Chuck's Commentary - Incumbents Will STRUGGLE In Upcoming Elections + Ask Chuck

to update. I know I do. I try to once a week do sort of updates and key developments, but this is more of a bigger picture, and I think we're at an interesting I want you to watch for something over the next thirty days. So this is the last two weeks have been an intense partisan political debate right about districting and the Texas issue, in the California issue.

If you're politically engaged, you've been totally wired in on this, and I also understand that this is August and there were If you're not sort of a political junkie, you haven't been engaged in this. But this is why it's important to follow the next thirty days to see what is the fallout from this intense partisan debate over redistricting

in Texas and California, where partisans just are ready to fight, like, let's pick up arms, let's do this. Is this going to inspire more candidates to run for office? Is it going to inspire more donations to one party or the other? And that's the follow on effect that I'm curious to watch out for at this point. Look, I've let you know my feelings about where I think this redistricting, you know, the long term negative impact and consequences that we could

be dealing with. But I'm very curious what is this doing to a couple levels of enthusiam. What is this doing. Let's look on the Democratic side, what is this doing to democratic donor enthusiasm. It's not been a good year so far fundraising. You haven't seen there's something in the news cycle you haven't seen. Sometimes when you don't see headlines,

that's news. You know. There haven't been a lot of headlines that hey, Democratic candidate X, you know, raised x amount of money in the first twenty four hours of their candidacy, their announcement video garnered this many donations. You know why I haven't heard many of that because there

hasn't been any of these big moments. Remember in twenty seventeen and there was this special election in Georgia and John Ossoff was that time, the now senator from Georgia was a House candidate then and he was breaking all sorts of records with these money bombs and how fired up based donors were to give money to this. I've not seen any evidence so far. And like I said, it is a vacation month right before the start of school, so there certainly are plenty of reasons why maybe there

aren't as many people paying attention. But I've not since any sort of bump yet that this fight that Gavin Newsom has been leading for the party in this national fight over redistricting in the state of Texas has had

this you know, has had an impact financially or has had an impact on more candidates going, you know what, I want to run for office. This time, you had a record amount of candidates that wanted to run for office right after the twenty sixteen election. There was a real response to that, like, hey, you know, I need to jump into this. I need to do my part. In some places, you're seeing a bunch of candidates get

in Iowa, Senate, right, they can't seem to. They finally a fifth candidate jumped into that race, and finally somebody decided to get out and endorse that new candidate in the race. But still you sort of take that away and you're not you're not seeing it yet. And that's the thing. I don't want to say that this is definitive of anything. Yet. If a party out of power is starting to gain momentum into a midterm election, you do start to see certain things. You start to see

an advantage in fundraising. So far, we've not seen any advantages on fundraising. If anything, the story is about how a bunch of Democratic donors appear to be sitting on their hands at least when it comes to the major committees, and we know that seems to be that could be just more about a lack of confidence in the leadership of the Democratic Party and they don't want to give it to the official committees. But it's not like we're seeing candidates below the doors off in fundraising just yet.

I think Roy Cooper had a pretty good opening bid fundraiser when he jumped into the North Carolina Center race. But again, you know it doesn't fit. We're not yet looking at twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, which was right, which was sort of peak sort of United Democratic Party fired up, donors, fired up everything, right. So my point is things you want to watch them. So we're not quite seeing that.

