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Speaker 1: hello there, and happy Monday. It's Martin Luther King Day.

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Speaker 1: So I hope you're doing some sort of service project

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Speaker 1: if you have a chance to do that in honor

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Speaker 1: of him, or however you plan to mark the day,

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Speaker 1: or if you're doing what I'm doing, which is I'm

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Speaker 1: here in Miami already as I'm taping for you, I

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Speaker 1: am going to the big National title game Miami, Indiana.

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Speaker 1: I have to tell you I've got a mixed bag

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Speaker 1: about this entire podcast, because I couldn't be more excited

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Speaker 1: about this game, and I couldn't be more nervous about

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Speaker 1: the state of the world, which I'm going to get

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Speaker 1: to you in a minute. I don't want it to

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Speaker 1: come across like ipurbole. I really mean it. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I am sadly too good at compartmentalizing, so

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Speaker 1: I have certainly compartmentalized. But yes, I am down here

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Speaker 1: for Miami. Just got down here, flew from d C.

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Speaker 1: Apparently DC was the connecting city for all my friends

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Speaker 1: from Indianapolis who were changing planes. If you didn't get

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Speaker 1: your non stop from Innnianapolis to Miami, you changed planes

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Speaker 1: in d C. Apparently. Apparently there we have quite a

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Speaker 1: few nonstops. There are about five or six of them,

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Speaker 1: so I see where we're Sometimes d National is treated

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Speaker 1: as a sort of quasi hub from some city. So yes,

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Speaker 1: there were a ton of Indiana fans a couple of

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Speaker 1: Miami fans on the plane. But it's been great being

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Speaker 1: down here, in the fact that it's nice to see

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Speaker 1: I have yet to pass it an electronic construction sign

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Speaker 1: right that hasn't, said Gokain, So I'm glad to see

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Speaker 1: that it's a little look, I'm gonna have more to

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Speaker 1: say about this game at the end. I actually got

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Speaker 1: something to say about the transfer portal in the state

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Speaker 1: of college football, because Miami once again is stirring the

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Speaker 1: pot if you will, on that good, bad, and indifferent

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Speaker 1: on there. But let's be honest, college football is the

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Speaker 1: least of our concerns. Unfortunately for the world right now,

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Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with the next twenty four hours. Don't get

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Speaker 1: me wrong on college football, but we're in a serious

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Speaker 1: situation here. We are in a moment that I don't

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Speaker 1: know if we are all fully comprehending the moment that

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Speaker 1: we're in. But I'm going to put this as a

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Speaker 1: question because I know it's going to sound I am

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Speaker 1: trying really hard not to overreact here, But here's the

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Speaker 1: question that we need to be contemplating. With Donald Trump's

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Speaker 1: use of paris not just his economic policy, but as

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Speaker 1: a negotiating and coercive tool, which is what he's doing

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Speaker 1: to Europe right now increase the likelihood of America stumbling

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Speaker 1: in to a war. He has started up all sorts

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Speaker 1: of issues, whether it's on our own border with Canada,

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Speaker 1: where he's essentially invited China into Canada. This is all

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's fault. Canada running into the arms of China,

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Speaker 1: the threats to Europe, all of our allies right now

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Speaker 1: having to do where he wants to buy Greenland, and

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Speaker 1: he doesn't want Europe to stand in the way, and

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Speaker 1: he's already setting up tariffs, and Europe's actually thinking about

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Speaker 1: using a tool that was meant because they feared the

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Speaker 1: rise of China. They weren't gonna fear their friend America.

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Speaker 1: But here we are. And I know this may come

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Speaker 1: across as a bit dramatic, and part of it is

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Speaker 1: we've not most of us haven't been alive the last

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Speaker 1: time bad American economic policy drove the world to war.

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Speaker 1: And that's just a historical fact, which is why I

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Speaker 1: think it's time to start warning that Donald Trump could

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Speaker 1: get us to war because at this point there you know, look,

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Speaker 1: I believe there's always a line he crosses for somebody

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Speaker 1: at any given moment where he gets another opponent, even

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Speaker 1: inside his own Republican party. Right. We have seen this.

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Speaker 1: This has been true ever since he came down that escalator.

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Speaker 1: He will do something to chase somebody away, chase people

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Speaker 1: out of the Republican Party will be a line too far.

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Speaker 1: Remember Liz Cheney was with him all the way until

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Speaker 1: January sixth, and then she was out. Everybody has their lines.

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Speaker 1: Starting destroying NATO and creating an economic war with Western

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Speaker 1: Europe is going to be one of those moments. The

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Speaker 1: question is how many Senate Republicans and how many House

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Speaker 1: Republicans are going to put the country and the globe

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Speaker 1: ahead of loyalty to Donald John Trump. And I think

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Speaker 1: that's something I want you to be thinking about as

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Speaker 1: I go through this longer distillation here of what we're facing.

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Speaker 1: So I know I'm sounding a bit dramatic. Imagine how

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Speaker 1: to sound if the day after Miami lost to the

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Speaker 1: title game, if they lose the title game, be more

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Speaker 1: than dramatic. That's the point I sort of want to

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to make light of this, but

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Speaker 1: I just focus on this a minute. It is alarming

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Speaker 1: what has happened. It is absolutely unarming. So before you

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Speaker 1: roll your eyes, stick with me here for a few minutes,

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Speaker 1: because I want to take you down a little bit

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Speaker 1: of history here, a bit to understand how Trump's use

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Speaker 1: of tariffs right now have inched us closer to a

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Speaker 1: hot war with more countries then we've had, arguably since

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Speaker 1: you know, more than anything post nine to eleven. Because

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Speaker 1: what tariffs do, especially when you use them for coheresive practices,

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Speaker 1: is that they do change relationships. And when tariffs are

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Speaker 1: not used or used not as policy but as leverage,

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Speaker 1: especially against allies, they can quietly turn economic disputes into

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Speaker 1: security problems. Let's go back in time. It's June of

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty. United States passes the Smoot Holly Tariff Act.

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Speaker 1: Holly is no relationship, by the way, to the current

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Speaker 1: Senator Holly from Missouri. In case you're wondering, I've wondered.

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Speaker 1: Most of you probably haven't wondered, but I wondered, so

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Speaker 1: I checked. But the intent was simple. At the time.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to protect American farmers and workers during a

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Speaker 1: deepening economic downturn. Right this is just after the stock

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Speaker 1: market crash. Well, the effect of this was catastrophic, and

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Speaker 1: not just economically but diplomatically, because here's what Smoot Holly did.

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Speaker 1: Smoot Holly raised duties or taxes on more than twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand imported goods and so as the Great Depression worsened

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Speaker 1: and prices collapsed. The effective tariff ray on all these

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Speaker 1: goods that we imported climbed dramatically, and it approached levels

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Speaker 1: that economists often site near sixty percent by the early

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. And it was even magnified by deflation. Right,

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Speaker 1: the less our money was worth, so it even it

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Speaker 1: felt even more expensive. It felt like it was even

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Speaker 1: higher than that sixty percent. But the signal to the

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Speaker 1: world was unmistakable. America was done in the nineteen thirties

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Speaker 1: are prioritizing cooperation. We were trying to be a global world, right,

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Speaker 1: you go back to Woodrow Wilson and all of that.

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Speaker 1: But when we did smoot Holly, retaliation followed. Barriers spread,

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Speaker 1: trade collapsed, and it slow it collapsed in value terms.

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Speaker 1: Global trade thanks to the United States and Smoot Holly

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Speaker 1: fell by roughly two thirds in the early nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: So what did this mean? Countries that depended on exports

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Speaker 1: to earn dollars suddenly couldn't pay debts, They couldn't stabilize banks,

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Speaker 1: and they couldn't maintain political order. And this is incredibly

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Speaker 1: important because historians will rightly argue that Smoot Holly did

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Speaker 1: not cause World War two, but boy did it have

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Speaker 1: a huge impact. Monetary policy, the gold standard, political extremism, reparations,

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Speaker 1: and capital flows. They all mattered, and they all impacted

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Speaker 1: Germany and Europe. But smoot Holly became something else. It

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Speaker 1: also became a symbol the moment the world began shifting

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Speaker 1: from economic cooperation to economic survivalism. Does this sound familiar

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Speaker 1: because Europe and Canada right now are practicing economic survivalism

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Speaker 1: because decades of cooperation with the United States have been

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Speaker 1: flushed down the toilet by Donald J. Trump. So here's

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Speaker 1: an undertold story of the nineteen thirties. The real damage

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Speaker 1: wasn't just economic. It was also diplomatic. When trade becomes punitive,

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Speaker 1: allies stopped acting like partners and they start acting like hedgers.

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Speaker 1: Again what Canada just did. Democracies didn't want confrontation, but

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Speaker 1: they began by building essentially different blocks. Britain, the UK

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Speaker 1: they had to move towards imperial preference in nineteen thirty two.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't ideological, it was simply defensive. Cooperation with

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Speaker 1: the United States a collapsed, so fallback systems started to emerge,

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Speaker 1: and once nations start thinking in blocks, economics becomes security

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Speaker 1: becomes it creeps towards militaries, and if you can't rely

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Speaker 1: on markets for food, fuel, or raw materials, then leaders

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Speaker 1: begin to justify territorial logic as quote resource security. We're

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Speaker 1: starting to see Donald Trump start to talk about that

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Speaker 1: in terms of Greenland. He's even quietly now starting to

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Speaker 1: talk about that in terms of Canada, because Canada just

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Speaker 1: did a big deal with China. Now, the logic didn't

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Speaker 1: invent aggression, but it made aggression sound necessary. You start

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Speaker 1: to think you have no other choice. You've got to

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Speaker 1: secure resources for your country. You've got to secure security.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's water, maybe it's energy. That's the danger zone.

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Speaker 1: Now let's go back to where we are right now,

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Speaker 1: because this is not some sort of academic history lesson

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to give you. We are watching this in

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Speaker 1: real time. So President Trump is imposed and threatened escalating

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Speaker 1: tariffs on several European allies explicitly to force them to

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Speaker 1: allow the United States essentially to buy Greenland. Remember this

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Speaker 1: is not we don't have a trade dispute with the

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Speaker 1: EU on steel or autos. These are tariffs, taxes, levies,

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Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, used as leverage for

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Speaker 1: territorial and strategic gain. Economic bullying is what it is,

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Speaker 1: and it's being under the umbrella of national security in

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Speaker 1: the Arctic, and Europe's response is telling you everything you

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Speaker 1: need to know. EU ambassadors are gathering for emergency talks,

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Speaker 1: emergency talks on how to respond. The United States cannot

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Speaker 1: be treated as an ally right now in Western Europe.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we're still a military ally for NATO for the moment,

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Speaker 1: but we'll get to that. The French President Manuel Macron

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Speaker 1: has called for the EU to activate an anti coercion instrument.

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Speaker 1: It's a tool that the EU had, but it had

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Speaker 1: never been used before. But they developed it because they

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Speaker 1: assumed they were going to need it to deal with China.

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Speaker 1: They never thought they were going to have to use

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Speaker 1: it to deal with the United States. So here's what

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Speaker 1: this anti coersion law allows the EU to do. It

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Speaker 1: to restrict access to its market for countries that use

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Speaker 1: economic pressure to extract political concessions, which is exactly what

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Speaker 1: Trump's doing. He's using economic pressure to extract a political concession.

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Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with our trade deficit, This

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with lowering the cost of groceries.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it's going to raise the price of everything.

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Speaker 1: It is just terrible economics, terrible national security. But other

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Speaker 1: than that, it's a great idea. In other words, as

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Speaker 1: streets tariffs, not his trade policy, but his economic coercion.

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Speaker 1: So if the EU does pull this lever, this will

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Speaker 1: stop being just a little art argument amongst allies. Then

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Speaker 1: it becomes a confrontation, a trading block confrontation, and it's

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Speaker 1: not going to stop there. Trump's Greenland terror threat is

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Speaker 1: now likely to freeze USU trade agreement entirely. As one

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Speaker 1: observer put it bluntly, no deals ever final, not with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We all know that, and that sentence should

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Speaker 1: set off alarm bells in this In Senate Republican conference,

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Speaker 1: they cannot keep their mouths shut this time. It can't

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Speaker 1: just be old guy Mitch McConnell speaking out saying what

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Speaker 1: a disaster this would be. John Thune, grow a spine, man,

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Speaker 1: stop Trump from taking us to war. He is picking

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Speaker 1: a war with Europe. Stop this. It's madness. It's got

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Speaker 1: to stop. And they're the only only entity that can

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Speaker 1: probably stop this at the moment. The only legitimate entity

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Speaker 1: are Senate Republicans. We know, Mike Johnson, that's a joke.

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Speaker 1: We know that he doesn't do anything. But John Thune,

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Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, plenty of Senate Republicans know this is a

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Speaker 1: complete and utter disaster. This is crazy. We are risking everything,

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Speaker 1: the value of the dollar, the idea of the dollar

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Speaker 1: is the reserve currency. Any of you that have traveled

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Speaker 1: the world and have always remarked how much better things

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Speaker 1: are here than everywhere else, well that ain't going to

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Speaker 1: be the case for very long if we stop behaving

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Speaker 1: this way. This is how the nineteen thirties completely unraveled.

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Speaker 1: Because once nations believe that agreements are provisional depended on

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Speaker 1: leverage rather than trust, they're going to stop investing in

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Speaker 1: cooperation and they're all going to invest in hedges. Which

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Speaker 1: brings me to Canada. This is the almost undercovered story

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Speaker 1: of last week, because you know, there's so much other

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Speaker 1: stuff that Trump throws at the wall. One of the

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Speaker 1: least discussed consequences of Trump's trade wars for this first

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Speaker 1: year in office with allies is what those allies feel

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Speaker 1: compelled to do next. When the United States becomes an

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Speaker 1: unreliable or worse aputative partner, it means even our closest

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Speaker 1: friends starting diversifying risk. They'd be idiots if they didn't.

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Speaker 1: Canada has increasingly deepened trade engagement with China. Not because

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Speaker 1: Ottawa prefers to deal with the untrustworthy thugs in Beijing.

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Speaker 1: There are a bunch of authoritarians, but because economic coercion

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Speaker 1: leaves fewer options and he's got to keep the standard

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Speaker 1: of living of Canadians as high as he can. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is exactly what a democracy has had to do

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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen thirties when the United States decision

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Speaker 1: to go protectionists force their hand. And this is why

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Speaker 1: this for North America. When China gains deeper trade access

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Speaker 1: into the North American economy north of our border, China

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Speaker 1: will gain leverage, influence, strategic presence, and the most integrated

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Speaker 1: economic region in the world in America's backyard. Good job, Donald,

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Speaker 1: it's not paranoia. It becomes great power competition. And then,

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Speaker 1: of course what happens right then, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: we're in a doom load because now Trump has already

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Speaker 1: openly expressed frustration with Canada's Arctic defense, linking it to

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Speaker 1: China and Russia. He's already joked about the fifty first

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Speaker 1: state business with Canada. But now Canada's done a big

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Speaker 1: old trade deal with China, one that long ago that

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Speaker 1: the United States got China to not do business with

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Speaker 1: China's largest telecom company, yahweh. And in fact it created

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Speaker 1: this huge dispute. There was this idea that you Canadians

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Speaker 1: were cooperating with the United States to keep some of

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Speaker 1: these executives from going back to China. Is a law

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Speaker 1: enforcement issue kind of cooperation we're going to get from

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Speaker 1: Canada now and dealing with China. So and then the

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Speaker 1: more they do this, then Donald Trump starts to rationalize

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Speaker 1: treating Canada as a threat. Now you see how these

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Speaker 1: trade disputes get will be turned into security grievances, and

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Speaker 1: then suddenly we push allies to some to do things

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Speaker 1: that we don't like, and then they become liabilities for us.

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Speaker 1: But we put we force them into these partnerships with

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Speaker 1: our mistreatment of Canada at the beginning of this craziness.

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Speaker 1: And it's the same mental shift we saw in the thirties.

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Speaker 1: Now we know that the chatter about you know that

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Speaker 1: Trump's joked about Canada as a strategic vulnerability. But now

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Speaker 1: I don't know if we should laugh any of this off,

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Speaker 1: because once economic access becomes national security, which is what

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Speaker 1: this is all sort of stump. This is what I

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Speaker 1: mean when I don't think Donald Trump thinks he's taking

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Speaker 1: us to war, but he's stumbling into a point where

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Speaker 1: he's going to end up getting us into a war.

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Speaker 1: Because nobody passed Smoot Holly in the United States Congress

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Speaker 1: thinking it was going to help trigger World War two.

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Speaker 1: But that is what happened, and they backed into it

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Speaker 1: step by step, redefining trade disputes and they became existential threats.

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Speaker 1: So this is how our and then all these all

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Speaker 1: of these forced partnerships starts changing our vocabulary from our

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Speaker 1: political leaders, and this idea of coercion and these trade

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Speaker 1: disputes become normalized, and then we start to see him

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Speaker 1: as military threats. So I want to bring in a

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Speaker 1: warning from the historian Robert Kagan what he wrote in

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Speaker 1: The Atlantic this weekend, and he wrote this, Americans are

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Speaker 1: entering the most dangerous world they have known since World

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Speaker 1: War Two, one that will make the Cold War look

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Speaker 1: like child's play and the post Cold War world like paradise.

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Speaker 1: In fact, this new world will look a lot like

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Speaker 1: the world prior to nineteen forty five, with multiple great

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Speaker 1: powers and metastasizing competition and conflict. Kagan goes further and

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Speaker 1: he writes this, the United States will have no reliable

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Speaker 1: friends or allies and will have to depend entirely on

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Speaker 1: its own strength to survive and prosper The open access

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Speaker 1: to overseas resources, markets, and strategic bases that Americans have

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Speaker 1: enjoyed will no longer come as a benefit of the

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Speaker 1: country's alliances. Instead, they will have to be contested and

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Speaker 1: defended against other great powers. And then he warns Americans

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Speaker 1: are so accustomed to this basically peaceful, prosperous, and open

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Speaker 1: world that they tend to think of it is the

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Speaker 1: normal state of international affairs. They can't they can't imagine

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Speaker 1: it up. And yet that's exactly what's happening. Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: is like purposely unraveling this world. He's purposely doing it.

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Speaker 1: This has been the greatest two weeks of Vladimir Putin's

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Speaker 1: efforts to defang the United States in the West. This

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Speaker 1: is better than anything he did in sixteen to hack

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Speaker 1: the election. This is better than anything he's done with Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, it's astonishing. This is a dream scenario for

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Speaker 1: the Chinese and the Russians, absolute dream scenario, the post

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty five world that all of us have benefited from.

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Speaker 1: We can say, we can talk about plenty of things

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Speaker 1: that have not gone as well as they should, but

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Speaker 1: trust me, we are at the top of the heat

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Speaker 1: in this globe. Economically, strategically, militarily. This endangers all of that.

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Speaker 1: This was no natural order of history. This was built

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Speaker 1: by us. This was maintained by us, and now it's

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Speaker 1: being dismantled by us. That third one was not what

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Speaker 1: Americans voted for, even those that wanted America first and

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Speaker 1: wanted out of these foreign wars. I promise you, if

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Speaker 1: you knew it came with this, you wouldn't support this.

