¶ Introduction
Hello, they're happy Thursday. I know I've hit you three straight days, but as I told you, it's a you know, it's the.
Second new year.
It's the sort of the second new year, as I like to call it, where we're sort of getting things started. Washington is sort of gearing back up for business. Congress had a really tough week this week. I think they had had to work for two and a half whole days here in Washington before getting getting.
To fly out.
How is your two and a half day work week? If I could go that to you? They But in all seriousness, I think Congress will certainly have to take a more starring role, won't be there's no There's only room for one star in Washington right now, and that's the occupant of the Oval Office. But Congress has a lot of ways to insert itself into the story, from the Epstein files, from we've got government funding coming up.
That was obviously the focus of my lead yesterday with excuse me on Wednesday, I say yesterday, I don't want to assume when you guys are I know you're listening the second in uploads right, of course, But for those of you that are listening a little late, nothing wrong with that. But in the previous podcast I talked about sort of when you start.
To look at the political.
Situation of the Democrats nationally, being uncooperative on the budget might be better politics for them. I e. Now, we've never seen a situation like that. But I want to start with sort of what's going on here, this anti vaccine zeal that's taking place, and with the announcement the Florida this is the state I grew up in. In fact, I remember they just announced that they're not going to have they're going to drop the vaccine mandate for kids
in schools. You talk too many health experts and they will tell you the vaccine mandates for public schools and frankly, for most schools. It's not just public schools. Most private schools also have a manday essentially follows state law, whatever the state law is. And so the Florida Surgeon General, who's somebody that many in the scientific community would say isn't really a believer in mainstream science and mainstream theories
of healthcare. You know, he's been the one that you know, has been telling people not to take mRNA vaccines and has pushed against the COVID stuff. And it's pretty much an anti vaxxer. And what's interesting is that Ronda Santis is not somebody who came across as an anti vaxxer
¶ Alarm over RFK growing in GOP congress, but don't expect action
when he ran for governor in twenty eighteen, and even in twenty twenty two didn't. And in fact, when the vaccine was rolling out, his office was very aggressive at making sure everybody sixty five plus could get it and all of those things. So to see the turn here, right, you know, you know, politically, what's been successful for him was keeping Florida open. But the idea that you'd be anti vaccine to keep Florida open has sort of been an odd mix here in an odd marriage. But in
some ways that that's what's been going on. Right, And you sit there and I'll tell you when I saw this, I actually remember I was one of those kids. I remember I was not allowed to start school. I think it was before third grade. I can't remember second grade or third grade or fourth grade, but it was it
¶ Florida dropping the vaccine mandate for kids in schools
was in elementary school. And my doctor, you know who, to vouch for my vaccine schedule only put the month in the year, and the bureaucrats that Dade County said that wasn't good enough, and because the day of the week wasn't put in there what day it was, I was, I was, you know, not allowed to not allowed to come to school. And it turned into this standoff between
my parents and them a little bit nothing. But at some point my doctor just said, all right, we'll just say it happened on this day and we just put a date and then it was done right. It didn't matter, didn't have to verify it for sure, but the fact that the form didn't have that was what this became. And you know, my let's just say, my father thought it was a bit absurd, and I remember he said, I want you to take this note to your teacher
to apologize that you weren't there. And I think in the note I remember reading it, it was like the bureaucracy of Dade County Public Schools, you know, forced this, and we're sorry that he couldn't be there, and this is not how we are as parents. We were very respectful to teachers. Blah blah blah. It was interesting how he did it on that front. My father was a character. I miss him. I miss him dearly and often wonder
I lost him. In nineteen eighty eight, I often wonder, because I got my love of politics from him, I often wonder what.
He would think of today's politics.
I have the luxury to believe one thing, and I'll just leave it at that on that front. But what it gets me too is trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure out how the hell did Florida lose its mind? And I don't think it's the residence of Florida, Like, how did we get how did this kooky anti vax
stuff go mainstream? And I've been looking for an historical parallel, like when have we lost our minds before as a society and got like weird fervor this an anti something further, and I think we're experiencing something that's very similar to prohibition. And what's interesting if you think about the timing of the of the prohibition movement and the war on alcohol and the anti vax movement, and when did sort of the war on alcohol see its greatest success and when
has the anti vax movement seen its greatest success? Well, you had the pandemic in nineteen seventeen and eighteen, and World War One had a huge cultural impact on society, and there was an anti alcohol movement before the world World War One and before that pandemic of nineteen seventy in eighteen, and it's certainly raised anxieties. The pandemic and World War One back then raised anxieties about morality and public health and the anti alcohol movement which had existed.
If you're a watcher of the Gilded Age, Cynthia Nixon's character hosts meetings of the Temperance movement. This was the beginnings of the anti So this was like a twenty year movement, just like the anti vaxx movement, right, has been around a long time. It took a long time
¶ How did the kooky anti-vax movement go mainstream?
for them to get traction. Covid allowed them, gave them their moment, and the vaccine mandates, right, that was the opening, Right, it was the mandate that became the opening for the entire thing. And it wasn't just about a COVID vaccine. Right now we're getting rid of mandates on mumps and measles and hepatitis B and all these things, which is really quite concerning. Well, in some ways, the pandemic of nineteen eighteen and World War One and the anti German
¶ Anti-vaxx movement has historical parallel in prohibition movement
mindset that the country had, which also meant anti beer, right, The biggest brewers at that time in America were Germans, so it became so they took advantage of a moment. Okay, Now, the anti alcohol movement was framed sort of as a moral crusade. It was a moral failing, was the argument, right, sin, corruption, family destruction. The German American brewers were the villains here, right, We just fought them, you know, the Europeans had to
fight them War one. They're bad people and they're the ones pushing alcohol on us.
