Chuck’s Commentary - Democratic Dysfunction On Full Display + Branding Protest As “Hating America” Is Un-American

up to here. I actually have a notebook of items I want to get to sort of I'm gonna sit here and say, have one giant theme to me, it's stuff that I want to alert you guys to that

I want to surface sort of things that I think are percolating, that are coming around the corner. But we're going to go ahead and start with a quick update on the shutdown. And I say that because I don't,

you know, there's really nothing to update. As my friend and Brendan Buck tweeted our early on Wednesday, he said, there was not a single story I think it was in the Wall Street Journal of the Washington Post about any update on the shutdown, and it was just it's it is not having a impact in the larger media space. And again it goes back to one reason. You know, we are now organized. Whether that's good or I'd saying this is a good thing, this is just the reality.

But the entire political media ecosystem is really organized around Trump,

and Trump's just not engaged at all in this shutdown. My friend George Conden, who works over at National Journal, he's been there a long time, long enough that he and I were colleagues at National Journal before I left to go to NBC. He did some terrific analysis on sort of the lack of engagement by this president on the shutdown issue, and he compared it to the big shutdown that happened in his first term and how engaged

he was in there. So I want to read a little bit from Condon's story here in National Journal this week. Since the current shutdown began in October one, Condon rights Trump has met in the Oval Office with the leaders of Canada and Finland. He's traveled to Israel in Egypt, and he's meeting this week with the presidents of Argentina and Ukraine. He has not met with any Democratic Party leaders. While the trip Israel in Egypt made a lot of

sense no matter what. It is worth noting that Trump is also planning later this month to go to Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. These are more routine trips. Their meetings with these various international associations at the United States dabbles in the Asia Pacific Economic Conference APEK. It's known as the Association of Southeasts Asian Nations. These are all places that the United States likes to be a part of. They're basically collections of Asian countries that want to put

a check on China in some form or another. What's interesting is that these summits always take place around this time of year, and if we were in a government shutdown, both Bill Clinton Barack Obama didn't go to these events. If they were in the middle of a shutdown. Both of them thought it was a bad political look if

they were continuing the business of the country overseas, spending money overseas while people weren't getting paid there. And Donald Trump himself during and this is where Condon did some terrific analysis. In the thirty five days between December twenty second, twenty eighteen and the reopening of the government on January twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, Donald Trump tweeted. Back then he was tweeting there was no truth Social. He hadn't been

deplatformed from Twitter yet. He tweeted thirty seven times about the shutdown, and the post projected a mix of frustration and sense of urgency. That was the thirty five days. So far, we've been in this shutdown for fourteen days. Trump has posted only seven times on the shutdown on truth Social, and he's only posted twice since the second day, so twelve of those were in the first essentially thirty

six hours. But since then he has posted thirty two times on foreign policy, sixteen times in the Middle East, five times on the Nobel Peace Prize, eleven times on his grievances with the FBI, the Russia probe, and Jim Comy. It goes back to what I've said now for I don't know three straight podcast openings, which is this is going nowhere until Democrats find a way to engage Trump. The congressional Republicans cannot negotiate without Trump in the room.

They have no standing, right. Mike Johnson has no He cannot do this without Donald Trump. He has never been able to pass a vote without the help of Donald

Trump among House Republicans. So there is you know, the only entity to negotiate with is the White House, and the fact that Democrats can't get Trump to engage. Trump doesn't want to engage. Whatever it is. This and again, and I will say the same thing that I said twenty four hours ago. Every day now that this goes is one day less that this becomes politically. You know, I know that Democrats think they've won something out of

this so far, and I think that you can. I think it's clear that they've made healthcare a bit more front and center on the mines, and we're now seeing other reasons why healthcare. You're going to see the premium notices go out on November first. That will get some attention. It's why I think actually that the Democrats probably made a tactical mistake in triggering this shutdown when they did.

I think they would have been better off triggering the shutdown after those premium hike notices went out of November first, not before. But the problem they have now is every day this goes on, more damage is done to the federal government. Russell Voyd fires more people, targets more blue areas, I want to get to that in a minute, and Creds may start to lose sort of the momentum that they believe they were getting on the healthcare issue. Again,

Democrats are terrible about declaring victory. They don't know how to ever act like they've won something and when they're actually they're actually winning this argument. But the longer they

go they will not They will lose whatever they've gained here, and you can kind of tell they're kind of flailing here. I don't think Schumer knows how to get Trump in the room. That's clearly a problem. Jeffreys doesn't. So if they're the two lead negotiators here, it's in that sense, if you can't get in the room to negotiate with the person you have to negotiate, you're not doing a very good job leading here. So this is I don't think this is going to age. Well, we'll see, but

again Trump's not engaged. That's a huge issue. But I want to point out something this sort of the way that Trump administration is targeting things and and sort of how stuff their math is. So we've seen that Russell Voyd omb he's trying to essentially cut programs or cancel

funding or suspend funding. And it's targeting blue areas, right, They're targeting the Democratic agencies, the Democratic this prominent geographic areas they've targeted, or you know, funding for things in and around LA County, funding for things in and around Chicago, and funding for things in and around New York. Well, one of the things I'd love to remind and I

and I just did a data deep dive on this. So Donald Trump received one point one eight nine million votes in LA County. Okay, Yes, Kamala Harris got one point three million more than him. Okay, it is a blue county. But the raw number of Republican votes that Donald Trump received in LA County one point one eight

nine million. That is more raw vote than he received in fifty states that he carried Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There are more Trump voters that they're punishing in LA County than any of those fifteen states that I talked about. This administration's inability to understand that they're supposed to be the president of the entire country. When they start nitpicking

at quote unquote blue areas or blue states, they're punishing a lot of people that supported them, a lot of their own supporters who have it comes across as if they have no respect for the system and no respect for some of their own voters. And by the way, in Cook County he received over five one hundred and eighty thousand votes. Well, in case you're wondering, that's more raw vote, all right, he got crushed in Cook County.

