Chuck’s Commentary - SCOTUS Guts The Voting Rights Act… Uncapping The House Would Fix It + The “Woke Right” Has Emerged

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use the code toodcast to get those sixty days for free. Sixty days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're going to be saving on every shipment. So that's shipstation dot com toodcast. Shipstation dot com use the code toodcast. Hello there, Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toodcast. Has been a pretty busy It obviously started with the scary situation at the White House Correspondent's dinner. There's been a little bit

of focus on that. But hello, we're still in this war pause if you will, with Iran with really no end in sight, and I want to talk a little bit about the pretty useless briefing that we got from Pete hag Seth with his testimony before the House. Perhaps the Senate side might be better at this, but you know what, It's pretty clear Pete Haggseth isn't interested in being a public servant and doing the things that you would expect taxpayer funded people to do and explain themselves.

He is basically got internet brain, right, he has got his brain is rotting from too much time on the internet. War is way too much about his woke ideology, woke write ideology, whatever. It is, constantly not thinking about actually doing what would be in the best interest of the administration, which is actually make a coherent case for why this

war is justified. Because he didn't do a very good job of that, and he does a terrible job at trying to pick political fights he thinks he's doing. I think he thinks he's being helpful to the president. I don't think it's doing what he thinks it's doing. But the big news politically, we got that new map from Florida, and I was talking about it yesterday and it was right in the middle of when I was taping that. We got the Komi News and I'll have a little

bit more on that. But the big news is this Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and incredible narrowing. Some would call it gutting, depending on your point of view on this, but an incredible narrowing of the Voting

Rights Act which essentially eliminates it from usage in the South. Right, the initial reason for the Voting Rights Act was for the systemic way that Southern states in particular disenfranchised black voters, and the point of creating these majority minority districts or plurality minority districts, particularly in the South was essentially right a century's long wrong on this stuff, and it was about representation, making sure that there was a seat at

the table when over for over a century there was a denial of a seat at the table. And I want to tackle this in two different ways. Okay, one is the near term politics and what does this mean for the maps? What does this mean for campaign twenty twenty six and really more campaign twenty twenty eight and

possibly the redistricting of twenty thirty. But I also want to do something, and you're going to some of you may already know where I'm going to add, but I'm gonna head onto a hobby horse of a solution that I think now hopefully people will see, makes a heck of a lot more sense than when I was on this hobby horse about a year ago where I even did a ted talk about it. But first let's talk

about the near term decision. What does it mean? In theory, you may see a handful of states try to redistrict in the South where suddenly the majority minority districts in say Mississippi, Benny Thompson's district could be at risk. You've got the case was about Louisiana, so there'll be a new Louisiana map. It's likely you will go from two

majority African American districts down to one. For what it's worth, Alabama, the governor has already said no to any sort of special session, and it's my understanding the court actually pretty much said they can't do anything until twenty thirty. So you know that the state courts that is in Alabama,

so they're not going to touch in twenty thirty. We already had the new Florida remap was anticipating this, which is why the Darren Soto District, which is mostly a Puerto Rican district in central Florida, basically got carved up, and it was arguably in anticipation of this. Isn't at

this point another district in Florida that somehow this court ruling would have any influence on. There's certainly the possibility in South Carolina. There's certainly the possibility in Tennessee. In fact, it is worth I would point you to the down ballot. It is the down ballot is a publication and a substack that is very much has been on top of this, and they did a terrific analysis state by state of

what could happen, what would be at risk. I just you know, rather than me reading to you his work, I was done by David Near and Stephen Wolf. You should subscribe to them. I do. I don't want to take away subscription dollars for them, but they go through it. But like I said, the top line is Alabama's going to be untouched till twenty thirty. Florida has already been done. Georgia if they, I doubt there's an attempt at doing it.

And we're going to get into why. I think even if they tried to do something in the Georgia legislature, it would probably implode on them and only elect create more potential democratic seats. And I'm going to give you an example of that in a minute I told you about Louisiana. That's obviously this core case was about Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and potentially in Texas. But again, they've already done their big remap, So let's see what this

all looks like. I think it's a it's not the

way they drew their map. They're anticipating winning over as many Latino votes on the Republican side of the als Donald Trump won in twenty twenty four and to a lesser extent in twenty twenty two, and I think there's some questions about whether that holds up on that front.

But I want to take you back and sort of what does this mean, because look, I think we have a serious issue about representation of this country in our Congress, and I'm going to get to that because I think there is a better solution than trying to redo the Voting Rights Act, trying to come up with special rules and all of this stuff. There is a cleaner, better

way to do this. But let's talk about the near term political impact and when it takes you back to nineteen ninety it was the nineteen ninety one reapportionment map, where essentially it was the Bush forty one Justice Department working with the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly in the southern redraws, where in conjunction with the Voting Rights Act, that was that they needed to have and they got majority increase

representation in Congress of African Americans. And essentially the Bush Justice Department saw it that they had a quote win win situation with Black Democrats. They would draw some majority Black districts in the South, and Republicans would suddenly have more districts that they could win because essentially they took

a chunk of Democratic voters and put them all into compact districts. I'm going to tell you the story about Georgia in nineteen ninety before this reapportionment began in Georgia four years later. By nineteen ninety four, so at the start of the nineteen ninety decade, Newt Gingridge was the only Republican in Georgia's ten member congressional delegation. At the time, it was a nine one advantage Democrats owned the state.

