Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Has Weaponized Every Part Of Government + US Has Lost Moral Authority On World Stage

She's a poodle mix. I bring it up because she may or may not make her presence known during this portion of my recording. That's mostly why I'm sharing. I'm sharing that news with you. Those of you that follow me very closely on social media know at the end of June we lost we lost a dog that we had for fourteen years, Ruby. She was a standard Poodle. She was terrific and lived a very full life until the end. So we've been waiting for the summer. I'll be honest, and I wanted to make sure it was

a rescue. This time. We didn't have kids in the house, so you feel like you can be a little more accommodating two more rambunctious dogs. Shall we say. She's got a ton of energy. She's got the puppy energy of a two year old. And at the same time, you know, I probably only have like six to nine months of this rather than the three years of puppy behavior that many of you I know are used to when you get a new dog. Anyway, so that is my daughter's in town visiting for fall break, and so she's been

a big help here. My son comes for fall break to meet her. He's a bit bumped that he wasn't here for, but hey, she came a little bit earlier than we expected. When you're on a rescue list, you never know when they're going to say yes. Big thanks to the folks in DC at City Dogs Rescue. They do great work. It's almost all volunteers, as anybody knows. You know. I hope if you're a pet lover you help out any sort of dog and cat rescue in your community. We know they do terrific work and it

is done simply. Most of the volunteers are there just for the love of the animals. So big thanks to City Dogs in Washington, d C. China. In the United States had a escalating set of threats for the trade war, one hundred percent tariffs and responds to protectionism with the

minerals in China. For what it's worth, all of it seems to be posturing before the actual negotiation between the two world leaders takes place in the next few weeks weeks to a month. So even though the markets are reacting, and it is interesting, when do the markets react to Trump tariff threats, it appears whenever it's about China. Any other aspect of tariff threats don't seem to impact the

stock market China. That's enough. Another story which I think tells you how important the Chinese economy is to the world economy. Right, we are the dominant economy in the world, but we're not alone, and you know we can have We can have a lot of impact, and so can China. So I think we're learning here and each country is feeling each other out. I think each country thought they could quote unquote when this trade war, and I think both countries are finding out in some ways this is

an unwinnable trade war. I'll get to more of it before we get to my interview with Sandy, but I

wanted to get that out of the way. But look, I'm going to begin with what we've been talking about for some time, and that is where we are in the government shutdown. And I will tell you this, We're nowhere near We're nowhere close to seeing this resolved. And the biggest reason is Donald Trump's not involved. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, these days, you cannot negotiate with

Congressional Republicans without the sign off of Donald Trump. Congressional Republicans cannot sign off on anything without getting permission from Donald Trump. What do I mean by that? Permission? Sounds you know, it sounds like I'm being snarky. But the fact is, if Trump doesn't like something, he can absolutely pull the rug out underneath from Republicans, as he has right as he did, as he does to his own

cabinet secretaries. He just did a big one on Howard Lutnik, who was about to amp up tariffs on international pharmaceutical companies until Donald Trump stepped in and said, nah, we're not going to do that because he's paranoid about price hikes and uncertain things. Right, prescription drugs is one that he's ultra sensitive to. He doesn't seem to be sensitive to some things where his tariffs raise prices, but on pharmaceuticals he is sensitive to that. I think it gets

what he believes is a big part of his constituency, older, culturally conservative Americans who have been voting Democrat for most of most of this twenty first century until Donald Trump essentially promised that he wasn't going to be a Republican that tried to cut sold security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course, we're going to about to litigate a midterm election over whether what the Republicans did is a cut to Medicaid or not, and what voters think of the medicaid policy

that Republicans have put in. But it's just a fact. And with Donald Trump really not engaged yet in the government shutdown at all, he is in the Middle East as I record this, essentially or on his way to the Middle East, getting ready for a victory lap. And frankly, it's a victory lop he deserves on this one, because you know, when you look at his style of diplomacy, it's not a good style of diplomacy to deal with the Europeans. It is not a good style of diplomacy.

To deal with Southeast Asia, China, East Asia, you name it. Not a good way. Maybe you could argue his style works sort of kind of with the Indians, but that so far has been a bit problematic. The one place where his style of diplomacy I think can work is

in the Middle East. He's transactional, where many other of an American president wouldn't feel comfortable, sort of doing the kind of sleazy financial deals that are being done with the Gulf States right now that get them engaged in helping to pay for the rebuild of Gaza, get them engaged with working with Israel. And if the Trumps make a couple of bucks off of it, what does Donald Trump care? And all of this right that it is this sort of scratch my back, scratch your back kind

of mindset. It's unethical. It's something that I think we're not comfortable our government doing, but it's going to get the job done in some ways because there are no rules in the Middle East at times. I think that that's why you're seeing this style where ninety percent of the time it's ineffective, but in this case it's an effective way to go. I don't know if another American president could have bullied Netnahu into taking this deal. He didn't want to take any deal because his right flank

wasn't going to accept any deal. Any deal that stopped this war clearly wasn't going to be acceptable to the far right. One thing Donald Trump wanted was a victory, right, He wanted to take the win. And it's an interesting parallel because he basically it was interesting when they announced the deal. Hamas accepted, but not quite on the terms that Israel wanted. Trump went ahead and said, great, great job Hamas, glad you took this deal. And it left

Netnah who completely naked, right, he yanked the rug. Bibi did not want to say that Hamas agreed to those terms. He wanted to continue to press forward, and Trump essentially told him, no, you're not going to do it. Take the win and move on. Now. Of course, the question is going to be whether politically BB can survive without

having the threat of war right, Who's entire political career has been about playing off of fear, fear of a Ran, fear of Hamas, fear of Hesbelah. But it's always been fear fear, fear. In some ways he's had, you know, the last two years incredibly successful dealing with Iran, dealing

with Lebanon and Hesbela essentially is kneecapped Hesbela completely. Even the uties are laying off, You're seeing diplomatic ties being forged with many a Gulf state, and with all of those fear factors off the table, it is likely going to mean that the This is probably the beginning of the end of bb NET. Now, who's political career is. Does he have another six months? Does he stretch this a year? We'll see. I told you about that poll last week that showed two thirds of Israeli voters believe

he should resign. About two thirds of those wanted him to resign immediately, another third we're willing to wait till the war is over. Well, the war is essentially on its way to being over. So we are now up to two thirds of Israelis believe he needs to take responsibility. That it was on his watch that an exposed Israel got attacked by Jamas and all of it. You know, it was strange much of the military strategy that bb signed off on dealing with Iran. The hooties or hesblah,

we're all really smart and savvy. He never dealt He never listened to his military advisors on how to deal with Gaza and Hamas, which is arguably why it was so brutal, was so terrible, why it was so poorly thought out, and why it is made Israel among the most isolated nations in the free world. And that's uh, that's sad. For It's just sad. I'm very sad about

