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Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from

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Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in

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Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow, myself

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Speaker 1: sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to

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Speaker 1: pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had

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Speaker 1: one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,

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Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's why

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Speaker 1: I was able to go to college. Little did he

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Speaker 1: know how important that would be in that moment. Well,

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Speaker 1: guess what. That's why I am here to tell you

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Speaker 1: and you can get same day coverage without ever leaving

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Speaker 1: your home. You can get up to three million dollars

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Speaker 1: in coverage and some policies start as low as two

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Speaker 1: dollars a day that would be billed monthly. As of

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Speaker 1: March twenty twenty five, Business Insider named Ethos the number

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Speaker 1: one no medical exam instant life insurance provider. So protect

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Speaker 1: quoted ethos dot com slash chuck. So again, that's Ethos

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Speaker 1: rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, life

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Speaker 1: insurance is something you should really think about, especially if

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Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Check podcast. We have

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Speaker 1: made it to December. First, we are getting close. We

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Speaker 1: are now the first day of the last month of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I have to say this is this

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Speaker 1: has been a fascinating year for me personally for a

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Speaker 1: variety of reasons. Major transitions, both for myself professionally, my family,

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Speaker 1: empty nesting. Right, you put all that together, and let's

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Speaker 1: just say twenty twenty five has been a very It's

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Speaker 1: had its share of monumental moments in as far as

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Speaker 1: my household is concerned and my family is concerned. So here,

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Speaker 1: let's just say I feel like this year flew by.

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Speaker 1: I know for some of you it may be trudging along,

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Speaker 1: it may have taken forever. Politically, we can't say this

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Speaker 1: hasn't been an inactive year. This has been. It's a

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Speaker 1: phrase I used quite a bit during the Obama era

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Speaker 1: that now feels antiquated, because I think in the Trump

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Speaker 1: era it makes this following phrase more relevant and in

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Speaker 1: some ways a lot less relevant than Trump. I used

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Speaker 1: to say every day is a week, and every week

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Speaker 1: is a day in the Obama era. I think that's

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Speaker 1: true in the Trump era. At times, you know, times thousand,

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Speaker 1: if that's possible, right, Months feel like they go by

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Speaker 1: in weeks. The space time continuum is totally blurred. You

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Speaker 1: can't remember what's real what isn't. And in many ways

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Speaker 1: we've got a taste of sort of the entire Trump

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Speaker 1: experience of the Trump era, one that I do think

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Speaker 1: is exhausting. The vast but the vast majority of people

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Speaker 1: pole certainly indicate that, you know, those that are not

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Speaker 1: ideologically motivated to hate him or love him, right, they're

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Speaker 1: sort of dominating a lot of this conversation. But I

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Speaker 1: do think the vast you know, those of us in

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Speaker 1: the seventy percent here that accept the premise that you know,

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Speaker 1: you're not always going to get a president alike or

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Speaker 1: one that wants to unify the country. This has still

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Speaker 1: been an unusual period in American history. And when I

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Speaker 1: would say that we've got the full spectrum of Trump,

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Speaker 1: this week, right, we had a tragedy that happened in

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Speaker 1: the nation's capital, a Trump response that was not surprising

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Speaker 1: but still demoralizing in and depressing that an American president is

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Speaker 1: instinctively so divisive no matter what happens in any given moment.

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Speaker 1: We've got the president, We've got, we've got sort of

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Speaker 1: the media, a media firestorm getting created by something the

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Speaker 1: president says, and very little media firestorm being created by

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Speaker 1: something the president actually does pardons. And then finally, I

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Speaker 1: think we're I think Congress finally awoke from its slumber

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Speaker 1: in all things Venezuela, now that there are reports that

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Speaker 1: essentially the Secretary of Defense perhaps committed a war crime

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Speaker 1: when he said no survivors. I mean, it is against

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Speaker 1: the Geneva Conventions to continue with an order that says

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Speaker 1: there should be no survivors. And if survivors are sort

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Speaker 1: of show themselves there to be taken out. So the

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Speaker 1: fact that Congress is now going to investigate this probably

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Speaker 1: now starts the clock on Pete hag Seth, because one

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Speaker 1: thing about the Trump era in general is there's always

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Speaker 1: got to be a fall person and he will never

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Speaker 1: accept responsibility. He will, you know, sort of defend everything

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Speaker 1: that's going on until there's a moment where essentially he

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Speaker 1: needs to offer up a sacrifice to make sure they

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Speaker 1: don't come after him. Well, Pete haig Seth, you are

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Speaker 1: going to be that sacrifice. You probably believe you are

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Speaker 1: carrying out the exact orders the President of the United

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Speaker 1: States wants. But I promise you he will not have

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Speaker 1: your back. He does not care about you, He does

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Speaker 1: not care about your future, He does not care about

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Speaker 1: what happens there. And in fact, I do think pick

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Speaker 1: haik Seth is going to need a lawyer because and

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who carried out these orders. Look

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Speaker 1: at some point, the head of southcom who decided to

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Speaker 1: resign essentially in and around this period where these controversial

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Speaker 1: orders were given, is a flashing red light that there

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Speaker 1: are people in the chain of command who thought they

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Speaker 1: were getting illegal orders and just didn't weren't weren't realized

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Speaker 1: it is against the law to follow an illegal order,

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Speaker 1: as these lawmakers said, you know, they We got to

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Speaker 1: remember why these lawmakers first put this you know, first

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Speaker 1: put this video together. Yes, are they Are they trolling

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Speaker 1: a little bit, of course? Are they trying to make

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Speaker 1: a political point, Yes, But at the same time, it

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Speaker 1: was a real concern that the Secretary of Defense was

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Speaker 1: giving illegal orders and what was happening in Venezuela without

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Speaker 1: any sort of Remember, the administration has not gone to

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Speaker 1: Congress in order to get legal authority to do this.

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Speaker 1: They are using authority that previous Congresses gave to presidents

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Speaker 1: having to do with actual terrorism threats from overseas, the Taliban,

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Speaker 1: al Qaeda, things like that. This was not about a

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Speaker 1: manufactured terrorism threat in this sort of designation of narco terrorists,

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Speaker 1: which do not exist. The closest thing you could call

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Speaker 1: anybody to a narco terrorist or the essentially or the Taliban,

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Speaker 1: and that they were growing poppy in order to sell

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Speaker 1: heroin in order to fund terrorism. So if you're looking

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Speaker 1: for anybody that fits the definition, you could argue you'd

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Speaker 1: have to go to Afghanistan to get that to go

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Speaker 1: meet that definition. There is no place in and around

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Speaker 1: Venezuela that that meets that definition. And so it is

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Speaker 1: I think we now see and I have a little

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Speaker 1: bit more to say on that, but I want to

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Speaker 1: sort of start with what the tragedy that happened the

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Speaker 1: night before Thanksgiving, and that was the tragic shooting of

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Speaker 1: two members of the National Guard that the President ordered

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Speaker 1: to be deployed into Washington, d C. A deployment that

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Speaker 1: many people don't believe is necessary. Certainly where they've been

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Speaker 1: deployed hasn't been very effective. It has been clearly when

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Speaker 1: you see it, and as trust me, as people come

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Speaker 1: in to visit for the holidays, they ask us locals

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Speaker 1: about it, and they're like, how come they're you know,

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Speaker 1: I said, it's meant for you to notice. It's not

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Speaker 1: meant to be there for security. It's meant for people

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Speaker 1: to see see it. It is meant for show. It

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Speaker 1: is not necessarily meant to help. And when you look

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Speaker 1: at the what's tragic is the President's decision on the

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Speaker 1: day before Thanksgiving to be as divisive as possible. Right

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Speaker 1: he immediately and this goes back to you know my

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Speaker 1: earlier warning, why Pete Haig Seth is is, you know,

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Speaker 1: is about to be sacrificed by Donald Trump. Pete Haig

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Speaker 1: Seth doesn't know it yet, and maybe Trump himself doesn't

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Speaker 1: realize he's about to do this. But Trump never accepts

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Speaker 1: the premise that he has any fault at all, and

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Speaker 1: anything bad that happens, he's got to find somebody else,

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Speaker 1: got to find a scapeboat. So this happens, and he

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Speaker 1: immediately Look, when the shooting first happened, I think many

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Speaker 1: of us had I don't want to put thoughts in

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Speaker 1: anybody else's head. This could have been a variety. You know,

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Speaker 1: you don't know the scenario. There's a reason you want

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Speaker 1: to wait for all the facts. Right when this shooting

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Speaker 1: first hit with breaking news, I'm going to guess most

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Speaker 1: of you didn't have a former aff a former Afghan

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Speaker 1: employee of the CIA. I'm guessing none of you had

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Speaker 1: that on your bingo card, no matter how much you

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Speaker 1: follow the news. There perhaps was feared that this was

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Speaker 1: something was to say misunderstanding, was there was there a

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Speaker 1: sub suspect, was to say, a crime that was taking

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Speaker 1: place and they and they helped get involved sadly, it

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Speaker 1: turned out these National guardsmen were targeted by this gentleman.

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Speaker 1: And the question is why did he target him? Did

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Speaker 1: he target him because he's angry at the United States?

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Speaker 1: Did he target him because he's angry at the US

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Speaker 1: government who he believes hasn't fulfilled their obligation. Is he

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Speaker 1: just angry because he has a total mental decline from

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Speaker 1: all of the war that he participated in. And this

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Speaker 1: is frankly something that we've seen happen to many of

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Speaker 1: our own American servicemen and women. War basically damages them

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Speaker 1: almost permanently in their head. And there's certainly plenty of

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Speaker 1: reports about their shooter, Ramanala Lakenwal that he since being

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Speaker 1: placed in Washington state, friends and family. It said he'd

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Speaker 1: been behaving erradically, going on these cross country trips and disappearing,

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Speaker 1: So it's quite possible he lost it. And of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, my thesis on many a many a mass

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Speaker 1: shooter that we end up finding out about is that

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Speaker 1: they're all mentally unstable. Something triggered them, right, Maybe it

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Speaker 1: was bad parenting, Maybe it was bad diagnoses, people not

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Speaker 1: diagnosing what was wrong. Maybe it was something that happened

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Speaker 1: that traumatized them, perhaps war, perhaps something else. But the

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Speaker 1: point is is that it does seem as if, more

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Speaker 1: times than not, this suspect is triggered into doing this,

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Speaker 1: triggered for a variety of reasons, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: there certainly is a lot of hand ringing here, right,

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Speaker 1: But immediately President Trump went into blame game mode. Like

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Speaker 1: I said, I don't know what his response would have

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Speaker 1: been had this been just just sort of typical criminal

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Speaker 1: situation in DC where a criminal overreacted and shot somebody

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Speaker 1: and then it became something bigger. Who knows what the

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Speaker 1: deployments would have looked like in this city or many others.

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Speaker 1: But instead it turned out to be a different situation

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Speaker 1: and one that not a lot of people had had

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Speaker 1: on their Bengo card, but it was. You know, presidents

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Speaker 1: have a choice to make. They can try to unite

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Speaker 1: the country or they can actively try to divide the country.

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Speaker 1: We know this president his entire political currency is division.

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Speaker 1: It is how he got the Republican nomination, it is

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Speaker 1: how he sort of took over the Republican Park, and

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Speaker 1: it's how he governs. It is always divide, divide, divide,

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Speaker 1: and on this he divided he's trying to blame Biden

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Speaker 1: for bad vetting of Afghan refugees into this country, whatever

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Speaker 1: he can do to not take any blame here at all.

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Speaker 1: He's trying to sort of blame it all, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of conflate it with all the immigration issues because

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Speaker 1: he doesn't want to take any responsibility that maybe his

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Speaker 1: folks didn't do vetting. Maybe putting the National Guard in

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Speaker 1: the nation's capital put a target on these young men

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Speaker 1: and women who didn't sign up for this type of duty.

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Speaker 1: But it's something that I think everybody needs to ask themselves.

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Speaker 1: Does the president's actions and how he treats the military,

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Speaker 1: turning them into political pawns put essentially put a political

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Speaker 1: target on their back? And I think that this is

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Speaker 1: a conversation that as adults we should be able to have.

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Speaker 1: And I think there's you know, I'm sorry his first

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Speaker 1: reaction was maybe deploying the military wearing fatigues around the

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Speaker 1: nation's capital is inviting people to target the military in

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Speaker 1: some way. I just think it's a question. It's a

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Speaker 1: serious question that needs to be asked and debated, and

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Speaker 1: we need to have serious answers, not just whimsical bullshit

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Speaker 1: that comes comes from somebody's social media feed. So there's

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Speaker 1: one issue there. The second is he had made a promise,

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Speaker 1: he had questioned whether these folks were vetted very well

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Speaker 1: or not well. What is his administration done on vetting?

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Speaker 1: It turns out they don't really vet at all, as

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Speaker 1: we know they're so they're so trying to have numbers

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Speaker 1: and just trying to kick everybody out of the country

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Speaker 1: and come up with all sorts of numbers where they

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Speaker 1: want to say, hey, look at everybody we're deporting that

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Speaker 1: there doesn't seem to be any effort to create a

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Speaker 1: vetting mechanism. We're not interested in in setting the example

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Speaker 1: for the world about political asylum on things like that.