After the nineteen ninety one reapportionment that created essentially the maximum African American districts you could create in Georgia, that was driven by the voting by the previous interpretation of the Voting Rights Act the second and the eleventh Congressional district districts because they increased by one, they went from ten to one. Georgia was a growing state, became majority African American for the first time in ninety two, and the delegation went from nine to one to nine Democrats

to one Republican for ninety two they win. This was an election that Democrats won. Nationally, Bill Clinton wins, Democrats lose some seats in Georgia, their advantage goes from seven Democrats to four Republicans, and then two years later, after the ninety four tsunami for Republicans, it essentially flips to seven Republicans and four Democrats with three African American majority African American districts and one white Democrat. So essentially, in

four years, Democrats went from nine to ten to four of an eleven. And basically it was because they created these maximum a very much large African American majority districts, concentrating black voters in a smaller number of districts. Now, the good news for African Americans is an increased representation in the US Congress, there were more Black Democrats. What it did for the party though, is it actually made it harder for them to elect more Democratic members of Congress.

So what does that mean now? So this is why these this remap is not going to be as clean as people think. It isn't going to be automated automatic pickups in order to draw these new districts. If they're going to no longer have majority African American districts, well they're going to be. Then you're gonna have African American voters who are vote sort of eight times out of ten more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. You're something

going to have a whole bunch more swing districts. Right. We sort of saw this already, and we're getting this example in Florida with the with the Soco district. In order for them to essentially eliminate that district, they spread out Democrats into a whole bunch of other central Florida districts.

And it's in theory taken a lot of likely Republican districts and turn them into quote lean Republican district Well, guess what in a waveyear like we're anticipating here in this midterm election with the party out of power sort of seeing a surgeon turnout, the party in power seeing a depression in turnout all of these Any sort of remap that does this sort of spreading out of Democratic voters and trying to put them in Republican seats is

suddenly going to dilute these maps. And what it, in theory, could end up doing is creating more swing districts throughout the South, which is exactly what we had in the eighties, and then in pre nineteen ninety and the nineteen ninety one reapportionment between the Bush Jets Department and the Congressional Black Caucus, we did not have nearly the number of swing districts in Southern states in the old sort of

Confederate states. So it is a So this is there is a lot of anxiety on the left about this decision, and when it comes to representation. I absolutely understand why there's so much anxiety about this because in some ways it's claiming that we've somehow all of the wrongs that took place all the way through nineteen sixty five is suddenly, oh, they're all gone. Well, we know they're not all gone, and so taking away. This guardrail on representation in the

South is quite risky. But just for the political outcome, if you're looking for D versus R on this, this is not an automatic I mean, yes, it gives a Republican's an opportunity to redraw their maps in the South, and so there'll be certainly less court pushback on certain things. Although I still think the Florida map could get some pushback based on what's in their state constitution when they passed a fair districts referendum a few years back. But

it's not clear to me that this is going to be an automatic net gain for Republicans. If you get rid of packed part of and districts, and these districts get unpacked, you are essentially going to create more swing areas. Now what you may see is you may see some more. You may see some reciently charged democratic primaries in some of these districts where you will have a large chunk

of African American voters, another chunk of Democratic voters of either white Democratic voters, Latino, et cetera. So you might see more. You know that there certainly will be more a diverse set of candidates perhaps running in primaries. How identity politics works in that is going to probably depend on the candidate's running and the issue sets of that day.

But when you're just looking at it as far as Democrats versus Republicans, it's not clear to me, And if anything, it could be a wash, if not a potential in a waveyear of an advantage for the out party, which in this year is this. But again, how many districts are we really going to see get changed this year this cycle versus those that will happen for twenty twenty eight, and then of course we have the actual reapportionment going in twenty thirty, so that's the near term political impact.

You know, we've already seen, like I said, we've already seen Florida's already did their redraw that would have this is the redraw they would have done. They've almost assumed that the court ruling was going to be what it was, with really the darren Sodo district being the one that falls under the Voting Rights Act on this one, Now, let's talk about what is a better perhaps a better

thing to fight for. Now. You know that one of the arcane sort of very political sciencing nerdy things that's out there is this idea of uncapping the House and what does that mean. Well, in nineteen thirty, after a dispute, and I've gone some of you have heard me on this rant before, but in you know, the House of Representatives used to expand with the population of the country,

the number that we would have in the House. Not just you don't just decide how you reapportion the foreign and thirty five congressional districts among the fifty states, of course in nineteen thirty it was among forty eight states,

but also whether the population size has increased enough that it's time to expand the actual House of Representatives itself. Pretty much every decade before nineteen twenty, every single decade, after every census, we pretty much we expanded the House, and then we stopped doing it. Now, in nineteen twenty,

you'll be shocked to know what. You know, there was a big impass and both parties were fighting over this, and they couldn't agree on how many seats to add to the House and which states were going to get them, and there was a big fight, and eventually they got a compromise of let's just lock it down, let's not expand the size of the House. Anymore anyway, they were worried it was getting too big, too unruly, et cetera.

And so we've back in nineteen thirty we locked in four hundred and thirty five district and it was one per three hundred and fifty thousand, you know, basically one congressional district for three hundred and fifty thousand people. Well we're now at basically one per eight hundred thousand. And

you see, eight hundred thousand is the size of major cities. Right, there's only like eleven cities in America that have a population greater than that, and we now have we have four and thirty five that are just massive, and so that's why we have so much factional representation. So, you know, I understand the frustration about what we saw today, what we saw in the Supreme Court, But if you're looking to get a seat at the table, then you should fight to expand the size of the table. Right, we

have not talked about expanding the size of the table. The table being here the House. Now, what was founder's intent. Founders intent was the House of Representatives to grow with the country number one and number two be the most most representative of the people, Right, now, the House of Representatives is not representative of the people. Each congressional district essentially is dominated by a faction. It could be a

faction on the right or a faction on the left. Right, it's and it is sometimes a faction within that party that is able to dominate an entire congressional district. And so look, I know some people are out there going, you know, so take Louisiana and Louisianas with thirty percent African American population, if they suddenly have no African American

representation or one African American, is that truly fair? If a third, right, third of the congressional districts are not you know, right now they are, right, it's about a third of the population. Third of the congressional district two out of six is majority and representative by African Americans. Now, another way to do this you could always have multi member districts, right, or this idea that you know, Okay, the state of Louisiana has six and you you know,

the top six people get elected to those districts. And

you would think over time that if there's various constituency groups or identity groups want to make sure they have representation. As long as they finish in the top six, you could have that. Now again, I don't think we're moving to sort of that sort of proportional representation or the idea of multi member districts. It is an idea we usually export whenever we're helping fledgling democracies around the world, because it's the fairest way to get various constituency groups

