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Speaker 1: rates may vary. Hello Aaron, Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. Let me give you a quick rundown
Speaker 1: of what we have for today's episode. Look, I've got
Speaker 1: a little more fallout from the events on Saturday, and
Speaker 1: frankly a laments, I'm not gonna lie to Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is you know, I know we're all shocked that our
Speaker 1: leaders aren't meeting the moment, but our leaders aren't meeting
Speaker 1: the moment. Let's not take our eye off the ball
Speaker 1: of Iran. We have just hit essentially a new high
Speaker 1: and gas prices since the start of this war. We're
Speaker 1: now at a high on gas prices that we had
Speaker 1: to deal with at the start of the Ukraine Russian War.
Speaker 1: The problem here is that there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: a near term solution on the horizon. Then we have
Speaker 1: a bunch of political updates. We have a new house
Speaker 1: map in Florida. It's a fascinating new map. My quick
Speaker 1: headline is this is a great map for Republicans in
Speaker 1: a presidential year. This is a shaky map for Republicans
Speaker 1: in a midterm year, particularly a midterm year where they
Speaker 1: could where they're the party in power. I will dig
Speaker 1: into that a few Senate race developments. Obviously, it's Wednesday,
Speaker 1: so it's Top five day, and I've got a fun
Speaker 1: little take on a top five list today. The top
Speaker 1: five races that are that are the most dangerous for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to cement lame duck status right. The test
Speaker 1: of his political strength inside the Republican Party is these
Speaker 1: are five Republican primaries that will tell us how lame
Speaker 1: the duck in the Oval office is these days. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think you're going to enjoy that, and plus
Speaker 1: I'm going to take some questions. But let me begin
Speaker 1: with a lament. And I know this isn't a shock
Speaker 1: or a surprise, but it is still striking to me
Speaker 1: over the last couple of days that, you know, to
Speaker 1: see what didn't happen after last Saturday night's events, we
Speaker 1: had a man show up at the White House, correspondent
Speaker 1: Centner armed had written a manifesto anti Trump's screed. He
Speaker 1: was stopped at a security checkpoint and the response from
Speaker 1: the White House has essentially been, well, we should tighten
Speaker 1: security and build my ballroom. And it's the Democrats and
Speaker 1: the l fault. And that tells you something, because there
Speaker 1: was a time in this country not that long ago,
Speaker 1: when something like this would happen, a president in particular
Speaker 1: would treat it very differently. There would have been an attempt,
Speaker 1: at least in an attempt to study the country to
Speaker 1: lower the temperature, like what George W. Bush did after
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, ex making it crystal clear that the
Speaker 1: United States was not at war with Islam. Right, there
Speaker 1: was an important he had to say it, and it
Speaker 1: took an American president to say it. There isn't there
Speaker 1: was nobody else that could say it that would have
Speaker 1: any sort of meaning beyond the President of the United
Speaker 1: States in that moment. Presidents are in charge of the
Speaker 1: thermostat of the political temperature of the country period, and
Speaker 1: he chose to turn down the thermostat. Saw what was building,
Speaker 1: feared what was building, and he turned down that thermostat.
Speaker 1: But we haven't really had that moment, right they even
Speaker 1: had the moment where this president said, this isn't who
Speaker 1: we are, this is not acceptable. Maybe it's time to
Speaker 1: take a breath here. I know we've all allowed political
Speaker 1: rhetoric to get out of hand, right, and yet that's
Speaker 1: not the instinct right now, is it? And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: So instead of relitigating how we got here, and I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the problem, everybody feels pretty confident
Speaker 1: that they're right and the other side is wrong. I
Speaker 1: have felt it. I wrote sort of a similar thing
Speaker 1: on in my column this week for Newsphere and substat
Speaker 1: that essentially argued that look, we're here, and you know, yes,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that Donald Trump's arrival in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: accelerated this moment, But that doesn't excuse the behavior now
Speaker 1: on the laugh to just say, well, Donald Trump started
Speaker 1: at your reptce you so that's not good either. So
Speaker 1: that's why you know, we can re litigate. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's definitely nobody can deny how this began. But everybody's
Speaker 1: in charge of their own behavior here. And I still
Speaker 1: believe ultimately it takes a president, and we may have
Speaker 1: a president who is not interested in turning the temperature down.
Speaker 1: But here's the simplest way I can explain it. Because
Speaker 1: we've produced a new kind of political environment that's quite scary.
Speaker 1: For years, we treated certain rhetoric as performance. And I
Speaker 1: know we're going to go through this again, and some
Speaker 1: of you may roll your eyes, Oh we've been through
Speaker 1: here before. Yeah we have, and apparently we haven't learned
Speaker 1: the lesson, so we've got to keep going here, right,
Speaker 1: But we treated the rhetoric that's campaign stuff, and there
Speaker 1: was you know, you know, I think frankly I have
Speaker 1: a higher tolerance than most right because I'm used to
Speaker 1: heated campaign rhetoric. It's crowd stuff. It's right out of
Speaker 1: the WWE and that's what Trump thinks, that he's doing
Speaker 1: it for entertainment purposes, things like that he doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean it, and I believe that I don't think he
Speaker 1: really meant it. But that's me that doesn't mean what
Speaker 1: other people. And then there are people that act in
Speaker 1: his name that did mean it. Right. But when this
Speaker 1: has start to when this is when this starts happening
Speaker 1: at scale over time, it stops being performance and it
Speaker 1: gets turned into a permission slope and then after a
Speaker 1: while becomes something bigger, becomes the environment itself. We can
Speaker 1: trace that shift pretty quickly. Right. We know Donald Trump
Speaker 1: didn't invent anger in politics, but he absolutely changed what
Speaker 1: was acceptable to say out loud, punching protesters, carrying them
Speaker 1: out on stretchers, personalizing everything, turning all personal opponents into enemies.
Speaker 1: Many of us felt it personally. And you know, with
Speaker 1: fellow Republicans who are not MAGA members, many of them
Speaker 1: don't speak out for fear. Out of fear. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I've had every single mainstream reporter has had this conversation
Speaker 1: with an elected Republican, every single one in Washington. We
Speaker 1: all have an off the record, and I have multiple
Speaker 1: off the record conversations with elected Republicans, essentially saying I
Speaker 1: don't call it out because you have no idea what
Speaker 1: his people do to me or due to my family,
Speaker 1: or the threats that are made. Right, it is there
Speaker 1: is a coercion that has taken place here, and that's
Speaker 1: why it's sometimes frustrating to watch this. Right, some people
Speaker 1: only want to look back the last four years and say, boy,
Speaker 1: look what the Democrats have done. And there's some truth
Speaker 1: to that. Right, the democratic rhetoric has gotten harsher, the
Speaker 1: violence that being prone to violence does seem in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years coming more from the left than
Speaker 1: the right. But you're sticking your head in the sand
Speaker 1: if you don't realize we're living, if you don't pull
Speaker 1: back the camera more and realize, oh, how did we
Speaker 1: get here? This is how we got here? Right, And
Speaker 1: the fact is, anybody that's been doing this for a
Speaker 1: decade knows this is how we got here. Now you
Speaker 1: can choose to put your partisan blinders on and say
Speaker 1: it's their faults. Look at how nasty and awful the
Speaker 1: left is. Look at how nasty and awful Donald Trump is.
Speaker 1: The fact is both things can be true at the
Speaker 1: same time. You know, and that's something. And this isn't
Speaker 1: both siding everything. This is, you know, two wrongs don't
Speaker 1: make a right. Our politics is fucked up because of
Speaker 1: too many people believing that two wrongs make a right
Speaker 1: and this sort of idea that you fight fire with fire,
Speaker 1: and whether it's on things as sort of arcane as
Speaker 1: drawing congressional district lines to the rhetoric that is used
Speaker 1: to describe a political opponent that you don't agree with.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the line has been moved
Speaker 1: and we have created the conditions for more of this
Speaker 1: not blessed. Now, we spent years talking about January sixth
Speaker 1: in that matters, But here's the thing. I think we've
Speaker 1: missed that in the end of something that was actually
Speaker 1: the beginning of something, especially after he pardoned everybody in
Speaker 1: January sixth. So the real question now is what happens
Speaker 1: after that kind of permission has been established and what
Speaker 1: is it going to take to create a safer sense
Speaker 1: of normal in our political discourse. Because here's what we've
Speaker 1: learned right now, the permission slip of January six has
Speaker 1: not has not stayed contained. It has spread, and it
Speaker 1: didn't spread ideologically, it's not on one side of the aisle.
Speaker 1: It has spread culturally, and you can see it big
Speaker 1: and small. You see it in moments that would have
Speaker 1: been unthinkable before. Sitting precedent reacting to the death of
Speaker 1: a former FBI director, Robert Muller, by saying, good, I'm
Speaker 1: glad he's dead. You know that moment, The fact that
Speaker 1: he couldn't even fake it until the man was buried.