Are we seeing a whole bunch of candidates jump in races? Well, you know, I was looking at it, and while you are seeing it in sporadic places, it's not like you're seeing there's such enthusiasm to jump in that things are going to look so good for Democrats, that they've got a viable candidate, say in an open seat in Kentucky, you know, six years ago. You know, every six years, it seems as if that they're you you know, I'm

not saying Kentucky should be what you measure. The ability of whether or not Democrats can find a viable candidate for Kentucky Senate should be a measure about whether the

party's going to do well in the midterms. I don't expect them to win that race, but the fact that really isn't a candidate of note yet into that one and in just in you know, it's you know, you don't have candidates like rushing to the filing deadlines just yet, perhaps this will come perhaps right, and you know, one could argue the official starting Gun four campaign twenty twenty six as usually Labor Day twenty twenty five. But there's

just it's an intangible when you've been doing this a long time, you know, it's sort of like what the kids like to say today, when you know, you know, this is one of those that feels like there's something happening here and it's just not developing in the same way that we saw, for instance, during the first Trump midterm. That doesn't mean things could change. You heard that interview with Mark Zandi many of you, you know, the economy

in the spring of twenty six. That may matter more than anything I'm talking about right now than the disappointing early fundraising or the not quite gangbuster candidate recruitment that we've seen. It's been good, not great. What's interesting is Democrats have actually still done a little bit better on the candidate recruitment front than Republicans. For instance, Republicans still don't have a sort of an agreed upon viable candidate

in the open Minnesota center race. And so there, you know, it's almost as if there's this weird pause over things because again it's it's not like things are that much better on the Republican side. They're doing better on money, right, there's more unity around Trump, but it isn't translating quite like it's not like it's helping their candidate in Virginia.

And that's if anything, and you're not you know, to me, what's interesting by campaign twenty twenty five, there's there is sort of one swing race, but it's not Virginia this cycle, and it's not New York City. It's New Jersey governor.

In the point in that it's gonna of all the races this cycle, it's probably going to tell me the most about what twenty twenty six could look like. It is. You know, New Jersey is a very suburban state, right, so if the suburbs or are they going to be

turning against Trump? Or did he those inroads he made in twenty twenty four, are those sustained even when he's not on the ballot, Right, he really improved Republican standing in New Jersey, New Jersey, Illinois, those are two of those states where Trump did dramatically better in losing them in twenty twenty four that he did in either twenty twenty or twenty sixteen. Was that a blip? Was that an outlier? Or is there are we still in the middle of some form of a realignment in some of

these other places. So the New Jersey governor's race, it's an open governor's race. Republicans, haven't you know, this is one of those states that it does sort of vacillate, right, It's one of those that doesn't like to have any party usually get more than eight to twelve years at a time on this front. So the Republican candidate Chidarelli does sort of have a little bit he just feels Jersey.

You just sort of again like Phil Murphy feels Jersey, right, Chris Christy feels Jersey. I say, this is a good way sort of like do you feel like they're representative of Jersey. I'm not saying Mikey Cheryl isn't the case. It doesn't you know, the same thing. But there's something I don't know. You see it. And he's running a second time that you know, he's the second time candidates in these governors races. Actually, there's a pretty decent track

record when you're nominee twice in a row. Jeb Bush lost the first time he ran for governor, learned some lessons got better the second time. Mikey Cheryl sort of stumbled on the Mom Donnie question and that and that's going to be something that I'm very curious about New Jersey, which is, I don't think Mom Donnield is going to

be an issue for voters. But if Mikey Cheryl loses or comes really close to losing, there's going to be a perception that, hey, this may have been an overhang, this may have been a problem, and it's going to spook the party, if you will. It was interesting that she was on air when she was first asked and she said she was likely she couldn't imagine not supporting The Democratic nominee Chidarelli campaign has been hitting her saying, hey see she supports Mom Donnie. Meanwhile, the Cheryl campaign

is saying no, no, no, no. She hasn't officially endorsed. You know. It's one of those where you say, you know, if she were, if you're a bit more nimble. When she was first asked the question, the easy answer is, I don't think New Yorkers want a New Jersey person telling them who to vote for And I certainly don't want New Yorkers telling New Jersey who they should be electing as governor, you know, something along those lines. And I think it just shows you this is happening to a

