Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about medicare is
Speaker 1: somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere, and you're skeptical
Speaker 1: of that, as you should be.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
Speaker 1: over exactly this companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most,
Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
Speaker 1: medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it, but
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Speaker 1: I get it. I think there's all sorts of space.
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Speaker 1: It is Medicare, and all of its affiliated stuff can
Speaker 1: be very confusing. The whole point of this is to
Speaker 1: make this easier and less confusing. Okay, so look, take
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Speaker 1: zero seven three four three nine eight five. Well, joining
Speaker 1: me now is somebody who's should be a familiar face
Speaker 1: to you, because I think I've had him on my hye.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think we regularly now do this about
Speaker 1: once a quarter. It's my friend John Kasik. You may
Speaker 1: know him as the former governor of Ohio. You may
Speaker 1: know him as a former member of Congress, former whatever
Speaker 1: we're all about. We're a couple of guys with a
Speaker 1: lot of formers, and we're a lot of and we're
Speaker 1: but neither one of us believe we're formally doing anything.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to do And I think as you,
Speaker 1: as I share all the time about our conversations, I
Speaker 1: always say, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: both I think John and I are in the same
Speaker 1: place by trying to figure out how can we get
Speaker 1: people speaking again. And John, I got to tell you
Speaker 1: about an organization I was just at earlier this month.
Speaker 1: You would love it if the organizations called Recenter Indiana,
Speaker 1: and it's all about civic engagement, depolarization, and the whole
Speaker 1: point is not centrism. I love their focus, which is
Speaker 1: saying we just want every local politician to put Indiana's
Speaker 1: priorities before their ideology, and that's what they mean by recenter.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you now Indiana. You know
Speaker 1: Indiana well, obviously as a border state of yours, they've
Speaker 1: always had a culture. It may be a conservative state,
Speaker 1: but they are not a what I call a pugilistic state.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Utah. They don't like this style
Speaker 1: of politics. And this group really revolted over the redistricting,
Speaker 1: you know, basically the outside.
Speaker 2: I was really impressed with this group.
Speaker 1: They got a great turnout and they're really trying to
Speaker 1: It's about trying to help educate young voters, increase participation
Speaker 1: with young voters, but really try to improve civic conversation.
Speaker 1: And it strikes me that there's a lot of desire
Speaker 1: out there for this. I know you hear this, I
Speaker 1: hear this, and yet all the coverage is about how
Speaker 1: divided we are.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, I'm not so sure that I agree
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't share that optimism right now.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the problem, Chuck, I mean, it's in my opinion,
Speaker 2: it's like, if you're a Republican and you go you
Speaker 2: want to really have a good conversation, well, then would
Speaker 2: you vote for a Democrat. Oh, I wouldn't do that,
Speaker 2: are you kidding? And vice versa. So we hear people
Speaker 2: say this, but at the end, when the bell goes off,
Speaker 2: people go to their corners. And I don't want to
Speaker 2: be I don't want to be pessimistic, but I also
Speaker 2: don't want to be you know, pie in the sky.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of work to be done,
Speaker 2: which you're trying to do and I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: In mind, I agree that there's a ton of work,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, the voters keep rejecting both parties,
Speaker 1: and neither party sees it yet as an indictment. They
Speaker 1: just see it as an opportunity to win the next time.
Speaker 1: And that's what I don't know how we change that mindset.
Speaker 2: Well, how do you say they're rejecting both parties every
Speaker 2: election cycle they vote out the party that's in power.
Speaker 1: And they've done it every we have, not every single
Speaker 1: every two years john this century, but two four and
Speaker 1: twelve were reelected. Everything in on the federal level. But
Speaker 1: if you go now, I can get right, you go,
Speaker 1: we can go back twenty fourteen, New Senate, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: New White House, twenty eighteen, new House twenty twenty, new
Speaker 1: White House, new new Senate twenty twenty two, new House
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, new presidents that you see where like
Speaker 1: we're voters, I say, we the voters only have one
Speaker 1: tool to express themselves, the elector of the American people,
Speaker 1: and it's they're voting. And if you don't like your options,
Speaker 1: then you just vote out right, and we keep voting out.
Speaker 1: We're going to have over one hundred new members of
Speaker 1: Congress this cycle, jump only for.
Speaker 2: The third time.
Speaker 1: Ninety two was the last time we had over one
Speaker 1: hundred new members of Congress.
Speaker 2: To vote.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, though, for something new, they
Speaker 1: just don't necessarily know what they want.
Speaker 2: They want a bout a leadership. Let's let's drill down
Speaker 2: a little deeper on that. Is that because people who
Speaker 2: are Republicans are voting for Democrats and Democrats voting for
Speaker 2: Republicans or is it about turnout? In other words, you
Speaker 2: know you're going to see the Democrats all fired up
Speaker 2: this time and the Republicans are going to sit at home.
Speaker 1: But I would argue there's door number three that we
Speaker 1: always leave out in this conversation, and I totally agree
Speaker 1: with you about the ebbs and flows of base turnout,
Speaker 1: and there's no doubt this cycle it's the left that's
Speaker 1: exciting and they're going to show up. And I doubt
Speaker 1: the Trump voter shows up. I think we all see
Speaker 1: that coming. But it's the forty to rowing of forty
Speaker 1: percent who won't, who are uncomfortable identifying in either party.
Speaker 1: And you know this, right, you know independence Essentially in
Speaker 1: twenty four they looked Republican. This cycle they look Democrat
Speaker 1: to me. They're not waffling, they're essentially voting against. The
Speaker 1: independent voter doesn't vote for, they vote against these days,
Speaker 1: and that's where that's the difference I think between Look,
Speaker 1: we've always had the ebbs and flows of base turnout,
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed. But you have this larger chunk of
Speaker 1: voters that's growing in and that's the question. Are they
Speaker 1: in the middle or are they just rejecting these institutions?
Speaker 1: But maybe ideologically they're all over the place. And I
Speaker 1: think that is why this forty percent has been so
Speaker 1: hard to organize.
Speaker 2: If you will, well, look, you said something that I can't.
Speaker 2: I keep repeating it, and I hope it's right. And
Speaker 2: that is it took six presidentinential elections to get beyond Lincoln. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: well it didn't take one, it didn't take two. It
Speaker 2: took six. Now, I know the country's not as divided
Speaker 2: today as it was, but that's that. See, you're you're
Speaker 2: getting me convoluted here because on one hand, you're telling
Speaker 2: me something about how long it took for people to wait. Well,
Speaker 2: I agree that we do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll give you another fun little you know
Speaker 1: how long it took from the first meeting in Seneca
Speaker 1: Falls for the women to get the right to vote
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: seventy two years. So not every project happens overnight in
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 2: Well, look, we would both love for people to Well,
Speaker 2: here's another thing, Chuck, and I hope you will agree
Speaker 2: with this. I wrote something about this, and that is
Speaker 2: this socialist the Democrats socialis us are actually talking about
Speaker 2: things that people care about. I don't mean the prisons
Speaker 2: or that other craft. But when they start talking about
Speaker 2: affordability and they start talking about the gap between the
Speaker 2: reach and poor, and you know, I don't get a
Speaker 2: fair shot. All that kind of rhetoric. Okay, all that
Speaker 2: stuff that's touching voters. And what's more interesting than just
Speaker 2: the fact that they're resonating with voters, they are electrifying
Speaker 2: their supporters who are now out there doing something that
Speaker 2: I used to do, that we used to do in
Speaker 2: this country. And you know what it is. It's door
Speaker 2: to door campaigning. It's face to face. It's face to face.
Speaker 2: And so you don't, yeah, let me finish. So the
Speaker 2: moderates what I say about the Democrat moderates. In fact,
Speaker 2: I talked to a Democrat governor about this. I said,
Speaker 2: why are you people being silent? Why don't you say
Speaker 2: that what the socialists are saying makes sense. It's just
Speaker 2: their solutions are crazy. Let me tell you what I
Speaker 2: would do. But you don't hear them. They're quiet. It's
Speaker 2: just like the anti med A crowd. We know, okay,
Speaker 2: Trump hit a nerve. Let me finish this thought for
Speaker 2: our listeners. Trump hit a nerve. I warned them about
Speaker 2: this in twenty sixteen. It's it's negative populism. But yet
Speaker 2: the normal Republicans didn't say anything to say, no, that's
Speaker 2: just nonsense, right, Like we're going to balance the budget
Speaker 2: through waste, spad and abuse. You know, well, I look
Speaker 2: at it this way.
