¶ Chuck Todd's introduction
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Well.
Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the Check podcast.
I will be honest with you.
I sort of have a I have like seventeen thousand topics. I feel like I should share a few a few quick takes for you on or a few different ways to be thinking about it, or at least share with you how I how I'm thinking about it and see how much that informs you. That's one thing I try not to do is I'm not trying to tell you what you think. I'm trying to sort of lay out, lay out a structure to understand why whatever the situation is we're in. Look, there were two dominant stories that
I'm going to spend a lot of time on. Obviously, the biggest one is Iran. Iran sort of is everything because of its massive impact on the global economy, which of course means our economy, which of course means Campaign twenty twenty six. But the Eric Swawell implosion out in California also is a really really b FD, as Joe Biden might whisper in the ear of Barack Obama, and it's something that we need to spend a lot of time on because it's actually two stories.
Right.
One, it's going to trigger a bunch of show votes in cong VERUS, so Congress can make itself feel better by kicking out men behaving badly. But the other shakeup is what's going to happen in California. I think what we will we know for sure, and I think this has now been more likely than we You know. I just think now that the swallow thing trigger it. Here's the bottom line. There's going to be another election for
California governor before twenty thirty. That I promise you. I do not believe whoever wins this governor's race will be able to survive the inevitable recall effort that is coming. We are slip sliding into one of those Californy governor's races. It's going to look a lot like two thousand and two Gray Avis versus Bill Simon, where everybody hates their choices.
So those are the two dominant stories.
A bunch of other stuff, Perkolating not going to leave it on the cutting room floor. I want to want to get to a bunch of it. But let's get
¶ Trump threatens naval blockade after Iran peace talks fall apart
to Iran. So the ceasefire is, I guess, kind of intact, but make no mistake, a naval blockade, which President Trump ordered on Sunday is an act of war. That's you know, that is what it is. Now we are still at war with Iran. I think Iran still at war with us. The question is does either country break the ceasefire? Is
this considered breaking of the ceasefire? Will the Iranians respond or, is this just part of a stalemate until we hit the end of the two weeks or until we see negotiations pick up, because one thing that it is important. Neither JD Evans for the American side nor the Iranians indicated that they both behaved as if they knew there would be another round of talks. They didn't say another round was coming, but you get the impression another.
Round is coming.
Still, no deal, no framework, and no actual next step
¶ Trump admin has less leverage in talks than they're letting on
just yet. But in some ways the blockade isn't It is an acknowledgment by President Trump that the United States has less leverage in this deal than we want to admit. Certainly, you know, the President doesn'tant tomit it. He keeps declaring victory. And that's a huge problem. If you've won, then why are you negotiating? If you've won, why are you potentially floating the idea of a joint venture with Iran to
¶ Trump's stupid rhetoric is not harmless
patrol and maybe even collect tolls for the straight of horn moves and the tolls being used as reparations. Right, So, this is why his rhetoric is not harmless. The stupid rhetoric he makes un truth social, the dumb rhetoric where he beats his checks, declares victory, or sort of the secretary of the Fence who constantly loves to beat his chest and you know, I guess probably you know, choose on too much creatine before he does any of his
¶ Control over the Strait is biggest piece of leverage & Iran has it
press briefings and declares these capital v victories.
Okay, then why are we negotiating? Right? So the bottom line is we don't have leverage. They do.
They came out of this ceasefire with the single most important piece of leverage, control of the Strait of hormones, control of the global economy, and essentially control right now of the Trump presidency. So that's why Trump in some ways had no choice but to do this.
With the straight of hormones.
He's got to find and see if he can.
Get some leverage to force the Iranians to back off a little bit. So the question is is there a next step? Right? I think it.
The blockade is intended to get around back to the table and to start having a conversation about the Strait and about the nuclear deal. If there is no The question though, is will the president escalate further if this
¶ Will Trump send in ground troops if he can't get what he wants?
does not get the deal he's looking for? Does he then send in ground troops? To didn't try to militarily take control of the Straight and essentially operate the Straight in behalf of the world. Now there's all sort of look there to Monday morning morning quarterback this war. Obviously, the.
The total.
Misunderstanding of the power of the Strait that the Iranians would have is the initial blunder of this war. This is the I swear to you, there's WMDs right this. If you're going to say, if there was any like, what is the failure of this administration for going into war? It is underplaying and under realizing the leverage the Iranians had with the Strait. And had they understood it from the beginning and they chose to do this, my guess is they would have immediately tried to get control of
the Straight first. Then you start worrying about everything else. But again, the problem here is the president surrounded himself with sycophants, and even though we have learned that these folks did not want to endorse his strategy here they were afraid of telling him the truth. They were afraid of telling They just danced around the edges of the issues and allowed him to hear what he wanted. And
¶ Trump only has two choices: Escalate or capitulate
now we're in this potentially intractable situation that we're.
In where we may have no choice but escalate.
Because of the initial blunder at the beginning, or you're gonna have to cut a deal with the Iranians that leaves the regime in power, legitimizes the regime, gives them acknowledges their control over the Strait, and essentially makes.
The hardliners like John Bolton are gonna wish they.
Had the Rand nuclear deal because the best thing that Trump can get now is essentially naftaizing the Iran nuclear deal.
And what do I mean by that by naftaizing?
He said he hated NAFTA, so he ripped it up, renegotiated the same deal with the Mexicans and the Canadians and called it USMCA the United States, Mexican Canadian right accord.
Whatever.
See, there's there's no NAFTA. That's what's coming here. He's
¶ If Trump's lucky he can get the Obama nuclear deal, but that's unlikely
gonna hope he can get the Obama nuclear deal. If he's lucky, he can get.
The Obama Obama nuclear deal.
And that's if this this is the best, the best version of this, you know. And again we can sit here and talk about all the all the problems going into this thing, right, it was a mistake, and everybody advised him. It was most people around him advised him it was a mistake, outside of John Bolton and the Gulf States and Israel. And this is a case where the president consistently listens to outside voices rather than his
own military advisors and his own intelligence. He did it all the time in his first term, and he's doing it again in his second term. And that is an issue that does not get enough attention. He trusts the Israeli intelligence more than he trusts the US intelligence. The Israeli said this was going to be easy regime James was going to happen and the people were going to
rise up, And the CIA said that was bullshit. And the CIA is fronted by somebody who is a Trumper, John Ratcliffe, who wants to tell Trump what he wants to hear, but can't bring himself to tell him bullshit.
But the President refuses to listen to his own, his
¶ Markets will likely panic, they've been too complacent so far
own folks on that front.
So the next look that I expect the markets to panic a bit.
I mean I.
Kind of think they've been under panicking. I'm a bit hopeful that somehow you know, the resilience of the markets in the past, well, it was like they were during the pandemic, just like they have been during the Russia Ukraine War.
That it's going to happen again. But the lack of a clear resolution it is, you know, here's what we do now.
President does not want to restart the war. There's no doubt he probably regrets ever starting it, and considering the situation he's in, you know, he could have you know, in hindsight, right, should he have tried to squeeze him more, should he have tried to find more ways to isolate Iran, do more to it, to increase the stranglehold so that the people would rise up and be angry at their leaders, and instead, in a weird way, he's even united.
If you guys have.
Started following my friend, my Suzanne Kanpoor, She's her reporting is indicated that they're you know, even those that don't like this regime, uh now feel as if that it's everybody versus America, which is a very dangerous place to be and it's you really got to bungle this as badly as this administration's bungled this to put put ourselves in this situation or we're basically begging around to come
¶ Trump is begging for deal to save face and the Iranians know it
to give us some deal so Trump can save face and the and that's the thing. The Iranians know it.
They know they know it.
