Chuck’s Commentary - Jeff Bezos Gutting The Washington Post Is A Dark Day For Journalism + The One Loophole For A Third Trump Term

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of the sort of the Super Bowl extravaganza. And I'm tempted to say that the Super Bowl hype feels lessish. And I don't know if I'm saying that because I'm buying into the premise that they're you know, we don't have the traditional stars in the Super Bowl right now. There's no Patrick Mahomes and there's no Tom Brady, and there's no Josh Allen. There's no Lamar Jackson, no Aaron Rodgers.

So I hate to like pile on on that, but there does feel this feels less hyped or am I just accepting you know, am I putting my own bias on it?

out of you know, my great fears that it won't be competitive, But I certainly hope we will have a competitive more to say about the super Bowl, as I always promise, I want to keep the sports to the end. I've made a few references and had a few rants about the Washington Post, but we now know what happened, and I guess you could say, I'm this is my official obituary for the Washington Post because my frustration on this. This is not and I think different people go about

this a different way. I do not believe Jeff Bezos's job was to be a to treat the Washington Post as a charity case. So I'm not you know, I'm

not asking him to lose money to keep the Washington Post up and running. I'm asking him to be honest about what he's up to. I'm asking him to be more straightforward about his motivation, and I'm asking him to acknowledge that he The question is did he hire the wrong people or did he actually make a business decision that has nothing to do with the business of media and everything to do.

wasn't going to do. So I wanted to start off with the Jeff Bezos quote so that as I read you, Matt Murray, and I want to say this about Matt Murray's the executive editor of the Washington Post. Matt Murray's had to be the face of all of this. It sucks that anybody has to be the face of this. But what really sucks is he didn't make these decisions. He has to execute a strategy and execute decisions that were made by two people who did not face the

public or their employees. So you know, look, I do not I feel poor Matt Murray's been hung out to dry. And you could say, well, he could have resigned well, and look, everybody's got pay bills, so be very careful.

It's always easy to say when you don't have that job, to say you could quit, you could do this well, you know your circumstance is your circumstance. If you have the luxury to do it, great, and you think you can make a statement, kudos, But not everybody does.

strategy has been a disaster. Every move he's made has cost the Post money, cost the Post readers, cost the Post relevance. So the idea that Lewis's job is safe, but three hundred Washington Post staffers are being shown the door because hey, this is you know, oh you know, we just no. The media business is hard. But this was a choice. But anyway, Jeff Bezos in twenty thirteen said, you do this, and you know you may go to

extinct irrelevance. So let me read you today's memo that I'm sure was approved by Will Lewis and Jeff Bezos. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I'm going to read a few paragraphs, so this one. These moves include substantial newsroom reductions, impacting nearly all news departments. For the immediate future, we will concentrate on areas that

demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact and that resonate with readers. Politics, national affairs, people power and trends, national security in DC

and abroad. Forces shaping the future, including science, health, medicine, technology, climate in business, journalism that empowers people to take action, from advice to wellness, revelatory investigations, and what's capturing attention in culture, online and daily life. So that's the that's the mission. Apparently let me continue, but we take these actions with clarity of purpose. The need has never been

more urgent to reposition the post. A more flexible, sustainable model will help us better navigate unprecedented volatility, competition, technological change, news consumption habits, and cost pressure. As you know, we have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us multiple in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with peer periotic constraints on other kinds of spending.

We have concluded that the company structure is to root it in a different era when we were a dominant local print product. This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward. Then he keeps going we are far from alone and reevaluate our model and rethinking how we operate. The ecosystem of news and information on and off platform is changing radically. News consumers enjoy more variety, voices, of

platforms and options than ever before. In just the last

five years, multiple startups, even individuals have created meaningful products that draw at tension and generate impact at low cost. And it goes on to blame search and blame all these other structural issues that were issues in twenty thirteen, that were issues when Marty Barron took over. So the point being there, of course there have been issues. These are issues that the New York Times confronted, and as Nate Silver, you should check out his substance he did.

