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Speaker 1: com slash chuck. Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So, boy, did we

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Speaker 1: have quite the tuesday. If you uh dipped into our

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Speaker 1: livestream coverage of the first midterm twenty twenty six election

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Speaker 1: night with my friend Chris Eliza, Jeffrey Scaling and this

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Speaker 1: and the team from Decision Desk HQ, you know that

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Speaker 1: we went all the way close to midnight and did

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Speaker 1: not yet have a call in the Texas Democrat primary.

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Speaker 1: And of course the only thing that we don't know

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Speaker 1: is whether Tallarico's number will end up below fifty percent,

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Speaker 1: therefore triggering a runoff on that side of the aisle.

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Speaker 1: We do know that Ken Paxson and John Cornyn are

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Speaker 1: going to be facing off in a day after Memorial

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Speaker 1: Day run off there in late May. It promises to

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Speaker 1: be an epic, probably among the nastiest runoff inter primary

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Speaker 1: runoffs we have probably witnessed in the twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is going to be nasty, this is

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Speaker 1: going to be negative. And the question, you know, the

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Speaker 1: million dollar question or the fifty first Senate seat question,

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Speaker 1: could very well be what does Donald Trump do? Does

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Speaker 1: he get involved? Does he try to bail John Cornyan? Out? Right?

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Speaker 1: We know John Thune, Senate Republicans, major donors, they all

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Speaker 1: believe the safest way to hold the Senate is to

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Speaker 1: help Cornyn get the nomination. That Cornyn has a better

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Speaker 1: shot at holding that Texas senden see than the very

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Speaker 1: scandal plague ethically and morally challenged Ken Paxton. The one

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Speaker 1: could argue it seems like no matter what you throw

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Speaker 1: at him, he just sort of keeps on going and

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Speaker 1: keeps on surviving. Kind of reminds you of a certain

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Speaker 1: leader of a certain party that Ken Paxton is a

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Speaker 1: member of. But here we are. The votes came in

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Speaker 1: a little slower on election day. We had a massive

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Speaker 1: early vote turnout. It does appear as if Democrats narrowly

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Speaker 1: outpolled overall Republicans, and talking to one Republican polster, it

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Speaker 1: is important to note, you know, where do these voters

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Speaker 1: come from? These are mostly Democratic voters who just don't

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Speaker 1: normally vote in primaries. They vote in general elections. Well,

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Speaker 1: this primary certainly got their interest, and it looks like

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Speaker 1: that the Democrats got just you know, maybe one hundred thousand,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more than the Republicans. It's a

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Speaker 1: big deal for Democrats. The question is did they just

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Speaker 1: max out all their voters or is this the sign

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Speaker 1: of something happening in the state of Texas. I think

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Speaker 1: the most interesting aspect of the James Tall Rico likely

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Speaker 1: victory in this primary. And I say likely. Look, I

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Speaker 1: don't think Jasmine Crockett. You know, she made it clear

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Speaker 1: when she decided she wasn't going to stay up and

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Speaker 1: wait for the results. She went to bed. She made

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Speaker 1: the decision to wait until this morning and more votes

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Speaker 1: come in to see what the status is. I don't

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Speaker 1: think she's going to concede until it is she is

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent certain there is no shot at making

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Speaker 1: a runoff. Look, if this narrow lead for tallar Rico holds,

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Speaker 1: and there's every indication it's probably gonna hold unless she

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Speaker 1: just the Dallas County numbers come in some in some

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Speaker 1: big ways for Crockett. I think a few things are

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Speaker 1: fair to look at when it comes to explaining how

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Speaker 1: did tall Rico win number one? You can't you can't

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Speaker 1: talk about tal Rico's victory without talking about Stephen Colbert

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Speaker 1: in that moment. The moment was a pivotal moment. It

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Speaker 1: was the beginning of early voting, and it was at

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Speaker 1: a time when tall Rico was struggling and Crockett was

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Speaker 1: on the rise. She was pulling strongly. Tall Rico was

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Speaker 1: still having to explain what he apparently said about Colin Allred.

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Speaker 1: That moment seemed to galvanize Colin Allred to support Jasmine Crockett.

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Speaker 1: I think ideologically was not necessarily ready to go there.

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Speaker 1: I think he was ready to be, but he you know,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, he felt kind of pushed out of

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Speaker 1: the race, I think by Crockett, not by tall Rico,

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Speaker 1: but he sort of rallied around her, she rallied around him.

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Speaker 1: He's now, of course running for a congressional seat. That's

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Speaker 1: that's also going to end up in around. This is

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Speaker 1: going to be an extraordinarily busy runoff ballot in Texas.

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Speaker 1: It's not just one or two races that are in

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Speaker 1: a runoff. We've got races up and down the ballot

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Speaker 1: that are in a runoff. We're going to have multiple

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Speaker 1: congressional primaries end up in runoff, including the Member versus

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Speaker 1: Member that features Al Green. He trails, but he's gone.

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Speaker 1: He's going to at least have a shot and a

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Speaker 1: run off. Looks like Colin all Right and Julie Johnson.

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Speaker 1: He's running basically for much of his old seat in

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Speaker 1: the Dallas suburbs. There that's likely to go to a runoff.

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Speaker 1: We've got the age races on both sides are going

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Speaker 1: to end up in runoffs, including Chip Roy who finished

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Speaker 1: a fairly distant second, but he's going to be strong

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Speaker 1: enough to end up in a runoff on that front.

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Speaker 1: So it has been a very to say it's been

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Speaker 1: a competitive and lively primary season in Texas as an

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Speaker 1: understatement and the fact that there's so many of these

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Speaker 1: races ended up in a second round that's just the happiest.

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Speaker 1: Campers are those that make money off of political advertising,

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Speaker 1: whether you're the digital side of things or the legacy

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Speaker 1: television side of things. This extended season in one of

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Speaker 1: the largest states that we have with so many media

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Speaker 1: markets is show we say Manna from heaven for some

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Speaker 1: of those local businesses. But to break down tall Rico,

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Speaker 1: the big difference for him is and the big question

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Speaker 1: mark was what we were Latino voters going to do

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Speaker 1: in the Democratic primary? Right, we saw in these voters,

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Speaker 1: Tall Rico was strong with independence that lean left and

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Speaker 1: progressive whites. Jasmine Crockett was strongest with older voters and

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Speaker 1: African American voters and those that are self described Democrats. Now, Texas,

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Speaker 1: you could pick a ballot, right, you could decide in

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Speaker 1: each side. It's sort of one of those types of primaries.

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Speaker 1: So it's possible Tall Rico, right, had, you know, was

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Speaker 1: perhaps trying to appeal to some of the same voters

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Speaker 1: that John Cornet was trying to appeal to. It's just

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Speaker 1: worth noting there. But let's stick to this Democratic primary

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Speaker 1: here a minute. When you looked at all the polling,

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Speaker 1: and it was a bit erradic, but one thing that

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Speaker 1: was pretty consistent is that Latino voters it was a

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Speaker 1: fairly high undecided among Latino voters. They were making the decision,

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Speaker 1: you know, where they're going to go with a candidate

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Speaker 1: that was projecting herself more as a fighter and Jasmine

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Speaker 1: Crockett or somebody who was grounded himself a bit more

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Speaker 1: in religion, James Tallerrico, And I think the assumption was

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Speaker 1: that tall Rico might have had the inside track that

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Speaker 1: his the fact that he wears his faith on his

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Speaker 1: sleeve is something that I think appeals to some Latinos.

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Speaker 1: And when you look at the dominant performance he had

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Speaker 1: in the Rio Grande Valley, that I think shows you

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Speaker 1: that that really was the difference. If you're gonna pick

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Speaker 1: some knits at Jasmine Crockett's campaign, she didn't run a

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Speaker 1: very conventional campaign. She seemed to run as if she

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Speaker 1: wasn't a well funded candidacy. But she did, and she

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Speaker 1: ran it slightly more unconventional, a bit more social media

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Speaker 1: heavy sort of one could argue, sort of trying to

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Speaker 1: see if she could win it the new way instead

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Speaker 1: of having to do it some of the old way.

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Speaker 1: Tall Rico had more money and so they could do

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Speaker 1: some of the more old school ways of blocking and

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Speaker 1: tackling and getting out the vote and running a more

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Speaker 1: statewide campaign in a more traditional sense probably was worth

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Speaker 1: the extra two points that tall Rico needed to avoid

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Speaker 1: a runoff. And so again I'm gonna be a little

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Speaker 1: tentative here because I think that this is you know,

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Speaker 1: I do think that Jasmine Crockett's going to not concede

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Speaker 1: quickly here, that she's going to exhaust every effort make

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Speaker 1: sure this question mark about which bat make sure all

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Speaker 1: the ballots in Dallas County get counted there with some right. First,

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Speaker 1: a judge extended vote times. Then the state Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: came in and said, well, no, some of those votes

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Speaker 1: shouldn't count if people didn't wait in line at seven.

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Speaker 1: So there was a bit of a dispute over that.

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Speaker 1: So she's going to exhaust every effort here. So I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if this takes a day or two

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Speaker 1: for the Democrats to unify. And I think that's going

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Speaker 1: to be a bit of a challenge for tall Rico,

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Speaker 1: is unifying the party. I assume they get there. I

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Speaker 1: think the fact that what you you know, these days,

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Speaker 1: beating Donald Trump and beating Ken Paxton and getting power

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Speaker 1: usually can pay over these divisions now the question is

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Speaker 1: our Democrats, you know, is that going to be easy

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Speaker 1: to paper over those divisions? We'll see. Like I said,

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Speaker 1: I think, I think Crockett feels a bit aggrieved and

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Speaker 1: has shown her grievance's face a little bit on the

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Speaker 1: campaign trail ever since the Colbert moment, right, which always

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Speaker 1: felt a bit manufactured, a bit over over sold for

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Speaker 1: what it ended up being, for what it was, what

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Speaker 1: it was sold as. Right. The FCC never stepped in,

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Speaker 1: there was nothing about it yet. It was basically CBS's

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Speaker 1: lawyers versus Colbert's producers. And it's a he said. He

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Speaker 1: said that, I still don't feel like any of us

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Speaker 1: got the full story. But the fact of the matter

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Speaker 1: is the moment worked. It really did change the narrative

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Speaker 1: a bit for tall Rico, and it gave him some space,

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Speaker 1: and it gave him some extra money, and it gave

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Speaker 1: gave him some extra juice, and it did put Crockett

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Speaker 1: on the defensive. And when you look at a race

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Speaker 1: this close, it's hard not to look at that moment

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Speaker 1: as having been perhaps more decisive. I wasn't one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent sure of how decisive it was, but perhaps more

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Speaker 1: decisive now There's another question that I don't know if

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Speaker 1: we've got the answer for tonight. Does this mean that

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Speaker 1: given the choice of a candidate who says he's about

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Speaker 1: love in tall Rico versus Crockett, who says, Hey, I'm

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Speaker 1: meeting the moment, and the moment right now is essentially

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Speaker 1: fight and she thinks she used the phrase raw. You

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Speaker 1: know what do voters want? Right? Well? I think it's

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Speaker 1: clear Democratic primary voters about half of them wanted a

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Speaker 1: fighter and about half of them wanted a unite her

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Speaker 1: And I think in many ways this is the divide

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Speaker 1: in the party. What is the best way to get

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Speaker 1: power back? What's the best way to win swing voters.

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Speaker 1: Is it to show yourself as strong to overcome the

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Speaker 1: perception that the Democratic Party has become soft and weak?

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Speaker 1: Or is it better off to be post Trump and

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Speaker 1: to be the polar opposite of Trump? Or do you

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Speaker 1: sort of accept the Trump tactics and get as pugilistic

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Speaker 1: on the left as they've been getting on the right.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure this primary resolves that answer. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you basically have a forty seven result, right, maybe

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Speaker 1: fifty two forty eight At the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: something like that. I don't think you could say that

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Speaker 1: that fully resolves things, but I think when people look

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Speaker 1: at Tallarico's messaging and how he has been pitching himself,

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Speaker 1: I do think you will see more more strategists make

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Speaker 1: the case that hey make the case that you can

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Speaker 1: win and it Democratic primary voters look, this idea of

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Speaker 1: electability is incredibly subjective. But if you can convince a

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Speaker 1: majority of a primary that you are the more electable candidate,

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Speaker 1: you can Trump ideology, you can Trump style, if you

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Speaker 1: are seen as the more likely to win. Clearly, that

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Speaker 1: is not how Republican primary voters behave because if Republican

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Speaker 1: primary voters behave that way, Cornyn wouldn't be in a runoff.

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Speaker 1: Cornyan would have won without a runoff. And so that's

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Speaker 1: where I think the open question and really what the

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Speaker 1: next two months are going to be is Cornyn's going

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Speaker 1: to be begging Trump for the endorsement when all the

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Speaker 1: votes are counted. I do think if Cornyn can be

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Speaker 1: one vote ahead of Paxton in the first round of

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Speaker 1: voting rather than even one vote behind, that those superficial

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Speaker 1: things matter to Trump, right he wents tobacco quote winner,

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Speaker 1: not a loser. But Paxton in many ways is Trump,

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Speaker 1: and Paxton has been a warrior for Trump. Right. He

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Speaker 1: filed the original suit that you know, the sort of

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Speaker 1: that basically stalled and created the illusion that the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty election was was somehow disputed. But he'd been going,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was. He was an early warrior for Trump.

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Speaker 1: Trump is not known to be loyal. We know this, right,

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Speaker 1: and you can get to Trump. Do you want to

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Speaker 1: be seen as a loser? Do you want to back

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Speaker 1: a loser? Do you want to be you want this

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Speaker 1: to be on you that one of your acolytes lost

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Speaker 1: control of the Senate and lost the single most important

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Speaker 1: think about, especially if you've got a growing family. I

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Speaker 1: do think that Tallarico being the Democratic nominee instead of

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Speaker 1: Cricket probably gives, uh, probably gives cornn and John Thune,

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Speaker 1: who are going to be making this case to Trump,

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Speaker 1: a stronger set of variables to say, hey, this tall

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Speaker 1: Rico can win, He can beat Paxton. Tall Rico might

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Speaker 1: be able to beat Corny for all we know when

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden done on this. So that's you know,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the other part of the fallout from this primary.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be, you know, can John Cornyn convinced Trump?

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Speaker 1: And if Trump endorses, he's got to do so emphatically.

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Speaker 1: And that's the it's hard to imagine he would. He

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Speaker 1: might endorse corn but might not do it emphatically. Say

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Speaker 1: I like Ken Paxton too, that Republicans will be great

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Speaker 1: no matter who wins, but all my people tell me

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Speaker 1: that that Cornan has a better shot at winning, and

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Speaker 1: we gotta hold the Senate. Right, I'm trying to think

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Speaker 1: of the different ways he could communicate this. I could

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Speaker 1: picture him communicating it that way. I like him both,

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Speaker 1: and I plan to you know, and whoever loses is

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Speaker 1: going to work for me in the administration.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: He could do something like that. So it's going to

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Speaker 1: be interesting to watch the dance that Cornyn Senate Republicans

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Speaker 1: because here's the awkward part for Senate Republicans. If Paxton

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Speaker 1: wins the runoff, and look, the history says when an

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Speaker 1: incumbent is dragged into a runoff against somebody who's either

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Speaker 1: you know, more liberal or more cons or whatever whatever.

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Speaker 1: If the Democratic primary, the more liberal candidate wins runoffs,

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Speaker 1: in a Republican primary, the more conservative candidate usually wins

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Speaker 1: the runoffs. The only time this has not happened that

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Speaker 1: way was a Mississippi Senate race in twenty fourteen. In

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Speaker 1: that race that Cochrane looked like a sure loser after

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Speaker 1: the you know, in the first round of voting to

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Speaker 1: Chris McDaniel, a Conservative challenger, and then Cochrane and National

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Speaker 1: Senate Republicans ran a campaign to convince a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of voters who didn't vote in either primary to show

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Speaker 1: up in a runoff and more. I think the Cochrane

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Speaker 1: McDaniel race actually had more voters in the runoff than

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Speaker 1: the original first round Republican primary. Well, what did that mean?

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Speaker 1: Cochrane somehow changed the electorate and he got in this

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Speaker 1: case a lot of African Americans who hadn't voted in

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Speaker 1: either primary because the Democratic primary wasn't really highly contested.

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Speaker 1: They showed up and he voted for Cochrane. The point

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Speaker 1: is it's an outlier. It's an exception. Every other every

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Speaker 1: other time we've had primaries go like this with an

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Speaker 1: incumbent dragged into a runoff by a challenger closer to

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Speaker 1: the political base, the result is just about always been

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Speaker 1: the same. It is hard to imagine that there is

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Speaker 1: a that they're going to be able to somehow do

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Speaker 1: this differently. Right, he needs a higher turnout then you

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Speaker 1: would normally get in a runoff. This is taking place

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Speaker 1: the Tuesday after Memorial Day, so there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of things going against corn In here. But given all,

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Speaker 1: given the hand he was dealt in this primary, everything

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Speaker 1: basically happened about the best possible way it could happen

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Speaker 1: for him to possibly find a way to be Paxton right,

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Speaker 1: he needed Tallarico to be the nominee without a runoff,

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Speaker 1: so the threat of tallar Ico being seen as the

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Speaker 1: more formidable challenger in a general election, he needed to

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Speaker 1: himself do better than what the polls had shown he

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Speaker 1: would do. Cornan has done much better than what the

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Speaker 1: polling had shown he was going to do, so we'll see.

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Speaker 1: But the bottom line is, with Tallarico's the dem nominee

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Speaker 1: and the like possibility right now, I'd say it's probably

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Speaker 1: a sixty to seventy percent chance. Now that Ken Paxton's

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Speaker 1: Republican nominee. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Texas

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Speaker 1: Senate is in play and Paxton may still win. But

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Speaker 1: the amount of money Republicans are going to have to

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Speaker 1: spend to bail him out. One two. The rhetorical gymnastics

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Speaker 1: that the Senate Republicans are going to have to take

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Speaker 1: I mean, they have all and and it's clear that

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Speaker 1: Cornyan has promised a scorched earth runoff campaign. I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine Republicans are not going to walk away from the

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Speaker 1: center race, right, they can't afford to walk away from it.

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Speaker 1: This isn't you know. As much as they don't like

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Speaker 1: Ken Paxton, I don't think they would treat him like

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Speaker 1: David Duke in this situation. It's uh, it's going to

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Speaker 1: be a tough road, very tough road. And so but

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Speaker 1: they're in for a dime, in for a dollar now,

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Speaker 1: and so there's going to be more money dropped on

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Speaker 1: Ken Paxton. Now here's a few interesting strategic decisions Democrats

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Speaker 1: have to make. Do the Senate Democrats play in the

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Speaker 1: Republican runoff? We were joking on the live stream. Does

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Speaker 1: the you know, we've seen Democrats have done this and

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Speaker 1: especially during the Trump era, have done this a few

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Speaker 1: times to try to help a candidate win a primary

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Speaker 1: or a runoff that they think is more beatable in

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Speaker 1: a general election. So does the Senate? Does Chuck Schumer

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Speaker 1: Senate pack run an ad that says call Senator Cornyn

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Speaker 1: and thank him for his vote on gun control, or

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Speaker 1: do they run ads talking about how Ken Paxton is

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Speaker 1: supports Donald Trump too much to support him in the Senate,

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Speaker 1: right support an independent like John Cornyn in the Senate.

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Speaker 1: There's all sorts of games, game theory you can do there. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: there's risk to that, but one would one could argue

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Speaker 1: it is it is a it is a cheaper way

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Speaker 1: to play in Texas because look, if it's Cornyn tall Rico,

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Speaker 1: tall Rico is probably going to be on his own.

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Speaker 1: I don't think the National Party comes in and helps them.

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Speaker 1: They do some, but I don't think they go all

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Speaker 1: in it's Paxton. I think they're going to be tempted

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Speaker 1: to go all in. Right, And it's and if you

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Speaker 1: look at the Senate map, it's really not that expensive

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Speaker 1: of a Senate map for Democrats. Right, you have North

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Speaker 1: Carolina where your candidate is ahead, your candidate's out raising everybody,

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Speaker 1: You're in good shape. I mean, I think arguably roy

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Speaker 1: if there hadn't if Democrats had won more than one

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Speaker 1: Senate race this century in the state of North Carolina,

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Speaker 1: I think most handicappers would already have labeled this race

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Speaker 1: as lean Democrat instead of toss up, but because Democrats

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Speaker 1: have only won one Senate race this this century in

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Speaker 1: North Carolina. It was in two thousand and eight, So

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Speaker 1: you know, John Edwards got elected in ninety eight in

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Speaker 1: case you're wondering about that about him. So I think

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Speaker 1: it's the only reason why it's seen as a toss up.

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Speaker 1: But it's a race that they should you know, they're

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Speaker 1: going to have, you know, it's a presidential swing state.

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Speaker 1: You don't ever screw around. But they're in pretty good

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Speaker 1: shape there. Main's going to be super expensive and they're

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Speaker 1: probably going to have to spend even more money because

429
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: it's going to be a messy primary and the eventual

430
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee is probably going to be starved for resources

431
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: come the end of that primary campaign. So they're going

432
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: to have to come in and they're going to go

433
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: in big there. So then the question is you've got Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas,

434
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Nebraska if you expect the National Party

435
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: to go in for an independent like Dan Osborne. Right,

436
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: maybe at Kansas if that other independent candidate takes fire.

437
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: But ultimately you're looking at those aren't super expensive states, right,

438
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: Iowa's not super expensive Alaska's not super expensive. Ohio and

439
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 1: Texas are. And Ohio is about half the cost of Texas.

440
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: But you know, well, yes, Georgia and Michigan are expensive defenses.

441
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: I think Minnesota is an underrated expense for the Democrats

442
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: there in that Senate race in New Hampshire. It's the

443
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: Boston market. So it's not a cheap state either to defend.

444
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: So you know, now they're not defending a huge place

445
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: like Illinois, and they're not going to be defending in

446
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: a California. They're not going to be defending in a Pennsylvania,

447
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: and they're not going to be defending in a Florida

448
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: or something like that. So you could argue that compared

449
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: to previous cycles, the Democrats should have the budget to

450
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: also target Texas if they so choose, But it is

451
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: super expensive and they've never really done it before. Right,

452
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: They've always kind of been half in, half out. But

453
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: the Republicans they are, they're going to be in no

454
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 1: matter what they have to be, right, Democrats can get

455
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 1: to a setup majority without Texas in their minds, right,

456
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: North Carolin on A, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska. They just

457
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: win four of those five. We haven't even gotten to Texas.

458
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 1: That assumes they hold Michigan, then they hold Georgia, and

459
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: they hold Minnesota, and they hold New Hampshire. Of those four,

460
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: I think Michigan's the most precarious. I think I've said

461
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: that to you before. It's why it's the one Republican

462
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: seat in my top five most likely to flip. But

463
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: Texas is a nice to have for Democrats Republicans. It's

464
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: a half to half right, and and it's bigger than

465
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: just losing a Senate seat if they somehow right, if

466
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: the Democrats crack open Texas. I just went you're going

467
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: to later in this Later in this podcast, you're going

468
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: to hear my top five all time races in Texas,

469
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: because I think there's a chance this Senate race, if

470
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: it's particularly if it's Paxton v. Tall Rico, may end

471
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: up in the all time in an all time list

472
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: when all is said and done. But one of the

473
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: five races in all time list is the first time

474
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: a Republican wins statewide in Texas, and happened in nineteen

475
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: sixty one with John Tower, and it was literally a

476
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: foot in the door. And once they won a special

477
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: election in a state wide contest and sort of broke

478
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: the streak. They hadn't won a statewide race in reconstruction.