They know he can't handle the economic fallout from this. They know it's politically beyond painful for him. They know it screws up his trade negotiations with China next month, It messes up all sorts of aspects of him. And look, the Iranians, they will negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and they're going to keep dragging this out. So the end of the day he had to find some leverage. We'll see if doing a blockade of the Strait does that. But it is going to have you know, this is it's
going to be. It's probably going to be an ugly day in the markets because now, whether we're questions, is the straight open or not or now it's we know it's not open, right, it is definitely closed. But I go back to something right, the problem, Right, the president
¶ Trump keeps declaring victory despite reality being the opposite
has already declared victory and he continues to try to declare victory. So if we've already won, why do we have to keep doing all of these things? And This is the position he's put himself in. Right, when you define victory early then compromise later, starts to look like retreat.
And right now the Iranians know it. They see it.
It looks like retreat because it is retreat. The president can't afford to do this.
We didn't have we don't.
He can't political He does not have the political capital to get even his own party to give him time to put in ground troops to get control of the straight and you know, he's just you know, and then there's who he is, right, he doesn't have the patience to do things methodic. He's always looking for a shortcut. It's been it's defined his career. And the thing is is that he's had so much success with shortcuts that
he forgets the failures with shortcuts. That also, right, he was able to become a star because of shortcuts, but bankruptcy. He was still the only one of the few casino operators to find a way to go bankrupt, oning the casino because he was taking a shortcut on.
Competition and try to buy up all his competitors.
You know, he shortcuted his way into politics, but he didn't really build a coalition.
In order to support him and use his political capital.
So when you take all these shortcuts, right, he's trying to shortcut his way into getting an Iranian victory. He's trying to shortcut his way and trying to get a Venezuelan victory. But he's no longer promoting democracy anymore. And America is not on the side of democratic freedom. We are not on the side of democratic freedom in Venezuela right now, and we're doing a poor job of being on the side of freedom, democratic freedom and Iran. But
¶ Trump doesn't understand regime, thinks they're transactional like him
ultimately that's what you have to remember here. In conflicts like this, the side that understands the other side better usually has the advantage. President Trump does not understand this Iranian regime. He thinks they're all just as transactional as he is. He sees everybody through the himself. He assumes everybody behaves the way that everybody's motivation is, what his motivation is, power.
Money, etc.
And he just assumes those same motivations, and certainly loosely the motivations are similar, and they may rhyme, but he did not and does not. And you know, again, he didn't bother to study, right, you know, he doesn't listen to the experts who have studied the Iranians for decades, not just weeks, months, or even years.
He doesn't listen to those experts. But here we are in some ways, this is.
This is why Irana starts to look like our failed
¶ Iran looking like past failed military operations like Vietnam & Iraq
military expeditions. Vietnam second Iraq war are the most are the two biggest ones, and now this one because we succeeded militarily right sort of, but we didn't get our strategic end goal. And even with Iraq we kind of ended up with I guess what we wanted. There is no Iraq with a nuclear program, so that's good. There's no a rock with Saddam Hussein. But boy, was the cost worth it?
Right? And I think to this day we're not even sure that the cost was worth it. So bottom line is.
The good news is the talks are going to There's going to be another round of talks. Both sides did not indicate that there was no room for more talks. This was the first meeting was always inevitably going to
be a feeling out meeting. But I think the one thing that that President Trump ought to take away as an understanding, and I think again his move to try to blockade the Straight is in some ways any acknowledgment of this, which is he didn't have enough leverage destroy you know, and and you know right now, the Iranians care about one thing, control of that Straight. So Trump is right to try to go after the one thing they care about in order to see if he can
regain some leverage here. But you know, the most likely endgame here is not a restart of the war. It is not a sending ground troops in to get control of the Straight. The most likely endgame here is the Iran nuclear deal two point zero. Donald Trump will call it then, you know USMCA of Nuclear Deals brand new. It won't do this, won't do that, but it'll give them some money. And remember, you know why Iran doesn't
¶ Iran saw Libya give up nuclear ambitions & regime was toppled
want to give up the idea that it may never pursue a nuclear weapon. Libya, right, the Libya example is always the reason Libya gave up its nuclear ambition and regime change happened. North Korea has not given up his nuclear ambition. And that Kim Jong n family, he just named his daughter the latest air parent. If something happens to him, and we may end up with a fourth generation of North Korean leaders all because they have.
A nuclear weapon. So it's not irrational how the Iranians are thinking.
Right, this is a case, and there's no doubt the United States the North Korea is a reason why to do whatever it takes to not let Iran get there carrots and sticks. Trump has been all stick. He's going to have to now have to give some and he ain't gonna like it, and he's gonna find out. Remember, we don't trust them and they don't trust us. And in situations like this, whatever agreement you come into is a leap of faith. You're going to have to trust
somebody you don't trust. That's why you put in verifications and all sorts of things in there. But it is in if you want a deal, it's inevitable you're going to get one where you have to give up something you don't like. And in that sense, Donald Trump, this is where he is a terrible deal maker.
He has never been.
He does not believe in win win. He wants to get the best of somebody, and he thinks caving into any demand of the other side makes him look weak.
Well, you know what makes him look weak.
Presiding over this economy. That's deteriorating by the hour. That's something that makes you look weak. And in case you're
¶ Economic hit is happening, consumer confidence lower than COVID
wondering the economic hit, it's already happening. Consumer confidence is now lower, lower than it was during the pandemic. We are now in this We're lowest in the Michigan Index. We're talking as bad as the seventies were. And remember we now have a fertilizer issue, we've got food transport issues, and we got supply chain issues.
So this is.
Not going to get better anytime soon. This is and we have not felt the worst parts of this. Every expert said, come about mid April, then all of a sudden, it's going to feel like things went off a cliff. Well, this is the week where we hit mid April. Gas prices biggest one month spike since the sixties. Hiring is slowing, wages are flattening. Uncertain economic future means companies start freezing.
Everything they're doing.
You pull back on new investments, you hold off on new high because you're not sure where this economy is going.
And in this case, this is this is why the the.
The the bad shoots that we're seeing on the economy, and as opposed to green shoots, uh, it could accelerate because of that situation. Before I leave the Iran issue here, I know Trump doesn't care about optics anymore, but I thought Marco Rubio might as talks are deteriorating with the
¶ As Iran talks fell apart, Trump & Rubio were attending UFC fight
war with Iran, which of course is going to probably could probably trigger a global recession. I'm glad to know that the commander in chief and the Secretary of State were hooping it up at a.
UFC match in Miami. Not the best look. I know.
If I were a Republican on the ballot, I'd be like, does the President take any of this seriously? I mean, sometimes is it? You know, he just, you know, the celebrity parts of the presidency matter more to him than the actual job itself. And it's moments like Saturday night where he's whooping it up at at a UFC match while JD. Vance is negotiating in his behalf and having
to walk away. And here's the thing, you know, Marco Rubio, you know, you know who would have been really critical of a secretary of State behaving this way, Senator Marco Rubio, if John Kerry at all had done anything even close to this. Gone to a Bruce Springsteen concert while there was a negotiation.
On the Iran nuclear right.
I promise you a Senator Marco Rubio would be beating his chest about it.
You have one job. All this stuff.
Deep down inside, he knows it's a bad look, you know, And with Rubio, and I wonder, Look, some people think I'm too tough on Ruby, and some of you think I.
Give Rubio too much credit.
¶ Rubio knows better, but has fallen in line anyway
I've heard that too. Oh you keep thinking, you know, when do you know? I just know he knows better, and everybody who knows him knows he knows better. And he's allowed himself to get caught up in this. And maybe it's a little celebrity. Maybe it's the middle class chip on his shoulder.
I get it. I have it. I have that chip.
You know, he he wasn't born on third base, and then and handed everything. I wasn't born on third base.
So I get it. I get the chip.
But you got to have the character to sort of understand how to how to draw some lines and how to compartmentalize. And you know, he seems to have gotten It's almost like he's more caught up on the celebrity than I thought he would. It's just a disappointment. I know that's not a new criticism for me, but I know he knows better and that was a bad look. And that's one of those that you feel like, I know, nothing matters, right, Trump can shoot somebody and put that on and.