He noted that both you know, essentially this gets it to the real business decision that Jeff Bezos made. But he did a terrific sort of showing of that. There was this study of sort of like impact, sort of judging how much how much impact your news stories had,

and the Times in the Post were essentially neck and neck, neck and neck. It's sort of you know, whether it was attention impact, how often their articles were however you

wanted to measure. But there was a pretty good measurement that he was using to do this, and I wasn't familiar with the specific metric he was using, but it made the larger point that both the Times in the Post were sort of essentially in the same place late twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, even into twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, you know, the Times like the Post experienced you know, this this sort of softening of interest in Washington news

with the incoming Biden administration, right, and Joe Biden being sort of catatonic for most of his term. Obviously meant

that the attention economy when it came to Washington politics was less interested. The Times diversified, right, the Times has all had, you know, decided to use the opportunity when there was attention, and they they went big, right. Yeah, they cut their sports department, but only after they bought the Athletic Okay, the leading national sports news organization in the country. So they actually went bigger on sports, not smaller, right. And they went with a brand, and they took a brand,

and they doubled down on a brand, you know. And they've done this with Wirecutter, and they've done this with their recipes, and they've done this with games. The Washington Post was perfectly positioned to potentially do something similar on a variety of fronts. This is among the wealthiest metropolitan areas in the country. You have some of the most well read people. People pay for news. Not every community

is got to, is my god. They charge you for everything around here, right, people are buying newsletters from punch Bowl and buying pro political pro subscriptions and national journal and hotline passes and all sorts of things. So this is a market that is very comfortable paying for information. But Jeff Bezos had a problem. His number one competitor for space contracts is Elon Musk. Elon Musk had had all sorts of ties to the two front runners for

president in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and Elon Musk was leveraging those relationships in any way possible. And when he realized Disantas was going nowhere, right, He's eventually.

Blue Origin would be just sort of stuck here, maybe have to work with another country if they wanted to get up and stuff like that. So he looked at the look I think his initial decision to purchase. Now, when you sort of everything looks obvious now in hindsight. So why did twenty thirteen Jeff Basos.

going to get the second headquarters in? Amazon did a very public, almost American Idol style RFPs right request for proposals from various cities, and they had certain things they needed. They needed easy access to public transportation, among you, affordable housing, all sorts of it, but it was public transporation was a big thing, There's no doubt. I remember I was hoping he'd picked Saint Louis. And you've probably heard me a few times. I'm obsessed with Saint Louis for a variety of reasons.

LA in San Francisco, there were Saint Louis. Right, it was the western frontier and it was an extraordinarily important city. And even when I was growing up, right, you know, it was a hub and had lots of corporate headquarters there, right, and isaer Bush being the most iconic, but TWA Transworld Airlines that was a huge airline that was not a small airline, it was a big airline. And it is withered, and there's a we can There's a variety of reasons.

Saint Louis is one of those. When you if you ever wanted to understand how the interstate highway system really did segregate communities and destroy urban communities, go traveling downtown Saint Louis when you go, and I believe it's fifty five. If I have it wrong, I hope my friends and Saint Louis will will correct me.

fighting a not in my backyard mindset, you know, the black communities lost every one of them. And this was all over. You can read the Powerbroker about Robert Moses and what he did New York and how this was done. You can just see how the interstate system was built in Saint Louis. You can see remnants of this in New Orleans and some other of these cities that this has been done. Do you hate hangovers, We'll say goodbye to hangovers. Out of Office gives you the social buzz

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my audience thirty percent off your entire order. So go to get sold dot Com use the promo code toodcast. Don't forget that code. That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. So I was really but there was a lot of reasons. So Saint Louis, I think needed a shot in the arm. But I also

thought it was a Hey, this is a it still has some wealth to it. It still is a highly educated community, and more importantly, it's it's a more politically diverse community. And I would thought the tech industry needed more buy in from Red America. So, hey, don't you know you're going from Seattle? All right, why don't you you know, I thought Saint Louis so for a variety of reasons, right, I thought Saint Louis was gonna be a good spot. So but the point was they picked

I remember the last thing I expected was DC. So Bezos made a business and so what did he do?

