Full Episode - Donald Trump Is Rattled By The Epstein Files + Bashar al-Assad, Broken Borders & Baseball

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Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order. So go to gitsold dot com use the promo code toodcast. Don't forget that code. That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of The Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I am not in studio. I am traveling. I am in Miami. I'm on a sort of a three city excursion here. I'll be in Miami, I'll be in Charlotte. I got a

trip to New York all this week. I just came from Austin. I want to actually give a report on that. It was a participant at the Texas Tribune Festival where I interviewed Wes Moore. Actually, a part of that conversation I'm going to have in the feed later this week, so you will get a full opportunity to hear that conversation. Let me just give a quick rundown of what to expect on this episode. Long interviews with a gentleman by

the name of David Lesh. He is the subject of an interesting book that those of you that know me know I'd be a sucker for. It's called From Dodgers to Damascus. It's about a one time major league pitching prospect who got injured in the minors, ended up. I think I think may have had a cup of coffee and the majors. We'll talk about it. We have that conversation and instead became an expert on the Middle East.

Hence Dodgers to Damascus. Actually found himself to be in the room with Asad at times and really is an expert in particular on Syria. So really that's a big part of our conversation is sort of where's the Middle East headed? What could the next three to five years look like, and what could the next ten to twenty years look like. It's a terrific conversation, and David Lesh is a wonderful It was a wonderful interview to have,

and I do think you'll learn quite a bit. But yes, the hook was the Dodgers in baseball. Right, you go from there to the Middle East? Right?

I will just simply leave you with that tease. Of course, I'll take some questions, and let's just say I have a lot to say about college football the playoff, and I've got a whole bunch of advice for the college Football Playoff Committee in the ESPN executives who are going to be making these decisions. Hopefully they will actually care about what happened on the field rather than the machination

that they usually care about off the field. But there's a few issues that I think that they have to take up, and we'll see how serious they are about trying to actually find the most worthy teams versus those that they want to just feature in a television show.

he can't control, and he is flailing. We've been in these positions with him before and he always navigates his way out of it.

something and I know, just set aside everything you know about the story, but think about it in this way. Donald Trump has the ability to be as his way out of you know, he lies, you know, sort of the way water flows out of a faucet, right, He's very comfortable doing that, and he'll say whatever it takes today to put off something that may be coming tomorrow, and if he's got to say something else tomorrow, I'll

say something else tomorrow. The big head scratcher here on this one is why he has chosen to be so lenient on Glene Maxwell. And to me, this is the part I want to focus on first. And then I'm going to get to what is clearly an over action to Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey, and I'll get to that in a second, but I keep coming back to this Gallaine Maxwell. And again when you get when we get to my time the time Machine segment today,

you'll see where I'm going. But the reason there's an assumption he's lying about something is because there's so many politicians that have preceded him over the last fifty years that have always lied to protect themselves first, and eventually

the truth would come out. It just sometimes would take years and in some cases decades. What's a head scratcher about the way he has treated Gallaine Maxwell is he seems to fear her. And the question is why does he fear her? She's in jail number one, number two. She was convicted of essentially helping Epstein traffic underage women.

He could easily be wanting to throw the book at her, and instead of putting her in a club fed, he could have been putting her in solitary or making her life even more miserable, rather than trying to be lenient. And for whatever reason, he really wants her not to say anything bad about him, even though if she did, he could just simply say she's lying. She you know that he had a story that was plausible enough that

would likely have kept everybody on his side. Right. The story was Epstein was being a creep, He was recruiting. He and Glaine were recruiting women from mar Alago. He had had enough, he kicked him out. And of the relationship, why is he keep pulling Glaine Maxwell back into his orbit? And I'll just say this, there is something else in his life. There is something that she knows about, perhaps

as there's something she assisted him with. Maybe it's a relationship he has or had with somebody. But there is something that he has that hasn't come out that he apparently is petrified of that she knows, because there really seems to be no other explanation, because he could be behaving the exact opposite way, and the fact that he isn't is a head scratcher, and someday, maybe sooner, maybe

it'll take a while, we'll find out for sure. Maybe she knows the origin story of his personal life, Maybe she knows things that we don't know about the origin story of his marriage. None of us know for sure. His behavior is making it easier to go down conspiratorial lanes, and it's almost like he is he is either purposely doing this just to try to create more fog, which is not totally out of character for him, or there's something that Maxwell has that he just can't he just

can't risk, and so he's got to figure out. So we'll see. Look, if he commutes her sentence and releases her, that will be you know, not just one red flag, right,

that would be a thousand red flags. But let's go to the other part of this story, which is his decision to punish Marjorie Taylor Green unindorse her. We already know he's sicked his political machine on Thomas Massey trying to primary him. There's an interesting pattern here Trump. I'm trying to figure out who is Trump dumped or pulled his endorsement from, or tried to defeat in his side of the aisle who disagreed with him on an issue

of substance. Right, he went after those that voted to impeach him after January sixth, right, the ten, and he is he doesn't want to forget those. He's still got vendettas against anybody that voted to convict him in the Senate. Hence why I think there's still no endorsement for Bilcassidy, and I don't think there will ever be an endorsement for bil Cassidy in his Senate see but none of these. He is angrier at Massy and Green for simply voting

for transparency on the Epstein files. Then he's as angry at them as he was against the ten House Republicans that voted to impeach him after January six It is, it is if this is this, and the irony is, he's got plenty of ways that they're likely going to kill this. Right, he's got the Senate, we'll see. Look, I think if there's a hundred or more House Republicans that vote with the Democrats on this, and I think

there will be that many. I do think that once this vote goes on the record, there's a reason Mike

Johnson wanted to try to just release the files as a unanimous consent because he doesn't want a recorded vote. There's a whole bunch of House Republicans that don't want to have to vote against the president on this, but they're more petrified of not voting to release files having to do with a pedophile. So that's one. The second way they could kill it is maybe in the Senate, but if it gets one hundred or more House votes,

I think there are thirteen Senate votes. Now maybe leader's Senate leadership just finds different ways never to bring it to the floor. But somebody's going to bring this to the floor. Somebody's going to be able to introduce it, and then it's possible Trump could be to it. But don't underestimate what the Justice Department just did with this when Donald Trump railed ranted on social media demanding that Pam Bondi started an investigation into Democrats in their relationship

with Epstein. Because here's what's likely to happen. If there's an open and vestigation that the Justice Department is conducting having to do with people in their associations with Epstein, then it's likely they go to a court and say hey, we can't have these files released because it's currently a part of an investigation. Right there's been a lot of conversation.

