1
00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:06,840
Speaker 1: Hello, They're happy Wednesday. Welcome to another episode of the

2
00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:10,160
Speaker 1: Chuck Podcast. When we last met, all I had to

3
00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,840
Speaker 1: look forward to was the home run Derby. I was

4
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:15,600
Speaker 1: sort of smarting still from the Nats draft. I'm still

5
00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:19,279
Speaker 1: smarting for this is. I know, I know some of

6
00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:22,119
Speaker 1: you seam heads will say, no, the slot money matter

7
00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:24,800
Speaker 1: when you have the number one overall pick, don't give

8
00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:29,160
Speaker 1: me any slot money. Crap. Okay, you are just sitting

9
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:33,440
Speaker 1: here trying to mask what the ownership has told this

10
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,720
Speaker 1: front office to do, which is to pinch pennies, be

11
00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:39,200
Speaker 1: as cheap as possible. And the most depressing thing about

12
00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:41,640
Speaker 1: the Nats strategy now is that it looks like they're

13
00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:44,480
Speaker 1: not interested in contending the rest of this decade. And

14
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:47,480
Speaker 1: that is what has made so many of US Nats

15
00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:50,400
Speaker 1: fans so depressed and angry and all sorts of things.

16
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:54,320
Speaker 1: And then it's as if the Nats pitching wasn't bad enough,

17
00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:57,640
Speaker 1: we can't even do batting practice pitching. Poor James Wood

18
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: I think he makes the top four. I think gets

19
00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:03,720
Speaker 1: slightly better pitches to hit. Obviously you didn't have to

20
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,760
Speaker 1: swing at every at the bad pitches, but I think

21
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:09,800
Speaker 1: about the last pitch he got it was like down

22
00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:12,440
Speaker 1: in his ankles, and yeah, he didn't hit it as

23
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:14,600
Speaker 1: a home run, and it would have been the one

24
00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:16,479
Speaker 1: he would have needed because he I think he would

25
00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:19,800
Speaker 1: have been in a tie with Raleigh and Rooker his

26
00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:24,720
Speaker 1: he had the second longest home run after O'Neil Cruz.

27
00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:28,160
Speaker 1: And you know, anyway, when you're a Nats fan these days,

28
00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:30,760
Speaker 1: all you got is James Would It's all we have, man,

29
00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:36,720
Speaker 1: And I just hope we don't do with him, with

30
00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:39,360
Speaker 1: him if you will what we what we did with

31
00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:43,240
Speaker 1: one so so so But but I digress. But as

32
00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:44,800
Speaker 1: you can see, you know, we're in the we're of

33
00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:48,120
Speaker 1: the sort of the doldrums of the sports viewing right

34
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:51,080
Speaker 1: this is the single worst week to be a sports

35
00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 1: fan right where you You know, this is why ESPN

36
00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:58,280
Speaker 1: created the SPS to fill this gap, to try to

37
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 1: create an event that maybe the sports world, if you're

38
00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:04,960
Speaker 1: so bored, you so don't want to be with your

39
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 1: family or spouse, that you'll watch anything ESPN puts on.

40
00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 1: The SBS are just that the definition of anything or

41
00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:16,240
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I guess that's now. I think that's

42
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,200
Speaker 1: whatever they're doing now. But the point is, I'll admit,

43
00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:23,000
Speaker 1: Summer league basketball ain't cut it for me. So let's

44
00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:25,760
Speaker 1: get you know, let's get some baseball back the All

45
00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:28,519
Speaker 1: Star Game. And I will say one thing, and I

46
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:30,359
Speaker 1: don't know if this is me being sour grapes or not,

47
00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 1: but I watched the entire home run derby. Thankfully, I

48
00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:37,480
Speaker 1: was sitting on a tarmac. Whether travel all sorts of

49
00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,320
Speaker 1: headaches if you're in the summer travel season. I'm not

50
00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:42,120
Speaker 1: going to be laboring. I'm not going to share with

51
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 1: you all of that. But thankfully we got access to

52
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 1: live TV kind of we need to do something. The

53
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:55,360
Speaker 1: derby went over two hours, and it felt like it dragged,

54
00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,359
Speaker 1: all right, It just felt like it dragged. All right.

55
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:02,280
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to slightly more serious stuff here

56
00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 1: in a second. My guest today is Scott MacFarlane. He's

57
00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:10,120
Speaker 1: a former colleague of mine at NBC. He's now at CBS.

58
00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: He's their justice correspondent. He pretty much was the lead

59
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:20,120
Speaker 1: January sixth reporter for many for NBC and for others,

60
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:24,919
Speaker 1: particularly our affiliate in Washington, DCWRC, and really for many

61
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:27,680
Speaker 1: of you on social media you may recognize him. I mean,

62
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:29,239
Speaker 1: he really has been sort of a dog with a

63
00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:31,640
Speaker 1: bone and all things. January sixth probably knows more about

64
00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:36,280
Speaker 1: individual cases and everything that happened there. He was also

65
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:43,200
Speaker 1: in Butler the day of the attempted assassination on Donald Trump,

66
00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:47,080
Speaker 1: and that was primarily why I booked him to talk

67
00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:50,920
Speaker 1: about that, talk about lessons learned or not learned. He

68
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:54,720
Speaker 1: has some chilling descriptions of that day, the fear that

69
00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:58,880
Speaker 1: he felt that day when we didn't know who did it,

70
00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:02,160
Speaker 1: and what motivation was, and more importantly, what the reaction

71
00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:06,360
Speaker 1: was going to be, all of those things. It's a

72
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:11,760
Speaker 1: it's sobering conversation. But we keep coming back to January

73
00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:13,960
Speaker 1: sixth quite a bit, and I think he's got a

74
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,480
Speaker 1: perspective that you should listen to, and it's a it's

75
00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:21,560
Speaker 1: a real worthwhile conversation. But given that's the middle of

76
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:23,480
Speaker 1: the week, one of the things I like to do,

77
00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:26,040
Speaker 1: at least once a week of late is to go

78
00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:30,160
Speaker 1: through a little bit more of the campaign side of things.

79
00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: As you know, many of you know me a long time.

80
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,800
Speaker 1: I am a campaign junkie first and foremost is what

81
00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:38,880
Speaker 1: initially got my interested in politics. I certainly care about

82
00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:41,359
Speaker 1: a lot of things beyond that. In the in the

83
00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:44,560
Speaker 1: world of politics. But look, the campaign nitty gritty stuff

84
00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,120
Speaker 1: is what I cut my teeth on, and it's uh,

85
00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:51,960
Speaker 1: it's it's the first love for me, if you will.

86
00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:55,719
Speaker 1: And what there's a bit of a theme this week

87
00:04:55,839 --> 00:04:57,320
Speaker 1: that I want to get to, and that is sort

88
00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:02,000
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump is sort of party dictator here, and

89
00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: it is astonishing to me how much power. Look, I

90
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:08,159
Speaker 1: think I said this before, This is the most influential

91
00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:10,840
Speaker 1: president we've had since FDR. And part of that influence

92
00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:16,560
Speaker 1: is the sheer control he has over his party, right,

93
00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:20,240
Speaker 1: not since FDR as any president had that kind of

94
00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:26,040
Speaker 1: control over a political party. Kennedy didn't have it over

95
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: the Democrats the way Trump has it of Republicans. Bill

96
00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:31,600
Speaker 1: Clinton didn't have it over the Democrats the way Trump

97
00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:33,880
Speaker 1: has it over Republicans. Barack Obama didn't have it over

98
00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: Democrats the way Donald Trump has Republicans. Ronald Reagan didn't

99
00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,160
Speaker 1: have it over Republicans the way Donald Trump has it

100
00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:44,000
Speaker 1: over Republicans. What he says goes what he says. You

101
00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:49,000
Speaker 1: run for this office, you do this. And yet every

102
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:50,840
Speaker 1: time you keep thinking he's not going to be on

103
00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:54,640
Speaker 1: the ballot again, you know, at what point are these

104
00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:58,160
Speaker 1: Republicans going to start to defy Trump well right now,

105
00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:02,240
Speaker 1: until he until it's proven the emperor has no clothes,

106
00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:05,600
Speaker 1: he is going to continue to make these power plays.

107
00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:09,880
Speaker 1: The most recent two power plays, right. Power play number

108
00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:12,400
Speaker 1: one was a smaller one, and this was in the

109
00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:15,680
Speaker 1: state of Iowa. It was it has to do with

110
00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:19,480
Speaker 1: a Congressman named Zach Nunn. Now Congressman Nune represents the

111
00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:23,480
Speaker 1: swingiest of the swing districts in Iowa. Of their four districts,

112
00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:25,479
Speaker 1: three of them are swing districts, the first, the second,

113
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:29,680
Speaker 1: and the third. Only the fourth, which is mostly Western Iowa,

114
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:33,679
Speaker 1: particularly with an emphasis on northwest Iowa. Only that one

115
00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:37,520
Speaker 1: is it is it pretty pretty Republican leaning. The other

116
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:41,120
Speaker 1: three are very swinging, you know, maybe a point advantage

117
00:06:41,160 --> 00:06:43,920
Speaker 1: for the Republicans here or there. And the third is

118
00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 1: des Moines, Okay, and it's probably as an open seat,

119
00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:51,799
Speaker 1: that would be a seat that the Republicans would probably

120
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:54,760
Speaker 1: find themselves already trailing it, right, It is that swingy

121
00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:58,799
Speaker 1: of a seat. We know the suburb look Major des Moines,

122
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:02,120
Speaker 1: the shift of in many ways, des Moines become the

123
00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:05,360
Speaker 1: des Moines metro areas become more democratic than Eastern Iowa.

124
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:07,760
Speaker 1: Eastern Iowa used to be the most democratic part debukee

125
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,600
Speaker 1: the Quad Cities, much more democratic Waterloo than des Moines.

126
00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 1: That has changed in some ways the Des Moines suburbs

127
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:18,840
Speaker 1: which used to be pretty Republican, just like the suburbs

128
00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:20,840
Speaker 1: of a lot of cities around the country, the suburbs

129
00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 1: of Phoenix, the suburbs of Atlanta, suburbs of Washington.

130
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:23,760
Speaker 2: D c.

131
00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:27,440
Speaker 1: Yes, the suburbs of des Moines have become more In fact,

132
00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:29,360
Speaker 1: I think it's Dallas County as a county, I think

133
00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:31,920
Speaker 1: I think that Biden carried or came close to carrying.

134
00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:36,760
Speaker 1: It was a county that Romney definitely carried. So Zach

135
00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:41,840
Speaker 1: Nunn was thinking about doing two things. One running for governor.

136
00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:45,800
Speaker 1: Right there's an open governor's race there, or if he

137
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,640
Speaker 1: wanted to run in a safer congressional seat, there's an

138
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,600
Speaker 1: opener at Randy Fiinstro, who's the Republican member of Congress

139
00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:54,000
Speaker 1: from the fourth district. He quickly announced that he wanted

140
00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: to run for governor. None had been hemming and hung

141
00:07:56,520 --> 00:08:00,360
Speaker 1: Fienstro got the jump start, and then None was thinking

142
00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:04,200
Speaker 1: about it himself. Now look there I'm gonna you know,

143
00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:07,080
Speaker 1: we'll get to the Senate race in a minute, but

144
00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:11,840
Speaker 1: none was openly flirting with either running in the fourth. Basically,

145
00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:14,160
Speaker 1: you don't you don't have to live in the district

146
00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 1: to get elected. You have to live in the state.

147
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:18,840
Speaker 1: You don't have to live in the district. It's usually

148
00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:20,640
Speaker 1: not good politics not to live in the district, and

149
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:23,600
Speaker 1: voters usually don't necessarily reward folks that do that. But

150
00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:26,200
Speaker 1: Lauren Bobert just did this in Colorado, right. She went

151
00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:27,800
Speaker 1: from a district she was gonna lose. She moved to

152
00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:30,160
Speaker 1: them when Ken Buck decided to retire she wanted to

153
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,079
Speaker 1: suddenly she went to the Greeley based district there in

154
00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:36,840
Speaker 1: sort of northern Colorado. And she's a member of Congress

155
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:41,240
Speaker 1: today because she just got to a uh a more less,

156
00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:48,880
Speaker 1: a less vulnerable seat. The uh. The Mario Diaz Blart

157
00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:51,319
Speaker 1: did this when his brother Lincoln decided to leave. He

158
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:54,120
Speaker 1: decided to jump to another district in South Florida that

159
00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:58,160
Speaker 1: was a little less swinging uh, in order to uh,

160
00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:00,840
Speaker 1: you know, make his ride to re election of Congress

161
00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:04,359
Speaker 1: a little simpler. So Zach Nunn, who has been consistently

162
00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:07,960
Speaker 1: targeted the third Iowa three that des Moines district is

163
00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:10,760
Speaker 1: always a swing district. It is always competitive, it is

164
00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:14,680
Speaker 1: always decided by a couple of points. So he was

165
00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 1: probably tired of doing this every two years. So he

166
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:20,280
Speaker 1: was flirting with either running for governor or switching seats.

167
00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:26,199
Speaker 1: And obviously the White House is very concerned about holding

168
00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,760
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives. I'm going to get to a

169
00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:32,280
Speaker 1: second move that they made this week, so he's zach

170
00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:37,240
Speaker 1: Nunn is openly considering this. And then Donald Trump decided

171
00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 1: to announce that no zach Nunns seeking reelection. And zach Nunn,

172
00:09:42,679 --> 00:09:44,920
Speaker 1: you know, some of this had to do with some

173
00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:49,800
Speaker 1: in the conservative activist community didn't believe none was conservative enough.

174
00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:53,000
Speaker 1: The folks at Club for Growth were calling him a rhino.

175
00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:57,240
Speaker 1: But what was interesting is it's Trump himself that got

176
00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:00,400
Speaker 1: involved and ended any speculation about zach Nunn. He went

177
00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:03,040
Speaker 1: on truth Social on Friday and he said, just spoke

178
00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:05,680
Speaker 1: to great combat veteran zach Nunn, and he is committed

179
00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:08,480
Speaker 1: to the mission of holding the majority, and he puts

180
00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,120
Speaker 1: it in all caps. Trust me. Zac Nunn did not

181
00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:14,800
Speaker 1: want to run for reelection, but Donald Trump said, you

182
00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:16,679
Speaker 1: must run for re election. And if you try to

183
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:20,400
Speaker 1: run for something else. Good luck, We're not going to

184
00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:23,600
Speaker 1: help you. And this is in the same week that

185
00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: Trump's Justice Department sent a letter to the state of

186
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:35,040
Speaker 1: Texas giving essentially giving cover to this special this special

187
00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:38,440
Speaker 1: session of the Texas legislature that Greg Abbat is called,

188
00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:43,760
Speaker 1: that includes a potential mandate to do mid decade redistricting,

189
00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 1: which is becoming such a habit now it feels like

190
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:49,800
Speaker 1: tech you know, ever since Tom Delay was running the

191
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:52,959
Speaker 1: Texas delegation back in the early part of the twenty

192
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,640
Speaker 1: first century, it feels like this idea of mid decade

193
00:10:56,320 --> 00:11:00,400
Speaker 1: redistricting to protect a majority as becoming was coming a

194
00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:03,280
Speaker 1: common thing, and Delay did it in Texas and it

195
00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,760
Speaker 1: and it worked to an extent. Now the ironies, it

196
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:08,920
Speaker 1: worked until it didn't by the end of the decade.

197
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:10,839
Speaker 1: What they tried to do. You know, when you when

198
00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:13,880
Speaker 1: you when you try to squeeze more seats, you know,

199
00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:16,040
Speaker 1: you think, okay, Texas is a red state. And there's

200
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 1: this mandate and Donald Trump has said he wants them

201
00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:23,520
Speaker 1: to to go get a go find more Republican seats, right,

202
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:27,760
Speaker 1: and I think the mission is five well, in order

203
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:30,840
Speaker 1: to create five more Republican seats, you're gonna have to

204
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:34,160
Speaker 1: find Republican voters from other districts. So then you're going

205
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,120
Speaker 1: to look and there's only so many rural districts. You're

206
00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:38,839
Speaker 1: going to have to try to get to the right.

207
00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:41,960
Speaker 1: The people don't live in the rural districts. The people

208
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:45,560
Speaker 1: live in the suburban and the urban districts, right the

209
00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:50,199
Speaker 1: population centers of Dallas and Houston and San Antonio and Austin.

210
00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 1: And this idea, this is a hugely risky move that

211
00:11:56,040 --> 00:12:00,320
Speaker 1: they can somehow find five more They think they five

212
00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:03,920
Speaker 1: more Republican seats. There's different ways that they think they

213
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:07,520
Speaker 1: can do it. There's the standard way that Republicans have

214
00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:12,719
Speaker 1: tried to weaken strengthen their ability to hold seats and

215
00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:17,680
Speaker 1: weaken a Democratic party's ability to hold a seat has

216
00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:20,480
Speaker 1: been referred to as the hub and spoke model. The

217
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,200
Speaker 1: state of Utah did this with Salt Lake City. For

218
00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:26,480
Speaker 1: the longest time, there was always a Democratic member pretty

219
00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: much consistently representing Salt Lake City. So what they decided

220
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,680
Speaker 1: to do was split Salt Lake City up so that

221
00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:38,120
Speaker 1: a piece of Salt Lake was in every congressional district.

222
00:12:38,679 --> 00:12:41,719
Speaker 1: Hence the hub and spoke model. If you will if

223
00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:45,959
Speaker 1: you can picture the visual right, take your wheel, you know,

224
00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,360
Speaker 1: Salt Lake cities in the center, and then you pull

225
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:51,600
Speaker 1: pieces of it out. So you try to dilute that

226
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:56,199
Speaker 1: suburban and urban population and sprinkle it across the four

227
00:12:56,240 --> 00:12:59,080
Speaker 1: congressional seats. And for the most part it's worked. There's

228
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:02,440
Speaker 1: some one of those seats is still somewhat competitive in Utah,

229
00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:05,640
Speaker 1: but for the most part it's been a successful strategy

230
00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:09,959
Speaker 1: to do that. You know, that's been the Democratic parties

231
00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:12,760
Speaker 1: the idea that Democrats would love to figure out different

232
00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:14,120
Speaker 1: ways to do it, but part of their problem is

233
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,200
Speaker 1: their voters are two clustered together, so it's harder to

234
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:22,440
Speaker 1: disaggregate and sort of create, you know, new districts versus

235
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:28,680
Speaker 1: these larger geographic districts with pieces of the suburban and

236
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:33,600
Speaker 1: urban center. Make it a little bit easier for Republicans

237
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:38,120
Speaker 1: to jerry mander than Democrats, just simply where Republican voters

238
00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:41,800
Speaker 1: live versus where Democratic voters live. And now I know

239
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:45,240
Speaker 1: you've seen I'm sure Gavin Newsom said of Texas if

240
00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:47,959
Speaker 1: they try this, Shenanigans, Well, California's going to do it.

241
00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,520
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. So ever since Tom Delay did

242
00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:56,959
Speaker 1: this mid decade redistricting. Right, the two most absurdly sort

243
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,440
Speaker 1: of gerrymandered states are Texas and Flora. And it's two

244
00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:05,240
Speaker 1: places where there's really a strong you know, if you will,

245
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:09,120
Speaker 1: it's a top down approach, right, I mean the power

246
00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,720
Speaker 1: of the Florida legislature when it comes to drawing lines.

247
00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:14,600
Speaker 1: The governor gets no say in the state legislative lines

248
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:17,400
Speaker 1: at all, and the governor only has veto power over

249
00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,760
Speaker 1: congressional lines. Like, the Florida legislature just has a ton

250
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 1: of power. And it is as the legislature itself is

251
00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:27,200
Speaker 1: so jerrymandered, it couldn't be more less small d democratic

252
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,720
Speaker 1: compared to the way other legislatures are divided up and

253
00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:37,560
Speaker 1: such and so it is. You know, California passed an initiative.

254
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 1: This was those Arnold Schwarzenegger reforms that created these citizen commissions.

255
00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:43,480
Speaker 1: And in fact, many sort of what i'd call good

256
00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:49,080
Speaker 1: government types have gone around the country encouraging commissions, putting

257
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:52,320
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives on to try to create more commissions to

258
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:56,160
Speaker 1: try to depoliticize the drawing of congressional lines. My home

259
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,880
Speaker 1: state of Virginia, where I vote, had passed an amendment

260
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:03,200
Speaker 1: that has a commission. Now you know, it's it's Lucy Goosey.

