Chuck’s Commentary - Chuck’s Experience At The Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting + America Is A Tinderbox & Trump Is Fanning The Flames

looking for another job, and we were struggling. You know, my dad didn't leave us in the best financial situation, but he did make one purchase. He bought a life insurance policy. Wasn't a huge chunk of change, but it was enough when we found it. And when I say we found it, meaning we went through his desk and we found, oh, look at this, let's see if there's anything here. And it helped us out at a time

that we really needed it. And that's why I think it's important that if you can, especially if you have young children, if you can get life insurance, you should get it. Life is full of unexpected emergencies, unexpected things happen. It is an extra bit of security, something you can leave and help out at a time when you're not you're not there to help. So what does Ethos do well. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy, and it's

one hundred percent online. You can get a quote in seconds, you can apply in minutes, and you can get same day coverage. They will find you the right fit. There's no medical exam, you just answer a few simple health questions online. You can get up to three million dollars in coverage and some policies are as low as thirty dollars a month, and you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. So take ten minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your

free quote at ethos dot com slash chuck. That is e t hos dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary and rates may vary well. Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Needless to say, what what I thought I was going to be focusing on with this episode has changed quite a bit, But let me give you a quick rundown. Look. I'm going to give you my first hand account of what happened

at the White House. Correspondence dinner from my point of view, Yes, I attended as a guest of National journal I will literally share all the details on that and then take a step back and just sort of talk about this moment that we're living in politically basically through my through my political anthropologist glasses here, because I think, you know, there's no doubt that we don't have the political leaders to deal with the moment that we need to be

dealing with at the moment. So and I will get into all of that, but we just this is a this is this is the worst set of political leaders that we could have to meet the moment that we need, which is why we need clearly, we need new leadership in this country collectively. And this is across the board, left, right, center, et cetera. We will get I will get into that. Course. This is Monday, which means I have a new time Machine segment, and we are we are going back to

a story that would eventually help create the name for one of the most popular bands of my generation. So there's your clue. There's your clue to what historical event I will be taking a deep dive in with the time machine this week, and of course we will do questions from you, and yes, despite the events of the weekend, I do have a few thoughts in my compartmentalized brain

on sports, the draft and all things from there. But look, let me start with I figure the best thing I can do is just sort of take you through, take you through what I did with the dinner, and it really my evening begins at six pm Eastern time. I'm walking out of the house, and just to give you a full picture, I had planned to go to the after party. My friends at ms NOW had invited My wife and I did the after party there after party, and we were planning to attend. I was attending the

dinner itself as a guest of National Journal. I've been

doing a lot of work with them lately. National Journal, for many of you know as my former as a former employer of mine, I've been we've been doing doing some brainstorming together and we're we're in this collective world. And so that's that's why I was attending. That's the that's who whose guest I was. My wife was going to meet. She did this was one ticket, so she was gonna we were gonna meet essentially at the at

the after party about eleven pm. And as I'm leaving the house in the uber at six pm, I turned to my wife and I said, how ab I'm not making a mistake? And what did I mean by that? All Right? I just said it out loud, and I had a lot of sort of tr nation about going. I hadn't been to the dinner in probably four or five years. I used to frankly when I had a job on Sunday morning. Some of you might might know,

so I had stopped doing these Saturday night dinners. Sometimes I would go for basically like the first hour and leave early, frankly, just to get a tiny bit of rest before the next morning. Sometimes I didn't go at all. It just, you know, it just it's just a it can be. It's a It's a I used to joke with when I was in my twenties the dinner was fun,

when by my forties it became work. But I was going, look, I'm doing a lot more in the media entrepreneur space, and this is a so there's certainly a lot of interesting people that I am working with I'd like to

be working with, and I thought this would be as good of a time as any to connect with some people, But I knew that there was going to be a lot of protests. I knew there was going to be a lot of tension. And so when I said that to my wife, she was like, why did you know? She sort of haunted her as I laughed. And then of course we all thought about it a lot after the incident itself. And I'm not going to sit here

and say I thought violence was going to happen. You know, I didn't know if it was going to be just you know, was I walking into something that I didn't really want to be a part of. It is probably a better way to describe it, right, I think I told you. I think I expressed earlier. I thought all the look, this is one thing people need to understand. This is not the president's event. This is the This is the White House Press Association's event. He is an

invited guest. It is tradition to invite the president. Hardstop. He chose to come for the first time. This is not his event. And this is an important point because this is not an event to be held at the White House. If he doesn't feel comfortable coming, then he doesn't come. Right. This is a trade associatiation event for White House Press, for members of the White House Press Corps. At the end of the day, so I sort of I've found the sort of hand ringing about, you know,

whether press should attend or not. This is not the president's dinner. Look, everybody made their individual decisions about who they invite, right and that's a different decision. And you can hold individual organizations accountable for who they choose to invite or not. But at the end of the day,

we're journalists and I just wanted a story. You have to have good sources in order to report, period, And so I understood the criticism of those that say, oh, don't give them a platform, don't do this, don't do that.

At the end of the day, it was his choice to come, and you know, the press can. To me, a good journalist should be able to handle handle that situation and should be comfortable going in. You don't, you know, nobody's asking you to become a maggot cheerleader or a left wing activist. If you're going there to be an activist, don't go right that. You know, if if you're if you're more interested in and being an activist, and then

you shouldn't have gone but look, I'm not. I you know, I thought all of that was overrated on that front. So but I you know, I wasn't. I knew the protests were going to be large, and I've certainly been to that hotel so many times. I knew that there were alternative ways to get into the hotel. So I was very careful where I had the Uber drop off. In fact, I knew I was going to decided I was going to basically, for those of you familiar with the Hilton, go in the back way, go in the

other you know, don't come in on Connecticut Avenue. I basically came in behind sort of between. Essentially, it was dropped off not quite at the corner of Florida Avenue and in Columbia excuse me, in eighteenth but close ish,

it's basically like nineteenth in Florida. Because I knew I could walk now with those terrible tuck shoes, I even double socked, knowing I was probably going to be walking more than usual in order to Little did I know how much I was going to end up walking after the event, says it was so look, I was pretty you know, I get dropped off by the Uber walk in get in the essentially the back way without without

going through any of that protest or stuff that was taking place, which was on the other side of the hotel, which is basically it where Florida and Connecticut come together, which is essentially where the Hilton Washington Hilton is. And if you're wondering and getting into the Hilton, you know there is no magnetometer to get into the hotel itself. This is look, it's there's a reason why this dinner

is always held at this hotel. They have a unique situation where you really can take the ballroom sections and essentially secure it away from everything else, which is what they have done. In my experience, I've been going to these dinners. I think the first one I went to was probably in nineteen ninety five, nineteenninety six, something like that, and it is you know, this is why there's been chatter about moving it to the convention Center or moving

it to some other places. But this really is sort of a unique ballroom. You know, every comedian has come in. I can't believe this is at a Hilton, like sort of mocking the idea that it's at a Hilton. No offense to my friends at Hilton, but it's always been kind of a bud of jokes at this fancy black tie dinner is at a Hilton. But this ballroom setup is an incredibly unique setup. After the Reagan assassination attempt,

they even created more secure areas. They basically they they have some of the easiest ways for a highly secure individual to be brought in and out of the hotel, more so than really any other hotel in the city, especially with a ballroom like that of that size that they can do. So it is why it's there, and they've always the hotel itself has always sort of been divided like that when when this dinner is here, so

you can just like walk into the lobby, which is where I went. You just go into the lobby, and I was going to the pre cocktail parties National Journal's cocktail party to go most a lot of times, if you're an invited guests, that's how you pick up your ticket, is you go to your sponsoring organizations pre pre dinner event. It's sort of been what a lot of news organizations do. So so you ignore all that, and it was you know, you could tell, I mean, it was pretty heavy. The protesters,

the rain probably made it. It was did I bring up it was raining at that point in time. So everybody is sort of you know, there with your hairdoes and stuff like that on that front. So we get into the dinner and it's the usual. Everybody is mag that you before you can get to even the ballroom area, there is a set of magnetometers that everybody goes through and essentially just about everybody not you'll not only go through a magnetometer, but if they're there's anything that pops

up in the magnetometer, you get one, you get the wand and it's pretty If you've ever been to any presidential events, it's very similar to that. It's if you've ever been to even a sporting event where the president was going to be there, you'll notice it. Sometimes there's a little bit more extra security. You go through magnanometers and there's a person wanding. This was the same setup.