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Speaker 1: And then of course there's the question of the blood

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Speaker 1: on our hands that every American lawmaker has on their

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Speaker 1: hands when it comes to Afghanistan. Okay, just remember Biden's

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Speaker 1: horrible withdrawal was due to having his hands tied by

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Speaker 1: Trump's terrible, a terrible deal that he caught with the

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Speaker 1: Talibon that essentially gave away every gain that was possible

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Speaker 1: that the United States attempted to make and Afghanistan. Trump

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Speaker 1: gave it all away, handing Biden the job of executing

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Speaker 1: a withdrawal that, yes, could Biden have superseded It could, No,

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Speaker 1: eadn't politically want. It would extend the time of the

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Speaker 1: US military occupation in Afghanistan. So I understand the political

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Speaker 1: motives he had to go ahead and abide by these deadlines.

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Speaker 1: Does not mean he should be let off the hook

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Speaker 1: for the terrible and horrendous mismanagement that the State Department,

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Speaker 1: the military, and the White House collectively made there. Now

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of finger pointing to this day about it,

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Speaker 1: but let's not forget the terrible decision that Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: made in negotiating with the Taliban and doing what he

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Speaker 1: did to put his successor in the position that he

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Speaker 1: was in. The point is is that the disaster that

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Speaker 1: is Afghanistan, that is Afghan refugees who were especially those

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Speaker 1: who were vital to the US operation in Afghanistan, like

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Speaker 1: this young man, Ramanala lakanawal Okay. He worked for the

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Speaker 1: United States military, worked for the government, worked for intelligence services.

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Speaker 1: In many ways, he's the very definition of somebody that

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Speaker 1: deserved essentially special status for getting into this country because

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Speaker 1: guess what, they were going to be targeted by the

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Speaker 1: Taliban because they were working against the Taliban. He had

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Speaker 1: no chance to survive in Afghanistan. In theory, he was

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Speaker 1: supposed to have a better chance here. So the point

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Speaker 1: is is that this is a tragic situation based on

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Speaker 1: a bad policy from three to four presidents. We can

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Speaker 1: basically every president's of the twenty first century is fucked up. Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: screwed up the entire situation. And so the point is

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Speaker 1: there's collective blood on the hands of Republicans and Democrats alike.

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Speaker 1: There's collective blood on all of us as Americans, since

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Speaker 1: there are representatives. So the point is when a tragedy

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Speaker 1: like this happens, there should be a little bit of

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Speaker 1: shared experience with this, and it's a moment, especially when

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Speaker 1: we're all gathered together as it is. Wouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: hard to use this as a unifying moment, but again

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Speaker 1: it is not. The president has no ability to do this,

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Speaker 1: and instead he went off on some ridiculous rant something

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Speaker 1: about the auto pen and Joe Biden, and then he

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Speaker 1: claimed on social media that he has nullified every executive

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Speaker 1: order Joe Biden has done. You know, there is no

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Speaker 1: one executive order he could sign that would do that

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Speaker 1: if he wants to nullify every executive order that that

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Speaker 1: Biden signed, either by himself or via autopan, He's got

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Speaker 1: to sign individual executive orders that essentially pull them back

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Speaker 1: in one form or another. And I don't think he

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Speaker 1: can do anything on the pardons if he wants to

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Speaker 1: try to undo the pardons. But the point is what

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Speaker 1: was really shocking were how many people covered this as fact.

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Speaker 1: And this gets that to he sat there trying to

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Speaker 1: weaponize a tragedy for political gain, trying to create that hey,

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Speaker 1: this was Democrats soft on border policies that led to

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Speaker 1: this situation, when actually, now that we know more of

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Speaker 1: the situation, it has nothing to do with that, and

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Speaker 1: it has everything to do with the horrendous way that

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Speaker 1: all of the pre presidents, including Donald Trump, but especially

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, since he negotiated the surrender of it whatever

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Speaker 1: America was trying to do in Afghanistan, he basically just

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Speaker 1: decided to completely walk away and just left the left

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Speaker 1: the mess for his successor and Joe Biden, who decided

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Speaker 1: to just follow the same bad path. So I have

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Speaker 1: no empathy for Joe Biden's decision making other than more

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Speaker 1: proof he was not a very good president, but he

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Speaker 1: was following a situation that was created by a worst president,

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Speaker 1: in this case in Donald Trump. So we're in this

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Speaker 1: we're in a moment where he could have brought the

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Speaker 1: country together and he chose not to do it. And

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Speaker 1: what was, like I said, what was really disconcerting was

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Speaker 1: how focused it seemed much of the world was on

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Speaker 1: this thing we we did with the pardons. And I

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Speaker 1: saw a few people, probably you know, younger reporters who

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Speaker 1: were being asked to work over the holiday. Right, This

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Speaker 1: is if the with some serious attempt. There were headlines

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Speaker 1: that were breaking news alerts, right, and then you found

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Speaker 1: out what he actually did, you know? And this this

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Speaker 1: gets back to sort of one of the larger reminders

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Speaker 1: with Donald Trump. Stop paying attention to what he says

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Speaker 1: and continue to only pay attention to what he does.

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Speaker 1: He says a lot of shit. Most of it isn't true,

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Speaker 1: most of it isn't going to happen. Most of it

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Speaker 1: is bullshit, right, And I understand, you know there's always

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Speaker 1: this oh take them literally whatever it is. The fact

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Speaker 1: is what he says versus what he does. Okay, if

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Speaker 1: you're going to get outraged, get outrage and what he does,

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Speaker 1: not what he claims he's going to do, because most

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Speaker 1: of the time he doesn't do what he claims he's

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Speaker 1: going to do. All right, But while we are talking

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Speaker 1: about what he says he'll do in nullifying all of

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden's auto pen executive orders, he was doing something

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Speaker 1: far more consequential, far more damaging to the United States

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Speaker 1: long term folks. He used his most absolute power of

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Speaker 1: his presidency, the pardon, and he, once again, it appears,

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Speaker 1: did another pay for play, especially because we now know

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Speaker 1: who is involved in helping facilitate the pardon and getting

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Speaker 1: the pardon for the presidency. This episode of the Chuck

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Speaker 1: So let me talk about it. It's a full pardon

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Speaker 1: for a gentleman by the name of Juan Orlando Hernandez.

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Speaker 1: He's the former president of Honduras. He was convicted in

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Speaker 1: a US federal court just last year for trafficking hundreds

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Speaker 1: of tons of cocaines in the United States since of

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Speaker 1: forty five years. Now, let's just remember, one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons that Donald Trump is threatening war on Venezuela is

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Speaker 1: because he says Moduro is essentially the head of the

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Speaker 1: one of the largest drug cartels in the world that

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Speaker 1: is killing Americans, intentionally killing Americans via the drug trade.

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Speaker 1: So what does he do. He just released somebody who

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Speaker 1: we in the United States just convicted of doing just

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Speaker 1: what he claims the head of Venezuela is doing. But

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Speaker 1: now this guy has been cleared, had his record white clean,

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Speaker 1: and he's being released back into Central American politics. In fact,

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Speaker 1: Trump is using the pardon of Wan Orlando Hernandez to

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Speaker 1: essentially endorse the political party that is on the ballot

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Speaker 1: right now that Hernandez belongs to, to essentially get that

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Speaker 1: group of politicians back in power. And he said if

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Speaker 1: the election doesn't go the way he wants it to go.

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Speaker 1: He's going to somehow punish Honduras over this, So he's

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Speaker 1: threatening the voters of Hoduras. This is not America First.

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Speaker 1: By the way, America First doesn't care what people do.

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Speaker 1: People are supposedly can do whatever the hell they want

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Speaker 1: outside of America's borders. Right, we are not going to

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Speaker 1: involve ourselves in their politics. Obviously, it is so crystal clear.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not a he's not an America First.

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Speaker 1: He's a Trump firster. Whoever pays him the most is

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Speaker 1: going to get. And we now know Roger Stone is

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Speaker 1: basically the pardon you know, the pardon whisper to a

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Speaker 1: lot of these Latin American and international crooks, and they

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Speaker 1: use Roger Stone himself a pardon crook. And Stone bragged

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Speaker 1: about visiting the president about two weeks ago on his

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Speaker 1: social media feed, dressed in the absurd zoot suit that

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Speaker 1: he loves to wear. Claim he's like really stylistic person,

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Speaker 1: He's stylistic for the nineteen forties. Congratulations, he would make

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Speaker 1: a great Dick Tracy villain. I probably gave him a

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Speaker 1: compliment by saying that. But the guys, you know, the

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Speaker 1: guys tells a great story spins a great yarn. But

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Speaker 1: he's a crook and he has destroyed political the political

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Speaker 1: consulting world by making it as crooked as it is.

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Speaker 1: He and Paul Manifort paved the way to essentially the

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Speaker 1: corrupt nature that lobbying is today. The godfathers of this

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Speaker 1: are Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. And of course it's

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Speaker 1: Roger Stone who's totally connected and was personally urging Trump

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Speaker 1: to pardon this guy visiting with him two weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: so we know this was done. So this wasn't a

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Speaker 1: pardon for diplomatic reasons or for some geopolitical reasons that

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Speaker 1: we thought would help the security of the United States.

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Speaker 1: There was no Department of Justice review for this pardon.

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Speaker 1: It just was a direct result of lobbying from one

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Speaker 1: of Trump's closest, most controversial confidants, a man himself who

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Speaker 1: have received clemency from Trump, a man who now's appear

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Speaker 1: appears to be essentially one of the central nodes in

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Speaker 1: this pay for pay pardon scheme that it should be

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily controversial, and yet nobody raises a peep about it.

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Speaker 1: The lack of outrage over essentially what is almost a

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Speaker 1: weekly thing. Now Trump has normalized, normalized the pardoning of

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Speaker 1: convicted felons, and it's always the same. It's either convicted

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Speaker 1: of some sort of financial scheme, ripping off governments or

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Speaker 1: ripping off people. Something he has been accused of doing

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Speaker 1: quite a bit as a developer over the years, and

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Speaker 1: you know, an unsuccessful casino owner over the years. Anybody

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Speaker 1: that's ever been accused of something, he's been accused of,

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Speaker 1: he pardons. And you know, it is now an obvious pattern.

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Speaker 1: And of course anybody who will pay the price is

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Speaker 1: obviously willing to be pardoned. It is happening here in

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Speaker 1: plain sight. Two weeks ago, right I went, I sort

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Speaker 1: of was trying to surface up some urgency about his

431
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: abuse of the pardon. How when he pardoned the form

432
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 1: the head of finance one of those crypto schemes that

433
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: are out there, And how did this guy get on

434
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: the attention of Trump. Well when he went into business

435
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: with Trump's kids in the crypto world, so it became

436
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: sort of a part of the family business to get

437
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: this done. It's it's it's one of those where you

438
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: don't quite understand why there's you know, to quote Bob Dolan,

439
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six when he was running against Bill Click

440
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: and an upset about the lack of you know, there

441
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: were all sorts of crazy schemes that Bill Clinton's was

442
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: using to raise money, using the White House as a

443
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: vehicle to this. By the way, the things that Bob

444
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: Gore would be upset about today wouldn't even make Donald

445
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: Trump blush. Right. Donald Trump essentially has done whatever the

446
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: Clintons did and said I'm going to do it on steroids,

447
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: and he's kind of done that. By the way, he

448
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: made a second commutation this week, and again it's one

449
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: that's all about the Benjamins. Here a guy named David Genteel,

450
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: a private equity executive who was convicted in a one

451
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: point six billion dollar fraud scheen was sentenced to seven years.

452
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: He got a sentence commuted after just two weeks. So

453
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 1: while we don't know quite how much money mister Genteel

454
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: paid Trump associates in order to get his pardon, I

455
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: promise you the pardon is not free. None of these

456
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: pardons that Donald Trump makes are free. But again, where

457
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: you get so many folks in sort of the political

458
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: media get obsessed over the stuff he says, and the

459
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: lack of focused or interest in the stuff he does,

460
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: whether it is an illegal, unconstitutional war that he's essentially

461
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: trying to start in Venezuela. By the way, he's got

462
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: political risk here if he doesn't follow through on that.

463
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that in a minute. And then it's

464
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: literally almost weekly now he pardons somebody that is that

465
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 1: makes the Bill Clinton, Mark Rich pardons seem just like

466
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: another presidential pardon that eh kind of smells. But hey,

467
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: they all do it. The fact is they don't all

468
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: do it. They've all done one or two really bad

469
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: pardons that you're really uncomfortable with, and you're like, God,

470
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 1: damn it, did you really just do this so Roger

471
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: Stone could make a couple of bucks, or did you

472
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: really just do this because Tony Rodham needed to make

473
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks, Because that is what it felt

474
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: like was happening with the Clintons, and it felt that,

475
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: you know, when Bush sort of commuted the sentence of

476
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: Scuber to Libby, you know, yes, he didn't pardon him,

477
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: but he was You see this, there are these little

478
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: favors that are done and and you know, there's honor

479
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: among thieves. And I think we as a public we're

480
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: kind of grossed out by it that it happens at all,

481
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: but we're weirdly forgiving of a couple. We sort of assume, oh,

482
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: that's the price of business. But literally, Donald Trump just

483
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: peas in our face. He is so he doesn't even

484
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: pretend to do anything morally or ethically correct, and instead

485
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: he does these things that are so beyond the pale.