261
00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:05,560
Speaker 1: It doesn't have as much teeth as some of these

262
00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:10,360
Speaker 1: other commissions do when it comes to drawing lines. But

263
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:14,080
Speaker 1: California's was a citizen commission, right and and it so,

264
00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:16,200
Speaker 1: I you know, I know what Gavin Newsom says, and

265
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:18,200
Speaker 1: I think he's saying that because he's in the middle

266
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:20,720
Speaker 1: of running for president or testing the waters to run

267
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:23,480
Speaker 1: for president, and he wants to fight fire with fire.

268
00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:28,760
Speaker 1: But you know, the problem here is a bit of

269
00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:31,960
Speaker 1: the rhetoric. Right, So Democrats want to be against jerry mandering,

270
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:34,720
Speaker 1: so they don't want to look like, then, all right,

271
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:37,600
Speaker 1: let's tit for tat this or are you pro jerrymandering? Now?

272
00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:41,080
Speaker 1: You know, I mean Illinois jerrymandered forever. That's a blue state.

273
00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:43,800
Speaker 1: That's jerry mander Maryland's been a big jerrymandered state. That's

274
00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:46,080
Speaker 1: a blue state that jerry manders. New York there was

275
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,360
Speaker 1: some debate about going back and forth on whether to

276
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:52,680
Speaker 1: do it. New York has what's called an advisory commission

277
00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:57,240
Speaker 1: of sorts, but they can mostly overrule it if the

278
00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:01,000
Speaker 1: politicians choose to do it. But They kind of attempted

279
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,400
Speaker 1: that the last time, and it didn't it didn't work out. Now,

280
00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:07,120
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis did some mid decade redistricting and he you know,

281
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,960
Speaker 1: he vetoed some maps and he extracted a couple of

282
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:13,600
Speaker 1: new districts, and of course his huge landslide in twenty

283
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:16,320
Speaker 1: two made it easier for them to overcome. But some

284
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,320
Speaker 1: of these districts that if there's if the Democrats get

285
00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:22,480
Speaker 1: their get their funding at equal levels in there, they

286
00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,160
Speaker 1: actually could be competitive. So my point is is that

287
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, I know that there's a

288
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 1: lot of folks on the left concerned that Republicans are

289
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:34,080
Speaker 1: essentially trying to rig their House majority. And the answer is, yes,

290
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,800
Speaker 1: they're trying to rig. They're trying to rig the election

291
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,680
Speaker 1: lines to to try to save their House majority. But

292
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 1: when they do it, they're likely, I mean, they're likely

293
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:51,360
Speaker 1: to actually make some Republicans more vulnerable who wouldn't be.

294
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 1: And that just the question is whether Democrats are good

295
00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:56,640
Speaker 1: enough at candidate recruiting to find the right candidates to

296
00:16:56,680 --> 00:16:59,720
Speaker 1: pull this off. Now, it's expensive, obviously to knock out

297
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,160
Speaker 1: these hummets, and maybe this is one of those things

298
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,199
Speaker 1: where if they do this in Texas, they can It

299
00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 1: may help them in twenty six and burn them by

300
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:14,040
Speaker 1: twenty eight when there's a presidential level turnout and some

301
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:18,120
Speaker 1: of the softer left of center voters show up. Because

302
00:17:18,119 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 1: Texas it's one of those cases where maybe in a

303
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,439
Speaker 1: presidential year is when things where Democrats can maximize their

304
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:28,000
Speaker 1: vote a little bit better, unlike most other states where

305
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 1: it's the reverse, where a presidential year sort of maximizes

306
00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: the Republican vote. But here's the common denominator here. Donald

307
00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:39,159
Speaker 1: Trump is dictating all of this. Donald Trump wants it

308
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,960
Speaker 1: mid decade redistricting. Texas Republicans are saluting and saying, yes, sir,

309
00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:45,800
Speaker 1: Zach Nunn didn't want to run for reelection. Donald Trump

310
00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:50,400
Speaker 1: says you better, and he said yes, sir. So I've

311
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:52,800
Speaker 1: been paying a lot of attention to this Thomas Massey

312
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:57,439
Speaker 1: primary because if you're going to defy Donald Trump, if

313
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: you want to defy Donald Trump, you want to only

314
00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:02,920
Speaker 1: defy him if you really think the Emperor has no clothes.

315
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:07,240
Speaker 1: And that's why this Thomas. But you know, the Trump

316
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:12,320
Speaker 1: folks need, they need to sort of prove that they've

317
00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 1: got that if they choose to aim their death star

318
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:20,119
Speaker 1: at you, they can destroy you politically, and that's what

319
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey is facing right now. In fact, there's already

320
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:26,159
Speaker 1: ads attacking him for quote, voting with the Democrats on

321
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:28,560
Speaker 1: the Big Beautiful Bill. They don't have a candidate yet.

322
00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:31,399
Speaker 1: They're still trying to recruit a candidate in Kentucky to

323
00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,640
Speaker 1: challenge Massey in a primary. But I have to say,

324
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:38,159
Speaker 1: I think this is a very questionable decision. I get it.

325
00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:41,280
Speaker 1: Republican Party sort of trapped, right. They can't, you know,

326
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: tying yourself too close to an incumbent who's approval ratings

327
00:18:47,080 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 1: are under forty five percent folks, right, they're not very

328
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:56,000
Speaker 1: good right now, inflation's up, and yet he sort of

329
00:18:56,040 --> 00:19:00,040
Speaker 1: dictates everything. I can tell you this, if you're a

330
00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:02,840
Speaker 1: challenger in the state of Iowa, you now have all

331
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:04,439
Speaker 1: this and this is out in the open. You have

332
00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,600
Speaker 1: all this proof to say, you know, Donald Trump, do

333
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,119
Speaker 1: you want Donald Trump deciding who your elected official is

334
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,359
Speaker 1: or do you want to have this decision? And I

335
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:18,280
Speaker 1: think in a midterm year, to be that tied to

336
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:23,480
Speaker 1: a polarizing president, you know, who may be extraordinarily unpopular

337
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,360
Speaker 1: by election day twenty twenty six, depending on the state

338
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 1: of tariffs and cost of living. There's already some evidence

339
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:33,119
Speaker 1: with the inflation numbers that came out earlier this week

340
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:37,040
Speaker 1: that everything that economists predicted would happen with the tariffs,

341
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:40,560
Speaker 1: even with the few that have actually taken hold. Because remember,

342
00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:44,280
Speaker 1: even though he's pulled back some of his some of

343
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 1: his tariff threats, there's still going across the board ten

344
00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:51,399
Speaker 1: percent tariff that's sitting there hitting everybody right now, and

345
00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:54,760
Speaker 1: that is starting to have an impact on costs, which

346
00:19:54,800 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 1: is only going to have an impact on inflation, which

347
00:19:56,880 --> 00:19:58,720
Speaker 1: of course will have an impact on people's perception of

348
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:01,760
Speaker 1: the cost of living. So look, I just think it's

349
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:06,119
Speaker 1: huge risk for the party to tie itself so much

350
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,040
Speaker 1: to a second term president who will never be on

351
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 1: the ballot again, who maybe he can, I don't know

352
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:17,040
Speaker 1: how much you know it, particularly in a midterm where

353
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:22,199
Speaker 1: he's never proven to be a political juggernaut, not in

354
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, not in twenty twenty two. Right when when

355
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: he's been trying to get folks elected when his name's

356
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:30,080
Speaker 1: not on the ballot, things have not gone that well. They've

357
00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 1: not been total disasters, right, They help you know, we're

358
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:38,679
Speaker 1: able to hold the Senate in twenty eighteen. But they

359
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,040
Speaker 1: haven't been great. You know, they barely won the House

360
00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:43,199
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, but things should have been a

361
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,640
Speaker 1: lot better than they actually were in twenty twenty two.

362
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:50,120
Speaker 1: But for Trump. So it's look, I'm skeptical this mid

363
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:52,880
Speaker 1: district redistricting is going to pull off because look, there's

364
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:55,639
Speaker 1: going to be individual members that hate the new district

365
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:59,080
Speaker 1: that they have, that get petrified that they could lose.

366
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:03,560
Speaker 1: So it's not a it. You know, it's not going

367
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:06,439
Speaker 1: to be as easy as they think. But Democrats, you know,

368
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:08,359
Speaker 1: their hands are tied. And this gets it to this

369
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:10,239
Speaker 1: larger debate. And this is why I think it's an

370
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:12,240
Speaker 1: interesting I know, this is sort of our cane and

371
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 1: you think are redistricting and house district but it gets

372
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,560
Speaker 1: it to a larger debate that's happening on the left,

373
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 1: which is do you fight fire with fire? So if

374
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:25,000
Speaker 1: you're going to do the unethical thing and do mid

375
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 1: mid decade redistricting, should the Blue states do the mid Well?

376
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom is saying, yes, that's what I want to do.

377
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,919
Speaker 1: Is it the right thing to do? Is this the

378
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 1: way right? And so Democrats at times want to be

379
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:42,200
Speaker 1: the party that says no, no, no, no, We're we put

380
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 1: the country. We want to do the right thing, not

381
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:51,840
Speaker 1: the politically expedient thing. Donald Trump has said, no, it's

382
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 1: all about political expediency, and he's had some short term success.

383
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:59,680
Speaker 1: Political expediency has worked for the short term. Now I'm

384
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:03,120
Speaker 1: still I still believe, you know that in the long

385
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 1: term this is going to blow up, blow up in

386
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 1: their face. But I understand why some on the left

387
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: are going, you can't tie you know, the whole tie

388
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,440
Speaker 1: one arm behind your back. It's the argument that gets

389
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 1: made all the time in campaign finance reform debates. You know,

390
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: should you take super pac money. I don't believe in

391
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: super bac money, but if my opponent's going to take

392
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: super pac money, then I'm going to have to take

393
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 1: super Pac money because I'm not gonna, you know, go

394
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 1: to a gun go to a gunfight only armed with

395
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: the knife, or I'm not going to tie one of you.

396
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: Pick you pick your sort of battle metaphor if you will.

397
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:37,720
Speaker 1: And I think this redistricting, you know, because a lot

398
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: of activists on the left actually did the good government

399
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 1: approach and convinced of Virginia to do commission, convinced to

400
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: New York to have this put help fight to put

401
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: a commit of some sort of citizen commission on the

402
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: ballot in Ohio. Now, all of these have not had

403
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: the teeth that I think activists hope they would have. Right,

404
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: Ohio politicians have been able to sort of over over

405
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 1: the citizen initiative there, though there is some question about

406
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:08,480
Speaker 1: some lawsuits there. So I will say this, this is

407
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:12,679
Speaker 1: likely to open things up everywhere. Right, there's already another

408
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: suit trying to redo the lines in Wisconsin. Right, the

409
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said no to one to one complaint, but

410
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 1: there's already a new one that's been filed, and I

411
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,439
Speaker 1: imagine you'll see more get filed. If Texas does this,

412
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: look this is bad governments. It's you know, it's not illegal,

413
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: it's just bad governments. It's just hardball politics. And the

414
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:38,679
Speaker 1: question is whether I think the left has to decide

415
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: do you fight fire with fire or do you try

416
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:44,439
Speaker 1: to or do you try to sort of take the

417
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: high road and see if and then maybe take advantage

418
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: of them overreach it, which I do think to get

419
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: five districts in Texas this is going to be a

420
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 1: major overreach because what they're counting. I mean, here's the thing.

421
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: If Republicans are gaining as much as it appears they're

422
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: gaining with Latino voters in South Texas, then what do

423
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: they need a redistrict for. Just target those seats. Just

424
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: target those districts. If the population is coming your way,

425
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: then run a campaign, Go recruit better candidates, and take

426
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: advantage of this moment. I'm not quite sure what you

427
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: think you're rigging in order to do this mid decade registricting,

428
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: which is only good. It's going to upend things. But

429
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: it does tell me right that the White House is

430
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: obsessed with trying to hold the House, even though we're

431
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: looking at razor thin margins right to micro manage what

432
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: Zach Nunn is doing in Iowa to whether he runs

433
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 1: for reelection or not, and basically he was told he's

434
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: running for reelection whether he likes it or not. Or

435
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 1: the mid decade redistrict in Texas. This White House realizes

436
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: that they're petrified of a Democratic House. Maybe they're petrified

437
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,360
Speaker 1: of oversight. Realistically, that's what today should be petrified him.

438
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 1: There's not going to be another impeachment. I know that

439
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: they're going to use and that's going to be what

440
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 1: the Trump White House tries to motivate those shotgun Trump voters. Right.

441
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why so many of US analysts

442
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 1: have said Democrats probably are the slight favor to take

443
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 1: back the House because it's such a small margin, is

444
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: you know, Democrats probably a little more motivated to vote.

445
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: And we know this. The Trump voter doesn't show up

446
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: when Trump's not on the ballot, and even when Trump's

447
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: on the ballot, sometimes they only show up vote for Trump.

448
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: How do we know this? Just look at the twenty

449
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: twenty four map. Trump carried every swing state, but he

450
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: only brought one Senate seat with him, the one in Pennsylvania. Right,

451
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 1: Republicans still lost Senate seats in Wisconsin, couldn't win in Michigan,

452
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: couldn't win in Nevada, couldn't win in Arizona, all states

453
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: that Trump carried because Trump voters came in like a

454
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:54,400
Speaker 1: shotgun vote, you know, shot the shot the whole next

455
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: to Trump voted for Trump and walked out of the

456
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: ballot box and the and it costs Republicans down the ballot.

457
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,640
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of Trump folks think if

458
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: they can use the threat of impeachment. Hey, they're going

459
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 1: to keep coming after them, and that's what House Democrats

460
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: will do, that that will be a motivator. I'm skeptical

461
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: that works. I kind of think the fact that he's

462
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,239
Speaker 1: beaten back to impeachments might make his voters feel he

463
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: doesn't need that. He'll be fine no matter what. So

464
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: either way, the fact that the White House is trying

465
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: so hard to micro manage all these strategic decisions to

466
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: try to hold the House tells you that they believe

467
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: that's how they're going to be judged. Right, This presidency

468
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: is a success or failure based on whether or not,

469
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: whether or not in the midterms they hold the House.

470
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:53,199
Speaker 1: So interesting development. There are a few other things I

471
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: want to make note of, if you will. That is,

472
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: let's go back to Texas. It's pretty clear to me

473
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: that something is afoot right, meaning that there's gonna be

474
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 1: some candidate movement here before the five Texas has an

475
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: early filing deadline when it comes to twenty six. Their

476
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:16,640
Speaker 1: filing deadline is actually December of this calendar year. Paxton

477
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: has been leading by double digits in all these primary

478
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: polls over John Cornyn. The divorce statement heard round the

479
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: country from Missus Paxton has been something and just the

480
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: the swift, with the swift reaction of the National Republican

481
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: Senatorial Committee totally condemning Ken Paxton, you know, taking Missus

482
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: Paxton's side, talking about bad faith character that Paxton is

483
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: essentially admitting that if Paxton's the nominee, he's going to

484
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: cost them a Senate seat. They've gone all in on

485
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: stopping Paxton, and that's what's important here. They've gone all

486
00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,719
Speaker 1: in on stopping Paxton. I don't know if they're all

487
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: in corn They're gonna say they're all in Corning because

488
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: they got a protecting comment. I don't know if Trump's

489
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,439
Speaker 1: all in uncornant, but it does seem as if Trump

490
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: is being brought around to looking for somebody other than

491
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: Paxton to support. Incomes Wesley Hunt, a member of Congress

492
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: who on the day of the announcement of the Paxton divorce.

493
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: The day after the Patchkin divorce gets announced, Wesley Hunt

494
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: shows up on Air Force One with Donald Trump as

495
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: he goes to Texas to visit the recovery down there

496
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: due to the floods. Hunt also posts a picture showing

497
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: him with his family touting the fact that he is

498
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: a family man, again trying to social distinction. Look, Cornyn

499
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: has made it clear he wants to do whatever it

500
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: takes to stop Paxton, and I take him at his work.

501
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: And if he thinks that there's that Wesley Hunt without

502
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: Cornyan in the race, beats Paxton in a primary, has

503
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's support to do it, I think Cornyn would

504
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: get would be comfortable walking away if that that's what

505
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: the scenario was. I think he will do whatever it

506
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: takes to keep Ken Paxton out of the Senate. I

507
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: don't know if he'd go as far as supporting a

508
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: Democrat to do that, but he might. That's how much

509
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: I think personally he sort of holds Paxton and sort

510
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: of disrepute if you will. But something seems to be afoot.

511
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: There's a lot of You've heard Trump say all these

512
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: nice things about Wesley Hunt. You know, if you told

513
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: me corn and cut a deal with the NRSC and

514
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: John Thunen said, hey, look, give me to November. If

515
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: I can prove that I can beat Paxston in at primary,

516
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: then I'll stay in the race. And if I'm still

517
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: down double digits come Thanksgiving, I'll get out you can

518
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: get behind Wesley Hunt and they go from there. But

519
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: something something's afoot there. I don't think what the field

520
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: looks like it is now is what the field is

521
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: going to be in three or four months, as we

522
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: like to say in the Business State. A few other

523
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: fun little campaign nuggets out there. Susan Collins is fundraising.

524
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: We've been speculating about whether Susan there's two more was

525
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: with Nathan Gonzales. There's two more sort of I think

526
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: question marks about re election. A third was answered already.

527
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: We had Jeff Burkley, he has now said he's going

528
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: to run for reelection. That Nathan brought that up. I

529
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: think there's still a pretty big question mark over Joni

530
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: Ernst and whether or not she seeks reelection. I continue

531
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: to believe she's waiting to see if there's a vacancy

532
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: at the Pentagon, perhaps by Labor Day. By the way

533
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: that mate, maybe that will if that opens up, does

534
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: that'll let Zach Nunn run run for a higher office.

535
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: We shall see. But I digress. But Susan Collins has

536
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: been the other question mark. Well, she had a pretty

537
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: good fund raising quarter. She's raising money like someone who's

538
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: seeking reelection. That's just worth pointing out. And she raised

539
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: over two and a half million dollars for the quarter.

540
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: That is not somebody that is done running for office.

541
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: So well, I was, I've been sort of on the

542
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: if you put a gun to my head and said

543
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: is she running or not? I probably would have said no.

544
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: Now you look at this kind of fundraising activity and

545
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: it puts me she looks more like a candidate than

546
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: she did before. Speaking of Maine, by the way, there

547
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: may be a Bush on the ballot in Maine, right

548
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: remember Kenny Bunkport, the Bush compound of Bush forty one. Well,

549
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: Jonathan Bush, who's a healthcare executive. He is the son

550
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: of the late Jonathan Bush of the same name, a

551
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: brother of George H. W. Bush, who passed away in

552
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Well Jonathan Bush, whose first cousins with

553
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: George W. Bush. His brother, by the way, is Billy Bush. Yes,

554
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: that Billy Bush of Donald Trump grabbed you anyway access Hollywood.

555
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: Need I say more? But anyway, Jonathan Bush, who was

556
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: a donor to Nicky Haley so very much in the

557
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: very moderate Prescott Bush, George H. W. Bush, if you will,

558
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: wing of the Bush family very much a modern Republicans

559
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: thinking about running for governor, and if he ran, he'd

560
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: run as a Republican. The last Bush that ran statewide

561
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: was George P. Bush down in Texas. That didn't go

562
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: so well. He lost in a primary down there. I

563
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: think he had Trump's quasi endorsement. It was very awkward.

564
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: If those of you that followed that race recall, I'll

565
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: be very curious here what kind of reception if Jonathan

566
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: Bush decides to run he will get from mister Trump.

567
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: But that I thought was worth passing along. Speaking of

568
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: other issues, one of the other Senate races that if

569
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: Democrats are serious about putting the Senate in play, one

570
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: Senate race that they would need to get onto the

571
00:32:54,760 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: map would be Alaska. Well, apparently, I think Mary Peltola,

572
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: who's the former congresswoman there, very much has some pretty

573
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: strong sort of independent leanings as far as the you know,

574
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: has had the support of Lisa Markowski in the past,

575
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: one as a Democrat and loss as a Democrat. She's

576
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: thinking about either running for governor or Senate. And what's

577
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: interesting is she actually seems to she works at a

578
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: law firm that's already been lobbying Dan Sullivan on some issues.

579
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: So while they'd be recruiting her to run against Dan Sullivan,

580
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 1: she's been working for a firm that's been trying to

581
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: get some access and get some help from Dan Sullivan.

582
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: What the Alaska papers are implying is that she may

583
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: be more interested in running for governor than she is senator.