479
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: Then money came in and funded the state party. Then

480
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: the state party was able to fund county parties and

481
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: so on and so on, and you know, John Tower,

482
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: you know, it took them another seventeen years before they

483
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: were able to win a governor's race, but they won

484
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: that in seventy eight, and then essentially, by nineteen ninety

485
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: it is a it is an evenly divided state, and

486
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: then by ninety four it becomes a solid Republican state.

487
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: And nineteen ninety four is the last time a Democrat

488
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,239
Speaker 1: won any state wide race on any level in the

489
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: state of Texas. So the point is is denying Texas

490
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: any Democrats any win is a big deal for Republicans.

491
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: You let, It's sort of like you let, you let,

492
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: you open the door, and all of a sudden money

493
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: starts pouring in. They win one, then there's belief they

494
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,479
Speaker 1: can win two, they can win three, et cetera. So

495
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: pop your popcorn. It's going to be fascinating this Republican primary.

496
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: John Cornyn has promised that, you know, he hasn't even

497
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: that that Ken Paxton hasn't seen what's about to become,

498
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: and I think he've referred to a Judgment Day. It

499
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: sounded like a trailer for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Judgment

500
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: Day is coming to Ken Paxton. In a world where

501
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: Ken Paxton thinks he's going to be a United States

502
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: Center incomes John Cornyn. It's going to be something else.

503
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: I'm happy that I'm going to be in the state

504
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: of Texas a couple of times between now and the runoff,

505
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: and I look forward to uh dipping my toe in

506
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: that race. Some other things down the ballot that are

507
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: worth worth noting. My favorite result of the night is

508
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: the two vote margin for the state Senate president in

509
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: I think he trails by two votes in the state

510
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: Senate president in North Carolina. It's to a political rival

511
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: that goes back thirty years. Kind of love an old

512
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: fashioned grudge match, right, But this is a big deal

513
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: for Republican Party operations in the entire state. In the

514
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: legislature of the Republican legislature is extraordinarily influential in North Carolina.

515
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: And here's the state Senate president who is going to

516
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,239
Speaker 1: need a recount at best to survive a primary, and

517
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: who knows, but I think you're going to see a

518
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: lot of litigation in that state, and that's going to

519
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: be a dominant story among political types in North Carolina

520
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. Incumbents, boy it is. You know,

521
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: the tight incumbent races we expected, a few are going

522
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: to end up a runoffs. I think Al Green's in

523
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: a runoff. Crenshaw does not look like he's going to

524
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: get a runoff. The only Republican incumbent member of Congress

525
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: to seek reelection and not have Donald Trump's endorsement was

526
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: Dan Crenshaw. I think Donald Trump will love making note

527
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: of that. That the that you know, if you don't

528
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: have his endorsement, you can't win. That still matters in

529
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: Republican Party politics, that's for sure. But overall, I think

530
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: that if you're John Cornyn, you probably got the best

531
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: possible result you could hope for it. It still may not

532
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: be good enough if you're National Democrats and you you know,

533
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: tall Rico appears to be probably the more the candidate

534
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: that can win. It has a higher ceiling. I'm not

535
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: as I'm not as convinced Crockett couldn't win. For what

536
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: it's worth, but I you know, tallar Rico certainly has

537
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: a his strength with self described independence that's going to

538
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: be key this In so many of these elections, you're

539
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: seeing independence look more like Democrats across the board. And

540
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: then I would argue the news of the day nationally

541
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: was not very helpful if you're a Republican on the ballot,

542
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: whether it's Christynome doubling down and calling those folks in

543
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: Minneapolis domestic terrorists, to suddenly Americans waking up to finding

544
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: out that we've launched military strikes, and yet another country,

545
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: this time it's Ecuador going after Narco so called Narco Terras.

546
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: You have a president flailing to sort of explain the

547
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: rationale for Iran. Now it appears we didn't do enough

548
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: before the attacks to get Americans out of the region,

549
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: and there seems didn't seem as if the president felt

550
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: like he felt bad about that. So he's not showing

551
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: himself to be a very stable wartime leader at this moment.

552
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: The Iran you know, I go back to something I

553
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: said earlier. The best news he can hope out of

554
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: this Iran campaign has already happened, and that's the death

555
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: of Kamani. Every other headline so far out of this

556
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 1: war feels like it is it is only stoking voter

557
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,720
Speaker 1: skepticism about this decision and about the timing of this decision.

558
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,359
Speaker 1: This doesn't seem to be wearing well. I mean, I've

559
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: never seen an initial military and this is you've arguably

560
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: been a was a successful start right when you when

561
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: you kill the bad guy, and you know, the supposed

562
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: bad guy in the first twenty four hours, it's a

563
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: pretty good start to your military intervention. And yet voters

564
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: are starting in a negative position. And again, what turns

565
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:13,720
Speaker 1: this around. There's no obvious way this turns around right away.

566
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,839
Speaker 1: And if anything, it looks like and you know, now

567
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: there's reports or we're going to try to help the

568
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: Kurds become an insurgent force inside of Iran. I mean,

569
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: that looks like you're opening up a can of worms.

570
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: And we know that the Kurds, well, they're a lethal

571
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: fighting force. Suddenly that creates issues with the Turks, it

572
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 1: can create issues in Syria.

573
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 3: It's just.

574
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 1: A lot of folks had warned that, you know, if

575
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: you start open hostilities with Iran, you don't know how

576
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,839
Speaker 1: this there. You know, it's in the cliche It's easy

577
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: to start a war, it's hard to end one. And

578
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: it feels like more countries are finding themselves involved all

579
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: of a sudden, not less. There's more uncertainty, not less.

580
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: So I would say that when you look at this,

581
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: you look at the what happened in these primaries tonight,

582
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: and then you look at the larger, sort of bigger

583
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: news picture that is impacting the larger political conversation. This

584
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: is about the worst start to a midterm election cycle

585
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: that an incumbent party could have. At the moment, their

586
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: single most important state is suddenly potentially a swing state,

587
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: or at least for this election cycle it is. And

588
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: you've just started a war in the Middle East that

589
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: is starting out very unpopular and it's hard to imagine

590
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: how it gets more popular. And oh, by the way,

591
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 1: the stock market, which was once a barometer that Donald

592
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,879
Speaker 1: Trump cared a lot about, is not something he wants

593
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 1: to be pointing people to now. So you've now got

594
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: a disrupted economy due to this war in Iran, a

595
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 1: disrupted national security space in general, and all of this

596
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: overlays what was already an election cycle that looked like

597
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: it was just going to be an old fashioned referendum

598
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: on the party in power. So there you go. This

599
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: podcast has got a lot more to it. My interview

600
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: today is Josh Seftel. He is one of the he's

601
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: the director of All the Empty Rooms. It is a

602
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: very moving and heartbreaking documentary about the untouched rooms of

603
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: victims of school shootings where parents have just not been

604
00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:00,479
Speaker 1: able to touch the rooms, pack them up, and many

605
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 1: of them are completely untouched. What's interesting about this documentary

606
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: is it does not you never hear the word guns,

607
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: never mentioned. It is not about the policy debate. It

608
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:23,320
Speaker 1: is simply about how parents grief and if you're a parent,

609
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: it's going to hit you and it's going to hit

610
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: you hard. That I promise. So that's my interview for this.

611
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: After that, I got my top five all time races

612
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: in Texas and I'll let you decide how I stack

613
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,760
Speaker 1: them up and where you would put a Tallerico Paxton

614
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: Senate race and whether we'll qualify in the top five,

615
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 1: and of course I've got more questions. So quite a

616
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: start to the week, quite a start to the campaign year,

617
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: and quite a start and finish to this podcast. So

618
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: as always appreciated. Thank you for tuning into the live

619
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: stream last night. Those of you that didn't, you can

620
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: always go back and see some of the highlights. But

621
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:06,439
Speaker 1: if not, I hope I gave you a good summary here.

622
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: So let's take a break and when we come back,

623
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: Josh Seftler, this episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought

624
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: to you by American Financing. So, if you looked at

625
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 1: your credit card statement lately, you're working forty fifty hours

626
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: a week just to buy groceries and gas, things that

627
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: used to be able to afford right, and the credit

628
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629
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630
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631
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,080
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632
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633
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Speaker 1: They're showing homeowners how to take their hard earned equity

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637
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638
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639
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Speaker 1: at checkout for the fifteen percent cap. Again, use the

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Speaker 1: code Chuck podcast. So joining me now. He is the

678
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 1: directory that you can see on Netflix right now. It's

679
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: called All the Empty Rooms, and this is uh, it's

680
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: it's it's about gun violence, but it's not about gun violence.

681
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: What the doc is is about is going back to

682
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: the victims of school shootings, to their parents who allowed

683
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 1: my guest and his filmmakers. My guest is the director

684
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: of this film of All the Empty Rooms, called Joshua Seftel.

685
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 2: And.

686
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: It's in some ways a a it's the bigger picture.

687
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: And I want to talk to josh about this because

688
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: I've I've done my own little things when I was

689
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: doing Meet the Press reports, our document and document series

690
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 1: that I had put together in conjunction with me, and

691
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: we were constantly looking for different ways to portray gun violence,

692
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: to try to break through the numbness that the public felt.

693
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: And I you know, one time we featured a mortician

694
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: who explained what it was like to deal with gunshot victims.

695
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: And so we did our own ways to do this.

696
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: This was a very powerful, another powerful way to do it,

697
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: and in fact, as powerful as I've seen yet. And

698
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: so the director of All the Empty Rooms, josh Seftel,

699
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: joins me. Now, jefs, it's nice to meet you.

700
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 3: Same here, Chuck. Great to be here.

701
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: So I mean, that's the you know, in some ways

702
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: you could say, Okay, I already know everything I need

703
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: to know about this doc, right, I mean, it's a

704
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: straightforward thing, and yet if you don't want it, you

705
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:54,839
Speaker 1: don't get it.

706
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. A lot of people have said that they after

707
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:01,800
Speaker 3: they watched they say, Wow, that's not what I was expecting.

708
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 3: And I think what has happened is that a lot

709
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 3: of us in this country have become numb to the

710
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 3: idea of school shootings. You know, there was a school

711
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 3: shooting last week, and then there was one in the

712
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 3: week before, and there are about over one hundred school

713
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 3: shootings a year. Now we don't even hear about most

714
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 3: of them. And we've reached the point where it just

715
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 3: becomes a headline that literally fades away within hours or

716
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 3: even minutes, and.

717
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,320
Speaker 1: We almost treated like the flu. Oh there's an outbreak.

718
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: It's crazy. We've accepted it as something that's normal and

719
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: it's not normal. And we you know, with this film,

720
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: like your story about the mortician, it's another way of

721
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: talking about the issue, but it's really what we've done

722
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: as we've gone into the empty bedrooms and told the

723
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:07,439
Speaker 1: stories of each child through the objects that are left

724
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,839
Speaker 1: behind in that room. And there's something about that that

725
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: I think has resonated with people where it forces you

726
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: as a human being to feel something. You know, we've

727
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: shifted on this, and i'd say, you know, you guys

728
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: talked about in the in the dock the media's role

729
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,919
Speaker 1: in this, and when when school shootings first started, and

730
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: and sort of the patient zero in this case was

731
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: the probably the University of Texas. You know, that was

732
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: the modern sort of beginning of this. And in the eighties,

733
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: you and I are about the same age. We grew

734
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: up with the so called postal shootings right where it

735
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: was supposedly post you know, people were going, remember it

736
00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: became a phrase, going postal, postal. Then Columbine happens, and

737
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 1: it shifts and and and it's and there is something

738
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: about this mass shooting virus that's in our society where

739
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: you know, yes, the workplace is still a place that

740
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 1: is a potential vulnerable spot. But we haven't stopped with

741
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: the school shootings, like we haven't moved past that. Its

742
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: continues to be and and it's a what I think

743
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: we're all trying to figure out, why is it accelerating?

744
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, in the in our film Steve Hartman,

745
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 3: who is the CBS news reporter. He's on CBS Sunday

746
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 3: Morning and the evening news.

747
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: Right, he's the good news guy. You feel better? Right,

748
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: He's the he is the way do you hear this one?

749
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:57,439
Speaker 1: And in a in a good way? Right? He makes

750
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: you cry. It's it's one of those, but it's in

751
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:02,240
Speaker 1: a good cry usually exactly.

752
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 3: And he decided, you know, seven years ago that he

753
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 3: was sick and tired of all the school shootings and

754
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 3: even having to report on them in a way where

755
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 3: they would say, hey, Steve, go go figure out, like

756
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 3: what's the silver lining on this one? You know, find

757
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 3: a hero, find the librarian that you know collected all

758
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 3: the condolence cards, or find the EMT who got there

759
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 3: in time to save one of the lives. And he

760
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 3: and you know, those stories matter, but he just reached

761
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 3: a point where he said, I don't want to do

762
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 3: that anymore because nothing's changing. And when he started, when

763
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 3: he covered his first school shooting, which was in nineteen

764
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 3: ninety seven in Pearl, Mississippi, he I think there were

765
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 3: seventeen school shootings a year, which is too many. But now,

766
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 3: when we were making the film, there were over one

767
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty school shootings a year, so you know,

768
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 3: you do the math on that, and it's just insane.

769
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: Well, this is why I understand why many people think,

770
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: is it the media's fault that this is accelerating, Not

771
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: that the media causes it, but that the media helps

772
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: plant the seed. Right, And look, you guys delve into this.

773
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:19,799
Speaker 1: You know, when we first covered school shootings, it was

774
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: always through the perspective of the shooter. Who is this guy?

775
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: Who is this person that climbed up on the on

776
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: the Texas on the on the bell tower, who is

777
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:32,720
Speaker 1: this person that was wearing a long coat, leather coat?

778
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: And they became infamous, right, and then we rightly realized, hey,

779
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: what are we doing? You know, don't do this because

780
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 1: that does you will encourage copycatters. Right. It's the same

781
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: thing with the coverage of serial killers in the eighties

782
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: and how how media covered serial killers in the eighties.

783
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: And I think it's a much different situation now, but

784
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: it's I mean, what is the right way to do this?

785
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: I think we the fact that this gets worse, not

786
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: better means we're not doing this the right way. We

787
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:08,479
Speaker 1: haven't found it yet.

788
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 3: There is you know, the most popular nonfiction programming out

789
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 3: there is true crime. Yeah, there's something about human beings

790
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 3: that we want it. I personally am not interested in it,

791
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 3: but we want to hear these stories. We want to

792
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 3: hear about the person who did something bad. We want

793
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 3: to understand them, judge them, maybe see them face justice

794
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 3: or not. Yeah.

795
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: I have a thesis that it's just all about making

796
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:41,479
Speaker 1: ourselves feel better about our place.

797
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 3: And you know, I think you might be right.

798
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: Right. That's why this appeals so much because I I

799
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: don't get it either. I don't want to see how

800
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: bad humanity is to each other all the time.

801
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 3: But I think that the news organizations, you know, are

802
00:49:55,719 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 3: are tempted by that kind of storytelling. And it's hard,

803
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 3: you know, because people are interested. But I do commend

804
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,440
Speaker 3: many of them for shifting over time because a lot

805
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 3: of the organizations, including CBS News where Steve worked, have

806
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 3: made a commitment to not focus on the on the

807
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 3: shooters and to spend less time on that and what

808
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:23,839
Speaker 3: Steve Hartman wanted to do and this is you know,

809
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 3: we followed him for this was a seven year project.

810
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 3: We followed him our film crew for a couple of years,

811
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 3: of the toward the end of the project, and what

812
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,240
Speaker 3: he wanted to do was to shift it even further

813
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 3: away from talking about the shooters to completely just focusing

814
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:48,760
Speaker 3: on the lives lived by these children. And that's where

815
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 3: the empty bedrooms come in, is we You know, I

816
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 3: haven't told you how the project started. Steve was fed

817
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 3: up and he actually wrote a letter to every family

818
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,720
Speaker 3: who lost to child since Sandy Hook and he said,

819
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 3: I want to come to your house with a photographer

820
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:10,879
Speaker 3: and I want to take pictures of your child's empty room.

821
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:17,839
Speaker 3: And to his surprise, a bunch of people said yes.

822
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 3: And he started to collect these photographs. And then he

823
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 3: reached out to me three years ago and he was

824
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 3: he said, you know, I'm starting to collect these photos.

825
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:32,799
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do with them, and do

826
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 3: you think there might be a documentary film here? And

827
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 3: he showed me one of the photos. It was a

828
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 3: photo of a child's bathroom and there was a toothpaste

829
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 3: too with the cap left off, and you could tell

830
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 3: and feel the sense of the child who had once

831
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 3: been there and left that cap off, went to school

832
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 3: saying like I'll put that on later, and never came home.

833
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 3: And you could feel the absence literally, and I just thought, Wow,

834
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 3: this could be very powerful and a whole new way

835
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 3: to reframe this issue. And so that was three years ago.

836
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 3: We set out on the road a couple months after that,

837
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:21,240
Speaker 3: using credit cards, trying to figure out how to piece

838
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:25,320
Speaker 3: this together. And three years later, you know, we have

839
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 3: this film. It's on Netflix, it's nominated for an Academy Award,

840
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 3: and we're trying to show people a different side of

841
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 3: the issue, which is the children, Like, what is the

842
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 3: cost of all of this? What is the cost? What

843
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 3: is the human toll that we're all facing from this?

844
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 3: And because we don't get to see that, no, just

845
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 3: doesn't cover that.

846
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: We when I was telling you about the what I

847
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: actually the piece that we had done. It's about three

848
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: years ago now, it still sits in new YouTube, and

849
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 1: it was it was part of this. You know, I

850
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:06,919
Speaker 1: got frustrated that I that the regular meet the press,

851
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 1: I couldn't tackle these issues right for a variety of reasons, right, meaning, oh,

852
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 1: you've got to be on the news, and you've got

853
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: to react to what's happening in the White House, and

854
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 1: the Trump era is the Trump era, right, And you

855
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: realize we needed an outlet. We have all the we

856
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 1: have all the room in the world and the wage

857
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: of streaming, right, and so we thought we wanted to

858
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:30,800
Speaker 1: go back to these places where there were mass shootings

859
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: and just find out how people were living their lives

860
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: a year later, two years later. And that's how we

861
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: We were at a bar, where how are people getting

862
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 1: along now with you know, six months later, because we

863
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: don't go back. You know how often I've had to

864
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: cover a ton of school shootings, just like Steve did.

865
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just you know, if you you

866
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: were in the main in in television media in the

867
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, you've had to and had

868
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:59,759
Speaker 1: to anchor, You've anchored your shriff of school shootings. We

869
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: all say we're not you know, hey, we'll be back.

870
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,399
Speaker 1: You know, we're not just telling the story right now,

871
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: we're coming back. We don't come back, right, we don't

872
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: we by the way, when we say we're going to

873
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 1: come back, we do mean it in the moment. You know,

874
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: I really genuinely believe that, like, yeah, we should, we

875
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: definitely will come back. And then stuff happens. More school

876
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 1: shootings happen.

877
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 3: Usually, And what was interesting for us was that some

878
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 3: of the people we visited and photographed the empty rooms

879
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 3: in their houses was they had never talked to the press.

880
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 1: It's amazing why they.

881
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 3: Had said no. They said no, I mean, why would

882
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,879
Speaker 3: they want to talk to the press, you know, after

883
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 3: they but.

884
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:45,840
Speaker 1: They need to share that, you know, in some ways,

885
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: I think what you're hopefully with this, what this does

886
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:53,720
Speaker 1: for families of victims. You have to tell your story.

887
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,720
Speaker 1: I know it's hurts, but you have to tell your story.

888
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,719
Speaker 1: People need to see this. And that was exactly that

889
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: was all the way back to Emmett Till, right when

890
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:05,800
Speaker 1: Emmitt Till's mother said, you must print these photos in

891
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: Life magazine.

892
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:08,839
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, agreed.

893
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: This is in some ways it's a derivative of that.

894
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great comparison. The families said to us,

895
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 3: we don't want our child to be forgotten. We want

896
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,760
Speaker 3: the world to know about them. And we were saying

897
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,879
Speaker 3: to them, we're coming here to tell the world about

898
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 3: your child and who they were and the life they

899
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 3: lived through through the empty room, and we were very

900
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:40,959
Speaker 3: much aligned in that way. And it's what they want.

901
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 3: They want the world to not forget, you.

902
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:53,879
Speaker 1: Know, in this day and age where there's record there's

903
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: so many recordings now, and you know, I'm sitting here

904
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 1: watching your film and I'm thinking at the same time,

905
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, if I'm in this position for whatever reason,

906
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: two kids in college, I don't I don't know what

907
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 1: I would want. I don't know if I would want

908
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 1: to say videos of them and see them alive, if

909
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 1: I can't be with them alive. I was just thinking,

910
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: you know, it was one of those It was I

911
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: didn't know if that was gut wrenching or not. The

912
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:31,279
Speaker 1: keeping the room as it is made that really resonated

913
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 1: with me. Yeah, it is this day and age where

914
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: you get to go back into time and see see

915
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:41,799
Speaker 1: these people alive. It's spooky and I don't know how

916
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 1: I would handle that as a as a parent. I

917
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: that was it was one of those I've just was,

918
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 1: you know, you do you let your own mind wander

919
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:50,439
Speaker 1: when you have your own you know, when you when

920
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 1: you're and I'm sure a lot of people who have

921
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,759
Speaker 1: watched this film have shared with you experiences like that

922
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 1: where you just start putting yourself in that place. What

923
00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:00,760
Speaker 1: would you do? How would you do it? I really

924
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:02,640
Speaker 1: connected with the mother who said you know what I did.

925
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 1: I want the room to smell like my son. Yeah,

926
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:10,799
Speaker 1: and I thought about that because my kids just are

927
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: in college. They're still here, they're still alive, but their

928
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: rooms smell like them in my empty nest, and it

929
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: means a lot to me. So I don't it is

930
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: it is. That's what made this move film so powerful,

931
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: is that you actually didn't need you barely needed narration.

932
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 3: Yeah there, well, there's so there's You know that that

933
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 3: room in Santa Clarita Dominic Blackwell's bedroom, the parents keep

934
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 3: the dirty laundry basket. Yeah, it's been there for six

935
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 3: years and they haven't got that. Yeah, and and they,

936
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 3: like you said, they keep it because they don't want

937
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 3: to lose the smell of their child. And Frank was

938
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 3: telling me the other day, Frank's Dominic's father was saying

939
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:04,400
Speaker 3: that the hardest part is that you start to forget

940
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 3: what their voice sounded like. And I think that's why

941
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 3: they liked having the video. You actually start to forget

942
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 3: what their voice sounded like, and then you hear the

943
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 3: you watch the video and you remember. So it's it's uh, yeah,

944
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 3: it's unimaginable.

945
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: How do you compartmentalize when you make something like this,

946
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 1: because there are days, there were days when I'd cover

947
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 1: school shooting. So I mean, look, I was at the

948
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,640
Speaker 1: White House lawn for Sandy Hook and my kids were

949
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 1: the same exact age, right, And I was on the

950
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: lawn with the Jake Tapper and Nora O'Donnell at the time,

951
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: and we all had kids the same age, and we

952
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 1: were a wreck and we had to do live shots

953
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 1: all day and it was exhausting, and you know, no, please,

954
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: it wasn't even I wasn't a victim, right, It was

955
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 1: just you know, having to having to pull it together

956
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 1: right and not be able to. So how do you

957
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 1: how did you how did you compartmentalize putting this together?

958
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:10,160
Speaker 1: Because it's this, this, this really had to hit you

959
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:10,919
Speaker 1: on some days.

960
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean two of the kids in the film

961
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 3: are this We're the same age as my daughter, my

962
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:26,960
Speaker 3: oldest daughter, nine years old. Yeah, it is. It's tough.

963
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 3: I try not to center my experience in the in

964
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 3: talking about the film, because that, you know, what these

965
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 3: families have have gone through is.

966
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: Just, yeah, this is their experience. I totally get that.