And then the.
Dry reformers at the time said that abstinence, you know, in some ways was a civic duty. Well, think about the anti VAXX movement, right, it's been framed as sort of a personal rights issue. Farmer companies, public health officials, and globalists are the villains here, and the choice being able to have a choice. It's being framed it's patrio. It's your patriotic duty to resist this coersion, right, that's not what a free society allowed to you. So that
was it helped them get a hold. So then you have sort of you know, how did they you know, move forward?
Right?
The eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act banned even mild beer and wine, sweeping, federal intervention in a daily life when it came to alcohol. All of this, right, all of this happening right after right right nineteen nineteen, nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty one. Well, the vaccine mandates for workplaces, schools, military court battles over OSHA, and federal contractors. Do they have to abide by the mandate sweeping requirements?
¶ Anti-alcohol movement seized on a particular moment in time
What did it do?
It hardened opposition that actually might have faded it had been left to being voluntary. If there is a mistake here that the scientific community made and that the government officials made, was the mandate aspect of this, right, you know, you tell somebody they have to do it, and then they go, well, why are you making me do it? You tell somebody that it's voluntary. But here's why we think you should do it. You're going to get eighty twenty.
You'll probably get eighty twenty in either case. The question is is, you know, does the eighty become an advocate or do they become do they become a quick questioning? Now think about you know, and look what happened here. The concern about alcohol was frankly like, was the hard stuff.
¶ Anti-vaxx movement has been framed as a personal freedom issue
But then when they banned baar and wine. It started to get get at people and what we're doing here, anti vaxx, anti COVID vaccine, that was one thing. Now this is turning into anti all vaccines. So what happened with alcohol? Well, so what happens We ban alcohol and then basically we create crime gangs, Right, we create an entire criminal industrial complex.
That actually exists to this day.
Number one, right, black market, Lickner, and then the irony was poisonings and debt. Here, the anti alcohol movement was supposed to be about making you healthier. It was supposed to make society better. So what did it do? It increased crime and more people died from bad alcohol, essentially bootlegged alcohol, you know, the homemade stuff that people unregulated and it was killing people. Well, the anti vaxx movement, right, all of a sudden, now it is spread beyond covid.
¶ Biggest mistake by public health officials was the Covid vaccine mandate
No more vaccines from measles, polio, HPV, these diseases were contained, and now we've already seen a measle's outbreak. Lord only knows what's going to come in Florida without this vaccine mandate. You know, it's sadly, it's not going to be an if something breaks out, it's a win, so not another parallel. Then there was the political fallout right, Prohibition became a symbol.
It turned into a symbol of government overreach and eroded trust, fueled cynicism about reform, and eventually it does get repealed, but not until there's one of the most catas you know, the nineteen twenties were incredibly disruptive in American society in all sorts of pipe leads to the Great Depression. It also leads to the party behind all of this, right ends up getting just eviscerated in nineteen thirty two. Immediately prohibition is repealed. Why at the time the economy was terrible.
It was pitched as a way to potentially create jobs. If you legalize alcohol and get it back on the streets the making of it, you know, you might create jobs. And it was also was going to make the working class a little bit happier as you were trying to
¶ Prohibition created crime & deaths from bootlegged alcohol
keep society from falling out. Well, the anti VAXX movement right, it's reshaping politics of the right. It's embedding now distrust into public health. It's going to be long term party identity now for real, anti government, anti institution, but it's going to erode compliance for a while. And the question is going to be when you could sort of see it here, right, it is at some point the public's going to figure out this made us less healthy, this
put us more at risk. And in fact, I think the state of Florida is you know, wrongful death lawsuits are gonna skyrocket if people die from getting a disease that could have been stopped with a vaccine. And I think it's the government itself, right, that is going to They're supposed to be shields for this, right, government is supposed to be shielded a bit from this that ultimately.
It's the people.
But this is an intentional act too. How are they trying to do harm? You know, you could argue that the motivation is not to do harm, but they are knowing, you know, all the evidence is they know the potential harm that can be done from this decision, and they
did it anyway. So look, it's not a perfect analogy sort of the prohibition movement, but it is a reminder we lost our minds as a society and somehow this took hold and nobody really wanted it, but nobody knew how to stop it, and it took sort of It took people dying. It took the rise of criminal gangs and the mob and all of these stuff to get people to realize, yeah, this is this wasn't the right way.
To do it.
So the question is is it when when you know, I don't think anybody thinks not getting vaccines is a good idea. When I say anybody, obviously there's some people they're in power. But I think this is a seventy thirty issue. I don't think this is a fifty to fifty issue.
I guess we have to go.
Polling on it more directly than ever before. I now it'll be interesting. Is we need some better polling data. And I think we're you know, I know what I'd be doing if I were running the NBC News poll right now, creating a battery of tests on this. I think on public health, I think we we're all making assumptions that we know how. I assume it'll be pretty generational.
I think the older you are and the memories you have of quarantines, of having people you knew in your life die of the measles and mumps, which was not
¶ Officials know potential harm, and made the decision anyway
a rare thing in the forties, thirties, forties and fifties, that the memory of those things is you know, means that, my guess is the older you are, the more pro vaccine you are, and perhaps the further away you are from this, the more quote open you are to personal freedom on this front. But look, I'm throwing it out there. I'm not saying this is a definitive comparison. I'd love your feedback on this. What do you think is the is this anti vaxx movement that's starting to take hold.