But it only adds. It's only additive, right, It gives you outsized potential influence and all of it, you know, and so but but in order in order for that

to stay, the Post had to be.

helpful all of those businesses. Well, in comes Donald Trump and the polarization of media in general and the weaponization by the right to attack any journalists, any journalistic organization that dared try to report accountability stories about anybody left or right. But you know, everything got and Donald Trump personalized everything in that first turn, and the question was

how was it going to impact Bezos? And look, the conventional with the rest of official Washington was just as alarmed about Donald Trump as the Washington Post was, So in some ways, I think Bezos felt comforted that he was still on the side. Yes, he was did lose a government contract because Donald Trump essentially punished Amazon, punished Bezos because he didn't like the coverage he was getting out of the Washington Post. Passed forward to twenty twenty three.

were experiencing in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen and investing in sort of cementing some of the growth that they have. Right, you get growth, you should want to cement it.

just is a clickbait, attention economy type of journalists. It's a great way to make money if you're an individual. It's not a long term sustaining business. Just go see the UK news market if you need more proof of that. And never mind that like will Lewis's journalistic credentials were pretty much shit for his connection with the with the Murdock scandals that did cost him a bit of his reputation in the UK.

for President Donald Trump. Jeff Bezos is watching the entire tech community just side and the crypto community are sort of both one and the same as decided they've given up on Biden, Harris and the Democrats and they're going all in with Trump. They know that any policy proposal,

if you give enough money, is a policy they can get enacted. One of those pokes is Elon Musk, who's got SpaceX. So Bezos had a choice to make. Now he could have sold the Washington Post. But why wouldn't he sell the Washington Post Because whoever he sold the Washington Post to would likely have kept it a robust journalistic organization more like Marty Baron's Washington Post than the one whatever version we're going to see over the next six months. And it probably would have been heavy on

accountability of this administration. Some crazy shit's happening every hour of every day, and the Washington Post this is who they are. In my entire lifetime, right, the Washington Post's been a major news look. Essentially, Watergate took the Washington Post from being one of two major papers in Washington. You had the Washington Star in the Washington Post to suddenly being, oh well, there's the New York Times in the Washington Post. They went from really good local paper

to very important national paper. So just about anybody running the Post is going to have that as the North Star. But if he had sold it, Trump would have blamed

Bezos still probably still punished him. Made it a little bit harder to get those space access to the space resources that the government controls lose out in just about every competitive bid with SpaceX.

his first wife and he still.

business of The Washington Post. The Washington Post is a pawn in his gallery that is used to make sure the other businesses aren't punished by a very pugilistic president who doesn't believe that there should be a free press that's there to be critical of him as much as is a free press there that can be praiseworthy of him if that organization deems it worthy. So I do think it's important that I accept the premise that this

was a business decision. But don't you tell me it's about the business of news and information, because if he was making that kind of business decision, number one he would have sold it, or number two, he would have created the Everything information store. Right now, as somebody else said to me, you know, it's possible that, you know, Jeff Beson is just not that bright, meaning he's really good at one thing, building Amazon. There's no evidence at

Blue Origins any good as a private space company. Yet you know he is not you know, look whatever, Elon Musk has a lot of character flaws as a human being. But the guy's a genius. We know that, all right.

wants to believe that, right. He wants to believe only dumb people are poor and all rich people are smart because he's rich and he knows he's not very smart, but he wants people to think he's smart. So this is sort of the paint by numbers perception that way too many people in government are practicing these days. And

I watch it a lot. The deference that gets paid to wealthy people in general, but particularly by politicians and others is kind of gross when you know they were an expert at one thing either they you know a lot of times right, I would say about the super rich people I've ever been around, about half inherited their money and about half, you know, did it because they were a part of building a business. But it didn't

mean they were an expert at that business. It didn't automatically mean they were any good at anything else.

power and trends, National security of DC and abroad. Forces shaping the future, including science, health, medicine, technology, climate, and business. You know who else has that same north star? Every other news organization that cover is in Washington or covers Washington. That's Politico's north star. I could argue that's you know, punch Bowl probably covers eighty percent of that National journal or the Hotline would have said something like that, The New York Times coverage of Washington.

and the irony is it right? The founders of Political Jim Benheid and John Harris left the Post and said, hey, they basically say there needs to be you know, the Post, and you know, the Post should be focusing more on these areas and they could own this area now. Jim Benheid John Harris weren't advocating getting rid of sports and

culture and all of that. What they were arguing is that the Post should be more robust, be smarter about some of its core authoritative topics, including politics in the coverage of Washington. And I've always said that the Washington Post for my adult lifetime used to what I used to say when I worked at the National Journal in the Hotline. He said, boy, the Washington Post lets a bunch of us live right, roll call, Politico, National Journal,

punch Bowl. If the Washington Post chose to get involved in any of those areas and become you know, hourly authorities on what's happening on Capitol Hill like punch Bowl, you know, or daily authorities about what's happening on campaign trail like Hotline, or daily and hourly newsletters about all sorts of industries in Washington like Politico, they could do it, but it would put these others out of business, you know.