One of the knee jerk right wing talking points is, well, the Biden folks could have released this, Well, they were in the middle of an investigation, so they couldn't release any files at the time. Now the investigation, in theory is over. But if they're reopening an investigation, then suddenly

that likely will mean that will be used. This quote open investigation will be used as saying, hey, we can't release any of this material. It may matter in an investigation and we don't want to have to put all that out earlier. So it's there's a lot of paths I think for this to have these files prevented from being released to the public. There's a handful of ways. You can see how it could be Senate leadership that

does it. It could be that President Trump vetos it, or it could simply be the Justice Department goes to court to say they can't because there's an open investigation. Because Pam Bondi agreed to open investigation just to investigate Democrats in their relationship with Epstein.

what's interesting is how all of his surrogates went out on the Sunday shows and they won't say that they're getting rid of the tariffs, like they keep not trying to use the word, or they keep saying, no, we're lowering costs. Oh, you're getting rid of the tariffs. So the terroifts raised costs. No, the teriffs didn't raise any costs. But we're going to lower costs on food. There's this weird they don't you know. Donald Trump can't ever admit

he's wrong. And the fact of the matter is these tariffs. Foreigners didn't pay these fees. You and I did. We've

been paying this if you've bought up banana recently, you paid tariffs. So if he's going to sit here and refund this to some people, and we'll see if they're even able to do that, we're going to find out soon enough. He's likely to lose at least some of this tariff authority in court. He probably will try to find another way in the law to try to to try to implement some of these tariffs, and I think there are a few other levers he can pull that

he'll be able to do this. But the reality is is that, you know, despite everything he claimed that somehow Americans weren't going to be paying this tax, Americans have paid this tax. We have been getting more tax on food, particularly fruits, vegetables, stuff that comes from overseas, plus coffee.

So the fact that they're dropping them shows you that there's a bit of an acknowledgment that number one, prices haven't calmed down, they've gone up, and number two, he's been the reason why prices have gone up.

I think all of those things are possible, But I do want to highlight something Rick Scott said. Rick Scott made it crystal clear in a Sunday Show interview earlier that they were not going to repeal Obamacare and that you know, there was not going They were not that they that all insurance was going you know, they weren't

going to repeal the pre existing condition issue. Because the only way to save money on this on on these insurance exchanges in Obamacare is if you let insurance companies essentially cherry pick who they get to cover and if you don't have a pre existing condition, and they can shift people with pre existing conditions and make them pay higher rates but have healthy people pay super low rates. That's you know that that's the system we had before,

which didn't work for anybody. So the fact that Rick Scott is saying we are not going to do that because you cannot have insurance companies be able to to not accept clients because of a pre existing condition. This is why the system didn't work before. But the talking point that is really bizarre to me, as they're saying, well, they don't want to give this money to the insurance companies, are going to give it to the American people. Well, where do they think the American people is going to

spend this money? Can you get health insurance coverage without paying an insurance company? I mean, I guess unless we're going to be doing Medicare.

talking point that they're using. But the point is they know this is not good politics for them. They know that they have to deal with this, and I think they're going to deal with this soon. But this Epstein thing, I it's a When I was growing up, there was a deodorant commercial for a deodorant called Sure. And this is back when we had aerosol deodorance, and you know that the aerosol deodorance was gross, you know, thankfully, you know, we had such a we were so worried about the

ozone layer back then. They finally got rid of those things, which is there's a whole bunch of us that are thankful for that. That was just gross. You walk into a gem and you'd always smell that sort of aerosol deodorant. It was disgusting. But the Sure, I always said, never let them see a sweat was sort of the tagline for Sure deodorant. Well, Donald Trump is letting all of us see him sweat. This episode of The Chuck Podcast

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He is clearly nervous about all things ups. It is his personal obsession. He is trying to enact political and vendettas having to do with it. He is making Marchie Taylor Green a martyr. He is giving, he is helping get her mainstreamed with independency. She is proudly calling herself, you know, Mago without him, And that's.

Trump's the least Maga. And he's become obsessed with the deal making overseas he's become obsessed with all the money he's making off of his off of his influence in government. It's pretty much the opposite of what the true believers in MAGA, those that did want to go after the elites, who thought the elites were using government to enrich themselves, And what's Donald Trump doing using government to enrich himself.

So look, I wrote it my substeck last week, and I think that so far everything is playing out sort of exactly out I sort of was laying it out, and I think we're going to continue to see it. His influence is waning. More Republicans discover every day that

he will never be on a ballot again, and just keep an eye on. So he's already gone after Massi and it's not really going that well. Thomas Massey's primary is going is May nineteenth, and that's fairly early in the primary season. There's a lot more though, you know, we have a few states in March, a couple of states in April, but most of the primaries are in June, than a big chunk in August, and are remaining a

few in September. If Massi wins, And right now, I'd rather be Massy than anybody else in that Republican primary. He's had a hard time finding anybody. It's yet going to be another reminder that the Emperor is losing his clothes. I'm not going to say the Emperor has no clue at the moment, but I think the Emperor is starting to shed some clothes at the moment. And if he is trying to punish somebody and he can't do it right, he already lost one big one with Brian Kemp. And

remember why he turned on Brian Kemp. He turned on

Brian Camp over January sixth. In the election. He turned on Brian Camp because Brian Kemp wouldn't do an illegal act right, Brian Kemp wouldn't abide by his by Donald Trump's wishes. So again this pattern. The only time Donald Trump wants to punish a fellow Republican is when they won't go along with something that just is bullshit. Right. They won't go along on the Epstein files, they won't go along on January sixth, they won't go along on