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Speaker 1: Do you want America to be weaker and have less

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Speaker 1: friends and less prosperity. If you do, then let's continue

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Speaker 1: with these policies. If you don't, you better speak up,

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Speaker 1: You better talk to your favorite Republican senator, because this

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Speaker 1: has got to stop. This is so catastrophic it'll set

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Speaker 1: us back generations plural. So I'm going to go back

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Speaker 1: to my opening question. Could Donald Trump's use of tariffs

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Speaker 1: as a coercive tool increased the likelihood of america'stuma into war,

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Speaker 1: not directly and not intentionally, but history tells us that

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Speaker 1: this much is true. When trade stops being cooperative and

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Speaker 1: starts being punitive, especially amongst countries that all thought they

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Speaker 1: were allies, miscalculation becomes more likely, not less so. Smooth

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Speaker 1: Holly didn't directly cause World War Two, but boy did

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Speaker 1: it help create the conditions for it. It helped usher

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Speaker 1: in a world where cooperation collapse, trading blocks hardened, and

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Speaker 1: strategic distrust flourished. It allowed a guy like Hitler to

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Speaker 1: say he had to expand Germany's territory simply because it

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Speaker 1: needed access to resources to survive. And that's what you

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Speaker 1: will start to have more countries rationalizing it just essentially,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is rationalizing this land grab of Greenland in

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Speaker 1: that way, he's rationalizing doing whatever the heck we're doing

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Speaker 1: in Venezuela. We apparently don't give a shit about theocracy

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Speaker 1: in Venezuela because we've we've yet to actually call for

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Speaker 1: it or argue for it, to plan for it. All

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Speaker 1: he wants is a minion to do what he's asking

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Speaker 1: them to do. And if this former Maduro number two

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Speaker 1: just pays the duty to the mob boss here, He's

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Speaker 1: gonna let her be. He doesn't give a shit about

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Speaker 1: democracy in Venezuela. What has he done? Here we are,

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Speaker 1: So the lesson is smooth, Holly. Isn't just that tariffs

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Speaker 1: are bad economics, they are. The deeper lesson is that

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Speaker 1: economic coercion corrodes alliances, and alliances are what prevents small

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Speaker 1: crises from becoming large ones. So here we are. Greenland

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Speaker 1: is not just a land mass. Canada isn't just a

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Speaker 1: trading partner in Tariffs aren't just taxes. They are choices.

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Speaker 1: They are specific choices, and this president has chosen all

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Speaker 1: of them. And he's essentially chosen a route to either

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Speaker 1: coerce people or to start wars. There's no other There's

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Speaker 1: no in between here. So history's Look, I've said this

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Speaker 1: a bunch of times. When the biggest country in the

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Speaker 1: world goes isolation his goes out of isolationism. So is

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Speaker 1: everybody else. Right When the United States says free trade

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Speaker 1: is the way to go, everybody wants in on the

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Speaker 1: free trade agreements. We have been calling the shots, despite

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Speaker 1: the bullshit that Trump's been silent for the last ten years.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he gets to call the shots his way.

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Speaker 1: The guy, I guess never took an economics course, not one.

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Speaker 1: And look what he's doing. And again I don't think

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Speaker 1: he's trying to get us into a war, but every

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Speaker 1: action he's done has brought us closer to it. It

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Speaker 1: should scare the Jesus out of everybody. But most importantly,

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Speaker 1: this madness can stop. This has got to stop. And

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Speaker 1: there's only one entity that has any leverage to do

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Speaker 1: it and credibility to do it if they have any

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Speaker 1: credibility left, and it's Senate Republicans. So get your act together.

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Speaker 1: Stop this madness. I mean, it's bad enough what he's

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Speaker 1: doing to the FED and risking, you know, the credibility

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Speaker 1: of harmonetary system for the world. This is even worse,

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00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: for free shipping on your order and three hundred and

429
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 1: sixty five day returns. And it's also available in Canada.

430
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: That's q u i nce dot com slash chuck, free

431
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns quints

432
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck. All Right, a few other political notes,

433
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: by the way, my guest today, it's a fascinating book,

434
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: and it's a book that I think, and I'm going

435
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: to say this a few times that if you're running

436
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: for president, I don't care what party you're in. I's

437
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: you're jd Vance, Marco Rubio, you're Andy Basheer, Pete booteragig Rocanna,

438
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: you need to read this book. It's called The Middle

439
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: Class New Deal. My guess is University of Texas law

440
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: professor Michelle Dickerson. It's a terrific framework of sort of,

441
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: and it's both a history lesson and a framework, and

442
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: it's look, it's not gonna it's not gonna be without

443
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: its detractors, because this decidedly says, hey, focus, you know,

444
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: if you want a middle class, it takes it takes

445
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: a government to you've got to want it, you've actually

446
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: got to invest in it. You've got to create the

447
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: conditions that allow for it. It doesn't magically happen. You let

448
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: capitalism go without any guard rails, you're basically going to

449
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: have a few rich people and a lot of poor people.

450
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: But what America did for the last seventy years was

451
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: create a structure that allowed for a middle class to flourish.

452
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: That structure has been worn away, hit hard. Big part

453
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: of it is labor. The loss of labor unions, one

454
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: could argue, is certainly a huge impact on that that shifting,

455
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: that that shift, which is why I think if you've

456
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: noticed labor unions have gotten popular on both sides of

457
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: the aisle. I think more and more people realize that,

458
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: you know, you're if you want to have a living wage,

459
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, companies aren't going to do it

460
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: out of the goodness of their heart. Sometimes collective bargaining

461
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: is the only way. But that is not what this

462
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: interview is about. It's about a lot of things about retirement, security,

463
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: health security, all sorts of things. I thought it was

464
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: a terrific book, and again it's the type of book

465
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: presidential candidates and those that want to work on presidential

466
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: campaigns to figure out how to how to look forward.

467
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: We can sit here and relitigate the past, and look,

468
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: who knows what kind of you know, we could be

469
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: in a could be in a hot war by the

470
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: time twenty twenty eight comes along. And I don't say

471
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: that with just just throwing it out there. What what

472
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: The things that Trump has done over the last couple

473
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: of weeks have inched us closer to that likelihood, has

474
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: not moved us further away. So I do have that.

475
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: So a few other few other notes that I think

476
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: are worth a few other things that I wanted to

477
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: make note of. Obviously, the big, the big political news

478
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump's decision to indeed go after Bill Cassidy,

479
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: Republican Center from Louisiana, despite all of Cassidy's efforts to

480
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: suck up to the Trump administration, give Robert F. Kennedy

481
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: Junior and his kooky health ideas, all the benefited out

482
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: in the world, all the lies that Kennedy told him,

483
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: and sort of Cassidy ate it. He took it, and

484
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: he took it for one reason. He was up for

485
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: election this year, and he was just hoping that he

486
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: showed he could be a team player work with the

487
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: Trump administration on a handful of these issues that maybe

488
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: he wouldn't endorse against him. Right, he wasn't necessarily hoping

489
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: for the endorsement. Now, remember what Cassidy did, right. Cassidy

490
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: is one of the seven Republican senators who chose to

491
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: vote to convict Donald Trump. He was probably the most

492
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,719
Speaker 1: prizing one at the time. A lot of people were

493
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: surprised because you saw most people thought it would be

494
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: retiring senator centators that weren't going to be trying to

495
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: see he was in his first term. It was, and

496
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: he's from a super red state. Well, Julia let Lowe

497
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: a congresswoman who has been some have been trying to

498
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: recruit her to come against to run in this primary.

499
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: Trump officially endorsed her. Now, the primary deadline filing deadline

500
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: is February thirteenth. You know, let's see. My guess is

501
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: Cassidy's going to do some polling. He's going to see

502
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: and I remember Louisiana changed its rules Cassidy and the

503
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: old in the in the you know, literally they changed

504
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: their rules just as to get rid of Cassidy. All

505
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: the more reason why I don't know why Cassidy didn't

506
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: sort of push back a little bit harder at Trump.

507
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: I mean, why he thought this was going to work

508
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: is beyond me. But he, like everybody else, you know,

509
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: the lesson of the and the scorpion. He gave the

510
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: scorpion the ride with Robert F. Kennedy, and scorpion has

511
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: now stung him. But Louisiana Republicans got out of the

512
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: Louisiana was kind of like Washington California. All everybody participates

513
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: in the primary, if nobody gets fifty percent, then the

514
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: top two meet in a runoff. There's slightly different from

515
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: Washington State in California in that if you you know

516
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: and regularly, you know, you have Senate races, got all

517
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: their campaigns were done this way. Well, they created this

518
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: new federal carve out. All of it was just designed

519
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: by sort of mega Republicans in Louisiana to target Bill Cassidy.

520
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: So he's got to deal with a regular old Republican

521
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: primary where a Trump endorsement's probably enough to win or loose,

522
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: depending on which side of the endorsement you're in. So

523
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: Cassidy's in big trouble. Let's see what happens, he doesn't

524
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: have the benefit of that there. You know, I happen

525
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: to believe he should be running as an independent. Maybe

526
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: he chooses to do that. I think the only path

527
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: the reelection for him was is to run as an

528
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: eye and promise that if he wins, he will caut

529
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 1: us with Republicans A Llah Lisa Murkowski. I think there's

530
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: a path for him if that, if if he chose

531
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: to go to go down that road. So we'll see

532
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: what he does. I'm speculating on the independent run. That's

533
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: not anything that's out there. I know that Cassidy at

534
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: least kicked the tires or at least took the phone

535
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: calls that the folks that at no labels back when

536
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: they were looking for a sort of compromise presidential candidate.

537
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 1: So I don't think he feels any sort of loyalty

538
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: at this point to Trump's Republican Party. So, you know,

539
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: if he really wants to be a United States senator,

540
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,239
Speaker 1: I think a path exists. I don't think it means

541
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:55,240
Speaker 1: running as a Democrat. I think that would be a mistake.

542
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: I don't think he could do that. But if he

543
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 1: said he pulled the Lisa Murkowski run as an independ

544
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: that's his path if he wants to win, and if

545
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,720
Speaker 1: he wants to try to try to plan a flag

546
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: to to sort of have a say in what the

547
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 1: Republican Party might look like after Trump. But you got

548
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: to go win first, and you gotta have the guts

549
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 1: to do something like this. Ain't easy. It's more likely

550
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: to lose than win. But if you've if you've got principles,

551
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:31,959
Speaker 1: you want to fight for Senator Cassidy, that's the path

552
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: to do it. I think he is the type of

553
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: guy that could win just enough Democrats, just enough Republicans

554
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: probably have. Look, there are a lot of Democrats that

555
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: might have that are pretty upset with him over this

556
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: Kennedy debacle. I mean, look, people are dying because Robert F.

557
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: Kennedy Junior is Secretary of Health. Okay, he his these

558
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: decisions are directly impacting the health and wellness of young people.

559
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: So there's there are going to be people that maybe

560
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: won't be able to support Cassidy that might have a

561
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 1: year ago had he chosen this path. But I wonder

562
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: now if he's going to hold back and what he

563
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 1: has to say. We've seen that when Tom Tillis announced

564
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: that he's retiring instead of running a primary, praying that

565
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: somehow Trump was going to endorse him, which he never was.

566
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: You know, Tillos was the first Republican out of the

567
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: gate to say he wasn't going to confirm a single

568
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: new Trump appointed to the FED until this, until this

569
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 1: trumped up investigation by Jenny Piro was dropped. So I'm

570
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: fascinated to watch what Cassidy does. I'm not convinced he

571
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: runs as a Republican. I'm not convinced he runs, but

572
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: we'll see what he does. But this is a big deal,

573
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: and this was against I mean, this is Donald Trump

574
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: not caring about the future of the Republican party he wants,

575
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: you know, he cares about his retribution more than anything else.

576
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: He cares about his grievances more than anything else. And

577
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 1: this is something that I try to repine my Republican friends.

578
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: He does not care if there's a Republican party that's

579
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 1: viable come January twenty first, twenty twenty nine. He does

580
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: not care. He will be perhaps more happy if he

581
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 1: is seen as the only Republican that could win the presidents.

582
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: So I always remember he is never rarely making a

583
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: decision that's in the best interests of the party in

584
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: the long term. He just cares about what's in the

585
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: best interest of him. So we shall see very curious

586
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: to watch what mister Cassidy does. All right with that,

587
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: Let's sneak at a break and when we come back,

588
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: the middle Class New Deal, that's what this book is called.

589
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: I think this is something everybody that listens to the

590
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: podcast Left, Right and Center. We're all trying to figure

591
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: out what does capitalism look like going forward? Because this

592
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: version is messy and broken, and we know we need

593
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: some new guardrails. We know we needed some new focus

594
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 1: and some new investment. And Michelle Dickerson has an out,

595
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 1: has a plan that she's hoping will at least get debated.

596
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: Let's take a break. Having good life insurance is incredibly important.

597
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my

598
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't

599
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: leave us in the best shape. My mother, single mother,

600
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: now widow, myself sixteen trying to figure out how am

601
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: I going to pay for college? And lo and behold,

602
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: my dad had one life insurance policy that we found

603
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot, but it was important at the time,

604
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: and it's why I was able to go to college.

605
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: Little did he know how important that would be in

606
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: that moment. Well guess what. That's why I am here

607
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: to tell you about Ethos Life. They can provide you

608
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Speaker 1: with peace of mind knowing your family is protected even

609
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Speaker 1: if the worst comes to pass. Ethos is an online

610
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Speaker 1: platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy, all

611
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Speaker 1: designed to protect your family's future in minutes, not months.

612
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Speaker 1: There's no complicated process, and it's one hundred percent online.

613
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Speaker 1: There's no medical exam require you just answer a few

614
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Speaker 1: health questions online. You can get a quote in as

615
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Speaker 1: little as ten minutes, and you can get same day

616
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Speaker 1: coverage without ever leaving your home. You can get up

617
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Speaker 1: to three million dollars in coverage, and some policies start

618
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Speaker 1: as low as two dollars a day that would be

619
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Speaker 1: billed monthly. As of March twenty twenty five, Business Insider

620
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Speaker 1: named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life

621
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622
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623
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624
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Speaker 1: may vary, and the rates themselves may vary as well,

625
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: but trust me, life insurance is something you should really

626
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: think about, especially if you've got a growing family. Well,

627
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 1: as we get to the run up of not just

628
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: Campaign twenty twenty six, bit Campaign twenty twenty eight, one

629
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: of the things I'm going to actively be seeking out

630
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:24,839
Speaker 1: are academics and authors and historians that are that are

631
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 1: trying to lay out visions that look forward, not necessarily

632
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: relitigating the past, and whether it's in how are we

633
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: going to reform and change and modernize the public education system,

634
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: which I think is something that I hope our next

635
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: presidential campaign can begin to discuss. And in that vein,

636
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: there's a terrific new book out by a professor at

637
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: the University of Texas Law School, by Michelle Dickerson. She's

638
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: my guest today. The book is called The Middle Class

639
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: New Deal, Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream. This

640
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: is more than just a white paper of saying of aspiration.

641
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: This is a book with a detailed blueprint for how

642
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: we should tackle this and what's interesting about this And

643
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: I'm going to shut up here in a minute and

644
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: bring it Michelle is that I view it as this

645
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: better be a book that anybody running for president, I

646
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: don't care which party you're running from, ought to read,

647
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: because whether you're a liberal or conservative, the goals that

648
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: are outlined here in this book, I think are something

649
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: that frankly, both the left and the right aspire to.

650
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,400
Speaker 1: We're just disagreeing on how we get there. But it

651
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: does begin here with I think the reminder that in

652
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: order to have a middle class, you actually have to

653
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: have government policy that wants to have a middle class.

654
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: And I think that was before we begin our conversation,

655
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: the most important insight I think that I took away

656
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: from this book. So, without further ado, let me bring

657
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 1: in Michelle Dickerson, University of Texas Law School. Been there

658
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: multiple books, She's written multiple books. This is again not

659
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: a I don't this doesn't strike me. It didn't strike

660
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 1: me as a political book. It struck me as a

661
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 1: answer to the economic anxiety that has essentially been reflected

662
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: in what has been now twenty years of what I

663
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 1: call vote against politics. We know what we don't want,

664
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: nobody's yet come up with the answer for what we

665
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 1: do want. So Michelle Dickerson Welcome to the podcast.

666
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

667
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 1: So let me start with this because I think you

668
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: know you hear the words new Deal, and we've seen

669
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: a lot of economic prescriptions using the umbrella of the

670
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: New Deal, right, and you know a lot of times

671
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: it's just borrowing a popular phrase to sell something that

672
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: people have been trying to sell for years. This didn't

673
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: strike me. They tell me your origin as to what

674
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 1: motivated you to put these ideas together the way you did.

675
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 2: The first thing I did is I thought about, how

676
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 2: is it that we have a middle class. And this

677
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 2: is a point that you just made in the introduction.

678
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 2: We have a middle class because political leaders decided we

679
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 2: needed to have a middle class. Now, part of it

680
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 2: was in response to the depression, but after the depression

681
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 2: in World War one, world War two, political leader said,

682
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: you know what, it's not a bad thing to have

683
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 2: a middle class. They do good things for the US economy,

684
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:50,240
Speaker 2: and also as political leaders, we need to do good

685
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:54,240
Speaker 2: things for lower and middle income folks who are looking

686
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 2: to achieve the American dream to have upward mobility. So

687
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 2: I landed the middle class New Deal because we created

688
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:09,399
Speaker 2: the middle class roughly as part of the First New Deal,

689
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 2: and political leaders need to stop. And I agree with

690
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 2: the way that you framed this. This is not a

691
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 2: left or a right, or a Democrat or a Republican book.

692
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 2: This is a book for all political leaders to make

693
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 2: a decision do we care about the middle class in

694
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 2: this country or not?

695
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: I thought the most important insight and it's almost to

696
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: me it's the table stakes.

697
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 2: Right.

698
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: If you don't accept this premise, then you're not going

699
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: to accept the premise of the book, is that somehow

700
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: a middle class just happens in a free market economy.

701
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter, it doesn't. And when we lionize,

702
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: you know, you know we it's always one of those things.

703
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to say they're in the middle class, right.

704
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: It is popular to be in the middle class, even

705
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: as we aspire to be. Even when you're not in

706
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: the middle class anymore, you still want to say, well,

707
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 1: I've got middle class roots, right, there's something about it, right,

708
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 1: we want to be here. But this is not something

709
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: a free market economy creates. Free market economies, when left unchecked,

710
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: create uber rich and a lot of poor. It actually,

711
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,479
Speaker 1: it doesn't automatically create a middle class. And I think

712
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: understanding the history of the great building of the middle

713
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: class of the fifties, the GI Bill that was a

714
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: government essentially making sure the troops that came home didn't

715
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: become poor, gave them an opportunity to stay out of poverty,

716
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: not even necessarily bringing people from poverty to the middle class.

717
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: The development of the suburbs, the development of all of

718
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: these things were in support of the middle of creating

719
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: a middle class. And I think that might be hard

720
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: for some of my free market conservative friends to sort

721
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: of wrap their arms around, but guess what government actually

722
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 1: has to create the conditions to allow a middle class

723
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: to exist. Did I summarize your argument parally?

724
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 2: We did exactly. And what I would say is, if

725
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 2: you want to know what happens when the government is

726
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 2: not involved, look at what has happened to lower and

727
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 2: middle income people since the nineteen eighties. So if we

728
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 2: want the free market to control, what that means is

729
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 2: we will have the uber uber rich and everyone else

730
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:20,879
Speaker 2: will be struggling. So it's really hilarious to me when

731
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 2: people look back at the middle class and all of

732
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 2: the wonderful things it did. It helps people go to college,

733
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 2: It helped people buy homes. But if we really wanted

734
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 2: to put labels on what happened that the factors that

735
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 2: helped to create the middle class, we'd have to say

736
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 2: things like socialism and interfering with free markets. And of

737
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 2: course nobody wants to say those words. The S word

738
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 2: is just horrible. Well, fine, don't call it socialism, just

739
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 2: call it what do we think this government owes to

740
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 2: people who work hard, get up every day and try

741
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: to do the right thing, and yet continue to struggle.

742
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 2: If your respond, since we owe them nothing, then we

743
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 2: need to just say that.

