Chuck’s Commentary - Donald Trump Is Rattled By The Epstein Files + How The U.S. Government Fed Conspiratorial Thinking

fifteen milligram gummy for a more elevated experience. Their THHC beverages and gummies are a modern, mindful alternative to a glass of wine or a cocktail. And I'll tell you this, I've given up booze. I don't like the hangovers. I prefer the gummy experience. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious HEMP derived THHD and CBD products, all designed to boost your mood and simply help you unwine so

if you struggle to switch off at night, Soul also has a variety of products specifically designed to just simply help you get a better night's sleep, including their top selling Sleepy gummies. It's a fan favorite for deep restorative sleep. So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order, So go to gitsold dot com use the promo code toodcast. Don't forget that code.

That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I am not in studio. I am traveling. I am in Miami. I'm on a sort of a three city excursion here. I'll be in Miami, I'll be in Charlotte. I got a trip to New York all this week. I just came from Austin. I want to actually give a report on that. It was a participant at the Texas Tribune Festival where

I interviewed Wes Moore. Actually, a part of that conversation I'm going to have in the feed later this week, so you will get a full opportunity to hear that conversation. But with that, let me get started with a quick little take on where we're at at the moment in our current politics, and where we're at is we have a president who is in the midst of a feeding frenzy, and it is a feeding frenzy that he can't control, and he is flailing. We've been in these positions with

him before and he always navigates his way out of it. But this time is different. As I said in our previous episode, we've got a struggling economy, something that he's actually reacting to that's fascinating and I want to get to that also in this episode. But at the end of the day, his what he's doing and how he's reacting to this Epstein situation is not exactly the way somebody who's innocent would be reacting it is. There's so many aspects of this that are strange when it comes

to the way he's treated this story. I mean, I'll go back to something and I know, just set aside everything you know about the story, but think about it

in this way. Donald Trump has the ability to b as his way out of you know, he lies, you know, sort of the way water flows out of a faucet, right, He's very comfortable doing that, and he'll say whatever it takes today to put off something that may be coming tomorrow, and if he's got to say something else tomorrow, I'll say something else tomorrow. The big head scratcher here on this one is why he has chosen to be so lenient on Gallayne Maxwell. And to me, this is the

part I want to focus on first. And then I'm going to get to what is clearly an overreaction to Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey, and I'll get to that in a second, But I keep coming back to this Kallaine Maxwell. And again when you get when we get to my time the time Machine segment today, you'll

see where I'm going. But the reason there's an assumption lying about something is because there's so many politicians that have preceded him over the last fifty years that have always lied to protect themselves first, and eventually the truth would come out. It just sometimes would take years and in some cases decades. What's a head scratcher about the

way he has treated Gallaine Maxwell is he seems to fear her, And the question is why does he fear her? She's in jail number one, number two. She was convicted of essentially helping Epstein traffic underage women. He could easily be wanting to throw the book at her, and instead of putting her in a club fed, he could have been putting her in solitary or making her life even

more miserable, rather than trying to be lenient. And for whatever reason, he really wants her not to say anything bad about it, even though if she did, he could just simply say she's lying. She you know that he had a story that was plausible enough that would likely have kept everybody on his side. Right. The story was Epstein was being a creep, he was recruiting, He and Glane were recruiting women from mar A Lago. He had had enough, he kicked him out, end of the relationship.

Why is he keep pulling Glaine Maxwell back into his orbit? And I'll just say this, there is something else in his life. There's there There is something that she knows about. Perhaps there's something she assisted him with. Maybe it's a relationship he has or had with somebody. But there is

something that he has that hasn't come out that he apparently is petrified of that she knows. Because there really seems to be no other explanation, because he could be behaving the exact opposite way and the fact that he isn't is a head scratcher, and someday, maybe sooner, maybe it'll take a while, we'll find out for sure. Maybe she knows the origin story of his personal life, Maybe she knows things that we don't know about the origin story of his marriage. None of us know for sure.

His behavior is making it easier to go down conspiratorial lanes, and it's almost like he is either purposely doing this just to try to create more fog, which is not totally out of character for him, or there's something that Maxwell has that he just can't he just can't risk, and so he's got to figure out. So we'll see. Look, if he commutes her sentence and releases her, that will be you know, not just one red flag, right, that would be a thousand red flags. But let's go to

the other part of this story, which is his decision to punish Marjorie Taylor Green unendorse her. We already know he's sicked his political machine on Thomas Massey trying to primary him. There's an interesting pattern here Trump. I'm trying to figure out who is Trump dumped or pulled his endorsement from, or tried to defeat in his side of

the aisle who disagreed with him on an issue of substance. Right, he went after those that voted to impeach him after January sixth, right, the ten, and he is he doesn't want to forget those. He's still got vendettas against anybody that voted to convict him in the Senate. Hence why I think there's still no endorsement for Bil Cassidy, and I don't think there will ever be an endorsement for Bill Cassidy in his senatecy. But none of these he is he is angrier at Massy and Green for simply

voting for transparency on the Epstein files. Then he's as angry at them as he was against the ten House Republicans that voted to impeach him after January six It is it is if this is this, and the irony is, he's got plenty of ways that they're likely going to kill this. Right, he's got the Senate. We'll see. Look, I think if there's a hundred or more House Republicans that vote with the Democrats on this, and I think

