Speaker 1: Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. No, I am not in my normal studio.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to you from Midtown Manhattan, because sometimes New
Speaker 1: York just comes a calling a little bit of work.
Speaker 1: Was participating in a few different conferences that are taking
Speaker 1: place in the lovely New York City area. In the
Speaker 1: world of media and advertising and digital. I will say this,
Speaker 1: it is fascinating to see in all of these in
Speaker 1: these different entities, how everybody markets, how AI is a
Speaker 1: part of their products. Right whether they have truly empowered
Speaker 1: the actual AI is an open question in my book
Speaker 1: on some of these entities that are pitching AI driven marketing,
Speaker 1: AI driven buying, AI driven messaging. It feels as if
Speaker 1: it's like the early days in the Internet when everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to show off they had a website. Hey, we've
Speaker 1: got a website www. Come to our website dot com. Right.
Speaker 1: There is that feeling here where just say there's a
Speaker 1: I even saw. I even saw a cleaning service now
Speaker 1: advertising themselves as a tech specialty cleaning service. They know
Speaker 1: how to clean in the highly you know, which is,
Speaker 1: by the way, obviously something that maybe some companies would
Speaker 1: care about. But essentially they're saying that you can, we
Speaker 1: will help clean your data centers and show respect for
Speaker 1: the equipment as we clean the data centers. We're experts
Speaker 1: on that. So everybody trying to get the peace of this,
Speaker 1: of this small, narrow, growing sector. We think it's a
Speaker 1: growing sector of the economy. I think there's some concern
Speaker 1: that it is a self eating it's sort of a
Speaker 1: self feeding and self eating economic ecosystem that's being developed.
Speaker 1: But there definitely seems to be just say, there's some
Speaker 1: AI in it, and let's market it. Hey, whatever your
Speaker 1: business is, claim it's AI driven. Welcome to my food truck,
Speaker 1: AI driven taco recipes. Right. You can sort of feel
Speaker 1: that shift as we transition in this economy. But my
Speaker 1: focus is a little bit. It is a It is
Speaker 1: a derivative of the shutdown showdown that we're in the
Speaker 1: midst of right now, and I think the Democrats have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to declare victory and get out
Speaker 1: of this because I do think every day that goes
Speaker 1: by now, look, i think they've gotten everything they can
Speaker 1: hope to get out of this shutdown. When you are
Speaker 1: on the lower ground, right and they have the lower
Speaker 1: ground on this one, because it's the Republicans that propose
Speaker 1: the clean continuing resolution for just an additional six weeks.
Speaker 1: So when you are choosing to do what the Democrats do,
Speaker 1: you're doing it because you have a point to make,
Speaker 1: and you're doing it because you're trying to bring some
Speaker 1: attention to a specific issue. Right, you had Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: shutting down the government to try to bring more attention
Speaker 1: to the implementation of Obamacare, for better or for worse
Speaker 1: on that front, and on this case, I think you
Speaker 1: have you had Donald Trump trying. You know, he essentially
Speaker 1: orchestrated the shutdown in nineteen and eighteen and nineteen in
Speaker 1: order to bring more attention to his inability to get
Speaker 1: his border wall funded at the time. So this one,
Speaker 1: the Democrats say, is about healthcare and is about specifically
Speaker 1: subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Speaker 1: So I know I'm going to sound like a broken
Speaker 1: record here. If that truly is the reason you're doing this,
Speaker 1: declare victory and open the government. And the thing is
Speaker 1: is that I do think you're going to see diminishing returns.
Speaker 1: It's pretty clear that you're you know, and I do
Speaker 1: think that this is. This gets to the larger point
Speaker 1: I'm talking about in my substack column this week, which
Speaker 1: is how much energy do you devote to opposing Donald
Speaker 1: Trump versus how much energy do you devote to opposing
Speaker 1: a future Donald Trump? What do I mean by that? Right?
Speaker 1: There's mitigation tactics to deal with what you're dealing with
Speaker 1: in the moment, and then there's longer term strategies to
Speaker 1: essentially try to make sure we don't have another demagogue
Speaker 1: hijack a political party in our process. Again, right, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's rise is exposed to extraordinary amounts of vulnerabilities, whether
Speaker 1: it is the ability to enrich yourself while in office,
Speaker 1: if it's the ability to weaponize political agencies. And this
Speaker 1: is where it comes to. If you look at what
Speaker 1: they're doing with the with the government shutdown, one of
Speaker 1: the consistent patterns, and we've all engaged in it in
Speaker 1: ways to try to create guardrails around Trump, has been
Speaker 1: this assumption that shame or political or sort of generic
Speaker 1: political pressure would have a real impact. Shame has had
Speaker 1: no impact. In fact, that the incredible superpower Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has in some ways is not feeling shame. The access
Speaker 1: Hollywood tape is sort of the best piece of evidence
Speaker 1: of that that you essentially never you know, January sixth
Speaker 1: is arguably the next pest piece of evidence. Maybe you
Speaker 1: can flip the two and what would normally shame almost
Speaker 1: any other politician in our history, including one Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: shamed him into resignation, does not work with him. Right
Speaker 1: If you're hoping that touching the hot stove, which this
Speaker 1: government shutdown is doing, that Trump touching the hot stove
Speaker 1: is going to burn his hand off. What if I
Speaker 1: told you he didn't have the information. You know, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in the feedback loop he is getting that tells
Speaker 1: him his hand is burning, He feels no pain, Well,
Speaker 1: he puts his hand on said hot stove. And so
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with somebody essentially that's willing to shoot
Speaker 1: the hostage, right in this case, just lay off more
Speaker 1: federal government workers in the agencies that Democrats seem to
Speaker 1: care more about than generically Republicans do. That that blowback
Speaker 1: would somehow bother him, right because swing voters don't like
Speaker 1: this in either way. But if your feedback loop is
Speaker 1: all about owning the Libs and pleasing your base, well
Speaker 1: then he has no Then the incentives you think would
Speaker 1: work under almost any other normal pre Trumpian circumstance doesn't
Speaker 1: work in this scenario. But if you're if you look
Speaker 1: at it through the prism. And this is something that
Speaker 1: I think Democrats have had a hard time with for
Speaker 1: a long time, which is learning how to declare victory
Speaker 1: even if it's a one point victory, right, learning how
Speaker 1: to embrace it. Donald Trump knows how to declare victory
Speaker 1: even when he loses, literally on January sixth, but on
Speaker 1: even on some issues he's somehow trying to declare victory
Speaker 1: in using taxpayer dollars to bail out Argentina. And by
Speaker 1: the way, he's made it a quid pro quo, essentially saying,
Speaker 1: if Argentina throws out Malay Hell, it will make an
Speaker 1: enemy of the United States, yet another tast of our
Speaker 1: demagoguery and another personalization of the presidency that erodes our
Speaker 1: ability to be the moral authority on democracy around the world.
Speaker 1: And we have lost all of our moral authority on
Speaker 1: that front, and then some going back there. But sometimes
Speaker 1: when you are frustrated by a situation, you end up
Speaker 1: you know, you can get so frustrated. I've had similar situations.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I've done this, but
Speaker 1: I remember punching a hole in drywall once, so mad
Speaker 1: I punched a wall. I knew it was drywall. Put
Speaker 1: a hole in it didn't make me feel any better.
Speaker 1: For a moment, you think, wow, I'm so strong, it's drywall. Please. Second,
Speaker 1: I suddenly had to patch up a hole in my wall.
Speaker 1: That was pain in the ass. Then I had to
Speaker 1: repaint right Then of course you realize, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: just paint the patch anyway. You see where I'm going.