744
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, I can make a national security

745
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: or if you want a stable and thriving population that

746
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 1: also is patriotic, then you better have a sustainable middle

747
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 1: class if we don't have one.

748
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:21,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we want a happy population. So if again,

749
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: even ignoring whether or not you care about the economic

750
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 2: security of most families in this country, one of the

751
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 2: things that I always say when people ask me, well,

752
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: why is it so good to have a middle class?

753
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 2: I can point to lots of things like toasters, or

754
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: trash cans or Ford pickup trucks. Billionaires can only buy

755
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 2: so many of those. So even if you don't care

756
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 2: about the stability of human beings. The economic stability of

757
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 2: human beings. Y'all are to care whether or not you

758
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: can sell lots of pickup trucks and trash cans and microwaves.

759
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 2: That's what the middle past also does. They drive spending

760
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 2: in this economy. And if they're struggling financially, or if

761
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 2: they're scared and we're seeing a lot of fear now,

762
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: which is also unhealthy, then we're going to have a

763
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:20,280
Speaker 2: weak economy.

764
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 1: So I feel as if that you made a case

765
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 1: in this book that government in sort of supporting the

766
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: middle class. It's not about guaranteeing a certain level of income,

767
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: but it is about guaranteeing and the following items the

768
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 1: ability stable employment, predictable health costs, affordable education, pathways to homeownership,

769
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: and retirement security, and that those things government has to

770
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: involve itself if you want to have those guarantees, and

771
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: that that middle class is less about income and more

772
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: about does the average American able to achieve those five

773
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: goals in life.

774
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 2: And one of the things when I talk about the

775
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 2: middle class that I always stress is people who are

776
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 2: struggling financially are not saying we need to be billionaires.

777
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 2: They're simply saying, why is it so hard for me

778
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 2: to find a full time job forty hours a week

779
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 2: with benefits including health insurance and a retirement plan where

780
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,720
Speaker 2: I am called an employee when I go to work

781
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 2: and not an independent contractor? So why is that so hard?

782
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 2: Why is it so hard for me to be able

783
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 2: to either go to college myself and not drown myself

784
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,800
Speaker 2: in student loan debt or help my kids go to college?

785
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 2: Why is it so hard for me? And I'll tweak

786
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 2: one thing that you said. It's not so much now

787
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 2: to be able to own your own home. It's to

788
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 2: be able to find affordable housing, even to rent in

789
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 2: a lot of cities. Why is it so hard for

790
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 2: me to find stable and secure housing? Why am I

791
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 2: drowning in debt? Why don't I have savings? So you're

792
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 2: absolutely right. My book isn't arguing that everybody needs to

793
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 2: earn the same thing, but everybody in this country that

794
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 2: works hard and wants to achieve. Whether we call it

795
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 2: the American Dream, upward mobility, I really don't care. But

796
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 2: everyone that wants to be stable should have the opportunity

797
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:35,759
Speaker 2: to do that.

798
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 1: So let's talk about let's pick out these things one

799
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: at a time. So the role, what are some ideas

800
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: that government could do to create a more stable employment environment.

801
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 2: Well, one thing is to focus on what I just said,

802
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 2: why do we continue to allow businesses to treat their

803
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 2: employees as independent contractors? Because if you say they don't

804
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 2: have to treat them as employees, then that means they're

805
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: not guaranteed forty hours a week, they don't get benefits,

806
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,839
Speaker 2: they don't have the right to unionize. So we need

807
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 2: to start asking why is it that we allow companies

808
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 2: to outsource whole swaths of their employment of their employees

809
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 2: and then hire them back as an independent contractor. We

810
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 2: have to ask why is it In the nineteen sixties

811
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 2: and nineteen seventies, people that worked had a defined benefit

812
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 2: pension plan. That's what my parents have, and I talk

813
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 2: about them in the book. My parents get two I

814
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 2: won't say checks, because it's not checks anymore, two deposits

815
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 2: into their checking account every month because they worked their

816
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 2: entire lives and they have guaranteed retirement income. I am

817
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 2: terrified to think what we're going to see in about

818
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 2: ten years when people start retiring, they don't have pensions,

819
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 2: and they have not much saved in a defined contribution

820
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 2: for a one K four three B plan.

821
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: Oh, baby boomers are the last ones that got pensions,

822
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: and Gen X is the first generation you know, you know,

823
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: we're the ones that I had to figure out what

824
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:13,359
Speaker 1: is four O one K mean?

825
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 2: Okay, it's like an alphabet soup?

826
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Ira roth Ira? What is that? Right? There

827
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 1: were all these sort of new sort of you know,

828
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: tax coded you know, numbers and numerologies or the names

829
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,799
Speaker 1: after senators who came up with the idea that we're

830
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: all designed essentially to keep Americans from being angry that

831
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,879
Speaker 1: pensions were going away. I don't know any other way

832
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: to describe it.

833
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, they shifted the risk of retirement security from employers

834
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:48,239
Speaker 2: to employees, and they did it in ways that was

835
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 2: designed for us to end up exactly where we are.

836
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 2: I remember the first time I had my first job.

837
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 2: It was at a law firm, I think, and I

838
00:52:57,680 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 2: went there and I had to actually look at the

839
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 2: retirement offerings. I mean, I was a bankruptcy lawyer and

840
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 2: I've graduated from law school. It so terrified me. I

841
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 2: had to put it down and come back the next

842
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 2: day because it was so complicated. Well, if I can't

843
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 2: figure it out, imagine just a normal din't doesn't have

844
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 2: two degrees, you know, isn't in bankruptcy employee that's sitting

845
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 2: down trying to figure out what do I need to

846
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 2: invest in and when do I think I'm going to retire,

847
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 2: and what level of income do I think I'm going

848
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 2: to need? The things that employers used to do for

849
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:33,920
Speaker 2: their workers.

850
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: Look, politically, that's going to be very difficult, right you

851
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: look at let's just take Fetex in Amazon. Right. Fed

852
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:47,240
Speaker 1: X is an older company that arguably is the first

853
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:52,360
Speaker 1: major company to succeed with independent contractors. Right. And Amazon Obviously,

854
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: many of these people that work at Amazon don't work

855
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: for Amazon. Right there. They they're they're independent contractor. They

856
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: have all lot of political beverage, right and the whole.

857
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: And there's some that will argue, well, independent contractors allow

858
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: people to make more money because it can be a

859
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: side hustle and right, you know, there are different ways

860
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: that have been used frankly to convince or persuade parts

861
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 1: of the population. No, no, no, no, no, These these

862
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 1: empower you, These don't hurt you, you know, And I'm

863
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 1: not asking you to be a political messaging guru here,

864
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 1: but I think that's going to be the political challenge

865
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: to an obvious policy conundrum.

866
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 2: Right. And we talk a lot about freedom and choice.

867
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:41,880
Speaker 2: So you have the freedom. You can choose not to

868
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 2: work forty hours a week you want to have you

869
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 2: want to be an independent contract it's good for you. You

870
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 2: can choose to work in the gig economy, you know,

871
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:51,600
Speaker 2: pick up a little bit of work here and there.

872
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 2: But if you actually talk to the people who are

873
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 2: exercising the choice to be an independent contractor, it's not

874
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 2: a choice. And I can say this from personal experience.

875
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 2: I have a twenty five year old son who worked

876
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:09,719
Speaker 2: briefly for Amazon, but he didn't work for Amazon. He

877
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 2: worked for a delivery service provider and they were they

878
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 2: treated him very well, but at the end of the day,

879
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: he was never going to work for Amazon and he

880
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 2: was never going to get forty hours a week working

881
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:26,879
Speaker 2: at the DSP because it wasn't set up for them

882
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 2: to be full time forty hour a week. You got

883
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 2: to give them benefits.

884
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:34,719
Speaker 1: Do you think this has to be mandatory legislation that

885
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: basically says is there, you know, can you design what

886
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 1: would a what would a simple piece of legislation do

887
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: to sort of dissuade the independent contractor route.

888
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 2: Well, several states have actually tried. I think California tried.

889
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:55,279
Speaker 2: All have failed, but several states have tried. Basically, if

890
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 2: you have someone that is doing the same work that

891
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:03,840
Speaker 2: people you called employees are doing, those people must be

892
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 2: treated like employees, whether you call them contractors or not.

893
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:12,400
Speaker 2: So give them health insurance, allow them to participate in

894
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 2: the retirement plans, and more importantly, allow them to organize

895
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 2: and to participate in any union organizing attempts at your company,

896
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, when you have

897
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 2: fewer employees, your costs or less as a business, and

898
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 2: you're not at grade of a risk of having a

899
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 2: strong union presence because if you have fewer employees, you're

900
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 2: less likely to have to deal with those pesky unions.

901
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: Got a predictable health cut. You know, there was a time,

902
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: I want to say twenty years ago, where I thought

903
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: that there was a deal to be cut with big business.

904
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 1: You know, I would hear the complain aints. You know,

905
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: because I've worked where I worked, I'd have interactions with

906
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 1: this CEO of GE and I've had interactions with the

907
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 1: CEO of Comcast and interactions with other CEOs, and all

908
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:14,760
Speaker 1: of them would complain about the cost of health care,

909
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:18,640
Speaker 1: and so you could I always thought that there was

910
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: this great grand bargain where the government would say, look,

911
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 1: we can save you some money. We'll take care of

912
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: health We'll take health care out of your situation. Then

913
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:30,440
Speaker 1: you can go back to having pensions or you can

914
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 1: go back to you know that there was this grand

915
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: bargain to be had, so to tackle predictable health costs?

916
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 1: You know, is it realistic to stick with the employer

917
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: based healthcare system that ultimately we're still kind of attached to,

918
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: even though the Affordable Care Act was supposed to make

919
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: this a bit more portable. Do you think we need

920
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 1: policy fixes that sort of deal with the world that

921
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: we live in, or do we need to radically rethink

922
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: how we deliver health insurance to folks or healthcare work.

923
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 2: I would say we need to make a radical change,

924
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 2: and these are a couple of options. And I'll lead

925
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 2: into this by telling a story involving a class that

926
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 2: I taught at ut So. It was a class that

927
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 2: had both law students public policy students, schools from students

928
00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:23,000
Speaker 2: from the School of Education and foreign exchange students. So

929
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 2: we were talking about the middle class and this particular

930
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 2: class session we were talking about in insurance and one

931
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:32,680
Speaker 2: of the students from the Netherlands finally asked a question.

932
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 2: She says, I don't understand why when we're talking about

933
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 2: health insurance you all keep talking about jobs. What do

934
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 2: jobs have to do with anything? And then we had

935
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 2: to explain to her, Well, in the US, that's how

936
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 2: we provide health insurance. So if we leave it with businesses,

937
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 2: businesses have to assume the cost. So rather than pushing

938
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 2: the costs onto employees, tell them that you know where

939
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 2: you want to say that there are caps on what

940
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 2: they can charge or but businesses can lobby Congress and

941
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 2: be much more effective in coming up with solution than

942
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 2: individual employees can. I will also say, and this is

943
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: not necessarily a model that can be scaled, but when

944
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 2: we look at the way that a military personnel in

945
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 2: this country, how they receive health insurance, they receive it

946
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 2: from the government. Is it perfect? They would probably say no,

947
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 2: Is everyone covered? Yes they are. So we have to

948
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 2: do something radical because we can't continue with the status quo.

949
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 2: And I would also again thinking back to the past,

950
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 2: although I'm not going to stick say in the past,

951
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 2: I want us to be thinking in terms.

952
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: Of the Oh, and this is the point of your

953
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 1: book is to stop. You know, we can't relitigate stuff

954
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: that has.

955
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 2: Happened yet, right, But the reason that we have so

956
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 2: many employee benefits tied into work was because in World

957
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 2: War Two there was a wage controls so they couldn't

958
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:06,960
Speaker 2: increase wages. So what businesses did is say, oh, but

959
01:00:07,040 --> 01:00:11,440
Speaker 2: we can give you non wage benefits. Once that happened,

960
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 2: it became the norm. And so one of the things

961
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 2: I want political leaders to do is to say, well,

962
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 2: if it wasn't the norm until we created it, maybe

963
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 2: we can create something new and that'll then become.

964
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: The norm, a new essentially some new norms exactly if

965
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 1: you will. But you're right, I mean it was if

966
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:33,800
Speaker 1: people would panic if they found out healthcare wasn't connected

967
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 1: to work, Yeah right, that's what Look, that's what the

968
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,439
Speaker 1: Clintons found out when they first touched the healthcare back

969
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 1: in ninety three. Whoa, whoa, whoa. People hate the system,

970
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 1: but they.

971
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,320
Speaker 2: Like their own health care exactly, and they're always afraid that, well,

972
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 2: I have to have the best health care and I

973
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:53,840
Speaker 2: have to have every single procedure that I want covered.

974
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:57,760
Speaker 2: And that's great that in theory, until you lose your

975
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:00,920
Speaker 2: job and then you have no health care. So one

976
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 2: of the discussions we're going to have to have is

977
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:06,439
Speaker 2: to ask people, are you going to fight for what

978
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:09,040
Speaker 2: you have right now, knowing that if you lose your

979
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 2: job you have nothing?

980
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 1: You know, I what are I think there are real

981
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 1: trade offs here that might be net positives for everybody.

982
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 1: Right if the government takes on the role of essentially

983
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: guaranteeing insurance, guaranteeing healthcare, access to healthcare, in theory, that

984
01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:33,960
Speaker 1: should free up money for corporations. I mean, and you know,

985
01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:37,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, we don't do nuanced very

986
01:01:37,120 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 1: well in our country anymore in our political debates. But

987
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: you know, that seems to be the type of thing

988
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:49,360
Speaker 1: that that that in a in a mature setting, that

989
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: that people would accept the idea that this is trade offs.

990
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:56,080
Speaker 1: This isn't you know. Okay, I want this guarantee, but

991
01:01:56,120 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: it means it won't get it over here, okay, and

992
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 1: you put it out there.

993
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're again at the where we unfortunately

994
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 2: spend most of our time in the political space with

995
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:10,200
Speaker 2: you know, we let perfect be the enemy of good, right,

996
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 2: and so why not say these are the six things

997
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 2: that we think people in this country deserve. And if

998
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:22,479
Speaker 2: we can agree that everyone deserves healthcare, everyone deserves some

999
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 2: kind of retirement security, we can then say, Okay, now

1000
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:29,360
Speaker 2: that we've agreed on that, who do we think should

1001
01:02:29,360 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 2: be responsible for providing it? Ignoring who may be providing

1002
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:37,640
Speaker 2: it right now, but who going forward do we think

1003
01:02:37,720 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 2: should be responsible for providing it? That to me is

1004
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 2: a much more productive conversation than re litigating, well, it's

1005
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 2: not fair if businesses have to do this and it

1006
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 2: increased their costs. Okay, let's just assume that your true.

1007
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 2: Let's go forward.

1008
01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 1: Let's talk about affordable education. You know, one of the

1009
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: head scratchers me, I was convinced back in the mid

1010
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:06,680
Speaker 1: nineties that it was inevitable that we were going to

1011
01:03:07,400 --> 01:03:10,919
Speaker 1: what I called thirteenth and fourteenth grade, that we were

1012
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 1: going that public education was essentially going to extend another

1013
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: two years, that there was going to be guaranteed public

1014
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:20,040
Speaker 1: education up through quote unquote fourteen years of it. So

1015
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,280
Speaker 1: you divided up how you want to divide it up. Right,

1016
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: you got your primary and secondary, and then you have

1017
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: essentially free community college, right the first two years of

1018
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:31,360
Speaker 1: community college. The fact that we haven't gotten there, you know,

1019
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: the fact that we're still like the debating university universal

1020
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:38,520
Speaker 1: kindergarten in some states we have, I would argue the

1021
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:42,520
Speaker 1: entire education debate is just sort of stalled, right, and

1022
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 1: we're stuck with this terrible system of charters and where

1023
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:51,160
Speaker 1: everybody has taken education in their own hands. And you know,

1024
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 1: you're discussing in some cases more about higher education. But

1025
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: I feel like the entire educational system just desperately needs

1026
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: a twenty first century makeover, and it's so politically polarized

1027
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 1: that we don't know how to do it. What are

1028
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:10,440
Speaker 1: a few steps, sheet, a few ideas you're putting out

1029
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,000
Speaker 1: there in the book that you think could make a

1030
01:04:13,040 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: tangible progress here.

1031
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:17,600
Speaker 2: Well, I'll leave by saying one group that we also

1032
01:04:17,680 --> 01:04:22,439
Speaker 2: have to bring into this discussion are employers. Because even

1033
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 2: if we had K fourteen and everyone had a free

1034
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 2: community college education, employers need to be willing to hire

1035
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:35,560
Speaker 2: them and pay them a decent wage. The challenge now

1036
01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 2: is that the bachelor's degree has largely become the gateway

1037
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 2: to the middle class. So employers also need to come

1038
01:04:42,520 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 2: into the conversation and say, we're going to hire people

1039
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,240
Speaker 2: and treat them decently even if they don't have a

1040
01:04:48,280 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 2: bachelor's degree. But you're absolutely right, we've got to look

1041
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:56,880
Speaker 2: at what happens starting in kindergarten. I would like to

1042
01:04:56,920 --> 01:05:01,440
Speaker 2: start actually in preschool as well. And how do we

1043
01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:06,880
Speaker 2: treat lower and middle income children in public schools, And

1044
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:11,000
Speaker 2: how do we treat rich children and lower rich children

1045
01:05:11,040 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 2: who are more likely to be educated in private schools.

1046
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:16,920
Speaker 2: So we need to have an honest discussion when we're

1047
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 2: talking about charters and vouchers and all of these other things.

1048
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:24,920
Speaker 2: Most lower and middle income kids in this country are

1049
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:28,920
Speaker 2: educated in a public school somewhere if they are in

1050
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 2: a rural area. There are no such things as choice options.

1051
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 2: There's no choice.

1052
01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:35,960
Speaker 1: To say this all the time. I mean, you know,

1053
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:41,800
Speaker 1: it's essentially homeschool exactly. It's the only realistic option if

1054
01:05:41,800 --> 01:05:43,040
Speaker 1: you don't like your school.

1055
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:47,040
Speaker 2: And some parents are doing that. But as we saw

1056
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 2: during COVID, exactly parents were like, oh my goodness, we

1057
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 2: love our school teachers. Boy, can we get these children back, right,

1058
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:57,320
Speaker 2: and so it's great to say homes Well, you know,

1059
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 2: people need a homeschool people most parents need two incomes

1060
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 2: in order to survive. So that's just not a thing.

1061
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 2: So one of the things I argue, and I know

1062
01:06:06,320 --> 01:06:07,920
Speaker 2: some of the things I propose in the book are

1063
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:11,520
Speaker 2: are quite radical, but we need to look at the

1064
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 2: public school buildings and ask ourselves, why are they so underutilized?

1065
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:20,160
Speaker 2: How can we use them to do more? So we

1066
01:06:20,280 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 2: know that there are educational gaps between lower and middle

1067
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:26,640
Speaker 2: income children and lower rich and rich children. What can

1068
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:29,520
Speaker 2: we do with the public school system to try to

1069
01:06:29,560 --> 01:06:32,520
Speaker 2: close those gaps. One of the things that we do

1070
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:36,520
Speaker 2: now is we still treat public school the public school

1071
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:41,000
Speaker 2: calendar is if we're an agrarian economy. So for three

1072
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:43,320
Speaker 2: some three months of the summer, got to deal with

1073
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:47,960
Speaker 2: the crops, everybody, right, that's right. So you have children

1074
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:51,880
Speaker 2: just in the phrases use as a summer slide. If

1075
01:06:51,920 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 2: you're rich or lower rich, you can put your kids

1076
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:58,920
Speaker 2: in these camps and robotic camps, and you can have

1077
01:06:59,040 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 2: them go to these summer high school camps on college campuses. Well,

1078
01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 2: that's lovely, that's not the reality. For lower and middle

1079
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 2: income families. And so you're what I do, both in

1080
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 2: the book and also when I'm giving different talks, is

1081
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:17,600
Speaker 2: we have to focus on K twelve because it's too

1082
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:21,760
Speaker 2: late once children are about to turn age eighteen.

