Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Is Exhibiting 25th Amendment Behavior + Why Anti-Corruption Could Be A Powerful Electoral Issue

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the financing of campaigns. Essentially thanks to Citizens United and thanks to the belief in our judiciary system that money is speech that without a constitutional amendment, there really is no law that will successfully sort of get through the courts and pass muster in order to limit the influence

of money. I think the debate about the First Amendment is I think we are having a debate about amplification of your right to free speech. I think we all agree everybody's a right to free speech.

and how do we get rid of partisan primaries. In this case, I think there is agreement that we've gotten sort of you know, we don't know how to do anything anymore in moderation, right, we take a little thing and we go to an extreme, right. I mean we do this in society all the time. We should pay

players in college sports, yes, but the system we created creates all sorts of essentially absurdities in the market. Should sports betting be open to all fifty states instead of the state of Nevada? I think we thought, okay, that's fair. How we've allowed this system to populate and sort of consume the lives of some people is kind of out of control, right, every we go from we have a system that seems to only know how to regulate when we let things go to excess, right, We don't seem

to know how to do it that way. So in this case, I think we all know now money and

politics has gotten crazy. Just to give you a sense of it. In twenty twelve, I had this idea at NBC to audit the two presidential campaigns after the fact, Obama and Romney. And my thesis was, this was the first time that both campaigns each spent a billion dollars. It's the first billion dollar campaign. Obama had a billion, Romney had kind of just under a billion, but if

you throw in all the outside money, it was Basically it was the first time we had a billion. To put that in perspective. In two thousand, both Al Gore and George W. Bush were within state, within the system, which meant it was publicly funded general election campaigns. Bush did not take public funding during his primary campaign, but

he did during his general election campaign. Basically, it limited both sides to sixty five million dollars, so we more than ten x from the general election in twenty to twenty twelve.

billion dollars, so it combined two billion dollars. And now we're gonna have one singular US Senate race. They might not even decide the balance of power in the United States Senate. Okay, cost a billion dollars. So we have gotten to absurd degrees of money. And I think everybody's fine with small donors populating these things. You're not going to see many people say that that's a bad idea.

It's the large donations. It's the anonymity of the large donations, etc. It is the idea that an outside group can essentially spend more than the two actual campaigns combined, and they can decide what the agenda is, not the actual voter powered campaign. So, you know, we have created a system that is definitely in need of some sort of regulation. Congress is actually tried, but the courts have said they're

all unconstitutional. So if that's the case, then there really is only one answer on the on campaign finance, and it is that is that's why if you believe in term limits, well those have all been struck down as unconstitutional. It was a big movement in the nineties. A bunch of states past term limits for members of Congress. None of them pass constitutional muster because once you put in age required, you know, it's sort of that was the

only there was. The only requirement was age in the constitution, and so they were not considered constitutional. If you want term limits in, you're going to have to put a constitutional amendment in. We have one constitutional amendment that has to do with term limits. It's term limits for the presidency. So there are certain things where the judiciary decided to overrule the legislative branch. And when it turns when it

comes to campaign finance laws, the judiciary has written the legislation. They are legislating from the bench. There is nobody that passed a law wanting super PACs. There is nobody that passed the law that wanted unlimited money in politics. Those laws did not pass, they were interpreted after legal rulings. And so I think the case to put in to put this in and it's interesting and you'll hear I don't think this is you know, this gets you know, we get to the you know where each party on this.

But there's an argument for both conservatives and progressives that you want to you want to you want a fair fight, and the way we finance our campaigns makes it where there is no such thing as a as a fair fight. So that's the conversation. I kind of think we're we're, uh, we're on the cusp, as I've said before, where we're going to get more and more interest in doing this with our constitution. Can we get thirty eight states interested?

Can you get Congress to pass a law anyway? We go through all the mechanics of this as well as the larger idea with Jeff. I think it's for those of you concerned about that issue, I think you will enjoy that conversation. I'm also going to have my top five list, and for those of you looking for a holiday guide. In some ways, my Top five list will serve a bit as a holiday guide buying guide for the for the person who wants to feel extraordinarily well

informed about the zeitgeist of the world and of America. I hope my Top five list will do that for you. But before we begin, I want to pick up on something that I did it, you know, which is, you know, we're in one of those moments where we're trying to figure out does this latest outrage mean anything, And of course the outrage being you know, Donald Trump's just horrendous comments about Rob Reiner and his wife and the death

and the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. And you know, in some ways it's not a new debate, right Donald Trump has put us in this position before. Donald Trump has embarrassed us collectively as a country, collectively, as a society, collectively as a human species. Right he just this is what he does. And I know that we've been at these moments before or where he says something so outrageous, Well this, you know, nobody can survive this, well, nobody other than Donald Trump.