the election. And whether they're it's the only time he turns on folks. He doesn't ever really turn on him over policy. Disagreements. He only turns on him if he thinks other people are going to embarrass them him because

because they won't keep his lie up. And when Massey wins that primary in May, it's yet going to be another chink in the armor, and it's going to continue to open the store and everybody is it's just getting easier and easier to separate yourself from Donald Trump, and there's going to be these different lease a little small. The Epstein vote is going to be a step in that direction, and you're going to see one hundred or

more House members do it. When the Supreme Court rules against his tariffs, you're going to see a whole bunch of Republicans suddenly find their free trade spines again, and

they'll put out releases talking about following the Constitution. So these little and then you're going to see, you know, as people are upset about the costs rising costs, you're going to see more in Republicans look for ways to potentially separate themselves from the way House, but certainly to more directly appeal to voters, either in different ways to try to get rid of terrorists the lower costs, or to question big tech and what they're doing to raise

our electric bills with all these data centers that are

going up all over the place. So I do think we are witnessing, like I said before the beginning of the lame ducification of Donald Trump. One other thing before we get to the interview that I want to get to. So I spent Thursday and Friday in Austin, Texas the Texas Tribune Festival.

Chris Murphy was there. So, you know, while I'm not going to sit here and say it was, you had a whole bunch of people looking for twenty twenty eight candidates. I think they were there looking for people to fight Donald Trump more than anything else. It was interesting the various conversations that were had looked. I would say, the attendees at the Texas Tribune Festival were folks looking to fight Trump. These were folks that are you know, fall

on the left side of the aisle. They were there looking for They're looking for hope, you know, looking for a stronger vision in the Democratic Party looking in some cases, I think many of them probably were a little further to the left than probably the average rank and file member of the Democratic Party. And like I said the wes More conversation, you know, I was intrigued by the sort of the tone he took. He knew this audience

was very liberal, and yet he didn't try to play to the audience. He really hugged the center lane in ways that I didn't fully expect him to hug it. He made it clear that, you know, he didn't view himself as tied to the Democratic Party. He was a Democrat, but that didn't mean he would abide by everything the Democratic Party was for. I thought that was an interesting distinction. Always a little bit easier for governors to say that than any other officeholder, but he went out of his

way to say that. I thought that was intriguing, and I do think it's you know, when he goes through. I mean, his military experience is you know, I think there's some you know, John Kerrey used to get criticized by some who thought that he used his military he went into the military for political purposes. I don't care if somebody went into the military for political purposes. That doesn't bother me. But some people think, oh, you're doing

it to check a box. That isn't why Wes Moore joined the military, and that's what he got in.

no problem with that. I appreciate that you're trying to have a variety of experiences in order to in order to be a better leader if you do get a shot at being a small, de democratic leader of this country. So I don't think it's a huge deal, but I do think his military experience a little bit different. Right when you join at seventeen and he was already had gone to military school. So I just think he I don't think he's a conventional liberal Democrat, is my point.

And I didn't fully appreciate that until you had, until you have this longer conversation, I was intrigued by him. I thought it was I thought some of his answers, his defensive capitalism was quite interesting. Again, later this week, we're going to drop this into the feed, So if you want to listen to this conversation, you can listen to the whole conversation. I actually used it also this week in my new sphere, so those of you that are a member of Newsphere, you can check out Sunday

Night with Chuck Codd. That was a big chunk of that interview appeared there as well. But there was one other thing I wanted to bring up because both he and Tim Walls. I saw Tim Wall's conversation. He was in conversation with Jennifer Paul Mary, a longtime Democratic operative, and I asked both. Jen asked Tim Walls a question about sort of what does Trump do well? And I asked a question, what does Trump get right? You know? To Wes Moore, some version of it and they both

said the same thing. You know, he acts, it's moved, he moves quickly. I think Tim Wall said, he moves quickly and he goes. You know one thing Trump does well,

what Wes Moore said, is that there's always action. Right. He doesn't wait around for a commission. He doesn't have a committee to study something before trying to implement it. A lot of times he tries to implement things even when he doesn't have the authority to do it. But he's always but the voter sees him trying to do something, sees him trying to fulfill a promise that he made, even if it's ends up being kind of an empty fulfillment,

he still attempts to do it. It tells me that the next Democratic president is if there's one thing they're going to attempt to emulate from Trump, You're going to see a lot more signing ceremonies, a lot more public signing ceremonies, a lot more executive orders, a lot more attempts at doing rather than studying, and maybe even trying to do too much rather than looking back like I think many in the Obama years do. And wonder was that was the two years that he had full where

he had fifty nine to sixty Senate seats. He had sixty for a while, then it was back to fifty nine. A fairly large House majority was that did he was getting healthcare? Was great? Should he have just kept pushing the envelope, tried to get cap and trade, just pushed, pushed, pushed, and because no matter what there was going to be, they were going to lose the mid terms, no matter what. So you might as well have done as much as you can. Because what's the lesson Donald Trump has taken?

Do as much as you can while you can, because you're really there or know how long you're going to be there. And I think the fact that both Wesmore and Tim Walls that that's one of the lessons those that's the initial and when they're asked what does Trump do well or what does Trump get right? That both of them and I don't think they talk to each other about this. I don't think either. I don't think More the Wall said at first. I don't think More

heard Tim Walls say this. It didn't really go viral or anything like that. So I don't think he's alone. And I've heard this from quite a few other Democrats that that they get frustrated. They think when you know, well, he's he's signing these executors, they're kind of meaningless. Yeah, ninety percent of them are meaningless. But the message to the voters is he's trying that he's making an effort, that he's doing something. Nobody ever wonders whether you know.

I think it's why Trump's erratic health isn't hurting him quite yet as much as it hurt Biden, because Biden didn't look like he was doing as much. So then you wondered, why is an age doing as much? So it is it is. It was just intriguing that that was singled out.

League prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. David Lesh, who ended up a life as an expert on the Middle East, hanging out with the assads every once in a while in Syria. So with that, let's sneak in the break and when we come back, David Lesh, there's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion

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Law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same, So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. Well here at the check podcast. When you get a book proposal to

interview somebody, and the book is called Dodgers to Damascus, it's almost as if the publication was trying to identify me as the target's interview e as a Dodger fan, growing up as a political junkie. Now policy junkie a story, and this is a biography. The book itself as a biography of my guest today, David Lesh, who is who began his studies of the Middle East by being a prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Well let him in some ways, that's exactly what it was, the dream of baseball.

Like a lot of aspiring baseball players, injuries can sometimes get in the way of a career, and you use another part of your body, your brain, to pursue another passion, which is what David Lesh did. And it's a fascinating story and the book is fascinating but sort of lessons

from baseball to help resolve the Middle East crisis or crises plural. So David Lesh joins me now the subject of the book. David, welcome to the podcast. It's nice to meet you.

a wonderful job as an accomplished author, who wrote this book and She called me one time. She said, David, I'm having trouble writing the last chapter. And I said why and she said, because you're still alive.

figure i'd be doing. And it forced me to look at a lot of situations throughout my life. It was interesting to see because she interviewed like fifty sixty you know, colleagues and friends, family acquaintances, and it was interesting to see what they thought of me, and which was much better than that I had anticipated, by the way. But so it was in a writing experience. It was emotional at times because I had to revisit some periods and events in my life that you know, had a great

deal of impact in positive and negative ways. But it was really I thought, you know, well done by Catherine. A very positive experience overall.

it takes to become a Middle East expert. And I always I put experts in quotes because an expert of what these days it's almost in some ways you're an anthropologist, right, You're a civilization you're trying to understand and what it really is is, you know, I have my own opinions about how we just don't people don't understand the history of the Middle East before nineteen forty eight, Right, that's my largest frustration in sort of the coverage of stuff.

But what drew you to it? Why did you want to make this your area of expertise.

out there.

and Robert Freeman were the two. They were well known in the field, and they just turned me on to a subject that at that time, you know, the seventies early eighties, as you well know, it was not covered very well or objectively. And so I did the more I started studying it, and more importantly, when I started traveling there, I just became enamored with that history, with the people and why things you know, went off the track, so to speak, so much in so many areas in

the Middle East. I wanted to understand that and hopefully later on, as I hope I've done in my books to help explain it to an audience.

wing populism or right wing populism, I know the first thing they're doing is coming for the Jews. But you know, I realized in sort of the in the this was began before October seventh, but certainly post October seventh, the

amount of people that didn't understand the Middle East pre nineteen forty eight, and that really the biggest problem we had generationally was And then it realized, well.

fact that in some ways, and a couple as I joke, a couple of drunk Frenchmen and Brits decided to draw straight lines and say you get a country you don't you do?

issues all over the world and responsibilities and objectives. For a president to focus on one single thing and really understand it is very, very unusual unless they have a background in it. But yeah, I mean the Ottoman Empire and you talk about the two drunk frenchmen that Jordan was always said a joke was that Winston Churchill had a hiccup and drew that part of Jordan that sticks out. But the reality is it was to connect pipelines from the Version Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. So there was

all strategic reasons behind all of this. And one of the things people understand, I think the British and the French obviously allied on the Tient powers in World War One, but they always saw each other as potential enemies.

secret wartime agreements were always you know, from each side aimed at the other for what they hope would be victory and defeating the central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. But you're right, I mean, the fall of the Ottoman Empire is sort of glossed over, and it's the Eurocentric orientalist view of World War One and what happened with the artificial divisions in the Middle East.

the region for us? Not what can we do for you in the region? Is that.

feed their own strategic interests. And so's that's very, very true.

And it's you know, the countries in the Middle East they lack in many ways of national identity, They lack the rulers, lack legitimacy. A lot of that goes all the way back to the artificiality of the heartland of the Middle East.

to say relationship, but sort of a conversation with.

good network in Syria, particularly in mine academics. And when Osade came to power in two thousand, he brought academics into the government, which some thought, as you know, hope for the future, other things.

his what is essentially his boor certification ophthalmology in London. But people have to remember he only spent you know, two years in London. And even though he liked the Electric Light Orchestra and Phil Collins and the Beatles, you know, his upbringing was molded by, you know, being a child of the Arab Israeli conflict, a child of the super power conflict when Syria was on the side of the

Soviet Union in Russia. And mostly most importantly a child of Havazalasat, his father, who had a very particular brand of authoritarianism in Syria. So those are the things that shaped his worldview, and I was very interested in, you know, his transition from enthalmologists to ruler. And so I contacted one of these academics he brought in who happened to be the good friend of mine who was in the Minister of Higher Education, and said, hey, you know, I like to write a book on him. Can I meet

with Mischard Alasad? And that's how it all started, and a couple of years later, in two thousand and four, came into being.

the invasion. Right after nine to eleven, American officials were saying Syria was helping to save lies with intelligence cooperation on El Kaeda. After two thousand and three, now Syria was costing American lives because they were allowing Jahadas to go through their country and into Iraq, which caused problems

for the US and its allies. And so you know, I was, I was very interested in that transition, but he was interested in portraying a more positive image just when Syrian US relations, I think were deteriorating quite a bit.

the way that he handled things beforehand. Plus, and this is throughout history. When rulers of opposition movements they come to power, those that help them come to power want dividends. They want you know, they want positions in the in the government. They have a certain way of looking at things, especially if they come from.

the side of caution. And most of the Israelis I've talked to in the military and politically, you know, they see that Ahma Shada's turn toward moderation, pragmatism, wanting inclusive government is more a tactical maneuver than something that represents a true change. That he's going to revert to his Jahada's roots at some point. And yet others I've talked to that know him actually personally. One NGO in London knew him for ten years and they are convinced he

is pragmatic. He has changed. You know, he's going to be visiting Washington a week from today and meeting with Trump and they'll probably serial will sign on to the Anti ISIS coalition, which is supposed to be a big deal. But they've been helping in terms of intelligence cooperation with

the US and tracking down Okada and isis outbart Is when he was an IDLIB for the last decade. Now, he did that because he wanted to clear out and he helped clear out an any opposition or COMPETI zone.