Blah blah blah.
But it just chips away again, chips away, chips away. You know this is serious stuff. I'm sorry they can't they am you know, nobody's saying don't watch the match, but you know, send a message to the country that you're worried about what's happening in their lives. You have made decisions that have upended the lives of millions of Americans. But I'm glad you're having a good time at.
¶ Eric Swalwell's campaign falls apart after allegations of sexual abuse
A UFC match. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well.
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and the sort of the fall of Eric Swalwell. You know, this is one of those And I've seen some back and forth on this. There's shocked but not surprise, surprise but not shocked, whatever way you want to whatever however you want to use those two words interchangeably.
Right, we have this all the time.
With Trump, he finds ways to surprise us, even if we're not shocked.
With that, he surprises us.
But with Swalwell, this is one of those things you're like, well, everybody kind of knew or thought they knew, but the
¶ Swalwell is only denying criminal behavior, not all the allegations
stakes were never high enough where you thought it was important to report about it. All right, That's the best explanation I can give you as a reporter. And you know, do you chase every rumor and every politician you hear about, because I promise you I've heard a rumor about every single politician that's ever remotely thought about running for presidents?
Why will run for president?
And I'm sure ninety percent of the rumors are unsubstantiate. The problem is there's always enough things that are true that it makes you constantly in the back of your head as a political reporter. You know, you file the other accusations away. You're like and you start to like, you know, look for smoke. A lot of times there's
no smoke, so you don't keep going. And sometimes you know, look, I know you're if you're right now still defending Eric Swallow, you'll say, how come this is all coming out right
when he's you know, the front runner. Well, a lot of times people have, you know, compartmentalized their bad experiences with somebody until that person's back in the news or until that person's about to get even more power, and then they think, whoa if I don't speak out now when you know, before while there's still a chance if they really believe this person is too irresponsible to have power. So I think you've got to be careful when you're
questioning the timing of accusations. In some ways, the political campaign season, the primary campaign, is exactly when we should be having these you know, conversations, we're we're trying to find out who these people are. Do they have the character to handle the job? Do they have the qualifications
¶ Swalwell is trying hard to say he's not Bill Cosby... he's Bill Clinton
to handle the job? Do they have the knowledge to handle the job. So, you know, in Swalwell's problem here is that he's only denying a crime.
I did not sexually assault it. But he's saying it's not.
Denying that he had a wondering eye. And unfortunately for those of us that have covered Washington for as long as we have, there are a lot of Eric Swabbles out there. And you can sit here and say, well, it's the system that creates it. I think there's some truth to that. These sitting senators and sitting members of House have these enormous stabs that are just devoted to keeping them happy, and it just can create a bubble
¶ Push to expel Swalwell & possibly 3 other members of congress
or a filter or for the truly weak character. You know, it you know makes you think more of yourself. You think you're above it all, or you think you can get away with anything, or you think you're just you think your personality is just that magnetic. Why else would all these people not be so devoted to you? So
you do, you know, if you've had. You know, it's one of those things if you have a little bit of the narcissistic gene in you, the way getting elected to Congress in some ways can can amplify it, if that's possible. And when you look at some of of his mo that the various allegations are out there, it right, it's it's sadly familiar, right. He seems to be looking for those that look up to him, right, that's who
he preyed upon, you know. And you could say whether it was consensual, and I'm sure in his mind it was consensual, but he you know, he's trying really hard to say I'm not Bill Cosby, I'm Bill Clinton. Well, even that I don't think people accept anymore because there was still a power dynamic issue. So you did it, you're not sneaking in date rape drugs, still doesn't mean you're qualified to be the next governor of California as
far as the American public or the California public is concerned. So,
¶ It's politically convenient for leadership to agree to boot them all
you know, in some ways, it's a very familiar story. So now let's talk about the follow up. I think there's going to be the first thing we're going to see is we're going to see Congress. Right, you've got two other members of Congress that have been whose behavior with women have been an issue, and there's been some threats to expel them from Congress. Tony Gonzales, Republican from Texas, who has since dropped out. He pulled out of that runoff,
but he hasn't he hasn't resigned from Congress. Corey Mills, Republican from Florida. Then you have another member of Congress who's accused of essentially stealing money from FEMA, and there may be a vote to expel her. We may have like four expulsion votes. You need two thirds of a vote to do this. And I'll just say I think this is you know, he's going to be political votes of convenience, right, Both parties just want to sweep their bad apples under the rug. So you may see a vote.
Is it one vote? Is it two votes? Is it? Four votes? Right?
Three of them are inappropriate behavior with women? Tony Gonzalez, Corey Mills, and Eric Swalwell. The fourth, Sheila Sherphyllis McCormick, is the one of where she's accused of basically stealing COVID money and using it for her campaign. She hit
the public trial with the Ethics Committee. So it is certainly politically convenient for both parties and for a Jeffreys and a Johnson to almost agree to this and just sort of saying, let the will of the House happen, whatever happens happens, and they clean it up.
I will just say this, the law of unattended consequences.
One. If the votes fail, and they might there might be other members of Congress who think, there but for the grace of God go I and who may think
¶ Will congress hold their members to a higher standard than the POTUS?
and may think they're going to practice their own version of the Golden Rule, and they're going to do not unto others, what they hope will be done unto them. And if they fear that they've got something in their paths that could come out, what precedent do they want to send?
So you could have some of that, you could have some of.
It in the other way, where the news of Swawell and Gonzales and Mills triggers even more accusations and more staffers decide, if we're going to hold these four accountable, then we need to hold these other folks agount.
So it's possible.
It's an important moment for Congress to sort of draw a line and to try to raise the bar, because, let's be honest, the quality of member of Congress has been going downhill for some time. More and more of them are not role models. Now you could say, hey, they just are you know, a reflection of us, man, They're a perverted reflection of us, because these congressional districts aren't fairly reflective of the country. So it's a perverted version.
It's a fun house mirror version of us. And there's always been a small part of me that we as American citizens, you know, we've always punched, we've always punched down in Congress. We want to believe that we're all better than them, and this is only going to be more proof of that. But I am you know, look, I think this is going to be it's probably going to be swift justice. But it's a version of sweeping all this under the rug all at the same time, rather than maybe having a better.
To come to you know what moment.
Where you say, you know, you know, how do we demand a better quality of behavior, How do we draw some better lines, and how do we root this stuff out sooner? And how do we But it's sometimes it's just the nature of the beast. And we know we've lived with politicians like this for this long and part of it is are we going to hold Is Congress going to hold individual members of Congress to a higher
¶ It's likely all four members will get expelled
bar than they hold the President of the United States?
Right?
That's the uncomfortable shadow that hangs over all of this, folks, right, I mean, think about it. Every single accusation against Mills, against Gonzales, against Swawell, and against and even on the funding stuff against Sherp Phyllis McCormick, all of it. There are accusations against Donald Trump for versions of this, whether it's essentially using government money, using power to enrich himself
that's basically been the second term. Never mind the various accusations for women, including a civil court that said he was credibly accused of rape, of which he still not
¶ California dems had been reluctantly rallying around Swalwell
paid the fine that a civil court.
Adjudicated against him.
So that's also a part of this. That's just, like like I said, just hovers over all of this. The real question is does this have a I think this ends up, you know, sort of if it's possible to lower the approval rating of Congress generically overall, it will and this is a pox on everybody who's running as an incumbent, which is why they're going to want to try to wash their hands, because there's also an Epstein angle to this, right, they've done so little on the
Epstein front. They better make sure they're willing to hold accountable any one of their members at a minimum, because of their failure to do so when it came to all things Epstein. So I think we know what's going to happen here to these four members. I do think these votes are going to happen. My guess is they all do get expelled because of the desperation of the members that are currently running to look a little less dirty.