remotely negative about Charlie Kirk, you know, in some cases, got him doxed, got him fired, cost them jobs, And then all of a sudden, we have behavior modeled by the President of the United States that if anybody else

behaved this way in the workplace, they'd be fired. Of course, he's done this multiple times, right, this is not the first time he's done something that if any of us did it, it would cost us our marriage, it would cost us relationships, it would cost us our jobs, it would cost us our cost us our you know, whatever, our whatever place we feel like we are in society, you know, we might be shunned, we might be ostracized, and frankly, in some of the behavior you know that

is that is it's sometimes the only the only thing we have. You'd be shamed, right, We know that the real superpower of Donald Trump is shamelessness. It's fascinating to see on the heels of this story because I'll tell you what, really what I couldn't shake with the with the Reiner story with Trump. As appalling as the first tweet was, it was the second it was the second time he dealt with it when he when he sort

of reinforced the tweet on camera. Because I actually think that this space signal a larger, more alarming issue that if we take seriously people's concerns about Joe Biden and his loan term, then we need to start taking seriously about whether he's all there and how quickly you know you're going to it's going to sound like I'm trolling him,

but you know, at what point is his behavior twenty fifth Amendment alarming type of behavior? Because think about it this way, there's probably two things that may have happened in between Donald Trump tweeting what he did on social on his truth social platform and reiterating what he said on camera about Rob Reiner. One would two things happened or didn't happen, right, Either somebody said to him, perhaps

it was the chief of staff, Suzie Wiles. We're going to get to her in a minute, but perhaps it was said, hey, you know at the Reiner stuffs, they'd be careful that didn't you know, I don't know what you intended to say.

the case asking questions about whether Biden was the same Biden, you would show Biden clips doing interviews in twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, even twenty sixteen, and you would see, my god, that's not even the same Joe Biden as twenty nineteen. That's it was my impression. I spent a lot of time at Joe Biden in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty before the pandemic, and I thought he had definitely slowed down.

It was the same Joe Biden, but an older version, and he definitely seemed to lack the same energy he once had. He wasn't the glad hander. He was certainly a talker, but he wasn't as fast as a.

other excuse and things like that. It was definitely some form of a you know, you can call it a cover up, but it was definitely, you know, it was definitely some form of rationalization for why there is they were. They were certainly concerned and sensitive to the age issue, sensitive to the idea that he wasn't and they were kind of always trying to push back on this idea that he wasn't up to the child, up to the job,

or as energetic as he once was. With Donald Trump, it's admittedly a little bit harder, right because you know, Donald Trump has had erratic behavior for years. Right, this is not new his erratic behavior. And so as the title of my substack goes, how will we know? Right, we had a clear idea that something had changed about Joe Biden because his speech text had changed. His energy

levels were clearly different. He was you know, more spry, he was walking, he was younger, you know, all those things. There were physical changes that you couldn't ignore and the public side, right some eight you know, that's why the numbers were consistently in the seventies and eighties, you know, which is why I've just sort of, you know, the false narrative that somehow the media was covering this up? What is there to cover up? Media was the one

asking pole questions. Do I think there were some within the White House Press score that could have been more aggressive? Absolutely? But I kind of think, you know, we you know, it's not like the media didn't show the footage. It's not like the media didn't let you know he was taking the short staircase. It's not like the med you know, media didn't show you him shuffling around and tripping over sandbags, things.

in his own bubble is filtered bubble that is more so today than he's ever had before. He's got surrounded by yes people and sycophans, who don't want I don't think want to present him with the with reality if reality the only show him reality when reality looks good for him. They don't show him reality when it paints an ugly picture for him. And so he definitely seems more detached from reality today than he did when he

first entered the political arena. But you know, the Donald Trump of ten years ago, when a celebrity died, his narcissism would put him, would sort of link him up. He would say, you know I was in his movies, or you know I was able. You know, he's most

and in this case with Michelle Reiner who took the photo, who was the photographer for the Art of the Deal photo that Donald Trump posed for back in the eighties, you know, the old Donald Trump, the guy who was you know, just as shameless, but in that sort of I've got something to sell you shamelessness would have said, boy, her career would have been nothing without me, Her career wouldn't have happened without me. They in some ways that

would have been the normal. Oh boy, there he goes, putting, making everything about himself, which he always does, but sort of within his own weird semi positively, it would at least try to say, hey, they were successful, but he

would try to take credit for their success. This time, he's in this really ugly place right where he just assumes, you know, because by the way, imagine like, you know, he because there's another alternative here that he said that because he feared one of his supporters did this, which in itself is such a warped version of thinking. Right, can you imagine that he actually said it because that's what he thought was going to be the case, That in itself is troubling behavior. But you know, he's an

eighty year old man, and any of us with older relatives have experienced the older relative with no filter or with less filter who doesn't feel like they have to round the edges of commentary anymore, that they can just well, it doesn't matter, man, Grandpa's got to be grandpa, grandma's got to be grandma, uncle's got to be uncle. Ann's