lot of Democrats. Nobody's quite sure how progressive is the Democratic base. Will you get punished if you sort of aren't seen as as sort of progressive enough? Is it overrated or underrated? And I think I've sensed that quite a few Democratic candidates aren't sure right because the people that show up to the fundraisers, the people that show up to the events, they're very progressive. But is that what you need? Are they not going to show up

if you sort of tack to the center. And I think that New Jersey's going to be an interesting test of this, of all the three races that we're all going to be watching very closely on election night twenty

twenty five, and I'm going to be watching a handful of other mayor's races too. As I've pointed out, quite a few incumbent mayors are struggling. The incumbent mayor of Seattle ended up being the number two vote get or in that all party primary, or that non party primary

basically that Washington State holds. We've already seen the mayor of Pittsburgh lose a primary, so there's definitely I think there's in you know, it's not great to be an incumbent, right, This is like one of those which is also so something else. You know, Mikey Cheryl has nothing to do with Phil Murphy's administration, and yet it's a Democrat trying

to replace a Democrat. So in some ways, she's kind of defending an incumbent administration where Abigail Spamberger, right, she's not only gets the benefit of sort of running against the White House in northern Virginia, but also it's a Republican governor, and there's a sense of, you know, she gets to sort of run as the outsider. And I think we're more in an anti incumbent environment than any

sort of anti party environment. So that's one of those cases where it could hurt the Democrat in New Jersey but help the Democrat even more in Virginia. But the point is is that there's this I don't think we can barely say we really know if twenty twenty six is really tilting in one direction or the other. Right, history says it should already be tilting towards the Democrats.

There's certainly plenty of underlying numbers showing that you'd probably rather be a Democrat on the ballot in twenty twenty six than a Republican. But it's not as this doesn't

look like twenty eighteen. That doesn't mean it won't develop that way. Could. Like I said, I think the biggest uncertainty we have here is not what happens to a candidate in New York City, or what happens in New Year's e governor, or which candidates get recruited, or whether Democrats can put more Senate seats in play. You know, can they put Florida in play? Can they put a Mississippi in play? Can they put a Kansas in play?

Can they put an Eyewa in play? You know, if they're not putting two or three of those states that I just ticked off there, they're not really going to be able to make a viable case I could win the majority the Senate. So then it all goes to the House. Well, these redistricting fights, maybe that's also delaying candidate interest, right, that doesn't help, And all of that

just sort of delays delays. That said, if the economy is as is as bad as some people fear, it's going to be in the spring of twenty six, right,

and what is bad is bad sort of rising unemployment and rising inflation. Right, are we in this stagflation moment that folks are worried about? Or is it better than you think? And then that could change the conversation quite a bit. So right now you don't see the same level where this anti Trump antagonism is supercharging financial enthusiasm

and other enthusiasm for the Democrats. And at the same time, the big uncertainty, of course, is still going to be the shape of the economy in the spring of twenty twenty six. So that said, we are living in an era of tumult, We are living in an era that we vote more against than what we're four. And it's that set up that probably works best in describing the

conversation that Charlie Cook and I have coming up. We'll sneak at a break here and when we come back, Charlie Cook, all right, let's do a little lass Chuck

ask Chuck. I'm really fired up. I really like the expanded overseas questions we're getting this one comes from another one. I think this is our second one from the Netherlands.

I hope we can get a Dutch question at some point, maybe holler at somebody from Holland will send one. See if any of you get that joke. But let's see here. This is Randall V. From Leiden, the Netherlands, and he writes, with the recent developments between President Trump and Vladimir Putin another meeting with no real results but clear advantages for Putin. I left deeply frustrated. How is it possible that wealthy democracies like the US and EU keep allowing him to

get what he wants time and again? Was so little pushback? As someone from Leiden, this city the Pilgrims once left in search of liberty, I feel a deep historical connection to the United States, but it's hard to reconcile that legacy with today's seeming powerlessness in the face of authoritarianism authoritarian aggression. Have we reached the limits of democracy or