I think there are a lot of parallels here to prohibition, right, which in some ways right, it took almost one hundred years to get rid of dry counties. There's still a handful of dry counties. I've watched my in my state of Florida. Over time, the dry counties in the last twenty years have finally gone away. So it took nearly one hundred years for this for the entire sort of war on alcohol to be fully repealed or to be
you know, fully surrender. So this may and this is a reminder we may have set ourselves back on the on the vaccination front and on public health for one hundred years, that it may take that long for smaller communities to realize this was a mistake. Now again, I think there are lessons learned here from those that want more vaccine compliance, and that is mandates don't work, right,
¶ Older generation has memories of deaths from these diseases
it's the mandates. You know, you can implement certain mandates right school children, yes, kids, And by the way, this is the real vulnerability here, I think politically in the short term, I have no idea whether the Democrats are capable of a message like this.
But if I were.
Advising a bil cassidy right now, I'd say, look, you're looking for a way to sort of get out of this box that you've put yourself in. Well, you know, do you want to be on the side of of more children and more healthy children or you want to be on the side of less healthy children? Right, because right now the Republican Party is accumulating a record that is putting kids, is making kids less healthy, is making their outcomes less healthy. Whether it's on you know, not
mandating vaccines. To look at the state of Texas and it's inability to have a warning system with the floods that put those kids at risk. Obviously, it's with what's happening at schools and the inability to protect kids from guns there that you know, there's a record here piling up the medicaid cuts. Who gets hurt the most? It's kids the deportations, who gets hurt the most? The kids
¶ It could take decades to reverse the damage to public health
that are born here, right, there's this. The most vulnerable to all of these radical policy changes that we've been experiencing over the last six months are those under the age of eighteen in various ways. I again, I don't know. I've not seen a messaging component out of the Democratic side that knows how to do this and and sort of simplify.
The closest I've seen.
Is Ram Emmanuel, who sort of tried to look at this kitchen you know, sort of start at the kitchen table and work your way back, rather than to start with a political argument.
And work your way towards the kitchen table.
And I think on this vaccine stuff, you've got to step away from the political side as much as that's where you know, this is a Kennedy problem and it's all of this. But in some ways, the more you focus it there it probably is the less people hear it, and the more you go as to, hey, are people looking out for your kids anymore? Because nobody's seen they're not doing that in Washington, and here's how I think that's where the vulnerability lies politically. But we shall see so.
But i'd love your feedback the next couple of rounds of asked Chucks. I will if you just send comments. You know, you know your take, what you know. If you've got a way to strengthen my comparison, I'd love to hear it. If there's more holes in it, I'd love to hear that too, So bring it on and h later in an ass Chuck, we will respond to that. Just a few other intriguing notes and political developments over the last twenty four hours that I thought were worth mentioning.
One is that it looks like the Trump administration is aggressively trying to figure out ways to help Andrew Cuomo
¶ Pro vaccine messaging needs to not be political
get a one on one with on Mam Donnie and the mayor's race. New York Times broke the story, saying that they're looking for they're seeing if there's we've seen already this right. The independent candidate dropped out on Wednesday. Walden, the Trump administration's looking for possible job opportunities for Carlos Sliwa. They Republican nominee the Guardian Angel Guy and for Eric Adams, and if they get out, then you get a one on one between Cuomo and Mamdanni.
The question is is that enough for Cuomo? Right?
He couldn't win on one basically couldn't end up winning a one on one because mom Donnie turned it into a one on one in some ways, right, knowing how ranked choice voting worked, by the way it just in aside, Come on, New York City, why is that ranked choice voting is only good for the Democratic primary but not good for the electorate.
As a whole.
I actually think that's an unfair way to do it. If you're not going to have ranked choice voting for the general, then it shouldn't be allowed for the primary and vice versa. Right, it should you know, either have one way that you're doing the office or not. This idea that it was ranked choice voting for the primary,
but it wasn't. You know, if it had been, then you could have had this dynamic five way race that might have made it different, and all sorts of interesting calculations and different duopolies or partnerships or whatever you want to call them could have been formed. But anyway, so
¶ Trump trying to clear field in NYC mayoral to beat Mamdani
I should. You know, I kind of think the you're either doing it one way.
Or you're doing it the other way.
This idea that it's one way in the primary and one way in the general, I think is not fair, not fair to the voters whichever it's. It's not fair to primary voters that they had to do the rank choice voting but they don't get to do it there and vice versa. Personally, I'd love to have seen it
all toy thing. But the point I want to make here, so if that happens and it looks like there's a lot of you know, this is one of those things that you know, when it's in the leaking out stage, you know, there's a couple of reasons something gets leaked like this. One is to kill it, or one is to sort of use it as a trial balloon. So you know, I don't know the Times reporting, but that's
one of two reasons why something like this leaks. It's a trial balloon to see how see how it works, or it's a it's somebody trying to kill it and putting the idea out there could do that. But let's say it happens. And the reason I say it's because it's going to set up an inch interesting off year
¶ NYC voters should get ranked choice voting in general election
messaging test, because then you're going to have a New York City mayor's race that is going to be all about Donald Trump, Right, Mam Donnie is going to try to tie Cuomo to Trump and say this is Trump's candidate. He orchestrated everything to do there, right, So I think this is the This is to me the risk here Cuomo's making like he's getting what he needs here, which is cleared the field, and the only way the field
could get cleared was with Trump's help. So it's a it's a it's an interesting it's an interesting situation that he's in. Well, on the other side of the country, you're going to have a campaign that's going to be a referendum campaign for the gerrymandering right, for the new map.
Right. Gaven Newsom's gonna be.
