Chuck’s Commentary - Democrats Won The Argument Over The Shutdown…And Should End It + America Will Need New Political Guardrails After Trump

world of media and advertising and digital. I will say this, it is fascinating to see in all of these in these different entities, how everybody markets, how AI is a part of their products. Right whether they have truly empowered the actual AI is an open question in my book on some of these entities that are pitching AI driven marketing, AI driven buying, AI driven messaging. It feels as if it's like the early days in the Internet when everybody wanted to show off they had a website. Hey, we've

got a website www. Come to our website dot com. Right. There is that feeling here where just say there's a I even saw. I even saw a cleaning service now advertising themselves as a tech specialty cleaning service. They know how to clean in the highly you know, which is, by the way, obviously something that maybe some companies would care about. But essentially they're saying that you can, we will help clean your data centers and show respect for

the equipment as we clean the data centers. We're experts on that. So everybody trying to get the peace of this, of this small, narrow, growing sector. We think it's a growing sector of the economy. I think there's some concern that it is a self eating it's sort of a self feeding and self eating economic ecosystem that's being developed. But there definitely seems to be just say, there's some AI in it, and let's market it. Hey, whatever your

business is, claim it's AI driven. Welcome to my food truck,

AI driven taco recipes. Right. You can sort of feel that shift as we transition in this economy. But my focus is a little bit. It is a It is a derivative of the shutdown showdown that we're in the midst of right now, and I think the Democrats have to figure out how to declare victory and get out of this because I do think every day that goes by now, look, i think they've gotten everything they can

hope to get out of this shutdown. When you are on the lower ground, right and they have the lower ground on this one, because it's the Republicans that propose the clean continuing resolution for just an additional six weeks. So when you are choosing to do what the Democrats do, you're doing it because you have a point to make, and you're doing it because you're trying to bring some

attention to a specific issue. Right, you had Ted Cruz shutting down the government to try to bring more attention to the implementation of Obamacare, for better or for worse on that front, and on this case, I think you have you had Donald Trump trying. You know, he essentially orchestrated the shutdown in nineteen and eighteen and nineteen in order to bring more attention to his inability to get

his border wall funded at the time. So this one, the Democrats say, is about healthcare and is about specifically subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. So I know I'm going to sound like a broken record here. If that truly is the reason you're doing this, declare victory and open the government. And the thing is is that I do think you're going to see diminishing returns. It's pretty clear that you're you know, and I do

think that this is. This gets to the larger point I'm talking about in my substack column this week, which is how much energy do you devote to opposing Donald Trump versus how much energy do you devote to opposing

a future Donald Trump? What do I mean by that? Right? There's mitigation tactics to deal with what you're dealing with in the moment, and then there's longer term strategies to essentially try to make sure we don't have another demagogue hijack a political party in our process. Again, right, Donald Trump's rise is exposed to extraordinary amounts of vulnerabilities, whether it is the ability to enrich yourself while in office, if it's the ability to weaponize political agencies. And this

is where it comes to. If you look at what they're doing with the with the government shutdown, one of the consistent patterns, and we've all engaged in it in ways to try to create guardrails around Trump, has been this assumption that shame or political or sort of generic political pressure would have a real impact. Shame has had no impact. In fact, that the incredible superpower Donald Trump

has in some ways is not feeling shame. The access Hollywood tape is sort of the best piece of evidence of that that you essentially never you know, January sixth is arguably the next pest piece of evidence. Maybe you can flip the two and what would normally shame almost any other politician in our history, including one Richard Nixon

shamed him into resignation, does not work with him. Right If you're hoping that touching the hot stove, which this government shutdown is doing, that Trump touching the hot stove is going to burn his hand off. What if I told you he didn't have the information. You know, there's nothing in the feedback loop he is getting that tells him his hand is burning, He feels no pain, Well,

he puts his hand on said hot stove. And so if you're dealing with somebody essentially that's willing to shoot the hostage, right in this case, just lay off more federal government workers in the agencies that Democrats seem to care more about than generically Republicans do. That that blowback would somehow bother him, right because swing voters don't like

this in either way. But if your feedback loop is all about owning the Libs and pleasing your base, well then he has no Then the incentives you think would work under almost any other normal pre Trumpian circumstance doesn't work in this scenario. But if you're if you look

at it through the prism. And this is something that I think Democrats have had a hard time with for a long time, which is learning how to declare victory even if it's a one point victory, right, learning how to embrace it. Donald Trump knows how to declare victory even when he loses, literally on January sixth, but on even on some issues he's somehow trying to declare victory

in using taxpayer dollars to bail out Argentina. And by the way, he's made it a quid pro quo, essentially saying, if Argentina throws out Malay Hell, it will make an enemy of the United States, yet another tast of our demagoguery and another personalization of the presidency that erodes our ability to be the moral authority on democracy around the world. And we have lost all of our moral authority on

that front, and then some going back there. But sometimes when you are frustrated by a situation, you end up you know, you can get so frustrated. I've had similar situations. It's been a long time since I've done this, but I remember punching a hole in drywall once, so mad I punched a wall. I knew it was drywall. Put a hole in it didn't make me feel any better. For a moment, you think, wow, I'm so strong, it's drywall. Please. Second, I suddenly had to patch up a hole in my wall.