Speaker 1: In that moment, he couldn't think about people that loved
Speaker 1: that man, who were children and grand children and nieces
Speaker 1: and nephews and spouses. That was the President of the
Speaker 1: United States's reaction. And then we're surprised when people who
Speaker 1: don't like this president decide, you know, they're going to
Speaker 1: fight fire with fire. It should be an earthquake in
Speaker 1: American politics, and it's barely a tremor. So why does
Speaker 1: that moment matter? Not because it's shocking, but because it's
Speaker 1: not shocking. Nobody's batted an eye at it. It just
Speaker 1: simply got absorbed, filed away, added to the pile of
Speaker 1: incendiary rhetoric that we've now decided is normal. And that
Speaker 1: was the tell. That was the normalization. And once you
Speaker 1: get there, this is how it works. It doesn't take
Speaker 1: a movement, and it doesn't take coordination. It just takes
Speaker 1: one broken person who may have their own problems, and
Speaker 1: who may decide maybe they our own sociopathic tendon and
Speaker 1: their own narcissism. They think somehow they can solve a problem,
Speaker 1: or they can be a hero. One unstable, angry person
Speaker 1: who looks around, seize the tone, seize the language, thinks
Speaker 1: that this is now more acceptable than ever, or that
Speaker 1: it's the only thing left in the arsenal to do,
Speaker 1: and then they decide to act within it, within that environment.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the mechanism. Now let's layer something else
Speaker 1: on the top of all this. The last decade has
Speaker 1: made a lot of people feel like they've lost control.
Speaker 1: These technological changes are fast. Our cultural changes are super fast, right, economically, culturally, socially,
Speaker 1: it feels we've all we feel less stable in all
Speaker 1: parts of our lives today. And then we have an
Speaker 1: information ecosystem that is exploitive, reinforces one idea over and over.
Speaker 1: Someone else is responsible for the situation, point the finger.
Speaker 1: Don't look in the mirror. There's no such thing as
Speaker 1: personal responsibility anymore, no self reflection. Right, you see it.
Speaker 1: Politicians refuse to take to take stock in their own behavior,
Speaker 1: they just point a finger. Political parties won't take stock
Speaker 1: in their own behavior. They point fingers or exploit for
Speaker 1: political gain. Quote the system, right, And this is what
Speaker 1: the system looks like. And once you've believed that, the
Speaker 1: distance between blame and justification gets a lot smaller. And
Speaker 1: here's the part. A lot of people are going to
Speaker 1: miss or ignore the guy on Saturday Night, right, and
Speaker 1: the left has to deal with this. And this wasn't caught,
Speaker 1: This wasn't somebody acting on Trump's behalf. His grievances ran
Speaker 1: in the other direction. But he chose to believe this
Speaker 1: was the way out. He'd lost faith in the political system.
Speaker 1: It's not a contradiction. It's a confirmation that we have.
Speaker 1: The environment has changed. American politics is now brutal, it's
Speaker 1: now violent, and this cold civil war is warming up.
Speaker 1: We should not want this environment to set in. It
Speaker 1: takes and there's only one president at a time. And
Speaker 1: now we've learned this doesn't stay directional. It gets adapted,
Speaker 1: it gets mirrored, and it gets thrown back. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been disappointed in watching the reactions from the left,
Speaker 1: which has been frankly similar to the reactions on the right,
Speaker 1: just coming up with the evidence of why it is
Speaker 1: all Donald Trump's fault, and there's a strong case that
Speaker 1: he created the conditions for this moment. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: justify the behavior, and it doesn't justify amping up your rhetoric,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't justify any of the behavior we'd fight. No,
Speaker 1: all you're doing is accelerating your tape. It's a race
Speaker 1: to the bottom, and you're trying to win. Nobody wins
Speaker 1: a race to the bottom. Yeah, you can comfort yourself
Speaker 1: by saying Trump's reaping what he sewed, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: solve the problem. You and I aren't any safer with
Speaker 1: that attitude. The question is what are you doing to
Speaker 1: change this. I'm sorry that most people don't think Michelle
Speaker 1: Obama was right. I don't even know if Michelle Obama
Speaker 1: believes she was right that when a political opponent goes low,
Speaker 1: you go high. Because the minute you start rationalizing your violence,
Speaker 1: well they started it even rhetorically, you've crossed the same line.
Speaker 1: You're no longer arguing about politics, you're justifying outcomes different side,
Speaker 1: same logic, and that's what this environment is produced. That's why,
Speaker 1: unfortunately we don't have a president that can deal with
Speaker 1: this moment and take it head on, because it would
Speaker 1: take self reflection. He doesn't have it. It would take
Speaker 1: an admission that he was a big contributor to what's
Speaker 1: to this broken environment that we're living in but I
Speaker 1: don't like. But at the same time, those on the
Speaker 1: left should take no comfort that he started. It doesn't
Speaker 1: justify the actions or the behavior. So what would leadership
Speaker 1: Would a good leadership moment look like right now? Well,
Speaker 1: it certainly would sound different. You'd hear a president ignotging
Speaker 1: the moment, not spin it, not as sign blame, just
Speaker 1: simply acknowledging it. You'd hear something like, we've all contributed
Speaker 1: to this town here, we need to say it back,
Speaker 1: we need to lower it, and I need to do
Speaker 1: a better job myself. I do you know some of
Speaker 1: you are probably laughing if Trump would ever admit anything.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you what it would look like if
Speaker 1: we were modeling this moment correctly, you'd at least see
Speaker 1: an effort, a small one, to create space to try
Speaker 1: to interrupt this cycle. That's what leadership in this moment
Speaker 1: would look like. That's not what we have. And now
Speaker 1: we have leadership in the in the on the Democratic
Speaker 1: side who's like, screwm, let's go. We don't have the
Speaker 1: president we needed right now to get through this moment,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to get what we need from
Speaker 1: this White House. So instead, what we're going to get
Speaker 1: is finger pointing, one sided explanations and political framing of
Speaker 1: this moment. There'll be no acknowledgment of how we got here,
Speaker 1: and without that, there's no way to actually deal with
Speaker 1: this moment. So we're going to end up moving on,
Speaker 1: not because we should, but because we can't get out
Speaker 1: of it right. We don't have the people at the table.
Speaker 1: The voters are going to have to give us new
Speaker 1: leaders to see if they can get the country unstuck here.
Speaker 1: And look, we might hear a lot about security, more barriers,
Speaker 1: more distance. Boy, is that that's not the issue. And
Speaker 1: if anything, ratcheting up security only makes this worse. You
Speaker 1: want to create more barriers between the elected officials, the powerful,
Speaker 1: and the actual rank and file people. That's not a
Speaker 1: free society anymore. Security is not the problem. Fact, security
Speaker 1: work here. Can't secure your way out of a culture.
Speaker 1: This is not about just going into a bunker or
Speaker 1: finding a ballroom on grounds that are impossible to get
Speaker 1: on unless you've given biometric issues. So right now we
Speaker 1: don't have the leadership that's interested in reversing this. We
Speaker 1: are escalating. We believe that you can't show weakness, and
Speaker 1: because there's this fear of ever showing weakness politically, we
Speaker 1: now default to confrontation. And the problem is that confrontation
Speaker 1: is only going to make us less safe. We're less stable.
Speaker 1: So it's a lament. I'm not going to be labor
Speaker 1: this anymore. I am going to do my best to
Speaker 1: continue to highlight why we have You know, we've this
Speaker 1: is a this is a collective failure of American leadership.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's on top, but he's not alone. Get to
Speaker 1: the ballot box and realize that character matters, that morality matters,
Speaker 1: that temperament matters. Policy goals matter too, But how do
Speaker 1: you want to achieve those goals? How do you plan
Speaker 1: to achieve those goals? Persuasion or coercion. It's a big difference.
Speaker 1: One is something you do in a democracy, the other
Speaker 1: is something you do in an authoritarian regime. It's the
Speaker 1: decision we have to be and we have to make
Speaker 1: speaking of boring fuel on this fire. As I was
Speaker 1: putting this monologue together, we got news that at federal
Speaker 1: grand jury North Carolina, somebody went shopping for a grand
Speaker 1: jury and dieted former FBI director Jim Comey. The Justice
Speaker 1: Departments to attempt to criminally charge the former FBI director
Speaker 1: that President Trump fired. The charges are not immediately clear,
Speaker 1: but apparently the case stems from a photograph that James
Speaker 1: Comy posted online last year showing seashells on a beach
Speaker 1: that were arranged to write out the numbers eighty six
Speaker 1: and forty seven, with forty seven supposedly being representative of
Speaker 1: the president in eighty six meaning banning or removing someone
Speaker 1: or slang for killing someone. So you can see exactly
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration is up to. They are taking
Speaker 1: they are trying to weaponize this moment to prove that
Speaker 1: all of this is on the backs of Trump critics
Speaker 1: and that somehow they have clean hands and they have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with amping up this rhetoric. The amount
Speaker 1: of exploitive ways. The president has ordered his government to
Speaker 1: harass the Komi family, including his daughter who had a
Speaker 1: job in the federal government, and she's now in the
Speaker 1: middle of a lawsuit about her firing. Look, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit here and justify Komy doing what he did.
