Chuck’s Commentary - Could A Government Shutdown Backfire On Democrats + Trump’s Outrageous Speech To Military Leaders

This is a created political a manufactured political drama based on legal interpretations of two Justice departments that go back to the Carter and Reagan era, and a whole bunch of members of Congress who claim they don't like these shutdowns but have refused to pass legislation that actually would

make these showdowns moot. So I'm not going to bother to rehash that, but it really bothers me how that New York Times did a story about sort of, oh, we've had fifty years of this polarizing and sort of didn't sort of glossed over the fact that this is simply an interpretation. There's no law in the Constitution that says the government is open or closed on October first,

depending on when you pass appropriations bills. This is essentially a decision that people in power made in order to create a point of drama or leverage, apparently for no particular good that's come from it. Right, this has just been a disaster. And I think this is the challenge that Democrats have being the instigators of this, which is for my entire adult lifetime, it has been the Republicans that have been the instigators of the shutdown we've had these.

It was when there was a Democratic president that we had it in the nineties, democratic president, when we had it during Obama. It is with Trump. That's the first time we've had this with a Republican now, the first

time it was Republican. This is now the second time we've had a shutdown with Trump as president and Republicans in charge of both the House and the Senate now because of the filibuster. And I'm going to get to that in a minute, because you got to ask yourself, what if this is what ends the filibuster. I'm fascinated to see what the reaction would be among some of the left who've been agitating for getting rid of the

philibuster for some time. Imagine if this is the trigger for it, just something to put a pin in that right, let's just file this away for a second. But we're here, and I think the issue and it's reflective. I've got some pull numbers I want to go through that are actually well timed, sort of end of September polls. They're

well timed. But they we get at this question of shutdowns. And you know, the Democrats have messaged for twenty years the shutdowns are bad, and now here they are on the other side saying passing up the opportunity for a clean of temporary six week extension to keep the government open because you know they want their And this is I said this before. I think tactically they made a

mistake not accepting this continuing resolution to November. I think they would be better off having this showdown over the exact same issue healthcare subsidies, the Obamacare subsidies. They'd have been better off, I think starting that fight in November after the twenty twenty five elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, et cetera. But here's you know, here's what's interesting.

So the time says this new pulling out and let me read you one of a couple of the questions that had to do with the with a shutdown, Who would you blame if there is a shutdown? The Democrats in Congress, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress, both or both parties equally or all entities equally. Now they

combined Republicans and Donald Trump into one column. There's other polling out there that has put Democrats in Congress, Republicans in Congress, and Donald Trump as separate three you know, three categories. So essentially, when you start to see it that way, if you separate it out, more people blame Democrats in Congress than Trump. But if you combined Republicans in Congress and Trump, you see where I'm going. But there's essentially a third, a third and a third right.

A third are saying it's one party's fault, a third

are saying it's the other party's fault, and a third just blame everybody type of mindset. But I thought this was interesting. They just asked a straight up question, which statement comes closer to you view your view, even if neither is exactly right. The Democrats should shut down the government if their demands are not met. Twenty seven percent agreed with that statement. The Democrats should not shut down the government even if their demands are not met. Sixty

five percent agreed with that statement. That's the uphill battle here that I think Democrats are dealing with because you've got you've got a sort of a you've got a confluence of things that have happened over the last twenty years that frankly, have conditioned the public about shutdowns. One is they're not that serious. I explained this to you

in the last episode. They exempt social Security, they exempt military pay, they exempt TSA, They're not going to disrupt the flights, They exempt food inspectors, they exempt so many things that it's sort of like, all right, it's it's sort of the operational part of government that matters, matters a lot. People will notice over time when those parts of government are shuttered, but they don't notice in the

immediate right. So anything that the public might notice immediately, politicians over the years have tried to sort of, you know, shield that right. So that's how you've had these military gets paid. Back pay for federal government workers is now guaranteed. You know, you have all these little things in there that are done to sort of mitigate the consequences of a shutdown in the moment but as I've said, what

it's done is lowered the consequences for a shutdown. If the consequences were much higher, as in Social Security checks don't go out tomorrow morning, heart stop, military doesn't get

paid next Friday, heart stop. I promise you there'd be more urgency to this. But they took all of that out, which is again, and so the public has gotten used to it that these shutdowns are annoying, their distractions. You know, they over time impact the economy negatively. They're not good, they slow down. I told you all the wasted government money, wasted time for people, particularly in your fear in a

public private defense contractors have time wasted. They still get paid but and the government will eventually remburse him, but they don't do the actual work. And this could be this could be, could be a few weeks, could be longer. So I don't know what the exit ramp is here for anybody. It does seem as if the Trump administration would love to try this out. And the threats that Trump has made actually showcase an issue that I wish

more voters cared about, which is Donald Trump does not believe he should govern for people that didn't vote for him, and if anything, he wants to punish anybody by getting rid of any program that the government funds that doesn't benefit him somehow politically. And he's essentially telegraphed this. He goes, I'm going to be able to reverse some things that they're never going to be able to get back. He is almost excited about the opportunity to govern with a

political lens and a harsh one at that. Next week, I'm going to have an interview with the mayor of Oklahoma City. But I want to give you a little preview of something he said, which is, this is the consequences of these partisan primaries and the way we nominate people.

If you're if you have to answer to everybody all the time in your voters, if you're a member of Congress and you're facing all voters in a primary rather than just this small slice of obsessed partisans, you're going to have a different incentive of who If you have to win over a middle of the road voter to get a nomination, to get to the second uh, to get to actual general election, well you're going to comport yourself a hell of a lot differently than if all

you have to do is deal with a partisan set of voters. And you know, for him, it was his explanation of my mayor's or the least polarized executive that you have in the country that all across the country where where the Republican mayors or Democratic mayors, almost all of them treat a pothole as a pothole. They don't look to see what the precinct, how which way the precinct voted before deciding to fill the pothole. Now I know that they're back in the days of the machine

political machines of Chicago and New York, there was always rumors that, you know, the daily wards got their potholes filled, and if you weren't a daily guy, you didn't get your pothole filled. But you can't get away with that being a mayor of a city these days, and you don't do that. But it is remarkable to me how often we're seeing some partisans governed this way as governors

and as president. And it's particularly a hallmark of magga driven politicians because the whole owned the Libs like it's ok, you know, we're if if we're suffer, if we all suffer, and it makes the Libs cry, then it's a worthy cause to do anyway, that's sort of this mindset at times on the own the libs mentality, and so it's a it is this is the fact that Trump's going to do this. But the point is this gets to sort of all the times you have confrontations with Trump.