That was pain in the ass. Then I had to repaint right Then of course you realize, oh, I can't just paint the patch anyway. You see where I'm going. It costs yourself a whole hell of a lot more work sometimes when you just want to express frustration for frustration's sake. And I think we're entering that situation. And every day that goes by that this shutdown goes, the less it becomes about healthcare, and the more it becomes about how the shutdown is impacting everyday lives, how it's

making Thanksgiving. You know, if we get to get close, we start getting close to Thanksgiving travel and we're keeping parents from their kids, grandparents from their grandkids. That's not going to help anybody. And again, the base of the Republican Party is going to be a lot more comfortable

feeling their handget, you know, letting their hand burn up on the stove than any part of the Democratic Party on this front. And right now you've got healthcare into the forefront. You've got Republicans talking amongst themselves like this is a real problem, they've got to do something about it. You've got people like Marjorie Taylor Green making the ca for an expansion or an extension of these healthcare subsidies. So you're winning the argument. That's all you have the

power to do in this situation. You're not going to be able to get them to do any more than that. But if you're winning the argument, then you're likely to get the legislation that you're hoping for. But more importantly, you're probably not going to You've at least given yourself something to run on if they fail to do this.

But if you continue to keep the government shut down thinking every day, boy, you know, some of the stupid rhetoric that is leaked out on the Democratic side not a good look for Chuck Schumer to basically imply, oh, every day this gets better. It doesn't get better for the rest of us. It may get better for your politics, but it's not getting better for anybody else for the

government to be shut down every day. If you're participating in the travel industry by train or plane, you're dealing with the federal government, and you're dealing with federal workers who have no promise of a paycheck coming in on time. So be careful of what words you're using there on that front. And so at some point you got to

ask yourself, what is what is dragging this on longer? Hey, look, I think we're congressional Republican leaders know this, and then till Donald Trump engages, Republicans an't going to budget anything. So what's your planning to get Donald Trump involved in these talks? That's my That would be my question to Democrats, what's your what's your If your goal is the healthcare subject, You've got to get Donald Trump's attention. He's busy blowing

up votes with questionable legal authority. I would argue he has yet to explain his legal authority on this, and Congress has been crickets on this instead focused on the shutdown. In some ways understandable, but this is you know, the Trump administration doesn't stop if you've shut down the government. But apparently congressional oversight does that's a problem. He's doing

his victory lap in the Middle East. We're already seeing the first signs of his big victory suddenly could come undone faster than folks realize now that Israel is already backing off some of their guarantees, claiming Hamas is backed off of some of their promises. If Trump wants this

legacy achievement, the work is actually only just begun. The hard work. The easy part was getting the signing ceremony that he got. The hard part is getting Israel and Hamas to stick to the terms that you got them to agree to in the moment. That's going to take a lot of handholding. That's going to take a lot of intervention. That's going to take a ton of work, and some of it is going to take Trump himself intervening.

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remember all law firms are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is for unless they win. As you're looking at ways to know you're frustrated with this administration, if you're among those folks that I imagine there's quite a few folks listening to this podcast that are I would just ask yourself, what balance are you

striking here? What's more important? Trying to oppose Trump in any way you can right now or trying to prevent another Trump from happening in the future because we do have some long term, bigger adjustments that have to be made. Take the idea of profiting off the presidency. If this essentially goes unchecked, you know it's probably going to go unpunished.

But if it's going to go unchecked, then you're only going to encourage other people to run for office as a way to enrich themselves. That is how you go from a political party being turned into a kleptocracy, which Donald Trump is done to this current Republican party. I mean, he's openly open about it, right it is everybody. Everything is a transaction. You want to raise money with Donald Trump's likeness, pay the man you want to beget in

his good graces, give him a plane. You want to make sure you get what you want out of him, you better put his face on a coin. The point is is that he is already turned the party into a kleptocracy. If nothing gets changed, we probably need a

constitutional amendment because you're not going to be able to force a future president or a vice president to force them to put their holdings in a blind trust to sort of enforce that mechanism. Separation of powers prevents Congress from passing any such law from pulling that off. So you're going to need a constitutional amendment. It is crystal clear we need some sort of constitutional men. The emolument's

clause was not enough. It's in there. If Congress chose to use it as a way to provide some oversight, they could. But are we impeaching this man a third time? Do we think the impeachment process is really an effective process? Given how it's at this point been turned into just some sort of political gambit now that isn't taken very seriously, and that politicians may not fear the way that they once that Richard Nixon actually did fear it back in

nineteen seventy four. So it's pretty clear we need a constitutional endment. What kind of work is being done to do that. We do have a fusion of big tech money and government. It is so infused. We have not had a relationship between titans of industry and the government so intertwined since the nineteen teens and twenties, since the age of the robber barons, teapot Dome, all that, you know.

The nineteen twenties began with us losing our mind by banning alcohol right after the nineteen eighteen pandemic, and it ends with the stock market crash that essentially unravels the world economy and plants the seeds for World War two. Other than that, it was a terrific decade. Well, we have a similar situation where we have industry and government extraordinarily intertwined that again needs This is bigger than just opposing Trump. This is a systemic problem that needs some

sort of constitutional intervention. I think on campaign finance that's pretty crystal clear. And at some point the voters are going to demand a regulatory our regulatory party parties to actually put some sort of guardrails on big tech and

how it exploits or try to prevent it from exploiting the population for either political gain or financial gain. So you look at the different you know, I look at my role in journalism, and I'm trying to focus on figuring out how can we reanimate, rebuild, and create a better business model for local media because I think that has become a foundational problem in our inment, our broken information ecosystem. I think there's so many facets here that need to be dealt with. Look we've got to We've

got to we're rigging our electoral lines. This mad dash of the redistricting wars is actually we're taking a step back from what was actually some momentum and progress made to depoliticizing this process. Now we've essentially scrapped the entire thing and almost are overpartisanizing it. Of course, parts ship is how we got to such a polarized moment, which essentially provided the blueprint for a guy like Trump to exploit.