584
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: And frankly, if she's looking for what office is easier

585
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: to win winning an open seat race for governor, because

586
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: I believe Dunleavy's term limited, But either way, whinning a

587
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: governor's race would be a little bit easier for I

588
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: think her then trying to challenge a sitting incumbent in

589
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan, who is not super maga, right, this is

590
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: not This is a John McCain guy acolyte, if you will,

591
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: somebody who when I first interviewed him in his first

592
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: first term as US senator, said, you know that's who

593
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: his You know, John McCain is who he wanted to

594
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: model being a senator after So, you know, that would

595
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: be a big loss for for Senate Democrats that they

596
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 1: couldn't get Peltola to run for Senate. But when you

597
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: look at sort of her options, I kind of get it.

598
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: Governor's got to be a lot more appealing these days

599
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: than running for the Senate. And then one other piece

600
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: of news that flew under the radar, that's near and

601
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: dear to my heart. One of the great tournaments that

602
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: I grew up with in South Florida if you cared

603
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: about golf, was the Deral Writer Open. It used to

604
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: be called because it was writer the rental car people

605
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: who used to sponsor it. Well, Donald Trump's controversial remarks

606
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: got the PGA Tour to pull it stopped at Doral. Obviously,

607
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: Trump Dral has become a bit of a bit of

608
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: a political spot, political locale there in Durrell, Florida, which

609
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,320
Speaker 1: is the unofficial home of Little Caracas, if you will,

610
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: a fairly large Venezuelan community. Well, apparently the PGDA Tour

611
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: is going to be announcing a new tournament at Trump

612
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: Dral in twenty twenty six. You'll recall that Trump has

613
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: gotten very involved in the sort of merger, if you will,

614
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 1: of the Live Tour and PGA. He obviously took the

615
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,280
Speaker 1: side of Live. Had all this, He's He's thrown himself.

616
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: This is just another example of private entities trying to

617
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: appease the president who has shown he's willing to weaponize

618
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: his power to get his way. And you know, he

619
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: wants a PGA Tour event back at Darrell. It's one

620
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: of the reasons why he bought Drew in the first place.

621
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: And it looks like he is going to get his wish.

622
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: And the golf community, who, by the way, golfers, they

623
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: have always been big fans of Trump, not Trump the person,

624
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 1: but Trump the golf course entrepreneur, because they love his courses.

625
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: They have always he is one thing Trump has cared

626
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 1: about is pleasing making his courses so that they please

627
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: the Professional Golf Association. So if you set the politics aside,

628
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: and for many of you, that's incredibly difficult to do,

629
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: and I totally understand that. But as in the golfing

630
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: community there are there is always been some affinity there

631
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 1: for Trump and how Trump because Trump, if he cares

632
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: about anything, he cares about this, and he cares about

633
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: his golf courses, and he cares if golfers like his

634
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: golf course. All right, with that, I hope you enjoyed.

635
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 1: My conversation was Scott McFarlane one year this week was

636
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: Butler that was still you know, I share a little

637
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: bit of my story on that day. He shares his

638
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: story that day. We spend a lot of time on

639
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: parts of January sixth that he that, frankly, the media

640
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,760
Speaker 1: doesn't spend that much time with anymore. And Scott MacFarlane

641
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: has been sort of at the tip of the spear

642
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: of the story as probably has covered it, as thoroughly

643
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 1: understands these individual knows these court cases in and out.

644
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: And I promise you you will learn a lot from

645
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: this conversation. So with that, I'll speak at a break, and

646
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: when we come back with Scott mcparb joining me now

647
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:56,879
Speaker 1: is a former colleague from our collective NBC days. He's

648
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: no longer at NBC. Neither am I at Scott McFarlane.

649
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: He's just a correspondent for CBS News. And let's just

650
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: say there's a lot going on at the Department of

651
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: Justice these days. Scott, it's good to see you.

652
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,759
Speaker 2: Good to see you too. I mean, I'm not sure

653
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 2: how NBAC can stand up without us. I mean, it's

654
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 2: the pea cocks do and all the heavy lifting.

655
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: Now, before we before we get give me, before you

656
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: got to WRC, NBC Washington, give me your origin story

657
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: before then, Before that, I was congressional correspondent for the

658
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: Cox Media Group, which is one of those outfits where

659
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,240
Speaker 1: you do all the affiliate coverage of what's happening in Washington.

660
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 1: So you're covering the Georgia Congressional delegation for Atlanta, you're

661
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 1: covering the California Senators for San Francisco.

662
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 2: Did that for eight years. Before that, I was in

663
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 2: local news in Michigan. I was in Detroit, I was

664
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 2: in Grand Rapids, And before that, I was at Syracuse

665
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 2: University and a lot of US Syracuse University.

666
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

667
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to know how great Syracuse is,

668
00:38:57,640 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 2: just ask any one of us. Just let us tell

669
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 2: you unsolicited.

670
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: I know, I know. ESPN is the network of Syracuse.

671
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: The last time I checked, he used to be We're everywhere. Yeah.

672
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 2: And so I did college radio at Syracuse, which is

673
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 2: itself a unique that's a big that's a big deal.

674
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 2: That's a tough thing. Not everybody gets to do college

675
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 2: radio at Syracuse. So usually if you do that, you're

676
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: onto something. We did w JPZ Radio, which is the

677
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 2: it's done the Mount Rushmore college radio outfits, and we're

678
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 2: very proud of it.

679
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,359
Speaker 1: Before we get to what we want to talk about

680
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: one year after Butler, what you've been doing on January sixth, frankly,

681
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on with Bondi and Epstein?

682
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: And we'll get we'll get to all that. I'm intrigued

683
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: by your local news background, as you know, you know,

684
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: and you've been following I know you and I've been

685
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: talking offline about this and all the different ways that

686
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 1: I've I'm that I'm trying to work on revitalizing local

687
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,439
Speaker 1: news with some with some folks, and there's a whole

688
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: bunch of people in this space. You've been on interesting sides,

689
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: I mean, with an affiliate on the ground, You've been

690
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: in Waher, Washington, trying to cover Washington through a local prism.

691
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:06,839
Speaker 1: What's the reality of that? What's the difficulty in that?

692
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: If you could design a perfect world for the affiliates

693
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: and how this would work, I'm guessing it wouldn't be

694
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: how you operated at cocks. So what is the next

695
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: iteration of best practices for local coverage of Washington? And

696
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: I go back through the prism of local right. I

697
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 1: think part of our problem with Washington coverage is it's

698
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: done through the prism of the Acela Corridor, not from

699
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: the ground up. I couldn't agree more. I the idea

700
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: that the doomsday messages I hear about how you media is.

701
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 2: Fractionalizing, broadcast is shrinking, news is being compartmentalized. That argument

702
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 2: doesn't hold water when you talk about local A local

703
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 2: news has never been so relevant, a local weather, local sports,

704
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: Local news content is now wildly more important than it

705
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 2: used to be, Chuck, because as you know, there's so

706
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 2: many less providers out there. I mean, who's offering up

707
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: coverage of the local high school teams, who's covering the

708
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: local city council, Who's covering the impact in your community

709
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 2: of what's happening in Washington? And there's fewer people now

710
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 2: than there were when we were kids. There's fewer people

711
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 2: now than when we were coming up in journalism. So

712
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 2: it's never been more important. And there's a wonderful future

713
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 2: in local news on all platforms broadcast, digital, social included.

714
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: So what do I do different now? Everything Now? Every

715
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 2: Friday I carve out two to three hours of my

716
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 2: day every Friday, from three pm to six pm to

717
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 2: do local, customized.

718
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: Talkbacks with our affiliates.

719
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 2: What's going on in Washington that impacts Buffalo, what's going

720
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 2: on in Washington that impacts in New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore.

721
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 2: Every Friday, we do this and if it's not customized,

722
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 2: it's not worth your time. If it's not regionalized, it's

723
00:41:58,320 --> 00:41:59,720
Speaker 2: not worth my effort or your effort.

724
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 1: Make them all local.

725
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like my Cocks background, because if

726
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 2: we're not reporting out to local affiliates, it's about a

727
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 2: local impact, we're wasting well even money on the table.

728
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: In my hometown in Miami, they're going, they're gonna it's

729
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 1: the largest market in America now with a duopoly. It's

730
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: just a gut punch to me, just I just feel

731
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of you know, and yet I understand

732
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: the business decisions. You know, we all know these different

733
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: affiliate groups. This happened to be a smaller one that

734
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: was the ABC affiliate. So now both we're gonna have

735
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 1: the same owner for both a Fox affiliate and ABC affiliate,

736
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 1: and they're not gonna have they're basically combining. There's only

737
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:41,879
Speaker 1: gonna be one news that feeds feeds both of those

738
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 1: both of those entities. This is a growing trend and

739
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: it's something I'm concerned about. I mean, what do you

740
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: hear on this front? I mean, it clearly is a

741
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: way to reduce resources for local. That's the concern. Our

742
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:57,760
Speaker 1: growth is through local.

743
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 2: I think I mean that collectively shock It mean that

744
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 2: for everybody in the news space, everybody in Washington, and

745
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 2: everybody in broadcasting, the growth is from local. That's where

746
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 2: people have the most emotive, visceral connection with the personalities,

747
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 2: with the talent. And one of the reasons I want

748
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 2: to be on television in Chicago in their four o'clock

749
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 2: news is because that's a different audience than it's watching

750
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,359
Speaker 2: us at five thirty and six thirty, and they may

751
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 2: have an even closer relationship with the people they see

752
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 2: on the local I'll tell you this, there's so many

753
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: opportunities being missed. When you have a duopoly, you have

754
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 2: even more opportunities missed. How come nobody sees the upside

755
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,879
Speaker 2: in sending out bodies to every high school athletic event

756
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 2: in the region because the audience will find you. The

757
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 2: audience will find what you're offering because they want to

758
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 2: see how their kids and their neighbors did well. And

759
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:47,840
Speaker 2: here's let me be totally commercial.

760
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: About this. Who are the parents of youth sports? Now?

761
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: They're all millennials. Okay, this is the largest you know,

762
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: look as much as is you know, I feel totally

763
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,439
Speaker 1: overlooked as a member of gen Okay, it just is right.

764
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 1: Boomers just didn't have as many kids, and that's why

765
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 1: gen X is this small generation or Boomers waited to

766
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: have kids and had Millennials right, they didn't even have

767
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: kids in time to have gen X. So we are

768
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: going advertiser demo from literally the boomers to the millennials,

769
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: and Gen X and Gen Z are not going to

770
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: be targeted. Sort of. Gen X has seen as sort

771
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: of half behave like boomers and half behave like millennials,

772
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: so you might as well just target those two groups'

773
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: and you'll pick off gen X. But the millennial parents

774
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: are all in their late thirties early forties, and you

775
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,720
Speaker 1: and I understand this business. It's the number one age

776
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: demographic advertisers are looking for because that's peak spending time.

777
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:47,400
Speaker 1: You spend money when your kids are under eighteen, you

778
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,879
Speaker 1: spend dumb money. Trust me, it's a parent of now

779
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: two kids over eighteen. I can't believe how much money

780
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: I've saved over the last couple of years.

781
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 2: I'm in the throes of that right now, and I

782
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 2: think it requires a bit of imagination about what is content. Obviously,

783
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 2: we know what news content is and it can be

784
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 2: better localized. We know what sports content is is we

785
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 2: used to see more of it. We should see more

786
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:11,839
Speaker 2: of it in the future. But here's an opportunity sitting

787
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 2: on the table.

788
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: Nobody's picked up.

789
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 2: You know what there's been incredible growth is in quiz bowls,

790
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 2: academic competition's school against school. No longer are they broadcast chuck.

791
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 2: Everybody's gotten out of that business because they couldn't figure

792
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 2: out the economics of it. But participation is soaring. If

793
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 2: some local organizations corral that, everybody in town will not

794
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 2: just watch it, they'll watch it live sure, like a

795
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 2: NFL game, you got to see it in real time

796
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: because you can't shift time watching that. And these opportunities

797
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 2: are sitting out there for somebody to pick up and say,

798
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 2: here's a way to get an audience. You know who

799
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 2: it is, you know the size of it, and you

800
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 2: know where they live. Advertisers dream, and.

801
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,359
Speaker 1: That's my whole point of like, how do we depolarize

802
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: the information space, Go acquire other audiences. Don't try to

803
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:04,879
Speaker 1: make an audience. Consume the stuff you're already giving. Go

804
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: find say to yourself, I want to get this audience.

805
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,399
Speaker 1: What kind of content do they want? Right? Like, you've

806
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: got to sort of flip the question. All right, enough

807
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,760
Speaker 1: about us lecturing our bosses on how to do this better.

808
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: Let's start. I want to start with Butler. We're just

809
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: over a year out. You were there, you know. I

810
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: think it's interesting to me that the coverage a year later, Frankly,

811
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: the entire Washington reaction to this assassination attempt, I feel

812
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: like has been kind of muted. Right when you think

813
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: about think about how loud Epstein is right, and think

814
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: about how muted Butler still is in comparison, what's your

815
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: explanation for that? What's you know? And do you think

816
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: there's been enough investigative bodies on this incident?

817
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,240
Speaker 2: Butler in January sixth have a lot of connective tissues.

818
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 2: One of the things that connects them is that I

819
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 2: don't I can't believe there wasn't more of an army

820
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 2: thrown at each of them in terms of journalism. And

821
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 2: we can get into January six.

822
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: Journalism and investigators. I mean I would argue both.

823
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, January sixth, this is going to shock people

824
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 2: the most underreported, proportionately event of our lifetimes. We'll put

825
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 2: that aside for a minute. Butler, because it so immediately

826
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 2: became a triumphant political moment for Donald Trump, I think

827
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 2: that squelched some of the interest amongst some Americans in

828
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 2: hearing more about it. The fact that we don't know

829
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 2: the motive of the shooting. How polarized we are by

830
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 2: the way exactly we don't know that the motive of

831
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 2: the shooter makes it an uninteresting narrative Because we don't

832
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 2: get to find out the why, and we won't fight

833
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 2: out the why. The story book's less interesting to read.

834
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 2: And because the Secret Service was found to have committed failures,

835
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 2: there hasn't been an effort by either administration to take

836
00:47:55,200 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 2: a megaphone and scream about it. So it happened a

837
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 2: year later. We had to remind.

838
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: Ourselves that there was an investigation. We just found out

839
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: there was disciplinary activity against some of the employees.

840
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 2: Didn't even know that. It's amazing to me how little

841
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 2: bandwidth it was given.

842
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: You know, there's a whole bunch of questions I have. Look,

843
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: I've been at plenty of presidential events. I had a

844
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: feeling I knew sort of what went wrong, that it

845
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: was going to be the local it was going to

846
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: be Secret services. Bandwidth is only it's only so much bandwidth,

847
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: particularly in a campaign here, when you were stretched with

848
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: multiple candidates on the ticket. You've got spouses that you're

849
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: now having to have Secret Service, so the Secret Service

850
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: has spread thin. Yet I feel like I've not seen reporting.

851
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: Let me start there, how much if put it this way,

852
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: if this hadn't been a campaign here, if it just

853
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: had been a Donald Trump event, how many more Secret

854
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 1: Service of personnel would have been on the ground had

855
00:48:56,080 --> 00:49:01,400
Speaker 1: there not been Essentially let me Thinkjoe Biden, Joe Biden,

856
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: Milania Trump, jd Vance, Usha Vance, Tim Wallas, Kamala Harris,

857
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: Like I've named everybody that likely was having active Secret

858
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:13,839
Speaker 1: Service protection at that time, perhaps not Wallas. W Yeah

859
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: in faarness, so let me but we know Kamala did.

860
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: Let me start there, was this a personnel issue that

861
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: had just been President Donald Trump, there would have been

862
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 1: more resources and locals wouldn't have even been involved that

863
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: closely to the perimeter.

864
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:31,920
Speaker 2: That's part of the argument that they didn't have the

865
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 2: resources of the manpower they could have had. There's been

866
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,760
Speaker 2: an argument made that more was requested than Secret Service

867
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 2: directors kicked back at that. The counter snipers were an

868
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 2: addition it that event. That was the first event with

869
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 2: the counter snipers, because if you recall think back to

870
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 2: July twenty twenty four, at all that happened that month,

871
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 2: there was an Iranian threat detected against Trump a day before, which,

872
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 2: to me, I.

873
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 1: Just but okay, that's all the more reason to have

874
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: doubled the amount of personnel at this event. I mean,

875
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: I hear the snipers, and it turned out we think,

876
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: although I think there's still not confirmation it's a sniper

877
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 1: that that essentially saved Trump's life, because that's a sniper Ghano.

878
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 2: A Secret Service sniper, no less, Yeah, not one of

879
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 2: the local snipers on the ground that day. I tell you,

880
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:21,840
Speaker 2: it felt off, And it didn't feel off necessarily because.

881
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: Sure, that's not going how much how much have you

882
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 1: tried to non confirmation bias yourself on that? I totally

883
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: get it, But it's like, now you know what I mean,

884
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: Like you hear that and you're like Okay, how do

885
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 1: you how did how did you?

886
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 2: How did you know? You had that feeling? Didn't feel unsafe,

887
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 2: So let me be clear about that. I didn't feel

888
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 2: like we're in danger. It was unsettling because it was

889
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 2: one of those July days where it was a grotesque community.

890
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 2: It was hot as hell, there was no shade, and

891
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,280
Speaker 2: people were dropping like flies, and the medics were running

892
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,839
Speaker 2: around there all day because people get out there the

893
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 2: morning for a six pm event. We know that heat

894
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 2: stroke and so watching people rop left and right was unsettling.

895
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 2: Having nowhere to hide yourself, by the way, and having

896
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:07,800
Speaker 2: to go on television, you're running around, you're trying to

897
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 2: get through the day, you're hydrating. It's just you weren't

898
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 2: yourself that day, got it. Nobody did not feel unsafe,

899
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 2: and I want to make sure that's clear. Nobody's out

900
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 2: there going. I wonder if we're going to get you know, injured, assaulted,

901
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 2: or shot today That said this is customary, but also

902
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 2: we were getting our heckling. I mean, you know, this

903
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 2: day became almost standard where you were probably numb to

904
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,760
Speaker 2: it by that right much so you're you're you're spending

905
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 2: six hours of people you know, screaming at you, you know,

906
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 2: something akin to threats at some point. So it was

907
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,760
Speaker 2: an unsettling day, and that's my most profound memories. Everything

908
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: felt off from the the way you normally conduct business

909
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 2: if you're at a nice, air conditioned arena all day

910
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 2: waiting for Trump to do his staying, his call and response.

911
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 2: It was different. But nobody felt that they were in danger.

912
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: So do we look at this as just a Secret

913
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,280
Speaker 1: Service failure or you're just not going to stop anybody

914
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: who's willing to put themselves in harm's way to try

915
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: to go after a principle like this. Oh, I mean

916
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: the Secret Service acknowledged failures and they discipline people.

917
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,840
Speaker 2: They didn't fire anybody, which frustrates some members of the Senate.

918
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 2: That's not my most lasting impression of it. For those

919
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 2: of us who were there. It wasn't an immediate or

920
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 2: even a long term reflection on Secret Service. For those

921
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 2: of us there, it was such a horror because you

922
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 2: saw an emerging America and it wasn't the shooting, Chuck,

923
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:48,240
Speaker 2: this was I got diagnosed with PTSD within forty eight hours.

924
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 2: I have put on trauma leave, not because I think

925
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 2: of the shooting, but because you could. You saw it

926
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 2: in the eyes, the reaction to the people. They were

927
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,760
Speaker 2: coming for us. If he didn't jump up with his fist,

928
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 2: they were going to come. I know.

929
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. So, I was on a plane to

930
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: Milwaukee convention, to the convention. We happened. I was on

931
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: a plane that was might as well have been a

932
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: press charter. Okay, Like there was a whole bunch of

933
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 1: you know, mildly bold faced names if you want to

934
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 1: count me among those, and Jake Tapper people like that,

935
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: and the plane's Wi Fi didn't work, okay, So Kelly

936
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: and Conway was on this flight, by the way. I mean,

937
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: it was just sort of like it was just this

938
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 1: mix of everybody that you would expect heading to a

939
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: Milwaukee on a Saturday. And we touched down and everybody's

940
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: phones come on, and you just everybody starts looking at

941
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: each other, not saying a word, for total fear of

942
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: just anything being misconstrued, not anything, And there was look,

943
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: I share your concern, just a little thing. I was

944
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 1: literally the first thing I was going to do after

945
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: landing on Saturday was go to the NATS Brewers Gang.