the fact that Israel is so isolated. I'm relieved that many of the threats are gone, but how you conduct yourself over time has a huge impact long term, and we're going to see what kind of long term penalty israel Is is going to have to pay for. How for the horrendous way that BB and his team conducted the war in Gaza. Everywhere else was much more precision efficiency, sort of the the the way the Israelis had been in some ways admired by militaries around the world for

their for their Saturday savvy and their strategy. Nobody was admiring what they were doing in Gaza. There was nothing like that, and in some ways that was driven by just a far right fringe that was keeping BB in power. But still that is what President Trump is doing right

now he's taking a victory, Levet. What he is not doing is in the room on the shutdown, and that at the end of the day is why we are going to be here until he engages and at this point, and this is this sort of gets to the theme I want to hit on today, and that is the sort of next level ugliness of our politics. You know, there's always been this. Obviously politics and governing blur, but there is a point where every successful government, no matter

which why you were governed, why you were elected. You were elected because you're a liberal, you're elected because you were a conservative, that ultimately, when you're governing you have to do what's in the best interests of everybody. That when you're governing, you don't just worry about your supporters, you actually worry about the electorate as a whole. That's the hallmark of this democracy. This administration governs has weaponized

everything through a political lens. When you look at what Russell Voyd is doing at the Budget Department, this is

not a left right thing. This is dangerous behavior. Because the minute we decide that you should govern politically and only govern for those that support you, that is the end of the republic as we know it is the I'm not saying that our democracy ends, but what it becomes is that each time one party gets elected, they get in there and decide to purge the other party and purge the government of You've heard Donald Trump say that he wants to just lay off the Democrat part

of the government, right, which is why you know, in their first round of doing this, Russell Voyd, who is

as usual, is sloppy with his initial you know, he comes across as somebody that's very precise. But it's shocking how often they do a lot of stupid things when they try to do these layoffs or reduction the reduction in force, and that they overfired at CDC and they overfired at HHS and why did they target, right, HHS

is considered a democratic cabinet agency. Right, It's obvious they do that when you look which ones they consider the democratic agencies and which one they consider the republican agencies. Like nobody has essentially hardly anybody's been furloughed or laid off from the Department of Olymit Security, but quite a few have been laid off at the Department of Labor. And they went with a hatchet at the Department of HHS, specifically at CDC, and then they realized, oh wow, all

these people are experts at certain things. These aren't political hacks. These are reputable sciences that have incredible expertise in a lot of areas that are crucial for the US government to be involved in. Public health is something government has to be involved in. This is not something you can privatize, certainly, and so it is this is what is so scary

about what's happening. And in some ways Lindsay Graham gave a piece of this in a recent appearance on Meet the Press, and this goes at the weaponization of the Justice Department, where essentially he justified what Trump was doing by saying, but they went after Trump, and because Letitia James went after Trump and went over the top something that I look, I don't disagree that she shouldn't have. She shouldn't have gone there. She could have, but she

went there for solely political reasons. You know, there it is. It's certainly that doesn't mean he didn't do anything wrong, but it's pretty clear she went after him. To quote, get Trump on that front. But if you are upset

about the weaponization law of law enforcement. Then the last thing you ought to be doing is then weaponizing law enforcement. But that's exactly what they're doing right. Pam Bondi's just despicable appearance in front of the Judiciary Committee last week, where you know we now have learned thanks to some

photographs that sort of leaked she wrote down. She clearly had her staff she so cares about politicizing the Justice Department that she prepared for her testimony with one line Zingers to go after any Democrat that questioned her in a tough way. So she like had some pre made attacks on Sheldon Whitehouse and pre made attacks on different

Democrats that questioned what she was doing over there. And it just just take a step back, take your partisan hat off, or put your partisan hat on, and say if that is how Merret Garland had behaved, okay, and it sent a Judiciary Committee, it's just coming up with these spending time, taxpayer dollars to get her get his staff to write one line zingers. Republicans would be rightfully apoplectic at the politicizing of the Justice Department. But that's

exactly what Pam Bondi did. She literally spent taxpayer dollars coming up with one liners and zingers to go after rather than explaining if they're because she had no legal rationale for what they did to Jim Comey, She had no legal rationale for what they're doing to Leticia James. She had no legal rationale to how they're just firing US attorneys if they don't abide by the president's words. And you know, this is another story that sort of

has gotten lost. The Washington Post has since reported and got multiple sources to confirm that when in the infamous Donald Trump truth social posts, that is going to probably get the Jim Comy case thrown out of court, and likely we'll get the Leticia James thrown out of court because of the obvious buy that was used to get

them and diet it. And if I remind you, the truth social Post stated this, Pam, I have reviewed over thirty statements in posts saying that essentially quote same old story as last time, all talked, no action, nothing is being done. What about Kmy, Adam, Shifty Shift, Letitia, They're

all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost put a Democrat supported US attorney in Virginia and with a really bad Republican past awoke rhino who is never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst DEM senators pushed him so hard, referring to Mark Warner and Tim Kaine for agreeing to have to confirm that US attorney even lied to the

media and said he quit and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a great case, and many lawyers in legal pundits say so, Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and our credibility. They impeach me twice, induited me five times over nothing

just as must be served now. President DJT this because we now know this was never intended to be a public truth social post, so believe it or not, in the year twenty twenty five, your United States government, the President of the United States sends a private direct message. Although he didn't the seventy nine year old techno expert didn't know how to do it right. Pretty much all of our some of us in our fifties have been there, but certainly many people in there. Was this supposed to

be public. I didn't know, but apparently he was trying to send her a private message. Apparently the only way he can send a private message to the sitting Attorney General of the United States is through his truth Social app. Seriously, but apparently that's what it was, because this was never

meant for the public. This was supposed to be a direct message. This is how your president of the United States communicates with our attorney general. Our president is doing is communicating this way. How what kind of direct messages have gotten through? This is how he communicates even to his own staff. Look, he was clearly threatening her and like, hey, you better get it done. I already fired in a

US attorney that wouldn't do what I asked. I mean, it is not hard to jump to the conclusions that he was using this. You know, he didn't. He didn't give her any any sort of honorific It was Pam, let me tell you what you're going to do. But I don't think we have had nearly the amount of focus and attention to the fact that the president is communicating with his staff on a completely unsecured truth. Trust me, you think truth socials are really secure, just up to snuff,

right that Devin Newness man. That guy is a real sharp guy, right, you trust him with your cybersecurity, You trust him with the government cybersecurity. This is the way the president. You Look, did you have any did you have an issue with Hillary Clinton's emails and her private server? This is a hundred times worse. Look, this was why some of us thought what Hillary Clinton did was wrong.

Don't set these precedents. Don't sit here and say no, no, no. But it's okay for me because I'm somehow I'm not you know, I know what is what belongs in the public record, and what doesn't. And this is what happens. Right, We do these slippery slopes, and every time somebody decides

to change the way we do certain things, everything moves. And now this guy has decided to have carte blanche. He has no morals or ethics at all. There are actually laws. These are again more laws that he's breaking. Here. Nobody's going to prosecute him for the Presidential Records Act. We we thought about trying to do that during the uh UH, during the term that he was not serving, when he clearly took classified material that belonged to the government.