Speaker 1: It was stupid, and I think a lot of Komy's
Speaker 1: actions while he was FBI director were just horrendous. He
Speaker 1: had the disease of eye alone can fix it disease, right,
Speaker 1: But the first Amendments, the first Amendment, And unless this
Speaker 1: government can prove that this is connected to anything and
Speaker 1: it actually was an instigated actually somehow somebody took it
Speaker 1: as an order, I don't know where this case is going,
Speaker 1: if this has anything remotely to do with that, with
Speaker 1: that social media post, but that is pouring fuel on
Speaker 1: this fire. That is not an administration interesting in turning
Speaker 1: down the temperature. And this is my fear. If Democrats
Speaker 1: get into office and win a majority in the House,
Speaker 1: in the Senate and immediately go for impeachment, we are
Speaker 1: just going to be in a cycle and a race
Speaker 1: to the bottom. I know the elected officials I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for people that are going to turn the page,
Speaker 1: that want to restore honesty and credibility and trust into government,
Speaker 1: and they show a little bit of humility and character
Speaker 1: and morality while in office. That might be too much
Speaker 1: much to ask for in our politicians, huh. But if
Speaker 1: this is what we ask for in our friends, if
Speaker 1: this is what we ask for and how we raise
Speaker 1: our kids, and you know what it should be what
Speaker 1: we ask for, and what kind of representatives that we
Speaker 1: have in this country. Character is destiny. It's a cliche
Speaker 1: for a reason, because it's amazing how often it turns
Speaker 1: out to be true. By the way, one final point,
Speaker 1: then Jimmy Kimmel's stuff. Jimmy Kimmel should apologize. Do I
Speaker 1: think the government should be going after him like this?
Speaker 1: Of course not. He's got First Amendment rights. But the
Speaker 1: joke in hindsight after the events on Saturday, looks terrible.
Speaker 1: So say it, admit it. It's okay. You can say
Speaker 1: I was not intended for what it got interpreted as,
Speaker 1: which means you've got to write a better punchline, or
Speaker 1: you got to write a better joke. I'm not sitting
Speaker 1: here defending the behavior of this government or the president
Speaker 1: in targeting Kimmel. But see, this is sort of the problem, right,
Speaker 1: Everything is about you got to pick a side or
Speaker 1: you're on. Jimmy Kimmel's side, or you're not on his side.
Speaker 1: I'm on Jimmy Kimmel's side. I'm on the side of
Speaker 1: free speech. But if I said that and then that
Speaker 1: event happened and somebody got mad, I'd have apologized because
Speaker 1: I'd have felt like shit because it wasn't what he
Speaker 1: I do believe it was not what he intended, but
Speaker 1: I'm not here to explain him. I just think that again,
Speaker 1: it goes back to are you going to be a
Speaker 1: de escalator or do you want to be an accelerant
Speaker 1: in this moment. It's pretty simple decision people have to make.
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Speaker 1: A few other things. I really want to highlight an
Speaker 1: interview I did for Newsphere with a long time intelligence
Speaker 1: analyst from in US government, Beth Sanner. She's now out
Speaker 1: of government, but one of her last jobs was being
Speaker 1: basically the only effective daily briefer to the president in
Speaker 1: the first term. To President Trump, she built a rapport
Speaker 1: with him where he at least started to accept some intelligence.
Speaker 1: I urge you to watch the interview in whole. I
Speaker 1: hope some of you have subscribed a newsphere. I'm just
Speaker 1: telling you it's really it's a high end news product
Speaker 1: and if you really really want not just reporting, but
Speaker 1: really smart analysis, looking around the corner type of stuff,
Speaker 1: new Sphere is the place for you. But I want
Speaker 1: to share a little bit because look, we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of ran We just hit a new high end
Speaker 1: gas price. This is not getting resolved tomorrow. And the
Speaker 1: impact on our economy, I mean it is. You know,
Speaker 1: there's been this sort of like stick the markets have
Speaker 1: been sticking their head in the sand. Very hopeful almost
Speaker 1: like on some sort of AI high if you will, right.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you the way consumers are going
Speaker 1: to feel. Consumers are going to hate this economy, and
Speaker 1: they already hate this economy. But I just want to
Speaker 1: sum up a few things. My conversation with Best Sayer,
Speaker 1: I would call was very sobering, and she kept returning
Speaker 1: to one basic point in our thirty minute sit down
Speaker 1: that the US may be measuring this war one way,
Speaker 1: bomb damage, destroyed ships, degraded assets, but Iran is measuring
Speaker 1: it another way. Entirely, as Saner put it, Iran's measuring
Speaker 1: stick is regime survival. Something I've been emphasizing here that
Speaker 1: the problem we have is what does our victory look like?
Speaker 1: And what does their victory look like? And right now
Speaker 1: their victory simply surviving gives them leverage, and that means
Speaker 1: we may be winning tactically while still moving farther away
Speaker 1: from what was supposed to be a strategic solution. So
Speaker 1: her argument is that we've fallen into a very familiar
Speaker 1: American pattern assuming military superiority can solve a political problem.
Speaker 1: She compared it to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. Moments
Speaker 1: when we misunderstood the culture, the leadership, the decision making,
Speaker 1: and the resilience of the adversary. I mean, how many
Speaker 1: times do we have to wash rents and repeat? Apparently
Speaker 1: we had to do it again. And one of her
Speaker 1: sharpest lines in this interview was, we're fighting the Iranians
Speaker 1: in time, right, that's the warning. We're focused on what
Speaker 1: we can destroy and they're focused on what they can survive.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the Strait of hormones. Sander said,
Speaker 1: the strait is now the immediate crisis, not because the
Speaker 1: nuclear she has gone away, but because this is the
Speaker 1: thing that can blow up the global economy right now.
Speaker 1: I love this line she gave me. She said, the
Speaker 1: strait is an emergency, which is the alligator closest to
Speaker 1: the boat. Yes, and our nuclear armed iron is bad.
Speaker 1: You know what's the worst thing right now? And a
Speaker 1: runne in control of the Strait of hormones. It's the
Speaker 1: alligator closest to the boat. You can't get to the
Speaker 1: other one until you deal with this one. That's the frame.
Speaker 1: The nuclear program is still the long term strategic threat,
Speaker 1: but the Strait is the crisis sitting in front of us.
Speaker 1: Shipping insurance, energy prices, allies, China, Russia, all of it,
Speaker 1: all of it choked off at this choke point. And
Speaker 1: Sander's broader critique is that we are not sequencing our
Speaker 1: power very well. We actually sequenced our power really well
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. She used Venezuela as a net positive comparison. Right,
Speaker 1: we had diplomacy, we had information, military, force, economics. These
Speaker 1: are all the tools that she outlined that are supposed
Speaker 1: to work together, but you need to do them in
Speaker 1: a certain order. And instead she's arguing we're relying too
Speaker 1: heavily on the military hammer and then wondering why the
Speaker 1: diplomatic door is harder to reopen. And she made this
Speaker 1: chilling observation, the Iranians understand us better than we understand that.
Speaker 1: That does seem like a scary proposition. They see the threats,
Speaker 1: they see the pauses, right, they're paying attention. They see
Speaker 1: the extensions of the ceasefire, and every time we threaten
Speaker 1: something and don't do it, they read that as proof
Speaker 1: that they're winning. The bottom line from Santa is this,
Speaker 1: you can have overwhelming military success and still not have
Speaker 1: an endgame, or she put it, you can have overwhelming
Speaker 1: conventional military success and still be no closer to a solution.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Iran that we have in front of
Speaker 1: us right now, that's the warning. This doesn't end with
Speaker 1: a bomb damage assessment. It's going to end with diplomacy.
Speaker 1: And right now, the question is not just whether Iran
Speaker 1: comes back to the table. It's whether we know who
Speaker 1: exactly we're supposed to be negotiating with and whether we
Speaker 1: know how to get to an endgame. All right, let
Speaker 1: me get through a few political questions that I know
Speaker 1: you guys are interested in. Let's start with the Florida
Speaker 1: remap here, and it is, like I said at the top,
Speaker 1: this is a map that if you're Republicans, you would
Speaker 1: have loved to run on in twenty four and you
Speaker 1: may like to run on it in twenty eight, especially
Speaker 1: if Marco Rubio's on the ticket. Right, it basically dilutes
Speaker 1: some Republican some big Republican congressional districts in central Florida,
Speaker 1: both near Tampa Bay and near Orlando, and makes them
Speaker 1: a little bit more competitive. Ditto in South Florida. And
Speaker 1: that all makes sense in a presidential year. The problem
Speaker 1: with this map for Republicans it's made. It has now
Speaker 1: put more seats in play for Republicans. It now means
Speaker 1: they have to spend more money than ever. Yes, they
Speaker 1: can claim Democrats have to spend a bunch of money
Speaker 1: because the Democratic seats they have to fight for, and
Speaker 1: then they have to see if they can win a
Speaker 1: couple of others. So let me give you a few
Speaker 1: little highlights for those of you that are familiar. Basically,
Speaker 1: it didn't make any changes in the northern part of
Speaker 1: the state. It really is sort of Tampa Bay, Orlando,
Speaker 1: and the Miami mostly the Miami for Lauderdale market, a
Speaker 1: little bit of Palm Beach. So let's start with Jared
Speaker 1: Moscowitz w Washerman Sultz. This is Districts twenty three and
Speaker 1: twenty five. This is parts of so Moscow. It's basically used.
