WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - Democrats Won The Argument Over The Shutdown…And Should End It + America Will Need New Political Guardrails After Trump 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.920 Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.000 the Chuck Podcast. No, I am not in my normal studio. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:16.280 I'm coming to you from Midtown Manhattan, because sometimes New 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.320 York just comes a calling a little bit of work. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.640 Was participating in a few different conferences that are taking 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.200 place in the lovely New York City area. In the 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:31.960 world of media and advertising and digital. I will say this, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:38.040 it is fascinating to see in all of these in 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.360 these different entities, how everybody markets, how AI is a 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.960 part of their products. Right whether they have truly empowered 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.440 the actual AI is an open question in my book 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.280 on some of these entities that are pitching AI driven marketing, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:01.800 AI driven buying, AI driven messaging. It feels as if 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.840 it's like the early days in the Internet when everybody 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.440 wanted to show off they had a website. Hey, we've 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.679 got a website www. Come to our website dot com. Right. 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.560 There is that feeling here where just say there's a 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:19.759 I even saw. I even saw a cleaning service now 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:25.200 advertising themselves as a tech specialty cleaning service. They know 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.000 how to clean in the highly you know, which is, 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:34.240 by the way, obviously something that maybe some companies would 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.080 care about. But essentially they're saying that you can, we 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.760 will help clean your data centers and show respect for 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.280 the equipment as we clean the data centers. We're experts 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.680 on that. So everybody trying to get the peace of this, 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:53.640 of this small, narrow, growing sector. We think it's a 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.080 growing sector of the economy. I think there's some concern 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.680 that it is a self eating it's sort of a 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:04.720 self feeding and self eating economic ecosystem that's being developed. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:09.520 But there definitely seems to be just say, there's some 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.160 AI in it, and let's market it. Hey, whatever your 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.120 business is, claim it's AI driven. Welcome to my food truck, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:21.760 AI driven taco recipes. Right. You can sort of feel 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.720 that shift as we transition in this economy. But my 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.200 focus is a little bit. It is a It is 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.000 a derivative of the shutdown showdown that we're in the 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.840 midst of right now, and I think the Democrats have 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.880 to figure out how to declare victory and get out 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.040 of this because I do think every day that goes 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.120 by now, look, i think they've gotten everything they can 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.239 hope to get out of this shutdown. When you are 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:54.120 on the lower ground, right and they have the lower 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.520 ground on this one, because it's the Republicans that propose 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.480 the clean continuing resolution for just an additional six weeks. 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.360 So when you are choosing to do what the Democrats do, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:07.840 you're doing it because you have a point to make, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:09.280 and you're doing it because you're trying to bring some 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.080 attention to a specific issue. Right, you had Ted Cruz 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.320 shutting down the government to try to bring more attention 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.120 to the implementation of Obamacare, for better or for worse 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.320 on that front, and on this case, I think you 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.840 have you had Donald Trump trying. You know, he essentially 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.480 orchestrated the shutdown in nineteen and eighteen and nineteen in 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.040 order to bring more attention to his inability to get 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:37.800 his border wall funded at the time. So this one, 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.360 the Democrats say, is about healthcare and is about specifically 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.480 subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:49.640 So I know I'm going to sound like a broken 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.720 record here. If that truly is the reason you're doing this, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:58.440 declare victory and open the government. And the thing is 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.480 is that I do think you're going to see diminishing returns. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.080 It's pretty clear that you're you know, and I do 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.200 think that this is. This gets to the larger point 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.200 I'm talking about in my substack column this week, which 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.680 is how much energy do you devote to opposing Donald 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.440 Trump versus how much energy do you devote to opposing 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.640 a future Donald Trump? What do I mean by that? Right? 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.640 There's mitigation tactics to deal with what you're dealing with 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:27.359 in the moment, and then there's longer term strategies to 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.120 essentially try to make sure we don't have another demagogue 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:36.000 hijack a political party in our process. Again, right, Donald 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.840 Trump's rise is exposed to extraordinary amounts of vulnerabilities, whether 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:45.120 it is the ability to enrich yourself while in office, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:50.080 if it's the ability to weaponize political agencies. And this 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.880 is where it comes to. If you look at what 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.719 they're doing with the with the government shutdown, one of 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:03.280 the consistent patterns, and we've all engaged in it in 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:08.640 ways to try to create guardrails around Trump, has been 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:14.440 this assumption that shame or political or sort of generic 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:19.600 political