And don't get me wrong, I do think that that Trump respects a fight er more than he respects a capitulator. So I do think that in some ways, if if the more resistance they put up in certain areas, that in a weird way, Trump will will will respect that because he's a he likes to be resistant, but he's also got a higher tolerance for this pain. Right. He doesn't care how the mainstream media coverage goes. In his mind, if if a major you know, if the New York

Times polling is showing it somehow it's Republican's fault. He sees that as a political asset, not a political liability. And you know, as long as his base is happy, he believes his politics are doing well. And you sort of see that his base is happy, but the rest of the country is pretty sour in his leadership. This latest New York Times Santa Pol shows he is basically at his presidential average. He's sitting at forty three percent job approval in this bowl. It's about what he was

the last time. It's about what he was for just

about the entire first term that he had from seventeen to twenty. You know, he's never he's never really sniffed fifty percent. And in order to do that, you'd have to have at least fifty percent of independence happy. And that's the problem he's having. Is that independence or more sour about his presidency? Then you know they look they don't. They're not as they're not as sour at his presidency as Democrats, but they're closer to looking like Democrats than

they do Republicans when it comes to this. So I'll fully confess here, I have no idea when this ends, or how this sends, whether in what kind of stomach senate Democrats are going to have for how long are they going to go on this? When I think about who the seven votes would be, we know Fetterman's one, Jeene Shaheen could be two, she's retiring. Would Tina Smith

be three as a retiring senator? I don't know. Uh as as a third one, Gary Peters, he could be right, you see where I'm going here, that some of them who are not going to be in ballots could could do this, uh, if they so chose to. But I don't know if there's seven that are that are ready to break completely. But ask me again in a week, ask me again in two weeks. How aggressive does Russell Voight, the O and B director get and trying to potentially

fire furloughed government employees? Is it? Is it aggressive? So? I think some of the reaction and some of the

stiffness of the spine. How stiff will the democratic spine be depends I think on how aggressive omb is in using the shutdown to maybe reorient government permanently in some form or another. So we're, you know, like with many things with Trump urban uncharted territory, unlike the previous shutdown. With Trump, he's got a he's got two aids who

know their way around the bureaucracy. Russell Void's been thinking about this for years as the author of Project twenty twenty five, and Stephen Miller understands how to manipulate the bureaucracy in ways that are pretty much second to none of any presidential aid I've ever covered, regardless of what you think of his politics, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable on how to on the co essentially the legal code, and on the ability to sort of tinker with the federal government.

We saw it during the pandemic, how we used it to shut down the border, came up with sort of some interesting, unique ways in rationales to do it. And so you know, that's that to me, is the uncharted territory that we're entering and that we don't know a lot about, and we don't know how aggressive and where

this has headed. But I think if there's a big danger for the Democrats besides what I just outlined with the aggressiveness of Trump, the other one is whether the public is just paying attention, whether even the activists, whether this is turning into action, whether it does fire up folks, or if there's sort of an exhaustion that comes with this, because again, the Democrats have never been on this side of a government shutdown, and we're going to see a

lot of conservative media sites re treading all these quotes from the Chuck Schumers over the years of Nancy Pelosi's talking about clean CRS, government shutdowns, are bad, they should never happen, etc. Etc. Etc. And that could take the toll as well, and how much of all of that gets traction. But this gets it to a larger issue, which is actually what I tackle. By the way, it's

worth noting the Pew Center came out with some new poll polling that happened to hit today, and what they had is they had some favorable unfavorable ratings on the congressional leaders. And what's interesting is just how unpopular Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is the new Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell was always the most unpopular of the four political leaders when

it was McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi, and McCarthy. McConnell was always far and away the most unpopular because McConnell was the only one that had negative ratings among Democrats and negative ratings among Republicans. Well, Chuck Schumer, welcome to Mitch McConnell country. He not only has negative ratings among Republicans, but he has a negative ratings just narrowly, thirty nine unfavorable thirty

five favorable among Democrats. By the way, Jeffrey's numbers are not bad overall, he's got good numbers among Democrats two to one on that favorable rating overall. That allows him to have a thirty to twenty four, so he's he's got some he's got some room here. He's sort of got a net positive view, which is rare for a gouvernile. John Thune, the least known of the of the of the current set of four, also has a net positive. He's narrowly net negative. Je excuse me, I read this wrong.

Jeffreys is narrowly net negative. But his positive rating with Republicans is with Democrats, is better than for instance, thunes p a a rating is among Republicans. Sorry for confusing that there a little bit, but the real headline of this is Chuck Schumer is unpopped, more unpopular among Democrats than he is popular among Democrats. And that also means he's going to be really resistant to caving because he's really afraid of the base. It's the base that's the

most angry with Schumer. He sort of mismanaged the communication of the first one. I think he made the right call, but he spent a day talking up a shutdown and then completely reversed course, which is what really I think angered the left. He sort of he led him on and then he yanked the carpet from underneath them. I think on this one, he's going to want to stick

it out longer. Well put it this way, If he's interested in running again and he's up in twenty twenty eight, he's going to probably care more about what the base thinks of this shutdown than what swing voters think of this. Show them. But this gets to the sort of larger dilemma that I think democrats face, and it's the subject of my substack column. I encourage you to go subscribe. I don't charge any it's all free. I don't charge for this podcast. It's all free. I do not want

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I view that as myself helping a whole bunch of independent journalism. There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. Morgan and Morgan fought back ended

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you need somebody to get your back. Check out for Thepeople dot Com, Slash podcast or Dow Pound Law Pound five to two nine law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. But in the substec I talk about this democratic dilemma, and that is if Democrats want if a Democrat wants to win the White House in twenty twenty eight, just saying Donald Trump is an existential threat and a dictator

and a fascist isn't going to cut it, because in order to win the presidency, you're going to have to win over some Trump voters. So and in order to have a conversation with us Trump voters, you're going to have to admit that Trump was right about some things. And you can do it in a way. You know that Trump has identified problems, He's just been terrible at solving them. In fact, his solutions make things worse in some cases. Right, he's trying to return manufacturing back to America.

