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Application times may vary and 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:48.640 rates may vary. Hello Aaron, Welcome to another episode of 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.200 the Chuck Podcast. Let me give you a quick rundown 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.440 of what we have for today's episode. Look, I've got 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.880 a little more fallout from the events on Saturday, and 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.840 frankly a laments, I'm not gonna lie to Yeah, this 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.240 is you know, I know we're all shocked that our 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.720 leaders aren't meeting the moment, but our leaders aren't meeting 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.000 the moment. Let's not take our eye off the ball 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.679 of Iran. We have just hit essentially a new high 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.079 and gas prices since the start of this war. We're 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.520 now at a high on gas prices that we had 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:22.880 to deal with at the start of the Ukraine Russian War. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.720 The problem here is that there doesn't seem to be 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.160 a near term solution on the horizon. Then we have 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.800 a bunch of political updates. We have a new house 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.360 map in Florida. It's a fascinating new map. My quick 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.679 headline is this is a great map for Republicans in 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.280 a presidential year. This is a shaky map for Republicans 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.800 in a midterm year, particularly a midterm year where they 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.040 could where they're the party in power. I will dig 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:51.200 into that a few Senate race developments. Obviously, it's Wednesday, 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:52.799 so it's Top five day, and I've got a fun 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.320 little take on a top five list today. The top 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.600 five races that are that are the most dangerous for 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:04.720 Donald Trump to cement lame duck status right. The test 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.119 of his political strength inside the Republican Party is these 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:14.240 are five Republican primaries that will tell us how lame 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.959 the duck in the Oval office is these days. Right, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:18.839 So I think you're going to enjoy that, and plus 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.880 I'm going to take some questions. But let me begin 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.600 with a lament. And I know this isn't a shock 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.480 or a surprise, but it is still striking to me 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:36.280 over the last couple of days that, you know, to 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.960 see what didn't happen after last Saturday night's events, we 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:42.560 had a man show up at the White House, correspondent 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:48.080 Centner armed had written a manifesto anti Trump's screed. He 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.160 was stopped at a security checkpoint and the response from 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.280 the White House has essentially been, well, we should tighten 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:59.680 security and build my ballroom. And it's the Democrats and 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.520 the l fault. And that tells you something, because there 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.640 was a time in this country not that long ago, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.840 when something like this would happen, a president in particular 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.320 would treat it very differently. There would have been an attempt, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.920 at least in an attempt to study the country to 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.240 lower the temperature, like what George W. Bush did after 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:24.359 nine to eleven, ex making it crystal clear that the 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.120 United States was not at war with Islam. Right, there 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.279 was an important he had to say it, and it 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.240 took an American president to say it. There isn't there 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.040 was nobody else that could say it that would have 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.960 any sort of meaning beyond the President of the United 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.080 States in that moment. Presidents are in charge of the 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:47.520 thermostat of the political temperature of the country period, and 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.400 he chose to turn down the thermostat. Saw what was building, 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.280 feared what was building, and he turned down that thermostat. 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.320 But we haven't really had that moment, right they even 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.560 had the moment where this president said, this isn't who 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.360 we are, this is not acceptable. Maybe it's time to 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.040 take a breath here. I know we've all allowed political 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.120 rhetoric to get out of hand, right, and yet that's 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.440 not the instinct right now, is it? And that's the problem. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.760 So instead of relitigating how we got here, and I 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.800 think that's part of the problem, everybody feels pretty confident 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.479 that they're right and the other side is wrong. I 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.480 have felt it. I wrote sort of a similar thing 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.080 on in my column this week for Newsphere and substat 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.240 that essentially argued that look, we're here, and you know, yes, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.560 there's no doubt that Donald Trump's arrival in twenty fifteen 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.800 accelerated this moment, But that doesn't excuse the behavior now 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.880 on the laugh to just say, well, Donald Trump started 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:52.320 at your reptce you so that's not good either. So 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.480 that's why you know, we can re litigate. I mean, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:06:01.560 there's definitely nobody can deny how this began. But everybody's 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.920 in charge of their own behavior here. And I still 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.400 believe ultimately it takes a president, and we may have 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.000 a president who is not interested in turning the temperature down. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.960 But here's the simplest way I can explain it. Because 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.440 we've produced a new kind of political environment that's quite scary. 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.919 For years, we treated certain rhetoric as performance. And I 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:28.240 know we're going to go through this again, and some 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:29.840 of you may roll your eyes, Oh we've been through 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.400 here before. Yeah we have, and apparently we haven't learned 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.440 the lesson, so we've got to keep going here, right, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.480 But we treated the rhetoric that's campaign stuff, and there 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.039 was you know, you know, I think frankly I have 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.400 a higher tolerance than most right because I'm used to 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.640 heated campaign rhetoric. It's crowd stuff. It's right out of 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.960 the WWE and that's what Trump thinks, that he's doing 0:06:54.040 --> 0:07:00.000 it for entertainment purposes, things like that he doesn't really 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.280 mean it, and I believe that I don't think he 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.520 really meant it. But that's me that doesn't mean what 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.960 other people. And then there are people that act in 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.120 his name that did mean it. Right. But when this 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.720 has start to when this is when this starts happening 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.760 at scale over time, it stops being performance and it 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.360 gets turned into a permission slope and then after a 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:27.880 while becomes something bigger, becomes the environment itself. We can 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.480 trace that shift pretty quickly. Right. We know Donald Trump 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.440 didn't invent anger in politics, but he absolutely changed what 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.960 was acceptable to say out loud, punching protesters, carrying them 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:44.440 out on stretchers, personalizing everything, turning all personal opponents into enemies. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:49.520 Many of us felt it personally. And you know, with 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.600 fellow Republicans who are not MAGA members, many of them 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.240 don't speak out for fear. Out of fear. Trust me, 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:00.840 I've had every single mainstream reporter has had this conversation 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.480 with an elected Republican, every single one in Washington. We 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.560 all have an off the record, and I have multiple 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.840 off the record conversations with elected Republicans, essentially saying I 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:14.800 don't call it out because you have no idea what 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:16.880 his people do to me or due to my family, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.880 or the threats that are made. Right, it is there 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.480 is a coercion that has taken place here, and that's 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.720 why it's sometimes frustrating to watch this. Right, some people 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.880 only want to look back the last four years and say, boy, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.640 look what the Democrats have done. And there's some truth 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.920 to that. Right, the democratic rhetoric has gotten harsher, the 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.160 violence that being prone to violence does seem in the 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.160 last couple of years coming more from the left than 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.520 the right. But you're sticking your head in the sand 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.080 if you don't realize we're living, if you don't pull 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.320 back the camera more and realize, oh, how did we 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.960 get here? This is how we got here? Right, And 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.240 the fact is, anybody that's been doing this for a 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.680 decade knows this is how we got here. Now you 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.080 can choose to put your partisan blinders on and say 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.920 it's their faults. Look at how nasty and awful the 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.680 left is. Look at how nasty and awful Donald Trump is. 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:10.280 The fact is both things can be true at the 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.720 same time. You know, and that's something. And this isn't 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.080 both siding everything. This is, you know, two wrongs don't 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.480 make a right. Our politics is fucked up because of 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.480 too many people believing that two wrongs make a right 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.160 and this sort of idea that you fight fire with fire, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:37.000 and whether it's on things as sort of arcane as 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.200 drawing congressional district lines to the rhetoric that is used 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.600 to describe a political opponent that you don't agree with. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.080 But the bottom line is the line has been moved 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.960 and we have created the conditions for more of this 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:56.320 not blessed. Now, we spent years talking about January sixth 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.720 in that matters, But here's the thing. I think we've 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.559 missed that in the end of something that was actually 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.240 the beginning of something, especially after he pardoned everybody in 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.600 January sixth. So the real question now is what happens 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.960 after that kind of permission has been established and what 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.360 is it going to take to create a safer sense 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.000 of normal in our political discourse. Because here's what we've 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:26.079 learned right now, the permission slip of January six has 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.800 not has not stayed contained. It has spread, and it 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.720 didn't spread ideologically, it's not on one side of the aisle. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.680 It has spread culturally, and you can see it big 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.240 and small. You see it in moments that would have 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.600 been unthinkable before. Sitting precedent reacting to the death of 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.640 a former FBI director, Robert Muller, by saying, good, I'm 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.320 glad he's dead. You know that moment, The fact that 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.080 he couldn't even fake it until the man was buried. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:56.160 In that moment, he couldn't think about people that loved 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:01.120 that man, who were children and grand children and nieces 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:06.400 and nephews and spouses. That was the President of the 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.720 United States's reaction. And then we're surprised when people who 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.520 don't like this president decide, you know, they're going to 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:18.199 fight fire with fire. It should be an earthquake in 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:24.800 American politics, and it's barely a tremor. So why does 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.600 that moment matter? Not because it's shocking, but because it's 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.599 not shocking. Nobody's batted an eye at it. It just 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.680 simply got absorbed, filed away, added to the pile of 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:41.720 incendiary rhetoric that we've now decided is normal. And that 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.600 was the tell. That was the normalization. And once you 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.079 get there, this is how it works. It doesn't take 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.480 a movement, and it doesn't take coordination. It just takes 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:56.800 one broken person who may have their own problems, and 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.360 who may decide maybe they our own sociopathic tendon and 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.120 their own narcissism. They think somehow they can solve a problem, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:09.480 or they can be a hero. One unstable, angry person 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:14.160 who looks around, seize the tone, seize the language, thinks 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.920 that this is now more acceptable than ever, or that 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.200 it's the only thing left in the arsenal to do, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.080 and then they decide to act within it, within that environment. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:35.240 That's it. That's the mechanism. Now let's layer something else 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:36.920 on the top of all this. The last decade has 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.680 made a lot of people feel like they've lost control. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:45.400 These technological changes are fast. Our cultural changes are super fast, right, economically, culturally, socially, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.480 it feels we've all we feel less stable in all 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.640 parts of our lives today. And then we have an 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.800 information ecosystem that is exploitive, reinforces one idea over and over. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.400 Someone else is responsible for the situation, point the finger. 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.040 Don't look in the mirror. There's no such thing as 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.480 personal responsibility anymore, no self reflection. Right, you see it. 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:17.120 Politicians refuse to take to take stock in their own behavior, 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.199 they just point a finger. Political parties won't take stock 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.680 in their own behavior. They point fingers or exploit for 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.840 political gain. Quote the system, right, And this is what 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.440 the system looks like. And once you've believed that, the 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:36.240 distance between blame and justification gets a lot smaller. And 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:37.680 here's the part. A lot of people are going to 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:43.520 miss or ignore the guy on Saturday Night, right, and 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.680 the left has to deal with this. And this wasn't caught, 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.120 This wasn't somebody acting on Trump's behalf. His grievances ran 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.200 in the other direction. But he chose to believe this 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:02.880 was the way out. He'd lost faith in the political system. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.640 It's not a contradiction. It's a confirmation that we have. 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.760 The environment has changed. American politics is now brutal, it's 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:16.360 now violent, and this cold civil war is warming up. 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:26.320 We should not want this environment to set in. It 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:32.400 takes and there's only one president at a time. And 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:37.800 now we've learned this doesn't stay directional. It gets adapted, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:45.200 it gets mirrored, and it gets thrown back. And you know, 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.080 I've been disappointed in watching the reactions from the left, 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.840 which has been frankly similar to the reactions on the right, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.080 just coming up with the evidence of why it is 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:59.200 all Donald Trump's fault, and there's a strong case that 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.240 he created the conditions for this moment. But it doesn't 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.680 justify the behavior, and it doesn't justify amping up your rhetoric, 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.080 and it doesn't justify any of the behavior we'd fight. No, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.520 all you're doing is accelerating your tape. It's a race 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.080 to the bottom, and you're trying to win. Nobody wins 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:23.800 a race to the bottom. Yeah, you can comfort yourself 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.640 by saying Trump's reaping what he sewed, but it doesn't 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.640 solve the problem. You and I aren't any safer with 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.520 that attitude. The question is what are you doing to 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:41.080 change this. I'm sorry that most people don't think Michelle 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:45.200 Obama was right. I don't even know if Michelle Obama 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:50.320 believes she was right that when a political opponent goes low, 0:15:50.360 --> 0:16:03.960 you go high. Because the minute you start rationalizing your violence, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:09.360 well they started it even rhetorically, you've crossed the same line. 