Speaker 1: If you if you see two if you're not feeling well,
Speaker 1: and you go and you see two doctors, yeah, and
Speaker 1: one doctor says, yeah, I think there's something wrong here,
Speaker 1: and the other doctor says, I can't find anything wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: which doctor are you going to go back to? The
Speaker 1: one that like? Now?
Speaker 2: That's it?
Speaker 1: They They may end up prescribing some cuckoo bird cure. Right,
Speaker 1: you beaches on George Washington, Right, yeah, right, but you're
Speaker 1: good at but you trust the person that shares the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: So here's here's where I come down on that socialism issue.
Speaker 1: Take Grand Rapids. I'm obsessed with what happened in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1: Abdul l sied, I don't know.
Speaker 2: What happened there. You mean in the primary, the primary.
Speaker 1: First of all, it was this highest turnout ever that
Speaker 1: Democrats got in Kent County, which is Grand Rapids. They
Speaker 1: got over and they just crushed. This is, of course
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford's home. This was a county that met Romney carried,
Speaker 1: county that Trump still carried by sixteen, doesn't carry it
Speaker 1: by twenty. We know that in the Michigan primary in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Biden narrowly defeated Sanders, the so called you know,
Speaker 1: sort of pragmatist versus versus socialists. Abdul l Saied won
Speaker 1: it by over thirty points. And so the question is
Speaker 1: do you believe that the people in Grand Rapids want
Speaker 1: to be are embracing socialism or are they looking at
Speaker 1: Hailey Stevens and abdul Lsied and one said I can
Speaker 1: make the system work, which is essentially was her message,
Speaker 1: and the other said, this system is broken. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're a moderate Republican in Kent County that now has
Speaker 1: decided the Republican Party's crazy, you left them right you were.
Speaker 1: This was a This was one of those the the
Speaker 1: the high education Republican counties. There's there's one near you
Speaker 1: in Columbus that a lot of people like to talk
Speaker 1: Delaware County. Is this Delaware County reliably Republican? Trump has lost,
Speaker 1: you knows, the Trump era has made it fade. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a sort of some one could argue it's
Speaker 1: got some similarities to to Kent. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: people that live in Grand Rapids want socialism. I do
Speaker 1: believe that people in Grand Rapids are going well, one
Speaker 1: guy agrees with my diagnosis. This thing is just aft up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other person thinks the system is still fixable. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with the socialist, even though I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about the solutions. At least he's going in
Speaker 1: there to do something different. And that's what Trump tapped into.
Speaker 2: I agree. That's why we love doing this truck has
Speaker 2: so much fun talking about this stuff. Let's for a
Speaker 2: second talk about Mondami. Yeah. Now you and I both
Speaker 2: know that rent control doesn't work, right, But I know this.
Speaker 2: If I'm living in an apartment up there, somebody's got
Speaker 2: to do something to keep my rent from going up.
Speaker 2: Here's the question. Why did the traditionalists not recognize the
Speaker 2: problem and then come up with a solution that was
Speaker 2: like bold? Right? I mean, do they have no capability
Speaker 2: to think differently? By the way, I saw a bumper
Speaker 2: sticker on the car. Sounds like I'm talking about deadhead sticker, right,
Speaker 2: But here's what it said. I took a picture. It
Speaker 2: said both democratic, We're not perfect, but they're nuts but back.
Speaker 1: But isn't the way our entire election cycles have gone
Speaker 1: over the last twenty years? Which who's the nuttier? Who's
Speaker 1: got the nuts.
Speaker 2: I was trying to say that for the traditionalists. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is your sizzle? Yeah, you don't sell the steak,
Speaker 2: you sell the sizzle. That's what I think Sinatra said,
Speaker 2: And I'm saying to you, they're boring. I mean, why
Speaker 2: is it? Why is it that if you're first of all,
Speaker 2: the healthcare system is ridiculous, what we've done with the
Speaker 2: by taking away those subsidies, you realize what we have
Speaker 2: left are the sickest people and the healthiest people left
Speaker 2: the system. Why doesn't somebody say we're going to convene
Speaker 2: everybody involved in healthcare and we're going to lock them
Speaker 2: in a room and we're not going to let them
Speaker 2: out until they come up with something that encourages us
Speaker 2: to stay healthy rather than treating us when we're sick
Speaker 2: where they make a ton of money. They're worried about
Speaker 2: the rhetoric too, Chuck Yeah, I mean, where's the bold statements,
Speaker 2: where's the bold ideas from the establishment? They don't exist.
Speaker 1: By the way, I could make the same I just
Speaker 1: same argument about the public school system or our education system.
Speaker 1: I should call it that because it's no longer a
Speaker 1: public school system. It's a it's a it's very Uh.
Speaker 1: But what you just described, which is we've allowed our
Speaker 1: healthcare care system is sort of two classes, right, the
Speaker 1: haves and the have nots. And our education system is
Speaker 1: a two class system, haves and the have nots, which
Speaker 1: of course means our economy is is sort of divvying
Speaker 1: up the same way. I mean, ultimately, that's what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with here, is it? We have?
Speaker 2: We have?
Speaker 1: We have we have And I think I think the
Speaker 1: school system and the healthcare system are the two biggest
Speaker 1: drivers of this because that's what we all touch and
Speaker 1: feel every day as young families or is as you
Speaker 1: know what what do you interact most with? That government
Speaker 1: has a hand in health care and education, right and
Speaker 1: and uh and and we have we have let these
Speaker 1: two systems atrophy over the health questions, no question, no
Speaker 1: innovation and and it's except in the private space in
Speaker 1: education we have, but there's only so far can go.
Speaker 1: And I would argue that the innovation in the private
Speaker 1: space is actually harmed the public space unintentionally, right, But
Speaker 1: it does do that. It is because it's a binary thing.
Speaker 1: The more kids you take out of the system, the
Speaker 1: more you just you see what you do you just
Speaker 1: create what you just described in the healthcare system, where
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the public school system only deals
Speaker 1: with those that don't have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it becomes.
Speaker 1: Self reinforcing in a negative way, and we have not
Speaker 1: You know, what made us powerful as a as a
Speaker 1: country one hundred years ago was that our our school
Speaker 1: system was everybody went to the same school system, rich
Speaker 1: and poor, right, and then over time, you know, first
Speaker 1: it was the only the ultra rich kept their kids out.
Speaker 1: Then it just kept you know, chopping its way down,
Speaker 1: and now we've got Yeah, here's the thing, Frankstein system. Well,
Speaker 1: you go to the poorest communities and you have a
Speaker 1: lottery to allow parents to have choice. The line is
Speaker 1: so long, of course parents, But why don't we make
Speaker 1: there Why can't we make their neighborhood school a great school?
Speaker 2: Why do we have to shadow? Why? Because you know,
Speaker 2: what really is gets down to with no competition. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the pizza in Miami is no good unless there's a
Speaker 2: pizza place down the sidewalk. Competition is what drives change. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: my problem with the Union is that they don't want change.
Speaker 2: You know, Frankly, most people don't want change.
Speaker 1: Everybody's in preservation mode now, and that's where, yes, we're
Speaker 1: in preservation mode. Let me go to a topic because
Speaker 1: I'm very curious how you would handle this as a
Speaker 1: if you were on the ballot this year, and that
Speaker 1: is data centers. It's interesting to me. First of all,
Speaker 1: I was in I did interviews. I did back to
Speaker 1: back interviews, one with Byron Donald's Conservative Republic in Florida,
Speaker 1: one with Doug Jones, you could call them sort of
Speaker 1: center left Democrat and Dothan Alabama.
Speaker 2: Okay, both of them.