So now the Post wants to retreat and essentially become a Washington trade publication that covers the business.

Washington Post. Now I'm going to close on this before we get to my conversation with Danny fun about mobile gaming and whether this is a if we suddenly put a carton of cigarettes, the proverbial cartner cigarettes in the hands of every eighteen year old boy in America, I guess, twenty one year old boy in America, young man in America. I'm going to confess something I am. I am enthusiastic

about the future of news and information. I'm enthusiastic about independent media because look, I think the I think Jeff Bezos here behaved like an evil rich guy stereotype, right, couldn't faith when he bought the Washington Post, he couldn't wait to be in the newsroom when he absolutely destroys the Washington Post. He's meeting with peg Pete Hegseth at Blue Origin and his wife hanging out at a Paris

fashion show. Right, it is a classic, Like, I mean, you couldn't script it better, right if you wanted to. It is gilded age. Let them eat cake. You can pick your metaphor. And I'll tell you I do think the pitchforks are out. Bernie Sanders said something interesting, and you know, Bernie has a way of taking any issue

and saying it's about the millionaires and the billionaires. But he made an interesting observation about the Epstein files, and he says, you know, one of the reasons he thinks that there's so much interest in the Epstein files beyond the conspiracy theorists. Right, conspiracy theorists love the Epstein files for a variety of other reasons. But there's sort of

there's a next level of interest. Right, there's just a it just garneled it, and that is, these fucking rich people play by their own set of rules, and look

at the shit they get away with. And so here's Jeff Bezos behaving by a whole other set of rules. And I you know, look, I blame myself for assuming Jeff Bezos what's more worn than Elon Musk? Right, you know, Warren Buffett bought the Omaha World Herald of years ago because he wanted a good newspaper to read as he stayed in Omaha. And I think I know what I thought.

I thought, Jeff Bezos sort of raised middle class kid, you know, sort of raised in a way that a lot of Americans go through, you know, single parent for a while, stepfather all, you know, moved around a couple of times, sort of lived, had a lived, had a lived, working class, middle class ferry experience that maybe may have

ground him differently than it grounds a guy like Elon Musk, who was you know, raised by a weirdo father. And you know, or some of these tech guys who are all you know, a lot of them are, you know, like Bill Gates was you know, his dad had you know, he wasn't. I think he was born in second base, not third base.

know if you know it is the amount of white collar anger that's going to be now coupled with blue collar anger. Right if blue collar Americans didn't like Mett Romney because he looked like the boss that was going to lay them off, and that's why some of these guys who may not have liked the skin color of Barack Obama but voted for him in twenty twelve, because Mett Romney looked like the guy that was going to

lay him off. Well, now blue collar and white collar America are going to be pretty angry at the boss. And you know it's it is actions like this that I this this sort of moment that's coming, and I think, again, I blame myself. I thought I'd bet I've been in a few dinners with Jeff bezos side, you know, clearly not enough to truly get the measure of the man. But he seemed like a pretty smart, well read, sort

of pragmatic individual. Meaning I thought he could read a room, and I don't think any of these tech guys can read a room right now. And you know, whether we call him a tech guy, he's kind of more of an old retail brick and mortar guy that used sort of technology to sort of take over the retail market. But you know, I don't think this is good politics.