486
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: But he does it consistently, consistently and regularly, and he

487
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: does it on a schedule that we just barely even

488
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: shrug a shoulder. There's two issues that this week alone

489
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: has triggered it as a reminder. First of all, we

490
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: have a corrupt Justice department. Right, we do not have

491
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: a Justice department that you can feel good is honest

492
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: and fair, because we've already seen the way pay Bondi

493
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: has allowed the Justice Department to be run. It's whatever

494
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants. So now there's real questions about the

495
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: rule of law. Judges are throwing cases out because they're

496
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: really not It appears that they're not following even basic

497
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: you know, the basic protocols that they're supposed to make. One. Two,

498
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: the pardon power is so corrupt that it's clear we

499
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: need a constitutional amendment to amend this. To this day,

500
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: you've heard me ask this question a few times, which is,

501
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: how the hell did you know the Founding Fathers. One

502
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: of the head scratchers to me is the fact that

503
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: they allowed a pardon power to be given to a president,

504
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: because we were supposedly revolting against a monarchy, so why

505
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: give any sort of monarchical powers to the president? Right,

506
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: everything about the Founding Fathers was to try to create

507
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: a weak executive. They didn't want a non existent executive,

508
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: but they wanted a fairly weak executive with the power

509
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: of the law of actually resting inside of the power

510
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: to make laws, not with the executive branch, but with

511
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: the legislative branch, the power to decide if the laws

512
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: are constitutional, not to judiciary. Essentially, all the executives supposed

513
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,479
Speaker 1: to do is execute the loss, but they gave him

514
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: this pardon power and the amount of abuse. Now I

515
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: know the Founders had a lot more faith in the

516
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: legislative branch and essentially protecting the constitution and protecting the

517
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: country from a runaway executive. That is not the situation

518
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: we have now. Right, we do not have a speaker

519
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: of the House. We have a spino, a speaker in

520
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,239
Speaker 1: name only. As you know Mike Johnson essentially admitted it

521
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: the other day, is that he really isn't a speaker

522
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: of any you know, he has at the title, but

523
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: he doesn't do the job of running the legislative branch.

524
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: He does whatever Donald Trump asked him to do, which

525
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 1: really has harmed the Constitution, and he's put his own members.

526
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: This is why you're going to see this retirement. We

527
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: got another retirement over the weekend. I promise you, I'm

528
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: in a guest that we average two to four retirements

529
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: every day every week, excuse me, between now and the

530
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: end of the year. Well, fact check me on this

531
00:31:57,800 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, but I'm I'm going

532
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: to yes that we will have at least ten more

533
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: retirements before the end of this calendar, which would put

534
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: us on an average of two to three per week

535
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: for the rest of the year. So I think that's

536
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: going to happen. But the uninterest in Congress and trying

537
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: to reign in this executive is shocking to me. We

538
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: are finally going to get and I think it took

539
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: you know, last week I shared with you how I

540
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: had an interview with Mike Turner, republic former. He's a

541
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: current member of congre Republican member of Congress, but the

542
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: former chair of the House Intel Committee. And you could

543
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: just if you just watched the conversation he and I

544
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: had over Venezuela and whether these orders were legal or not,

545
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: and how concerned he was about the legality of what

546
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: was happening here. He was basically saying, without saying directly,

547
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: that yes, this thing is totally illegal, and we are

548
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: totally and Congress is totally out of the loop. So

549
00:32:54,360 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: this report about the shoot to kill order, no survivors

550
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: are allowed by Hegseth, which appears to be a violation

551
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: of the Geneva Conventions, especially when there's been no declaration

552
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: of war whatsoever on any of these folks. Congress is

553
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: finally awoke from its slumber, and we'll see. I have

554
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: some faith in the Senate Armed Services Committee to do

555
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: something serious because I think Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman,

556
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: and Jack Reid, the ranking member, they seem to put

557
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: the country before party, both of them whenever they've they've

558
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: worked together a long time. I think that they're going

559
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: to do a really serious inquiry I don't know about

560
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: the House as we know the House Republicans will see.

561
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: I think it depends on who you get. I do

562
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: think you have some House Republicans that realize that Donald

563
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: Trump treats them like sacrificial lambs and that they're nothing

564
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: but pawns. And I think that that is I do

565
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: think he is accumulating more and more critics from his

566
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: own party for the way he behave. As I said,

567
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: it's not been very America first. It's always Trump first,

568
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: but not America first. That's making some people peel away

569
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: getting involved in other people's in more foreign entanglements. That

570
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: seems to be an issue. But let me introduce one

571
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,839
Speaker 1: more political peril that Trump has created for himself with Venezuela.

572
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: Now that he's got Congress's attention with what they're doing,

573
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: in theory, it might hamstring him more. Ironically, what they've

574
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: been doing has been raising the hopes of the Venezuelan

575
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: and Cuban communities in South Florida that Trump's going to,

576
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: you know, go and get Madurea if he doesn't get Madurea.

577
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: And this is where I think, unfortunately, he's going to

578
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: do something that's likely illegal here and he's going to

579
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: do he's going to make he's going to give an

580
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,479
Speaker 1: order that we're going to be debating for years about

581
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: whether this was legal or not and what happens here

582
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: with Maduall, let's see how it's done. But he's more

583
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: likely to try something then actually get congressional approval because politically,

584
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: if he doesn't follow through and his threat to get

585
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: rid of Maduro, this will be the bay of pigs

586
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: for Venezuelans, Venezuelan Americans. You know, Essentially the Cuban Americans

587
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: turned on the Democratic Party because they believe Kennedy didn't

588
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: help out those Cuban exiles who were trying to overthrow

589
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: Castro and he sort of left them defend for themselves

590
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: and he didn't follow through, and it is the initial split,

591
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: like why are Cubans Republicans? It's because of that moment,

592
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 1: no other reason. Well, if Trump never gets Maduro, that's

593
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: the situation he's setting himself up. And it could trickle

594
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: into the Cuban community as well. So because of that fear,

595
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: and I know that, and I would suspect that Marco

596
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: Rubio color Cementez, many of the long time Cuban American

597
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: politicians down in South Florida who understand this issue, You

598
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: understand what South Florida exiles may expect from President Trump

599
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: here are going to end up pushing him and pushing

600
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: him and pushing him to do something that, again, I

601
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: think is going to have enormous constitutional consequences and long

602
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: term impact on the role of Congress and what it

603
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: plays in war making, and potentially on this fragile coalition

604
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: that is mega that he put together. Because did any

605
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: of them, these are all folks that all are supposedly

606
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: against the Iraq war, did any of them vote for this?

607
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: And I think you could see more fracturing even as

608
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: he remember he lives in South Florida, so he's become

609
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: an unofficial member of the Cuban in Venezuelaan exile communities

610
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: down there. He constantly gets that pr in his ear,

611
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: So we know where he's going to end up ciding.

612
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 1: What he does not fully appreciate is what that's going

613
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: to do the rest of his coalition outside of South Florida.

614
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: All Right, with that, let's sneak at a break and

615
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: when we come back, Sarah Eskert and of course, after

616
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: that conversation, which I think you'll enjoy. It's a tremendous one.

617
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: After that conversation I have by toodcast time Machine, I

618
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 1: got a fun one. This is a fascinating one. I

619
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 1: actually take three moments in history and combine them into

620
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: one time machine moment. And of course I have a

621
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: few things to say about the status of college football,

622
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 1: in particular the leadership or shall I say the lack

623
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 1: of leadership at the ACCI but first equip ranking. There's

624
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's

625
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 1: a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm.

626
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,439
Speaker 1: For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five

627
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It

628
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just

629
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

630
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. Fact

631
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

632
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

633
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

634
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,359
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty

635
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across

636
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people.

637
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: If you're injured, you need a lawyer, you need somebody

638
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: to get your back. Check out for the People dot

639
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: Com slash podcast, or dial pound Law Pound five to

640
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: two nine law on your cell phone. And remember all

641
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: law firms are not the same. So check out Morgan

642
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. So

643
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: with that, let's go into the time machine. So this

644
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:53,439
Speaker 1: week on the Toddcast time machine, obviously I'm looking look,

645
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: it is hard to ignore December seventh, So I'm not

646
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: going to ignore December seventh. I'm going to lean in

647
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: to December seven, but I'm going to do it in

648
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: a slightly different way than you might expect, because what

649
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 1: December seventh did is it shifted us from a nation

650
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: that listened together. It was the beginning of something where

651
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: we were a nation that listened together. Now we're a

652
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: nation that listens alone. So I'm kind of starting with

653
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: December seventh, nineteen forty one, Pearl Harbor. We at least

654
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: have read about the shock. We don't remember the shock, right,

655
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: we weren't there most of us weren't alive for that moment.

656
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 1: That's listening here. Some of you were, but most of

657
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: us won't write at this point in time. Right, if

658
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: no baby boomer in theory, right, if you think about

659
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: the entire baby Boomer generation, the first ones were born

660
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five, so in theory, none of them

661
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: were alive. Right, that's how few people. It's hard to

662
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 1: believe that, but that's how few people. So we remember

663
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: the tragedy, and of course it was a turning point

664
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: in American history and in world history. But Pearl Harbor

665
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 1: also is the greatest single demonstration of the power of

666
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: shared media in America life. What do I mean? Well,

667
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, more than eighty percent of American

668
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: households had a radio, and for many families, that radio

669
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 1: was the most valuable object in the house, the most

670
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: valuable thing they owned that didn't have four wheels attached

671
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: to it, obviously the car. And on the morning of

672
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: December seventh, the entire nation turned into that same medium.

673
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 1: At the same time. They heard the president, they heard

674
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: the bulletins, and of course they heard the war, and

675
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: you heard it with everyone else. It was a shared experience.

676
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: Radio wasn't just dominant, it was the national hearth. If

677
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: you will, I mean literally right those fireside chats, we

678
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: were all sitting around the radio to find out what

679
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: our president knew, what can he could tell us. The

680
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: country had one soundtrack, one voice, one shared experience. This

681
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: is the height of communal media in America. But four

682
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: years later, this same week in history, we had our

683
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: first crack in communal media. The first crack appeared, and

684
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: it comes from a place no one was watching. On

685
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 1: December one, nineteen forty five, the FCC quietly approved a

686
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:14,720
Speaker 1: massive expansion of what was called the FM broadcast band.

687
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:18,320
Speaker 1: To most Americans, this meant zip, but it would eventually

688
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: change everything about what we listened to and how. A

689
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: few things happened. Because of this decision one, we ended

690
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: up with more choice. At the time of this rule

691
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: in the United States had just forty eight FM stations.

692
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: Within ten years that number exploded to over five hundred,

693
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,800
Speaker 1: a tenfold increase. Romember AM radio was the initial radio.

694
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: Suddenly radio wasn't one monolithic block. We actually had a

695
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: menu of options, and there were a whole bunch of

696
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: new formats. We had musical formats, jazz, classical album rock,

697
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: adult contemporary soft rock. FM created the space for niche

698
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: music programming, the beginning of fragmentation, something we're all familiar

699
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: with now. FM sound quality was so much better than

700
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: AM that listeners began choosing stations based not on personality,

701
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: but on clarity and fidelity. This was true in the

702
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: car I grew up in my dad. My dad hated

703
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:13,959
Speaker 1: wanted to listen to some AM radio guys, but hated

704
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: the sound quality, so we ended up listening to more

705
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: FM radio. By nineteen seventy eight, just before our next

706
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: big milestone, which I'm going to get to in a minute,

707
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 1: FM overtook AM for the first time. It commanded fifty

708
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: eight percent of all listening in the United States. The

709
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: communal world that had existed at the time of Pearl

710
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: Harbor was already beginning to split. More stations, more formats,

711
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: more choice. The era of everyone listening to the same

712
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: thing was slowly dying. But choice is one thing, personal choice, boy.

713
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: That is something else, and that wouldn't arrive for decades

714
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: in the form of a tiny, blue plastic cas set

715
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: player with foam headphones. If Pearl Harbor was the height

716
00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 1: of shared listening and FM was the beginning of fragment.

717
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: Then the moment that truly ended the broadcast era arrived

718
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen eighty when Sony quietly introduced

719
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: the Walkman into the United States. There wasn't a big

720
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: launch event. There was no splashy TV campaign, no Steve

721
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,240
Speaker 1: Jobs style reveal if you will. It had been introduced

722
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: about a year earlier in Japan, but for one hundred

723
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars you two could have a personal stereo.

724
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: It was about five hundred dollars in today's money, by

725
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: the way, and it was just slipped onto American shells

726
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: and guess what, It sold out almost instantly. Sony expected

727
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,359
Speaker 1: to sell five thousand units a month. Instead, they sold

728
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:37,320
Speaker 1: over thirty thousand units in the first two months, a

729
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: number that shocked even Sony's executives. And why because, for

730
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: the first time ever, millions of Americans experienced private entertainments.