967
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 3: It's unacceptable, it's it's horrible, But I think that you

968
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 3: know the experience of being in those bedrooms. You know,

969
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 3: I travel a lot for my work. I'm away from

970
00:59:54,640 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 3: my family a lot this project. When I was a

971
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 3: every time I came home I had never been. I

972
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 3: always love coming home, but it was a different level

973
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:13,080
Speaker 3: of getting to see my kids again and feeling a

974
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 3: sense of gratitude for what I have. I think that,

975
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 3: you know, our hope is that the power of this

976
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:27,040
Speaker 3: film is in trying to capture what it was like

977
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 3: to be in those rooms, what it was like for

978
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 3: me and my team to go into those bedrooms, because

979
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 3: our hope is that everyone will feel the weight of

980
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 3: the loss, will feel that absence, and it will, you know,

981
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:50,439
Speaker 3: reconnect them with something that's already within them. I mean,

982
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:54,439
Speaker 3: you think about how you felt when you heard about

983
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:58,040
Speaker 3: Sandy Hook, or how you felt when you heard a valuability,

984
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:02,920
Speaker 3: or how you felt when you heard about Columbine, and

985
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 3: I don't think most of us feel that way anymore.

986
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 3: When we hear about a school shooting, we're not as shocked,

987
01:01:09,160 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 3: we're not as outraged, we're not as engaged. We might

988
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 3: not even read the article. And what we're trying to

989
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 3: do is to get people reconnected to feel that those

990
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 3: feelings again that they felt back then, because we Our

991
01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 3: hope is that we can take that empathy we might

992
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 3: feel from watching this film and channel it into change,

993
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 3: into re engaging with the issue, into having hope again

994
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 3: that maybe we can create change because where we are

995
01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 3: right now is unacceptable.

996
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 1: Look, it's on Netflix, which means a lot of people

997
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:52,880
Speaker 1: can see it. The question is are the right people

998
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:57,400
Speaker 1: going to see it? You know, I would love to

999
01:01:57,400 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 1: see organized screenings of lawmakers, state houses as well as

1000
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: the US Capital, because you want to know that the

1001
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:12,800
Speaker 1: people that have the power to do something right, we don't.

1002
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody agrees on what the something is,

1003
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: but I think there's collective agreement we ought to do something.

1004
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:27,840
Speaker 1: And in order to motivate people to go find find

1005
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: a maybe not the solution, but a mitigation strut, whatever

1006
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 1: it is, to at least focus on it, they need

1007
01:02:34,680 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 1: to feel this right, They need to you know, It's like,

1008
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: how do you get everybody to watch this that maybe

1009
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: has decided. Look, I'm you know, it is not going

1010
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,439
Speaker 1: to change my view on whether, you know, we should

1011
01:02:53,480 --> 01:03:00,480
Speaker 1: even manufacture weapons that can do this to the human body.

1012
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:05,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well you might have noticed this, but in the

1013
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 3: film we never mentioned the word gun. Yeah, it's never said.

1014
01:03:12,120 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 3: And that was by design because we did not want

1015
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 3: people to have a reason to ever turn the film off.

1016
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 3: We wanted to tell a story that was purely human,

1017
01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 3: that on the surface was a political that is about

1018
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:32,080
Speaker 3: the absence of these children.

1019
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 5: And and you know, I think what we've been seeing

1020
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:43,600
Speaker 5: is that people of all kinds of opinions are watching and.

1021
01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 3: Are affected by it. I'll give you a couple of examples. One,

1022
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:53,840
Speaker 3: we took the photographs from the film. So these are

1023
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 3: the photos of the objects around the room, the little

1024
01:03:56,520 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 3: toys and trinkets and things that are left beyond that

1025
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,840
Speaker 3: tell the story of each child. And they're familiar. You know,

1026
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 3: there are things that if you have kids, you're going

1027
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 3: to see things that are in your kid's room. If

1028
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:12,160
Speaker 3: you don't have kids, you're going to see things that

1029
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 3: probably were in your room growing up. And and we

1030
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 3: took those photos and we created a photo exhibit which

1031
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 3: is actually right now in Los Angeles and New York.

1032
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:29,560
Speaker 3: And we when when they were when they were installed,

1033
01:04:29,560 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 3: they were installed by this guy who apparently was quite conservative,

1034
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:37,880
Speaker 3: and we found out later he you know, he wears

1035
01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 3: a T shirt that says guns aren't stupid, people are anyway.

1036
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 3: This is the guy who's hanging the photographs of the

1037
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 3: empty rooms, and halfway through the day of hanging them

1038
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 3: up in the gallery, he started to weep and he

1039
01:04:55,800 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 3: told his boss that he needed to go home. Anyway.

1040
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:04,800
Speaker 3: The next day, this guy comes back in, goes up

1041
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 3: to his boss and he says, I just need to

1042
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 3: tell you something. I will never wear that T shirt again.

1043
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 3: And we've heard stories like this where people who you know,

1044
01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 3: you couldn't imagine that they would change their mind. But

1045
01:05:26,160 --> 01:05:28,720
Speaker 3: there's something about these photos and the stories of the

1046
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 3: kids that like softens people's hearts and we just feel hopeful.

1047
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 3: You know. Steve Hartman got an email from someone who

1048
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:43,560
Speaker 3: had been a Sandy Hook denier who saw the film

1049
01:05:43,600 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 3: and watched it all the way through, and he said

1050
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:50,480
Speaker 3: to Stevie, said, thank you for this film. I didn't

1051
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 3: feel preached or lectured to, and therefore I was able

1052
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 3: to watch it and it opened my mind.

1053
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 1: You know what you just described just triggered an interesting

1054
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:04,920
Speaker 1: exhibit that I remember that's extraordinarily powerful. At Yad Vashem

1055
01:06:05,520 --> 01:06:11,840
Speaker 1: mhm in Uh in Israel, the Holocaust Museum there where

1056
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: fairly recently in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. You know,

1057
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:19,680
Speaker 1: they have a where where they know a lot of

1058
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:23,320
Speaker 1: Jews lived. When there's development, there's an attempt you know,

1059
01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:26,280
Speaker 1: if they dig, you know, and they find stuff they

1060
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: try to preserve, and they ended up finding all sorts

1061
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: of just ordinary everyday stuff that belonged to you know,

1062
01:06:36,960 --> 01:06:41,440
Speaker 1: Jewish families who were rounded up. And the whole display

1063
01:06:41,520 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 1: is that it is just the stuff. There's stuff that

1064
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 1: they lived when they lived in Warsaw, and you know,

1065
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:56,200
Speaker 1: there's toys, there's you know, costume jewelry, there's and it's

1066
01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:59,360
Speaker 1: and it you know, it just it does bring a

1067
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 1: humanity to the to the to the victory. You know,

1068
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: these are you know, when it comes to the Holocaust,

1069
01:07:05,200 --> 01:07:10,040
Speaker 1: there's still some nameless and faceless people, right and and

1070
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:13,040
Speaker 1: there is something about you know that that in some

1071
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:21,200
Speaker 1: ways having these exhibits, you know, can can just humanize

1072
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,320
Speaker 1: the situation. And it sounds like what the responses you're

1073
01:07:24,360 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 1: sharing are the It's like all of a sudden, the

1074
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 1: victims became three dimensional figures. Right. I go back to

1075
01:07:32,800 --> 01:07:35,240
Speaker 1: I think what we were just chatting about before the

1076
01:07:35,360 --> 01:07:38,200
Speaker 1: before we were talking about just politicians, right, and you know,

1077
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:40,480
Speaker 1: as a as a reporter, I'm eternally always looking for

1078
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 1: the third dimension and political candidates. But in some ways

1079
01:07:44,320 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 1: that's what we failed to do when we talk about victims.

1080
01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:52,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's something about someone said to us they watched

1081
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:56,920
Speaker 3: the film and they said, you know, you read a

1082
01:07:56,920 --> 01:08:02,240
Speaker 3: headline and you think, oh, that's someone else's child, But

1083
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:06,560
Speaker 3: when you see the bedroom and you see all the

1084
01:08:06,600 --> 01:08:11,160
Speaker 3: objects in there, it's easier to say that's my child,

1085
01:08:11,360 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 3: or that could be my child. And I think that's

1086
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:18,120
Speaker 3: the difference, is that it suddenly becomes part of your

1087
01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,759
Speaker 3: world and your life.

1088
01:08:21,160 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 1: And has this been an issue you've tackled before in

1089
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:27,400
Speaker 1: documentary form or you've wanted to, or you've been looking

1090
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:29,360
Speaker 1: for a way to, like, you know, what's a better

1091
01:08:29,400 --> 01:08:34,120
Speaker 1: way to get people to focus on this issue.

1092
01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:38,200
Speaker 3: Well, the first film I ever made, when a long

1093
01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 3: time ago, when I was twenty two, was about the

1094
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,960
Speaker 3: abandoned children of Romania, and so it was a different

1095
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:49,680
Speaker 3: kind of story about children. But at that time, in

1096
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:53,559
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety, Communism had just fallen, josh Escu had fallen,

1097
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:57,639
Speaker 3: and it was discovered that there were over one hundred

1098
01:08:57,680 --> 01:09:01,000
Speaker 3: thousand abandoned children in the country, and I went there

1099
01:09:01,040 --> 01:09:04,600
Speaker 3: and I lived in the orphanages and documented the conditions

1100
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 3: of the children, and there was some you know, obviously

1101
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:12,400
Speaker 3: that footage of seeing children tied up and treated like

1102
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:19,479
Speaker 3: animals was had a real resonance with the people who

1103
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:22,679
Speaker 3: watched the film, and it led to the American adoption

1104
01:09:22,760 --> 01:09:26,640
Speaker 3: of thousands of Romanian children when it was on public television.

1105
01:09:27,760 --> 01:09:31,879
Speaker 3: This film is share some of the DNA, but it's different,

1106
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:34,920
Speaker 3: you know, this film is about the absence of children.

1107
01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 3: This film is about the empty rooms and trying to

1108
01:09:41,120 --> 01:09:47,479
Speaker 3: feel the presence of someone who's gone. And there's something

1109
01:09:49,360 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 3: that seems to be resonating with people about that. We

1110
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 3: can all imagine that happening to us, and that creates

1111
01:09:59,880 --> 01:10:03,599
Speaker 3: a kind of empathy, I think, which we hope will

1112
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:06,040
Speaker 3: lead to good things.

1113
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 1: Did the how many of the parents volunteered sort of

1114
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 1: like how what? You know, I'm just curious if there was,

1115
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:18,120
Speaker 1: you know, how many of them have decided to you know,

1116
01:10:18,200 --> 01:10:20,559
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on this right. You know, different parents do

1117
01:10:20,640 --> 01:10:24,840
Speaker 1: different things in response to this right. Some get galvanized

1118
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:29,080
Speaker 1: and want to, you know, deal with one policy issue others.

1119
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:33,599
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's about helping helping other victims who

1120
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:35,920
Speaker 1: go through this, right, that sort of thing. I'm just

1121
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:38,680
Speaker 1: curious the various. I'm sure you just heard lots of

1122
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:43,519
Speaker 1: stories of how how how parents chose to grieve besides

1123
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:46,720
Speaker 1: keeping the room, that's clearly. I mean, you know, it

1124
01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:50,200
Speaker 1: made me think we all memorialize people we love in

1125
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:52,559
Speaker 1: some form or another, and there's always something where like

1126
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:55,240
Speaker 1: I'm not letting that go, you know, I'm not. You

1127
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:58,000
Speaker 1: can't throw away that painting, honey, you can't get rid

1128
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:01,240
Speaker 1: of that, you know, this beat up coin. You know,

1129
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:04,719
Speaker 1: I've got this. I got this tattered two dollar bill

1130
01:11:05,720 --> 01:11:08,120
Speaker 1: that my father gave to me. Was I always got

1131
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:11,880
Speaker 1: a two dollar bill when I lost a tooth. Later

1132
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,000
Speaker 1: I'd figure out it was the same two dollar bill.

1133
01:11:15,320 --> 01:11:16,680
Speaker 1: You know. We didn't have a lot of money, but

1134
01:11:16,720 --> 01:11:19,920
Speaker 1: it was but I you know, this two dollar bill

1135
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:22,479
Speaker 1: and it was just I carried into my wallet. He

1136
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 1: died in eighty eight. I had it. I still have it.

1137
01:11:25,320 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 1: You know. It's like this two dollar bill and it's

1138
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:32,160
Speaker 1: just a little thing. So we you know, like I

1139
01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:35,160
Speaker 1: won't shave because my father had a beard, and I

1140
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 1: just somehow think I'm going to like lose his memory

1141
01:11:37,320 --> 01:11:42,800
Speaker 1: if I somehow shave. It's irrational, of course, but I'm

1142
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:48,280
Speaker 1: just curious the various ways parents have chosen to channel

1143
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:48,880
Speaker 1: their grief.

1144
01:11:49,640 --> 01:11:52,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, one one of the things that really

1145
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 3: struck me is, you know, we we spent time with

1146
01:11:56,439 --> 01:12:01,040
Speaker 3: four families, all of them lost a child, two at

1147
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:06,000
Speaker 3: the Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, one at

1148
01:12:06,040 --> 01:12:08,760
Speaker 3: the rob Elementary School in Uvalde, and one at the

1149
01:12:08,800 --> 01:12:16,519
Speaker 3: Covenant School in Nashville. And what we saw is that

1150
01:12:16,600 --> 01:12:21,360
Speaker 3: each family has a different relationship with the room. Some

1151
01:12:21,520 --> 01:12:24,360
Speaker 3: go in there all the time, even it even varies

1152
01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:29,480
Speaker 3: between two parents in the same family. You know, for example,

1153
01:12:30,160 --> 01:12:35,000
Speaker 3: the Blackwells in Santa Clarita, Nancy the mom doesn't like

1154
01:12:35,040 --> 01:12:38,760
Speaker 3: to go into the room at all, and Frank goes

1155
01:12:38,760 --> 01:12:43,040
Speaker 3: in there every day. So it's they all have different

1156
01:12:43,080 --> 01:12:50,360
Speaker 3: relationships with the rooms. And what is inspiring to me

1157
01:12:50,439 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 3: about all the families I met is that all of

1158
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:57,880
Speaker 3: them have different political points of view, but they've all

1159
01:12:59,200 --> 01:13:05,639
Speaker 3: organized created foundations in memory of their children. All four

1160
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:09,800
Speaker 3: families to do different kinds of work that they deem

1161
01:13:09,840 --> 01:13:12,760
Speaker 3: appropriate that they think is going to help change and

1162
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 3: make things better. And I just have so much admiration

1163
01:13:17,080 --> 01:13:22,160
Speaker 3: for them for channeling their grief into something that's helping

1164
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:27,080
Speaker 3: the world. And that's I've seen across the board with

1165
01:13:27,600 --> 01:13:31,640
Speaker 3: most of the families that we've met. I want to

1166
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:34,479
Speaker 3: tell you one quick story about one of the rooms,

1167
01:13:35,280 --> 01:13:38,120
Speaker 3: you know, talking about the relationships that families have with

1168
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:41,920
Speaker 3: the rooms. The mule Burgers Brian and Cindy, who lived

1169
01:13:41,920 --> 01:13:45,479
Speaker 3: in Santa Clarita. Their daughter Gracie was killed six years

1170
01:13:45,479 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 3: ago at the Saugus High School shooting, and right afterwards

1171
01:13:49,080 --> 01:13:53,080
Speaker 3: they said to themselves, like, we need to leave here.

1172
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:56,400
Speaker 3: We don't want to be here anymore.

1173
01:13:56,960 --> 01:14:03,960
Speaker 1: Perfectly rational, be a perfectly rational decision. I mean, widows

1174
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:06,559
Speaker 1: regularly say, you know what, I can't. I'm not living

1175
01:14:06,560 --> 01:14:10,240
Speaker 1: in the house anymore. I mean, you know, just I

1176
01:14:10,320 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 1: get it right.

1177
01:14:11,640 --> 01:14:16,160
Speaker 3: Yes, And in their case, the thing that kept them

1178
01:14:16,200 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 3: from moving was they couldn't bring themselves to pack up

1179
01:14:19,439 --> 01:14:20,639
Speaker 3: the bedroom the room.

1180
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:21,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1181
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:25,200
Speaker 3: And so you know, Brian Muhlberger applied for jobs in

1182
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:28,240
Speaker 3: different places and he'd get the job offer, and then

1183
01:14:28,240 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 3: when it came down to it, he just couldn't. They

1184
01:14:31,520 --> 01:14:34,400
Speaker 3: couldn't do it, and they'd say no. And this went

1185
01:14:34,439 --> 01:14:40,280
Speaker 3: on for for over five years. And in our film,

1186
01:14:41,040 --> 01:14:45,960
Speaker 3: Steve Hartman, after they collect the photographs of the empty room,

1187
01:14:46,360 --> 01:14:50,400
Speaker 3: he gave each family a photo book which contained all

1188
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:54,400
Speaker 3: the best pictures of the child's bedroom. So he gave

1189
01:14:54,439 --> 01:14:56,960
Speaker 3: them this album. He gave the Muhlburgers this album of

1190
01:14:57,040 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 3: Gracie's belonging to all the photos that were taken. And

1191
01:15:02,400 --> 01:15:07,599
Speaker 3: after receiving that book, and after watching all the empty

1192
01:15:07,640 --> 01:15:12,840
Speaker 3: rooms the film, they finally said they were ready to

1193
01:15:13,080 --> 01:15:17,719
Speaker 3: move and they packed up the room. And they've since

1194
01:15:17,800 --> 01:15:21,960
Speaker 3: moved to a different state, and what they've done is

1195
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:26,679
Speaker 3: in their new home, they're creating a garden in memory

1196
01:15:26,720 --> 01:15:31,439
Speaker 3: of Gracie instead of having the bedroom, so they've kind

1197
01:15:31,479 --> 01:15:34,840
Speaker 3: of turned it into something else. But they were able to.

1198
01:15:36,439 --> 01:15:47,599
Speaker 2: Move out of the home and pack up the room.

1199
01:15:48,479 --> 01:15:53,200
Speaker 1: It had to be hard, I imagine, almost not trying

1200
01:15:53,280 --> 01:16:00,400
Speaker 1: to get prescriptive right when you're it is it is always,

1201
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 1: you know, the journalist in you, I'm sure, was like, okay,

1202
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:08,000
Speaker 1: but all right, now what? Right? Now? What? But in

1203
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:11,000
Speaker 1: some ways we're not ready for the prescriptive. I think

1204
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:14,400
Speaker 1: that's the lesson I'm taking away from the last forty

1205
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:17,599
Speaker 1: years of how we've handled these as a society. We're

1206
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:20,320
Speaker 1: not and so we need more of We need more

1207
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:23,799
Speaker 1: of these because you need you need more people wanting

1208
01:16:23,840 --> 01:16:25,160
Speaker 1: prescriptive before you can.

1209
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:28,640
Speaker 3: Get to prescriptive. I think I think the prescriptive exists,

1210
01:16:29,160 --> 01:16:32,560
Speaker 3: you know too, we just have it just will. It's everywhere.

1211
01:16:32,920 --> 01:16:35,320
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, it's on the news, it's in

1212
01:16:35,479 --> 01:16:39,759
Speaker 3: and it's in most documentaries where there's a very strong

1213
01:16:39,800 --> 01:16:44,760
Speaker 3: point of view that you know that is essentially alienates

1214
01:16:44,760 --> 01:16:49,160
Speaker 3: about half the people in the country and invites the

1215
01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:50,280
Speaker 3: other half to feel.

1216
01:16:50,280 --> 01:16:52,839
Speaker 1: Here, you're trying to widen the lens, widen the aperture

1217
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:53,320
Speaker 1: a little bit.

1218
01:16:53,439 --> 01:16:55,719
Speaker 3: I just yeah, I just feel for me as a filmmaker,

1219
01:16:55,760 --> 01:16:58,680
Speaker 3: I mean, in those films, in that news and journalism

1220
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:01,479
Speaker 3: is important, But from me as a filmmaker, what interests

1221
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 3: me is how can you tell stories that invite everybody

1222
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:11,880
Speaker 3: in and allow them to share in potentially feeling something

1223
01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:16,519
Speaker 3: and potentially experiencing a story together, even if they have

1224
01:17:16,600 --> 01:17:20,360
Speaker 3: opposing points of view, that they could watch a story

1225
01:17:20,400 --> 01:17:23,800
Speaker 3: together and all get something out of it. And you know,

1226
01:17:23,840 --> 01:17:25,760
Speaker 3: in the case of all the empty rooms, we hope

1227
01:17:25,800 --> 01:17:28,559
Speaker 3: that for people who agree that we need to do

1228
01:17:28,640 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 3: better with guns and gun safety. That they that those

1229
01:17:33,479 --> 01:17:36,439
Speaker 3: people might feel re engaged with the issue, They might

1230
01:17:36,479 --> 01:17:41,240
Speaker 3: feel like, okay, a little bit hopeful that change can happen,

1231
01:17:41,360 --> 01:17:43,760
Speaker 3: That they might feel feelings they haven't felt in a

1232
01:17:43,760 --> 01:17:46,519
Speaker 3: long time when they when they think about school shootings

1233
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:50,719
Speaker 3: and feel urged to do something. And then the other half,

1234
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:56,760
Speaker 3: we hope that they'll feel something too deeply that makes

1235
01:17:56,800 --> 01:18:00,520
Speaker 3: them say, you know what, we need to figure this out.

1236
01:18:01,000 --> 01:18:04,600
Speaker 3: We need to change something because what is happening is

1237
01:18:04,680 --> 01:18:08,720
Speaker 3: unacceptable and we need to restart the conversation in a

1238
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:15,240
Speaker 3: new place, which says which just simply says like, we

1239
01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:17,639
Speaker 3: all agree that our children need to be safe when

1240
01:18:17,640 --> 01:18:20,719
Speaker 3: they go to school, and how do we build from

1241
01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:26,120
Speaker 3: that place and restart the conversation in a constructive way

1242
01:18:26,280 --> 01:18:30,960
Speaker 3: that could lead to positive change.

1243
01:18:32,520 --> 01:18:35,080
Speaker 1: Did you ever contemplate making this feature length or was

1244
01:18:35,120 --> 01:18:36,280
Speaker 1: it always a short in your mind?

1245
01:18:37,120 --> 01:18:39,800
Speaker 3: We thought about it. We started as a short, and

1246
01:18:39,840 --> 01:18:42,360
Speaker 3: then the first cut of the film came in at

1247
01:18:42,439 --> 01:18:45,160
Speaker 3: like fifty five minutes.

1248
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:47,880
Speaker 1: And when is the cutoff for the oscars? Is it

1249
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:48,519
Speaker 1: forty minutes?

1250
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:51,960
Speaker 3: Forty minutes? So anything under forty is a short? And

1251
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:55,280
Speaker 3: then anything and then I don't know what constitutes a future,

1252
01:18:55,280 --> 01:18:58,400
Speaker 3: but you know, usually they're like seventy to eighty minutes

1253
01:18:58,680 --> 01:18:59,400
Speaker 3: at minimum.

1254
01:18:59,439 --> 01:18:59,839
Speaker 1: Minimum.

1255
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:03,360
Speaker 3: We were thinking, okay, fifty five, maybe we add another fifteen,

1256
01:19:03,439 --> 01:19:06,439
Speaker 3: and we're we have a short feature. But as we

1257
01:19:06,520 --> 01:19:11,000
Speaker 3: started editing more, we the film got shorter and it

1258
01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:14,360
Speaker 3: got better, and we finally got down to thirty four minutes,

1259
01:19:15,120 --> 01:19:18,840
Speaker 3: and we looked at it and we said, you know,

1260
01:19:19,000 --> 01:19:21,800
Speaker 3: what if we what did we cut out more of

1261
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:24,880
Speaker 3: the talking? What did we cut out more of the dialogue?