there will be that many. I do think that once this vote goes on the record, there's a reason Mike Johnson wanted to try to just release the files as

a unanimous consent because he doesn't want to recorded vote. There's a whole bunch of House Republicans that don't want to have to vote against the President on this, but they're more petrified of not voting to release files having to do with a pedophile. So that's one. The second way they could kill it is maybe in the Senate, but if it gets one hundred or more House votes, I think there are thirteen Senate votes. Now maybe leaders Senate leadership just finds different ways never to bring it

to the floor. But somebody's going to bring this to the floor. Somebody's going to be able to introduce it, and then it's possible Trump could be to it. But don't underestimate what the Justice Department just did with this when Donald Trump railed Rented on social media demanding that Pambondi started an investigation into Democrats in their relationship with Epstein.

Because here's what's likely to happen. If there's an open investigation that the Justice Department is conducting having to do with people and their associations with Epstein, then it's likely they go to a court and say, hey, we can't have these files released because it's currently a part of

an investigation. Right there's been a lot of conversation. One of the knee jerk right wing talking points is, well, the Biden folks could have released this, Well, they were in the middle of an investigation, so they couldn't release any files at the time. Now the investigation, in theory is over. But if they're reopening an investigation, then suddenly that is that likely will mean that will be used.

This quote open investigation will be used as saying, hey, we can't release any of this material. It may matter in an investigation and we don't want to have to put all that out earlier. So it's there's a lot of pads, I think for this to be to have these files prevented from being released to the public. There's a handful of ways. You can see how it could

be Senate leadership that does it. It could be that President Trump vetos it, or it could simply be the Justice Department goes to court to say they can't because there's an open investigation. Because Pambondi agreed to open investigation just to investigate Democrats in their relationship with Epstein. So the point is it's how much, it's how rattled he is on this, and when he's rattled, this is when mistakes get made, and he's rattled at a time when

the other parts of his job aren't going very well. Right, you have, it's pretty clear that this economy is not working for people that don't have money. He is realizing how badly the inflation issue is impacting, particularly his voters, because he's doing something he said he'd never do. He's getting rid of tariffs on food and coffee. Now, what's interesting is how all of his surrogates went out on

the Sunday shows and they won't say that they're getting rid of the tariffs, like they keep not trying to use the word, or they keep saying, no, we're lowering costs. Oh, you're getting rid of the tariffs. So the terrorists raised costs. No, the terifts didn't raise any costs. But we're going to lower costs on food. There's this weird they don't you know. Donald Trump can't ever admit he's wrong. And the fact of the matter is these tariffs. Foreigners didn't pay these fees.

You and I did. We've been paying this. If you've bought a banana recently, you paid tariffs. So if he's

going to sit here and refund this to some people, and we'll see if they're even able to do that, we're going to find out soon enough. He's likely to lose at least some of this tariff authority in court. He probably will try to find another way in the law to try to try to implement some of these tariffs, and I think there are a few other levers he

can pull that he'll be able to do this. But the reality is is that you know, despite everything he claimed that somehow Americans weren't going to be paying this tax, Americans have paid this tax. We have been getting more tax on food, particularly fruits, vegetables, stuff that comes from overseas, plus coffee. So the fact that they're dropping them shows you that there's a bit of an acknowledgment that number one, prices haven't calmed down, they've gone up, and number two,

he's been the reason why prices have gone up. And then finally he's got to deal with this healthcare issue and the fact that premiums are everybody now that is is that is on the Obamacare exchanges, is seeing that the premiums are about to go up if they were getting some of these subsidies, it looks to me like there's going to be an extension of these subsidies. Is it a year, is it is it a year with

a few extra strings attached. I think all of those things are possible, But I do want to highlight something Rick Scott said. Rick Scott made it crystal clear in

a Sunday Show interview earlier that they were not going to repeal Obamacare and that you know, there was not going they were not that they that all insurance was going you know, they weren't going to repeat or the

pre existing condition issue. Because the only way to save money on this on on these insurance exchanges in OBAMACAREA is if you let insurance companies essentially cherry pick who they get to cover and if you don't have a pre existing condition, and they can shift people with pre existing conditions and make them pay higher rates but have healthy people pay super low rates. That's you know that that's the system we had before, which didn't work for anybody.

So the fact that Rick Scott is saying we are not going to do that because you cannot have insurance companies be able to not accept clients because of a pre existing condition. This is why the system didn't work before. But the talking point that is really bizarre to me, as they're saying, well, they want to they don't want to give this money to the insurance companies, are going to give it to the American people. Well, where do they think the American people is going to spend this money?