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.720 You're no longer arguing about politics, you're justifying outcomes different side, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:18.440 same logic, and that's what this environment is produced. That's why, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.640 unfortunately we don't have a president that can deal with 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.800 this moment and take it head on, because it would 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.800 take self reflection. He doesn't have it. It would take 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.440 an admission that he was a big contributor to what's 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.560 to this broken environment that we're living in but I 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.440 don't like. But at the same time, those on the 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.360 left should take no comfort that he started. It doesn't 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:51.760 justify the actions or the behavior. So what would leadership 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.680 Would a good leadership moment look like right now? Well, 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:00.400 it certainly would sound different. You'd hear a president ignotging 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.439 the moment, not spin it, not as sign blame, just 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:10.000 simply acknowledging it. You'd hear something like, we've all contributed 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.880 to this town here, we need to say it back, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:14.399 we need to lower it, and I need to do 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.560 a better job myself. I do you know some of 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.200 you are probably laughing if Trump would ever admit anything. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.680 I'm just telling you what it would look like if 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.720 we were modeling this moment correctly, you'd at least see 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.120 an effort, a small one, to create space to try 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.720 to interrupt this cycle. That's what leadership in this moment 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:46.440 would look like. That's not what we have. And now 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.840 we have leadership in the in the on the Democratic 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:59.320 side who's like, screwm, let's go. We don't have the 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.800 president we needed right now to get through this moment, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:04.360 and we're not going to get what we need from 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.199 this White House. So instead, what we're going to get 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.480 is finger pointing, one sided explanations and political framing of 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.560 this moment. There'll be no acknowledgment of how we got here, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.280 and without that, there's no way to actually deal with 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.480 this moment. So we're going to end up moving on, 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.000 not because we should, but because we can't get out 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.520 of it right. We don't have the people at the table. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.240 The voters are going to have to give us new 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.400 leaders to see if they can get the country unstuck here. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.880 And look, we might hear a lot about security, more barriers, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.399 more distance. Boy, is that that's not the issue. And 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:49.320 if anything, ratcheting up security only makes this worse. You 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.200 want to create more barriers between the elected officials, the powerful, 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.439 and the actual rank and file people. That's not a 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.760 free society anymore. Security is not the problem. Fact, security 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:05.440 work here. Can't secure your way out of a culture. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.240 This is not about just going into a bunker or 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.960 finding a ballroom on grounds that are impossible to get 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:27.919 on unless you've given biometric issues. So right now we 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:33.119 don't have the leadership that's interested in reversing this. We 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:40.159 are escalating. We believe that you can't show weakness, and 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.159 because there's this fear of ever showing weakness politically, we 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:51.400 now default to confrontation. And the problem is that confrontation 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.760 is only going to make us less safe. We're less stable. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.440 So it's a lament. I'm not going to be labor 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.720 this anymore. I am going to do my best to 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.120 continue to highlight why we have You know, we've this 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.240 is a this is a collective failure of American leadership. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:23.879 Donald Trump's on top, but he's not alone. Get to 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:29.440 the ballot box and realize that character matters, that morality matters, 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:37.680 that temperament matters. Policy goals matter too, But how do 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:39.280 you want to achieve those goals? How do you plan 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:44.920 to achieve those goals? Persuasion or coercion. It's a big difference. 