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And the other way to do this is simply an Act of Congress to expand the size of the House. You don't need a constitutional amendment. You don't need new legislation beyond this, beyond deciding. Now, you know, if you ask me, I'd put in a constitutional amendment that said no congressional district can be bigger than point oh three percent of the population. Yes, I've done the math. Point oh three percent of population is essentially one per eight hundred,

eight hundred thousand. But this by putting it in the constitution. In theory, this could fluctuate. Right, if we shrink our population shrinks over time, then you know we might have you might actually shrink the House of Representatives. So in this case, it would pretty close to double the size of the House. But here's what you would have. You're essentially making the table bigger, which means you're going to

have a more diverse set of representatives when Congress. You're going to have a more diverse set of constituencies represented in Congress. It's not going to just be by identity group either. You're going to have the opportunity. First of all, you have districts that are more compact number one, So they truly will be geographic communities of interest, which matters a lot. You're likely to have less issues, with less need to Jerrymander. I'm not saying Jerrymander wouldn't happen. That's

always going to be there. As long as you give the states the right to draw the districts, there's going to be political influence on how that's done. But when

you're down, when you're when you're doing one per three hundred and fifty thousand, it's just it's just less necessary. Oh by the way, so, oh, by the way, you would fix the electoral college conundrum that we've been in right as our population has grown. But the numerator when it comes to the electoral college it's been sitting at

five point thirty eight forever. Well, if you increase the size of the House, you increase the number of electoral votes, and then you'll you're going to write size the electoral college,

and so the likelihood of having a split national popular vote winner and electoral college winter being different. You you sort of shrink that from a you know, ten to fifteen percent chance down to a zero to one to you know, zero point five to one point five percent chance. So it it creates fairness across the board. It's small d democratic. And here's the other thing to me, this is something that a lot of groups on both sides of the AUL should be arguing for. Right now, the

large states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives. They're also underrepresented in the Senate. Right right, two senators from Texas have the same amount of power as two senators from Wyoming. If, by the way, if you do this one para one per three or fifty thousand, you might not even add one new seat in Wyoming. Wyoming might still end up being a one congressional district state. But you certainly the big states would have more proper representation

in the House of Representatives. So my point is is that I don't I think this There is no there's no ideological advantage to my idea, to this idea. I say, it's my idea, please, it's the founder's idea. We just have stopped listening to what they recommend it. But this will This only improves smaller constituency groups that are fairly large but have no representation in the House of Representatives.

Now they're more likely. The Libertarians are more likely and actually have a couple of people actually elected as a Libertarians, and the Greens are likely to have a couple of people elected that way, and you'd certainly lower the barrier to entry, and you'd have a lot more diversity, whether it comes to age, whether it comes to ethnicity, whether it comes to jobs. Right, you also lower the in theory, if you have fewer voters you have to win over

the cost of campaigns is less. So, look, the courts have spoken on this, and Congress can do some things to follow, you know, to sort of create a few more guard rails here to make sure minority voters aren't disenfranchised. Frankly anywhere in the country. I mean, I think one of the awkward aspects to this is that we were putting the Southern states, which had a history of this under more of a under more of a Justice Department scrutiny than all the states. And arguably we should be

worried about this in all states rather than just the states that traditionally did this. But if you're if you're looking for a way to increase representation and you want more African Americans from the South in Congress, double the size of Congress double the you know we it is and it look I'm saying double. You know, I know that there's all this, well, we don't need more politicians in Washington, and oh my god, it's it's so it would be so big in here. Yeah. Democracy's messy. My goodness,

have you seen what India does? They have a messy democracy. But it seems to you know, people feel as if there's at least opportunity and representation and so. And the House was meant to be a bit unruling. In fact, James Madison in the Federalist Papers Federalists fifty seven explicitly was arguing for an expense that the House was always going to have to expand. And the argument was this, he designed the House to grow with the people and

remain dependent on the people. He would not like a frozen House at four hundred and thirty five members, which now maps are engineered to dilute the voices of minority votes. It violates the initial promise that the House was supposed to be. And remember who we wanted to elect the House, right, not the rich more than the poor, not the learned, more than the ignorant, not the hoitty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune.

The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. But the founders intended on the Senate not to be sort of a house of lords, you know, elected by state legislatures, to worry about what those states would worry about, a little bit of the cooling saucer. Our house was designed to be the voice

of the people. But when you do this, when you frozen. We're at one hundred years now where we haven't expanded the House of Representatives, and yet we've more than doubled the size of the US population since then, we have diluted the voices of minority votes. We have essentially created another Senate. So it is founder's intent. I think I could argue conservatives will benefit in some ways, Liberals will benefit in some ways. You know, Conservatives complain that they

have no representation, there's no representation in the state of Massachusetts. Well, I promise you, if you essentially have twenty congressional districts in the state of Massachusetts, you're going to get a couple of conservatives elected. Because you're going to have smaller districts, and you have more concentrated areas, and some of those

areas are going to produce a conservative. So whether you are living in a you're a conservative living in a blue state, or you're a liberal living in a red state, this will only increase the chances that your voice will actually be representative from your community or at least from your state that you have some like minded thoughts with. So ultimately, I really believe that that look this, this

fight with the judiciary is over. Okay, it is not going to be you know, this is I think it's a waste of time to try to keep fighting in the courts. If the goal is to get a seat

at the table, then start fighting to expand the size of the table. Stop fighting over the chairs, and instead fight over the size of the table. Increase the size of the table, and suddenly you can bring your own chair and you'll find your own seat. That is a reform that is small d democratic, and again there is no obvious advantage for anybody except for the American people that feel as if that they're no longer represented in Congress.