1083
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:25,640
Speaker 1: No, And the whole thing is, you know, nobody's happy

1084
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:28,680
Speaker 1: with the public school system, and everybody would be appalled

1085
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: if it went away, exactly. And and you know it's like, look,

1086
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:36,400
Speaker 1: I empathize with these parents that go back and forth.

1087
01:07:37,680 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: I get school choice. I had. You know, my parents didn't.

1088
01:07:41,600 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: The only choice they had was to find another neighborhood

1089
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 1: to live in with affordable housing, and they did that.

1090
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:49,120
Speaker 1: That was that's all they could do, and that's what

1091
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 1: they did. I had a little bit more the ability

1092
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:54,960
Speaker 1: to truly choose what was going to be best for

1093
01:07:55,080 --> 01:08:00,080
Speaker 1: my kids. But ultimately, we are not going to have

1094
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:04,560
Speaker 1: a good labor force if we don't have a good

1095
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:11,440
Speaker 1: public education system. And well, look, politically, the impediments have

1096
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 1: been a weird combination of people who don't want you know,

1097
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:17,040
Speaker 1: I joke in the state of Virginia, it's the people

1098
01:08:17,040 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: that own an amusement park called King's Dominion that was

1099
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:23,680
Speaker 1: making it impossible for school districts to even start two

1100
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 1: weeks earlier, you know, it would be like these weird

1101
01:08:27,360 --> 01:08:29,639
Speaker 1: you know, And then there was some teachers unions are

1102
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, we want our we want our

1103
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:34,599
Speaker 1: time off, because a lot of teachers, because they're underpaid,

1104
01:08:35,320 --> 01:08:40,000
Speaker 1: spend their summers looking for extra income and are afraid

1105
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: of that going away, right, So which then tells you

1106
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:45,360
Speaker 1: we really aren't investing very well in our school teachers

1107
01:08:45,360 --> 01:08:46,920
Speaker 1: if they feel like they need a second job in

1108
01:08:46,960 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 1: the summer. So it's a it's a it's been a

1109
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 1: weird challenge to sort of break this norm of summer break.

1110
01:08:57,000 --> 01:09:00,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again one of the they're very COVID was awful.

1111
01:09:00,920 --> 01:09:03,360
Speaker 2: It was dreadful, and I've always had to purposes with

1112
01:09:03,400 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 2: there's nothing good about COVID, But some good things did

1113
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 2: come out of COVID. And one of the things we

1114
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,200
Speaker 2: saw during COVID is what happens when you have an

1115
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 2: extended educational slide. So we have children now who still

1116
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 2: have not caught up and who are still behind because

1117
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:24,439
Speaker 2: of the COVID slide. So you're absolutely right, everyone has

1118
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:29,719
Speaker 2: their own agenda. Actually, before I joined the UT faculty,

1119
01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 2: i worked at I was at the law school at

1120
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:34,920
Speaker 2: William and Mary and so I know about those gated

1121
01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:35,720
Speaker 2: communities there.

1122
01:09:35,840 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was just striking.

1123
01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, so you all don't want to lose

1124
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:46,080
Speaker 2: cheap high school labor. That's the reason you want to. Oh, okay,

1125
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:49,320
Speaker 2: that makes sense. Yeah, but for the school teachers. One

1126
01:09:49,360 --> 01:09:51,559
Speaker 2: of the things that we can do if we're using

1127
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:56,880
Speaker 2: our K twelve buildings more effectively, we can actually allow

1128
01:09:56,920 --> 01:10:00,080
Speaker 2: the school teachers that want to they don't have to

1129
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:03,480
Speaker 2: to pick up extra money in their area of expertise.

1130
01:10:04,080 --> 01:10:06,040
Speaker 1: You call this the summer trimester.

1131
01:10:05,760 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 2: Essentially concept exactly. Yeah, just the building is there, so

1132
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 2: why not use the building in ways that can put

1133
01:10:14,000 --> 01:10:16,679
Speaker 2: a little more money in the pockets of school teachers

1134
01:10:16,960 --> 01:10:20,000
Speaker 2: and also make sure that lower and middle income children

1135
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:26,120
Speaker 2: get the same educational and vocational opportunities that rich kids did.

1136
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:30,679
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about labor labor unions, because what's interesting

1137
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:34,599
Speaker 1: is we're in a moment right now where you know, look,

1138
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: I think you and I are of the generation where

1139
01:10:37,240 --> 01:10:42,240
Speaker 1: labor unions were a punching back, you know, and politically,

1140
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:46,439
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you know, it's almost like every

1141
01:10:46,520 --> 01:10:50,320
Speaker 1: labor union was viewed through the prism of Jimmy Hoffa, right,

1142
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:52,880
Speaker 1: and it's just like they're all, you know, and it

1143
01:10:52,960 --> 01:10:57,439
Speaker 1: really the damage, the perception damage Jimmy Offa did to

1144
01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:01,600
Speaker 1: the entire concept of collective bargaining and unions is is

1145
01:11:01,640 --> 01:11:04,240
Speaker 1: I think one of those one of those moments that

1146
01:11:04,360 --> 01:11:07,519
Speaker 1: probably we as sort of historical journalists need to unpack

1147
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 1: and realize, look at the damage this did. But there's

1148
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,120
Speaker 1: now sort of an open mind on this. Now there's

1149
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:19,600
Speaker 1: less ideological divide about labor unions. There's still some skepticism

1150
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:21,519
Speaker 1: in corporate right now, the divide really seems to be

1151
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:24,920
Speaker 1: corporate America versus everybody else. Right, you have a Donald

1152
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 1: Trump that in theory sees, you know, wants to be

1153
01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:33,519
Speaker 1: on the side at least of the trade unions. They're there,

1154
01:11:33,920 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 1: and I think with AI, the fear of AI job displacement,

1155
01:11:38,160 --> 01:11:41,360
Speaker 1: why collar workers who you know, I've been, you know,

1156
01:11:41,400 --> 01:11:44,879
Speaker 1: I've been a little skeptical of news of newsroom unions myself,

1157
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:47,320
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, I've I've always viewed unions

1158
01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: as to protect the physical labor folks more than necessarily

1159
01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:54,680
Speaker 1: the But that's my own bias, and I will I'm

1160
01:11:55,360 --> 01:11:57,960
Speaker 1: you know, at the same time, the only way you're

1161
01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:00,160
Speaker 1: going to get equal treatment is through collective bargaining. Right,

1162
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:01,560
Speaker 1: we're about to I think we're going to see this

1163
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:04,639
Speaker 1: in college sports. By the way, that's a separate topic.

1164
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:11,720
Speaker 1: But you seemed to peg one of the one of

1165
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:13,880
Speaker 1: the reasons why we had a strong middle class in

1166
01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:19,320
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties was because we openly accepted labor unions.

1167
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:21,240
Speaker 1: So how do you bring that back?

1168
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:24,759
Speaker 2: Well, one of the divides that I think we're also

1169
01:12:24,840 --> 01:12:29,160
Speaker 2: seeing is there's a generational divide. So I remember when

1170
01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:33,439
Speaker 2: I first started teaching courses on the middle class. Again,

1171
01:12:33,439 --> 01:12:35,280
Speaker 2: this is one of the sessions where we were talking

1172
01:12:35,280 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 2: about labor and I had a student in the class

1173
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:42,080
Speaker 2: to raise our hand and say, so, you know, we've

1174
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:45,839
Speaker 2: been talking about this whole thing with you know, rights

1175
01:12:45,880 --> 01:12:50,400
Speaker 2: and workers' power, and you've been talking about unions. Exactly

1176
01:12:50,560 --> 01:12:54,120
Speaker 2: what is a union? And it was jarring to me

1177
01:12:54,680 --> 01:12:57,760
Speaker 2: until it occurred to me that we had so demonized

1178
01:12:58,280 --> 01:13:02,040
Speaker 2: unions that a lot of students fifteen years ago really

1179
01:13:02,080 --> 01:13:07,360
Speaker 2: weren't familiar with the benefits that unions actually could provide.

1180
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:11,560
Speaker 2: Students now they know exactly what unions do. Part of

1181
01:13:11,600 --> 01:13:13,639
Speaker 2: it is because I think they've looked at their local

1182
01:13:13,680 --> 01:13:16,840
Speaker 2: baristas who have gone out on strike, They've looked at

1183
01:13:16,880 --> 01:13:20,439
Speaker 2: in the educational context, some of the graduate assistants that

1184
01:13:20,439 --> 01:13:23,640
Speaker 2: have gone out on strike. I will not talk at

1185
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:26,000
Speaker 2: all about sports because I'm very involved in that space

1186
01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:27,600
Speaker 2: at the University of Texas, so I'm not going to

1187
01:13:27,640 --> 01:13:31,200
Speaker 2: talk about that. But yeah, I think that we have

1188
01:13:31,280 --> 01:13:35,720
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that nothing good has happened to lower and

1189
01:13:35,760 --> 01:13:39,559
Speaker 2: middle income workers since we gutted unions. I would say

1190
01:13:39,640 --> 01:13:43,000
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hoffa is a very bad visual. I will also

1191
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:47,439
Speaker 2: say that the destruction of pat Co by Ronald Reagan

1192
01:13:47,560 --> 01:13:51,520
Speaker 2: was another one of those moments exactly where we forget

1193
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:54,960
Speaker 2: that that then told everybody else you can go out

1194
01:13:54,960 --> 01:13:56,040
Speaker 2: and destroy union two.

1195
01:13:57,920 --> 01:14:01,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a you know, I look at the

1196
01:14:01,280 --> 01:14:05,320
Speaker 1: model Germany has, and it's always been a fascinating model

1197
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:10,000
Speaker 1: where workers are actually on the board of directors like

1198
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:13,840
Speaker 1: they're so the union culture is so embedded with the

1199
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:18,320
Speaker 1: corporate culture that it actually isn't it as it doesn't

1200
01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:24,160
Speaker 1: strike me as antagonistic? Is there a model there worth copying?

1201
01:14:24,760 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 2: We have to look at the union or employees workers

1202
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:34,439
Speaker 2: as partners and so again, when we're deciding who gets what.

1203
01:14:34,560 --> 01:14:38,200
Speaker 2: If you view the union as a partner rather than

1204
01:14:38,240 --> 01:14:40,759
Speaker 2: as the enemy, I think we have a very different

1205
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:47,599
Speaker 2: framework going forward. The businesses often views the government as

1206
01:14:47,600 --> 01:14:50,120
Speaker 2: a partner. Well, if you view the government, if you

1207
01:14:50,160 --> 01:14:53,960
Speaker 2: have these public private partnerships with the government, why are

1208
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:57,880
Speaker 2: you so hostile to the people that actually make it

1209
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 2: possible for your company to be productive. So, whether it's

1210
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:06,120
Speaker 2: they're on the boards or you are genuinely working toward

1211
01:15:06,360 --> 01:15:09,439
Speaker 2: these we're all rowing in the same direction. We don't

1212
01:15:09,520 --> 01:15:12,240
Speaker 2: have that now, but I think we may get that

1213
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:15,680
Speaker 2: if no other reason, young people are going to demand it.

1214
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:28,160
Speaker 1: How do you eliminate you know, a lot of this

1215
01:15:29,640 --> 01:15:34,840
Speaker 1: take the union issue is that are classified. Sometimes people

1216
01:15:34,880 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: get blinded by race and ethnicity, when really our divides

1217
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: have always been class, and race and ethnicity have been

1218
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:47,799
Speaker 1: sort of used as wedges to to advance a class

1219
01:15:47,920 --> 01:15:53,679
Speaker 1: argument one way or the other. You know, well, maybe

1220
01:15:53,720 --> 01:15:56,479
Speaker 1: it's impossible, and maybe I'm asking you a political question

1221
01:15:56,600 --> 01:15:59,559
Speaker 1: and you're not offering a political question. But that seems

1222
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:02,920
Speaker 1: to be something that we've got to get over as

1223
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:07,799
Speaker 1: a culture before we all embrace a union mindset.

1224
01:16:08,360 --> 01:16:10,679
Speaker 2: I think we also have to admit it. I mean,

1225
01:16:10,760 --> 01:16:13,600
Speaker 2: you admit it. I know that it is true. A

1226
01:16:13,640 --> 01:16:16,559
Speaker 2: lot of people will not admit even now, a lot

1227
01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:20,240
Speaker 2: of the conversations that we are having are really about

1228
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:24,040
Speaker 2: race and ethnicity. They are not about anything else. I

1229
01:16:24,040 --> 01:16:27,160
Speaker 2: don't care whether it's in the immigration space or.

1230
01:16:28,320 --> 01:16:30,439
Speaker 1: I look at Todd Donald Trump and the trade unions.

1231
01:16:30,479 --> 01:16:32,720
Speaker 1: He's always worried about the trade unions. He's never worried

1232
01:16:32,720 --> 01:16:36,640
Speaker 1: about anybody at SEIU exactly. And SCIU just looks that

1233
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:40,160
Speaker 1: union looks different than the Carpenters Union does. Although I

1234
01:16:40,160 --> 01:16:42,519
Speaker 1: would argue the Carpenter's Union looks a lot more like

1235
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:44,800
Speaker 1: SCIU than he thinks, but you get my drift.

1236
01:16:44,880 --> 01:16:47,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, even the Teamsters, I mean, that was the

1237
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:51,480
Speaker 2: one union that was more inclined to support the Republican

1238
01:16:51,520 --> 01:16:55,320
Speaker 2: Party than the Democratic Party, and their membership looks very

1239
01:16:55,360 --> 01:16:58,880
Speaker 2: different than the service workers unions. And so one of

1240
01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:00,720
Speaker 2: the things we're going to we're going to have to

1241
01:17:00,720 --> 01:17:05,200
Speaker 2: stop doing is saying that, well, the problems of the

1242
01:17:05,200 --> 01:17:09,400
Speaker 2: middle class are the workers are lazy. Okay, so which

1243
01:17:09,439 --> 01:17:12,720
Speaker 2: workers are we talking about? Are we talking about all

1244
01:17:12,840 --> 01:17:16,000
Speaker 2: workers or do you have a certain profile of a

1245
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:19,800
Speaker 2: worker in mind? What made me actually think that I

1246
01:17:19,840 --> 01:17:22,320
Speaker 2: was sort of onto something here because I've been writing

1247
01:17:22,320 --> 01:17:26,439
Speaker 2: this book for an eternity. But it was the twenties.

1248
01:17:26,520 --> 01:17:28,840
Speaker 2: It was before the twenty sixteen election. We heard all

1249
01:17:28,880 --> 01:17:33,280
Speaker 2: of this, oh, the angry middle class, and Hillary Clinton

1250
01:17:33,320 --> 01:17:35,800
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump were talking about how much they loved

1251
01:17:35,800 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 2: the middle class and the angst of the middle class.

1252
01:17:38,600 --> 01:17:42,120
Speaker 2: And then I kept asking, so exactly which middle class

1253
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:47,280
Speaker 2: are we talking about here? Because it is absolutely true,

1254
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:52,320
Speaker 2: absolutely true, that there is economic inequality and that there

1255
01:17:52,439 --> 01:17:56,439
Speaker 2: is anxiety. There's economic anxiety, but that has been true

1256
01:17:56,560 --> 01:18:02,000
Speaker 2: for black and Latunal workers for and the shift that

1257
01:18:02,040 --> 01:18:05,439
Speaker 2: we're seeing now is the same way that the black

1258
01:18:05,439 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 2: and Latino middle class has been treated, is the way

1259
01:18:09,080 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 2: the entire middle class is being treated. And if we

1260
01:18:13,240 --> 01:18:16,439
Speaker 2: can get lower and middle income workers to say, this

1261
01:18:16,520 --> 01:18:20,200
Speaker 2: is not tribalism, this is not people that don't look

1262
01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:23,840
Speaker 2: like us, we are all being treated the same way.

1263
01:18:24,120 --> 01:18:26,400
Speaker 2: None of us can afford to send our kids to college,

1264
01:18:26,840 --> 01:18:29,559
Speaker 2: none of us can find a forty hour full time

1265
01:18:29,880 --> 01:18:32,320
Speaker 2: job where we are called an employee, and none of

1266
01:18:32,400 --> 01:18:34,759
Speaker 2: us can find an affordable housing either.

1267
01:18:35,720 --> 01:18:39,200
Speaker 1: Look what made I think this book also why I

1268
01:18:39,280 --> 01:18:41,680
Speaker 1: think it should be should be read by all these

1269
01:18:41,720 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: presidential candidates is that you know, a lot of times

1270
01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:51,480
Speaker 1: presidential candidates will focus on poverty, safe safety net programs

1271
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:59,720
Speaker 1: primarily focused on helping the poor and these you know,

1272
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:02,680
Speaker 1: whether it's a fight about medicaid, right, whether it's a

1273
01:19:02,680 --> 01:19:05,840
Speaker 1: fight and and you know, the cynic and me has

1274
01:19:05,880 --> 01:19:10,439
Speaker 1: often said, look, all voters are self centered. Okay, let's

1275
01:19:10,560 --> 01:19:14,960
Speaker 1: let's not pretend that they aren't. And that's okay. It's

1276
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:17,919
Speaker 1: your job as the politician to figure out a message

1277
01:19:17,960 --> 01:19:22,040
Speaker 1: that both appeals to them and at the same you know,

1278
01:19:22,120 --> 01:19:24,080
Speaker 1: in a self centered way, but at the same time,

1279
01:19:24,520 --> 01:19:29,800
Speaker 1: can help help a greater good. Where do you prioritize

1280
01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:33,679
Speaker 1: poverty programs in your vision here for a renewed middle

1281
01:19:33,680 --> 01:19:35,840
Speaker 1: class or and you sort of see in an odd

1282
01:19:35,840 --> 01:19:40,120
Speaker 1: way that it kind of if you revive a intentionally

1283
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:43,599
Speaker 1: revive a middle class, right, because essentially we're arguing that

1284
01:19:43,640 --> 01:19:48,599
Speaker 1: we intentionally dismantled it, so you've got to intentionally bring

1285
01:19:48,640 --> 01:19:53,479
Speaker 1: it back that you're actually creating an anti poverty program

1286
01:19:53,479 --> 01:19:54,760
Speaker 1: without having to target the poor.

1287
01:19:55,880 --> 01:19:58,719
Speaker 2: And again I'll answer this with someone with the story

1288
01:19:58,760 --> 01:20:01,280
Speaker 2: with the same course of I taught. I was saying

1289
01:20:01,320 --> 01:20:04,080
Speaker 2: something in class and a student said something about either

1290
01:20:04,120 --> 01:20:07,720
Speaker 2: Medicaid or AFDC, and I said, oh, no, no, no, no,

1291
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:09,559
Speaker 2: we don't care about poor people in here. And then

1292
01:20:09,560 --> 01:20:11,360
Speaker 2: I had to stop myself and say, no, no, no, I

1293
01:20:11,400 --> 01:20:13,880
Speaker 2: mean I do care about poor people. That's not the

1294
01:20:13,880 --> 01:20:17,680
Speaker 2: focus of this class. And then I realized that my

1295
01:20:17,840 --> 01:20:21,559
Speaker 2: emphasis in teaching and also in the book is the

1296
01:20:21,560 --> 01:20:24,439
Speaker 2: goal in this country has always been to take people

1297
01:20:24,880 --> 01:20:30,559
Speaker 2: from being poor to being middle income upward. Mobility is

1298
01:20:30,720 --> 01:20:34,920
Speaker 2: wired into the DNA of people in this country. So

1299
01:20:35,080 --> 01:20:39,600
Speaker 2: though I am focusing mostly on the middle class, I

1300
01:20:39,680 --> 01:20:42,320
Speaker 2: need us to be sure that we're doing things to

1301
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:47,599
Speaker 2: help poor people to become somewhat financially stable, because without that,

1302
01:20:48,040 --> 01:20:51,600
Speaker 2: they can't become middle class. And looping back to a

1303
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:55,400
Speaker 2: comment that you made earlier, everybody wants to be middle class.