731
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: The Walkman wasn't a radio, it wasn't a sterio, it

732
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: wasn't a boombox. It was a portable personal bubble, a soundtrack.

733
00:43:55,120 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: You controlled, songs, you chose, moments, you curated. No DJ

734
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: no commercials, no shared listening, no mass experience, just whatever

735
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: you wanted to hear, whatever you put together. This was

736
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: the beginning of a personalization revolution, one that arguably we're

737
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: still in the middle of. And I'll tell you this,

738
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: once Americans got a taste, that's something about it. Right.

739
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 1: The more choices you give us, the more choices we demand.

740
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: So that gives us. And this is a moment that

741
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: I think people need to understand to understand the current

742
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: media landscape. If you follow the death of radio, then

743
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: you will understand what's happening right now a cable news

744
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,720
Speaker 1: and broadcast television. So the Walkman, it didn't kill radio overnight,

745
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: and no, video didn't kill the radio star. Sorry I

746
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: couldn't help myself. But just like streaming didn't kill cable overnight,

747
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:50,879
Speaker 1: it all starts slowly, then it celerates, then it becomes irreversible.

748
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: So here's what happened. Familiar pattern. And again we're talking

749
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: about FM radio. Young listeners fled first radio listening among

750
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: twelve to twenty four year olds twenty percent during the eighties,

751
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: the exact decade when they Walkman took over. That's my decade, folks,

752
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: of when I was that age, and yep, I I

753
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,560
Speaker 1: knew what time WSAG, one of three point five in

754
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: Miami was going to get the let out, which meant

755
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: I was going to get thirty minutes of led Zeppelin songs,

756
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: songs I had not owned yet, and I wanted to

757
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 1: tape them, so I would tape them and then have

758
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: them magically for myself, right without having to pay a dime.

759
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:33,399
Speaker 1: That was the other part of this, right, that's what

760
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: that was the other thing parents. You know, my dad

761
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: wasn't giving me the money. I had to do the

762
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: Columbia house crap. And that's how I sort of built

763
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 1: my own, my own music catalog. So there we were.

764
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: In the eighties, car listening completely changed. Cassette listening in

765
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: cars went from almost nothing in nineteen eighty to forty

766
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: percent of all in car listening by nineteen ninety. Right, like,

767
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: it's like what happened. We first had radio, and then

768
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: suddenly we had CDs, and then suddenly now your phones connect.

769
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: When was the last time Ask yourself that you used

770
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: your car installed car radio to listen to something. I'm

771
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: gonna guess if you did, it's probably like me listening

772
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: to a ballgame on the way home. Quickly because you

773
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:19,439
Speaker 1: vaguely remembered where you heard play by play for whatever

774
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 1: sports team you remembered. But that might be it. But

775
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: this is happening. This is how we lost FM radio.

776
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: So four and ten moments spent in the car were

777
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: suddenly not radio moments. In nineteen seventy nine, Arbitron track

778
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: roughly a dozen major music formats, and by the late

779
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: nineties there were more than forty. Radio was trying to

780
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: adapt to a world where audiences were no longer captive.

781
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: They were trying to stave off this revolution, so they

782
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: tried things like talk radio. From nineteen eighty to the

783
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: mid nineties, talk radio's audience grew three hundred percent. Music

784
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: abandoned AM entirely, and AM clung to political talk as

785
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: its remaining asset. It's exactly the same way broadcast TV

786
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: today clings to live sports, and cable news clings to

787
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: talking heads. So Walkman, Discman, MP three players, iPod, iPhone.

788
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty six, Sony had sold almost ten million Walkman's.

789
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: By the end of the product line, the Walkman finally

790
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:17,919
Speaker 1: had passed two hundred and twenty million units sold worldwide.

791
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: Radio never recovered from what started in nineteen eighty. It

792
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: aged a trank. It fractured, just like television is doing

793
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: right now. So the modern parallel TV is just radio

794
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: two point zero. Everything we watch happened to radio after

795
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty is almost exactly what we're watching. He happened

796
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: to cable and broadcast TV today, right when unified, fragmented, personalized,

797
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: and collapsed. Right, let's compare radio. Pearl Harbord unifies, FM

798
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: creates choice, Walkman personalizes radio collapses. Okay, nineteen forty one

799
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: is the unifying moment. Forty five is the beginning of choice.

800
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty is the Walkman. Nineties and two thousands radio dies.

801
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 1: Television nine to eleven unifies. Right, we all were watching

802
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: the same news channels in two thousand and one. The

803
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: DVR creates some choice in the two thousand. Smartphone personalizes

804
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: TV collapses in the twenty twenties. Right, let's just go

805
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 1: to hear cable households. In twenty eleven, we had one

806
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: hundred and five million households that had access to cable television.

807
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:17,320
Speaker 1: Today it's about sixty million. That's a forty five percent

808
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: collapse in a decade, and I promise you more's coming.

809
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,399
Speaker 1: The broadcast TV media and viewer age in nineteen ninety

810
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 1: three was forty one. Today it is nearly sixty. In

811
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: cable news it is now it's seventy. For Americans under thirty,

812
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: over sixty percent of all video consumption happens on smartphones. So,

813
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: just like the Walkman destroyed the idea of shared listening,

814
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: the smartphone has destroyed the idea of shared viewing. We

815
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: don't watch the same shows, we don't see the same ads,

816
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: we don't get the same news, we don't share the

817
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 1: same reality. We're all walking around with our own private feeds.

818
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:49,839
Speaker 1: Just like the Walkman owners walked around with our own

819
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: private soundtracks. We now took it to everything else in life.

820
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: So this week in history gives us a three step

821
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 1: evolution of American media. You didn't see that. I was

822
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: going to start with Pearl Harbor and go to media

823
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: route right December seventh, nineteen forty one. The only thing

824
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: we have to fear is fear itself. It's a peak

825
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: of shared communal broadcast experience. Americans united around one broadcast

826
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,399
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. We get FM expansion, by the way,

827
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: in this same week in history, and that's the beginning

828
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: of choice of specialization, if you will, Niches fragmentation. In

829
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: some ways, it is what FM radio is in nineteen

830
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: forty five, is what cable TV was in the eighties.

831
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: Then the summer of nineteen eighty we get the Walkman,

832
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: and it's the birth of full on personalized media. And

833
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: once we put those foam headphones on, we've never really

834
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: taken them off. We're now always at least got one

835
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: year with this our personalization eras began, radio crack, television's cracking,

836
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,400
Speaker 1: and the entire media environment is built around the logic

837
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:04,760
Speaker 1: of the Walkman, my feed, my soundtrack, my show, my news.

838
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Pearl Harbor. This week in

839
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 1: history is Pearl Harbor and not an insignificant moment. But

840
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 1: what is interesting is when you think about the moment

841
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: through the lens of media and what nineteen forty one

842
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:28,280
Speaker 1: was and where we are today. It has been one giant,

843
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: fast revolution in how we consume content in this in

844
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: not just this country, in the world. So there you go,

845
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:42,680
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846
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:45,080
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847
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,919
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00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,440
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849
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850
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:56,880
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852
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855
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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this, I've given up booze. I

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Speaker 1: So go to gitsold dot com use the promo code todcast.

868
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Speaker 1: Don't forget that code. That's getsold dot Com promo code

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Speaker 1: todcast for thirty percent off. All right, let's get in

870
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 1: a few questions, ask Chuck. I'm going to do two

871
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: or three because I, let's just say, I do have

872
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:15,839
Speaker 1: a lot to say about about college football. This one

873
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:17,799
Speaker 1: comes from Aaron from Cincinnati. Hey, check, I really enjoy

874
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 1: the author segments, especially your recent feature on the Barn.

875
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 1: It's one of the most powerful books I've read in

876
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 1: a long time. Thanks for sharing what you're reading, and

877
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: please keep highlighting your favorites. I also learn a lot

878
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 1: from the sports discussions, even as a non sports fan.

879
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: They help me better understand the world around me. Great

880
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: job on Election Night special and Happy Thanksgiving. Wow, there's

881
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: no question in there, but hey, who doesn't want to

882
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: read some like reinforcing mail that Hey, we at least

883
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 1: have one person in our audience that appreciates what we're doing.

884
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: My whole goal it's about one person at a time. Aaron,

885
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 1: in all seriousness, thank you, And that is something that

886
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: I'm trying to look. I know I'm always going to

887
00:52:55,719 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: have a political focus too strong of a word, a

888
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: sort of a political you know, I worked in politics

889
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 1: or in political media professionally for so long of it,

890
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 1: so that's always going to be the dominant part of

891
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: that conversation. But one of the things that I want

892
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,800
Speaker 1: to be better about with this podcast is sort of sharing.

893
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: You know, I do, even my pop culture consumption in

894
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: some ways, I do see sometimes through the prism of politics,

895
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 1: and I know I'm not alone in that, so I

896
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: will continue to at least share what I'm reading, what

897
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: I'm watching. There's a couple of things I'm watching right

898
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: now that I'll admit I'm still not sure how I

899
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:43,719
Speaker 1: feel about it. The biggest one is Pluribus. I don't

900
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 1: even know how I would describe this to somebody if

901
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: they were asking me, well, Hey, what are you watching

902
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: now while I'm watching this show on Apple called Pluribus.

903
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 1: It's by the guy who did Breaking Bad and Better

904
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:57,279
Speaker 1: at Call Saul, and I loved those shows, so I'm

905
00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: trusting him on this one, mister Galligan. But man, this

906
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:07,440
Speaker 1: is one of those It's like it feels as if

907
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 1: Vince Gilligan took Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and ran

908
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 1: it through and somehow merged it with merged it with

909
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: that other Apple show where, God, I'm drawing a blank

910
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: on that Apple show where we're a severed sorry Severance.

911
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: I was about to you caught me in or you

912
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 1: caught the editing process. I was about to signal that, hey,

913
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: we better edit this out, but I won't edit this

914
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: out anyway. I was drawing a blank on the name

915
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 1: of the show Severance. But it's I think that's what

916
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: this feels like. It's like, it's like if you took

917
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 1: the plot line of Severance, the plot line the plot

918
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: lines with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saw and put

919
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 1: them all together, you might get this show. I think.

920
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,319
Speaker 1: I say that. I don't think I'm through it enough

921
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,840
Speaker 1: to to know for sure what the hell I've gotten into,

922
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 1: But I can't wait to watch the next episode. I

923
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:08,919
Speaker 1: will fully admit that. And I am doing a little

924
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: stranger things also in the moment. So there's that. And

925
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 1: I did promise that in the sub stack next week.

926
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: By the way, it's going to be some reading recommendations

927
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: and podcasts recommendations for all things having to do with

928
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War One

929
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: through the prism of the Middle East rather than just

930
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,359
Speaker 1: through the prism of Germany. All right. Next question comes

931
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 1: from Sarah Kay and Lansing, Michigan. Should I say, Chuck.

932
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:33,800
Speaker 1: I'm a middle school math teacher working to instill values

933
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,919
Speaker 1: like kindness, respect, and civil disagreement, but today's political leaders

934
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: on both sides often model the opposite. Undermining these norms

935
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: in public at leads me wondering, it's just how we're

936
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: expected to lead and live Now is our hope will

937
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: return to respectful bipartisan discourse? Kind regards Sarah, this sort

938
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 1: of I'm kind of talking about this. The president chose

939
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: this tragic moment that befell these two young National guardsmen,

940
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: and he turned it into a political extra size and

941
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 1: weaponized it for political purposes. When the right thing to

942
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: do at a moment like this is you set politics

943
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 1: aside and you had a unifying moment. You know, maybe

944
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: you learn a little bit more about these victims, but

945
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, find out what Let's find

946
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: out what the cause of the shooting was. Let's let's

947
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: let's get all of the facts before we immediately try

948
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:23,240
Speaker 1: to assess who gets political gain and who gets political demerits.

949
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt right this is you know, it's

950
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 1: one of those things. Is that Trump's fault or is

951
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: Trump the result of an era that is, you know,

952
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:41,760
Speaker 1: the coarseness of social media has become sort of made

953
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: coarseness more acceptable in our everyday lives. I don't know

954
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 1: quite how to put it, but but we definitely are

955
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: in one of these moments where we don't have empathy anymore.

956
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:53,840
Speaker 1: And it goes back to Donald Trump doesn't have empathy,

957
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean the rest of us don't have to

958
00:56:55,160 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: have empathy. And you know, whatever broken childhood issues that

959
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:07,399
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's brain has been messed with shouldn't impact how

960
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: we raise the next generation of Americans in this country.

961
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,360
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I do think that you know, this gets

962
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: this gets it to something I've been concerned about for

963
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: some time, that that you know, we the first half

964
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: of the Trump era was defined by a whole group

965
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 1: of people, regardless of ideology, who said no, no, no,

966
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: no characters should count that you know, we should have

967
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 1: high morals, high ethics, and good character in our political leaders.

968
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 1: And we saw a group of people that were uncomfortable

969
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: with the with the the bad character of Trump. I

970
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: don't know else to describe it as right. He's just

971
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: a bad guy. He's got bad you know, he's amral.

