Chuck's Commentary - Trump Makes Headlines… but No Movement +

It's just nice to have football back. So that put me in a good mood after what was an excruciating time dropping off my youngest at college. I don't want to go through the specifics. It's not fair to him. But let's just say that this is it's as hard as everybody will tell you that it is. And then some if you've this was my second time, you know, it's funny when you know you still have another child

at home, there's sort of one set of emotions. When suddenly it's empty, it's a whole new set of emotions. So but I will I will spare you some of that. But let's just say that a good distraction from my glumness and me missing my son. Is the start of college football season, that's for sure, and which sort of brings me here we are. We're in August. I know some of you think college football shouldn't start in August. It should start, you know, first of September. But here

we are. That's what it is. And it gets me to my theme that I want to jump in on. By the way, my guest later today. The guest is Jonathan Martin of Politico, and Jonathan and I have known each other longer than this century. I it goes past the twenty first. We've been friends, colleagues, and then some going back to the nineties. We regularly have conversations and sometimes we put them on camera and put them on tape, and that's essentially what my Monday episode with him is.

So I hope, I know if you're a political junkie, you will enjoy the conversation. And if you like you're a little taste of college football on the side, I think you'll also enjoy it as well. But we hit the gambit. We were all over the place, whether it's Trump, whether it's the Democrats, whether it's the primary calendar in twenty eight elections in twenty five, the midterms in twenty six we covered the entire tapestry of things, But let

me get started. One of the topics I actually did have a conversation with him on was in reaction to to what I want to talk about today. Because for most of my thirty five years here in Washington, I

got here in nineteen ninety. August has always been the slowest month of the year, right, slower even than December, right because December, yes it's slow, but we're we've got so many obligations, right, you know, August is the slowest month of the year. Congress leaves town, the White House throttles back. Trust me, as a traffic there's no traffic in Washington unless there's a Nats game, even right now, especially if the Nets playing the Phillies are Mets these days.

But you know, that's literally the only traffic you run into. And the rule of thumb about August was simple, don't watch anything new until September, when everyone is paying attention again, when all parents are, the kids back at school, et cetera. August really was always used for regrouping. Presidents took vacations. That didn't mean stuff didn't there was a lot of important stuff what happened in August. I think I said this to you before. I actually have always done a

July vacation. I've learned to do that lately, more so than August, because for me, August there is always a lot more happening in August than people realize. So August for me is about preparing for September in many ways. But you know, it's sort of made August even more interesting at times because it was so baked in that you didn't do anything planned, that you knew if something happened in August it was unplanned, and that it was

a bigger story than you realized. Bill Clinton thought he was in the clear in August of ninety eight, and the Mona, the Lewinsky grand jury test about he had in two thousand and five. George W. Bush thought he could vacation in Crawford. Then he had Hurricane Katrina, which turned August into a political catastrophe. But it was these are semi unplanned events, right, and in some ways you

were encouraged to try to keep your head down in August. Of course, Donald Trump's never bought into that idea. For him, there is no regrouping. There is no resting. August is no different than April, than May, than December than June. Right, you know, it's all the same. And of course this

August has been anything but sleeping. We've had two high profile summits, a federal takeover the DC Police Department, the government buying a stake in Intel, a new redistricting order in Texas, a response in California, a manufactured Epstein file. I'm sure I'm leaving a few things out. We had a lot of motion in August. But you know what we didn't have. We didn't have a lot of movement right where things stood between Ukraine and Russian July they

still stand today. The summits produced nothing, but there was a big TV show. The takeover DC policing has been performative.