pressure would have a real impact. Shame has had 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.279 no impact. In fact, that the incredible superpower Donald Trump 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.680 has in some ways is not feeling shame. The access 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.040 Hollywood tape is sort of the best piece of evidence 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:36.559 of that that you essentially never you know, January sixth 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.320 is arguably the next pest piece of evidence. Maybe you 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:43.480 can flip the two and what would normally shame almost 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:48.360 any other politician in our history, including one Richard Nixon 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.960 shamed him into resignation, does not work with him. Right 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.200 If you're hoping that touching the hot stove, which this 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:02.040 government shutdown is doing, that Trump touching the hot stove 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.640 is going to burn his hand off. What if I 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.400 told you he didn't have the information. You know, there's 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.640 nothing in the feedback loop he is getting that tells 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.920 him his hand is burning, He feels no pain, Well, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.159 he puts his hand on said hot stove. And so 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.359 if you're dealing with somebody essentially that's willing to shoot 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.480 the hostage, right in this case, just lay off more 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.520 federal government workers in the agencies that Democrats seem to 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:38.560 care more about than generically Republicans do. That that blowback 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.200 would somehow bother him, right because swing voters don't like 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.919 this in either way. But if your feedback loop is 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:49.320 all about owning the Libs and pleasing your base, well 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.200 then he has no Then the incentives you think would 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:57.440 work under almost any other normal pre Trumpian circumstance doesn't 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:02.600 work in this scenario. But if you're if you look 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.000 at it through the prism. And this is something that 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.080 I think Democrats have had a hard time with for 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.720 a long time, which is learning how to declare victory 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.960 even if it's a one point victory, right, learning how 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.520 to embrace it. Donald Trump knows how to declare victory 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:21.560 even when he loses, literally on January sixth, but on 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.880 even on some issues he's somehow trying to declare victory 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:32.760 in using taxpayer dollars to bail out Argentina. And by 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.280 the way, he's made it a quid pro quo, essentially saying, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.360 if Argentina throws out Malay Hell, it will make an 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.720 enemy of the United States, yet another tast of our 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:48.880 demagoguery and another personalization of the presidency that erodes our 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.200 ability to be the moral authority on democracy around the world. 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.520 And we have lost all of our moral authority on 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:01.920 that front, and then some going back there. But sometimes 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:06.440 when you are frustrated by a situation, you end up 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.840 you know, you can get so frustrated. I've had similar situations. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:12.560 It's been a long time since I've done this, but 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.480 I remember punching a hole in drywall once, so mad 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.240 I punched a wall. I knew it was drywall. Put 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.760 a hole in it didn't make me feel any better. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:30.800 For a moment, you think, wow, I'm so strong, it's drywall. Please. Second, 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.319 I suddenly had to patch up a hole in my wall. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.880 That was pain in the ass. Then I had to 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.920 repaint right Then of course you realize, oh, I can't 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.800 just paint the patch anyway. You see where I'm going. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.600 It costs yourself a whole hell of a lot more 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:49.800 work sometimes when you just want to express frustration for 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:56.640 frustration's sake. And I think we're entering that situation. And 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:02.520 every day that goes by that this shutdown goes, the 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.360 less it becomes about healthcare, and the more it becomes 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:09.440 about how the shutdown is impacting everyday lives, how it's 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.000 making Thanksgiving. You know, if we get to get close, 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.760 we start getting close to Thanksgiving travel and we're keeping 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:22.600 parents from their kids, grandparents from their grandkids. That's not 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:29.280 going to help anybody. And again, the base of the 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.640 Republican Party is going to be a lot more comfortable 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.319 feeling their handget, you know, letting their hand burn up 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.680 on the stove than any part of the Democratic Party 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:47.000 on this front. And right now you've got healthcare into 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:52.400 the forefront. You've got Republicans talking amongst themselves like this 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.360 is a real problem, they've got to do something about it. 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:00.160 You've got people like Marjorie Taylor Green making the ca 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.359 for an expansion or an extension of these healthcare subsidies. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.640 So you're winning the argument. That's all you have the 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.440 power to do in this situation. You're not going to 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.120 be able to get them to do any more than that. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.840 But if you're winning the argument, then you're likely to 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.119 get the legislation that you're hoping for. But more importantly, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.400 you're probably not going to You've at least given yourself 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.800 something to run on if they fail to do this. 