¶ Major Democrats passed on running for CA gov, leaving weak field
And I think that, you know, the cynic in me says, hey, this is this is this is small stuff, and maybe you could say, hey, a small improvement here of trying to raise the bar anywhere is better than not trying at all. I grant you that, But there are a bunch of elephants in the room on these stories that we're not touching, that are certainly having a little bit of impacked there. As for the dubernatorial follow in the obviously the primary is coming up. Democrats had been reluctantly
rallying around Swallwell. And this is all a reflection, by the way that I do think most California Democrats that are in some power have little interest in seeing Tom Steyer as their standard bearer. And it has been in anybody but Styre sort of mindset, right, And so this is why you had a whole bunch of folks hoping that Kamala Harris would jump in, Alex Padilla would jump in, and I understand why both of them didn't. If you're not interested in the job.
Don't run.
And I think Kamala Aris wants one more bite at the apple of president.
That's been made clear and clear.
Alex Padilla, he might have been able to win the governorship,
¶ Hard to blame Newsom for not setting up an "heir apparent"
but he'd be giving up a Senate seat for life. Essentially, there's no term limits on running for the Senate. There is term limits on running for governor, and maybe he wants to spend the next twenty years in the Senate. Ditto Adam Scheff. And then there's another uncomfortable aspect of I'm just I've been constantly trying to figure out why is this field, Excuse me, why is this California gubernatorial field?
So weak.
I think there's a whole bunch of people that don't want the job, that don't think the job is worth having. In the first time after news now I've explained to you why I think some major Democrats were against. I think another is that there's been sixteen straight years of
¶ Tom Steyer has spent an insane amount of money to promote himself
democratic governorship of rule of the governorship. There is going to inevitably be fatigue on Democrats. So the likelihood that the next governor was at best going to get one term might not survive a recall, I think was quite high and quite likely. So that may explain why some
people didn't want to do it. Then think about the reality, right the next governor is going to be dealing with a very active presidential campaign of a former California governor, Gavin Newsom, and he'll be high profile, and he'll be running on what he believes is his record that will be questioned. It will be a constant sort of It will make the pr side of running the state a little bit harder. If you want to hit Gavin for not having an heir apparent, I think it's a fair hit.
¶ You need to have charm in politics, and Steyer doesn't have it
I'm now I know why he didn't.
He didn't like it when he sort of got pushed aside. You know, I think he his feeling was let let a thousand flowers bloom because he want he didn't like the way he was treated. He was sort of forced await his turn them and he had a run for lieutenant governor and then and then the you know, the sea's parted for him essentially, but he didn't he didn't really have an air apparent. But now they've got a real problem because Swawell obviously that candidacy is dead, whether
he sees the light and drops out or not. As another story, everybody that was anybody has pulled their endorsement.
There if Tom Steyer.
I just look at all the money Tom's tyre has spent to promote Tom Steyer, especially in the state of California. And when you look on the ROI of the amount of money he spent and the translation that money and how much money that has translated to support for him, it is one of the worst investments you could ever have. I mean, the amount of money he spent. He should he's already been. They should be in first place up by ten over anybody.
Unless.
The dogs don't like the dog food. One of the old axioms sometimes the dogs don't like the dog food. It doesn't matter what the brand says. It doesn't matter how much money you spent on advertising. The dogs won't eat your dog food if it ain't alpo or it
¶ Should prominent California dems all endorse the same person?
ain't whatever, right, And you got to ask yourself. Stier's done all these he's just whether. I don't think he comes across very likable.
I think.
He's sort of the angry billionaire. Look without any charm. Right, Trump hads the angry billionaire. You know, he's the angry, fake billionaire who used the presidency to become a billionaire. But he's got a little charm and in politics you need a little charm. That matter who you are, gotta have a little charm, and Styr's missing the charm thing. Now, maybe you can just lean into being the a hole billionaire I would if I were him. Don't try to be something you're not.
Just try that.
Maybe it works, maybe he gets there, But the point is he's pretty much alienated. He is not seen as somebody that's easy to work with, which is why they doesn't have any major supporters that aren't supporting him without being paid by him. Now, he's not the first billionaire candidate to pay people to support him, pay influencers things like that. That's sort of now. There's a lot of influencers that are getting paid by outside actors that don't say who they are.
I'm not one of them.
In case you're wondering, I don't think anybody knows which side could buy me off very well. But the point is, as I just I just look at you know, the facts are the facts. Tyra spent all this money and it's never translated to anything. So then the question is, what does you know if you're Gavin news from Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla fore most prominent Democrats in the state, do you all endorse the same person? Does that help
or hurt them? I think in this unique race it would help them because, you know, because the last two
¶ Schiff, Padilla, Harris & Newsom may need to play kingmaker
Democrats that most of the party wants to see and that's in that slot or Tom Styren Katie Porter. So if they want somebody else, maybe it's Matt Mahon. You know, he's gotten little, he had plenty of resources to get into this thing.
He's not caught fire.
Maybe he's not well known enough, maybe he got into late. Maybe you're just never going to be able to make the mayor of San Jose a statewide Okay, I don't know. There was one candidate that I do think would have would have been their best candidate, and it's the mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. Now he is just there. It's a little early, and it could be that some of these folks like Caruso, Lurie, maybe even Padilla, maybe Harris, maybe they all said, you know what, I'm going to
run for governor in twenty thirty. I am not want to try to follow in this sixteenth Street, you know, let me follow somebody that it's in debacle.
I don't want to be governor.
Well, Gavin's running for president, right, there's a whole I understand that line of things. But they have to avoid a debacle. They've got to find a viable candidate. And look, maybe maybe they just say, fine, let'sty or have it. At least he'll spend money on behalf of the ticket. I don't think money is the problem though for the California Democrats. So it'll be curious to see. I think those four if they choose to sort of be their
¶ Likely there will be two weak candidates heading into November
own version of a of a of of of king and Queen makers here, but Shift Padilla, Harrison Newsome. If they care about the state party and try to strengthen, and if they want the eventual governor that gets elected to have some credibility when they get elected, they probably ought to try to rally behind somebody in this primary. I think it could be Javier Bsara. I think if it wasn't for the Biden baggage, maybe Besera.
Would be the guy.
It's a state ag you know, he's got the correct resume, but the Biden baggage is not unheavy. I think everybody else looks like they're retreats for a Ricosa Katie Porter, all these people that feel like they've been trying to you know, sort of the also rants.
Like I said, I go back.
This feels a lot like nineteen ninety eight, two thousand and two California politics, where none of the big names would run. No Diane Feinstein, she still wouldn't run for governor. That was still the sort of the hope that some Democrats had, no Barber Boxer running or anything like that, and the lesser known sort of nebbish at the time,
not everybody was thrilled with it. Gray Davis sort of sneaks through because they didn't want they didn't want a rich guy owning the party from on the outside.
Now, Checki and for whatever reason, Jane.
¶ Stories coming out that Roger Stone saved Tulsi Gabbard
Harmon didn't take off, you know, I mean, I think Harmon and Checky beat each other up and it cleared.
The path for Davis a little bit. But I do think this.
I think the most likely new thing that has happened here is no matter that we are likely to have two unpopular figures running for governor by November, Steve Hilton and whoever the Democrat is. My guess is they'll both be underwater, just like Gray Davis, Bill Simon twenty zho and whoever becomes governor is just swimming uphill. And it's so easy to put a recall initiative on there. And if things are south, you know, it's one of those things that will be well. It will only sort of
reinforce the likely weakness of whoever wins. But the other
¶ Both Stone & Gabbard have been pro-Russia... coincidence?
unintended consequence to this debacle could be that the Democrats and the Legislature decide to get rid of the all party primary and try to put a put a referendum back on the ballot to get rid of it.
Personally, I hope not.
I think all party primaries long term are healthier for the system. But the two parties have viewed all party primaries always through the lens of is it good for.
Them or bad for them?