Not Donald J. Trump, but he of course, does not see the presidency as any different other than an extension of himself, and he doesn't see any of it that plucky. There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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with any other president, oversight hearings would be set. Look at all the hearings we had with Hillary Clinton's email server where she was up there for hours being grilled about the use of it. And again, I'm sorry, I think she did have to answer for that because it was wrong that she did it, because I know why she did it. She did it to avoid Freedom of

Information Act requests. Okay, but she but she was held accountable, and then some nobody's holding Donald Trump accountable for But it is a brazen violation of the Government Records Act one two, exposing all sorts of security issues by using an unsecure truth Social app to communicate with a member

of the National Security Council. The Attorney General is a member of the National Security Council, so in theory, much of what they discuss is classified information all somehow in this stew again of that, you know, because I'm sure many people feel comfortable. If you feel comfortable with the security of truth Social go ahead and direct message your social security number Donald Trump. Tell me if you would

be comfortable doing that. I don't think you would. But this is something that is just completely completely insane, and we're like totally glossed over it because we're so used to Donald Trump not sort of abiding by norms or following the law. You know, when we say abiding by norms, that's code for not following the law. Sort of totally

dismissive of laws in the US Congress's past. But of course we have a Congress. This current Republican control Congress is the single weakest Congress we have had easily going back to the FDR and the New Deal. Right, but he at least had numbers on his side. That's why he was overwhelmingly getting Congress to essentially do what he wanted. He actually won a large political argument which gave him a large majority. Donald Trump has never won a majority

of anything. Even winning the popular vote, he didn't get fifty percent. He didn't get over fifty percent. And this Congress is just rolling over and again. The concern is we are just setting all sorts of new precedents and there are going to be this this Donald Trump's decision to weaponize and ruin the credibility whatever was left of the FBI. It is gone. Right, he is cash Ptel

is literally making Hoover seem like a statesman. We are completely destroying the reputation of the rule of law in this country, all because Donald Trump can't can't accept the

fact that he won. That's what's strange here. Right, he lied to the country when he said he wouldn't be focused on retribution. Right, he clearly was focused on retribution. And in his own way, he thinks like a He thinks like a movie mobster. Okay, not a real mobster, right, Donald Trump, everything in him is sort of imaginary in many ways, so he thinks like a movie mobster. And in the movie, the mobster send a message, so no,

everybody knows you don't do this again. He goes after certain people so that he can make sure other people abide by his wishes. This is movie mobster stuff, and is it really is deteriorating what is left of political discourse in this country. It is deteriorating the reputation long term of the Republican Party. And the thing is, you know who knows it? About half of the elected Republicans

in Congress, they all know this is ridiculous. They all know that if the roles were reversed, they would be apoplectic. Sometimes every once in a while they admit it. The governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, is one of the few Republican governors questioning the decision by Greg Abbott to send

National Guard troops for the president's use in the state of Illinois. As he said, if Joe Biden sent National Guard troops from the state of Illinois and Oklahoma, there'd be a problem in Oklahoma, and a lot of Republicans,

a lot of Oklahoma's have a problem with that. Good for Kevin Stitt for speaking out the lack of people and again, I understand the political fear many of these Republicans have, but this stuff is not conservative, and this stuff is eroding, eroding the reputation of the US government,

eroding the reputation of democracy around the world. Right, Because if the US government, which is the United States, which is considered the leading democracy around the world, starts to, you know, essentially be abusive in its way and its attempts to dibort people, who who are we to talk about human rights violations to take place in Turkey, right, or human rights violations to take place in China, where the Wigers are clearly clearly being ex being forced basically

enforced labor camps. But we have no credibility on these issues anymore because of how our democracy has behaved. We have made no legal We've really not given any legal justification for bombing boats that come out of Venezuela. I had an interesting conversation with Jim Stevriti's for my new sphere show. Please check it out and on oh Sphere

if you haven't tried it, do a free trial and check out the interview. Sta Vradis was terrific. We talked, We did a whole you know, we we did a tour of the world, but we also talked about what would military leaders do. What would he do? He was the former head of Southern Command and if he was given the orders that Southern Command has been given in Venezuela so far. I asked him how would he handle it?

And the first thing he did, get his lawyer, he said, his jag lawyer, which would then and if there was some question about the legality of it, he would go back to the Secretary of Defense and say what is the legal justification of this? And if they created if they had a legal justification that he felt that that was defensible. He would follow the order, but if he couldn't follow the order, he would resign. And I asked him,

I said, that's what is the if? What is the most likely scenario if a high level general or admirals given what they believe is an illegal order? And he said, they'd likely resign without saying it in public, just simply resign. There's there's that in his His explanation was there is such a high level of belief in staying out of the political fray that many a general or admiral would feel uncomfortable making themselves the story in something like that.

I know some of you may hear that, because I told the story to a few others and they were disappointed to hear that. Many of these generals and admirals, if they choose resignation, would probably do so silently and not not go public right away why they were resigning. Maybe they'd eventually go public, but not right away. But that's just the that's that's how seriously many in the military take the a political status of the military, and what Donald Trump's trying to do right now by politicizing

the military by trying to turn the military. I mean, it was interesting to me to see the story about Joe Biden in the Washington Post where Biden was really seething apparently at how Donald Trump in that in that speech in front of the military leaders, seemed to run down Biden personally like eight or nine times, right, totally nope. Again, before Donald Trump, presidents drew the line at at sort

of dehumanizing previous presidents. Right, you may criticize previous policies, but there was always there was some sort of respect given to the person that once held the office. And Donald Trump's lack of respect and and and a supper order will tell me he's he's treating Biden the way he thinks Biden treated him. Of course, Biden gave Trump a post election oval office meeting. Donald Trump did not do that. Joe Biden accepted the results of the twenty

twenty four election. Donald Trump didn't accept the results of the twenty twenty election. But he has just runs down everybody. Shoot, he's runs down pretty much every president before him except Abraham Lincoln, and then sort of has these has this weird obsession with saying he's better. Some people think he's greater president than Lincoln. He's lucky. Some people don't think he's being compared with James Buchanan, and I'll just leave

it at that. But it is this politicizing of everything right, using the government shutdown to only attack Democrats. He's supposed to govern for the entire United States of America. And you've heard me rant about this before, but this inability

to want to go again. If a democratic administration refused to govern for Republicans refute, tried to find a way to prevent government congressionally approved government money from going to a constituency that votes more Republican than Democrat, there would be impeachment proceedings, and by the way, it would be justified.