His transactional tariff policy, which is turning us into a kleptocracy, is a horrendous way to do this, Terrible for the economy, terrible for the consumer, and doing nothing to bring manufacturing back. But what the voters, You got to sort of understand what the voters were voting for when they voted for Trump in sixteen, and then they did it again in twenty four. It's almost like the old Verizon commercial. Can

you hear me? Now? You know, Democrats misinterpreted the twenty twenty election. They thought the voters were like, Yep, Donald Trump was a mistake, This is an accident of history, and he needs to be Trump and Trump is that needs to be excommunicated essentially from mainstream American political debate. That's not what the voters were saying. By the way, if Joe Biden had had four hundred electoral votes, you could have made the case that that's what the voters

were saying. If he did have but Joe Biden, while he won every swing stay but North Carolina, it only would have taken a couple, you know, a couple of hundred thousand, basic about one hundred thousand plus votes for Trump to win the electoral college. Right. It wasn't a landslide. It wasn't some sort of massive repudiation of trump Ism. What it was was a bunch of swing voters exhausted from COVID and wanting off the roller coaster. But it wasn't a repudiation of the reason why Trump got elected

in the first place. You know, and I think when you now, I think we have to view Trump's election and this and this is sort of the blueprint that I think any successful Democrat in twenty twenty eight has to follow. And that is, you know, in fifteen, when Donald Trump essentially launched his candidacy by going after John McCain and the Bush family, many of us stuck in some conventional thinking, myself included, thought, well, that's a mistake.

Republicans are not going to tolerate that. They're going to punish him for that. It turns out, and I don't think Trump knew this is what he was doing by doing it. He just did it because it was his instinct. He just got angry at people who didn't take him seriously. This was no strategy. But you know, and I think the biggest sometimes we all try to look for a strategy, and with Trump, Trump just sort of stumbles into these things.

But the voters have a strategy, okay, And that's where I think Democrats in general have the respect voter decision here a lot better than they go about doing it right now, by signaling that he was willing to take on McCain and Bush. He signaled he was a different type of Republican, that he wasn't going to be the same type of Republican that they were used to that

was doing essentially nothing but losing elections for them. Going back to George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush winning only the popular vote once right, John McCain

met Ronniey. It singles that he's different, he's willing to buck his party made him, gave him an independent credential. So suddenly you had non Republicans going, huh, I'm curious what that guy's up to. I want to check that out. And so, yes, the sixteen election was more of a vote against Clinton than it was a vote for Trump. But Trump was a vehicle to say, no, we don't

want establishment status quote politics. Right. Biden essentially won promising status quot politics because the pandemic had so exhausted everybody from Trump's roller coaster that, yeah, that is what the public wanted. Now, Biden didn't bring that, right, Biden didn't do that. Biden instead governed very aggressively farther to the left than he had a mandate for, and they attempted repudiation in their form of Essentially, the movement wanted to

excommunicate Trump and trump Ism. And I think the reason the voter ended up rallying around Trump was not because they liked Trump, but they didn't want all of us to forget the initial message in the first place, the same power, the same message that was sent by electing Barack Obama, the same message that was sent by electing Donald Trump, which is, we don't want the same old,

same old. We want something entirely different. We want not restoration preservation, We want annihilation, if you will, of the way things work, and a rebuilding and renewal of some sort. And in order to talk to that voter that didn't like the way things have been going, who's been a Literally they voted Obama, they voted Trump, they voted Biden, they went back to Trump. Right, Who are these unsatisfied people? Right? They feel they don't love their ability to move up

the economic ladder. It feels like there's a whole bunch of rungs missing between them and the upper middle class,

Like they'd love to reach for it, but they can't even get there. Income inequality has gotten worse, so there's I think it's that disconnect that a future. So I say this and that in order to have a conversation with the very voters that reluctantly voted for Trump. These people don't like them. This is great. I was telling you about a focus group last week that I observed out of Michigan of Biden Trump voters. And there's one voter going on and on not liking all the power

that he's accumulating. I worry he wants to be a dictator, this voter said. And then like, well, do you approve of the job he's doing? Yeah, I'd say it. Do you regret your vote? No? I don't regret my vote. So they, you know, they kind of already know that he doesn't really have the temperament for the job and isn't really and is going too far in what they want him to do the latter, but they wanted something.

They wanted somebody to attempt something. Their biggest fear on Kamala Harris was that she wasn't going to change things. She was gonna be status quo. And you know, look, it was revealing in her own memoir when she said she underestimated the need that people wanted to know she was going to be a lot different from Joe Biden. She thought her mere presence was enough to indicate she'd

be different from Joe Biden. I think we've learned in politics you got to say something over and over again, and you sometimes have to make a symbolic sacrifice at

the altar of sorts in order to prove to this group of voters no, no, no, no, you're going to be different in one form or another. And I say all that in that I know that some on the left don't want to hear that. That you can't acknowledge that Trump's gotten has identified some issues that the Democrats have failed to address, and that the threat to democracy that he presents is such a front and center threat that

that needs to be the focal point. The problem is, I don't think the voters you need to win are interested in that conversation, and they still want to know what are you going to do for them? They understand what he's doing, it's still going to come back of what are you going to do for me? And what are you going to do about these problems he's identified? Are you going to do something about it? So you know,