1262
01:19:25,120 --> 01:19:28,160
Speaker 3: And we started just cutting and cutting and cutting, and

1263
01:19:28,840 --> 01:19:31,920
Speaker 3: eventually we had cut six minutes of dialogue and talking

1264
01:19:31,960 --> 01:19:34,479
Speaker 3: out of the film, out of a thirty four minute film.

1265
01:19:34,680 --> 01:19:37,240
Speaker 3: But we left the film at thirty four minutes, so

1266
01:19:37,360 --> 01:19:42,920
Speaker 3: suddenly we had added six minutes of essentially silence to

1267
01:19:42,960 --> 01:19:48,679
Speaker 3: the film, which allowed people to be in the rooms

1268
01:19:49,520 --> 01:19:54,360
Speaker 3: feel the absence. And we found that that was much

1269
01:19:54,360 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 3: more effective because we weren't telling people what to think.

1270
01:19:58,040 --> 01:20:01,760
Speaker 3: We were just them go in these rooms and then

1271
01:20:01,800 --> 01:20:04,760
Speaker 3: you decide, you decide what you want to feel, and

1272
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:06,439
Speaker 3: you decide at the end of the film what you

1273
01:20:06,479 --> 01:20:06,960
Speaker 3: want to do.

1274
01:20:07,640 --> 01:20:09,640
Speaker 1: This is just such a reminder to me that, like

1275
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:12,760
Speaker 1: you just certain things you can't convey via the word.

1276
01:20:14,240 --> 01:20:15,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, it.

1277
01:20:15,120 --> 01:20:19,160
Speaker 1: Did, It is it is, you know it is. And

1278
01:20:19,160 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: this is what documentary filmmaking over the last ten years

1279
01:20:22,320 --> 01:20:25,320
Speaker 1: is just grown by leaps and bounds. Part of it

1280
01:20:25,360 --> 01:20:29,080
Speaker 1: is that distribution's never been easier, right, the buried entry

1281
01:20:29,080 --> 01:20:31,680
Speaker 1: has never been never been easier. It's like, I mean,

1282
01:20:31,680 --> 01:20:36,719
Speaker 1: if you thirty years ago, where do you distribute this? Sure?

1283
01:20:37,920 --> 01:20:41,040
Speaker 1: M right? Yeah, I mean I'm just right. I mean

1284
01:20:41,160 --> 01:20:44,800
Speaker 1: just imagine, you know, maybe you convince the folks over

1285
01:20:44,800 --> 01:20:47,680
Speaker 1: at CBS Sunday morning, hey let's do a thirty let

1286
01:20:47,760 --> 01:20:51,840
Speaker 1: me do a thirty minute piece. And of all programs

1287
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:54,559
Speaker 1: that might green light a thirty minute piece, it's it's

1288
01:20:54,640 --> 01:20:58,160
Speaker 1: a Sunday morning. Right. Yeah, but that's difficult, right, that's

1289
01:20:58,200 --> 01:21:01,599
Speaker 1: a that's a one shot, Like where would this have gone?

1290
01:21:01,640 --> 01:21:03,880
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I mean, this is the beauty

1291
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:07,240
Speaker 1: of of of what you know. It's funny. I don't

1292
01:21:07,280 --> 01:21:10,440
Speaker 1: think we all realized how hungry people were for documentaries

1293
01:21:10,520 --> 01:21:14,080
Speaker 1: until we got a platform like Netflix in our everyday

1294
01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:17,120
Speaker 1: life in Hulu and all these places now that that

1295
01:21:18,400 --> 01:21:21,479
Speaker 1: that have made that If you know, there's always been

1296
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:24,559
Speaker 1: these great documentarians out there ready to make these films.

1297
01:21:24,600 --> 01:21:27,400
Speaker 1: There just wasn't any place to put them.

1298
01:21:27,720 --> 01:21:31,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's true. Thirty years ago it would

1299
01:21:31,200 --> 01:21:34,880
Speaker 3: have been it would have played at festivals, maybe in

1300
01:21:34,920 --> 01:21:39,160
Speaker 3: a couple of theaters before a feature, maybe those.

1301
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:41,080
Speaker 1: And it's always please I grew up, we had the

1302
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:44,719
Speaker 1: one you know, every town had the one theater that played,

1303
01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:47,679
Speaker 1: you know, that had the docs. Right, it was always

1304
01:21:47,680 --> 01:21:49,880
Speaker 1: the same theater that also had the foreign films, right,

1305
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, that was like the only place you could

1306
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:53,840
Speaker 1: get that stuff. You know, that's right.

1307
01:21:54,160 --> 01:21:56,479
Speaker 3: But you're right, it wouldn't have been seen by you know,

1308
01:21:56,560 --> 01:21:58,920
Speaker 3: this film has already been seen by millions of people

1309
01:21:58,960 --> 01:22:02,960
Speaker 3: because of because of Netflix, and you know they acquired

1310
01:22:02,960 --> 01:22:07,280
Speaker 3: the film at after the Telluride Film Festival where we premiered.

1311
01:22:07,920 --> 01:22:10,599
Speaker 1: And so hard to get funding for this, I mean

1312
01:22:10,600 --> 01:22:12,960
Speaker 1: you said you used a lot of credit cards, because

1313
01:22:13,000 --> 01:22:17,360
Speaker 1: I can imagine you know, it's not a it. You

1314
01:22:17,400 --> 01:22:19,320
Speaker 1: can't sit there and say, yeah, I definitely think we'll

1315
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:20,960
Speaker 1: be able to sell this. I mean, you know, you

1316
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:23,240
Speaker 1: don't know if the folks at Netflix or at or

1317
01:22:23,280 --> 01:22:25,120
Speaker 1: at an Amazon, or at a Hulu or a Peacock

1318
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:28,799
Speaker 1: might say, yeah, I don't. I don't know that people.

1319
01:22:28,840 --> 01:22:32,040
Speaker 1: We don't want, you know, we don't want something that

1320
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:35,200
Speaker 1: makes people shut the platform off. I mean I had

1321
01:22:35,240 --> 01:22:36,040
Speaker 1: to be that cynical.

1322
01:22:36,280 --> 01:22:38,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just say that there's not a lot of

1323
01:22:38,560 --> 01:22:43,479
Speaker 3: ROI on short documentaries. We you know, films like this

1324
01:22:43,760 --> 01:22:48,400
Speaker 3: are made out of passion and out of care.

1325
01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:50,320
Speaker 1: Well. I'm pretty involved with the folks at Docks d

1326
01:22:50,520 --> 01:22:52,960
Speaker 1: DC Docs, and we used to do a film festival

1327
01:22:53,080 --> 01:22:55,200
Speaker 1: to meet the Press Film Festival for five or six years,

1328
01:22:55,400 --> 01:23:00,240
Speaker 1: and it was only for shorts. Yeah, and it was

1329
01:23:00,280 --> 01:23:03,760
Speaker 1: a whole world of filmmakers that I was realizing were underserved.

1330
01:23:04,240 --> 01:23:10,240
Speaker 1: It's an underserved community with tremendous content.

1331
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:15,519
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, all the people that all the people that

1332
01:23:15,560 --> 01:23:17,599
Speaker 3: were part of this film, all the people that eventually

1333
01:23:17,600 --> 01:23:20,640
Speaker 3: came on board and gave us funding or helped us

1334
01:23:20,640 --> 01:23:23,479
Speaker 3: in different ways where they just cared about the issue.

1335
01:23:23,960 --> 01:23:28,160
Speaker 3: None of them expected to make money. We didn't make money.

1336
01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:30,759
Speaker 3: We lost money, but that's not why we made the film.

1337
01:23:30,880 --> 01:23:33,920
Speaker 3: We made it because all of us want to see

1338
01:23:34,760 --> 01:23:35,400
Speaker 3: change happen.

1339
01:23:35,880 --> 01:23:40,960
Speaker 1: And documentaries are like good investigative story books, right, you know,

1340
01:23:41,080 --> 01:23:42,960
Speaker 1: only about one out of one hundred actually make money.

1341
01:23:42,960 --> 01:23:47,000
Speaker 1: They're not meant to make money, They're meant to amplify

1342
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 1: a story, amplify an idea. On those fronts, let me

1343
01:23:54,040 --> 01:23:55,640
Speaker 1: let me close with this. What's next for you?

1344
01:23:57,640 --> 01:24:02,519
Speaker 3: Well, in the immediate future, we're about to you know,

1345
01:24:02,760 --> 01:24:05,839
Speaker 3: the voting for the Academy Awards is happening started today,

1346
01:24:06,400 --> 01:24:09,840
Speaker 3: started on February twenty sixth, got it, and it goes

1347
01:24:09,880 --> 01:24:10,639
Speaker 3: to March fifth.

1348
01:24:10,760 --> 01:24:13,719
Speaker 1: So we're kind of, oh, it's campaigning. Huh.

1349
01:24:14,080 --> 01:24:17,280
Speaker 3: We've been campaigning because we you know, our hope is

1350
01:24:17,320 --> 01:24:21,639
Speaker 3: that look, being nominated is amazing. We've gotten so much

1351
01:24:21,720 --> 01:24:26,400
Speaker 3: attention and brought it to the subject of school shootings

1352
01:24:26,439 --> 01:24:32,560
Speaker 3: and gun safety because of the nomination, and we're so

1353
01:24:32,680 --> 01:24:36,679
Speaker 3: grateful for that, and also the families who shared their

1354
01:24:36,760 --> 01:24:39,760
Speaker 3: stories of their children and their dream of making sure

1355
01:24:40,120 --> 01:24:44,400
Speaker 3: the world knows about their kids is coming true. And

1356
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:47,080
Speaker 3: you know, if we whether or not we win the Oscar,

1357
01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:52,000
Speaker 3: obviously winning the Oscar would amplify that and you know,

1358
01:24:52,120 --> 01:24:56,080
Speaker 3: help with this issue. But we're really happy about where

1359
01:24:56,080 --> 01:24:59,000
Speaker 3: we've gotten to and we're not going to stop working

1360
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:03,559
Speaker 3: on this. We are going to continue traveling the country

1361
01:25:03,600 --> 01:25:07,599
Speaker 3: and the world with this film and we're we and

1362
01:25:07,640 --> 01:25:10,839
Speaker 3: we have this photo exhibit which is going to continue

1363
01:25:10,920 --> 01:25:13,559
Speaker 3: to travel to different cities around the country for the

1364
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:14,559
Speaker 3: next year or at least.

1365
01:25:15,439 --> 01:25:19,920
Speaker 1: Well. The photo exhibit feels like an incredible sort of

1366
01:25:20,720 --> 01:25:24,280
Speaker 1: secondary way to bring attention to this, not just to

1367
01:25:24,320 --> 01:25:26,160
Speaker 1: the topic and the and the film itself.

1368
01:25:26,760 --> 01:25:28,600
Speaker 3: And you can put it in public places, which is

1369
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:32,640
Speaker 3: what we've done. You know, it's currently it's in Sunset

1370
01:25:32,960 --> 01:25:37,799
Speaker 3: Triangle Plaza in uh Silver Lake, and it's in Dumbo

1371
01:25:38,400 --> 01:25:42,120
Speaker 3: in Brooklyn, and you can just walk by it and

1372
01:25:42,360 --> 01:25:45,240
Speaker 3: check it out. And you know, hundreds of people every

1373
01:25:45,320 --> 01:25:48,040
Speaker 3: day are walking by and just taking it in. And

1374
01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:50,599
Speaker 3: we want to keep doing that now.

1375
01:25:50,640 --> 01:25:52,400
Speaker 1: I mean it's look, I don't know whether you can

1376
01:25:52,400 --> 01:25:54,640
Speaker 1: get people to intentionally notice, but in some ways you

1377
01:25:54,680 --> 01:25:57,600
Speaker 1: almost want to get the unintented, get it into unintentional

1378
01:25:57,640 --> 01:26:00,280
Speaker 1: public the public spaces where people stumble into.

1379
01:26:00,880 --> 01:26:01,480
Speaker 3: Absolutely.

1380
01:26:02,000 --> 01:26:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Joshua was great and it's a what to me,

1381
01:26:06,200 --> 01:26:09,080
Speaker 1: what's important about it as a as an artist? Is

1382
01:26:09,080 --> 01:26:13,840
Speaker 1: it how important it was as a visual story? Right?

1383
01:26:13,960 --> 01:26:16,400
Speaker 1: And that you know, I don't know if any judges

1384
01:26:16,439 --> 01:26:18,560
Speaker 1: are listening, but I think that should be a huge criteria.

1385
01:26:18,600 --> 01:26:21,800
Speaker 1: It's not just whether the topic is powerful, not whether

1386
01:26:21,840 --> 01:26:25,160
Speaker 1: the words are powerful. But you're making up film, right,

1387
01:26:25,400 --> 01:26:28,360
Speaker 1: you know? Is it visually powerful? And needless to say,

1388
01:26:28,360 --> 01:26:29,360
Speaker 1: it's visually powerful.

1389
01:26:30,160 --> 01:26:32,760
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks Chuck for giving me the chance to

1390
01:26:32,800 --> 01:26:33,400
Speaker 3: talk about it.

1391
01:26:33,479 --> 01:26:36,760
Speaker 1: And sure, yeah, absolutely, all right, maybe i'll see in

1392
01:26:36,760 --> 01:26:39,480
Speaker 1: the campaign trail. You've done with campaigns?

1393
01:26:40,040 --> 01:26:40,760
Speaker 3: Huh?

1394
01:26:40,800 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 1: Are you done with campaigns? Are you done covering political campaigns?

1395
01:26:44,880 --> 01:26:46,200
Speaker 3: Do you know what? Did I tell you? I made

1396
01:26:46,200 --> 01:26:48,320
Speaker 3: a film called Taking on the Kennedys. Do you know

1397
01:26:48,360 --> 01:26:49,040
Speaker 3: about that one?

1398
01:26:49,360 --> 01:26:50,320
Speaker 1: Oh? Which one was that?

1399
01:26:50,600 --> 01:26:55,280
Speaker 3: It was the familiar It was about Pat Kennedy's campaign,

1400
01:26:56,280 --> 01:26:58,439
Speaker 3: his first US congressional campaign.

1401
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:03,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, Land, oh, I remember this and the from the

1402
01:27:03,240 --> 01:27:04,000
Speaker 1: other right.

1403
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,960
Speaker 3: For I followed his opponent, Kevin Vigilante, who was a

1404
01:27:08,000 --> 01:27:12,639
Speaker 3: Republican and uh, it was a very kind of funny

1405
01:27:12,800 --> 01:27:17,600
Speaker 3: and maddening story. Yeah, and it was on PBS. It

1406
01:27:17,640 --> 01:27:20,360
Speaker 3: was very it was I do now remember this. It

1407
01:27:20,439 --> 01:27:25,200
Speaker 3: was It wasn't the most flattering portrait, probably not back

1408
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:28,479
Speaker 3: in the day, and I'm a Democrat, but back in

1409
01:27:28,520 --> 01:27:33,280
Speaker 3: the day it was you know, films like that really

1410
01:27:34,400 --> 01:27:39,639
Speaker 3: got seen, you know, when there were fewer channels and

1411
01:27:39,640 --> 01:27:41,599
Speaker 3: and so it was it was very popular.

1412
01:27:41,880 --> 01:27:45,280
Speaker 1: But right, well that was that was basically actually when

1413
01:27:45,280 --> 01:27:46,960
Speaker 1: we were talking about where would a film like this be,

1414
01:27:48,320 --> 01:27:51,640
Speaker 1: maybe p PBS was the was the the that was

1415
01:27:51,680 --> 01:27:53,840
Speaker 1: the home run. Right, if you got a PBS pick up,

1416
01:27:53,920 --> 01:27:55,160
Speaker 1: you're like great.

1417
01:27:55,520 --> 01:27:58,400
Speaker 3: At least a lot of people watched it there too, right, yeah,

1418
01:27:58,520 --> 01:28:00,840
Speaker 3: right now it's not as much. There's it's harder to

1419
01:28:00,880 --> 01:28:04,439
Speaker 3: get audiences anywhere. Me they're much more you know.

1420
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:09,720
Speaker 1: Right, who knows how this gets into people's algorithms, right, however.

1421
01:28:09,479 --> 01:28:12,080
Speaker 3: That works exactly these days.

1422
01:28:12,280 --> 01:28:15,280
Speaker 1: Well, Joshua, good luck with the campaign. I mean, you know,

1423
01:28:15,680 --> 01:28:18,200
Speaker 1: with the campaigning, it's it's a it's a I know

1424
01:28:18,240 --> 01:28:19,040
Speaker 1: that's a process.

1425
01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:22,160
Speaker 3: And and are you still involved with DC docs?

1426
01:28:23,680 --> 01:28:25,840
Speaker 1: Yeah? Whenever I can be. I mean, you know, whether

1427
01:28:25,880 --> 01:28:29,200
Speaker 1: it's hope, you know, putting together program helping with their programming,

1428
01:28:29,320 --> 01:28:34,559
Speaker 1: or amplifying their docs and all of that. Jamie sure

1429
01:28:35,000 --> 01:28:39,360
Speaker 1: is you know Jamie I know Sky Sidney Okay, Sky's

1430
01:28:39,360 --> 01:28:39,879
Speaker 1: her partner.

1431
01:28:39,960 --> 01:28:43,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we Actually I was talking with Sky the

1432
01:28:43,280 --> 01:28:47,559
Speaker 3: other day. So I do a I interview my mom

1433
01:28:47,880 --> 01:28:51,800
Speaker 3: on CBS Sunday Morning, and we're on there regularly where

1434
01:28:51,840 --> 01:28:53,880
Speaker 3: I just talk to her about her life and she

1435
01:28:53,960 --> 01:28:57,519
Speaker 3: lives in DC, and you know what's going on in

1436
01:28:57,600 --> 01:29:00,760
Speaker 3: her life and her opinions on things, and we've been

1437
01:29:00,760 --> 01:29:04,400
Speaker 3: on for thirteen years. Anyway, she recently moved back to

1438
01:29:04,479 --> 01:29:07,040
Speaker 3: d C. And so I was talking with Sky at

1439
01:29:07,080 --> 01:29:11,400
Speaker 3: sun Dance about about this, and we decided we're going

1440
01:29:11,439 --> 01:29:14,479
Speaker 3: to try to have my mom be the person who

1441
01:29:14,560 --> 01:29:18,719
Speaker 3: tells you to turn off your cell phones and other

1442
01:29:18,760 --> 01:29:21,880
Speaker 3: things for the festival. So we're going off. So we're

1443
01:29:21,880 --> 01:29:23,360
Speaker 3: getting involved with DC docs.

1444
01:29:23,880 --> 01:29:26,360
Speaker 1: Well, then I look forward to seeing you in whatever

1445
01:29:26,400 --> 01:29:29,840
Speaker 1: way that Jamie recruits me to get involved. Great and

1446
01:29:29,880 --> 01:29:32,120
Speaker 1: at a minimum, I'd like to use my podcast to

1447
01:29:32,720 --> 01:29:35,760
Speaker 1: amplify And I'm a you know, probably probably at least

1448
01:29:35,760 --> 01:29:38,240
Speaker 1: once a month have some documentary filmmaker on.

1449
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:41,800
Speaker 3: So grateful for that. And uh, when when do you

1450
01:29:41,840 --> 01:29:42,599
Speaker 3: think you're running this?

1451
01:29:43,479 --> 01:29:46,680
Speaker 1: We'll drop it next week, Okay during voting, don't worry.

1452
01:29:46,720 --> 01:29:48,200
Speaker 3: Sooner the better I know.

1453
01:29:48,400 --> 01:29:52,080
Speaker 1: I got you. We just did a feature length. You're

1454
01:29:52,120 --> 01:29:57,960
Speaker 1: not in competition, but we just had I'm trying to

1455
01:29:58,000 --> 01:30:00,320
Speaker 1: I'm like blanking on the title of the film, but

1456
01:30:01,120 --> 01:30:07,960
Speaker 1: Alabama solution No no, no, no about that used body camera footage? Perfect, yes, perfect, neighbor.

1457
01:30:07,960 --> 01:30:11,040
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, Gita, I agree.

1458
01:30:11,080 --> 01:30:13,360
Speaker 3: I was with her last night. We're all we're all

1459
01:30:13,360 --> 01:30:14,160
Speaker 3: going to the same part.

1460
01:30:14,240 --> 01:30:16,599
Speaker 1: You're on the same circuit. Yeah no, no, no, and uh

1461
01:30:16,680 --> 01:30:18,679
Speaker 1: yeah you're not. Don't worry. You're in two different categories.

1462
01:30:18,720 --> 01:30:22,560
Speaker 1: We are also, you know, we I am so the

1463
01:30:22,680 --> 01:30:25,559
Speaker 1: check podcast is promoting Gaeta and we've got we've got

1464
01:30:25,640 --> 01:30:27,520
Speaker 1: people were promoting in both categories.

1465
01:30:27,520 --> 01:30:31,320
Speaker 3: Here we're we're I'm having lunch with her today too,

1466
01:30:31,479 --> 01:30:32,519
Speaker 3: so I'll say.

1467
01:30:32,360 --> 01:30:45,599
Speaker 1: Hi, please do okay, thanks a lot, thanks, take care well.

1468
01:30:45,640 --> 01:30:50,839
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that conversation about just a different

1469
01:30:50,880 --> 01:30:58,200
Speaker 1: way to try to tackle the school shooting issue without

1470
01:30:58,439 --> 01:31:02,760
Speaker 1: dealing with doing in a different way. And I will say,

1471
01:31:02,760 --> 01:31:06,479
Speaker 1: this is all the empty rooms is. It's it's pretty powerful.

1472
01:31:08,160 --> 01:31:12,680
Speaker 1: It's not you know, you're not sitting there for two hours,

1473
01:31:12,400 --> 01:31:14,160
Speaker 1: and it definitely is worth your time. So I hope

1474
01:31:14,200 --> 01:31:15,880
Speaker 1: you give it a chance. I know, I joked with

1475
01:31:15,960 --> 01:31:19,480
Speaker 1: Josha our interview was longer than the than the documentary,

1476
01:31:19,520 --> 01:31:22,519
Speaker 1: but in some ways it is really visually. I go

1477
01:31:22,680 --> 01:31:27,160
Speaker 1: back to the visually powerful and I'm always very impressed

1478
01:31:28,200 --> 01:31:30,600
Speaker 1: because you know, the the easy way to make a

1479
01:31:30,640 --> 01:31:34,360
Speaker 1: documentary is to do interview and it's really just talking

1480
01:31:34,479 --> 01:31:38,519
Speaker 1: heads and you sort of file footage when you can

1481
01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:41,439
Speaker 1: tell a story in an unusual way, whether it was

1482
01:31:41,680 --> 01:31:44,720
Speaker 1: it was the story of using all that bodycam footage

1483
01:31:45,479 --> 01:31:49,000
Speaker 1: for perfect Neighbor, or on this one, it is it

1484
01:31:49,080 --> 01:31:55,240
Speaker 1: is going back to the empty rooms, the rooms that

1485
01:31:55,720 --> 01:32:02,240
Speaker 1: parents won't touch after they lose a child. It's powerful imagery,

1486
01:32:02,800 --> 01:32:06,040
Speaker 1: but it's a unique way. It's another just another way

1487
01:32:06,080 --> 01:32:09,240
Speaker 1: to do storytelling. But let me pivot here. It is

1488
01:32:09,280 --> 01:32:11,120
Speaker 1: a Wednesday, which means I have a top five list

1489
01:32:11,160 --> 01:32:12,760
Speaker 1: and I'm going to do a twist on it. And

1490
01:32:12,800 --> 01:32:15,240
Speaker 1: it's something I told you I was going to be

1491
01:32:15,439 --> 01:32:18,879
Speaker 1: working on pretty soon, and this will continue to evolve.

1492
01:32:20,280 --> 01:32:25,080
Speaker 1: But that is sort of campaign history.

1493
01:32:26,160 --> 01:32:27,639
Speaker 3: And I have.