I ask many of you you live in a congressional district that you feel like has been gerrymandered, you feel like you're represented in Congress. I promise you if we go down this road of increasing the size of the House, you will feel like you have more representation. And this will you'll have more locally oriented members of Congress. It'll be harder to be performative jackasses, right, because there'll be more and that part will be diluted. Yeah, we'll dilute

a little bit of political theater. But this is a free market. And here's something else I know about a free market of ideas. When you have more people entering the free market, you're likely to get some better ideas and how to govern this country. That's the best solution. This is how you take if you're upset about what happened this week in the Spring Court, channel that energy

into doing something that would be good all parts of the political spectrum. Uncap the House. Let's bring back the people's house. It no longer represents the people. It's easy. Let's get back to Founder's intents. If you believe in a Madisonian democracy, you should believe in expanding the size of the house. All right, I want to turn a little bit to what I'm calling sort of the sort of the woke right moments that we're having, and I

think in some ways the Komy the sensitivity about Komy. Right. Look, I'm not going to defend Komi's actions, and I think I said that yesterday. I told you the news sort of broke as it came through. I think we're all fascinated to how the heck did they find a grand jury to do this. I think it's pretty clear we're going to find out what instructions given to that grand jury. This thing may never make it into any This thing

could get thrown out the minute the minute. Comey's defense is, can we see a transcript of the instructions that were given to the grand jury? And then once we find those out, it could be game set and matching this thing is thrown out. But I'm old enough to remember when the right thought the left was too sensitive? Right, And you know, any normal rational person you know, can't

you know? Are you really telling me that this man who arranged Seashells right was hoping for an assassination attempt? Can you get inside his mind? And you're sure that's what that means? The point being is we just had an election where I thought we were trying to sort of de sense it like we are. Hey, everybody's taken each other too seriously, and all this stuff that was what I thought was the heart and soul of some parts of the Magma movement, right, your great Gutfelds of

the world. Right, the rationalizations that they've had about you know what's the lefts too sensitive, they're too woke, they're too worried about being nice to everybody. Well, what the

hell is this talk about over sensitivity? This is clearly over sensitivity. Right, And then we're seeing and this, here's the thing. This stuff's bad politics, right, Weaponizing the DOJ, weaponizing the FCC. I mean Brendan Carr, right, the clown, the clown car, Brendan clown Car. And I know I'm not I probably shouldn't be a name color, but he really is sort of just coming across like kind of a dufus on this and again, super sensitive. I'm not going to sit here and say it was a good

joke by Jimmy Kimmel. I think the frankly, there's nothing And this is the part that really frustrates me about our politics. Jimmy Kimmel can can both be angry at Brendan Carr and this White House from not caring about the First Amendment and at the same time admit, yeah, I see why, I see how that joke looks terrible after the events of Saturday. That's all right, But everybody

gets in their corners and you can't ever admit weakness. And I mean, this is unfortunately why I am a believer that this is this stuff. You know, de escalation has to be across the board or it'll never happen, right, because everybody has this mindset now of well, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna unilaterally disarm whatever that you know

means to them in that moment. But again it goes back to apparently an inability to you know, there's no law on the books that says you have to ban bad jokes and bad punchlines, right, I mean, it is and so but the you know, you got Ted Cruz coming out sort of standing up for Jimmy Kimmel on this. I had to tell you this, Brendan Carr and Donald Trump.

I mean, Jimmy Kimmel probably ought to give them his six percent rather than his agent because nobody has done more for Jimmy Kimmel's career over the last year and a half than Brendan Carr and Donald Trump, uh and and sort of the woke right, and it is it is,

I you know what this really is. There's this everything is retribution, right, Everything is retaliation with Trump, right, everything is you know, it's like, why is he so you know, you know Trump, there are certain things that he just you know, he has to change the name of just to say he has to change the name of or he's going to do because he said he was going

to do. Right, So he's got to go after Komy and he's got he's now got an acting Attorney General that literally was his personal lawyer now just doing retribution and things. I think it is notable by the way that Todd blanche is willing to go down these ridiculous roads of questionable you know, targeting of political opponents, as he's already done, whether it's the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I have a feeling that's going to struggle when an actual judge takes a look at that with combing, that's going to be quite difficult. And so I think it's

pretty clear as I said about Pambondi before. This is somebody who was a prosecutor for half her career. This was not somebody that was going to be comfortable essentially misbehaving as a lawyer. And so I don't think it's an accident that she wouldn't bring these cases and he would.

And I think it does take you know, I know many of you are not big Pambondi fans that listen to me here, but you know, everything is by degree right, And as I said before, there was I think that was part of the reason why she got pushed out, because there were somethings she just wasn't going to do. And now Donald Trump has an attorney general that is pretty much willing to do all of his bidding whatever

he wants. So you know, judge these people by the alternative, not the almighty sometimes. And I had a feeling that some people might miss Pam Bondi once she's gone, believe it or not, and one of those people might actually be James call me as for what we learned or

didn't learn on Capitol Hill about the war. Look, the hearing was useless because hag Seth came in as a partisan and of course, you had plenty of House members who wanted to do frankly wanted to do their viral moments and hope that they get you know it is this is one of those where I wonder what would have happened had there been no cameras. Would the questions have been pointed but more substantive rather than pointed and

sort of buzzwords. But you know, Hank Seth in there, he's the line I used on seeing it is they just think he's got Internet brain rot where you know, this is the Mike Lee disease where you've just certain and you know, I saw that Jade Vance gave up X for lent. Good for him. I think it's quite healthy. Just stay off because you'll do in that doom scroll and you could see, like Mike Lee is one of these people that apparently just doesn't have anything to do

at night. He needs a hobby because he spends so much time trying to own the libs or own himself on social media. He sort of spins himself into into crazy and yet nobody has I don't know how many actual physical, personal, in person relationships he has these days.