946
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: And I said I'm not going. I'm not going to

947
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 1: be seen. I'm not I'm not doing that. This is

948
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: not the moment for this. And I think we none

949
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: of us knew what the reaction of that Milwaukee crowd

950
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 1: was going to be to this. Right. It turned into euphoria. Right,

951
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: it turned into this messiah uh sort of messiah uh

952
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: of feeling. I think that you know that this was

953
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 1: divine intervention, and the convention turned into this sort of

954
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:28,439
Speaker 1: almost out of body experience, like that convention had sort

955
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:32,360
Speaker 1: of to me ended up not really feeling like it

956
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,359
Speaker 1: met the moment. I think Trump himself was still traumatized

957
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 1: by the event. You could feel that throughout the week.

958
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: But I share that that's Saturday, and what you just

959
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: described being on the ground was my first thing I

960
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: thought of was my team down there? I think it

961
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:52,359
Speaker 1: was von Hilliard if I'm not mistaken, and Dashah Burns. Right.

962
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:56,879
Speaker 1: And and look, let's be honest, we've been fearing this

963
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: for about a decade, that all this heightened rhetoric that

964
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: what all this crap online what happened on January sixth,

965
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: Those of us that experienced that as well, you're like,

966
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: we're a tinderbox, right, you know what, there's a fear

967
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 1: that this moment is coming. And it's interesting that you

968
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: don't the fact that we dodged that. You know, you're right,

969
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it is, it is. I don't know

970
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: what would have happened had had the outcome been different.

971
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 2: We are all, many of us on press row as

972
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 2: we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after.

973
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,879
Speaker 2: We're quite confident we'd be dead if he didn't get

974
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 2: back up. There was a subset, not everybody. There's dozens

975
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 2: of people in the crowd who started comforting us, saying,

976
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 2: you did this, this is your fault, you caused this,

977
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 2: You killed him, and they're going to beat us with

978
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 2: their hands. I mean they were gonna they were going

979
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 2: to kill us. And respectfully, this secret Service had bigger

980
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 2: issues in protecting us. We when he jumped up triumphantly,

981
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: it's saved us. But that's the thing I can't eliminate

982
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 2: from my mind's eye, the look in their faces. That's

983
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 2: what America is right now. It's not rational. It's an

984
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:14,759
Speaker 2: irrational thought to think the media shot somebody from from

985
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 2: a top of building. But the lack of rationalities what

986
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 2: connects January sixth to this. It's how do we pull

987
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 2: out of this as a country is the defining question

988
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 2: of our time, and it's my north star for my

989
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 2: reporting is the lack of stability. That the destabilization, the

990
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 2: political violence, and the toxicity is defining us right now,

991
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,319
Speaker 2: and it should underscore all of our.

992
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 1: Report Your reporting has become an obsession for my wife

993
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:58,760
Speaker 1: on January sixth, in that she got really into wanting

994
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: to learn everything she could about everybody that did this right,

995
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 1: and you were trying to do You did among You

996
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 1: weren't alone, but you were among the leaders in reporting

997
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: not just about what was taking place on the January sixth,

998
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: but who these people were. Right. Trying to understand it

999
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 1: was more of almost like thinking of it as anthropology, right.

1000
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,640
Speaker 1: I always say that ultimately, I consider myself a political

1001
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: anthropologist these days, right, trying to understand the various tribes

1002
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 1: of the American electorate and trying and the amount of

1003
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,800
Speaker 1: people who admitted after the fact they don't know what

1004
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: got into them. They don't know, and I believe them.

1005
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: I don't think. Look, do I think some were just

1006
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 1: given a story to try to get lighter punishment. There's

1007
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: always some of that, But the real estate agents, right,

1008
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: the folks that were fairly well off people who decided

1009
00:57:55,480 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: to participate and then realized what were they thinking? They

1010
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: fascinate me the most and they worry me the most

1011
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: because it shows you how easy it is that neighbor

1012
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 1: next door that you have no issue with might get

1013
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: set off quicker than your thought. Right, And am I

1014
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: susceptible to this? Right? Are we all succepted? You know

1015
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: it is? And that is That's what I took away

1016
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 1: from January sixth. But man, you have you I feel

1017
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 1: like you know it so intimately. You know so many

1018
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:32,440
Speaker 1: of the individuals intimately. How would you describe the different

1019
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 1: sort of groups of people that participated in the January

1020
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: sixth insurrection?

1021
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 2: The rioters were all or overwhelmingly all Trump supporters, but

1022
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 2: they are a remarkably diverse group of people, and you've

1023
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 2: laid out some of the differences quite well. Like the

1024
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:51,880
Speaker 2: problem people who try to characterize January sixth, who don't

1025
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:54,160
Speaker 2: know it well, who didn't study it, is they paint

1026
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 2: everybody with one big broad brush as a monolith.

1027
00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: It's not that That's why a lot of.

1028
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 2: People who who tracked these cases, who were prosecuting these cases,

1029
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 2: who are defending these cases are shocked that everybody was pardoned,

1030
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 2: because again, it can't paint them all with one brush.

1031
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 2: There were people there who didn't know they were violating

1032
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:15,160
Speaker 2: the law. And we know that's true because at least

1033
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:18,400
Speaker 2: one man from New Mexico was acquitted on all charges

1034
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 2: because the judge at his trial determined that he didn't

1035
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 2: realize he was on restricted grounds because he was so

1036
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 2: far back in the pack and some police were not

1037
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 2: demonstratively trying to wave him away. So he was determined

1038
00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 2: under the law to have been not guilty because he

1039
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 2: didn't know he was breaking the law. So we got

1040
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 2: some people didn't know it, as adjudicated by the course.

1041
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: By the way, I didn't know that used to we're

1042
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: always told that ignorance of the law is no defense.

1043
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 2: Well, prosecutor made a very similar argument in his closing,

1044
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 2: but it didn't seem to work. No, two people out

1045
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,280
Speaker 2: of the sixteen hundred or so two people were acquitted,

1046
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 2: both by judges not by juries. They didn't go for

1047
00:59:56,120 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 2: a jury trial. Every other person was convicted at trial

1048
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 2: one hundred percent jury tril conviction rate, which is distinctive.

1049
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 1: Boy, that's a big deal. This is the you know,

1050
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:10,280
Speaker 1: jury trials, And I guess some people are going to say,

1051
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 1: how many of them are DC? All of them DC?

1052
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: Every single one was in DC. Right, that's going to

1053
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: be the pushback on the right, Right, Well, it was

1054
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: DC jury trial. Man, it's twelve people, you know, I mean,

1055
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:25,480
Speaker 1: I just when you can get a unanimous verdict, I

1056
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 1: don't care where you are. That's a big deal. Is

1057
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's it's what our system of it's

1058
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: what our rule of law has always been built on.

1059
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 1: That this is as solid of a way to determine

1060
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 1: guilt or innocence as we can come up with in

1061
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: the human species.

1062
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 2: Anybody who's done jury duty recognizes how hard it is

1063
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 2: to even get twelve people to have a communication strategy

1064
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 2: for deliberations, to get them to agree the sky is blues,

1065
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 2: but agree on a foreman right, Like, that's always an

1066
01:00:52,680 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 2: huge or formid getting ahead of myself. You put your

1067
01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:59,400
Speaker 2: finger on the pulse of the defining issue here the

1068
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:02,760
Speaker 2: oh there all from DC. All those juries are liberal,

1069
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 2: All those juries are anti Trump. That's what so many

1070
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 2: people have argued from day one until now. And there's

1071
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:14,760
Speaker 2: your broadery issue. We have blue state juries in red

1072
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 2: state juries. Do we have blue state judges in red

1073
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 2: state judges? Do we have blue states?

1074
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: Guess what I do think the electorate believes we have

1075
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: that the judiciary branch no longer the judges no longer

1076
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 1: wear black robes, that they are blue robes and red robes.

1077
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:33,680
Speaker 1: And you know, Stephen Bryer has criticized us in the press.

1078
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: He thinks it's wrong for us to always point out

1079
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 1: who appointed a judge? Right, he thinks that our coverage

1080
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: of it and it's and I'm I am, I am

1081
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 1: empathetic of the argument, but I'm not but it's not

1082
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 1: strong enough for me to I believe in giving the

1083
01:01:48,840 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: reader viewer listener. However, you want to view them more information,

1084
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 1: not less, Okay, you know, And so I do think

1085
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: it's important. I want to know who appointed judge acts

1086
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 1: or judge. Why that matters to me? Now, maybe I'm

1087
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: always thinking with a political mind, but I actually look

1088
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 1: at it more of an ideological like how are they

1089
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: who to appointed? Then tells me how they probably are

1090
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 1: looking at the Constitution, which to me is slightly a

1091
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,400
Speaker 1: slightly different reason than red and blue. But the fact is,

1092
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,000
Speaker 1: because of what the US Senate has done and look,

1093
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 1: I think the US Senate is who you know, you

1094
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: don't have to concur with this. Yeah, but I think

1095
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 1: they broke the judiciary right when when you know, when

1096
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 1: when the filibusters got eliminated for all this and it

1097
01:02:27,760 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: became fifty plus one. I remember speaking with somebody who

1098
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:33,560
Speaker 1: was in the White House Council's office during Bush forty

1099
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:36,840
Speaker 1: three and said, had it been fifty votes instead of

1100
01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:40,840
Speaker 1: sixty votes, they'd have nominated an entirely different group of judges,

1101
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 1: an entirely different group. And we now have to go that.

1102
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,200
Speaker 1: You know, to god, judges are much more liberal than

1103
01:02:46,240 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: Obama's judges.

1104
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 2: They're not if you just go you don't even go

1105
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 2: that far back though, if you look at I was

1106
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 2: at the confirmation hearings like you probably were of Sonya

1107
01:02:54,440 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 2: Soda my R, and you know who was howling her

1108
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 2: in support of her was Lindsay Graham saying, you know, well,

1109
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 2: elections have consequences. I believe the president can choose his

1110
01:03:04,400 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 2: or her own judges. Even that's gone by the wayside,

1111
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:10,240
Speaker 2: and that's not a it's a pretty finite period of time. Yeah,

1112
01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 2: it is the distinctive thing about January sixth, Court cases,

1113
01:03:16,200 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 2: and we discovered this early is that uh oh, even

1114
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:21,520
Speaker 2: the misdemeanor small ones are interesting.

1115
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:23,560
Speaker 1: We're going to have to watch every.

1116
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 2: Single one of these cases because they smaller cases, the

1117
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 2: ones where they didn't beat cops but they didn't seditiously conspire,

1118
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 2: still had remarkably powerful human stories, but also very telling

1119
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 2: where we're going as a country. There's one apologetic January

1120
01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:40,880
Speaker 2: sixth defended, who says what she did was wrong. She's

1121
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 2: the only one, if.

1122
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:43,480
Speaker 1: You gom, who refused the pardon.

1123
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 2: That's the woman who refused used the pardon. Everybody else

1124
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,160
Speaker 2: is unapologetic, and Chuck, that was the nature of the

1125
01:03:49,160 --> 01:03:52,320
Speaker 2: court cases. Nobody got up there and asking for mercy

1126
01:03:52,360 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 2: at sentencing said a bad thing about Donald Trump. Nobody

1127
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:57,760
Speaker 2: went up there and said, you know what, this selection

1128
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 2: was legitimate. I don't know what I was thinking. Many

1129
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,080
Speaker 2: of them went up there and dug in saying it

1130
01:04:03,120 --> 01:04:05,480
Speaker 2: was a rigged election. I'll take the punishment you give me.

1131
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's coming back. He's going to pardon me. This

1132
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 2: was predicted by the defendants. So either they are great

1133
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,360
Speaker 2: at seeing where the political road is heading, or they're

1134
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 2: just so unapologetic they speak to what America is like

1135
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:20,840
Speaker 2: at this moment. And I've made the argument internally here

1136
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 2: that January sixth has not ended. It's manifested itself into

1137
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:30,240
Speaker 2: different issues. It take on different complexions, but the same irrationality,

1138
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:34,280
Speaker 2: the same tendency towards political violence, the same threatening environment

1139
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 2: is here.

1140
01:04:36,920 --> 01:04:42,600
Speaker 1: Congress was eighty five percent unified between January seventh, twenty

1141
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 1: twenty one, and I would argue March first, twenty twenty one,

1142
01:04:46,880 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 1: right about January sixth, Okay, let's give it. But basically

1143
01:04:49,960 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 1: for the first six to eight week period, there was

1144
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: a collective sense of woe. This went too far. We've

1145
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: got to pull back, We've got to and then it disintegrated.

1146
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 1: Right now, you tell me, But I sense that there

1147
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:12,800
Speaker 1: are probably less than twenty elected Republicans who would today

1148
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 1: feel comfortable condemning January sixth in the US Congress. Less

1149
01:05:17,160 --> 01:05:17,400
Speaker 1: than that.

1150
01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 2: I shared this story with a couple of colleagues at

1151
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 2: a workshop and they asked me the four years these

1152
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:26,080
Speaker 2: cases were alive, these four years, what was the most

1153
01:05:26,120 --> 01:05:29,520
Speaker 2: distinctive day to you? And I actually said, January six,

1154
01:05:29,680 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, is the most memorable and distinctive day

1155
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 2: of the entire enterprise, because in January sixth, twenty twenty five,

1156
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:40,040
Speaker 2: so your four year mark of the tragedy was the

1157
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:45,320
Speaker 2: first year zero Republicans made a statement noting the day.

1158
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:49,800
Speaker 2: Nobody said issued a public statement or said a word.

1159
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 2: No vigil, no honoring of the police officers who died

1160
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 2: by suicide, no honor of it, all the people injured

1161
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 2: that day, and of all complexions. And then that day

1162
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:02,600
Speaker 2: it became clear that we are not to talk about

1163
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:07,720
Speaker 2: January sixth anymore in this capital as administrators of the

1164
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:10,840
Speaker 2: House and administrators of the Senate. Surro gets to the

1165
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 2: President's supporters of the president run the capital right now,

1166
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:15,520
Speaker 2: and if we don't talk about it anymore, maybe it

1167
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 2: goes away. And that may or may not be an

1168
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 2: effective strategy. But there were zero Republicans who issued public statements.

1169
01:06:22,760 --> 01:06:25,440
Speaker 2: And then the time since Chuck, I've heard one Republican

1170
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:29,920
Speaker 2: one mentioned the January sixth victims, the police who were beaten.

1171
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 2: That was Tom Tillis, who's going to be out of

1172
01:06:32,400 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 2: a job in eighteen months.

1173
01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to.

1174
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 2: Make a political statement here, but it stood out to

1175
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:39,280
Speaker 2: me as on twenty twenty four and twenty twenty three,

1176
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:42,680
Speaker 2: there were some who mentioned the day who honored the victims.

1177
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 1: Now that's down to zero.

1178
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:49,800
Speaker 2: And what's becoming clear to me now is that obviously

1179
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 2: this has become a political issue, and it's around political

1180
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 2: peg in a square hole. It doesn't really fit. This

1181
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:57,080
Speaker 2: is not it shouldn't be political.

1182
01:06:57,320 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 1: And when you make it a political issue, you damaged

1183
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 1: the peg, damaged the board, and we're feeling the damage

1184
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 1: of that. Look, the biggest concern is that his decision

1185
01:07:15,640 --> 01:07:19,320
Speaker 1: to do to do the broad pardon for everybody is

1186
01:07:19,480 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: essentially condoning violence. I don't know how you look at

1187
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:28,600
Speaker 1: it any other way. That. Look, if you break the

1188
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:33,280
Speaker 1: law in service of a political outcome, that's okay. I

1189
01:07:33,320 --> 01:07:37,919
Speaker 1: mean that's a revolutionary way of thinking. And I mean

1190
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:41,800
Speaker 1: that in the most literal sense of the term revolutionary.

1191
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 1: That is not a small d democratic way of thinking.

1192
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:50,960
Speaker 1: Six hundred of the fifteen hundred plus defendants six hundred

1193
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:54,480
Speaker 1: of the nearly sixteen hundred were charged with beating police officers,

1194
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 1: assaulting them, and not just with their hands, far spray clubs, bats,

1195
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 1: hockey sticks, knives, brass knuckles, a stun gun, large pieces

1196
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:12,760
Speaker 1: of furniture equipment, boardst insects, spray w forty these these

1197
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:15,760
Speaker 1: assaults were in many cases acknowledged. People pled guilty or

1198
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:17,960
Speaker 1: were convicted, and some of them were convicted in less

1199
01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:22,559
Speaker 1: than two hours, including the lunch break. So again, if

1200
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,320
Speaker 1: you think about the diversity in the group of defendants,

1201
01:08:25,320 --> 01:08:27,840
Speaker 1: you need a better sense of what those pardons meant

1202
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 1: and what those cases are.

1203
01:08:29,320 --> 01:08:32,559
Speaker 2: There were grandmas. There were a few grandmas who didn't

1204
01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:36,880
Speaker 2: touch anything, steal anything, or were sentenced to sit to

1205
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 2: jail or probation. But there are also a lot of

1206
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:43,040
Speaker 2: guys and women who beat cops on camera and toutered

1207
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:46,320
Speaker 2: it and still to this day have been unrepented. They

1208
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 2: were pardoned in the same broad brush, and I think

1209
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 2: that's been unsettling to some of the victims' families.

1210
01:08:53,040 --> 01:08:59,160
Speaker 1: So you report on the Justice Department, Is there anybody

1211
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:02,839
Speaker 1: left in January sixth prosecutions or have they all been fired?

1212
01:09:03,560 --> 01:09:07,280
Speaker 2: They've steadily been fired. I don't think everybody has been

1213
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:12,479
Speaker 2: fired yet. But Trump administration in the second term began

1214
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 2: with a wave of firings of probationary prosecutors, those who

1215
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 2: are easily removable, who had fingerprints on January six cases.

1216
01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:24,000
Speaker 2: It continued over the first half year, and then another

1217
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 2: wave of them to start July where they fired more

1218
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:32,640
Speaker 2: prosecutors who actually handled January six cases. And I think

1219
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 2: what was really the most striking was the firing of

1220
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:38,800
Speaker 2: the public affairs specialist for the US Attorney who just

1221
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 2: put out the press releases about January six and help

1222
01:09:41,320 --> 01:09:43,800
Speaker 2: run the website that they've taken down. She was a

1223
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:46,519
Speaker 2: civil servant, non political, worked with both parties, and she

1224
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 2: wasn't a prosecutor or an FBI agent. She didn't choose

1225
01:09:49,080 --> 01:09:49,599
Speaker 2: the cases.

1226
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: She issued her boss's press releases.

1227
01:09:51,840 --> 01:09:55,920
Speaker 2: She's been fired. And some of this is unsettling to

1228
01:09:56,000 --> 01:09:59,000
Speaker 2: those who survived the attack, and those were How about

1229
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 2: the people who testify at the trials, because they didn't

1230
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:04,839
Speaker 2: testify with zero risk. If you testified against the January

1231
01:10:04,840 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 2: sixth defendant, you were going to get harassed, You're going

1232
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 2: to get threatened. You put your life on.

1233
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:10,439
Speaker 1: So who are the people that testified where I assume

1234
01:10:10,479 --> 01:10:12,439
Speaker 1: people that pled who else? Right? I mean?

1235
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:16,519
Speaker 2: Who were the Some people flipped. Absolutely, they flipped on

1236
01:10:17,400 --> 01:10:19,800
Speaker 2: the high level cases too, chuck the the not the

1237
01:10:19,800 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 2: mystic mean, it's they they flipped on the seditious conspiracy defendants.

1238
01:10:24,640 --> 01:10:28,040
Speaker 2: The police officers who testified, you know, have been getting

1239
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:30,719
Speaker 2: threats ever since, continue to get threats to this day,

1240
01:10:31,160 --> 01:10:33,280
Speaker 2: and they put some of their equity on the line

1241
01:10:33,479 --> 01:10:36,960
Speaker 2: personally to speak at these trials, and they watched the

1242
01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:40,000
Speaker 2: partners come down. I was not surprised. It was a

1243
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:42,559
Speaker 2: blanket pardon and chuck. One thing that stood out to

1244
01:10:42,560 --> 01:10:45,439
Speaker 2: me is a few weeks before the administration came in,

1245
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 2: one of the members of the House January sixth Select

1246
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:50,519
Speaker 2: Committee asked me if I had any instincts on how

1247
01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:52,720
Speaker 2: many partners it be, and I said, I'm pretty sure

1248
01:10:52,760 --> 01:10:54,559
Speaker 2: it's going to be everybody, because I don't know where

1249
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:56,680
Speaker 2: he draws the line here. Where are you going to

1250
01:10:56,840 --> 01:10:59,160
Speaker 2: cut off people like who's the who's the last man out?