Speaker 1: It costs yourself a whole hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: work sometimes when you just want to express frustration for
Speaker 1: frustration's sake. And I think we're entering that situation. And
Speaker 1: every day that goes by that this shutdown goes, the
Speaker 1: less it becomes about healthcare, and the more it becomes
Speaker 1: about how the shutdown is impacting everyday lives, how it's
Speaker 1: making Thanksgiving. You know, if we get to get close,
Speaker 1: we start getting close to Thanksgiving travel and we're keeping
Speaker 1: parents from their kids, grandparents from their grandkids. That's not
Speaker 1: going to help anybody. And again, the base of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party is going to be a lot more comfortable
Speaker 1: feeling their handget, you know, letting their hand burn up
Speaker 1: on the stove than any part of the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: on this front. And right now you've got healthcare into
Speaker 1: the forefront. You've got Republicans talking amongst themselves like this
Speaker 1: is a real problem, they've got to do something about it.
Speaker 1: You've got people like Marjorie Taylor Green making the ca
Speaker 1: for an expansion or an extension of these healthcare subsidies.
Speaker 1: So you're winning the argument. That's all you have the
Speaker 1: power to do in this situation. You're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to get them to do any more than that.
Speaker 1: But if you're winning the argument, then you're likely to
Speaker 1: get the legislation that you're hoping for. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to You've at least given yourself
Speaker 1: something to run on if they fail to do this.
Speaker 1: But if you continue to keep the government shut down
Speaker 1: thinking every day, boy, you know, some of the stupid
Speaker 1: rhetoric that is leaked out on the Democratic side not
Speaker 1: a good look for Chuck Schumer to basically imply, oh,
Speaker 1: every day this gets better. It doesn't get better for
Speaker 1: the rest of us. It may get better for your politics,
Speaker 1: but it's not getting better for anybody else for the
Speaker 1: government to be shut down every day. If you're participating
Speaker 1: in the travel industry by train or plane, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with the federal government, and you're dealing with federal workers
Speaker 1: who have no promise of a paycheck coming in on time.
Speaker 1: So be careful of what words you're using there on
Speaker 1: that front. And so at some point you got to
Speaker 1: ask yourself, what is what is dragging this on longer? Hey, look,
Speaker 1: I think we're congressional Republican leaders know this, and then
Speaker 1: till Donald Trump engages, Republicans an't going to budget anything.
Speaker 1: So what's your planning to get Donald Trump involved in
Speaker 1: these talks? That's my That would be my question to Democrats,
Speaker 1: what's your what's your If your goal is the healthcare subject,
Speaker 1: You've got to get Donald Trump's attention. He's busy blowing
Speaker 1: up votes with questionable legal authority. I would argue he
Speaker 1: has yet to explain his legal authority on this, and
Speaker 1: Congress has been crickets on this instead focused on the shutdown.
Speaker 1: In some ways understandable, but this is you know, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration doesn't stop if you've shut down the government.
Speaker 1: But apparently congressional oversight does that's a problem. He's doing
Speaker 1: his victory lap in the Middle East. We're already seeing
Speaker 1: the first signs of his big victory suddenly could come
Speaker 1: undone faster than folks realize now that Israel is already
Speaker 1: backing off some of their guarantees, claiming Hamas is backed
Speaker 1: off of some of their promises. If Trump wants this
Speaker 1: legacy achievement, the work is actually only just begun. The
Speaker 1: hard work. The easy part was getting the signing ceremony
Speaker 1: that he got. The hard part is getting Israel and
Speaker 1: Hamas to stick to the terms that you got them
Speaker 1: to agree to in the moment. That's going to take
Speaker 1: a lot of handholding. That's going to take a lot
Speaker 1: of intervention. That's going to take a ton of work,
Speaker 1: and some of it is going to take Trump himself intervening.
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Speaker 1: As you're looking at ways to know you're frustrated with
Speaker 1: this administration, if you're among those folks that I imagine
Speaker 1: there's quite a few folks listening to this podcast that
Speaker 1: are I would just ask yourself, what balance are you
Speaker 1: striking here? What's more important? Trying to oppose Trump in
Speaker 1: any way you can right now or trying to prevent
Speaker 1: another Trump from happening in the future because we do
Speaker 1: have some long term, bigger adjustments that have to be made.
Speaker 1: Take the idea of profiting off the presidency. If this
Speaker 1: essentially goes unchecked, you know it's probably going to go unpunished.
Speaker 1: But if it's going to go unchecked, then you're only
Speaker 1: going to encourage other people to run for office as
Speaker 1: a way to enrich themselves. That is how you go
Speaker 1: from a political party being turned into a kleptocracy, which
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is done to this current Republican party. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's openly open about it, right it is everybody. Everything
Speaker 1: is a transaction. You want to raise money with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's likeness, pay the man you want to beget in
Speaker 1: his good graces, give him a plane. You want to
Speaker 1: make sure you get what you want out of him,
Speaker 1: you better put his face on a coin. The point
Speaker 1: is is that he is already turned the party into
Speaker 1: a kleptocracy. If nothing gets changed, we probably need a
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment because you're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: force a future president or a vice president to force
Speaker 1: them to put their holdings in a blind trust to
Speaker 1: sort of enforce that mechanism. Separation of powers prevents Congress
Speaker 1: from passing any such law from pulling that off. So
Speaker 1: you're going to need a constitutional amendment. It is crystal
Speaker 1: clear we need some sort of constitutional men. The emolument's
Speaker 1: clause was not enough. It's in there. If Congress chose
Speaker 1: to use it as a way to provide some oversight,
Speaker 1: they could. But are we impeaching this man a third time?
Speaker 1: Do we think the impeachment process is really an effective process?
Speaker 1: Given how it's at this point been turned into just
Speaker 1: some sort of political gambit now that isn't taken very seriously,
Speaker 1: and that politicians may not fear the way that they
Speaker 1: once that Richard Nixon actually did fear it back in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. So it's pretty clear we need a
Speaker 1: constitutional endment. What kind of work is being done to
Speaker 1: do that. We do have a fusion of big tech
Speaker 1: money and government. It is so infused. We have not
Speaker 1: had a relationship between titans of industry and the government
Speaker 1: so intertwined since the nineteen teens and twenties, since the
Speaker 1: age of the robber barons, teapot Dome, all that, you know.
Speaker 1: The nineteen twenties began with us losing our mind by
Speaker 1: banning alcohol right after the nineteen eighteen pandemic, and it
Speaker 1: ends with the stock market crash that essentially unravels the
Speaker 1: world economy and plants the seeds for World War two.
Speaker 1: Other than that, it was a terrific decade. Well, we
Speaker 1: have a similar situation where we have industry and government
Speaker 1: extraordinarily intertwined that again needs This is bigger than just
Speaker 1: opposing Trump. This is a systemic problem that needs some
Speaker 1: sort of constitutional intervention. I think on campaign finance that's
Speaker 1: pretty crystal clear. And at some point the voters are
Speaker 1: going to demand a regulatory our regulatory party parties to
Speaker 1: actually put some sort of guardrails on big tech and
Speaker 1: how it exploits or try to prevent it from exploiting
Speaker 1: the population for either political gain or financial gain. So
Speaker 1: you look at the different you know, I look at
Speaker 1: my role in journalism, and I'm trying to focus on
Speaker 1: figuring out how can we reanimate, rebuild, and create a
Speaker 1: better business model for local media because I think that
Speaker 1: has become a foundational problem in our inment, our broken
Speaker 1: information ecosystem. I think there's so many facets here that
Speaker 1: need to be dealt with. Look we've got to We've
Speaker 1: got to we're rigging our electoral lines. This mad dash
Speaker 1: of the redistricting wars is actually we're taking a step
Speaker 1: back from what was actually some momentum and progress made
Speaker 1: to depoliticizing this process. Now we've essentially scrapped the entire
Speaker 1: thing and almost are overpartisanizing it. Of course, parts ship
Speaker 1: is how we got to such a polarized moment, which
Speaker 1: essentially provided the blueprint for a guy like Trump to exploit.