Troops are deployed in all the wrong neighborhoods South Park Head right. For what it's worth, I've been driving around town and wherever you would think that what Donald Trump's stated goal is. He's not been. He's not been. I've not seen him in parts of town that aren't tourist attractions. It's like being anchored in the ocean while the boat rocks back and forth. Right, there's plenty of turbulence, but no forward direction. And at some point that motion without

movement simply makes everybody seasick. So take the redistrict find

in Texas. Trump's order was met with such resistance that had triggered a nationwide scramble. Everyone's trying to outgain the other side for partisan advantage. Democrats are justifying their actions by pointing to Republicans, Republicans point to Democrats, and the result is a complete abandonment of the Democratic princes bull of fair representation. That's motion with real consequences, but it's

the kind that corrodes institutions rather than strengthens them. And ultimately the goal for both parties is to fight to a draw, which is motion without movement. Let's look at the Epstein file gambit. Trump managed to stage a faux

revelation by saying this was this is actually like unpack what he did with Epstein here. Right. You know, if you believe there are all these files that should be released and aren't being released, you should really be angry by what he did. Right, Because Trump managed to stage a faux revelation by sending his old personal lawyer to interviewed Gallaine Maxwell. Of course, before the interview they made sure to publicly dangle the possibility of clemency, so it

sort of obviously had an impact under testimony. Right then, of course, they released the transcript that surprise seemed to clear Trump manufactured theater through it through right here, we had a convicted fallon begging for a pardon, coach through her answers, presented to the public as if she were a credible witness, chum in the water, created headlines, got

people talking, but advance nothing, motion, not movement. I am really curious to see if those that say they care about the Epstein files on the right view this Gallaine Maxwell transcript as something that's worthless or worth something. I kind of think it's totally worthless, right, I mean, at what point did the transcript which he says, hey, let me add something, and it's this extra It's almost like her lawyer said, hey, you didn't clear Trump enough. You

need to make sure you clear Trump more. Or let's look at the John Bolton prosecution threat. What was the point of that Not to win a conviction. The point is to send a message criticized Trump and the government will be weaponized against you. That's why cash Ptel at

the FBI now makes JEdgar Hoover look like a statesman. And that's why the sudden firing of Trump loyalists Billing Long at the IRS is extra suspicious because there's only one of two reasons Billy Long was fired. Either he wouldn't go far enough on something, or he was willing to go too far, and Scott Besson stepped in. Either way,

something that stinks to high Heaven. Here. Let's just say I'm old enough to remember when House Republicans used to care about abuse at the IRS or and they would spend all sorts of of time trying to I mean, Jim Jordan, I think, became a household figure by going after a bureaucrat at the IRS. And here we have

really suspicious activity at the IRS. I would say, don't hold your breath for James Comer to start issuing subpoenas for testimony from Treasury to find out what's actually happened in the IRS, to find out what actually happened with Billy Long. Something smells, but don't count on your congressional oversight, folks,

to actually care. And it's not confined to Washington. Virginia, the Department of Justice has been working to elevate the transgender school issue again fight Republicans believe helps them politically. But here's the federal government being used to try to prop up a campaign in Virginia. This is what you're going to see, right, We're starting to see, right, the power of the federal government. Trump will use this power

to politically try to maneuver things in his favor. And by the way, if you're wondering, like all this mortgage fraud stuff, right, they sort of this has been one of the more interesting sort of manufactured crises that they've created, which is to scour the financial disclosures of home ownership and of real estate of selective political opponents. Letitia James Adam shift. We're now seeing it with the Fed governor. And I will just tell you a basic rule of thumb.

If Roger Stone, which is a longtime Trump dark arts on and off again advisor, he hypes these two things more than anything. Right, Well, when his own is involved in something, you know it's not on the up and up right. This guy is as crooked as they come when it comes to political dark arts. He arguably invented the modern version of it in many ways, and his obsession with this tells me how manufactured that is. So still,

it's part of a bigger pattern, right, constant motion, not a lot of movement. Every day, one of these stories takes over every day the boat rocks again. Trump's first term he did the same thing. But there were people inside government who did try to study the ship. Not anymore. Maybe there's Bessin on the economy, maybe Ruby on Ukraine. In fact, I do wonder if you didn't have Bessin on the economy, we'd probably already be in a recession

with the tear of craziness. And if you didn't have Rubio there, Ukraine would already have lost its sovereignty to Russia. But outside of that, everyone else is enabling this chaos. I mean, this is I mean, my gosh, the FBI is not a true I mean, this is so deeply damaging to the repation of the FBI. What Cash Betel is doing. I mean, you know what American is going to believe anything coming out of the FBI right now? It all feels And if I were a rank and