1304
01:20:55,640 --> 01:20:59,120
Speaker 2: It's the norm. It's viewed as you know, sort of

1305
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:05,000
Speaker 2: apple pop and mom and America and the national anthem.

1306
01:21:05,080 --> 01:21:09,040
Speaker 2: Given that, I think we need to say, let's focus

1307
01:21:09,160 --> 01:21:12,000
Speaker 2: on the middle class, because people who are poor are

1308
01:21:12,080 --> 01:21:14,839
Speaker 2: aspiring to be middle class.

1309
01:21:18,040 --> 01:21:22,040
Speaker 1: Who's the uh who do you envision are the biggest optic?

1310
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:26,679
Speaker 1: Who are what is the biggest obstacle to your middle

1311
01:21:26,720 --> 01:21:29,599
Speaker 1: class new deal. In your mind, when you think about

1312
01:21:29,600 --> 01:21:31,719
Speaker 1: the opposition, who.

1313
01:21:31,120 --> 01:21:38,439
Speaker 2: Is it billionaires? Billionaires that control Amazon, it is in

1314
01:21:38,479 --> 01:21:42,320
Speaker 2: their best interest to keep Amazon, to keep the people

1315
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:47,680
Speaker 2: that drive Amazon trucks employed by DSPs and not employed

1316
01:21:48,040 --> 01:21:48,880
Speaker 2: by Amazon.

1317
01:21:49,280 --> 01:21:50,439
Speaker 1: DSP would say that.

1318
01:21:50,800 --> 01:21:57,160
Speaker 2: Delivery service providers. It is in the best interest of

1319
01:21:57,760 --> 01:22:02,320
Speaker 2: billionaires to be able to eliminate jobs and to automate jobs,

1320
01:22:02,640 --> 01:22:06,200
Speaker 2: and to have favorable tax credits for being innovative, but

1321
01:22:06,360 --> 01:22:10,280
Speaker 2: not be forced to do anything for the human beings

1322
01:22:10,320 --> 01:22:14,559
Speaker 2: that you have now caused to lose their jobs. So again,

1323
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:18,479
Speaker 2: if the lower income people that want to become middle class,

1324
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:21,240
Speaker 2: and if the middle class folks who would like to

1325
01:22:21,439 --> 01:22:25,520
Speaker 2: remain middle class for the rest of their lives looked

1326
01:22:25,640 --> 01:22:29,639
Speaker 2: up economically and said those are the problems, rather than

1327
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:33,639
Speaker 2: looking around at each other and saying, well, because that

1328
01:22:33,680 --> 01:22:35,880
Speaker 2: person is of a different race, so that person is

1329
01:22:35,920 --> 01:22:39,360
Speaker 2: a different ethnicity, they're are the problem. I think we

1330
01:22:39,400 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 2: could actually work on some solutions here.

1331
01:22:43,400 --> 01:22:46,679
Speaker 1: You know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes,

1332
01:22:46,760 --> 01:22:50,960
Speaker 1: and you know, it feels like we are in an

1333
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:53,960
Speaker 1: almost identical place that we were about one hundred years ago.

1334
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:59,760
Speaker 1: Where you had this incredible new technology industrial revolution. Every

1335
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:07,080
Speaker 1: day was bringing more incredible developments to market, whether it's

1336
01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:11,640
Speaker 1: the car right, whether it was electricity, personalized, you know,

1337
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:14,280
Speaker 1: getting it to any place. You know, more and more

1338
01:23:14,320 --> 01:23:19,120
Speaker 1: that we got it, and we had to come up

1339
01:23:19,160 --> 01:23:22,120
Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of laws because left, you know,

1340
01:23:22,600 --> 01:23:25,680
Speaker 1: whether it was the oil barons, the railroad barons, the

1341
01:23:25,680 --> 01:23:28,640
Speaker 1: auto barons, left of their own device, they were you know,

1342
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:30,960
Speaker 1: not everybody was going to be like mister Hershey, who

1343
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:33,120
Speaker 1: thought I'm going to build a city with an amusement

1344
01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:35,880
Speaker 1: park and have this wonderful community. There were a few

1345
01:23:36,360 --> 01:23:41,800
Speaker 1: company people like that, but not many Hershey. I find

1346
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:45,679
Speaker 1: that to be it just just as a quick sort

1347
01:23:45,720 --> 01:23:52,280
Speaker 1: of a sidetrack here. Where do you put Hershey in

1348
01:23:52,439 --> 01:23:56,679
Speaker 1: sort of that in that world of you know, should

1349
01:23:56,800 --> 01:23:59,719
Speaker 1: corporations behave the way he did in building a community

1350
01:23:59,760 --> 01:24:04,559
Speaker 1: and wanting to have that or was that just sort

1351
01:24:04,560 --> 01:24:10,760
Speaker 1: of an outlier type of thing that wouldn't work for

1352
01:24:10,800 --> 01:24:11,560
Speaker 1: other industries.

1353
01:24:12,040 --> 01:24:15,160
Speaker 2: I think it would work for all industries if again,

1354
01:24:15,280 --> 01:24:18,080
Speaker 2: we work on the from the premise that we would

1355
01:24:18,200 --> 01:24:22,599
Speaker 2: like to have happy, healthy workers. So you don't need

1356
01:24:22,640 --> 01:24:26,040
Speaker 2: to build a community, but you could commit, for example,

1357
01:24:26,439 --> 01:24:31,200
Speaker 2: that whatever the top workers earn won't be a larger

1358
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:34,200
Speaker 2: than a fill in the blanks multiple of what the

1359
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:36,080
Speaker 2: forest workers earn.

1360
01:24:36,479 --> 01:24:38,599
Speaker 1: You could say that's Costco right now. About the biggest

1361
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:42,000
Speaker 1: company that does this is Costco right The CEO always

1362
01:24:43,160 --> 01:24:44,240
Speaker 1: emphasizes that ratio.

1363
01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:46,880
Speaker 2: I believe yeah, and I am a Costco member. I

1364
01:24:46,880 --> 01:24:49,559
Speaker 2: will always be a Costco member. When I go into Costco,

1365
01:24:49,600 --> 01:24:53,559
Speaker 2: these are the happiest employees you will ever see. I

1366
01:24:53,600 --> 01:24:56,120
Speaker 2: took my children. Now we're twenty two and twenty five,

1367
01:24:56,160 --> 01:24:58,559
Speaker 2: but we and their boys, so they would eat everything

1368
01:24:58,560 --> 01:25:01,519
Speaker 2: that wasn't nailed down. We'd go into Costco and get

1369
01:25:01,560 --> 01:25:06,559
Speaker 2: those samples. They have gone back now as adults and

1370
01:25:06,640 --> 01:25:09,880
Speaker 2: have seen some of the same employees that used to

1371
01:25:09,960 --> 01:25:13,200
Speaker 2: allow them to raid the samples when they were children.

1372
01:25:13,560 --> 01:25:16,679
Speaker 2: So it can work. It definitely can work.

1373
01:25:20,479 --> 01:25:22,800
Speaker 1: Well, what kind of you know if you had, if

1374
01:25:22,840 --> 01:25:27,000
Speaker 1: you had an hour to brief President Trump on this,

1375
01:25:27,160 --> 01:25:29,080
Speaker 1: what do you think would be your best way to

1376
01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:30,160
Speaker 1: get him interested in US?

1377
01:25:31,040 --> 01:25:35,320
Speaker 2: I would say that your constituents, the people that support you,

1378
01:25:36,120 --> 01:25:41,280
Speaker 2: are struggling. They are not struggling because of race issues

1379
01:25:41,680 --> 01:25:45,519
Speaker 2: and class issues. They are struggling because they don't know

1380
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:47,479
Speaker 2: how they're going to pay their bills at the end

1381
01:25:47,479 --> 01:25:50,800
Speaker 2: of this month. So if you want these people to

1382
01:25:50,880 --> 01:25:54,120
Speaker 2: continue to support you, you're going to have to figure

1383
01:25:54,160 --> 01:25:57,959
Speaker 2: out a way not to just say they're doing okay,

1384
01:25:58,720 --> 01:26:02,960
Speaker 2: but to actually help them to do okay. We can't

1385
01:26:03,160 --> 01:26:05,360
Speaker 2: he will not be able to continue to tell people

1386
01:26:05,680 --> 01:26:09,640
Speaker 2: that the affordability issue is a hoax, because at the

1387
01:26:09,760 --> 01:26:12,040
Speaker 2: end of every month, when people don't have enough to

1388
01:26:12,040 --> 01:26:14,400
Speaker 2: pay their bills for that month, they know it's not

1389
01:26:14,479 --> 01:26:16,040
Speaker 2: a hoax because they're living it.

1390
01:26:17,240 --> 01:26:20,040
Speaker 1: Do you view the election of Donald Trump as the

1391
01:26:20,160 --> 01:26:21,559
Speaker 1: middle class primal screen?

1392
01:26:23,320 --> 01:26:27,439
Speaker 2: I viewed the twenty sixteen election as the middle class

1393
01:26:27,520 --> 01:26:32,320
Speaker 2: primal screen, and it's but it was the fight middle

1394
01:26:32,320 --> 01:26:35,760
Speaker 2: class primal screen because it was the first time I

1395
01:26:35,760 --> 01:26:39,599
Speaker 2: think that white Americans realized, ooh, something is wrong here,

1396
01:26:40,080 --> 01:26:42,760
Speaker 2: and they didn't exactly know how to react, but they

1397
01:26:42,840 --> 01:26:46,240
Speaker 2: knew it in their heart, their soul, and their pockets

1398
01:26:46,560 --> 01:26:50,000
Speaker 2: that something is happening to us now that isn't supposed

1399
01:26:50,040 --> 01:26:51,439
Speaker 2: to be happening to us.

1400
01:26:52,040 --> 01:26:56,960
Speaker 1: And the risk of not addressing this erosion of the

1401
01:26:56,960 --> 01:27:00,479
Speaker 1: middle class, because that's I mean, look, you give me,

1402
01:27:00,840 --> 01:27:03,560
Speaker 1: you know, I look at You know, how did Venezuela

1403
01:27:03,560 --> 01:27:08,519
Speaker 1: get Chavez and Maduro? You had a wealthy elite and

1404
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:12,599
Speaker 1: a massive number of poor people, no middle class. How

1405
01:27:12,600 --> 01:27:16,479
Speaker 1: did Ara Towan turn a democracy into an autocracy? No

1406
01:27:16,600 --> 01:27:21,720
Speaker 1: middle class? So I know the political risk here of

1407
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:25,639
Speaker 1: eroding a middle class. It will drive people into one

1408
01:27:25,640 --> 01:27:27,960
Speaker 1: direction or the other, but it will drive them into

1409
01:27:28,760 --> 01:27:31,679
Speaker 1: you know, is this we've got ten years, we've got

1410
01:27:31,680 --> 01:27:34,320
Speaker 1: twenty years? Is this fear of a lost generation? What

1411
01:27:34,640 --> 01:27:37,639
Speaker 1: is your timetable here of like, look, regardless of whether

1412
01:27:37,680 --> 01:27:41,040
Speaker 1: they your book is the blueprint, we've got to do

1413
01:27:41,080 --> 01:27:44,639
Speaker 1: something about saving the middle class and expanding it rather

1414
01:27:44,680 --> 01:27:45,479
Speaker 1: than what we've seen.

1415
01:27:46,160 --> 01:27:49,360
Speaker 2: I think it's less than definitely less than twenty years.

1416
01:27:49,360 --> 01:27:51,680
Speaker 2: I would say it's less than ten years. One of

1417
01:27:51,720 --> 01:27:53,880
Speaker 2: the reasons I would say it's less than ten years

1418
01:27:53,960 --> 01:27:58,280
Speaker 2: is because even the younger boomers are going to be

1419
01:27:58,400 --> 01:28:02,000
Speaker 2: retiring soon or think about retiring, and they're going to

1420
01:28:02,080 --> 01:28:06,479
Speaker 2: freak out in panic because they can't retire. Their children

1421
01:28:06,840 --> 01:28:11,040
Speaker 2: are going to increasingly have to subsidize their housing and

1422
01:28:11,080 --> 01:28:14,920
Speaker 2: their living expenses. And so I totally agree with you,

1423
01:28:15,160 --> 01:28:17,000
Speaker 2: we need to look a little bit to the history.

1424
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:20,160
Speaker 2: Though I want to focus going forward to say how

1425
01:28:20,200 --> 01:28:25,519
Speaker 2: do these economies end? They don't end well. So the

1426
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:28,360
Speaker 2: fact that there was a Great Gatsby party at mar

1427
01:28:28,360 --> 01:28:30,760
Speaker 2: A Lago over Christmas, I thought, oh, that is a

1428
01:28:30,800 --> 01:28:34,400
Speaker 2: symbol that you perhaps really don't want to have.

1429
01:28:35,040 --> 01:28:38,240
Speaker 1: Oh, they've done some things. You're just sitting there going, wow,

1430
01:28:38,280 --> 01:28:40,200
Speaker 1: that was a let the meet cake moment they have.

1431
01:28:40,360 --> 01:28:42,880
Speaker 1: You know, there's this exclusive club that they've created in

1432
01:28:42,960 --> 01:28:45,439
Speaker 1: DC where the entry fee is half a million dollars

1433
01:28:45,479 --> 01:28:47,360
Speaker 1: and you're like, what are we doing?

1434
01:28:47,960 --> 01:28:52,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you probably want to hide that from the

1435
01:28:52,479 --> 01:28:55,479
Speaker 2: eighty percent of the people in this country that are

1436
01:28:55,920 --> 01:28:58,400
Speaker 2: terrified that they're going to be shocking.

1437
01:28:58,080 --> 01:28:59,040
Speaker 1: That they didn't hide it.

1438
01:28:59,320 --> 01:29:00,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the part.

1439
01:29:00,400 --> 01:29:02,479
Speaker 1: You're like, why aren't you embarrassed by this?

1440
01:29:04,040 --> 01:29:06,160
Speaker 2: Maybe they're all in an echo chamber and they really

1441
01:29:06,160 --> 01:29:09,200
Speaker 2: don't talk to anybody that earns like, you know, ninety

1442
01:29:09,320 --> 01:29:11,120
Speaker 2: or even one hundred thousand dollars a year.

1443
01:29:11,560 --> 01:29:12,920
Speaker 1: You know, this is why I really like this book.

1444
01:29:12,920 --> 01:29:15,840
Speaker 1: And I'm going to close on this, which is it is. Look,

1445
01:29:16,400 --> 01:29:18,240
Speaker 1: you know, I've always tried to explain, you know, why

1446
01:29:18,240 --> 01:29:22,439
Speaker 1: do why do middle class people not want to rate,

1447
01:29:22,520 --> 01:29:24,960
Speaker 1: not always want to raise taxes on high class people

1448
01:29:25,040 --> 01:29:27,479
Speaker 1: because they think they're going to be wealthy someday. Right,

1449
01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:29,640
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of Americas. We all think, well, that

1450
01:29:29,680 --> 01:29:31,920
Speaker 1: could be me, and it's like the ninety percent chance

1451
01:29:31,960 --> 01:29:34,559
Speaker 1: it ain't going to be you. But you know what,

1452
01:29:34,720 --> 01:29:36,800
Speaker 1: if we don't have that mindset that you know, that

1453
01:29:36,920 --> 01:29:39,360
Speaker 1: is sort of that is what has always sort of

1454
01:29:39,360 --> 01:29:42,519
Speaker 1: created the engine of growth in this in this country.

1455
01:29:43,479 --> 01:29:47,360
Speaker 1: So you know, how do you embrace the aspiration? You know,

1456
01:29:47,439 --> 01:29:50,920
Speaker 1: making middle class aspirational? Is that well?

1457
01:29:51,400 --> 01:29:53,840
Speaker 2: And one of the things that really scares me, and

1458
01:29:53,880 --> 01:29:56,280
Speaker 2: again is because they have a twenty two, twenty five

1459
01:29:56,400 --> 01:29:59,559
Speaker 2: year old and I also teach students sort of ranging

1460
01:29:59,560 --> 01:30:02,160
Speaker 2: from twenty two to thirty, is there's sort of this

1461
01:30:02,320 --> 01:30:07,800
Speaker 2: economic nihilism which terrifies me, where they don't think things

1462
01:30:07,840 --> 01:30:11,559
Speaker 2: are going to get better, where they are angry at

1463
01:30:11,680 --> 01:30:16,160
Speaker 2: older people. We've got to fix that if we want

1464
01:30:16,240 --> 01:30:21,200
Speaker 2: this country to remain normal and stable economically and politically.

1465
01:30:21,439 --> 01:30:23,960
Speaker 2: To the point that you've just made, we have got

1466
01:30:24,000 --> 01:30:28,080
Speaker 2: to make young people believe that if they work hard,

1467
01:30:28,439 --> 01:30:32,000
Speaker 2: they try hard, things will be good for them or

1468
01:30:32,040 --> 01:30:33,120
Speaker 2: things will get better.

1469
01:30:33,640 --> 01:30:35,599
Speaker 1: It's a great Bill Clinton ism, right, work hard, played

1470
01:30:35,600 --> 01:30:35,800
Speaker 1: by the.

1471
01:30:35,840 --> 01:30:37,400
Speaker 2: Rules exactly exactly.

1472
01:30:37,400 --> 01:30:41,160
Speaker 1: That was all. And I think that is a universalism.

1473
01:30:41,439 --> 01:30:44,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. It's like there's for a variety

1474
01:30:44,040 --> 01:30:46,439
Speaker 1: of reasons, there's a lot of sort of of the

1475
01:30:46,439 --> 01:30:49,240
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton era that that gets ignored or it's been

1476
01:30:49,320 --> 01:30:52,519
Speaker 1: sort of washed away and all this stuff. But one

1477
01:30:52,520 --> 01:30:57,440
Speaker 1: thing he understood was the middle class. It's a way

1478
01:30:56,960 --> 01:31:00,200
Speaker 1: that I don't don't I don't know, and in some

1479
01:31:00,240 --> 01:31:03,519
Speaker 1: ways because he was of it, right, And I wonder

1480
01:31:03,920 --> 01:31:08,960
Speaker 1: how important you know that experience truly is with our

1481
01:31:08,960 --> 01:31:09,960
Speaker 1: elected officials.

1482
01:31:10,320 --> 01:31:13,240
Speaker 2: Well, for him it was key because not only could

1483
01:31:13,320 --> 01:31:17,040
Speaker 2: he talk about the middle class, he could talk to

1484
01:31:17,160 --> 01:31:19,240
Speaker 2: the middle class because there was a point in his

1485
01:31:19,280 --> 01:31:21,920
Speaker 2: life when he was poor, right. And so when you

1486
01:31:22,080 --> 01:31:26,320
Speaker 2: have gone, when you understand the importance of upward mobility,

1487
01:31:26,600 --> 01:31:29,800
Speaker 2: that you were a poor kid in arc and Hope, Arkansas,

1488
01:31:30,120 --> 01:31:34,639
Speaker 2: who ultimately occupied sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, you can speak

1489
01:31:34,760 --> 01:31:38,120
Speaker 2: about the struggles of the poor and what it takes

1490
01:31:38,120 --> 01:31:40,960
Speaker 2: to get from there to where he was because he

1491
01:31:41,080 --> 01:31:42,439
Speaker 2: literally had to do it.