are we simply two divided and distracted to act? More regards Randall, you know, I've thought about this question in a few ways because it actually applies to and I know you're going to find this at first odd, but it sort of applies to why why folks aren't taking this measles outbreak more seriously for instance, And you know, I'm glad to see that the Texans feel like they're

finally getting this under control. You know, there's a point where, you know, the whole point of history is where you know, if you don't learn it, you're deemed to repeat it. But it turns out we forget it in civilizations time and time again. And it feels like about, you know, once once something faded into third or fourth generation, it's almost like we have to repeat it because I can

tell you with what we're going through. One of the reasons and you've heard me say this why I'm long term optimistic but short term pessimistic about sort of where this democracy is going is that we've done this. We do this. We've done it a few times where we have veered into some undemocratic you know lanes here, and

then all of a sudden we correct ourselves. It's like it's like we're about to swerve off the road and we somehow, just before we go into the ditch, we get back on the straight and narrow so there's a part of me that wonders if it's if just Hitler's too far away. What happened in Europe is too far away. You know, my grandfather who fought has been dead for forty five years, right, So here was a first person account that I'm no longer right, which means my kids

are getting second hand, third hand. So maybe it's that I'm not you know, I'm just throwing that idea out there that sometimes we have to. You know, there's an expression in this country this second you know, there's no new intelligence has learned from a second kick into the head from a mule, meaning you know, once you've learned the way mules kick, you're going to sort of stay

out of their way. I don't know about that. Sometimes I think our country needs a kick in the head about every eighty years, where we will go through an existential crisis or two. You know, where we were in the eighteen fifties and where we were in the nineteen thirties, and that was more global than just here, and then here we are again arguably right, you know, now we're just under one hundred years later, about eighty you know,

somewhere between eighty and ninety years later. So there's it may simply be that, as John m John McCain used to joke, it's always darker, you know, he used to quote Mause saying, it's always darkest before it turns really black. But I do think that that that some of this is just is some sort of it's not a it's not that we forget what happened. We just can't imagine that our modern society we would allow the same things

to happen that happened in the thirties. And yet now we're all finding out, Oh, this is how Germany might have happened. Right, So look, I'm surprised you're not more optimistic about Europe's response. I've been impressed with how United Europe is stuck with Ukraine, and in some ways I think it's it may be in the long term better for the EU, better for the continent as a whole, that that there was the possibility that the United States wouldn't be that you ally anymore for one reason or

the other. I'd like to think that will still never happen. But the fact that you know, you see everybody in your pivoting to collective security, I think that's it sort of. It gives me some hope that, hey, there are you know it. Obviously, the closer the war is to you, the more serious you take the threat. This war's on the other side of an ocean for us, and then on the other side of a continent there right, it

is not for you. So perhaps we should take the fact that Europeans seemed to be a bit more united have been. Look, I was extraordinarily impressed with how Europe's responded to Trump two point out, and I think that that maybe that's you might feel a bit more ouptate, mystic if you focus on how's your respondent? I mean, look, trust me, I don't like that the United States is

not interested in being leader of the free world. I did not know we'd ever have an American president that didn't want to be leader of the free world, that didn't want to be the chief promoter of liberty and democracy around the world. That's a big change for a lot of us. Many of us hope it's temporary, all right. Next question comes from Nate, a longtime listener viewer, and understand your passion for baseball. I'm a gen xer like you and a lifelong brewer. Fan. I fun little trivia

question out there for you folks. Can you name the original home of the Milwaukee Brewers. Of course I don't. It's not like I'm going to be having like seventh Caller get surprize. But I always love having to teach my son that they were originally the Seattle Pilots. Anyway, lifelong Brewer fan, so I do I am curious? Nate,

let us know, were you ever a Seattle Pilot fan? And do you collect Seattle Pilot's paraphernalia as sort of an homage to the Brewers? Okay, any rights, I may be living in an alternative universe because it seems my Brewers are not only the best team in the majors currently, but also reportedly have the top farm system as well. I'm not sure how it all happened, but does this