Can you get health insurance coverage without paying an insurance company? I mean, I guess unless we're going to be doing Medicare for all, is that the plan. I don't think that's going to be the plan that comes from the Republican side of the aisle. But if you don't want

to pay insurance companies, who else do you pay? And if you would like to get rid of the insurance companies, if you hate insurance companies, Bernie Sanders would love to talk with you. He's got a plan, Republicans. If you don't like insurance companies and you don't want to pay insurance companies, He's got a terrific idea just do it straight with the government. So it's a strange talking point that they're using. But the point is they know this

is not good politics for them. They know that they have to deal with this, and I think they're going to deal with this soon. But this Epstein thing, it's when I was growing up, there was a deodorant commercial for a deodorant called Sure. And this is back when we had aerosolt deodorance. And you know that the aerosolt the odorance was gross. You know, thankfully, you know, we had such a we were so worried about the ozone

layer back then. They finally got rid of those things, which is there's a whole bunch of us that are thankful for that. That was just gross. You walk into a gem and you'd always smell that sort of aerosol deodorant. It was disgusting. But the Sure, I always said, never let him see his sweat was sort of the tagline for Sure deodorant. Well, Donald Trump is letting all of us see him sweat. This episode of the Chuck Podcast

is brought to you by Wildgrain. Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen subscription box for our teasonal breads, seasonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all items conveniently bake in twenty five minutes or less, unlike many store bought options. Wild Grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and richer nutrients and antioxidants. Wildgrains boxes are fully customizable.

They're constantly adding seasonal and limited tiping products for you to enjoy. In addition to their classic box, they now feature a gluten free box and a plant based box. I checked out the gluten free box and let me tell you, they have a gluten free sourdough bread. It is. We got two loads of it and we've done one loaf already. It's a cranberry and almond sourdough bread. It's like the best raisin bread you've ever had, except it's not raisin. It's great. You're gonna love this. You know

it's hit or miss if you mess around in the gluten free bread world. This is a hit. Seriously. I was impressed. So look for a limited time. Wild Grain is offering our listeners thirty dollars off your first box, plus free croissants in every box. When you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to start your subscription, follow

these instructions. Free crossants in every box thirty dollars off your first box when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast that's wildgrain dot com slash toodcast, or simply use the promo code toodcast at checkout. Always use the code get the discount. I'm telling you it's excellent, excellent, bright. He is clearly nervous about all things up sent it

is his personal obsession. He is trying to enact political and vendettas having to do with it. He is making Marjorie Taylor Green a martyr. He is giving, he is helping get her mainstreamed with independency. She is proudly calling herself, you know, Maga without him, And that's the thing like he is not. You know, I do think Thomas Massey, who was a sort of America first Conservative before Donald

Trump ever showed up. Marjorie Taylor Green's beliefs clearly aligned closer with a with a conservative that's more in line with Massy than she is with Trump. Trump is always as many a Trump advisor will quietly let me know, he's always the least Maga person in any room you walk into, wherever you go with maga, Trump's the least Maga and he's become obsessed with the deal making overseas. He's become obsessed with all the money he's making off

of his ac off of his influence in government. It's pretty much the opposite of what the true believers in MAGA, those that did want to go after the elites, who thought the elites were using government to enrich themselves, And what's Donald Trump doing using government to enrich himself. So look, I wrote it in my substeck last week, and I think that so far everything is playing out sort of exactly how I sort of was laying it out, and

I think we're going to continue to see it. His influence is waning more Republicans discover every day that he will never be on a ballot again, and just keep

an eye on. So he's already gone after Massey, and it's not really going that well. Thomas Massey's primary is going is May nineteenth, and that's fairly early in the primary season. There's a lot more though, you know, we have a few states in March, couple states in April, but most of the primaries are in June, than a big chunk in August, and are remaining a few in September. If Massy wins, and right now, I'd rather be Massy than anybody else in that Republican primary. He's had a

hard time finding anybody. It's yet going to be another reminder that the Emperor is losing his clothes. I'm not going to say the Emperor has no clothes at the moment, but I think the Emperor is starting to shed some clothes at the moment. And if he is trying to punish somebody and he can't do it right, he already lost one big one with Brian Kemp. And remember why he turned on Brian Kemp. He turned on Brian Kemp over January sixth. In the election. He turned on Brian

Kemp because Brian Kemp wouldn't do an illegal act, right, Brian Kemp wouldn't abide by his by Donald Trump's wishes. So again this pattern. The only time Donald Trump wants to punish a fellow Republican is when they won't go along with something that just is bullshit. Right. They won't go along on the Epstein files, they won't go along on January sixth, they won't go along on the election. And whether they're it's the only time he turns on folks.

He doesn't ever really turn on him over policy disagreements. He only turns on him if he thinks other people are going to embarrass them him because they won't keep his lap. And when Massey wins that primary in May,

it's yet going to be another chink in the armor, and it's going to continue to open the store and everybody is. It's just getting easier and easier to separate yourself from Donald Trump. And there's going to be these different lease a little small. The Epstein vote is going to be a step in that direction, and you're going to see one hundred or more House members do it.