file a BI agent, I'd be just appalled. This is terrible. Say, what's happening to the core rank and file at Border Patrol, DHS, your average National Guard. You know, remember these people are following orders and they're they're really it's it's what Trump is doing to these folks. What's happening to these agencies. This is doing long term damage where it's just trust

will erode for everybody. But it also brings me to the economy because this is the real danger. What happens when things get worse with this economy, and they're going to get worse, right, You've heard it from Mark Xandy. I just heard it from one of Trump's most loyal economic advisor, Steve Moore, who's certainly more bullish than most, but has some concerns about this economy. Things are getting worse. I mean, now just give you everybody hates the airport anecdote,

but I was at the airport killing some time. Ordered a couple eggs and the men you said three seventy five per egg, so you know, two eggs. Waiter said, actually, we just had to We just raised them. The price changed and it's six dollars per egg now. And he went through this whole reason. He was like apologizing. He goes, you know, are you sure you want to order eggs? Or do you want to just order one egg? And it was just, you know, look, it's an anecdotal, but

you're hearing it. I told you about stringflation already taking place of Trader Joe's. We know others of you have been when I weighed in on that. I've been hearing from other folks on this. I mean, the cost of living has gone up. There's not a single streaming service that has is deciding to charge less for entertainment, and in fact, everybody seems to be charging more, even as

there's weird consolidation Disney, Hulu and ESPN. I thought, We're all under the same umbrella, and somehow I'm going to be paying more, not less. Right, we all see that coming. All of that impacts the pocketbook, all of it. So here we are, we have, jobs are scarcer. The next jobs report, next couple of jobs report are going to be very very telling. Inflation is still rising. Stagflation in

the spring of twenty six is a real potential problem. And what happens when that happens, Right, what's the federal government? How's Trump going to try to distract from all of this. I don't know if he can, because lived experience is just that you feel it at the grocery store. You'll feel it at the gas pump. You'll feel it when ren hikes outpaced paychecks. You'll feel it when the soul called booming economy doesn't match the reality of your own

household budget. Stocks may be going up in a handful of stocks that are betting on AI, but all those bets on AI are about eliminating your job. That's what's scary out there for people. So when the economy does sour in twenty six, Trump's going to panic. So what are we going to see. We're going to see more

boltons probably, you know, if you're a nominee in a race that's on the edge and you're going up against Trump, whether you're an independent, Democrat, whatever, don't be surprised if an allegation, you know, gets instead of a piece of oppo research, they just use it. They have a US attorney make an announcement to make it seem more real. Right,

I think we know those that's all coming. There'll be more abuse of the irs, more abuse of the DOJ and the FBI, there'll be a lot more distraction retribution. All of it will be motion, but no movement, right, no movement. And in the end, that's the Trump's strategy. The boat must always be rocking motion for its own sake, and when you squeal, when you get seasick, he leans into it. That was true in his first term. It's

more true now with no guardrails left. The question is how much of this will the country tolerate When the trains aren't running on time, when the rocking boat isn't going anywhere, how long before people simply want off? Well, we found out in twenty twenty, right this strategy made

people literally sick and they wanted out. And that's to me, the real risk that's out there, because right now all this motion is just leaving us a drift economically, certainly, leaving us a drift politically certainly, leaving us a drift when it comes to America's place in the world. We're exhausted, we're seasick, and we're likely worse off than when we started.

So I have a few other things that I wanted to I wanted folks that I just sort of think of them as little notebook blips but I have to

tell you the reaction to the latest episode of South Park. And I know a lot of people, a lot of the South Park ride ups always focused about writing it up through the prism of their anti trumpness. But to me, this most recent episode was more brilliant in its satire against Silicon Valley right and against AI and sort of the techridy, you know, as he became Well literally, I'm watching that episode and the next morning I'm going to

read you the following story about Elon Musk and this is I thought it was part of the south Park parody. Elon Musk announced he wants to simulate software companies like Microsoft using only artificial intelligence. He's even got a name for the new venture, macro Hard. Do you get it? Microsoft macro Hard. I literally, I'm reading this story. I'm like, wait, wait a bite, waite. Is this a ketamine fueled idea that came out of South Park or is this actually