1251
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 2: Was you don't have a feel of sixty four here.

1252
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:03,360
Speaker 2: I mean it's going to be everybody or it's going

1253
01:11:03,400 --> 01:11:06,240
Speaker 2: to be nobody because he can't draw line. And the

1254
01:11:06,280 --> 01:11:10,080
Speaker 2: committee member was surprised. He goes, really, now you are

1255
01:11:10,120 --> 01:11:11,880
Speaker 2: on the January sixth Committee, I think you have a

1256
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,320
Speaker 2: better understanding than most of how this goes. But he's

1257
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:16,000
Speaker 2: not going to cut this off somewhere.

1258
01:11:16,200 --> 01:11:20,479
Speaker 1: I was not surprised. Is there anything in looking back,

1259
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:23,599
Speaker 1: it could that the You know, look, I always blame

1260
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:27,360
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell for the January sixth Committee issue more than

1261
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:32,439
Speaker 1: I blame Kevin McCarthy. Like, had McConnell agreed to the

1262
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:37,680
Speaker 1: to the dual mandate, I think McCarthy goes along. I

1263
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 1: think we have it, and I think we have this.

1264
01:11:40,320 --> 01:11:46,080
Speaker 1: A more responsible bipartisan panel probably isn't as aggressive, but

1265
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:50,320
Speaker 1: it's probably at least a consensus of, hey, that was bad,

1266
01:11:50,960 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: and there would have been a sense of a bipartisan

1267
01:11:52,960 --> 01:11:56,360
Speaker 1: consensus that that was bad. Now Adam Kenzinger and Liz

1268
01:11:56,439 --> 01:11:59,120
Speaker 1: Cheney or thought of as Democrats, right, just because that's

1269
01:11:59,160 --> 01:12:01,840
Speaker 1: the way that I believes. If you're not with me,

1270
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:03,960
Speaker 1: you're a Democrat, right, whether you're a member of the press,

1271
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:07,000
Speaker 1: whether whatever it is, right, you're automatically on the left.

1272
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:11,880
Speaker 1: And yet I look at the investigative portion, and it

1273
01:12:11,920 --> 01:12:14,200
Speaker 1: does feel as if the January sixth Committee, as it

1274
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:22,960
Speaker 1: as it actually was put together, finally kicked the Justice

1275
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 1: Department in the rear to get them to do some

1276
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:28,160
Speaker 1: better investigating. I mean, I still believe part of the

1277
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:33,640
Speaker 1: problem of January sixth, the post January sixth issue, is

1278
01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:40,680
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland's slow role on the prosecutions and on the investigation.

1279
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:45,040
Speaker 2: The Department of Justice did a ground up of investigation

1280
01:12:45,080 --> 01:12:47,400
Speaker 2: of January sixth, which is traditional for many types of

1281
01:12:47,400 --> 01:12:49,600
Speaker 2: criminal investigations. You start at bottom and you try to

1282
01:12:49,600 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 2: work the way up. That takes time. I remember asking

1283
01:12:53,240 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 2: Adam Schiff midway through the January sixth Select Committee if

1284
01:12:56,840 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 2: they had plans on sharing what they'd found with the

1285
01:12:58,960 --> 01:13:03,000
Speaker 2: Department of Justice. Remember Congressman shift now Senatorship looked at me,

1286
01:13:03,080 --> 01:13:06,200
Speaker 2: paused a moment and said, why would they need our help?

1287
01:13:07,240 --> 01:13:10,920
Speaker 2: They should be ahead of us on this. And it

1288
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:12,720
Speaker 2: just spoke to a little bit of a either a

1289
01:13:12,760 --> 01:13:17,679
Speaker 2: frustration or a surprise that they would need the help

1290
01:13:17,760 --> 01:13:21,200
Speaker 2: of the January sixth Committee. But those primetime televised hearings

1291
01:13:23,080 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 2: certainly raised public awareness those who weren't following January six closely.

1292
01:13:27,120 --> 01:13:30,559
Speaker 2: Maybe it raised the awareness of some federal investigators. But yeah,

1293
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:33,599
Speaker 2: we heard the criticism that the Department of Justice wasn't

1294
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:36,840
Speaker 2: moving swiftly enough. And he saw the clock run out

1295
01:13:37,280 --> 01:13:39,320
Speaker 2: pretty fast at the end of twenty twenty four.

1296
01:13:39,920 --> 01:13:43,599
Speaker 1: No, and I you know, look, I don't you sit there.

1297
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:48,599
Speaker 1: There's so many forks in the road on handling January sixth, Right,

1298
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:52,000
Speaker 1: there's they should the impeachment have happened sooner, right, you

1299
01:13:52,040 --> 01:13:56,479
Speaker 1: know if Nancy Pelosis, you know, Mitch McConnell, I'm still

1300
01:13:56,520 --> 01:13:58,120
Speaker 1: convinced of this day, was always going to look for

1301
01:13:58,160 --> 01:14:00,919
Speaker 1: a way not to do it because he was fearful

1302
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:05,040
Speaker 1: of creating a divide in his party. I think he thought,

1303
01:14:06,160 --> 01:14:08,960
Speaker 1: and frankly, he wasn't alone in this that well, the

1304
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:12,120
Speaker 1: public's never going to forgive Trump for this. He'll be ostracized.

1305
01:14:12,160 --> 01:14:15,160
Speaker 1: We don't need to pile on and I and I

1306
01:14:15,160 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: do believe you truly thought that. Like I don't think

1307
01:14:17,200 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 1: this was a wishful thinking. I think he really thought that.

1308
01:14:20,720 --> 01:14:24,080
Speaker 1: And I think, look, I am surprised at how easily

1309
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:27,280
Speaker 1: the party came back around to Trump. That's what I

1310
01:14:27,320 --> 01:14:27,960
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you.

1311
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:30,240
Speaker 2: I wanted your thoughts on this because it's those who

1312
01:14:30,360 --> 01:14:33,000
Speaker 2: voted to convict in the House and the Senate. It

1313
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:36,320
Speaker 2: was a common coze mission politically in retrospect, and you know,

1314
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:39,880
Speaker 2: the ten House members who voted to convict, only two

1315
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:41,840
Speaker 2: are left Congressman New.

1316
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:44,120
Speaker 1: House of Washington, and the only reason they're left and

1317
01:14:44,160 --> 01:14:46,280
Speaker 1: the only reason they're left is because they have unique

1318
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:49,000
Speaker 1: voting systems that make it hard to directly primary them.

1319
01:14:49,240 --> 01:14:51,200
Speaker 1: The only reason they're left, that's right and.

1320
01:14:51,720 --> 01:14:54,600
Speaker 2: Absolutely in the Senate, you know who's still remaining of

1321
01:14:54,640 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 2: the convictors, right, Cassidy, cols At Collins and Rakowski and

1322
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 2: built Now what an uphill climb he may face in

1323
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:02,440
Speaker 2: his primary.

1324
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:04,280
Speaker 1: Everybody else is gone.

1325
01:15:05,080 --> 01:15:08,240
Speaker 2: Would you think they'd all have had the same impact

1326
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:12,559
Speaker 2: if they had voted to convict, and successfully would if

1327
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:15,559
Speaker 2: they got the two thirds in the Senate, Well, McConnell thought,

1328
01:15:15,640 --> 01:15:16,200
Speaker 2: one at a time.

1329
01:15:16,680 --> 01:15:20,120
Speaker 1: McConnell no, because McConnell, you know, here's the irony it

1330
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:23,920
Speaker 1: had McConnell known that Dobbs was going to overturn Row,

1331
01:15:24,160 --> 01:15:26,599
Speaker 1: which lots of us did think that that was going

1332
01:15:26,680 --> 01:15:30,559
Speaker 1: to happen, but he actually could have written off the

1333
01:15:30,560 --> 01:15:34,360
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two midterms. And you know, look, there's no

1334
01:15:34,400 --> 01:15:37,280
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind. Has he votes to convict, Rob

1335
01:15:37,320 --> 01:15:40,960
Speaker 1: Portman votes to convict, Tom Tilli's votes to convict. There's

1336
01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:43,920
Speaker 1: a whole slew of people come with McConnell. They get

1337
01:15:43,960 --> 01:15:46,680
Speaker 1: their eighteen, it's not the and who knows, maybe you

1338
01:15:46,720 --> 01:15:49,720
Speaker 1: get fifty percent of the Republican Conference to do it.

1339
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 1: I don't it'll be it would be close, but you

1340
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:55,120
Speaker 1: might might if McConnell had given the green light, because

1341
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:57,920
Speaker 1: again Portman was in. You know, I can I can

1342
01:15:57,920 --> 01:16:00,280
Speaker 1: come up with at least the eighteen the addition what

1343
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:03,479
Speaker 1: was it? They needed an additional They got seven, so

1344
01:16:03,479 --> 01:16:06,439
Speaker 1: they needed an additional eleven. But I could get to

1345
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:11,559
Speaker 1: the dozen on that. And you know it's probably president

1346
01:16:11,560 --> 01:16:14,400
Speaker 1: around DeSantis right now, right I think, you know, angry,

1347
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:17,479
Speaker 1: the angry Trump supporters would would tick off the Mitch

1348
01:16:17,560 --> 01:16:21,719
Speaker 1: McConnell's that the sorry Tom tells you. But they couldn't

1349
01:16:21,720 --> 01:16:24,320
Speaker 1: have done it everywhere. Okay, that's the point. They couldn't

1350
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:26,920
Speaker 1: have done it anywhere. There might have been a symbolic

1351
01:16:27,280 --> 01:16:31,200
Speaker 1: one or two. You know, Louisiana is a tough place.

1352
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 1: Louisiana is pretty deep red, so that's a tough place

1353
01:16:34,120 --> 01:16:37,479
Speaker 1: to have come from, you know. But you know, it's

1354
01:16:37,520 --> 01:16:40,600
Speaker 1: interesting to me how the there's a there's something in

1355
01:16:40,640 --> 01:16:43,960
Speaker 1: the water in Kentucky, or should we say there's something

1356
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:48,240
Speaker 1: in the bluegrass in Kentucky. There when you have Tom Massey, Ran, Paul,

1357
01:16:48,280 --> 01:16:52,759
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell all in their own way, comfortable not being

1358
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:56,800
Speaker 1: on Team Mega when it's when it's in it that

1359
01:16:56,920 --> 01:17:00,400
Speaker 1: isn't you know. Look, the Kentucky electrics just quirky. It's

1360
01:17:00,479 --> 01:17:02,559
Speaker 1: just a little bit different, or they wouldn't have the

1361
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 1: senators that they've had over the years. A democratic governor

1362
01:17:05,400 --> 01:17:07,760
Speaker 1: and a democratic governor, right like, this is a This

1363
01:17:07,880 --> 01:17:10,439
Speaker 1: is just a different you know, a different electorate that

1364
01:17:10,520 --> 01:17:16,320
Speaker 1: I think you can't overlook. But you know, I think

1365
01:17:16,360 --> 01:17:19,839
Speaker 1: there's certainly it tears the party apart for a while,

1366
01:17:20,320 --> 01:17:23,519
Speaker 1: but so did Dobbs and Trump has already been doing it.

1367
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:26,080
Speaker 1: So it's one of those you had to rip the

1368
01:17:26,120 --> 01:17:27,840
Speaker 1: band aid off at some point, and then when you

1369
01:17:27,920 --> 01:17:30,200
Speaker 1: chose not to rip the band aid off, guess what.

1370
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:33,880
Speaker 1: Now you're the wound has healed, but not in a

1371
01:17:33,920 --> 01:17:36,960
Speaker 1: good way, and now you have a more. Now you

1372
01:17:36,960 --> 01:17:40,120
Speaker 1: have a more. You have a different type of Republican Party,

1373
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:44,120
Speaker 1: a more maga focused Republican party that you never would

1374
01:17:44,120 --> 01:17:48,519
Speaker 1: have had had McConnell. So, I mean, when people wonder

1375
01:17:48,560 --> 01:17:52,640
Speaker 1: what happened to the the Eisenhower Romney wing of the

1376
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:58,400
Speaker 1: Republican Party when Mitch McConnell surrendered, essentially and said no

1377
01:17:58,560 --> 01:18:01,000
Speaker 1: We're not going to punish him anymore. This was enough.

1378
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:05,520
Speaker 1: In some ways it it got interpreted as Maga belongs

1379
01:18:05,520 --> 01:18:08,679
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party, right, versus he could have sent

1380
01:18:08,720 --> 01:18:12,679
Speaker 1: a message to say we want this out. I think

1381
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: I think that's certainly right. I think what amplifies it, though,

1382
01:18:17,560 --> 01:18:20,559
Speaker 1: is there wasn't a whole lot of pressure being applied,

1383
01:18:21,920 --> 01:18:24,000
Speaker 1: because there wasn't a whole lot of attention paid to

1384
01:18:24,080 --> 01:18:27,519
Speaker 1: January sixth in the in the in the years after,

1385
01:18:27,720 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 1: there were a few of us covering and sing out

1386
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:32,720
Speaker 1: to that case, and we were all shocked. There was

1387
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:33,280
Speaker 1: a few of us.

1388
01:18:33,360 --> 01:18:34,960
Speaker 2: Where's everybody else on this?

1389
01:18:34,960 --> 01:18:38,559
Speaker 1: This is a historic event? And there felt like there

1390
01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:42,040
Speaker 1: was this hidden hand of like, hey, hey, it's it's

1391
01:18:42,120 --> 01:18:47,040
Speaker 1: too provocative of a story. Let's not overdo it. Let's

1392
01:18:47,080 --> 01:18:48,599
Speaker 1: I don't know how it else to put it. I'm

1393
01:18:48,640 --> 01:18:51,200
Speaker 1: not There was no individual instructions put out at every

1394
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:54,360
Speaker 1: news organization, but there was this collective of, hey, we've

1395
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:56,559
Speaker 1: got to turn the page. We've got to move on,

1396
01:18:56,880 --> 01:18:59,720
Speaker 1: sort of like, hey, the country's a tender box. We

1397
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:02,000
Speaker 1: need we need to sort of calm the waters here

1398
01:19:02,040 --> 01:19:10,920
Speaker 1: a little bit. To mix my metaphors and look, the

1399
01:19:10,920 --> 01:19:13,800
Speaker 1: information ecosystem's broken. I wish I could sit here and say, oh, geez,

1400
01:19:13,800 --> 01:19:16,639
Speaker 1: if they've donet but this thing has been so it's

1401
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:19,040
Speaker 1: so far broken. I don't think we fully appreciate. I mean,

1402
01:19:19,280 --> 01:19:20,880
Speaker 1: one of the things that has really stood out to me,

1403
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:23,600
Speaker 1: over seventy percent of the country is unaware that the

1404
01:19:23,640 --> 01:19:27,320
Speaker 1: Trump family has a crypto business. Yeah, and that tells

1405
01:19:27,360 --> 01:19:33,320
Speaker 1: you just how siloed and fragmented the information ecosystem is currently. Right, Literally,

1406
01:19:33,439 --> 01:19:36,240
Speaker 1: if you're if you live in a certain bubble, you

1407
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:40,800
Speaker 1: don't get certain information, you don't know certain things, and

1408
01:19:40,960 --> 01:19:45,040
Speaker 1: so I I it's you know, it may be that

1409
01:19:45,160 --> 01:19:49,840
Speaker 1: this is where we're we're further broken on our information ecosystem.

1410
01:19:50,280 --> 01:19:53,120
Speaker 1: Then maybe we want to collectively admit people are looking

1411
01:19:53,160 --> 01:19:56,000
Speaker 1: for affirmation instead of the information. They're looking for something

1412
01:19:56,040 --> 01:19:58,000
Speaker 1: that resonates with them, that makes them feel good. And

1413
01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 1: in this particularly toxic political moment, you're going to go

1414
01:20:00,400 --> 01:20:02,519
Speaker 1: to your silo for that, and you're going to be

1415
01:20:02,680 --> 01:20:07,000
Speaker 1: only comfortable in your silo. But the thing about the

1416
01:20:07,080 --> 01:20:12,880
Speaker 1: January sixth coverage was there were remarkable nuggets there to

1417
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:15,559
Speaker 1: spoke to the political moment and where we were headed

1418
01:20:15,560 --> 01:20:19,479
Speaker 1: as a country the election. I'm sorry. The November twenty

1419
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:21,360
Speaker 1: twenty four election didn't come.

1420
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:22,720
Speaker 2: As much of a surprise to those of us who

1421
01:20:22,760 --> 01:20:26,080
Speaker 2: covered the January sixth cases. It zaw where the political

1422
01:20:26,080 --> 01:20:28,639
Speaker 2: winds were blowing, and there's a great place to read

1423
01:20:28,680 --> 01:20:29,880
Speaker 2: those versus.

1424
01:20:29,560 --> 01:20:30,479
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry.

1425
01:20:30,479 --> 01:20:33,840
Speaker 2: The Washington Beltway journalism muscle is to go to the

1426
01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:36,200
Speaker 2: traditional places to talk to the traditional people. Go to

1427
01:20:36,240 --> 01:20:38,559
Speaker 2: the diner in Ohio, do the cliche things you do.

1428
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 2: You could have got a great read on things in

1429
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:44,400
Speaker 2: those core hearings to see where the Trump base was

1430
01:20:45,160 --> 01:20:50,080
Speaker 2: unmoved by January six unmoved by anything else to attached

1431
01:20:50,080 --> 01:20:52,400
Speaker 2: to Trump. They were there, loyal and they loved it.

1432
01:20:53,800 --> 01:20:55,720
Speaker 1: A friend of mine said to me when I was

1433
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:58,120
Speaker 1: wondering why there's no more, you know, where's the outrage

1434
01:20:58,160 --> 01:21:01,080
Speaker 1: on this crypto stuff, for instance, and about the amount

1435
01:21:01,280 --> 01:21:04,760
Speaker 1: of just profiting off the presidency. And a friend of

1436
01:21:04,760 --> 01:21:07,040
Speaker 1: mine said, Hey, the public thinks they all do it.

1437
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:11,160
Speaker 1: Trump's just more honest about the grift. And I always

1438
01:21:11,200 --> 01:21:12,840
Speaker 1: come back to that, you know, I come back to

1439
01:21:12,880 --> 01:21:16,839
Speaker 1: something I remember in twenty sixteen on the trail, somebody saying,

1440
01:21:17,080 --> 01:21:19,839
Speaker 1: he's my middle finger, to you guys, you know, referring

1441
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:22,120
Speaker 1: to us in the press and the Washington elite and

1442
01:21:22,200 --> 01:21:24,240
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And I'm like, I, you know, so

1443
01:21:24,520 --> 01:21:28,960
Speaker 1: I've understood the initial I get the initial sort of

1444
01:21:28,960 --> 01:21:31,640
Speaker 1: of what Trump represented. Yeah, I know he's kind of

1445
01:21:31,840 --> 01:21:34,599
Speaker 1: I know who he is, but guess what he annoys

1446
01:21:34,640 --> 01:21:38,640
Speaker 1: the crap out of you guys. And I want discomfort.

1447
01:21:38,920 --> 01:21:41,439
Speaker 1: You know, there's been too much comfort in Washington, too

1448
01:21:41,520 --> 01:21:45,280
Speaker 1: much comfort in Wall Street, right, So I understand the

1449
01:21:45,600 --> 01:21:48,360
Speaker 1: sort of the the id part of this, and the

1450
01:21:48,400 --> 01:21:54,720
Speaker 1: core part of this get is that he's not succeeded,

1451
01:21:54,880 --> 01:21:59,240
Speaker 1: he's not fulfilled his promises. And why you know, it's sad.

1452
01:21:59,320 --> 01:22:00,720
Speaker 1: So many of these people are going to have to

1453
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:04,679
Speaker 1: feel the pain themselves, whether it's this measles outbreak, which

1454
01:22:04,720 --> 01:22:08,479
Speaker 1: is just totally due to politics, totally due to Kennedy's

1455
01:22:08,479 --> 01:22:11,040
Speaker 1: politics and some of this stuff. It's like, we wouldn't

1456
01:22:11,040 --> 01:22:13,880
Speaker 1: be here without the broken information ecosystem and the politicizing

1457
01:22:13,880 --> 01:22:17,000
Speaker 1: of vaccines. I now worry about the rule of law.