Speaker 1: The number one issue they're both talking about is data centers,
Speaker 1: right in different even different ways and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I think this public concern about data centers ain't about
Speaker 1: data centers. It's just about uh tech. It's about big tech,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's I think, larger than just what's
Speaker 1: happening in the communities. How would you be tackling this
Speaker 1: one as an elected official? And then two, what would
Speaker 1: you be saying to these tech companies who I think
Speaker 1: have spent too much time capturing politicians and not enough
Speaker 1: time capturing communities.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's why we need to have public financing of campaigns. Wow,
Speaker 2: Oh no, we need to have yeah, let me get
Speaker 2: to public find Let me start on the first thing,
Speaker 2: data center. If you're going to build a data center,
Speaker 2: you have to bring power with you. This cannot be
Speaker 2: put on the on the rate payers. You want to
Speaker 2: bring a data center, you bring the power. If you
Speaker 2: can't bring the power, you don't have a data center,
Speaker 2: plain and simple. And that is not anti data center.
Speaker 2: That's I'm actually pro data center, but I'm not having
Speaker 2: pro sent a data center paid for by the peoples
Speaker 2: whose utility bills go up. I can tell you this
Speaker 2: in the state of Ohio. We are paying for data
Speaker 2: centers in Virginia because we're in the same little area.
Speaker 2: And it's nonsense. So that's how I would handle that now.
Speaker 2: In terms of big tech, in terms of these companies,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, there's too much suck up, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think, chuck. You know, we have newtered
Speaker 2: the political parties. They play very little role in screening candidates.
Speaker 2: They don't have any money, and all the elections now
Speaker 2: are decided by special interest groups. I was telling somebody
Speaker 2: that I thought would agree with me on that, and
Speaker 2: they disagreed. Who was it? It was, Chris Matthews. Chris
Speaker 2: said no, I don't think the public would go for
Speaker 2: public finance for their money to go to some politician.
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Speaker 1: zero seven eight six seven if you're in Louisiana. Look
Speaker 1: public financing. I think we want big money out of politics,
Speaker 1: but you're not using tax payer money to run. I
Speaker 1: think we're I think we I think you can hold
Speaker 1: both positions at the same time.
Speaker 2: Well, my feeling about it is, if you're going to
Speaker 2: be a candidate, you're just like you're going to have
Speaker 2: a small business. You've got to reach a threshold of
Speaker 2: of the factory are qualified petitions, and then then I
Speaker 2: think you could publicly finance. Look, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of these people go to Washington and they're beholden before
Speaker 2: they even get sworn.
Speaker 1: In completely agree.
Speaker 2: So I can't tell you how I think we can
Speaker 2: fix that. We're going to you know, whether you say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: just transparency, that'll fix it all, No, won't. And the
Speaker 2: problem we have is the court, and the court is
Speaker 2: ruled that, you know, you can't limit speech and all that,
Speaker 2: and I understand it, and but there's ways to deal
Speaker 2: with that. But I've become a public finance guy. And
Speaker 2: you know what, Chuck, here's the thing. Yeah, Okay, when
Speaker 2: I say that, you're like, oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, because that's not you know, but you know,
Speaker 1: many conserv Republicans would be advocating for taxpayer dollars in
Speaker 1: the campaigns.
Speaker 2: You know what. That's why I'm fun honestly with No,
Speaker 2: you're not wrong. I mean, this is why you're interesting.
Speaker 1: You're not a you're you're not are You're not a
Speaker 1: cookie cutter.
Speaker 2: There is no place where I'm going to get my
Speaker 2: instructions from the political party to tell me what to do. Bloney. See,
Speaker 2: that's what I keep What I don't understand is in
Speaker 2: an era now when meeting the voter face to face matters.
Speaker 2: Why aren't there more people with Do you see the
Speaker 2: socialists doing it? But where are the normal Democrats? Where
Speaker 2: are the Republicans? They don't like Mega, They're just going crazy,
Speaker 2: they hate Mega. Well, what you what do you want
Speaker 2: to do and what's your rhetoric and what's your examples
Speaker 2: and what's your ideas?
Speaker 1: To me?
Speaker 2: This is the problem.
Speaker 1: You know you we identified it on the left, but
Speaker 1: you're right, the center right and the center left of
Speaker 1: the two parties, they don't have a compelling counter to
Speaker 1: MAGA in the socialist that's the problem.
Speaker 2: And you know they're boring. They follow a script and
Speaker 2: they can't I mean can't they think? I mean what
Speaker 2: can't they create something interesting?
Speaker 1: Well, give me an idea that you think the center
Speaker 1: right or the center left could do that would acknowledge
Speaker 1: the angst and at the same time save capitalism.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the ideas, as I said,
Speaker 2: is that if King Jeffries becomes the speaker, I've got
Speaker 2: a commitment out of Penetta to go down and see him.
Speaker 2: I want him to convene a healthcare group that can
Speaker 2: sit down who people who go into a room, unbiased,
Speaker 2: whether they're pharma, whether they're doctors, whether they're trial lawyers, whatever,
Speaker 2: come out with a plan that encourages the ability of
Speaker 2: people to be rewarded for doing things to keep them healthy,
Speaker 2: rather than continuing to run this treadmill. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that. And the fact is I would extend the
Speaker 2: subsidies until we get an answer, because you cannot cut
Speaker 2: people out of this stuff. That would be one thing. Well,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you my other one. This is you're gonna
Speaker 2: think this is crazy. I favor a Trump amendment. And
Speaker 2: people are like, what the Trump Amendment says that we
Speaker 2: shall have a balanced budget except in cases of war
Speaker 2: or you know, any depression, any of that other stuff.
Speaker 2: And people say a Trump amendment? Why a Trump amendment?
Speaker 2: I said, because it's got his name on it, and
Speaker 2: if we don't get on top of this debt, it's
Speaker 2: going to cripple everybody, you know. I mean, so I've
Speaker 2: been talking about that. People laugh. No, I'm going to
Speaker 2: cut the Trump on this at some point. Think about that.
Speaker 2: It would have his name and he hasn't enough to
Speaker 2: do anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm want to ask you about It's funny, and
Speaker 1: that's why I love talking with you because we're going
Speaker 1: to go in different directions. I didn't plan on going,
Speaker 1: but I'm watching a mismanage a war right now, all right,
Speaker 1: and we and I just want to let's I want
Speaker 1: to separate out the policy here for a minute, because
Speaker 1: that's one debate, but let's talk about the operational aspect
Speaker 1: of things. And I'm just going to ask you this
Speaker 1: question as a concerned citizen. For the last twenty five years,
Speaker 1: basically since nine to eleven, all we have done is
Speaker 1: invested money in the Pentagon, in new systems to do this.
Speaker 1: We've got to modernize this, We've got to do this.
Speaker 1: We've got to do that, and we are more unprepared
Speaker 1: for this war.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think this goes that Trump. Trump didn't plany if
Speaker 1: we were if we knew we were going to war,
Speaker 1: or that going to war with Iran was a possibility.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think we'd have improved our logistics for
Speaker 1: the USS Lincoln. I think I'd like to think we
Speaker 1: would have set something up. But let's set that. But
Speaker 1: that's my point here. What have we've been spending our money.
Speaker 1: We're finding out that the Iranians are are this sort
Speaker 1: of asymmetric warfare, which of course has been a problem
Speaker 1: for the United States going back to Vietnam. We continue
Speaker 1: to spend all this money. What are we getting for
Speaker 1: our money?
Speaker 2: Chuck? Sometimes I used to I think of them as
Speaker 2: the Uniform Public Works Committee. Let me tell you about
Speaker 2: the Pentagon. Okay, I mean, I'm.
Speaker 1: Getting you were one of the committee, and I'm tee
Speaker 1: you up here on purpose. I very well know you
Speaker 1: were one of the first Republicans actually want to audit
Speaker 1: the goddamn Pentagon.
Speaker 2: Well, not just that, but you know, look, we did
Speaker 2: Goldwater Nichols. There was I mean there were Goldwater Nickels
Speaker 2: said that the people that fight the war ought to
Speaker 2: have the power. We created special forces, you know. But
Speaker 2: the problem you have, Chuck, is the Pentagon is extremely
Speaker 2: resistant to any change. Yes, that's what I talked to
Speaker 2: Panetta about. He goes John. It was just so hard
Speaker 2: to get any change in there.