It is a blue county, but total was more than the raw votes he got out of Alaska, out of Idaho, out of Montana, out of Nebraska, out of North Dakota, out of South Dakota, out of Utah, and out of Wyoming. That's eight states. It's it is, it is sort of. It really is a bit self defeating. And by the way, you want to add more states to that. He received over eight hundred thousand votes in the five boroughs of

New York City. When you put that together, and that would mean more votes than what he got in Alaska, more votes than what he got in Kansas, more votes and what he got in Mississippi, more votes than what he got in West Virginia. So you see the point I'm making here, This sort of what they think the own the Libs move is right, They're just attacking hundreds of thousands of their own voters. Now maybe they think, oh, well, this will teach those Trump voters from living in these

blue areas, I guess. Or maybe they're trying to punish the Democratic voters and get whatever whatever they think they're accomplishing. They're not accomplishing with this. So it is this is this may unfortunately end up motivating Democrats to keep sticking this out because they are it is triggering the Trump administration to do a lot of dumb things. Here the

House Republicans are behaving bizarrely. Here Mike Johnson's inability to swear in a duly elected member of Congress in a now certified election down from Arizona at Alita Grialva, the daughter of Raoul Garalva, who passed away a few months ago. I have to tell you I am not the quickest person to jump down a conspiracy theory hole. Don't get me wrong. I'll let me a good conspiracy theory. But

it's hard to now now I understand why all the Epstein folks are saying, Hey, what are they afraid of? Are they really afraid of seeing this vote forced? I mean, it's a it's a headst Obviously, Mike Johnson's trying to prevent putting Republicans on the record on these Epstein files, right,

they don't. And that's there's no doubt there's something here where Republican leadership is petrified of forcing because guess what this If the Epstein vote does hit the floor of the House, it's going to get four hundred votes because you're gonna have all the Democrats vote for it, and you're going to have at least one hundred if not more, Republicans vote for it because they don't want to be

on the record. It's somehow not voting it. And it's actually a safe vote because the Senate isn't ever going to you know, this is just simply a vote in the House. So it is the only motivation I can see if Epstein really is the motive, And I don't know any other reason other than Epstein at this point, right, Johnson is really sort of losing his rationale. He keeps changing his rationale, so it's making it's making even the biggest skeptic like me think, wow, you guys are this

paranoid about the Epstein files vote. Unbelievable? So what is

the paranoia. It is about a whole bunch of Republicans not wanting to upset Donald Trump who doesn't want this vote to happen. That's pretty clear. And we know many of these House Republicans have been so public in their demand for the Epstein files to be released that they that they cannot go back to there. They're afraid of going back to their constituents and not having to do that. So it is a it is It is fascinating to watch this. I do think this is what happens right

the shutdowns. It's sort of like when you may think you know how to start one, but nobody it is amazing how hard it is to end one, even though logic lee. And again this goes back to a rant from two weeks ago. The government should never be allowed

to be put in this situation. And the fact that the government just decides that it is going to abide by this absurdity that we somehow aren't going to pay our bills if there's a funding dispute in Congress is no way to run It's no way to run a country, it's no way to run a company, it's no way to run a household. No rational person would behave this way,

but unfortunately Washington is filled with the irrational. The big thing, one of the big moments this weekend we're going to learn a lot, a little bit about sort of language and all this stuff is the No King's protest. There's

been some really disgusting language. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, described the planned protests. I don't think it will end before the Hate America Rally on the ball on Saturday, where all the Marxist and Antifa people and all the people who hate Trump and hate America will be there. This idea that if you don't, if you protest something Donald Trump does, you hate America is the single most undemocratic thing you can actually accuse a fellow

American of doing. The whole point of being in America is the right to disagree. We founded this country on a fuck you Britain man. Yes, I'm not going to apologize for it, but this is one of those that this is who we are. We have the right to flip the bird at people. We have the right to protest. It is smack dab in the First Amendment. And one of the dumber arguments that you hear people say is well somebody paid for a protest, Well, who gives a shit? Sorry,

I get and this stuff. It's it's just this is do you know nothing about the founding of this country When you sit here and and essentially accuse anybody of protesting their government as being on a American It is the most American thing you can do, the most patriotic thing you can do, is to protest your government, because in this country it is it is a right, not a privilege. It is a right written into our constitution.

So the behavior I'm old enough to remember when these were the free free speech absolutionists, right, which then brings me to the JD Vance defense of those awful telegram chat techs that were released on from the young Republicans.

The whole thing is such a weird story. I mean, first of all, it is this, Here's what's troubling, right that these young Republicans believe there's a they've been given a permission slip by the MAGA movement in Trump to just casually talk about gas chambers and Nazis and all all this hateful rhetoric. What's really troubling is that these young Republicans think that this is this is okay in

the new Trump dominated Republican Party. We are in this moment right and I connected back to the incredibly rude

behavior of the golf fans at best page Black. This is we are culturally. Donald Trump has culturally changed us, and there are many people who think the best way to become Trump is to behave like these hooligans did. What's interesting here is how they're all there's this weird Apparently one of the guys involved says, this is part of a long conspiracy theory. This is what the political article noted, and this gets it to the bizarre world of MAGA and this I think you know how the

whole lower lumer nonsense works. So one of the young Republicans claim that the release of the chat is part of a quote highly coordinated, year long character assassination led

by a guy named Gavin Wax and the New York City Republican Club. Everything is always a conspiracy and people sort of a grievance against them and all of this it is it really is sort of it to me, is emblematic of the culture that has been created in this young mega movement. And what's interesting is the lack of consistency among those that try to champion speech and

free speech right. This in some ways is you know, you know, if you want to be anti woke, apparently it's become a permission slip to say whatever the hell you want about anybody, right, That is what's anti woke. What's fascinating, though, is to watch people like JD Vance trying to apologize for these for these folks, but say that these awful things that are being said by these young Republicans, hey it's just nothing but a college group chat.

But the leaked text from the former Virginia delegate who's running for attorney general in Virginia, J Jones, you know that those are much worse. Here's the thing. If you believe that there should be no speech police at all, which is what the mag of movement and Jade Vance campaigned on and Donald Trump campaigned on. Jade Vance went to Europe to lecture Europeans on speech. But there's and he's always willing when somebody on his side of the

aisle says something stupid, They should be forgiven. When somebody he doesn't like says something stupid, they should be prosecuted. Okay, this is somebody who does not understand the Constitution. I know JD. Van's Vance went to Yale Law School. I assume Yale's going to ask for their law for their degree back because he does not understated. He clearly didn't pass constitutional law with with what he's doing here. But what's really frustrating here is the fact is both are shameful.