Out there basically to beg the voters to, hey, we want to temporarily do this, but we have to get your permission to do it because of the Constitutional Amendment on civilian redistricting And what do you think the primary foil is going to be for the map, right, It's
going to be Donald Trump. So you're going to have gap and run an anti Trump campaign in order to sell his maps, because look, this is a you know, if the campaign for those maps and we just uh is about fairness, right, that amendment could go down and Newsom could lose if he can flood the zone, and it gets turned into hey, Donald Trump, you know this
is this is this is about checking Donald Trump. Then you get those anti Trump independents more likely to say, Okay, I'll vote for this temporarily even if I don't like it because because of Trump. So then we're going to have basically two Trump referendums in different ways, and two of the bluest areas in the country, New York City and California. Now you'd say, well, that means mom, Donnie's
¶ If Trump gets Adams to drop out, race will become all about Trump
going to be mayor and Newsom's going to get his remap. Yeah, that's probably likely. But what if they don't both go that way. What if the law and Oregon Order are wins the day in New York and the fear of socialism becomes a real thing and you do split and wedge the Democratic vote there and in California. Right if the counter to make it a referendum on Trump gets
turned into making a referendum on Newsome. Well, you know, his job approval rating has been very polarizing in California, and it's not been that healthy.
He's not a.
Governor that sits in the sixties. In fact, during campaign twenty twenty four, he was in the mid forties. You know, I had a couple of sources telling me that Kevin was was basically looking for congressional races to help, and they were like, please don't come, We don't you know.
And it was not personal.
It was business, meaning they didn't want to introduce, you know, somebody who's right now was polarizing the electorate. So it just look, the stakes every election now, the stakes are
¶ NYC mayoral and CA redistricting could become Trump referendums
higher than ever before, right each one of them. I don't know where this is, just this is a fascinating development that by mid October, somehow the off off year elections may end up being a full fledged referendum on Trump.
We're already seeing.
It's interesting even in the Jersey governor's race, in the Virginia governor's race, right you look, the Republican candidate in Virginia governor, she's been running with Glenn Youngkin, and Glenn Youngkin.
Is the spokesperson for the campaign.
You see Glenn Youngkin in the TV ads, You don't hear any mention of Trump.
Right.
All you have to do is read a poll in Virginia and understand why. Meanwhile, what is Abigail Spaanberger doing. She is trying to tie Winston merleseares to Trump, particularly with the with the doze cuts and the federal government workers and all of that, and it's going there. So you certainly have a Democrat in Virginia that wants Trump.
Then you have sort of a cookie cutter campaign anti Trump campaign that's being run now by mikey Ryl, the Democratic nominee for New Jersey governor, where Chidarelli, who used the Trump endorsement to sort of make sure everybody knew he was the Republican to vote for. Suddenly he says, hey, this is not a race about Trump. She's the one that's obsessed with Trump, you know, and with Washington. I'm here obsessed about New Jersey, right, which is an interesting
counter message. The point is is now we've got four different races where some form of Trump is being used as a referendum, and I think we're all curious, what is the appetite for that in the electorate. Does that motivate independence one way or the other. Is there an exhaustion from it? Or are his actions turning voters off?
Does it end.
Up the more you talk about Trump, do you activate the Trump only voters that seem to just show up in presidentials but decide they have to get his back?
Right?
Point is a lot of what ifs here. This entire twenty twenty five campaign, which felt semi local, eye right
¶ Democrats are making special elections all about Trump
in various ways. You know, you knew that Trump would be used, you know, to push certain constituency group buttons. But we're starting to see it may take more center stage because Trump himself's right. Look at how much he's intervening in New York City mayor and I'll be fascinated to see whether, you know, how how he tries to get involved in California, because I think he will, and how he tries to get involved in New Jersey. I
do think he stays out of Virginia. I think in some ways the Youngkin experience in love It and the fact that Winson Earl Sears has made the decision I'm running I'm going to try to run Youngkin's reelection it's her only path.
It's probably a long shot.
But looking at the numbers, I see why I think I'd be doing the same thing. The problem she's got is Youngkin's approval numbers. While better than Trump's in Virginia, they're not awesome, right, And that's h and that's ultimately I think the probably the hurdle with that strategy.
¶ Ask Chuck
All right, and now let's load up. Let's do some questions, ask Chuck. But I think I actually have.
Given that this is the last episode for the week. I'm going to try to let this go a little bit here and get through. Let me see if I can get through. My goal is seven questions. See if I can do seven, maybe eight and thirty minutes. All right,
¶ Are Dems just living in "the world as it is" when it comes to redistricting?
let's give it a shot. This one comes from David from Oviado, Florida. I think it's Oviato, but if I'm wrong, he will let me know.
All right.
So I'm a long time listener, going back to your MTP days. I'm also a Florida boy, though a bit north from you Someminal County. I think I remember you once saying you have some relatives in Longwood. Yes, I've listened to your complaints about Dems in regard to be distingu which made it amusing when you also said we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. Touche, Isn't that exactly
what DEM's pushing aggressive maps are doing. Not to get too nerdy, but think of it like the old Star Trek episode of Private Little War. The Klingons arm one side, so the Federation arms the other to keep balance. It's messy, but if Dems don't play by the same rules, they may never control the House again in our lifetimes. What say you, no, David, this is this is a fair question.
You're not alone in this pushback. One of my closest friends, you know, somebody that I'll be arguing with, mostly about Dodger baseball, but also about politics. He's a Angelino, he's a Californian, and he and I were arguing about this, and on one hand we both agree that this is terrible.
And yet what he says is, what's your alternative, you know?