same type of unsurreness about where their real biases lie?

our strategic interests as well as Israel. We want to keep Iran out, we want to keep the Russians at bay in Syria and hope that it just doesn't implode into another civil war.

so you know it can happen. But you know, ninety percent of the country is in the poverty rate. The country has been dealing with fifteen years of withering international sanctions. It's a population that's highly fragmented and militarized, with independent militias, with drug mafias, with a rapacious warlords roaming around that have more power than the national army. And you have these sectarian fortresses which were created with the breakdown of

the state during the Syrians of a war. They you know, you naturally retreat into your sectarian fortress and you look at the other sex as a heathen scum that must be eliminated from the world. And so how do you piece all that together? And it's gonna take a long time. A lot of patients. It may have to go through various iterations of who is in power and hopefully not another all out of civil war.

cause as much trouble in a Rock. And that goes for what you were saying earlier, the possibility of Rock becoming more of a democracy. I think Iran's being exposed and being severely weakened has helped or increase the possibility of a Rock becoming a functioning democracy, has increased the possibility of Lebanon becoming a functional democracy, and maybe maybe Syria, you know, down the road. But you know, at this point, you know, I have a low bar of successors.

the It is, on one hand, something we've been wanting right as a policy outcome, and yet are we really ready for it?

take over in Iran if the iatolas fall? You know, will it becomes Sometimes when the boogeyman falls, it's not necessarily what we want comes into power, something even perhaps worse.

and then the fact that they so easily folded right, there was just there's no longer I mean, yes, they're still brutalizing opposition, domestic opposition. They're still trying to be an authoritarian state. But they've certainly there's not a lot of fear anymore of the Iotolis.

their image has just gone down the tubes with regional powers. Uh. And I think we can see a real clignment of this. But what will happen in Iran? Iran has always been reviewed as the prize, along as already being the Gulf, So there are gonna be a lot of eyes the prize.

me we'd be much better allies than the Israelis, would you know we would. We wouldn't undercut you as much as the Israelis have done, and I'm sure the Iranians would would try to do it after all. I mean it's a you know, far COO's Arabic script is an Indo European language, you know, and they have this past that aligns with the West in some ways.

to do. They they're going to do what they feel is in their strategic objectives, and and they have done that. I mean, look at this, Chuck, I mean that they bomb Cutter.

And I see Syria coming on board if this current uh UH government stays in power and follows along the line they're doing at least signing a security arrangement with Israel and then once society has crossed the line, which they were they were gonna do probably if October seventh didn't happen, which is one of the reasons, as you know, the Hamas did. October seventh was.

this and say, I can't stomach MBS. Why should we help him? What's say, give me the give me the academic view of why we've Why would they're a necessary partner?

may be very much needed. You know now that now that you know Iraan is perhaps weaken We always thought of them at the Saudis as a counterway to Iran, But we have to see what's going to happen with Iran. It'll be interesting in the future. This will be interesting if ten fifteen years from now, Iran does get rid of the Ietolas, does stabilize, does become this potential economic power is you know, much like Germany in mainland Europe. You know, what will happen with the Saudis relationship and

so forth? Can the two mutually coexist with US interests?

you don't win with that. You could be the greatest player in the world, Tad Williams, but if you don't have enough good baseball players around you, You're not going to win a World Series. So you know how when somebody says the lessons of baseball helped me become a

better give me better perspective about the Middle East? You answer this question half.

constantly fail. And I played basketball and tennis and all in football when I was young, and you were constantly tested, and you developed this resiliency which Sanjay Gupta I read the other day says resiliency is like strength training for the brain, you know, and it helps you get through personal traumas it helps you get through failures later in life, and as I've become a conflict resolution person involved in high level negotiations and air BISAREELI stuff, steering, civil war.

You fail all the time, I mean, but you have to learn from it, and you have to have that resiliency, that persistence, perseverance to get through it and try again, and try again and try again. Now you don't want to make you know, Einstein's theory of insanity correct, but you you, you know, learn from it and it just and sometimes things just out of out of your control, ruins everything and brings you back to ground zero. And that's what happens in sports as well. And you just

have to have that resiliency. And so, you know, one of my mantras is keep trying, don't eliminate yourself, and keep trying. And that I had to think. That's what I got from baseball and sports in general.

Series right now, the lead analyst after a twenty year, brilliant Hall of Fame career at the injury.

of that. But but you know, sometimes, you know, I think I would have made a lot more money. That's rich there being a major league pitcher. But drafting pictures is the worst investment in all of sports. That's why you got a draft about ten or fifteen of them. Hopefully one gets through because of all the injuries, because everything you do physiologically pitcher is wrong against normal you know, physiology.

to win this ion. He spent the last twenty years of his like obsessed with changing the motion of pictures for the very thing you just said said, like the way that we've taught pitching is actually asked the arm

to do something it shouldn't be doing, and that if you change the motion, you could actually limit injuries. And I believe his method did produce one major leaguer who got into the majors. But given when you came up, it was sort of tail end of Marshall's career there.

actually meant something. Can you believe change ups today are ninety miles hour change The whole goal.

style of pitching. We're moving to this, right. Susier was always a throwback, you know. He never wanted to go less than seven, right, He always wanted to keep going. Your Verlanders, your Sugiers, your Kershaws, and here they are. They're all basically probably I kind of think Max, I want him to retire. Now he gets to say he pitched the last gave me pitch was a series. But it's hard to walk away, right, Like, how often did you wish you had one more year?

the the the tendon that would snap or something like? He was basically literally a gift from.

to give out. You just cannot take that type of pressure. And the thing is, you know, hitters are they catch up, they're hitting these balls. And I've leuis, how many teams your favorite teams? And a guy Jamie Moyer, you know, who's forty he pitched forever eighty two miles an hour, eighty five miles an hour, and he pitches a shout out because hitters aren't used to that type of thing. You know, they're not used to eighty eighty with with motion and with the motion in the ball and with targeting,

you know, target to pitching. So it's I think there there's room for both. And I think I agree with you. I think we're gonna trend sort of in a in another direction. I hope, I hope.

hope his arm is Okay, uh, you know, I'm sure, having invested gazillion dollars in him, they're not going to ruin him.