a real idea? And the fact that there are all these people that enable Musk around him, you know at this point, like I know, there's a fine line between genius and crazy, and you throw a little kenemine into it, and God only knows what that does. But I'm sorry macro Hard versus my I mean it was it is? Is it life imitating art imitating life at this point anyway, I just you just can't see. Sometimes it's impossible to parry to parody reality when the reality itself feels completely

like a parody. One of the other pieces of seasickness that folks scott was this, you know, sort of the random you know campaign that Trump, I guess launched last week saying you wanted to get rid of mail and voting. I did want to point out some polling information that if let's say, states, do I mean we know he is running, if he tells a state governor and a state legislature that is that is controlled by Trump, the

Trump machine, which is, you know, say your Missouri's, you're Indiana's, places like that right everywhere where he's been able to in Texas, where he's being able to order people essentially to do his bidding on redistricting and stuff, he probably can order the getting rid of mail in ballots in some of these states. But I have a feeling the only way voters are going to accept that is if you extend early voting and in person early voting, and

so you know if you told me. And what's interesting is, you know, if you were actually looking for a way to sort of eliminate this fight over mail in ballots and if you just wanted to limit them to the military ballots, this is what the public would tolerate, right, which is eighty four percent. This is a Pew pole

that came out this week Centers for American Trends panel poll. So it's a panel survey. It's not random sample, but it's interesting what the public. These were the most popular voting reform proposals. One requiring electronic voting machines to print a paper backup of a voter's ballot. Eighty four percent favored that. Requiring all voters to show government issued voto

or ID. That's eighty three percent. Support making early and in person voting Okay, not mail voting, early and in person voting available for at least two weeks prior to the election. That has eighty percent favorability making election day a federal holiday as seventy four percent. Everything else started to get more polarizing. I mean, Trump has effectively polarized the idea of mail in ballots. When again this was

an invention of the Republicans, right. It was all frankly, in my home state of Florida, they encouraged mail in ballots because of the snowbirds, and the snowbirds were wealthier

and more Republican leaning. So it was an incentivized by the Republican lawmakers to make it easier convenience voting for the snowbirds who didn't have to fly back to the state of Florida in time to make it for their five months and twenty nine days or actually, no, excuse me, six months and six months plus one day, so that they could avoid paying stay and income tax. But I think that is a if you do see an effort

that actually does. I think the only way that voter the public would tolerate getting rid of mail in ballots is if you extend early in person voting. And I'll

tell you you cannot. If we try to have everybody vote on election day and election day only, there'd be you know, we would have lines that would probably last past midnight in quite a few states. So it is it is we have. You cannot process everybody. You cannot process one hundred and fifty million ballots in one twenty four hour period. Okay, one hundred years ago when we were you know, half of that population even less so.

By the way, if you ever wanted, you know, in the nineteenth century elections, some you know, some states held their presidential electoral vote election to decide which way the electoral votes go in, like in October. There was no one day. Different states would hold it on different days. So this is anyway, The point is is that I there is you could see if there was, if you wanted to try to reach out to a voter who was bought into Donald Trump's manufactured threats about mail in ballots.

The easiest way to sort of get around it is to propose longer in early, in person, in person situation. And then finally, I want to close with this because it's my favorite. It was my favorite thing I read all week, and it comes from a newsletter out of the Dispatch by Scott Lindselcombe. It's very economics focused. It's one of my favorite newsletters. People ask me all the time, what do you read? I always forget to mention Scott, but he had this great lead the other day and

it's a great word that I will be using a lot, and it summarizes what happens to debate online better than anything else. He said this, he writes this easily. One of the worst and most cynical plays in modern politics is the practice of nut picking. What does he mean

by nut picking? Partisans will treat the loopy utterance of some random member of the other political team as broadly representative of the entire movement, thereby seeking to discredit it and it's saner and stronger players, and to reassure their comrades that everyone on the other side is a wackadoodle freak, not worth engaging, etc. The practice of nut picking is widespread on both sides of the aisle, especially on social media,