1458
01:22:17,479 --> 01:22:19,120
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to be honest here, If an

1459
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:21,479
Speaker 1: FBI agent showed up at my door claiming, you know

1460
01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:24,120
Speaker 1: something here, I'd be like, so this is politically charged,

1461
01:22:24,640 --> 01:22:27,439
Speaker 1: I would assume I'd being targeted. I wouldn't have thought

1462
01:22:27,479 --> 01:22:31,200
Speaker 1: that six years ago. But that's how little faith I

1463
01:22:31,240 --> 01:22:34,479
Speaker 1: now see. You put these political operators in these places,

1464
01:22:35,200 --> 01:22:37,000
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are going to sibute this way.

1465
01:22:37,200 --> 01:22:40,719
Speaker 1: And you know when, over time, if people stop believing

1466
01:22:40,760 --> 01:22:43,600
Speaker 1: that somebody will be above politics and decision making on

1467
01:22:43,640 --> 01:22:48,519
Speaker 1: the rule of law, it's over. The Republic's dead. That's

1468
01:22:48,520 --> 01:22:53,519
Speaker 1: why I argue unambiguously internally and externally that January sixth

1469
01:22:53,640 --> 01:22:54,200
Speaker 1: is ongoing.

1470
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:57,160
Speaker 2: It's just taking other forms now. When you break norms,

1471
01:22:57,200 --> 01:23:00,240
Speaker 2: when you change systems, when you get rid of the

1472
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:03,760
Speaker 2: stable foundation of so many parts of our country, is

1473
01:23:03,840 --> 01:23:07,360
Speaker 2: the type of things you see. And one of the

1474
01:23:07,360 --> 01:23:09,760
Speaker 2: things that the refrain I'm hearing from so many of

1475
01:23:09,800 --> 01:23:12,759
Speaker 2: these fired Department of Justice workers is that there.

1476
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:13,519
Speaker 1: Was used to be a line.

1477
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:17,200
Speaker 2: That line is it gets blurrier or thicker with certain

1478
01:23:17,200 --> 01:23:20,960
Speaker 2: administrations of both parties. That line is gone, and they believe,

1479
01:23:21,120 --> 01:23:24,599
Speaker 2: they believe there are political operatives now running law and order.

1480
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:28,240
Speaker 2: And that raises the type of cynicism that you're expressing here.

1481
01:23:28,600 --> 01:23:30,680
Speaker 2: I think you can't be the only ones thinking that.

1482
01:23:30,920 --> 01:23:34,400
Speaker 2: But also the people that think they all do it,

1483
01:23:35,040 --> 01:23:37,880
Speaker 2: they got some pretty good footing because you know who

1484
01:23:37,960 --> 01:23:41,600
Speaker 2: was convicted of corruption a Democrat from New Jersey. You

1485
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:43,640
Speaker 2: know who also is about to go to prison, a

1486
01:23:43,640 --> 01:23:46,680
Speaker 2: guy who represented a purple district in New York, George Santos,

1487
01:23:47,200 --> 01:23:50,519
Speaker 2: And you have a Democratic congressman from Texas charged by

1488
01:23:50,520 --> 01:23:54,080
Speaker 2: the Feds. Very easy to draw equivalences.

1489
01:23:53,479 --> 01:23:57,200
Speaker 1: There, No, it's and I mean when you see Menendez

1490
01:23:57,360 --> 01:24:00,439
Speaker 1: using the language of Trump and the January sixth to

1491
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:04,240
Speaker 1: try to advertise for a pardon, it's just sort of

1492
01:24:04,439 --> 01:24:07,879
Speaker 1: you're just like, well, you know, it's sad, it's pathetic,

1493
01:24:07,920 --> 01:24:12,120
Speaker 1: but it's kind of predictable on that front. Look, this

1494
01:24:12,240 --> 01:24:17,760
Speaker 1: is your beat, talk to me about Epstein. I view

1495
01:24:17,800 --> 01:24:24,400
Speaker 1: the Epstein story as a reminder of how broken the

1496
01:24:24,400 --> 01:24:28,880
Speaker 1: information ecosystem is. This thing, the mythology around Epstein has

1497
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:34,120
Speaker 1: been built on a sort of mythology that almost goes

1498
01:24:34,160 --> 01:24:37,080
Speaker 1: back decades. You know, it's very similar to what's happened

1499
01:24:37,080 --> 01:24:41,000
Speaker 1: to George Soros. Right, there's like this conspiracy built on

1500
01:24:41,040 --> 01:24:43,479
Speaker 1: a conspiracy, built on a conspiracy, and you sit here

1501
01:24:43,479 --> 01:24:46,320
Speaker 1: and you're trying to unravel it. And as I said earlier,

1502
01:24:46,400 --> 01:24:48,280
Speaker 1: It's the equivalent of trying to clean up after your

1503
01:24:48,320 --> 01:24:51,120
Speaker 1: dog when they have diarrhea. You just can't pick it

1504
01:24:51,160 --> 01:24:55,240
Speaker 1: all up. Okay, it's impossible to explain. How would you

1505
01:24:55,320 --> 01:25:00,840
Speaker 1: explain Epstein to the average person that just doesn't quite

1506
01:25:01,000 --> 01:25:02,400
Speaker 1: know what to make of this story?

1507
01:25:02,600 --> 01:25:05,560
Speaker 2: The analogy I used is a probably if it's a

1508
01:25:05,560 --> 01:25:07,840
Speaker 2: little bit crude here. But the analogy I've drawn is,

1509
01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 2: you remember in the Muppet Show, Statler and Waldorf, the

1510
01:25:10,439 --> 01:25:12,160
Speaker 2: old guys up in the in the box who were

1511
01:25:12,280 --> 01:25:15,920
Speaker 2: just always just laying down, just dunking on the guys

1512
01:25:15,920 --> 01:25:18,599
Speaker 2: on stage as a matter if it's Kermit, Beeker, ms Piggy,

1513
01:25:18,680 --> 01:25:20,120
Speaker 2: They're always just trashing the show.

1514
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:22,600
Speaker 1: They were my dad's favorite, you know. He'd let me

1515
01:25:22,640 --> 01:25:24,880
Speaker 1: watch the Muppets with him after we watched the Lewis

1516
01:25:24,960 --> 01:25:29,960
Speaker 1: Rukeiser Report so as a kid. So and what kept them,

1517
01:25:30,120 --> 01:25:32,479
Speaker 1: what kept them okay with the Muppets were those two

1518
01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:33,759
Speaker 1: were the two old guy Muppets.

1519
01:25:33,800 --> 01:25:36,560
Speaker 2: He loved those guys even more entertaining than Louis Rukaiser.

1520
01:25:37,280 --> 01:25:40,120
Speaker 2: Statler and Waldorf would always just be trashing things going

1521
01:25:40,120 --> 01:25:41,960
Speaker 2: on on the stage. It's much harder to be on

1522
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:44,960
Speaker 2: the stage and what you have in the Jeffrey Epstein

1523
01:25:45,040 --> 01:25:53,840
Speaker 2: story is Statler and Waldorf type of trollingspis theory of fomenting,

1524
01:25:55,080 --> 01:25:57,680
Speaker 2: fanning of flames by the people who are now on

1525
01:25:57,720 --> 01:26:01,000
Speaker 2: the stage, and they don't know how to navigate that

1526
01:26:01,080 --> 01:26:04,240
Speaker 2: because it's easy to fan the flames of the conspiracy theory,

1527
01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:05,120
Speaker 2: it's very hard.

1528
01:26:04,960 --> 01:26:06,360
Speaker 1: To douse the flames.

1529
01:26:06,840 --> 01:26:10,240
Speaker 2: And right now the magabass is playing the role of

1530
01:26:10,240 --> 01:26:16,400
Speaker 2: Statnin and Waldorf and everybody's out of position, it feels like,

1531
01:26:16,760 --> 01:26:18,840
Speaker 2: and this goes she makes it a bigger issue that

1532
01:26:18,880 --> 01:26:22,200
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein, doesn't it. It makes it a whole reperendum on

1533
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:24,640
Speaker 2: This is more about Maga. It has almost little to

1534
01:26:24,640 --> 01:26:27,360
Speaker 2: do with Epstein itself. I mean, look, I've always believed

1535
01:26:27,400 --> 01:26:29,639
Speaker 2: it is what it is, which is a whole bunch

1536
01:26:29,640 --> 01:26:34,080
Speaker 2: of powerful people are suckers for a free private plane ride,

1537
01:26:34,160 --> 01:26:38,320
Speaker 2: and they overlook that guy with ethics and morals for

1538
01:26:38,400 --> 01:26:41,439
Speaker 2: a free private plane ride. Unfortunately, I've seen this for

1539
01:26:41,479 --> 01:26:45,080
Speaker 2: a long period of time. It's a disease that's on

1540
01:26:45,200 --> 01:26:49,280
Speaker 2: left and right, which is these elected officials will it

1541
01:26:49,400 --> 01:26:53,680
Speaker 2: is astonishing what they'll do for a free private plane access.

1542
01:26:53,160 --> 01:26:56,679
Speaker 2: And so I've no doubt that all of these folks

1543
01:26:56,720 --> 01:26:59,080
Speaker 2: look the other way on Epstein, and I have no

1544
01:26:59,160 --> 01:27:02,880
Speaker 2: doubt that most of them probably were not stupid enough

1545
01:27:02,920 --> 01:27:06,559
Speaker 2: to engage, not like a Prince Andrew who doesn't seem

1546
01:27:06,600 --> 01:27:09,080
Speaker 2: like the brightest ball on the Buckingham tree over there.

1547
01:27:09,800 --> 01:27:14,000
Speaker 2: But so you know, I could Occam's razor this, and

1548
01:27:13,720 --> 01:27:16,200
Speaker 2: I sort of get it. It doesn't make it's kind of seed,

1549
01:27:16,360 --> 01:27:17,320
Speaker 2: it's kind of sleazy.

1550
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:21,599
Speaker 1: Uh. And and Epstein sort of to me exposed how

1551
01:27:21,680 --> 01:27:24,559
Speaker 1: easy it is to sort of be a sleeze ball

1552
01:27:24,720 --> 01:27:26,960
Speaker 1: if you have a private plane and you have some money.

1553
01:27:28,400 --> 01:27:33,200
Speaker 2: What a corner they're painted in, because let's presume these

1554
01:27:33,240 --> 01:27:37,640
Speaker 2: files have the names that people suspected of abuse, suspected

1555
01:27:37,680 --> 01:27:38,439
Speaker 2: of misconduct, but.

1556
01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:40,040
Speaker 1: They've no evident they don't have any evidence.

1557
01:27:40,640 --> 01:27:43,320
Speaker 2: Maybe since maybe it's totally I'm substantiated, it's just a

1558
01:27:43,439 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 2: it's a balls.

1559
01:27:44,479 --> 01:27:48,600
Speaker 1: You can't just release that. These folks could sue the

1560
01:27:48,640 --> 01:27:49,719
Speaker 1: government and probably win.

1561
01:27:50,800 --> 01:27:52,320
Speaker 2: And you can't get your good name back if you're

1562
01:27:52,320 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 2: associated with that crime by mistake. They could redact the names.

1563
01:27:58,080 --> 01:28:00,519
Speaker 2: That's not going to satisfy anybody. So they're in a

1564
01:28:00,600 --> 01:28:03,879
Speaker 2: jam here, And you see how that internally causes fractures

1565
01:28:03,920 --> 01:28:06,160
Speaker 2: at a place where you didn't used to see any fractures.

1566
01:28:06,160 --> 01:28:10,240
Speaker 2: The Trump based the Trump certainty.

1567
01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:12,720
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's proof that there's sort of and

1568
01:28:12,760 --> 01:28:16,880
Speaker 1: this is where look, Trump became a magnet for it.

1569
01:28:16,920 --> 01:28:20,479
Speaker 1: There's always been. Frankly, there's a fringe on the left

1570
01:28:20,520 --> 01:28:24,439
Speaker 1: and the right that are very conspiratorial, okay, And in fact,

1571
01:28:24,479 --> 01:28:26,920
Speaker 1: this is why so many of them unite on JFK

1572
01:28:27,280 --> 01:28:32,120
Speaker 1: files and on Epstein, right, there's this conspiratory. The amazing

1573
01:28:32,200 --> 01:28:35,080
Speaker 1: thing about the right is that MAGA mainstream these folks.

1574
01:28:35,400 --> 01:28:38,439
Speaker 1: These folks always existed, but they were always kept on

1575
01:28:38,479 --> 01:28:42,240
Speaker 1: the outer edge. You know. For my conservative historians out there,

1576
01:28:42,320 --> 01:28:46,920
Speaker 1: I think that John Birch Society sort of groupings of

1577
01:28:46,960 --> 01:28:50,320
Speaker 1: these folks. But instead John Birch became the mainstream and

1578
01:28:50,439 --> 01:28:54,479
Speaker 1: National Review at the time, and Bill Buckley's conservatives were

1579
01:28:54,520 --> 01:28:56,720
Speaker 1: sort of the outliers. And that's what it feels like.

1580
01:28:56,800 --> 01:29:03,040
Speaker 1: MAGA has become literally the Birchers and the have switched places.

1581
01:29:03,680 --> 01:29:07,519
Speaker 2: Political realignment is so fascinating and.

1582
01:29:06,960 --> 01:29:10,240
Speaker 1: It's my favorite. The only thing I'm comforting. I enjoy

1583
01:29:10,320 --> 01:29:13,640
Speaker 1: this aspect of it. Other than the fact that the

1584
01:29:13,720 --> 01:29:17,719
Speaker 1: fallout could be could be catastrophic for the Republic.

1585
01:29:18,360 --> 01:29:22,000
Speaker 2: I was there in southeast Ohio in mid two thousands, chuck,

1586
01:29:22,120 --> 01:29:24,920
Speaker 2: watching a Democratic governor get elected from the Appalachia and

1587
01:29:24,960 --> 01:29:27,880
Speaker 2: a Democratic congressman and a Democratic Senator, and on the

1588
01:29:27,880 --> 01:29:30,599
Speaker 2: other side of the Pennsylvania state line, Democrats were sweeping.

1589
01:29:31,240 --> 01:29:37,120
Speaker 2: It's gone, it's gone. I remember more recently covering Loudon County, Virginia,

1590
01:29:37,640 --> 01:29:39,360
Speaker 2: that real purple enclave.

1591
01:29:39,760 --> 01:29:42,640
Speaker 1: Now it was red leaning at one time. It's not

1592
01:29:42,840 --> 01:29:46,200
Speaker 1: just blue, it's not just blue Scott. It is the

1593
01:29:46,240 --> 01:29:50,519
Speaker 1: heart of progressive Virginia. Now it is arguably loud and

1594
01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 1: has become in some ways almost is they produce more

1595
01:29:55,160 --> 01:29:58,840
Speaker 1: of the progressive active as candidate base. Arlington may be

1596
01:29:58,960 --> 01:30:02,559
Speaker 1: more liberal or certainly more blue, but it is interesting

1597
01:30:02,600 --> 01:30:05,920
Speaker 1: to me that the Democratic candidates that are the most

1598
01:30:06,000 --> 01:30:08,559
Speaker 1: progressive are coming out aloud. Yeah.

1599
01:30:09,200 --> 01:30:12,320
Speaker 2: Oakland County, Michigan fascinating case study of the realignment of

1600
01:30:12,320 --> 01:30:18,200
Speaker 2: American politics, and that to me is an underappreciated story,

1601
01:30:18,280 --> 01:30:20,639
Speaker 2: and it's good. It's going to define part of the midterms.

1602
01:30:20,760 --> 01:30:22,439
Speaker 2: I just wonder if the old muscle memory is not

1603
01:30:22,479 --> 01:30:26,080
Speaker 2: ready for the new political complexion of these races.

1604
01:30:28,120 --> 01:30:31,719
Speaker 1: You know, that's it's a it's it's not just that.

1605
01:30:31,880 --> 01:30:36,719
Speaker 1: I just worry that that we all don't collectively have

1606
01:30:36,880 --> 01:30:39,920
Speaker 1: enough resources to cover this as thoroughly as we once did.

1607
01:30:40,439 --> 01:30:42,720
Speaker 1: We don't have good polling anymore. It's a lot of

1608
01:30:42,800 --> 01:30:48,920
Speaker 1: mediocre polling that that you can derive some interesting conclusions

1609
01:30:48,960 --> 01:30:50,760
Speaker 1: out of it, but it's just more difficult. There's just

1610
01:30:50,800 --> 01:30:56,640
Speaker 1: not as much much happening. Pam bondy uh is your

1611
01:30:56,720 --> 01:30:58,560
Speaker 1: job safe?

1612
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:02,559
Speaker 2: To get some pretty declarative endorsements for President Trump as

1613
01:31:02,560 --> 01:31:05,240
Speaker 2: the week began. I mean these were not half hearted.

1614
01:31:06,640 --> 01:31:12,640
Speaker 2: She's also at this point, you know, taking on a

1615
01:31:12,680 --> 01:31:15,720
Speaker 2: new type of role for a US Attorney general. It

1616
01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:18,519
Speaker 2: is a suricacy to how she speaks of the president.

1617
01:31:18,720 --> 01:31:21,360
Speaker 1: I think it's the first time. What's the last time

1618
01:31:21,400 --> 01:31:23,479
Speaker 1: an attorney general spoke as a surrogate? But I think

1619
01:31:23,479 --> 01:31:25,599
Speaker 1: it predates us if it happened, I mean, it predates

1620
01:31:25,600 --> 01:31:28,400
Speaker 1: our time. I guess it would be Bobby Kennedy, Okay,

1621
01:31:28,439 --> 01:31:30,680
Speaker 1: the last time. I mean we have that look and

1622
01:31:30,720 --> 01:31:32,720
Speaker 1: this is you know how many times I have conservatives

1623
01:31:32,720 --> 01:31:36,720
Speaker 1: point to that, well, but the Kennedy's Yeah, And we

1624
01:31:36,840 --> 01:31:38,760
Speaker 1: changed the law to make sure, you couldn't do that again.

1625
01:31:40,439 --> 01:31:43,240
Speaker 2: So she's to a degree of pioneering a new type

1626
01:31:43,240 --> 01:31:46,280
Speaker 2: of voice from an attorney general, and for all we know,

1627
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:50,760
Speaker 2: be emulated in perpetuity. And I do wonder of all

1628
01:31:50,760 --> 01:31:52,840
Speaker 2: these new norms being established, how many of them are

1629
01:31:52,880 --> 01:31:56,000
Speaker 2: now in perpetuity. And little things chuck like the National

1630
01:31:56,080 --> 01:31:59,479
Speaker 2: Capital Planning Commission, this little obscure agency in Washington, DC,

1631
01:31:59,600 --> 01:32:03,599
Speaker 2: which in charge of federal buildings and aesthetics. Trump's taking

1632
01:32:03,640 --> 01:32:06,720
Speaker 2: it over and it seems obscure, but it gives you

1633
01:32:06,800 --> 01:32:10,760
Speaker 2: control over all construction in Washington to a degree. All

1634
01:32:10,840 --> 01:32:14,000
Speaker 2: the historic buildings are now kind of under the President's control.

1635
01:32:14,240 --> 01:32:16,639
Speaker 2: Does the next guy want to do this? The Library

1636
01:32:16,680 --> 01:32:18,840
Speaker 2: of Congress are making a move on the librarian. Does

1637
01:32:18,880 --> 01:32:21,720
Speaker 2: the next person do this? I wonder how much of

1638
01:32:21,760 --> 01:32:23,080
Speaker 2: this is new? Is a new permanent?

1639
01:32:24,800 --> 01:32:28,000
Speaker 1: Being a former d C based when I literally d

1640
01:32:28,160 --> 01:32:33,440
Speaker 1: C based reporter. The intersection of Washington d C governance

1641
01:32:33,520 --> 01:32:39,400
Speaker 1: with the federal government. How seriously should DC residents take

1642
01:32:39,439 --> 01:32:42,080
Speaker 1: the threat of the federal government taking over the city.

1643
01:32:43,320 --> 01:32:44,280
Speaker 2: They take it seriously.

1644
01:32:45,800 --> 01:32:48,559
Speaker 1: Right now, are dangling because of the federal government over

1645
01:32:48,600 --> 01:32:51,120
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in their budget the fact that it's

1646
01:32:51,160 --> 01:32:54,120
Speaker 1: over a football stadium, just like only in America, right,

1647
01:32:54,800 --> 01:33:00,000
Speaker 1: this massive, like constitutionally questionable decision over a football stadium,

1648
01:33:00,000 --> 01:33:03,000
Speaker 1: all stadium, And she's the way you say it to yourself?

1649
01:33:03,000 --> 01:33:07,120
Speaker 1: Does it sounds totally understandable? Now, are totally believable? We're America, Yeah, America.