And then the dinner itself, you go down a set of staircases yet another sent it's sort of almost like a sunken You come in at one level and the ballroom itself is like further down, and you walk down it's two sets two flights of stairs This is important because I don't the attacker. The gunman did not get even down one flight of those stairs. It's two flights of stairs to get into the ballroom area itself. So we're in the ballroom, they serve. They're serving the salad first,

and everybody was done with a salad. And the timing I was fascinating because it's so the shots ring out right about one minute after the There was probably two hundredweight staff that all came out at the exact same time. This was sort of a bit of an orchestration, and it's almost it's the server ballet, if you will, that we've we've it's always it's very impressive how it's done, where essentially every table is cleared and every table is

served pretty much simultaneously. Right, it's an incredibly quick turnover. So you have this rush of people come out, so my initial thought. And then so this rush of people's coming out and you see and you know, the tables are all close together, and it's pretty crowded anyway, because people are it's still early in the dinner, so there's still a little socializing. People are doing a little table hopping to see to catch up with people you know, you might get a text. I'd gotten a text from

a friend of mine. It was two tables over that I didn't see until after the incident itself. So so

we're sitting at the dinner, everybody's finishing the salad, and you know, they just they had just finished the head table introductions. President of White House correspond Association basically said, Okay, now we're gonna now we're going to serve dinner, so everybody. So it was actually gonna be a quick pause in the program. I think, as far as timing events is the minute dinner was served that it was going to be pretty soon after that that we were going to

hear from the President. So the rush of white staff floods the ballroom and it's about a minute later in my recollection that I hear. You hear the pop, pop pop, And that's what I heard, pop pop pop, some of you saw. I did a preliminary Instagram last night that went on a few of my socials just to give you a quick sense of what I saw. So you hear this pop pop pop, And I'll just be honest.

At first, you know you're not You don't expect to hear gunshots and so you don't automatically assume that's what you heard. And I didn't within you know, it's sort of like within two seconds do you sort of realize Jesus, I think that was gunshots. But that like the first thing in my mind was, oh, what just happened? What accident just happened? I mean, as the President himself said,

did somebody drop our tray? It just just felt like an accident. Because again, this is the case where your visuals in your audio can sometimes be in conflict. What were we all seeing. We were seeing this rush of people of weight staff coming to essentially do this, do the appetizer plates clearing, and the entree survey, and so

that's in your head. So any noise you hear, I think automatically you're just associating with what you see, and then you realize pop pop pop, And then somebody heard shots, and then you saw a whole bunch of people just drop to the ground, including all the white staff. I will confess I was a little slow getting to the ground. I was like continuing to just try, and even even

when I knelt on the ground, my table mates were like get down, and then I like poke my head up to try to get a sense because I was trying to I generally heard where I you know, where I heard. Where I thought I heard the shots from turned out to be exactly where the shots came from, which is it felt like it was coming from behind the entrance to the ballroom. And the question was with these shots had fired in the ballroom. And it's now pretty obvious to me because of the why they weren't

loud loud. They were loud enough to hear the pop, pop pop, But then you realize it was not in the ballroom, right, So everybody's just we're first looking around here, do we hear anybody screaming to you? Do you see any paramedics? And then you realize, Okay, nobody was shot in the ballroom. It was clearly coming from the quest

At this point in time, I don't know whether it is right outside the doors where they come in down those two flights of stairs I was talking about, or if it was further up the two flights of stairs, sort of where the magnetometers are before you go walk down after you've been cleared of security. And again, I'm just trying to put you in my shoes at this time, This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Soul. So. If you love that end of the

day unwined, but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you. These sparkling THCHC drinks and gummies give you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without the calories, and without the crash. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious hemp derived THCHC and CBD products

designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe. So also has a variety of products specifically designed to help you get a better night's rest, including their top selling sleep gummies, a fan

favorite for deep, restorous sleep. Look. I have made no secret, I am a believer in this stuff, in cannabis and hemp derived. I do not partake in alcohol. For the most part, I think this stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less addictive than alcohol. And yes,

I have to say I love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and you know after work, that's what this is. So no hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan. So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to sold today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order. Go to getsoul dot com and use the word podcast that's getsol dot com promo code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too, am a customer. Now. One of

my witnessing is we're on the floor. There's a few things. One is, obviously you see you start to see a parade of security detail. First of all, there was security everywhere, and in fact, it probably pretty clear that there were a handful of tables where they were undercover security. Right. There was just too many people in that room not to have something like that. You immediately see probably one hundred law enforcement throughout the ball room, essentially just trying

to clear everything. Right, everybody had guns drawn. They're trying to clear everything. And then you say, you have these security details, and I think most of these people were associated with a security detail I don't know this yet for a fact, but it seems that way because you'd start to see this parade first. You know, I think I saw hag Seth get escorted out. I saw Scott Bessett get escorted out. I saw Mike Johnson get escorted out. I saw Steve Scalise get escorted out. And so you

started to see those folks getting escorted out. Then there's a lockdown in the room right as you might expect, as they're now in hindsight, it's because the main entrance to the ballroom was a crime scene. So you know, I think they were trying to make a quick determination to see if this was some sort of conspiracy. I could tell you what I first thought is, oh, did

this person come in with the weight staff? And then use that moment, you know, I probably watched too many movies, right, you know, you have too many movies in your head and you start thinking about different things. Although there's a there is a weird movie life imitates art aspect to

the uh the alleged assassin who apparently got a room in the hotel, which, by the way, is a security loophole, which I'm going to get to in a minute. So at this point, everybody and it looks like we're sealed in and then you're then the question is and you know, everybody's comfortably you know, starts popping their head up, and we're all trying We're all trying to work, you know, I mean, everybody you know is just trying to We're

all trying to find out what happened. You have a room full of of reporters plus uh self important people plus actually important people, and everybody wants everybody wants to know what the hell is going on, and everybody's trying to figure out what's going on. And you know, at first it's just simply everybody trading. Did you hear gunshots? What did you see? Did you see anything? Did anybody

get hit? And that was just sort of the determination, was there any in anything, anybody hurt within the ballroom? You know, trying to figure out if anybody had gotten in, you know, it was it somebody who took a shot? You know, did the shots come into the ballroom? Right? And that is you know, now it's like I said, the sound was not loud enough to have been in

the ballroom, which is why it wasn't one hundred percent convinced it was gunshots right away. Now I know exactly what I heard. I heard the gunshots based on behind closed doors two flights up but within earshot of where we were right So now I understand. Now I couldn't process why they were, you know, sort of heard, but not just dominant as far as the audio in that the audible nature of the South. So then they about it's pretty fast that they make the determination that they

can open the doors. And then the minute they opened the doors, they decide it's let's evacuate, but they don't. They just basically encourage everybody to leave. I will be honest with you. When I saw that there was a door open and people were starting to trickle out before they made the announcement, I was like, first of all, you know, the table I was at, we sort of

just in our own little like well, we all looked at each other, we toasted, and we were like, well, we're never going to forget this dinner, and so it was just one of those things we all realized we sat there together and that we will never forget. I was sitting next to a woman named Nicole, who I knew a little bit through an old friend of mine back in the day of sitting next to another gentleman named of Duarto, who had not met before. But we're

all we're all connected now. Jeff to four of National Journal, the editor in chief, was at the table. He did a fine update by the way, on newsphere last night. I hope you caught that, so you have that sort of We did have that little bonding moment as a table, and I think other of my guesses other tables did the same thing. It's this is such a real thing that you're with. And then it was sort of like,

all right, good luck everybody. And at that point I'm ready to evacuate, and it looks like everybody's going in one direction, and I'm like, if they really want us out of this building, you know. And finally one of the security folks says, look, go follow exit signs, and it was like, you don't have to tell me twice. So I ended up going through the kitchen. At some point, I was like just following around the hotel staff. Somebody recognized me, was really nice and basically help help me

navigate through the kitchen. At that point I think I was there was just all sorts of security personnel back there just sort of huddling, and I was kind of the first one through the doors, and there was clearly going to be a whole slew of people on me. And I end up coming out of an exit of

course that I've never been out before at the Hilton. So the hotel backs up against why I believe it's Wyoming. I think it's Wyoming Avenue, sort of where T Street and Wyoming Avenue go behind it. And I end up there and I just decide, all right, I'm going to walk as far away from the hotel as I can and go find an uber. So that's my plan. I walk up about a half a block and all you do is you start running into groups of people in tuxedos.