The fact that Jay Jones fantasized about what he did shameful and disqualifying. And the fact that these young Republicans behave this way is incredibly disqualifying. And those that are losing their jobs deserve to lose their jobs. Okay, they need to make they do need to pay a penalty

for what they did. It's free speech, but nobody says there aren't consequences for your behavior and for your speech. But the fact that JD. Vance does not understand that this is a culture that's being created on the right that's celebrating the anti woke has turned into permission to say anything and a celebration of hateful rhetoric. If you don't like hateful rhetoric thrown at you, then you should

denounce hateful rhetoric that's thrown at others. And if you're uncapable of doing that, then you're incapable of being a leader in the United States of America. I know I'm sort of preaching to people who understand this and those of you that listeners sort of you guys are coming from the rationally frustrat I assume uh is most of

most of the folks. But I have found all this and I'm really concerned about what we may see from the right in an attempt to weaponize what's said or what's done on these protest in these protests, do I think you know the thing is politically to me, I think the more the Trump administration tries to denounce these protests, the more energy they're going to give to them, the more attention they're going to receive, and the more politically

problematic they're going to become. That's the irony here. The more they the more they go after this, the the worse off they're gonna that this, the more impactful that they have a potential chance to be here. But it's to just the lack of consistency, and I know nothing matters anymore, right, consistency doesn't matter. Principles have been thrown

out the window. But particularly JD. Vance, who does sort of play and intellectual, his incredible lack of consistency on his belief system is startling and the lack of self awareness about it is something. There's a reason results matter

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argument today. I know there's a lot of concern on the left, a lot of concern among Democrats that the essentially, if the rest of the Voting Rights Act gets gutted, that this is going to be an automatic win for Republicans in a sort of remapping of congressional seats, and an automatic loss for Democrats. I'm not so sure. I'm old enough. My first professional year covering American politics was

the ninety two campaign. That was a year of brand new districts, and at the time, the Bush forty one Justice Department worked pretty closely with the Congressional Black Caucus to interpret the Voting Rights Act in such a way to essentially try to create as many majority African American

seats as they could in the South. And the reason this was one of those the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to increase its ranks, and the Bush forty one Justice Department wanted to pack more Democrats into pack more Democrats into fewer districts. What would that do? So one of my favorite examples at the time, there was eleven congressional districts in Georgia at the time in nineteen ninety Democrats had eight Democratic House seats and Republicans had three by

nineteen ninety two. In January of ninety three, I believe it went from eight. It literally was eight three again, eight Republican seats and three Democratic seats, and I believe all three Democratic seats were African Geordie, African American or at least plurality African American. So I'm not so sure

that this. You know, again, everybody thinks they understand how easily they can pack, crack and pack districts, do the hub and spoke model as we've seen, you know, But if this idea that if if you don't have to do a majority African American district, that this is automatically going to help. If more Democratic vote gets dispersed to more congressional districts in a given geographic area, you may see a lot more swing seats in the in the sunbought.

This may be a lot harder to Jerrymander than many folks are thinking today. So look a few things to keep in mind with this Supreme Court argument. It does seem as if Roberts and Kavanaugh are looking to put an end date to the Voting Rights Act on Section two. What does that end date look like. It's at the end of this decade, aid right, is it a review in another four years? Is it throwing it back to Congress to come up with an end date. That's something else.

They're very good at punting, particularly Roberts in capitall. They do like to sort of see if they can come up with an extraordinarily narrow ruling. I can tell you this, I don't think John Roberts wants to be make feeling as if he is deciding the midterm elections. So I anticipate this is going to be narrow. But another thing

to keep in mind. If this ruling comes out when most Supreme Court rulings come out, which is late June early July, and it does have these dramatic changes into it, it's not going to impact twenty twenty six, it's just too so there'll be too many filing deadlines will have passed,

you won't be able to see that this probably is more likely to impact twenty twenty eight, and frankly is more likely. I could even you could even see in that this will apply to the next census, to the next reapportionment, which would take place census in twenty thirty in the next reapportionment in twenty thirty one. So keep in mind those deadlines. And do you know, I, like I said, I'm not as I'm not as convinced that this is as clean of a political victory for the right. Now.

There may be other issues. Representation may go down, you know, those are some our serious issues that we need to have a conversation about. But if you're just playing a

numbers game here, I'm not sure this is going to be as damaging to the Democrats or as helpful to the Republicans as a lot of what I would say, the cheap commentary has come. You know, there's just a lot of so much of our reporting and commentary just comes from does this help the left, does it hurt the left? Does its help the right? Doesn't hurt the right, and you know, sometimes you just don't know. You can have a larger conversation about whether do we need this anymore?

Do we not be this? We're going to have disenfranchisement of African American voters and of African American representation, which was the whole point of the Voting Rights Act. That needs to be the conversation that's had. Everybody is trying to apply it to gerrymandering and redistricting. It's why, I tell you, if you just looked at it through the data lens, this isn't as clean as the commentary is making it seem. The other interesting news over the last

twenty four hours so yesterday I made it. At least on Wednesday, I made a bit of a deal about the main Senate primary, Graham Platner, the Oyster farmer, Janet Mills, the sitting governor. For what it's worth, the DSCC claims that they have not endorsed in the primary, but they set up a joint fundraising committee with Janet Mills. Now

they've set up joint fundraising committees in the past with multiple primary candidates. I'll be curious to watch the d SCC here do they set up a joint fundraising committee with Graham Platner, do they offer to send one to

actually put some uh to make the case that they're not taking sides, or maybe they want donors to think, no, we have a preference here and this is how it's going to work. How are they going to operate in Minnesota? How are they going to operate in Michigan. I'm curious with both of those primaries where they we'll see, well, what's going to happen in Iowa, what's going to happen

in these senate races in the Texas Senate race. So I am curious to see if, if if the d SEC is serious about making it clear they're not endorsing Mills in this primary, because they're operating as if she's their preferred candidate. But then Kirsten Jelburn, who is the d SEC chair, said said that they that they would not do an official endorsement. Look, Platner is already on the air, the U a W has already taken sides

and isn't sing Platner in this one. And I also think the fact that another New England state is going to have another sort of generational primary and the big one is Seth Moulten, Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts deciding the primary Ed Marquis. This is actually the second time Ed

Markey's had to deal with a Democratic primary that was more or less more of a generational argument, and he turned it into an ideological argument. In his initial race for the Sea against Joe Kennedy the third Joe Kennedy was making a he was making a generational argument, and essentially Marky Randa Kennedy's left had the backing of AOC. In particular, he had become sort of a big champion of the Green New Deal, and I think he's counting

on that this time. Seth Moulton comes from a bit more of the of the middle, I don't know what you call mainstream liberal versus or you know, sort of a closer to the center than Markie is. So it's

going to be an interesting test of so Platner and Mills. Platner, I think, arguably presents himself as is more populous, more progressive than Janet Mills. In the case though, of Molten and Markey, it's Markey that is going to make the case he's more progressive, but he's going to be on the older side, So it's gonna be interesting. There's a lot of democratic groups out there calling for generational change. The question is is it generational or is it ideological?