So if you're hoping to prevent the next Trump, you've got to figure out how to depolarize for number one, nonpartisan redistricting. Oops, we are literally going backwards on this issue. But this is something again that you could make a constitutional amendment in some form or another, and I think you're going to have to no law, no active Congress, a political act of Congress is going to deal with this in a way that I think would would be

treated fairly, not exploited for partisan gain. And then the other is open primaries, and I think it's about time to test the premise of whether taxpayer funded partisan primaries are even legal, are constitutional. I think there needs to be another look at this. But the fact is we have to get rid of partisan primaries if we want to be a functional democracy. If you don't want us

to be a functional democracy, than be my guest. Let's let's have more partisan primaries. But the idea that the taxpayers can fund an election to decide who the head of a private organization is seems you know again, I guess I would apply it this way. Imagine any other private club having taxpayer funded dollars being used by some sort of private organization to decide how their leadership works with sort of little with no say by those folks that are paying those taxes. So I think under any

other circumstance, Supreme Court would say it was unconstitutional. I'm trying to figure out how it's not for political parties. And we figured out how depoliticized the Justice Department, right, it is clearly vulnerable to politicizing and weaponization. And I think, you know, if you look at what happened in the nineteen you know, three of our most important constitutional amendments

in the twentieth century. We're giving women the right to vote, direct election to senators, and the income tax, and in some ways all three of them were out of this sort of we were growing close to being very undemocratic,

more undemocratic at the time, and we had to come up, we had to actually add some constitutional amendments to improve the democracy, to improve public's ability to hold the democracy and big business accountable as well. In fact, the income tax was a part of that push. And if you know, we're not quite repeating what happened in the early part of the twentieth century, but boy, it looks awfully familiar. And the response in that era was some serious constitutional reform.

And there's a lot more energy right now on the left being focused solely on trying to oppose a guy that may be in office only two and a half more years that constitutionally it well, he'll only be in office for two and a half more years. Look, it doesn't mean you capitulate to Trump, right, you don't do it. These idiots in the corporate space have done, and in academia and they've just folded right without actually testing that

the law was on their side. The law on these media companies that have all capitulated and paid these ridiculous ransoms. That's what they were. They were extortion, was ransom. The law was on their side, and they chose not to use the law. So that's capitulation. That's not mitigation. Mitigation is finally suit forcing his actions into the court, getting

oversight hearings, but it's also looking ahead to make sure how do we not get into this position again. It's not just about rebuilding. Look, the Democratic Party has got plenty of problems on their own, but the fact is the country was vulnerable to this. Our institutions were vulnerable to this politicizing, to this weaponization. We thought we were operating on shame and norms, and we had many a president abide by shame, who could be shamed and would

abide by norms. Donald Trump showed that if you were shameless and you have, you have sort of a a and you really are comfortable being that shameless and he is again he's a guy that puts his hand in the hot stove and does not feel pain. Then you've got to build new guardrails. We've done it before and

we clearly need to do it again. So that's the that's the basis of my substack this week. I think it fits pretty well here with the current situation with the shutdown, and you know, there is there is a point you know right now, the fact that so many Democrats are desperately trying to make the case that this shutdown strategy is working is just the moment that you got to say, pull ripcord. You've done enough, You've made your point, you've got it out there, and now it

is on them. They have made this commitment in some ways. If they fail on this, it hands you an easy to litigate issue in the twenty twenty six elections. All right, speaking of twenty twenty six, they have a few sort of a few campaign nuggets to deal with. The biggest one, of course, is main We've been talking to about Maine for quite some time, and I do think that Janet Mills and Graham Platner now are going to turn into a fascinating avatars for this larger fight of old, old

versus new in the Democratic Party. I think this will be less about sort of left versus right within the Democratic Party and more about old versus new symbolically the Janet. You know the fact that Chuck Schumer, but it's give me a second here to check his age. I want to have this exactly right. I think Chuck Schumer is seventy eight these days. But excuse me, seventy four didn't mean to age him. Senator Schumer, my apologies for aging you.

But when seventy four year old Chuck Schumer says, isn't this great that they've recruited seventy seven year old Janet

Mills for us? Sense? I mean the fact that a party that has just dealt with a ton of sort of age obstacles for their rising stars. Right, Nancy Loosi staying in office for year after year after year after year, believing she alone is the only one that could lead the Democrats. She was a terrific leader for the House Democrats. I assume at some point House office building will feature her name. The Pelosi House Office Building is I assume in the work somewhere. She is deserving of lots of flowers.

One of the few people to lose a speakership, you know more, not not from inside her own party, but for losing control and then coming back and getting the speaker's scavel back. That doesn't happen often. It's happened before, but not often, and so she certainly is historic in a number of ways, including being the first woman Speaker of the House. But this generation of leaders just just

is sticks and sticks and sticks. And the fact that the Democrats, what the leadership of the Democratic Party thinks is their best candidate is someone who's five years older than the current incumbent, who's been in office since the end of the twentieth century, seems like they're giving up their best. The best case against Susan Collins is she's been in office too long, and she's been there too long.