Right and formal were all trying to debate what to do. Right, they're going to reopen the dinner. As far as I was concerned, I was done with the dinner. You know, this was not I was not going to be in that closed end event. I've been through enough of this. I've had enough death threats. You know. My feeling is I'm not getting very close anymore to to to that world until we sort of get to a better place as a country, but I'll get to that in a

few minutes. And so I'm like, well, it may be hard to get a ride out of here if I

stay too close to that area. So I'm walking. I end up running into the Fetterments on the corner. I think it was at the time. I think we were on the corner of Columbia and Wyoming. As you know, John Fetterman is not hard to miss, and it was just him and his wife. They were on a corner, and so I went up. You know, he recognized me, and he waved over, and he was they were looking. They had they had a driver, which was not surprising. Many US senators do have somebody that they're you know,

they get a driver for the night, or maybe it's a driver all the time. But that's so he was looking. They were looking for their ride. He, by the way, couldn't have been nicer. He was trying to he was trying to convince me, don't know, we can give you a ride. I'm like, I'm good, I'm gonna I'll walk up, walk up a couple more blocks, and I'm just going to get home. I had suddenly I had my kids wondering what the hell was going on? And my wife was so at that point, I'm trying to keep them

up to date. Everything's okay, I'm fine, you know, this is not about me. We're all good. And then it

was in and in fact, where I did I filmed my video as I was waiting for my uber there at the corner of Columbia and Adams Mill is sort of as you're walking towards Woodley Park and that Woodley Park area. What's interesting is the uber driver picks me up and he goes, hey, were you at the dinner? What happened? And so he goes, I just listen to this eerie thing. He goes, I just dropped off an elderly woman who was going to the dinner who was telling me this whole story about being there when Reagan

was shot. And it's just like and so he was just sort of processing his own that own sort of weirdness, if you will. So that was my that was my experience. I ended up getting home about ten o'clock. Nine ten o'clock. We decided that, you know, I didn't care whether the after parties were on or not. It was like, you know, I think we're good, right, I'm not interested. The best now was going to be in the Dupat circle underground.

It's like, don't know if I want to be underground right, in sort of a a guarded space like that a

little bit, because we are I think we are living in a we're we're living in a tinder box. And that's and that's the thing. So, look, this is what it felt like being in that room, right, That's what it sounded like, and that's how fast it all happened, and so you know, that's that's the instinct I had last night, was simply to describe it and then perhaps start to move on, right, you know. Unfortunately we've become

used to this. This is weirdly normal now, and if it were just an isolated event, I think it'd be easier to move on. But the truth is this doesn't feel isolated anymore. And the fact of the matter is we know we are living through something different. It's not just more political anger. We've had angry periods before, and it's not just more division. We've had that too. What

feels different now is a growing comfort with the idea of violence. We're normalizing it, not just the act itself, but the idea that it just sort of, Hey, it's a part of it. It's a part of politics. You just have to accept it. I'm not there, but we do. We have the willingness to imagine it now, we have the willingness to justify it, to talk about it as something that exists just one step away. That's what feels new.

That's why before I walked out of the door, I wondered if I was making a mistake, not because of what the dinner could or should be. But we know we're living in We're not living in normal times. So I can tell you this from experience. I've covered politics for decades now, going back to the nineties, early nineties campaigns, presidencies,

moments of real national tension. After nine to eleven, I worked in an office right across the street from the Saudi Embassy at the Watergate, and yet I've never dealt

with anything like this, not in terms of threats, not in terms of the volume, and not in terms of the tone. That is, until about ten years ago. Sometime in twenty fifteen, things started to change the start of the Trump era. And once it started, and it didn't stay contained at first, it felt targeted in one direction, right when my face was on the back of the pipe bombers van that they found in Miami, when I had FBI agents visiting me to let me know I

was a target of this. Nobody in the administration, by the way, cared called any of these reporters at the time that I digressed. So then it felt targeted one direction. Then it spread, and now, let's be honest, it feels ambient. It's everywhere, like it's just a part of the environment, violence and politics going hand in hand. Not in America. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be in America. Now many people are asking did Donald Trump caused this?

And I understand the instinct. There's no doubt I'm making the case that he's responsible for the era. But it is the wrong question because we can argue it forever. Supporters will say it's the rhetoric against him. We're already seeing that, right. There's this determination by his most devoted supporters to just say, hey, the assassination's a leftist, this is the left, it's all the Democrats. Fault right critics of Trump will say it's his rhetoric. This is the

guy that introduced political violence and mainstreamed it. The point is, we're going to spin in this loop all day and we're not going to get anywhere. All we're going to do is foment more violence. It's not going to solve

the problem. But that doesn't mean we can't identify it. How this got normalized. So that's the better question. We need to be asking what has been normalized and how are we going to get out of this? Because presidents don't just govern, they set the tone. They set the tone for the country. They define the boundaries of acceptable behavior. It is a choice to pardon violent extremists that attacked

the capital. That's a choice, and over the last decade these boundaries have shifted quite a bit. You can hear it in the rhetoric. Let's go back to the beginning. Donald Trump at rallies in twenty sixteen talking about wanting to punch protesters, suggesting they should be carried out on stretchers, offering to pay the legal fees of anybody prosecuted for

violent political violence on his behalf. At the time, it sounded like wwe inspired bullshit performance right crowd work if you will, But the language matters, right, most people may hear it just as idle rhetoric, innocent rhetoric, but not everybody,

because over time what starts his performance becomes a permission slip. And then fast forward to just the last few months, after the death of Robert Muller, the President of the United States actually posts the following quote, Robert Muller just died good. I'm glad he's dead. That's not ambiguous. That's the President of the United States celebrating the death of

somebody he believed was a political adversary. I say he believed because all Robert Muller wanted to do is to get to the frickin truth of what the Russians did and whether any Americans helped. Or how about earlier this year when he just posted a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. It's not normal American political rhetoric, not normal political rhetoric period, but certainly not

the behavior that we should expect from an American president. It's existential language, and even in moments of tragedy, mocking the death of someone like rober Reiner, suggesting his death was somehow tied to his political views. Again, this is the president. This is the tone being set by the President of the United States. And there's another shift that's happened at the same time, and it's just as important, and it's this idea that politics is responsible for everything.

If you're struggling, it's not your choices or circumstance, it's someone else's fault. It's a political grievance. Blame a politician, Blame a party, Blame the press. Because you can't look yourself in the mirror and realize you made bad decisions, you need someone else to blame. Donald Trump never does self reflex, always has to blame someone else. And once you start to believe that, once you internalize this idea that your problems are caused by all these other people,

you're not that far from believing they should pay for it. And then you hear something just bizarre, like we heard last night after this incident, when the president that chose to have a press conference and the president was asked whether he was the intended target. And part of the answer is this idea that he basically said, well, only the great presidents, the great ones, as he said it,

have to deal with this. Lincoln Kennedy, he viewed being targeted as kind of a validation, a badge of honor, huh, implying that if you didn't get if you're a president that wasn't targeted for assassination like he's been, then you're not a successful president. You're not trying to do big things. Think about all this for a second. Is that the escalation that's reframing something dangerous and Unamerican as somehow proof of greatness, turning risk into mythology. This is something we

should all be concerned about because if he's basically resigned himself to be martyred, well, then no wonder he took a risk like he has with Iran and essentially is putting all of us in an economically precarious position. And this is but this is where the presidency matters, because, whether intentional or not, the president creates the political weather.