I think about it. Going back to Bill Clinton in the eighties, the Democrats spent the eighties trying to repudiate Reagan and Reaganism. Even in eighty eight, the campaign wasn't trying to sort of accept the premise that Reagan was a successful two term president. There was still the DNA of the Democrats in eighty eight was no, the Republicans were wrong about everything. By ninety two, after another shellacking in eighty eight, Bill Clinton's was not sitting here repudiating

everything Reagan did. In fact, I always say that you know, you knew Reagan won the argument when in nineteen ninety five Bill Clinton said the air of big government is over right when a Democrat said that, just like I believe in some ways. Barack Obama won the argument on entitlements when Donald Trump is out there campaigning saying Social Security and Medicare cannot be touched, right, that is you know, that was the central argument he said of the twenty

twelve campaign between Obama and Romney. Ryan and Donald Trump said, you know, Obama was right. He doesn't say it that way, but he's essentially saying it, which opened the door for him to have a conversation with a whole bunch of other voters who basically, while they may have agreed with Republicans and a lot of the cultural issues, just didn't trust them on issues like social security and healthcare. And then Donald Trump found a way to have that conversation

by saying no, no, no, I hear you on that. It's a similar vibe. You got to get somewhere where, whether it's crime in the cities, security at the border, skepticism of big tech, getting other countries to share the burden of global security. You do it in a way. You could say, hey, look, he's identified these problems, but he's chosen ways that actually make it worse, doesn't make it better,

or he you know. Essentially, Democrats would be better served by running Trump against Trump, saying, hey, you know, Trump said he was going to do this. I was hoping that he actually might follow through on something. The guy

never follows through in everything. But it's too bad, and here's something but I and then you have days like what happened Tuesday, where Trump behaves in such an Unamerican way, behaves in pretty much the worst way a commander in chief could ever behave in front of America's uniformed military leaders.

And I understand why there are some on the left that just can't stomach the idea that gift accept the premise that there are some things his presidency has identified that voters like. All Right, I get it. I mean what he did in front of the uniform military was outrageous, the essentially declaring war on American citizens. You know, he's

really put these military leaders in an impossible situation. None of them have been given an illegal order yet, and I think the moment, you know, if you're wondering, why aren't there should there be mass resignations. I've talked to plenty of my friends that have served, and I've asked them about this, whether they're they're disappointed that there hasn't been resignations in the upper echelons and military rank to this just clown show that is Pete hag Saith and

what Trump has been doing by essentially desperately trying to politicize the military, pit the military, you know, essentially say the military has to be pro MAGA and they say, you know, until he until he issues an un constitutional order, unlawful order. You know, if you're gonna if the whole goal of the military is to stay above politics. A political you salute whoever the people of the country decide

to elect to that office. Then the way they behave today is exactly correct, or excuse me, behaved on Tuesday is exactly correct. Yes, I'm doing this on a Tuesday evening going into tomorrow, and it's it's frankly, I think we should be proud of the fact that they stood there silently. They made it as awkward as possible for hag Seth and Trump up there. They put the country first. They put their rank and file first. They put the military ahead of politics, ahead of ahead of whatever they

thought they had to do. They showed up because they were ordered to. Now, it's kind of pathetic that that

hag Seth is trying to lecture a whole bunch of people that have gotten a whole lot of more promotions than he ever got went in the military, and he's trying to lecture these guys about what a warrior ethosays. Oh, to be a oh to be a fly in their brains as they were thinking about about about this, but just think about where you don't you don't really you didn't earn the respect, but you have to beg for it.

You have to demand it. Man whoever wants to be in a position where they have to beg for respect. If you are in a position of leadership and you have not earned the respect of the people you're leading, it's on you. You've done something wrong here. So today's spectacle is and it is it is alarming. It is everything that folks that plenty of folks are saying, and

it is going to be the counter that many have to what I'm saying about. If you're gonna if you're gonna sort of win back voters who left the Democratic Party, you're gonna have to acknowledge the reason why they left, and you're going to have to acknowledge that there were some things that Trump tapped into that the Democrats failed on. So it's I get it instinctively, you're alarmed and want to fight over here. But in some ways he's the one trying to bait everybody. He wants those debates on

his terms. He would love for people to spend all this time criticizing him about military and how he's trying to use it to deal with crime in the streets. What he would be have a harder time dealing with is when you're like, boy, you know, well he's right about getting manufacturing. He's too bad. He's taking too many bribes from companies in different ways that he's been that he's had his own personal wealth enhands in lieu of actually doing what he promised to do. So you're better off,

particularly in a democracy that I still think is functioning here. Okay, I know it's we are not in a great place. By the way, the number two most important issue to voters who volunteered, the New York Times did not give them a list. Number one was the economy and number two was political division. It was the only two issues that got double digits. And again I liked the way the Times did it. They did not offer a list

of issues and asked the respondents to pick. They said, what's the most important issue, and they just waited for them to say. It is the better way to figure out what are the issues that voters care about most? You ask them and you let them. You don't prod them, you don't push them, You let them tell you. The fact that political division was two. The fact that we are now this poll and another one over sixty percent think we have a problem with political division in this country.

Another poll identified it as a political crisis. There's no doubt that that that the country is going to be looking for a leader that's going to figure out how to bring us together. But part of being able to bring us together is acknowledging you know what it is that that Trump tapped into that the Democratic Party needs to lean into more. It is Wednesday, which also means

I've got a new top five list, the top est top five top to jest stop. And here's something that I am pledging to do is that the first the first Wednesday of every month when I have in which is October first, I will do Senate races up until November of twenty twenty six, and the second Wednesday of

every month, I'll do a top five involving governor's races. So my top five involving center races today are simply this the top five center races that are most likely to switch parties. I'm not saying any of these five are going to switch parties, but they're the in order of most likely to switch to Essentially, in this case, it's the five most competitive races in the country, but in the order of most likely to flip so number one on that list is North Carolina, the open seat there.