The Markey Molten primary is going to test how many of these young groups are actually more focused on ideological purity than generational change. If Molten gets the same support that Platner gets from many of these groups, then maybe it really is generational. But if Markey and Platner have more endorsements in common then than than than Molten, uh, then then if you know, if it's it's sort of sort of if Moulten and Mills have sort of more

of the same endorsements than Platner and Markey or whatever that works out, then you'll know that this is more ideological. So it's going to be fascinating to watch to watch that Molten candidacy. There two other nuggets I want to mention before letting the weekend go. One is back in Virginia a G two. Both are having to do with TV ads that I really would like you guys to take a look at. One is a new ad from the Republican Attorney General in Virginia, Jason Mires addressing Abigail

Spaanberger voters. And what's interesting here is so in the Virginia Governor's race, Winston Earl Sars, who's basically thrown spaghetti at the wall to try to make to try to pick up ground on Spamburger, has been desperately trying to use the texting controversy of the AG's race to try to make look like Spamberger is somehow supportive, won't denounce Jones enough. But guess what. The Mira's campaign has obviously decided Spamberger's already has got this race in the back.

So they've got an ad out that essentially says, hey, look, Spanberger refuses to endorse j Jones, and they play clips from the debate where she will not reiterate her endorsement for Jay Jones. She's asked multiple times during the debate, and she will not. She says it is up to everyone's individual decision on how they're going to vote in that race. Essentially, it was Spanberger giving her permission slip, going,

you know what, I'm not vouching for this guy. I'm certainly not going to put my campaign in jeopardy to help out this guy. And she made that clear during the debate. She didn't say don't vote for him, but she didn't say to vote for him. Now you got Winston. Merl Sears' campaign is trying to say, aha, it means she secretly supports them. Jason Miaris Republican Attorney Jay are going aha, See she doesn't. She's giving you a permission slip.

The ad is addressed to Spanburger voters, essentially saying, look, she's giving you she may not be voting for him. She's not comfortable with it. You don't have to be comfortable with it either. It's a fascinating ad. It is a subtle way of Mirs throwing winsome Earl Sears under the bus, going look, we know she can't win. We know who the next governor's going to be. So hey, Abigail Spamberger, voters, are you sure you want this guy?

J Jones is the chief law enforcement officer anyway. A fascinating development in that race, and frankly kind of predictable

because it did seem it some I've said this before. If the governor's race were closer, Spamberger would have called for him to get out of the race. I think the fact that it isn't closer. She's trying to not engage in that issue, or engage in it as little as she possibly can. And now in some ways Mirs has just inoculated her because he's going to be up with an ad that's probably going to have more money behind it than what Winston Earl Series is. If you're

the in Earl Series campaign, you hate this ad. You're frustrated because it is essentially me are is giving Spamberger a pass and in some ways inadvertently praising the fact that she refuses to endorse j Jones. So it really does undermine whatever last minute strategy the Winston Earl Series

campaign thought was going to work for them. And then one other ad I want to alert you to because it it is, and yes it's you know, I have a feeling that if somebody wanted to develop a drinking contest with my podcast, it would be how often he mentions Florida. Well, I'm about to mention Florida, So drink. There is a new Senate candidate that jumped in the race, a gentleman by the name of Hector Muhika. He is Venezuela.

He has worked with Google in the past, and it's he's got this personal video that he's put out and he's an and what's interesting to me. I think his background potentially is interesting and we'll see if he can get traction. And he's been he was a Google he worked in Google phil philanthropy for a while, handing out Google money. My guess is he must have some of his own. We'll see if he's going to use some

of his own. But what I wanted to alert you were sort of two policy hits that were AI related that he used in this. As you know, a few weeks ago, I said, I have a feeling that come twenty twenty eight, the most animating issue that you're not going to be able to run for president and not have a some sort of answer to a voter concern about AI job displacement. Right, fear of AI job displacement, whether it's a real thing or not by twenty twenty eight won't matter. The fear of it is going to

be an issue. Well, this Muhika announcement video touches on it in a couple of ways that I hadn't seen. So he attacks Ashley Moody, who's currently who is the appointed senator to replace Marco Rubio, who, of course has been who's the Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, head of the Archives, and maybe the chief dog walker two. I'm not quite sure what other jobs that Trump has made him have on that front. But when he could hit her and said she is basically on the side

of the AI. You know that she cheered on the federal job cuts which put clean water and all this stuff in danger. She is for using AI to get rid of human jobs. She is for AI to set medicare pricing. I found it to be an interesting hit, and it was clearly here's the Google exec using fear

of AI as an attack. I don't think he got it quite right. For what it's worth, I think AI using AI itself is sort of a double edged sword. I think those who know know what AI is are sort of are a sort of tech optimists, and you don't want to be seen as the candidate not on the side of progress a more. But I do think an older electorates are going to be a bit skeptical

and fearful of AI. And the smarter way to probably go about this is to say, do you want a computer deciding what you're what the pricing is on medicare or do you think you know or do you think that you know human beings should be involved in those decisions. Do you want a computer deciding whether your insurance covers this, or do you think human beings ought to be involved in that decision. I think talking about it as a computer rather than using the phrase AI probably will make

it more effective. But the real reason I'm learning to this ad is I think this is this is my canarios. It's the first one I've seen in a Senate race in twenty twenty six to start to put AI in the mainstream political conversation and fuse it with healthcare pricing, fuse it with job displacement. I have a feeling he will be the first that this is. He's not going to be alone in using AI this way. So again, take a look at it, see how he did it.

I Like I said, I think if you're a political strategist here trying to trying to figure out how do you talk about AI without sounding anti progress, there are probably ways to do it that just talk in the form do you want a computer deciding these things? Or do you want a human being who understands the impact on your life making these decisions. That is a conversation that I think voters do want to have. And I go back, I think that in a larger sense, I

think the big the release of the Sora video app. Right, We're already two weeks into it, and it feels like you can't trust any video now that you see on social media. It is going to put a premium on human interaction, live in person interaction, and even perhaps in the digital realm, being at least live streaming at any one time, but the premium. I did this when I was doing this talk at this industry conference earlier this week.