Not every storm, but it's the climate. He's very divisive. He thrives on divisiveness. His supporters want the divisiveness. They feed off the divisiveness, and he knows it, and he does it, and it's more and it's more, and you know what happens. People think there's only one way to respond. This episode of the Chuck Toodcast is brought to you

by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteisonal pastries and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in nutrients and oxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts.

The Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box, and a new protein box. I will tell you I have done the gluten free box. I have done it a second time. I have also used the code, the todcast code. You use the promo code toodcast at checkout you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as a gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It is hard to on good gluten free bread. It

is fantastic. They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this. There is nothing like having an artesion bakery in your freezer to chase away the winter chill. Now is the best time to stay in and enjoy some comforting homemade meals with Wild Grain. I obviously highly recommend it. It is worth giving wildgreen to try. Right now. Wild Grain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off your

first box plus free croissants for life. Come on when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. And the climate is shift. Behaviorshifts with it.

The barrier moves. What once felt unthinkable becomes thinkable, then sayable, and eventually, for a very small number of people, doable. And it doesn't stay on one side. Escalation invites escalation. That's how being a divisive leader works. One side raises the temperature, the other response, and before long you're not looking at two sides anymore. You're looking at reflections sort

of out of a funhouse mirror. Same intensity, same language, same sense, of urgency, existential threats just pointed in different directions.

And this is where the language matters again and again and again, because everything now is framed as some existential challenge that we're all dealing with. Every election, every issue, a battle for civilization itself. Have you seen that? It's the battle for the West? Violence being know sometimes you're going to have if you want to save Western civilization. How many people have you seen use ridiculous rhetoric like that.

They're part of the problem too, because if everything is existential, then anything becomes justifiable, any rhetoric, any tactic, any escalation. The reality is we are a country of three hundred and fifty million people who agree on some things and disagree on a lot. And for a long time we manage that because we had leaders who didn't lean into

being divisive, who backed off when they realized the temperature had been too hot. This president never knows how to turn the temperature down, never even last night in his attempt to do it. He glorifies the violence as some sort of reflection of his greatness. This is that, like I said, he needs that's a separate issue, and maybe this is Look, he's a human being, and he's been targeted multiple times for death, so it might be a coping mechanism, and we should have empathy for that. I

have empathy for that. But he chose to be the leader of all Americans and he's pitting Americans against each other on purpose. He has to turn it down. We have one president at a time. No other political leaders have the power that he has to do this. He can't do it. He is incapable of doing this. That's the unfortunate part. But people around him need to restrain him better. Because here's the part that should worry everybody.

It only takes one person, one unstable, angry, perhaps isolated person who has absorbed all of this over the last decade, and they decide, boy, they have no choice but to act.

And that's it. So when the broader culture is reinforcing grievance, reinforcing blame, reinforcing confrontation, that person doesn't feel like an outlier. They feel, in some distorted way, like they're acting within the logic of this moment. If we were a healthy political culture, those impulses would be rare, they'd be contained marginal. Right now, they're not not, because most people believe in violence. I think it's pretty clear most of us don't. But

because the environment is no longer clearly rejecting it. And this is where leadership matters the most, because in moments like this, someone has to step in and lower the temperature. It isn't going to come from the Speaker of the House. It isn't going to come from the Senate Democratic leader, the House Minority leader, the Senate Majority leader, the governor

of Colorado or Pennsylvania or California and New York or Florida, whatever it has to be. The president. Someone has to say this is not who we are. But he's building an entire brand claiming this is who we actually are. Someone's got to step in here and say this stops now. We got to turn the temperature down. We got to not govern in the most divisive ways possible. We don't have enough of that. We don't have. Like I said, I don't know if we have the leaders to meet

the moment we need. We're going to see. It's what presidential primary is about. I don't know if the two political parties are capable of producing a leader that can meet the moment. I think the leaders exist. I fear the party bases won't allow those leaders to emerge. That is why you've seen me so lean so hard into an independent or third or fourth parties here, because we kind of we need to force a reconciliation in these two parties to just change their ways, starting with the

President and the Republican Party. But instead we keep moving forward in this cycle. It's a little more escalation, it's a little more normalization. It's a slightly lower barrier each time. And the question is and whether this will happen again, It's whether we're doing anything to make it less likely, and right now it doesn't feel like we are. And that's the comfortable truth about all of this. Our political culture was certainly had heated rhetoric, but it wasn't this

actively violent. Now it's actively violent. It's a regular basis, reporters, members of Congress, and I see that literally, we have Congress right now is half filled with people that have been produced by this culture, so they don't even know how to engage in rhetoric to turn the temperature down. Instead, it's escalation, escalation, escalation, And I can hear the what aboutism.

I've seen it on the right and I'm seeing it pop up on the left now. But the fact is, looking at this through the lens of being a political anthropologist, this is what happens. You stoke violence, you celebrate violence, You pardon violent actors and violent criminals. You consistently pardon white collar criminals all the time just because they're your friends. And you create a You create a world where people don't respect the rule of law, people don't respect the

normal barriers of America, of civilization. So I saw one thing. We need some bipartisan commission on political violence. Give me a frickin' break. We don't need a committee or a commission to figure out how this happened. We know how it happened. This era that we live in is being

led by somebody who celebrates political violent rhetoric, and it has increased and increased and increased, and you're going to get reactionary politics in response. I set it before. My greatest fear was that the election of Trump a second time was going to have people decide that the normal rules don't apply, and it's time to quote fight fire with fire, as you've heard, And there is no worse outcome for our near term politics than a response to this as fight fire with fire, and yet that's the

situation that feels like we're in. I would suggest to some of my legacy media colleagues, let's not sanitize this. I'm already sniffing a lot of sanitization here. This is

not an isolated incident. This it continues to be a culmination of a normalization of violent rhetoric and violent events, pure and simple. A few things about the future of this dinner. Security wise, there were two loopholes this attacker exploited.

If we are to believe everything we're hearing from government, and unfortunately, because of the track record of this Justice Department, needless to say, I kind of it is hard to It is hard to find second and third sources when you're dealing when the government's in charge of all the information. So let's just say, I, you know, eighty percent confident in what we're getting, not one hundred, certainly not ninety.

But if you if we take to understand that this attacker took trains to get to DC, well, what's the

loophole by taking trains? There's you don't put your bags through any X ray machines on on Amtrak. Right, if you went from LA to Chicago sid you just sort of, you know, so he could bring everything he wanted to bring. No one was inspecting anything, right that, we don't have any of that via on the train system. There's never been a magnetometer that I've ever gone through getting on Amtrak. You can bring anything you want on that Amtrak train.

No one's looking at your backs. Yes there is, Yes, there is dogs that you know, sort of sniff around and perhaps they're bomb sniffing dogs and things like that,

but they're not there to sniff whatever weapons you might be deciding to pack with you. So there's loophole one, and then loophole two was booking a room at the HILP. Now, when I've traveled overseas and stayed in the same hotel as a president, and I would say about half the time that I traveled with the president when I was a White House correspondent, not even less than half time did I actually stay at the same hotel as the president. Most of the press court stays at a separate hotel,

frankly because of security issues. But the press pool, if you're going to be traveling in the presidential motorcade and on Air Force one in and out, the press pool. Will does stay at the same hotel, And when you stay at the same hotel as a president overseas, everybody goes through security magnets right at the lobby of the hotel. That has happened to me every time I've traveled overseas, or if I've stayed domestically in the same hotel that

the president is overnighting. But we don't do that for hotels where the president's just going to be there for an hour delivering a speech. But this is you know, so those are the two security loopholes. But I do want to say from the get go, because there's a lot of people trying this was a security failure. Actually it wasn't. Security worked. Security, the security preters worked as intended. He didn't get through the he got nabbed in the

first line. Now you may argue that the first perimeter should be further and there's you know, okay, well that probably you know. But how this was secured, it worked. Nobody got hurt, nobody was killed. Yes, we have one secret serviceation that got that got hurt. Thankfully he's he's survived the because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. But the security perimeter worked. There was not a failure on

that front. And I think that's an important fact that we have to just you know, because there's this is everything, there's almost a knee jerk overreaction, right, well, we got to do this, you gotta do this. Got to be somebody to blame here, you know this. They're not getting paid and all this stuff, and people want to spend it. We've got to have the presidential ballroom. What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with building the

presidential ballroom. And the presidential ballroom is not about security. The white House is a secure space. The building of the presidential ballroom is because he just wants to have giant events. He wants to have much bigger events. He wants to put his stamp in the White House. There's the Truman balcony. He wants the Trump Ballroom. All right, it's a vanity project. We all know it's a vanity project.