and typically related to culture, war issues, family, race, gender, crime, etc. That arouse strong feelings and push people's buttons. Don't you feel satisfied now that there is now a word for this nonsense? When you see it like that whole conversation about the genes was this back and forth between nut pickers Right there, You could just feel that there was an attempt to attack others' political positions based on an outlanders position that somebody took that has no connection to anybody,

but somebody wants to make you think it does. Anyway, The point is I just love this phrase. It so applies to political debate today. This is what has replaced actual political debate. This is what the conversation is on cable news quite a bit nutpicking. Literally, a segment is created based on nut picking. So let's just say, let's stop not can we You know, friends don't let friends not pick. Maybe we can. Maybe there's some better ways

to phrase this. I would love to hear from you and what's your favorite or worst versions of nutpicking are? And with that, we'll sneak in a break for those of you listening to the entire episode in one fell swoop, we'll sneak in a break and bring in Jonathan Martin. The rest of you will be getting the mail back.

All right, let's do a little ass Chuck, ask Chuck. We got a decent number of questions today. I don't know how many I'll get through. I think I'll try to get through or maybe five. We'll see how long I ramble on here. Question one here, This comes from Dylan Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Swing State. Very appreciated. Can you explain how a vice presidential pick can boost or hurt a campaign with some examples of both. Also, do you think that if Gored picked Graham Bob Graham over Joe Lieberman

in two thousand, he beats Bush? Well, that's u A. It's certainly something many of US Floridians believe. Right, was Bob Graham worth five hundred and thirty eight votes? Right? Bush won by five hundred and thirty seven votes? Officially Was Bob Graham worth five hundred and thirty eight votes? The answer is yes? Right? The point is do running mates matter? Well, if an election is decided by five hundred and thirty eight seven votes, having that person from

the home state probably is worth something. Right? Is it a half a percentage point? Is it a whole percentage point? Is it too? You could? I don't think we've had enough instances to prove it. Does John Kennedy carry Texas without obj right? Now? Michael Ducaccas had Lloyd Benson, a Texas Senator, on trying to do the same Massachusetts Texas pairing was trying to invoke Kennedy Johnson with do Coccas Benson,

George H. W. Bush Kerry Texas. So you know it is It's one of those things that I think is extraordinarily overrated, right, which is, I do think you're better off picking a running mate to help you with a state or help you with an image issue, right, So as much, you know, let's take your two thousand example, I do believe Bob Graham on the ticket is better

than Joe Lieberman for carrying Florida. But Joe Lieberman. Getting Joe Lieberman was a way for Al Gore to separate from Bill Clinton on a character level in a way that served Gore well. I think when you look at the Gore surge, it really begins the naming of Lieberman and the idea that he was his own person. He was separating himself from Clinton. It was seen as you know, the biggest critic of Bill Clinton's morality in the Democratic

Party at that time was seen as Joe Lieberman. So that created that and it you know, and boy did Bill Clinton hate those headlines. And I know there are some that will argue that Gore should have wrapped his arms around Clinton even more, right, And the one Democrat who did wrap his arms around Bill Clinton was a Democrat named Jade Dickie in the fourth District of Arkansas.

He was a Democratic incumbent. He wanted Bill Clinton's help, and Jay Dickey won reelection, and Bill Clinton made sure everybody knew that the one place he did campaign he was an asset, not a liability. Obviously that was Arkansas. But still we could And yet George W. Bush is essential. You know, he was running against Bill Clinton's character the entire campaign, right. His tagline was I'm going to restore honor and integrity into the White House. He wasn't running

against Al Gore. He was running against Bill Clinton, miche Lewinsky, and he was running against sort of are you exhausted from this? Not saying whether he should be, he did not. You know, he separated himself from all the impeachment nut jobs and all of that stuff. But he was running on character and Gore taking character off the table. Suddenly even that race out. So and then you throw in the kiss, right, which said, hey, look at this marriage.