When the Supreme Court rules against his tariffs, you're going to see a whole bunch of Republicans suddenly find their free trade spines again, and they'll put out releases talking

about following the Constitution. So these little and then you're going to see, you know, as people are upset about the costs rising costs, you're going to see more in Republicans look for ways to potentially separate themselves from the White House, but certainly to more directly appeal to voters, either in different ways to try to get rid of terrorists, the lower costs, or to question big tech and what they're doing to raise our electric bills with all these

data centers that are going up all over the place. So I do think we are witnessing, like I said

before the beginning of the lame ducification of Donald Trump. One other thing before we get to the interview that I want to get to. So I spent Thursday and Friday in Austin, Texas the Texas Tribune Festival. They have it every year. I've been to it a few times. They asked me to moderate a conversation with Maryland Governor Wes Moore. I think I told you I was doing

that while I was there. I also it kind of unofficially became a bit of a cattle call for twenty twenty eight presidential candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle. Wes Moore was there, Pete Bootage was there, Tim Walls was there, Chris Murphy was there. So, you know, while I'm not going to sit here and say it was, you had a whole bunch of people looking for twenty twenty eight candidates. I think they were there looking for people to fight Donald Trump more than anything else. It

was interesting the various conversations that were had. Look, I would say the attendees at the Texas Tribune Festival were folks looking to fight Trump. These were folks that are, you know, fall on the left side of the aisle. They were there looking for They're looking for hope, you know, looking for a stronger vision in the Democratic Party looking in some cases, I think many of them probably were a little further to the left than probably the average

rank and file member of the Democratic Party. And like I said, the wes More conversation, you know, I was intrigued by the sort of the tone he took. He knew this audience was very liberal, and yet he didn't

try to play to the audience. He really hugged the center lane in ways that I didn't fully expect him to hug it. He made it clear that, you know, he didn't view himself as tied to the Democratic Party. He was a Democrat, but that didn't mean he would abide by everything the Democratic Party was for. I thought that was an interesting distinction. Always a little bit easier for governors to say that than any other officeholder, but

he went out of his way to say that. I thought that was intriguing, and I do think it's you know, when he goes through I mean, his military experience is you know, I think there's some you know, John Kerrey used to get criticized by some who thought that he used his military he went into the military for political purposes. I don't care if somebody went into the military for political purposes. That doesn't bother me. But some people think, oh,

you're doing it to check a box. That isn't why Wes Moore joined the military, and that's what he got in I you know, I I'm not going to sit here and question the motive of somebody that chooses to put themselves in a position where they could put themselves in harms way because they think it'll look good on a political resume. I'm not saying some haven't thought about it that in those terms. But if you're willing to

do that, then I've got no problem with that. I appreciate that you're trying to have a variety of experiences in order to in order to be a better leader if you do get a shot at being a small d democratic leader of this country. So I don't think it's a huge deal, but I do think his military experience a little bit different right when you join at seventeen, and he was already had gone to military school. So I just think he's I don't think he's a conventional

liberal Democrat, is my point. And I didn't fully appreciate that until you had, until you have this longer conversation, I was intrigued by him. I thought it was I thought some of his answers, his defensive capitalism was quite interesting. Again, later this week, we're going to drop this into the feed, So if you want to listen to this conversation, you

can listen to the whole conversation. I actually used it also this week in my new sphere, so those of you that are a member of Newsphere, you can check out Sunday Night with Chuck Todd. That was a big chunk of that interview appeared there as well. But there was one other thing I wanted to bring up, because both he and Tim Walls. I saw Tim Wall's conversation.

He was in conversation with Jennifer Paul Mary, a longtime Democratic operative, and I asked both jen asked Tim Walls a question about sort of what does Trump do well? And I asked a question, what does Trump get right? You know to wes Moore some version of it, and they both said the same thing. You know, he acts, it's moved, he moves quickly. I think Tim Wall said, he moves quickly and he goes. You know one thing Trump does well, what wes Moore said, is that there's

always action. Right. He doesn't wait around for a commission, He doesn't have a committee to study something before trying to implement it. A lot of times he tries to implement things even when he doesn't have the authority to do it. But he's always but the voter sees him trying to do something, sees him trying to fulfill a promise that he made, even if it ends up being kind of an empty fulfillment, he still attempts to do it.

It tells me that the next Democratic president is if there's one thing they're going to attempt to emulate from Trump, you're going to see a lot more signing ceremonies, a lot more public signing ceremonies, a lot more executive orders, a lot more attempts at doing rather than studying, and maybe even trying to do too much rather than looking back, like I think many in the Obama years do and wonder was that was the two years that he had full where he had fifty nine to sixty Senate seats.

He had sixty for a while and it was back to fifty nine a fairly large House majority. Was that did he was getting healthcare? Was great? Should he have just kept pushing the envelope, tried to get cap and trade? Just pushed, pushed, pushed, and because no matter what there was going to be, they were going to lose the mid terms, no matter what. So you might as well have done as much as you can. Because what's the

lesson Donald Trump has taken. Do as much as you can while you can, because you really never know how long you're going to be there. And I think the fact that both Wesmore and Tim Walls that that's one of the lessons those that's the initial and when when they're asked what does Trump do well or what does Trump get right? That both of them and I don't think they talked to each other about this. I don't think either. I don't think More the Wall said at first.