Speaker 1: It's been the congressman for Parkland, right, and so it's
Speaker 1: both I think, a little bit of Palm Beach and
Speaker 1: a little bit of Broad County and w Washerman Souls,
Speaker 1: who used to be almost all exclusively browd County gotten
Speaker 1: more Miami. So there's less now of a Broward County
Speaker 1: base in District twenty three, which was Moscowitz, and that
Speaker 1: puts them in danger. Meanwhile, you've got w Washerman. Soultz's
Speaker 1: twenty fifth district now essentially is a coastal seat and
Speaker 1: now is Delray Beach to Miami Beach, so it's both
Speaker 1: heavily Latino and really wealthy. You know, she's if she
Speaker 1: were not pro Israel, I'd say she'd have a hard
Speaker 1: time holding that seat. But she can hold the seat.
Speaker 1: It may be a swing district now, and she's not
Speaker 1: running swing districts very often, and that's something that might
Speaker 1: be different, you know, to me. You know there's certain
Speaker 1: members of Congress. When you're always in a swing district,
Speaker 1: you're sort of you have muscle memory for it. You develop.
Speaker 1: It's like anything when you have one workout routine, if
Speaker 1: you do the same thing over and over again, That's
Speaker 1: what I do. Unfortunately, I don't diversify my workouts. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I I sort of I'm really good at
Speaker 1: handling treadmill running. I'm really bad at handling anything else. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think what's new for w Washerman Childs
Speaker 1: is going to be being in a swing district mindset.
Speaker 1: But she's kind of I've noticed she has lowered her
Speaker 1: national profile a bit and gone more, I think frankly
Speaker 1: in response to I mean, her district has been getting
Speaker 1: a little bit more competitive over time. Meanwhile, the twenty
Speaker 1: second district, this is lowis Frankle. This was mostly Palm Beach. Well,
Speaker 1: it now is shifting parlisan balances across both Palm Beach
Speaker 1: and Broward in central Florida. The ninth district, this is
Speaker 1: Darren Soto. This one gets dramatically. This one essentially gets erased.
Speaker 1: It's moved from a majority Latino seat to a plurality
Speaker 1: white one, and if you just look at the data,
Speaker 1: goes from a plus three point five Harris district to
Speaker 1: a plus eighteen Trump district. Meanwhile, Kathy Castors seat in
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay fourteenth district, it's been we've drawn to be
Speaker 1: much more competitive, and it shifts to a narrow plus
Speaker 1: three Republican edge. The point is that Castor has been targeted,
Speaker 1: but this is not an automatic loss here. Meanwhile, there's
Speaker 1: been some huge fallout. Right, So Daniel Webster, longtime member
Speaker 1: of Congress in Florida, he'd been one of the louder
Speaker 1: voices saying don't do this. He walked, He's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not defending this new seat. Here's what happened to his seat.
Speaker 1: The seat is no a R plus twenty fortress. The
Speaker 1: new lines moved parts. He had the villages in his district,
Speaker 1: so it took the deep red villages and put them
Speaker 1: into some adjacent districts. And it's just turned what was
Speaker 1: a very Republican district into essentially a lean R. And
Speaker 1: I think they just assumed Daniel Webster, who's been everybody, yes,
Speaker 1: he could hold it, but he doesn't want to hold it.
Speaker 1: And as an open seat in a midterm year, this
Speaker 1: is the first district created that could start to get
Speaker 1: us into dummy Mandar territory. And then to make Castor work,
Speaker 1: they had to pull Republican voters from neighboring thirteen and
Speaker 1: fifteen districts. Well, the thirteenth is represented by Anna Paulina Luna,
Speaker 1: who was already in a fairly competitive district as it is,
Speaker 1: and she is somebody who's always been seen as a
Speaker 1: little bit too conservative for the district she's represented. Well,
Speaker 1: now what is it now? She's even more you know,
Speaker 1: so she might not be the right person to hold
Speaker 1: that for the Republicans. So that seat arguably now has
Speaker 1: become more vulnerable. And then in South Florida, in order
Speaker 1: to do this, this sort of cracking and packing of
Speaker 1: they did that they to spread out the Broward County
Speaker 1: voters a little bit so that they didn't all get consolidated.
Speaker 1: They had to move some reliably Republican voters into these
Speaker 1: more competitive districts. What it is left is it's left
Speaker 1: both Mario Diaz Billard and Carlos Smenez with more diverse
Speaker 1: and less predictable red electorates in Dade County. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't that long ago that both of those districts had
Speaker 1: plenty of Democratic voters. Miami, Dade County is a swing county.
Speaker 1: It's still a swing county. Yes, a lot of Republican
Speaker 1: money has moved to Miami, a lot of major private
Speaker 1: equity firms have moved to my All of that is true.
Speaker 1: But all the people they bring are they're bringing, They're
Speaker 1: not necessarily bringing Republican voters. And it is not clear
Speaker 1: that the Latino vote is going to be as republican
Speaker 1: in twenty six as it was in twenty four. And
Speaker 1: if it is not, then suddenly these two districts are
Speaker 1: in play. And Maria Salazar was already in play, although
Speaker 1: that got configured a bit too so bottom line, I
Speaker 1: know I went through it individually. Bottom line, this will
Speaker 1: be a good map for Republicans in twenty eight, but
Speaker 1: they may this basically may not pick up four probably
Speaker 1: is maybe it picks up one or two, could be
Speaker 1: break even. But it has done this, It's made Florida.
Speaker 1: It's actually this is what it did is that Florida
Speaker 1: was not going to be home to many swing districts,
Speaker 1: and now it is. Now there's going to be more
Speaker 1: money spent. Right, Virginia created a situation where there's much
Speaker 1: fewer swing districts, much less money will be pouring in
Speaker 1: from either party. This new Florida map actually increases the
Speaker 1: need for campaign spending. You'll see there's a bit more competition.
Speaker 1: And then we've already seen that both the governor's race
Speaker 1: and the Senate race aren't cakewalks for the Republicans. So
Speaker 1: it's Florida battle around state again. I'm not quite ready
Speaker 1: to go that far, but it is more competitive and
Speaker 1: might have as many house seats in play, certainly more
Speaker 1: house seats in play, or maybe as many a house
Speaker 1: season play as a state larger than it than Texas.
Speaker 1: A few other nuggets just to share with you. One
Speaker 1: interesting new Democratic poll out of Texas that shows tall
Speaker 1: Rico within a high single digit lead over Paxton and
Speaker 1: a low single digit lead over Cornyn. That's not surprising,
Speaker 1: I think. What's surprising that there is still a lead
Speaker 1: over corn I think the real question is if Cornyn
Speaker 1: wins this runoff, is this still a competitive race? Now?
Speaker 1: The problem that Taller Rico's going to have is that
Speaker 1: I think if Cornyan wins a runoff, they'll be less national.
Speaker 1: There'll be less money coming from the Senate packs because
Speaker 1: there'll be a belief that it you know, and we
Speaker 1: know John Thune's going to be more willing to spend
Speaker 1: more money than ever. Now, Look, do I think no
Speaker 1: matter who the Republican nominees, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: ton of money poured into Texas. I do. But there'll
Speaker 1: be more if it's Corny than if it's Paxton. So
Speaker 1: that's a note there. And I still you know, you
Speaker 1: still see all the and I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: this in my top five list, but you're still going
Speaker 1: to see You're still going to see Paxton still seems
Speaker 1: to have an advantage of the runoff Susan Collins deciding
Speaker 1: to go negative on grand platter before the primary. If
Speaker 1: you're jan and Mills, this is exactly what you were
Speaker 1: hoping for. But it might But there's another way to
Speaker 1: look at this. The fact that the Colins superPAC has
Speaker 1: decided to engage Platiner now rather than after the primary
Speaker 1: sort of gets there was this growing conventional wisdom that
Speaker 1: if Collins could choose, she'd rather face Platiner than Mills. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what, the super pac has decided. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, they want to kill Platiner. Now they want
Speaker 1: to face Mills. And you know what, I think the
Speaker 1: Collins people are right, And I think we've been watching
Speaker 1: this race together. You've probably seen me evolve on this
Speaker 1: a little bit. Myself. I was a little skeptical, and
Speaker 1: now I see the strength of Platiner, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: And so it's interesting now you see the Colins super
Speaker 1: pack essentially deciding, oh no, we much rather face Janet Mills. Look,
Speaker 1: she's just not a good candidate. Doesn't mean she might
Speaker 1: not make a great senator. She's just not a good candidate,
Speaker 1: whether a primary candidate or general Electric candidate. It's been
Speaker 1: exposed in the primary by Platner, who's a very good
Speaker 1: political athlete, and now the Collins people see it in
Speaker 1: their numbers. Right. This just reinforces what we've all been
Speaker 1: seeing in these public polls. Platner's a strong is in
Speaker 1: a strong position at the moment to win this SENENCEE.