What Donald Trump is doing is illegal, will likely get reversed by the courts, but in the meantime, he is setting some precedents that this is somehow acceptable politics and the lack as always and I know I'm just sort of old man yelling at cloud here, but the inability of what's left of the principled elected Republicans out there who cannot bring themselves to say this is wrong because they know it's wrong, all because they are just trying

to survive politically because oh, you know, some of them say, hey, if if you got rid of me, somebody crazier would replace me. That's just that's just wishful thinking. Nobody is irreplaceable, Nobody,

even James Franklin at Penn State, right, nobody is irreplaceabent. How'd you like that? Right? Giving you a hint a little bit of what I'm gonna chat about in football after the interview, but it is really they'll let you know, Look, we've got a lot of crazy stuff that's happening right now with the way he's conducting this government. But the idea that he communicates with his staff via direct message

on truth social that sometimes can't make it out. He has put you know, so so much of national security at risk by by by doing that, and again god only knows how other what other bad idea ways that they're communicating with each other, including members of the national security staff. And then the second thing is the lack of outrage or concern that Again, this goes to the whole two wrongs make a right. Donald Trump governs as

if two wrongs make a right, so weaponizing so if he believes that, Leticia James unfairly prosecuted him. He's gonna unfairly go after her. Well lucky for both Jim Comy and Leticia James. Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud because he didn't know how to send a direct message to Pambondy on truth Social. But imagine being a cabinet secretary and realizing before you go to bed, oh god, did I check my direct messages on truth Social to see if I have any new orders to follow from

dear leader. That's an this is this is this is how we're running the country. Anyway, Before I get to Mark Xandy, as I said, a few little updates on the economy, I do again the one hundred percent tariff threat. Look, there's no doubt that our trade relationship with China was a mess. Is a mess, has been a mess before Trump got there has been a mess. Trump knows one way of trying to deal with them tariffs, sledgehammer. Biden kept many of them in place. Right. This is a

very antagonistic relationship. But what we're both finding out is we both need things from each other, and we're going to end up having a trade deal that gives away some things that neither side's going to be happy about. But that's the reality of the situation. And if we

because if we don't do that, we're going to go to war. And but this is a reminder when you start a trade war, it is really hard to win a trade war. And we've started a trade war, and we're having a really hard time quote unquote trying to

win this trade war. There are real reasons why we've got to we've got to recalibrate our economic relationship with China, but much of it has to do with what we need to do here, right And and one thing Donald Trump another thing that you know, Look, I will point out when I think Donald Trump does things that are correct. This Midi Steel, I think is one that only he

could have pulled off given the characters involved here. But he signed an executive order basically trying to jump start UH production and research and UH and frankly the mining of rare earth metals in the United States. And it is what is motivating the quote the purchase of Greenland, and that we are way too reliant on China for these rare earth minerals. Look, if we had if we had, if we knew how to conduct better form policy with Latin America over for the last fifty years. And I

say we, I mean the United States. This is not just something that Trump doesn't do well. This is something every president hasn't done well. We could likely have dominance in our own hemisphere, but we have so blown our relationships down in South America, with Brazil in particular, Mexico slightly improved there, and within Canada. All these antagonistic relationships we're creating. Our own hemisphere likely could be the answer to many of the rare earth metals that we could use,

but we've been short sighted there either way. Figuring out how to either try to find these rare earth metals domestically or diversifying our supply chain around the world will allow us to be tougher on China. But right now we have we really can't uh. And that's the that's the uncomfortable that's the uncomfortable truth. There. It is Monday, which also means we're going to go back into the podcast time machine. Do I need to do a right

I don't know how. If you guys have you know, I hope you like our little music interlude on this you should. You should know that the inspiration I was looking for was sort of Huey Lewis meets you know, without you know, without having to pay Huey Lewis rights for you know, Huey Lewis adjacent to give you the vibe of of of back to the future. So the time podcast Time Machine has actually got a financial theme to it. I figured, you know, we're talking a lot

of things having to do with money the economy. Well, on October nineteenth, nineteen eighty seven, that's where we're going back. It's now called Black Monday. That was the day that

the US stock market lost twenty two point six percent in a single trading day. It was one of the most sudden and alarming crashes and financial history. And today as we move in October twenty twenty five, we're in the middle of it, with a lot of people wondering is how bubblicious is this AI driven stock market? Right? It's worth re examining the moment and asking could history teach us anything relevant for this market? And what risks lurk in twenty twenty five that echo nineteen eighty seven,

and are there safeguards that are missing? I have to tell you this, we have a lot of safeguards today because of the nineteen eighty seven black market. But here's what you need to know about how it happened, and I'll just be honest it that eighty seven crash. I

was fifteen. My dad would die thirty fourteen months later. He was a modestly successful financial advisor. Needless to say, all his clients lost a lot of money that day. Whatever savings my parents had were gone that day never recovered at that point and led to sort of So I've it has always been a it was sort of I've always pinpointed it, even though my dad had not been diagnosed yet, always have pinpointed it as sort of the beginning of the end for my father. So there

is a for me. This is both personal and professed and certainly had an impact on how I think about markets and how I think about the economy, and how I think about how you what you think the stock market and how much you should react, underreact, overreact, et cetera. But let me give you sort of a larger look

at what the economy was looking like back then. In mid eighty seven, market had already been running up big time, valuations were stretched, growth was decelerating, while inflation and interest rates were starting to rise again. Yet international currency was a contributor to this one. The eighty five Plaza Accord, which sought to push the US dollar lower, that had a contribution there, and by eighty seven markets were uneasy about the coordination under a follow up accord called the

Louver Accords. And what was interesting is that in the week leading up to the crash, it was a crash

happened on a Monday, markets had already been seeing some sharp, sharp decline, so there was definitely pressure to sell more and more we're thinking about selling. So when you look at you know, when you look back in history, the biggest structural culprit to the sort of near to this crash was something called portfolio insurance or dynamic hedging. This was sort of the first iteration of computerized, computer based programs that automatically triggered trades. So as prices fell, it

automatically increased short positions i e. Futures that were then to hedge, and it effectively was selling into a weak

market and it would sort of ballooned on itself. It triggered all sorts of horrible feedback loops, falling prices more hedge, hedging, more selling, more downward pressure, more hedging, right, and it was it was sort of it was what it was the first time we were warned of what happened when you start to attempt to automate certain trading decisions, right, you automatically buy if you see a number here, automatically

do this if you see a number there. So all of a sudden, quickly liquidity and and got stressed immediately. Some stocks even open late, they were halted. Sometimes bids disappeared because remember some things are computerized, some things weren't, and then the structure of the market couldn't absorb all

the orders. I mean it basically, if you think about what happened in October of eighty seven, and you know the movie Trading Places, when they're having that when those guys are on the floor, when everything's panicking and they're having heart attacks, theyll sell and the whole frozen orange

juice concentrate business. If you can imagine that, that's kind of how it looked there, and that's still the way trading was done on that floor, and it was it certainly led to a lot of safeguards being put in, but the crash Interestingly about this crash is it wasn't rooted in sort of a singular catastrophic macro shock like