going to etcetera, etcetera. But he's president of the United States, and we don't know when he blurts one of these bizarre things that he says in front of a world leader that actually changes the nature of our relationship with

said country. These are things that should concern us and if you were is you know, do we have and given what we just learned with the Vanity Fair story that you know, it's funny with the Vanity Fair story, it sort of confirms everything that I'd been hearing about the role Susie Wilds plays that she is try She is the sort of the reality you know, she's the reality check. But she's got a light touch, right, She's kind of a she sees things the way most normal

people see things. But she's gonna let the process play out and just clean up the worst messes, you know, just try to try to steer a choppy shift a ship through choppy waters. And you know, they've sort of given up on the small stuff, and I think they would put mean tweets under the category of small stuff.

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the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, life insurance is something you should really think about it, especially if you've got a growing family. To me, it's an alarming moment where you have to start the question is he all there all the time? Is he so consumed with himself? The fact that he can't concentrate all

the time? I bet the fact that in the Wall Street Journal interview, he's doing an interview and then he takes a call, and then the Interior Secretary, Doug Bergram, wants to talk with him about remodeling the DC golf courses, and you're what what And you're in the middle of doing this interview. I mean, I appreciate that the journal

people told us about that. I mean, I think it's a terrible look politically that he cares more about redesigning Washington, DC's three public golf courses than he does about lowering the price of electricity or lowering the price of groceries, right, like you could those TV ads right themselves. But that's also another sign of of sort of you know, where you can't keep concentration, you can't keep focus that you're

sort of that you're erratic. Now again, he's kind of been this way all the time, So it is going

to be harder. While it was easier us for us to see sort of the the you know, we could just see boy Biden used to be this, Now he's this. That evolution of Trump is harder to fully appreciate because he's kind of always been kind of outrageous, He'll always say, but it was sort of it felt like it was planned outrage in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. This feels a lot more sort of unfiltered, unpasteurized, if you will,

on this front. But my point is is that for all of those folks on the right that we're concerned about whether or not the staff was running things, whether it's about Joe Biden's faculties were all there, I would argue the behavior we've seen of this president, particularly over the last few months, given his age, given how quickly this stuff happens. I mean, look, we are not getting a straight story about his current health. You don't go through as many he's had I think three annual physicals

this year. You get my point, right, That's what they keep calling him, he keeps going back. They keep calling

a routine you know, you know, it's not routine going back to the doctor more than once a year. I mean, something out of the ordinary that they're concerned about the fact that, you know, he seemed to tell us that the last time he took a one of these cognitive tests, there was an audience. That's interesting. Why was there an audience? Why were there so many people observing this? What was the concern? Were there more experts that were brought in?

It is, there is something different, and there is more You can feel the sort of concern about I don't know, you know, I'm not going you know, there's fear of ever contradicting him. There's fear of pushing back at him. There's fear of telling him news he doesn't want to hear. These were all concerned that people had on the right, in particular with Joe Biden in twenty twenty three and

twenty twenty four. So again, if you're looking to to find out who's high on the hypocrisy scale of concern, you know, watch the people that express the most concern about Joe Biden's faculties. See pretty much everybody in primetime on Fox News and ask them if this behavior were at all being you know, if this were Biden a second term of Biden behaving this way, I wonder what the coverage would be on primetime of Fox right. But in all, you know, snark aside, this unfiltered behavior is

alarming for either one of two things. One, he was told this is not good and he still can't help himself, which means he's got a self control issue. He's got a staff so afraid of telling him bad news that they won't do it, and therefore he was why he ended up doubling down on this in the first place. Whatever the answer is, neither is good for the country. Neither is good, by the way, for the Republican Party.

And I'll ask you know, if JD. Van's and Marco Rubio right, they're going to have to they want to succeed this presidency, one of them does. Look at how unhappy the voters are with the Democratic Party, even though they're voting for Democrats right now. Right, we saw this in Virginia, majority had an unfavorable view of the party. Well, what's driven that? What what's driven that? Was this idea that they all had their head in the sand when

it came to Biden in twenty twenty four. And there's a lot of resentment among Democrats for how Democratic leaders look the other way when there was an obvious, slow motion train wreck taking place with the vot voters were concerned about long before there was a debate between Trump and Biden on June twenty seventh, twenty twenty four. The

voters have been pretty angry about it. You know, I think if you want to know why there's such limited trust in Chuck Schumer by fellow Democrats and Akeem Jeffries, it's the entire Democratic leaders in Washington are just seen as somehow they were in kahoots and they had their head in the sand when it came to the Biden thing. Well,