1492
01:31:43,080 --> 01:31:45,519
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, I remember during his early campaign that the

1493
01:31:45,640 --> 01:31:48,000
Speaker 1: number one place he would campaign, no matter the community

1494
01:31:48,000 --> 01:31:49,719
Speaker 1: he was in, was always the community college.

1495
01:31:50,000 --> 01:31:51,280
Speaker 2: Oh exactly, he.

1496
01:31:51,280 --> 01:31:56,040
Speaker 1: Knew exactly exactly the type of people that he should

1497
01:31:56,040 --> 01:31:59,160
Speaker 1: be talking to. Anyway, Michelle, this was great. Congrats in

1498
01:31:59,200 --> 01:32:01,920
Speaker 1: the book. Like I said, I hope you know, whether

1499
01:32:01,960 --> 01:32:07,400
Speaker 1: it's Gavin Newsom, jd Vance, Ram, Emanuel Pete, Boodagic, Glenn Youngkin,

1500
01:32:07,800 --> 01:32:12,120
Speaker 1: anybody else, this is they ought to consume this book

1501
01:32:12,240 --> 01:32:14,600
Speaker 1: as they think about what they want to say to

1502
01:32:14,640 --> 01:32:16,200
Speaker 1: the American people in twenty twenty eight.

1503
01:32:16,560 --> 01:32:19,639
Speaker 2: And I hope they do too. All right, thanks so much,

1504
01:32:19,880 --> 01:32:20,760
Speaker 2: thanks for having me home.

1505
01:32:28,720 --> 01:32:31,920
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. And as you

1506
01:32:31,920 --> 01:32:33,760
Speaker 1: could say, look go if you want to take a

1507
01:32:33,760 --> 01:32:36,160
Speaker 1: look at the book and read it. But like I said,

1508
01:32:36,200 --> 01:32:39,840
Speaker 1: I really think, I really hope presidential campaigns and both

1509
01:32:39,840 --> 01:32:42,320
Speaker 1: parties take a look because I think whether you may

1510
01:32:42,360 --> 01:32:45,519
Speaker 1: not agree with the specific policy prescriptions, I think the

1511
01:32:45,520 --> 01:32:48,559
Speaker 1: policy goals are pretty universal. We've got to figure out

1512
01:32:48,600 --> 01:32:52,600
Speaker 1: stable retirement, stable healthcare, and I think those are the

1513
01:32:52,600 --> 01:32:56,479
Speaker 1: guarantees that are necessary. But you know, you have a

1514
01:32:56,520 --> 01:32:59,280
Speaker 1: middle class and revolt right now, and understandably so, and

1515
01:32:59,360 --> 01:33:02,559
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's also an important data point

1516
01:33:02,680 --> 01:33:05,320
Speaker 1: that we need to absorb. All right, so with that,

1517
01:33:05,920 --> 01:33:08,040
Speaker 1: I know I did a little bit of time machine

1518
01:33:08,200 --> 01:33:11,439
Speaker 1: like stuff with my opening monologue there. But now to

1519
01:33:11,600 --> 01:33:22,880
Speaker 1: my real as you know, the toodcast time machine every week,

1520
01:33:23,080 --> 01:33:25,000
Speaker 1: this is the segment I want to step back. It's

1521
01:33:25,200 --> 01:33:27,439
Speaker 1: my version of this week in history. So we don't

1522
01:33:27,479 --> 01:33:30,479
Speaker 1: just remember what happened, but we want to understand why

1523
01:33:30,520 --> 01:33:33,040
Speaker 1: it mattered then and why it still matters down. So

1524
01:33:33,840 --> 01:33:36,000
Speaker 1: I'm taking to you. I'm going to take you back

1525
01:33:36,400 --> 01:33:42,280
Speaker 1: to January twenty second, nineteen sixty four. I wonder if

1526
01:33:42,320 --> 01:33:44,120
Speaker 1: you guys know where I'm going here before I actually

1527
01:33:44,200 --> 01:33:49,080
Speaker 1: say it. Just days after winning the heavyweight championship of

1528
01:33:49,120 --> 01:33:53,080
Speaker 1: the world, a twenty two year old boxer still widely

1529
01:33:53,160 --> 01:33:56,040
Speaker 1: known to the public as cash As Clay, stood before

1530
01:33:56,040 --> 01:33:58,439
Speaker 1: reporters and did something that stunned the country at the time.

1531
01:33:59,160 --> 01:34:02,360
Speaker 1: He announced that he had inverted to Islam. He rejected

1532
01:34:02,400 --> 01:34:04,760
Speaker 1: the name Cassius Clay, and he made clear that he

1533
01:34:04,760 --> 01:34:08,480
Speaker 1: would no longer behave the way America expected its champions

1534
01:34:09,280 --> 01:34:12,400
Speaker 1: of boxing to behave. From that moment forward, he would

1535
01:34:12,400 --> 01:34:16,040
Speaker 1: be known as Muhammad Ali. At the time, this was

1536
01:34:16,040 --> 01:34:22,080
Speaker 1: not treated as a personal or spiritual decision. In many ways,

1537
01:34:22,120 --> 01:34:26,400
Speaker 1: this was treated as a provocation. It's hard to overstate

1538
01:34:26,479 --> 01:34:31,040
Speaker 1: how jarring this actually was. Back in nineteen sixty four, Okay,

1539
01:34:31,080 --> 01:34:33,479
Speaker 1: we had yet passed the Civil Rights Act. You've heard

1540
01:34:33,520 --> 01:34:36,599
Speaker 1: me say before. Honestly, I don't think we've really been

1541
01:34:36,640 --> 01:34:42,719
Speaker 1: a multi ethnic democracy until nineteen sixty six. Okay, Ali

1542
01:34:42,880 --> 01:34:45,200
Speaker 1: wasn't just famous. He was the heavyweight champion. And back

1543
01:34:45,240 --> 01:34:50,360
Speaker 1: then boxing was number two or three. Okay, it was baseball, boxing, football,

1544
01:34:51,040 --> 01:34:55,280
Speaker 1: horse racing, right, those were Big four NBA, way down

1545
01:34:55,320 --> 01:34:58,519
Speaker 1: the list, NHL. You needed binoculars to find out on

1546
01:34:58,560 --> 01:35:03,200
Speaker 1: the list heavyweight champ. Whoever was the heavyweight champion of

1547
01:35:03,200 --> 01:35:05,360
Speaker 1: the world always was among the most famous people in

1548
01:35:05,439 --> 01:35:07,800
Speaker 1: the world, or at least in this country. So he

1549
01:35:08,040 --> 01:35:14,200
Speaker 1: carried enormous symbolic weight. We expected our heavyweight champions, even

1550
01:35:14,200 --> 01:35:17,040
Speaker 1: in eras when we were a racist and openly racist

1551
01:35:17,040 --> 01:35:19,080
Speaker 1: country and we had a black champion. There was this

1552
01:35:20,760 --> 01:35:24,240
Speaker 1: idea that we always unified around our heavyweight champions. Champions

1553
01:35:24,280 --> 01:35:26,560
Speaker 1: were supposed to unify the country. They weren't supposed to

1554
01:35:26,640 --> 01:35:30,759
Speaker 1: challenge it. Well, I'll lead to the opposite. He was loud,

1555
01:35:30,800 --> 01:35:34,599
Speaker 1: he was confident, he was politically aware, and he was

1556
01:35:34,720 --> 01:35:39,559
Speaker 1: of course religiously nonconforming, and he didn't ask to be embraced.

1557
01:35:40,200 --> 01:35:42,759
Speaker 1: He didn't soften his message, and he didn't explain himself

1558
01:35:42,760 --> 01:35:46,719
Speaker 1: in ways that made others comfortable. In fact, he wanted

1559
01:35:46,720 --> 01:35:50,719
Speaker 1: to make us uncomfortable. At the time, sports writers mocked them,

1560
01:35:50,880 --> 01:35:55,200
Speaker 1: political leaders questioned his loyalty to the country. Much of

1561
01:35:55,200 --> 01:35:58,800
Speaker 1: White America recoiled not because he boxed, but because he

1562
01:35:58,840 --> 01:36:01,200
Speaker 1: refused to assimilate the way they want him to assimily.

1563
01:36:01,960 --> 01:36:04,120
Speaker 1: Trust me, those Ali Fraser fights back in the day,

1564
01:36:04,520 --> 01:36:08,360
Speaker 1: White America was with Joe Fraser, Black America was with

1565
01:36:08,439 --> 01:36:11,880
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali was talk about something that was hard on

1566
01:36:11,960 --> 01:36:16,920
Speaker 1: Joe Fraser as well. So what Ali exposed almost immediately

1567
01:36:16,960 --> 01:36:19,360
Speaker 1: was an unspoken rule. You can succeed in America, but

1568
01:36:19,520 --> 01:36:22,559
Speaker 1: only if you're grateful, deferential, and quiet about who you

1569
01:36:22,600 --> 01:36:26,320
Speaker 1: really are. Well, Muhammad Ali was none of those things.

1570
01:36:28,600 --> 01:36:30,760
Speaker 1: So why did this feel threatening at the time. Well,

1571
01:36:30,800 --> 01:36:34,200
Speaker 1: Ali's name change wasn't just about religion. It was about ownership.

1572
01:36:34,920 --> 01:36:39,200
Speaker 1: He rejected a name that he associated with slavery. He

1573
01:36:39,240 --> 01:36:43,200
Speaker 1: rejected expectations of obedience, and he rejected the idea that

1574
01:36:43,280 --> 01:36:49,200
Speaker 1: fame required submission to some sort of rule book. In

1575
01:36:49,280 --> 01:36:54,559
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. Okay, that combination hit three nerves all

1576
01:36:54,600 --> 01:36:59,240
Speaker 1: at once, race, religion, and patriotism. So to say it

1577
01:36:59,320 --> 01:37:01,880
Speaker 1: sparked a lot of outrage is and understatement. We didn't

1578
01:37:01,920 --> 01:37:04,880
Speaker 1: even have social media then. The press did not treat

1579
01:37:04,920 --> 01:37:08,439
Speaker 1: him as a young man asserting autonomy. The press back

1580
01:37:08,479 --> 01:37:10,680
Speaker 1: then treated him as a problem to be managed. The

1581
01:37:10,720 --> 01:37:15,599
Speaker 1: sports can I just tell you so. Look, there were

1582
01:37:15,640 --> 01:37:17,640
Speaker 1: some great sports writers back then, but there were a

1583
01:37:17,680 --> 01:37:23,000
Speaker 1: lot of sports writers that were just terrible and terrible humans.

1584
01:37:24,439 --> 01:37:28,880
Speaker 1: The treatment that Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown

1585
01:37:29,560 --> 01:37:32,080
Speaker 1: got from sports writers simply because they had a political

1586
01:37:32,120 --> 01:37:35,840
Speaker 1: opinion was when you look back on it, just outrageous,

1587
01:37:35,920 --> 01:37:40,600
Speaker 1: just outrageous. But two years later, Ali's transformation from controversial

1588
01:37:40,640 --> 01:37:44,439
Speaker 1: to outright villain even accelerated when he refused induction in

1589
01:37:44,479 --> 01:37:48,160
Speaker 1: the US military during the Vietnam War. The backlash was

1590
01:37:48,160 --> 01:37:51,320
Speaker 1: swift and severe. He lost his heavyweight title, he lost

1591
01:37:51,320 --> 01:37:55,240
Speaker 1: his he couldn't even get a license to box. He

1592
01:37:55,320 --> 01:37:58,560
Speaker 1: lost four prime years of his career. It's one of

1593
01:37:58,600 --> 01:38:01,519
Speaker 1: the keys, basically one of the greatest heavyweights of all time,

1594
01:38:01,640 --> 01:38:04,519
Speaker 1: and he lost four years of his career. To some

1595
01:38:04,560 --> 01:38:07,800
Speaker 1: sort of unofficial political banishment because he was labeled as

1596
01:38:07,800 --> 01:38:14,920
Speaker 1: an American ungrateful and dangerous. But Ali didn't change his beliefs.

1597
01:38:14,960 --> 01:38:18,479
Speaker 1: When the pressure intensified, he absorbed the punishment, and he

1598
01:38:18,520 --> 01:38:21,400
Speaker 1: paid the price in real time. But something else was

1599
01:38:21,400 --> 01:38:26,519
Speaker 1: happening slowly, unevenly, and almost reluctantly. The Vietnam War grew

1600
01:38:26,560 --> 01:38:32,080
Speaker 1: more unpopular, the civil rights movement exposed, deeper hypocrisies, Distrust

1601
01:38:32,080 --> 01:38:37,160
Speaker 1: of institutions spread, and in retrospect, Ali's stance began to

1602
01:38:37,200 --> 01:38:42,360
Speaker 1: look less radical and instead a bit more prophetic. Court

1603
01:38:42,439 --> 01:38:47,439
Speaker 1: rulings eventually vindicated him. Public opinions softened, and Ali returned

1604
01:38:47,439 --> 01:38:49,720
Speaker 1: to the ring, not just as a fighter that is

1605
01:38:49,760 --> 01:38:53,120
Speaker 1: a symbol of endurance. I'm sure he was polarizing, but

1606
01:38:53,160 --> 01:38:58,839
Speaker 1: he wasn't dismissed anymore. Now, this part often gets overlooked,

1607
01:38:58,880 --> 01:39:01,000
Speaker 1: but Ali didn't just wait for America to come around.

1608
01:39:01,080 --> 01:39:04,479
Speaker 1: Ali evolved as well. He remained principled, but he also

1609
01:39:04,520 --> 01:39:07,680
Speaker 1: became more reflective as he got older, more generous in

1610
01:39:07,720 --> 01:39:11,559
Speaker 1: tone on his and more willing to let humor, grace,

1611
01:39:11,920 --> 01:39:17,360
Speaker 1: and vulnerability soften the message. Parkinson's disease cruel as it

1612
01:39:17,439 --> 01:39:20,840
Speaker 1: was transformed how the public saw him. He no longer

1613
01:39:20,880 --> 01:39:23,920
Speaker 1: was a threat. They finally saw him as a human being.

1614
01:39:25,240 --> 01:39:28,000
Speaker 1: And then Ali himself leaned into that humanity. But he

1615
01:39:28,040 --> 01:39:31,960
Speaker 1: never leaned into it by recanting, He never apologized, but

1616
01:39:32,000 --> 01:39:33,760
Speaker 1: he did allow the country to see him not just

1617
01:39:33,760 --> 01:39:36,800
Speaker 1: as a defiant rebel, but as a man who carried

1618
01:39:36,840 --> 01:39:41,360
Speaker 1: conviction at great personal cost. And if you want the

1619
01:39:41,360 --> 01:39:46,559
Speaker 1: clear symbol of how America came back to Ali, for

1620
01:39:46,640 --> 01:39:48,479
Speaker 1: those of you a certain age, you'll never forget this

1621
01:39:48,560 --> 01:39:53,160
Speaker 1: moment the nineteen ninety six Atlanta Olympics. There's Muhammad Ali,

1622
01:39:53,640 --> 01:39:56,960
Speaker 1: a gold medal winner. That's why he was there. His

1623
01:39:57,040 --> 01:40:00,439
Speaker 1: hands were shaking, his bodily body was badly weakened. See it,

1624
01:40:01,240 --> 01:40:05,000
Speaker 1: and he lit the Olympic torch. Same man who was

1625
01:40:05,040 --> 01:40:08,120
Speaker 1: once stripped of his title, once branded unpatriotic, was now

1626
01:40:08,160 --> 01:40:16,639
Speaker 1: celebrated as a unifying national icon. Same beliefs, same past,

1627
01:40:17,280 --> 01:40:21,640
Speaker 1: different memory. So this is why I thought I'd do

1628
01:40:21,680 --> 01:40:23,160
Speaker 1: a little try to be in a weird way, try

1629
01:40:23,160 --> 01:40:25,679
Speaker 1: to be a bit uplifting with the time machine today.

1630
01:40:26,000 --> 01:40:28,840
Speaker 1: So January twenty second, nineteen sixty four matters. It reminds

1631
01:40:28,920 --> 01:40:32,360
Speaker 1: us that societies are often terrible at judging dissent in

1632
01:40:32,439 --> 01:40:36,240
Speaker 1: real time, and we're remarkably generous at celebrating it later.

1633
01:40:37,360 --> 01:40:43,280
Speaker 1: Ali didn't change America overnight. America changed its story about Ali, though,

1634
01:40:44,040 --> 01:40:46,160
Speaker 1: and that tells us something important, not just about him,

1635
01:40:46,240 --> 01:40:49,479
Speaker 1: but about all of us. We love our rebels once

1636
01:40:49,520 --> 01:40:53,840
Speaker 1: they're no longer dangerous, We on our courage, once the

1637
01:40:53,920 --> 01:40:57,040
Speaker 1: cost has been paid, and we smoothed the rough edges

1638
01:40:57,040 --> 01:41:00,000
Speaker 1: of history to make ourselves feel wiser than we actually

1639
01:41:00,080 --> 01:41:03,160
Speaker 1: we were at the time. So look, when we look

1640
01:41:03,160 --> 01:41:05,439
Speaker 1: back at Muhammad Ali, we shouldn't just marvel at the

1641
01:41:05,560 --> 01:41:09,040
Speaker 1: arc from villain the hero. We should ask a harder question,

1642
01:41:10,000 --> 01:41:13,559
Speaker 1: who are we dismissing today that we'll pretend we understood tomorrow.

1643
01:41:15,600 --> 01:41:18,280
Speaker 1: January twenty second, nineteen sixty four wasn't the birth of

1644
01:41:18,280 --> 01:41:23,080
Speaker 1: a hero. It was the moment America was challenged, and

1645
01:41:23,160 --> 01:41:27,880
Speaker 1: at the time America didn't know how to respond. They

1646
01:41:27,920 --> 01:41:35,599
Speaker 1: eventually figured it out. All right, let's do a few letters. Letters.

1647
01:41:35,640 --> 01:41:38,519
Speaker 1: Listen to me, letters. I have these letters the mail

1648
01:41:38,600 --> 01:41:42,160
Speaker 1: bag right the post office drops all these letters as Chuck,

1649
01:41:46,560 --> 01:41:49,720
Speaker 1: probably only going to do three or four as you

1650
01:41:50,479 --> 01:41:53,120
Speaker 1: We'll see how I feel. Right, All right anyway, all right.

1651
01:41:53,280 --> 01:41:56,280
Speaker 1: First question comes from Jason Williamsburg, Virginia, and he says, hey, check,

1652
01:41:56,320 --> 01:41:58,760
Speaker 1: I found your podcast through Crystalism. I've really enjoyed the

1653
01:41:58,760 --> 01:42:02,479
Speaker 1: new iteration you, Solissa. Appreciate that brother, especially as someone

1654
01:42:02,520 --> 01:42:05,000
Speaker 1: who lives in the middle politically. I appreciated the year

1655
01:42:05,040 --> 01:42:06,720
Speaker 1: in top five books list. It pushed me to read

1656
01:42:06,760 --> 01:42:08,720
Speaker 1: titles I might have skipped, like one hundred and seven

1657
01:42:08,800 --> 01:42:11,759
Speaker 1: Days the Drift and Fateful Hours. Currently reading The Barn

1658
01:42:11,920 --> 01:42:15,960
Speaker 1: after hearing your interviews, such a powerful conversation. No question here,

1659
01:42:16,040 --> 01:42:18,880
Speaker 1: just heartfelt thanks. Even if we'll always see sports through

1660
01:42:18,920 --> 01:42:22,439
Speaker 1: orange and blue glasses and go Gators. Wow, when a

1661
01:42:22,479 --> 01:42:24,840
Speaker 1: Gator can say something nice and I can say something

1662
01:42:24,920 --> 01:42:27,080
Speaker 1: nice about the Gators. You are a great university. It's

1663
01:42:27,120 --> 01:42:29,559
Speaker 1: a really good academic institution here in the state of Florida.