How is it that the best that the leadership of the Democratic Party thinks the best person to knock off

an incumbent like that is somebody who's one older and two a current statewide elected official. I think this is going to be an extraordinarily fascinating primary in some ways, the primary maybe maybe more have more fireworks in it than the eventual general election. Look, I think Susan Collins

is in trouble regardless who she faces. But I'll tell you this, when you're in an anti incombent environment, you don't want to be holding holding a major office while you're trying to run as any you know, like, I think this is a huge problem for Shared Brown in Ohio. He is the challenger who has been in office longer

than the guy he's running against right and in the type of election where in some ways you're trying you're as a party as a whole, you're trying to elect new to replace old. And yet two of their biggest recruits are folks in their seventies. And if Janet Mills wins, shall be the oldest freshman elected senator ever. It's just after the Democrats featured the oldest elected president ever. Of course, Donald Trump's going to break that record by replacing with this,

by replacing Joe Biden on that one. But it's fat and for what it's worth, with her first day in office, and you already have, uh, the first attack ad on Janet Mills from Graham Platin or the Oyster Farmer. I know, I've finally learned his first and last name. For those of you that would keep keeping track, here here's what the ad does. A woman in the spot itself, so it's not the candidate detecting Janet Mills by name, but in the spot, a woman in the spot says Janet

Mills again, she was a good governor, but I think it's time for a change. So welcome to what I think is now a new Democratic Party. Headache This is not recruiting Roy Cooper in North Carolina, and frankly, it's not even recruiting Shared Brown in Ohio because you could argue that Shared Brown was I'm torn at his race. I think he is the best possible candidate they could get in this moment. Who could raise him, and he rose raised a big chunk of money. Is whether the

Democratic Party is going to support him. They didn't really help him out of his jam as much two years ago. He was very frustrated, particularly on the trans issue, how little backup he got from the National Party to help him out on that race. On this one, this is going to become a massive primary headache. There's going to be a massive amount of money spent in the primary that arguably might be better suited for the general election. But we'll see. Look one thing, and this was the subject

of my substec last week. One thing we learned is that nobody if aking Jeffries or somebody who's threatened you as a local candidate in the name of aking Jeffries or Chuck Schumer by saying the National Party is not going to support you, is anybody going to take them seriously? I mean, Graham Plattner, Are you really not going to help his candidacy if he wins the primary and knocks

off a sitting governor and a Democratic primary. He's not going to take those threats seriously because what other states do you have on the board, Chuck Schumer that you can target? And look, you know, I get it. Governors in general are incredible fundraisers, and certainly in a larger state like North Carolina, make a lot of sense in this. This is one of those unique cases where it may not make the sense you think it makes on this front. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of smart people

in and around Schumer world. I've known JB. Pursh a long time, and I know the case he would make to me on this one about oh, you don't understand sitting governor's Chuck, I understand, I get it, I get it. I do think you guys have adopted yourself quite the headache, and it may be a headache you're gonna wish you didn't acquire some six to eight months eight months from now. All right with that, I will leave the campaign trail. There's actually a lot more I want to get on,

but hey, I've gone a good thirty seven minutes. Here, let's sneak in a break and I'll see on the other side with my top five list and a little lass chuck. So it is Wednesday, which means I have a top five list, top top test, top five, top

top test top thought. To have a little a little more fun, I do want to have, you know, monthly check ins on my on my top five Senate race flips, my top governor's race flips. But in this one, I decided to do a top five list on comebacks. On political comebacks of possible, there's sort of five political comebacks that I think are reasonably viable. These are people essentially

running to reclaim an office that they once held. I believe in just about every one of these scenarios, these folks lost or were pushed out for a variety for a variety of reasons. So my top five list is top five. So Andrew Cuomo's doesn't make this list because he never served as mayor, so yes, it's a political comeback, but he's not trying to run for the same office. But there is somebody on my top five list that

I will get to. He's in my fifth slot that is running for his old office in twenty twenty five, and we will find out in a mere three weeks, perhaps a month later due to runoffs the runoff rules in said city, where we'll see if that comeback. It's a unique comeback opportunity. But here it is my top five most likely political comebacks where this person can win back a seat they once held and they're essentially running

for their old office. Number one on that list somebody with a very famous name that has a junior next to it. It is Jesse Jackson junior. He of course had his own problems that led him to have to serve time. He essentially was misusing campaign funds for personal gain and had to pay a price for that. He served his time, and he now wants to run for office again, and in fact, he has an open house seat to run for in his community. His brother, by the way, does serve in Congress right now, but he

wants to. He's going to run in the second Congressional district in Illinois. It's the seat being vacated by congress by Robin Kelly, who is running in that very crowded US Senate primary to replace the retiring Dick Durbin. Look, I think Jackson Junior. The Jackson name, the Jackson political operation is very formidable in the Chicago area. The Jackson name means quite a bit in a positive in many

communities in Chicago. How he asks for forgiveness will matter, and in his comeback bid he has spoken with so far, I think with a reasonable amount of humble pie that he's been eating with it. And so of all the comeback bids in fact that I'm going to highlight here, I think he's the only one that's going to end

up back in the office that he wants out. I think he is the best shot of anybody obviously, why I put him number one, So Jesse Jackson Junior, I think number one on the list of most likely to get their old job back on that front, So number two on that list is going to be I'm putting Corey Bush. She is running for her old seatback against the person that defeated her in a primary in Wesley Bell. I think sort of the reason do I think she

ends up losing? I do. I think it was a bit of her style that rubbed her constituents the wrong way. She was not seen as very good at basic constituency services. But the fact that this is so fresh, so recent. You are also going to have a Democratic electorate. I think that is looking to be more feisty and wants to be a bit more confrontational. That actually could help