I think More heard Tim Wall say this. It didn't really go viral or anything like that, So I don't think he's alone and I've heard this from quite a few other Democrats that that they get frustrated. They think when you know, well, he's he's signing these executors they're kind of meaningless. Yeah, ninety percent of them are meaningless. But the message to the voters is he's trying that he's making an effort, that he's doing something. Nobody ever

wonders whether you know. I think it's why Trump's erratic health isn't hurting him quite yet as much as it hurt Biden, because Biden didn't look like he was doing as much. So then you wondered, why is an he's doing as much? So it is it is. It was just intriguing that that that that was singled out. But again I go back. My big takeaway from Wes Moore is that he is he is definitely not going to

be running as a mainstream liberal Democrat. I think he is going to be running as something a bit differ. And those that are thinking this is the second coming of Obama, I would say, I think it's more likely the second coming of Bill Clinton than it is Barack Obama. For what it's worked, there's a reason results matter more than promises. Just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan

is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. Morgan and Morgan fought

back ended up winning millions. In fact, in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, which was a staggering forty times the amount that the insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred fifty thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people. If you're injured, you need

a lawyer, you need somebody to get your back. Check out for the People dot com, Slash podcast or now pound Law, Pound five two nine law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same, So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. Let's go into the podcast time machine. So it's the week of November seventeenth through the twenty third, And you know what I like to do, go back in history, and we're just looking at this these seven days,

and believe it or not, this is quite I stumbled onto what is conspiracy theory Week? In American history? Three moments in particular have anniversaries this week. The Jonestown massacre, the kool Aid drinking November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight. There's, of course, the jfk assassination November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, and the eighteen and a half minute gap in the

Nixon tapes was revealed on November twenty first, nineteen seventy three, three events that on their own would be enough to bend the country's imagination, but together, stacked on the same week of the calendar, I think they tell us something a bit more profound about why Americans believe conspiracies and why those beliefs are so durable. And by the way, this is also the same energy right now fueling our current national fixation on the Epstein files, where the fantastical

spreads faster than any known fact. But we only have one type of person to blame, the elected American elected official right, So let's get to the time machine. So we're going to start with Jonestown. That's when conspiracy thinking became catastrophic. It's November. We're going to go back to November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight in Jonestown. Now, a lot of people think of Jonestown as a cult tragedy, and it is, but it's also the story of how a

closed information system can destroy a human judgment. Jim Jones, the cult leader, didn't just isolate his followers physically. He isolated them psychologically, emotionally, and informationally. He convinced them that outsiders were coming to kill them. He convinced them that

only he understood the truth. He convinced them that everyone else, from the media to the US government was lying. Perhaps he alone could fix it. But I digress. But here's the terrifying part. The more erratic Jones became, the more his followers trusted him. Because once you buy into total, this sort of total narrative, once you build your identity around a conspiratorial worldview, facts are no longer persuasive. Facts become evidence of the conspiracy against you. Jonestown is not

a government conspiracy. It's the consequence of conspiratorial thinking, and it becomes a template decades before so social media for how a charismatic figure can sever followers from reality and create a world where the fantastical is accepted without question. It's why QAnon didn't surprise psychologists. It's why people fall for online cults. Jonestown is a modern cautionary tale of

what happens when people choose narrative over truth. My god, imagine how big Jonestown might have gotten with social media. All right, let's to the second, the second big conspiratorial event in our timeline. This week, the conspiracy the public never accepted fourteen years earlier. The same week, November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.

If Jonestown shows what happens when people buy into a false conspiracy, the jfk assassination shows what happens when the official story fails to convince the public. The Warren report was assembled very quickly. The evidence was confusing. The single

bullet theory sounded well, pretty implausible to the average American, and the result was a permanent fracture in public trust. In fact, I always go back. I mean, if you look at the original sin of when did you know, if you look at baby boomers today, right, they grew up with this. This was their coming of age moment. Was government they believed lying to them about what happened

to their president. Right. And then just about every subsequent generation would have a little bit more of the government liing to them, and we'd chip away, chip away, chip away. But this was a big one because the generation before

the Baby Boomers trusted their government. But for millions of Americans, JFK's death marks the moment when they stopped believing the government reflexively and started believing the government selectively, not because they wanted a conspiracy, but because the government couldn't explain the tragedy in a way that felt complete, transparent, or

sufficiently humble. This is where CIA theory is, mafia theories, castro theories, LBJ theories, deep state theories. They all began here. But the more important important point is this after JFK, Americans no longer needed evidence for a conspiracy. They only needed doubt. JFK didn't create the conspiracy culture, but it created the psychological conditions for the next event that did, and that brings us to a year that still feels

like a wound. It's nineteen seventy three. The Nixon tape gap, the conspiracy that was well was a conspiracy, it was true. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, November twenty first, nineteen seventy three, America learns that there is an eighteen and a half minute gap in one of Nixon's Oval office tapes, the very tape that might have shown what he knew about Watergate. This is the moment that permanently rewires American brain. After

years of being told trust us, after years of dismissing accusations as partisan, and after years of insisting that critics of Nixon were hysterical, here it was a missing tape, not metaphorically literally an erased tape, Thank you, Rosemary Woods. And the White House explanation was so implausible secretaries accidentally leaning on pedals, fingers slipping, that it practically invited conspiracy. The lesson for the American public was brutal and simple.

Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true, and sometimes the cover up is even dumber than the crime. And once that happens, once government credibility is broken in this specific way, you don't get it. Back through press releases. You don't get it back through official investigations, and you don't even get it back through prosecutions. And of course we never did prosecute, you know, I think when I first started my timecast time Machine, one of the I started with the part

with Ford's pardon and a mistake. I think now we see that was clearly I don't think it's it's even a close call anymore, that that was clearly a mistake, because we never did get justice for what was done. But Watergate taught Americans that powerful people sometimes lie, and institutions sometimes protect those lies. And once you know that, you never unknow it. And then it just sort of sits there, and it chips away and chips away, and

we wonder why we have a government we don't trust today. So let's look at sort of the modern parallel, right the Epstein files, fast forward to the present, and conspiracy is the default, it's not the exception. Just look at this Epstein moment. We're all living through. People assume elites lie, people assume institutions are hiding things. People assume the truth is always worse, and people assume if there is a conspiracy,

it's probably bigger and darker than anything the government admits. Now, I'm an Ockham's razor person. I think if there was something even darker, deeper, we there'd at least be a leak about it somewhere. But we haven't gotten that. But still conspiracies persist. But it's because of Jonestown, because of JFK, because of Nixon, because of IRAQ WMDs, because of the

NSA surveillance revelations, because of January sixth. Americans now process every new event through a lens shaped by generations of government betrayal, government confusion, and partial truths at best. So

just look at what we did with Epstein. Right, the conspiracy theory arrived first, the facts are we still don't have all the facts, do we They're arriving later. The public decides what it believes before the evidence even begins to land. It's not that people want to believe in sane things. It's that the factual world is moving slower than the fantastical one. We have more information than ever, but we have less trust than ever, and in that environment,

speculation fills every gap instantly. And then you look at our ridiculous algorithms that sort of reward those that have a new theory rather than those that have factual information. Right. If I were to say, right now, boy, it's got to be that Gallaine Maxwell knows the origin story of Malania Trump and how Milani and Donald met, boy, the algorithms would go crazy and this video could go viral because I'd say, because I'd say that I have no

evidence of this. Okay, I certainly am trying to figure out why the president is hiding so much of this and why he seems to be so scared of Gallainne Maxwell. So your mind wanders, and unfortunately, because of how poor government's been about being transparent about things including the jfk assassination being frankly exhibit A, how do you tell an American not to go down that conspiratorial rabbit hole? This is where we are. So what do we take away

from this in this week in American history? Here's the common threat. We are conspiracy prone, not because we're gullible, but because our institutions have repeatedly given us enough reason, just enough reason to suspect that we're not being told the full story. When leaders lie, even tiny lies, they leave behind just enough ambiguity for our collective imagination to go to work, and when institutions are slow, opaque, or

even arrogant, doubt becomes a form of self defense. When information drips out instead of flows out, the vacuum fills the narrative, and when the official story doesn't feel complete,

the unofficial ones become irresistible. So I'll leave you this. We Americans can handle plenty of bad news. What we cannot handle is missing news. Got you got to tell us everything. Don't hold back, because if you do, if we find out and you held back, it is so much worse. The more than institutions give us half truths, delayed truths, redacted truths, or contradictory truths or alternative facts, the more this week in history becomes every week in

our political system. So there you go. Enjoy conspiracy Week in the Todd Cash a time machine. By the way, if you're looking for some good jonestown documentaries, there are a ton of them out there. They're all fascinating. There was a couple recently I think on Netflix that definitely is worth your time. My friend Jeff Morley JFK. Fax is a terrific substack. He goes through, he goes through all the government releases the way you would want a

reported to do it. You know, yes, he has his theories, but he separates the facts from the theories. I wish I had a really good place for you to go for all things having to do with filling the gaps and Watergate. But in some ways, I think I think we've filled we have between Garrett Graft's most recent book about Watergate, plus everything Woodward and Bernstein has done, we have a pretty decent handle on them. So you know

what this means. It's college football time. Okay, soa okay, So Miami kept up its end of the bargain, had a nice I will say I was pleasantly surprised. There's nothing like a Hurricane's game when the defense sort of sparks things and the pick six early set the tone.

The offense started to hum. Yes, NC State didn't have the best of defenses, but the fact is Miami won by a margin that they should win by. They covered the spread. I think they doubled actually the actual spread, So it was a It was a decisive victory. And you know, some things went Miami's way as far as you know, teams that needed to lose ahead of them A few teams did Texas lost, that's a big one. They're not you know, they're they're not going to get

in even a victory over Texas. A and M They're not. A three loss team is not yet going to make the playoff. A couple other things be Boston College had Georgia Tech on the ropes. You know, I certainly would like to see Miami be able to play itself into the playoff, not having to wait to see if their body of work will be considered better or worse than the body of work of other two loss teams. But I want to get to that here in a minute.

But for the look in fairness, I think it was the best game Miami's played since Notre Dame and and South Florida where too, probably the two most complete games they've played all year. Even the Florida game, they didn't play a great first half. It was the second half that they sort of put that game away. But but Notre Dame, they played three great quarters. They let they let Notre Dame sort of make the game look like

it was a close game. And I think this this, you know, they basically were ahead by double digits most of the game. Notre Dame gets a lay touchdown and so the game looked closer than it actually was. But this was a pretty complete game they got. This was the last home game Senior Day. They got two more road games, Virginia Tech and then Pit. And let's talk about Pitt because Notre Dame now got to face a

Pit team that did not chose to play an exhibition game. Now, I'm not saying the players that actually played in the game didn't play hard. They did, but the coaching staff made a decision that they were not going to play to win this game. Anybody that was fifty to fifty on you know, could play, but you know, they'd rather have them rest for the conference their last two conference games Georgia Tech and Miami. They chose to do that. The coach went public earlier in the week and said,

it doesn't this game was meaningless to them. This was akin to a preseason game, an exhibition game. They could lose by one hundred, it didn't matter. Their path to the playoff did not go through Notre Dame. Their path to the playoff went through making it to the ACC Conference title game, and if they went out, they will have a place in the title game, which brings me to and then, by the way, same thing just happened a week earlier with Notre Dame when they played Navy.