Speaker 1: That's why they all hated Rumsfeld. He you know, I
Speaker 1: think a Rumsfeld Rumsfeld pre nine to eleven, the first
Speaker 1: eight months he had this I remember id he had
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's support for it, like he wanted he really
Speaker 1: wanted to redo procurement. It was very and there it
Speaker 1: was this revolt against Rumsfeld from the uniform and from
Speaker 1: the defense contractors. Nine to eleven happens and he gets
Speaker 1: bulldozed on his reform efforts.
Speaker 2: I have a sort of a Rumsfeld was a friend
Speaker 2: of mine and I spent a lot of time with him,
Speaker 2: And actually after nine to eleven, I took a group
Speaker 2: of people from the Silicon Valley and to introduce technology,
Speaker 2: and Rumsfeld loved that we met on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: But he was always wanting to be an innovator in
Speaker 1: that area.
Speaker 2: I just think he is an innovator.
Speaker 1: What happened, the politics didn't allow it for it to happen. Right.
Speaker 2: Part of it chuck with Rumsfeld in my opinion, and
Speaker 2: I don't know that anybody else will agree with me,
Speaker 2: is that when he was trying to tell the military
Speaker 2: I want to have a big role in managing this war.
Speaker 2: He was so popular, remember the press conferences. He was
Speaker 2: like a matinee idol for a while.
Speaker 1: I think sort of got like Andrew Cuomo covid status
Speaker 1: right that that brief period before it.
Speaker 2: But I think where he went too far is he
Speaker 2: didn't pull the military in to say, look, what do
Speaker 2: you think, But I think they laid in wait for
Speaker 2: him and then they kind of did him in. But
Speaker 2: back to the Pentagon, you see you said something. They
Speaker 2: keep saying we have new systems, new weapons. No we don't. No,
Speaker 2: if you look at Ukraine, okay, the power of Ukraine
Speaker 2: is the commanders out there in the field have the
Speaker 2: ability to design their own weapons. The Pentagon is a
Speaker 2: giant bureaucracy. And so what's happening now is there are
Speaker 2: these new systems run by these tech companies that hold
Speaker 2: real promise. But the difficulty is I think I read
Speaker 2: somewhere the other day they talk a big game in
Speaker 2: the Pentagon, but only one percent of the money goes
Speaker 2: to new systems. Why because the old systems. Ron Dellams
Speaker 2: remember Ron Ellams? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He and I look, he was an anti war guy.
Speaker 1: He was was he a black panther or just black?
Speaker 2: He was involved.
Speaker 1: He was involved in the in theland, right, he was
Speaker 1: part of the movement. This is Oakland and Ron Dellams.
Speaker 1: I've heard this from others. Everybody thought he's going to
Speaker 1: be Chairman of Armed Services, this is going to be
Speaker 1: you know, piece nick, And it was never that he was.
Speaker 2: He was great.
Speaker 1: I have heard nothing but great things of how he
Speaker 1: managed that committee. He understood, he understood something that I
Speaker 1: wish more Americans understood. It's called pluralism, which means we're
Speaker 1: going to have a group of people that disagree, but
Speaker 1: we're going to figure out how to solve problems anyway. Sorry,
Speaker 1: so spenting.
Speaker 2: And he and I went after the beat the B
Speaker 2: two bomber. Yeah, he and I wanted to build thirteen.
Speaker 2: The Pentagon wanted one hundred and thirty two. And how
Speaker 2: did we get together. I sat in a briefing and
Speaker 2: they were telling me that we were going to fly
Speaker 2: the B two over the Soviet Union in the middle
Speaker 2: of a nuclear war and look for targets. And I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, how many how many weapons do you need?
Speaker 2: One's going to ruin your whole day.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say that we're worried about
Speaker 1: the number. The second the response, what are we going
Speaker 1: to do after it begins?
Speaker 2: Chuck? It took us, but we ended up. The Pentagon
Speaker 2: ended up. I reached an agreement with Cheney, who hated
Speaker 2: me for it, that we would build twenty. We went
Speaker 2: from one hundred and thirty two down to twenty. Now
Speaker 2: you know what, it took ten years to get this agreement.
Speaker 2: Ten years so, and I said, we don't need to
Speaker 2: kill the system. We need to have standoff weapons, new
Speaker 2: things to think about. Not that I was a genius
Speaker 2: in this. I had good staff, But the fact is,
Speaker 2: trying to change that building is very difficult. I understand
Speaker 2: that there are some people in there who were good
Speaker 2: and we have to see where it all goes. But
Speaker 2: I can tell you this is a and you're I mean,
Speaker 2: how many tanks do we need to build now? And
Speaker 2: here's the problem. Let me go back to V two.
Speaker 2: This is why I was telling them not to promote myself.
Speaker 2: The windshield was bar was built in one city, The
Speaker 2: wings were built in another state, the tires were built
Speaker 2: in another state. They loaded all these systems up so
Speaker 2: they all had a constituency that supported them.
Speaker 1: What if I told you, though, that both Boeing and
Speaker 1: Northrop Grumm and now have their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
Speaker 1: What does that tell you about how the Pentagon? I mean,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about corporate capture, You want to
Speaker 1: talk about sort of that pipeline, and you want to
Speaker 1: know why you can't you can't. You can't reform the
Speaker 1: Pentagon because what happens to people that are running today's Pentagon?
Speaker 1: Where do they go work? John?
Speaker 2: They need to work private sex companies, I know exactly.
Speaker 1: And then so and all of it is designed to
Speaker 1: preserve the system that exists, rather than say, how do
Speaker 1: we innovate and how do we think about the wars
Speaker 1: of tomorrow? Okay, my goodness, we've been exposed. That's my point.
Speaker 1: What the hell have we been spending all this money on?
Speaker 1: And we're getting our at We lost the straight.
Speaker 2: Of horror moves. I'm sorry? What did we do? No?
Speaker 2: But here here's the thing I would tell you. And
Speaker 2: I was not as optimistic as you about the moderates
Speaker 2: and all that other stuff, or people are rejecting whatever
Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier. I am an optimist that
Speaker 2: we have leaders who have good intentions, and I think
Speaker 2: it is possible for the whole Pentagon to be reformed
Speaker 2: with a group of people who say this is what
Speaker 2: we're going to do. And I do. I think it's
Speaker 2: very possible. I've sawt I've seen it done. I saw
Speaker 2: it done back in the old days. I think it
Speaker 2: can happen again. But what we have to what people
Speaker 2: have to ask themselves. And we're kind of back to
Speaker 2: this whole thing. You and I kibbots about who are
Speaker 2: you answering to? Are you answering to the pocketbook? Are
Speaker 2: you answering or are you answering to your family? And
Speaker 2: are you answering to a higher power? Because that way
Speaker 2: your intentions will be the right intentions in my opinion,
Speaker 2: not in all cases and not in all ways. But
Speaker 2: it's called leadership. It's called having character and saying I'm
Speaker 2: here for a short period of time, let's improve this.
Speaker 2: And I don't give up the fact that we can
Speaker 2: get that done. I don't dismiss the notion that we
Speaker 2: could get people in the media, in television who begin
Speaker 2: to say to get together and say, look, can we
Speaker 2: call off the message just to our base. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm an optimist. You are an optimist. We got to
Speaker 2: That's why we got to keep doing our thing, give
Speaker 2: people the hope.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that. I mean, look, the I
Speaker 1: think the legacy media business, Uh, there's not a market
Speaker 1: for that, right and I don't I wish there were.
Speaker 1: I think the market for people that I think kind
Speaker 1: of agree where you and I come from are a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who like I just I'm turning off
Speaker 1: the noise. Yeah, and what you hate is that they
Speaker 1: can't disengage. And that's been the issue they've got to.
Speaker 1: It goes back to why aren't they fighting back? What
Speaker 1: is your pro active I know what you're against, Like,
Speaker 1: there's this you know you saw look what happened in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: It turned out there's a majority that don't want whoa whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. We like Thanksgiving, but if she never says
Speaker 1: cancel Thanksgiving, she wins that primary right that turned into
Speaker 1: the shiny metal object going whoa, Well that's a little
Speaker 1: bit too much. But I can't tell you what David
Speaker 1: Crawley is for John Yeah, you know he succeeded by
Speaker 1: being against that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And that's been how that's that's how the center right
Speaker 1: or the center has survived. They've just been a bulwark
Speaker 1: against there's no and now maybe they would argue those
Speaker 1: that are in that space, whether you're Lisa Murkowski or
Speaker 1: or who's left in the center, left in the in
Speaker 1: the Democrats, Let's say, Mark Kelly, Hey, you gotta you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta wait till there's a moment. You know, you
Speaker 1: gotta wait right now, we're just in retreat. You know,
Speaker 1: that's why I agree with that. But you know, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you you are so good at history too. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this question. Throughout American political history, who have
Speaker 1: been the ones that, and I mean this rose above
Speaker 1: the den and every every every generation has a din
Speaker 1: that you need to rise above. Who are the ones
Speaker 1: that electrified the country in a positive way?