And the party that associates the most with the wealthiest people right now is on the right. You know, it's funny, for a period of time, all the rich people, the richest people in America seemed to be Obama supporters, right They loved Obama, the celebrity of Obama.

covered by the Washington Post. It broke about three hours after the Matt Murray announced the end of the sports department, and so I was curious if they'd even like note like, this is the biggest trade in Washington Wizards for the Washington Wizards, at least since getting rid of Black Bradley Beal, and I think bigger than that, maybe not since Chris the acquiring Chris Weber. And there's no Washington Sports section to cover it. I went over to see if they

had any updates, maybe just carry a wire story. So now in order to call it, you know, I'm going to check out. I keep, for no offense to my friends at the Washington Times. I keep forgetting that they're still doing some sports coverage there, and good for them. So I'll check that out, and I'll be checking it out more for obvious reasons. I love my local sports teams,

not all of them, but if you will. But the point about sports is This is sports is the community glue that builds the trust that gets people to believe the hard news that's being reported. So don't tell me sports is not worth the investment. What that tells me is you have a bunch of newsroom leaders, particularly somebody that you're importing in where they don't have you know, they they their news organizations. You know, they've never covered sports the way our news organizations have. So it is

a cultural disconnect. And I think will Lewis doesn't fully appreciate what he has just done or what he thinks he's recommended. But here's what I will say. I don't think the Post will recover from this. They may exist, just like Newsweek exists, but his newsweek, the newsweek of Howard Feinman, of Evan Thomas, we all know it's not. It's kind of newsweek in name only. Now, look, there's still some good reporters left. The congressional team at the

Post was fairly untouched. But what's it going to look like in a year. And let me just tell you, it is going to be fascinating to see what the subscriber base looks like.

in particular. So in that sense, thank you Jeff Bezos for giving an entrepreneur like myself and a few others the opportunity to show that you can do your civic duty for your community and also make a dollar or two while you're at it. Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in the best shape. My mother, single mother, now widow, myself sixteen, trying.

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ethos dot com slash chuck. So again that's Ethos dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary and the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, life insurance is something you should really think about it, especially if you've got a growing family. All right with that, let

me give you a few thoughts on the on the Super Bowl, Eric, I have my fear is that it's a blowout that we're having eighties nineties Super Bowl right where the NFC is so much more dominant than the AFC. And you know, it was like, you know, whatever AFC team sort of hacked their way to the Super Bowl. Remember when the San Diego Chargers with Nate Tron means business, you know, and they got there and they got kind of pummeled by Steve Young's forty nine ers. Right, all

those Buffalo bill blowouts from the Jim Kelly era. I mean, the only team NFC team that didn't they would win super Bowls without blowing out the AFC were the Giants, Right. You had the Scott Norwood field goal. And then even the game against the Broncos. I think that the Giants trailed at halftime and then they ended up they ended up beating the Broncos for the first Super Bowl for Parcels. So I fear we're gonna have one of those games.

I love me a good super Bowl party. I've got a great We've got some great friends that love to host. And but my only small peeve about it is if it's a really competitive game, It's like, I don't want to be at a party while I'm watching anyway, So my fear is that, right. I love the Sam Donald story. I still remember Freshman, the freshman at USC who was unbelievable, and I have I've not seen him be that good until he was a Viking.

you don't get drafted by the New York Jets. My gut is also low scoring game because the dirty little secret about watching the Seahawks is they don't seem to want to put the game in Darnald's hands one hundred right, They've had they had a great one two punch, they only have one running back obviously that they're they one of their two stars there.

And like I told you, I I you know, there's there's plenty of player props out there, but in some ways I do think player props are sort of a bigger problem.

found out how Crypto is going to market itself. I have a feeling right this captive eyeballs we're going to I'm very you know, to watch all the different ways the AI lean in AI companies are going to communicate. I know that's something that I'm intrigued about, curious about, and we'll be making a note up. So with that,

let's do a little last check and then we'll get out of here. As Chuck, all right, I got six on the screen. I'm going to hit six. That's my goal. I'm sticking to it, all right. This question comes from James. He says, thanks again for the podcast. Listening from France

right on helps me think differently about US politics and gives me hope. As an institutionalist, I am the king of the institutionalists in independent media. You've said Congress has lost its incentives to act as a check on presidential power. And I wonder if that's partly due to nationalized parties expecting members to fall in line behind the president. But states still defend their authority across party lines. What incentives

allow that? And could something similar help Congress reclaim its power. Well, so this is where I believe that the fact, you know, this is where the power of the primary coupled with the power of gerrymandering, coupled with the power of too big of congressional districts. Right, So I'm on my hobby horse and about that the actual size of the US House is way too small and the shrinking, the fact that the that the representative democracy is further away from