I asked for a show of hands, how many of you would pay extra if you knew you could get a human customer service rep. And literally two thirds, This is a crowd of about five hundred people. Two thirds of people put their hands up. It is I do think this is why I'm weirdly optimistic about all about Right, the unintended consequence of AI advancement may be reminding people the importance of human connectivity. And if that ends up being the unintended consequence of the rise of AI, is

that so bad? If we end up deciding, hey, the human element is more valuable than ever that, my friends would be serious progress. Well, I hope you enjoyed that

tour of the world with my friend Mike McFall, and do get the book. Yes it's a readable book. Yes it's a big book. Okay, both things can be true. And it's a good long holiday weekend set of reading. So maybe it's something you think about for either your the Turkey week or the end of the year holidays. All right, let's do some questions and then I'll do my little college football preview for the week as Chuck.

This comes from Chase c Little Rock, Arkansas. Anyways. Well after another derailed Arkansas Razorback football season. Sigh, my uncle Joe concur, I've shifted my attention to the new season

of The Morning Show. Giving your experience in the industry, I'm curious how closely does the show reflect the inner workings of a real network news operation. Is it anywhere near reality? Pure dramatized fiction. Would love to hear your take. Oh man, all right, you're gonna get my whininess about this stuff. It is. It is more fiction than real.

Do they get you know? I would argue in the first season you know, and look, I'm never, never a fan of these shows as much that involve things that involve entities that I've actually been a part of or have covered. Right, you know, the West Wing used to frustrate me because it is just not how Washington worked. It is. It is Veep right, that is more likely, certainly at least how the how, the how, how how Washington politicians behave and how they really are. Veep is

more accurate. And it doesn't matter the party of the person. The sort of the lack of self awareness, the the narcissism that Julia Louis Dreyfus's character emits is all very much in line. You talk to any political operative left and right and they would say, oh, yeah, Veep is much closer. So, you know, I used to because I do think some people watch it and think this is the way it should be, and I just would argue,

the West Wing has never been that way. It is literally a utopian version of how life works, or actually life never has worked, at least in the political sense. And I would argue with the you know, I felt a lot of the Sorkin work, which I love, Right, It's just like I love a few good men. But I don't know the jag world that well, and I'm sure it doesn't work that way in real life, right that Tom Cruise is going to, you know, bendering away

at Colonel Jessop and all of that. So I just I'm just, you know, I'm suspect on the Morning Show. It is based loosely in a book that was written by Brian Stelter about the Morning Show Wars. So what I would say is that there was a time when there was these outsized personalities. There were the executives behind the scenes who felt that they were star makers. We will designate you an anchor and you must leave, you know,

that sort of thing. And there was some truthiness that that is the way it is, but it is really more of a twentieth century phenomenon. It led into the twenty first century. I mean the I to this day don't know if Matt Lauer made the amount of money that was reported about him. For those of us even within it was a shocking amount, and it certainly made a lot of people related to me assume that I was far wealthier than than I am, or I made far more money than I actually did. It was always

an I'll be honest, it was a bit uncomfortable. How often it's like, what am I going to do? Go out there and say, no, that's just you know. I did get a piece of advice once from somebody that said, if you never want, if you never want your how much you make to leak in the public, don't tell anybody because the minute you tell one person somebody is you know, outside your basically immediate family, it's going to get out. And the fact is, nobody's ever accurately had

my ever had because I've never told anybody. I refuse. I don't tell any extended family member, Nobody, nobody's business, nobody should. These larger contracts, a lot of times there are people that want to brag that they were able to get that amount of money for somebody. So maybe it's an agent, maybe it's a lawyer, maybe it's whatever. Sometimes it's the principle themselves think that it somehow makes them a bigger star if they're seen as being worth

a certain amount of money. So I would say what the Morning Show captures sort of what that world was like when I first entered it in twenty eight, twenty oh seven, twenty eight and twenty oh nine. But literally, by the time of the end of the Great Recession in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, the place stopped. You know, it was sort of it is, you know, you stopped having the larger than life anchors who could get executives fired.

I did see that in my early days. So, you know, the way to watch the morning show is this is the way that this world worked for about the first decade of the twenty first century. This is not how the world of Today's show works or Good Morning America. You know, I'm not saying that there isn't some attempt in the world of Page six and some of these other gossip columns to try to create drama where there isn't any, but it has doesn't have near the amount

of drama because frankly, the stakes have never been lower. Right, everybody's losing audience. The fight for exclusives isn't the same anymore. But you know, if you were asked me, when is the morning show sort of peak? Sort of the zeitgeist of it that it's trying to capture in reality is somewhere Serkha, I would basically say the peak morning show power was probably mid nineties to twenty to twenty twelve, and in that sense that that culture which the Morning

Show still seems to lean on is that. But I will make a confession I won't watch it. I watch enough to understand where they're going, because I don't even want to see how they're trying to portray people that I know and they're not portraying them correctly. I don't even want to get into that game, and so it

is kind of why I kind of I'm not a viewer of the show anyway. All right, next question comes from mattam. Hey love the new podcast. I come for the political analysis and stay for the college football talk. I appreciate saying that there's more college football is coming up. In a few minutes. You mentioned how the new rules have made FBS football feel more like the NFL. But what are your thoughts on fcs and Division two and three programs as the truer representation of college athletics. My

alma mater, Presbyterian College is a great example. For years of struggle, they've turned things around and are now six and oh, proving that good leadership and love of the game still matter. Matt, m Look, I do think you're going to see. It's going to be interesting about the way D three works and actually how D three could end up being sort of for the love of the game division on that front, and obviously with some D

two in that. But I emphasize D three because my beloved University Miami Hurricanes won the D three hockey championship and they're a W REC team. They never actually are. They don't play, they're not a Division one team. They don't have an on site facility to practice in or

anything like that. I think the I think there will be somewhere something in between REC and this professionalized minor league football that's being created, right which will you know, I think you're going to see a whole bunch of Division I schools go down to D three. There won't be scholarships, and so it will be more of the for the love of the game type of stuff, and I you know, in that look, sports is still important to alumni. Sports is still I'm very friendly with the

president of GW where I went. She's new president, Ellen Gramberg. I'm biased. I think she's terrific. I think she's been a breath of fresh air for the university. She views sports as a way to build community. It's look, it's there's a financial cost to it if you want to be competing on that division IE level, and there's always

some set of donors that want to do that. But she also believes that there's you know, wouldn't be a surprise if you see a lot of the mid major conferences sort of get cut in half because schools decide they don't want to try to keep up financially to try to be you know, even just mid level relevant and Division I college basketball, for instance, and instead drop down to D three and if you can still keep a culture, I mean, because that sports does create community

