2:01:14.080 It seems to be a cesspool of micromanagers, right. It's 2:01:14.160 --> 2:01:16.400 kind of like you know what Auburn is. It's like, 2:01:16.480 --> 2:01:18.880 you know, it has all the ingredients, but it's impossible 2:01:18.880 --> 2:01:21.480 to succeed because the boosters are always going to get 2:01:21.480 --> 2:01:25.320 in your way. It just trusts me from experienced mind me. 2:01:25.400 --> 2:01:27.120 So on paper, it's Florida. 2:01:28.040 --> 2:01:30.960 But you know, I'm a huge I think Arkansas is 2:01:30.960 --> 2:01:34.040 a hidden I think Faetteville is a is a is 2:01:34.040 --> 2:01:36.760 a hidden gem in the South. I think it's one 2:01:36.760 --> 2:01:39.920 of the it's you know it's it's going to be 2:01:39.960 --> 2:01:42.760 the next Austin or Nashville. I think it's a great 2:01:42.760 --> 2:01:46.240 place to live. I think that somebody is going to 2:01:46.280 --> 2:01:49.080 crack that code. And when you have Tyson Chicken money 2:01:49.280 --> 2:01:54.760 and Walmart money, the the you know, if the if 2:01:54.800 --> 2:01:59.600 the university athletic program will invest in football, Arkansas could 2:01:59.600 --> 2:02:01.920 be a great job. It is not clear they want 2:02:01.920 --> 2:02:03.960 to invest in football as much as they do basketball 2:02:04.000 --> 2:02:06.839 and baseball. That seems to be the be the biggest 2:02:06.840 --> 2:02:11.760 problem there. I do think the Penn State job is 2:02:11.800 --> 2:02:15.840 actually quite appealing to because there's such a loyal fan base. 2:02:16.600 --> 2:02:19.360 You I actually think even though Franklin, you know, think 2:02:19.400 --> 2:02:23.200 about how long he survived without succeeding at the tippy 2:02:23.200 --> 2:02:25.960 tippy top, which means fan base has actually a lot 2:02:25.960 --> 2:02:29.640 more patience than it gets credit for. So that would 2:02:29.680 --> 2:02:32.560 be a good one that I think you could see 2:02:32.920 --> 2:02:39.040 quick success at and sustained success that and be in 2:02:39.080 --> 2:02:42.640 a community that would be pretty comforting. I mean you 2:02:42.680 --> 2:02:46.480 could turn you could definitely turn Happy Valley into Tuscaloosa 2:02:47.040 --> 2:02:49.320 and have a Nick Saban like run there. And that's 2:02:49.360 --> 2:02:50.880 probably the way I look at it. Where could you 2:02:50.880 --> 2:02:52.720 have a Nick Saban like run where you might go 2:02:52.760 --> 2:02:55.640 a decade and just be so dominant. I think Fills 2:02:55.680 --> 2:02:58.800 a place to do that. I think I think a 2:02:58.880 --> 2:03:01.600 Happy Valley is a place to that. I'm less convinced 2:03:01.640 --> 2:03:06.160 you can do that in Gainesville, and I don't you know. 2:03:06.240 --> 2:03:08.720 I think history shows you it's pretty difficult to do. 2:03:08.800 --> 2:03:11.640 And I don't know if Virginia Tech it can be 2:03:11.760 --> 2:03:14.440 on that highest level right now. I don't know if 2:03:14.440 --> 2:03:17.840 they have the financial backing to do that. 2:03:19.720 --> 2:03:20.360 On that front. 2:03:20.800 --> 2:03:25.080 All right, I'm gonna take one more question here. This 2:03:25.120 --> 2:03:28.600 comes from john S and Millie Waukee. Of course, everything 2:03:28.640 --> 2:03:33.040 I've learned about socialist mayors came from Wayne's World, the movie, 2:03:33.160 --> 2:03:34.520 and Alice Cooper. 2:03:35.320 --> 2:03:36.000 But I digress. 2:03:36.080 --> 2:03:38.400 Diehard listener here, just finish your podcast with rich Tawe. 2:03:38.680 --> 2:03:39.200 Fascinating. 