give some hope for baseball competitiveness long term? Or is this just a blip and we'll be back to the Dodgers and Yankees' usual domination by the end of the year. What can other organizations like your Nats learned from them that can be replicated to maintain some semblance of competition? Keep up the excellent work. Look I mean, the fact of the matter is the baseball playoffs are the great equalizer, right. The one thing that baseball has to equalize things is

the five game series. Right, You get two hot pitchers in a five game series and you can beat the best team in baseball. You know, I've you know, I remember, I remember when the Gnats were going to be the wild card and I was telling them in son, I'm like, no, no, no, no, we want we want it this way. We don't want to win the division. We win the division, we won't get to face if we face the Dodgers, it's in

a seven game. If we do it the wild card, we get the Dodgers in the five game, and sure enough we got them in the five game and we can meet them in a five game. So I do think the playoffs, right like the playoffs in the NBA are are not an equalizer, right, it almost you know, you have to be deep, you have to be you know, there isn't you know. There was a brief period where

the NBA. There was one year the Lakers got eliminated in the first round in a best two out of three, right like, So they tinkered early and then they went all seven games. I would love to see the NBA go to a first round five game because it would it would create upsets, right, you know, a five game, you cannot an eight seed will be to a one seed more often than in a seven game. Is an eight s going to be to one seed? I think it's ups the entertainment value, but it may not be

what the league wants right that. You know, if the best players hurt for a game, all of a sudden, you're down two oh, and then it's one more game and it's over. Right, So I I understand why the league went to just full seven slates across the board because it does almost always guarantee you're going to get, you know, two of the five best teams. I mean, I get the best two teams, but you're going to get two of the five, five or six best teams.

So baseball does already have a great equalizer in its playoffs. I'd like to know how the Brewers do it. You know, did the Ceiling you know, did the Ceilings family just sort of figured like leave, did he like learn some secret code as commissioner Baseball and left it when they sold the team to the next I have kid, but it seems that there are ways to do this, and you watch how the you know, they're just they're just very careful about their money. You decide is this worth

an eight game an eight year contract or not? Try this? Try that, you know you've got to. It's almost like being making money as a poker player. You're going to have to have a high tolerance for risk. It was a risk to let Corbyn Burns go right not pay the money, but they decided not to do that. They knew what they had in their farm system. So if you manage it right right, you can always sort of have something coming up in the farm system just as

you're trading off somebody you can't afford to sign. I say, the Braves are sort of run very similarly, So you're absolutely right the raise or the arguably the model franchise for this. But that's what's so disappointing is that that there's plenty of role models out there for the Nats to emulate, and they're just choosing not to emulate it.

You know, look, I understand that the finances, I mean I'm in more of of what the you guys have pulled off, because you also have that horrible TV contract with I think you're one of those poor diamonds sports teams, which is just you know, unclear whether the revenue is

going to be there. So, you know, Baseball's challenges. They're just going to have to figure out how to share some revenue, right are you know, are the bigger market teams committed to supporting a full league of thirty teams and in order to do that, you're gonna have to have more revenue sharing, you know, And I could argue that, you know, the Dodgers aren't nearly as valuable without twenty nine other clubs coming to play them, right, rather than

just eighteen other clubs or sixteen other clubs. You know, So if you don't do that, you're facing you're facing then you should contract so that you at least it's all competitive. But that's that's no way to grow sport.

So I guess I'm hopeful that they can figure out some revenue sharing, some sort of you know, I think you can create market, you know, sort of the NBA showed with the second Apron business that you can sort of incentivize ways to limit how much money is spent and then also raise the floor of minimum salaries to

sort of force some better salary competitiveness. So I want to be somewhat optimistic, but it is worth noting that quite Let's just say, word has it many a baseball franchise is pitching season tickleholders to renew by saying there may not be baseball in twenty seven. And that's a

real bummer to me. All right. Next one comes from Matt and he writes first and enjoying the pod Monsie and meet the press, but enjoying your new endeavor. In your podcast with Colin Cowherd, you mentioned the shift from the Republican Party, moving from Reagan Republicanism to the Maga Party. Second, my question, as a former Pennsylvanian now Floridian for the last twenty five years, what would have happened to Florida politics if Alex Sink had defeated Rick Scott in twenty ten.