It is kind of gross that there's this attempt to use this incident as a rationale to somehow have the government speed up the building of this vanity renovation project. How about going and solving the war of choice you made in Iran? First of all number one, but number two, this is not and again this is not a White House dinner. White House state dinners that's on the White House grounds. You know, are we going to never have presidents leave the bunker of the White House anymore? Look,

we're a democracy. We have chosen this freedom, which means, and the President himself noted this, you cannot have security if there is no such thing as one hundred percent security from somebody that is determined to do something like this. There's just attempts to minimize the damage that can be done by a lone wolf who snaps. And that's what

our that's what the Secret Service does quite well. But it's kind of I just please, this is as dumb and silly of a of a a spin attempt to try to use this as a way to rationalize the building of the ballroom for for this for a mythical for this mythical security issue. And it please, the White House is a very secure space. The size of the ballroom is not about security. Just really that As for look, the White House press dinner, you know this, I wish there were no cameras at it. If there were no

cameras out, you wouldn't draw the attention. If it doesn't draw the attention, it's less likely to be a magnet for violence and for protest and for all of these things. We don't the Grit Iron dinner wasn't put on camera. I wish the grid iindeer and stayed off the record, but it's not been put on camera. I guess they invited cameras finally one year, which is just a terrible idea.

But you know, it's just a trade association dinner. The US Chamber of Commerce throws them Center for American Progress, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congrescionalspanic Caucus, everybody throws their sort of organizational annual dinner. You know, it is not a crime. It is not some sort of violation of journalistic principles for journalists to get together and have dinner and celebrate their their their industry. The lebrification of the

event was the miss was the gariant, disgusting mistake. And by the way, that's on us as a press cort right we allowed it to become this because it became, frankly, a great way to appease advertisers that news organizations were desperate to appease so that we could keep our newsrooms afloat this week in history avoided. We have a lot

to choose from. I mean, you know, we've the White House Correspondence weekend, and there was another infamous White House Corspondent dinner that I also attended, that Donald Trump also attended, that had a huge news event, but we didn't know it was happening at the time it was happening. And of course it was the famous bin laden raid. That is actually something that happened this week, but it's not the moment I am choosing to focus on and do

as our history lesson of the week. Instead, we're going to go back to the Cold War, to nineteen sixty. Did you figure out the clue by the way that the incident was the inspiration for one of the most for the names for one of the most famous rock bands of my generation. Have you figured it out? You still haven't found what you're looking for. But let me begin just months before this week, in nineteen sixty, the

Cold War looked like something that could be managed. In Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stood in a model American kitchen arguing about appliances, about prosperity,

and about which system worked better. It was a tense confrontation, but it was contained. It made the rivalry between the two superpowers look like something you could stage frankly, But within a year version of the Cold War would start to fall apart, not because of one crisis, but because peace by piece the story stopped holding. So it's May one, nineteen sixty. President Dwight Eisenhower's preparing for a summit with Khrushchev.

There's costless optimism, but beneath that diplomacy, the real Cold War is still being fought in secret. U two spy planes flying deep over Soviet territory, high enough to be considered untouchable. One of those planes is being flown by a pilot named Francis Gary. Powers fly across the Soviet Union, photograph military sites. Return. That was the mission. The assumption is simple, Even if detected, they can't stop you. You're

just too high in the sky. That was until May first turns out a Soviet missile reaches that altitude, the plane is hit, Powers ejects, He survives, descending by parachute to Soviet territory, and like many pilots on missions like this, He's actually carrying something else, a coin with a concealed poison needle inside a last resort. He doesn't use it. Back in the United States, officials lose contact with the plane. They assumed the pilot did not survive. So the United States,

through the CIA, decides to tell a story. It wasn't a spy mission. It was a weather plane that drifted off course. Plausible, deniable, the kind of story governments tell themselves and tell the public all the time. But this time the other side knows exactly what happened. Khrushchev has the wreckage, and he has the pilot alive, but he waits.

He lets the United States tell the world its story, repeat it, stand by it, and then he reveals the truth. The pilot is alive. He confesses it was not a weather plane, it was espionage. Well, the Eisenhower kruse Chef summit collapses, But the real damage isn't diplomatic. It's credibility. Because the issue wasn't the spine. Everyone assumed that each

side was spying on the other. The issue was the story, more so for the public. The United States told one, and it didn't hold We're supposed to be the good guys, the truth. Well, once that happens, a different question starts to creep in. That wasn't true. What else is it? And here's what's striking. Remember this doesn't stop there. Within a year, the United States backs an invasion of Cuba.

A force of Cuban exiles lands at the Bay of Pigs, expecting support, expecting momentum, and instead it falls apart in less than four days, captured, defeated, exposed, and for the world watching, including Americans watching at home, there's no ambiguity about what it was. Was not a spontaneous uprising, was an American backed operation that failed quickly and publicly. President John Kennedy goes on television and takes responsibility, but by

then the image is already set. At the same time, the United States is deepening its involvement in Vietnam, not all at once, but step by step. Advisors become deployments, support becomes commitment. Always described as limited, temporary. Tell it isn't.

And let's not forget this false story lands in a country that had just come out of the era of Joseph McCarthy, where Americans had already seen claims made with certainty, and trust stretched too thin to hold. So one incident can be dismissed two starts to raise doubts. By the third, people aren't just questioning the event, they're questioning the explanation. Sound familiar. The early Cold War wasn't just a contest

of power. It was also a test of credibility. And in just a few years a spyplane shot down, a failed invasion for a coup, perhaps a war explained one way, but experienced another. The United States didn't just face pressure from abroad. It began to lose something at home. Trust. By the way, this was all before Watergate. Sometimes a turning point in history isn't something that happens. Isn't something isn't when something happens. It's when people stop beliezing the

version of it that they're being told. The trust deficit

that we're all experiencing right now with government, with institutions in general. Sometimes we forget this began even further than we realize. So there you go. Now, do you know what you're looking for? Now? Do you get the clue I was given you out there? Ask Chuck? All right,

let's take some questions first. One I love this. Steve Frank, Newport Beach, calif a fellow member of the two First Names Club. Yes you are, but I bet you don't get called Frank Steve right because Steve's not the last night. It's like with me, it's like I understand getting my last name confused for a first name, just like with you, Steve. But where I struggle is like, oh, wait a minute, do you really think my last name is Chuck. It's just like you really think your last name is Steve? Right?