Speaker 2: The ones that really came out of nowhere or you know,
Speaker 2: who are they?
Speaker 1: Let's start thinking about them because I have a theory.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm an advocate of if you look
Speaker 1: at most of our change movements, John, in our history,
Speaker 1: they were outsiders. They weren't necessarily either major party. Right
Speaker 1: reform movements don't get adopted by major parties. They get
Speaker 1: co opted, meaning, oh, all right, it's inevitable. So now
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and be for it. Right, you just
Speaker 1: sort of accept you're like, you fight it, you fight it. Like,
Speaker 1: take the small thing of open primaries, right, Neither political
Speaker 1: party wants open primaries until they feel like it's their
Speaker 1: only way to win, and then suddenly, right it becomes
Speaker 1: a necessity. Okay, we'll be for open primaries in state acts,
Speaker 1: but we're still going to fight open primaries in state
Speaker 1: why because we think close primaries helped us here, open
Speaker 1: primaries help us there. So it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: transactionalism on that. But for the most part, Abe Lincoln,
Speaker 1: third party guy people forget this right, went to joined
Speaker 1: a brand new party. Left the Wigs joined a brand
Speaker 1: new party in order to get something done. Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: left his party in order to get something done. You know, FDR,
Speaker 1: it took, frankly, it took it took an economic collapse
Speaker 1: before there was and it really took FDR second term
Speaker 1: that he really sort of galvanized the country for change
Speaker 1: and things like this. So I look at some of
Speaker 1: those examples and think that I don't think you're going
Speaker 1: to find the next great sort of leader from one
Speaker 1: of the two parties. It's either going to be somebody
Speaker 1: that leaves one of the two parties to say, look,
Speaker 1: I need to be unshackled here, because the only way
Speaker 1: the public's going to trust me is if I'm not
Speaker 1: part of that part of that party anymore, part of
Speaker 1: that brand. But I look at our history and the
Speaker 1: biggest changes we've made were started by outside entities. The
Speaker 1: right to get women, the right to vote, direct election
Speaker 1: of senators was an outsider thing. The idea of the
Speaker 1: of the income tax came from the outside. That's why
Speaker 1: I keep searching for the great outsider hope.
Speaker 2: The end of prohibition. The end of prohibition would have been
Speaker 2: another one, right, I mean, yeah, that's really really that's
Speaker 2: a really interesting point, that that maybe the change has
Speaker 2: to come from the outside. You remember in modern time,
Speaker 2: you know Ross.
Speaker 1: Perot, I think he made Do you think Bill Clinton's
Speaker 1: a budget balancer without Ross Paro?
Speaker 2: Nope, me, neither or not.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean that to denigrate Bill Clinton. I
Speaker 1: think Bill Clinton's a smart politician. He went, oh, there's
Speaker 1: votes over here for it. Oh, by the way, there's
Speaker 1: then he hit Bob Ruben tells him how it makes
Speaker 1: financial sense, and then he's all in. Right, But it
Speaker 1: took the voters threatening him. Essentially, Look what Republicans over
Speaker 1: time have become to question free trade that you know,
Speaker 1: do we do? You know? I would argue Pero also
Speaker 1: started to introduce that mindset of hey, you know, so
Speaker 1: he was this outsider agitator that was tapping into constituencies
Speaker 1: in both parties, and I do think both parties tried
Speaker 1: to tried to respond in a defensive posture, but it
Speaker 1: did have an impact. So I do I view Ross
Speaker 1: Perot as a very successful independent.
Speaker 2: He was an amazing guy. He come to see me
Speaker 2: and he would walk in my office, no no security,
Speaker 2: no nothing. Yeah, it was hi Ross Paro's John Here.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you another guy that we should that we
Speaker 2: never hold up. Ralph Nader.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another one outside agitator that did it great. By
Speaker 1: the way, to read the Today's Times where we're talking
Speaker 1: on a Monday, August seventeenth, did a terrific sort of
Speaker 1: Ralph Nader's still around, and it's like I'm aware of this.
Speaker 1: I get these notes from him and everyone. So I've
Speaker 1: had a relationship with him on and off for good
Speaker 1: thirty years, and you know, he's still all there, and
Speaker 1: he's still you know, he's tried to get a Wall
Speaker 1: Street tax at all.
Speaker 2: But he I mean, like, you know, God bless him.
Speaker 1: I mean, but if Ralph Nader didn't exist, we'd all
Speaker 1: half of us would be you know, would be maimed
Speaker 1: by big companies. You know.
Speaker 2: Well, I had a bill at one point, Chuck tried
Speaker 2: to form a little group to in corporate welfare, and
Speaker 2: he came to the Hill and talked about it, and
Speaker 2: of course I couldn't get anybody to sign up to
Speaker 2: the constat was for it, right, he was for no.
Speaker 2: It was because they had to go against their own constituency.
Speaker 2: You didn't want to do that, right, I mean, he wasn't.
Speaker 1: But that's a really interesting thing to change. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you one thing about Ralph Nader that people under us.
Speaker 1: You know, Ralph Nader tried to always he was an
Speaker 1: outsider who tried to change, use the system itself to
Speaker 1: create change. Meaning he didn't you know, he doesn't. He
Speaker 1: wasn't mister like, let's abolish the Senate. Yeah, okay, there's
Speaker 1: You're not getting anything done by just saying abolish the Senate.
Speaker 2: It's realistic. It's bold, but realistic, and saying about these
Speaker 2: people in the middle be bold.
Speaker 1: Actually though that was natter. Nader worked within the system
Speaker 1: start a new organization, but it was designed to influence
Speaker 1: the system that existed, not some pie in the sky
Speaker 1: idea of a system that's never going to exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're going to get a group of
Speaker 2: people on the outside. They're going to start turning against
Speaker 2: these tech companies. And why was tech companies you know,
Speaker 2: I think that's going to happen at some point. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you.
Speaker 1: I just spent I spent about five days going down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole of I got obsessed with this Lakers
Speaker 1: sale and sort of with Mark Walter and why did
Speaker 1: he have to sell so fast? It's such a strange thing.
Speaker 1: Fourteen months after buying and he flips it and this
Speaker 1: is not who he is. And then you start to
Speaker 1: dig in and what his businesses are. And then I
Speaker 1: started to understand private credit. You were in this space,
Speaker 1: so I want to ask you, and I understand how
Speaker 1: private credit became such a big thing. Basically, as banks
Speaker 1: had to raise their standards and raise their capitalization it
Speaker 1: you know that they're there, they were going to become
Speaker 1: more restrictive in how much money they lent. And so
Speaker 1: I could see how private credit ended up.
Speaker 2: Len funds and private equity, and right.
Speaker 1: Well, it turns out this Mark Walter, you know what
Speaker 1: he was doing, and what apparently a lot of private
Speaker 1: equity does, which is they buy an insurance company, life
Speaker 1: insurance company and life insurance companies in particular, because they
Speaker 1: have constant flows of cash coming in, you borrow against
Speaker 1: that capital in order to essentially have more money. For instance,
Speaker 1: that was as essentially as collateral to buy the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm absolutely shorthanding this. I'm to I spent
Speaker 1: a big chunk of time explaining it. But the more
Speaker 1: I read into this, the more it was like, John,
Speaker 1: this feels like we are We're so blind. There's an
Speaker 1: entire other eco financial ecosystem that exists that is outside
Speaker 1: the public market and outside the banking sector, and that
Speaker 1: strikes me as very dangerous for the future of capitalism.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you think, you know what I
Speaker 2: read the other day that kids sports, They're like, what
Speaker 2: did I hear? Forty million? What was that number, Chevy
Speaker 2: that they said they were spending forty billion, fathers and
Speaker 2: fathers spending money, spending money on kids sports.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Private equities now trying to buy all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm always worried about private equity. You know where they're
Speaker 2: they're they're buying every dentist, dental practice there is, and
Speaker 2: you know, you wonder what is the impact of that.