When Navy decided not to play one of their quarterbacks in that game, Horvat saving him because he had been somewhat he'd been dinged up a little bit. They wanted to basically give him a week off before their conference game against South Florida. By the way, that was a terrific game. I watched a lot of that game that was in my multibox. That was a fun game to watch, and it was a shootout and somehow South Florida couldn't

stop Navy very often. Navies won that game, and they still have a path to the college football playoff again through the Group of five playoff slot. Again, the Notre Dame game was meaningless to them in their attempt to get to the playoff. So now Notre Dame and this, you know, I saw that ESPN was promoting this win on Pitt as if it was an impressive win that hey, they they had. They made it part of their ticker lead, and they made it seem as if that this they

played an exhibition game. Pitt did not take this game seriously, and I do think the College Football Committee if they're if this committee is serious and I am, I am a huge skeptic given that three years in a row they have made decisions that were not about football teams that were instead about what ESPN wanted or what the

SEC wanted, which maybe won and the same right. We go back to the decision not to put Florida State into the end of the playoff when they were undefeated after winning their conference title game, and they just chose not to at Florida statea right. So if you're wondering why I have have been so hard on ESPN and the SEC about this, is because not that they might do this, because they've already done it once and then

they arguably did it last year. Miami absolutely belonged in that playoff, and they chose not to put Miami in because they didn't want to put in a third ACC team. They have decided the ACC isn't worthy of having two or three teams on any given year. That's just a decision they make, period. There is not I would argue, not as many metrics that would actually argue for that than others want to say but this is the decision. Yes, or they're not going to put in two Big twelve teams.

Then they're going to try really hard not to put in two ACC teams. We'll see if Miami can sort of force the envelope. But explain to me, I mean to me if you were to treat Notre Dame as sort of instead of knowing that it was no, and I just gave you the profile of team A, Team B, Team C, Team D. Right, there is no way Notre Dame is a playoff team. They don't have a good Their best win is USC, who may or may not

be a competitor for a playoff spot. And then two of their victories are against teams that chose essentially to pull some of their starters so that they didn't face the toughest version of PITT. Miami's going to face the toughest version of PITT. They didn't face the toughest version of Navy. South Florida faced the toughest version of Navy. So you know, I I that that should matter. If the head to head isn't going to matter now, obviously the most important thing ought to be the head to head.

Notre Dame loses to Miami and they're both ten and two. It's obvious what any actual tie breaking scenario in any other league, the first tiebreaker is head to head. Now they don't there is no there are no rules, right, this committee has never said what the metrics are to

get into the playoff. They don't release a criteria. You know what that means, because they make up the criteria when they when it suits them, right, if it if it's easier to make a case for a team to get in because of their losses, they'll say, hey, they have great losses. And if it's easier to make a case for a team to get in because they have

great wins, and they'll say, hey, they have great wins. Right, But they don't seem to have a standardized metric on what matters more wins or losses when you're trying to differentiate between a ten and two team or three ten and two teams. In fact, we're gonna have a lot of this, right, You're gonna have you may have ten and two Oklahoma, ten and two, Notre Dame, ten and two, Alabama and ten into a Miami And let's just take a look at this. Okay, Alabama, one of their losses.

Is a team Miami B Do you think that's gonna matter to the committee? Not naive, I know it's not gonna matter. I'll give Alabama this. They have the best win of the four because Alabama beat Georgia, so they will get credit for that. Oklahoma has now Alabama is their best win, right They lost to Texas, a team that Florida beat, a team that Miami whipped before Florida was giving up okay, before the whole firing and all that business. And then of course when you compare Miami

Notre Dame, Miami beat Notre Dame. Obviously I'm singling those four teams out because I am if that if they all four ten and two and there's three slots for those four teams, I know this committee is going to try to keep Miami out. And if you looked at him in a blind survey, Miami arguablyst this the second best of those four. If you're going to do that, let alone third or fourth. So I all'm I am.

I want to try to give the assume that some people on this committee take their job seriously and are simply trying to get the best teams. The fact is Miami's probably got one of the three best rosters in the nation, easily the combination best offensive and defensive lines going. For whatever reason, the committee decided to overly punish Miami for losing a gamed SMU on the road. They didn't punish him as much for the first loss to Louisville, but they punished him a lot for that SMU loss.

It was a way over punishment obviously in this idea that when you lose somehow should should matter. And I know this has always sort of been out there because of the of the screwyway college football works. But again, in the NFL, your record's your record, and if there's a tiebreaker doesn't matter when that game happened, right. The head to head is the head to head. So look, Mimy's got to do its part. Yes, I'm still you know, you know, the irony is that Miami should be undefeated,

shouldn't have lost either one of those games. Sort of coach farted those games away, arguably, and they were both winnable even at the very end, but they got coach farted away. I think I'm going to try to use that term going forward, coach farting. But We'll see what the committee does. But the thing that I that I want to see whether this committee is taking itself seriously at all, is the fact that Notre Dame has two teams on their schedule that decided not to play to one.