It's not as if that was a huge majority, and the same was true in twenty fourteen against Charlie crist Met And he says, go Phillies like a typical Florida transplant, right, They bring their fandom from another state, and that's why the poor Marlins and the Rays can't develop real fan bases, right, Actually, you don't have to go that. I go back even you know, Sandrew Gillham won the Democratic primary by three percentage points thirty four thirty one. A week earlier, he

was trailing by ten. He had a bunch of momentum Bernie Sanders and George Soros dropped in a couple of late bits of money just when he needed it. But you know, Gwen Graham was facing attack ads from another candidate named Jeff Green, a Marl Lago member who was sort of a DEM donor but cranky, and he just was running these attack ads on her, just trying to take her out. So she didn't, you know, but she

was definitely more of a center left candidate. She beats to Santas that race, I mean to say to almost be Gillam. I mean, you see me, Guillam almost won that race. It was decided by less than a percentage point. You know, both if you recall both the governor's race and that Senate race almost went into I think one of them went to auto recount, and they almost both did because it was less than a percentage point that that'

split on. But Gwen Graham wins that race. So you know, forget the Rick Scott Alex Sink race, right, I can, I can just you can go back to even more recently, which of course makes it it's such a head scratcher that the Democratic Parties abandoned the state nationally, right, they've just they've walked away. Biden only lost the state by three points, and then they just but they treat it as if it's turned into Idaho. And then when you don't compete, then you stop behaving like a national party

on this front. So, you know, I think it again, I think when you have you know, I think the part the Democratic Party has not been helped that they have not been able to succeed in some of these very purple states or sort of center right states, because those candidates would when they win, are able to sort of be a bit of a bulwark within the party when there's sort of a movement to sort of move things closer to the base, and we like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

this is why this doesn't work here, and then all of a sudden, you know, you don't want to lose. So I think the lack of those voices winning, you know, you say, how does it change things? Well, first of all, the second the Democrats ever elect somebody governor, that person is going to be immediately in the shortlist for the national ticket, right like when you when you if you have a Democrat winning in a state like that, you're

going to quickly look at that person. They immediately get some national attention, get national following, and and can potentially rebrand the party a bit, you know, a bit closer to the to the middle than maybe where where the perception of the brand is today. So you know, that's that's what perhaps a victory by Alex I think would eventual was definitely very much more of of a center left candidate, not necessarily from the progressive base. So it's

it's it's a head scratcher. Why the why these Again? You go back and you look at the results of basically every state wide race in Florida from two thousand to twenty eighteen, twenty to twenty twenty, and then I show you the lack of investment and energy from in twenty twenty two in twenty twenty four, and you're really like,

why do they do that? And you know, I do think the National Democratic Party is going to have to take a look at what what the what the map's going to look like in the twenty thirties, and ask themselves if they continue to sort of retreat into what they believe are safe blue states, they're just dropped. They're they're not going to get they're not going to have a competitive chance at majorities. And you know, if they don't figure out how to become competitive in Florida and

in techs, look Florida, Texas, Ohio. They can't write all three of those states off. They got to get the I think they got to try the goal out to be competitive in all three. But right now they're sort of right in retreat in all three. And until the party cracks that code, I don't know if they're going to crack a code nationally. And that might be one way to follow this and one way to keep track of this. All right, let's see here next question another