Speaker 1: So if you're hoping to prevent the next Trump, you've
Speaker 1: got to figure out how to depolarize for number one,
Speaker 1: nonpartisan redistricting. Oops, we are literally going backwards on this issue.
Speaker 1: But this is something again that you could make a
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment in some form or another, and I think
Speaker 1: you're going to have to no law, no active Congress,
Speaker 1: a political act of Congress is going to deal with
Speaker 1: this in a way that I think would would be
Speaker 1: treated fairly, not exploited for partisan gain. And then the
Speaker 1: other is open primaries, and I think it's about time
Speaker 1: to test the premise of whether taxpayer funded partisan primaries
Speaker 1: are even legal, are constitutional. I think there needs to
Speaker 1: be another look at this. But the fact is we
Speaker 1: have to get rid of partisan primaries if we want
Speaker 1: to be a functional democracy. If you don't want us
Speaker 1: to be a functional democracy, than be my guest. Let's
Speaker 1: let's have more partisan primaries. But the idea that the
Speaker 1: taxpayers can fund an election to decide who the head
Speaker 1: of a private organization is seems you know again, I
Speaker 1: guess I would apply it this way. Imagine any other
Speaker 1: private club having taxpayer funded dollars being used by some
Speaker 1: sort of private organization to decide how their leadership works
Speaker 1: with sort of little with no say by those folks
Speaker 1: that are paying those taxes. So I think under any
Speaker 1: other circumstance, Supreme Court would say it was unconstitutional. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how it's not for political parties.
Speaker 1: And we figured out how depoliticized the Justice Department, right,
Speaker 1: it is clearly vulnerable to politicizing and weaponization. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at what happened in the
Speaker 1: nineteen you know, three of our most important constitutional amendments
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. We're giving women the right to vote,
Speaker 1: direct election to senators, and the income tax, and in
Speaker 1: some ways all three of them were out of this
Speaker 1: sort of we were growing close to being very undemocratic,
Speaker 1: more undemocratic at the time, and we had to come up,
Speaker 1: we had to actually add some constitutional amendments to improve
Speaker 1: the democracy, to improve public's ability to hold the democracy
Speaker 1: and big business accountable as well. In fact, the income
Speaker 1: tax was a part of that push. And if you know,
Speaker 1: we're not quite repeating what happened in the early part
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, but boy, it looks awfully familiar.
Speaker 1: And the response in that era was some serious constitutional reform.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot more energy right now on the
Speaker 1: left being focused solely on trying to oppose a guy
Speaker 1: that may be in office only two and a half
Speaker 1: more years that constitutionally it well, he'll only be in
Speaker 1: office for two and a half more years. Look, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you capitulate to Trump, right, you don't do it.
Speaker 1: These idiots in the corporate space have done, and in
Speaker 1: academia and they've just folded right without actually testing that
Speaker 1: the law was on their side. The law on these
Speaker 1: media companies that have all capitulated and paid these ridiculous ransoms.
Speaker 1: That's what they were. They were extortion, was ransom. The
Speaker 1: law was on their side, and they chose not to
Speaker 1: use the law. So that's capitulation. That's not mitigation. Mitigation
Speaker 1: is finally suit forcing his actions into the court, getting
Speaker 1: oversight hearings, but it's also looking ahead to make sure
Speaker 1: how do we not get into this position again. It's
Speaker 1: not just about rebuilding. Look, the Democratic Party has got
Speaker 1: plenty of problems on their own, but the fact is
Speaker 1: the country was vulnerable to this. Our institutions were vulnerable
Speaker 1: to this politicizing, to this weaponization. We thought we were
Speaker 1: operating on shame and norms, and we had many a
Speaker 1: president abide by shame, who could be shamed and would
Speaker 1: abide by norms. Donald Trump showed that if you were
Speaker 1: shameless and you have, you have sort of a a
Speaker 1: and you really are comfortable being that shameless and he
Speaker 1: is again he's a guy that puts his hand in
Speaker 1: the hot stove and does not feel pain. Then you've
Speaker 1: got to build new guardrails. We've done it before and
Speaker 1: we clearly need to do it again. So that's the
Speaker 1: that's the basis of my substack this week. I think
Speaker 1: it fits pretty well here with the current situation with
Speaker 1: the shutdown, and you know, there is there is a
Speaker 1: point you know right now, the fact that so many
Speaker 1: Democrats are desperately trying to make the case that this
Speaker 1: shutdown strategy is working is just the moment that you
Speaker 1: got to say, pull ripcord. You've done enough, You've made
Speaker 1: your point, you've got it out there, and now it
Speaker 1: is on them. They have made this commitment in some ways.
Speaker 1: If they fail on this, it hands you an easy
Speaker 1: to litigate issue in the twenty twenty six elections. All right,
Speaker 1: speaking of twenty twenty six, they have a few sort
Speaker 1: of a few campaign nuggets to deal with. The biggest one,
Speaker 1: of course, is main We've been talking to about Maine
Speaker 1: for quite some time, and I do think that Janet
Speaker 1: Mills and Graham Platner now are going to turn into
Speaker 1: a fascinating avatars for this larger fight of old, old
Speaker 1: versus new in the Democratic Party. I think this will
Speaker 1: be less about sort of left versus right within the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and more about old versus new symbolically the Janet.
Speaker 1: You know the fact that Chuck Schumer, but it's give
Speaker 1: me a second here to check his age. I want
Speaker 1: to have this exactly right. I think Chuck Schumer is
Speaker 1: seventy eight these days. But excuse me, seventy four didn't
Speaker 1: mean to age him. Senator Schumer, my apologies for aging you.
Speaker 1: But when seventy four year old Chuck Schumer says, isn't
Speaker 1: this great that they've recruited seventy seven year old Janet
Speaker 1: Mills for us? Sense? I mean the fact that a
Speaker 1: party that has just dealt with a ton of sort
Speaker 1: of age obstacles for their rising stars. Right, Nancy Loosi
Speaker 1: staying in office for year after year after year after year,
Speaker 1: believing she alone is the only one that could lead
Speaker 1: the Democrats. She was a terrific leader for the House Democrats.
Speaker 1: I assume at some point House office building will feature
Speaker 1: her name. The Pelosi House Office Building is I assume
Speaker 1: in the work somewhere. She is deserving of lots of flowers.
Speaker 1: One of the few people to lose a speakership, you
Speaker 1: know more, not not from inside her own party, but
Speaker 1: for losing control and then coming back and getting the
Speaker 1: speaker's scavel back. That doesn't happen often. It's happened before,
Speaker 1: but not often, and so she certainly is historic in
Speaker 1: a number of ways, including being the first woman Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House. But this generation of leaders just just
Speaker 1: is sticks and sticks and sticks. And the fact that
Speaker 1: the Democrats, what the leadership of the Democratic Party thinks
Speaker 1: is their best candidate is someone who's five years older
Speaker 1: than the current incumbent, who's been in office since the
Speaker 1: end of the twentieth century, seems like they're giving up
Speaker 1: their best. The best case against Susan Collins is she's
Speaker 1: been in office too long, and she's been there too long.