But Haig Seth also seems to have internet brain right, and certainly Sean Parnell, who I think does a lot of his right. He was very much somebody also sort of of that. But when you look at some of the some of the quotes that were out there, right he immediately, you know, for a defense secretary to go out there and basically say that the it was Democrats and Republicans who didn't support this war who were bigger problems than any other adversary. It's look, I don't think

he's very well respected. I don't think anybody takes in Washington takes Pete Hegseth very seriously. The problem is he does hold the job of Defense secretary, and it was notable to me that you'd have a partisan hackery from Pete Eggseth, and you'd have General Kane being very disciplined, very a political talking about how he believes in the idea that the military is supposed to be a political when literally Pete hag Seth is doing everything he can

to politicize the military. The biggest failure of hag Set's testimony is his inability to make the case of why this war is necessary, and that's been part of the problem that they've had right, which is, you know, Donald

Trump seemed to imply regime change. At the same time, Pete Hegseth claims that there is you know, no more they're not doing any more regime change anymore, that that's not something that this uh, that's not something that this Defense Department is focused on anymore. But then he like talks about, well, we're not for regime change, but the regime changed but hasn't really changed, right, But that doesn't seem he couldn't really paint a picture of what an

endgame looks like. Uh. And you know, ultimately we kind of all know what the end game is going to look like. It's just waiting to see when the president accepts the fact that if he is doesn't have the stomach to escalate and send in ground troops, then the only choice he has is to negotiate essentially the nuclear deal two point zero. And maybe it'll take fourth dollars and thirty cents a gallon at the guess station. Maybe it's until it hits four fifty, But I continue to

believe that's where we're headed. And I'll tell you this, Hexa did not do. I don't think he did the war any good. And you know, here's the other thing that this administration is so bad at and the first Trump administration was not this bad at it. There's never there's never anybody that will say, well, look, I understand why this isn't popular. I understand that why some people are upset. They will never accept the premise that criticism

might be valid. And I will tell you, you cannot success fully lead in a democracy if you don't know how to accept the premise of your critics. And you know, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, what made them successful two term presidents is that they were really good at that. Some would complain, oh, they're they're they're creating straw man. Yeah, it was. Sometimes their arguments

are pushback was creating straw. But they accepted the premise that the criticism was valid, even if they disagreed with the criticism. These guys don't accept the premise that criticism is valid. They're always trying to blame it on people like me, right, anybody in the press. It's got to be the press's fault because somehow, you, the American voter, are too stupid to come to these conclusions on your own you're easily persuaded by us inkstained wretches in the

press corps. I mean, when you really think about it, the way they the way they treat the American public, they really have for the intelligence of the American public because they consistently believe that the problem isn't the substance of what they're pushing, that the problem is how it's being interpreted by the press. So do they really think the American voter is that stupid? We can all see this with our own eyes, and ultimately we're seeing right

now in the Poland public's not happy. Public's not in favor of this, and I don't think Pete Hagsif did anything this week to improve that standing even among base Republicans. This episode of the check todcast is brought to you by Soul. So if you love that end of the day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you. These sparkling THHC drinks and gummies give you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without

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let's do a little ass Chuck. Hey. My first question is actually in response to the conversation I had with the meteorologists from Watch Duty, Pete Current, jeff Ar Wrights, Hey,

great info and guests. My input from living through the twenty eighteen Thomas fire in Ventura, California. If the wind is howling, there isn't much you can do but get the heck out of the way. Eighty mile prour winds then, but I've had anything over fifty is critical too. There was a block home with a flat roof, no attict and a metal framed dual pain windows, and all that survived was the blocks. Just devastating. Also, a friend that stayed to protect his home had a stroke a few

days later. Yeah, I bet the local stroke center told them that there was a significant increase in cases afterwards. The bottom line is get ready and leave. Your life is worth more than protecting property. Jeff, I know that that's just great advice. The same thing is true with hurricanes. You know, everybody thinks, you know, what are you going to do against in this case, one hundred and thirty mile an hour wins. You're not going to do a thing.

I remember during Hurricane Andrew, we were trying to prevent two French It was a French doors set up at the house I was staying at, and we're literally three of us for about an hour because the doors were buckling and we leaned against it. But it was kind of ridiculous that we were putting ourselves. It's sort of like, if there's an evacuation order, follow the evacuation order because

mother nature is undefeated. Matt from Upstate New York rights, Hey, love the podcast. Been following you since your time at Meet the Press. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, sir. What do you make of the pete Hegseth firing more than a dozen generals. My first thought was that the administration was getting ready for larger military action against Iran, that this was a way to purge officials who were

not in line with what the administration is planning. However, grew with your recent opinion that Trump is just seeking a way out of this war with Iran for any type of offering possible. I'm not sure what to make of this purge. Keep up the good work. Look, this purge is just ideological, right. You know, at first, he's going after anybody that he thinks were somehow an affirmative

action or some sort of minority driven. Right. He's gotten rid of women that were high ranking, He's purged African Americans, anybody that he in his own head has decided got it because of identity rather than merit. And even though apparently there's plenty of evidence that these people were worthy on the merit. But that's what this is. This is

sort of an ideological purge. And then some of the stuff's personal, right, like the guy at the Navy secretary, and he certainly has been trying to get rid of the Army secretary. But that's almost more like political right valries,

if you will. But you know, this is it's no different than what Trump and Steven Miller were trying to do at the start of the second term with those which was, you know, they believe that the civilian staff, they believe that the nonpartisan a political staff, whether it's in the Interior Department or at the Pentagon, are somehow standing in the way of their ideology, right, because these