Corey Bush in that race. So I think you have to put her in the number two slot of most likely to get her to get her old job back. It's and it it could the stuff that worked against her in her last primary may not work against her as strongly as it did the first time. Number three on my list is a candidacy that it appears to be more likely than not. What's funny is that there were actually two people in this race that could have qualified in this spot, but I wouldn't have put both

of them in my third set. And it's Johnny Sonunu.

He's a former US senator. He is being recruited heavily to run again to try to get back into the US Senate. He lost to Jean Shaheen. This time he's running to try to you would be running to replace him. Now. He hasn't announced yet, so you could say he's a probable candidate. He of course would be in a primary with Scott Brown, who is also a former US senator who would be running for the second time to try to win this specific seat. He actually ran against jeen

a cycle ago and did not win. Republicans are not very bullish on Brown's ability to win this open seat against the likely Democratic nomine Chris Pappus, but they're a lot more bullish on Sonunu. And part of it is Sonunu's brother is extraordinarily popular, the now former governor, Chris Snunu.

He is somebody that seemed to navigate navigate the cranky New Hampshire Independent as well as anybody I've seen in New Hampshire in sometime, and he knew how to push back on Trump and he needed to, and he knew how to look. I think there's some people on the left that feel like he was too supportive at times of Trump. But if you're actually going to be successful independent, you got to know when to work with each side and when to oppose each side, and you got to

sort of be sort of consistent with yourself and pulling that off. The New brand is very strong in that state, and I think uh Johnson, who arguably lost because he was portrayed as being much too conservative for the state some four years ago. I think in a weird way, Trump has redefined conservatism, uh and in a way that is more it is more of more of an online you know too. Conservative is now seen as being sort

of more maga than it is more ideological. And so the ideological problems that were Johnny Sunus do Johnny because his father was a John was Johnson, who just for an initial is not as I think, is not as the same deal breaker as it was in his original race against Shaheen, which was a massive race. So I

put him in the number three column. I mean think the only reason he's not higher on the list is I think it's going to be a tough year for Republicans generically in New Hampshire's the type of state that sort of moves, you know, if the country's leaning left, new Hampshire's going to lean left. If the country's going to lean right, as we've seen, New Hampshire is still a bit more slightly more center left than the country or else Trump would have carried that state in twenty

fourty didn't. But if you see if basically the generic battle it's tied nationally, then there's an opening for someone like Sanunu and his brand name may help in that one. So he's number three, number four, the less I'm gonna put Shared Brown. The man raised eight million dollars in six weeks. Incredibly formidable. He knows Ohio, he knows how to do it. He's won in mid the midterm, the

midterm environment. You know, his one loss was in the was in that presidential environment where more Trump and Vance voters showed up. So I think this is he certainly has a shot at this. I'm I think I think he's got an easy path to forty seven, an extraordinarily hard path to fifty percent plus one if he somehow, if he's if there was a libertarian candidate taking two or three points and winning number was forty seven point five to forty eight point five, that's how Shared Brown

wins this race. We'll see what the eventual general election ballot looks like. But that's but I put Shared Brown number Fourtheless, in my fifth spot, I'm having a little fun with this. I do not necessarily believe this is the fifth most likely person. In fact, there are a whole bunch of other formers trying to get their trying to get their seats back here some interesting members of Congress,

or in fact, the Byron Donalds. The seat that Byron Donalds is vacating in Florida has former New York Member of Congress Chris Collins running in the primary, former North Carolina Member of Congress Madison Cawthorne running in the primary,

and neither one of them are likely to actually get close to winning that seat, which is why I didn't put him on the list. Jerry carl is thinking about running for his old seat in Alabama. We shall see there, So you do have a few other formers out there, but the former and also Tommy Thompson has said he's eighty five and he said he may want to run for a fifth term for governor. I think I mentioned it last week, but I don't think he ends up running, which is why I didn't have a little fun put

on the list. But the person I'm putting on the list is Javier Suarez. My hometown of Miami, it's actually the city of Miami Mayor. I actually never lived in the city of Miami. I grew up in the unincorporated Miami Dade County. Was what you put when you mailed a letter to my house, It was Miami, Florida. That's what was used. I was in Kendall, so we didn't have to have a town or a city. There are I think we're up to thirty three municipalities within Miami

Dade County. When I grew up, it was just Dade County.