the average person. Right, we have one member of Congress now per eight hundred thousand people, when in nineteen thirty we were one member of Congress per three hundred and fifty thousand people. Eight hundred thousands is the size of a major city in this country. And you can't tell me that is a single community of interest, right. New York City is not a single community of interests. Austin, Texas is not a single community of interests. Detroit, Michigan

is not a single community of interests. There are multiple communities of interests within said metro area. So this is where it's like if you were to ask me, what's one reform that could do this, Well, it's getting rid of partisan primaries, right if you could empower all voters in every congressional district to have more of a say

on who the representative is. So either you're drawing districts to be competitive, which is why I'm always careful not to just trash all jerrymandering because in the way we've all self sorted as a country, we may need a gerrymander to create competition. But you know, you could mandate competition. You could mandate the size of the districts. Maybe no district can be bigger than point zero three percent of the population, which would put it in about one perform

in two thousand at the moment. And if you did that, I think it would do. If we did that, and then the gerrymandering doesn't is an impactful. Partisanship gets diluted, and I think incentives become more regional and geographic rather than partisan. Right now, when you have jerrymandering and partisan primaries, it means the head of the party has all sorts of outsized influence on the individual member of Congress.

the House. That in turn minimizes the impact of jerrymandering. And on top of that, I get rid of partisan primaries and essentially all party you know, everybody votes, and you know, uh for for everybody, the top two whatever it is, you do it that way. Doesn't mean parties can't endorse, doesn't mean parties won't have preferences of who the officially endorsed candidate is, and then they can give those resources in a larger in an all voter primary.

But this is how we elect our mayors, and our mayors are the least partisan office holders in America and if we're tired of partisanship, that's the path to go.

from Europe. It's a sextuary insight insightful analysis that really helps me understand you as politics more clearly from a European perspective.

was in the streets a lot in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, I think now it's a bit more concentrated. But one one could argue that, you know, those No Kings protests keep growing, and we're about to have another one, I think, and that's only going to keep growing. So and we've seen the demonstrations in Minneapolis have been huge.

But I understand, I get what you're saying. I think what you're saying is it feels like European protests have been bigger than about Trump in America than the American.

on Donald Trump. We've had those assassinations in Minneapolis, first of the lawmakers, then.

if Tim Walls calls in the National Guard? Does Trump then try to federalize that National Guard?

you're seeing here. This looks so un American. Is the American the America you're used to was Cold War America. Well, Cold War America was an outlier in America. Cold War America was the most pragmatic version of America that we had.

minority when we make decisions as a country. It's not lost on me that we had our biggest growth as an economic and security power in the Cold War, when we were the most pragmatic, when we both parties kept their extremes at bay, and you know, we focused on the existential threat that was the Soviets and the fear of nuclear holocaust, and that kept us sober politically. Then that fear went away. So it so, I don't so, I guess what I'm saying is the divides have always

been unbridgable. But it but they but they've been tolerated. Right, We tolerate our divides. We accept that we disagree on what those divides are, and we kind of muddle through. So we'll get there.

president we've ever had. He does not believe in the story of America. He does not believe that America an idea. You know, he doesn't.

in the story of America. Donald Trump doesn't want a chapter. He wants to throw away that book and only have a book, the Book of Trump. But he does not believe in the You know, I don't think he knows what a Federalist paper is. And I promise you he hasn't read it all. If he's read one, he didn't done it since grade school. Next question comes from got

somebody from Chicago it's Mike, he said. Some presdident I were debating wild scenarios where Trump could serve a third term. One theory floated was that if Trump became Speaker of the House and the newly elected president and VP resigned, he could ascend to the presidency again. I know the Constitution bars him from being elected president again, but could he legally return via the line of succession. So it's funny. The Speaker of the House loophole has always been the

one I've thought about too. I interviewed Steve Bannon about ten months ago and we went through this sould Trump twenty eight and he's like, oh, he's going to be unbalot And I said, I said, I know you want to. I said, constitution bars it. And he says, well, you just wait, We've got a path. It's the only one I can think of, is that one. I think that's

the only one. I think it's the you know, it fits the description that my friend likes to say, which is, you know, our biggest problem with Trump is failure of imagination. You know, Donald Trump doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about what's the best way to tame the Iranians, but he does think a lot of time about all the different loopholes that he can exploit.