Like that's the It's always funny to me why when people say, well, I'm not sure which name it is, Well, which one's least likely to be a last name. But anyway,

I'm guessing you have the same frustrations at times that I do. But hey, I turned my head for Chuck Ortodd at this point. I'm guessing you turned your head at Steve or Frank at this point. All Right, here's a question. A huge fan going back to the hotline days, and now I'm hearing there are Chuck Todd trading cards. I remember you mentioning losing your quote new music pipeline after your kids left for college, and I'm in a similar spot. My daughter and I are even thinking about

starting a podcast to bridge the gap across generations. I love that idea. What advice would you give amateur podcasters trying to turn an idea into something real, even if it's just for a small audience, Steve Frank, The number one thing is consistency. You know, the biggest you know, the reason why most podcasts fail is people get tired of doing it after two episodes, four episodes, eight episodes, stick to a schedule, stick to it. It is one of those if you've ever heard of hockey, you know

the whole quote unquote hockey stick moment. Right. Well, the reason it's called a hockey stick moment because, like in any sort of anything you're building, sometimes it's a business, sometimes it's an audience, whatever it is, it's like, you you know, a little, a little, a little, and then boom, right, it feels like it all happens at once. Look, I'll be honest. As I've been building this audience, it was

sort of like we were grinding. We were grinding, and we were grinding, and then suddenly we about six months in, we had our first bike, right, and you know, the key is consistency it is posting. Look, you've got to

be platform agnostic. You got to go everywhere. You've got to you know, when it comes to music, you've got to be in You've got to sort of be on top of the big moments in the that are happening so that you can because unfortunately, the way the algorithms work, right, you don't get you you don't get you could have a great podcast, but if you if you don't make it into the algorithm, people aren't going to see it, right,

It isn't going to get shared. So you've got to sort of ride trends when they exist and try to be relevant around them. Right, Like a simple thing might be, you know everybody's talking about us. You know, maybe there's a certain new Tailor Swift album, so you know, ride the Taylor Swift wave without doing Taylor Swift, and you know, you know, just do like you know, it's like something adjacent so that you can sort of make it into the algorithm and get some attention for what you're doing.

But that's really and there's almost there's different Frankly, it's just different ways each one of them work. I Mean, my guess is your your daughter might be better at it at figuring out which algorithms work best for which audiences, et cetera. Look, the other challenge you're going to have is music rights, right, so be sure to know you

know the limitations. You know, YouTube will just not include you know, you may post something, but if the music, if they don't think you have the rights to the music, you know, all of a sudden you could get so it could cost you traffic. So you do have a little bit of an extra challenge on the licensing issue.

So know your fair use rules very well. You know, you could do what my friend Tony Krnheiser does, which is he only plays music people send in and get permission from the owner of the license to air it. And they're very you know they're they're very They make sure they have permission in writing, you know, they're still waiting for Paul McCartney to give them permission, right, is the joke. So you're you, you are going to need

to know some of those rules. I mean, it is what makes music podcasts I think quite difficult because of the of the licensing issues, right, Because in order to showcase music and to share music, you want to play a clip, right, So you know, be learning what your clips are or you know, things like that. But the but again, I go back to the single most important thing is consistency of production. You know, if you're going to be twice a week, always be twice a week,

Always be at the same time, and be consistent. Right the minute you start being in an inconsistent updater of your podcast, you will not build an audience. People will forget, you'll stop being in their feeds, et cetera. So it is the number one. It doesn't matter what topic you're doing. Consistency in a schedule, and frankly, once a week is probably not enough if you want to grow audience long

long term. But if you're going to do it once a week, realize it may take upwards of a year for you to feel you know, so be sure you enjoy doing it for yourself regardless, and just be consistent. That's the consistent about updating that matters more than anything.

Good luck, let me know when you get it up and running, we'll promote it all right. Next question comes from Patrick in La and he says, hey, Chuck, let's say quote asking for a friend on this one, How does a nation apologize to the world. Well, what you do is you don't go about just I would. I think this is going to be a really tougher for the next president. Then you realize what I think you have to do is just other countries are not going to just take our word. It doesn't matter how much

they like the next president. So it isn't going to be a matter of apologizing. It is making agreements and making America's word verified, not just trusted, but verified. Right means putting pen to paper. It means getting congressional authority when you need congressional authority. It means sort of following the rule of law as you're going about. I don't if we just go around saying sorry for the behavior

of our last president. Frankly, I think that all that does is divide us more right, we need our next president to not divide us. And you know you may disagree. Look, there were some tactics that I disagreed with my predecessor and how he went about it, but he had the best he had the best interests of the United States in mind. I just disagree with how he went about

doing it, and I think he inadvertently alienated allies. Right, that is how I would sort of dispassionately say it, and I know you're going to have a hard time trusting us. So here's what I pledged to you when we sign this agreement on tariffs. It's putting here, I'm taking it to Congress. Essentially, I'm it's like I'm getting it notarized. I'm getting it. It's a version of that, right, we don't know notarize. But you get my point, right, is it is not just I don't think it's just

I'm sorry. It's behavioral changes, and it is verifying the trust that we're asking for. Right, We've you know the famous phrase trust, but verify. We're gonna we're going to We're not just taking the word of the Soviets. We're going to create a system where we can verify that

they're keeping their word. And I think, unfore fortunately, America's next president is going to have to create a verification process for our allies to know that we're going to keep our word, because that's the thing that we've got to fix. Yes, apologizing might might be politically feel good for your political base, but I actually think going about it as as a straight up apology tours probably Nick

from Michigan Rights. Hey, I've been reading that Republicans are openly hoping that Alito will retire from the Superian Court and hopes it will just turn out from Republican voters in the midterms. What do you think go a Supreme Court vacancy meaningfully increase positive outcomes for the GOP the cycle. Well, the answer to that is it could. But this is

why you have some Republicans wanting this now. Because twenty eighteen, which was overall a pretty big Democratic year, particularly in the House, Democrats actually lost two Senate seas and it

was Missouri and Indiana. Now they were two tough senence heats to hold two incumbents who were sort of kind of accidental winners the previous time, right Claire McCaskill won thanks to Todd aiken legitimate rape comments, and Joe don Lay won because Dick Lueger lost the primary to a guy named Murdoch and was just considered too offside of

the mainstream. For Indiana, the next reelection was always going to be hard, right, they sort of were accidental winners in twenty twelve a little bit, and it was no doubt they were uphill battles and then the Kavanaugh confirmation turned raw personal, partisan polarizing in Indiana and Missouri are redder states, and it fired up a base, Claire mccaskell believes, but for the Kavanaugh hearings, if there's no Supreme Court vacancy, there's just no debate about a Supreme Court, the Republican

base stays demoralized, and she might have been able to eke it out. That's what she believes. It certainly made it harder for Democrats in red leaning areas where the base was fired up about Kavanaugh. So that's what this is about. And so it means you know, now I might argue, if you know, is it this is where

what's good might not be good politics? Right? So take you know, the left is going to want to oppose whatever nominee Trump makes to the Court on ideological grounds, and there may be a good case to make it if you're on the left, the question is are you getting anywhere with it? This is a conservative every place conservative right. Alito has not exactly been a mainstream justice. He's sort of been on the he is I think

in the majority. He's not in the majority. Is often as your Barratts Roberts as your Kavanaughs is your Kegans, as you'll learn from a terrific conversation and book from Sarah Esker, And so I probably so I understand. So what you're seeing is Republican hoping to replicate what happened and thinking that all they they just want to save

this Senate. And when you look at what would be seat three or four or five for the Democrats and their pickups, you're looking at red leaning Ohi, red leaning, Iowa, red leaning Alaska. Right. This worked in the red leaning states. It didn't work in swing areas or blue leaning areas the Kavanaugh outrage, but it did work in the red

leaning battlegrounds. And when you look at the battle for the Senate in particular for Democrats, they have to basically win in red leaning areas Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska, right, those four, Montana, those five all red leaning. And so what the average Republican strategies is, Hey, if we can have recreate the political environment in October of eighteen, in October of twenty six where the right fields marginalized and outraged by whoever the Supreme Court nominee, is that that

could save the Senate. So I'm skeptical this can work a second time, but I understand. But I'm trying to explain why they think this, and that's what they're pointing to. And it did work for it did work for Republicans

in eighteen. Next question comes from Jeremy. He goes, Hey, love the podcast and appreciate the space you create for political deep dies. I'm currently living in Japan, but spends much of my adult life in Florida and grew up in Missouri. I'm curious that Democrats can regain a foothold in Missouri, which has shifted from a swing state to reliably read even as voter support progressive politics like marijuana legalization, higher wages, and abortion rights. Where's the disconnect? Is it branding,

messaging or something deeper? And is the Missouri Democratic Party even trying to make the state competitive again? Thanks Jeremy, So I would answer the last question first. I don't think the Missouri Democratic Party is even trying anymore. And I say that I'm being a little probably snarky about it, but it does feel like a bit of a give

up now. Part of it is the suburban swing voter in Kansas City now lives in the camp across the state lines in Kansas, and I have a feeling that if you're blue leaning, suburban knighted in Saint Louis, you might be on the Illinois side of it things now rather than in the Missouri side of things. Right. So, whether it's on abortion rights, right, if that's something you know you're going to live across the river, whether it's whether you're in Kansas, whether you're right both of both

states that have codified. So there's a small part of me that wonders if it's become self selecting over time. Right. I take you know, I've been saying that Missouri and Kansas are essentially switching places. Right. Missouri was a swing state that kind of had some some rural conservative vote. Right. Kansas was the you know, hom a Bob Dole, right, mister Republican. And what you've seen in the twenty first century is that Missouri has become more like a southern

you know, it has. It is arguably it looks more like a Arkansas or in Alabama in its rural areas than it does like a Kansas in Iowa or in Illinois. And I just think that what you've seen is sort of Missouri was a Midwestern state in the twentieth with culturally Midwestern in the twentieth century. It is now culturally Southern, I think, in the twenty first century. And then you've seen, like I said, the biggest thing is the shrinkage of