I why why haven't more pitchers been more successful hitters in the past.

you do skill and so the specialization of it. But I did when a little league game, I did pitch a complete game, six inning shutout and hit a home run in the game. So and it was a legitimate home run, not a little league Yeah, you get a show exactly, but I do.

World Baseball Classic, but baseball's never really taken in the Middle East. There is some cricket. Could you ever imagine being able to get more people interested in baseball in the Middle East?

But we're baseball aholics, you know. But for this generation and the recent generations, uh, you know, they want more action, more scoring, which is why baseball, you know, went to the home run and steroids and looked the other way and all this stuff to get more runs on the board. But we'll take in the Middle East, I don't know. I mean, the Saudi's play it. But that's a bunch of a Ramco kids, you know that that's all right.

season games in Japan this this past year. So you know, I think one of the things, one of the things which changes everyone's perception in the particular region world out of sport, United States, if someone from that region becomes a star and it becomes a guiding light like a

show Atani or you know earlier Japanese players and Korean players. We just need some some Middle East.

all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims or Arabs and so forth. But Islam a phobia is one of those phobias that is like anti Semitism.

allow a phobia to take to take in you.

you know, were unit a language. Go someplace that makes you feel uncomfortable, Go someplace where you don't know the culture or learn the language, immerse yourself, and that's when you really start to understand that these people, even though they follow in all the religion and have many different habits and customs, they're like you in many different ways.

They want many of the same things. And I bring students and I brought groups over to the Middle East, and that's what they find out when they really interact with people and not just stay in the five star resort hotel. They go around to the rural areas, They need people. They spend you know, an evening or even overnight at some house and they learn about their lives and that is the best way to get rid of these phobias and all of this misinformation that exists regarding Islam.

be La like it's you do in it. It's definitely a tougher barrier to break than I think I fully appreciate.

these things, more Muslims becoming involved in the community. Yes, it's causing some distress intentions and people are afraid of this, that, and the other thing in sharia law coming in, which is ridiculous. Maybe all of this has to happen. We need to get through this and have these discussions and hopefully through education and reasonable people making reasonable decisions that we can get past it.

build a downtown arena. And if it doesn't pass, who knows, they may become the Austin Yeah.

to Damascus. Uh.

day exercise. To be frank, it's let's just say, nothing feels permanent still, and I don't think anything will feel permanent for some time. But let's go into the podcast time machine. So it's the week of November seventeenth through the twenty third, and you know what I like to do, go back in history and we're just looking at this

these seven days, and believe it or not, this is quite I stumbled onto what is conspiracy theory Week? In American history? Three moments in particular have anniversaries this week. The Jonestown massacre, the kool Aid drinking November.

believe conspiracies and why those beliefs are so durable. And by the way, this is also the same energy right now fueling our current national fixation on the Epstein files, where the fantastical spreads faster than any known fact. But we only have one type of person to blame, the elected American elected official, right, So let's get to the time machine. So we're going to start with Jonestown. That's

when conspiracy thinking became catastrophic. It's November. We're going to go back to November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight in Jonestown. Now, a lot of people think of Jonestown as a cult tragedy, and it is, but it's also the story of how a closed information system can destroy a human judgment. Jim Jones, the cult leader, didn't just isolate his followers physically. He isolated them psychologically, emotionally, and informationally. He convinced them that

outsiders were coming to kill them. He convinced them that only he understood the truth. He convinced them that everyone else, from the media to the US government was lying. Perhaps he alone could fix it. But I digress. But here's the terrifying part. The more erratic Jones became, the more his followers trusted him. Because once you buy into total this sort of total narrative, once you build your identity around a conspiratorial worldview, facts are no longer persued. Facts

become evidence of the conspiracy against you. Jonestown is not a government conspiracy. It's the consequence of conspiratorial thinking, and it becomes a template, decades before social media for how a charismatic figure can sever followers from reality and create a world where the fantastical is accepted without question. It's why QAnon didn't surprise psychologists. It's why people fall for online calls. Jonestown is a modern cautionary tale of what

happens when people choose narrative over truth. My god, imagine how big jonestown might have gotten with social media. All right,

let's to the second, the second big conspiratorial event in our timeline this week, the conspiracy the public never accepted fourteen years earlier, the same week, November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, John is assassinated in Dallas. If Jonestown shows what happens when people buy into a false conspiracy, the JFK assassination shows what happens when the official story fails to convince the public. The Warren Report was assembled very quickly.

The evidence was confusing. The single bullet theory sounded well, pretty implausible to the average American, and the result was a permanent fracture in public trust. In fact, I always go back. I mean, if you look at the original sin of when did you know? If you look at baby boomers today, right, they grew up with this, This

was their coming of age. Moment was government they believed lying to them about what happened to their president, right, And then just about every subsequent generation would have a

little bit more of the government lion to them, and we'd chip away, chip away, chip away. But this was a big one because the generation before the Baby Boomers

trusted their government. But for millions of Americans, JFK's death marks the moment when they stopped believing the government reflexively and started believing the government selectively, not because they wanted a conspiracy, but because the government couldn't explain the tragedy in a way that felt complete, transparent, or sufficiently humble. This is where CIA theory is, mafia theories, castro theories,

LBJ theories, deep state theories. They all began here. But the more important important point is this after JFK, Americans no longer needed evidence for conspiracy.

brings us to a year that still feels like a wound. It's nineteen seventy three, the Nixon tape gap. The conspiracy that was well was a conspiracy.

After years of being told trust us, after years of dismissing accusations as partisan, and after years of insisting that critics of Nixon were hysterical, here it was a missing tape, not metaphorically literally an erased tape, Thank you, Rosemary Woods. And the White House explanation was so implausible secretaries accidentally leaning on pedals fingers slipping, that it practically invited conspiracy. The lesson for the American public was brutal and simple.

Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true, and sometimes the cover up is even dumber than the crime. And once that happens, once government credibility is broken in this specific way, you don't get it back through press releases, you don't get it back through official investigation, and you don't even get it back through prosecutions. And of course we never did prosecute you know, I think when I first started my time cast time machine, one of the I started with

the pardon, with Ford's pardon and a mistake. I think

now we see that was clearly I don't think it's it's even a close call anymore, that that was clearly a mistake, because we never did get justice for what was done. But Watergate taught Americans that powerful people sometimes lie, and institutions sometimes protect those lies. And once you know that, you never unknow it. And then it just sort of sits there, and it chips away and chips away, and we wonder why we have a government we don't trust today.

think if there was something even darker, deeper, we there'd at least be a leak about it somewhere, but we haven't gotten that.

gap instantly. And then you look look at our ridiculous algorithms that sort of reward those that have a new theory rather than those that have factual information. Right, if I were to say, right now, boy, it's got to be that Gallaine Maxwell knows the origin story of Malania Trump and how Malania and Donald met boy the algorithms would go crazy, and this video could go viral because I'd say it, because I'd say that I have no

evidence of this. Okay, I certainly am trying to figure out why the president is hiding so much of this and why he seems to be so scared of Gallaine Maxwell. So your mind wanders, and unfortunately, because of how poor government's been about being transparent about things including the jfk assassination being frankly exhibit A, how do you tell an American not to go down that conspiratorial rabbit hole? This is where we are. So what do we take away

from this in this week in American history? Here's the common threat. We are conspiracy prone, not because we're gullible,

but because our institutions have repeatedly given us enough reason, just enough reason to suspect that we're not being told the full story. When leaders lie, even tiny lies, they leave behind just enough ambiguity for our collective imagination to go to work. And when institutions are slow, opaque, or even arrogant, doubt becomes a form of self defense. When information drips out instead, of flows out. The vacuum fills the narrative, and when the officials story doesn't feel complete,

the unofficial ones become irresistible. So I'll leave you this. We Americans can handle plenty of bad news. What we cannot handle is missing news. You got to tell us everything. Don't hold back, because if you do, if we find out and you held back, it is so much worse. The more than institutions give us half truths, delayed truths, redacted truths, or contradictory truths or alternative facts, the more this week in history becomes every week in our political system.

a reported to do it. You know, yes, he has his theories, but he separates the facts from the theories. I wish I had a really good place for you to go for all things having to do with filling the gaps and Watergate. But in some ways, I think I think we've filled we have between Garrett Graft's most recent book about Watergate, plus everything Woodward and Bernstein has done,

we have a pretty decent handle on them. So you know what this means. It's college football time. Okay, So Miami kept up its end of the bargain, had a nice I will say I was pleasantly surprised. There's there's nothing like a Hurricane's game when the defense sort of sparks things and the pick six early set the tone. The offense started to hum. Yes, NC State didn't have the best of defenses, but the fact is Miami won by a margin that they should win by. They covered

the spread. I think they doubled actually the actual spread. So it was a it was a decisive victory. And you know, some things went Miami's way as far as you know, teams that needed to lose ahead of them, A few teams did. Texas lost, that's a big one. They're not you know, they're they're not going to get in even a victory over Texas. A and m they're not a three loss team, is not yet going to make the playoff. A couple other things, Boston College had

Georgia Tech on the ropes. You know, I certainly would like to see Miami be able to play itself into the playoff, not having to wait to see if their body of work will be considered better or worse than the body of work of other two loss teams. But I want to get to that here in a minute. But for the look in fairness, I think it was the best game mim he's played since Notre Dame and in South Florida, where two which were probably the two

most complete games they've played all year. Even the Florida game, they didn't play a great first half. It was the second half that they sort of put that game away. But but Notre Dame, they played three great quarters. They let they let Notre Dame sort of make the game look like it was a close game. And I think this this. You know, they basically were ahead by double digits most of the game. Notre Dame gets a lay touchdown and so the game looked closer than it actually was.

But this was a pretty complete game they got. This was the last home game senior Day, they got two more road games, Virginia Tech and then Pit. And let's talk about Pitt because Notre Dame now got to face a PIT team that did not chose to play an exhibition game. Now, I'm not saying the players that actually played in the game didn't play hard. They did, but the coaching staff made a decision that they were not

going to play to win this game. Anybody that was fifty to fifty you could play, but you know, they'd rather have him rest for the conference their last two conference games, which are Georgia Tech and Miami. They chose to do that. The coach went public earlier in the week and said, it doesn't this game was meaningless to them. This was akin to a preseason game, an exhibition game. They could lose by one hundred, it didn't matter. Their path to a playoff did not go through Notre Dame.

Their path to the playoff went through making it to the ACC Conference title game. And if they went out, they will have a place in the title game, which brings me to and then, by the way, same thing just happened a week earlier with Notre Dame when they played Navy. When Navy decided not to play one of their quarterbacks in that game, Horvat saving him because he had been somewhat he'd been dinged up a little bit. They wanted to basically give him a week off before

their conference game against South Florida. By the way, that was a terrific game. I watched a lot of that game that was in my multibox. That was a fun game to watch, and it was a shootout and somehow South Florida couldn't stop Navy very often. And Navy won that game, and they still have a path to the college football playoff again through the Group of five playoff slot. Again, the Notre Dame game was meaningless to them in their attempt to get.

huge skeptic. Given that three years in a row, they have made decisions that were not about football teams that were instead about what ESPN wanted or what the SEC wanted, which maybe one and the same. Right, we go back to the decision not to put Florida State in the end of the playoff when they were undefeated after winning their conference title game, and they just chose not to

put Florida State in. Right. So, if you're wondering why I have have been so hard on ESPN and the SEC about this, is because not that they might do this, because they've already done it once and then they arguably did it last year. Miami absolutely belonged in that playoff and they chose not to put Miami in because they didn't want to put in a third ACC team.