on college campuses and content and that is part of the student experience and it's becoming an important part of recruiting students to apply to schools. So I'm hopeful. I want it to be that. I want to have that nostalgia, But I wonder if we start to see something that's a little more that you have. And I'd love to

see the NCAA change these rules. I think every school should be able to find something their Division one in and right now, I think you can be Division one in one sport and then and then Division three and everything else. I think you have that in hockey, there's a I think Colorado College is one of those, if I if I'm not mistaken, I'd like to see that more loosened up a little bit where you pick and

shows it. You know, because you're you're going to have certain sports that maybe you have the alumni financial network to support to be Division one, and then certain sports that you don't, but you still want to have students feel as if there's something to play for and compete with and have in the world of Division three. I'd

love to see a little more flexibility there. I think it's a way to sort of keep up the spirit of amateur athletics and at the same time embrace this new world that's going to that is the reality of of of the revenues, the revenues generating sports in college. All right, next question. Two part question here comes from John from Frisco, Texas. I'm learning more about Frisco, another one of these growing ex serb suburbs of the Dallas

area of the Metroplex. Anyway, two part question. Love the show and have followed the podcast from your Meet the Press days. Given Greg Abbot's enthusiasm for supporting the Trump administration by sending the Texas guard to Chicago. Do you think that the Texas governor is using the national notoriety as a launching point towards twenty twenty eight in the Republican nomination. You've mentioned that members of the administration maybe I'm twenty twenty eight, but may not have as much

of a resume to run on. Would Abbot be more formidable in the primary? Also, what sorts of other non political podcasts do you listen to? I think you mentioned some economics ones. Would you name some of them here? Thanks? Love the show. Go Caines John from Frisco, Texas. So, look, I think Abbot wants to be would like to try

to run for president. I think Dave Carney, his chief political advisor, who I've known forever, one of the savvier republic strategists out there, has some unique New Hampshire ties, and he could certainly help Abbot there. I just don't know if Abbot's going to be able to be I

don't know what his lane is, right. You know, one of the stories that I meant to bring up at the start of this podcast that I didn't get to was the story about how Christy Nomes government paid ad campaign praising you know, sort of praising President Trump for the elevated deportations. It's funny the coverage of it is being portrayed as you know, this ad campaign to support the Trump administration. I look at it as a taxpayer funded ad campaign to promote Christy Nome for president in

twenty twenty eight. The point is is that you have Christy Nome wanting to run for president, Tulsey Gabbert wants to run for president, RFK Junior wants to run for president, Marco Rubio wants to do it. Maybe he joins as a ticket with JD Vance. What what do Donald Trump Junior Eric Trump end up doing? I think they both have some interesting ambition. Is twenty eighth the year that they try to execute it? The point is is that and then you have Rand Paul and Glenn Younkin who

are clearly going to not run as MAGA candidates. All these other candidates I mentioned are all going to try to be in the Magaline. What is Abbot going to do? Right? Abbott in some ways has succeeded in Texas politics because he's been He's been somebody that hasn't been seen as on one side or the other in this intra party

war that is happening in Texas. Right, Cornyn v. Paxton in the Senate primary is actually more than about John Cornyn and more than you know, sort of a maga versus the rhinos, whatever you want to to describe that. If you're if you're on the snarky right, you know, it was it was a Republican controlled House of State House or representatives in tech is that impeached Ken Paxton, Right,

it was. This has been a bipartisan effort, but it's really been sort of a divide inside the Texas Republican Party. And Abbott you know, is at times nervous about the Ken Paxton and Dan Patrick wing. Dan Patrick the lieutenant governor, and in Texas, the lieutenant governor in some ways has more actual policy power than the governor, being the president of the Senate and really sort of very much has has a lot more influence at times on the legislature

than the governor does. But Patrick's clearly to Habbit's right, Paxton clearly Tobbits right. Abbott definitely you know, came up more through was an ag during the Rick Perry came up through sort of the Bush and Perry years of the Republican Party, and Perry, all you might say, is slightly more conservative than w I mean, you know, Perry is never you know, this is the guy that once called Donald Trump a cancer on conservatism. We used to

run these clips so often. I used to know them cancer on conservatism that he said multiple times the day he dropped out of the race, and an attempt to consolidate an anti Trump candidate back in the twenty sixteen race, remember he ran twice. He was a front runner for about two days until he couldn't figure out which which of the three agencies he wanted to eliminate, and that sort of went the campaign went south there. So I just don't know if Abbot has a as a as

an easy lane. I think Abbot only becomes a viable candidate if MAGA is seen as a broken ideology or as a as a net negative in the Republican Party in twenty twenty eight. What's the likelihood of that, right? I think, I definitely think Abbot's itching to do something else and he wants to run for president. But I you know, I just I don't know what he doesn't. He's not comfortably mega. He tries to be Mega adjacent, but he's also you know, he does. He does end up.

I think he's a closet Chamber of Commerce Republican who is trying to play mega and every once in a while that comes through. So I don't see it. That doesn't mean he won't try. He's going to want to do it. You know, he would be the third straight Texas governor to try to do this. W did it. Perry ran twice and it didn't go well, and you'd

have Abbot there. Abbitt's on the verge of Actually, Rick Perry's the longest serving governor, and now Abbot, if he wins this reelection, is going to end up surpassing that mark.

So I'm a I'm I'm a bit I'm a bit more skeptical. So you're asking me my podcasts, how much do I confess trying to see here? How much do I confess to my some of these gambling podcasts that I listened to, But you're asking what I listened to. So I listened to Simmons, I listened to Kornheiser. Their pals during football season. There's a couple of I like the guys at the Action Network. Their football previews some of the best. There's I can't even I keep forgetting

the guys. He goes by his last name his last name only. I'm drawing a blank on it. I think it's Sharky or Stucky. Excuse me. Sharky's another friend of mine, a guy named Stucky. I enjoy his football previews. I think they're very good. Other podcasts that I enjoy I listened to something the White House sixteen hundred Sessions. This is basically the White House Historical Association. They always have some fun sort of history nuggets about presidents. They have

one unpresidential Pets that I have found myself enjoying. The Acquired podcast. These are these huge, long deep dives on like how did Google become Google? And it's almost like a like a biography of a company. They did one on JP Morgan and had an hour long interview with Jamie Diamond that I felt found just super fascinating. And you know, look, their podcasts are commitments, so sometimes you know, they only put the big ones out once a month

because it takes almost a month to do that. I enjoy the Bulwarks Hollywood podcast Sunny Bunch as sort of an an entertainment culture that you know, talks a little culture stuff in the media world I enjoy. I enjoy both the Ben Smith podcast on Semaphore and Dylan Byers on Puck. It's funny. I don't listen to many political podcasts. I listened to sort of media podcasts on that front.