We've had a little bit of early polling. You've got somebody who's held state wide office versus somebody who hasn't. Right, Michael Wattley has it as essentially the Republican nominee to be and the Democratic nominee to be. Roy Cooper has one state wide office multiple times. But you already see it's it's I think I've seen two different polls and they both basically have shown the same thing. Cooper's got a but it's all within the margin of era forty six,

forty two, forty seven, forty four. And guess what, that's what the numbers are going to be between now and November. This will be, as the cliche goes, all about turnout. But I do think since this is a Republican held seat, the Democrats a slight favor right, I would probably make if you want to do it as point spreads here, I'd probably make Cooper a one and a half point favorite here a little bit, but you know that's when you're talking about margins that small. It doesn't take much

to lose this race. But when you look at it for the rest of the map, and I think it shows you how tough the path is for Democrats to pick up the four seats they need to win the Senate when the best shot at flipping a seat that

they have is essentially a coin flip on its own, right, you need your third or fourth seat to be the coin flip. And the fact is they're not anywhere near that. They might get there. We'll see with recruiting. So right now, this one year and one month out from election day twenty twenty six, number one most likely Senate seat to flip North Carolina number two. I didn't put an open seat there. I think the last time I did this, I said, I usually prioritize open seats, but I have

as off there. I think the John Assoft seat, Georgea's Senate seat is all the polling have indicated. He's got a narrow lead, just like Cooper. Right, nothing's big, I am. I am not as convinced as others that George's a pure swing state. I think Georgia is a organizing state that Democrats, oh, you know, sort of have to a lot of things have to go right for them to win state wide races. The last time John Osoft was

on the ballot. Rafael Warnock was also on the ballot with them when we had the two Senate seats at the same time. How much did that matter with mobilizing African American vote. I think it's worth something can Assoff generate the same enthusiasm as Reverend Warnock. That's an open question. When you look at other statewide races in Georgia, right, it is, Yes, Biden carried it in twenty twenty, Harris

got close but lost it. One governor's race there has been fairly close, but the second but the one in twenty twenty two wasn't that close. It's still an uphill battle for Democrats to win state. White race is sort of in a generic environment. I'm not saying this is going to be a generic environment, and a lot of this may depend on who the primary is. But when you just look at the demographics of the state and sort of just by the pure numbers, I put Georgia

as the second most likely to flip. And again the fact that Georgia is above other Republican held seats. You know, this is why the Democratic path to winning four seats to get control of the same The path is so narrow that right now it's not visible. I'm not saying it might not become visible, but right now it is not visible. Number Three, I'm the most likely to flip. I put the open seat in Michigan. Mike Rogers is not going to have a primary. That's a big advantage.

The Democratic primary is going to be messy, it's going to be fascinating, it's going to be telling. In many ways. I think it's a preview of what to expect in a twenty twenty eight Democratic presidential primary. You have sort of different flavors. You have sort of an establishment favored in Haley Stevens. You're going to have sort of an outsider but sort of in the mainstream wing of the party in Molly McMorrow. And then you have a more

progressive candidate Abdul Sayed. And so I'll do alll sayat sorry, And I think that's very representative of what you're going to see. Some outsiders that are mainstream. You're going to see some progressives that are exciting the base, and it could create a very messy primary. It could be very

hard to unify. But we don't know yet. And I still think there's a slight Blue lean to Michigan generically, which is why I have it further down on the list than Georgia on there as remember, right now Michigan is a Democratic held seat, but it is you know, if you look at the open seats, the Democratic open seats Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Illinois, Michigan is the best shot that Republicans have of winning one of those open seats.

But I still actually think Georgia right now is still a better shot for them than any of the open Democratic seats. I'll be doing these monthly, so this list could change. Number four on the list. I tell you I've vacillated on this. I went back and forth. I had three different seats in this slot over the last few hours as I was having these debates. I ended

up settling on Maine at number four. I do think Susan Collins is very difficult to beat, but I also think this is Susan Collins has never attempted to run for reelection this unpopular before. Her favorable ratings are as low as they've ever been. Her unfavorable rating in Maine is as high as it's ever been. I am not gonna underestimate her ability to win elections, and this is not a presidential year. I always thought she'd be more

vulnerable in a presidential year. So we'll see. We could have an intense primary here if the governor Janet Mills does get in and it becomes sort of establishment versus progressive primary with the oyster farmer. Let's see what happens. I will say this, I think if Janet Mills runs, she'd better come across more enthusiastic about wanting to be a Senator than she has so far. The way that she sort of kept her likely candidacy alive has been this sort of if it's the mindset, I have to

if you twist my arm. You know one thing about Susan Collins. She loves being in the Senate. I don't know if it always plays well with voters. I get that you may be a reluctant partisan and maybe you don't want to do that, but are you reluctant to actually do the job? I don't want to be in Washington, Okay, then don't run for the office. Right So I'm a

little I'm gonna be if she runs. I'm very curious to see what her rollout is because she needs to show a lot more enthusiasm for this race, I think to win it. Then she's shown so far and in the number five slot. If I vacillated a bunch with Maine, I always was going to have Maine in my top five. For this fifth slot, I condemplated three different races. New Hampshire right, it's an open seat. Johnny Soon whu news being recruited heavily. It looks like he's more likely than not.

Big baseball card collector, by the way, really great collection. His is all pre war. He's real super old school in that. Scott Brown has not been polling as well. I understand why Republicans think he's he's he's not electable there. I still think that he would run a competitive race against Chris Pappas, but there's no doubt all the polling has shown that, you know, the Chris sonun who hangover effect I think has really helped Johnson, Who's name idea.

What's funny is is well Johnson Who's no trumpy trumper. He was much more of a conservative ideologically than his brother. But his brother's governorship I've seen very much through a moderate lens, and I think that spillover has really helped because and I think John would agree with me, his poll numbers look better today than they did when he when he ended up losing reelection the last time he ran for the Senate. So I don't know if he wants to admit that his younger brother might have helped

his political political brand a little bit. Ohio. With Shared Brown in the race, I cond of played putting that in five and then Iowa. I ultimately decided to go with New Hampshire because Sonunu looks like he's more likely to be in And I do think Sonunu that's a different ballgame, especially you're going to have real investment of a whole bunch of money that comes with it, so it'll become self fulfilling and we'll be staring at one of these one two three point races in New Hampshire.