the collapse of Layman Brothers right in the Great Recession. There was no war, there was no overnight dead crisis. The ferocity came simply from the market's of fragility, leverage, and mechanical strategy. It was a bit over leveraged trust. Me as a kid, I knew. I knew that it was a tripping triple witching Friday. It was something like

when option Friday coincided with a report. I can't remember what all of that lingo meant, but I know it would make my father's mood either good or bad, depending on the situation. Let's just say he never had another good mood after that. Again, the good news about that crash is that, because it was essentially a mechanical crash, I guess the way to put it, it didn't provoke

a broader banking crisis. Right. There wasn't a run on banks like we had during the Great Recession, and we didn't end up in a deep recession unlike two thousand

and eight or even after nineteen twenty nine. Believe it or not, It took only two sessions after the crash for the DOW to claw back fifty seven percent of its drop. The market fully regained its prior high by early nineteen eighty nine, less than two years later, and then afterward regulators and exchanges added mechanisms like circuit breakers trading halts to slow panic in future crashes. Look, it was the first lesson I ever got, which was, hey,

don't panic, you know, close your eyes. If you're younger, close your eyes. Eventually the market is going to come back because the market always you can see it, right, there's always this upward trajectory, and in some ways many

people behave that way anyway. Now, the question is where are we sitting now? Right? Is this a bubble? Do we only have? Right? The S and P five hundred keeps going gangbusters? That down not so much, right, There's all sorts of things that could be happening here that were not quite one hundred percent sure of. Right. Why are the large stocks continue to go up? Is this all due to AI investment? How much of this is due to people who've gotten who are sort of heavy

into crypto. It got essentially legalized by the government, and they've quickly got out of crypto and then bought Microsoft, Google, you know, all the large cap stocks in order to take this imagined money and turn it into a real asset. We shall see, but there's certainly a lot going on in this market that for those that are not experts in it are wondering, are you sure you're not missing something?

Are we sure this isn't a bubble? Are we sure we're not going to end up in a situation like what we saw in two thousand and eight or what we saw in nineteen eighty seven, in twenty twenty five, so the question is you know what parallels are out there, Well, we do have an algorithmic parallel, right that you could be their markets are even more dominated by algorithmic trading,

quant strategies and AI and models, and it raises the risk of algorithmic collisions or systemic feedback loops. We supposedly are constantly looking to make sure this doesn't happen again, but so much is automated. Remember we had that flash crash this is probably about eight years ago now, which we had that thousand point drop out of nowhere because of a glitch in one of these automated things. And

so you can't help but wonder. And then of course there's the fact that could a nefarious actor hack into one of these large private equity funds and sort of trigger trigger a flash crash of some sort, right, and trigger a market collapse essentially by redoing an algorithm. I think there's a lot of things here that we ought to be worried about. The other parallel is the sort

of concentration risk, right in twenty twenty. So far this year, valuations in certain sectors, particularly I in tech are under a ton of scrutiny. Central banks are worrying about overvaluation, structurally fragile markets. The equity markets are increasingly concentrated, meaning it's just a few big, mega tech names that carry outsized weight. Right. If Palenteer is in Navidia are somehow,

you know, exposed to be something that they're not. And I'm not implying that they are, right, but if they somehow were the contagion of something like that, right, it would impact your Microsoft's, it would impact Google, it would impact Amazon. I mean, the contagion effect of this is something that you do have a lot of people worried about.

And then, of course the other part of this is something we didn't have in eighty seven that we do have today, concerned about the politicizing of the FED, which could manipulate markets, which in turn could cause a trash,

cause a crash. Now some of the differences, right, why eighty seven is not really a corollary to twenty twenty five. Market infrastructure is a lot more mature. We have a lot more exchanges that are resilient. There are more circuit breakers in case they are halts that are baked in in case we do have a flash crash, in case an algorithm does go haywire. Information is a lot more transparent, it's a lot more real time. Every investor has more tools at their own disposal. You know. That's both good

and bad. It means everybody could make their own run on a bank. You don't have to go find a trader to do it for you. And in some ways, because the markets are so global and so interconnected that in many ways, we all either rise and fall together. Right, It's not as if this would be an American problem, and it wouldn't be a problem everywhere else. In a weird way, if we're all in it together, is that

a good thing? Or will we somehow take the blame if we somehow bring down the world the world economy. But either way, that's the way back machine. Nineteen eighty seven, Black Monday. It has a particular resonance for me because it was it was for me sort of the beginning of the end for my father and for a variety of reasons. But it also taught me some lessons about

the market. And you know, there are people that were close to my father were very angry about how the market acted that day and not paying attention to the fact that if they had just taken a breath, they'd have been in a better place two years later than they were on the day of the crash. And it's something I've learned over the years. Never panic right away when it comes. If you're investing money is don't invest

money you need right away. If you're investing money, it's just that let it, let it do its work, and

you know the long term rise. There's always going to be volatility in the middle, and you've got to if if you have us, if you're invested soundly, the volatility should should be in some ways minimized. Sometimes the worst thing we have these days is it's too easy to follow all of this right, So there's a history lesson for the day. So with that, let me turn to a few questions ask Chuck. First question comes from Brian Chuck.

I really enjoy listening to your show. For some reason, all of our local, state, and even city political parties all seem to be affiliated with the two national parties.

You've had independent candidates running for governor in certain states that say they can't be a Democrat or Republican because that brand name is toxic in that state. Here's my question. Would it make more sense for the Democratic Party of Idaho or the Republican Party of Massachusetts and similar situations to change their name to something different than the Democrat or Republican or to carve off the state political party from the national political party names and run state candidates

for legislature for governor under a different name. Regards to Brian, well, actually that's the state of Minnesota. It's the Demoocratic Farm Labor Party and the Republican Party until recently used to be known as the Independent Republican Party. Those two state parties, and in fact, there were two parties at one time in Minnesota that make up the Democrat and Farm DFL.

It was known as Democratic Farm Labor Party. I have often wondered why parties haven't done this, and that, actually, to me, isn't such a crazy notion to this day. You know, look, the word independent is totally I can create a halo effect. And I remember, look, Minnesota always had a different type of Republican that could win because they were a member of the Independent They were I

are Independent Republican Party of Minnesota. And you had guys like Dave Durnberger Rudy Boschwitz that could win in Minnesota probably couldn't have won in many other places as a Republican. But I think if I I think this would make sense, I think it would make a ton of sense. Because again, especially if you want to believe all politics is local. Unfortunately all politics has become national. But all politics should be localized again. And one of the better ways to

do it is to in some ways be your own brand. Say, look, we're affiliating for fundraising purposes with the National Democrats or with the National Republicans, but we're kind of an independent organization. And you know, now maybe the national parties are you know, don't want their state chapters having that kind of independence, or maybe it's a way to sort of test splintering off and see how it goes on that front. But

I think it's an absolute worthy experiment. If you're the Democratic Party in South Dakota, the Republican Party in Delaware. And here's the thing, you can it's a cheap experiment, you know, because you can experiment in these smaller states, you know, these smaller sort of one party states, and see if it does have an impact, See if you're able to sort of recruit a different type of candidate.