Saint Louis in general. Right, And this is what I think if you're really wanting to understand how you know, essentially Saint Louis being gutted as a major city. When I say gutted, right, They've had a lot of industries that just sort of disappeared. You go to downtown Saint Louis and it just feels like a shell of its former self. You know, this was a place that was

a hub. It was a headquarters for a major airline twa aneaer Bush is really only symbolically headquartered in Saint Louis anymore, right as IMBEV this huge international poration, I think the CEO is actually in New York these days, not in Saint Louis. Again, they have the symbolic headquarters of Anheuser Bush and Saint Louis. But it is, it is, it is, it is. It is literally a shell of

its former self. So you know, it was a time Saint Louis as a city was you know, closer to being Chicago and Dallas than it was being Wichita or in Omaha. And I don't say that as Knox. It just it's just shrunk. It shrunk in relevance. And then of course you know it's it's it had some international it had magnets that attracted new people into it. It attracted so as that disappeared, you almost had almost like a contraction certainly of Saint Louis and the Saint Louis

metro area. So that that's kind of what I chalk it up to, like a long term that this has just been a long term, that the the sort of d major fying of Saint Louis as a major city. And I kind of think Saint Louis needs a revival plan the way Detroit got one right. And you know, I remember, when I think I've said this before, I remember when the Amazon ad was was doing a country wide search for a new place for headquarters. I was really

pulling for Saint Louis. I have family there, I'm very familiar with it from a previous previous iteration in my life, and it's a it's it. I actually think it's a it's a terrific place to put a headquarters in the central part of the country that has an easy to get to airport, Like you know, it should be easier to get around than a Chicago or even a Dallas.

But both Chicago and Dallas have just sort of they're they're the central they're the central tent poles, uh in the middle of the country now for regional stuff or gatherings and things like this, and Saint Louis is just sort of given up that. And I just think that that, you know, there's sort of the downsizing of Saint Louis in general for a variety of reasons why it has has been probably as big of a contributor to moving

Missouri out of the battle as anything else. So if I were in charge of the national Party for the Democrats, I'd actually be you know you certainly I think you know it would be go solve your Saint Lewis problem first, then start worrying about the rest of the state. And instead,

I think Kansas is ready to be a swing state. That's where I be invested. Next question comes from Adam B. And Charlestown, West Virginia. He says, hey, big fan here. Seeing a recent interview with former presidents made me reflect on how, despite political differences, many still feel a level of respect for past leaders. Do you think Donald Trump will continue to provoke strong, polarized reactions long after his

presidency or will time soften those divisions? And if not, is that more about his leadership style or the modern media environment. Thanks for everything you do, Adam b. Look, I'm inclined to believe it's his leaderships, you know, like anything you get out of something that you put into it. Right, If you if you lead with division, you're going to

get division as a response. If you try to lead with a sense of unity, you mean, if people don't agree with your definition of what unity looks like, you're going to be received, at least not positively as someone who wanted to bring people together. Right. You know, I was thinking about this when I was putting together that opening monologue about sort of how Donald Trump has handled

divisive times versus say, how George W. Bush did. George W. Bush made sure right after nine to eleven to make it clear to the Muslim world we were not at war with them. And that people shouldn't be taking out their anger on members of that faith. Went out of his way to do that after nine to eleven? Do

you think this president would have done that? So my point is is that I think that what you're experiencing is you know, and I think you could feel it in the genuine affection that many Americans have for George W. Bush, who probably didn't vote for him the second time perhaps or don't want to, or didn't vote for him the first time, or maybe didn't vote for him at all, because he cared you know, you know, you cannot say he didn't care about the country and he didn't care

about people. You may have disagreed with his tactics, you may have disagreed with his policies, but you you got a sense that he genuinely cared about the country and he genuinely cared about everybody, even people that he disagreed with. You know, Donald Trump wants to deport people that disagree with him. He's openly talked about it. So you know, if you you get back what you put into it.

And to answer your question, will Donald Trump continue to provoke strong polarized reactions long after his presidency or will time soften those divisions. It's up to him to soften the divis. It's not up to the rest of us. It's up to him. Steven, Orange County, long time, first time as a recovering Polly seinerd. Your commentaries bring back fond memories of lectures from my favorite political science professors

in college decades ago. That can I just stop right there, Steve, that is the single best compliment you can's that's I am tinily hoping. I just want to be I want to make it fun and interesting. So thank you. During one of your recent podcasts, you said the writing is on the wall that Trump is in lame Duk territory.

Since Trump almost certainly will not go quietly into the night like most of his predecessors, how likely is it that there will be a bigger faction of Republicans willing to push back against him without going the way of Jeff Flake, Bensas or Tom Tillis Someone's besides from Paul at least. Thanks well. I think you know as you see, it's sort of it starts incrementally. If Thomas Massey survives as primary. I think that's another step and you'll see

more one of these things is nobody wants to be first. But as as more Republicans survive the wrath of Trump, then you know, so Tom Tillis's protests worked. It got Trump and the Justice Department to back down on their trump up charges against Powell. Right, as more Republicans see certain things work and the pushback works, then more will get comfortable doing it. So I think it's one of

those things. This is why, just politically, if you're Donald Trump, you care so much about this Thomas Massey primary more really, more than anything else, because he has put this guy on blast for almost a year now, and if he can't take him out in as Republican of an area as you can find in Kentucky, in theory a mega area, that will stiffen the spine of a lot of Republicans who maybe you're quiet right now, but would like to

push back. So it's one of those things that every every little incremental pushback of the president, every stumble, every special election loss, only increases the courage of those who realize they're the ones left holding the bag and the bill, and then they'll start to get a little and little a little more each time. I don't ever expect this to look like a rush and a flip and a

sea change. It will be one of those things, more like the hockey stick where all of a sudden, you're like, holy cow, third of the party is now voting against him regularly. Now, that might not happen until the summer of twenty eight, but you're starting. I do believe that it's sort of we're in the stages, and it's one of those things that it's like, you know, we never we always know when recessions begin, but not until left the fact, it's kind of with lame duck status, you know,

is it right now? Has it already begun? Did it? You know, did it begin with the you know, you know with the twenty five elections. You know, we'll we'll we'll post date this at some point. But we're in

the uh, we're definitely in the in the landing zone of lame duck, of lame duckness. Take one more question, so number seven here, uh, Lisa, Then we will save eight and nine for the next episode. Andy, why from a Milliewauk rights You mentioned recently that Trump maybe setting vance up to fail, and it made me wonder if vancies that too. Could he be positioning himself to benefit

it from it? Long term? Is there a scenario where he distanced himself at the right moment to capture voters who are aligned with Trump's agenda but fatigued by him personally? Are the risks of staying tied to Trump too high for that to be a viable strategy? Best Andy, Why Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Well, we actually the question would be have has Trump had a vice president who tried to do this? The answer is yes, right, I was thinking about Pence the whole

time that you were asking this question. And I know what Pence thought to himself starting in January of twenty twenty one, and frankly thought all the way through when he started running for president in January of twenty twenty three, that there was a scenario where he would distance himself at the right moment January six, that he could capture voters who were aligned with Trump's agenda, that you know that he agreed with what Trump was trying to do,