people do things like follow the Constitution. These to these folks, you know, actually try to keep politics out of their decision making. And so that's what this has been about. When you really start to look at the list, you'll notice there's quite a few women that he's purged from

these ranks, quite a few minorities that he's purged from these ranks. Next question, he goes, great episode. Oh, this is a question on dynastic. I probably I'll put it dynastic. Okay, we speaking of dynastic, it's a good time for me to say the latest episode is up. We do the Steelers. It is fantastic. I promise you. If you're a Steelers fan, I can't wait to hear from you because I want to know if we did you right on this. But here,

let me get this question. He goes, great episode. Please pass along my thanks to Jaa as well my partner Jay Adande. As someone who watched those seventy Steelers teams, I loved hearing Bill Nunn get his due, and I'd even argue that seventy sixteen might have been their best despite not winning an all quick note that Dolphins would have been fifteen to no, not sixteen to no. Heading into that game. Also, I didn't realize that Steel Curtain was the first all black defensive front. Such a cool

piece of history. Thanks for all the great content. I really enjoying it. Well, I appreciate it. And that's that's what our goal is with Jay and I with these series, and said, so, I call it sports History Podcast, but it's about It's not just sports history, it's our history, right, It's you know, especially both Jay and I are pretty close in age, and you know, the seventies and the eighties were our coming of age eras, and so yeah, we're these the seventies Steelers sort of had a different

type of imprint on us. But that's how we want to deal with this with all of these franchises is to you know, let them live and breathe and the eras that they were in and you know what the cultural moments at that time meant. And you know, we're getting ready to dive in to tell you. I read

the book I read for this one to prepare. The one I read the most thoroughly was Dan Rooney's memoir about his seventy five years in the NFL, and it was just amazing and in fact, it was Dan Rooney's decision to open with his perspective on the immaculate reception. That made me think, that's how we've got to open

the show. So, man, this makes me feel good. Thank you for that question. Dan from Arlington, Right hey, longtime listener, also a neighbor here in Arlington, Yes you are. I was intioned your take on Israel and the Democratic Party and it made me wonder how you see this evolving politically A post Trump posting at Nahu Era. Do you think Democrats return to a more neutral or traditionally supportive

stance on Israel or is this shift more permanent? And relatedly, does someone like Josh Shapiro have a viable path given where the party is today? So that's a great question. I'm going to take the second part first. There's a and I don't know if I'm seeing this with clear eyes, I will confess to that. I think, you know, we all have our biases that we're born with and all of that, Right, which is I think it's going to be hard for a Jewish Democrat to win the nomination.

I hope I'm wrong about that, but I think it will be this cycle. I think there's always now I think if you're going to I think Josh Shapiro is addressing it better than any of the other Jewish Democrats that are thinking about running for president. It's quite a few, by the way, including Ram Emanuel J. B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, maybe even John Ossa, but Shapiro sort of leaned in

and I think, you know it, I do think. I think his candidacy if he runs, even if he doesn't win, and let's say we all decide that's the reason, right that that's you know, there were some people that never

were going to vote for him. There if he uses his candidacy to remind Democrats that you can be a defender of Israel's right to exist and be a critic of their policies, and that there is space for that, you know, I think right now unfortunately, you know, even a guy like now who's not creating space for that, but I think there is you're asking, I, look, I think this is a generational shift, and you know, it might be a generation before before this goes back to

you know, when I first entered politics, the Democrats were more pro Israel. It was the Republicans had more anti Israel politicians in their coalition than pro Israel politicians. Right, Papuchannan was a loud voice on that, but he wasn't alone. Bob Novak, one of the leading conservative journalists of the seventies and eighties, was was a loud voice against military

support for Israel. And so it's I'm certainly skeptical, and in twenty eight you know, I certainly think it is it is a higher hurdle for Josha bro I'm saying it should be a higher hero of course, but I'm just saying I think it's a higher hurdle. But I actually appreciate how he's been trying to lean into it and sort of deal with it rather than sort of

try to avoid it. Right. I think this is one of those ripped the band aid off, and let's see if we can have the correct, nuanced conversation on this and get back to being supportive of democracies in the Middle East period, right and promoting I mean, to me, it was always I thought pretty easy to support Israel was at the time. It's only real democracy in the Middle East, and the United States should always be on the side of democracies that exist and should be supportive.

But you know, you could be critical of policy, and I think that that's that's something our politics isn't mature enough to handle at the moment. Vince C. Berkeley, California. Right, hey,

long time listener here. I've lived in New York for most of my life and now I'm in Berkeley, California. I wanted to revisit a question I said earlier about statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. How do you see the political path forward for either becoming states and what would the implications be for national politics. Well, Vince, I'm a believer that the only way for either to get statehood is to go together. I think I think that there is Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood. Rick Scott

supports Puerto Rican statehood. I think Marco Rubio supports Puerto Rican stated and Puerto Rico has a Republican elected governor. It's a pretty bipartisan island. It's a very it's two already competitive politics on the on the in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. By the way, as an aside, you may have heard it in my interview with with a Teamah, but you know, if if if the right really wanted

to put put a wedge in the Democratic Party. Not only do you propose giving Arlington back to d C, but then be and say, well, we'll give We're going to take Arlington back from Virginia, give it to d C and let d C be a state. Right. That's that would be if you really wanted to quote own the Libs on the right, you know that that would create a wedge issue. How badly do you want state? Hut right? But in some ways that just shows you, right that the rights not very clever. Everything is every

everything is a sledgehammer. You know, every problem is a nail and every solution is a sledgehammer. But that's you know, it sort of reveals, you know, because if you if you gave Arlington back to d C, then you really are disenfranchising a big chunk of voters. You better franchise enfranchise them and so come out and support a statehood if that's it. If that, and I am curious, I wonder if the price of statehood was Arlington, would Democrats

still be in favor of it. I actually think they would. I mean, again, I'm not trying to carve up Virginia, and I you know, I'm fine with with with my tax bill right now in Virginia versus what my tax bill would be in the district. I only tease a little bit there, but in all seriousness, I think d C statehood in Puerto Rican statehood, either they both happen together or neither happens, because right now DC is just seen as more likely to be two Democratic Senate seats.