Pennsylvanian in here. No, a Misschigander who claims to be a Penn and State fan. Good luck with that anyway. This comes from Mark for an arbor An. He writes, even if research funding cuts are eventually restored, the damage in the interim is so significant that alternative funding solutions should be considered stage could issue bonds and relan the proceeds to research institution, which would cover the interest and

repay the bonds through future grants or fundraising. While not a complete replacement, this approached smiler to conduit issuances used in infrastructure could help mitigate the harm. What say you, that's an interesting thought that you you would do this uh as as a as bond proposals. I mean, perhaps this will You're right, we do it for school construction

funding all the time in the county I live in, or you know, it's you know where they basically have to ask for permission to borrow money. But they do, and and and they get these low interest loans and and the taxpayers are barely in our LinkedIn, I feel like we get our money's worth from from what we pay. That's an interesting I hope we don't have to resort

to that. But this is one of those questions whether if this is you know, in in our in our in our NBC poll our posters used to say, wait till you see a trend for a second straight poll before you make note of it amongst a demographic group. And I might say the same thing about presidential terms. Right, if we get another president who's this you know, who decides to politicize scientific research like this and create a political litmus test for research grants, and this is sort

of the place we go down. Well, I think all this gets privatized in some form or another. And maybe what you're describing, maybe this is you know, maybe you know, if we go down this road, I think we're going to be more of a the states may behave more

as a more of a loose confederation. And then suddenly, and then so I could picture your idea, you know, take Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, you know, Illinois all sort of agree to put something like it, and it's sort of a regional research initiative where they all put and pull it because ultimately, right, the more the more money you can pull, the more you can scale some of this research.

So my guess is that is probably what would happen if we if we can we continue on this road of having an unreliable federal government when it comes to scientific data, economic data, then you may see some consortiums, public private compacts, things like that that try to try to be bridges right of some sort or a new form of a public utility, and maybe they are state based. I guess, I am man. I hope we don't have

to go down that road. I hope there's some. I hope there's I hope this is a low point on that front. You know, speaking of research, there's a the CDC director who was appointed CDC director by Jimmy Carter and who stayed in office for three years of Ronald Reagan. Okay, meaning that's how non political the CDC job used to be seen at He just wrote an op ed in Stat magazine, which is a healthcare journal. I'm going to

read you this quote. It's it's an unbelievable qute. Because many of you have made note that I'm pretty tough on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. H And I am because I'm just I'm alarmed at the lack of alarm at the direct You know how much how much pain he's causing this country already and physical pain that he's that he's doing. But this is not my way. You know, if you thought I have been tough on him, let

me read you what. William Foge, the former CDC director, again appointed by Carter, served through three years of Reagan. So not a not not not an era where we were politicizing the CDC. He wrote that Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time, rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands. It's a pretty tough op, ed the headline in this again it's in stat I encourage you to go to take

a look at it. How public health can fight back in a time of dangerous nonsense. Look, there's not a mainstream public health official in an America, former or current that isn't fully fully alarmed about the situation we're dealing with anyway. Like I said, I certainly hope folks sober up on this one on the right. All right, last question, then we'll wrap things up here. This comes from CW from Central New York or any elect Democrats actively calling

for a constitutional convention. Frankly, I think the DNC is guarding its power and has not yet come to terms with its failure since twenty sixteen. As you have said, they haven't lost badly enough yet. I believe both parties have reasons to be hesitant about a constitutional convention. I think your idea to have a convention focusing on one or two issues would be a good way to start. What issues do you think are ripe for amendments? Which amendment issues do you think could do the most to

move the country in a positive direction? Would you consider doing an episode on how a constitutional convention might unfold? Thank you, CW. I like that idea about trying to,

you know, see how one would work and how one might unfold if you will, And you know you asked me, I guess I look at it this way. It's sort of like what a successful constitutional convention is going to have to be a give and take between the left and the right. I think a balanced budget amendment is It's sort of like what what is what is the most? What is the most? I guess is confirmable the word