972
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:48,920
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's immoral. I know he's amore.

973
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: I don't think he cares what right and wrong is.

974
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 1: It's about whether he benefits or not. He's uber transactional

975
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: to the point of right it. You know, it puts

976
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 1: everybody else second to his benefit. If that is considered

977
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 1: how to succeed in politics, then you're only going to

978
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 1: have people emulate even more from all political sides, not

979
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: just the maga side of things. And you know we've

980
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:21,200
Speaker 1: seen right this sort of course rhetoric. Now at first

981
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 1: it's been like, well, let's curse more. If we just

982
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: drop the F bomb, we'll show we can track real people.

983
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: But there's this perception that somehow work in people who

984
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: are live in paycheck to paycheck haven't don't have morals

985
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: or ethics, or don't care about morals and ethics. That's

986
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 1: not That wasn't my experience growing up as a working

987
00:58:41,320 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: class kid. That wasn't my experience with other working class

988
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 1: families that I spent time with If anything, there was

989
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 1: more morals and more ethics that you know, hey, you've

990
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: got to that stuff. You know, what you don't have

991
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,919
Speaker 1: in wealth, you have in your character. Right, nobody can

992
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: buy character. So it's a you know, let's see what

993
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 1: we do. In twenty eight I had some hope that

994
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,680
Speaker 1: Joe Biden could be a better moral authority for this country,

995
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: and he turned out to be a failure. Now, maybe

996
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: a younger version of Joe Biden might have been able

997
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 1: to pull this off, but you know, he also had

998
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: his own blind spots on morals and ethics when it

999
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: comes to his family. So I don't know who the

1000
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: next next, you know, but I guess I have some

1001
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be curious to see what the voter's prioritize.

1002
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: Right in seventy six, the voters really wanted somebody who

1003
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: was moral and ethical, and we went with Jimmy Carter,

1004
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: who turned out not to be a very good manager.

1005
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: He was highly moral, highly ethical. To this day, it

1006
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: is interesting you will have people simultaneously saying that he

1007
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: was a man of high character and he was a

1008
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 1: bad president, and look, he was a bit of a micromanager.

1009
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:57,280
Speaker 1: And what if I told you he fired his entire

1010
00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 1: cabinet one day, he'd be like, oh, that's kind of funny,

1011
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 1: hinged two. But because he had to high morals and

1012
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:05,440
Speaker 1: high character in some ways, he would get more benefit

1013
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,959
Speaker 1: of the doubt than others would have given him. I'm

1014
01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 1: very curious to see in twenty eight whether Democrats stick

1015
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: to wanting to try to find an adult as their

1016
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 1: party leader or whether they want a combatant a la Trump,

1017
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:27,440
Speaker 1: but just a liberal version of it, right, And I

1018
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 1: think it's an open question. I would say, right now,

1019
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 1: I see a Democratic party that's more interested in fighting

1020
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: fire with fire than I do seeing a Democratic party

1021
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 1: that wants to set a higher bar for morals and ethics. Now, look,

1022
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: I think we as an electorate are pretty cynical about

1023
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:50,040
Speaker 1: morals and ethics right now and assume that nobody has them.

1024
01:00:50,800 --> 01:00:53,040
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them, and

1025
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to legislate for them. So,

1026
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I would say this, let's not

1027
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: give up quite yet on the American electorate for not

1028
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: sort of demanding better. Let's see what happens in the primaries,

1029
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: and let's see if we start to hold other people

1030
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:19,720
Speaker 1: to higher standards than what we held Donald Trump to do.

1031
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 1: Two more questions. This next one comes from Chip from

1032
01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 1: Colorado Springs. Hey, check, I'm really enjoying the long form podcast.

1033
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: Do you think the US presidency concentrates concentrates too much

1034
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:33,600
Speaker 1: responsibility into one person serving as executive commander, chief head

1035
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: of state, and party leader? Should we consider distributing those

1036
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:39,160
Speaker 1: roles to prevent further power consolidation? Also, thanks for the

1037
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: Boilermaker shoutouts this season, though I'm not optimistic about the

1038
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: bucket game. Yeah, the old oaken bucket game to Indiana

1039
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 1: and Purdue. I did something that I've done all year long,

1040
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 1: and it is nothing costs me nothing but cash, and

1041
01:01:56,720 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: that is I have faded the Hoosiers in some of

1042
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:04,000
Speaker 1: these football games against Big ten teams in cold weather,

1043
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 1: assuming that they wouldn't pile it on a sure enough

1044
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 1: I thought, for sure, Well, they're not covering twenty nine

1045
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 1: and a half this week? Are they? Man? When am

1046
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,040
Speaker 1: I gonna learn? Right? There are two things. There are

1047
01:02:15,040 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 1: two truths this year for my betting prowess. One, stop

1048
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:22,080
Speaker 1: betting in any games involving the Atlanta Falcons and two.

1049
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 1: Stop trying to fade the Indana hoosiers. I think I am.

1050
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: I swear to God, I'm saying it out loud to

1051
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: prevent myself from doing vote. But let's talk about your

1052
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 1: more serious question, and that was with presidential power. You

1053
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: know this is it is not as if we our

1054
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: founders gave us the tools to make sure we didn't

1055
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:50,479
Speaker 1: do this, and it is a poor management. Two things

1056
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 1: that have happened. Right, You had a legislative branch that

1057
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: is been afraid of taking votes and afraid of being

1058
01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 1: specific on legislation for fear they couldn't get the legislation passed,

1059
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,480
Speaker 1: so they create ambiguity and the laws that they create.

1060
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 1: And when you create ambiguity and essentially allow the administration

1061
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: straight of state to make these decisions on how to

1062
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: execute a law that Congress passes, well, all you've done

1063
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:21,120
Speaker 1: is empowered the executive branch to essentially accumulate more authority

1064
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 1: of how laws are executed. So I go back to

1065
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: that because that is source one of our problems. Source

1066
01:03:28,400 --> 01:03:32,720
Speaker 1: two is a judiciary branch that continues to say, well, hey,

1067
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: if Congress doesntlike it, they can pass a lot to

1068
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:40,160
Speaker 1: undo it. And until they do. You do have a

1069
01:03:40,280 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 1: judiciary that, at least amongst Republican appointees, has been filled

1070
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: with legal scholars who are now judges who buy into

1071
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:56,120
Speaker 1: this unified executive theory business, who want to see a

1072
01:03:56,160 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 1: stronger executive branch. So essentially side any time there is

1073
01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 1: a dispute between branches of government, essentially give the benefit

1074
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:08,240
Speaker 1: of the doubt to the executive. I think one hundred

1075
01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:11,360
Speaker 1: percent we've concentrated too much power to the executive. It

1076
01:04:11,400 --> 01:04:13,880
Speaker 1: was never the intent. We were supposed to have a

1077
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 1: balanced that the legislative branch was supposed to be equally

1078
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 1: as powerful as the executive branch, and there was a

1079
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 1: real assumption that we would essentially have a legislative branch

1080
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:28,280
Speaker 1: that felt almost as powerful as a parliamentary system, with

1081
01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:33,400
Speaker 1: a presidency that could serve the role as commander in

1082
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:36,880
Speaker 1: chief and sort of how to execute laws, to essentially

1083
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:39,479
Speaker 1: be a check to make sure the legislative branch didn't

1084
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:42,919
Speaker 1: try to accumulate too much power, and instead, over nearly

1085
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years, we've essentially watched the legislative

1086
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 1: branch hand power over to the presidency. Now, part of

1087
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: that I could and this goes a little bit to

1088
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:57,600
Speaker 1: my todcast time Machine topic. I actually could blame the

1089
01:04:57,640 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: media for this a little bit. And when I say

1090
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:05,200
Speaker 1: the media, it's just the fact that we are the

1091
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 1: mass media in general always is looking for a singular

1092
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 1: figure to solve a problem, or a singular figure to

1093
01:05:15,480 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: execute a solution, and we have just if you think

1094
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 1: about it, you know, the presidency. You know, as soon

1095
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:28,600
Speaker 1: as mass media got powerful, starting with radio, our presidents

1096
01:05:28,640 --> 01:05:32,840
Speaker 1: got more powerful. FDR was a powerful president, but before that,

1097
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: we didn't have a really powerful president really until that

1098
01:05:37,120 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: went back to Lincoln, and that was due to essentially

1099
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:43,439
Speaker 1: powers he had, you know, suspending the Constitution a couple

1100
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:44,640
Speaker 1: of times we were in the middle of a war.

1101
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 1: But ever since FDR, each president has has sort of

1102
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: found a way to accumulate more power. And I just

1103
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 1: throw it out there as a question, have we as

1104
01:05:56,360 --> 01:06:00,200
Speaker 1: a society because we make the president the singular figure,

1105
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:03,480
Speaker 1: we certainly set the expectation that the presidency themselves is

1106
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:07,200
Speaker 1: more likely to solve problems than the legislative branch. We don't,

1107
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:10,600
Speaker 1: And we do a terrible job collectively in mass media

1108
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: educating the public that actually it's a legislative branch that

1109
01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: is the place that this needs to be happening, and

1110
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 1: that they're the reason why we have this problem. And

1111
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: I think that that's I just would I would throw

1112
01:06:26,760 --> 01:06:29,920
Speaker 1: that out there as one of one of the reasons

1113
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 1: of how we got to this too powerful executive. All right,

1114
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: last question comes from Mark D from Seattle, Washington. Hey, Chuck,

1115
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:39,800
Speaker 1: never missed the check todcast, and I'm so glad you win.

1116
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 1: Inte Pennant, thank you. In light of Marjorie Taylor Green's

1117
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: resignation and the question about her position pension, you mentioned

1118
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:46,880
Speaker 1: she's only receiving the minimumount, I began wondering what are

1119
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:49,040
Speaker 1: the benefits congress re seats after five years of service?

1120
01:06:49,160 --> 01:06:51,960
Speaker 1: What is the maximum that can can receive. While we're

1121
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:54,520
Speaker 1: on the subject, what healthcare coverage do they get? Are

1122
01:06:54,560 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: they on Obamacare or something else? Big fan? All right, Mark,

1123
01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 1: I am giving you the best answer I can give you,

1124
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:05,440
Speaker 1: and this is for people elected in nineteen eighty four

1125
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:13,080
Speaker 1: or later. So this really now does pretty much handle

1126
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: everybody in Congress, I think except Chuck Grassley at this point,

1127
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:21,680
Speaker 1: who was elected in nineteen eighty But it is a

1128
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: far less generous system than you might agree. So this

1129
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 1: is the federal employee's retirement system, and this is what

1130
01:07:26,640 --> 01:07:29,640
Speaker 1: Congress is a part of. So this is how it works. Okay,

1131
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: members of Congress accrew one point seven percent of their

1132
01:07:34,120 --> 01:07:37,520
Speaker 1: highest three years of salary for each of the first

1133
01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:39,600
Speaker 1: twenty years, and then it's one percent per year for

1134
01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:43,520
Speaker 1: each year after twenty so, and they also get solid security.

1135
01:07:43,960 --> 01:07:46,600
Speaker 1: There's also a four to one K matching plan of

1136
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 1: five percent. I mean, this is where you're saying, they're going, Wow,

1137
01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 1: they get solid security and a four to one K

1138
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:55,400
Speaker 1: and a pension. But there's a bit of a pension cap.

1139
01:07:57,000 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: There's no explicit eighty percent statutory cap, but the path

1140
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:04,640
Speaker 1: makes the ceiling effectively pretty low. So twenty years at

1141
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:07,560
Speaker 1: one point seven percent is thirty four percent of the salary.

1142
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 1: Twenty more years plus one percent is twenty percent. So essentially,

1143
01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:14,520
Speaker 1: in any given year, your pension is going to be

1144
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,599
Speaker 1: no more than fifty four percent of your highest three

1145
01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:22,240
Speaker 1: year of salary as a member of Congress. And that's

1146
01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:28,599
Speaker 1: after forty years of service in the government. So let's

1147
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:30,679
Speaker 1: shall we say, very few get there. So, for instance,

1148
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,360
Speaker 1: a member with twelve years of service retiring at age

1149
01:08:33,400 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: sixty two we'll receive thirty to forty thousand dollars per year.

1150
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 1: That ain't jump change, but that's about what many people

1151
01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: get on Social Security. A member with twenty years retiring

1152
01:08:44,320 --> 01:08:46,479
Speaker 1: at or after sixty two would get forty to fifty

1153
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars per year. A member with thirty years

1154
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 1: sixty to seventy five thousand dollars per year, and the

1155
01:08:52,040 --> 01:08:54,960
Speaker 1: rare member with thirty five to fifty years of experience

1156
01:08:55,360 --> 01:08:58,640
Speaker 1: could get up to eighty to ninety percent, but not

1157
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:02,960
Speaker 1: the full salary. So even the longest serving members do

1158
01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 1: not get one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a

1159
01:09:05,160 --> 01:09:07,160
Speaker 1: year in a pension, okay, which is what the current

1160
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:12,479
Speaker 1: salary is, and they're mathematically there's no way for them

1161
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: to mathematically ever get there. A member has to serve

1162
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 1: five years to invest in a pension, and the minimum

1163
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:23,080
Speaker 1: retirement age varies somewhere fifty seven to sixty two. So now, look,

1164
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:26,480
Speaker 1: there was the old congressional system before it was redone.