And my alternative is run a campaign, right, And that's the problem, right, is that there's no when your you know, it all depends on how you view Trump and Trump is do you think it is such a threat that it is irreversible if some things happen, or is it reversible if you stick to your guns, and eventually the public's going to reward you for being right. And I think it's sort of a combination of the two. I will say this, I think the fact that Newsome has
to go to the voters cleans it up for me. Right, It's like, look, it's he wants to fight this, but he's got to get voter permission to do it. I think it makes it more righteous than what Abbott did in Texas. Right, He's not going to the voters to ask this decision. So in that sense, I think I think Gavin he gets better higher marks on the democra
tests than Abbott does. But this is, you know, if you take it to its logical conclusion, we don't have you know, we go it's almost like we've repealed the amendment that allowed for Senate elections, you know, up until essentially the mid nineteen teens, right, I think it was by nineteen eighteen all senators were finally elected by the people instead of state legislatures. Well, then we're literally reversing
what the founders wanted. We're going to be electing members of Congress via the state legislatures and how they draw the maps, and it's the senators that are the ones that are actually more responsive to the actual people. So I think when you throw to that to you really have sort of you have taken the people out of the people's house, right, So again I get it. There's not a I don't have an answer of well, how do you win this on the high ground? How do
you win this righteously? How do you win this principally? You know, there's so many mistakes that Democrats have made and how it treated Florida in Texas that you know, you reap what you sew. You know, they're getting bullied by the majority party in both states. Why because they surrendered. The National Party surrendered in Florida and never you know, only talked a good game in Texas, never actually backed it up with resources and investment. And I'm not talking
about investments for one election or for six months. I'm talking the long term, right, These are ten year projects. And now, guess what, twenty thirty two is going to be a disaster for the Democrats and that first presidential election after reapportionment with Texas gaining more electoral votes, Florida gaining more electoral votes, Idaho gaining.
More electoral votes. Big, big problem.
It's going to make Georgia North Carolina Democrats are going to have to win both states every time, plus those three Midwestern states and oh, by the way, that are shrinking in importance than still very competitive deal with and probably you're going to throw in a Minnesota, which is going to which continues to creep closer and closer into
swing state status. So look, this, this is this is on the You know, the Democrats are in this situation because of their their inability to be a national party right and their decision to pull out of Florida and Texas and concede it all, and their focus on the presidency and obsession with only when the Senate and the presidency. Terrible investment into state legislative races. Really, I'll say this, it has really improved over the last I'd say six years.
There's been a real effort to do better in these state elections. So there's there there. They have played ketch up. The Republican Party and the conservative movement has been so much more focused on grassroots elections than the than the progressive movement or the or the Democrats. You're seeing more of them now look that way, But look at school boards, look at you know in particular, is a perfect example of where the conservative movement tapped into some grassroots and
got there and really were able to develop. So anyway, I get it. You're not the first person that I've had this debate with and I don't have a then what should they?
You know?
Okay, this is a bad idea, is you know every other one is worse?
And maybe that's so? All right?
¶ Are Trump's attacks on mail-in voting an effort to contest 2026 results?
Next question, this comes from at ten. He says, Hey, Chuck, I'm at ten and I'm a longtime Canadian fan here all right, thank you got a lot of Canadian pen pals. I love you guys from the suburbs of Montreal and Leah Spofan.
I hope. My question is kind of simple.
Do you think all of the maneuvers Trump is doing about the mail and vote registration and identification hurdles he's trying to put in place are a tactic to be able to contest or even not recognize the results of the twenty twenty six midterms. Thanks a lot, ps, I cannot be become a fan of the Nationals as they were stolen from US.
I totally understand that, but just so.
You know, I have become a Montreal Exposed collector of sorts as a way of my homage to the Nationals. It kind of helps that the Exposed team of both eighty one and ninety four are very familiar to me. I was a Dodger fan back in the day, and particularly the eighty one team the Dodgers. The biggest hurdle of the Dodgers face before facing the Yankees in the World Series was that tremendous Expo the second best Expo team of all time, the best one being, of course, the nineteen ninety fourteen.
So I get it.
You should know in our Ring of Honor in Nationals Park, all of the Expos Hall of Famers are in there. Gary Carter, Tim Rains, Andre Dawson. So I will give the Nationals credit. They do try, even though I think the original owner of the Exposers screwed it up go handed the mar which I always felt as some sort of personal affront to me. Right, I took it very personally.
The jeweler, the jeweler who screwed up the expos then came down to the Marlins and somehow messed it up even more and got a free baseball team to boot.
But I digress. Let me get to your basic your question here. It's an interesting thesis.
You know, what does he does he need all of this to contest the results of election?
Right?
I think if he doesn't like the results, he's going to contest it regardless of this. Now, let me get to the specifics of what he's trying to do. If I were the Democrats, I'd agree to do this. And here's why the Democratic Party right now, it's voters follow all the rules, know all the rules, are aware of what you need to vote. They're the ones that show
up in every special election. Why do Democrats continue to overperform in any special election, whether it's in the suburbs of Orlando, the suburbs of Des Moines, you name it, right, They're overperforming everywhere because the suburban sort of super voter has gone from leaning right to leaning left. They're not all registered Democrats, that a lot of them moved from
being registered Republicans registered independence. But it is why this suburban vote and why in the midterms in particular, Democrats now have a built in advantage.
The folks who.
Don't necessarily follow the specifics of voting all the time. The non super voters are more likely to support Trump. And so if you did voter ID laws, I think it's more Trump voters would end up not being qualified to get to the polls. You get rid of mail in balloting, and you do early in person, it's more likely the casual voter is a Trump voter. The casual
voter leans right these days. So the more impediments you put into voting ten years ago that was going to hurt the Democrats, now it's going to hurt the Republicans. So if you want to totally play game theory here,
I believe it was. Matthew Iglesias in the last week did a really good dive on this where he said, you know, if Democrats get the House, this should be that in exchange for basically funding early more early in person voting, that Democrats ought to make the compromise voter ID and getting rid of mail in voting for everybody
except the military. Because all of it, all of these if you look at the demographics of each party, all of these impediments that Trump wants to introduce are going to impact Republicans a lot more these.