1664
01:42:29,880 --> 01:42:32,599
Speaker 1: So I should I should give the Gators a little

1665
01:42:32,600 --> 01:42:34,600
Speaker 1: bit more credit than that. So glad you brought up

1666
01:42:34,640 --> 01:42:37,479
Speaker 1: The Barn. Man, I've been thinking, Man, I got it.

1667
01:42:37,600 --> 01:42:40,800
Speaker 1: I write Thompson. Of all the guests I've had, I'm like,

1668
01:42:41,000 --> 01:42:43,160
Speaker 1: who's the guy I want to I just want to

1669
01:42:43,920 --> 01:42:47,320
Speaker 1: watch him, watch sort of watch America's two hundred and

1670
01:42:47,360 --> 01:42:54,559
Speaker 1: fifty eeth birthday with almost constantly. It's with right Thompson anyway,

1671
01:42:54,600 --> 01:42:58,400
Speaker 1: he's I'm glad, glad you're enjoying the barn. That's great

1672
01:42:58,400 --> 01:43:01,479
Speaker 1: to hear, Patrick, from what Herford, Michigan rights. Hey, Chuck,

1673
01:43:01,479 --> 01:43:04,640
Speaker 1: congrats to your knes and that incredible fiestable just bought my

1674
01:43:04,720 --> 01:43:10,799
Speaker 1: fiestable victory victory ensured at the Hurricane store today. Patrick,

1675
01:43:11,120 --> 01:43:13,439
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm struck by the hipocrisy of treating Ashley

1676
01:43:13,439 --> 01:43:15,479
Speaker 1: Babbitt as a martyr while labeling Renee good as a

1677
01:43:15,479 --> 01:43:19,240
Speaker 1: domestic terrorist. Actually Babbott, of course, was the woman that

1678
01:43:19,280 --> 01:43:21,559
Speaker 1: was killed on January sixth, Renee Goods the woman that

1679
01:43:21,640 --> 01:43:24,920
Speaker 1: was killed during that confrontation with an Ice officer a

1680
01:43:25,000 --> 01:43:29,120
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. With recent GOP resignations and death,

1681
01:43:29,200 --> 01:43:32,360
Speaker 1: what's their current House majority three? If it's that slim,

1682
01:43:32,360 --> 01:43:35,280
Speaker 1: could you see any Republican temporarily becoming independence to shift

1683
01:43:35,280 --> 01:43:38,800
Speaker 1: control and restore function to the Chamber. Anyone like Don

1684
01:43:38,840 --> 01:43:42,160
Speaker 1: Bacon or Thomas Massey come to mind. Patrick, You know,

1685
01:43:42,200 --> 01:43:45,439
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question, and I don't rule anything out

1686
01:43:45,560 --> 01:43:47,400
Speaker 1: right if you look at it, and it goes back

1687
01:43:47,439 --> 01:43:49,920
Speaker 1: to my opening monologue today, the erratic behavior of this

1688
01:43:49,960 --> 01:43:55,559
Speaker 1: administration as a lot of I think Republicans, particularly ones

1689
01:43:55,600 --> 01:43:57,960
Speaker 1: that are retiring, that could be in a different spot.

1690
01:43:59,520 --> 01:44:03,320
Speaker 1: Look politically, it's terrible for the Democrats to get control

1691
01:44:03,320 --> 01:44:06,320
Speaker 1: of the House before November, but it may be that

1692
01:44:06,400 --> 01:44:11,479
Speaker 1: the country it happens, maybe you know who's to say

1693
01:44:11,560 --> 01:44:14,920
Speaker 1: if leadership isn't responding properly to this threat in Europe.

1694
01:44:14,960 --> 01:44:17,080
Speaker 1: I mean, if it really feels like he's going to

1695
01:44:17,120 --> 01:44:19,760
Speaker 1: start pounding war drums with Canada and Europe over this

1696
01:44:19,840 --> 01:44:24,639
Speaker 1: Greenland business or with the Chinese trade deal that Canada struck,

1697
01:44:26,680 --> 01:44:30,120
Speaker 1: I wouldn't rule anything out. I think you've identified. I

1698
01:44:30,160 --> 01:44:34,880
Speaker 1: think Bacon is the right guy to identify. Maybe Massy right,

1699
01:44:36,080 --> 01:44:37,720
Speaker 1: you could picture both of them. They're both going to

1700
01:44:37,760 --> 01:44:40,240
Speaker 1: be serving out if Massie can lose his primary. But

1701
01:44:40,240 --> 01:44:42,439
Speaker 1: he's still a member of Congress for the rest of

1702
01:44:42,479 --> 01:44:49,240
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. So look at this point, I don't

1703
01:44:49,280 --> 01:44:53,080
Speaker 1: rule anything out. It's all of those scenarios unlikely, sure,

1704
01:44:53,120 --> 01:44:56,080
Speaker 1: but we haven't had House majorities this slim going back

1705
01:44:56,080 --> 01:45:00,040
Speaker 1: to the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, so

1706
01:45:00,520 --> 01:45:04,759
Speaker 1: it's I don't expect any of those things, though, unless

1707
01:45:04,840 --> 01:45:10,639
Speaker 1: there's a perceived emergency. I know some of you may say, well,

1708
01:45:10,680 --> 01:45:15,280
Speaker 1: isn't Trump's danger right now in emergency? I hear you.

1709
01:45:16,560 --> 01:45:19,120
Speaker 1: I think for plenty of us that does sort of

1710
01:45:19,160 --> 01:45:31,840
Speaker 1: meet the definition of emergency. So that's the only that'd

1711
01:45:31,880 --> 01:45:34,840
Speaker 1: be the only way I could picture that scenario where

1712
01:45:34,840 --> 01:45:40,559
Speaker 1: you lawmaker switching in any of that stuff. All right,

1713
01:45:41,520 --> 01:45:44,200
Speaker 1: next question comes from Mike, and he writes, Hey, really

1714
01:45:44,280 --> 01:45:46,479
Speaker 1: enjoy the podcast and your thoughtful coverage. I've been wondering

1715
01:45:46,520 --> 01:45:49,599
Speaker 1: what if policy experts drafted we the People bills on

1716
01:45:49,680 --> 01:45:53,759
Speaker 1: issues with seventy percent plus public support, like campaign finance

1717
01:45:53,840 --> 01:45:56,479
Speaker 1: or gun control, and voters pledge not to support reps

1718
01:45:56,479 --> 01:45:58,760
Speaker 1: who refuse to pass them. Could that force action on

1719
01:45:58,840 --> 01:46:01,160
Speaker 1: popular issues that never get a vote due to the filibuster?

1720
01:46:01,240 --> 01:46:03,160
Speaker 1: Also sports trivia for you. Do you know the pro

1721
01:46:03,240 --> 01:46:06,040
Speaker 1: team that won the most games in its league in

1722
01:46:06,080 --> 01:46:09,439
Speaker 1: a season but still miss the playoffs? Thanks for all

1723
01:46:09,479 --> 01:46:13,439
Speaker 1: that you do, Mike, Huh, the pro team? That's interesting

1724
01:46:13,479 --> 01:46:16,599
Speaker 1: the way you put pro team there that won the

1725
01:46:16,600 --> 01:46:18,840
Speaker 1: most games in its league in a season but still

1726
01:46:18,840 --> 01:46:23,200
Speaker 1: miss the playoffs. I'm going to guess it is. I

1727
01:46:23,320 --> 01:46:27,760
Speaker 1: believe it's the Cincinnati Reds from nineteen eighty one, So

1728
01:46:29,720 --> 01:46:32,360
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one had that. I'm going to guess. I

1729
01:46:32,439 --> 01:46:34,519
Speaker 1: hope you file back. I'll look it up later. I

1730
01:46:34,520 --> 01:46:37,000
Speaker 1: did not pre I never do that. I want I

1731
01:46:37,040 --> 01:46:39,479
Speaker 1: always want to answer the question sort of this way,

1732
01:46:39,840 --> 01:46:42,320
Speaker 1: you know, do research if I feel like I need

1733
01:46:42,360 --> 01:46:44,599
Speaker 1: to answer the question. But with the trivia question, I'm

1734
01:46:44,680 --> 01:46:47,400
Speaker 1: keeping one on that yet. I think my answer is

1735
01:46:47,400 --> 01:46:50,120
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Reds nineteen eighty one. That was debate. It was

1736
01:46:50,160 --> 01:46:54,400
Speaker 1: a split season, the strike happened, sort of, they literally

1737
01:46:54,400 --> 01:46:56,479
Speaker 1: had we had. It was the first time they ever

1738
01:46:56,520 --> 01:46:58,920
Speaker 1: had divisional playoffs, and then, of course we now have

1739
01:46:58,960 --> 01:47:02,360
Speaker 1: them in the past. So I think the Dodgers won

1740
01:47:02,400 --> 01:47:04,320
Speaker 1: the first half of the NL West, the Astros won

1741
01:47:04,360 --> 01:47:06,839
Speaker 1: the second half of the NL West, the Reds finished

1742
01:47:06,840 --> 01:47:09,600
Speaker 1: second in both. Right, But what and then once you

1743
01:47:09,680 --> 01:47:12,599
Speaker 1: decided you won one, you didn't really have to if

1744
01:47:12,640 --> 01:47:14,519
Speaker 1: you already knew you were in the playoffs, you didn't

1745
01:47:14,560 --> 01:47:20,880
Speaker 1: really have to worry about uh, if you're in the place,

1746
01:47:20,920 --> 01:47:24,040
Speaker 1: he didn't really have to worry about competing in the

1747
01:47:24,080 --> 01:47:27,360
Speaker 1: second time. So I believe and I remember then that

1748
01:47:27,439 --> 01:47:30,320
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Reds that was. I think it was them,

1749
01:47:30,479 --> 01:47:32,840
Speaker 1: but it was some team and it sticks with me.

1750
01:47:32,920 --> 01:47:34,320
Speaker 1: There was red back then. The Reds were in the

1751
01:47:34,400 --> 01:47:37,920
Speaker 1: NL West. That goes in the crazy horrible divisions we

1752
01:47:38,040 --> 01:47:42,519
Speaker 1: used to have, and so I think that's it. So

1753
01:47:42,560 --> 01:47:44,840
Speaker 1: they didn't get into the playoffs because they finished second.

1754
01:47:46,000 --> 01:47:49,240
Speaker 1: I believe in both halves of that season. Mike. I

1755
01:47:49,280 --> 01:47:51,120
Speaker 1: hope that's the one you have, because then I'll feel

1756
01:47:51,240 --> 01:47:55,080
Speaker 1: really smarty pants about myself that one. All right, last

1757
01:47:55,200 --> 01:47:57,840
Speaker 1: question goes from it. It's gonna be a little Packer question.

1758
01:47:57,840 --> 01:48:00,439
Speaker 1: Here goes Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Appreciate your take the Packers

1759
01:48:00,479 --> 01:48:03,120
Speaker 1: bear rivalry, but you've got to grow You've got to

1760
01:48:03,240 --> 01:48:05,679
Speaker 1: grow up with it to really understand it. It goes

1761
01:48:05,880 --> 01:48:08,400
Speaker 1: way deeper than football. It's big city arrogance Chicago versus

1762
01:48:08,400 --> 01:48:11,479
Speaker 1: a small town friendly this Wisconsin. Oh, buddy, I know that.

1763
01:48:11,680 --> 01:48:15,280
Speaker 1: My father Waterloo, Iowa. Okay, why was he a Packer

1764
01:48:15,360 --> 01:48:17,080
Speaker 1: fan and water Louiow when he was growing up as

1765
01:48:17,120 --> 01:48:19,960
Speaker 1: a kid in the fifties Because you hated everything Chicago

1766
01:48:20,040 --> 01:48:22,479
Speaker 1: and who was Chicago's greatest rival was the Packers. So

1767
01:48:22,520 --> 01:48:25,120
Speaker 1: that was why he became a Packer fan exactly, for

1768
01:48:25,200 --> 01:48:28,240
Speaker 1: what you're defining there, all right, but you know now,

1769
01:48:28,360 --> 01:48:31,320
Speaker 1: Iowans are split between I think the Vikings and the

1770
01:48:31,400 --> 01:48:34,000
Speaker 1: Chiefs these days more than more than the Packers. But

1771
01:48:34,080 --> 01:48:37,599
Speaker 1: I digress. But yes, he goes. Bears fans often say

1772
01:48:37,640 --> 01:48:40,320
Speaker 1: they're treated great at Lambea. Not so much for Packers fans.

1773
01:48:40,360 --> 01:48:43,559
Speaker 1: It's social field, mind you, not like the respectful Packers

1774
01:48:43,640 --> 01:48:46,639
Speaker 1: Vikings rival Go Packo, john As keep up the great podcast.

1775
01:48:46,720 --> 01:48:49,519
Speaker 1: So no, no, no, You're right about the whole Chicago

1776
01:48:49,600 --> 01:48:54,439
Speaker 1: arrogance thing. That is absolutely why. That is absolutely why

1777
01:48:54,479 --> 01:48:59,879
Speaker 1: my dad became a Packer fan. It was being anti Chicago,

1778
01:49:01,320 --> 01:49:14,120
Speaker 1: no more, no less. All right, A quick word on

1779
01:49:14,400 --> 01:49:20,360
Speaker 1: this in this football game. A few things, and I'm

1780
01:49:20,360 --> 01:49:23,280
Speaker 1: gonna make it a bit Miami as in the community

1781
01:49:23,680 --> 01:49:28,120
Speaker 1: centric more than anything else. It's been amazing to watch

1782
01:49:28,680 --> 01:49:31,559
Speaker 1: this town really get fired up about the Hurricanes, because

1783
01:49:32,439 --> 01:49:34,400
Speaker 1: you know, when Miami went its first national title in

1784
01:49:34,439 --> 01:49:37,960
Speaker 1: eighty three, this was still a Dolphins town. And by

1785
01:49:38,000 --> 01:49:42,000
Speaker 1: the way, deserve it. Okay, it was a deserved Dolphins town.

1786
01:49:42,360 --> 01:49:44,439
Speaker 1: They made everything else run there was We had no

1787
01:49:44,520 --> 01:49:47,320
Speaker 1: other pro sports. It was just the Dolphins. The heat

1788
01:49:47,320 --> 01:49:50,280
Speaker 1: would come in nineteen eighty seven, and then the Hurricanes

1789
01:49:50,640 --> 01:49:53,400
Speaker 1: rose up and Hurricane football, you know, became the number

1790
01:49:53,439 --> 01:49:57,479
Speaker 1: two thing to the Dolphins. I still have that great

1791
01:49:57,479 --> 01:50:00,840
Speaker 1: cover Marino and co Sar on the covers. It's illustrated.

1792
01:50:01,000 --> 01:50:05,880
Speaker 1: You know, it was eighty it's it's uh, it's you know,

1793
01:50:06,000 --> 01:50:09,120
Speaker 1: that's what that was. That was what going viral meant

1794
01:50:09,160 --> 01:50:11,920
Speaker 1: back in the eighties. What's amazing now is I think

1795
01:50:11,960 --> 01:50:15,040
Speaker 1: the Hurricanes are now the number one team in South Florida,

1796
01:50:15,160 --> 01:50:18,280
Speaker 1: the number one the number one team in Miami. I

1797
01:50:18,280 --> 01:50:20,800
Speaker 1: mean the Dolphins are just in this funk that is

1798
01:50:20,840 --> 01:50:24,639
Speaker 1: now three generations. I mean it is basically what Marino

1799
01:50:24,720 --> 01:50:28,240
Speaker 1: retires sometime in ninety nine, ninety eight. I feel like

1800
01:50:28,520 --> 01:50:30,880
Speaker 1: I go back to that sixty three to seven loss

1801
01:50:31,240 --> 01:50:33,799
Speaker 1: that the Dolphins had in the playoffs of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

1802
01:50:33,840 --> 01:50:36,679
Speaker 1: I think it was Johnson's last year's coach, Jimmy Johnson said.

1803
01:50:37,160 --> 01:50:40,080
Speaker 1: It just feels like like that was like this exclamation point.

1804
01:50:40,760 --> 01:50:43,720
Speaker 1: You know, Marino makes a Super Bowl in his first

1805
01:50:43,800 --> 01:50:46,040
Speaker 1: year as a starter, second year as a pro, and

1806
01:50:46,120 --> 01:50:47,920
Speaker 1: the assumption was, oh, he's gonna be back to so

1807
01:50:47,920 --> 01:50:49,800
Speaker 1: many super Bowls. Never gets back to another one that

1808
01:50:49,880 --> 01:50:53,400
Speaker 1: Dolphins haven't really think they were in one other AFC

1809
01:50:53,479 --> 01:50:55,960
Speaker 1: title game, maybe two if I'm if I'm keeping track.

1810
01:50:56,760 --> 01:50:59,800
Speaker 1: So it is this time to watch this town. I

1811
01:50:59,840 --> 01:51:03,639
Speaker 1: have to say, is it is absolutely become a Hurricanes

1812
01:51:03,720 --> 01:51:08,320
Speaker 1: football town. We love football here. High school football is

1813
01:51:08,320 --> 01:51:11,360
Speaker 1: so popular. All the dominant high school football teams in

1814
01:51:11,720 --> 01:51:14,080
Speaker 1: the state of Florida, almost all of them are either

1815
01:51:14,160 --> 01:51:17,719
Speaker 1: in Miami, Dade County, Broward County. You know, South Florida

1816
01:51:17,800 --> 01:51:21,320
Speaker 1: really is one of the dominant sort of high school

1817
01:51:21,360 --> 01:51:25,080
Speaker 1: football areas in the country. So football is just you know,

1818
01:51:25,120 --> 01:51:28,040
Speaker 1: so whoever's the winner. And look, some people say it's

1819
01:51:28,080 --> 01:51:30,360
Speaker 1: fair weather. It's not fair weather. We show up for

1820
01:51:30,400 --> 01:51:33,360
Speaker 1: winning teams. Miami fans don't show up for losing teams.

1821
01:51:33,400 --> 01:51:33,479
Speaker 2: Now.

1822
01:51:33,479 --> 01:51:35,120
Speaker 1: I show up for all my a Hurricane games because

1823
01:51:35,160 --> 01:51:39,680
Speaker 1: I love my games and I feel that loyal to them.

1824
01:51:39,960 --> 01:51:42,840
Speaker 1: But it's I have to say, in the hierarchy, I

1825
01:51:42,880 --> 01:51:46,200
Speaker 1: think it's Kane's football one right now. I still think

1826
01:51:46,200 --> 01:51:48,759
Speaker 1: the Heat are two, and the Heat had the number

1827
01:51:48,760 --> 01:51:50,800
Speaker 1: one spot. I'd argue for a bit there. My friend

1828
01:51:50,880 --> 01:51:54,439
Speaker 1: Barry Jackson at The Herald might have I'd love his

1829
01:51:54,560 --> 01:51:57,160
Speaker 1: opinion on this and Dan Lebttard what they think of this.

1830
01:51:57,200 --> 01:51:58,880
Speaker 1: But I think I think the Heat was sort of

1831
01:51:58,920 --> 01:52:01,680
Speaker 1: in that one slot for a while there, but we

1832
01:52:01,720 --> 01:52:04,000
Speaker 1: didn't like them there, right. We always wanted one of

1833
01:52:04,040 --> 01:52:05,960
Speaker 1: the two football teams to get there. The Dolphins are

1834
01:52:05,960 --> 01:52:09,240
Speaker 1: the Hurricanes. So the Hurricanes getting good and right back.