Speaker 1: How is it that the best that the leadership of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party thinks the best person to knock off
Speaker 1: an incumbent like that is somebody who's one older and
Speaker 1: two a current statewide elected official. I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be an extraordinarily fascinating primary in some ways,
Speaker 1: the primary maybe maybe more have more fireworks in it
Speaker 1: than the eventual general election. Look, I think Susan Collins
Speaker 1: is in trouble regardless who she faces. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this, when you're in an anti incombent environment, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be holding holding a major office while
Speaker 1: you're trying to run as any you know, like, I
Speaker 1: think this is a huge problem for Shared Brown in Ohio.
Speaker 1: He is the challenger who has been in office longer
Speaker 1: than the guy he's running against right and in the
Speaker 1: type of election where in some ways you're trying you're
Speaker 1: as a party as a whole, you're trying to elect
Speaker 1: new to replace old. And yet two of their biggest
Speaker 1: recruits are folks in their seventies. And if Janet Mills wins,
Speaker 1: shall be the oldest freshman elected senator ever. It's just
Speaker 1: after the Democrats featured the oldest elected president ever. Of course,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's going to break that record by replacing with this,
Speaker 1: by replacing Joe Biden on that one. But it's fat
Speaker 1: and for what it's worth, with her first day in office,
Speaker 1: and you already have, uh, the first attack ad on
Speaker 1: Janet Mills from Graham Platin or the Oyster Farmer. I know,
Speaker 1: I've finally learned his first and last name. For those
Speaker 1: of you that would keep keeping track, here here's what
Speaker 1: the ad does. A woman in the spot itself, so
Speaker 1: it's not the candidate detecting Janet Mills by name, but
Speaker 1: in the spot, a woman in the spot says Janet
Speaker 1: Mills again, she was a good governor, but I think
Speaker 1: it's time for a change. So welcome to what I
Speaker 1: think is now a new Democratic Party. Headache This is
Speaker 1: not recruiting Roy Cooper in North Carolina, and frankly, it's
Speaker 1: not even recruiting Shared Brown in Ohio because you could
Speaker 1: argue that Shared Brown was I'm torn at his race.
Speaker 1: I think he is the best possible candidate they could
Speaker 1: get in this moment. Who could raise him, and he
Speaker 1: rose raised a big chunk of money. Is whether the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is going to support him. They didn't really
Speaker 1: help him out of his jam as much two years ago.
Speaker 1: He was very frustrated, particularly on the trans issue, how
Speaker 1: little backup he got from the National Party to help
Speaker 1: him out on that race. On this one, this is
Speaker 1: going to become a massive primary headache. There's going to
Speaker 1: be a massive amount of money spent in the primary
Speaker 1: that arguably might be better suited for the general election. But
Speaker 1: we'll see. Look one thing, and this was the subject
Speaker 1: of my substec last week. One thing we learned is
Speaker 1: that nobody if aking Jeffries or somebody who's threatened you
Speaker 1: as a local candidate in the name of aking Jeffries
Speaker 1: or Chuck Schumer by saying the National Party is not
Speaker 1: going to support you, is anybody going to take them seriously?
Speaker 1: I mean, Graham Plattner, Are you really not going to
Speaker 1: help his candidacy if he wins the primary and knocks
Speaker 1: off a sitting governor and a Democratic primary. He's not
Speaker 1: going to take those threats seriously because what other states
Speaker 1: do you have on the board, Chuck Schumer that you
Speaker 1: can target? And look, you know, I get it. Governors
Speaker 1: in general are incredible fundraisers, and certainly in a larger
Speaker 1: state like North Carolina, make a lot of sense in this.
Speaker 1: This is one of those unique cases where it may
Speaker 1: not make the sense you think it makes on this front.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of smart people
Speaker 1: in and around Schumer world. I've known JB. Pursh a
Speaker 1: long time, and I know the case he would make
Speaker 1: to me on this one about oh, you don't understand
Speaker 1: sitting governor's Chuck, I understand, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: I do think you guys have adopted yourself quite the headache,
Speaker 1: and it may be a headache you're gonna wish you
Speaker 1: didn't acquire some six to eight months eight months from now.
Speaker 1: All right with that, I will leave the campaign trail.
Speaker 1: There's actually a lot more I want to get on,
Speaker 1: but hey, I've gone a good thirty seven minutes. Here,
Speaker 1: let's sneak in a break and I'll see on the
Speaker 1: other side with my top five list and a little
Speaker 1: lass chuck. So it is Wednesday, which means I have
Speaker 1: a top five list, top top test, top five, top
Speaker 1: top test top thought. To have a little a little
Speaker 1: more fun, I do want to have, you know, monthly
Speaker 1: check ins on my on my top five Senate race flips,
Speaker 1: my top governor's race flips. But in this one, I
Speaker 1: decided to do a top five list on comebacks. On
Speaker 1: political comebacks of possible, there's sort of five political comebacks
Speaker 1: that I think are reasonably viable. These are people essentially
Speaker 1: running to reclaim an office that they once held. I
Speaker 1: believe in just about every one of these scenarios, these
Speaker 1: folks lost or were pushed out for a variety for
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons. So my top five list is
Speaker 1: top five. So Andrew Cuomo's doesn't make this list because
Speaker 1: he never served as mayor, so yes, it's a political comeback,
Speaker 1: but he's not trying to run for the same office.
Speaker 1: But there is somebody on my top five list that
Speaker 1: I will get to. He's in my fifth slot that
Speaker 1: is running for his old office in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: and we will find out in a mere three weeks,
Speaker 1: perhaps a month later due to runoffs the runoff rules
Speaker 1: in said city, where we'll see if that comeback. It's
Speaker 1: a unique comeback opportunity. But here it is my top
Speaker 1: five most likely political comebacks where this person can win
Speaker 1: back a seat they once held and they're essentially running
Speaker 1: for their old office. Number one on that list somebody
Speaker 1: with a very famous name that has a junior next
Speaker 1: to it. It is Jesse Jackson junior. He of course
Speaker 1: had his own problems that led him to have to
Speaker 1: serve time. He essentially was misusing campaign funds for personal
Speaker 1: gain and had to pay a price for that. He
Speaker 1: served his time, and he now wants to run for
Speaker 1: office again, and in fact, he has an open house
Speaker 1: seat to run for in his community. His brother, by
Speaker 1: the way, does serve in Congress right now, but he
Speaker 1: wants to. He's going to run in the second Congressional
Speaker 1: district in Illinois. It's the seat being vacated by congress
Speaker 1: by Robin Kelly, who is running in that very crowded
Speaker 1: US Senate primary to replace the retiring Dick Durbin. Look,
Speaker 1: I think Jackson Junior. The Jackson name, the Jackson political
Speaker 1: operation is very formidable in the Chicago area. The Jackson
Speaker 1: name means quite a bit in a positive in many
Speaker 1: communities in Chicago. How he asks for forgiveness will matter,
Speaker 1: and in his comeback bid he has spoken with so far,
Speaker 1: I think with a reasonable amount of humble pie that
Speaker 1: he's been eating with it. And so of all the
Speaker 1: comeback bids in fact that I'm going to highlight here,
Speaker 1: I think he's the only one that's going to end
Speaker 1: up back in the office that he wants out. I
Speaker 1: think he is the best shot of anybody obviously, why
Speaker 1: I put him number one, So Jesse Jackson Junior, I
Speaker 1: think number one on the list of most likely to
Speaker 1: get their old job back on that front, So number
Speaker 1: two on that list is going to be I'm putting
Speaker 1: Corey Bush. She is running for her old seatback against
Speaker 1: the person that defeated her in a primary in Wesley Bell.