They added to Miami for branding reasons. Frankly understandable. Right, La County is La right, so why not? And Jamier Suarez is not only trying to get his old seatback. He was mayor of Miami from eighty five to ninety three, and briefly for about for a two month period in ninety seven, after the most corrupt mayor or election that the city of Miami's ever had. I'll get to that in a minute. But he's actually running to replace his son,

Francis Suarez, whose term limited. Of course, you remember Francisuarez from his days as a presidential candidate briefly in twenty twenty four. I suspect he is. It wouldn't be shocked if he found his way into the Trump cabinet or

found his way into an ambassador's ship. He toyed with the idea of running for governor, but he and DeSantis have not seen eye to eye, although being anti DeSantis hasn't been an issue in Trump world. Right. If you told me, though, that Suarez was the running mate for Byron Donalds would totally shock me on that front. But he's a pretty ambitious guy, so I don't know if Donalds would want to have would trust him as a

running mate, though. I do think having South Miami ties might matter if the general election is indeed going to be competitive and closed, and I think that's an open question, not one hundred percent convinced it will be. Look, I think there are two Democrats that might be able to make this a more competitive various David Jolly is certainly a qualified candidate, the former Republican congressman now switching parties as a Democrat. And Jerry Demmings, the mayor of Orlando

of Orange County. Excuse me the colonomy that encompasses Orlando is thinking about running In theory, either one of them could potentially be a strong candidate, but boy, they does Donald have a huge, huge head start. So but what's interesting about there's like over a dozen candidates running for Miami mayor and including a couple of people who corrupt pasts have collided and intertwined in the past. Joe Caroyo, who was UH and UH, Javier Suarez now Jaber Suarez,

the father of Francisoirez. Francisuirez has not endorsed his father. He wishes him well, is what he said, but he is not endorsed. Jabier Suirez won the most corrupt mayor's race. When you when you've heard about voter fraud issues. Suarez a Republican and this is this was all republican and republican crime there in the city of Miami. He a

race in nineteen ninety seven. Basically by he was never They could never say that the candidate himself knew this happened, but they did prove that somebody on his behalf stuffed the ballot box of absentee ballots. He basically won because of absentee ballots, and they were clearly fraudulent to the point of the election was overturned and he was not

allowed to serve as mayor. Joe Kroyo, who himself has just lost a fifty plus million dollar civil suit, has sort of avoided any official criminal indictments, but has all sorts of ethical liabilities that have that have followed him for years. Was the other candidate in that race back in ninety seven. Well, Joe Kroyo is dealing is running again. There's just all It doesn't appear any of these guys

are are going to win. But if you're looking for a good old fashioned crazy race in Miami, that scott a lot of corrupt tentacles sort of in it. That is a bit of the old Miami. And you know, it bums me out because I do think we're in general, the city and the County of Miami have been trying to move away from its reputation as being a bit

corrupt in different parts, in different cities. And when you have thirty three municipalities, these small little, you know, enclaves within the county that frankly have been abused by ambitious officeholders who just want to do enrich themselves. But it's it's like my friends in Chicago and in Cook County

who always were in New Orleans and in Louisiana. You're always sort of running away from your reputation from corruption, and every time you think you turn the corner, then somebody essentially does it again, and only sullies the entire reputation of the area. I imagine that there's sort of going to be some are as fatigued. That doesn't that

also hurts Javier Suarez. But I do think the fact that he was involved in the worst in the most documented case of voter fraud that we ever had again absentee ballots on the Republican side of the aisle for those of you keeping keeping score, But he is fifth on my list of most likely to be able to win a comeback to an old office that they once held. All right, that little trip down memory lane. I hope you enjoyed that top five lists. So the top five

most like lead political comebacks. Jesse Jackson, Junior, Corey Bush, Johnny Sinunu, Shared Brown and won Javier Suarez for the city of Miami. Theyre all right, let's do some ass chuck as choke, all right, let's do some ask check. This one comes from Frank and he says, hey, check. I always enjoy when you mentioned Seminole County or anything around Florida. Seminole County, that's where my mother lives. He goes, I grew up near Lake Jessup, but now live in

Louden County. There you go Virginia. So this is my first commonwealth wide election. So I watched last week's Virginia Gooba of toial debate closely. What stood out was how the moderators held the candidates accountable, pressing them when they dodged questions. Is someone familiar with how presidential debates are run, do you think that same approach could work at the national level or are there too many rules and behind the scenes constraints that prevent it. Thanks Frank. You know,

it's funny. I've been involved in both presidential debates, and in fact, i've this is the first time I've not moderated a debate in Virginia governor. I think now, going some fifteen years, I've moderated quite a few of the Virginia governor debates and quite a few Virginia Senate debates. And these two candids had a hard time agreeing to many debates. This is becoming a larger problem in general. But for the most part, you know, the fewer people involved,

the better chance you have to do this. And if my understanding in this debate is that there were sort

of fewer constraints, there wasn't You didn't have like multiple media partners where you got to have a whole bunch of people ask questions, right, That sort of takes up potential follow up time. That's number one. But in general, the candidates themselves don't fight like in some ways. I've

always been able to get what I've wanted out of most of these debates and been able to make sure I've had the ability to do follow ups pretty closely. I did the Hogan also Brooks debate in twenty twenty four, and a lot of the debates in the DMV I've had the opportunity to do, and I've enjoyed them a lot. On the presidential level, the campaigns litigate everything beforehand, and so you will get you know, they will try to

get in the specifics of that. The beauty of the Presidential Commission debates, although we may not have it, is that the Commission sort of was able to sort of hold firmer. Right now that you're going to pit media companies against each other in this, it's going to be a you know, sort of a war that ends up benefiting the candidates, and it takes takes out the ability of the moderator to be anything more than a mannequin

which is which is my concern. But look, I watched bits and pizza of that debate as well, and I think the moderators did their best. It's never helpful when when one of the candidates just has no intention of

abiding by the rules. Uh and it's it really sucks when that happens, because you, as the moderator, become the schoolmar and the time cop and the pleas and the this, and you want to be polite, you know, I always you know a lot of people are watching, and you know, as a moderator, I've always viewed it more as an umpire rule, which is I never wanted my name mentioned until paragraph five or six, if you're if you're in

paragraph one. I feel that way. Feel the way about debate moderating the way I feel about UH NBA refereeing, NFL refereeing, baseball umpiring. If I know the name of the referee or the umpire, then you are way too involved in the in the game, right. You know, it's not good that I know who that one of the most important NBA refs out there is a guy named Scott Foster. I don't you know? That's bad? Right? That means there's been a lot of analysis about how Scott