Speaker 1: Collins would much prefer to face an opponent who also
Speaker 1: is an incumbent politician. Pretty logical to me. This episode
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Speaker 2: Top Fie topp.
Speaker 1: And this is a fun one today, which it's the
Speaker 1: top five races that are essentially that are going to
Speaker 1: decide win. Lame duck status kicks in for Donald Trump, Right,
Speaker 1: every second term president becomes a lame duck at some point.
Speaker 1: I've condentned it. It's very possible Trump's are lame duck.
Speaker 1: We just haven't fully realized it yet. Sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to go back, you have to go forwards, and then
Speaker 1: you'll go, oh, it turns out that he was a
Speaker 1: lame duck starting, you know, with the with the you know,
Speaker 1: it could could have begun all the way on tariff day, right.
Speaker 1: It was like with Joe Biden, you know, in the
Speaker 1: moment of the Afghanistan withdrawal, it you didn't realize, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of the end of his presidency. Then
Speaker 1: the farther away we got from it, and the less
Speaker 1: unless he recovered from that moment, the more you're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: that turned out to be the beginning of the end
Speaker 1: of his presidency. Right. In some ways, that's when it began, right,
Speaker 1: And it is one of those things you sometimes it
Speaker 1: takes takes a beat to look back. But I definitely
Speaker 1: think in this midterm cycle, especially with the way that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has tried to exert a grip on the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, right, he is he took over he you know,
Speaker 1: at first it was a hijacking, and now he's done
Speaker 1: a purge, and this is his party. His endorsements usually
Speaker 1: lead to victories. And that's what I'm framing my top
Speaker 1: five list around, which is the top five primaries where
Speaker 1: Trump is most vulnerable to seeing his choice lose and
Speaker 1: essentially which would then trigger the narrative that perhaps his
Speaker 1: grip on the party itself is loosening. And we know
Speaker 1: that that has all sorts of contagion effects, right, And
Speaker 1: there's no doubt you can probably guess what the Number
Speaker 1: one race is going to be. But all of this
Speaker 1: begins in the next couple of weeks. Okay, four of
Speaker 1: my five primary races are all in the month of May,
Speaker 1: So we're going to find out in the month of
Speaker 1: May whether Trump's grip on the party is as strong
Speaker 1: as it has been over the last few cycles. So
Speaker 1: my top five races that will be to me are
Speaker 1: a measurement of his strength in the party and will
Speaker 1: be a essentially success. Right, Well, then the critics quiet
Speaker 1: down and his grip on the party titans failure and
Speaker 1: the grip starts to loosen. How many multiple failures and
Speaker 1: the whole thing could collapse. So Number five on my
Speaker 1: list is actually not a primary. It's the only non
Speaker 1: primary I put on the list in his North Carolina
Speaker 1: Senate because Michael Wattley essentially got handed the nomination, right,
Speaker 1: he was the de facto candidate after Laura Trump decided
Speaker 1: she didn't want to be a senator. But this was
Speaker 1: essentially Trump blessed. This was Trump's rn C chair, so
Speaker 1: you know, he walked. So this is somebody that Trump
Speaker 1: has groomed to be a party leader, essentially shifting him
Speaker 1: to the top spot at the RNC and now shifting
Speaker 1: him into the nomination slot for the open US senency
Speaker 1: to replace Tom Tillis. And oh, by the way, he
Speaker 1: essentially chased Tom Tillis out of the party. Don't believe me.
Speaker 1: Just look at Tom Tillis's behavior right now in the Senate.
Speaker 1: He ain't doing Trump's bidding. Look, losing to Roy Cooper
Speaker 1: is not a sign that Donald Trump has lost his fastball.
Speaker 1: Okay that I'm not going to sit there. But if
Speaker 1: Michael Wattley loses by double digits, then this is proof
Speaker 1: that Trump really just absolutely made a gigantic mistake. Right,
Speaker 1: probably should have let if he didn't really have confidence
Speaker 1: in Watleys as a statewide candidate. Well, let a primary happen.
Speaker 1: In some ways, a competitive primary might have given new
Speaker 1: name id to somebody that's a rising up, might have
Speaker 1: been a member of Congress. But that is not how
Speaker 1: they wanted to handle things. So I do view this raise,
Speaker 1: and for me, the marker is double digits versus single digits.
Speaker 1: A double digit Roy Cooper victory really is an indictment
Speaker 1: on Trump's political acumen, right, and will be will cause
Speaker 1: all sorts because this is a former R and C chair.
Speaker 1: We'll cause all sorts of handwringing and blind quotes and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff saying, you know, this was crazy.
Speaker 1: What was he even made the nominee? This is all Trump? Right,
Speaker 1: So he is just large ownership of the North Carolina
Speaker 1: Center race, more so than Maine, more so than really
Speaker 1: any other competitive Senate race. Right, this is his creation. Right,
Speaker 1: He bullied that till us out of the party. He
Speaker 1: put his person in there. He cleared the primary field, right,
Speaker 1: so there is no senate race he in some ways
Speaker 1: owns more than this one. So that's number five of them.
Speaker 1: List number four. It's another center race, Louisiana Senate. Now
Speaker 1: we've got the primary on the sixteenth of May, and
Speaker 1: then there's likely to be a runoff because we've got
Speaker 1: a three way competitive race here, and with of course
Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy, the incumbent, Julia let Loowe congresswoman, and then
Speaker 1: John Fleming, who's been in this race before. So it's
Speaker 1: a three way race. They've all got reasonable money and
Speaker 1: there's going to be two that make it through. If
Speaker 1: Cassidy's one of the two, you know, Cassidy is a
Speaker 1: puncher's chance in this thing. Now, Look, they've rigged the
Speaker 1: rules in Louisiana to try to punish Cassidy. Right, this
Speaker 1: is the first they're ever doing a partisan primary that
Speaker 1: Louisiana needs to be an all party primary, one ballot,
Speaker 1: and then there was sort of a runoff situation. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it's actually a model that I wish more states would
Speaker 1: have adopted. And so it's a shame to see this
Speaker 1: go the other way. But we know why it went
Speaker 1: the other way. Cassidy voted to convict Donald Trump after
Speaker 1: the second impeachment, and this they knew that in the
Speaker 1: old system Cassidy would survive. How do we know this, Well,
Speaker 1: there's still two impeachers in the House, Dan Newhouse in
Speaker 1: Washington State and David Valadio. And what do they both
Speaker 1: have in common? They are in all party primaries. They
Speaker 1: did not have a partisan primary that they had to
Speaker 1: get through. Anybody that had to get through a partisan
Speaker 1: primary lost. So look, I am I certainly think Cassidy's
Speaker 1: the underdog here. I think he'll get into the runoff.
Speaker 1: I assume he loses, But what a repudiation to Trump.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't. It's a big win for Trump. If
Speaker 1: Cassidy doesn't even make the runoff, it's a small win
Speaker 1: for Trump. If he knocks him off in the runoff,
Speaker 1: it's a humiliation. If Cassidy wins renomination Texas Senate. This
Speaker 1: is number three on the list. Look, even though Trump
Speaker 1: is supposedly not endorsed, it's pretty clear Paxton's maga Cornin
Speaker 1: is not right. So Trump is. You know. My guess
Speaker 1: is if he the fact that he hasn't endorsed now
Speaker 1: means he's probably not going to because he's afraid. I
Speaker 1: think of this one because it's not clear. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think he has the standing with
Speaker 1: the party anymore that endorsing corn would put automatically put
Speaker 1: him over the top. Put it this way, he's afraid
Speaker 1: to find out. And the lack of him not wanting
Speaker 1: to get involved in this race says more about his
Speaker 1: own fear of exposing himself. Right, does the Emperor have
Speaker 1: clothes on or not moment than anything else. So you know,
Speaker 1: he'll take credit for a corn and win if corn
Speaker 1: somehow gets out of this runoff. By the way, this
Speaker 1: runoffs May twenty six, end of the month, right after
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, so likely to be low turnout, usually not
Speaker 1: a good sign for the for the for the more
Speaker 1: center right candidate or center left candidate, you know, always
Speaker 1: usually an advantage for the base. But this is one
Speaker 1: that I think, you know, Cornyn surviving this is a
Speaker 1: repudiation of Mega and that in it indirectly is a
Speaker 1: repudiation of Trump or a loosening of the grip. Next sudden,
Speaker 1: this is Georgia governor, and this is going to be
Speaker 1: an interesting test. So Trump's already endorsed in Georgia governor.