1650
01:33:07,320 --> 01:33:09,280
Speaker 1: F Yeah right, it's just like you know, that's who

1651
01:33:09,280 --> 01:33:09,559
Speaker 1: we are.

1652
01:33:10,040 --> 01:33:12,200
Speaker 2: They are gravely concerned, but I think the concerns are

1653
01:33:12,240 --> 01:33:15,040
Speaker 2: at this point transcended by the concerns about the federal layoffs.

1654
01:33:15,479 --> 01:33:18,759
Speaker 2: This was a bulletproof economy in Washington, DC, bullet proof

1655
01:33:18,920 --> 01:33:19,800
Speaker 2: until now.

1656
01:33:21,280 --> 01:33:23,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, the Citi's in. You know, look, I I

1657
01:33:24,320 --> 01:33:28,400
Speaker 1: think the mayor does her best to manage Trump in

1658
01:33:28,439 --> 01:33:32,639
Speaker 1: a way that I I don't know if anybody else's

1659
01:33:33,320 --> 01:33:37,320
Speaker 1: I'm impressed. May not work, but I'm impressed with how

1660
01:33:37,360 --> 01:33:39,800
Speaker 1: she's trying to go about it. You know, first she

1661
01:33:39,920 --> 01:33:43,080
Speaker 1: confronted him the first term. This time she's doing it

1662
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:47,880
Speaker 1: another way, and she's managed her own politics. You know,

1663
01:33:47,960 --> 01:33:54,080
Speaker 1: she's it's interesting. She has impressed me as a political athlete.

1664
01:33:54,520 --> 01:33:56,400
Speaker 1: Forget like we could we could sit here and and

1665
01:33:57,080 --> 01:34:00,040
Speaker 1: nitpick this or that, but you know, she's got a

1666
01:34:00,080 --> 01:34:03,439
Speaker 1: city council that has gone very far in one direction,

1667
01:34:03,520 --> 01:34:05,720
Speaker 1: She's got a white house that wants to and here

1668
01:34:05,760 --> 01:34:08,040
Speaker 1: she is sort of caught in the middle, and she

1669
01:34:08,160 --> 01:34:14,000
Speaker 1: navigates it pretty well considering how had she because she

1670
01:34:14,040 --> 01:34:16,080
Speaker 1: knows when to be confrontational and when not to be.

1671
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:18,559
Speaker 2: Also on the eve of an election here too, So

1672
01:34:18,800 --> 01:34:21,000
Speaker 2: it's not inconsequential when there's primary challenges.

1673
01:34:21,000 --> 01:34:24,720
Speaker 1: It's it's it's quite a needle threat. Yeah, before I

1674
01:34:24,760 --> 01:34:28,080
Speaker 1: let you go, I'm not going to put you in

1675
01:34:28,120 --> 01:34:32,800
Speaker 1: a position about your employer. Just how's morale? I think

1676
01:34:32,800 --> 01:34:34,760
Speaker 1: there's a macro version of that question. How's morale and

1677
01:34:34,840 --> 01:34:38,360
Speaker 1: broadcasting right now? I think Morel's terrible in that. That's

1678
01:34:38,400 --> 01:34:40,880
Speaker 1: what I tell people anybody that works at traditional media,

1679
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:44,920
Speaker 1: if you work for corporate owned entity right now, you

1680
01:34:45,000 --> 01:34:47,280
Speaker 1: feel unsettled. That's the sense I get.

1681
01:34:48,680 --> 01:34:53,720
Speaker 2: I think there's a new reality that is coming to

1682
01:34:53,800 --> 01:34:56,080
Speaker 2: all of us. We have to we cannot be commodities.

1683
01:34:56,439 --> 01:34:59,080
Speaker 2: We need to be we need to be artists and scientists.

1684
01:34:59,080 --> 01:35:00,960
Speaker 2: We need to be DISTINCTI we had to have a

1685
01:35:01,000 --> 01:35:04,599
Speaker 2: personal brand in journalism that in broadcasting now too, to

1686
01:35:04,640 --> 01:35:07,519
Speaker 2: help our collective. You know, employers be also to help themselves.

1687
01:35:08,040 --> 01:35:09,960
Speaker 2: And when I talked to young people, I'm like, what's

1688
01:35:10,000 --> 01:35:12,360
Speaker 2: your specialty, what's what what are you going to do

1689
01:35:12,400 --> 01:35:15,479
Speaker 2: different in the name of journalism in civic duty because

1690
01:35:15,520 --> 01:35:18,160
Speaker 2: you're going to need to have a personal brand. You

1691
01:35:18,200 --> 01:35:20,400
Speaker 2: can't expect an employer to bring one to you. You

1692
01:35:20,479 --> 01:35:22,840
Speaker 2: need to bring one to an employer. So that's that

1693
01:35:23,080 --> 01:35:26,080
Speaker 2: type of that type of paradigm shift. Chuk maybe depressing

1694
01:35:26,080 --> 01:35:28,559
Speaker 2: morale for some people in the industry. Others see it

1695
01:35:28,560 --> 01:35:31,040
Speaker 2: as an opportunity try sort of.

1696
01:35:32,240 --> 01:35:35,280
Speaker 1: That's my whole folks, My whole message to younger folks is, hey, look,

1697
01:35:35,720 --> 01:35:39,080
Speaker 1: I got my first break during a time of disruption.

1698
01:35:39,280 --> 01:35:40,880
Speaker 1: It was when the Internet was first coming about this

1699
01:35:40,920 --> 01:35:43,400
Speaker 1: in ninety two, ninety three, ninety four and so. But

1700
01:35:43,479 --> 01:35:45,120
Speaker 1: I was in my early twenties. It was a good

1701
01:35:45,120 --> 01:35:47,280
Speaker 1: time to be in your early twenties during that disruption.

1702
01:35:47,439 --> 01:35:49,160
Speaker 1: It was a bad time to be in your mid fifties.

1703
01:35:49,439 --> 01:35:51,720
Speaker 1: I say the same thing now, probably not the best

1704
01:35:51,760 --> 01:35:54,120
Speaker 1: time to be in this industry in your mid fifties.

1705
01:35:55,160 --> 01:35:57,400
Speaker 1: A great time to be in this industry in your

1706
01:35:57,439 --> 01:35:58,200
Speaker 1: early twenties.

1707
01:35:59,240 --> 01:36:02,439
Speaker 2: Nothing but upset. There's nothing that opportunity and you're a

1708
01:36:02,439 --> 01:36:05,519
Speaker 2: blank slate, which means you don't have to break any

1709
01:36:05,520 --> 01:36:08,320
Speaker 2: bad habits or reinvent yourself. You just have to invent yourself.

1710
01:36:09,160 --> 01:36:13,120
Speaker 2: Like the personal brand is important right now and is recently.

1711
01:36:13,240 --> 01:36:15,400
Speaker 2: Is just a few years ago, Chuck, it wasn't so vital,

1712
01:36:15,479 --> 01:36:18,240
Speaker 2: it was helpful, it wasn't vital. Now it's vital.

1713
01:36:18,840 --> 01:36:23,439
Speaker 1: I remember Brian Wayam's telling me, like ten years ago.

1714
01:36:23,560 --> 01:36:26,920
Speaker 1: He said to me, he says you, he said, He goes,

1715
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:29,679
Speaker 1: you have a longer future than I do, he said,

1716
01:36:29,720 --> 01:36:31,840
Speaker 1: And I said, why do you say that? And he said,

1717
01:36:31,840 --> 01:36:34,559
Speaker 1: because I'm a generalist, You've got an expertise in something.

1718
01:36:35,080 --> 01:36:38,000
Speaker 1: And I knew exactly what he meant, and I said,

1719
01:36:38,040 --> 01:36:41,080
Speaker 1: I give the same exact advice. Go be go dive in,

1720
01:36:41,360 --> 01:36:44,800
Speaker 1: Go become the expert on X. What do you care about?

1721
01:36:44,840 --> 01:36:47,280
Speaker 1: Go become the expert. You know, try, you know, don't

1722
01:36:47,280 --> 01:36:50,040
Speaker 1: cross the line into advocacy, but go become the expert

1723
01:36:50,400 --> 01:36:53,960
Speaker 1: on X. And now that said, let me give you.

1724
01:36:54,080 --> 01:36:57,040
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you something to react to, to

1725
01:36:57,040 --> 01:36:59,320
Speaker 1: sort of go full circle about local news. A guy

1726
01:36:59,400 --> 01:37:04,080
Speaker 1: named Richards who is until recently ran the Google News initiative.

1727
01:37:04,880 --> 01:37:08,400
Speaker 1: He is he regularly says in speeches that the worst

1728
01:37:08,439 --> 01:37:10,920
Speaker 1: thing that happened to journalism was Ward was all the

1729
01:37:11,120 --> 01:37:14,240
Speaker 1: was the movie All the Presidents meant everybody wants to

1730
01:37:14,680 --> 01:37:16,960
Speaker 1: everybody wants to be Woodwen in Birnstein. Nobody wants to

1731
01:37:16,960 --> 01:37:19,599
Speaker 1: be the service oriented journalist that helps people live their

1732
01:37:19,640 --> 01:37:25,240
Speaker 1: lives in their community. And ultimately, you know, I'm curious

1733
01:37:25,320 --> 01:37:28,160
Speaker 1: what do you make of that? Because I do believe

1734
01:37:28,400 --> 01:37:32,280
Speaker 1: local journalism is different than national journalism, and local journalism

1735
01:37:32,320 --> 01:37:34,679
Speaker 1: has to be a little more service oriented, a little

1736
01:37:34,680 --> 01:37:38,680
Speaker 1: more community helper, customer service at times. Not to say

1737
01:37:38,680 --> 01:37:41,360
Speaker 1: you're not going to do accountability when it's necessary, but

1738
01:37:41,560 --> 01:37:45,160
Speaker 1: a lot ninety percent of your work actually should be

1739
01:37:45,160 --> 01:37:49,600
Speaker 1: in service to the community. I don't know how we

1740
01:37:49,680 --> 01:37:55,920
Speaker 1: teach that or celebrate that. The future of local is

1741
01:37:55,960 --> 01:37:59,600
Speaker 1: so strong, your and your initiative, your undertake is so

1742
01:37:59,720 --> 01:38:02,920
Speaker 1: why the way it reminds me of a lesson I

1743
01:38:02,920 --> 01:38:04,200
Speaker 1: got out when I figured out how to do that.

1744
01:38:04,280 --> 01:38:07,960
Speaker 1: Old Washington correspondent for the local station job somebody wise

1745
01:38:08,000 --> 01:38:10,040
Speaker 1: told me, Scott, you're doing this inside out. You're looking

1746
01:38:10,080 --> 01:38:12,599
Speaker 1: in Washington for stories that resonate in Atlanta, or looking

1747
01:38:12,600 --> 01:38:15,479
Speaker 1: for stories that resonate in Dayton. By looking around Washington.

1748
01:38:15,600 --> 01:38:17,840
Speaker 1: You should be talking with the mayor, you should be

1749
01:38:17,880 --> 01:38:21,800
Speaker 1: talking to the school board in Dayton. What do they

1750
01:38:21,800 --> 01:38:22,920
Speaker 1: need from Washington? What do they need?

1751
01:38:23,600 --> 01:38:26,120
Speaker 2: And that's how you do it. And what's more, once

1752
01:38:26,160 --> 01:38:28,320
Speaker 2: you start doing that, you're if you're building your contacts

1753
01:38:28,320 --> 01:38:30,000
Speaker 2: in those local communities, you're going to be a better

1754
01:38:30,080 --> 01:38:32,519
Speaker 2: Washington reporter and you're going to be more valuable in

1755
01:38:32,520 --> 01:38:36,160
Speaker 2: that community. And once you flip that paradigm, it all

1756
01:38:36,200 --> 01:38:39,320
Speaker 2: loosens up. And I think in a macroway, Chuck, if

1757
01:38:39,320 --> 01:38:43,920
Speaker 2: we take that approach, we get into the communities, we decentralize,

1758
01:38:44,280 --> 01:38:47,559
Speaker 2: we have much brighter future, and broadcasting has a wonderful

1759
01:38:47,560 --> 01:38:49,080
Speaker 2: future ahead of it if we do that.

1760
01:38:49,880 --> 01:38:52,800
Speaker 1: All right, Scott MacFarland, have you be Kyle local? Have

1761
01:38:52,880 --> 01:38:57,000
Speaker 1: you become are you Gnats, Caps, Wizards commanders? Are you

1762
01:38:57,040 --> 01:38:59,440
Speaker 1: all in or do you still have some hometown?

1763
01:39:00,320 --> 01:39:03,639
Speaker 2: Twenty two years here now? Twenty two years in DC? Okay,

1764
01:39:03,800 --> 01:39:05,679
Speaker 2: I predate the Nats, which is cool.

1765
01:39:06,320 --> 01:39:07,720
Speaker 1: That's awesome that they're good for you.

1766
01:39:07,840 --> 01:39:13,840
Speaker 2: So do I. I become a more sympathetic sympathetic to

1767
01:39:13,880 --> 01:39:15,320
Speaker 2: the commanders than I thought i'd be.

1768
01:39:16,000 --> 01:39:18,519
Speaker 1: But It's amazing what a change in ownership does, right,

1769
01:39:18,720 --> 01:39:21,840
Speaker 1: amazing what changed I feel the same thing. I never

1770
01:39:21,880 --> 01:39:25,240
Speaker 1: thought i'd feel like neutral about them. I'm never going

1771
01:39:25,320 --> 01:39:28,360
Speaker 1: to celebrate them. But the fact that I'm neutral and

1772
01:39:28,439 --> 01:39:31,040
Speaker 1: kind of like I hope Jayden Daniel succeeds. Good for him.

1773
01:39:31,120 --> 01:39:33,360
Speaker 2: I was shocked by how accepting I was, like, this

1774
01:39:33,400 --> 01:39:34,519
Speaker 2: is actually a likable team.

1775
01:39:34,720 --> 01:39:37,120
Speaker 1: I kind of like these guys. Josh Harris is the

1776
01:39:37,160 --> 01:39:38,800
Speaker 1: type of owner I mean, look, I wish the Learners

1777
01:39:38,840 --> 01:39:40,760
Speaker 1: would emulate him, which is, if you want to make

1778
01:39:40,800 --> 01:39:44,000
Speaker 1: money in sports, build a winner. You can't make money

1779
01:39:44,080 --> 01:39:46,599
Speaker 1: not building and not building a winner. It just doesn't

1780
01:39:46,640 --> 01:39:50,200
Speaker 1: work that way. And that's what we're learning with the Commanders.

1781
01:39:50,200 --> 01:39:53,000
Speaker 1: If you build a winner, it's amazing the stuff that

1782
01:39:53,000 --> 01:39:56,559
Speaker 1: melts away. And by the way, that could explain why

1783
01:39:56,640 --> 01:39:59,120
Speaker 1: Republicans have fallen in love with Trump. They hadn't won

1784
01:39:59,160 --> 01:40:01,719
Speaker 1: in a while. Anyone, you're winning a lot now, winning

1785
01:40:01,720 --> 01:40:07,200
Speaker 1: a lot, winning, winning has a way of appeasing the masses. Yeah,

1786
01:40:08,040 --> 01:40:11,000
Speaker 1: Scott mccarlin, good to talk with you, Buzzy. That's Chuck,

1787
01:40:11,080 --> 01:40:23,080
Speaker 1: keep it up. He got a brother. I hope you

1788
01:40:23,200 --> 01:40:25,760
Speaker 1: enjoyed that conversation with Scott As you could say, you know,

1789
01:40:25,880 --> 01:40:28,120
Speaker 1: if you don't follow him, give him a follow, pay

1790
01:40:28,160 --> 01:40:31,760
Speaker 1: attention to his work. He's been doing terrific stuff. All right,

1791
01:40:31,800 --> 01:40:33,840
Speaker 1: let's do a couple of ask chucks here. I know

1792
01:40:33,840 --> 01:40:36,479
Speaker 1: I gone, we're a little long, but I will sneak

1793
01:40:36,479 --> 01:40:39,240
Speaker 1: in a couple questions in here for you ask Chuck.

1794
01:40:41,320 --> 01:40:46,000
Speaker 1: The first one comes from Brent p and he asks

1795
01:40:46,200 --> 01:40:48,439
Speaker 1: what do you make of Trump and the Republicans trying

1796
01:40:48,479 --> 01:40:50,639
Speaker 1: to undo President Biden's end of term pardons. The argument

1797
01:40:50,640 --> 01:40:52,640
Speaker 1: that he didn't know what he was doing seems to

1798
01:40:52,680 --> 01:40:54,880
Speaker 1: have been disproven in the recent New York Times interview. Also,

1799
01:40:55,160 --> 01:40:58,440
Speaker 1: trying to declare auto pen or have a following president

1800
01:40:58,479 --> 01:41:02,320
Speaker 1: without any proof, declared that a previous president wasn't mentally

1801
01:41:02,320 --> 01:41:05,040
Speaker 1: fit seems like a slippery slope. By the way, Carson

1802
01:41:05,040 --> 01:41:06,840
Speaker 1: Beck and Jordan Love are gonna have big seasons, go

1803
01:41:07,000 --> 01:41:11,120
Speaker 1: Canes and go pack go uh not. Many people are

1804
01:41:11,479 --> 01:41:13,479
Speaker 1: like Brent and myself, where we're both knes fans and

1805
01:41:13,520 --> 01:41:17,200
Speaker 1: Packers fans. So I appreciate that sentiment there. I am

1806
01:41:17,240 --> 01:41:19,920
Speaker 1: really I love that everybody's selling Carson Beck short, so

1807
01:41:20,120 --> 01:41:23,040
Speaker 1: I'm buying Carson Beck stock. Buy it now, it's at

1808
01:41:23,040 --> 01:41:26,000
Speaker 1: a low low price. I bought cam Ward early when

1809
01:41:26,040 --> 01:41:27,680
Speaker 1: and by the way, when when I buy stock, it

1810
01:41:27,720 --> 01:41:30,439
Speaker 1: means I buy their cards. By that in this case

1811
01:41:30,439 --> 01:41:32,840
Speaker 1: it's Bowman first cards. So I bought a bunch of

1812
01:41:32,840 --> 01:41:35,320
Speaker 1: early Bowman first cam Warns, and I did really well.

1813
01:41:36,240 --> 01:41:39,000
Speaker 1: And I mean I've been, uh, I've spent quite a

1814
01:41:39,000 --> 01:41:43,120
Speaker 1: bit on mister Beck. I am. I am equally as

1815
01:41:43,160 --> 01:41:47,679
Speaker 1: optimistic about him because we're gonna have an incredible offensive line.

1816
01:41:47,680 --> 01:41:50,160
Speaker 1: Everything else may not work, but when you have that

1817
01:41:50,200 --> 01:41:52,599
Speaker 1: good of an offensive line, even I might be able

1818
01:41:52,640 --> 01:41:56,760
Speaker 1: to complete a pass behind it. But you know, it's

1819
01:41:56,800 --> 01:42:02,840
Speaker 1: a head scratcher on these pardons, because you know, I

1820
01:42:02,840 --> 01:42:05,800
Speaker 1: think the pardons are just awful. It was bad practice, right,

1821
01:42:06,000 --> 01:42:10,160
Speaker 1: these these blanket pardons that Biden gave, the sort of

1822
01:42:10,200 --> 01:42:13,400
Speaker 1: the weird pardons that he gave his brother, his siblings,

1823
01:42:14,120 --> 01:42:18,400
Speaker 1: but not all of his kids, right, the blanket pardon

1824
01:42:18,439 --> 01:42:21,360
Speaker 1: for Hunter, the blanket pardon for the siblings, but not

1825
01:42:21,400 --> 01:42:23,559
Speaker 1: the But then he didn't do it for the right anyway,

1826
01:42:23,880 --> 01:42:29,080
Speaker 1: just the whole premise, right, pardoning somebody for future just

1827
01:42:29,080 --> 01:42:33,519
Speaker 1: just a bad precedent to set which you would think

1828
01:42:33,520 --> 01:42:36,760
Speaker 1: Donald Trump loves a good precedent that was set that

1829
01:42:36,800 --> 01:42:38,400
Speaker 1: he can then say, well, they did it, now I

1830
01:42:38,400 --> 01:42:40,800
Speaker 1: can do it, which, of course, to me was the

1831
01:42:41,640 --> 01:42:43,720
Speaker 1: single number one reason why Biden shouldn't have done what

1832
01:42:43,720 --> 01:42:46,639
Speaker 1: he did. I think those by I think those pardons

1833
01:42:46,680 --> 01:42:50,080
Speaker 1: are a disaster that he did. I think the precedent

1834
01:42:50,120 --> 01:42:53,280
Speaker 1: that he sent. You know, I hope this means someday

1835
01:42:53,320 --> 01:42:56,280
Speaker 1: we you know, in a future episode, we're gonna be

1836
01:42:56,280 --> 01:42:58,880
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of a constitutional convention. Well one

1837
01:42:58,920 --> 01:43:03,240
Speaker 1: amendment that'll be in there to ban a president from

1838
01:43:03,280 --> 01:43:05,800
Speaker 1: having soul authority on pardons. There's got to be a

1839
01:43:05,840 --> 01:43:08,920
Speaker 1: pardon board of some sort. I mean, this is such

1840
01:43:08,960 --> 01:43:11,360
Speaker 1: a corrupting force, and I think Donald Trump's taken the

1841
01:43:11,400 --> 01:43:15,120
Speaker 1: corruption of the pardon of pardons and gone to another level.