Suddenly you might win more local elections. And ultimately, the more local elections you win, the more credibility you might get in statewide elections. And to me, if you really want to grow your state party, the goal is to win the governorship. The goal isn't to win Senate seats, the goals when once you prove you can win races locally in the state legislature and governor, everything else will take care of itself in the state. So, Brian, I think this is a great idea, and again it's it's

actually been done before. The Minnesota was sort of the prime example in the twentieth century. Both I think now they're both have gotten rid of those older names, but they were. They had their own distinct brand, and they prided themselves. You know, you'd have politicians in Miniicina. No, I'm not a Democrat. I'm a member of the Democratic farm Land Party and that was a point of pride. No, no, no, no, I'm not a National Republican. I'm a member of the

Independent Republican Party in Minnesota. That branding helped both parties, both helped candidates in both parties in that state. And Minnesota is no small state, right and they're kind of swing ish, you know, it could be a swing state. It's not quite there. I think a non Donald Trump led Republican Party could make Minnesota a bit more competitive and D versus are. For what it's worth, I think Trump is just a hard sell in the suburbs of Minnesota for people. But anyway, I think it's a again.

It's been tried and it probably should be tried again. Great suggestion, Brian. Next question comes from Jason with a w Y from California. Hy Chuck, Hearing your take on the two party system and how big these tents can get makes me wonder why more small parties are independents haven't emerged, You and me both brother huge overlooked reason seems to be battle access. Oh yeah, I don't think it's an overlooked reason. I think it is the reason.

But battle access is costly and time consuming, so only candidates back by a major party usually make it getting on the ballot. We're easier, we'd likely see more options and less polarization. It's California. I am weary of a race with one hundred plus candidates. Hello, twenty ZHO three recall election. Ah, yes, remember we had Gary Coleman, Arianna Huffington. I think there was at least one prostitute in that

race as well. Some might argue that if you're elected official, you've already prostituted yourself, but I will leave that there anyway, I keep injecting my own commentary into Jason's question. My apologies there. Back to Jason's question, But our system right now, where parties serve as king makers and create the rules that block other parties from gaining access or individuals from getting on the ballot, seems like an understated cause for

increasing polarization. What best practices would use suggest to reform battle access and open the field. Thanks Jason from California. Well, look, I'd like to try some better legal strategies. I think that there's an equal protection argument, and that it is if you can't you know the fact that there that that a third party doesn't have an equal shot at making the ballot as the two major parties doesn't. There's no there's no mention of a political party in the Constitution.

I also think taxpayer funded partisan primaries are likely unconstitutional because they they leave out they intentionally leave people out from participating unless you're a member of this private club known as either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. So I look, I think there are better legal arguments to make. But here's here's the problem. Right, you want to talk about a system that's rigged. Even the judiciary is rigged by the two party system. Why they're all

appointed by members of the two parties. But I do think a high profile effort to make this argument. I think banning partisan primaries is probably if you could ask me, what's one thing we could do to chip away at polarization in America, banning partisan primaries pure and simple, having none of it. I mean, I go back to what David Holt said. I'm guessing you guys devoured that entire

episode with the mayor of Oklahoma City. The least polarizing executive elected officials in the country are mayors, and it's because of how mayors are elected. They're not Most of them are not elected in partisan primaries. They're elected in all party primaries. They don't run with a party ID next to their name. Yes, people know who's liberal or conservative, but they don't run with a party ID next to their name, and they don't end up governing as polarizing

as now partisan governors do or partisan presidents. And here we are, so partisan primaries is the virus. It's a big one, and we need to if we need to. It's one of those things. There's a lot of things I'd like to do to open up the ballot, but you know, in some ways, let's singularly focus on what would help in the very very very near term banning

partisan primaries. So let's start there. Chris k from South Carolina Rights, is it un American to feel that control of TikTok may be less risky in the hands of China than in the hands of a few powerful of a few powerful Americans. Eke, I know where you're going here.

The current risk is unregulated propaganda and data harvesting. Than I am not sure Corporate America has made the case they would be better actors to Shay to add to the turmoil. Fourteen billion dollars sound shady, by the way, go hawks, Do we know who is good yet? Maybe? Or oh this is a separate question, and he has a separate question, do you know who's good ed yet? On college football? I'm going to get to college football in a minute. So it was a two part question.

Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it that. But look, the TikTok thing, I I don't understand why TikTok's legal Congress passed the law and and somehow Donald Trump is going to agree to an ownership structure for TikTok. That doesn't solve the initial problem, which is China controls the algorithm hard stop. China controls the algorithm concentrated. Look, we're now going to have the Ellisons owning CBS News, perhaps CNN and TikTok. That's a pretty large chunk of the news.

I mean, the public information systems shouldn't be owned by a select few people. And yet the concentration of power in our in the in the ownership of platforms, right, I mean, look at we talk about independent media. Most of us though, are basically on two platforms, Google owned YouTube or substack. Right, there's there's not a diversity per se of platform there are. You know, we probably need

to diversify. There's no doubt there is too much monopolizing of the distribution system, let alone on the content side. We're starting to see consolidation. Uh, and it's quite a bit of consolidation on the content side. So I think both of them ought to concern us. And with TikTok, it is you're right, it's the but I mean, that's always what made the It was really frustrating to hear many members of Congress correctly point out the propaganda potential

of TikTok and frankly the propaganda accomplishment of TikTok. Right. You know, you know, if you if you somehow point out what the Chinese do with the wigers, you know, nobody, nobody ever sees that. The fact that it seems to the algorithm re wards anti Israel messaging just automatically, no

matter what it is how do I know this. We did our own polling on this where TikTok users between eight and eighteen and thirty had a unfavorable rating of Israel that was twenty points higher than if you didn't regularly use TikTok. So this was already and so I

think what was so frustrating. Hear you're worried about TikTok, but you're doing nothing about X or YouTube or Instagram or anything Meta owns, right, And I think that that was why there was plenty of TikTok users are going, well, geez, I mean Amazon and Google take my data and sell it. I'm certainly not crazy about that, But how is that any more or less nefarious than what the Chinese government

is doing? At least that was the user experience. So look, I think you bring up a lot of important points. But I also think that we've this that this is another thing that you have elected Republicans who were the biggest drivers of this, who are suddenly looking the other way. Even though Donald Trump is literally ignoring the rationale for why the TikTok ban was put in in the first place, which was control of that algorithm. We still don't know

anything about it. Then Ellison's are not going to hear know anything about it there apparently is just going to be the data will be housed here. It's not about the data to me, it's about the propaganda and about that algorithm and how it's used to dial up or dial down what China cares about when it comes to

public opinion. All right, I'll do one more question h here. The next one comes from warn. Hey, I haven't heard any status about infrastructure projects that were started before the current administration where they defunded as part of BBB or are they still in progress? Thank you well, Warren, some of them have been sort of interrupted. You know, a

lot of it. The Biden administration tried to move a whole bunch of money out the door before January twentieth, but some of it has been cut via the recisions, which is arguably a part that has triggered the real shutdown showdown between Democrats and Republicans here. So that's one.