Days than it impacts Democrats. Just something that you want.
I am not Tony Korneisers who I do not have my maple leaf flag, but maybe I ought to acquire one from my Canadian friends. So anyway, I hope you will at least not be a NAT's hater. By the way, all right, next question comes from John in New Jersey.
¶ Is there a line where Democrats fighting will be the "wrong" move?
Just a quick question in comment your substeck this week feels spot on regarding Democrats fighting for something, but also feels a little in conflict with your perspective on dem state Texas state legislatures fleeing the special session last month. Is there a line for you where fighting will always be the wrong move? Maybe these are not conflicting opinions
at all. Thanks again for everything. Let's go mets it. Look, it's the question, is you know if you're going to pro You know, most protests fail in the moment, but a protest movement that fails in the moment builds support and can succeed in.
The long term.
Right, So it just it's all about do you have an endgame and do you have an exit strategy? I think I think what Texas Democrats did was within the To me, I had no issue with what they did. If you actually saw, I thought what they were doing was within that's what you should be doing. Hey, we're
gonna deny a quorum. Okay, they said, fine, we're gonna get They were looking to see were there any Republicans that were going to be saying, you know what, maybe they're right, So it was it was worth trying to see. So I was never critical of what they were doing. My criticism is for essentially is going to other states and disenfranchising voters there in the name of competing with Texas. Who's disenfranchising voters there? Right, That's that's what I'm I
think it's it's more of the principle. But you know, to me, I actually think the Texas Democrats sort of they did what they did it they denied the quorum and left, and I think it was it was all
about testing the will of them of the right. We you know, we had all heard the whispers you're gonna and if you just listened to the conversation, hopefully you just heard the conversation with Jake and Anna, where Jake spoke of an anonymous Texas Republican who said, I just got to know this district, now you're making me learn
another one. There were no Republicans that wanted this in Texas except I don't think there was any Textan that wanted It was Donald Trump, and nobody wants to say no to Trump.
So I think what they did.
You leave the state and you basically see, you know, if we kill one special session, will they you know, will they concede? And the answer was no. They called another one, will they fold?
The answer was no.
So at some point, you know and what And I would argue that actually what the Texas Democratic legislators did was successful.
In this respect.
They got national attention, It brought into focus this issue. Now it may have triggered this nationwide redistricting war, but ultimately it gave Democrats something to fight for for the first time, and they are fighting and I and to me, it's that response that I see happening with Newsome that
makes me think that. Look and again, when you're arguing over our budget, you know, you know we've I don't know if you've ever bought a car, but the most the greatest feeling I've ever had is walking away from a purchase right. I've done it only once.
Right.
Most of the time when I've gone to buy a car, I knew what I wanted. I kind of knew the price range. I'm like, if they just hit this, and I've never had an issue. But one time I ran into an issue and I thought, no, they're playing games. I'm out, And sure enough it worked. I literally had to leave and it wasn't until the next day that they called. But I was like, vindication is mine. I did my own little you know, Chevrolet shutdown.
It was for a Chevrolet.
I'm not going to say the dealership because I actually liked the dealership that I deal with over there. So it is empowering, but it's a to me legitimate It's a legitimate moment when you're doing dealing with the budget and spending and all of that. To not agree to the deal, right, you've got skin in the game. So but what I do think the Democrats have to do is know what your exit strategy is. What are you willing, what are you fighting for? Have a specific goal in mind,
And that's what I was laying out. If you're going to do this, is it for Obama? You know what will bring you to the table. Obamacare subsidies. I ultimately think that's a pretty good thing to fight for. Healthcare is the better the best issue Democrat. Democrats have proven to be better about fighting for that issue than any other over the last decade, and voters are moved by it.
So that would be something.
Is it for demanding a vote on the tariffs? That's something to do, right, you know, But but have a demand that is semi realistic to be met so that you have an exit strategy and then when it's not met you you can come across as the reasonable one. Right there, the Republican deal is likely to be fully clean, you know, continuing resolution.
Is it really going to be fully clean? Right?
That's going to be one test, But that's how they're going to try to have the high ground. So you know it is I think it's a legitimate moment to do this, but you better know you better have a clear vision of why you're doing it and a clear
explanation to the voters for why you're doing it. And if you know, we know it's because you don't trust Trump with spending, that's fine, but be specific on what you're looking for, Like, look, we don't trust him, But can we at least get the Obama tax credits here? Because guess who also wants that. There's quite a few Republican senators who don't like the Medicaid cuts, who would like to throw a bone at their constituents and that
not also take away the subsidies on Obamacare. So you know, I actually think it's a reasonable thing to do, and at this point you might as well get on the side of being getting credit for that rather than have Republicans do it, and Trump tries to take credit for it, which he's very good at doing. All right. Next question comes from an anonymous person from Granite Falls, North Carolina, but he's not too anonymous because he starts with la Chiesai.
¶ Why is Lisa Cook being targeted for mortgage fraud when Trump did it?
And for those of you that know, you know, I appreciate it. I hope you heard my picks this week on Tony I listened to your podcasts and many other political and business podcasts. Why doesn't anyone mention that President Trump was found to have fraudulently filled out loan documents in a civil case. That such a point, there's always a Trump issue, let alone a Trump tweet.
Right.
The Lisa Cook issues is all about filling out loan documents. If she can't be trusted to a fed governor ship, why should the president be trusted to be the president? You know, it's it all goes back to the original
campaign against Donald Trump that Democrats. You know, look, yes, you're right about all of this, and there are so there is such a laundry list of terrible business practices and terrible character traits that Trump has accumulated over four decades that you know how often Republicans that ran against him in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, and how often Democrats and Hillary Clinton who ran against him in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. You know how often they did
that campaign against him? It was practically nothing, okay, And I remember it being and this was the biggest mistake that everybody made. There was an assumption that everybody knew the bad stuff about Trump, that because you knew Trump, that you knew at all the good and the bad. And I think there was a presumption I can tell you this, I had a presumption.