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.200 But if you continue to keep the government shut down 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.920 thinking every day, boy, you know, some of the stupid 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:39.160 rhetoric that is leaked out on the Democratic side not 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.720 a good look for Chuck Schumer to basically imply, oh, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:43.960 every day this gets better. It doesn't get better for 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.679 the rest of us. It may get better for your politics, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.040 but it's not getting better for anybody else for the 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.040 government to be shut down every day. If you're participating 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.040 in the travel industry by train or plane, you're dealing 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.880 with the federal government, and you're dealing with federal workers 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.360 who have no promise of a paycheck coming in on time. 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:10.120 So be careful of what words you're using there on 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:15.480 that front. And so at some point you got to 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.000 ask yourself, what is what is dragging this on longer? Hey, look, 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.240 I think we're congressional Republican leaders know this, and then 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.200 till Donald Trump engages, Republicans an't going to budget anything. 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.480 So what's your planning to get Donald Trump involved in 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.199 these talks? That's my That would be my question to Democrats, 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.720 what's your what's your If your goal is the healthcare subject, 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:41.120 You've got to get Donald Trump's attention. He's busy blowing 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:46.000 up votes with questionable legal authority. I would argue he 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.280 has yet to explain his legal authority on this, and 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.679 Congress has been crickets on this instead focused on the shutdown. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.960 In some ways understandable, but this is you know, the 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:02.880 Trump administration doesn't stop if you've shut down the government. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:09.880 But apparently congressional oversight does that's a problem. He's doing 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.160 his victory lap in the Middle East. We're already seeing 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.640 the first signs of his big victory suddenly could come 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.160 undone faster than folks realize now that Israel is already 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.400 backing off some of their guarantees, claiming Hamas is backed 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:30.079 off of some of their promises. If Trump wants this 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.440 legacy achievement, the work is actually only just begun. The 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.720 hard work. The easy part was getting the signing ceremony 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.480 that he got. The hard part is getting Israel and 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.000 Hamas to stick to the terms that you got them 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.200 to agree to in the moment. That's going to take 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.080 a lot of handholding. That's going to take a lot 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:53.960 of intervention. That's going to take a ton of work, 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.439 and some of it is going to take Trump himself intervening. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:04.960 Yet again, there's a reason results matter more than promises, 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.760 just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.040 largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.079 they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.240 a million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.120 next to nothing just hoping to get away with paying 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.040 as little as possible. Morgan and Morgan fought back ended 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.880 up winning millions. In fact, in Pennsylvania, one client was 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.720 awarded twenty six million dollars, which was a staggering forty 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.920 times the amount that the insurance company originally offered. That 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.440 original offer six hundred and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.679 six hundred fifty thousand dollars. So with more than one 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.199 thousand lawyers across the country, they know how to deliver 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.800 for everyday people. If you're injured, you need a lawyer, 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.520 you need somebody to get your back. Check out for 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.360 the People dot com, Slash podcast, or dial pound Law 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:56.080 Pound five two nine law on your cell phone. And 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.400 remember all law firms are not the same. So check 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.200 out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is for unless they win. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.560 As you're looking at ways to know you're frustrated with 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.520 this administration, if you're among those folks that I imagine 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.240 there's quite a few folks listening to this podcast that 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.200 are I would just ask yourself, what balance are you 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:24.240 striking here? What's more important? Trying to oppose Trump in 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.400 any way you can right now or trying to prevent 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.840 another Trump from happening in the future because we do 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.360 have some long term, bigger adjustments that have to be made. 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:41.160 Take the idea of profiting off the presidency. If this 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:46.640 essentially goes unchecked, you know it's probably going to go unpunished. 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.560 But if it's going to go unchecked, then you're only 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.040 going to encourage other people to run for office as 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.080 a way to enrich themselves. That is how you go 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.240 from a political party being turned into a kleptocracy, which 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.200 Donald Trump is done to this current Republican party. I mean, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:07.640 he's openly open about it, right it is everybody. Everything 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.080 is a transaction. You want to raise money with Donald 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.960 Trump's likeness, pay the man you want to beget in 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.640 his good graces, give him a plane. You want to 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.960 make sure you get what you want out of him, 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:24.320 you better put his face on a coin. The point 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:27.240 is is that he is already turned the party into 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:32.120 a kleptocracy. If nothing gets changed, we probably need a 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.360 constitutional amendment because you're not going to be able to 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.000 force a future president or a vice president to force 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.240 them to put their holdings in a blind trust to 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.280 sort of enforce that mechanism. Separation of powers prevents Congress 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.600 from passing any such law from pulling that off. So 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.360 you're going to need a constitutional amendment. It is crystal 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.800 clear we need some sort of constitutional men. The emolument's 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:59.800 clause was not enough. It's in there. If Congress chose 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.040 to use it as a way to provide some oversight, 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.560 they could. But are we impeaching this man a third time? 