Speaker 1: I think sort of the reason do I think she
Speaker 1: ends up losing? I do. I think it was a
Speaker 1: bit of her style that rubbed her constituents the wrong way.
Speaker 1: She was not seen as very good at basic constituency services.
Speaker 1: But the fact that this is so fresh, so recent.
Speaker 1: You are also going to have a Democratic electorate. I
Speaker 1: think that is looking to be more feisty and wants
Speaker 1: to be a bit more confrontational. That actually could help
Speaker 1: Corey Bush in that race. So I think you have
Speaker 1: to put her in the number two slot of most
Speaker 1: likely to get her to get her old job back.
Speaker 1: It's and it it could the stuff that worked against
Speaker 1: her in her last primary may not work against her
Speaker 1: as strongly as it did the first time. Number three
Speaker 1: on my list is a candidacy that it appears to
Speaker 1: be more likely than not. What's funny is that there
Speaker 1: were actually two people in this race that could have
Speaker 1: qualified in this spot, but I wouldn't have put both
Speaker 1: of them in my third set. And it's Johnny Sonunu.
Speaker 1: He's a former US senator. He is being recruited heavily
Speaker 1: to run again to try to get back into the
Speaker 1: US Senate. He lost to Jean Shaheen. This time he's
Speaker 1: running to try to you would be running to replace him. Now.
Speaker 1: He hasn't announced yet, so you could say he's a
Speaker 1: probable candidate. He of course would be in a primary
Speaker 1: with Scott Brown, who is also a former US senator
Speaker 1: who would be running for the second time to try
Speaker 1: to win this specific seat. He actually ran against jeen
Speaker 1: a cycle ago and did not win. Republicans are not
Speaker 1: very bullish on Brown's ability to win this open seat
Speaker 1: against the likely Democratic nomine Chris Pappus, but they're a
Speaker 1: lot more bullish on Sonunu. And part of it is
Speaker 1: Sonunu's brother is extraordinarily popular, the now former governor, Chris Snunu.
Speaker 1: He is somebody that seemed to navigate navigate the cranky
Speaker 1: New Hampshire Independent as well as anybody I've seen in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire in sometime, and he knew how to push
Speaker 1: back on Trump and he needed to, and he knew
Speaker 1: how to look. I think there's some people on the
Speaker 1: left that feel like he was too supportive at times
Speaker 1: of Trump. But if you're actually going to be successful independent,
Speaker 1: you got to know when to work with each side
Speaker 1: and when to oppose each side, and you got to
Speaker 1: sort of be sort of consistent with yourself and pulling
Speaker 1: that off. The New brand is very strong in that state,
Speaker 1: and I think uh Johnson, who arguably lost because he
Speaker 1: was portrayed as being much too conservative for the state
Speaker 1: some four years ago. I think in a weird way,
Speaker 1: Trump has redefined conservatism, uh and in a way that
Speaker 1: is more it is more of more of an online
Speaker 1: you know too. Conservative is now seen as being sort
Speaker 1: of more maga than it is more ideological. And so
Speaker 1: the ideological problems that were Johnny Sunus do Johnny because
Speaker 1: his father was a John was Johnson, who just for
Speaker 1: an initial is not as I think, is not as
Speaker 1: the same deal breaker as it was in his original
Speaker 1: race against Shaheen, which was a massive race. So I
Speaker 1: put him in the number three column. I mean think
Speaker 1: the only reason he's not higher on the list is
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a tough year for
Speaker 1: Republicans generically in New Hampshire's the type of state that
Speaker 1: sort of moves, you know, if the country's leaning left,
Speaker 1: new Hampshire's going to lean left. If the country's going
Speaker 1: to lean right, as we've seen, New Hampshire is still
Speaker 1: a bit more slightly more center left than the country
Speaker 1: or else Trump would have carried that state in twenty
Speaker 1: fourty didn't. But if you see if basically the generic
Speaker 1: battle it's tied nationally, then there's an opening for someone
Speaker 1: like Sanunu and his brand name may help in that one.
Speaker 1: So he's number three, number four, the less I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put Shared Brown. The man raised eight million dollars in
Speaker 1: six weeks. Incredibly formidable. He knows Ohio, he knows how
Speaker 1: to do it. He's won in mid the midterm, the
Speaker 1: midterm environment. You know, his one loss was in the
Speaker 1: was in that presidential environment where more Trump and Vance
Speaker 1: voters showed up. So I think this is he certainly
Speaker 1: has a shot at this. I'm I think I think
Speaker 1: he's got an easy path to forty seven, an extraordinarily
Speaker 1: hard path to fifty percent plus one if he somehow,
Speaker 1: if he's if there was a libertarian candidate taking two
Speaker 1: or three points and winning number was forty seven point
Speaker 1: five to forty eight point five, that's how Shared Brown
Speaker 1: wins this race. We'll see what the eventual general election
Speaker 1: ballot looks like. But that's but I put Shared Brown
Speaker 1: number Fourtheless, in my fifth spot, I'm having a little
Speaker 1: fun with this. I do not necessarily believe this is
Speaker 1: the fifth most likely person. In fact, there are a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other formers trying to get their trying
Speaker 1: to get their seats back here some interesting members of Congress,
Speaker 1: or in fact, the Byron Donalds. The seat that Byron
Speaker 1: Donalds is vacating in Florida has former New York Member
Speaker 1: of Congress Chris Collins running in the primary, former North
Speaker 1: Carolina Member of Congress Madison Cawthorne running in the primary,
Speaker 1: and neither one of them are likely to actually get
Speaker 1: close to winning that seat, which is why I didn't
Speaker 1: put him on the list. Jerry carl is thinking about
Speaker 1: running for his old seat in Alabama. We shall see there,
Speaker 1: So you do have a few other formers out there,
Speaker 1: but the former and also Tommy Thompson has said he's
Speaker 1: eighty five and he said he may want to run
Speaker 1: for a fifth term for governor. I think I mentioned
Speaker 1: it last week, but I don't think he ends up running,
Speaker 1: which is why I didn't have a little fun put
Speaker 1: on the list. But the person I'm putting on the
Speaker 1: list is Javier Suarez. My hometown of Miami, it's actually
Speaker 1: the city of Miami Mayor. I actually never lived in
Speaker 1: the city of Miami. I grew up in the unincorporated
Speaker 1: Miami Dade County. Was what you put when you mailed
Speaker 1: a letter to my house, It was Miami, Florida. That's
Speaker 1: what was used. I was in Kendall, so we didn't
Speaker 1: have to have a town or a city. There are
Speaker 1: I think we're up to thirty three municipalities within Miami
Speaker 1: Dade County. When I grew up, it was just Dade County.
Speaker 1: They added to Miami for branding reasons. Frankly understandable. Right,
Speaker 1: La County is La right, so why not? And Jamier
Speaker 1: Suarez is not only trying to get his old seatback.