I'll just speak for myself that I'm like, well.
We all know this guy's like always full of shit in New York, right, Like nobody thinks he's a real developer. You know, it's always sort of a phony thing. This
like Trump branded stuff is always phony. Everybody gets it right, that this is all a griff, that it's all sort of, you know, a show that it isn't there's really no substance that there's really no Trump business beyond owning that building, That there was no there there, that his golf courses were all leveraged and everything was leveraged, and it was a lot more of o PM other people's money that he leased his name to buildings. He wasn't even an
owner of these properties. He was just licensing his brand.
But nobody did, you know when you think about the campaign against Mitt Romney, which took every business deal he ever did at Bain and educated the public with it and made direct comparisons right now, because most because political opponents of Romney, both on the Republican primary and in the Democratic side, were like, hey, I don't think the voters know this, or they want to educate the voters and see if they really want this sort of very
you know, this businessman in charge of the government. That that campaign was never run against Trump, right, Jeb Bush spent more money trying to damage Marco Rubio.
Than he did. Donald Trump.
And Hillary Clinton kept doing the character things, kept going to the Russia thing rather than frankly, if you did the methodical f you just did the bankruptcies, and you just did the financial funny business, and you just did the grift that early on as sort of you may think, you know Donald Trump and he's a fun guy in this and this.
Did you know?
They never did that? And now it is too late. Now it's all baked in. Now you know, now he actually is wealthy. He wasn't a real billionaire. Now he is on paper thanks to these bitcoin scams that he's gotten himself involved in. It's you know, by the way, I mean, I think we've all learned apparently if you're just a criminal and plain sight, no one cares. Right, the cover up is the it we you know, it always is. The cover up is worse than a crime,
forget it. The cover up is the only crime that we seem to you know, we're all always outraged about cover ups, Right, what's everybody's upset?
Uh? The cover up of the Epstein files.
But he's been accused of sexual assault and has actually been held liable in a civil court. But that's out in public, that's not covered up. It's so you're right about the least of the comparisons, like, let's look at all the mortgage loans that Donald Trump and all the artificial I mean, one of the one of the ways that they were trying to uh that they convicted Trump was over the falsification of loan documents in New York. That was that was sort of the angle that Leticia
James took. Look you go through these LLCs that he creates for every golf course he acquires, and I promise you look at those loan documents and the assessments that they you know, the the they somehow, you know, he very cleverly always seems to get sort of too two different inspections. One that lowers the price so he pays low property taxes, and then one that overvalues the price so we can borrow extra money on the on the equity line and use that over there.
You know, you're going to.
Tell me that that that those forms that the same. He's filed two sets of forms with two sets of values, all are in government documents that would all be loan you know, mortgage fraud. We already went down that road with him. But anyway, again, I go back to the original sin on Trump was not was was was assuming everybody knew everything about him? And that was I think the original sin. All right, next question comes from pure Illinois. Back in the day, it used to be how's a
¶ How long would it take the DNC to find viable candidates in light red districts?
plane in Peoria? That was the I think there was an LBJ. What LBJ care about? Evert dirksin people like that. But anyway, let's let's go here. I'm at number five. I think I might do it. We might get eight and a half hour. We shall see Greg W. From Pure Illinois. Hey, Chuck, my question focus is on redistricting.
I agree it's shortsighted to fight fire with fire. So how long and difficult would it be for the DNC to find viable candidates and build the support in the groundwork in the weaker red districts, especially since the DNC has spent two years de investing in red states. Thank you for also giving something for my son and I to listen to and talk about sports and politics.
There you go. I'm by the way.
I'm slowly my son list loves to talk about sports. He's slowly but surely getting more interested in politics, But I understand why he's it's you know, when you grow up in a political town, it's it's sometimes want the distraction. So we spend a lot more time talking about sports. But my son did text me over the weekend going, hey, what's going on with Trump? Is he dead or alive? Which tells you what his feed was feeding him there.
You know, I think this is where I think the the attention that the State House Democrats gave to the issue in theory should help with candidate recruiting. But you've got to you know, you know, I'm curious if the DNC or the d Triple C we're serious about this, they'd say, you know, they'd start a fund, right, which is like you know, the Dummy Mander fund or something, and like we're we're you know, looking for and they
are trying to recruit. But I almost would put a knee on sign up and say, you know, do you not like this? Are you an independent voter that's frustrated by this? You know, we're looking for candidates to run in these states and we'll support your bid whether you're an independent Democrat whatever, and even run on the platform that, hey, if we get control of Congress, we're going to want to put limits on redissecting. And by the way, maybe
you make it this this goes. You know, you have a more realistic political and voting reform bill that you try to get bipartisans support for, and you get rid of mail in voting for Trump, and you add voter I D in and at the same time you put a a restriction of any state you know, not being able to you know, without a federal court order having
a redistrict or something like that. But they ought to have a have a Texas fund to look for candidates, you know, just like if I were the Republicans in California, California fund right now they're spending the money to try to stop it.
But if they don't, you.
Know, then they only have you know, the trick for the Republicans, they only have like a week a couple of weeks before filing deadline hits in California to do that versus and in Texas the same thing to wait. You know, they ought to start looking for it right now. It might be a little late, but you know it's funny, is the best candidates for Democrats to be recruiting are people that have never run before, So in some ways it's the new that they should be looking for.
I'd be looking for military veterans if I were them. But is it possible?