these same voters are going to have the same reaction if it appears that Trump progressively gets worse, his behavior gets more erratic, you have sort of more you know, enablers not wanting to either say something, and you know we're finding out today. Look the few sober quotes that Susie Wiles did give a reporter and this case a

biographer and Chris Whipple. She didn't like what it looked like once they went public, and there's a fear that the president can't handle any sort of criticism or analytical criticism,

or even just sort of acknowledging when there are tough moments or when there are awkward things that happen in the administration, which only serves to concern me that when you really need somebody to step in, are they going to be willing to do it? Are they going to be willing to say, hey, man, the emperor has no clothes here. We have got to acknowledge this. We cannot

continue to pretend this isn't happening. I think it's a legitimate concern, and I think in some ways the president's own behavior, the odd things he has said about his own health, and then the erratic nature of what he did with Reiner and some other folks. I think this is a storyline that's only going to grow. And you know, he's not getting younger, This is not going to get better. This is only going to become more obvious. Look, we don't see him travel the country, and I think there's

a reason for it. Right, just like with Joe Biden, you got to ask yourself, boy, Normally in a president in this situation would be traveling the country to try to sell his agenda and he's not doing it.

current president and the situation that he's in. Now. All right, before I go to my interview, I want to share with you a poll that came to me via the search Light Institute. Now, if you recall that may seem familiar to some of you listeners out there, I had interviewed the founder of search Light Institute, which is search Light is the hometown search Light, Nevada is the hometown

of Harry Reid. Adam Gentilssen, of former Harry Reid staffer, started this up and it's basically an attempt to try to move the Democratic Party in a more pragmatic direction. I wouldn't even say ideologically moderate, just more of a mainstream sort of try to make the party more big ten again between progressive in the center a little bit and so. But they did a poll on corruption, and why I find it interesting, it's sort of it was

sort of the question is what is corrupt? What do the voters think is corrupt versus sort of what the definition perhaps we in the media have, you know, you know, when I say think of the word corrupt, I think of like, who's ripping off taxpayers? Right? But what's interesting

is what the voters themselves view as corrupt. And they asked a terrific question, and the question was this, if you describe a politician as corrupt, what are you saying about them? And then they offer, please select one that comes closest to your view, and the number one answer was not somebody that was stealing taxpayer dollars. It was using public office for personal financial gain.

off of the crypto market. Jeez, I don't know what two families might might have qualified for that, but that was the number one definition of corrupt. The number two most popular definition of corrupt politician was this they change rules to hold onto power instead of improving lives. Well,

basically that's re redistricting. They simply want to pick voters, pick voters that they don't have to persuade. They pick more voters that are already on their side, so they don't have to do the hard work of representative democracy.

thousand dollars or more is a lot of money. Okay, you know, that's purchasing a home type of money that you write that to send your kid to college type of money. And they're considered they're not considered big donors anymore. They're just considered middle class donors.

the influence of voters. Arguably that's arguably the big donors. And then in the single digits you have they trade favors with lobbyists or special interests. They cater only to the extremes that don't look out for everyone. What's interesting is that none of the definitions were they steal money.

in the way of you representing the average person. And this is a case where the voters are ahead of the politicians, right. The politicians don't speak of corruption this way. Right, they speak of corruption like breaking the law, corruption thinking, because I think they're all afraid that if you define corruption the way the public defines it, which is profiting, you know, having you know, essentially personal financial gain while

serving in office, you know, trying to just stay into office, always worrying about raising money, always catering to donors. A lot of politicians, if you said, do you think that's corrupt, like, wow, the system's corrupt, but I'm not, you know, they might blame the system.

thirty six percent believe government serves them well. Fifty seven percent believes they do not serve racial or ethnic minorities very well at all, or not well at all completely or not not well completely all. How about you personally? You personally, that number is thirty is just under forty percent. So this isn't one of those cases where well, I think Congress is, but I like my member of Congress, I don't think Congress looks out for the interest of

everybody else, but they also look out for me. Nope, you know they most people think they they're served slightly better in government than racial and ethnic minorities, but not too well. And then when you throw out ordinary people, that number is.

just say, hey, do you want government to serve you better? This is why it doesn't serve you well. The system is rigged against you, which I think the folks believe the system is rigged against them. They just have yet to find a politician that has sold them a struck sure that makes sense and that they believe will work.