Speaker 1: He was mayor of Miami from eighty five to ninety three,
Speaker 1: and briefly for about for a two month period in
Speaker 1: ninety seven, after the most corrupt mayor or election that
Speaker 1: the city of Miami's ever had. I'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a minute. But he's actually running to replace his son,
Speaker 1: Francis Suarez, whose term limited. Of course, you remember Francisuarez
Speaker 1: from his days as a presidential candidate briefly in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. I suspect he is. It wouldn't be shocked
Speaker 1: if he found his way into the Trump cabinet or
Speaker 1: found his way into an ambassador's ship. He toyed with
Speaker 1: the idea of running for governor, but he and DeSantis
Speaker 1: have not seen eye to eye, although being anti DeSantis
Speaker 1: hasn't been an issue in Trump world. Right. If you
Speaker 1: told me, though, that Suarez was the running mate for
Speaker 1: Byron Donalds would totally shock me on that front. But
Speaker 1: he's a pretty ambitious guy, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: Donalds would want to have would trust him as a
Speaker 1: running mate, though. I do think having South Miami ties
Speaker 1: might matter if the general election is indeed going to
Speaker 1: be competitive and closed, and I think that's an open question,
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent convinced it will be. Look, I
Speaker 1: think there are two Democrats that might be able to
Speaker 1: make this a more competitive various David Jolly is certainly
Speaker 1: a qualified candidate, the former Republican congressman now switching parties
Speaker 1: as a Democrat. And Jerry Demmings, the mayor of Orlando
Speaker 1: of Orange County. Excuse me the colonomy that encompasses Orlando
Speaker 1: is thinking about running In theory, either one of them
Speaker 1: could potentially be a strong candidate, but boy, they does
Speaker 1: Donald have a huge, huge head start. So but what's
Speaker 1: interesting about there's like over a dozen candidates running for
Speaker 1: Miami mayor and including a couple of people who corrupt
Speaker 1: pasts have collided and intertwined in the past. Joe Caroyo,
Speaker 1: who was UH and UH, Javier Suarez now Jaber Suarez,
Speaker 1: the father of Francisoirez. Francisuirez has not endorsed his father.
Speaker 1: He wishes him well, is what he said, but he
Speaker 1: is not endorsed. Jabier Suirez won the most corrupt mayor's race.
Speaker 1: When you when you've heard about voter fraud issues. Suarez
Speaker 1: a Republican and this is this was all republican and
Speaker 1: republican crime there in the city of Miami. He a
Speaker 1: race in nineteen ninety seven. Basically by he was never
Speaker 1: They could never say that the candidate himself knew this happened,
Speaker 1: but they did prove that somebody on his behalf stuffed
Speaker 1: the ballot box of absentee ballots. He basically won because
Speaker 1: of absentee ballots, and they were clearly fraudulent to the
Speaker 1: point of the election was overturned and he was not
Speaker 1: allowed to serve as mayor. Joe Kroyo, who himself has
Speaker 1: just lost a fifty plus million dollar civil suit, has
Speaker 1: sort of avoided any official criminal indictments, but has all
Speaker 1: sorts of ethical liabilities that have that have followed him
Speaker 1: for years. Was the other candidate in that race back
Speaker 1: in ninety seven. Well, Joe Kroyo is dealing is running again.
Speaker 1: There's just all It doesn't appear any of these guys
Speaker 1: are are going to win. But if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a good old fashioned crazy race in Miami, that scott
Speaker 1: a lot of corrupt tentacles sort of in it. That
Speaker 1: is a bit of the old Miami. And you know,
Speaker 1: it bums me out because I do think we're in general,
Speaker 1: the city and the County of Miami have been trying
Speaker 1: to move away from its reputation as being a bit
Speaker 1: corrupt in different parts, in different cities. And when you
Speaker 1: have thirty three municipalities, these small little, you know, enclaves
Speaker 1: within the county that frankly have been abused by ambitious
Speaker 1: officeholders who just want to do enrich themselves. But it's
Speaker 1: it's like my friends in Chicago and in Cook County
Speaker 1: who always were in New Orleans and in Louisiana. You're
Speaker 1: always sort of running away from your reputation from corruption,
Speaker 1: and every time you think you turn the corner, then
Speaker 1: somebody essentially does it again, and only sullies the entire
Speaker 1: reputation of the area. I imagine that there's sort of
Speaker 1: going to be some are as fatigued. That doesn't that
Speaker 1: also hurts Javier Suarez. But I do think the fact
Speaker 1: that he was involved in the worst in the most
Speaker 1: documented case of voter fraud that we ever had again
Speaker 1: absentee ballots on the Republican side of the aisle for
Speaker 1: those of you keeping keeping score, But he is fifth
Speaker 1: on my list of most likely to be able to
Speaker 1: win a comeback to an old office that they once held.
Speaker 1: All right, that little trip down memory lane. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that top five lists. So the top five
Speaker 1: most like lead political comebacks. Jesse Jackson, Junior, Corey Bush,
Speaker 1: Johnny Sinunu, Shared Brown and won Javier Suarez for the
Speaker 1: city of Miami. Theyre all right, let's do some ass
Speaker 1: chuck as choke, all right, let's do some ask check.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Frank and he says, hey, check.
Speaker 1: I always enjoy when you mentioned Seminole County or anything
Speaker 1: around Florida. Seminole County, that's where my mother lives. He goes,
Speaker 1: I grew up near Lake Jessup, but now live in
Speaker 1: Louden County. There you go Virginia. So this is my
Speaker 1: first commonwealth wide election. So I watched last week's Virginia
Speaker 1: Gooba of toial debate closely. What stood out was how
Speaker 1: the moderators held the candidates accountable, pressing them when they
Speaker 1: dodged questions. Is someone familiar with how presidential debates are run,
Speaker 1: do you think that same approach could work at the
Speaker 1: national level or are there too many rules and behind
Speaker 1: the scenes constraints that prevent it. Thanks Frank. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I've been involved in both presidential debates, and
Speaker 1: in fact, i've this is the first time I've not
Speaker 1: moderated a debate in Virginia governor. I think now, going
Speaker 1: some fifteen years, I've moderated quite a few of the
Speaker 1: Virginia governor debates and quite a few Virginia Senate debates.
Speaker 1: And these two candids had a hard time agreeing to
Speaker 1: many debates. This is becoming a larger problem in general.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you know, the fewer people involved,
Speaker 1: the better chance you have to do this. And if
Speaker 1: my understanding in this debate is that there were sort
Speaker 1: of fewer constraints, there wasn't You didn't have like multiple
Speaker 1: media partners where you got to have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people ask questions, right, That sort of takes up
Speaker 1: potential follow up time. That's number one. But in general,
Speaker 1: the candidates themselves don't fight like in some ways. I've
Speaker 1: always been able to get what I've wanted out of
Speaker 1: most of these debates and been able to make sure
Speaker 1: I've had the ability to do follow ups pretty closely.
Speaker 1: I did the Hogan also Brooks debate in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the debates in the DMV I've
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to do, and I've enjoyed them a lot.