And this is the look Notre Dame should be dinged for not being in a conference playing conference games. The stakes are higher when you don't have a conference games, there's no stakes. Yes, the stakes are higher, they have to keep winning, but the conference game is so much more high pressure. And whether your conference road game or hosting a team that just you would make their season if they beat you, which is just about every team Miami plays in the ACC. Okay, you know what Miami

doesn't do. They don't storm fields because when you win national titles, you don't worry about storming a field because because it isn't a big deal to you until you actually win the whole thing. But I tell you, I've been to plenty of Miami games where the other team storms the field because it's a big deal of them to beat Miami in a regular season Notre Dame knows this feeling. Plenty of teams when they've upset Notre Dame on the road, they storm the field. But the fact

is Miami is playing more high pressure games. Shoot, Oklahoma's playing more high pressure games us every one of the power for because of how important this path to the playoff is. These conference games are much more high stakes and Notre Dame doesn't have any of them. And so I actually think that Notre Dame not the arrogance of Notre Name not being at a conference and still wanting to be treated equally compared to what everybody else has

to go through with these conference schedules. I actually think that these athletic directors that are on this committee, as much as they want to do whatever they have to do for ESPN for the ESPN Invitational here, at the same time, are irritated that Notre Dame doesn't have to go through this conference business. So at a minimum, Rhys Davis, please ask whoever's going to be that I think it's now the Arkansas ad who is going to be the

spokesperson for the committee. Please ask them whether the committee is going to essentially downgrade the two victories that Notre Dame had over Navy and pit They should be downgraded. They did not face They faced an exhibition. They faced two tens that treated the game as an exhibition. I'm not saying the players themselves did, but the coaching staff did. And when you say you don't care if you win

the game, you know your players hear it. So when you're comparing not every ten and two record should be treated the same. And I think clearly here Notre Dame should be the one that's in much bigger trouble in their playoff path right now because they have teams that are not taking the Notre Dame game that seriously anymore because of how important now the conference pathway is. I have to say a few other notes on what I saw over the weekend. I get more impressed at Texas

Tech all the time. I have no idea why anybody's ranking Oregon as high as they are. I think Oregon I have some questions about Oregon here. You know, yes, they have one loss. I'll be this Oregon USC game coming up up. It's a huge game to see if the Big ten can get three teams into the playoffs. But Oregon's best win is now Penn State. How good of a win is that Oregon needs to blow out USC? I think to justify they're certainly to justify how to see them ranked as high a high as they are.

I got to give Texas A and M a ton of credit, both A and M this week in Indiana. Last week, when you should lose a game and you figure out a way to win and you're one of these undefeated teams, I am in some ways more impressed. They didn't play their best game in the first half. You know, I gave you that tip last week. I said, hey, I had heard that with the new offensive coordinator, they were they're worried about losing Lenora Sellers in the portal.

There's even rumors at Miami he may end up at Miami that they were going to open things up a little bit, And boy did they and he looked terrific in that first half and shut them down and shut everything down in the second half. So I have to say A and M impressed me and impressed me quite a bit. They don't have to win another game. They will, but they don't have to win another game. I'm very curious, and here's going to be something to see. Texas got

its third loss. What is that? You know, what's their intensity going to be like for the rest of the season, particularly for the A and M game at the end of the year. It's exciting to see Texas Texas A and M play. I think they're gonna be playing on Thanksgiving weekend, which will be kind of nice that. And then there's Vanderbilt. You know, they're still They're still sitting there at eight and two, and you have Utah sitting there and eight and two, both ahead of Miami. So

don't think I haven't. I don't have my eyes on them on that front. I have a feeling if Miami takes care of business and wins by margin in their last two games, that they likely leap frog, because again, Miami does have better wins I think than either of those other two teams. But we shall see. All in all, I am obviously nervous, I'm willing, I'm trying to will every everything I have and making sure Miami is treated

fairly in this. That's all I'm asking is that Miami is treated fairly, because I don't think the ACC in general gets treated fairly in this, and frankly, until we have a year where they are treated fairly, you're going to have a hard time convincing any fan of any team in the ACC that the that ESPN or the College Football Playoff Committee or the ESPN Invitational Committee, whatever you want to call it, is going to give an

ACC team a fair shot. But like I said, I will I will pull back some of my critique of the of the media company's influence on this committee if I see some hard questioning of the committee chair on this issue of whether Notre Dame's two victories over Navy and Pitt ought to be downgraded. So with that, I do enjoy trolling my friends that are Notre Dame fans

on this one. But in all seriousness, if I know if somehow this could be used as a demerit against an ACC team, this committee would be all over it. It's a big name, Notre Dame that's doing it. Will they have the guts to publicly call out Notre Dame's victories on this one? We shall all right with that. I hope you even had a good weekend. Hope you enjoyed your weekend. I'm glad, since I'm traveling a lot this week that all of the airports are up and running.

I thank those TSA agents and those air traffic controllers who have been working without pay thank you for doing that. Thank you for your service, Thank you for at least doing what you can to keep a government that behaves so dysfunctionally a bit more functional. And with that, until I upload again,