And if you can convince Republicans and look, you know, we've got to enfranchise voters and your things are going to be competitive in Puerto Rico, and it will be a competitive state. You might win both. You might win one, you might win the euro right, but just certainly get you know, it won't. It won't be the dilution of

advantages that you think. And I think those on the right that think Puerto Rico is just part of this grand plan by the left to quote unquote rig the Senate, well that's pretty insulting to Puerto Ricans, plenty of whom have voted Republican for decades. And I think it exposes an interesting form. You know, I think if that is your mindset, then you don't believe in a diverse Republican party.

You believe in the in the in the a white, homogeneous Republican Party, because again, Puerto Rico's, like I said, pretty competitive politically. All right. Next question comes from uh

Trevor in Austin, Texas, and he writes, hey been a fan since the tim Resser days and really appreciate your perspective. Always wondered why interviewers don't more often pres Lindsay Graham by replaying his January six remarks distancing himself from Trump and asking what changed? Is that a matter of access, time constraints or something else? And with his reelection coming up, do you expect him to shift his posture again? Well? Part of it is how you know, how long you

know the expression beating a dead horse? Right? You know it's early on a lot of those questions were asked of them, and then you know it's sort of like when and you know, you get caught up in the news of the moment versus sort of you know, like to me, if I had Lindsay Graham for for forty five minutes, I'd darn right I definitely asked that question. Frankly, if I'd had him for ten minutes, I'd still want to ask that question. He somehow was afraid of coming

on Meet the Press after January sixth. I wonder why that was. But he is somebody that has always been fearful of tough interviews and because he you know, and he used to be a fairly easy guest book, right, and then as soon as as soon as sort of he made his decision. But again, you know, Lindsay Graham's got a lot of problems, right. You know, the Steele Dosier got spread around Washington thanks to Lindsey Graham. Right, he was one of the biggest proponents of the Steele Dosier.

He was one of the bigger contributors around town of saying, hey, this is serious. People need to take this seriously. So look, he's always done this for political survival and I think he's a survivalist. And so what does that mean you're asking, is he going to sift his posture again, whatever it takes to keep that sentency. If he has to become a liberal Democrat. Lindsey Graham's will become a liberal Democrat.

I think we kind of see, right, you know, Lindsay Graham was one type of Republican and then Donald Trump came around, John McCain passed away, and he became a different type of Republican so and part of that was simply his state shifted right. South Carolina Republicans were more Maga than they were McCain, and they were pro Lindsey Graham. And ultimately, Lindsay is going to go where his voters go. And if his voter suddenly shifted hard left, Lindsey Graham

would suddenly shift hard life. I think he wants his Senate seat that bad. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Ethos, And what Ethos does is it helps you find life insurance. Let me tell you why life insurance bailed me out. My father died

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one also comes from Texas. Kelly Ax from Aubrey, Texas Rights, Hey, why died to push back in your point that Democrats need to tone things down and focus on being more measured than Republicans. To me, that approach can come across as passive, especially when many voters respond to more direct and emotional messaging. Should Democrats be more willing to call out what they see as harmful rhetoric and actions more forcefully, even if that means matching some of that intensity, or

does that risk doing more harm than good politically? Well, look, Kelly, I I think I've made my point clear on this. I think that and I look, I'm just going to look backwards over the last ten years. I think that Democrats have benefited by being the adult party, and I think anytime they're not behaving like the adult party, like the grown ups in the room, it may make the

base feel better, like finally you're punching back. And I know that there's this mindset of what wrong and strong beats weak and right and short term that might be true, but long term, being right is going to mean something. And I just think that this goes back to and maybe this is a good place to end, because I wanted to talk about the Democratic autopsy that we're not seeing, and Ken Martin and I have a few theories and they're just theories, and I want to throw them out there,

but finish your question. Answering your question, I get it, and I think that there's there's sort of this fine line. I think that the Democrats need you need to be strong, but you can be strong in your rhetoric about behaving like adults, right versus deciding, oh, let's just start saying the f wort a lot more and that'll make us cool in the manisphere, right, Like, I think it's learning the wrong lessons from Trump, you know, I think the right lessons to learn from Trump's success is show up

everywhere in you know. Whether I don't love this style of politics, but frankly, you know, be everywhere all the time. Now. I think you got to do it in a tad more disciplined way. But you know, whatever you think of Trump, he is who he is, right, you know, this is the authentic version of whatever he is, I always say he's authentically and authentic. But it works, right, nobody denies that that that Trump bars all these things. So, yes, be a bit more authentic, don't be so cookie cutter.

But I think that there is a group of voters

that gravitate towards the adult in the room, and if there's no adult in the room, they're going to look elsewhere. I just think it it is, it is. I know right now politics feels binary, but it doesn't always have to be binary. If you're not if you're if you're not careful, I mean, just you know, maybe it gets you a hollow victory like Labor got in the UK, right Labor Keir Starmer got these massive majorities, but you know,

all they were was a reactionary anti Tory party. They got their big majority and they had no idea what to do with it, and they're afraid of offending different aspects of the coalition, so they don't end up doing anything. So I again, I know what I'm saying is not popular in a more partisan corners, and I guess what I'm trying to speak from is from this. You know, look, I'm I I Others will call me a centrist or

a moderate. I consider myself an incrementalist, meaning you know, I'm I'm you know, I do think it should If

you're going to make change for three hundred fifty million people, you got to bring as many people along as you can, and so you take incremental steps in order to get there. I think that you know, these are the voters that decide these elections. They are not a large chunk of the primary electorates. And I know this isn't what wins a primary, but like I said, I think it. I think it's I think there's a chunk of voters, which brings me to and I'm going to close with this.