And if they think it's bad for them, then they're going to fight to get rid of them. And in
¶ Trump promises preemptive pardons for WH staff
this case, both parties think this all open primary is actually bad for them. They've never liked it, and not having this type of control over their nominee and over the process when you have a debacle like this, is going to make a lot of California Democrats decide they don't want this all party primary anymore. So I hope that's not the unintended consequence one of them, but I fear it could be. All Right, a few other quick
hitters of a whole bunch of stuff. These are just literally things that I've pondering in the back of my head, and I thought I would share them with you. News that Roger Stone is who saved Tulsa Gabbard does not. Let's just say, if you're still deep in the Russia ties to Trump world story, well, two of the top four or five people that have had some ties to that world. Two of them are Tulsa Gabbard and Rogerstone.
¶ We need a congressional commission on pardons
I'm not saying anything, but it's interesting to me that it took Roger Stone to tell Donald Trump not to fire Tulsa Gabbard. Roger Stone, who was mister wickily, who seemed to know everything that was going on there, you know it, Roger Anyway, put it this way, It's not the best look for this administration that somebody with all of Roger Stone's interest in questionable and intriguing ties to overseaz oligarchs is the one telling Donald Trump not to
get rid of Tulsa Gabbard. All Right, the Wall Street Journal pardon story, the sweeping pardons, anybody to in free from the Oval office. Look, we knew this was likely that he would be thinking about this, and I'm sorry. This is why those Joe Biden pardons, preemptive pardons, were such a huge mistake, because it only gives him cover to do exactly this is what Trump going to do, worse than what Biden did. Probably, and I know some of you are going to what are you both siding this?
Because there is no reward for being less bad. I only robbed half of your house. I didn't rob all of your house. You're still a bat. You're still a robber.
Be better. This is why this was a mistake. Here's the good news.
I hope this accelerates interest in the constitutional amendment to create a congressional nullification on pardons if we've ever needed that in place asap. This story better be the trigger for that.
And then finally.
There were I have to tell you, I want you know, the tech world has a real problem because the most prominent people in the tech world.
They don't actor behave like the rest of us. And when you read this.
Uh Altmann biograph profile in New Yorker, and when you read the Lauren Bezos said Chez say Lauren Sanchez Bezos interview in the New York Times, Man, if you didn't need more evidence that the pitchforks are coming and that when the look it's your own behavior and your own sort of borderline sort of compartmentalization of how ridiculous you people look. You super wealthy people look, you power hungry folks look. And then you're going to be angry when
government's coming at you. Well, government's made up of the people. So when the pitchforks come and you don't like the level of regulation that's coming, Just remember only have yourselves to blay. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteasonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in
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Podcast. Time Machine Time. So let me tell you I'm not gonna lie to you.
This was not the easiest week to decide what was
¶ ToddCast Time Machine - Too many huge historical events to choose from
worth your time doing a deep dive on. And I say your time because that's how I try to look at these things. What is something that I think? What are what's a topic that people you know, they know they know something, but they don't really know as much about it as they probably should. And that's kind of how I try to choose it right in those terms, which I won't go with the most obvious. And this week, I mean, I'll be honest, there was just a ton
of anniversaries that hit this week. In history, I mean, April nineteenth, seventeen seventy five, the battles of Lexting and Concord, Right, that's that, you know, when protests becomes a revolution April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, the Oklahoma City bombing and domestic terrorism. And in culture April fifteenth, nineteen forty seven, Jackie Robinson
steps onto a baseball field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. April sixty, two thousand and three. Michael Jordan steps off the court for the very.
Last time as a Washington Wizard.
Yeah, he probably forgot, That's right, he did play for the Washington Wizards. I've never forgotten it, and I have the basketball cards in PSA ten holders to prove it. Okay, But I define, but I diverge.
And look.
And while all of those could easily be worth its own dime dive, and we could have tentacles of the impact, the long term impacts of all of them. It's a group of exiles on a beach in Cuba that we're about to define the limits of American power that I want to focus on, because there's echoes here for the current situation in Iran and of course what could be coming next in Cuba. So let me start with that.
So we're doing the Bay of Pigs.
In case you're wondering, and it's the lung shadow of this. Before we get to the invasion, we have to start with something a bit uncomfortable. The United States didn't just lose Cuba, it misread it. For years, the US backed
¶ April 1961 - Bay of Pigs
a gentleman by the name of Flujencio Batista until he became indefensible. So when Fedel Castro takes power in nineteen fifty nine, Washington doesn't immediately slam the door and working with Castro.
But it wasn't warmy.
Castro comes and visits the United States, but Dwight Eisenhower refuses to meet with him.
He goes golfing.
And Richard Nixon meets with him instead, the Vice president. And it tells you everything you need to know. This wasn't a clean break, but it also wasn't a real opening. By the time Washington decides that Castro is a problem, the relationship is already slipping away. Now I have my own little interesting history here a little bit. My grandfather
¶ Nixon meets with Castro after Eisenhower refused to
I stumbled across some things he was building sugarcane help. He was an engineer on sugarcane plants that they were building in Cuba in the mid to late fifties. And one of the stories he says is he said he would be visited by Cia folks every once in a while to ask them about Castro because he was in
the role part. So he met Castro. And in order for Castro's rebels to sort of leave your business alone, if you agreed to just put a photo up in your sort of trailer off us, if you can think about those trailer offices that are parts of these you know sort of you know, his factories are being built, right and things like that. And because I remember I found this eight by ten glossy of my grandfather while
we were cleaning some stuff up. Fidel Castro was like, Grandpa, what's this and he said it was basically it was basically proof that you that you paid to get left alone. But that was the point he would make. He told me that he would make to these CIA sort of whatever you want to call them, officers, people that were just trying to find out information.
What could you tell us about Castro? And he'd say, Hey, it's not a good guy, so be careful.
But there was a real back and forth. How much should they be they were they were trying to see it was it worth sort of wrapping their arms around Castro? And it was a constant back and forth at that time. But let's zoom out, okay, because none of this is happening in isolation. This is early nineteen sixty one, when
¶ There a back and forth over whether to embrace or shun Castro
the Bay of Pigs itself happens. It's a world that's still rattled by Spotnik and shaped by the fear of a missile gap that the new young president John Kennedy had run on. So Cold War tensions are super high. And just months after the Bay of Pigs August nineteen sixty one, that'd be construction of the actual Berlin Wall begins, right, So the Bay of Pigs happens just before that sort
¶ Cold War tensions were very high when the Bay of Pigs happens
of iron curtain becomes permanent for a period of time. Ambiguity, fading sides hardening in Cuba, ninety miles from Florida, is now part of that global equation.
Now.
One thing that people need to remember about the Bay of Pigs invasion is that it wasn't It wasn't Kennedy's plan. This plan didn't begin with Kennedy. It begins with Dwight Eisenhower in March of nineteen sixty he's still president and he directs the CIA to develop a plan to remove Castro. So by the time John F. Kennedy takes office, this is already a presidential approved operation and the CIA, well, this isn't the CIA of today. This is the CIA
¶ Bay of Pigs was a presidential approved operation before JFK took office
of then, a much different CIA than we had now. It's coming off what appears to be a winning streak in nineteen fifty three Iranian coup, something that the time Machine tackled a few weeks ago. Guatemala nineteen fifty four was a successful CIA inspired coup. Small operations, weak resistance, quick wins, so it created a bit of a trap. Success becomes confidence for the CIA. Confidence becomes assumption, and assumption becomes strategy. They think they've seen this before, Well
they hadn't, and they were fighting the last war. So Kennedy walks in. He's the youngest elected president in American history at the time, forty three, so he's new, he's unproven, and he's under pressure. And this plan, it was already moving. The training camps were already happening, the exiles to participate, We're already recruited, the logistics were in place, so the
machinery is running. So here's the problem Kennedy's facing. It's easier to approve something already in motion than to stop it. This is what happened to Barack Obama and Bush at the end of his term decided not to approve an increase in troops in Afghanistan and let it. Let it be a decision. The new president makes well, he wasn't crazy about it, but what was he going to do stop it? It was too early in his presidency to do that.