1165
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: There were a handful of longtime members of Congress that

1166
01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:32,320
Speaker 1: got eighty percent of their pay and a lot of

1167
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:35,439
Speaker 1: talk radio and chain emails in the nineties. In the

1168
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:41,599
Speaker 1: two thousands exaggerated many of those benefits, but even since

1169
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:43,680
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, members have had to contribute more of their

1170
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 1: own money to their pensions and the benefits are smaller.

1171
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:49,879
Speaker 1: Look the point of the Marjorie Taylor Green pension issues.

1172
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 1: I know that people got all excited about it, but

1173
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:54,080
Speaker 1: when you actually dig into the numbers, this is not

1174
01:09:54,439 --> 01:09:59,240
Speaker 1: Trust me, the unpopularity of Congress has already forced previous

1175
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: Congresses to amend this pension situation so that it really

1176
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:06,920
Speaker 1: is Yes, there's a pension, but it's it's not a

1177
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:12,040
Speaker 1: how to get rich pension. It is arguably a reasonable

1178
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:16,200
Speaker 1: amount of money and a reasonable pension in exchange for

1179
01:10:16,240 --> 01:10:26,240
Speaker 1: the public service. All Right, that was the reasonable, and

1180
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: now to the unreasonable and my take on the week

1181
01:10:30,240 --> 01:10:33,160
Speaker 1: that was in college football. I'm going to start my

1182
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:36,040
Speaker 1: rant this week not about the committee and Notre Dame

1183
01:10:36,080 --> 01:10:41,400
Speaker 1: and the whole. Should Notre Dame be in over Miami?

1184
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:43,800
Speaker 1: I think no. I think it's clear they don't they

1185
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:45,840
Speaker 1: want to. I think Miami only gets in if they

1186
01:10:45,880 --> 01:10:47,679
Speaker 1: decide to take both Notre Dame and Miami. I could

1187
01:10:47,760 --> 01:10:50,320
Speaker 1: argue that if you're gonna you know, the issue really

1188
01:10:50,439 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 1: is is the the fact that the SEC is way

1189
01:10:55,360 --> 01:10:59,360
Speaker 1: overrated this year. There is no doubt the SEC plays

1190
01:10:59,400 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 1: the most competit of college football, but the gap between

1191
01:11:02,600 --> 01:11:05,000
Speaker 1: the SEC and the other conferences has never been smaller.

1192
01:11:05,439 --> 01:11:09,760
Speaker 1: I mean, just look at the ACC versus the the

1193
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:13,479
Speaker 1: SEC this year, and really this year matters more even

1194
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:17,240
Speaker 1: than last year because you have more sort of more

1195
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:21,200
Speaker 1: of a leveling of the nil playing field across both conferences. Right,

1196
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:23,680
Speaker 1: the SEC got a jump start and the AEC has

1197
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:26,439
Speaker 1: been catching up. And what has that led to the

1198
01:11:26,800 --> 01:11:30,000
Speaker 1: I think they met up ten times, just so you know,

1199
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:37,120
Speaker 1: and the ACC one four and the SEC one six,

1200
01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:42,759
Speaker 1: So it is we're not talking about a big difference

1201
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:44,920
Speaker 1: between the two. So the point is, I don't think

1202
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:50,120
Speaker 1: all these SEC schools should be getting in with and

1203
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:53,920
Speaker 1: the AEC getting zero, especially the Duke. Now let me

1204
01:11:53,960 --> 01:11:56,640
Speaker 1: get off of my rant here a minute before I

1205
01:11:56,680 --> 01:11:58,840
Speaker 1: get to sort of what we saw this week in

1206
01:11:58,880 --> 01:12:00,000
Speaker 1: college four. Well, first of all, I got to give

1207
01:12:00,000 --> 01:12:03,719
Speaker 1: Miami credit. That's the best Miami's ever played in weather

1208
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:06,719
Speaker 1: below forty degrees in the history of the University Miami football,

1209
01:12:06,760 --> 01:12:09,400
Speaker 1: as far as I'm as far as my lifetime is concerned.

1210
01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:12,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't tell you how many times we

1211
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 1: played in Boston or in pitt outdoors in November and

1212
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 1: played like garbage. The cold weather games. It's always been

1213
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:25,519
Speaker 1: an issue with these Miami teams. The Dolphins most recent

1214
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:27,080
Speaker 1: last time they were in the playoffs was in a

1215
01:12:27,080 --> 01:12:30,000
Speaker 1: super cold weather game in Kansas City, and we all

1216
01:12:30,040 --> 01:12:33,599
Speaker 1: know how that turned out. It's a it's usually pretty difficult.

1217
01:12:33,720 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 1: The Miami played an out standing game in cold weather's

1218
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:39,920
Speaker 1: that's one thing. And you know they played like they

1219
01:12:40,040 --> 01:12:42,519
Speaker 1: needed to that they had something to say. I think

1220
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:44,879
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear they're one of the ten best teams.

1221
01:12:45,240 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 1: They're one of Realistically, I look at it this way,

1222
01:12:48,360 --> 01:12:50,719
Speaker 1: who could beat Ohio State. They're one of a handful

1223
01:12:50,720 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 1: of teams at can beat Ohio State. I think there

1224
01:12:52,240 --> 01:12:54,160
Speaker 1: are only five or six teams that can beat Ohio State.

1225
01:12:54,400 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 1: Miami's one of them. Miami has the offensive line and

1226
01:12:57,280 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 1: defensive line to do it. So well, I don't know

1227
01:13:01,479 --> 01:13:03,479
Speaker 1: what more. You know, obviously, Mimi. You could say they

1228
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:06,400
Speaker 1: shouldn't have lost two conference games. Well guess what Notre

1229
01:13:06,439 --> 01:13:08,880
Speaker 1: Dame shouldn't have lost both of those games, but they did.

1230
01:13:09,120 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 1: It just happened. So then you compare with what you got.

1231
01:13:12,920 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: I don't get that, dont but let me go to

1232
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:18,240
Speaker 1: let me go to something where I'm really ticked off,

1233
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:24,320
Speaker 1: and that is at the leadership, the horrendous leadership of

1234
01:13:24,360 --> 01:13:29,679
Speaker 1: the ACC. First of all, they have a tiebreaker situation

1235
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:33,759
Speaker 1: for their champion that does not factor in non conference games.

1236
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:35,840
Speaker 1: It only factors in conference games. So I don't know

1237
01:13:35,840 --> 01:13:37,960
Speaker 1: if you are like me and you're like, how the

1238
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:42,639
Speaker 1: f did Duke who was seven and five overall? Okay,

1239
01:13:43,760 --> 01:13:48,720
Speaker 1: how did Duke at six and two in the conference

1240
01:13:50,280 --> 01:13:54,599
Speaker 1: but one in three out of conference allowed was even

1241
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:57,840
Speaker 1: allowed to be eligible for the conference title if you

1242
01:13:57,880 --> 01:14:00,519
Speaker 1: have a losing record out of conference, when two of

1243
01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 1: your three losses or two teams that are not in

1244
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:06,120
Speaker 1: power for conferences. Right, So, ultimately the ACC is going

1245
01:14:06,160 --> 01:14:09,520
Speaker 1: to have to fix this. No team because the possibility

1246
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 1: that Duke win defeats Virginia and is wins the conference,

1247
01:14:15,120 --> 01:14:18,040
Speaker 1: Duke may not be one of the five highest ranked

1248
01:14:18,040 --> 01:14:23,760
Speaker 1: conference champions because the winner of the American, which may

1249
01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:27,760
Speaker 1: be North Texas or Tulane. I think that's what we have.

1250
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:32,479
Speaker 1: I have there on the American or the winner let

1251
01:14:32,479 --> 01:14:36,160
Speaker 1: me get this right, It'll be North Texas or Tulane

1252
01:14:36,320 --> 01:14:43,080
Speaker 1: or the winner of the sun Bell Okay Conference, which

1253
01:14:43,160 --> 01:14:53,240
Speaker 1: could be James Madison might both be ranked higher than

1254
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:56,840
Speaker 1: the winner of the a CC. And of course then

1255
01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:00,840
Speaker 1: the ACC could be left out completely at this point,

1256
01:15:01,040 --> 01:15:03,080
Speaker 1: because you could have a twelve and one James Madison

1257
01:15:03,120 --> 01:15:05,879
Speaker 1: team and let's say a twelve and one North Texas

1258
01:15:05,880 --> 01:15:10,640
Speaker 1: team and an eight and five Duke team. Remind you

1259
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:13,160
Speaker 1: two of Duke's losses. One of them was to two lane.

1260
01:15:13,800 --> 01:15:15,960
Speaker 1: One of them was to that football powerhouse in the

1261
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:19,920
Speaker 1: Northeast called Yukon, the University of Connecticut Huskies, who are

1262
01:15:19,960 --> 01:15:22,640
Speaker 1: not a member of any conference. I might argue the

1263
01:15:22,680 --> 01:15:24,559
Speaker 1: a CEC probably should have taken them a while ago,

1264
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:31,640
Speaker 1: but I digress. The fact that the leadership of the

1265
01:15:31,680 --> 01:15:35,920
Speaker 1: ACC created a tiebreaker that take does not that allows

1266
01:15:35,960 --> 01:15:38,880
Speaker 1: a team that does not play ten or more power

1267
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:44,120
Speaker 1: for schools in their schedule is eligible for their conference championship.

1268
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 1: That is mistake number one, because, in case you're wondering,

1269
01:15:49,040 --> 01:15:53,240
Speaker 1: Duke gets the tiebreaker based on the they they have

1270
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:59,160
Speaker 1: sort of there are seven uh tie breaking orders, okay,

1271
01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 1: and so what you had was you had a one, two, three, four, five,

1272
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:05,080
Speaker 1: You had a five way tie per second in the

1273
01:16:05,080 --> 01:16:08,320
Speaker 1: ACC between Duke, Miami, Georgia Tech, SMU, and Pitt. They

1274
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:10,360
Speaker 1: were all six and two an ACC play, So this

1275
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:12,640
Speaker 1: is how the tiebreaker worked head to hegg among all

1276
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:15,160
Speaker 1: the tie teams, if they all played each other, unfortunately

1277
01:16:15,240 --> 01:16:17,360
Speaker 1: they did not. And if they didn't all play each other,

1278
01:16:17,439 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 1: is there a team that beat all the others in

1279
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:22,000
Speaker 1: the tie that also didn't happen? Then it was win

1280
01:16:22,080 --> 01:16:25,519
Speaker 1: percentage versus all common opponents. Wasn't enough to deal with that,

1281
01:16:26,040 --> 01:16:28,640
Speaker 1: then it was win percentage versus common opponents ordered by

1282
01:16:28,640 --> 01:16:33,519
Speaker 1: finishing the ACC standings, that couldn't figure out a winner,

1283
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:36,240
Speaker 1: So then it became combined win percentage of each team's

1284
01:16:36,280 --> 01:16:40,600
Speaker 1: ACC opponents i e. The strength of schedule within the conference,

1285
01:16:41,680 --> 01:16:45,760
Speaker 1: and that is where Duke ended up ahead of everybody else.

1286
01:16:46,280 --> 01:16:49,599
Speaker 1: Their ACC opponents are combined twenty nine and twenty nine.

1287
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:52,760
Speaker 1: Miami's ACC opponents are combined twenty seven and thirty two.

1288
01:16:53,040 --> 01:16:55,960
Speaker 1: Georgia techs are combined twenty five and thirty two. Sm

1289
01:16:56,040 --> 01:16:58,639
Speaker 1: Us are combined twenty four and thirty five. Pits are

1290
01:16:58,640 --> 01:17:03,840
Speaker 1: combined twenty four in thirty six. So Duke who sits

1291
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:07,120
Speaker 1: there and loses to two non Power four schools and

1292
01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:11,200
Speaker 1: Yukon and Tulane. Those losses do not factor in at

1293
01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:14,280
Speaker 1: all whether or not they are worthy of the ACC

1294
01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:19,200
Speaker 1: Championship game. This is on the leadership of the ACC

1295
01:17:20,040 --> 01:17:23,240
Speaker 1: that there was no role about playing ten Power four teams.

1296
01:17:23,280 --> 01:17:25,559
Speaker 1: I think there's going to be now number one, that

1297
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:28,920
Speaker 1: you would not get that losing to non Power four

1298
01:17:28,960 --> 01:17:33,200
Speaker 1: teams would actually be a demerit and would actually should

1299
01:17:33,240 --> 01:17:38,799
Speaker 1: count for more, could count more against you than losing

1300
01:17:38,840 --> 01:17:40,600
Speaker 1: to a Power four school because the idea is to

1301
01:17:40,640 --> 01:17:43,680
Speaker 1: try to strengthen the schedule. So I just find the

1302
01:17:43,720 --> 01:17:47,640
Speaker 1: leadership of the ACC. They literally were silent when the

1303
01:17:47,880 --> 01:17:51,960
Speaker 1: ESPN and CFP Invitational committee denied an undefeated Florida State

1304
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 1: team a place in the College Football Playoff. He sat

1305
01:17:55,439 --> 01:17:58,720
Speaker 1: there barely in silence when Miami was left out of

1306
01:17:58,760 --> 01:18:01,360
Speaker 1: the College Football Playoff last year. Is the number one

1307
01:18:01,400 --> 01:18:03,439
Speaker 1: offense in the country and attend and two with the

1308
01:18:03,520 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 1: number one overall pick. And then this year the ACC

1309
01:18:07,320 --> 01:18:10,639
Speaker 1: has done slightly better in the pr stands from the conference.