He just didn't like what he was doing and they were tired of him personally. That was Pence's theory of the case. It is still Pence's theory of the case. I think long term, Like, I think he really is

playing a long game. He's trying to start an alternative heritage that he wants to be the guy if there, if this version of the concert servative movement collapses, and there's a lot of evidence that Trump's movement will collapse at some point, Pence wants to be the guy organizing the next conservative movement or sort of a revitalized version of it. So, but I ask you, I'll flip it to you, is that, you know, if that's a long game? You know, is can both these guys be playing the

long game like this, right? Or I am more inclined to believe that the stain of Trump is too hard to get rid of and then it is too difficult to try to be to try to be a half measure version of it. We're going to find out, right, I think you're going to have a variety of candidates who say that they're you know, they're they're the real Maga movement, and you know, I think I think that's

how Ran Paul might position himself. And I think Pennce is going to position himself as more of a traditional conservative who's who's also moral upstanding, you know, I think it's Vance that is. You know, Vance has never really been a part of any of any any politic you know, He's never really had success being his own, having his own political identity, right, His entire political identity was rescued by Donald Trump with that endorsement in the Senate primary

in twenty twenty two. So Pence had a political identity before Donald Trump, right. In fact, Donald Trump needed a Mike Pence. Donald Trump didn't need a Jadvance, just the opposite, right,

Vance needed Trump. So that's why I'm skeptical that there's any any sort of you know, Rubio is more likely to have the ability, because again, he had a political identity pre Trump Vance and didn't really have a sustainable put right, you know, once he started running for office, he tried, he tried to do it with his own political identity and couldn't and instead just sort of my most cynical version of it, Peter Teal bought the Trump

endorsement for Bants hard stop right in some form or another, and here we are. And that's why I'm I'm pretty skeptical on that front. All Right, a few draft reactions. Number One, I'm really happy for Carson Beck pretty cool that he's QB three. Look, he understood he has been in two different offenses, and I think that that just helps you transition better. So I do think he'll transition well.

He does well in the scripted portion. You know, he struggles a little bit when when offensive line protection falls behind, and we'll see I mean, he was behind arguably one of the best offensive lines in the history of the University of Miami. He's not going to have that right away at Arizona, but he's going to get a chance. I mean, I'm guessing he'll be the starter by somewhere in the you know, barring injury or something like that, or just a total inability to get the playbook, which

I just find unlikely. You know, he's going to get a real chance, and you just you don't know if you're going to get a situation where you get it. So I'm just happy he's going to get a chance. It's Arizona, we know it's Uphill. You know, that's a franchise that just never seems to get out of its own way, right, But now get to have Trey McBride to throw four that three. That's pretty good. He's got Marvin Harrison there, he's got Jeremiah Love. I mean, there's

some interesting tools there. I mean, he's so I'm happy for him. That's exciting. I'm trying to remember the last time in the nursery of Mimmy had two starting quarterbacks simultaneously in the NFL. I think we have to go back to the Vidie Bernie era for that. So that's that would be That would be fun. Look, the you got to say, got to got to give the Packers credit. What they told the press before the draft is what they did. They said they need to work on cornerback.

First pick was a quarterback with a C by the way corner and that quarter a little bit of a project out of South Carolina, but huge athletic upside. But frankly, this is what the Packers do, right. They loved draft guys like that are just you know, I have all this athletic ability, but you know, need a refinement here, a refinement there. Their believers in their system, and frankly,

it usually works out pretty well. I mean, you know, I would put the Packers up against anybody in their record of particularly I just feel like they kill it frequently kill it in the second round. First round, they can be all over the map. So needless to say, I liked our first round pick this year because it was Michael Parsons. We traded it away as part of

that trade. So I like that. One other note that I think is interesting about the draft that you know, so there's been all this stuff about nil and how the last three rounds of the draft there was just, you know, the talent fell off a cliff because those tweener players, those players that had some upside now stay in college an extra year, they get refined, and then they end up being drafted in one of the first

three rounds. Right, So you have this what you have right now, is you have is you have the first you know, I think the first seventy players off the board all now, if you know, they've all played quite a few snaps. There's a few exceptions. Ty Simpson's an exception, but they've all played a lot of college ball, right where there's fewer that are coming out early for the money because you're actually better off staying getting the money, right.

I mean, David Bailey is as good of an example as anybody, right, He's a guy that contemplated going to Harvard, decides to go to Stanford, gets his degree early, then ends up playing one year in Texas Tech, and Nne becomes the number two overall pick. Right. Cam Ward is another one right from last year for Nanna. Mendoz is another one he could have after graduating Cal left early and then would have been a third or fourth round pick. So you've done all this. Here's something else that I

noticed right the top ten picks. First pick was in the playoff, Second pick was in the playoff, Third pick was Notre Dame should have been in the playoff. Fourth pick was in the playoff. Fifth pick was in the playoff. Sixth pifth with LSU not in the playoff. Seventh pick was in the playoff. Eighth pick was not in the playoff, neither was the ninth pick, but the tenth pick was. Right.

You start to go through here, and the first round is just essentially the entire top ten Indiana, Texas Tech, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Miami, Alabama, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, A and M. And then you look at the schools that weren't in the top ten, that had players LSU projected to be there. Arizona State a playoff team the year before,

Utah projected to be a contender for there. Penn State was supposed to be there, Clemson was supposed to be there, Florida was supposed to be better than they were, usc was supposed to be there, you know, So it is I think what you're seeing is just what NIL is doing, which is it You're going to have more prepared for More first rounders are going to be starters in the NFL than ever before, more second rounders, and more third rounders. Then you're going to have this just sort of a

lot more experimental picks. So this is where I think over the next couple of years, you'll start to see more of the foreign academies get into the fourth, fifth, and sixth round where instead of drafting somebody who didn't get noticed by the POWERFO conferences and paid NIL money to come join them, you know, taking a flyer and somebody at North Dakota State, they you'd rather take a flyer and somebody that went through the Australia Academy or

went through the Canada Academy, went through Canadian high school. I just think you're going to see more of more that more diverse, because ultimately you know they want they want these picks to matter, and you may see also more teams trade away these fifth, sixth, and seventh round picks and they start to seem less valuable, more experimental. But look, everything is, We're still only two or three years into Like this feels like the first draft of

the more mature in IL era. And it's why I think the last part of the draft really is filled with guys that are probably not going to make the team. Where before you still thought you were drafting special teams guys in the sixth and seventh round, and I think it's just less likely, less likely you're going to have that. All Right, the next time I see you, how many NBA First round matchups will be over? Will it be done? Will it be done in Houston? That's the big question

I have. Right you will next hear from me, We will tape. I will tape on Tuesday. You will next hear from the air. How many series will be officially over by the time I drop on Wednesday morning? One, two or three? I'm gonna guess just I'm gonna guess two. I'm gonna go with two, But we shall see. All right with that, I've gone quite a bit. Obviously, I had a lot to say about the weekends incidents. I heard from a lot of you appreciate it. Don't worry

about me. We know I do know. I'd like to think I know how to keep my head on a swivel and I sort of look at all of these events with eyes wide open. But we all need to be vigilant out there a little bit. Number one and number two, we all need to do our part to de escalate, depolarize. Our institutions are geared towards polarizations, the algorithms are geared towards polarizations. We as voters have to find less polarizing people and be putting them in leadership positions.

You know, we need to fix some of the systems, right. We got to get rid of parson primaries, no doubt about it. That's a massive contributor to this. But the partisan leadership, right, partisanal primaries give us more partisan leadership. And of course we have a president who is intentionally divisive and all of that trickles down. So we all have some work to do, but it starts with demanding better, more moderate and temperament. Moderate does not mean some sort

of uncomfortable compromise between the left and right. Moderate means for me, temperament matters more. Temperament and character matter more in making a president than ideology or policy position. And with that a sail for eight hours.