Foster covered UH does games. So it is, it is, it is. I don't think that should be. You know, it's the candidate's debating, not the moderator involved in the debate. Right, In some ways they're trying to uh, they're trying to surface information and surface a conversation. Look, I think they but you know, ultimately a debate only works if the

candidates accept the premise. And I think the difficulty that my friends had in that Virginia debates, he had one of the candidates that simply wanted to just not not allowed, was trying to rattle the other candidate. I understood her strategy. This is winsterm Earl series. I understood her strategy, and trying to rattle's what you do when you're behind. I mean, I don't, I sort of I get the strategy. I don't. I'm not going to condemn it, but it made the

moderator's job that much harder. All right. Next question comes from anonymous. Hey, there, I endow your take on the events these days. Thank you. I have a major issue with the Hatch Act violation by posting political and partisan notices on a federal site. How about even how about Christy no trying to post video messages at airports? Anyway, what are the legal repercussions when leaders sanctioned these postings? The OSC complaint site seems to have been taken off line.

So what recourse do we have as citizens? Well, let me do a little check. What happened to Kelly Conway when she violated the Hatch Act. I believe she got I believe they that the OSC found that she repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, but there was no punishment. The Office of the Special Counsel recommended her removal from federal service.

But then once she left government, it's not like you could discipline her, and they and the White House didn't accept the premise it this is one of these things The Hatch Act is norms. The Hatch Act really isn't very well enforced, right. It is one of those that the it's like and it's it's almost held over the heads of people more like impeachment. You hope that the shame of violating it, like, hey, you know, we actually

have this law that says you can't play you can't practice politics while serving use your federal office for to advance your political agenda blatantly right, And look, it's a this is somewhat subjective, but we had sort of this third party, the Office of Special Council. Her violation, you know, was just simply talking about politics, and she was in an I have a tad more empathy for advisors in the West Wing on the Hatch Act than I do for cabinet secretaries. Like to me, there's no gray area

at all. You can you can make some gray area arguments around West Wing advisors who are constantly sort of in their their political appointees, and their only political appointees. They're not a percent of confirmation, you kind of know their political appointee. They're there to defend the politics of the administration. Anyway, I do think it's a it's it's it's a bit more gray area than than than maybe

some of her political opponents want to admit. But the point is is that there's there's there's only teeth if if the administration accepts the premise, so christin no blatant violation of the Hatch Act, you think this White House is going to accept the premise that she should be somehow garnished pay removed from office, you know whatever. No, this gets to my larger point. Right, these were hatch ACKed is a bit more. It was a bit more.

It's almost like it's there so that we in the media can say, hey, so and so violated the Hatch Act. You voters decide whether you care. Right it should embarrass presidents, but this president has politicized everything. I mean, this is one of my one of my concerns about what's happening with governing in America is that that the idea that you only govern for your supporters and you only punish those on the on the other side of you politically.

I mean this idea that they're not laying If you really want to just shrink government, you lay off across the board. Laying off across the board. They're targeting the quote democratic agencies and they're leaving the quote republican agencies alone. I didn't know we had democratic agentencies or republican agencies, but apparently Russell Voyd thinks we have democratic agencies. So

this is this is a larger problem. The Hatch HAC doesn't work, so we probably need to come up with something else that has a bit more teeth and is a bit more a bit faster if we want to take this type of if we really want to take away this polarization. I mean, this gets back to good

people with bad incentives will do bad things. The Hatch Act is something that was intended to service a potential piano over your head type of mindset as a as a political actor, that there would be embarrassment if you violated the Hatch Act. This administration is never embarrassed when they politicize things. So I think that's the definition of yet another norm if you will or law that. Uh, it's good intention, but it doesn't work. So we need

to revisit it. Perhaps perhaps we need I don't want to put so many things, and you know, I don't think we need I've advocated for a handful of constitutional amendments. I don't the idea that we'd have to make this a constitutional amendment seems ridiculous. We probably need real teeth there. Maybe it's huge fines you know that are that are you know, either resign or fine type of type of thing. But we need something better than what we have, that's

for sure. All right. Next question comes from Mary W. Greetings again from Ruby Red, rural Ohio. All Right, so this is not a first time, calling this a second time. I just wanted to give you a big thank you for your interview with Paul Glasters. As a working class rural Ohio and I have two daughters, thirteen and eleven, my husband and I have been worried about affording college

if our daughters choose to go. I had a huge loan that I could never make any headway on which I had forget, which I had forgiven by the Biden program for over forty thousand dollars. I left school nineteen ninety nine and my education was basically worthless in the real world. I don't want that to happen to my own kids. I really enjoyed your interview, and when he said Berea College was often tuition free and was in Kentucky,