I'll tell you my thinking on Ohio. I just don't know how Shared Brown gets to fifty right, I'm now ruling it out. I also think Brown has a complicated messaging challenge, which I've shared with you before. On tariffs. On one hand, the tariffs are are causing a lot of sort of consumer pain. On the other hand, tariffs are not a bad word to work in people in Ohio. When it comes to goods, perhaps you'll see a shared brown say, the food tariffs are bad, the the tariffs

on auto parts are good. The tariffs and cars are good. They're bad on food. And I'm kind of wondering if we're going to start to see that split because I've had a lot of conversations with labor leaders where you know, they like that Trump is willing to use tariffs. They liked that Biden was willing to use tariffs, particularly when it came to some of the to steal into some of those some of the sort of the non food tariffs, right, but the tariffs on ag are really causing pain. The

tariffs on coffee are causing all of us pain. So I wonder if you're going to start to see an attempt by Democrats who are still trying to win labor back and labor union members back, finding a way to split at the attack on tariffs and essentially go after the food tax, tariffs on AG and hurting farmers and try to sort of create a create a sort of a separate distinction with the steel tariffs and the auto tariffs, and then I contemplated Iowa because of the open seat.

But I will tell you, Uh, look, I've been impressed without quickly Republicans have rallied around at Ashley Hinson's campaign. I still think this is going to be a competitive race. But another reason I kept it out of the five slot is I've been following a story and I don't know how many of you have, but I keep an eye the story about the des Moines superintendent who turned out to be not an American citizen that came to as a shock to a lot of people in des Moines.

He was apparently well regarded in his job, but somehow he was in this country illegally and had a deport deportation notice for over a year, and there was sort of an awkward you know, as usual. How Ice has been conducting itself has been horrendous, you know, sort of unnecessarily confrontational. But it doesn't mass the issue that apparently this now former des Moines superintendent. I believe he's resigned at this point, essentially lied to the school board of

des Moines. Well, guess what one of the people running for the US Senate, Jackie Norris, is on the Des Moines School Board. This story hasn't finished playing out, but I wonder how much this sets back Democrats in the state. Generically, it may end up being a non issue a year from now, but it isn't a net positive for the Democratic brand, and I think that's fair to say. Again, let's see this whole story play out, make sure we have all the facts on this, But it was I've

been following the story pretty closely. It's like, you're just like, wait, what when I saw that that Ice had detained the

superintendent of schools and he was not an American citizen? How did this happen? Right? There's a lot that needs to be unpacked with this story. But to say that it's it's super high profile in the largest media market in the state, so it's going to get its share of attentions. In what I would call my others receiving votes category, they're not near the top five yet, but

who's to say they won't get there. Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota Republicans have had a surprisingly hard time finding a credible candidate in the Minnesota open seat. Alaska and Louisiana still

waiting for some candidate things to develop there but anyway, the five right now most likely to flip my top five right now, thirteen months from election day North Carolina one, Georgia two, Michigan three, Main four, New Hampshire five. So with that, let's do a few questions. Ask Chuck all right. First question comes from Luke anyway, Hey, Chuck, technical clarification question.

I keep hearing Republicans saying that the Democrats are going to shut down the government for quote, illegal immigrants to get healthcare. Is this true? Are the subsidies in question really just for undocumented immigrants? If not, and I suspect not, then why is this lie so pervasive and unquestion? I haven't heard left leaning outlets discuss this point, and it makes me wonder how much of a kernel of truth is in the claim that Dems are unwilling to admit.

Are Democrats able to handle this talking point without fracturing what's left of their coalition? Thanks in advance, love the show, Luke. So, Luke, look, no, the answer is no, it's not true. Now. What happened before is that they discovered that some people who were here, undocumented people were somehow accessing some benefits because perhaps they were with somebody or had a child who is an American citizen who was getting benefits. Right, that's if you're

looking for the kernel truth truth. It's not the parents may be here illegally, but their kid is here legally. They do have access to the medicaid, to these various things, but the parent doesn't. So I'll let you decide. Can you say, are the parents that are not of legal status in this country benefiting because their child who does have legal status is getting a benefit? You see where

I'm going here. So, if you're looking for the kernel of truth, which many on the right would say, you know, democrats are claiming it's not true, but you know they're benefiting from this, et cetera. So that's the semantic you'd be debating over. But no, nobody who's here illegally is supposed to be eligible for this. But if you are an American citizen, and then you are. And so where the gray area is is the children who are here who were born here to folks who are not of

legal status. I hope that helps a little bit in the clarification. Next question comes from will E says, Hey, Chuck, your commentary was spot on. I just don't know which commentary. I'll keep going because aren't they all sorry? I think that's what you have to do as a podcast host now, right, is I have to overinflate my ego and how say how smart and great? I am? Right? Isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Anyway? I digress, But anyway, I went to my first Wisconsin game in over fifteen years

and it was ugly student section channing fire. Fickle friends texting me, f fickle, don't see how he makes it for the rest of the season. The bye this weekend is going to be our best weekend for the rest

of the season. Enjoy the show. So obviously, what he's saying is my commentary on football was spot on. I appreciate. Thank you. And by the way, some of you are probably asking me, weren't you at a football game this weekend? How come you didn't talk about it in the last show. I'll tell you in the second here, but I want to get through a couple more questions. This next one

comes from Deborah You. Hey, Chuck love the podcast. Your recent discussion on polls showing democrats less interested in talking with Republicans really resonated with me. Many of us have tried to have rational, civil conversations with Trump supporters, presenting facts, listening, seeking common ground, but it feels futile. I consider myself moderate and open to compromise, yet too often the loudest UOP voices drown out dialogue with outrage and hypocrisy, leaving

me exhausted and disheartened. Well, Deborah, I would just say start with people in your family that that you know, Start with people you work with, or people in your neighborhood that that you that you know are on the other side, and try it that way. I think if you have some sort of previous relationship that isn't political with somebody, that's where you can start to break, just to sort of break the ice and thaw things out

a little bit. I try humor. You know. Look, I I have learned over I have my own ways that I you know, I consider myself pretty good at reading people. I kind of know where I think people will go. So, you know, if I don't know somebody very well, I usually try to connect on another subject first, sports or weather or you know, if you're on an airplane, you know the frustrations of flying or something, you know, sort

of non controversial like that. But I think it feels like what you're describing is having a conversation with somebody that's super online. And I will say, there's no I've tried to have civil conversations with pen pals. I have quite a few pen piles I've I've accumulated over the years. Some of you may be listening now that are regular pen piles with me. Where Frankly, if you if you email me, I usually will respond if you're fairly civil,