Speaker 2: And that's something that is another issue that that you know, how.
Speaker 1: Would you begin Let me ask you this. You strike
Speaker 1: me as sort of You've got a lot of Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt in you get. I know, I'm guessing he's got
Speaker 1: to be one of your favorite favorite presidents. How would
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt tackle an equity? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Well? I think I think chuck on any of these issues.
Speaker 2: You've got to get people who are really knowledgeable. You
Speaker 2: and I cannot design the plan to fix that equity.
Speaker 2: I agree, I mean it scares me. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: can convene the best and figure out what the guardrails are.
Speaker 2: It's the same with AI. What are the guardrails? The
Speaker 2: thing I worry about on AI, for example, is there
Speaker 2: are no people who can make the laws who understand
Speaker 2: enough about it. And have they called other people in
Speaker 2: who are experts, who aren't biased? Who are you know
Speaker 2: of the public good? The same thing would be true
Speaker 2: in this. You would have to you know, when I
Speaker 2: became governor, I said that I was going when I
Speaker 2: was running, I said I'm going to get rid of
Speaker 2: economic development in the state of Ohio, and I created
Speaker 2: an independent, not for profit entity called Jobs Ohio. We've
Speaker 2: gone from forty seven in the country to number one.
Speaker 2: We are now the number one job creator in America.
Speaker 2: And it's because we created as syst them that was privatized,
Speaker 2: but we also put guardrails around it. Now, over time,
Speaker 2: I think in some ways it's been weakened, but we're
Speaker 2: still doing really well.
Speaker 1: And can you get into the details of that. Can
Speaker 1: you explain, because you're right like every community has this
Speaker 1: economic development right program of sorts. Yeah, that we work
Speaker 1: with those public private What was it that that didn't
Speaker 1: work that yours? What did you do differently just no
Speaker 1: public money?
Speaker 2: What? What?
Speaker 1: What would you how would you say is the biggest
Speaker 1: difference in what you created.
Speaker 2: What we did, Chuck, is we are a control state,
Speaker 2: and so we get money from liquor, right, and we
Speaker 2: created this entity and we went to Wall Street and
Speaker 2: we we went up there looking for bonds, which we
Speaker 2: got at a good price because because when times are good,
Speaker 2: people drink, when times are bad, they drink more, So
Speaker 2: the bonds work really well. These were good. Then I
Speaker 2: took that money, the proceeds from the bond, and I
Speaker 2: hired private sector people who were experts in about five
Speaker 2: or six different categories. How did you afford them.
Speaker 1: Were they willing to take lesser salaries than what would
Speaker 1: get that at a private economy because did you compete
Speaker 1: in the market.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could do that. We could pay enough to
Speaker 2: get them. And it's been a fantastic thing. We had
Speaker 2: a board made up of business people. Now they've had
Speaker 2: some hiccups lately, which I've pointed out publicly, but we
Speaker 2: went from forty seven to number one in the country
Speaker 2: today because we've got people in business dealing with people
Speaker 2: in business. I always like to tell the story in
Speaker 2: the old days in the Department of Development in the
Speaker 2: state when somebody got off the phone, somebody said, who
Speaker 2: were you talking to? Well, I was talking to Jamie Diamond.
Speaker 2: Oh what did she want? Jamie Diamond is not annoying, Okay.
Speaker 2: So in our jobs, Ohio, in the private sector, the
Speaker 2: board is there to regulate. So what do they do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they go out and they search for companies and they
Speaker 2: gives incentives. But the incentives are based on a return
Speaker 2: on investment. So I mean, this is I don't want
Speaker 2: to get any too deep here, but what I'm saying
Speaker 2: to you is it was a new, big bold idea
Speaker 2: that some people thought was crazy it's been a great success,
Speaker 2: and I didn't do it on my own. I had
Speaker 2: a half x That's my point. I had to have
Speaker 2: a lot of people who were experts, bond counts, consolors
Speaker 2: and lawyers and everybody to help me fix it. So
Speaker 2: when you're asking me about private equity, I think the
Speaker 2: answer to that is you've got to get the best
Speaker 2: people in to say what are the limits that should
Speaker 2: be placed on it.
Speaker 1: Well, look, what's been interesting and digging into this is
Speaker 1: is what you figure out. You know, if the financial
Speaker 1: crisis was an indictment of the regulators that they were
Speaker 1: asleep at the switch private credit, this isn't that issue there.
Speaker 1: It just turns out that the regulators, there's almost these
Speaker 1: private equity funds are able to pick the regulator they
Speaker 1: want to deal with. So if you are, for instance,
Speaker 1: using life insurance money, well you get to deal with
Speaker 1: state regulators, and that's a different group of entities. If
Speaker 1: you're in one another space, maybe you're dealing with the SEC,
Speaker 1: or you're dealing with another federal regulator. But the fact
Speaker 1: that so many different entities are involved, it actually puts
Speaker 1: the advantage in the private equity fund to sort of
Speaker 1: cherry pick wherever they think they can get the best,
Speaker 1: the most favorable, the most favorable oversight. That's probably the
Speaker 1: way to do it.
Speaker 2: But Chuck, here's the thing. The private equity money comes from.
Speaker 2: It's VOLUNTI. We give up to them, sure, and we
Speaker 2: take the risk that it will go bad because a
Speaker 2: lot of times the private equity doesn't make returns and
Speaker 2: you'd be better putting your money in the bank or
Speaker 2: put your money in a mutual fund. So let's not
Speaker 2: get carried away. Although I am carried away by the
Speaker 2: fact that these small market teams can't compete anymore. The
Speaker 2: Dodgers have all the money and the pirates can't win
Speaker 2: squat because they don't have any revenue.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's going to end up having is
Speaker 1: that then what happens these owners decide all right, UAE
Speaker 1: sovereign fund, do you want ten percent? And then they
Speaker 1: get the valuation and they borrow the money. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think that you know, these these these leagues
Speaker 1: are addicted to raising the valuation of their franchises. What's
Speaker 1: the best way to do it, bring in more private
Speaker 1: equity or bring in outside sovereign funds. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If we're going to like that in twenty years. But
Speaker 1: we'll see.
Speaker 2: Can you believe all that we've been covering today? All right,
Speaker 2: let me le let's get out, let me get you
Speaker 2: out on this.
Speaker 1: It's an election year. You know Ohio as well as anybody.
Speaker 1: Is Ohio purple again? Or is this just a bad
Speaker 1: year for Republicans?
Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, look your opinion matters as much as mine
Speaker 2: because you've studied it for so long. I don't think
Speaker 2: we're a red state. I think you know, when you
Speaker 2: take a look at Youngstown and Cleveland and Toledo and
Speaker 2: those are not those are not Republican areas basically, but
Speaker 2: have become Republican areas. What do I think will happen
Speaker 2: over time? I think many of them will drift back
Speaker 2: to the to what they naturally have been, which is
Speaker 2: a split state, you know, one of these contested states.
Speaker 2: That's what I think over time. What do you maybe
Speaker 2: not yet?
Speaker 1: But I think I mean, look, look, you're well, let
Speaker 1: me all right, let's take both races here. I was
Speaker 1: a skeptic that Sharon Brown could win a senencee back
Speaker 1: because it's a tough year to be because I'd rather
Speaker 1: run from the outside, like, how does he is he running?
Speaker 1: Is he running for reelection? Or is it you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And I just thought it would be difficult.
Speaker 1: It's proving not to be, I think, But I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll see maybe the polls. You know, he definitely is
Speaker 1: being you know, there's been a consistent lead there. What
Speaker 1: do you attribute it to? How much of it is
Speaker 1: name I D and houstage is not well known yet,
Speaker 1: and how much of it is Buyer's remorse on Trump?
Speaker 2: I think I think you've you've hit on it. I
Speaker 2: think that that what name id and the fact that
Speaker 2: Eustad has none of the advantages of incumbency and all
Speaker 2: the disadvantages of not having been elected in his own right.