I googled it immediately. It's only four hours from our house, and we'll be on the top of the list if our daughters choose college over trade school. Thank you so much for that informative interview and all your insights on the craziness in the world. Mary w I have to tell you I've gotten a lot of I've gotten some

terrific feedback on Paul's interview. Paul, if your ears are birdy good, it's that that just only reinforces what I hope to make this podcast about, which is to give you more information, give you more expose more good ideas that are out there. I've said that one of the things I want to do is, look, I'm going to be on the news at the top of these things, but I want to. I want to. You know, I believe in more light than heat, and podcasts should provide

more light than heat. What do I mean by that that you're trying to provide more information, new information, not necessarily make people feel good with your takedowns and your trolls and your memes and all that business. I know that's how you light up the Twitter sphere, and that's how you light up your YouTube or your TikTok and oh look, I've got all these likes. But are you actually making people's lives better? Are you giving them better tools to live a better life. Most of these political

podcast are just griffs. Sadly, these are partisan hacks who some of them don't believe half of what they're preaching. This is left and right. I'm not going to sit here and name names, They know who they are, and they're just exploiting an incentive structure that rewards that behavior. Unfortunately.

But anyway, this warms my heart. And like I said, I got a lot of direct feedback about this one too, because the cost of tuition is too damn high so many of the so called great schools, that's for sure. All right. Last question, this one comes from Duncan from Arizona. He says, it's given the AI and robotics are set to take a big chunk out of the job market. What is the likelihood of a universal basic income in the United States. I think you're going to see this

experiment expand outside of what we've seen so far. I think it was Stockton, California, has tried this UBI approach. I think there's a few other municipalities of toyed with it universal basic income UBI. Andrew Yang's presidential campaign talked about it. You know what social security? One could argue, we're already doing it for a big chunk of the population, right.

Disability and social security are a form of essentially income replacement because you can't work or you're too old to work, So we're sort of I would argue we kind of have a system in place. You know, we're going to go through quite a few changes. I know that the prediction of the three day, four day work week has been out there for a long time, but I think

that's more real than ever now. That doesn't mean that people aren't going to have multiple The question is what is going to be What will full time work be defined by? Will full time work be defined by three days a week of working minimum? And what does that

look like? Right, it's possible that that's what's classified as that. That doesn't mean you won't see people, you know, sort of do what I think arguably firefighters. I grew up with a couple of people who were firefighters who also had side hustles. You know, they because it was like you were twenty four hours on, forty eight hours off, twenty four hours on, forty eight hours off. It's a you know, where they do a side hustle of some sort. Maybe it would be a small bit business, maybe it'd

be deliveries. Maybe there's real estate. You know, there's all sorts of Some teachers have you know, acquired second jobs in the summers, even if as they're paid full time, but it's it's it's that. So it's not as if I don't think people are going to only work three days a week. But what is going to be the definition of full time work? I think is certainly going to be an open question going forward. And I think we're going to need you know it is I am.

I'm a bit skeptical. I think the idea of income replacement when needed is going to continue to be something that is a benefit. But I I'm not sure the human species is going to be comfortable just being paid not to work, and I know some of the others I'd love to be paid not to work. Would you would you have a fulfilling life? Would you be literally pick up something else and find a way to make money because you were kind of bored in different ways? So I do think you're going to see in in

you know, some form of this. I believe fear of AI job displacement is going to be a crucial issue in the twenty twenty eight presidential election cycle. And if you aren't, if you're thinking about running for president, you better have a real plan. You know, are you going to be a champion of you BiH? Is that going to be part of your thing? Is there a job retraining is there that you know? What? What is? What? What is your hope if you're hoping to collect dollars

from the AI companies? And what are you going to use with that money? If it is indeed, indeed, is it intended simply for income replacement or is it going to be for job retraining? But a very simple question open the door to what I think could be a very uh what to obviously a very long answer there. But I do think that this is that this will the fear of AI job displacement is going to be

a really animating issue. And you know, by the way, in a sort of separate scenario, at this same trade conference that I was participating in here in the digital ad community, and this seed was planted by a good friend of mine recently, and I think he's right, which is, if we don't believe anything we see anymore on the internet, right, and with these AI visual tools, you know, I'm sorry, I look at stuff where I'm following on social media and someone will say, hey, that's obvious AI slop, And

I use my old fifty three year old eyes, I squint. Is it obvious? What am I missing? Right? I think that it's going to be a lot easier to just assume everything is. There's going to be almost an assumption that everything you see on the Internet is AI enhanced or created. So what does that mean. It's going to put a premium on face to face, It's going to put a premium on live in person maybe to a lesser extent live streams, but even that could get aied, right.

I know of another person who is trying to clone themselves to do more survey research, qualitative survey research. Obviously you you you know where an AI version of said person can start doing Q and as that that that is I see the upside of doing collecting data that way. Call me, call me skeptical that that actual human beings will feel comfortable doing that. So, but it is interesting,

I am. I do think we're going to see some interesting unintended consequences in this race to the AI affication of the Internet, and politically, a have job displacement, those issues, that's definitely going to be in the forefront. But it's going to make human interaction a premium. I have, for instance, I think customer service. If you want a human being, you may have to pay extra for it, and I have a feeling people will pay extra for it, but

human beings. Dealing with a human being will be seen as a much better experience than dealing with a computer you cannot sort of reason with, even if you think you're reasoning with, said robot. All right, on that uplifting dystopian notes, go rewatch Gataka right now, I tease with that, I'm going to take a twenty four hour break, but I will see you in twenty four hours until we upload again.