All right, but guess what how much corruption do you think there was in the Biden administration? Well, twenty eight percent said there was a great deal, another thirteen percent said there was a moderate amount, another twelve percent said there was a small amount, Which means you had a majority that believed there was some corruption. You only had forty seven percent. So you have thirty nine percent believe there's no corruption in Trump administration, and you have forty

seven percent believing there's no corruption. This is just among independents, but a majority of independents believe there's some form of corruption in the Biden administration. A majority of independents say there's some form of corruption in the Trump administration. Look, the point they're trying to say. I think the point that Searchlight is trying to say is we look framing. Framing reform issues through the lens of corruption might get

people's attention better. Right, if you talk about the financing

of campaigns through a through the prism of corruption. If you talk about the lack of regulation of big tech through the prism of corruption, if you talk about entrenched power in term limits through the prism of corruption, you're more likely to get an audience to listen to you, and most importantly, you're going to be able to talk to the voters who are the most skeptical of the two parties right now, those that are self described independence

are no parties. So anyway, in this moment that we're living in, right, we're basically, you know, we've got back to back presidencies where we're not quite sure that the actual president you know, is up to the job, you know, has the temperament of the faculties to do the job the way it needs to be done. You also then have a growing coalition of voters that are believing the system itself is rotting. And this is this Look.

we had members of Congress. We were just two years removed from a check where members of Congress could bounce checks without having a bank account. It was just weird system where only Congress could write checks for money that they didn't have.

corruption fueling that one. But when you see for the most our corruption usually plays role, especially when you see a total flip. Right ninety four, both the House that Republicans went, both the House and the Senate. There was this, you know, movement for term limits, movement for against entrenched power. You had the check bouncing scandal, et cetera. Two thousand

and six also saw both houses flip. In this case it was Republican a Democrat, you know, the addition of the Jack Abramoff stuff and sort of the takeover of K Street.

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got my top five list. It is Wednesday to Top five top estop and I thought i'd give you the opportunity to give you maybe the Chuck Todd Holiday Book buying gift guide, if you will. These are five books that I think are worth reading this year. Doesn't mean they are my five favorite books of the year, but they were five books that I found informative, important.

this book? Well, this is a book that got very little attention when it came out. He wrote this book probably assuming he was never going to work in another Trump administration. The book came out just after the twenty twenty election. Kevin Hassett worked in the first trumpet. He's one of the few people that worked in a high profile position in the first Trump administration as an economic advisor and has made it to a second Trump administration.

It's basically him. Steven Miller, right, and I guess Russell Voight was was there, but more in a in a lower capacity. But Kevin Hassett very well, maybe the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and so understanding his worldview and much of his worldview, he's sort of The point of The Drift is he basically defends the Trump era,

defends his work with Trump and the Trump era. As look, there may be a lot of things not to like about Donald Trump the person, which he's sort of, which he hinsid in this book, but that he was a necessary correction for what was a drift towards socialism that was taking place not just inside the Democratic Party but in various institutions of academy and the media, etc. It

is how he frames his book. Regardless of whether you agree with that framing or not, I would argue, if you want to be a well informed person about understanding where's the FED going, what does Hassett believe? How does he interpret Trump's beliefs? How does he defend Trump? Kevin asked somebody who sort of came up in the world of the same world that Alan Greenspan came up through. You know, he was sort of an acolyte at times

of green Span. So I think it is It is as illuminating as any ex staffer book is going to be, because what this book wasn't unlike say Pence's book or John Bolton's book. It is it's a total evisceration of Donald Trump. It is more of an observation. You know, there's he takes pride. So it is not an antagonistic book on Trump, but I think it's one of these. I don't think people realized he wrote a book. It

didn't get a lot of attention. It's you know, it's it's not the I'm not going to tell you it's the world's greatest read, but I think it's an important read. I know some of you listen to my podcast just for you know, whether you love or hate the direction I take this podcast. You were looking for usable information, Well, I would tell you reading this book will give you plenty of usable information to navigate a FED and a

central bank that could be run by Kevin Hassett. And you get to get ahead of the game, get to know the book before senators start asking him questions during his confirmation hearing about the book. All right, so that's number five. Number four is the Mark Twain book by Ron Churnout. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I'll be honest, not as much as I enjoyed his

Grant Book. I did enjoy his Grant Book more, but I learned a lot about Mark Twain, and in some ways, Mark Twain is arguably, you know, the closest thing that we had in the nineteenth century to a quote unquote influencer, right, an outsider and outside force who could who could stir the pot of the country and could galvanize the country on certain issues if he so chose. You know, now we have a million Mark Twain's right. You know, would today's Mark. Would Mark Twain himself be on YouTube? He

probably would. He certainly would have a Would he have a podcast or would he be more.

that moment. So but I think that Twain in some ways the quintessential American, a model for so many, so many of us, good, bad or otherwise just a it's

a timely it's a timely moment. It's timely, you know it's it's timely. It's a wrong word. No, it's more of a timeless biography, if you will. But I think an important one, and it came out this year, so I definitely think it should be on your gift liss.

he didn't know anything about it. It's amazing how little of our own, a little of our local history. We sometimes know the good or the bad history. And so

in some ways, reading the book, I hope a lesson to hey, don't forget to look around where you live. Don't forget to learn the history of your own neighborhood. You may be surprised on how much you learn and how much it may matter in the in the grand scheme of things. So that's number three. Number four on my list is one hundred and seven Days Kamala Harris's memoir about her campaign.