and you're ineligible, no person. Let's read the word, no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice. And no person who has held the office of president or acted as president for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.

to go through a process right to become speaker. And I just, you know, so I think you've identified the one loophole where you could claim a fig leaf of constitutional legitimacy. But in some ways it reminds me of Putin and Medvedev. So Putin decided to become prime minister to abide by what was a two term limit in Russia, right for president.

of power, but not a ton. That's what this would feel like, right, And I you know, I think you've identified the loophole, and I all so believe that attempting

it it would be impossible. I still think if there's going to be a Trump on the ballot, and that's the thing, right, Like Republicans would rather have a Trump on a ballot than Trumps president, right because they it's Trump's voters that they need to get their majorities in Congress, and they don't necessarily want to actually work with Trump the situation you're outlining, you know, and do they just campaign that Trump's going to run for speaker and then

you make it a referendum on that? Right? But I do think you've found the loophole that it in theory could be it. I will just say I just don't think it could. I don't think he could pull it off. And then you know, the actuary tables are going to catch up to Donald Trump sooner.

without leaning into full doom and gloom. What are your thoughts on the DJ Collecting voter roles and seizing ballot boxes in Fulton County, Georgia feels like voter suppression or worse, a way to track and target people who didn't vote for Trump. Why isn't this getting more attention and how concerned.

all the voter roles. Let's set up a special committee, and let's explain how it works and explain how each state does it. Ultimately, what I think Trump's up to is that he just he just wants to keep feeding the conspiracy that he's somehow won in twenty twenty, and it's he is just so committed to it. I mean, I guess it's amazing that he's committed to the bit this long, right, but it is sort of I find it laughable, except it's so serious, right, what he's trying

to do in the manipulation of it all. Yeah, I think what you're I think the realistic fear we should have is is a form of voter suppression, which is just purging of voter rolls or using it to you know, perhaps the information is given to some nefarious political direct mail company to scare those voters from voting. But there are other ways to get those voter roles too. But

that's what that's why, you know. I think the fail safe is if you're in one of these states that is decided to not care about their Tenth Amendment rights. I'm very curious to see what happens with this lawsuit from Fulton County with it and see if they get their ballots back. If federalism is still in existence, they'll get their ballots back.

twenty oh seven. All right, thanks for everything you do. Maybe I need a refreshment. Our politics usually works what as usual anymore? But anyway, but isn't it unusual for the out party to get a bill through? How much influence should we expect in a situation like this? Best bride?

One hundred percent? Now, I'll say this. Traditionally, when a president gets shellacked in a midterm George W. Bush oh six, Barack Obama twenty ten and twenty fourteen, Bill Clinton nineteen ninety four, they've wanted to prove that, particularly Obama twenty ten and Clinton ninety four, because they had their own real storry about that. Hey, all right, we can go I can govern with the other side. Let me show you how I can govern with the other side.

on healthcare subsidies. I mean, Trump's such a political chameleon, right, he has no ideology, and if you know, it all depends on how much the Democrats want to want to allow Trump to come along for the ride, you know, or do they want instead to prepare for twenty twenty eight in twenty twenty nine, right, and you and you actually pass bills that are designed to be vetoed.

think it depends on how you got elected. I think some people got elected to say we've got to eradicate Trump from politics, and some people will get elected by promising those swing voters, look, they're you know, I'm not going to throw out every idea just because Trump came up with it. But I do think when you look at you know, there was some affordability bills, that some economic stimulus that the Democrats passed in O seven that George W. Bush signed. There was certainly welfare reform that

Republicans passed that bill Clinton signed. So and we like, I go back to there's no greater political chameleon than Donald Trump. And you know, there's always this one instinct of his like, look at what he did, was how he was with mom Donnie. Oh, Mom Donnie won by you. You know, he likes to be associated with winners, and he may deem especially if it's a blowout. He may want to show that there are some things he's because that means some of his voters voted for the Democrats.