Actually I've got one sports item I want to share, but I'm going to close. I want to close my sort of political side of things. So Ken Martin went on Pods of America. It was clear that they had a strategy of finally, Okay, we're going to let the Pod save America boys beat us up over not releasing the autopsy, but we're going to make it clear we're

not releasing the so called twenty twenty four autopsy. And I've talked to people who were involved in being interviewed for the autopsy, and nobody's quite sure where it comes down. And I think the question is it clearly is going to have make some recommendations. And the question I have, and I think I get what Ken Martin fears, it will start a fight, right, whatever you release, And obviously the longer you wait, the more you impact. Right, this

autopsy should have been released last Thanksgiving. Let everybody sort of get their anxiety out, you know, complain about it, beat up each other, all that stuff could have been done over the holidays. You turn the page, you focus on on the midterms, and you move forward. But I've been trying to think, what is it that the autopsy discovered. Is it going to be too critical of Biden and they don't want to do that. Is it going to be too critical of the old Democratic establishishment, is going

to be too critical of progressives? Is it going to be like who is it that they're afraid of picking a fight with that the autopsy is going to say, Hey, you know the big problem is this right? It's you know, is it a branding issue? Is an ideo ideological issue?

Is it too much identity politics? Is it do the groups have too much power? Right? Is it too many billionaire donors. What you know, there's there's a variety of constituency groups that any individual one of those groups might have been picked on in this autopsy, and maybe that's what they're afraid of. But it's certainly not giving, you know, I think it's it's a and I think we know why. There's just no money going to the d n C. Right Democrats are keeping up with Republicans on fundraising at

every level except one the DNC. And I don't think showing this type of fear of being a party leader, which I think Ken Martin is showing here. It feels like year of his coalition being upset about something that was said in that you know autopsy, Perhaps is why he wants to keep it sealed. I don't know how

it's helpful. I hope they at least share it with Democratic strategists, or they share it with candidates, or they share it with somebody, because what's the point of doing it if you're not going to try what's the point of trying to figure out how to learn lessons from a loss if you actually don't share the lessons that

were learned from the loss. Right, But it's possible that this autopsy will help will help resolve the debate that Kelly X and I are having about whether Democrats ought to take the high road or not on things like this. I just want to make one comment, and I want to just make a mass one comment about because I'm going to take an unpopular opinion here on being happy that the NCAA back is expanding the men's and women's

basketball tournament from sixty eight teams to seventy six teams. Look, I wanted to see it to ninety six, and I think I even outlined an idea of how easily it can be done. And yes, it means Tuesday and Wednesday become Thursday and Friday, you know, as packed of a schedule as you have on Thursdays. And yes, the more, Yes, we're gonna have more games on Tuesday and Wednesday. I don't think the two best days of the NCAA Tournament are Thursday and Friday, those first round one games right

the round of sixty four? Are you telling me I could have two more days that are filled with that many games? You're gonna give me two more days of sixteen games each? Count me in. That's a good thing, isn't that what we want here more schools, rightly, more money, more everything for everybody. Right, it's one of those again. It's like expanding the House of Representatives, right, you expand the table rather than fight over a minimum number of seats.

But I want to make one more. Look, and some of you may say, well, ninety six is too much, but I know the argument, well seventy six is too much. But here's where you're actually wrong. And I'm just going to just do a math equoid for everybody arguing that somehow this tournament's being diluted by making it seventy six teams.

In nineteen eighty five, when the NCAA expanded to sixty four teams, there were actually only two hundred and seventy six Division one basketball programs so you had which meant the round of sixty four meant twenty three percent of all Division one programs got into the tournament. Well, now there are three hundred and sixty one Division one men's basketball programs. Okay, there are more actual programs than there were in nineteen eighty five with sixty four, So this

is just twelve more in the field. And so what is the number Seventy six teams out of three hundred and sixty one means twenty one percent of all Division I programs will get into the field. It's actually a lower ratio of Division one programs making it into the into the NCAA Tournament then when they expanded it in nineteen eighty five, when it was sixty four teams out

of two seventy six. I know math is a problem for many people and they don't want to hear it, but nobody seems to be aware that we keep expanding the size of Division one men's basketball and women's basketball. There are more Division I basketball. We have Grand Canyon. Now we didn't have Grand Canyon. We have Florida Golf Coast. We didn't have Florida Golf Coast. Right, you can keep going and going, basically almost one hundred more NCAA programs, so of course you had to expand. The point is

not only to seventy six, not dilute. And you know the biggest beneficiaries are going to be the sort of the high mid majors, the A ten. So yeah, that's why I'm happy fight GW revolutionaries have a better shot in than ever before. A ten probably becomes a four or five bid league. Now should should become a maybe a three or four consistently a three to four bid league, and maybe as many as five. This should be good

for the AA whatever they call the American Conference. I guess we're only supposed to be called the American on that front, and possibly the Mountain West. But this, I think the criticism is a bit misplaced, and we actually look at it by the numbers, we were overdue for expanding the NCAA tournament to where it is, and again next year with seventy six teams, fewer perk out of teams will make the NCAA tournament than when it was

expanded to sixty four in nineteen eighty five. It's been a math heavy episode of the check podcast, but hey, this is what you get when you sign up from my podcast. I'm always gonna throw some data at you, throw some by the numbers at you, because sometimes arguments are just that arguments. Data trumps it all. And with that, have a great weekend, enjoy the enjoy the NBA playoffs. I still am I'd like to see a few more competitive games. It feels like we've had way too many blowouts.

Hopefully that'll change. That'll change when we move from the first round to the second round. But enjoy that, Enjoy weekend, and i'll see it Monday. Hey,