Speaker 1: He endorsed the lieutenant governor Burt Jones, and he's endorsed
Speaker 1: him from the beginning. And Burt Jones has been somebody
Speaker 1: that has flirted with some of these conspiracies. He's been
Speaker 1: on the mega train from the beginning, very much like
Speaker 1: Paxton in Texas. Well. A new candidate jump in this race,
Speaker 1: sort of a former healthcare executive named Rick Jackson, got
Speaker 1: a terrific personal story that really I think resonates with people.
Speaker 1: He's essentially a foster kid that built his own life
Speaker 1: after that and he's been incredibly charitable with Foster organization.
Speaker 1: So he's just he's got a he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: usual political narrative for a biography. I think it's quite syllable,
Speaker 1: and I think him is you know, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna ask me, I think Rick Jackson's the favorite
Speaker 1: to be the next governor, let alone the primary winner. Now.
Speaker 1: Rick Jackson, in some ways he's been He jumped in
Speaker 1: this race, and he proclaimed himself, you know, very much
Speaker 1: a Trump Republican, basically trying to trying to trying to
Speaker 1: triangulate a little bit and sort of either forced Trump
Speaker 1: to duel endorse like he's done in the past when
Speaker 1: he sees somebody playing up to him, or in some
Speaker 1: ways dare Trump to back up his endorsement. And I
Speaker 1: think that's you know, if Trump doesn't come to Burt
Speaker 1: Jones's aid here because Rick Jackson is self funding, well,
Speaker 1: what's Trump raised all this money for? Right? Is he
Speaker 1: going to use his money to show to defend those
Speaker 1: that stood with him and that you know got in
Speaker 1: early or not. And if he doesn't come in and
Speaker 1: help Jones here, if this Maga super pac, I really
Speaker 1: think it does send this broader message and it's a
Speaker 1: bad look for the Trump movement that hey, it's a
Speaker 1: one way loyalty street and he's going to he will
Speaker 1: run away from you if you look like you're weak
Speaker 1: or losing, even if it's not on you. And you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that he is not a reliable ally I
Speaker 1: know is going to shock people. But you know, if
Speaker 1: Burt Jones wants to know what this feels like, he
Speaker 1: can go ask Lensky what it feels like. Right. And
Speaker 1: the number one on the list that to me probably
Speaker 1: matters more than any of the other races on this
Speaker 1: list is the May nineteenth primary in Kentucky's fourth congressional
Speaker 1: district and Thomas Massey. A Thomas Massey victory I think
Speaker 1: cements the narrative that Trump's Elaine Duck his his his
Speaker 1: control of the party is loosening and there's no going
Speaker 1: back from it. Like it becomes just it it is.
Speaker 1: It is probably this single most powerful narrative reaction of
Speaker 1: anything on this top five lists. That's why it's number
Speaker 1: one for me on this list. I think this has
Speaker 1: the you know, he has repeatedly gone after Massey. This
Speaker 1: is one of the few races he's put his money
Speaker 1: where his mouth is. Massy has done his thing and
Speaker 1: he's gone back and he's certainly not been shy about
Speaker 1: trying to fight fire with fire back on him. You know,
Speaker 1: past is if past is any guide here, Massy's going
Speaker 1: to lose. But there is risk if Massy wins this,
Speaker 1: and he's pretty connected to this district and Kentucky Republicans
Speaker 1: tell you talk about a group of Republicans that just
Speaker 1: aren't cooked cutter right, and there's none of them you
Speaker 1: can point to and say, well, they're you know, look
Speaker 1: at the Senate race, right there's it's easier to make
Speaker 1: the case that they're non Maga than Maga. There is
Speaker 1: this own sort of independent streak that they have. McConnell
Speaker 1: is no Maga Republican for different reasons than Ran Paul
Speaker 1: is no maga Republican for different reasons, and Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: and then you could keep money. You got the Secretary
Speaker 1: of State Michael Adams is a different type of Republican,
Speaker 1: but so is Daniel Cameron, and so is Andy Barr.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just been you know, in some ways,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be culturally surprised if Massey loses because
Speaker 1: it's not in the culture of Kentucky politics. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, right history shows that when Trump really
Speaker 1: wants to weigh in on something and throws actual money
Speaker 1: behind that weight, he can have some success. But if
Speaker 1: you're trying to keep track, when does lame duck status
Speaker 1: officially begin for Donald Trump? Thomas massey victory on May
Speaker 1: nineteen would cement the narrative is that he's fully in
Speaker 1: the lame duck status. Ask Chuck, all right, let's do
Speaker 1: a little last Chuck here. First question comes from Doug
Speaker 1: and Shaker Heights, a wonderful community in Cleveland, and he
Speaker 1: goes new listener here, really appreciate the measured analysis on
Speaker 1: the show. I'm wondering if Ohio Democrats made it a
Speaker 1: strategic mistake by backing Shared Brown again, given concerns about
Speaker 1: his age, branding and his association with the national party leadership.
Speaker 1: Would nominating younger, newer candidates be a better way for
Speaker 1: Democrats to rebuild their image and compete more effectively in
Speaker 1: states like Ohio. Curious to hear you take thank you,
Speaker 1: Doug and chicker heights. So I think, big picture, your instinct.
Speaker 1: I could see where you're thinking, and I kind of
Speaker 1: tend to agree with it. And I'll be honest, I
Speaker 1: was surprised that Brown got into this race because do
Speaker 1: you realize and I bet I don't know if you do.
Speaker 1: I don't know if many Ohioans realize this. This is
Speaker 1: technically not the time for this seat to come up,
Speaker 1: but this is a special election to fill out the
Speaker 1: JD Vance's term that began in the twenty twenty two cycle, right,
Speaker 1: and John Houstad was the appointed successor. He was the
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor before that, the Secretary of State, sort of
Speaker 1: really sort of a more of an Ohio Republican and
Speaker 1: anything on the mega side of things. But this was
Speaker 1: DeWine's appointment and it's only for two years, and your
Speaker 1: reward for winning this massive, expensive Senate race in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six is you got to run again in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight. And I just couldn't believe that Shared Brown
Speaker 1: was going to sign up after running in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: We know he already did this running in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six and then running in twenty twenty eight. Is he
Speaker 1: really going to have run three straight Senate races? If
Speaker 1: he wins, does he not run for reelection? And then
Speaker 1: if he doesn't run for reelection, who the hell are
Speaker 1: Democrats going to find that con somehow hold a seat
Speaker 1: when it apparently is going to be proof that only
Speaker 1: only only a Shared Brown can hold the seat. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a head scratcher to me on a number
Speaker 1: of levels. And I expect that Shared Brown I knew
Speaker 1: he wasn't done running like he just certain people his
Speaker 1: motor was still going right. The one office he never
Speaker 1: ran for was governor. He's run for a lot of
Speaker 1: state wide offices. I think it was secretary state at
Speaker 1: one time. I think he ran for another state white office.
Speaker 1: I mean, he and Mike de Wine have you know,
Speaker 1: and the one you know he could have and there
Speaker 1: would have been some sort of poetic irony, you know,
Speaker 1: following Mike the Wine because the one office, Mike the
Speaker 1: Wine always that he had eluded him before finally winning
Speaker 1: and in uh back in twenty eighteen was governor. So
Speaker 1: I figured Shared Brown would run for governor because it's
Speaker 1: a four year term. Number one, I think it was
Speaker 1: an open seat. It was winnable. I think Ramaswami has
Speaker 1: proven to each week a very week Republican nominee and
Speaker 1: maybe Amy Acton who's going to be the likely Democratic
Speaker 1: nominee for governor switches over to the center race, now,
Speaker 1: I don't you know. And and my concern about Shared
Speaker 1: Brown as the nominee is that Houston. You know, normally
Speaker 1: what makes a midterm year advantageous for the out party
Speaker 1: is you get to run against incumbents and I guess
Speaker 1: Shared Brown could run against Trump, and he's going to
Speaker 1: run against Republicans. But it's it's hard not for voters
Speaker 1: to see him as anything but part of the establishment,
Speaker 1: just the Democratic establishment. So all your choices, do you
Speaker 1: want the Republican establishment or do you want the Democratic establishment?
Speaker 1: That said, I don't know if there's a stronger Democrat
Speaker 1: that anybody that you could have found other than Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer for the center race. I think governor's races are
Speaker 1: still winnable in Ohio. I don't know if center races are,
Speaker 1: but maybe Shared Brown's the one Democrat that can win.