Now the irony is of course Bill and Hillary Clinton are still together, Alan Tipper or not, so you know, I you know, irony is what it is. But at the time, so you know, Lieberman did help. Collectively, it helped reinforce a message. Right, It's about reinforcing a message right, Bill Clinton, picking Al Gore was reinforcing a youthful message. Now there was also a tactical reason he picked out

Gore in it. At the time Ross Perot. When he picked out Gore, Ross Parou was the leader in the presidential race, it looked like an even three way race, that this was going to be an electoral college knife fight. And in an electoral college to knife fight in the early nineties, the Democrats benefit from a Southern strategy, so going with an all Southern ticket would have allowed them

and it would open the door. And you basically, you know, the Democratic vote being largely African American in many of these Southern states, the Democratic floor is thirty eight thirty ninety percent in many of those states versus the Republican floor if you're splitting it with pro Now par ends up dropping out then getting back in, and Bush essentially consolidated enough vote where where only I think Clinton did

carry Georgia, does Cary, Arkansas, it does carry Tennessee. So he certainly overperformed in the southern states having an all Southern ticket, But that was so I could make a both practical case and it reinforced this hey young change message, right, So you know, it's one of those things where you can argue both sides. Now, Kamala Harris, I don't think did a single thing for Joe Biden, right, I don't know if it hurt them. I don't know if it

helped them. And I would love to know what val Deming's been enough to help find three percentage you know, three percentage points in Florida. I don't know, right, we can't. You know. That's that's why it's impossible to sit here and say, you know, can can these running mates help in a specific way? You know, did Vance add anything to the numbers in Ohio? For Trump? I'd argue no,

So I don't know. Advance was an asset. In fact, you could argue that maybe he brought more problems, potential problems to the ticket than he did a good upside of course financially though for Trump, Vance was a huge upside because Silicon Valley wanted Advance and they gave Advance in the crypto community and they all came in heavy. So it so, I guess the question over VP picks are it's what do you need from your VP pick? Do you need a state? Do you need to unite

a faction of your hardy right. Reagan picked Bush not for a state, but to bring the moderates into the fold, the sort of the forward wing of the party. It was originally going to be Reagan Ford in nineteen eighty, and it instead became Reagan Bush. So it is. There are examples of when it works or examples when it doesn't. It's still usually like ninety five percent of the of the equation is the top of the ticket in a super close race. That's when you can look at examples

of the bottom of Look. I think Sarah Palin helped McCain lose by less than he would have lost by. You know, McCain wanted Lieberman, Gore. Obama Biden I think beats McCain Lieberman by a bigger margin because the base of the Republican Party, particularly the pro life community, would have probably sat on their hands. And I think that I think Obama probably wins Georgia. He already won North Carolina that here, and he probably gets awfully close in

like a place like Mississippi or South Carolina. When I say awfully close, like within five points, I think it becomes because I think that was what McCain was warned about, which is, be careful if you pick a Democrat, particularly an abortion issue, back in two thousand and eight. So I'd argue that Sarah Palin helped McCain. I think Sarah Palin saved Georgia for the Republicans in that electoral So the point is is, I think you can you can

look at it through one eye and make one case, look at it through the other eye. Again, it's still ninety five percent about the top of the ticket, but in a super close selection, everything matters, all right. Next question, Hey, Chuck, I'm a recent college grad who now is the time to read for pleasure? Again? Do you have a book suggestion or two? I'd love a suggestion for a non

political book if you have one. I'm from Michigan, where people are already canvassing for Jocelyn Benson at the local farmers market Mike dug and billboards are all over the place, and my phone is blowing up with political texts. I want some thing non political to read. Well, I'll tell you this stuff that I've I guess it's look. I'll admit I'm mostly a history and nerd. I if you're

tired of the political side of things. But you want some nonfiction, I would recommend a few of these business biographies. You're from Michigan, I actually think you'd enjoy the memoir of Leiah Coca, who was the former chairman of Chrysler, because the coolest part of it is learning about Lei. Coca was the father of the Mustang. He's from soup to nuts, and the book helps you understand the history of the auto industry in Michigan. So that might be