Speaker 1: On the presidential level, the campaigns litigate everything beforehand, and
Speaker 1: so you will get you know, they will try to
Speaker 1: get in the specifics of that. The beauty of the
Speaker 1: Presidential Commission debates, although we may not have it, is
Speaker 1: that the Commission sort of was able to sort of
Speaker 1: hold firmer. Right now that you're going to pit media
Speaker 1: companies against each other in this, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a you know, sort of a war that ends up
Speaker 1: benefiting the candidates, and it takes takes out the ability
Speaker 1: of the moderator to be anything more than a mannequin
Speaker 1: which is which is my concern. But look, I watched
Speaker 1: bits and pizza of that debate as well, and I
Speaker 1: think the moderators did their best. It's never helpful when
Speaker 1: when one of the candidates just has no intention of
Speaker 1: abiding by the rules. Uh and it's it really sucks
Speaker 1: when that happens, because you, as the moderator, become the
Speaker 1: schoolmar and the time cop and the pleas and the this,
Speaker 1: and you want to be polite, you know, I always
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are watching, and you know,
Speaker 1: as a moderator, I've always viewed it more as an
Speaker 1: umpire rule, which is I never wanted my name mentioned
Speaker 1: until paragraph five or six, if you're if you're in
Speaker 1: paragraph one. I feel that way. Feel the way about
Speaker 1: debate moderating the way I feel about UH NBA refereeing,
Speaker 1: NFL refereeing, baseball umpiring. If I know the name of
Speaker 1: the referee or the umpire, then you are way too
Speaker 1: involved in the in the game, right. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not good that I know who that one of the
Speaker 1: most important NBA refs out there is a guy named
Speaker 1: Scott Foster. I don't you know? That's bad? Right? That
Speaker 1: means there's been a lot of analysis about how Scott
Speaker 1: Foster covered UH does games. So it is, it is,
Speaker 1: it is. I don't think that should be. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the candidate's debating, not the moderator involved in the debate. Right,
Speaker 1: In some ways they're trying to uh, they're trying to
Speaker 1: surface information and surface a conversation. Look, I think they
Speaker 1: but you know, ultimately a debate only works if the
Speaker 1: candidates accept the premise. And I think the difficulty that
Speaker 1: my friends had in that Virginia debates, he had one
Speaker 1: of the candidates that simply wanted to just not not allowed,
Speaker 1: was trying to rattle the other candidate. I understood her strategy.
Speaker 1: This is winsterm Earl series. I understood her strategy, and
Speaker 1: trying to rattle's what you do when you're behind. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't, I sort of I get the strategy. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to condemn it, but it made the
Speaker 1: moderator's job that much harder. All right. Next question comes
Speaker 1: from anonymous. Hey, there, I endow your take on the
Speaker 1: events these days. Thank you. I have a major issue
Speaker 1: with the Hatch Act violation by posting political and partisan
Speaker 1: notices on a federal site. How about even how about
Speaker 1: Christy no trying to post video messages at airports? Anyway,
Speaker 1: what are the legal repercussions when leaders sanctioned these postings?
Speaker 1: The OSC complaint site seems to have been taken off line.
Speaker 1: So what recourse do we have as citizens? Well, let
Speaker 1: me do a little check. What happened to Kelly Conway
Speaker 1: when she violated the Hatch Act. I believe she got
Speaker 1: I believe they that the OSC found that she repeatedly
Speaker 1: violated the Hatch Act, but there was no punishment. The
Speaker 1: Office of the Special Counsel recommended her removal from federal service.
Speaker 1: But then once she left government, it's not like you
Speaker 1: could discipline her, and they and the White House didn't
Speaker 1: accept the premise it this is one of these things
Speaker 1: The Hatch Act is norms. The Hatch Act really isn't
Speaker 1: very well enforced, right. It is one of those that
Speaker 1: the it's like and it's it's almost held over the
Speaker 1: heads of people more like impeachment. You hope that the
Speaker 1: shame of violating it, like, hey, you know, we actually
Speaker 1: have this law that says you can't play you can't
Speaker 1: practice politics while serving use your federal office for to
Speaker 1: advance your political agenda blatantly right, And look, it's a
Speaker 1: this is somewhat subjective, but we had sort of this
Speaker 1: third party, the Office of Special Council. Her violation, you know,
Speaker 1: was just simply talking about politics, and she was in
Speaker 1: an I have a tad more empathy for advisors in
Speaker 1: the West Wing on the Hatch Act than I do
Speaker 1: for cabinet secretaries. Like to me, there's no gray area
Speaker 1: at all. You can you can make some gray area
Speaker 1: arguments around West Wing advisors who are constantly sort of
Speaker 1: in their their political appointees, and their only political appointees.
Speaker 1: They're not a percent of confirmation, you kind of know
Speaker 1: their political appointee. They're there to defend the politics of
Speaker 1: the administration. Anyway, I do think it's a it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a bit more gray area than than than maybe
Speaker 1: some of her political opponents want to admit. But the
Speaker 1: point is is that there's there's there's only teeth if
Speaker 1: if the administration accepts the premise, so christin no blatant
Speaker 1: violation of the Hatch Act, you think this White House
Speaker 1: is going to accept the premise that she should be
Speaker 1: somehow garnished pay removed from office, you know whatever. No,
Speaker 1: this gets to my larger point. Right, these were hatch
Speaker 1: ACKed is a bit more. It was a bit more.
Speaker 1: It's almost like it's there so that we in the
Speaker 1: media can say, hey, so and so violated the Hatch Act.
Speaker 1: You voters decide whether you care. Right it should embarrass presidents,
Speaker 1: but this president has politicized everything. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: one of my one of my concerns about what's happening
Speaker 1: with governing in America is that that the idea that
Speaker 1: you only govern for your supporters and you only punish
Speaker 1: those on the on the other side of you politically.
Speaker 1: I mean this idea that they're not laying If you
Speaker 1: really want to just shrink government, you lay off across
Speaker 1: the board. Laying off across the board. They're targeting the
Speaker 1: quote democratic agencies and they're leaving the quote republican agencies alone.
Speaker 1: I didn't know we had democratic agentencies or republican agencies,
Speaker 1: but apparently Russell Voyd thinks we have democratic agencies. So
Speaker 1: this is this is a larger problem. The Hatch HAC
Speaker 1: doesn't work, so we probably need to come up with
Speaker 1: something else that has a bit more teeth and is
Speaker 1: a bit more a bit faster if we want to
Speaker 1: take this type of if we really want to take
Speaker 1: away this polarization. I mean, this gets back to good
Speaker 1: people with bad incentives will do bad things. The Hatch
Speaker 1: Act is something that was intended to service a potential
Speaker 1: piano over your head type of mindset as a as
Speaker 1: a political actor, that there would be embarrassment if you
Speaker 1: violated the Hatch Act. This administration is never embarrassed when
Speaker 1: they politicize things. So I think that's the definition of
Speaker 1: yet another norm if you will or law that. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's good intention, but it doesn't work. So we need
Speaker 1: to revisit it. Perhaps perhaps we need I don't want
Speaker 1: to put so many things, and you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think we need I've advocated for a handful of constitutional amendments.
Speaker 1: I don't the idea that we'd have to make this
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment seems ridiculous. We probably need real teeth there.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's huge fines you know that are that are
Speaker 1: you know, either resign or fine type of type of thing.
Speaker 1: But we need something better than what we have, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. All right. Next question comes from Mary W.