2:03:39.240 --> 2:03:42.200 You answered my past question about voters in Ozaki and 2:03:42.360 --> 2:03:45.440 Sheboygan County's voting anti woman richest focus group confirmed my 2:03:45.480 --> 2:03:48.560 hunch some voters dislike Trump, but voter form anyway likely 2:03:48.560 --> 2:03:50.840 because of Harris. Have your thoughts on this changed at all, 2:03:50.880 --> 2:03:54.320 even if the polling doesn't pick it up. Look, I 2:03:54.360 --> 2:03:56.839 think it's pretty clear there was a group of voters 2:03:57.240 --> 2:04:04.320 that you know that Harris couldn't appeal to that. I 2:04:04.360 --> 2:04:06.760 guess what you're you know the better the question is 2:04:08.520 --> 2:04:15.360 that that Joe Biden did appeal to in twenty twenty. Yes, 2:04:15.440 --> 2:04:19.560 But I also think it's pretty clear, you know. I 2:04:19.560 --> 2:04:23.800 think it's a fair question about about whether it is hard. 2:04:24.080 --> 2:04:26.840 You know, I think I think race is less of 2:04:26.880 --> 2:04:31.839 an issue. I think gender was more of an issue. 2:04:32.160 --> 2:04:37.800 But it's hard to disaggregate it because you had a 2:04:38.000 --> 2:04:42.560 poor economic environment. She was defending the history of sitting 2:04:42.640 --> 2:04:48.200 vice presidents trying to succeed unpopular presidents is pretty stark, right, 2:04:49.880 --> 2:04:55.040 you know, Hubert Humphrey couldn't win with LBJ, but he 2:04:55.160 --> 2:04:59.120 came awfully close, and neither could she. So it is 2:04:59.280 --> 2:05:03.560 I think it's hard to find isolate the specific voter itself. 2:05:03.600 --> 2:05:09.360 You hear it in there, but you'd have a better 2:05:09.480 --> 2:05:13.600 argument if she lost with a better economic record. And 2:05:13.640 --> 2:05:14.880 I think that that's. 2:05:15.000 --> 2:05:17.880 You know, it is. I still think there's a. 2:05:17.840 --> 2:05:20.040 Little bit of choose your own adventure on this that 2:05:20.120 --> 2:05:23.280 you can. You certainly hear it in there, and you 2:05:23.320 --> 2:05:25.360 certainly hear it in those focus groups, and Rich sort 2:05:25.360 --> 2:05:31.920 of described it. It is a hurdle, but I don't 2:05:31.920 --> 2:05:38.880 think it's a brick wall, but it becomes a brick 2:05:38.920 --> 2:05:43.440 wall if you know, there's like this massive economic downturn, right, 2:05:43.480 --> 2:05:45.760 if a whole bunch of other stuff are going, it's 2:05:45.760 --> 2:05:47.880 sort of it is a factor. 2:05:47.520 --> 2:05:48.640 Not the factor. 2:05:50.080 --> 2:05:54.440 On this front. So I think that that. I mean, 2:05:57.040 --> 2:06:00.160 if we were seeing women struggle to win governorship in 2:06:00.200 --> 2:06:06.160 these swing states, I'd be I would be more persuaded. 2:06:06.440 --> 2:06:09.520 But you know, we look look at the state of Michigan. 2:06:11.840 --> 2:06:15.520 It's elected, you know to two term women governors in 2:06:15.520 --> 2:06:19.480 the last twenty years, uh in, Jennifer Grant Holme and 2:06:19.520 --> 2:06:23.200 Gretchen Wetber, but they didn't support Kamala Harris. 2:06:23.280 --> 2:06:24.240 Was that, you know? 2:06:24.400 --> 2:06:30.480 So I think that that it. I think you can't 2:06:30.520 --> 2:06:34.280 dismiss it as a factor, but I will. I am 2:06:34.320 --> 2:06:35.280 still going to dismiss it. 2:06:35.280 --> 2:06:38.240 As the factor, if that's fair, all right. 2:06:38.760 --> 2:06:41.640 So I'm gonna leave that there because guess what. I'll 2:06:41.640 --> 2:06:43.520 be back in twenty four hours with another episode of 2:06:43.520 --> 2:06:45.560 the Check podcast until we upload again.