1310
01:18:11,040 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 1: But this is a debacle. And if the ACC only

1311
01:18:14,240 --> 01:18:17,439
Speaker 1: gets one team in the playoff, right, there's no doubt

1312
01:18:18,360 --> 01:18:20,680
Speaker 1: And that's if we're lucky, right, if we only get

1313
01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 1: one team in the playoff, might end up being only Miami.

1314
01:18:24,720 --> 01:18:27,280
Speaker 1: But this is on Jim Phillips and the ACC. The

1315
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:30,120
Speaker 1: fact is this is a complete and utter failure. The

1316
01:18:30,160 --> 01:18:34,800
Speaker 1: ACC's largest business partner, ESPN, has devalued the conference. They

1317
01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:39,559
Speaker 1: have reporters who ridicule the conference. Heather Dinwich ridiculed Georgia

1318
01:18:39,600 --> 01:18:42,240
Speaker 1: Tech schedule and says they have don't belong on the

1319
01:18:42,240 --> 01:18:45,720
Speaker 1: same field as Georgia. Basically, it took. It took. The

1320
01:18:45,800 --> 01:18:48,519
Speaker 1: last game went to the last second because it was

1321
01:18:48,560 --> 01:18:52,760
Speaker 1: a one score game. The difference between the two conferences

1322
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:57,519
Speaker 1: are this not this anymore because guess what, everybody's paying

1323
01:18:59,080 --> 01:19:02,400
Speaker 1: and there is no dominance that they all think and

1324
01:19:02,840 --> 01:19:06,240
Speaker 1: so there's a perception about the SEC. And here's the thing.

1325
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:09,200
Speaker 1: I wish Greg Sankee were my conference commissioner, because look,

1326
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:12,920
Speaker 1: do I blame Greg Sankee for fragmenting college football, for

1327
01:19:13,040 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: making it harder to make college football bigger and better.

1328
01:19:16,600 --> 01:19:21,200
Speaker 1: He is trying to turn college football into a smaller

1329
01:19:21,240 --> 01:19:23,760
Speaker 1: club where only people in the SEC and the Big

1330
01:19:23,800 --> 01:19:25,840
Speaker 1: Ten can succeed. I think that's but you know what

1331
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:28,000
Speaker 1: he does, He fights for his members, He fights for

1332
01:19:28,040 --> 01:19:30,600
Speaker 1: his conference. You know what Jim Phillips does none of that.

1333
01:19:31,200 --> 01:19:34,440
Speaker 1: He does not fight publicly, and he's not a good communicator.

1334
01:19:34,800 --> 01:19:38,040
Speaker 1: Perhaps he is not you. And again, some of this

1335
01:19:38,120 --> 01:19:41,360
Speaker 1: isn't his fault. Some of this was the previous administration

1336
01:19:41,439 --> 01:19:44,320
Speaker 1: of the ACC getting into bed and a bad deal

1337
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,679
Speaker 1: with ESPN, desperate for money and extending the Grannar rights

1338
01:19:47,760 --> 01:19:52,479
Speaker 1: way too long. But they've allowed themselves to be in

1339
01:19:52,520 --> 01:19:55,120
Speaker 1: a situation where the ACC gets less say about this

1340
01:19:55,200 --> 01:19:59,040
Speaker 1: college football committee going forward? Right, the SEC and the

1341
01:19:59,040 --> 01:20:02,360
Speaker 1: Big Ten get to decide format somehow, the other powerful

1342
01:20:02,479 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 1: conferences don't get a say here. The biggest business part

1343
01:20:08,439 --> 01:20:12,280
Speaker 1: in the ACC, which is ESPN, treats the ACC like shit,

1344
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:18,000
Speaker 1: like dog excrement, okay, and yet there is nothing that

1345
01:20:18,120 --> 01:20:21,920
Speaker 1: is done. So look, this is a debacle. The fact

1346
01:20:21,960 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 1: is the ACC had a pretty good year, was very competitive,

1347
01:20:26,800 --> 01:20:29,880
Speaker 1: and has no business allowed having Duke in its championship game.

1348
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:33,840
Speaker 1: But for the ridiculous and dumb leadership and inability to

1349
01:20:33,880 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: see how awful and stupid this tiebreaker was, and not

1350
01:20:37,600 --> 01:20:41,800
Speaker 1: fully appreciating that the entire especially the ACC, which is

1351
01:20:41,800 --> 01:20:45,240
Speaker 1: trying to fight for relevance. Your non conference schedules should

1352
01:20:45,240 --> 01:20:47,920
Speaker 1: be as important as your conference schedule, if not more important.

1353
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:51,280
Speaker 1: Miami goes out there and schedules real opponents, Florida State

1354
01:20:51,320 --> 01:20:53,880
Speaker 1: goes out there and schedules real opponents, Clemson goes out

1355
01:20:53,880 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: there and schedules real opponents, and Duke schedules yukon. Okay,

1356
01:20:58,920 --> 01:21:03,320
Speaker 1: what are we thinking? So this is terrible leadership from

1357
01:21:03,320 --> 01:21:07,320
Speaker 1: the ACC. He should be there should be a total

1358
01:21:07,360 --> 01:21:10,240
Speaker 1: house cleaning. And because this is costing the University of

1359
01:21:10,240 --> 01:21:14,240
Speaker 1: Miami millions, this is costing every ACC school millions of

1360
01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:17,840
Speaker 1: dollars due to this poor leadership, So there needs to

1361
01:21:17,840 --> 01:21:22,679
Speaker 1: be a real serious meeting of the minds. ACC presidents

1362
01:21:22,680 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 1: need to realize they are not being served very well

1363
01:21:26,080 --> 01:21:29,679
Speaker 1: by this institution, that if anything, it has made things worse.

1364
01:21:30,000 --> 01:21:33,400
Speaker 1: They should be in litigation with ESPN over how poorly

1365
01:21:34,000 --> 01:21:38,400
Speaker 1: ESPN has devalued. They have actually devalued the conference in

1366
01:21:38,479 --> 01:21:42,720
Speaker 1: when they schedule games, how they schedule games, who broadcasts.

1367
01:21:42,840 --> 01:21:45,880
Speaker 1: They're reporting all of the demeaning things they've done and

1368
01:21:45,960 --> 01:21:49,560
Speaker 1: participating in this nonsense. I mean, Kirk Kirbstreet is embarrassing

1369
01:21:49,640 --> 01:21:56,000
Speaker 1: himself by essentially doing commentary that supports ESPN's media deals

1370
01:21:56,479 --> 01:22:00,120
Speaker 1: rather than I kind of think he doesn't believe that

1371
01:22:00,160 --> 01:22:02,240
Speaker 1: he is. He really going to make the argument that

1372
01:22:02,320 --> 01:22:05,920
Speaker 1: head to head shouldn't count. He literally And by the way,

1373
01:22:05,960 --> 01:22:09,720
Speaker 1: I'm very curious now Florida State was not allowed to

1374
01:22:09,720 --> 01:22:12,040
Speaker 1: compete in the playoff because they lost their starting quarterback.

1375
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:14,479
Speaker 1: Is ole Miss going to be allowed to compete in

1376
01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:19,400
Speaker 1: the playoffs since they lost their basically half their coaching staff? Again,

1377
01:22:19,640 --> 01:22:21,519
Speaker 1: I promise you if ole Miss were remember the ACC,

1378
01:22:22,080 --> 01:22:24,240
Speaker 1: one hundred percent chance they would not be in this thing.

1379
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:28,280
Speaker 1: But the SEC will fight for its member with its

1380
01:22:28,320 --> 01:22:32,280
Speaker 1: business partner, ESPN, something the ACC doesn't know how to

1381
01:22:32,320 --> 01:22:34,240
Speaker 1: do and has not figured out. And yeah, I get

1382
01:22:34,280 --> 01:22:37,960
Speaker 1: really heated about this because I spend way too much money,

1383
01:22:38,040 --> 01:22:41,680
Speaker 1: I care way too much. Yes, it's entertainment, that's what

1384
01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:45,240
Speaker 1: it is. But when you don't follow the basic rules

1385
01:22:45,240 --> 01:22:49,800
Speaker 1: of fairness and you don't actually fight for what's right

1386
01:22:50,760 --> 01:22:54,160
Speaker 1: and fight against what is just wrong, Yes, it's an energy,

1387
01:22:54,160 --> 01:22:59,200
Speaker 1: but to literally see pure manipulation be used to punish

1388
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:03,080
Speaker 1: your product and you sit there silently and do nothing.

1389
01:23:03,800 --> 01:23:09,639
Speaker 1: Come on, man, this has been You know, the ACC

1390
01:23:09,840 --> 01:23:12,640
Speaker 1: is in a worse position because of the leadership that

1391
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:14,720
Speaker 1: it has right now, not a better persition. Miami's in

1392
01:23:14,720 --> 01:23:18,320
Speaker 1: a better position personally because they basically had to take

1393
01:23:18,360 --> 01:23:21,120
Speaker 1: matters into their own hands. Clemson in Florida State tried

1394
01:23:21,160 --> 01:23:23,640
Speaker 1: to take matters in their own hands with lawsuits. I

1395
01:23:23,640 --> 01:23:25,640
Speaker 1: think they got so focused on lawsuits they forgot how

1396
01:23:25,640 --> 01:23:28,360
Speaker 1: to build football teams. Miami at least sat there and said, fine,

1397
01:23:28,360 --> 01:23:30,400
Speaker 1: we're just gonna do what we can to schedule. By

1398
01:23:30,439 --> 01:23:32,599
Speaker 1: the way, we just had South Carolina cancel a game

1399
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:38,160
Speaker 1: with Miami because of these conference scheduling issues. But at

1400
01:23:38,240 --> 01:23:40,519
Speaker 1: least it's an attempt to try to schedule Power four.

1401
01:23:40,560 --> 01:23:42,400
Speaker 1: But you know, I understand why South Carolina they have

1402
01:23:42,439 --> 01:23:44,040
Speaker 1: to do. You know, if they have to do a

1403
01:23:44,120 --> 01:23:47,360
Speaker 1: ninth SEC game plus their annual matchup with Clemson, they

1404
01:23:47,400 --> 01:23:49,280
Speaker 1: didn't want to have eleven of their twelve games be

1405
01:23:49,320 --> 01:23:51,960
Speaker 1: against Power four. Now I wouldn't mind. That'd be kind

1406
01:23:51,960 --> 01:23:57,160
Speaker 1: of nice. Now, as for the weekend, obviously, if Duke

1407
01:23:57,200 --> 01:23:58,960
Speaker 1: had lost a wake for US, Miami would be in

1408
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:04,760
Speaker 1: this ACC title game, and the playoff Committee's problems would

1409
01:24:04,760 --> 01:24:06,800
Speaker 1: have been solved. But now they're not solved, and now

1410
01:24:06,800 --> 01:24:08,920
Speaker 1: they've got to decide between all these ten and two teams,

1411
01:24:11,320 --> 01:24:14,360
Speaker 1: and you know, I do not think any playoff that

1412
01:24:14,400 --> 01:24:18,040
Speaker 1: includes Notre Dame but does include Miami is fair. And

1413
01:24:18,240 --> 01:24:20,360
Speaker 1: if it's the third straight year that it's always the

1414
01:24:20,479 --> 01:24:23,719
Speaker 1: it's the ACC that gets booted, then the ACC should

1415
01:24:23,720 --> 01:24:27,759
Speaker 1: stop scheduling Notre Dame completely. Every single school should cancel.

1416
01:24:28,840 --> 01:24:33,040
Speaker 1: If games against Notre Dame don't count, then why schedule them?