if Miami can sort of force the envelope. But explain to me, I mean to me, if you were to treat Notre Dame as sort of instead of knowing that it was Notre Dame. And I just gave you the profile of team A, Team B, Team C, Team D. Right, there is no way Notre Dame is a playoff team. They don't have a good Their best win is USC, who may or may not be a competitor for a

playoff spot. And then two of their victories are against teams that chose essentially to pull some of their starters so that they didn't face the toughest version of PITT. Miami's going to face the toughest version of PITT. They didn't face the toughest version of Navy. South Florida faced the toughest version of Navy. So you know, I I that that should matter if the head to head isn't going to matter. Now, obviously the most important thing ought

to be the head to head. Notre Dame loses to Miami and they're both ten and two, it's obvious what any actual tie breaking scenario in any other league, the first tiebreaker is head to head.

they'll say, hey, they have great wins. Right, But they don't seem to have a standardized metric on what matters more wins or losses when you're trying to differentiate between a ten and two team or three ten and two teams. In fact, we're gonna have a lot of this, right, You're gonna have You may have ten and two Oklahoma, ten and two Notre Dame, ten and two, Alabama, uh and ten into in Miami. And let's just take a look at this. Okay, Alabama, one of their losses is

a team Miami beat. Do you think that's going to matter to the committee. I'm not naive. I know it's not going to matter. I'll give Alabama this. They have the best win of the four because Alabama beat Georgia, so they will get credit for that. Oklahoma has now Alabama is their best win, right They lost to Texas, a team that Florida beat, a team that Miami whipped before Florida was giving up okay, before the whole firing and all that business. And then of course when you

compare Miami Notre Dame, Miami beat Notre Dame. Obviously I'm singling those four teams out because I am that if they all four ten and two and there's three slots for those four teams, I know this committee is going to try to keep Miami out. And if you looked at him in a blind survey, Miami argue at believest the second best of those four. If you're going to do that, let alone third or fourth.

It was a way over punishments in this idea that when you lose somehow should should matter. And I know this has always sort of been out there because of the of the screwyway college football work. But again, in the NFL, your record's your record, and if there's a tiebreaker, it doesn't matter when that game happened. Right. The head to head is the head to head.

we'll see what the committee does. But the thing that I that I want to see whether this committee is taking itself seriously at all, is the fact that Notre Dame has two teams on their schedule that decided not to play to one, and this is the look Notre Dame should be ding for not being in a conference playing conference games. The stakes are higher when you don't have a conference game, there's no stakes. Yes, the stakes are higher, they have to keep winning, but the conference

game is so much more high pressure. And whether your conference road game or hosting a team that just you would make their season if they beat you, which is just about every team Miami plays in the ACC. Okay, you know what Miami doesn't do. They don't storm fields because when you win national titles, you don't worry about storming a field because because it isn't a big deal

to you until you actually win the whole thing. But I tell you, I've been to plenty of Miami games where the other team storms the field because it's a big deal of them to beat Miami in a regular season. Notre Dame knows this feeling. Plenty of teams when they've upset Notre Dame on the road, they storm the field. But the fact is Miami is playing more high pressure games. Shoot, Oklahomas playing more high pressure games. Us every one of the power for because of how important this path to

the playoff is. These conference games are much more high stakes and Notre Dame.

have to go through this conference business. So at a minimum, Rhys Davis, please ask whoever's going to be that I think it's now the Arkansas ad who is going to be the spokesperson for the committee. Please ask them whether the committee is going to essentially downgrade the two victories that Notre Dame had over Navy and pit They should be downgraded. They did not face they faced an exhibition. They faced two teams that treated the game as an exhibition.

I'm not saying the players themselves did, but the coaching staff did. And when you say you don't care if you win the game, you know your players hear it. So when you're comparing not every ten and two record should be treated the same. And I think clearly here Notre Dame should be the one that's in much bigger trouble in their playoff path right now because they have teams that are not taking the Notre Dame game that seriously anymore because of how important now the conference pathway is.

I have to say a few other notes on what I saw over the weekend. I get more impressed at Texas Tech all the time. I have no idea why anybody's ranking Oregon as high as they are. I think Oregon I have some questions about Oregon here. You know, yes, they have one loss. I'll be this Oregon USC game coming up. It's a huge game to see if the Big ten can get three teams into the playoffs. But Oregon's best win is now Penn State. How good of a win is that Oregon needs to blow out USC?

I think to justify they're certainly to justify how to see them at ranked as high high as they are. I got to give Texas A and M a ton of credit both A and M this week in Indiana. Last week, when you should lose a game and you figure out a way to win and you're one of these undefeated teams, I am in some ways more impressed. They didn't play their best game in the first half. You know, I gave you that tip last week. I said, hey, I had heard that with the new offensive coordinator, they're

worried about losing Lenora Sellers in the portal. There's even rumors at Miami he may end up at Miami that they were going to open things up a little bit. And boy did they and he looked terrific in that first half, and A and M shut him down and shut everything down in the second half. So I have to say A and M impressed me, and impressed me quite a bit. They don't have to win another game. They will, but they don't have to win another game.

I'm very curious, and here's going to be something to see. Texas got its third loss.

don't have my eyes on them on that front. I have a feeling if Miami takes care of business and wins by margin in their last two games, that they likely leapfrog, because again, Miami does have better wins I think than either of those other two teams. But we shall see. All in all, I am obviously nervous, I'm willing, I'm trying to will every everything I have and making

sure Miami is treated fairly in this. That's all I'm asking is that Miami is treated fairly, because I don't think the a c C in general gets treated fairly in this, and frankly, until we have a year where they are treated fairly, you're going to have a hard time convincing any fan of any team in the a c C that the that ESPN or the College Football Playoff Committee or the ESPN Invitational Committee, whatever you want to call it is going to give an ACC team

a fair shot. But like I said, I will I will pull back some of my critique of the media company's influence on this committee if I see some hard questioning of the committee chair on this issue of whether Notre Dame's two victories over Navy and Pitt ought to be downgraded. So with that, I do enjoy trolling my friends that are Notre Dame fans on this one. But in all seriousness, if I know if somehow this could be used as a demerit against an ACC team, this

committee would be all over it. It's a big name, Notre Dame that's doing it. Will they have the guts to publicly call out Notre Dame's victories on this one?