Look, if you're willing to invest, it's always possible, you know. Maybe that's the world Beto Rourke plays if he doesn't run for any office himself, where he becomes sort of the rain maker to try to raise money, raise awareness, and recruit candidates. Next question comes from Angela from Moreo, Louisiana.
¶ Could Texas/CA gerrymander backfire and put more safe seats in play
She says she's Angel Hope on substack. Good to know, Hey, Chuck, I just stumbled on the idea that Texas redistricting could backfire into a dummy mandering snaffo, potentially putting up to ten districts in play. It's fascinating ripple effect and I'm curious how this dynamic plays not just in Texas, but also in California and other states considering mid decade redistricting as a way to fight fire with fire. Could Democrats be walking into the same trap? And does an endlist
hit for tet ultimately even the score? And how did mid decade redistricting even become normalized? Wasn't it supposed to be tied to the census. Thanks for keeping the analysis sharp. I'd love to hear your take on this. Well, look, I mean we got to this point because and it was really Texas has pioneered this right. Texas did a mid redistricting map tolm delay back in the day, about twenty years ago did this. I think it was in two thousand and three, the first time we had sort
of a mid map redistricting. It was a big fight. I think that was something you know, back then, it was the same thing and what you have, you know, it's funny and in the twenty ten census and the reapportionment after twenty ten is a perfect example. So the Republicans controlled the twenty you know, twenty eleven reapportionment. Other than that, you had the Obama Justice Department certainly, you know,
in charge of the voting rights. It was the first time there was a democratic justice department overseeing reapportionment in some thirty years, because in two thousand and one it was the Bush Justice Department. In nineteen ninety one, it was the other Bush Justice Department, nineteen eighty one, it was the Reagan Justice Department. In nineteen seventy one, it
was the Nixon Justice Department. So it wasn't in you know, it's nineteen fifty one, sixty one, and we didn't have a Voting Rights Ack then, right, this is the first one. So this was a first time a Democrat in the era of the Voting Rights Act that was passing sixty five was sort of overseeing reapportionment.
But for mo.
Inside the states, it was mostly Republicans that were in charge of the map, and they had a big advantage right the twenty twenty ten you know, and they were able to protect that and got their house reelected in twenty twelve, got some seats that they lost in twelve, got a.
Back in fourteen.
But what happened in that sense in the you know, by twenty eighteen, you know, the suburban districts became less republican Trump sort of the light bush Republicans became less Republican. And then you know, so that you know, every reapportionment eventually, you know, you grow out of what you think the
the D versus are breakdown's going to be. It's always interesting to me if you look at the if you look at sort of the last house, you know, mid term before if you ever look at the last mid term before the next reapportionment, you know, and how different it is from the first mid term after the reapportionment.
You can you can really see how far off it goes.
So I do think if you go down this road, what it really has done is there's only going to be say thirty seats that are with that where the where the majority party has fifty five percent or less. Back in my old hotline days, that the number the agreed upon numbers. Any in any member of Congress that got fifty five percent or less automatically got put on my watch list back in the day, Right, that's always
the marker I've used fifty five percent. And then you know, you know, and then you sort of anybody in the fifty six fifty seven to fifty eight range, you know, you look at it if it's you know, how consistent, you know, how often is that district in that range? Right, is it a district that is fifty four to fifty eight or is it a district that is fifty eight to sixty two?
Right for that for that party.
So so you generally look at it that way, we're going to have fewer seats than ever, that are going to be in the fifty five and less range, right, that'll be five essentially where the where the largest spread is single digits, not double digits between the most likely two parties split. And under that scenario, it just narrows. It just means, you know, in some ways, we'll have more we'll have as many competitive Senate races as we do house races. You know, I was just thinking about
this earlier today. With the state of Iowa. We're going to have a competitive governor's race, a competitive senate race, and we now have two. They have four house seats. Two of them are open. Now one is not competitive for both parties. That one open seat will be a really competitive Republican primary. That's in the fourth. Then you'll have the open seat of Ashley Henson seat and that'll be very competitive because it's a pretty fifty to fifty district.
Maryann Miller Meeks has been She's Landside Meeks, right, she never wins by more than a point or two. That will be extraordinarily competitive, by the way iowas a commission state. And then the third district, this is Des Moines. The metro area is always a fifty to fifty district, Democrats usually perform best in midterms, and Republicans in that district
usually performed best in presidentials. So if there are only say fifteen swing districts up for grabs after all of this tit for tat reapportionment, IOA may have twenty percent of those competitive races, right, three of the five, three of the fifteen.
But I digress.
The point is is that, look, I think this goes back to an earlier answer I gave. I do think we are somehow taking away the people from what was supposed to be the people's House.
And the irony is that.
The Senate, which originally was a body that was whose members were elected by state legislatures, well we're now actually flipping it, right. We are now about to have four hundred out of four hundred and thirty five House members essentially be elected by state legislators. What do you think the founders would have said to that? What do we think James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton would have said to that?
It didn't make any sense? Right?
So that to me is the absurdity of where this is gone, which is we've literally now taken the right. The dumbest idea we had was having state legislatures elect Washington representatives in the first place.
I know some there are.
I've got some good friends who are in the who are super old school conservative, who would argue for going back to that way of the Senate. Usually these are friends of mine on the right side of the aisle, they have more state legislatures. I understand why they would prefer that, but I don't think it's very representative, and it's certainly not small d democratic. So that's to me, what's why it's so bad?
All Right? That was six questions.
I hit the half hour mark, and this next question it deserves a longer answer, and I don't.
Want to short shrift it.
So with that, Danny from Dublin, I promise you I'm going to answer your question on the next episode with the Chuck Podcast, and with that until we upload again during the weekend.