even if you're tough and discree. You know, I don't think you you know, I really you're always you know, given a pass to this side or giving a pass to that side. You know, as long as you're not like filled with venom, I'm usually going to respond and try to have a civil back and forth because frankly, I'm always trying to learn. I'm trying to understand the you know, what is it that has you exercised? Maybe it's something I'm missing, So I always think there's something

to learn. But when the person's super online and they're just sort of you know, you know, they they spend more time reading cat Turd fifty two or whatever that right wing meme Twitter feed is or TikTok feed. I just call them all cat turns. But I think one of them is called cat turd fifty two. Is it? Maybe it's cat turd ninety six. I don't know, you know, I mean, it's like they're all Mike Lee, right, I

don't know. Senator Mike Lee is like somebody who can't have a conversation with anymore because he's just gotten just he calls himself based Mike Lee, right, like in weird way, he's at least admitting that he's, Hey, I am unk on this, and he is sort of drunk on online mega right. And I guess he's sort of like the reverse reform smoker, right. He was. He was anti he was an anti trumper from the beginning, and then when he flipped a maga, he decided, I'm going to smoke

four packs a day. You're not going to have a rational debate with with somebody who's who's that online? So I guess, you know it. It's certainly a better conversation to be had in person then it will be, uh, you know, digitally anyway. But it probably is best to start off with somebody you might have a pre existing relationship with even if it's something as innocuous as you're dry cleaner, or you know somebody you just happen to see while you're walking your neighborhood all the time. Next

question comes from Gail in Woodinville, Washington. Hey, Chuck, so glad I discovered the toodcast me too. Tell your friends. Uh, our numbers are growing a lot. Uh, that's for sure. You know again, I think of Sister Pound in my chest. We're the fastest growing podcast in you know this section three, two four five. So anyway, I'm sort of kidding. I know hindsight is twenty twenty, but do you think the country would be better off now if Trump had been

re elected in twenty twenty. I've heard this argument. For the sake of argument. Let's forget that many of us probably would have died from COVID under his leadership. But had he been reelected, Mike Pence would have been VP, and we might never have known of JD. Vance. Trump and his clown posse might have been bumbled through the second term. With more guardrails. There would have been no

indictments or prosecutions to trigger his revenge to her. There wouldn't have been the four years from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty five to develop Project twenty twenty five and give Stephen Miller the opportunity to consolidate power, and best of all, Trump would be out of office right now. What do you think? Keep up the great work, Gale.

I have had this conversation. I have humored this conversation, and with various friends of mine on this front, it's a it's as as you know, I'm going to have a what if series coming up, and what I do is sort of forks in the road. You know, what if this would have happened instead of this? In the past, I've done what if Hillary Clinton had run for president in two thousand and four instead of two thousand and eight, which you've actually won the presidency in two thousand and four.

I certainly make the argument that her best chance was two thousand and four, more so than eight or sixteen for a variety of reasons. What if Bill Clinton had resigned in nineteen ninety eight, as many Democrats wanted him do in the peak of Monica Lewinsky, then you would have had a President Gore running for a full term

in two thousand. What is that election like nine eleven, still happens, but this time it's ten straight years of democratic So you see, how you know, you start to go down these roads, and so anyway you have well, I'll tell you this, you have potentially helped preview one of the what ifs that I want to go down because I think this is it is true. This is a more damaging presidency to the sort of guard rails of American democracy than if he had served two consecutive terms.

There's no doubt about it. It's an interesting question though, whether I think it's weirdly, I think we need another twenty years to figure out whether it was better or not. You know, do any of the Biden policies work, And if they do, you know you're going to have to consider those as well. So I think it's I understand

where you're coming from. I think there's there's certainly when you look at the when you look at this the what he's done so far and not even through year one, and what I've said earlier about Steven Miller, and we'll see how the shutdown goes. I think it's put it this way, Donald Trump is a much weaker figure inside the Republican Party if he had won reelection, and he'd have been a much weaker figure sooner inside the party. And maybe Democrats control the Senate after twenty twenty two

in a bigger way, not a smaller way. Maybe their map is more navigable, right Like, I could certainly paint a very rosy picture for Democrats right now, but it's anyway. The point is is I think this is a discussion that you should look forward to on the Chuck Podcast towards the end of the holiday season, when I will do my annual what if series that I've done in

my previous iterations of the Chuck Podcast. Do you search them? Some of these episodes NBC's taken off the website, but some of them you can find. But it's I call it my what if series, so you can check it out from there. Do one more question, and then I'll give you a quick little update about my football travels. This next question comes from Cold Tea. Oh. The question is, Hey, Chuck,

hopefully you've seen this crazy story. The Des Moines superintendent was arrested by ice, which is crazy enough, but it could also take down the leading Democratic Senate candidate, Jackie Norris. Who was chair of the schooloard wild stuff in Iowa. No one seems to know what is true or not. You just summarized everything I was saying earlier with my top five list and why I didn't put Iowa in that fitth spot because I want to see this story finished playing out. It is wild. If you don't know

the story, it does feel it's amazing people that love. Look, the superintendent was beloved by many people, and they don't want to leave the facts that apparently are in this case. And that's why I think the the fallout from this could be more damaging to the Democratic brand. I again, I'm I want to wait. I'm not gonna lie. I want to wait a little bit to just let's get all the facts out. Let's see what everything looks like.