1494
01:32:29,160 --> 01:32:31,639
Speaker 1: Those of you that those that know me have known

1495
01:32:31,640 --> 01:32:34,639
Speaker 1: me a long time, know that I've got a file

1496
01:32:34,760 --> 01:32:39,600
Speaker 1: boxes filled with research of unwritten books, whether it's on

1497
01:32:39,840 --> 01:32:42,880
Speaker 1: crazy stories from the presidential campaign trail that my late

1498
01:32:42,920 --> 01:32:45,439
Speaker 1: mentor Doug Bailey was working on and I inherited all

1499
01:32:45,520 --> 01:32:48,240
Speaker 1: of that scholarship, or what I worked on on what

1500
01:32:48,280 --> 01:32:50,320
Speaker 1: I called Tales from the Trail, sort of the crazy

1501
01:32:50,439 --> 01:32:53,800
Speaker 1: Every state has had a crazy campaign at least one,

1502
01:32:53,840 --> 01:32:57,439
Speaker 1: if not more, once you sit back and wait till

1503
01:32:57,479 --> 01:32:59,599
Speaker 1: I tell you a story. But this is the beauty

1504
01:32:59,640 --> 01:33:03,840
Speaker 1: of this format, right is you have an opportunity to

1505
01:33:03,880 --> 01:33:06,200
Speaker 1: test out some of your theories of the case and

1506
01:33:06,240 --> 01:33:09,840
Speaker 1: some of your storytelling. So this episode, obviously it's huge

1507
01:33:09,920 --> 01:33:15,479
Speaker 1: Texas Senate. We kicked off the midterm election coverage at

1508
01:33:15,479 --> 01:33:18,919
Speaker 1: the start of this podcast. Obviously, everything that happened Texas

1509
01:33:18,960 --> 01:33:21,840
Speaker 1: has a chance the Texas twenty twenty six Senate race

1510
01:33:22,320 --> 01:33:25,320
Speaker 1: with these messy primaries and everything that has happened inside

1511
01:33:25,360 --> 01:33:30,080
Speaker 1: both parties a we have Obviously we're still sorting ourselves

1512
01:33:30,120 --> 01:33:35,120
Speaker 1: out with the runoff situation, but it has a chance

1513
01:33:35,320 --> 01:33:40,200
Speaker 1: to become an all timer in Texas history. And it

1514
01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:45,000
Speaker 1: got me thinking what are the all time great Texas

1515
01:33:45,000 --> 01:33:49,120
Speaker 1: statewide campaigns? And my it's just governor and Senate that

1516
01:33:49,240 --> 01:33:52,519
Speaker 1: qualify for this. And I've done I've worked on this

1517
01:33:52,600 --> 01:33:57,160
Speaker 1: for all fifty states, and I've got sort of different

1518
01:33:57,320 --> 01:33:59,400
Speaker 1: lists that I've put together over the years of this

1519
01:33:59,560 --> 01:34:03,320
Speaker 1: and different ways that I've wanted to publish content about it.

1520
01:34:03,400 --> 01:34:07,439
Speaker 1: But I thought today I would at least make my

1521
01:34:07,560 --> 01:34:10,800
Speaker 1: top five lists, my top This is my top five

1522
01:34:10,960 --> 01:34:21,599
Speaker 1: all time statewide campaigns in Texas history. Top five, top

1523
01:34:20,400 --> 01:34:26,240
Speaker 1: top We've had a few minutes here give you a

1524
01:34:26,240 --> 01:34:30,000
Speaker 1: little little background in each of my top five inning

1525
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:34,000
Speaker 1: we'll also note some races that get honorable mentioned but

1526
01:34:34,040 --> 01:34:36,439
Speaker 1: didn't quite crack my top five. I would love for

1527
01:34:36,520 --> 01:34:40,240
Speaker 1: my Texas listeners, my Texas and my political science and

1528
01:34:40,280 --> 01:34:44,719
Speaker 1: political junkies. If you don't agree with my ranking reranked

1529
01:34:44,760 --> 01:34:46,880
Speaker 1: the five, we'll get to it in a minute. Or

1530
01:34:47,040 --> 01:34:49,559
Speaker 1: what did I leave out? What did you what were

1531
01:34:49,560 --> 01:34:53,840
Speaker 1: you surprised by? Etc? Because look, Texas, you know, as

1532
01:34:53,880 --> 01:34:56,840
Speaker 1: we did with my podcast time Machine earlier this week,

1533
01:34:56,840 --> 01:35:00,960
Speaker 1: it has an incredible history, right being an dependent country

1534
01:35:00,960 --> 01:35:03,519
Speaker 1: for a small period of time, there's a lot that

1535
01:35:03,560 --> 01:35:09,280
Speaker 1: has happened. Texas has produced multiple presidents, political legends, and frankly,

1536
01:35:09,360 --> 01:35:13,080
Speaker 1: some of the strangest campaigns in American history. Not all

1537
01:35:13,080 --> 01:35:15,080
Speaker 1: these races that I'm going to put in the top

1538
01:35:15,160 --> 01:35:19,040
Speaker 1: five were actually close races, but in some cases they

1539
01:35:19,040 --> 01:35:23,200
Speaker 1: were extraordinarily consequential for the result that happened. But these

1540
01:35:23,280 --> 01:35:28,439
Speaker 1: races changed something, something bigger. Some of these races launched careers,

1541
01:35:28,560 --> 01:35:31,479
Speaker 1: some of them ended eras, some of them featured something

1542
01:35:31,560 --> 01:35:34,120
Speaker 1: so unusual you just couldn't make it up. Look, I

1543
01:35:34,160 --> 01:35:37,240
Speaker 1: get it. All time lists are subjective. The point is

1544
01:35:37,280 --> 01:35:40,840
Speaker 1: to spark debate, get people thinking about political history and

1545
01:35:40,880 --> 01:35:44,120
Speaker 1: how it matters to today's politics. And again, if you

1546
01:35:44,160 --> 01:35:48,240
Speaker 1: disagree with my choices, please send me your feedback, your pushback,

1547
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:53,160
Speaker 1: your own nominees Aschuck atdchucktodcast dot com. So I got

1548
01:35:53,200 --> 01:35:56,000
Speaker 1: five races for you today. And if the Texas the

1549
01:35:56,040 --> 01:35:58,920
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six Texas Senate race turns into the humdinger

1550
01:35:59,240 --> 01:36:02,360
Speaker 1: that some people expected to be by November, it may

1551
01:36:02,400 --> 01:36:05,920
Speaker 1: earn its own place on this list someday. But hey,

1552
01:36:06,880 --> 01:36:09,600
Speaker 1: I'll let you decide. The question is which one of

1553
01:36:09,640 --> 01:36:13,880
Speaker 1: these five would you bump from this list? So this

1554
01:36:13,920 --> 01:36:18,320
Speaker 1: is my top five. Number five is actually one race

1555
01:36:18,400 --> 01:36:21,240
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century. And there's only one race

1556
01:36:21,280 --> 01:36:23,439
Speaker 1: on my list that I include from the twenty first century,

1557
01:36:23,439 --> 01:36:26,719
Speaker 1: and it's two thousand and six. Texas Governor Rick Perry

1558
01:36:26,800 --> 01:36:30,360
Speaker 1: wins this race with thirty nine percent. The Democratic nominee

1559
01:36:30,439 --> 01:36:34,400
Speaker 1: Chris Bell gets thirty percent, Carol Keaton Strayhorn gets eighteen

1560
01:36:34,479 --> 01:36:40,759
Speaker 1: percent running as an independent Republican, and the late Kinky Friedman,

1561
01:36:40,880 --> 01:36:44,280
Speaker 1: who once had a hit song called they Don't make

1562
01:36:44,360 --> 01:36:48,040
Speaker 1: Jews like Jesus Anymore, got twelve percent. So here's what

1563
01:36:48,080 --> 01:36:50,960
Speaker 1: you need to know about this campaign. Rick Perry's running

1564
01:36:50,960 --> 01:36:55,320
Speaker 1: for a second full term as governor, a term he inherited. Right,

1565
01:36:55,400 --> 01:36:59,200
Speaker 1: he be inherited the term when Bush became president. Wins

1566
01:36:59,200 --> 01:37:02,840
Speaker 1: in O two fairly easily. Six is his attempt at

1567
01:37:02,840 --> 01:37:06,920
Speaker 1: a second full term. His approval ratings are not great, right,

1568
01:37:06,960 --> 01:37:09,640
Speaker 1: two thousand and six not a good year for Republicans

1569
01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:15,200
Speaker 1: in general. Right across the board nationally and Poles had

1570
01:37:15,200 --> 01:37:18,400
Speaker 1: consistently showed that roughly six and ten Texans said they'd

1571
01:37:18,439 --> 01:37:21,799
Speaker 1: vote for someone other than Perry. And the final results

1572
01:37:21,800 --> 01:37:24,439
Speaker 1: showed that six and ten Texans voted for someone else

1573
01:37:24,520 --> 01:37:28,400
Speaker 1: other than Perry. So why why didn't this end up

1574
01:37:28,400 --> 01:37:32,240
Speaker 1: a real race? Well, those six and ten Texans were

1575
01:37:32,240 --> 01:37:35,800
Speaker 1: split up between three other candidates. So yet Chris bout

1576
01:37:35,920 --> 01:37:38,760
Speaker 1: he was an accidental member of Congress, ended up member

1577
01:37:38,800 --> 01:37:41,120
Speaker 1: of Congress in the Tom Delay seat for a brief term.

1578
01:37:41,360 --> 01:37:44,400
Speaker 1: He ends up the Democratic nominee because no one else

1579
01:37:44,479 --> 01:37:47,439
Speaker 1: really wanted the job, the most interesting candidate and the

1580
01:37:47,479 --> 01:37:51,480
Speaker 1: chief rival to Rick Perry for This was Carol Keaton Strayhorn.

1581
01:37:51,600 --> 01:37:54,559
Speaker 1: She was the sitting Comptroller of Texas. She decided to

1582
01:37:54,600 --> 01:37:56,800
Speaker 1: skip the Republican primary because she didn't think she could

1583
01:37:56,800 --> 01:37:58,920
Speaker 1: win a primary, but she thought she could run as

1584
01:37:58,920 --> 01:38:03,920
Speaker 1: an independent, herself as one tough grandma, and really was

1585
01:38:04,720 --> 01:38:07,080
Speaker 1: a big chunk of her funding came from travelers, came

1586
01:38:07,120 --> 01:38:10,040
Speaker 1: from the same communities that normally back in the nine

1587
01:38:10,080 --> 01:38:13,200
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties used to support Democrats. She was trying

1588
01:38:13,240 --> 01:38:15,160
Speaker 1: to run a sort of hybrid, trying to get sort

1589
01:38:15,200 --> 01:38:19,320
Speaker 1: of the oppositional funding, you know, to try to sort

1590
01:38:19,320 --> 01:38:22,759
Speaker 1: of you could call it moderate Republican, Republican light, whatever

1591
01:38:22,800 --> 01:38:24,799
Speaker 1: you want to call it. But that was the theory

1592
01:38:24,800 --> 01:38:28,280
Speaker 1: of her case. But she needed the Democrats not to

1593
01:38:28,439 --> 01:38:32,599
Speaker 1: essentially run a series campaign. And in theory Chris Bell

1594
01:38:32,720 --> 01:38:36,040
Speaker 1: really was an incredibly underfunded campaign, didn't really run anything.

1595
01:38:36,080 --> 01:38:39,439
Speaker 1: And of course Kinky Friedman, was it a publicity stunt?

1596
01:38:39,680 --> 01:38:43,519
Speaker 1: Was it a frustration? Well, at that time iMOS was

1597
01:38:43,720 --> 01:38:47,679
Speaker 1: if you remember the late great Don Imis, Kinky Friedman

1598
01:38:47,760 --> 01:38:51,040
Speaker 1: was sort of a regular fixture of iMOS so had

1599
01:38:51,080 --> 01:38:55,200
Speaker 1: his own sort of he had his own sort of

1600
01:38:55,520 --> 01:38:58,479
Speaker 1: persona and as he used to he had a campaign

1601
01:38:58,479 --> 01:39:01,080
Speaker 1: slogan that simply was how hard could it? There was

1602
01:39:01,080 --> 01:39:04,840
Speaker 1: a libertarian on two? Now what's interesting about But it

1603
01:39:04,880 --> 01:39:08,080
Speaker 1: was Strayhorn that was the chief challenger. Now, over the

1604
01:39:08,080 --> 01:39:13,280
Speaker 1: course of her political career she used several last names McLellan, Rylander, Strayhorn,

1605
01:39:13,320 --> 01:39:17,639
Speaker 1: and eventually back to Keaton. She actually wanted to get

1606
01:39:17,680 --> 01:39:22,280
Speaker 1: Grandma officially added to her ballot name, but the Perry

1607
01:39:22,280 --> 01:39:25,920
Speaker 1: appointed Secretary of State denied that request. What was what

1608
01:39:26,080 --> 01:39:30,000
Speaker 1: added to the drama of this Republican inner fighting? Was

1609
01:39:30,000 --> 01:39:32,800
Speaker 1: it one of her sons, Scott McClellan, was the press

1610
01:39:32,800 --> 01:39:36,360
Speaker 1: secretary for George W. Bush. So she had the president's

1611
01:39:36,360 --> 01:39:39,559
Speaker 1: press secretary's mother running as an independent against the Republican

1612
01:39:39,600 --> 01:39:43,280
Speaker 1: governor of Texas who succeeded George W. Bush. Right, that

1613
01:39:44,200 --> 01:39:47,000
Speaker 1: was quite the story. And then of course you had this,

1614
01:39:47,360 --> 01:39:51,880
Speaker 1: you know, to understand this race, the money was really

1615
01:39:52,000 --> 01:39:55,479
Speaker 1: only with Perry at twenty four million, Strayhorn at thirteen million,

1616
01:39:55,760 --> 01:39:58,320
Speaker 1: Kinky Friedman raised about three and a half million, and

1617
01:39:58,400 --> 01:40:01,640
Speaker 1: Chris Bell, the Democratic nomine only two million dollars, and

1618
01:40:01,680 --> 01:40:03,439
Speaker 1: in fact, at one point Strayhorn had more than eight

1619
01:40:03,479 --> 01:40:05,719
Speaker 1: million cash on hand, Bell had less than one hundred thousand.

1620
01:40:05,960 --> 01:40:08,720
Speaker 1: Bell was not at all a serious candidate, and yet

1621
01:40:08,800 --> 01:40:12,400
Speaker 1: he finished second with thirty percent of the vote. And

1622
01:40:12,439 --> 01:40:16,320
Speaker 1: it to me, the reason I find this fascinating is

1623
01:40:16,360 --> 01:40:20,000
Speaker 1: because it was a reminder that the major party line,

1624
01:40:20,000 --> 01:40:23,000
Speaker 1: there is a habit that a chunk of voters in

1625
01:40:23,040 --> 01:40:27,479
Speaker 1: both parties just always pull the lever for whoever has

1626
01:40:27,640 --> 01:40:30,080
Speaker 1: the D or the R next to their name. We

1627
01:40:30,160 --> 01:40:32,960
Speaker 1: know what the baseline number of that is. In Texas,

1628
01:40:32,960 --> 01:40:35,560
Speaker 1: it's thirty percent, because that's what Chris Bell got. He

1629
01:40:35,600 --> 01:40:38,760
Speaker 1: got thirty percent. My guess is the baseline for just

1630
01:40:38,800 --> 01:40:42,080
Speaker 1: an R is somewhere in that same range, right thirty

1631
01:40:42,120 --> 01:40:44,960
Speaker 1: to thirty five percent, probably on the Republican side too,

1632
01:40:45,000 --> 01:40:46,720
Speaker 1: no matter the state you went, which is, you know,

1633
01:40:46,800 --> 01:40:50,000
Speaker 1: unless it's a you know, state of Vermont, but you know,

1634
01:40:50,160 --> 01:40:53,680
Speaker 1: there is a voter that always pulls a lever. You know,

1635
01:40:53,920 --> 01:40:58,639
Speaker 1: had there, had she you know, worked harder to win

1636
01:40:58,680 --> 01:41:02,000
Speaker 1: over some Democrats. There were all sorts of ways, but

1637
01:41:02,040 --> 01:41:09,280
Speaker 1: it's why third party candidacies only succeed when one one

1638
01:41:09,320 --> 01:41:11,040
Speaker 1: of the two parties has to basically give up on

1639
01:41:11,080 --> 01:41:15,799
Speaker 1: a race, has to completely walk away, because just simply

1640
01:41:15,840 --> 01:41:19,599
Speaker 1: having their presence on the ballot will eat into that.

1641
01:41:19,720 --> 01:41:23,040
Speaker 1: And it really it's why I include this race because

1642
01:41:23,080 --> 01:41:26,439
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the great lessons of to

1643
01:41:26,600 --> 01:41:29,680
Speaker 1: independent those trying to break up the two parties, How

1644
01:41:29,680 --> 01:41:32,280
Speaker 1: do you do it? You know, you're just you know,

1645
01:41:32,400 --> 01:41:35,160
Speaker 1: don't assume that just because one of the two major

1646
01:41:35,200 --> 01:41:39,080
Speaker 1: parties only fields a guidfly candidate that's underfunded, that there

1647
01:41:39,120 --> 01:41:42,800
Speaker 1: isn't going to be a strong poll by voters there.

1648
01:41:42,880 --> 01:41:45,880
Speaker 1: So that's why that makes my top five number four

1649
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:50,240
Speaker 1: on the list. Nineteen ninety four, Texas Governor George W.

1650
01:41:50,320 --> 01:41:52,560
Speaker 1: Bush wins with fifty three and a half percent of

1651
01:41:52,600 --> 01:41:55,799
Speaker 1: the vote and Richards gets forty six percent of the vote.

1652
01:41:56,040 --> 01:42:01,400
Speaker 1: She's the incumbent governor. She's incredibly popular, she's witty, nationally known.

1653
01:42:02,040 --> 01:42:03,920
Speaker 1: You know, she delivered the keynote at the eighty eight

1654
01:42:03,960 --> 01:42:07,160
Speaker 1: Democratic Convention, and is poor George he was born with

1655
01:42:07,240 --> 01:42:10,200
Speaker 1: a silver spoon in his mouth. Was sort of the punchline,

1656
01:42:10,360 --> 01:42:14,120
Speaker 1: and it just went from there. And she actually had

1657
01:42:14,160 --> 01:42:16,160
Speaker 1: a pretty good story to tell. The Texas economy was

1658
01:42:16,200 --> 01:42:19,640
Speaker 1: doing well, crime was down. By most normal political standards,

1659
01:42:19,680 --> 01:42:22,080
Speaker 1: she'd have been in good shape for reelection, but she

1660
01:42:22,280 --> 01:42:26,120
Speaker 1: faced an opponent with an incredibly famous name, George W. Bush,

1661
01:42:26,160 --> 01:42:29,160
Speaker 1: son of the former president, part owner of the Texas Rangers,

1662
01:42:29,680 --> 01:42:34,679
Speaker 1: and he was pretty untested politically. Richards kind of dismissed

1663
01:42:34,720 --> 01:42:38,280
Speaker 1: the candidacy at first, said, ah, some jerk is what

1664
01:42:38,360 --> 01:42:40,320
Speaker 1: she called him at first, and a lot of Democrats

1665
01:42:40,320 --> 01:42:43,720
Speaker 1: dismissed it, thinking, oh, hey, George H. W. Bush just

1666
01:42:43,760 --> 01:42:48,040
Speaker 1: got walloped in nineteen ninety two. There's Bush fatigue. That's

1667
01:42:48,080 --> 01:42:51,200
Speaker 1: not gonna work now. Ironically, this was a race going

1668
01:42:51,240 --> 01:42:53,880
Speaker 1: into election day. Both candidates had their favorable ratings over

1669
01:42:53,920 --> 01:42:58,200
Speaker 1: sixty percent. Both were well liked. Richards wasn't unpopular, Bush

1670
01:42:58,360 --> 01:43:01,320
Speaker 1: wasn't unknown. There was a scandal election or a bad

1671
01:43:01,360 --> 01:43:05,160
Speaker 1: economy election. The initial polling of this race, one poll

1672
01:43:05,160 --> 01:43:07,800
Speaker 1: had a forty seven forty in late nineteen ninety three,

1673
01:43:08,600 --> 01:43:13,280
Speaker 1: and it is basically, you know, that's when you get

1674
01:43:13,320 --> 01:43:15,920
Speaker 1: to start that way, before you're spending any dollars. There

1675
01:43:15,960 --> 01:43:19,040
Speaker 1: you go. The real issue is the race unfolded in

1676
01:43:19,080 --> 01:43:22,160
Speaker 1: the middle of the nineteen ninety four Republican Revolution. Democrats

1677
01:43:22,160 --> 01:43:25,639
Speaker 1: lost fifty four House seats nationally and in governor's races.

1678
01:43:25,680 --> 01:43:28,679
Speaker 1: Bush was one of four Republicans that year to defeat

1679
01:43:28,680 --> 01:43:34,599
Speaker 1: a sitting incumbent governor, a sitting incumbent Democratic governor. I've

1680
01:43:34,640 --> 01:43:36,360
Speaker 1: told you it's one of the hardest things to do.

1681
01:43:36,720 --> 01:43:40,240
Speaker 1: In ninety four, a lot of incumbent governors lost, including

1682
01:43:40,240 --> 01:43:45,880
Speaker 1: Anne Richards, and she basically lost because of this. It

1683
01:43:45,960 --> 01:43:49,680
Speaker 1: was the shift, if you will, Carl Rove understood it.

1684
01:43:49,800 --> 01:43:51,840
Speaker 1: He saw the key dynamic clearly, the rise of the

1685
01:43:51,880 --> 01:43:55,439
Speaker 1: Republican suburbs in Texas in and around the major cities,

1686
01:43:55,960 --> 01:44:00,920
Speaker 1: and the success in those suburbs is why Bush won.

1687
01:44:01,520 --> 01:44:05,240
Speaker 1: And this race is important because it marks the beginning

1688
01:44:05,280 --> 01:44:08,880
Speaker 1: of something his storic. Texas Republicans have held every single

1689
01:44:08,960 --> 01:44:12,880
Speaker 1: statewide office ever since that election. No Democrat has won

1690
01:44:12,960 --> 01:44:16,320
Speaker 1: statewide in Texas since November eighth, nineteen ninety four. One guy,

1691
01:44:16,320 --> 01:44:18,400
Speaker 1: a land commissioner, Gary Morrow, won a race that year

1692
01:44:18,439 --> 01:44:21,280
Speaker 1: in ninety four, and then and then that was it.

1693
01:44:21,720 --> 01:44:25,439
Speaker 1: So no Democrat has held state wide office since that

1694
01:44:25,640 --> 01:44:29,800
Speaker 1: Landmark Bush victory over Richards. Bush goes on to win

1695
01:44:29,840 --> 01:44:31,840
Speaker 1: re election ninety eight with sixty nine percent of the vote.

1696
01:44:32,040 --> 01:44:34,679
Speaker 1: Two years later, he runs for president. You can trace

1697
01:44:34,760 --> 01:44:36,760
Speaker 1: a direct line from a governor's race in Texas in

1698
01:44:36,800 --> 01:44:39,639
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four to the Iraq War, Bush tax cuts,

1699
01:44:39,640 --> 01:44:43,200
Speaker 1: and a generation of Supreme Court appointments. Right, butterfly flaps

1700
01:44:43,280 --> 01:44:45,320
Speaker 1: his wing. Number three on my list, you have to

1701
01:44:45,360 --> 01:44:48,680
Speaker 1: go back to nineteen twenty four. Texas Governor Miriam ma

1702
01:44:49,240 --> 01:44:53,960
Speaker 1: Ferguson defeats the clan backed candidate Felix Robertson in the

1703
01:44:54,000 --> 01:44:59,160
Speaker 1: Democratic primary. Then she goes on to become the first

1704
01:44:59,320 --> 01:45:03,960
Speaker 1: woman governor of Texas and actually technically the second woman

1705
01:45:04,040 --> 01:45:08,000
Speaker 1: governor in American history, because a woman in Wyoming took

1706
01:45:08,040 --> 01:45:12,280
Speaker 1: the oath a few days before Ma Ferguson did. But

1707
01:45:12,320 --> 01:45:15,519
Speaker 1: here's the story. To understand nineteen twenty four, you have

1708
01:45:15,600 --> 01:45:19,439
Speaker 1: to go back to nineteen seventeen. A man named James

1709
01:45:19,760 --> 01:45:23,639
Speaker 1: pah Ferguson. Man pah Ferguson was the governor of Texas.