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.440 Do we think the impeachment process is really an effective process? 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:18.680 Given how it's at this point been turned into just 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:24.320 some sort of political gambit now that isn't taken very seriously, 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.200 and that politicians may not fear the way that they 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.080 once that Richard Nixon actually did fear it back in 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.680 nineteen seventy four. So it's pretty clear we need a 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.120 constitutional endment. What kind of work is being done to 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:43.440 do that. We do have a fusion of big tech 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.680 money and government. It is so infused. We have not 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.200 had a relationship between titans of industry and the government 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.280 so intertwined since the nineteen teens and twenties, since the 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.880 age of the robber barons, teapot Dome, all that, you know. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.520 The nineteen twenties began with us losing our mind by 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.879 banning alcohol right after the nineteen eighteen pandemic, and it 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.760 ends with the stock market crash that essentially unravels the 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.960 world economy and plants the seeds for World War two. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.480 Other than that, it was a terrific decade. Well, we 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.280 have a similar situation where we have industry and government 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:31.280 extraordinarily intertwined that again needs This is bigger than just 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:36.679 opposing Trump. This is a systemic problem that needs some 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:43.040 sort of constitutional intervention. I think on campaign finance that's 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.959 pretty crystal clear. And at some point the voters are 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:54.480 going to demand a regulatory our regulatory party parties to 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:59.840 actually put some sort of guardrails on big tech and 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:05.000 how it exploits or try to prevent it from exploiting 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:12.480 the population for either political gain or financial gain. So 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:15.640 you look at the different you know, I look at 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.119 my role in journalism, and I'm trying to focus on 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.720 figuring out how can we reanimate, rebuild, and create a 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.400 better business model for local media because I think that 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.359 has become a foundational problem in our inment, our broken 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:35.520 information ecosystem. I think there's so many facets here that 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.000 need to be dealt with. Look we've got to We've 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:43.440 got to we're rigging our electoral lines. This mad dash 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.040 of the redistricting wars is actually we're taking a step 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.360 back from what was actually some momentum and progress made 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:56.480 to depoliticizing this process. Now we've essentially scrapped the entire 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.480 thing and almost are overpartisanizing it. Of course, parts ship 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.720 is how we got to such a polarized moment, which 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:09.120 essentially provided the blueprint for a guy like Trump to exploit. 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:11.959 So if you're hoping to prevent the next Trump, you've 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.360 got to figure out how to depolarize for number one, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:20.440 nonpartisan redistricting. Oops, we are literally going backwards on this issue. 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.159 But this is something again that you could make a 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:28.080 constitutional amendment in some form or another, and I think 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.560 you're going to have to no law, no active Congress, 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.520 a political act of Congress is going to deal with 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.560 this in a way that I think would would be 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.439 treated fairly, not exploited for partisan gain. And then the 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.080 other is open primaries, and I think it's about time 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.560 to test the premise of whether taxpayer funded partisan primaries 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:50.760 are even legal, are constitutional. I think there needs to 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.480 be another look at this. But the fact is we 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.680 have to get rid of partisan primaries if we want 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.439 to be a functional democracy. If you don't want us 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.000 to be a functional democracy, than be my guest. Let's 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:08.439 let's have more partisan primaries. But the idea that the 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:13.760 taxpayers can fund an election to decide who the head 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.480 of a private organization is seems you know again, I 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:24.040 guess I would apply it this way. Imagine any other 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:35.560 private club having taxpayer funded dollars being used by some 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.840 sort of private organization to decide how their leadership works 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.439 with sort of little with no say by those folks 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.960 that are paying those taxes. So I think under any 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.440 other circumstance, Supreme Court would say it was unconstitutional. I'm 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.640 trying to figure out how it's not for political parties. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.800 And we figured out how depoliticized the Justice Department, right, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:07.080 it is clearly vulnerable to politicizing and weaponization. And I think, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.440 you know, if you look at what happened in the 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.959 nineteen you know, three of our most important constitutional amendments 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.760 in the twentieth century. We're giving women the right to vote, 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:23.399 direct election to senators, and the income tax, and in 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:25.719 some ways all three of them were out of this 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.800 sort of we were growing close to being very undemocratic, 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:36.480 more undemocratic at the time, and we had to come up, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.360 we had to actually add some constitutional amendments to improve 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:47.080 the democracy, to improve public's ability to hold the democracy 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:52.000 and big business accountable as well. In fact, the income 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.600 tax was a part of that push. And if you know, 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.440 we're not quite repeating what happened in the early part 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.440 of the twentieth century, but boy, it looks awfully familiar. 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:09.080 And the response in that era was some serious constitutional reform. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.280 And there's a lot more energy right now on the 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.120 left being focused solely on trying to oppose a guy 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:17.720 that may be in office only two and a half 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:22.720 more years that constitutionally it well, he'll only be in 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.760 office for two and a half more years. Look, it 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.920 doesn't mean you capitulate to Trump, right, you don't do it. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.959 These idiots in the corporate space have done, and in 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.280 academia and they've just folded right without actually testing that 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.520 the law was on their side. The law on these 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.200 media companies that have all capitulated and paid these ridiculous ransoms. 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:50.320 That's what they were. They were extortion, was ransom. The 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:52.280 law was on their side, and they chose not to 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:58.879 use the law. So that's capitulation. That's not mitigation. Mitigation 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.560 is finally suit forcing his actions into the court, getting 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:10.360 oversight hearings, but it's also looking ahead to make sure 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:12.840 how do we not get into this position again. It's 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.000 not just about rebuilding. Look, the Democratic Party has got 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.280 plenty of problems on their own, but the fact is 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.080 the country was vulnerable to this. Our institutions were vulnerable 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.760 to this politicizing, to this weaponization. We thought we were 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:30.919 operating on shame and norms, and we had many a 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.760 president abide by shame, who could be shamed and would 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.160 abide by norms. Donald Trump showed that if you were 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:43.399 shameless and you have, you have sort of a a 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.919 and you really are comfortable being that shameless and he 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.480 is again he's a guy that puts his hand in 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:55.880 the hot stove and does not feel pain. Then you've 0:23:55.880 --> 0:24:02.200 got to build new guardrails. We've done it before and 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:06.719 we clearly need to do it again. So that's the 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:09.320 that's the basis of my substack this week. I think 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:14.280 it fits pretty well here with the current situation with 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.480 the shutdown, and you know, there is there is a 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:22.480 point you know right now, the fact that so many 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:24.560 Democrats are desperately trying to make the case that this 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:28.760 shutdown strategy is working is just the moment that you 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:33.320 got to say, pull ripcord. You've done enough, You've made 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.760 your point, you've got it out there, and now it 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.440 is on them. They have made this commitment in some ways. 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:45.040 If they fail on this, it hands you an easy 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:49.040 to litigate issue in the twenty twenty six elections. All right, 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.560 speaking of twenty twenty six, they have a few sort 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:58.000 of a few campaign nuggets to deal with. The biggest one, 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:00.760 of course, is main We've been talking to about Maine 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.720 for quite some time, and I do think that Janet 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:06.920 Mills and Graham Platner now are going to turn into 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:14.320 a fascinating avatars for this larger fight of old, old 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:16.600 versus new in the Democratic Party. I think this will 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.359 be less about sort of left versus right within the 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:25.280 Democratic Party and more about old versus new symbolically the Janet. 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:29.800 You know the fact that Chuck Schumer, but it's give 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:31.680 me a second here to check his age. I want 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:33.800 to have this exactly right. I think Chuck Schumer is 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.840 seventy eight these days. But excuse me, seventy four didn't 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:40.119 mean to age him. Senator Schumer, my apologies for aging you. 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:44.560 But when seventy four year old Chuck Schumer says, isn't 0:25:44.600 --> 0:25:47.359 this great that they've recruited seventy seven year old Janet 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:52.520 Mills for us? Sense? I mean the fact that a 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.640 party that has just dealt with a ton of sort 0:25:55.640 --> 0:26:00.439 of age obstacles for their rising stars. Right, Nancy Loosi 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:05.400 staying in office for year after year after year after year, 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:08.400 believing she alone is the only one that could lead 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:11.840 the Democrats. She was a terrific leader for the House Democrats. 0:26:13.200 --> 0:26:18.479 I assume at some point House office building will feature 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:21.760 her name. The Pelosi House Office Building is I assume 0:26:21.840 --> 0:26:28.000 in the work somewhere. She is deserving of lots of flowers. 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:31.760 One of the few people to lose a speakership, you 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:34.280 know more, not not from inside her own party, but 0:26:34.320 --> 0:26:37.080 for losing control and then coming back and getting the 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:39.879 speaker's scavel back. That doesn't happen often. It's happened before, 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:45.360 but not often, and so she certainly is historic in 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:48.159 a number of ways, including being the first woman Speaker 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:53.280