The second is you've had some of the money the Trump administration has enough authority over that they've essentially redirected it to projects that they would prefer as opposed to some of it is, for instance, going to be I think some of these projects pushed to building some of

these data centers and things like that. And then some of it is projects that the Trump administration is claiming are their ideas and they actually come from what was passed by the Biden administration and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. But for the most part, a lot of particularly the energy projects in particular, this is what Russell Voyd's been targeting.

The This is the goes back to my introduction in this in the in the full episode here today, the political targeting, you know, using what was legally passed legislation and essentially only trying to cut off Democratic funds, I guess right. And you know he pulled funding of certain clean energy projects from any state that was carried by Kamala Harris, sort of ignoring the fact that there were

a lot of Republicans in those states. You know, more people, I think more people voted for Donald Trump in La County than I think in all of Idaho or certainly all of Wyoming and a few other states like that. So it is not very smart how they do this, but it is all about getting the headline and owning the Libs and feeding the magabase who thinks this kind of weaponization of the democracy is somehow healthy and the right thing to do is they have convinced themselves that

the Democrats have governed this way. And again, it's just because your feedback loops says they did this doesn't mean the facts actually match your feedback loop. But either way, if what you think the Biden administration did was wrong, why are you cheerleading the same behavior on the right. I will pivot to my little rant of the weekend

in college football. It was sort of a relaxed weekend for me personally. Miami Hurricanes were idle. But here's my favorite stat of the week. When it comes to college football. Nine of the top seventeen teams in the preseason AP pole are unranked this week. How about that nine? Essentially the more than half of the top seventeen teams. So of course your first reaction may be, well, why do they bother with a preseason ape pole? Well, if AP didn't do it, somebody else would do it, and there'd

always be somebody trying to do preseason polls. And if nobody was doing a shoot, I'd be doing it, right. We'd all want to do it. We all think we're we all think we're we're we follow this stuff enough. By the way, I have a correction from my Thursday podcast, courtesy of my son I kept talking about. I said, hey, you should make a bet on Justin saying for the heisman. And I'm guessing that you couldn't find a Justin saying to make a bet on for the heisman because his

name's Julian. And those of you that knew his name was Julian when I was saying it, we're probably going you dumb and that or how do you not know it's Julian not Justin, etcetera, etcetera. Well, just so you know, my son was on the case. So thank you Harrison for that correction. I said I would give him for that correction. But here's where we are in college football.

When you have essentially fifty programs spending somewhere between fifteen and twenty five million dollars for roster construction, you are now professional league right among this top forty, so among those sort of seventeen, you know, among the top twenty five. Pretty much everybody Indiana spends money on roster construction. Okay, maybe they don't spend as much money yet as organ or penn state, but they're spending a lot of money.

I know Miami spends a lot of money. Florida spends a lot of money, Clemson spends a lot of You get the drift the rules of change, but in some ways, everybody's spending. And so the first couple of years, not everybody spent, and it allowed your TCUs to sort of come from nowhere and jump up right and bite everybody. And then they immediately disappeared because suddenly more people, more entities, started spending. And now we're sort of almost already at

a major power or parody in spending. And so what that means is just like it's just like the NFL, which which is a year to year league, and you know, everybody's spending about the same amount of money. It is really hard. Yes, you have two or three or four franchises, are you know, can can can be in the can be in the top tier of the league for four or five years at a time. But you're gonna have teams go in and go out, and you're also going

to have sort of chapters to your seasons. Like I also think it's a little early for us to assume we know that the two lost, two loss teams now are terrible and that the undefeated teams now are going to be the ones that make the playoff. Right, You now have a situation where you're gonna have ebbs and flows right and one, and you can you know, teams may lose. Look, Florida State's lost three in a row.

Penn States lost three in a row. U I didn't see it coming with Florida State, by the way, that has not been very popular in my household, as some of you may be aware. But they also certainly had some holes in their roster construction, and nobody should have expected them to go from a two and ten season to playoff contention right away. But they pull an early upset, and so everybody sort of got over enthused, kind of like you know what happens to a two and o team.

You're like, oh, wow, like last year the New Land Saints for two and oh they suddenly were terrible. Right, So, just like in the NFL, you don't know who's good early. Are the Chargers a good team or not? I'm not sure. They almost lost to the Dolphins today. They did lose last week, but they started off too, and oh and looked amazing. My Packers looked amazing the first two weeks. Then they lost a game to Cleveland tie Dallas. We'll find out how they do the rest of the season.

So I do think that college football now is going to look more and more like the NFL. There's there's more parody. So you're going to have a year where a couple of years where in Indiana is contending, and then they may, you know, fall short on their ability to find the right defensive lineman and offensive linemen they need to sort of keep in the top tier, and so they may slip back. Right, That's what happened to

Florida State, That's what's happened in to a Clemson. You know, I've got to sort of prepare for that with Miami. And I think this idea that you can expect your team in college football to win ten games or more five, six, seven years in a row is totally unrealistic because nobody has depth anymore. Right, Georgia and Alabama, Miami and it's heyday, they could stock bile talent. The greatest college football team of all time might be the two thousand and one

Miami Hurricane National championship team. I say, might I accept the twenty nineteen LSU team as a contender for that spot. Right, Miami had a third string running back named Frank Gore on that team. Right. The first string running back was and Portous, His backup was a guy named Willis mcgahey, and the third string one was Frank Gore, who's going to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. So the point is is that in this day and age of nil, Frank Gore doesn't stick at Miami for two years waiting

his turn. He's probably in another roster. And I think that's what you're going to see with college football, and that's probably why we're seeing where because you cannot you know, you don't have the depth, and it's really now a

war of attrition. The teams that can stay the healthiest or the ones that are going to be there and the teams that sort of end up with some injuries or bad luck or the wrong you know, turns out somebody just wasn't as good of a quarterback as they thought they were going to be, or wasn't as good of a receiver as you thought they were going to be.