and it's an easy read. Look, Leah, on one hand, it's a way back in time, so it's a forty five year old book, all right. So I apologize for going, but I was just trying to think of things that might can you know that might be of interest to you, tell you something about the history of your state out that If you're a baseball fan, there's a couple of books that I that I've really enjoyed over the years that are historical in nature. A history of the of

the Negro leagues. It was called only the Ball Was White, and it was. It is a history of the legendary black players and all black professional teams. It's more than just a book about baseball. More than just a book about uh, racial justice. It's also a history of the country. Right, it's a history of that and so a purely entertainment book. If you're a basketball fan, uh history of the A B A, which was the league, you know, the sort of it was the fun league of basketball. Right. The

ABA gives three point shot. Right. If you like today's modern NBA, you have the a BA to thank, Right. The dunk contest began in the a BA, three point shot all those things all began in the A B A. It's an oral history called loose Ball, and it is just fabulous. There's Bob Costas, cameos, all sorts of fascinating figures from that era. And it also is culturally a great history of the nineteen seventies, the good and the bad and everything in between. It's great, there are and

it triggered two other oral histories. I'm a big fan of oral histories. They're just I just enjoy them quite a bit. One is on the history of SNL by Tom Shales and the History of SNL, which was done I believe it was for the fortieth anniversary at the time by Tom Shales and Andrew Miller and James, excuse me, and James and Jim Miller, who's somebody I've known a long time, sort of in the history of the TV business.

They also did the History of ESPN, which also was a fun, little oral history of sort of ESPN's early days in the late seventies and eighties and all the different near misses for esp and both positive and negative. So those were fun and oral histories that they're very thick books, but oral histories you can read fast. And if you're looking for some fiction older Karl Hyason is a lot of fun. His new stuff's too political. It

won't give you the break that you're looking for. So I have no idea whether I gave you good ideas or not, whether it's anything that will entertain you there. And I apologize for giving you older books, because all the new stuff that I read is all history and politics these days. All right. Next question, it's from Jim in Tobahana, Pennsylvania. But he says, go Buffalo bills. Do you anticipate there may be any modifications in the post

Trump era to limit executive power? Well, I hope so, But I don't think anybody runs for president of a major party nomination and then comes in and limits their own power. Right, they'll say it. Joe Biden said he would support, for instance, uh decreasing executive authority on the More Powers Act and things like that. But did he do it right? Did it actually happen. I think it's going to take an outsider breaking up both parties for

a for a term or something like that that runs on this and runs on sort of constitutional restoration of the of the checks and balances. But I don't know if the public is ready for a message like that yet. I wish it were. I think this is desperately needed. I think we're we're you know. I think this redistricting knife fight that we're seeing between you know, best exemplified by Texas and California, is a primal scream for a constitutional convention. We really need to refresh the rules of

our democracy and rebuild some things here. Some of it needs to be refreshed, some of it needs to be renewed, and some of it needs to be subtracted. An attitude, right, but we have a mess in our hands. It is created the conditions that allow for somebody to hijack the government, and that's what's been happened, right, it's, you know, a cult of personality, reanimated a dying political party and was

able to shape it into his own vision. And it is he has recreated a political machine without it without an ideology. If anything, it's just a cult of personality. You know, if you've ever read the history of Tammany

Hall or any of these party machines. Trump is trying to essentially bring it back, bring back the political machine, if you will, and Democrats might be you know, my fear is that in reaction, Democrats sort of start behaving like machine party themselves, right, and they're doing it now, rallying around a bad idea like redistricting in California. You know, when you're answer to disenfranchising voters in Texas is to

disenfranchised voters in California. And you want to be the constitutional party, You want to be the adult in the room. So I think there will be an appetite by some to try to limit to try to sort of Trump proof the presidency after he leaves, But a lot of it depends on who replaces him and how he's replaced.