Speaker 2: And I don't I think it's just too close to call.
Speaker 2: And shared shared's a tough campaign or I mean, he's
Speaker 2: just a tough you know, he's not quite Howard Metzenbaum,
Speaker 2: but he said people wuldn't even know who that is.
Speaker 1: But I just all you need to know about Howard
Speaker 1: Metzenbom the guy beat John Glenn in a primary, all right,
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry. If you can beat an American hero
Speaker 1: in a primary, you're one tough SLB.
Speaker 2: Right, I still don't understand how he did.
Speaker 1: It was the historical o'domies. Yeah, you're like, it's an
Speaker 1: unlikable guy beat the American hero in a primary.
Speaker 2: How did that happen? That's exactly right. So I think
Speaker 2: that when you think about like Youngstown, it was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to go after the system and then Youngstown.
Speaker 2: You know, the things are struggling, so it I think
Speaker 2: it's going to tend to to change, to kind of
Speaker 2: move back. What what do you think, Well, let me
Speaker 2: ask you this. I look, I think.
Speaker 1: I think Ohio strikes me as a as a transition state.
Speaker 1: Right if before you got there, i'd say, in your
Speaker 1: first term, the assumption was Ohio was shrinking, you know,
Speaker 1: just like every northern state, every industrial state, that it
Speaker 1: was no longer a growth state.
Speaker 2: I do feel like over the.
Speaker 1: Last ten to fifteen years, Ohio has done a particularly
Speaker 1: in central Ohio. Right, you look at Columbus and the
Speaker 1: Greater Columbus area. It's huge, it is huge and even.
Speaker 1: But you also see it in northern Kentucky, which has
Speaker 1: had a which which has helped with Cincinnati. You know,
Speaker 1: to me, like it's really just Cleveland needs a little
Speaker 1: more help, although even the Cleveland downtown is better today
Speaker 1: than it has been.
Speaker 2: You know, there's no doubt.
Speaker 1: I am pretty bullish like Ohio is going to be
Speaker 1: I think, you know, as people realize, I think domestic
Speaker 1: migration is going to benefit Ohio right when people look
Speaker 1: for afford places to live where they can raise their family.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's I think, you know, everybody's
Speaker 1: moved to the sun Belt for a quick period of
Speaker 1: time because of COVID, but now inflation's going to drive
Speaker 1: him back, right, Like it is really expensive to live
Speaker 1: in South Florida, whether be Florida Southwest Florida.
Speaker 2: I do think.
Speaker 1: But let me ask you this. It the next governor
Speaker 1: of Ohio is either going to be the first non
Speaker 1: white person elected or the first woman elected in her
Speaker 1: own right. I know that there was a What do
Speaker 1: you think is the harder barrier to break, the one
Speaker 1: that vivik Ramaswami's trying to break, or the one that
Speaker 1: Amy Acting is trying to break.
Speaker 2: I think it's that that the Republican has a big
Speaker 2: ton of money, and I think that probably at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, is what's going to make the
Speaker 2: difference he's going to spend it. And but I mean again,
Speaker 2: it's I'm surprised, but I think it's very close. I
Speaker 2: thought he would win going away.
Speaker 1: I'm not surpris eyes that he's struggling here. And I'll
Speaker 1: just be honest, I've got one is I I look,
Speaker 1: I think he's kind of pro polarizing, right. I do
Speaker 1: think the Doge thing, the Elon Musk, there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of he doesn't he's not Mike the Wine and
Speaker 1: John Kasick, Right, there isn't this Midwestern I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to put it, but this sort of can't
Speaker 1: we all just take a step back here a second?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That doesn't feel like that's a viv Ramaswami type of instinct,
Speaker 1: right that he doesn't strike me as a convener you
Speaker 1: and the Wine. You know, Ted Stricklett, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a just a temperament and he strikes me as not
Speaker 1: having the temperament that Ohioans want in a governor, which
Speaker 1: is why if you if he loses, I will believe
Speaker 1: it's less about just a red versus blue Democratic turnout
Speaker 1: was upper. I think there's a slice of voter that
Speaker 1: that will be turned off by his personality.
Speaker 2: Maybe also, Chuck, I hate to say this, but I
Speaker 2: think there is some race.
Speaker 1: Well, you saw what happened in Michigan to the Republican
Speaker 1: that they had Trump's endorsement. His name was Amir Hassan
Speaker 1: and in it, in it, And that is something I'm
Speaker 1: wondering about. To the spillover effect. You're gonna have a
Speaker 1: Republican party nationally pour all this. Frankly, let's call it
Speaker 1: what it is, Islamic phobic, islamophobic messaging in Michigan. Does
Speaker 1: that inadvertently hurt Ramaswami?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. No, I don't think. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't think it's spills over here. We've
Speaker 2: got we've got big walls between Ohio and Michigan. You know,
Speaker 2: we don't Well, I don't think so. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's and I just saw.
Speaker 1: You see what happened to this This congressional candidate literally
Speaker 1: loses to somebody who dropped out whose name was as
Speaker 1: lily white as you could have. I think it was
Speaker 1: like Tom Rice or something right, it was like very
Speaker 1: was or Tom Smith. It was like very innocuous.
Speaker 2: I think fundamentally that you you've hit the nail on
Speaker 2: the head. Is the Republican candidate for governor appealing enough
Speaker 2: to people and make them feel comfortable, and but their
Speaker 2: messages there's there's no message. I mean, it's that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Well, and the other thing, it sounds like the time
Speaker 1: we're betting, I would bet he'll win.
Speaker 2: You, yeah, I would bet.
Speaker 1: I am curious though, do you think his plan to
Speaker 1: potentially consolidate some Ohio universities pissed off enough communities that
Speaker 1: he's going to get blowback in areas he didn't expect
Speaker 1: to get blowback?
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's a that's a that is a
Speaker 2: in order to do that, chuck, And look, the problem
Speaker 2: we have today is these private institutions are barely making it.
Speaker 2: And the idea that you're going to put them together
Speaker 2: like has happened here at Otterbune where they work with
Speaker 2: Antioch to try to share things they wanted to do.
Speaker 2: Even more than that, that's kind of the wave of
Speaker 2: the future. But it's all the way you introduce it
Speaker 2: and bring it out. And I have to tell you
Speaker 2: that universities are there. That's another one that's so hard
Speaker 2: to change. And it's it's tough now. I actually tell
Speaker 2: you the funny story is back we had money that
Speaker 2: would go into capital budgets, and I had Gordon Gee,
Speaker 2: who you know is an amazing guy, former president of
Speaker 2: every school, and he and I created it so that
Speaker 2: we said, if you need money, we'll give it to you.
Speaker 2: And if you don't need money, we're not giving it
Speaker 2: to you. And you need to work with us and
Speaker 2: cooperat or we will have no money. So you got
Speaker 2: to use sort of You've got to have leverage, you
Speaker 2: got to have you got to be able to smile.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's complicated to be a good leader. There's
Speaker 2: a mixture of things you have to do. You have
Speaker 2: to be affable, you have to be tough. You've got
Speaker 2: to know when to you know, it's being a leader
Speaker 2: is a hard thing. A big leader there takes a
Speaker 2: certain amount. It's a formula that allows you to to
Speaker 2: really overcome a lot of hurdles.
Speaker 1: Let me, let's let's leave.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell me. I want to tell you one
Speaker 2: other thing here if we can't, I went down down
Speaker 2: to West Virginia to a place called the Pete Die
Speaker 2: Club to play golf with a friend of mine who's
Speaker 2: been a member forever.
Speaker 1: And it's right by the famous famous golf course.
Speaker 2: Designer, right. And there's a little town down there that
Speaker 2: that is really Clarksburg. And they have part of the
Speaker 2: road closed off and we had a detour, and Chuck,
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, I my hometown of McKees
Speaker 2: Rocks has been very tough place. I mean, a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago it was the number one per capita
Speaker 2: murder rate in the state of Pennsylvania. I mean, okay, tough.