So I wouldn't don't I wouldn't assume. I wouldn't assume it's that it's going to be nothing but messaging bills if Democrats win full control of Congress in working with Trump. All right, I'm going to have two more questions here and this will be I will empty my my cue four this week, Hey, Chuck, Anthony from La here, long time,

first time quick question. If the Senate ends up split, say forty eight Republicans, forty eight Democrats and four independents, who are the independence By the way, how is majority controlled determined? Do Independence have to declare caucus and can

they switch at any time? Could that lead to the majority leadership changing hands? Thanks for turning me into a college football fan last year, Anthony right on. Perhaps the the conferences ESPN or Fox can give me a kickback for for bringing bringing another fan into the full well. The independents also vote on who which who which party should organize. Now some of that stuff's usually negotiated, you know, behind the scenes. Now, who are your four independents? Right?

I think Lisa Murkowski is up for grabs?

they choose to use it. Right, you know, I've always had this dream that the four to six of them in there would be independence and they would always vote in a block right each time and maybe maybe they would agree, okay, for calendar year twenty twenty seven, Democrats are in charge for calendar year twenty twenty eight, Republicans.

one with Vermont Senator Jim Jeffers. Last question comes from Nelson H and New Orleans, Louisiana. I love the podcast.

I'm calling my shot. If James Talerico wins the Democratic primary upsets John Cornyn, I'm getting the vibe that his timing could be perfect to catch fire, just like Barack Obama did in twenty eight. Sure it probably won't happen, but think about it. As we all say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does. Rhyme all the best and ghost saints spelled of course with the French do. I am a believer of the following that the most likely Democratic nominee in twenty eight is somebody we're not

talking about today. I have floated Tall Rico as that idea. Now I will say this, I think he's This was a bad week for tall Rico's politics, right this story about how he referred according to an influencer, Tall Rico referred to Colin Allred as a mediocre black man versus Jasmine Crockett, a talented black woman, and that phrase really

took off on social media. Colin Allred certainly took offense to it, understandably, So now there was no recording, it wasn't clear what was what I found interesting to pick a word was tall. Rico never did I'd saying it and basically confessed to saying something like it. And then because when you're doing the that isn't what I meant to say, that's code for.

unofficial venues. So so I think it's he's I think it's done some damage. And you know, I'm not one hundred percent convinced. Colin all Redwood have Endorseddasman Crockett, but he is now and he's all in now. So but where your head is at is where my head's at. So another name I throw out there, Molly McMorrow, Right, I think she's somebody who are already went viral once when she was a state legislator. She's now decided to

run for US Senate. She's I think she's going to be the goldilocks candidate that Democratic primary, right, Hanley Stevens is going to seem to establishment Abdul say it, it might seem too progressive. She's going to be the one that seems to bridge. That's certainly the race she's trying

to run. And it's probably going to work just because of how defined I think Stevens and I'll say it are becoming maybe Rob saying getting elected governor of Iowa if some Democrat pulls a statewide upset in the Deep South, in any race. Right, the point is is that I think it's just as likely. I'm with you, remember better

O'Rourke was considered a major presidential candidate. He didn't even win in twenty eighteen, and within six months of losing, he's considered one of the front runners for the nomination because of how close he came to defeating Ted Cruz in twenty eighteen. So the Democratic Party's history is they're likely more likely to go with the new, freshest face

they can find Pete Bootage. Look, without the intervention of Jim Clyburn and COVID, I will go to my grave, believe in bodhajj and Sanders have a fight to the convention, and I think Pete wins the convention fight, but it's close.

governor from Georgia ends up the Democratic nominee. A lesser known governor of Arkansas ends up the Democratic A guy who was state senator in six years before he ever ran for president ends up the nominee in Barack Obama. The history of the Democratic Party is when they and here's another fact in this recent era, when they go with first time candidates, the new candidate, they're more likely to win. When they go with people that have been

around a while, they're more likely to lose. Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Hillary Clinton, sitting Vice President, Kamala Harris.

think you're off kilter here. I like I said, let's see how taal Rico manages this first crisis of his political career. And I'll tell you this. I you know, I was I was more pro tol Rico as a potential dark horse if he'd run for governor then running for Senate.

in the Texas State legislature. I just thought his issues that he was that Abbott would have been a better foil for him, and it would have been a It would have been better for the party, better for the future of Texas Democrats. But he's trying to take a short cut. He has too many consultants, I think whispering sweet presidential nothing's in his ear and saying, hey, senate's an easier road.