1710
01:45:23,640 --> 01:45:26,960
Speaker 1: He was a populist politician known as Farmer Jim, and

1711
01:45:27,000 --> 01:45:30,080
Speaker 1: he was also deeply corrupt. The charges against him read

1712
01:45:30,120 --> 01:45:33,240
Speaker 1: like a corruption checklist that would look familiar today. Misuse

1713
01:45:33,280 --> 01:45:36,120
Speaker 1: of state funds, co mingling his personal bank accounts with

1714
01:45:36,160 --> 01:45:38,920
Speaker 1: state money. A mysterious personal loan of one hundred and

1715
01:45:38,920 --> 01:45:41,200
Speaker 1: fifty six thousand dollars that he refused, to explain, which,

1716
01:45:41,200 --> 01:45:43,439
Speaker 1: of course, would be like nearly a million dollars in

1717
01:45:43,439 --> 01:45:45,720
Speaker 1: today's money. It was later found to have come from

1718
01:45:45,800 --> 01:45:49,280
Speaker 1: San Antonio beer Brewers, which was particularly damaging given the

1719
01:45:49,280 --> 01:45:53,080
Speaker 1: prohibition politics of that era. And then, most infamously, he

1720
01:45:53,160 --> 01:45:56,559
Speaker 1: tried to purge professors at the University of Texas who

1721
01:45:56,560 --> 01:46:00,000
Speaker 1: he personally disliked, and when the ut president refused to

1722
01:46:00,160 --> 01:46:04,120
Speaker 1: fire them, Ferguson actually tried to defund the university entirely.

1723
01:46:04,800 --> 01:46:08,080
Speaker 1: So the legislature impeached him on ten of twenty one

1724
01:46:08,160 --> 01:46:11,040
Speaker 1: charges and barred him from holding state office ever again.

1725
01:46:11,760 --> 01:46:15,040
Speaker 1: But guess what, Pah, Ferguson refused to leave politics. He

1726
01:46:15,080 --> 01:46:19,439
Speaker 1: found another way back. Now. By the early nineteen twenties,

1727
01:46:19,479 --> 01:46:22,439
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan had become a major political force

1728
01:46:22,439 --> 01:46:24,479
Speaker 1: in the state of Texas. It wasn't a fringe movement,

1729
01:46:24,520 --> 01:46:26,760
Speaker 1: it was a pretty mainstream. One clan day at the

1730
01:46:26,800 --> 01:46:29,160
Speaker 1: Texas State Fair, for instance, in October nineteen twenty three,

1731
01:46:29,240 --> 01:46:33,840
Speaker 1: drew massive crowds. The Klan had elected sheriffs, judges, legislatures,

1732
01:46:33,840 --> 01:46:36,960
Speaker 1: district attorneys all across the state. They voted as a

1733
01:46:36,960 --> 01:46:40,280
Speaker 1: block and used violence and intimidation to enforce their political will.

1734
01:46:41,320 --> 01:46:44,000
Speaker 1: Their candidate for governor in nineteen twenty four was a

1735
01:46:44,040 --> 01:46:47,200
Speaker 1: gentleman by the name of Felix Robertson, so Pah Ferguson

1736
01:46:47,200 --> 01:46:49,680
Speaker 1: saw an opening. He couldn't run himself, so he put

1737
01:46:49,720 --> 01:46:53,320
Speaker 1: his wife on the ballot, Miriam Ma Ferguson. Miriam Ferguson

1738
01:46:53,360 --> 01:46:55,160
Speaker 1: had spent most of her life as a private citizen,

1739
01:46:55,240 --> 01:46:57,799
Speaker 1: a homemaker who had no political career of her own,

1740
01:46:57,920 --> 01:47:00,559
Speaker 1: and in fact, her initials were M A. And it

1741
01:47:00,600 --> 01:47:02,960
Speaker 1: was a reporter that combined the initials to give her

1742
01:47:03,000 --> 01:47:05,760
Speaker 1: the nickname MA. And then of course Pa ran the

1743
01:47:05,760 --> 01:47:09,240
Speaker 1: campaign behind the scenes, and then they actually used the

1744
01:47:09,280 --> 01:47:13,080
Speaker 1: campaign slogan two governors for the price of one. So

1745
01:47:13,160 --> 01:47:16,000
Speaker 1: Ma wins the Democratic primary over the clan backed Robertson,

1746
01:47:16,360 --> 01:47:19,439
Speaker 1: effectively the election in a one party Texas back at

1747
01:47:19,479 --> 01:47:22,080
Speaker 1: that time there really was no Republican party back then.

1748
01:47:22,400 --> 01:47:25,559
Speaker 1: She then defeated the Republican George Butte in the general election,

1749
01:47:25,960 --> 01:47:29,960
Speaker 1: and in January nineteen twenty five, she was inaugurated, as

1750
01:47:30,000 --> 01:47:32,599
Speaker 1: I said, the second woman governor in American history, because

1751
01:47:33,520 --> 01:47:37,599
Speaker 1: she took her fifteen days after Wyoming's Nelly Taylo Ross,

1752
01:47:37,640 --> 01:47:41,440
Speaker 1: now one of her early campaign promises targeted the Klan directly.

1753
01:47:42,560 --> 01:47:47,320
Speaker 1: She supported an anti masked law aimed at preventing masked

1754
01:47:47,520 --> 01:47:51,799
Speaker 1: clan demonstrations in public. The courts actually would later strike

1755
01:47:51,920 --> 01:47:55,760
Speaker 1: down the law as unconstitutional, but the political damage that

1756
01:47:55,840 --> 01:47:58,439
Speaker 1: she did to the Klan was real and lasting. Clan

1757
01:47:58,479 --> 01:48:02,240
Speaker 1: membership in Texas once you couldn't use those face masks

1758
01:48:02,360 --> 01:48:05,639
Speaker 1: collapse from roughly ninety seven thousand at it's nineteen twenty

1759
01:48:05,680 --> 01:48:08,200
Speaker 1: four peak to about eighteen thousand two years later, and

1760
01:48:08,240 --> 01:48:12,000
Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty seven, the governor declared the plan in

1761
01:48:12,120 --> 01:48:18,559
Speaker 1: Texas effectively dead. Anti mask ordinance. Anyway, there's number three

1762
01:48:18,600 --> 01:48:20,839
Speaker 1: on the list. Number two on the list. The nineteen

1763
01:48:21,000 --> 01:48:25,639
Speaker 1: sixty one Texas Senate special election, John Tower becomes the

1764
01:48:25,680 --> 01:48:31,040
Speaker 1: first Republican to win statewide in Texas since reconstruction. He

1765
01:48:31,120 --> 01:48:35,240
Speaker 1: defeats William Blakely by roughly ten thousand votes out of

1766
01:48:35,280 --> 01:48:39,000
Speaker 1: a million cast, and he has Liberal Democrats to thank

1767
01:48:39,040 --> 01:48:41,800
Speaker 1: for it. So let me give you this setup. LBJ

1768
01:48:41,960 --> 01:48:45,120
Speaker 1: becomes Vice president January sixty one, obviously vacates a senatecy.

1769
01:48:45,720 --> 01:48:48,640
Speaker 1: The city governor is Price Daniel. He appoints a conservative

1770
01:48:48,720 --> 01:48:51,360
Speaker 1: Dallas oil man by the name of William Blakely as

1771
01:48:51,400 --> 01:48:54,880
Speaker 1: the temporary replacement for LBJ until the special election could

1772
01:48:54,880 --> 01:48:57,639
Speaker 1: be held. And they hold the special election pretty quickly there.

1773
01:48:57,840 --> 01:49:00,840
Speaker 1: And here's the rules of that special were fairly unusual.

1774
01:49:00,880 --> 01:49:03,879
Speaker 1: There were no party primaries, so instead there were seventy

1775
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:07,320
Speaker 1: one candidates, including future Speaker of the House Jim Wright

1776
01:49:07,439 --> 01:49:09,000
Speaker 1: was on this list, by the way. But there were

1777
01:49:09,080 --> 01:49:13,040
Speaker 1: seventy one candidates that appeared on this single ballot, Republicans, Democrats,

1778
01:49:13,040 --> 01:49:15,320
Speaker 1: and Independence all at once. And the idea was the

1779
01:49:15,320 --> 01:49:18,200
Speaker 1: top two finishers would advance to a runoff, regardless of party.

1780
01:49:18,800 --> 01:49:21,720
Speaker 1: Quite the ballot right, seventy one candidates. So how did

1781
01:49:21,760 --> 01:49:24,960
Speaker 1: Tower break through? Well? John Tower was a political science

1782
01:49:24,960 --> 01:49:29,879
Speaker 1: professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Genuinely was obscure,

1783
01:49:29,920 --> 01:49:32,200
Speaker 1: not a political figure anyone had expected to matter, but

1784
01:49:32,240 --> 01:49:36,599
Speaker 1: he was the Republican nominee against LBJ in nineteen sixty

1785
01:49:37,640 --> 01:49:40,479
Speaker 1: and here you know LBJ on the ticket with Kennedy.

1786
01:49:40,479 --> 01:49:42,479
Speaker 1: He was on the ballot twice, both as vice president

1787
01:49:42,560 --> 01:49:44,639
Speaker 1: for the electors and then of course he was running

1788
01:49:44,640 --> 01:49:47,840
Speaker 1: for reelection to the Senate. Tower gets a surprisingly strong

1789
01:49:47,880 --> 01:49:50,439
Speaker 1: forty one percent of the vote against the sitting senator.

1790
01:49:51,320 --> 01:49:53,759
Speaker 1: That gave him some name recognition. So in a special election,

1791
01:49:53,800 --> 01:49:56,240
Speaker 1: he ended up leading the seventy one candidate field with

1792
01:49:56,280 --> 01:49:57,920
Speaker 1: about thirty one percent of the vote, and he advanced

1793
01:49:57,960 --> 01:50:01,120
Speaker 1: to the runoff against the leading Demomocrat, which ended up

1794
01:50:01,160 --> 01:50:05,200
Speaker 1: being the appointed Senator Blakely. But here's where the liberal

1795
01:50:05,240 --> 01:50:10,679
Speaker 1: Democrats get involved. You know how today's Texas Republican Party

1796
01:50:10,760 --> 01:50:13,559
Speaker 1: is divided into and it's the dominant party, right, Well,

1797
01:50:13,600 --> 01:50:15,800
Speaker 1: back then it was the Texas Democratic Party that was

1798
01:50:15,840 --> 01:50:20,040
Speaker 1: the dominant party, and they were divided into So here's

1799
01:50:20,080 --> 01:50:22,559
Speaker 1: where things got a bit interesting, and how John Tower

1800
01:50:22,600 --> 01:50:25,920
Speaker 1: has Democrats to thank for becoming the first Republican senator.

1801
01:50:26,320 --> 01:50:29,920
Speaker 1: Texas Democratic partly was very, very divided between the Liberals

1802
01:50:29,960 --> 01:50:32,920
Speaker 1: and the Conservatives, and the Liberals had been losing their

1803
01:50:32,960 --> 01:50:37,040
Speaker 1: own primary for years. The Conservatives were well backed. Blakely

1804
01:50:37,080 --> 01:50:41,040
Speaker 1: represented everything that they hated about the so called conservative establishment.

1805
01:50:41,280 --> 01:50:44,360
Speaker 1: He opposed Third Good Marshal's appointment to a federal jug ship.

1806
01:50:44,800 --> 01:50:47,479
Speaker 1: He was hostile to organize labor. He was, in the

1807
01:50:47,560 --> 01:50:50,639
Speaker 1: view of Texas liberals, a conservative masquerading as a Democrat.

1808
01:50:50,680 --> 01:50:54,519
Speaker 1: But this was Southern conservatives back then would end up

1809
01:50:54,560 --> 01:50:57,760
Speaker 1: being Republican by the nineteen eighties. Now, some of the

1810
01:50:57,800 --> 01:51:00,840
Speaker 1: liberals strategists made a cold calculation in the sixty one

1811
01:51:00,880 --> 01:51:03,880
Speaker 1: special better to let a conservative Democrat lose to a

1812
01:51:03,880 --> 01:51:06,920
Speaker 1: Republican than keep propping up the conservative wing of the

1813
01:51:06,920 --> 01:51:10,360
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. The theory was that if the conservative Democrats

1814
01:51:10,439 --> 01:51:13,840
Speaker 1: kept losing general elections, they'd eventually just migrate to the

1815
01:51:13,840 --> 01:51:17,920
Speaker 1: Republican Party, where they belonged ideologically, and they'd leave the

1816
01:51:17,960 --> 01:51:22,000
Speaker 1: Texas Democratic Party to its liberal wing. Well, congrats, Texas Democrats,

1817
01:51:22,000 --> 01:51:25,040
Speaker 1: you pulled it off eventually. How did that work out?

1818
01:51:25,240 --> 01:51:28,680
Speaker 1: But I digress. So enough liberal Democrats crossed over and

1819
01:51:28,800 --> 01:51:31,720
Speaker 1: voted for Tower. Tower wins the runof by about ten

1820
01:51:31,760 --> 01:51:35,920
Speaker 1: thousand votes, and he becomes the first Republican Senator from

1821
01:51:35,960 --> 01:51:40,120
Speaker 1: Texas since reconstruction. Of course, it is worth noting the

1822
01:51:40,160 --> 01:51:43,639
Speaker 1: Conservatives didn't just leave the Democratic Party. They took Texas

1823
01:51:43,720 --> 01:51:46,559
Speaker 1: with them to the Republicans, and Tower was the first

1824
01:51:46,600 --> 01:51:49,720
Speaker 1: domino in a realignment that ended with Democrats shut out

1825
01:51:49,720 --> 01:51:52,280
Speaker 1: of statewide office for now thirty two years.

1826
01:51:52,320 --> 01:51:52,799
Speaker 3: In county.

1827
01:51:54,000 --> 01:51:57,360
Speaker 1: Anyway, Tower's victory cracked the Democratic slid south than Texas

1828
01:51:57,360 --> 01:52:00,840
Speaker 1: for the first time. The State Republican Party mediately got

1829
01:52:00,840 --> 01:52:03,840
Speaker 1: to double its budget, hired an actual staff, moved its

1830
01:52:03,840 --> 01:52:07,120
Speaker 1: headquarters to Austin. They realized that they could actually become

1831
01:52:07,160 --> 01:52:10,920
Speaker 1: a competitive second political party. Tower would serve twenty four

1832
01:52:11,000 --> 01:52:13,600
Speaker 1: years in the Senate, ended up chair of Armed Services,

1833
01:52:14,040 --> 01:52:17,599
Speaker 1: mentored a generation of Texas Republican operatives, became a major

1834
01:52:17,600 --> 01:52:21,320
Speaker 1: figure in Cold War defense policy. Ended up essentially being

1835
01:52:21,360 --> 01:52:24,000
Speaker 1: humiliated out of politics in a very When he was

1836
01:52:24,040 --> 01:52:29,240
Speaker 1: nominated to be Defense Secretary by George H. W. Bush,

1837
01:52:29,640 --> 01:52:34,559
Speaker 1: his drinking became a big story. He withdraws, he ends

1838
01:52:34,640 --> 01:52:39,360
Speaker 1: up not getting actually he did. The Senate rejected him.

1839
01:52:39,400 --> 01:52:41,000
Speaker 1: It was so unusually. He actually went for a voke

1840
01:52:41,040 --> 01:52:46,960
Speaker 1: becaus he was a sitting senator. Senate rejected him and

1841
01:52:48,280 --> 01:52:51,280
Speaker 1: Dick Cheney would be the backup plan for Defense Secretary.

1842
01:52:51,520 --> 01:52:54,439
Speaker 1: Tower himself would die two years after being rejected by

1843
01:52:54,479 --> 01:52:58,599
Speaker 1: the Senate. But the most important thing to know about

1844
01:52:58,600 --> 01:53:01,519
Speaker 1: this race is the sixty one victory modern Texas. The

1845
01:53:01,680 --> 01:53:05,439
Speaker 1: modern Republican Texas Republican Party was born with that sixty

1846
01:53:05,439 --> 01:53:10,559
Speaker 1: one special election victory, and the number one race on

1847
01:53:10,600 --> 01:53:13,400
Speaker 1: my list of all timers is the nineteen forty eight

1848
01:53:13,439 --> 01:53:19,960
Speaker 1: Texas Democratic Senate primary, LBJ beats Coke Stevenson by eighty

1849
01:53:20,320 --> 01:53:25,560
Speaker 1: seven votes, eighty seven votes out of nearly one million casts.

1850
01:53:25,960 --> 01:53:28,280
Speaker 1: If those eighty seven votes go the other way, Lyndon

1851
01:53:28,360 --> 01:53:32,920
Speaker 1: Johnson probably never becomes president. So you could argue it's

1852
01:53:32,960 --> 01:53:36,080
Speaker 1: the most consequential eighty seven votes in American political history.

1853
01:53:36,520 --> 01:53:40,080
Speaker 1: Does the Civil Rights Act pass, let alone get signed

1854
01:53:40,080 --> 01:53:44,280
Speaker 1: by LBJ. So let me give you a little backstory.

1855
01:53:44,640 --> 01:53:47,280
Speaker 1: By nineteen forty eight, LBJ had served eleven years in

1856
01:53:47,320 --> 01:53:49,439
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives. He was a protegee of FDR.

1857
01:53:49,479 --> 01:53:53,000
Speaker 1: He was a new dealer, fierce operator in the new

1858
01:53:53,080 --> 01:53:56,120
Speaker 1: deal in the FDR machine. But he'd figure something. House

1859
01:53:56,120 --> 01:53:58,120
Speaker 1: in the House, you climb the seniority ladder, but you

1860
01:53:58,120 --> 01:54:00,360
Speaker 1: have to wait. The Senate was where he thought real

1861
01:54:00,400 --> 01:54:03,639
Speaker 1: power in Congress lived, and he didn't have to wait

1862
01:54:04,000 --> 01:54:07,639
Speaker 1: for seniority. And Johnson didn't have patience for waiting. He'd

1863
01:54:07,640 --> 01:54:09,479
Speaker 1: already run for the Senate once in nineteen forty one,

1864
01:54:09,520 --> 01:54:11,479
Speaker 1: and he lost a race that was itself probably stolen

1865
01:54:11,520 --> 01:54:14,320
Speaker 1: from him. So he decided he wasn't going to wait

1866
01:54:14,320 --> 01:54:18,479
Speaker 1: any longer. So who was Coke Stevenson? This is important

1867
01:54:18,479 --> 01:54:22,160
Speaker 1: context because Stevenson wasn't some unknown challenger. He was one

1868
01:54:22,200 --> 01:54:25,880
Speaker 1: of the most formidable politicians in Texas history. As Robert

1869
01:54:25,880 --> 01:54:31,080
Speaker 1: Carrow in the Incredible biographical series on Johnson, he notes

1870
01:54:31,080 --> 01:54:34,400
Speaker 1: that Stevenson had run for public office twelve times, County judge,

1871
01:54:34,440 --> 01:54:37,280
Speaker 1: state legislator, Speaker of the House, lieutenant governor, governor. He

1872
01:54:37,320 --> 01:54:41,880
Speaker 1: never lost, not once. When Texas legislator summed it up simply,

1873
01:54:41,920 --> 01:54:45,240
Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson was just like Coca Cola. He was quiet,

1874
01:54:45,840 --> 01:54:50,280
Speaker 1: deeply conservative, personally incorruptible. He projected an image of a

1875
01:54:50,280 --> 01:54:52,360
Speaker 1: man who didn't need to seek power. Power just came

1876
01:54:52,400 --> 01:54:55,280
Speaker 1: to him. He'd spent all of nineteen forty seven on

1877
01:54:55,320 --> 01:54:57,800
Speaker 1: his ranch, and friends had talked him in to run it.

1878
01:54:58,480 --> 01:55:01,080
Speaker 1: Johnson ran one of the first his modern campaigns in

1879
01:55:01,120 --> 01:55:03,680
Speaker 1: American history. He was the first candidate in Texas to

1880
01:55:03,720 --> 01:55:07,560
Speaker 1: campaign by helicopter. He swooped into small towns from the air,

1881
01:55:07,680 --> 01:55:12,720
Speaker 1: drawing crowds, working them with his volcanic energy, moving on

1882
01:55:12,800 --> 01:55:16,240
Speaker 1: before the next stop. He broadcasts statewide radio nearly every day.

1883
01:55:16,520 --> 01:55:20,680
Speaker 1: Right Being connected to that fledgling radio industry was a

1884
01:55:20,760 --> 01:55:23,360
Speaker 1: huge so he run a modern media campaign and a

1885
01:55:23,400 --> 01:55:28,080
Speaker 1: barnstorming campaign, and the contrast in styles was itself part

1886
01:55:28,080 --> 01:55:31,200
Speaker 1: of the campaign. One man was the future, one man

1887
01:55:31,280 --> 01:55:35,240
Speaker 1: was the past. So the fight between Johnson and Stevenson

1888
01:55:35,280 --> 01:55:39,160
Speaker 1: wasn't just personal. It reflected a genuine ideological divide inside

1889
01:55:39,160 --> 01:55:42,800
Speaker 1: the Texas Democratic Party. Stevenson was aligned with the anti

1890
01:55:42,920 --> 01:55:46,919
Speaker 1: Truman faction, the Texas Regulars as they were called Conservative Democrats,

1891
01:55:46,960 --> 01:55:50,520
Speaker 1: who opposed both FDR and Truman's New Deal liberalism and

1892
01:55:50,520 --> 01:55:54,720
Speaker 1: were sympathetic to the emerging Dixiecraft movement. Johnson was aligned

1893
01:55:54,720 --> 01:55:58,040
Speaker 1: with the pro Truman Texas Loyalists. They were labor backed,

1894
01:55:58,080 --> 01:56:00,320
Speaker 1: they were the New Deal wing of the party. So

1895
01:56:00,360 --> 01:56:03,640
Speaker 1: Truman understood what was at stake. His entire national operation

1896
01:56:03,720 --> 01:56:06,760
Speaker 1: back Johnson, and in late September eighteen forty eight, right

1897
01:56:06,760 --> 01:56:11,080
Speaker 1: in the middle of the contested post election period, Truman

1898
01:56:11,160 --> 01:56:15,400
Speaker 1: brought his famous whistlestop campaign through Texas. Johnson and Truman

1899
01:56:15,440 --> 01:56:17,760
Speaker 1: were photographed together on the back of that train in Austin.

1900
01:56:19,000 --> 01:56:21,400
Speaker 1: The image mattered the liberal wing of the National Democratic

1901
01:56:21,400 --> 01:56:24,600
Speaker 1: Party had a stake in Johnson winning Stevenson. A Stevenson

1902
01:56:24,640 --> 01:56:26,800
Speaker 1: victory would have been a signal that the Dixie krat

1903
01:56:27,000 --> 01:56:31,960
Speaker 1: faction was ascended in Texas. Johnson also weaponized the Cold War.

1904
01:56:32,280 --> 01:56:35,000
Speaker 1: This was a nineteen forty eight Soviet Union had just

1905
01:56:35,040 --> 01:56:37,200
Speaker 1: blockaded Berlin. China was on the verge of falling to

1906
01:56:37,280 --> 01:56:39,960
Speaker 1: the Communists. The Alger Hiss spy case was in the news.