Speaker 2: That's where I grew up, Clarksburg. The poverty that I saw, Chuck,
Speaker 2: it's it's haunting me. I mean, homes put together by
Speaker 2: a string. I talked to a guy who is a
Speaker 2: Clarksburgh resident, a big one. But I don't want to
Speaker 2: mention them. Get them in trouble, he said. In that
Speaker 2: part of Clarksburg, it's either drugs, homelessness. Uh, he said,
Speaker 2: it's it's just terrible.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, how do you give up on a
Speaker 1: Part of what I don't get is these communities, because
Speaker 1: I've seen it in my own hometown in Miami. If
Speaker 1: you neglect the community, it's going to be terrible. If
Speaker 1: you show up and say hey, we want to help.
Speaker 1: You can make a community better. To know, that's local leadership.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Well, I left a message for a big time official
Speaker 2: in West Virginia and I said, you know, when I
Speaker 2: looked at this, it makes me want to cry when
Speaker 2: I see abject poverty in in your state, and we
Speaker 2: know what we can do to improve conditions. Please let's
Speaker 2: do it. Yeah, you know poverty, Chuck, right, I remember,
Speaker 2: Remember how about the.
Speaker 1: Fact that Bobby Kennedy Junior does not Junior see me?
Speaker 1: Kennedy Senior does this Appellation tour about highlighting poverty And
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. That was fifty eight years ago and we're still.
Speaker 2: That must have been, right, What a tour that must
Speaker 2: have been.
Speaker 1: You could do the same. John Edwards did a similar tour.
Speaker 1: I remember he did it No. Seven and sadly, you know,
Speaker 1: people did a bunch of stories how it was sort
Speaker 1: of like, oh great, so every generation somebody's going to notice.
Speaker 1: But doesn't mean we do anything about it.
Speaker 2: It means people there have got it. It's like you
Speaker 2: were talking about leaders. Somebody on the outside has to
Speaker 2: say this is not this is intolerable. But you know, Chuck,
Speaker 2: I know that it exists. I know a lot.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of poor people, but this thing
Speaker 1: just rocked me. You know, this is why I'm like,
Speaker 1: Then that's on that note. Then let me end on
Speaker 1: this one, which is, who's a couple of young leaders
Speaker 1: that you've been impressed with over the last year or two,
Speaker 1: that you've watched that you're just killed whether you know
Speaker 1: them or not, and that maybe you saw them in
Speaker 1: your thought. I want to give that person a call.
Speaker 1: I want to get to know them. They strike me
Speaker 1: as maybe they're going to be one of the good
Speaker 1: change agents.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, one of the guys I like. And
Speaker 2: I'd have to really give that a lot more thought.
Speaker 2: But I like this Brian Fitzpatrick over in Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 2: mean he's he's a stand up guy. He's a he's
Speaker 2: a pretty tough guy.
Speaker 1: He's the guy that the Republican that pushes back against MAGA, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean he's.
Speaker 2: Just is no, he's like, has no fear and I
Speaker 2: and I look at him and I like him, and
Speaker 2: he and I know each other, and uh, I like
Speaker 2: him a lot. Let me, I'd have to think more
Speaker 2: about who it is that I don't know. I'd have
Speaker 2: to give it, to give it some more thought, like
Speaker 2: who who jumps out? Because there are people that that
Speaker 2: I notice are significant, and I think it's I think
Speaker 2: it's men and women who really want to make a difference.
Speaker 2: By the way, I read this story here recently about
Speaker 2: Hayden Paniteer who wrote that book about the struggles in
Speaker 2: her life, and they found out at a very young
Speaker 2: age they found her dead. And there's another one that
Speaker 2: kind of breaks your heart. I mean, it's so funny
Speaker 2: what we do when we talk, because we cover so
Speaker 2: many things, right, and when people see us doing this,
Speaker 2: they're like, I mean, these guys have a rapport that
Speaker 2: and I love it. It's just it's because it stretches
Speaker 2: our brains in a way, don't you think.
Speaker 1: Well, it's I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I know that people sometimes
Speaker 1: view a politician a journalist that we're supposed to not
Speaker 1: be human, that were these sort of cookie cutter figures.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know, I know you rejected.
Speaker 1: I rejected. I hate yeah, But that's the problem is
Speaker 1: that that's right, Like I have to, like I always
Speaker 1: have to overcome the assumption that well, you were on TV,
Speaker 1: so you weren't really you don't really know, you don't
Speaker 1: go deep on anything. And it's like, no, I am
Speaker 1: a history junkie, and yeah, I do like to go
Speaker 1: you know. But there's this quote perception of the TV people, right,
Speaker 1: just like the politicians. You guys just you know, you're
Speaker 1: just caring about the next donor and stuff, right, And
Speaker 1: I think sort of you and I have both been.
Speaker 1: You know. It's almost like we we hate that stereotype
Speaker 1: so much, we're looking to always poke the finger, and
Speaker 1: that's probably right.
Speaker 2: What about what about Miami this year? Are they going
Speaker 2: to have any kind of a football team?
Speaker 1: I feel pretty good. I am a I am way
Speaker 1: too bullish like I have.
Speaker 2: I I think.
Speaker 1: They're on a I think they're on a mission. I am,
Speaker 1: but I think they could be on a mission. I
Speaker 1: think they're built the right way. They lost the right way.
Speaker 1: We got a better quarterback this time. I'm curious, do
Speaker 1: you think Miami broke? Julian saying do you think we broke?
Speaker 1: Julian saying.
Speaker 2: No, I definitely, I will find out. I will tell
Speaker 2: you this. It's amazing exposed.
Speaker 1: We exposed that offense us in Indiana exposed that offensive line, didn't.
Speaker 2: We Yeah, you know, the whole thing I always think
Speaker 2: about with Ohio State is why is it we're being outstrengthed?
Speaker 2: You know, why are why are we not tough enough?
Speaker 1: You know, you should be tougher than the Indiana Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you're right, damn it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know the rate number one this year again,
Speaker 2: and they keep getting these recruits. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Well, it's big budgets. Man, it's amazing, it is. I'm
Speaker 1: going to I get you going to Ohio State, Texas.
Speaker 1: You gotta go down to Austin.
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm not sure much of a fan as
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 1: But that's a great You know why you should go
Speaker 1: because I think you'd enjoy that atmosphere. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a great stadium.
Speaker 2: You'd enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You'd probably get I'm sure you'd know people that would
Speaker 1: give you a nice seat.
Speaker 2: Oh. You know, there's nothing more X than an X.
Speaker 2: First of all, there's nothing more X than an ex congressman.
Speaker 2: And there's really nothing more X than an ex governor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or governor. It just doesn't know all those perks and everything. Really. Yeah, No,
Speaker 2: you know, I tell you. I went to get my
Speaker 2: I had a nail in my tire. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: go to the tire store. I'm going to save this
Speaker 2: for for my uh hey, by the way, can people
Speaker 2: know that I have tell me show?
Speaker 1: Yes? Please go tell them?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's called the John Kaseik Show. It's
Speaker 2: on Serious XM, and I I would I think they'd enjoyed.
Speaker 2: It's it's you know, it's not heavy political, but it's
Speaker 2: it's interesting show. It's easy to listen to. So I
Speaker 2: hope they'll they'll tune into it. But I went to
Speaker 2: this tire store, chuck with a nail. I was into
Speaker 2: that Tower tire store for six hours and you might
Speaker 2: say to me. And so I was on with Matt Buye,
Speaker 2: the journalist. I said, I'm not telling anybody what I used.
Speaker 2: He goes, why don't you tell them who you are?
Speaker 2: He said, no, I'm not going to do that. And
Speaker 2: I don't think they care anyway. They might make me
Speaker 2: wait seven hours. Here's what I want to tell you.
Speaker 2: Six hours tires.
Speaker 1: Here's what I want to tell you. Have you not
Speaker 1: heard of these mobile tire people?
Speaker 2: I just got a nail and no, no, no, this
Speaker 2: came to my house. I bought the tire. They replaced
Speaker 2: it Tesla. They do Tesla's No, well, I don't know
Speaker 2: about this. Do you wan anything about a mobile tire
Speaker 2: place that comes to your house? No, we never. I
Speaker 2: mean I got people that I got people. Oh buddy,
Speaker 2: go check it out. All right. I can't believe neither
Speaker 2: one and neither one of.
Speaker 1: Us have tired people as our sponsors.
Speaker 2: But all right, we'll see you soon. Good to see
Speaker 2: your brother,