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.160 One is something you do in a democracy, the other 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:56.879 is something you do in an authoritarian regime. It's the 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:58.600 decision we have to be and we have to make 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:05.320 speaking of boring fuel on this fire. As I was 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.359 putting this monologue together, we got news that at federal 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:16.320 grand jury North Carolina, somebody went shopping for a grand 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.880 jury and dieted former FBI director Jim Comey. The Justice 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.200 Departments to attempt to criminally charge the former FBI director 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.639 that President Trump fired. The charges are not immediately clear, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.959 but apparently the case stems from a photograph that James 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:38.440 Comy posted online last year showing seashells on a beach 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.920 that were arranged to write out the numbers eighty six 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:48.680 and forty seven, with forty seven supposedly being representative of 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.399 the president in eighty six meaning banning or removing someone 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:58.240 or slang for killing someone. So you can see exactly 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.360 what the Trump administration is up to. They are taking 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.119 they are trying to weaponize this moment to prove that 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.800 all of this is on the backs of Trump critics 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.960 and that somehow they have clean hands and they have 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.320 nothing to do with amping up this rhetoric. The amount 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:21.000 of exploitive ways. The president has ordered his government to 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:24.520 harass the Komi family, including his daughter who had a 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.879 job in the federal government, and she's now in the 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:34.520 middle of a lawsuit about her firing. Look, I'm not 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.160 going to sit here and justify Komy doing what he did. 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.040 It was stupid, and I think a lot of Komy's 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:45.080 actions while he was FBI director were just horrendous. He 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.680 had the disease of eye alone can fix it disease, right, 0:22:53.000 --> 0:23:01.439 But the first Amendments, the first Amendment, And unless this 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.359 government can prove that this is connected to anything and 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.800 it actually was an instigated actually somehow somebody took it 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:10.880 as an order, I don't know where this case is going, 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.760 if this has anything remotely to do with that, with 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:16.280 that social media post, but that is pouring fuel on 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:19.840 this fire. That is not an administration interesting in turning 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.280 down the temperature. And this is my fear. If Democrats 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.280 get into office and win a majority in the House, 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:30.680 in the Senate and immediately go for impeachment, we are 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:32.640 just going to be in a cycle and a race 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:39.000 to the bottom. I know the elected officials I'm looking for. 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:43.800 I'm looking for people that are going to turn the page, 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:48.840 that want to restore honesty and credibility and trust into government, 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.920 and they show a little bit of humility and character 0:23:56.080 --> 0:24:00.000 and morality while in office. That might be too much 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:05.000 much to ask for in our politicians, huh. But if 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.760 this is what we ask for in our friends, if 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:09.920 this is what we ask for and how we raise 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:12.600 our kids, and you know what it should be what 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.240 we ask for, and what kind of representatives that we 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:23.400 have in this country. Character is destiny. It's a cliche 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:28.000 for a reason, because it's amazing how often it turns 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.679 out to be true. By the way, one final point, 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:42.119 then Jimmy Kimmel's stuff. Jimmy Kimmel should apologize. Do I 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:44.560 think the government should be going after him like this? 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:48.720 Of course not. He's got First Amendment rights. But the 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:52.159 joke in hindsight after the events on Saturday, looks terrible. 0:24:53.480 --> 0:25:03.560 So say it, admit it. It's okay. You can say 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:08.919 I was not intended for what it got interpreted as, 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:11.680 which means you've got to write a better punchline, or 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.840 you got to write a better joke. I'm not sitting 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:21.200 here defending the behavior of this government or the president 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:25.240 in targeting Kimmel. But see, this is sort of the problem, right, 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:27.480 Everything is about you got to pick a side or 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:30.200 you're on. Jimmy Kimmel's side, or you're not on his side. 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:32.919 I'm on Jimmy Kimmel's side. I'm on the side of 0:25:32.920 --> 0:25:37.399 free speech. But if I said that and then that 0:25:37.440 --> 0:25:42.160 event happened and somebody got mad, I'd have apologized because 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:45.080 I'd have felt like shit because it wasn't what he 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:47.879 I do believe it was not what he intended, but 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:52.760 I'm not here to explain him. I just think that again, 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:54.520 it goes back to are you going to be a 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:57.800 de escalator or do you want to be an accelerant 0:25:57.840 --> 0:26:04.439 in this moment. It's pretty simple decision people have to make. 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:11.399 This episode of The Chuck Toodcast is brought to you 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:15.359 by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:20.359 Frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteisonal pastries, and 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:23.800 fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:27.840 five minutes or less. 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