Is he is everything that's been said true that he you know about a weapon in his car, cash, et cetera. He was the second superintendent job. I mean, it's sort of like does anybody do any vetting anywhere in this country on this front? So there's a there's a more information I want to know, But I thought Cole, you summarized it well. Have you seen this crazy story you

couldn't have made up a story like this right as a plot line. And this is always a reminder when you're whenever I'm trying to write fictional political storylines. For the various attempts I've done for political fiction, story like this happens, and you're like, how do you manufacture fiction when the truth is so much crazier? All right, I will tell you I was at that crazy Dallas Green Bay game. I think I sort of hinted that I was going to that, which in full sort of toodcast

behind the curtain plotting. You know what that meant is that Monday podcast I taped before I left for Dallas on Sunday morning. I went down Sunday, came back Monday, so it was a quick trip. My son's doing great. Thanks for asking. I know some of you are at least thinking that, so I thought I would pre answer that question. But I'll tell you this. I'll we get to the game and it feels it felt like sixty

forty Cowboys to Packers fans. There were Packers fans everywhere, and I know some of it is like, oh, you know, we're Packers fans, so all we're seeing are the other Packers fans, But when the teams came out, you felt the cheers and early on, and of course the Packers got a quick start thirteen to nothing, and here they're about to kick the extra point, and you could just feel the Dallas fans were like, oh, this is going exactly as I feared. US Packer fans were as cocky

as ever. And then they blocked that extra point and run back for two points and it's instead of fourteen to nothing, it's thirteen to two. And I just sit there and look at my son. I'm like, what the second week in a row we're getting We get that field goal block with the Browns and then this extra point block, so we just are stewing from here on out.

We stopped and joined the game. We're angry at Rich Bisaccia, who's the special teams coach, who a bunch of US Packer fans have been like, get rid of this guy. The special teams is atrocious. It's been atrocious for two years now. And then every single time on the kickoff, the Packers didn't know the rules. They kept the ball bouncing the landing zone and they'd take it in the end zone thinking they were getting it at the thirty five, and they did it multiple times and it comes out

to the twenty. All these little hidden yardages, and then there was the bizarre play calling of Lafleur at the end of the first half, end of the regulation, and at the end of the overtime. This was one of those where so the game ends in a tie and the Dallas fans felt like they won something and all of us Packer fans felt like we lost. This was not one of those where everybody, eh, and you didn't. I'm sorry, I didn't leave gone. Boy, that was a great game. It was not a great game. The Packers

played terribly. The Cowboys. It was really interesting. They were playing afraid for the first quarter and a half. It was like they did not want Michael Parsons to even get a chance to sack backs. They didn't even bother to pass the ball, or if they did, it would be like a quick strop and a little dump off. Then they get this two point conversion and it's like Schottenheimer coach decided, you know what, there are other plays

in the playbook, why not? And you know the way football is, right, it's like a this this game felt like one of those college games where a highly ranked team is visiting an unranked team and they let the unranked team hang around, and then all of a sudden, the unranked team realize they have a chance to win and they start playing the best game of their lives. George Pickens, who's never consistent when he's on a football field, paid attention and seem to actually participate in the offense

almost one hundred percent of the plays. And guess what, when he's fully paying attention, he's a dangerous threat. The Packers couldn't get a pass rush. They were only you know, the whole key to the Packers is just that doing that four man pass rush, the assumption was they were going to get to Dak and they couldn't get to him. Really until the overtime did they finally seem to figure that out. But Schottenheimer out coached Halfley, and we hadn't

seen Halfley out coach. So the Packers are are what are we now? Two to one and one? And it just feels off right, And now you got to ask yourself, was was the Lions game sort of an anomaly where the Packers simply a little bit more ready and the Lions weren't they were still in preseason mode, because all of a sudden, they look like the best team in that division, and the Packers are not playing like the

best team in that division. So what I have to say, I think that's a full indictment on the coaching staff, from Halflee to Lafleor to Bisacia, Bisacia, this is I don't. I admire that Lafleur is very loyal to his coaches, but he kept the defensive coordinator a season too long. And I think it's painfully obvious with these new special teams rules that nobody on the team seems to know that they probably kept the special teams coach a season too long on this front, And if you follow Packer,

you know, for those of you that follow the Packer stuff closely, you know that most Packer fans are raging right now about that more than ever on the college front. Look, it was just a great game, great weekend of games, and it was great to not have to worry about the Hurricanes to be in that. I will say this, I'm a little bummed that Florida State lost that Uva game on Friday night because what that sets up is a more desperate Florida State team against Miami this Saturday.

This is another big test for crystabal Right, there's there was a couple of coaches that have high ranked teams that have not been able to win the big game. James Franklin at Penn State, Mario Cristobal whether he was at Oregon or at Miami. You know, are you going to be able to win? Be able to you know, not lose a dumb game. I think Christa Ball passed one test against Florida when they played not their best game. That's a game they would have lost last year, and

they figured out how to win it this year. This is the first road test against a team that's more desperate to win than Miamias. You know, can we do? We do? We treat it as a business trip and we go up there and just out physical them. There's no reason why they shouldn't. But Florida State's now a bit more desperate. I would have preferred a more hyped up Florida State team thinking that they're going to go nose for nose and would have would have had a

little bit more attention on that. But it's uh. I'm looking forward to Saturday night in Tallahassee. But I'm not gonna lie. I wish they had won that Friday game because I think in some ways they're going to be a bit more desperate, which means they're going to be playing whatever that means, right, just slightly slightly with more urgency, more entire because or State has to win if they want to get there. Because I think one thing we know is true, ten and two ACC teams are not

getting into the playoff. We already found that out. Miami found out the hard way. You're gonna have to be eleven and one in the regular season. You can have two losses, but your second loss has to come in in that conference title game. So Florida State has to. If they accumulate their second loss, I think they go down where the only shot they have would be to win the conference a lah Clemson last year, So we

shall see. That's coming up. By the way, I want to share one more totally inane fact and for five of you you'll find this funny or weird, or maybe you think, why the hell is he sharing this? But I did something that I have never done. I swear in my entire life. I got to the end of a chapstick too. I am one of those people. I

never have chapstick when I need it. So you go and you're always buying new ones, always buying new ones, and then you find year old stuff and all this stuff, right, and over time I end up with my little sticks of chapstick. You know, I got one near my my keys are, and one in my car, and one near my bed and all these different things. Right, Well, I finally worked. I think I had this stick of chapstick

for three years. I didn't know you could ever get to an end of a chapstick tube, but I finally, for the first time in my life, made it to the end of the chapstick tube. I feel like I've finally not wasted money for once on all the unused chapstick that I have lost over the years. I'm sure it's all with all of my missing pairs of sunglasses

as well. So with that piece of inane trivia that I hear that podcasters are supposed to share with their with their listeners and viewers, I'm gonna call it for twenty four hours and we'll see it when we upload again.