disagreed with him on it. I understood the case saying, well, you know, she made everybody mad, and it's true, right, she seems to have she seems to have thrown a few matches at a few of the bridges that she's crossed over the years. Right then, maybe she burned a bridge with Biden World, Maybe she burned a bridge with Josh Shapiro, Maybe she burned a bridge with Mark Kelly. Maybe she burned a bridge with Gavin Newsom. But there was another part of me that was surprised at her

candor and she didn't play the type. You know, she's been a politician that's been very careful over the years, and she chose to be less careful in this memoir. Is this a different Kamala Harris? Is this the beginning of a different relationship she wants to have with with her political career, a different way she would go about running for office.

the director's notes help you understand the movie even a little bit better.

rise of Hitler. Why did it fall? How did it collapse? What were the warning signs. There's a lot of commentary about how democracies fail, how republics die. Well, this is an example of a republic that died one hundred years ago and in its place came made off Hitler. How did it happen? How could such a modern westernized place do this. Let's just say I have found it both reassuring and arming, but most importantly it's eye opening.

You read all five of these books. Okay, you read all five of these books, and I think you will be as well informed and as ready for the political landscape that we are all having to navigate going in

to twenty twenty six. So my five books, The Drift by Kevin Hassett, The Mark Twain Biography by Ron Chernoud, the Barn, the place where Ed Mattil was killed by Wright Thompson one hundred and seven days by Kamala Harris, and my number one recommendation book that you should be reading going into twenty twenty six fateful hours, the collapse

of the wim Are Republic.

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the Indiana Republicans, and YadA, YadA, YadA. So it is, you know, it is part of this is just time, right, No political movement has that I can think of in our history, has been able to go more than more than eight to ten years. And we're sort of we're at the end, right, We're at the We're at the We're.

none of us have thought of won't create a rally around the flag effect. There's always there are always possibilities. There's always the one percent, the two percent chances where things go another direction. But on the trajectory we're on and assuming sort of you know, events that take place within the normal sort of set of expectations that we have, this is only going to get more acute. And then, of course, on the writer thing, I really think it.

I think there's a reason I'm framing it as a do we need to be thinking about whether he's this is the beginning of his own downfall of is just his basic capacity. If you don't have a filter for something like this anymore, what else is not going so well? So I think this is one of those that we needed this. This for me is a bit more alarming because either staff was afraid to tell him this was crazy or they did and he did it anyway, right,

And so these felt significant enough. So I appreciate you noticing, but I promise you I don't want to go down, you know, chasing every squirrel down that road.

have the have the worst of all worlds, right they they have the they're an incumbent without any of the upside of incumbency. They only have the downsides of it. So there's that, right, And Ashley Moody's you know, she's not a well known political figure yet, but Florida's very expensive, and that Florida Democratic Party is just structurally so far behind, you know, shared Brown has an organization that these almost

turn key for Ohio Democrats. And even though that's a state where overall the Democratic Party is in worshi Democratic maybe brand is in worship in Ohio than it is in Florida. Structurally, they're already more competitive Iowa be in a smaller state. They have a very strong gubernatorial candidate in Rob Sand That also helps it be competitive. I do think that if the governor's race gets competitive, then the Senate race will automatically start to get more competitive.

Keep an eye out on Jared Moscowitz. I think if he ends up running. He's a member of Congress. He's been on this podcast, he said. I asked him point blank if he was thinking about running statewide and he said, well, if they redistrict me and he would be among the targets. And I do think Florida still might. I mean, I'll be curious to see whether Indiana's rejection of redistricting if

it means the fever's broken. But if we do have two more states that engage in this, it's gonna be Florida in Virginia, one for the Team Red and one for Team Blue. And we'll see what kind of We'll know pretty quickly. I think Jared moscow It's could be a very powerful Senate candidate if because he said, if he gets redistrict he represents of northern Broward County southern Palm Beach County, they could sort of make it a bit you know already was only sort of a I

think a plus two Harris district. He could turn. It could turn into something that he's buyinging. And he basically said if if they go after his district, then he'll probably just run for the Senate. There's a candidate in there now, somebody who's a school board part of the school board wars with the Moms of Liberty. It's an organization on the left that went after Moms for Liberty and somebody there. But you know she's got a You're not going to get a financial commitment unless you get

a higher profile candidate. Moscowtz might be a high profile enough where he could bring a decent a decent financial following with him. But I don't think the Senate race gets competitive without the governor's race being competitive, and that's

an open question. I do think that Democrats ended up with two pretty good candidates in the governor's race, and David Johny and Jerry dem One could argue one of them out a run in the center race, that they've got too many good candidates in the governor's race, not enough good candidates in the Senate race. But we'll say, but I do think it should be. But the cost