Speaker 1: Greetings again from Ruby Red, rural Ohio. All Right, so
Speaker 1: this is not a first time, calling this a second time.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to give you a big thank you
Speaker 1: for your interview with Paul Glasters. As a working class
Speaker 1: rural Ohio and I have two daughters, thirteen and eleven,
Speaker 1: my husband and I have been worried about affording college
Speaker 1: if our daughters choose to go. I had a huge
Speaker 1: loan that I could never make any headway on which
Speaker 1: I had forget, which I had forgiven by the Biden
Speaker 1: program for over forty thousand dollars. I left school nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine and my education was basically worthless in the
Speaker 1: real world. I don't want that to happen to my
Speaker 1: own kids. I really enjoyed your interview, and when he
Speaker 1: said Berea College was often tuition free and was in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: I googled it immediately. It's only four hours from our house,
Speaker 1: and we'll be on the top of the list if
Speaker 1: our daughters choose college over trade school. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for that informative interview and all your insights on
Speaker 1: the craziness in the world. Mary w I have to
Speaker 1: tell you I've gotten a lot of I've gotten some
Speaker 1: terrific feedback on Paul's interview. Paul, if your ears are
Speaker 1: birdy good, it's that that just only reinforces what I
Speaker 1: hope to make this podcast about, which is to give
Speaker 1: you more information, give you more expose more good ideas
Speaker 1: that are out there. I've said that one of the
Speaker 1: things I want to do is, look, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be on the news at the top of these things,
Speaker 1: but I want to. I want to. You know, I
Speaker 1: believe in more light than heat, and podcasts should provide
Speaker 1: more light than heat. What do I mean by that
Speaker 1: that you're trying to provide more information, new information, not
Speaker 1: necessarily make people feel good with your takedowns and your
Speaker 1: trolls and your memes and all that business. I know
Speaker 1: that's how you light up the Twitter sphere, and that's
Speaker 1: how you light up your YouTube or your TikTok and
Speaker 1: oh look, I've got all these likes. But are you
Speaker 1: actually making people's lives better? Are you giving them better
Speaker 1: tools to live a better life. Most of these political
Speaker 1: podcast are just griffs. Sadly, these are partisan hacks who
Speaker 1: some of them don't believe half of what they're preaching.
Speaker 1: This is left and right. I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: here and name names, They know who they are, and
Speaker 1: they're just exploiting an incentive structure that rewards that behavior. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this warms my heart. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I got a lot of direct feedback about this one too,
Speaker 1: because the cost of tuition is too damn high so
Speaker 1: many of the so called great schools, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: All right. Last question, this one comes from Duncan from Arizona.
Speaker 1: He says, it's given the AI and robotics are set
Speaker 1: to take a big chunk out of the job market.
Speaker 1: What is the likelihood of a universal basic income in
Speaker 1: the United States. I think you're going to see this
Speaker 1: experiment expand outside of what we've seen so far. I
Speaker 1: think it was Stockton, California, has tried this UBI approach.
Speaker 1: I think there's a few other municipalities of toyed with
Speaker 1: it universal basic income UBI. Andrew Yang's presidential campaign talked
Speaker 1: about it. You know what social security? One could argue,
Speaker 1: we're already doing it for a big chunk of the population, right.
Speaker 1: Disability and social security are a form of essentially income
Speaker 1: replacement because you can't work or you're too old to work,
Speaker 1: So we're sort of I would argue we kind of
Speaker 1: have a system in place. You know, we're going to
Speaker 1: go through quite a few changes. I know that the
Speaker 1: prediction of the three day, four day work week has
Speaker 1: been out there for a long time, but I think
Speaker 1: that's more real than ever now. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: people aren't going to have multiple The question is what
Speaker 1: is going to be What will full time work be
Speaker 1: defined by? Will full time work be defined by three
Speaker 1: days a week of working minimum? And what does that
Speaker 1: look like? Right, it's possible that that's what's classified as that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you won't see people, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of do what I think arguably firefighters. I grew up
Speaker 1: with a couple of people who were firefighters who also
Speaker 1: had side hustles. You know, they because it was like
Speaker 1: you were twenty four hours on, forty eight hours off,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours on, forty eight hours off. It's a
Speaker 1: you know, where they do a side hustle of some sort.
Speaker 1: Maybe it would be a small bit business, maybe it'd
Speaker 1: be deliveries. Maybe there's real estate. You know, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of Some teachers have you know, acquired second jobs
Speaker 1: in the summers, even if as they're paid full time,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's that. So it's not as if
Speaker 1: I don't think people are going to only work three
Speaker 1: days a week. But what is going to be the
Speaker 1: definition of full time work? I think is certainly going
Speaker 1: to be an open question going forward. And I think
Speaker 1: we're going to need you know it is I am.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit skeptical. I think the idea of income
Speaker 1: replacement when needed is going to continue to be something
Speaker 1: that is a benefit. But I I'm not sure the
Speaker 1: human species is going to be comfortable just being paid
Speaker 1: not to work, and I know some of the others
Speaker 1: I'd love to be paid not to work. Would you
Speaker 1: would you have a fulfilling life? Would you be literally
Speaker 1: pick up something else and find a way to make
Speaker 1: money because you were kind of bored in different ways?
Speaker 1: So I do think you're going to see in in
Speaker 1: you know, some form of this. I believe fear of
Speaker 1: AI job displacement is going to be a crucial issue
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty eight presidential election cycle. And if
Speaker 1: you aren't, if you're thinking about running for president, you
Speaker 1: better have a real plan. You know, are you going
Speaker 1: to be a champion of you BiH? Is that going
Speaker 1: to be part of your thing? Is there a job
Speaker 1: retraining is there that you know? What? What is? What?
Speaker 1: What is your hope if you're hoping to collect dollars
Speaker 1: from the AI companies? And what are you going to
Speaker 1: use with that money? If it is indeed, indeed, is
Speaker 1: it intended simply for income replacement or is it going
Speaker 1: to be for job retraining? But a very simple question
Speaker 1: open the door to what I think could be a
Speaker 1: very uh what to obviously a very long answer there.
Speaker 1: But I do think that this is that this will
Speaker 1: the fear of AI job displacement is going to be
Speaker 1: a really animating issue. And you know, by the way,
Speaker 1: in a sort of separate scenario, at this same trade
Speaker 1: conference that I was participating in here in the digital
Speaker 1: ad community, and this seed was planted by a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine recently, and I think he's right, which is,
Speaker 1: if we don't believe anything we see anymore on the internet, right,
Speaker 1: and with these AI visual tools, you know, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I look at stuff where I'm following on social media
Speaker 1: and someone will say, hey, that's obvious AI slop, And
Speaker 1: I use my old fifty three year old eyes, I squint.
Speaker 1: Is it obvious? What am I missing? Right? I think
Speaker 1: that it's going to be a lot easier to just
Speaker 1: assume everything is. There's going to be almost an assumption
Speaker 1: that everything you see on the Internet is AI enhanced
Speaker 1: or created. So what does that mean. It's going to
Speaker 1: put a premium on face to face, It's going to
Speaker 1: put a premium on live in person maybe to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent live streams, but even that could get aied, right.
Speaker 1: I know of another person who is trying to clone
Speaker 1: themselves to do more survey research, qualitative survey research. Obviously
Speaker 1: you you you know where an AI version of said
Speaker 1: person can start doing Q and as that that that
Speaker 1: is I see the upside of doing collecting data that way.
Speaker 1: Call me, call me skeptical that that actual human beings
Speaker 1: will feel comfortable doing that. So, but it is interesting,
Speaker 1: I am. I do think we're going to see some
Speaker 1: interesting unintended consequences in this race to the AI affication
Speaker 1: of the Internet, and politically, a have job displacement, those issues,
Speaker 1: that's definitely going to be in the forefront. But it's
Speaker 1: going to make human interaction a premium. I have, for instance,
Speaker 1: I think customer service. If you want a human being,
Speaker 1: you may have to pay extra for it, and I
Speaker 1: have a feeling people will pay extra for it, but
Speaker 1: human beings. Dealing with a human being will be seen
Speaker 1: as a much better experience than dealing with a computer
Speaker 1: you cannot sort of reason with, even if you think
Speaker 1: you're reasoning with, said robot. All right, on that uplifting
Speaker 1: dystopian notes, go rewatch Gataka right now, I tease with that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a twenty four hour break, but
Speaker 1: I will see you in twenty four hours until we
Speaker 1: upload again.