Speaker 1: Maybe Tim Ryan could have you know, maybe there's somebody
Speaker 1: new or younger. Maybe there's a Tallerrico out there. I've
Speaker 1: always say, you know, you know it is. I do
Speaker 1: believe Ohio is a light red state, not a dark
Speaker 1: red state. So the right type of Democrat can still
Speaker 1: went out there. You know, maybe maybe Greg Landsman from
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati area. Right, So let's just say I've I've
Speaker 1: gone at this one hundred ways from Sunday, I think
Speaker 1: from sixty thousand feet. I agree with your take on
Speaker 1: this that this is, but there's also an argument to
Speaker 1: be made who else could have done it in this
Speaker 1: environment for the cost of this race, And when you
Speaker 1: look at the larger map that the Democrats were facing,
Speaker 1: this was you know, a tried and true and proven
Speaker 1: voke get her in Ohio. Right, But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of and I've given you all the reasons why I'm
Speaker 1: surprised he said yes, and that to me is to
Speaker 1: me still the biggest surprise because of by saying yes,
Speaker 1: I think you've inadvertently signed that if you win, you've
Speaker 1: signed up for one more ride on twenty eight and
Speaker 1: my god, I know he used to be a House
Speaker 1: member and you're used. But senators usually don't like to
Speaker 1: have to run every two years, and if he wins,
Speaker 1: his reward is to run again, literally in two years.
Speaker 1: Dean from a Long Island rights with Donald Trump paying
Speaker 1: off wind companies to abandon offshore win project, I way
Speaker 1: thank you for writing this. Sin. I have a piece
Speaker 1: of my monologue that I put together that was going
Speaker 1: to be on this, and then I just there's so
Speaker 1: many other things that piled on top of it. So
Speaker 1: I'm so glad this is a question. So thank you, Dean.
Speaker 1: But let me bears repeating with Donald Trump paying off
Speaker 1: win companies to abandon offshore win products, so you know,
Speaker 1: if that would be considered interference with contracts, could be
Speaker 1: allowing the States to sue the administration and keep the
Speaker 1: companies involved. Thanks Dean from Long Island. Look, I think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting way to go. I think there could
Speaker 1: be lots of lawsuits on this, But I just this
Speaker 1: whole thing, you know, again, it goes back to sort
Speaker 1: of what's wrong with our politics? In general, not everything
Speaker 1: is either or. Some things are ants, okay, and we
Speaker 1: need energy badly. Why are we ruling out parts of energy? Right?
Speaker 1: I think you know, weaning yourself off of any energy
Speaker 1: is a bad idea at the moment. All of the above,
Speaker 1: but it's really foolish not to be thinking about alternative
Speaker 1: energy sources at a time when literally wars get started
Speaker 1: over access to energy. So this is just stupidity. This
Speaker 1: is bad policy, This is bad for the country long term,
Speaker 1: all because of a fetish about climate change. I mean
Speaker 1: this is literally like, well, I don't want to I
Speaker 1: don't want to do these wind farms because somehow it'll
Speaker 1: make us think we believe in climate change, and we
Speaker 1: would need to prove that renewables don't work. Why do
Speaker 1: we want to prove that renewables don't work. All we're
Speaker 1: doing is handing more more power to China. Right. The
Speaker 1: war of choice against Iran has absolutely scared a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of smaller and middle sized countries who don't have
Speaker 1: their own energy access, who rely on buying oil from
Speaker 1: the Strait from the Gulf. And it comes to the
Speaker 1: Strait of hormones, it go, man. We got to find
Speaker 1: alternative sources. And it isn't all just finding alternative sources
Speaker 1: for oil and gas. There's going to be a surge
Speaker 1: in interest in renewables. And guess what country they're going
Speaker 1: to go to for the supplies to tap into solar
Speaker 1: and to tap into win. It ain't going to be
Speaker 1: the United States because this administration is gutting the entire industry.
Speaker 1: It's again, this is self inflicted. There's no part of
Speaker 1: this that makes any sense. And the amount of people
Speaker 1: that don't say this is nonsense. This is not about
Speaker 1: climate change. This is about preparation. Buy the freaking insurance policy. Sorry.
Speaker 1: I find the war against climate change to be just
Speaker 1: so asinine because at this point, who cares whether it's
Speaker 1: man made or not. The climate's changing. We have more
Speaker 1: wildfires happening, we have stronger hurricanes, we have coastal erosion.
Speaker 1: Why does it matter how it started? We should all
Speaker 1: be trying to mitigate it and all be trying to
Speaker 1: and there's no interest. Literally, this ideology on the right
Speaker 1: is to pretend it doesn't exist, that it's made up.
Speaker 1: It's not made up. You want to disagree in the
Speaker 1: origin story, fine, but the results not made up. This
Speaker 1: is the world we're dealing with, the climate has changed.
Speaker 1: You want to fight over whether it was a hidden
Speaker 1: hand above or an actual person or an industry or entity. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I know I get a little ranty about this. I
Speaker 1: just find this one of the dumber things where we do.
Speaker 1: I just you know, why wouldn't we want the insurance policy?
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Pete. What do you make of
Speaker 1: the what if scenario where Trump bought the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen? Could owning an NFL team have kept
Speaker 1: him from unning for president in twenty sixteen? And so
Speaker 1: how differently do you think that election in the broader
Speaker 1: political landscape since might have played out? Pete, That's a
Speaker 1: good one. It is a what if. You know, when
Speaker 1: I did my original what if on twenty sixteen, I
Speaker 1: think I was riffing with Jonathan Martin. I worry this
Speaker 1: is in the old NBC feed their own They didn't
Speaker 1: get to own the name, but they owned my intellectual
Speaker 1: property there. But we went through all these various scenarios
Speaker 1: on that. Do I think if he were the owner
Speaker 1: of the Buffalo Bills he wouldn't have run for president? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do, And I think the NFL would be something.
Speaker 1: Put it that way, and you'd have, you know, the
Speaker 1: war between Jerry Jones, Bob Kraft and Donald Trump, those
Speaker 1: three egos fighting each other for supremacy among owners. Right, like, man,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's get that. Forget the TV series running
Speaker 1: point about, you know, loosely about the Genie bus lakers.
Speaker 1: Let's do that, right, Craft Jones and Trump NFL owners, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the New Housewives of the NFL, but starring
Speaker 1: Jerry Jones, Donald Trump and there. So what would happen
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen? I will tell you so if Trump
Speaker 1: never runs, there's sort of two what ifs that I've
Speaker 1: entertained on this, and they I have to talk about
Speaker 1: them sequentially because when this, if there's no bridge Gate,
Speaker 1: Chris Christie's the nominee in sixteen. Chris Christie's personality fit
Speaker 1: the moment, right, because Donald Trump proved that this is
Speaker 1: what kind of the country was looking for. It fit
Speaker 1: the moment. But he'd have been a lot easily. He
Speaker 1: probably wins big, not small Christy versus Clinton. Christy probably
Speaker 1: gets fifty one to fifty two, fifty three percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, and Christy would have been challenged from the
Speaker 1: right by you know, by the Ted cruises of the world,
Speaker 1: would have been hit hard on judges, on abortion, on
Speaker 1: some of these cultural issues that I think wouldn't have
Speaker 1: mattered because Christy was just a better debater and he
Speaker 1: would have been, you know, without Donald Trump involved, Christy
Speaker 1: would have been the star of that show. All right,
Speaker 1: that that's one scenario. But Bridge Gaye did happen, and
Speaker 1: it and it was a different It was a you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. It was sort of like a wounded version
Speaker 1: of Chris Christy in that primary, and we didn't get
Speaker 1: the best version of him it would have been, because
Speaker 1: I do think if Christy's in that race, Trump's just
Speaker 1: an endorser of Christy. He never jumps in because he
Speaker 1: doesn't think he can be Christy. So that's sort of
Speaker 1: where one my head. That's one of my what if scenarios.
Speaker 1: The second one if on this is so let's say
Speaker 1: Bridgegate happened, and so what you essentially have is is
Speaker 1: I think Rand Paul would have been a much bigger
Speaker 1: factor because Paul had the non traditional Republicans that were
Speaker 1: interested in something new. Now, the minute Trump got in,
Speaker 1: it was like a vacuum cleaner on Paul's support. Right,
Speaker 1: the first chunk that he took, first, lunch money he
Speaker 1: took was not Jeb Bush's lunch money. It was actually
Speaker 1: Rand Paul's lunch money. And so I think without Trump,
Speaker 1: Paul's a much bigger player and Rand Paul. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a scenario where Rand Paul's nominee and Paul versus
Speaker 1: Clinton is very similar to Trump versus Clinton, except probably
Speaker 1: a little less personal. And I think given what we
Speaker 1: saw with the with the vote and the desperation that
Speaker 1: there was among you know, there's sort of the obstinates
Speaker 1: that there was into electing Hillary Clinton. Right. There definitely
Speaker 1: was a strong anti Clinton chunk of voters that just
Speaker 1: we're put a low ceiling on her ability to gain votes.
Speaker 1: So I think Paul, so Christy Paul, and then probably
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. That's probably the order of likely nominee with
Speaker 1: no Donald Trump and no bridge Gate. I think Christy
Speaker 1: with Bridgegate, I probably think the nominee is still Paul
Speaker 1: or Cruise. Like I don't think Rubio. I think we
Speaker 1: found out that Rubio was trying to straddle too much there.