So what does he do. He ends up adding more troops to it.
So this is how a previous president can somehow tie the hands of an incoming president.
And we've seen it.
This isn't the This is arguably one of the first times that this happens that you see it become a.
Problem for that president.
¶ Kennedy's hands were tied by his predecessor
So it is easier to approve it, that something that's already in motion than to stop it. So he doesn't cancel it, but he does try to shape it, and this is where he makes a mistake. The plan depends on air superiority. The CIA uses B twenty six bombers pointed to painted to look like their Castro's plans. The cover story that it's a mutiny, but the strikes on April fifteen miss some key targets, Castro's air force survives,
and the cover collapses. At the United Nations, Adelie Stevenson, the second defends the story that he doesn't know is false. When he learns the truth, he's humiliated, and he reportedly considered resigning. That's the cost of plausible deniability.
¶ The plan required air superiority, but Castro's air force had survived
So now Kennedy has a choice, does he escalate or pull back?
Well, he cancels the second air strike, and that's the moment the operation dies. Now the entire planted on one assumption that the Cuban people were going to rise up. They don't because by then many of the opponents had already fled. The bombings ended up rallying support for Castro, and Castro moved fast. He arrests more than one hundred thousand suspected opponents, dissidence clergy, journalists, CIA networks.
He clamps down art.
The invasion doesn't just fail to spark an uprising, it does almost the opposite. It helps make one impossible. So April seventeenth, Brigade twenty five oh six Lands includes fourteen hundred Cuban EXAs they believe they're going home at the
¶ Castro arrests more than 100,000 suspected dissidents
Bay of Pigs. Bahia de Cochinos was actually named not for pigs, but likely for a local fish kind of called a hogfish that shorthanded Debay of Pigs. History gave it a better name, the Bay of Hogfish. By the way, the Bay of Pigs ended up giving me my favorite
laugh line from the nineteen eighties. Being a Green Bay Packer fan, the great late Pede Axe Thelm then I write a sportswriter for Newsweek Previews back then when Tampa Bay and Green Bay meant in football twice a year because they were both in the NFC Central, he started referring to the matchup as the.
Bay of Pigs. But I digress.
So now we're back in nineteen sixty one. Within forty eight hours, by April nineteenth, the mission is over defeated, exiles captured, And it wasn't because of cowardice. It was because the assumptions were wrong from the start. The aftershocks we're still living with them. The consequences don't stop there. The failure ends up strengthening Castro shapes. How Nikita Khrushchev sees Kennedy, that perception carries forward A year later, Soviet
missiles in Cuba. They test the young president again. The most dangerous moment in the Cold War may not have ever happened, the Cuban missile crisis, if not for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. So that was the first evidence that the Bay of Pigs didn't stay. In nineteen sixty one, more than eleven hundred members of Brigade twenty five oh six are captured. Eventually they're released in exchange for fifty three million dollars in food, in medicine.
But the defining moment came after in Miami, before tens of thousands of Cuban exiles, Kennedy receives the brigade's flag. He's not yet, they're not angry at Kennedy yet, and he makes a promise that it will be returned to
¶ Most of the participants are captured
a free Havana.
It never has.
And that's when failure becomes memory. It got turned into a betrayal for Cuban exiles. This wasn't about just the United States. This is about John F. Kennedy the belief. He encouraged it, he launched it, and then he didn't follow through. That's the way the Cuban exile community saw it, and that became a political identity, and it would stain the Democrats in the eyes of Cuban exiles for a lifetime. Now,
¶ Kennedy promised a free Havana that never transpired
it didn't happen right away. Cubans didn't automatically become Republican right away.
It took time.
In the sixties, the Cuban American voters were still split. The memories there, but it's not yet partisan.
That changes.
In nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan wins roughly eighty percent of the Cuban American vote. He ends up carrying Florida decisively, as state Jimmy Carter carried in seventy six. He activates the identity, and from that point on Florida becomes something different, not just a southern state, but a Cold War state shaped by exile, anti communism and memory, and that framework expands and later with the waves of immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua,
plug into really the same political model. And if you want to see the impact, there's probably no better campaign
¶ Cuban Americans became reliable Republican voters under Reagan
yere than the year two thousand. Florida's decided by five hundred and thirty seven votes, a state shaped in part by the identity born in nineteen sixty one. So when you think of this week in history, you think about revolutions, assassinations, cultural breakthroughs. Right, the revolutions we just talked about, the assassinations Lincoln, the cultural breakthroughs, Jackie Robinson, it was moments
where individuals redefine what's possible. With the Bay of Pigs, it's where a group of exiles revealed the limits of something else, American power and the power of political memory. Because every time a candidate steps onto a stage in Miami today, they're not just campaigning, they're still walking in the shadow.
Of that beach, the Cochinas, the Bay of Pigs.
Ass Chuck, All right, it's some ass chuck time, So let's dig in. First one comes from David S. Colchester, Connecticut, and he writes, Dear Chuck, thanks for the podcast. When news breaks far too often these days. I appreciate your reason perspective.
Well, thank you.
My question is, when a US pren't it can launch massive military actions that deplete our arsenal and potentially leaving our military vulnerable, will Congress realistically vote to prevent rebuilding? If not, is the power of the person still a viable check on the executive branch. You know, that's a fair question, David, because I know if I were a member of Congress and I didn't approve of this war,
¶ Ask Chuck
I probably would feel uncomfortable.
Not replenishing the stockpiles in the Pentagon.
And so you're absolutely right to sort of, you know, I would, you know, I'd like to think i'd be
¶ Will congress ever vote against rebuilding military after president launches war?
a rational member.
And you know, it is it is.
This is I think the the difficulty in using your vote in Congress as a protest bihicle and it and it it is a way that sometimes presidents know how to jam Congress with this. But this is a fair I think this is a fair observe there are no this proves to you there's no good options left on this right. Number one, you just you got to you
gotta win the argument at the ballot box. Number two, Uh, you've got to figure out how to I think that it's clear that even the war powers act as it stands, we're still got questions of whether it's constitutional or not because it's really not been fully litigated. That even that gives too much leeway and takes away so much of Congress's authority when it comes to who makes war.
And this you know when I don't.
What I don't understand is why there's not even further attempts to restrict I mean, it goes back to why did the founder You know, if you if you care about founders intent, and there's a lot of my friends on the right care about founders intent, well, the founders never you know, the whole point of this is they didn't want you know, they all had memories of what these monarchs in Europe did. Remember how I view monarchs.
They're just dictators with a nicer name. But they made They would decide willy nilly when to go to war, and they would never send their own folks to war.
They would send the their populations to war, and you'd have to fight on behalf of some treaty that the king or your queen signed with another king or queen, and maybe that treaty had to do with marriage, and maybe that treaty had nothing to do with anything other than that, and you would end up going to war because you had ties to the right family or wrong family,
depending on the given time. The point is is that the founders did not want an American president to be able to do the same thing, and yet in theory that's what we already have. So I think there needs to be better clarification here. The War Powers Act doesn't do it. In sixty days is probably too much. It probably needs to be I think a commander in chief needs to be able to respond in defense of the United States.
Hard stop.
Was a run at all, in defense of the in the immediate needs to defend the United States and the immediate.
It's hard to come up with evidence that it is, but look, you.
Point out a real gap here in that, Yes, Congress is the power of the purse, but basically they would have to they're cutting off their nose despite their faces. Essentially what you're pointing out if they decide not to replenish our stockpiles, because then we're suddenly more vulnerable, and that's also bad.
Thanks for the lose lose question there, David.
But it's an important thing you pointed out, and I'm sorry I didn't sooner, So thank you. Zach has the next question here, Rits. Hey, Chuck, the Zach from Cleveland, your resident Buckeye. I have a lot of people who want to claim resident Buck guye act, just.