is it's so prohibitive. I think they're more likely to spend money targeting Mississippi and trying to put Mississippi in play, which is not as far fetched as you might think, because five million dollars, you know, an extra five to ten million dollars in Mississippi would have a huge impact. An extra five to ten million dollars in Florida would have minimal impact. Next question comes from tboor Shinto from Toronto. He says, longtime listener watcher from Toronto here, I have

a possibly naive question about journalism in the US. Why didn't reporters directly challenge the president when he makes inappropriate offensive statements like the ones about Rob Ryner are calling journalists stupid. Many in the media react on TV or in print, but rarely pushed back to his face in the moment. Why isn't anyone asked him directly why he behaves that way, maybe using more polite language, just curious why no one takes that shot. Thanks for all the

great insights. Well, I would argue in the first term, we all did. I would ask him questions about it. I confronted him directly an off the record meeting during

when he was president elect, basically saying when he name checks our correspondence in the field, he puts their lives at risk, He puts a spotlight on him in ways that I believe he didn't intend, is how I put it.

But you know, there's a reason I think in Trump two point zero why so many people in these same positions that some of us were in have chosen not to do it Because none of you know, nobody wants to be fodder to help somebody else's social media following, And so I think there's this belief that it doesn't do what you think it's going to do, and if anything, it only it only.

political fundraising fodder. But the own of the conversation went in such a way that he would have been a self owned had he tried it. I didn't realize that's what he was up to until about halfway through the interview, and it was like, oh, now I know why you came on. And it was just anyway it was during

the first impeachment. If you want to go back and go find that back and forth that I had with him, let's just say I'll just use three letters to give you a hint about where the conversation went to JFK and I'll just let you know and you can sort of imagine where the where that part of the conversation went. So I think that's the That's why you know, it doesn't feel like it gets you anywhere, and it I don't want to say journalists don't do it out of fear.

Fear is the wrong word. I think terms of it's sort of like is it effective? Like ultimately, what is our role? Is your role to get information out to understand? I could tell you the private conversations I've had with him about this. I'm like, why do you you know you do that?

sort of that, you know, I've always equated it. He sees us all as if you're familiar with the WWF slash WWE And I have the reason I used WWF is back in my day, it was the WWF and it was a guy named the press person was a guy named gene Okerland, mean gene Oakerland, and he was who, you know, all the wrestlers picked on because he was the press, you.

have said anything had they not said this. You know, he always says, I don't attack people, I defend myself, so but I could, but I definitely you're right, there is less of this in Trump two point zero because many of us tried this in Trump one point oh, and it didn't seem to go anywhere, It didn't seem to didn't really produce an answer. You know, I think there's a lot of people, and I'm you know that listen to this podcast that want the press to express

the outrage that they have. But it's the equivalent of punching your you know, punching a wall, a dry wall. You know, you might punch a hole in the wall and you might feel strong, but then you've got to go back and patch up the wall, and what have you really accomplished? You know, you can express your outrage at him, he doesn't say anything satisfactory, and whatever he says will outrage people who are already outraged.

also plays a role on that front. Next question comes from Adam w Any writes, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Affordability seems to be the central theme that Democrats seem to be winning on. One of the sneaky culprits of rising costs is the complete lack of competition and various segments of the economy. Perhaps it is the lawyer in me, but I don't understand why democrats haven't begun at least bringing up the issue of breaking up big monopolies. Thanks Adam w.

the fact that you have this. We have this phenomenon these days of dynamic pricing, where basically the new goal is to figure out, Hey, how do I maximize you know, you Chuck Todd have a little bit more money to spend versus you Jane Doe, who has less money to spend. I want to have you both as customers. But I you know you can pay more than Jane Doe. How can I get you to pay more in Jane Doe

to pay me something? And I think that you know, whether we've seen that airlines are thinking about going down this road. There was a really good story and I think it was the Washington Post about Uber and lyft and how you know, on one phone, you know, based on information they may have about you, the price is one thing. On another phone, based on information they have on the person who owns that phone, the price for the same ride from the same location to the same

location is suddenly different. And how much of it is based on what they think you're sort of Oh, I'm not, I'm not that's too expensive for me versus that And I think that's the type of of discrimination that will really sort of, you know, middle class discrimination is when the middle class grabs the pitchforks watch out right, like, you know, when when the supposedly comfortable, you know, enough to own a home, you know, have a couple, have

two cars, be able to afford kids college, all that stuff, and they feel as if they're being taken advantage of because they have a couple extra dollars, you know, the middle and the upper middle class revolting. That's that's when politicians sometimes finally finally start to pay attention to some of these things. I think it's possible you will see going after you know, tech monopolies on this, but we're not quite there yet because I don't think the public

sees the evidence yet, right. I don't think we're you kind of have to. The public needs to be a bit better informed on this, and I think you're seeing more and more coverage that's focused on so of how consolidation in various industries has cost the consumer money. Now, this is what I think has been the you know, I think local media used to do consumer reporting a lot better than national media, and the loss of local

journalism has really gutted the consumer journalism world. This is where influencers, I think, come in, and this is something that I think, if you know, I think trusted media was higher when we had a lot more consumer reporters dedicated to saving consumers money and from being ripped off. And the lion's share of those reporters were on the local level. So the gutting of local gutted out the reporters that were providing a real service to average Americans.