1907
01:56:40,240 --> 01:56:45,320
Speaker 1: Americans were genuinely frightened. Johnson hammered Stevenson as an isolationist.

1908
01:56:46,000 --> 01:56:48,640
Speaker 1: The kind of thinking that he said invited aggression leads

1909
01:56:48,640 --> 01:56:53,280
Speaker 1: to appeasement. He explicitly invoked Neville, Chamberlain and Hitler. When

1910
01:56:53,320 --> 01:56:55,720
Speaker 1: you don't confront evil early, you end up fighting it

1911
01:56:55,760 --> 01:57:00,240
Speaker 1: at home. So for Texas audiences in nineteen forty eight,

1912
01:57:00,560 --> 01:57:04,560
Speaker 1: obviously that framing landed. It was also the exact argument

1913
01:57:04,600 --> 01:57:08,480
Speaker 1: Truman needed Johnson to be making in the South. Of course,

1914
01:57:08,520 --> 01:57:11,760
Speaker 1: the first primary between these gentlemen was in July, and

1915
01:57:11,800 --> 01:57:14,600
Speaker 1: it produced no majority. Johnson and Stevenson went on to

1916
01:57:14,600 --> 01:57:18,400
Speaker 1: have a runoff on August twenty eighth. On election night,

1917
01:57:19,120 --> 01:57:23,040
Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson appeared to have won his lead held as

1918
01:57:23,080 --> 01:57:26,839
Speaker 1: returns came in, and then six days after the polls closed,

1919
01:57:27,200 --> 01:57:32,600
Speaker 1: officials in jim Wells County reported finding additional ballots Precinct

1920
01:57:32,720 --> 01:57:37,280
Speaker 1: thirteen or Box thirteen in the small South Texas town

1921
01:57:37,280 --> 01:57:41,600
Speaker 1: of Alice, two hundred and three additional votes two hundred

1922
01:57:41,600 --> 01:57:45,720
Speaker 1: for Johnson, three for Stevenson. The names were all written

1923
01:57:45,760 --> 01:57:49,880
Speaker 1: in the same handwriting in the same ink in alphabetical order.

1924
01:57:51,080 --> 01:57:53,120
Speaker 1: Some of the voters listed were not in town on

1925
01:57:53,200 --> 01:57:57,720
Speaker 1: election day, some others were dead. The man behind it

1926
01:57:57,800 --> 01:58:00,440
Speaker 1: was a political boss of South Texas named George Parr.

1927
01:58:00,760 --> 01:58:04,000
Speaker 1: He was known as the Duke of Duval. Parr controlled

1928
01:58:04,000 --> 01:58:06,240
Speaker 1: the machine that ran elections in that part of the state,

1929
01:58:06,960 --> 01:58:10,320
Speaker 1: and he decided his allegiance lay with Johnson. The election

1930
01:58:10,440 --> 01:58:12,800
Speaker 1: judge who actually created the fraudulent ballots was a man

1931
01:58:12,880 --> 01:58:16,160
Speaker 1: named Luis Sallas. He stayed quiet for nearly three decades,

1932
01:58:16,160 --> 01:58:19,760
Speaker 1: and then, in nineteen seventy seven, after so many people

1933
01:58:19,840 --> 01:58:23,120
Speaker 1: had died LBJ was no longer alive, he sat down

1934
01:58:23,120 --> 01:58:26,040
Speaker 1: with an AP reporter named James Mangan and confessed it

1935
01:58:26,120 --> 01:58:28,720
Speaker 1: all on tape. Salas said that on Parr's order, he

1936
01:58:28,760 --> 01:58:30,760
Speaker 1: had fabricated the last two hundred and two votes from

1937
01:58:30,760 --> 01:58:34,480
Speaker 1: Precinct thirteen. Those tape interviews have since been donated to

1938
01:58:34,520 --> 01:58:37,840
Speaker 1: the LBJ Presidential Library. You can go listen to him

1939
01:58:37,840 --> 01:58:43,800
Speaker 1: yourself anyway, Johnson wins by eighty seven votes landslide lended.

1940
01:58:44,280 --> 01:58:46,800
Speaker 1: Stevenson challenged the result all the way to federal court.

1941
01:58:48,680 --> 01:58:51,680
Speaker 1: He even hired Frank Hamer, the Texas ranger who had

1942
01:58:52,000 --> 01:58:55,880
Speaker 1: killed Bonnie and Clyde, to investigate. Johnson's attorney was Abe Forties,

1943
01:58:56,600 --> 01:58:59,200
Speaker 1: successfully argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over a

1944
01:58:59,240 --> 01:59:02,879
Speaker 1: state party primer Fordison should be noted later was rewarded

1945
01:59:02,880 --> 01:59:07,160
Speaker 1: with a Supreme Court seat by Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was

1946
01:59:07,200 --> 01:59:09,720
Speaker 1: certified the winner the general election in November was against

1947
01:59:09,720 --> 01:59:13,480
Speaker 1: a Republican named Jack Porter. Never in doubt, and let's

1948
01:59:13,520 --> 01:59:16,320
Speaker 1: just say, without those eighty seven votes, real or manufactured,

1949
01:59:16,400 --> 01:59:19,000
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson goes, perhaps goes back to the House of

1950
01:59:19,040 --> 01:59:22,440
Speaker 1: Representatives or who knows. No Senate career means no Senate

1951
01:59:22,440 --> 01:59:25,120
Speaker 1: majority leader, Johnson the most powerful Senate leader of the

1952
01:59:25,160 --> 01:59:28,760
Speaker 1: twentieth century. No majority leader means no vice presidential nomination

1953
01:59:28,800 --> 01:59:31,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty, no vice president means no President Johnson

1954
01:59:31,960 --> 01:59:37,600
Speaker 1: after Dallas. It's amazing. Robert Carroll spent decades documenting this race.

1955
01:59:38,000 --> 01:59:40,960
Speaker 1: His conclusion, essentially was the eighty seven vote margin and

1956
01:59:41,000 --> 01:59:43,640
Speaker 1: a South Dexas Precinct is one of those moments where

1957
01:59:43,640 --> 01:59:47,400
Speaker 1: a tiny contingent event cascades and does something that reshapes

1958
01:59:47,440 --> 01:59:53,720
Speaker 1: the world. A butterfly flaps its wings, perhaps illegally, and

1959
01:59:53,840 --> 01:59:56,560
Speaker 1: history has changed. So there you go. You see why

1960
01:59:56,600 --> 01:59:58,680
Speaker 1: I love campaign history. There's so many incredible stories. So

1961
01:59:58,720 --> 02:00:01,040
Speaker 1: those are my top five. Go back and do him again,

1962
02:00:01,120 --> 02:00:04,440
Speaker 1: real fast. Number five the two thousand and two governor's race,

1963
02:00:04,560 --> 02:00:07,080
Speaker 1: Rick Perry winning only governor yet to win under win

1964
02:00:07,120 --> 02:00:09,480
Speaker 1: reelection with less than forty percent of the vote. Number

1965
02:00:09,480 --> 02:00:12,240
Speaker 1: four Bush versus Anne Richards, the birth of a President.

1966
02:00:12,560 --> 02:00:16,240
Speaker 1: Number three Ma Ferguson's win in nineteen twenty four over Klansmen.

1967
02:00:16,760 --> 02:00:20,640
Speaker 1: Number two John Tower, the first Republican to break the

1968
02:00:20,720 --> 02:00:23,560
Speaker 1: mold in Texas. And number one, of course, the LBJ

1969
02:00:23,720 --> 02:00:28,200
Speaker 1: and the magical eighty seven votes that he wins by

1970
02:00:29,040 --> 02:00:31,520
Speaker 1: a few races that didn't make the list that you

1971
02:00:31,520 --> 02:00:34,960
Speaker 1: guys might push back on I didn't put in nineteen ninety,

1972
02:00:36,640 --> 02:00:40,280
Speaker 1: which was Anne richards victory over Clayton Williams, who basically

1973
02:00:41,320 --> 02:00:45,680
Speaker 1: threw the race away when he compared rape to bad

1974
02:00:45,720 --> 02:00:47,920
Speaker 1: weather and he said, just sit back and enjoy it.

1975
02:00:49,160 --> 02:00:52,680
Speaker 1: Let's just say Republican women abandon him in Moss and

1976
02:00:52,760 --> 02:00:57,800
Speaker 1: Texas elected its second woman governor after Ma Ferguson nineteen

1977
02:00:57,840 --> 02:01:01,080
Speaker 1: seventy eight, Bill Clements defeats John Helly becomes the first

1978
02:01:01,120 --> 02:01:04,959
Speaker 1: Republican governor of Texas since reconstruction. Bill Clements would famously

1979
02:01:05,160 --> 02:01:07,200
Speaker 1: be involved with the scandal that would take down the

1980
02:01:07,320 --> 02:01:11,160
Speaker 1: SMU football program, and it actually messed with his eighty

1981
02:01:11,200 --> 02:01:15,440
Speaker 1: six he wins reelection, and he wins election in eighty six.

1982
02:01:15,480 --> 02:01:18,480
Speaker 1: He actually went back and forth with Mark White there.

1983
02:01:19,760 --> 02:01:26,040
Speaker 1: But the scandal that took down SMU football also eventually

1984
02:01:26,040 --> 02:01:28,760
Speaker 1: would end the political career of Bill Clements. And then

1985
02:01:29,000 --> 02:01:32,880
Speaker 1: I could argue nineteen seventy Senate race where George H. W.

1986
02:01:33,040 --> 02:01:37,080
Speaker 1: Bush loses to Lloyd Benson. Here's some fun family lore

1987
02:01:37,160 --> 02:01:40,880
Speaker 1: for the Bushes. Bush's victory. The Bush victory in ninety

1988
02:01:40,880 --> 02:01:45,400
Speaker 1: four launches George W. Bush's candidacy for the presidency. In

1989
02:01:45,480 --> 02:01:49,280
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, George HW loses a Senate race to Lloyd Benson.

1990
02:01:50,560 --> 02:01:54,080
Speaker 1: Nixon consoles him after being recruited by Nixon to challenge

1991
02:01:54,720 --> 02:01:57,720
Speaker 1: at the time a sitting Democratic senator who everybody thought

1992
02:01:57,720 --> 02:02:01,120
Speaker 1: was pretty weak named Ralph Yawborough. Well, of course, Lloyd

1993
02:02:01,280 --> 02:02:02,960
Speaker 1: Lloyd Benson thought he was weak too, and he beats

1994
02:02:03,000 --> 02:02:05,640
Speaker 1: him in a primary, and then Benson beats Bush in

1995
02:02:05,680 --> 02:02:10,880
Speaker 1: the general. But Nixon felt bad that his recruited candidate Leod,

1996
02:02:11,000 --> 02:02:14,360
Speaker 1: so he gave him a succession of appointments you an ambassador,

1997
02:02:14,440 --> 02:02:18,560
Speaker 1: R and C chair, CIA director, all of those that

1998
02:02:18,800 --> 02:02:21,600
Speaker 1: if he if he wins the Senate race, he never

1999
02:02:21,680 --> 02:02:24,480
Speaker 1: serves in any of those three capacities, and maybe he

2000
02:02:24,560 --> 02:02:28,000
Speaker 1: never has the resume to even be thought of as

2001
02:02:28,040 --> 02:02:33,160
Speaker 1: a viable running mate for then Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty. Anyway,

2002
02:02:35,280 --> 02:02:37,560
Speaker 1: there's your there's there's my top five for this week,

2003
02:02:37,960 --> 02:02:42,080
Speaker 1: little Texas history campaign history. To me, the five most

2004
02:02:42,560 --> 02:02:47,240
Speaker 1: fascinating and consequential camp statewide campaigns in Texas history. What's

2005
02:02:47,280 --> 02:02:52,920
Speaker 1: your top five? And go ahead, quiz me tell me

2006
02:02:53,160 --> 02:02:56,920
Speaker 1: tell me this great stories of your state. I'm I've

2007
02:02:57,320 --> 02:03:01,600
Speaker 1: I've got these in my various archives, and I hope

2008
02:03:01,600 --> 02:03:05,880
Speaker 1: to be sharing them with you throughout this campaign, yere.

2009
02:03:06,080 --> 02:03:15,480
Speaker 1: I think it'll be a lot of fun, ask Chuck.

2010
02:03:18,560 --> 02:03:21,160
Speaker 1: All right, let's get a few questions in here. I'm

2011
02:03:21,160 --> 02:03:25,880
Speaker 1: going to try to do. Here's I'm doing four because

2012
02:03:25,880 --> 02:03:27,920
Speaker 1: I have four complete questions on my screen, so I'm

2013
02:03:27,920 --> 02:03:30,520
Speaker 1: no scrolling. This is how I'm deciding to do it.

2014
02:03:30,560 --> 02:03:34,840
Speaker 1: So first question comes from Mike from Honolulu and he asks, Hey,

2015
02:03:34,840 --> 02:03:38,160
Speaker 1: thanks for the timely past weekend update, real quick on

2016
02:03:38,200 --> 02:03:41,320
Speaker 1: point if mainstream media educates us. On CNN for Reid Zacharia,

2017
02:03:41,320 --> 02:03:44,440
Speaker 1: I did a piece August thirty first, twenty twenty five

2018
02:03:44,480 --> 02:03:46,680
Speaker 1: that lays out the complex history of the US has

2019
02:03:46,720 --> 02:03:49,440
Speaker 1: with Iran. Would appreciate your take on Secretary Pete eggset

2020
02:03:49,600 --> 02:03:51,680
Speaker 1: briefing on Monday morning. I felt confusing, not sure if

2021
02:03:51,680 --> 02:03:54,040
Speaker 1: he was addressing our armed forces or the public. With

2022
02:03:54,160 --> 02:03:57,120
Speaker 1: a gesture that reminded me of King George six over

2023
02:03:57,160 --> 02:03:59,480
Speaker 1: and over again, we tried to find a peaceful way out.

2024
02:04:00,080 --> 02:04:02,840
Speaker 1: Ron started this, how real are our country's objectives? Thinks

2025
02:04:02,880 --> 02:04:04,720
Speaker 1: for all your work, Well, Mike, I think this is

2026
02:04:04,840 --> 02:04:08,680
Speaker 1: it's clear that there this is they're searching for a

2027
02:04:08,800 --> 02:04:12,200
Speaker 1: rationale that they think the public will buy. They you know,

2028
02:04:14,680 --> 02:04:17,240
Speaker 1: the best reason to do this is not a very

2029
02:04:17,280 --> 02:04:21,080
Speaker 1: strong rationale to do this, which is they're vulnerable at

2030
02:04:21,080 --> 02:04:23,800
Speaker 1: the moment. You're never going to have a time. This

2031
02:04:23,880 --> 02:04:26,240
Speaker 1: might be the weakest they are and if you want

2032
02:04:26,280 --> 02:04:28,320
Speaker 1: to do regime change, this may be the best time

2033
02:04:28,360 --> 02:04:32,440
Speaker 1: to do it. That's not you know, right when you

2034
02:04:32,520 --> 02:04:36,120
Speaker 1: can't tell the truth on your rationale and you start

2035
02:04:36,160 --> 02:04:38,360
Speaker 1: looking for others, Well, they could be this, and they

2036
02:04:38,360 --> 02:04:41,200
Speaker 1: could be that, and they could be this. It starts

2037
02:04:41,200 --> 02:04:43,880
Speaker 1: to look an awful lot like Iraq. And I think

2038
02:04:43,920 --> 02:04:47,480
Speaker 1: that's what they're stumbling into here. And you know, they're

2039
02:04:47,520 --> 02:04:49,840
Speaker 1: finding out that all of a sudden, look at how

2040
02:04:49,840 --> 02:04:51,920
Speaker 1: many Middle Look how many countries in the Middle East

2041
02:04:51,960 --> 02:04:59,840
Speaker 1: have already been hit with stray stray fire, intentional arms.

2042
02:05:01,080 --> 02:05:04,160
Speaker 1: What we get four or five countries already? This could

2043
02:05:04,960 --> 02:05:09,800
Speaker 1: quickly get out of control in a hurry. And I

2044
02:05:09,840 --> 02:05:13,720
Speaker 1: think that this they're really struggling with the rationale because

2045
02:05:13,720 --> 02:05:17,600
Speaker 1: the rationale is thin. There isn't a lot of you know,

2046
02:05:17,640 --> 02:05:21,080
Speaker 1: you want to talk about questioning the intelligence behind the

2047
02:05:21,200 --> 02:05:24,720
Speaker 1: WMD during the run up to the Iraq War, where's

2048
02:05:24,760 --> 02:05:29,440
Speaker 1: the intelligence that indicates where they were with their nuclear

2049
02:05:29,480 --> 02:05:32,440
Speaker 1: and reconstituting the nuclear programmer where they were in ballistic

2050
02:05:32,720 --> 02:05:36,720
Speaker 1: missiles essentially about the best case. I feel like I've

2051
02:05:36,760 --> 02:05:39,960
Speaker 1: heard from Rubio and Hank Set doesn't have it. I mean,

2052
02:05:39,960 --> 02:05:42,160
Speaker 1: he's just not very good at this, and he doesn't

2053
02:05:42,200 --> 02:05:44,400
Speaker 1: have a great grasp of history either, so I think

2054
02:05:44,440 --> 02:05:47,280
Speaker 1: he really struggles here. But if you listen to Rubio,

2055
02:05:47,680 --> 02:05:55,840
Speaker 1: you know the essentially it's a preemptive strike against a

2056
02:05:55,880 --> 02:06:02,440
Speaker 1: country that has the ambition to attack us but doesn't

2057
02:06:02,480 --> 02:06:05,760
Speaker 1: have the means yet, and it goes back. I think

2058
02:06:05,800 --> 02:06:09,880
Speaker 1: we all thought we learned a lesson about pre emptive wars.

2059
02:06:10,440 --> 02:06:12,000
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you this. I'll tell you

2060
02:06:12,040 --> 02:06:15,160
Speaker 1: something that I'm really one of the other rationales that

2061
02:06:15,200 --> 02:06:18,280
Speaker 1: I think say terrible rationale. I don't buy it at all,

2062
02:06:18,800 --> 02:06:20,960
Speaker 1: but I really hate that they're pushing this one. I'll

2063
02:06:20,960 --> 02:06:23,560
Speaker 1: just be honest with you here personally, because I think

2064
02:06:23,560 --> 02:06:29,720
Speaker 1: it impacts a lot of Jewish Americans, which is Rubio

2065
02:06:29,760 --> 02:06:31,320
Speaker 1: seemed to say, well, Israel was going to do it

2066
02:06:31,400 --> 02:06:33,400
Speaker 1: regardless of what we did, and we were going to

2067
02:06:33,400 --> 02:06:34,920
Speaker 1: get drawn in any way, so we might as well

2068
02:06:34,960 --> 02:06:36,440
Speaker 1: be there at the beginning. And you're just sitting there

2069
02:06:36,480 --> 02:06:40,040
Speaker 1: going so you're telling the American people that Israel's making

2070
02:06:40,080 --> 02:06:43,280
Speaker 1: this decision for the United States. What are you doing?

2071
02:06:44,120 --> 02:06:49,880
Speaker 1: You want to talk about stoking more of this of

2072
02:06:50,000 --> 02:06:53,240
Speaker 1: this sentiment out here that to me is in some places,

2073
02:06:53,360 --> 02:06:57,160
Speaker 1: overdone and overcooked in some places, and the conspiracy theories

2074
02:06:57,200 --> 02:07:00,760
Speaker 1: that it's this, it's Israel that drives our pe policy,

2075
02:07:01,240 --> 02:07:02,960
Speaker 1: and then you go out there and say it's Israel

2076
02:07:03,000 --> 02:07:08,360
Speaker 1: that drove our policy decision here. If that's the case,

2077
02:07:08,480 --> 02:07:11,480
Speaker 1: then don't be surprised if you if you know, now

2078
02:07:11,560 --> 02:07:14,000
Speaker 1: you know we're all wondering why is there a rise

2079
02:07:14,120 --> 02:07:19,160
Speaker 1: in anti Semitism, a rise in anti Jewish rhetoric, and

2080
02:07:19,240 --> 02:07:24,600
Speaker 1: how it gets conflated with anti Israel rhetoric. Well, when

2081
02:07:24,640 --> 02:07:29,880
Speaker 1: you now say, use a rationale essentially saying that Israel

2082
02:07:29,960 --> 02:07:31,360
Speaker 1: is going to do this regardless of what we did,

2083
02:07:31,400 --> 02:07:34,840
Speaker 1: so we chose to go with them. You know you

2084
02:07:34,880 --> 02:07:38,520
Speaker 1: already have you have critics and the left and the

2085
02:07:38,640 --> 02:07:46,120
Speaker 1: right who are very skeptical of having Israel Israel's national

2086
02:07:46,120 --> 02:07:53,960
Speaker 1: security concerns become America's national security concerns. So that again,

2087
02:07:54,360 --> 02:07:57,640
Speaker 1: I think this administration searching for a rationale because the

2088
02:07:57,680 --> 02:08:00,720
Speaker 1: real rationale is very hard to sell, which is, hey,

2089
02:08:01,120 --> 02:08:03,480
Speaker 1: they were weak and we thought we can get them

2090
02:08:03,480 --> 02:08:06,040
Speaker 1: in a moment. And oh, by the way, the Saudis

2091
02:08:06,080 --> 02:08:08,440
Speaker 1: thought this was the best idea and the sad So

2092
02:08:08,480 --> 02:08:11,960
Speaker 1: it's not that much better that the Saudis were pushing

2093
02:08:12,000 --> 02:08:15,040
Speaker 1: us either, which you know when you realize that the

2094
02:08:15,080 --> 02:08:19,240
Speaker 1: Saudis are funding the businesses of the President's son and

2095
02:08:19,360 --> 02:08:21,640
Speaker 1: his son in law, Jared Kushner. And oh, by the way,

2096
02:08:21,720 --> 02:08:26,760
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner was one of the negotiators with the Iranians

2097
02:08:26,880 --> 02:08:30,280
Speaker 1: on trying to have a diplomatic exit ramp here so

2098
02:08:30,320 --> 02:08:32,960
Speaker 1: that we didn't end up in war. Yet his biggest

2099
02:08:33,040 --> 02:08:38,360
Speaker 1: financial benefactor, the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince,

2100
02:08:38,480 --> 02:08:41,240
Speaker 1: is lobbying the President to take out Iran. Now this

2101
02:08:41,320 --> 02:08:49,320
Speaker 1: is the moment to strike. That's incredibly disconcerting when you

2102
02:08:49,360 --> 02:08:52,960
Speaker 1: start to follow the money and connecting those dots on

2103
02:08:53,040 --> 02:09:00,160
Speaker 1: that front. So bottom line, I think they're flailing at them.

2104
02:09:00,640 --> 02:09:02,680
Speaker 1: And again I go back to something I said to

2105
02:09:02,760 --> 02:09:08,600
Speaker 1: Chris Eliza earlier. The biggest problem Trump has right now

2106
02:09:08,680 --> 02:09:12,480
Speaker 1: is the best, the best news that he could get

2107
02:09:12,520 --> 02:09:14,880
Speaker 1: from this war has already passed, and it's the death

2108
02:09:14,920 --> 02:09:20,640
Speaker 1: of Kamane. There is no other announcement of news that

2109
02:09:20,880 --> 02:09:24,360
Speaker 1: is going to move the public that's more than the

2110
02:09:24,400 --> 02:09:29,240
Speaker 1: death of Kamane. And so every the longer this goes,

2111
02:09:29,360 --> 02:09:32,200
Speaker 1: it is this is again, it's it's at best this

2112
02:09:32,240 --> 02:09:35,560
Speaker 1: is a neutral political problem for him. But the most

2113
02:09:35,640 --> 02:09:38,919
Speaker 1: likely scenarios that this is a net negative across the board,

2114
02:09:39,040 --> 02:09:41,760
Speaker 1: whether it's in his own party and it starts an

2115
02:09:41,760 --> 02:09:44,560
Speaker 1: intra party debate inside his own party or with the

2116
02:09:44,640 --> 02:09:49,120
Speaker 1: vast middle. And we've seen independents look like Democrats in

2117
02:09:49,160 --> 02:09:53,760
Speaker 1: their opposition in the early polling. I've seen on a rock.