So you know, but.
I'll let you be a resident buck Guy. I'm not going to be like my buddy TK. You know, you have to come up with very specific title names to be the to be the resident Maybe you're the resident buck Guy from Cleveland, names act anyway, But I digress. You believe this is your fourth time getting a question on the show, and if so, congratulations. We will start looking. We gotta we got to find some merch. We're gonna start working on that. But he said, just a quick
one here for you. Why is the market not really reacting to this war? I keep hearing it's probably the worst ever oil crisis, or it will be, But I thought the markets would fare worse even though gas is four dollars. Is because of market manipulations actually starting to correct or is it just too early to tell?
Go guards?
Is that the accepted sort of shortening of the Guardian.
¶ Why is the market not really reacting to the Iran war?
You know, I'm I still struggle. I still say the eye word every once in a while.
Guards. I think we all agree.
Guardians, the fact that they're named after bridge statues guarding traffic. I don't know, it's a I know it's harder and harder to copyright nicknames than ever. I mean, trust me, I went through the process with my with GW and the Revolutionaries, not exactly, I mean.
Go REVS. We like that. It's a little close to REVS.
I don't know if everybody loves that, but you know, it's it could have been worse, and I guess that's probably the way to.
Look at the Guardians. It could have been worse.
Let me do it the question yourself, because I'd like to think I dealt with a little bit of monologue. I I think that there's I think there's a little bit of AI. There's still a sort of an the AI bubble that sort of kept things up.
Uh.
It does take longer for the oil shocks to break through because a lot more countries have been smarter about keeping a stockpile and things like that, and there's still some diversification and energy. But I do think, well, you know, the market can make every predictor look like an idiot. And I'm taping this before the market's open this morning, but you may be listening to it after the markets. But I have a feeling this is the week that we start to see the to see the real negative
impact start to start to hit. And then you know we're going to get You'll start to get the next you know, that next round of quarterly earnings reports that come. That'll that'll be coming, you know, May and June and all of that. That's you know, that's where you'll start to see. I mean that Michigan consumer confidence number lowest ever essentially since they started taking it.
It's coming. I hate the you know, so just.
Don't don't get rid of the sandbags. You know, you may think that you know, you've been told to prepare for a category five storm.
Oh the storm. Maybe it's not coming. Don't take down the sandbags, don't take off the plywood.
Next question comes from John and mil Milwaukee. Hey, you said, Democrats responding to Republican redistricuting with similar tactics may not be the right approach, But is there an argument for using every available tool while they still have the power to do so more broadly. As political norms continue to be tested, do you think Congress will step in to assert its role as a check or are we moving into a period where those guardrails are even weaker For contexts,
I'm not coming at this from the far left. I
¶ As norms become tested, will congress every reassert its role?
vote a Republican from seventy six to eight. Just trying to understand where things stand. John and Milwaukee. Well, can I go back to another point on the redistricting thing.
I think that you have.
A better mandate if you win, if you win space with fair maps, if you have to rig the maps to get control of Congress, is it going to be a majority that is taped it that that is that has I mean, I think it has legitimacy in the eyes of the public. That's what I would fear, and that should be a fear. And I go back, Look, I get I'm specifically I specifically focus on this Virginia thing, obviously because I live here. But it's it's a lot of it's a lot of effort, it's a lot of
political capital being spent for two districts. And if two districts are the difference between winning power and losing power, you're not going to have it is literally control the name only so you know it's it's a It's one of those things that I just think if you're looking to rep do you want to be the party that can repair things or not? And if you're also if it's all reaction, I just I don't think the public
is going to fully embrace that either. I understand that you got to look it's it's I think the real lesson here is used power better when you have it right. And Democrats have watched it the last couple of times they've had it. I can't botch it this next time they have when they get all three or it's just impossible to ever succeed when you have all three. It's not like any party can hold it for more than two years. The question is what do you get done
into you turn the corner? And I think sometimes we look at and I think it's fair. I think some on the left look at the election of Trump and sixteen and think, well, it turns out Obama should have done more, should have pushed harder. It wouldn't have mattered if Trump was coming anyway, What would you have done if you knew that?
Right?
So I guess that that's going to be that's going to be one of the arguments. But as for Congress, I think that's a I think that's a guardrail. I think it's so weak that it can't get weaker that I do think you're going to have more and more members of Congress getting elected hoping to stop imperial presidencies. Maybe I'm maybe I'm being pollyannish here, but I you know.
It is.
We have we have when you go through as many, the more one term presidents we have, the more we're going to look to strengthen the other elected institution, the legislative branch.
So I think that.
Even though the presidency keeps getting strengthened, one term presidencies or a sign of weakness of the president, so in theory, Congress should have should be able to accumulate.
Its power back.
But I don't have a good I'm going to answer for you, because I get it you have one side that's willing to cheat. I just don't think and break norms and rules and all those things. And I just you know, I believe that that the elections that the Democrats have succeeded in are because they've made the case to this group of voters in the middle. They're not in the middle because of they're ideologically. They're in the middle because they should. They don't expect to get one
hundred percent of what of everything. They understand that this is essentially a compromise system, and they don't like the hardcore partisanship, and they keep voting against any party that behaves too partisanally. And there's a difference between partisanship and ideology, right you you know, Bertie Sanders is a good example of this. He's super progressive, but he wasn't so progressive that he said no to the to basically the Mitt Romney Obama version of how you do healthcare. He doesn't
believe in it, he doesn't think it's good. But he didn't let the enemy the perfect be the enemy of an improvement. And that was what our founders. Look You can come from far left to far right, but if you incrementally feel as if you're making incremental progress, do you just stand on ceremony or do you try to help the majority function?
And I think that's.
I think that's Democrats have had more success winning over that voter because the Republicans have been behaving so parsonally and when Democrats start behaving the same way as they did during the first two years of Biden's presidency, it's why there was such a revolt by the same group of voters the other way. It's not that they liked the policies of the right, they didn't like the hardcore partisanship on either side. Next one comes from Jane New York.
He says, check love your weekly top five lists, especially when you revisit the year's most flippable Senate races. But I'm beginning to wonder whether the top five might soon be sentenced. Tone I am too, and am therefore more curious about the races that would make up slots six through ten. I like where you're thinking, and let's just say this is an idea that I might put into
practice sooner than I realized. Anyway, if you were going to compile a six through ten lists today, would you be more inclined to include Democratic health seats like Georgia, New Hampshire and Michigan, Or might you be more inclined to include Republican health seats like Texas, Iowa, and Florida. My opinion six or ten is where we will have see the Senate mapp changing the most in real time. That's an excellent observation, and I think you're right right.
I think right now both Georgia and New Hampshire they're not in the in, you know, and there's no way I would have them outside the top ten. I'm not a If you know a race is going to be decided by less than ten points, it's probably in the top ten. Right when I start thinking about the less than ten point center races.
¶ Outside of your Top 5 senate flips, what are your 6-10?
You know, by the way, I'm not one.
Hundred percent sure North Carolina stays single digits anymore. I think Cooper's got that big of the lead. I mean, look, Waltley will spend money, and one will assume the partisan stuff. This war keeps going as badly as it does, I could easily see a Bob Casey like, not quite the Bob Casey size of victory over Rick, a citting senator in Rick Saintrum, but I could see I could see
a fifty six forty four race there. But going down the rest of the Senate map sort of in order right now where my head is at right, the next one that's most likely to flip would be Maine. Right, that's too The next one for me is probably Ohio.
Now that's three. The next one after that, I would go ahead and put Alaska at four, and then you know, right then you then you sit there is at Michigan because the Democratic primary is still so unstable or is it Texas or the Republican primary is still unstable?
Right?
You know, I would say if corn and wins, I put Michigan there if but if si Ed else, I'll do all si Ed wins, then I might put Michigan there too, right, so you have that. I'm not I don't think Miss I am surprised. I did how little national the Washington Republicans are viewing, how little they're They're spending more time in New Hampshire than they are Minnesota, and I think that's just a mistake. I think they have a better shot at flipping Minnesota than do New Hampshire.