Speaker 1: Now maybe Rubio looks like a better candidate, but you
Speaker 1: know it's pot You know you could, you could if
Speaker 1: you want to argue with me that maybe Rubio gets
Speaker 1: in there. Now, Rubio and Nominee probably wins by a
Speaker 1: bigger margin over Clinton too than Trump. I do think
Speaker 1: both Rubio and Christy would have been stronger candidates than Trump.
Speaker 1: I think both CRUs and Paul would have been kind
Speaker 1: of the exact, very similar races where we're some sort
Speaker 1: of split decision. Well that was fun, Pete, all right.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Ben s from Tona Wanda, New York.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite undergrad courses I took at the
Speaker 1: University of Rochester was titled the Mythology of the Founders.
Speaker 1: I remember writing my final paper on Congressman Raoul Labrador
Speaker 1: on behalf of the Tea Party advocating for the repeal
Speaker 1: of the seventeenth Amendment because it deviated too far from
Speaker 1: the Founding Father's intentions. For better or worse, Many Americans
Speaker 1: mythologize our Founding documents and their authors, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to know how you might navigate that with some of
Speaker 1: the proposed constitutional membents you have discussed on the podcast
Speaker 1: Go sabers ps. Did you have a favorite course from
Speaker 1: your college days. I did. I had all. I would say,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, it's gonna be a bit dorking out.
Speaker 1: I loved all my history classes. It didn't matter which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a general one, I had an
Speaker 1: at least history that I took. Two different mid least
Speaker 1: history courses I took, but I always say this the
Speaker 1: two courses I used the most in life in my
Speaker 1: professional life after I took an elective on the federal budget,
Speaker 1: which is the type of the type of course that
Speaker 1: only a GW is going to offer. Right, you're in DC,
Speaker 1: and it was taught by somebody that worked at OMB
Speaker 1: and I just it was you know, it is certainly
Speaker 1: benefited me in my ability just simply learning how to
Speaker 1: read a federal budget right when you see how you
Speaker 1: look at it and things like that, and how it's
Speaker 1: done and how the math works. Right, the math isn't
Speaker 1: the rules of math for federal budgets don't necessarily follow
Speaker 1: the general rules of math. That was That was a
Speaker 1: big one for me as well. But as for your so,
Speaker 1: I believe in founders intent, right, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you don't modernize with founders intent. The seventeenth Amendment is
Speaker 1: an interesting debate. You know, in my class how Washington
Speaker 1: works that I briefly talked about here that I teach
Speaker 1: part time at USC four for the visiting students that
Speaker 1: have internships in DC. We just did our final They
Speaker 1: just did their final prison. They just did their oral
Speaker 1: presentations on what their final paper is going to be on,
Speaker 1: and one of them is for and the whole is
Speaker 1: what's what's a you know, how would you try to
Speaker 1: make Washington work better? What's run reform you would do
Speaker 1: to make Washington work better? And there's one gentleman who
Speaker 1: picked repealing the seventeenth Amendment and about how you know
Speaker 1: it would and one of the benefits that he believed
Speaker 1: brought to it was that it would actually make state
Speaker 1: legislative elections more important. More people would look into that more,
Speaker 1: more senators would be more representative of their states, rather
Speaker 1: than an ideology. So it's an interesting argument on the
Speaker 1: seventeenth On the seventeenth Amendment, we know what the intent,
Speaker 1: but the intent of the electoral College was to actually
Speaker 1: be a bit of a vetting mechanism in case the
Speaker 1: public went too far off out of the mainstream. And
Speaker 1: we've let the states essentially create what are likely unconstitutional
Speaker 1: faithless elector laws on that. But we've never tested the
Speaker 1: faithless elector issue in court per se. But right now
Speaker 1: states just bound electors, and so they've kind of made
Speaker 1: the electoral college no longer a vetting issue. So I
Speaker 1: think I am a believer in Founder's intent, which means
Speaker 1: to me, if my amendment couldn't easily be defended by
Speaker 1: something already written in the federalist papers, then I might
Speaker 1: be willing no longer to defend that addition to the
Speaker 1: Constitution and said, just why don't you just codify this? Look,
Speaker 1: there's certain ideas that should just simply be codified into
Speaker 1: law by Congress. Like I don't think there should be
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment for reproductive rights. I think that's something
Speaker 1: that should just simply be codified into law, why you know,
Speaker 1: And it's sort of a fear of doing it that
Speaker 1: now makes you think, well, I guess you got to
Speaker 1: do it as a constitutional amendment. And it's perhaps if
Speaker 1: you make a better argument about equal protection, that the
Speaker 1: equal protection argument on reproductive rights trumps the original back
Speaker 1: and forth on Row and Dobbs anyway, But set that aside,
Speaker 1: but I'm sort of it. I take your point here. Like, so,
Speaker 1: for instance, I think the nullification of a presidential pardon,
Speaker 1: the way it is framed, this constitutional amendment actually fits
Speaker 1: the vision of the Founders, right. It uses the same
Speaker 1: logic of a supermajority that a that overwriting a veto
Speaker 1: would use. It doesn't you know. It's still respects the
Speaker 1: idea that a president does have this power. It just
Speaker 1: offers a nullification by Congress if it's if Congress deems
Speaker 1: it so. So I could argue that that, you know,
Speaker 1: But I think that where I generally agree with you
Speaker 1: is that proposed constitutional amendments that there should already be
Speaker 1: Federalist papers written that already would defend the concept even
Speaker 1: if the amendment hadn't been proposed back then. And I
Speaker 1: could argue in some of these proposed amendments, whether it's
Speaker 1: on whether it's on money campaign money, I think they're
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's on the election of judges, right,
Speaker 1: there's there's certainly the Founders have made their made their
Speaker 1: They've told us what they meant based on the Federalist papers.
Speaker 1: So I'd sort of think that should be the guidepost.
Speaker 1: All right, last question, it comes from fred A. Hey.
Speaker 1: I been thinking about Thomas Jefferson's quote that the tree
Speaker 1: of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
Speaker 1: the blood of patriots and tyrants, and now it's often
Speaker 1: used to justify a more extreme interpretation of the Second
Speaker 1: Amendment parts of the country. That idea still resonates deeply,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if it's something we should be moving
Speaker 1: beyond as a modern democracy. How do you interpret that
Speaker 1: quote in today's political context? Best regards freda A. Look,
Speaker 1: I think that that you know, we didn't there wasn't
Speaker 1: many democracies in free societies that even existed when Jefferson
Speaker 1: said that quote, and there were a lot more authoritarian
Speaker 1: regimes we called the monarchies, but they were just that
Speaker 1: you know, you know my attitude on this, I think
Speaker 1: the monarchies are just a just a way to beautify
Speaker 1: the term dictator. And I do think that we, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things, and the sort of fits hand
Speaker 1: in glove with the last question. Actually, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we failed to do is understand, you know,
Speaker 1: what moment were they living in at the time. And
Speaker 1: that's why I would emphasize this what moment was he
Speaker 1: living in at the time, Right, he was living in
Speaker 1: a moment where there was some where you had revolution
Speaker 1: brewing in France, and he certainly had been in a
Speaker 1: back are there he knew that there was, right, we
Speaker 1: had it brewing in the and it already happened in
Speaker 1: the United States, So there was definitely we definitely had
Speaker 1: you know, you could you could feel it. I find
Speaker 1: it hard to believe that he thinks this would apply
Speaker 1: to our democracy. That instead it applies if democracy. You
Speaker 1: know that, you know, every once in a while, you've
Speaker 1: got to fight for democracy. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: But there's no doubt that quote gets gets weaponized by
Speaker 1: those who rationalize or justify behavior. That is that a
Speaker 1: mature democracy shouldn't be dealing with right, that with a
Speaker 1: steadier instead of leaders. But we're not in a stable place,
Speaker 1: right And so what I think that quote really means
Speaker 1: is that you got to fight for democracy and freedom
Speaker 1: every once in a while. Because notice it says the
Speaker 1: blood of patriots and tyrants. Right. So, now, where what
Speaker 1: may be subjective is one person's patriot is another person's tyrant.
Speaker 1: It's like I've always said, one person's patriot is another
Speaker 1: person's terrorist, right, The British monarchy thought the American those
Speaker 1: that were revolting were terrorists. We call them patriots.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I sort of think that.
Speaker 1: Jefferson is responding to the moment he was living in,
Speaker 1: and then it didn't apply to a mature, modern, two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty year old democracy that were supposedly celebrating
Speaker 1: this year. All right, love the Q and A. You
Speaker 1: guys got made up pop off on the environment. I've
Speaker 1: been waiting to find a way to pop off on that,
Speaker 1: and I think even my producer might split that out.
Speaker 1: You might see that part of the Q and A
Speaker 1: separated out. We rarely rarely do that with the ass
Speaker 1: Chuck segment, but to say you touched a nerve as
Speaker 1: an understatement on that. So with that, I'll see you
Speaker 1: twenty four hours