1835
01:52:10,120 --> 01:52:15,040
Speaker 1: But you know, right now, I'm wondering if if the

1836
01:52:15,160 --> 01:52:18,439
Speaker 1: MLS team and essentially messy is number three and are

1837
01:52:18,479 --> 01:52:22,960
Speaker 1: the Dolphins four, are the Dolphins fourth? Why they got

1838
01:52:22,960 --> 01:52:24,599
Speaker 1: to get this new coach, right? They got to get

1839
01:52:24,600 --> 01:52:26,960
Speaker 1: a new quarterback, They got to get some new juice here.

1840
01:52:28,200 --> 01:52:31,799
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's like watching what's happened to the Dolphins,

1841
01:52:31,920 --> 01:52:35,160
Speaker 1: very similar to what I've watched front row seat with

1842
01:52:35,200 --> 01:52:38,439
Speaker 1: the Commanders and the Washington football team over that period

1843
01:52:38,439 --> 01:52:41,599
Speaker 1: of time. But unlike the Washington football team, I think

1844
01:52:41,640 --> 01:52:44,960
Speaker 1: the Dolphins have a good owner. It just they've just

1845
01:52:46,240 --> 01:52:49,880
Speaker 1: chosen poorly when it comes to quarterbacks. They've just not

1846
01:52:50,000 --> 01:52:54,439
Speaker 1: gotten it right since Marino, and it's however you want

1847
01:52:54,479 --> 01:52:55,840
Speaker 1: to look at it, it's been a mess, but it

1848
01:52:55,880 --> 01:53:01,320
Speaker 1: has just been fascinating. I feel like there's more support

1849
01:53:01,360 --> 01:53:03,880
Speaker 1: for Miami Hurricane football right now than I have ever

1850
01:53:04,200 --> 01:53:06,800
Speaker 1: seen in South Florida. Part of it has been a

1851
01:53:06,840 --> 01:53:09,760
Speaker 1: while since we've had some winning football around here. So

1852
01:53:09,800 --> 01:53:12,120
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a lot of thirsty people

1853
01:53:12,200 --> 01:53:14,840
Speaker 1: running to the water, cold water, and that cold water

1854
01:53:14,920 --> 01:53:19,920
Speaker 1: is being delivered by the University of Miami. But it's

1855
01:53:19,960 --> 01:53:24,240
Speaker 1: that's been that's been heartening to watch. So look, I am,

1856
01:53:25,600 --> 01:53:28,320
Speaker 1: I'm obviously recording before the game. Some of you may

1857
01:53:28,400 --> 01:53:30,760
Speaker 1: hear this after the game. I'm pretty confident it's gonna

1858
01:53:30,760 --> 01:53:34,320
Speaker 1: be a close game. I am. I would be shocked

1859
01:53:34,439 --> 01:53:38,680
Speaker 1: if Miami lost by more than I'd be by more

1860
01:53:38,720 --> 01:53:42,360
Speaker 1: than one score okay, three, seven, eight, Okay, I'd be shocked.

1861
01:53:42,360 --> 01:53:46,040
Speaker 1: That's why I think that the line is sort of absurd.

1862
01:53:47,200 --> 01:53:49,920
Speaker 1: A few things I'm worried about. If Miami loses a

1863
01:53:49,920 --> 01:53:52,800
Speaker 1: close game because they fizzle in the fourth quarter, Well,

1864
01:53:52,800 --> 01:53:57,080
Speaker 1: Miami's played three playoff games to get here and had

1865
01:53:57,120 --> 01:53:59,920
Speaker 1: to play all four quarters. Indiana's only I had to

1866
01:54:00,080 --> 01:54:01,960
Speaker 1: do two and only had to really play two quarters

1867
01:54:02,000 --> 01:54:04,839
Speaker 1: in each game. Right, they are a little better arrested

1868
01:54:05,680 --> 01:54:09,360
Speaker 1: than Miami is. I worry that the old misgame felt

1869
01:54:09,360 --> 01:54:12,479
Speaker 1: like a war of attrition and we've got we're we're already,

1870
01:54:13,040 --> 01:54:15,720
Speaker 1: you know. So I worry about depth a little bit.

1871
01:54:15,800 --> 01:54:21,479
Speaker 1: I worry about just exhaustion. These guys rare. No, nobody

1872
01:54:21,520 --> 01:54:24,439
Speaker 1: plays sixteen games very often. Now we're going to obviously

1873
01:54:24,479 --> 01:54:28,320
Speaker 1: with the playoff coming full full, you know, becoming a

1874
01:54:28,320 --> 01:54:31,120
Speaker 1: full time thing, this will happen. We'll have eight or

1875
01:54:31,120 --> 01:54:34,000
Speaker 1: ten teams have to play at least, you know, thirteen, fourteen,

1876
01:54:34,040 --> 01:54:38,600
Speaker 1: and then the final two teams play sixteen games when

1877
01:54:38,600 --> 01:54:43,040
Speaker 1: all said and done. But it's, uh, that's the one

1878
01:54:43,040 --> 01:54:46,880
Speaker 1: thing I'm worried about. But you know, it's the strangest thing.

1879
01:54:47,000 --> 01:54:48,760
Speaker 1: And I shared this with you before the last time

1880
01:54:48,800 --> 01:54:53,160
Speaker 1: Miami was an underdog at home playing for a national

1881
01:54:53,200 --> 01:54:56,760
Speaker 1: title at home was against a team whose colors were

1882
01:54:56,760 --> 01:55:01,160
Speaker 1: red and white, those big bad Nebraska Cornhuskers, and they

1883
01:55:01,200 --> 01:55:04,240
Speaker 1: were I think, I think I read today, I'm not

1884
01:55:04,320 --> 01:55:06,080
Speaker 1: going to remember this one. I read this today. They

1885
01:55:06,080 --> 01:55:11,480
Speaker 1: were eleven and a half point favorites. It's a great game,

1886
01:55:12,800 --> 01:55:17,680
Speaker 1: one of the all time games. And by the way,

1887
01:55:17,920 --> 01:55:20,560
Speaker 1: if Nebraska had gotten the two point conversion, there was

1888
01:55:20,600 --> 01:55:23,400
Speaker 1: forty seconds left in that game. Bernie Cossar was not

1889
01:55:23,440 --> 01:55:26,120
Speaker 1: losing that game. Miami was going to win that game.

1890
01:55:26,760 --> 01:55:28,520
Speaker 1: They would have just had to win. The final score

1891
01:55:28,520 --> 01:55:30,800
Speaker 1: would have been thirty four to thirty two rather than

1892
01:55:30,840 --> 01:55:35,200
Speaker 1: thirty one to thirty. But that's how co Star was

1893
01:55:35,240 --> 01:55:38,640
Speaker 1: not going to be stopped. That game just wasn't going

1894
01:55:38,680 --> 01:55:41,640
Speaker 1: to be stopped, and that Nebraska defense was exhausted. They

1895
01:55:41,760 --> 01:55:44,440
Speaker 1: could not cover our guys. It wasn't going to happen.

1896
01:55:47,080 --> 01:55:51,880
Speaker 1: So we'll see. There's a little bit of a weird news.

1897
01:55:52,160 --> 01:55:56,040
Speaker 1: Looks like Miami's got its quarterback. I think it's Darren Mensa.

1898
01:55:56,160 --> 01:55:59,040
Speaker 1: Is his name from Duke? Look, I'm glad Miami's got

1899
01:55:59,080 --> 01:56:03,480
Speaker 1: this quarterback. Look, I'm not comfortable with the circumstances. I

1900
01:56:03,480 --> 01:56:07,000
Speaker 1: don't believe Miami tampered. I actually believe that the fact

1901
01:56:07,040 --> 01:56:10,440
Speaker 1: that Ty Simpson, the quarterback that decided to stay going pro,

1902
01:56:12,480 --> 01:56:15,640
Speaker 1: where he went public saying Miami offered him six and

1903
01:56:15,640 --> 01:56:19,120
Speaker 1: a half million dollars to pull out of the NFL

1904
01:56:19,200 --> 01:56:21,960
Speaker 1: draft like Carson Beck did and play one season for Miami.

1905
01:56:23,040 --> 01:56:26,400
Speaker 1: He chose to pursue the NFL draft. It was weird

1906
01:56:26,440 --> 01:56:28,600
Speaker 1: that he decided to go public with that with how

1907
01:56:28,680 --> 01:56:32,600
Speaker 1: much Miami offered. Now, if you tell me that the

1908
01:56:32,800 --> 01:56:35,760
Speaker 1: an agent or a family member of Mensa said, whoa,

1909
01:56:35,840 --> 01:56:38,000
Speaker 1: Miami needs a quarterback and they're willing to pay six

1910
01:56:38,040 --> 01:56:42,040
Speaker 1: and a half. Well, Mensa's better than Ty Simpson. Yes,

1911
01:56:42,120 --> 01:56:45,320
Speaker 1: Mensa's better than Dye Simpson. How much could he get?

1912
01:56:46,640 --> 01:56:50,560
Speaker 1: So I think it's very possible, you know, I don't

1913
01:56:50,600 --> 01:56:53,000
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't want to presume nefarious things.

1914
01:56:53,040 --> 01:56:55,320
Speaker 1: I don't think, you know, I think with so many

1915
01:56:56,000 --> 01:56:58,400
Speaker 1: eyeballs on Miami, I don't think Miami's breaking any rules.

1916
01:56:59,240 --> 01:57:01,600
Speaker 1: There's barely any rules with this anyway. But I don't

1917
01:57:01,600 --> 01:57:03,760
Speaker 1: think they think they're going to be super careful. So

1918
01:57:04,120 --> 01:57:05,800
Speaker 1: I don't think this is going to be a tampering

1919
01:57:05,880 --> 01:57:08,880
Speaker 1: situation or anything. Ain't that. It's just you think you

1920
01:57:08,880 --> 01:57:10,640
Speaker 1: have a contract with a player. Look, Miami was on

1921
01:57:10,680 --> 01:57:12,120
Speaker 1: the other end of this last year with a couple

1922
01:57:12,160 --> 01:57:16,320
Speaker 1: of receivers. Shoot Duke was the predator on Tulane in

1923
01:57:16,400 --> 01:57:18,760
Speaker 1: sort of a similar situation to get Mensa in the

1924
01:57:18,800 --> 01:57:22,280
Speaker 1: first place last season. So you know, I'm not saying

1925
01:57:22,280 --> 01:57:24,839
Speaker 1: they're good guys. Are bad guys here. The system sucks

1926
01:57:25,840 --> 01:57:28,160
Speaker 1: and you think you have a contract. You know, they

1927
01:57:28,160 --> 01:57:29,960
Speaker 1: thought they had them for a two year deal with

1928
01:57:30,000 --> 01:57:33,800
Speaker 1: this revenue sharing, and it turns out even a contract's

1929
01:57:33,800 --> 01:57:38,480
Speaker 1: not a contract. That's got to change. And like I said,

1930
01:57:38,520 --> 01:57:40,520
Speaker 1: I'm glad Miami got. Miami probably ended up with a

1931
01:57:40,520 --> 01:57:43,240
Speaker 1: better quarterback than any of the three they pursued. I

1932
01:57:43,240 --> 01:57:46,520
Speaker 1: think Mensa is that better than Sam Levitt, Mensus better

1933
01:57:46,560 --> 01:57:55,280
Speaker 1: than Ted Simpson. Mens' is probably better than than than Soresby.

1934
01:57:55,320 --> 01:57:58,720
Speaker 1: But if the roles were reversed, we'd all be crying foul,

1935
01:57:58,800 --> 01:58:02,320
Speaker 1: too complain, and then to do it in conference, it's

1936
01:58:02,360 --> 01:58:04,440
Speaker 1: just a mess. And then of course here in Miami

1937
01:58:04,440 --> 01:58:06,880
Speaker 1: it's the whole Many Dias Mario thing, so it becomes

1938
01:58:06,920 --> 01:58:11,520
Speaker 1: this weird Cuban Cuban rivalry too, you know, Many Dias,

1939
01:58:11,560 --> 01:58:13,720
Speaker 1: it's always kind of been. I think, you know, his

1940
01:58:13,800 --> 01:58:16,320
Speaker 1: father is one of the few Cuban democrats, you know.

1941
01:58:17,280 --> 01:58:19,160
Speaker 1: I've always thought that was a little bit of a

1942
01:58:19,160 --> 01:58:21,160
Speaker 1: cause of a little bit of of why he wasn't

1943
01:58:21,160 --> 01:58:25,480
Speaker 1: as embraced Many Diaz junior as in Miami the way

1944
01:58:25,680 --> 01:58:31,640
Speaker 1: Mario's embraced Mario. Yeah, Columbus high guy two. That was

1945
01:58:31,680 --> 01:58:35,240
Speaker 1: sort of working class Cubans many ideas, wasn't so I

1946
01:58:35,400 --> 01:58:37,200
Speaker 1: you know, I don't look, you could we could all

1947
01:58:37,280 --> 01:58:40,840
Speaker 1: pick through that but boy, talk about adding to what

1948
01:58:40,920 --> 01:58:43,840
Speaker 1: is this week? What is turning into a fascinating little

1949
01:58:44,360 --> 01:58:48,760
Speaker 1: rivalry here between many Dias and Mario Crystal Paul. But

1950
01:58:48,840 --> 01:58:51,560
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, my friend Marco Puto and I were

1951
01:58:51,640 --> 01:58:56,360
Speaker 1: joking about this, the Cuban power Index, Marco Rubio right

1952
01:58:56,400 --> 01:59:00,200
Speaker 1: down here in Miami. Marco Rubio got Maduro. That's that's

1953
01:59:00,240 --> 01:59:03,240
Speaker 1: got him pretty high up on the in the Cuban community.

1954
01:59:03,280 --> 01:59:05,840
Speaker 1: Here right now, Fernando Mendezo won of Heisman. He's probably

1955
01:59:05,880 --> 01:59:08,480
Speaker 1: number one. Ruby was probably number two. Poor Mario is

1956
01:59:08,480 --> 01:59:11,280
Speaker 1: probably number three. But if Mario wins a national title,

1957
01:59:12,120 --> 01:59:15,240
Speaker 1: check the records here, But I believe he's the first

1958
01:59:15,400 --> 01:59:19,720
Speaker 1: non white Anglo to win. It's not an insignificant development.

1959
01:59:21,720 --> 01:59:24,920
Speaker 1: And I remember in the eighties wondering what would with

1960
01:59:25,120 --> 01:59:27,240
Speaker 1: the Cuban community and all of that, with the with

1961
01:59:27,360 --> 01:59:30,840
Speaker 1: they're being embracing of Miami Hurricanes football, of football is

1962
01:59:30,840 --> 01:59:34,080
Speaker 1: a sport and all of that stuff. Boy, thirty five

1963
01:59:34,160 --> 01:59:38,720
Speaker 1: years later, that relationship couldn't be any tighter, and it's

1964
01:59:39,520 --> 01:59:42,680
Speaker 1: done nothing but benefit the benefit the University of Miami.

1965
01:59:42,760 --> 01:59:46,200
Speaker 1: But I will say this, I'm not going to sit

1966
01:59:46,240 --> 01:59:48,640
Speaker 1: here and say the mensa thing. It's you know, this

1967
01:59:48,720 --> 01:59:51,600
Speaker 1: is a reminder that when when Miami starts winning, everybody

1968
01:59:51,640 --> 01:59:55,320
Speaker 1: wants in. You know, we may lose out the Ohio

1969
01:59:55,360 --> 01:59:57,360
Speaker 1: state and recruiting wars when we're not winning, but now

1970
01:59:57,360 --> 02:00:01,560
Speaker 1: that we're winning, those kids are going to stay. They're

1971
02:00:01,600 --> 02:00:04,320
Speaker 1: not those receivers that were going to Columbus Ohio probably

1972
02:00:04,360 --> 02:00:07,760
Speaker 1: going to say and quarterbacks that break records at Duke

1973
02:00:08,200 --> 02:00:10,000
Speaker 1: when they suddenly see that there's an opening for a

1974
02:00:10,040 --> 02:00:13,040
Speaker 1: quarterback here at Miami, they're going to want end. So

1975
02:00:14,960 --> 02:00:17,920
Speaker 1: I think this is the uh, this is what success

1976
02:00:17,920 --> 02:00:22,840
Speaker 1: means with these with this new system. But I mean,

1977
02:00:23,080 --> 02:00:25,000
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out a system where a contract

1978
02:00:25,080 --> 02:00:28,280
Speaker 1: means something, because again we've been on the wrong Miami's

1979
02:00:28,280 --> 02:00:31,040
Speaker 1: been on the wrong end of this. See Isaiah Horton,

1980
02:00:31,560 --> 02:00:34,440
Speaker 1: a few of these other guys, Kobe Young, a couple

1981
02:00:34,480 --> 02:00:39,360
Speaker 1: of receivers from last team. So it's none of us

1982
02:00:39,360 --> 02:00:42,800
Speaker 1: should be celebrating the fact that this can happen. We

1983
02:00:42,880 --> 02:00:44,960
Speaker 1: still need to figure out how to how to get

1984
02:00:45,600 --> 02:00:47,920
Speaker 1: and I promise you Congress is going to get involved.

1985
02:00:48,080 --> 02:00:51,200
Speaker 1: No one's going to cry for Duke. Okay, you know

1986
02:00:51,400 --> 02:00:53,960
Speaker 1: they've got plenty of money, private school, all of that,

1987
02:00:54,080 --> 02:00:58,400
Speaker 1: and again they went and poached from Tulane. Right, they

1988
02:00:58,440 --> 02:01:01,560
Speaker 1: were a predator. It just turned out they had a

1989
02:01:01,640 --> 02:01:05,320
Speaker 1: larger predator coming after them. All Right with that, I'm

1990
02:01:05,320 --> 02:01:08,560
Speaker 1: gonna take a break for forty eight hours. I'm now

1991
02:01:08,560 --> 02:01:13,160
Speaker 1: getting into all Canes mode. Apparently we're supposed to wear

1992
02:01:13,160 --> 02:01:15,680
Speaker 1: orange at the game tomorrow, not green, so you're gonna

1993
02:01:15,680 --> 02:01:17,960
Speaker 1: see a lot of red and orange. So fix your

1994
02:01:17,960 --> 02:01:21,480
Speaker 1: TV screens so that you can see the distinction between

1995
02:01:21,520 --> 02:01:23,040
Speaker 1: the red and the orange. And let's hope it's at

1996
02:01:23,120 --> 02:01:28,120
Speaker 1: least fifty fifty. My prediction is if Miami wins, they

1997
02:01:28,120 --> 02:01:33,920
Speaker 1: win the game twenty four to seventeen. I don't expect

1998
02:01:33,960 --> 02:01:37,640
Speaker 1: a super high scoring, but I think we hold Indiana

1999
02:01:37,720 --> 02:01:44,560
Speaker 1: under twenty four points. So twenty four twenty four Miami loses,

2000
02:01:45,440 --> 02:01:47,640
Speaker 1: I expect it to be something like twenty to seventeen.

2001
02:01:48,560 --> 02:01:53,520
Speaker 1: So there your scores, there's your hot takes. Thanks for

2002
02:01:54,760 --> 02:01:57,280
Speaker 1: humoring me on this journey this year with the college

2003
02:01:57,280 --> 02:01:59,880
Speaker 1: football Playoff, I did not expect that I was going

2004
02:01:59,920 --> 02:02:01,400
Speaker 1: to be able to ride this way all the way

2005
02:02:01,440 --> 02:02:05,680
Speaker 1: to the title game. That's been gravy, but that holy grail,

2006
02:02:05,720 --> 02:02:08,680
Speaker 1: I can touch it. Let's go get that chip. See

2007
02:02:08,680 --> 02:02:09,520
Speaker 1: you in forty eight hours.