All right, I'll make this the final question here. This comes from Marcus R. President Trump is attack pressured and threatened federal employees, colleges, media organizations, corporations, foreign countries, state governments, FESA holders, legal immigrants, and others with little to no resistance or consequences. His attacks are often based on dubious assertions or outright lies. It seems like he already has

the power of a king. What would stop him from issuing an executive order stating that the Democratic Party is a terrorist organization and all Democratic leaders have the choice of switching to the Republican Party or be arrested. Based on the previous responses from the Democratic Party leaders to Trump's power grabs, it seems like they would fall apart,

like what toilet paper if that happened? Thank you? Well, look, you get at sort of the dilemma that I think the Trump resistance is running into. How do you push back on this and do you use any means necessary or do you try to continue to follow some form of principles so that you can win the argument the right way? And maybe it's easy for me to say, you know, ends justifies the means, Well, you know this is not going to end well, and I still don't

believe it ends well. If Donald Trump is able to successfully radicalize both parties, that's troubling and that's my fear here. And yet you're not wrong. I think the real problem and the real reason why Trump is getting away with more this term than he did the last term, is that we're missing Republicans with spines. There were quite a few Republicans that had working spines in the twenty seven

seen in twenty eighteen. There are no elected Republicans left with a spine outside of Lisa Murkowski, right, I think she's it. Maybe Spencer Cox in Utah, maybe so, maybe the governor of Vermont has a spine, and Bill Scott. But for the most part, right, there's no Republican pushback because the Republican pushback gave the Democratic pushback legitimacy. Right, It gave cover to corporate leaders to feel as if

they were being above politics by pushing back. And you know, Trump basically crying bias and partisanship at every criticism has effectively neutered critics, the non political critics, and now the Democrats are alone in criticizing, right. It's a that's a I guess to catch twenty two if you want to

use that metaphor. But it certainly, I think is a problem that the real, I mean, the real failure of accountability on Trump is his own party, right you know that the Democrats can only do so much here, they were more The reason there was successful pushback of Trump in eighteen is that it was bipartisan. It was coming from a multiple corners, you know, obviously more from one spot than the other. But you know, I don't see any new List Cheney's walking through that door. I don't

see any new Bob Corker's walking through that door. I don't see any new Jeff Flake's walking through that door. So it's I think that's I think that's why it feels like the Democrats don't know what to do. It is also a party that's just a mess right now. I mean, you've seen it. It's you know this is this goes back to and my last substack got into this, but you know it, the party was so convinced that

demographs were on their side. It's almost as if they decided they didn't need to have to worry about what voters thought of them because the demographics were going to overcome any messaging problems that they would have. But you know, when you lose two and a half million voter registrations in four years while the other party gains two and a half million voter registrations, right, You've lost. You've lost

the plot on this front. I think it's I'm shocked that there has not been a bigger house cleaning of democratic leadership. I'm shocked that there's not been more innovative ideas try you know more. I'm shocked at the at the you know, I think the reason Gavin Newsom has sort of filled the void for the moment is nobody else is filling the void. But I'm not sure that's the answer. But maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm the one

that's out of touch. But I think that if the answer to an undemomocratic, unconstitutional movement is not to throw away democratic principles and throw away constitutional ideals, I just think the long term consequences of that it sort of I think it accelerates our decline and accelerates the possibility that would lose the republic. I think you got to

give the voters something to fight for. If everything is becomes purely transactional, which in some ways the Democrats are accepting that premise, right, if you accept the premise that this is the only rule that matters, you know that that is how that is how democracies crumble, right, That's essentially what Turkey is. Yeah, it's a democracy sort of,

you know, but it's just that sort of. And by the way, everything's gotten worse than Turkey everything, so it hasn't been good for them to be this sort of democratic authoritarianism that they've been under, which is kind of what Trump's trying to create, right, authoritarianism with democratic sort of support, if you will, smalldy. But I think you're

right to be concerned about what Trump will do. I just you know, I do think that lived experience will still trump everything else, and if everybody's paying more to get by, it does. I don't know how many indictments or proclamations he can put out. I don't know if he can win that, you know, if he can overcome that obstacle. All right with that, I hope do you? This is for some of you, the last week before

the big big September push. For others, it's a back to school week for quite a few, particularly on the university level classes. If it didn't start last week. Just about everything else starts this week, So with that, I will take a rest for forty eight hours and see you on Wednesday. M m hmmm mm hmm