There goes your season because there isn't a guy waiting in the wings that you could just tap into, and I think in some ways that's what we should be realized. Thing is that college now that college football has been professionalized, it's going to resemble the quirks of the NFL. And in many ways I would argue that college football in the sort of the top forty programs looks a heck of a lot like the NFL, more like the NFL than it does what college football look like even six, seven,

eight years ago. As for who's good, I think everybody agrees that Ohio State and Miami seem to be good. They look good statistically, and they've looked good on the field. I could make an argument if I really, if I really want, I don't want Miami to be ranked number one. I don't like the statistic that's out there already that says Miami is the best chance of finishing undefeated. Look, I am well aware. You know, despite what the SEC thinks,

everybody's conference road games are hard. It's not just in the SEC conference. Road games mean more in every conference and they're very difficult. And Miami has only had to play one road game so far. So I am fully on upset alert for the rest of the season. If we can just get through the season with one loss,

we'll be fine, thankfully. That's how the college football playoff system has now made it where you don't have to be perfect if you're not a member of the SEC like you were even when we were in our top four, right, and sometimes perfection only doesn't work if you lose your starting quarterback, as Florida State found out. Because the ESPN Invitational is just that, it is an invitational, and even

at twelve teams, it's still an invitational. And clearly what the matchups are, etc. Are going to have the networks are going to have to say on all that. But I think we know this much. We know how State's good, we know Miami's good. Is Indiana in that top three or not? Right, you start doing the you know, I think Indiana has looked impressive. I think they do. I

think they're part of it. But if you want a question Indiana by saying, well, Oregon beat a Penn State team that turned out to be terrible, are they terrible? Are they just missing Tyler Warren? I do think that's something we have to realize, right Tyler Warren was so good at Penn State, and without him there, it's it is set Drew allerback. Obviously, now he's injured, so he's totally set back for the season. But even before he got injured, he didn't look like the same quarterback. Tyler.

Warren made every made that team, made that offense incredibly hard to stop. He was a unicorn. How good is he He's turned He's helped turn the Indianapolis Colts into a top tier NFL team this year. So clearly they miss him and miss him a lot. But I think those are the you know, you look at those three teams and then after that, oh Miss almost lost to Washington State, a group of five teams. You know, I guess they're still you can say they're they're still technically

member of the two right now. But this is a team that has just been devastated by the portal. Right They've lost their last two starting quarterbacks, Scamboard to Miami, John Mitteer to Oklahoma, and they lost their coaching staff.

They're they're they're great offensive coordinator to Oklahoma as well with matir Uh And yet they went into Oxford and almost beat Ole Miss. I guess The good news is, if you're a long time Lane Kiffin watcher, you could argue the way I argue so far with Mario, which is, hey, uh, Lane Kiffin blows that game two years ago. At least he didn't blow it this time. And that's kind of the way I look at it. I still think Old Miss is going to be there at the end. And I think text A and M is the best team

in the SEC. And I think they're better than Ole Miss by a by a little bit more than than than the than the rankings indicate Alabama is certainly vulnerable. They're not. They're not, and and limp, can I just say this, Georgia only won because of the official in that Auburn dorga game that was an atrociously officiated game. And you know, normally, normally most games where fans complain about the officiating, myself included, you know, you're only seeing

the calls that go against you. You're not really processing the calls that go for you or the calls that go against the opponent. You don't really sort of have the same emotional and I do think it's sort of like, you know, those that judge officiating as fans are like partisans trying to claim they can identify media bias. Right, no partisan. I always laugh at people that accuse me of bias. It's always somebody from the from hard left or hard right, And I'm like, how do you guys

know what bias looks like? Right? You're upset if people aren't biased in your direction. That's what you view as political bias. Like those that clown show that the Bozell family that has turned into a family grift. It's some sort of grifting business that that thing in the entire Bozell family makes money off of this off this group that claims there's there's somehow left wing bias hidden everywhere in America, and a whole bunch of right wingers like

Bozell who thought Nixon didn't commit crimes. The old Man is somehow an arbiter of neutrality. Anyway. I'm not saying there's not biased in different places. I'm saying the Bozells don't have the qualifications to identify it. And it's that way with many fans. We don't have the qualifications to identify I didn't really have a I didn't really have a rooting interest in Georgia Auburn. I've got a lot of in laws that are Auburn fans, so I want to see Auburn do well. But I hate Hugh Freeze.

I don't like that guy, I'll admit, so I struggle with you know, with my with my in laws on that. I'm like, yeah, okay, but why Hugh Freeze. But you know what, ask any Auburn fan and they sort of like, yeah, you Freeze. They're not they they know it, right, But those were just some terrible calls, and I, you know, Georgia gets I certainly hope the following isn't happening that somehow SEC officials because this is not a great year for the SEC. It doesn't appear they have four or

five great teams ap peers. They might have one great team in Texas A and M, and a couple of good teams. No different than the Big Ten, no different than the ACC, no different than the Big twelve. They just look like another conference this year. They don't look like the SEC. Right, But how badly does the SEC want to protect its big brands? Right? Are Alabama and Georgia going to continue to get calls for the rest

of the year like this? You know, and is Texas and Oklahoma sort of in that same category where those teams will get calls more likely, right, Oklahoma got it against Auburn. Now Auburn, you know, didn't get a call against Georgia. I hesitate to see how the refereeing looks when Auburn has to play Alabama. But my good, the refs decided that game when they didn't award that touchdown to Jackson Arnold and they gave it a turnover that it flipped the game completely. Instead of seventeen to nothing

at halftime, it was ten to three. And that was a massive, massive swing. By what was again, I mean you break the plane period, right it is? And by the way, guys, in this day and age, can we please create some sort of new barrier right where and a chip in the ball so that the second it crosses that goal line, you know right that, you know it,

you see it. You can't tell me we don't have the technology to be able to do that rather than having all of these days, because here's the other thing you have is that not every every NFL game has every camera angle that you would want for replay, but not every college game has that. The big time college games right that are gonna get covered in primetime by your Fox, your NBC, your your NBC, and your Fox

at CBS and ESPN. They there's about six or seven games that'll have seventeen eighteen different cameras, but most of the other games don't have that many cameras because the networks are wanting to spend that kind of money for what might be a streaming game, or what might be an ESPN two or CBO Sports Network or if this one peacock you get it right. So, like I was watching the Florida State pit game. They didn't have a camera angle right down the goal line, so they couldn't

tell for sure. They did a review of a touchdown that I'm pretty sure was a touchdown, but they didn't. It's because they didn't have a camera angle to dispute it even if you wanted to dispute it. That seems like, look, if you're gonna do replay and we have the ability, my god, we can put GoPros everywhere. Now. This is not a high cost the way it even was just five or six years ago. If you do care about the outcomes of these games and you want to make

sure we always get it right. Let's make sure we have all the equipment at all the games that are getting televised and that are going to use replay. You can't just sort of be glad that, oh well, hey, because believe it or not, I don't know if we would have had that camera angle that Georgia Auburn had which showed Arnold the ball crossing the goal line before it was punched out. I don't know if you would have had that at the U. Mass Can't State game.

Then again, maybe we didn't need any replay officials for the U. Mass can Stake game. All right, there's my college football rant for the week. So there you go. Appreciate it, Appreciate you here. I hope you enjoy If you have a holiday today, I hope you're enjoying it. For those that are nervous about getting their paycheck due

to the government shutdown, I'm sorry. I hope this podcast and the attention that we give to it serves as at least something that can be done there and maybe at worst or at best, my podcast is a distraction for the day. So with that, thank you for listening, Thank you for liking and subscribing. Thank you for all those five star reviews hint, and with that, I'll see you in forty eight hours.