I'll listen to some issue specific stuff on foreign policy and on domestic policy, and then I just grab highlights of some of the other political podcasts out there that I know have have that but as far as my own personal those those are the ones that do and I should. There's there's also there's one baseball card podcast I consistently listen to. It's it's called There Is No Off Season, I believe, is what it's called, and they do a pretty good job of sort of assessing the

market for sports cards. So there, I probably revealed too much about my habits, but you asked, and I thought i'd chair. I'm gonna take one more question here and do my little college football preview here. This comes from Aaron from Skokie, Illinois Wire Conservatives attacking Bad Bunny's citizenship.

It's hard to believe they don't know he's an American citizen. Yeah, I know, Puerto Rico is one of those. Apparently that's one of those trick questions on the test right, just feels like a blatant display of racism. If they were honest and said they simply don't like that the Super Bowl halftime show will be in Spanish, they might actually

find more agreement than they expect. I'm a Mexican American but don't speak Spanish and his music isn't really my style yet now, because of his backlash, even people like me feel compelled to watch just to push back against the hate. The idea of replacing him with Lee Greenwood is laughable. There's zero chance that happens, right, pr Nightmare,

thanks for the show. Look, Aaron, you're you're not wrong, and you know I'm now of the age that I expect whoever's picked is somebody that isn't appealing to me. You know, I know what the NFL is up to. They're trying to appeal to a younger demographic, and they're really trying to appeal to a more Latino demographic. The the single, by the way, the single most streamed. You know, I saw what was it? Ronda Santis attack Bad Bunny's like,

I don't you know, I don't know who this guy is. Well, he was only the most streamed artist in the state of Florida according to Spotify in calendar year twenty twenty four. So a lot of Ron DeSantis' constituents seem to know who Bad Funny is. But whenever you're picking any genre of music, you're gonna alienate people who don't like that genre of music. It, you know, I'm sure a lot of when they did the Who, there were a lot of people going, why are they doing old people music? Right?

So it's a it's obvious to me this is it's almost always the halftime show feels like an attempt to talk to a demographic that the NFL feels like that they don't know how to talk to, and they use an artist to try to do that, and frankly, they're pretty smart about it. The NFL continues to grow its fan base. They're the most you know, the thing that everybody ought to respect here in the NFL. I think has learned this, you know, sort of figuring out how

to try to get above the culture wars, right. Colin Kaeperne put them knee deep into the culture wars between really, Donald Trump suck them into the culture wars more than anything. But when you look at the demographics of football fans, it looks like the demographics of the country right when I mean football is the single most sort of honest representation of the It is literally something like thirty seven percent Republican, thirty seven percent Democrat right, and everybody else independent.

I mean, it's like the actual presidential electorate is represented. You know amongst football fans, most other sports have have a lean right. Baseball fans it leans right, golf fans it leans right, NBA fans lean left, NHL fans lean

right like WNBA fans lean left. So you see, there's some of the sports you kind of like you could look you just look at the crowd when you see go to a game and you have an idea of the because our politics is in some ways is so identity based right now, But I would caution everybody be careful. I mean, the NFL is America. It is a tapestry. It is the NFL fan base is the complicated picture of America that is an asset for the NFL. And I do think when it comes to their attempts to

do more outreach, particularly in the Western hemisphere. They've now

had back to back years of games in Brazil. There's no doubt in my mind that I think Mexico City, at some point or Monterey, one of the two is going to have a major league sports franchise, and maybe it's an NFL team first, although the Dallas Cowboys, who have the largest number of fans in Mexico, actually don't want to see a Mexico City team because for the same reason they that they don't want a team in Austin, Texas either, even though that's a metro a metro area

that actually could support one, because they want to have they want to have the demographic to themselves. They want to make uh, they want to make money off of off of that demographic. So I find the whole thing

it's just a pretty closed minded way of thinking. I look at this, when I see these decisions, I'm like, oh, I need to understand that this lad of the NFL is not picking somebody that isn't popular, Okay, So and I know that this is you know what, to me, the most amazing fact about what the NFL does is that they never pay the halftime they know, they like they basically say, if you you're going to make so much money becoming the halftime entertainment, we don't have to

pay you. That is extraordinary. How powerful that that that the NFL has that kind of power. So this is

the first of what are going to be a series of games for my beloved Miami Hurricanes where they're supposed to win, and they're going to face a whole bunch of teams and they get the big target on their back. And if you want to make a name for yourself, you've got a shot at doing it. I am petrified of this Louisville game. I'm glad it's first of all. These standalone games on Thursday and Friday are just always, you know, feel like traps. You know, my wife's beloved

Florida State Seminoles lost them this Friday night game at Charlottesville. Now, if this game we're at Louisville, I'd be a lot more nervous. In fact, Miami's been through tough games. Louisville has always seen Miami as an aspirational rival, is what I would call it. Miami. You know, like Louisville is you know, right. They they had Howard celiber as a coach after Miami. They recruit sort of, you know, they try to recruit anybody that Miami rejects down in Miami.

That you look at their roster, it's filled with a lot of South Florida guys. They actually won one of the bigger recruiting battles that I can remember about ten years ago, when they got Teddy Bridgewater. Teddy Bridgewaters should have been a University of Miami quarterback. We had a guy named Jacorey Harris at the time. Teddy Bridgewater was actually his replacement at the same high school that Jacorey Harris played at, Jack Cary. Harris was a full four

year starter, very good. Bridgewater was better. Bridgewater didn't want to sit behind Jacorey for two or three years, which is why I ended up going to Louisville. I'm convinced had Bridgewaters come to Miami sat behind Harris would have ended up probably having well. It certainly would have helped Miami's football program in the early teens. But look, I'm nervous about it. You know, right now, it's Miami against

themselves for the rest of their schedule. On paper, if you look at it analytically, they're going to be double digit favorites in every game they have left. To me, the nervous the games that I'm nervous about going forward for Miami. One is this Louisville game Friday night. And my daughter will tell you, traffic to hard Rock is our you know, it sucks on a Saturday. It really