1417
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:37,639
Speaker 1: Why put your players through that? So I think that's

1418
01:24:37,880 --> 01:24:40,400
Speaker 1: that's got to be a serious situation that people need

1419
01:24:40,400 --> 01:24:44,920
Speaker 1: to be thinking about. I find it comical that there's

1420
01:24:44,960 --> 01:24:50,479
Speaker 1: this Texas contingent that thinks, after losing to Florida, the

1421
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:53,719
Speaker 1: way they lost to Florida, going to overtime against Kentucky,

1422
01:24:53,800 --> 01:24:56,719
Speaker 1: almost losing to Mississippi State, that there's that a victory

1423
01:24:56,800 --> 01:24:58,600
Speaker 1: over a Texas A and M team that was not

1424
01:24:59,080 --> 01:25:01,040
Speaker 1: putting one hundred percent of their focus on this game

1425
01:25:01,080 --> 01:25:04,599
Speaker 1: because it literally was a meaningless game. Yes, it mattered

1426
01:25:04,600 --> 01:25:06,240
Speaker 1: to the alums, but I don't think it mattered to

1427
01:25:06,280 --> 01:25:09,640
Speaker 1: the coaching staff for the players. And we're supposed to

1428
01:25:09,640 --> 01:25:12,160
Speaker 1: now say Texas is a part of the playoff. Sorry, guys,

1429
01:25:13,240 --> 01:25:16,160
Speaker 1: don't go to over time at Kentucky A team that

1430
01:25:16,320 --> 01:25:19,000
Speaker 1: just got shut up by forty points by Louisville and

1431
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:24,920
Speaker 1: one of those lowly acc teams by the way. So look,

1432
01:25:24,960 --> 01:25:28,360
Speaker 1: I think it's going to come down to Alabama, Ole Miss,

1433
01:25:28,479 --> 01:25:33,080
Speaker 1: Oklahoma because I do think this Old Miss coaching situation. Again,

1434
01:25:33,360 --> 01:25:39,639
Speaker 1: if if Jordan Travis not being available to Florida State

1435
01:25:39,720 --> 01:25:41,240
Speaker 1: was a reason to keep them out of the playoff,

1436
01:25:41,680 --> 01:25:45,519
Speaker 1: then not having the offensive the offensive mastermind of Old

1437
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:52,120
Speaker 1: Miss involved in the playoff. Sorry, guys, you know this

1438
01:25:52,280 --> 01:25:55,120
Speaker 1: is you know and in fact, this system I think

1439
01:25:55,120 --> 01:25:57,880
Speaker 1: it sucks for the players, but guess what. This is

1440
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:00,960
Speaker 1: what Lane Kiffin put them in. This is the position

1441
01:26:01,000 --> 01:26:03,000
Speaker 1: they got. They got put in. So you have a

1442
01:26:03,080 --> 01:26:05,639
Speaker 1: choice to make. Either you've finish your job with ole

1443
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:09,800
Speaker 1: Miss h and let's let LSU hire somebody else. Yes,

1444
01:26:09,880 --> 01:26:12,320
Speaker 1: do I think the transfer portal, window, timing and all

1445
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:15,160
Speaker 1: that should change, There's no doubt about it. But Ole

1446
01:26:15,240 --> 01:26:16,639
Speaker 1: Miss is not going to be the same. If they

1447
01:26:16,640 --> 01:26:18,479
Speaker 1: don't win a game, We're gonna say, well, if Lane

1448
01:26:18,520 --> 01:26:21,599
Speaker 1: Keivin had been there, right, So I think if you're

1449
01:26:21,640 --> 01:26:26,599
Speaker 1: gonna again, if if Jordan Travis was a precedent setter

1450
01:26:27,360 --> 01:26:30,679
Speaker 1: by this playoff committee, then I suspect Ole Miss will

1451
01:26:30,680 --> 01:26:34,960
Speaker 1: get left out. Not again. I don't think that's fair.

1452
01:26:35,479 --> 01:26:38,320
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I think that's that that sucks. By

1453
01:26:38,320 --> 01:26:41,240
Speaker 1: the way, Ole Miss, be careful of hiring the popular

1454
01:26:41,280 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 1: assistant that the players want. Miami did this in two

1455
01:26:44,560 --> 01:26:47,439
Speaker 1: after the two thousand season with Larry Koker. It worked

1456
01:26:47,439 --> 01:26:51,400
Speaker 1: for you know, it worked until it didn't. It's it

1457
01:26:51,520 --> 01:26:55,320
Speaker 1: is it's it helps you if you really think you're

1458
01:26:55,880 --> 01:26:58,639
Speaker 1: that close to winning the whole thing. It worked right,

1459
01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:01,400
Speaker 1: and Miami had a bunch of senior leadership going into

1460
01:27:01,439 --> 01:27:04,160
Speaker 1: that first year of Cocher with Ed Reid and Ken Dorsey,

1461
01:27:04,360 --> 01:27:07,400
Speaker 1: and they had coaches on the field. But I don't know.

1462
01:27:08,520 --> 01:27:11,720
Speaker 1: But I could also argue that because they went in

1463
01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:13,720
Speaker 1: a direction that they probably wouldn't have gone under any

1464
01:27:13,760 --> 01:27:17,639
Speaker 1: other circumstance. The program hit hard times, much quicker, much

1465
01:27:17,680 --> 01:27:20,680
Speaker 1: faster than it should have or suspected that it should have.

1466
01:27:22,520 --> 01:27:26,519
Speaker 1: But let's just say the weekend look, I was certainly

1467
01:27:26,560 --> 01:27:30,840
Speaker 1: pulling for LSU, I was pulling for Auburn. There's no

1468
01:27:30,880 --> 01:27:32,439
Speaker 1: doubt it would have been nice to see one of

1469
01:27:32,439 --> 01:27:35,960
Speaker 1: those teams lose. But ultimately it's going to be this

1470
01:27:36,040 --> 01:27:40,200
Speaker 1: conversation between Miami Notre Dame. If Alabama loses to Georgia

1471
01:27:40,800 --> 01:27:42,960
Speaker 1: does a three loss Alabama team, Yes, I know they

1472
01:27:42,960 --> 01:27:47,920
Speaker 1: made the SEC Final. I'm sorry. If you are going

1473
01:27:47,960 --> 01:27:50,679
Speaker 1: to compare Miami and Alabama, they have a common opponent.

1474
01:27:51,160 --> 01:27:54,120
Speaker 1: Miami beat the common opponent, Alabama loss of the common opponent.

1475
01:27:54,439 --> 01:28:00,559
Speaker 1: If you're going to put up Oklahoma and Miami, I

1476
01:28:00,560 --> 01:28:02,360
Speaker 1: think it's not even a close call when you look

1477
01:28:02,360 --> 01:28:05,719
Speaker 1: at the two offenses, and the defenses are pretty similar. Obviously,

1478
01:28:05,720 --> 01:28:11,200
Speaker 1: Miami beat Notre Dame had to head, so I don't

1479
01:28:11,200 --> 01:28:14,320
Speaker 1: think it's really that difficult. I think it's it's a lot.

1480
01:28:14,520 --> 01:28:17,000
Speaker 1: You have to come up with more convoluted reasons to

1481
01:28:17,080 --> 01:28:19,880
Speaker 1: keep Miami out than to put them in. Right there,

1482
01:28:19,920 --> 01:28:22,719
Speaker 1: there's sort of there are more logical reasons to include them.

1483
01:28:23,160 --> 01:28:27,400
Speaker 1: Last year it was harder. Okay, Miami also ended the

1484
01:28:27,439 --> 01:28:29,920
Speaker 1: season poorly this time. Mimi didn't end the season poorly

1485
01:28:30,160 --> 01:28:33,280
Speaker 1: this year. To leave them out is to send a

1486
01:28:33,280 --> 01:28:38,160
Speaker 1: message to the ACC and I think should invite a lawsuit,

1487
01:28:38,600 --> 01:28:44,200
Speaker 1: multiple lawsuits, because this is there is no good explanation

1488
01:28:44,680 --> 01:28:48,920
Speaker 1: other than some sort of of marketing or media preference,

1489
01:28:49,800 --> 01:28:53,240
Speaker 1: which is not supposed to be in the criteria at all,

1490
01:28:54,439 --> 01:28:56,400
Speaker 1: And this is all that any of us are begging for.

1491
01:28:56,840 --> 01:29:00,320
Speaker 1: Can you just give us criteria that we know at

1492
01:29:00,360 --> 01:29:04,280
Speaker 1: the beginning of the season, so that you know there

1493
01:29:04,360 --> 01:29:08,360
Speaker 1: is it's purposely ambiguous, so they can pick and choose

1494
01:29:08,400 --> 01:29:10,479
Speaker 1: what teams that they want, so that they don't have

1495
01:29:10,560 --> 01:29:15,559
Speaker 1: to include certain teams that they don't want to include, which,

1496
01:29:15,600 --> 01:29:18,519
Speaker 1: of course sends a terrible message to our youth in America. Right,

1497
01:29:18,880 --> 01:29:21,679
Speaker 1: are we americatocracy? You know what's supposed to make America

1498
01:29:21,760 --> 01:29:25,080
Speaker 1: different is that we're a meritocracy and things get Hey,

1499
01:29:25,479 --> 01:29:27,960
Speaker 1: what happened on the field? Right? Did you have it

1500
01:29:28,040 --> 01:29:30,240
Speaker 1: on the field? What happened on the field? What happened

1501
01:29:30,240 --> 01:29:33,120
Speaker 1: in real life? Don't tell me what happens in a

1502
01:29:33,200 --> 01:29:38,400
Speaker 1: statistical analysis, tell me what actually happened. If we are

1503
01:29:38,439 --> 01:29:40,880
Speaker 1: not going to live in the real world and we

1504
01:29:40,920 --> 01:29:43,960
Speaker 1: are just going to manufacture this, And why isn't all

1505
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:48,759
Speaker 1: sports become the WWE Because we are getting awfully close

1506
01:29:48,800 --> 01:29:52,519
Speaker 1: to getting there with the way this ridiculous committee works,

1507
01:29:54,240 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 1: and we're in a period of time where we don't

1508
01:29:56,200 --> 01:30:00,160
Speaker 1: trust institutions as it is, and we're certainly not got

1509
01:30:00,240 --> 01:30:03,720
Speaker 1: to trust this institution, and and the thing is is

1510
01:30:03,760 --> 01:30:06,840
Speaker 1: that if anybody else were sitting in Miami's shoes, they

1511
01:30:06,840 --> 01:30:11,320
Speaker 1: would be just as annoyed at this injustice, be just

1512
01:30:11,360 --> 01:30:13,120
Speaker 1: as and you just sit there going, you know, why

1513
01:30:13,120 --> 01:30:16,200
Speaker 1: can't we just have fairness? All we're asking for is fairness.

1514
01:30:17,320 --> 01:30:19,720
Speaker 1: And right now the ACC is not treated with any

1515
01:30:19,760 --> 01:30:24,560
Speaker 1: fairness whatsoever by ESPN and and and its invitational committee,

1516
01:30:24,880 --> 01:30:27,800
Speaker 1: and their behavior here has really been a turn off.

1517
01:30:27,800 --> 01:30:31,880
Speaker 1: I did not watch a single bit of ESPN commentary

1518
01:30:32,280 --> 01:30:33,559
Speaker 1: because I knew it was going to be a bunch

1519
01:30:33,600 --> 01:30:37,599
Speaker 1: of horseshit bullshit about Texas and a bunch of hot

1520
01:30:37,720 --> 01:30:41,479
Speaker 1: you know, especially on Saturday morning, and the planting of

1521
01:30:41,520 --> 01:30:44,920
Speaker 1: the seeds of these absurd arguments that somehow you have

1522
01:30:44,960 --> 01:30:47,840
Speaker 1: to dismiss an actual result that took place on the field.

1523
01:30:48,200 --> 01:30:51,760
Speaker 1: It is literally I do think they are participating in

1524
01:30:51,800 --> 01:30:57,400
Speaker 1: the very definition of gas landing. So ten days obviously,

1525
01:30:57,439 --> 01:31:01,800
Speaker 1: I've got to h you know, I am prepared for

1526
01:31:02,000 --> 01:31:04,360
Speaker 1: what's likely going to happen, which is that somehow Miami

1527
01:31:04,400 --> 01:31:10,519
Speaker 1: gets screwed out of this due to poor ACC leadership.

1528
01:31:10,520 --> 01:31:12,280
Speaker 1: But if I if you take away one thing from here,

1529
01:31:12,320 --> 01:31:14,160
Speaker 1: and the one thing that I as much as I

1530
01:31:14,200 --> 01:31:18,280
Speaker 1: get upset about ESPN and the SEC and what they do,

1531
01:31:19,240 --> 01:31:22,400
Speaker 1: ACC has terrible leadership and it's got to change the

1532
01:31:22,439 --> 01:31:25,799
Speaker 1: fact that Duke was A system was created that allowed

1533
01:31:25,800 --> 01:31:28,680
Speaker 1: a seven and five team that played that lost to

1534
01:31:28,760 --> 01:31:32,360
Speaker 1: Yukon and Tulane got into the Witch Championship game. That's

1535
01:31:32,400 --> 01:31:35,200
Speaker 1: on you, Jim Phillips and the ACC. This is not

1536
01:31:36,000 --> 01:31:37,920
Speaker 1: a smart way to do this. This was not in

1537
01:31:37,960 --> 01:31:40,679
Speaker 1: the best interest of the ACC, and you have hurt

1538
01:31:40,720 --> 01:31:44,280
Speaker 1: financially every single member school at the ACC. Other than that,

1539
01:31:44,320 --> 01:31:47,639
Speaker 1: you're doing a terrific job. All right. With that, I'll

1540
01:31:47,680 --> 01:31:50,679
Speaker 1: see in forty eight hours when we get our first

1541
01:31:50,720 --> 01:31:54,400
Speaker 1: taste of what the College Football Committee has to say.