I think Pappas. I think, especially if a more progressive lieutenant governor who you know, the lieutenant governor, the Tim Walls, who's not very popular in Minnesota right now, and that's who Peggy Flana again, maybe I think Michelle Tafoya, Peggy Flanagan. I think Republicans are a better shot of Tafoya upsetting flannagain than so New New upsetting.
Papas.
But I get that New Hampshire on a partisan scale looks slightly more, you know, has a higher floor for Republicans and Minnesota does. But either way, I expect those to be single digit raceist so they sit out there. You know, I do think Minnesota is the sort of in any other year would probably be getting a little more attention. But I am surprised and clobsh Are will probably guarantees that she'll cary everybody over the finish line
on the DEMB side. And then may be why they look and would rather have New Hampshire because you have a Republican incumbent that's likely to win reelection in Kelly Ay. Who remember in New Hampshire they run every two years, and she'll be the top.
Of the ticket.
But you start looking around, right, Iowa looks like it's going to be a single digit race. Hey what about Eugene Vinman down in Florida, Right, He's raised a ton of money. I'm a bit skeptical, but could I see it become a single digit race?
I could. There's Nebraska, which looks like it's definitely.
I think it's more likely to be five points or less no matter what they're so, and we haven't gotten to Kansas. We haven't seen that race mature yet. There's Montana. So to sort of get at the heart of your question, you have made six through ten. That's a lot of fun and I'm going to have to really sort of I can't just spitball it because I sit here and you're like, well, you know, we got and some of this is still undeveloped, right, I want to see where it can. I still feel like we're not done yet
with Kansas, so we get there. But what a great idea and look for it, you know, sort of how do we say that?
And for this week's top five, it's the next five?
I don't know, Lauren and I will work on that, coming up with something for that, but it's a good idea. Next question comes from Troy. He says, here's my idea for the NBA. Eliminate conferences and divisions, move to a shorter home and away schedule, Take the top sixteen teams for the playoffs, regardless of location. To make up for fewer games at a preseason single elimination tournament with semifinals
on Christmas to drive fan interest in revenue. It could also create multiple championship opportunities each season tournament regular season playoffs, Troy, it sounds like the Champions League a little bit in Europe and all the very Suropean leagues. Look, this isn't I don't I like what you're what you're thinking. The reason, you know, the biggest impediment in his owners make owners get to pocket the money that takes place in their arenas.
So taking away opportunities in their own arenas is just not on the table. So we all know they probably should shrink the regular season schedule, but they won't. And you know, you're right to find other ways to replace it. Is it tournaments? Maybe that doesn't. But you know, I was thinking about something else about the NBA, and I was wondering, you know, I was watching Jen Ram play at the Masters, and I was like, he doesn't have a chance. But you know, every everything he moves up right,
¶ Suggestions to fix the NBA
there's other things you play for in the Masters. If you win, you get into the certain I think if it's if you're in the top twenty, you automatically get an invite the next year. I think then there's certainly you get there's different financial rewards depending on the place you finish, And so it got me thinking, is there a way to create a financial reward for players based on their regular season? You know that that essentially, just like with golf, if you finish thirty fifth, you make
more money than if you finish thirty six. So there's, in theory, an incentive to keep playing hard. So if there is more money on the table, more bonus money, more this money, more that money, maybe it's maybe it's the playoff TV revenue that players get, you know, maybe there's a pool of it that all players get to get some of it depending on where their team finishes
in the overall standings of the league. But for if you if you you know right now, it's the franchises that I've on the incentive and the players have no skin in the game, right if they're you know, the players play hard, I've I don't. I don't sit here and say the players aren't playing hard. They all are playing hard. It is the coaches being ordered by the GMS and the and the and the team presidents to not play certain players to keep them out, you know,
to bench them in the fourth quarter. Players would fight and push back harder if there were financial penalties for losing a more likely to lose a game. So you know, is there something to borrow from golf that keeps people playing competitively even when.
They have no shot at winning the tournament? Just something to think about.
But look, there's a million ideas to fix this. Hey, Adam Silver, just pick.
One and do it. Thank you, buddy.
Last question, I love this. I'm going to call you John from Cincinnati because of the damn HBO show.
I'm sure you don't like that. Maybe you do. Let me know.
By the way, I'm still waiting for I didn't get my lyrics. We didn't start the fire lyrics. One of you still owes me we didn't. You're updated. We didn't start the fire lyrics. And I away that and so many people await that because they would like me to carry ok it. But anyway, last question, John from Cincinnati, and he writes, I haven't heard of a single report of President Trump going to Camp David in his second term.
Does anyone use it?
Since he doesn't, isn't loaned out to political donors or possibly misused. I was never a big fan of the Lincoln Bedroom being used that way by presidents of any party. I've been listening to your show for about three months and really enjoy it. Thanks and go Buck Guys and Reds John in Cincinnati.
That's a good question.
I think, Look, we know why Trump doesn't like it. He likes the golf right, and he likes his set up any and he's actually not an introvert like Camp David is for the president's you know, he's one of the few people, you know, most celebrities I've ever gotten
¶ Does anyone use Camp David since Trump doesn't?
to know, the last thing they want to do is to be in public.
That's not Donald Trump.
He loves to be around people. I've got my own theories. He doesn't have a lot of personal friends, so there's not really a group of people he wants to hang out with he doesn't have And if you don't have close friendships, a retreat like Camp David doesn't work for you, right, I think, you know, it's so funny about it. Presidents. It's probably a good thing for a president to have,
but it is. I think what's made it less popular with some presidents is the lack of a golf course to be fully transparent, like Obama just would go to golf every weekend and Andrew's and then go back to the White House. He's used Camp David a little, but he didn't love it per se either. Look, it's on my bucket list of things that I've never gotten to see that I'd still like to see. So if there's any president that would like to invite me to use
Camp David, here's my pledge to you. If I ever get access to Camp David, John, I will try to get you there and invite you as well as my plus one if that's possible. Don't tell missus Todd Knight, but I got to get some other people in here. It is one of these, like I've heard stories, I've had people tell me what it's like, right, but it is.
It is one of the few things we've seen no pictures of, and perhaps those that run Camp David that don't want people to know what it looks like, or glad Trump hasn't come, because the more Trump goes, the more likely it will come out. So you're right, I'm sure there are people using it that we don't know about, but on the list of outrages to cover, it's probably fifty seventh or fifty eighth on the list these days. All right, with that, we're going to take my forty
eight hour break. Unless you know, news happens and we insert something in there. I always reserve the right to see you on YouTube. I had a few things that I did over the weekend that I want to tell you more about, and I'm going to save it for Wednesday's episode, including fascinating debate that I'm moderated between Chris Christy and David French about sports gambling. We actually came up with a potential compromise. I will share with it
with you on Wednesday. If you want to go take a look at the debate, it's on YouTube under the University of Chicago. They hosted it and sponsored it. And on Friday at the Illinois Local New Summer, Marada moderated a panel of what I referred to as the venture capitalists of local news, the philanthropic organizations that have been
trying to fill the gap here. John Palfrey, who's president MacArthur Foundation, Maybel Perez Wadsworth, whose presidency of the Knight Foundation, and Julie Morita, who's presidency of the Joyce Foundation, which is a little bit more regional in the Chicago area for the Great Lakes region, but all of them have been investing in trying to help local news startups get
off the ground. And yeah, I call them vcs because they really are, except they're not trying to They don't try to get their money back once they give the money, but they are trying to be smart about putting money in places that can be used to grow an organization that can eventually be self sustaining, and that is I think the real challenge there. So a few things I wanted to share with you on both of those topics, and because I've.
Gone long here, we will share that with you on Wednesday. So with that, I'll see in Porty. It outs