that you would use for an amendment? Right, you know which amendment that comes from team right has the best shot at getting the seventy five percent that you need? All of those markers to me, it's the balance budget amendment. Those that on the left, which are the ones? I think it would be campaign finance reform, right, So you know, those are the two issues. I think you have term

limits and age limits. I think it's campaign money, and I think it's public debt, right, you know, those sort of three entities, because I think ultimately right the convendor, you know, I think we need like a good I think we need Netflix to do an eight episode series called The Continental Congress. Will Benjamin Franklin, you know, you know, just try to maybe we could dramatize them omens and you have these cliffhangers. What are they going to do

about this? How are they going to balance? The small states are mad at Virginia and Massachusetts. What are they going to do? You know? Are they going to pull out of this new country? Right? Maybe that would grab people's attention and they could learn how the whole thing worked so and then then that would then trigger. But the point is the original Continental Congress, right, the original Constitutional Convention was a series of compromises. Before we got

our constitution, we had the failed Articles of Confederation. So it's one of those that goes back to Charlie Cook's frustration that we are civics education that particularly sort of the rationale behind why our government is a republic, why we're formed the way we're formed, et cetera. I certainly would want the entire country to understand that before we

went into one. But if you're looking for a way to have a successful constitutional convention, I think the three I think the three topics really are public debt, age in term limits, and campaign money. Right. I think you find ways to deal with those three. I think everything else is probably problematic. You know, you might have people that want to put a right privacy or a right. Maybe the Equal Rights Amendment get sort of does officially get put in. There's some that argue that that that

that clock is still running. I think that's a I I certainly wouldn't. That's probably not the best way for that amendment to get ratified. I think you'd want to have it to be more more a more modern vote on that one. But I think if you started there, you could deal with a lot of a lot of issues, right. I think if we could figure out a way to constitutionally limit money without it being seen as limiting speech, I do think we would, you know, we would, We could.

We could deal with a lot of a lot of problems that have sort of perverted our politics a little bit. And I've not always been you know, for the longest time, it always felt like well, you know, money's always going to find a way. But but but boy, we've gotten really you know, it's gotten too easy to hide, it's gotten too easy to you know, all of those things. So I think that I think those would be the topics that you would most likely have have success at

getting past. But you know, I would love a constitutional convention simply for the educational aspect. You know. Again, you know, when I had Lindsay Shravinsky on my Newsphere show not too long ago, if you have a chance to check it out, I asked her how the Founders would be handling this moment. She said, you know, there's always one thing that jumped out at me that that she says that she says, you know, the founders didn't think the

Constitution would last more than a generation. That the biggest thing that there are two things that would shock the Founders that they came back today. One is that it's still going, that we didn't rip it up and have a new one. A lot of democracies do that. The second is that it only has twenty eight amendments. They thought there'd be a lot more amendments. And that goes

back to something I shared with you before. You know, one of the great observations to topful mate about the strength of our democracy is sort of how into politics we were at the local level. That seems to have gone away, right, So maybe a constitutional convention will sort of renew our renew our commitment to our citizenship and realize that, you know, there is some responsibility that comes with it. You know, if we want the benefits that come with it, and we want good stuff to happen,

you know, we can't just sit here and complain. We got to participate, right, Sometimes participation is just just being knowledgeable and voting. You know, if you just do that, you're doing your job as a citizen. I think we've got plenty of people voting, and I fear we have plenty of people who think they're knowledgeable. But we have a lot of garbage information out there. And you know that's that gets it to the bigger thing that we've

got to fix, right. You know, it is tough to get a country of three hundred and fifty million people to row in the same direction. If if if we're siloed in you know, six hundred different if we're in six hundred different silos and have no idea what everybody else is seeing, hearing, or reading. So with that, when I see you next time, I will have tried to figure out what's in this empty nest. Do I redesign my kids' bedrooms immediately right? Or we wait a few

more years until until I do that. But either way, I will end this one here and we will see you after a long weekend until we upload again.