sucks on a Friday evening. So I'm nervous about the crowd attendance though this year Man Miami fans have turned out even for sort of the you know, the games that don't that aren't on the marquee, so I'm pretty pleased about that. But that game has me nervous. The game at SMU Road game that'll be for Miami's first road game outside of the state of Florida on November first, And then of course the Pit game. That's the last game, that's our last regular season game of the year, and

it's at Pit. We've struggled that Pit before when we were we blew a Pit game in twenty seventeen. We were on our way to and were already qualified for the a SEC title game, so it didn't really matter, except it was the beginning of sort of we lose to pit then we get pummeled by Clemson, and then it was like, oh, Miami was a mirage. We were a ten and oh start and then we turned into a mirage. So we don't have Georgia Tech on our schedule, thankfully,

which is the other nemesis in Miami. So obviously Friday night, I think a lot of you will end up watching that game. I hope it's not a game by the second half. We shall see a couple of other games of note this weekend. You know, Brian Kelly will find out the Brian Kelly hot seat. You know how hot will his seat get in LSU? Well, he LSU's going

to Vanderbilt. LSU's an underdog at Vanderbilt, right, And I'd love to know every week there's a new stat not since the nineteen forties is a ranked Vanderbilt team played another ranked team or not since the nineteen forties, has YadA, YadA YadA happened? Right with Vanderbilt, this is a hugely

important game for both teams. If either team basically winners winner is this is a playoff elimination game, They're both five and one second loss for either one of them, I think puts them on a path to not make the playoff. And in l s Hu's case, it probably puts Brian Kelly on the hot seat Unloster Vanderbilt, so that'll be a big deal. Duke Georgia Tech. This has Georgia Tech upset. I think they should be an upset alert. Duke's actually the favorite. It's a home game for Duke.

If Georgia Tech loses before you know, loses before the end of their see, this is probably their toughest game left on their acc schedule. A little of course, play Georgia at the end of the year and their and their annual rivalry game. But this is probably the game I'm going to be putting in one of my four boxes at noon on Saturday. I would have put Ohio Wisconsin on this. I can't believe Luke Fickle still got

a job. The embarrassment of getting shut out by Iowa after they supposedly did push ups, being embarrassed that they gave up forty two points to Iowa the year before, and they were this focused on the Iowa game that I guess this time they only gave up thirty seven points instead of forty two points. Something ain't right in Wisconsin. I hate that Wisconsin football all of a sudden looks

like they did in the eighties. Right. Wisconsin football was a doormat in the eighties until they finally Frankly, it was the leadership with Dona Shalela, who spent more money hiring when she was the chancellor in the University of Wisconsin. She deserves a lot of credit for getting sort of both Wisconsin football and Wisconsin basketball sort of back off the mat into the sort of higher tier of Big Ten football. It's just something's wrong that Wisconsin. This isn't working.

I you know, I can't imagine that they're going to get up for this Ohio State game, but you know it might be the only shot Thickle has to give himself one more year. One other game that I think a couple other games Texas A and M at Arkansas is it. Did Bobby Patrino give Arkansas a sort of one game dead cat bounced type of focus or does

the Patrino difference carry over in a second week? And if it does, this is a dangerous game for A and M on the road at Arkansas it's you know, you saw the game with Tennessee the one thing about Patrino he wants you know he's playing for this job.

I think it's an absolute non starter. I cannot believe he's in a candidate to be coach again, considering all the drama there's a the athletic that are terrific sort of rundown of all the ways that he's been an untrustworthy person to hire, whether it was in his flirtations to go to other schools, let alone the infamous motorcycle incident at Arkansas, et cetera. But if he starts winning football games, as we know, winning changes everything, right, Winning

cures a lot of concerns among donors or administrators. Upsetting Texas A and M would go a long way. So I don't think Arkansas is going to quit in this game. Katrino's going to keep throwing, going to keep trying to do trick plays, going to do all sorts of things. If I were an A and M fan, because I think A and M's best team in the SEC, I'd be really This game would really have me nervous, the way I'm nervous about Loloivlle. I think it's that time

of game and them should win. But if you told me this were a field goal game in the fourth quarter, wouldn't surprise me. And then, of course, the best story in the SEC this year is the is the new quarterback for old myth? Let me get his name right. I read a terrific story about him, Trinidad Chambliss. It's a It was for the Trinity. If he had been a girl, he was going to be Trinity. They decided to do Trinidad. It's been it's this guy is a as a marvel. And the fact that they couldn't believe

what they saw his story. He was sort of a multi sport athlete, was was focused more on basketball, ended up playing D two football. Folks didn't realize how good he was at it, and lo and behold, he's quite the story. We'll find out. I don't know if either Georgia or Ole Miss is playoff quality, right, I you know, the Old Miss barely getting by Washington State last week. Maybe there was a look I had spot with Georgia. I'm I'm fine with that, but Georgia needs to sort

of have something to prove as well here. This is one of those It's not an eliminator for Ole Miss if they lose, but it is if Georgia loses. So this is an important in some way. It's a more important game for Georgia than anybody else after that. Alabama Tennessee.

I know, Alabama Tennessee. This one also might be an elimination game, right not every two loss team in the SEC is going to make it, and the loser of this will have their second loss, so it's Alabama's of course doesn't have only this would be their first conference loss, so that is a bit of advantage here for them. Tennessee cares about the Alabama rivalry more than I think Alabama cares about the Tennessee rivalry. That's one of those big brother little brother games. I'm more of a believer

in Alabama this one. I'm curious if they can get margin here. I expect them to get some margin. If they don't, maybe that tells us maybe maybe I'm not not. So that's all right about that. Notre Dame is this week. That's one of these great rivalries. My wife's got no attend one of those games at Notre Dame. It's one of those i'd like to I'd like to see. It's an important game for both teams. Obviously, every game is an elimination game for Notre Dame now with their two losses.

As long as Texas A and M and Miami keep winning, Notre Dame is going to make it into the playoff as a ten and two team. They will not make it to the playoff as a nine to three team. This is the toughest game remaining on their schedule, hands down the toughest game remaining on their schedule. So a pretty important game. And then I realized I should not be remiss. One of my favorite rivalry names is the

Utah BYU game, The Holy War. I don't know is it politically correct to say the Holy War or not. Either way, it's one of the great names for a rivalry game. This one's at BYU, and this one also actually has some playoff implications, big twelve implications. Don't sleep on BYU. They're still undefeated, the undefeated, all right, enjoy your weekend in college football. Hopefully, depending on how Friday Night goes, I get to do the same. And with that, I'll see you next week.