And I think the you know, this is among my goals. Why do I want to revitalize local news because I think this is the biggest missing piece when it comes to the lack of trust that we have nationally with media, is we lost our local character references and they did a better job worrying about helping people on a local level than we have the ability to do on the

national level. And so I think if once we know there's more reporting locally on scams and pricing discrimination and things like that, which is where you're more likely to see this, then you'll hit critical mass and it becomes suddenly something that they want politicians to do something about. All Right, The last question for today is going to come from Dave, and he writes, is Chuck really enjoy the podcast? Appreciate the mixture of politics, history, and college

football right on. Also love the guests you have for interviews and all the information that comes from those conversations. Can you tell us how interview prep has changed for you from the shorter time limits you had to meet the press to now being able to do long form interviews on the podcast. Would love to hear some of your thoughts on what you think makes a great guest

conversation on your show. Thanks and happy holidays. Well, the biggest thing is just right just having more time it means that I spend more time on a specific policy

idea that the guests may have in wanting to go four, five or six questions deep on said right. In a meet the press, if somebody who was rolling out a policy proposal for your eight to ten minute interview, you do one follow up, maybe you know, maybe a second if it's you think it's really interesting to the viewers, then you end up moving on. We don't have to do that here, and that's you know, that.

you. You ask me what makes a good I think what makes a good conversation is when we end is when you end up understanding all sides of an argument without having me and the guests debate each other, because hopefully I have asked a few of the let me ask the perspective from the left, let me ask perspective from the right, and needed depending on what their point of view is, and that by the end of the conversation, if you feel like that you would understand how this

issue would then get debated between sort of stereotypical left versus stereotypical right, then I've accomplished something. Right then I've given you a complete conversation that makes you prepared to understand this issue no matter where else you end up getting information about it. I think the best conversations are when that when I kind of know them a little bit. I think that always helps because they're more comfortable with me because they know me a little bit. So I

think those make good conversation better podcast conversations. Obviously, I do take a much less antagonistic posture because this is you know, I always say this, you know it meet the press. There was an expectation that this is an accountability show, and this is where we're gonna you know, you've got to you're test, you're testing your your beliefs that you know, you're you gotta, you gotta, you got to tell them, you know, you got to explain your rationale.

And it's devoted to a you know, single issue or a topic or a couple of topics versus here where I may have, you know, a large singular reason for booking that guest, say, on the issue of how do we open up primaries, uh to to all voters. But it means we can meander around a little bit. But it's also you know, not everybody can carry forty five minutes, so you have to be mindful of that, just like you know, some people are great ten minute interviews, terrible thirty minute.

some questions left on the table. If there are no questions left on the table, then probably the guest wasn't quite worth the forty five minutes I may have spent with them. But I actually think since I started this podcast re upped this podcast on April, I could think of only once that I sat here and I thought, boy, I'm kind of exhausted from questions.

about me. They just somehow think that their own voters will that that that they only want to spend forty five minutes talking to their to their base. They're not interested in talking to swing voters, talking to independence, talking to you the intellectually curious, And that's disappointing to me. I think in it, I think once the Orange Man leaves the Oval office, these people I've been trying to

get to come on will come on. But you know, I know that in for some for some of these folks, they don't want to They don't want to have to not answer a question that they know is logical for me to ask, which is just a disappointment, all right, but this is the world we live in. Look what Look what Susie Wilds just had to do. You know, she had to put out an apology tweet for an audience of one. And there are people that are always

looking to aggregate and cherry pick what somebody says. Hey, you know Tom Cotton said this to Chuck Todd on his Todd on his podcast. You know, and you know that's just unfortunately the way things, you know, things get weaponized on the on the stupid left and the stupid right, which is right, We know right that it's those it's those that are in the business of grifting you on ideology.

And these people exist on the left and the right, my friends, that have scared off some of these folks from from coming and swimming in the intellectually curious pool. But hey, come on in, the water's comfortable and if you're comfortable in your own skin, everything's going to be easy on the Chuck podcast. But if you're not comfortable in your own skin, then yeah, it's going to be an uncomfortable forty five minutes.

you curious, are you nervous? Any of those things? I am, Like I've expressed to you, I'm cautiously pessimistic about the prediction markets and yet and keeping an eye on them because somehow I have a feeling it's going to be more impactful than we want to admit.