2118
02:09:54,640 --> 02:09:56,560
Speaker 1: All right. Next question comes from Frank and New Jersey

2119
02:09:56,640 --> 02:09:59,080
Speaker 1: SYS regular listener here, first time emailer. Hey, I know

2120
02:09:59,120 --> 02:10:01,360
Speaker 1: Congress is considering more Powers Act to restrain what the

2121
02:10:01,400 --> 02:10:03,240
Speaker 1: president can do. Of course it won't be signed by

2122
02:10:03,240 --> 02:10:05,360
Speaker 1: the president even if it passes. But why is it

2123
02:10:05,360 --> 02:10:07,400
Speaker 1: that even is that even needed? If the power of

2124
02:10:07,440 --> 02:10:09,800
Speaker 1: war is already with Congress for the Constitution. So how

2125
02:10:09,800 --> 02:10:11,880
Speaker 1: would Congress restrain the president? Do they bring it to

2126
02:10:11,920 --> 02:10:15,120
Speaker 1: the courts? Can they only act through impeachment? Well they cannot.

2127
02:10:15,560 --> 02:10:18,200
Speaker 1: I know they've got the power of the purse. So

2128
02:10:18,320 --> 02:10:24,360
Speaker 1: in theory they could withhold appropriations they could not fund,

2129
02:10:24,640 --> 02:10:27,720
Speaker 1: or they could withhold appropriations the next time Defense comes in,

2130
02:10:27,800 --> 02:10:30,120
Speaker 1: because guess what the Pentagon's going to ask for a

2131
02:10:30,120 --> 02:10:34,640
Speaker 1: supplemental This is an unbudgeted this was an unplanned war,

2132
02:10:34,720 --> 02:10:38,480
Speaker 1: and we're going to have depleted our munitions, and you know,

2133
02:10:38,480 --> 02:10:44,240
Speaker 1: we're already doing a sort of backdoor sale of arms

2134
02:10:44,280 --> 02:10:47,760
Speaker 1: to Ukraine via NATO, because Trump doesn't look like he's

2135
02:10:47,800 --> 02:10:53,280
Speaker 1: directing directly giving selling weapons to Ukraine, he's doing it

2136
02:10:53,320 --> 02:10:57,120
Speaker 1: through NATO. So there's no doubt that the Defense Department

2137
02:10:57,200 --> 02:10:59,280
Speaker 1: is going to come to Congress with the request for

2138
02:10:59,360 --> 02:11:02,120
Speaker 1: supplemental So in theory, it's it's simply the power of

2139
02:11:02,160 --> 02:11:04,800
Speaker 1: the purse. That is where they where they can have

2140
02:11:04,840 --> 02:11:11,760
Speaker 1: the most leverage. But you know, this this until a president.

2141
02:11:13,120 --> 02:11:15,920
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of presidential legal scholar that

2142
02:11:16,000 --> 02:11:18,120
Speaker 1: doesn't accept the premise of the War Powers Act at

2143
02:11:18,120 --> 02:11:23,760
Speaker 1: all anyway, and that it isn't fully tested in the Constitution,

2144
02:11:24,000 --> 02:11:29,520
Speaker 1: and that hasn't been tested in supring court. So it's like,

2145
02:11:29,680 --> 02:11:33,240
Speaker 1: is this a war? Is this something else? You know,

2146
02:11:33,560 --> 02:11:35,640
Speaker 1: I think every time he calls it a war, he's

2147
02:11:35,760 --> 02:11:40,120
Speaker 1: proving how unconstitutional this action is. It looks more illegal

2148
02:11:40,200 --> 02:11:45,200
Speaker 1: or unconstitutional than than than finding a through line to

2149
02:11:45,240 --> 02:11:49,280
Speaker 1: make this to make this constitutional. And I don't see it.

2150
02:11:49,680 --> 02:11:53,520
Speaker 1: But you know, Congress has ceded so much authority to

2151
02:11:53,560 --> 02:11:57,959
Speaker 1: the president when it comes to the use of the military,

2152
02:11:58,000 --> 02:12:00,200
Speaker 1: and then there's you know these well, as long as

2153
02:12:00,200 --> 02:12:03,440
Speaker 1: you inform Congress, well, what is the definition of informing Congress?

2154
02:12:03,480 --> 02:12:05,880
Speaker 1: Is it just informing the leadership or is informing all

2155
02:12:05,920 --> 02:12:10,840
Speaker 1: of Congress? But look, impeachment's the most extreme measure that

2156
02:12:10,880 --> 02:12:12,480
Speaker 1: they have. But they have the power of the purse,

2157
02:12:13,440 --> 02:12:15,840
Speaker 1: and I'll be very curious to see how the supplemental

2158
02:12:16,800 --> 02:12:19,360
Speaker 1: support goes. I mean, it's usually unpopular not to pay

2159
02:12:19,360 --> 02:12:23,880
Speaker 1: the troops, so ultimately you know it, you know, there's

2160
02:12:24,080 --> 02:12:27,080
Speaker 1: usually that gets weaponized and makes it a very very

2161
02:12:27,120 --> 02:12:33,160
Speaker 1: tough vote. But I that I'm not ruling out that

2162
02:12:33,160 --> 02:12:37,160
Speaker 1: that becomes a very close vote when and it's inevitable

2163
02:12:37,200 --> 02:12:39,880
Speaker 1: they have to They've got there, We're going to we

2164
02:12:40,040 --> 02:12:42,800
Speaker 1: have munitions issues that this is going to put us

2165
02:12:42,840 --> 02:12:46,560
Speaker 1: through four to six weeks. You know, the Department of

2166
02:12:46,560 --> 02:12:49,720
Speaker 1: Defense is going to be begging for an appropriation supplement

2167
02:12:50,440 --> 02:12:54,400
Speaker 1: and that's where Congress in theory, could have real leverage

2168
02:12:54,440 --> 02:12:57,320
Speaker 1: if they if they so choose to use it, which

2169
02:12:57,360 --> 02:13:02,760
Speaker 1: of course we know most Congresses don't. Next question comes

2170
02:13:02,760 --> 02:13:04,840
Speaker 1: from John from Annapolis and he writes, Hey, I'm a

2171
02:13:04,880 --> 02:13:06,680
Speaker 1: big fan of the show glad to have more options

2172
02:13:06,720 --> 02:13:08,879
Speaker 1: now for how to get your take on what's happening

2173
02:13:09,000 --> 02:13:11,400
Speaker 1: and what's happened as I work on my taxes and

2174
02:13:11,400 --> 02:13:13,320
Speaker 1: see the amount I pay, it adds a certain sting

2175
02:13:13,400 --> 02:13:15,560
Speaker 1: to the news regarding how our tax dollars are being

2176
02:13:15,560 --> 02:13:17,680
Speaker 1: spent on this new war. Yeah, I bet it was

2177
02:13:17,720 --> 02:13:20,560
Speaker 1: widely noted that the administration waited until after the stock

2178
02:13:20,560 --> 02:13:23,320
Speaker 1: market closed to launch strikes in Iran, signaling at least

2179
02:13:23,360 --> 02:13:25,800
Speaker 1: some thought to the timing. My question is do you

2180
02:13:25,840 --> 02:13:28,560
Speaker 1: think this seemingly optional war would be received better by

2181
02:13:28,560 --> 02:13:31,200
Speaker 1: the American public if it were not launched during tax season?

2182
02:13:32,480 --> 02:13:35,120
Speaker 1: With affordability already a concern in Trump doing nothing to

2183
02:13:35,120 --> 02:13:37,080
Speaker 1: sell the American people on the return on investment of

2184
02:13:37,120 --> 02:13:39,800
Speaker 1: starting a war with Iran, it seems waiting until summer

2185
02:13:39,880 --> 02:13:42,280
Speaker 1: might have been the better option from a messaging standpoint.

2186
02:13:42,640 --> 02:13:46,160
Speaker 1: Go terms, I don't see how there's any good with

2187
02:13:46,240 --> 02:13:49,320
Speaker 1: this Aran deal. Whether you waited till the summer you

2188
02:13:49,440 --> 02:13:54,120
Speaker 1: did it six months ago, I don't know when a

2189
02:13:54,160 --> 02:13:57,680
Speaker 1: good timing. Considering where our heads are at as an electorate,

2190
02:13:57,800 --> 02:14:02,360
Speaker 1: right and how domess focused I think the voters are

2191
02:14:02,520 --> 02:14:07,120
Speaker 1: at the moment. Certainly we have some theoretical fears about

2192
02:14:07,280 --> 02:14:11,480
Speaker 1: communist China or terrorism. But I think our day to

2193
02:14:11,560 --> 02:14:15,000
Speaker 1: day concern continues to be affordability and continues to be

2194
02:14:15,200 --> 02:14:18,240
Speaker 1: sort of you know, I think it's affordability, but it's

2195
02:14:18,240 --> 02:14:20,680
Speaker 1: more than that, right, I think the bigger issue in

2196
02:14:20,720 --> 02:14:23,720
Speaker 1: which is why it's not affordability alone in the economy,

2197
02:14:25,400 --> 02:14:29,320
Speaker 1: I think that that that it's not it's it's you know,

2198
02:14:29,360 --> 02:14:31,440
Speaker 1: it's like, well, people have jobs, we aren't they happy?

2199
02:14:31,520 --> 02:14:34,320
Speaker 1: Though there's this uncertainty. You know, how secure is my

2200
02:14:34,640 --> 02:14:37,360
Speaker 1: job in the age of AI? How secure is my

2201
02:14:37,640 --> 02:14:41,240
Speaker 1: job in this in this unstable war, in this unstable

2202
02:14:41,280 --> 02:14:43,480
Speaker 1: world that we're in at the moment, especially one that

2203
02:14:43,520 --> 02:14:46,880
Speaker 1: feels like we've got a president intentionally making us less

2204
02:14:46,880 --> 02:14:52,600
Speaker 1: stable and secure, not more stable and secure. So, you know,

2205
02:14:52,680 --> 02:14:55,400
Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't I don't know if

2206
02:14:55,480 --> 02:14:57,680
Speaker 1: I buy that it would be any better or worse

2207
02:14:57,720 --> 02:15:02,760
Speaker 1: for taxing. But you bring up an important point. Republicans

2208
02:15:02,920 --> 02:15:05,280
Speaker 1: that are on the ballot in twenty six are counting

2209
02:15:05,280 --> 02:15:09,200
Speaker 1: on tax season to be this positive, to have a

2210
02:15:09,560 --> 02:15:12,800
Speaker 1: to be a positive moment for the average American voter

2211
02:15:13,440 --> 02:15:15,680
Speaker 1: that they realize, oh, I'm getting a bigger refund and

2212
02:15:16,080 --> 02:15:19,520
Speaker 1: all of this, and instead people are going to be

2213
02:15:19,520 --> 02:15:23,560
Speaker 1: looking at it going, yeah, you know, my money's getting

2214
02:15:23,560 --> 02:15:27,880
Speaker 1: eaten up by higher energy prices. Now, oh, look what

2215
02:15:27,960 --> 02:15:30,360
Speaker 1: happened to my What little bit I had in the

2216
02:15:30,400 --> 02:15:36,760
Speaker 1: stock market is now collapsing, right like, So, I just

2217
02:15:36,800 --> 02:15:39,200
Speaker 1: don't know, I just don't know if it you know, yes,

2218
02:15:39,240 --> 02:15:42,160
Speaker 1: I think they've stepped on whatever positive vibe that they

2219
02:15:42,160 --> 02:15:44,720
Speaker 1: wanted to get out of tax season, right which they

2220
02:15:44,760 --> 02:15:46,760
Speaker 1: wanted people to feel like, hey, look, Donald Trump, put

2221
02:15:46,760 --> 02:15:50,280
Speaker 1: more money in your pocket, you can handle this affordability issue,

2222
02:15:50,280 --> 02:15:52,240
Speaker 1: and that that would sort of turn things, turn the

2223
02:15:52,280 --> 02:15:56,800
Speaker 1: perception of this economy, the country's perception about the Republican

2224
02:15:56,840 --> 02:16:00,640
Speaker 1: management of this economy into a positive direction. I do think,

2225
02:16:01,000 --> 02:16:05,280
Speaker 1: you know that the folly of this Iran decision and

2226
02:16:05,400 --> 02:16:07,840
Speaker 1: I and I use the word folly because I, you know,

2227
02:16:07,960 --> 02:16:10,040
Speaker 1: I think it's great that Commenee has gone. I think

2228
02:16:10,040 --> 02:16:15,000
Speaker 1: the possibilities in Iran could be great. I just know

2229
02:16:15,080 --> 02:16:19,800
Speaker 1: that every time we in history tried to orchestrate a

2230
02:16:19,840 --> 02:16:23,440
Speaker 1: regime transition, it just doesn't go well. Uh, And it

2231
02:16:23,560 --> 02:16:27,840
Speaker 1: usually is one of those feelings that it's one step forward,

2232
02:16:27,880 --> 02:16:32,280
Speaker 1: two steps back, and I think that you know, we're

2233
02:16:32,320 --> 02:16:37,360
Speaker 1: seeing why there were so many people quietly preaching caution

2234
02:16:37,520 --> 02:16:40,360
Speaker 1: to Trump on Iran. Right. You know you saw me

2235
02:16:40,480 --> 02:16:44,960
Speaker 1: share an op ed from John Ellis, a Bush cousin, right,

2236
02:16:45,040 --> 02:16:48,640
Speaker 1: part of the Bush clan political observer, longtime political observer

2237
02:16:48,840 --> 02:16:52,600
Speaker 1: is terrific substack that you should subscribe called news items,

2238
02:16:53,080 --> 02:16:56,000
Speaker 1: where he was making the case, hey, don't do Iran.

2239
02:16:56,680 --> 02:17:00,480
Speaker 1: If you if you're looking for an easy, a legacy moment,

2240
02:17:01,120 --> 02:17:06,720
Speaker 1: that might be somewhat easy, go to Cuba. But now

2241
02:17:06,879 --> 02:17:09,720
Speaker 1: by the time he gets to Cuba, it's after a run.

2242
02:17:10,360 --> 02:17:12,280
Speaker 1: He then is going to take away whatever. You know,

2243
02:17:12,480 --> 02:17:16,000
Speaker 1: the potential positives that could have come from Cuba are

2244
02:17:16,080 --> 02:17:18,720
Speaker 1: just simply lessened. They'll be there in South Florida, don't

2245
02:17:18,720 --> 02:17:21,800
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but outside of South Florida this will

2246
02:17:22,560 --> 02:17:25,760
Speaker 1: you know, suddenly it becomes Venezuela, Iran and Cuba. And

2247
02:17:25,800 --> 02:17:28,920
Speaker 1: that's an entirely different way that the American voter will

2248
02:17:28,959 --> 02:17:31,760
Speaker 1: absorb that than if it had been just simply then

2249
02:17:31,800 --> 02:17:38,000
Speaker 1: as will in Cuba. All right, last question comes from Kira,

2250
02:17:38,800 --> 02:17:41,000
Speaker 1: and she writes, Hey, I love listening to your podcast

2251
02:17:41,000 --> 02:17:42,880
Speaker 1: and occasionally my kids here at playing in the kitchen

2252
02:17:42,920 --> 02:17:45,920
Speaker 1: while I'm cooking nice How did you handle explaining complex

2253
02:17:45,959 --> 02:17:49,160
Speaker 1: political topics, particularly international conflicts, to your own kids when

2254
02:17:49,160 --> 02:17:51,800
Speaker 1: they were younger. Of course, each kid in situation is different,

2255
02:17:51,840 --> 02:17:53,400
Speaker 1: but I would love your insights. By the way, my

2256
02:17:53,440 --> 02:17:56,440
Speaker 1: twelve year old is the one who suggested I ask you. So,

2257
02:18:00,840 --> 02:18:03,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny you sit there and you think,

2258
02:18:03,240 --> 02:18:06,640
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just don't bring it up. Sometimes

2259
02:18:06,680 --> 02:18:11,680
Speaker 1: you you know, my kids went to elementary school here

2260
02:18:11,680 --> 02:18:18,320
Speaker 1: in Arlington, Virginia, and let's just say, you know the

2261
02:18:18,360 --> 02:18:21,960
Speaker 1: fact that their dad was on TV and in Arlington, Virginia,

2262
02:18:22,240 --> 02:18:25,039
Speaker 1: meet the press is like this. It's like a bigger

2263
02:18:25,120 --> 02:18:28,120
Speaker 1: deal in the Washington metro area than it might be

2264
02:18:28,160 --> 02:18:31,680
Speaker 1: someone it's like, you know, other places. So you know,

2265
02:18:31,760 --> 02:18:35,520
Speaker 1: they they would certainly get these, you know, they would

2266
02:18:35,520 --> 02:18:38,080
Speaker 1: always get questions about, well, who's your dad voting for?

2267
02:18:38,200 --> 02:18:40,200
Speaker 1: And I remember one time a teacher told me that

2268
02:18:40,280 --> 02:18:42,080
Speaker 1: my daughter said in class, I think she was in

2269
02:18:42,120 --> 02:18:47,440
Speaker 1: third grade. She said people were begging her, were pounding

2270
02:18:47,440 --> 02:18:49,520
Speaker 1: her as your dad a Democrat or a Republican. And

2271
02:18:50,000 --> 02:18:52,760
Speaker 1: my daughter would say, my dad's a Democrat and a Republican.

2272
02:18:53,879 --> 02:18:58,320
Speaker 1: Because I used to always explain things always from both perspectives.

2273
02:18:58,840 --> 02:19:00,720
Speaker 1: That was what my dad did with me. He did

2274
02:19:00,720 --> 02:19:03,400
Speaker 1: not he had it and he would say, I believe this,

2275
02:19:03,720 --> 02:19:06,680
Speaker 1: here's the here are the two or three arguments about

2276
02:19:06,720 --> 02:19:08,680
Speaker 1: a story. And I think I'd like to think he

2277
02:19:08,720 --> 02:19:13,160
Speaker 1: presented him pretty honestly. I that would be my I

2278
02:19:13,200 --> 02:19:15,760
Speaker 1: would try to try to do my best to explain

2279
02:19:15,800 --> 02:19:18,959
Speaker 1: it that way. I think on some of the international stuff,

2280
02:19:20,920 --> 02:19:24,600
Speaker 1: I you know, you just sort of know, but I

2281
02:19:24,840 --> 02:19:30,480
Speaker 1: guess my my basic advice is don't water it down,

2282
02:19:30,520 --> 02:19:37,320
Speaker 1: don't dumb it down. You know, answer every question. And

2283
02:19:37,360 --> 02:19:41,280
Speaker 1: I had sort of a simple answer, a sort of

2284
02:19:42,360 --> 02:19:44,200
Speaker 1: I'd say, here, well, here's what you might learn in

2285
02:19:44,200 --> 02:19:47,879
Speaker 1: school about this soon. And then there's a there's a

2286
02:19:47,920 --> 02:19:52,280
Speaker 1: more complicated answer that you know that you know would change,

2287
02:19:52,320 --> 02:19:56,760
Speaker 1: and so I kind of, you know, it was never

2288
02:19:58,920 --> 02:20:00,720
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I sheltered them from it,

2289
02:20:00,760 --> 02:20:05,200
Speaker 1: but I actually tried, you know. It was it was

2290
02:20:05,280 --> 02:20:07,959
Speaker 1: more I didn't want to put my kids in the

2291
02:20:08,240 --> 02:20:13,160
Speaker 1: position of having to try to answer questions when their

2292
02:20:13,200 --> 02:20:15,680
Speaker 1: friends would say, well, what does your dad think about X.

2293
02:20:16,480 --> 02:20:18,360
Speaker 1: So there was a time period where in some ways

2294
02:20:19,160 --> 02:20:23,120
Speaker 1: we talked very little about it. But when they asked,

2295
02:20:23,360 --> 02:20:27,520
Speaker 1: I would just tell them, well, look, I think this

2296
02:20:28,680 --> 02:20:31,200
Speaker 1: sometimes if mom and I were on if mom and

2297
02:20:31,280 --> 02:20:33,240
Speaker 1: dad were on different sides of it, your mother thinks this,

2298
02:20:33,400 --> 02:20:36,039
Speaker 1: or we would say, you know, here're the difference. But

2299
02:20:36,200 --> 02:20:38,760
Speaker 1: one of the things that I was obsessed with, and

2300
02:20:40,280 --> 02:20:42,800
Speaker 1: my wife was right is right there with me, is

2301
02:20:42,840 --> 02:20:47,240
Speaker 1: always explaining it from a three sixty perspective. I said, well,

2302
02:20:47,879 --> 02:20:52,160
Speaker 1: here's the flashpoint is this? And so I think it's this,

2303
02:20:52,480 --> 02:20:54,920
Speaker 1: But here's where other people will argue that it's this.

2304
02:20:56,800 --> 02:20:59,640
Speaker 1: Because I wanted them to understand and I didn't want

2305
02:20:59,640 --> 02:21:02,400
Speaker 1: them to be superficial and think that just because somebody

2306
02:21:03,760 --> 02:21:06,240
Speaker 1: thought of something differently than I did, that that meant

2307
02:21:06,480 --> 02:21:09,039
Speaker 1: that they were stupid or whatever. Right I didn't. I

2308
02:21:09,080 --> 02:21:15,360
Speaker 1: didn't want that. So I guess the simplest way to say,

2309
02:21:15,879 --> 02:21:19,680
Speaker 1: answer the question as honestly but simply as you can,

2310
02:21:19,840 --> 02:21:23,600
Speaker 1: and as they get older, you get to add more context.

2311
02:21:24,480 --> 02:21:28,280
Speaker 1: Probably I hope that helps, and I really appreciate the question.

2312
02:21:29,560 --> 02:21:32,120
Speaker 1: And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and put a

2313
02:21:32,120 --> 02:21:35,280
Speaker 1: pin in this episode. As you could see campaign season,

2314
02:21:36,000 --> 02:21:38,200
Speaker 1: I'd like to think, this is what you want, this

2315
02:21:38,280 --> 02:21:41,800
Speaker 1: is why you subscribe, we're gonna have, you know, can't

2316
02:21:41,879 --> 02:21:45,320
Speaker 1: the campaign coverage. There will be no other podcast that

2317
02:21:45,520 --> 02:21:50,160
Speaker 1: goes as in depth, that does as much both history

2318
02:21:50,400 --> 02:21:53,880
Speaker 1: and context and all of this. I promise you Nobody

2319
02:21:53,879 --> 02:21:55,520
Speaker 1: else will do it like we do it here at

2320
02:21:55,520 --> 02:22:00,760
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. So buckle up, it's going to be

2321
02:22:00,879 --> 02:22:05,640
Speaker 1: quite and frankly between now and November twenty twenty eight.

2322
02:22:05,800 --> 02:22:08,480
Speaker 1: In some ways we're going to be NonStop when it

2323
02:22:08,520 --> 02:22:12,680
Speaker 1: comes to campaign season, but it is now here we are,

2324
02:22:14,920 --> 02:22:17,240
Speaker 1: and let's just say the Wednesday episodes are going to

2325
02:22:17,280 --> 02:22:21,040
Speaker 1: be humdingers, because if it's Tuesday, somebody's going to be

2326
02:22:21,080 --> 02:22:24,040
Speaker 1: voting somewhere, and just like we just had with this Tuesday,

2327
02:22:24,600 --> 02:22:26,160
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to be voting,