1842
01:43:15,400 --> 01:43:18,479
Speaker 1: But the problem is there's no high ground here for

1843
01:43:18,560 --> 01:43:22,240
Speaker 1: Democrats because of this ridiculous end of the year, end

1844
01:43:22,280 --> 01:43:26,439
Speaker 1: of the term pardons that Biden signed. So for me,

1845
01:43:26,840 --> 01:43:29,880
Speaker 1: that's the part of this, Like, you know, they're not

1846
01:43:30,640 --> 01:43:33,400
Speaker 1: they're not attacking the pardon for the reason that they

1847
01:43:33,400 --> 01:43:37,160
Speaker 1: should be attacking the pardons for. They're attacking amount of technicality. Well,

1848
01:43:37,200 --> 01:43:40,479
Speaker 1: they used an autopen. It's not like they're saying he

1849
01:43:40,640 --> 01:43:44,280
Speaker 1: can't have issued that kind of pardon. These broad pardons

1850
01:43:44,360 --> 01:43:49,280
Speaker 1: for future essentially future investigations, but it's whether or not

1851
01:43:49,520 --> 01:43:54,640
Speaker 1: he physically signed or not, you know. To me, this

1852
01:43:54,680 --> 01:43:57,400
Speaker 1: feels like a distraction story. To me, this feels like

1853
01:43:59,479 --> 01:44:01,759
Speaker 1: there's some things you do to just feed the bass,

1854
01:44:01,880 --> 01:44:04,680
Speaker 1: to give them something. You know, there's all these you know,

1855
01:44:05,120 --> 01:44:08,040
Speaker 1: right wing influencers out there that are sort of mega

1856
01:44:08,160 --> 01:44:13,040
Speaker 1: influencers who they need to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein story,

1857
01:44:13,280 --> 01:44:15,679
Speaker 1: and this feels like a way to distract from the Hey,

1858
01:44:15,720 --> 01:44:19,000
Speaker 1: go investigate Biden in the autopen. Hey, look, squirrel, to you,

1859
01:44:19,080 --> 01:44:22,479
Speaker 1: maga influencers, don't pay no attention, Charlie Kirk. Now that

1860
01:44:22,520 --> 01:44:25,800
Speaker 1: you've agreed to my order, Donald Trump's order of not

1861
01:44:26,120 --> 01:44:30,519
Speaker 1: talking about Epstein, do this or Fox News apparently pretending

1862
01:44:30,560 --> 01:44:34,400
Speaker 1: Epstein's not an issue right now at all, pretending it

1863
01:44:34,400 --> 01:44:37,360
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. But hey, let's talk about this Biden investigation.

1864
01:44:37,479 --> 01:44:42,719
Speaker 1: So I feel like it's just simply chum for the bass.

1865
01:44:42,720 --> 01:44:46,400
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a serious effort, But I am,

1866
01:44:46,560 --> 01:44:48,600
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm sort of head scratched about it

1867
01:44:48,640 --> 01:44:54,640
Speaker 1: because unfortunately Biden has given Donald Trump the blueprint to

1868
01:44:54,880 --> 01:44:57,479
Speaker 1: just give blanket pardons to everybody as they walk out

1869
01:44:57,520 --> 01:45:00,559
Speaker 1: the door, anybody with the last name of Trump, you know,

1870
01:45:00,640 --> 01:45:02,439
Speaker 1: and then it's like, you know, this is like it's

1871
01:45:02,479 --> 01:45:06,639
Speaker 1: like diplomatic I remember the first lethal weapon, the guy

1872
01:45:06,640 --> 01:45:09,160
Speaker 1: from South of diplomatic Immunity. It was like, you know,

1873
01:45:09,200 --> 01:45:11,559
Speaker 1: I could kill you diplomatic community, and he was like

1874
01:45:11,720 --> 01:45:14,680
Speaker 1: waving it around like it was this hall pass to

1875
01:45:14,720 --> 01:45:17,280
Speaker 1: do whatever the hell he wanted with his gold Krueger

1876
01:45:17,360 --> 01:45:21,599
Speaker 1: Rans and all that stuff. That's essentially what these pardons

1877
01:45:21,640 --> 01:45:24,439
Speaker 1: are likely going to look like. And all Donald Trump

1878
01:45:24,479 --> 01:45:26,360
Speaker 1: and Republicans are going to say, as well, Joe Biden

1879
01:45:26,360 --> 01:45:31,200
Speaker 1: did it first, which is why those partons are terrible.

1880
01:45:31,240 --> 01:45:34,080
Speaker 1: But you're asking what the investigation is about. I think

1881
01:45:34,120 --> 01:45:36,360
Speaker 1: it's simply that. And why did Biden give that interview.

1882
01:45:36,520 --> 01:45:38,120
Speaker 1: I think he gave that interview because all of his

1883
01:45:38,120 --> 01:45:41,559
Speaker 1: staff is getting subpoena. Trump's going to waive these these

1884
01:45:41,640 --> 01:45:44,479
Speaker 1: executive privileges, so they're going to go up there. So

1885
01:45:44,680 --> 01:45:46,720
Speaker 1: he needs to give his staff for something to hang

1886
01:45:46,760 --> 01:45:49,800
Speaker 1: their hat on. So I think the minimum he could

1887
01:45:49,840 --> 01:45:51,960
Speaker 1: do is to go out there and defend Hey, no, no, no,

1888
01:45:52,000 --> 01:45:54,160
Speaker 1: I intended every pardon and this is how it worked,

1889
01:45:54,200 --> 01:45:57,080
Speaker 1: so that all right. Second question comes from Josh b

1890
01:45:58,560 --> 01:46:01,920
Speaker 1: If Gavin was the nominee, who you're referring to Gavin Newsom, Josh,

1891
01:46:02,120 --> 01:46:03,839
Speaker 1: do you think his pivot to the middle and cultural

1892
01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:08,080
Speaker 1: issues could sell in the Midwest and other battlegrounds. Here's

1893
01:46:08,120 --> 01:46:13,800
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, I'm not going to sit here

1894
01:46:13,800 --> 01:46:19,840
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I don't buy that the former

1895
01:46:19,920 --> 01:46:22,280
Speaker 1: mayor of San Francisco is going to sell well in

1896
01:46:22,400 --> 01:46:29,920
Speaker 1: Des Moines, in Omaha, in Lansing, in Harrisonburg. But I

1897
01:46:29,920 --> 01:46:31,680
Speaker 1: also think, you know, you can't. I'm not going to

1898
01:46:31,760 --> 01:46:35,960
Speaker 1: underestimate Gavin Newsoon's ability to sort of rehabilitate himself. You know,

1899
01:46:35,960 --> 01:46:37,760
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when he was written off

1900
01:46:37,800 --> 01:46:41,760
Speaker 1: the first time, when he ran for governor for a

1901
01:46:41,760 --> 01:46:44,040
Speaker 1: brief period against Jerry Brown and then sort of got

1902
01:46:45,000 --> 01:46:47,160
Speaker 1: kind of humiliated out of that race, a little bit

1903
01:46:47,240 --> 01:46:51,040
Speaker 1: pushed out, was gaining no traction, you know, sort of

1904
01:46:51,560 --> 01:46:54,080
Speaker 1: ran for lieutenant governor, which is kind of a nothing

1905
01:46:54,120 --> 01:46:56,679
Speaker 1: position there, but sort of a way to bide time

1906
01:46:58,000 --> 01:47:02,439
Speaker 1: and reinvented himself. And he's reinvented himself before. So and

1907
01:47:02,520 --> 01:47:06,000
Speaker 1: I say this with more with admiration, not not you know,

1908
01:47:06,040 --> 01:47:08,640
Speaker 1: not any I'm not trying to say he's just, you know,

1909
01:47:08,680 --> 01:47:10,920
Speaker 1: a phony. I'm not not doing any of that stuff.

1910
01:47:10,960 --> 01:47:13,759
Speaker 1: So I don't want to undersell his sort of ability

1911
01:47:13,800 --> 01:47:17,760
Speaker 1: as a political athlete, his ability to I just wonder

1912
01:47:17,840 --> 01:47:20,839
Speaker 1: if he's just too defined as a Californian, too defined

1913
01:47:20,840 --> 01:47:24,559
Speaker 1: as a coastal elite. I did it, it is in

1914
01:47:24,600 --> 01:47:29,160
Speaker 1: a weird way. I think Gavin would have might would

1915
01:47:29,200 --> 01:47:31,479
Speaker 1: have made more sense going up against a Donald Trump.

1916
01:47:31,560 --> 01:47:35,160
Speaker 1: You know, you're sort of like it. It's west coast,

1917
01:47:35,200 --> 01:47:39,719
Speaker 1: east coast type of thing. But I think in the

1918
01:47:39,760 --> 01:47:42,680
Speaker 1: next election after Donald Trump, is that where you want

1919
01:47:42,680 --> 01:47:43,960
Speaker 1: to go? Is that where the voters are going to

1920
01:47:44,000 --> 01:47:49,520
Speaker 1: want to go? So I'm I'm still a bit skeptical,

1921
01:47:51,360 --> 01:47:55,280
Speaker 1: and I don't know, you know, I don't know if

1922
01:47:55,280 --> 01:47:57,240
Speaker 1: his pivot, you know, what, is he really pivoted on

1923
01:47:57,280 --> 01:48:01,000
Speaker 1: in cultural issues outside of outside of the transhim in

1924
01:48:01,360 --> 01:48:04,400
Speaker 1: college sports. I don't know if he's pivoted all that much.

1925
01:48:05,280 --> 01:48:09,559
Speaker 1: And I still think what's mainstream in California is still

1926
01:48:09,600 --> 01:48:12,360
Speaker 1: considered a bit too liberal for the rest of those

1927
01:48:12,400 --> 01:48:16,920
Speaker 1: seven swing states. So I'm I'm a bit skeptical. And

1928
01:48:16,960 --> 01:48:20,439
Speaker 1: then there's the other logistical problem that all Californians have

1929
01:48:20,520 --> 01:48:23,240
Speaker 1: run into and they've run for president. It is tough

1930
01:48:23,280 --> 01:48:25,840
Speaker 1: to base a campaign on the West coast. Why Kamala

1931
01:48:25,840 --> 01:48:29,040
Speaker 1: Harris based her campaign on the East coast. Pete Wilson

1932
01:48:29,080 --> 01:48:31,439
Speaker 1: ran into this problem when he ran. Jerry Brown has

1933
01:48:31,479 --> 01:48:34,439
Speaker 1: talked with me about it numerous times about the sort

1934
01:48:34,479 --> 01:48:37,960
Speaker 1: of the time zone disadvantage of being a West Coast

1935
01:48:38,000 --> 01:48:41,880
Speaker 1: politician running for president when the essentially most of the

1936
01:48:41,880 --> 01:48:44,439
Speaker 1: people that cover your campaign or on East Coast time.

1937
01:48:45,880 --> 01:48:49,320
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's not an insignificant logistical

1938
01:48:49,400 --> 01:48:56,720
Speaker 1: challenge either. So I'm I'm open minded. Look I the

1939
01:48:56,760 --> 01:48:59,439
Speaker 1: South Carolina. What I'm curious about what the South Carolina

1940
01:48:59,479 --> 01:49:03,040
Speaker 1: trip with gat News is. I'm gonna call some of

1941
01:49:03,040 --> 01:49:07,559
Speaker 1: my South Carolina Democratic sort of sources down there. I'm

1942
01:49:07,600 --> 01:49:11,160
Speaker 1: curious what was the real reception like for him? Right?

1943
01:49:11,240 --> 01:49:13,760
Speaker 1: You know, he's gotten plenty of good press being down

1944
01:49:13,800 --> 01:49:15,120
Speaker 1: there on that side of the you know, and he's

1945
01:49:15,200 --> 01:49:18,880
Speaker 1: really but you know, was he did he did he

1946
01:49:18,960 --> 01:49:23,040
Speaker 1: really connect? It's I'm very curious. It's a It's an

1947
01:49:23,040 --> 01:49:26,400
Speaker 1: electorate I've never seen him campaign for before. I think

1948
01:49:26,400 --> 01:49:29,240
Speaker 1: it's unique among among that So, you know, the only

1949
01:49:29,280 --> 01:49:30,920
Speaker 1: other place I'd like to see Gavin is at the

1950
01:49:30,920 --> 01:49:33,519
Speaker 1: Iowa State Fair. That would be an interesting place to

1951
01:49:33,520 --> 01:49:35,360
Speaker 1: see how you would do there. All right, I'll go

1952
01:49:35,439 --> 01:49:42,040
Speaker 1: one more question here. This one comes from Kevin and Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska. Hey, Chuck,

1953
01:49:42,080 --> 01:49:43,760
Speaker 1: big fan of the podcast and enjoyed your conversation with

1954
01:49:43,840 --> 01:49:46,400
Speaker 1: Nathan Denzalez about Dan Osborne. My question is what is

1955
01:49:46,439 --> 01:49:48,599
Speaker 1: the advantage of Dan Osborne running for the Senate against

1956
01:49:48,600 --> 01:49:51,360
Speaker 1: Pete Ricketts instead of running for governor against Jim Pillen.

1957
01:49:51,840 --> 01:49:53,479
Speaker 1: I believe that running for governor would have been a

1958
01:49:53,520 --> 01:49:55,800
Speaker 1: better play for Osborne. Voters are less partisan when it

1959
01:49:55,800 --> 01:49:58,160
Speaker 1: comes to racist for governor, and it seems that Jim

1960
01:49:58,560 --> 01:50:01,439
Speaker 1: Pillen isn't as strong as Ricketts, who just won in November.

1961
01:50:01,439 --> 01:50:04,040
Speaker 1: I understand that Dan Osborne's populous message draws a better

1962
01:50:04,080 --> 01:50:06,920
Speaker 1: contrast against Ricketts, but are there other reasons for running

1963
01:50:06,920 --> 01:50:10,320
Speaker 1: for Senate makes more sense for Osborne instead of governor.

1964
01:50:10,920 --> 01:50:13,120
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time, go big Red. You know

1965
01:50:13,240 --> 01:50:16,920
Speaker 1: you make a very good, you know case that Osborne

1966
01:50:17,000 --> 01:50:19,880
Speaker 1: might have a better chance at winning and maybe you're

1967
01:50:19,920 --> 01:50:22,480
Speaker 1: you're getting at the heart of it, you know, maybe

1968
01:50:22,720 --> 01:50:26,080
Speaker 1: the message, maybe what he cares about, the message he's

1969
01:50:26,120 --> 01:50:31,280
Speaker 1: trying to campaign on fits a campaign against Ricketts better

1970
01:50:31,439 --> 01:50:36,160
Speaker 1: than Pillin. I hear you on that. It is also

1971
01:50:36,560 --> 01:50:39,320
Speaker 1: the single I think the single hardest thing to do

1972
01:50:39,400 --> 01:50:42,720
Speaker 1: is to defeat a sitting governor. Go look at the

1973
01:50:42,760 --> 01:50:48,879
Speaker 1: track record. It is astonishing. It is I think governors

1974
01:50:48,920 --> 01:50:51,519
Speaker 1: have as high a reelection rate as president's. Right, it

1975
01:50:51,600 --> 01:50:54,720
Speaker 1: is tough to defeat a sitting president. The fact that

1976
01:50:54,720 --> 01:50:59,439
Speaker 1: that you know, we've had We've had three Jimmy Carter,

1977
01:51:00,280 --> 01:51:07,400
Speaker 1: hw Bush, Donald Trump. That's that's three. And you have

1978
01:51:07,479 --> 01:51:12,640
Speaker 1: to go back to before then Hoover. Right. Uh So

1979
01:51:12,760 --> 01:51:16,200
Speaker 1: we don't do it very often. Governor's the same way.

1980
01:51:16,240 --> 01:51:20,920
Speaker 1: It is not many places where you see, uh it's happened.

1981
01:51:20,960 --> 01:51:23,400
Speaker 1: I believe check Culver and neighboring Iowa only got a

1982
01:51:23,520 --> 01:51:27,439
Speaker 1: term and was defeated after a term. But for the

1983
01:51:27,479 --> 01:51:30,639
Speaker 1: same reason why voters are pretty open minded are less

1984
01:51:30,680 --> 01:51:34,000
Speaker 1: partisan in their in their picks for governor. They're also

1985
01:51:34,960 --> 01:51:37,680
Speaker 1: a little more open to giving a governor sort of

1986
01:51:37,680 --> 01:51:40,360
Speaker 1: the full you know, eight years to get the to

1987
01:51:40,920 --> 01:51:43,519
Speaker 1: to get their job done, so that may also have

1988
01:51:43,640 --> 01:51:47,719
Speaker 1: something to do with it. But it's a great question,

1989
01:51:47,960 --> 01:51:50,800
Speaker 1: and I think you're right on tactics that if if

1990
01:51:50,800 --> 01:51:53,280
Speaker 1: the goal is to win, what is the more winnable

1991
01:51:53,360 --> 01:51:56,320
Speaker 1: racing and governor might be in that case. But when

1992
01:51:56,320 --> 01:51:59,360
Speaker 1: you look at what he's fighting, what what Osborne's messages

1993
01:51:59,360 --> 01:52:02,160
Speaker 1: and what he's fighting for, in many ways, I understand

1994
01:52:02,160 --> 01:52:06,240
Speaker 1: that the contrast with Ricketts, the billionaire Wall Street guy,

1995
01:52:06,439 --> 01:52:11,080
Speaker 1: right you know, if you will, is probably a lot

1996
01:52:11,120 --> 01:52:16,120
Speaker 1: more appealing. Here's something to think about. If Osborne comes

1997
01:52:16,120 --> 01:52:19,920
Speaker 1: close but loses, what office does he run for in

1998
01:52:19,960 --> 01:52:25,960
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight and with what party? So I'm going

1999
01:52:26,000 --> 01:52:30,200
Speaker 1: to leave you with that. I appreciate you listening, Thanks

2000
01:52:30,240 --> 01:52:33,839
Speaker 1: for humoring me once again. Appreciate your liking and subscribing.

2001
01:52:33,880 --> 01:52:38,000
Speaker 1: We've been getting some great feedback, some great questions. It's

2002
01:52:38,040 --> 01:52:40,280
Speaker 1: been very reassuring. I appreciate that I've got a new

2003
01:52:40,280 --> 01:52:42,800
Speaker 1: substack up breaking down a little bit what I did

2004
01:52:42,880 --> 01:52:44,600
Speaker 1: last week on twenty twenty eight, but I put it

2005
01:52:44,600 --> 01:52:47,360
Speaker 1: in the written form if you will, so I hope

2006
01:52:47,360 --> 01:52:49,679
Speaker 1: you will take a look at that. Have an op

2007
01:52:49,800 --> 01:52:51,600
Speaker 1: ed piece, A fun little op ed piece with my

2008
01:52:51,600 --> 01:52:54,080
Speaker 1: friends at the Dispatch about what are we doing with

2009
01:52:54,120 --> 01:52:57,160
Speaker 1: all this time that we've saved over the last twenty years.

2010
01:52:57,680 --> 01:52:59,559
Speaker 1: Why do we just sit there, scroll and get mad

2011
01:52:59,600 --> 01:53:01,600
Speaker 1: at each other? There? Could it be that if we

2012
01:53:01,640 --> 01:53:04,400
Speaker 1: had more to do, we'd be less polarized? Just some

2013
01:53:04,479 --> 01:53:07,760
Speaker 1: food for thought for there. So with that, I'll see

2014
01:53:07,760 --> 01:53:09,960
Speaker 1: you back here in twenty four hours until we upload again.