Full Episode - SCOTUS Guts The Voting Rights Act… Uncapping The House Would Fix It + Will Progressives Reshape The Democratic Party?

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use the code toodcast to get those sixty days for free. Sixty days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're going to be saving on every shipment. So that's shipstation dot com toodcast. Shipstation dot com use the code toodcast. Hello there, Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Chuck Toodcast. Has been a pretty busy It obviously started with the scary situation at the White House Correspondent's dinner. There's been a little bit

of focus on that. But hello, we're still in this war pause if you will, with Iran with really no end in sight, and I want to talk a little bit about the pretty useless briefing that we got from Pete hag Seth with his testimony before the House. Perhaps the Senate side might be better at this, but you know what, It's pretty clear Pete Haggseth isn't interested in being a public servant and doing the things that you would expect taxpayer funded people to do and explain themselves.

He is basically got internet brain, right, he has got his brain is rotting from too much time on the internet. War is way too much about his woke ideology, woke write ideology, whatever. It is, constantly not thinking about actually doing what would be in the best interest of the administration, which is actually make a coherent case for why this

war is justified. Because he didn't do a very good job of that, and he does a terrible job at trying to pick political fights he thinks he's doing. I think he thinks he's being helpful to the president. I don't think it's doing what he thinks it's doing. But the big news politically, we got that new map from Florida, and I was talking about it yesterday and it was right in the middle of when I was taping that. We got the Komi News and I'll have a little

bit more on that. But the big news is this Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and incredible narrowing. Some would call it gutting, depending on your point of view on this, but an incredible narrowing of the Voting

Rights Act which essentially eliminates it from usage in the South. Right, the initial reason for the Voting Rights Act was for the systemic way that Southern states in particular disenfranchised black voters, and the point of creating these majority minority districts or plurality minority districts, particularly in the South was essentially right a century's long wrong on this stuff, and it was about representation, making sure that there was a seat at

the table when over for over a century there was a denial of a seat at the table. And I want to tackle this in two different ways. Okay, one is the near term politics and what does this mean for the maps? What does this mean for campaign twenty twenty six and really more campaign twenty twenty eight and

possibly the redistricting of twenty thirty. But I also want to do something, and you're going to some of you may already know where I'm going to add, but I'm gonna head onto a hobby horse of a solution that I think now hopefully people will see, makes a heck of a lot more sense than when I was on this hobby horse about a year ago where I even did a ted talk about it. But first let's talk

about the near term decision. What does it mean? In theory, you may see a handful of states try to redistrict in the South where suddenly the majority minority districts in say Mississippi, Benny Thompson's district could be at risk. You've got the case was about Louisiana, so there'll be a new Louisiana map. It's likely you will go from two

majority African American districts down to one. For what it's worth, Alabama, the governor has already said no to any sort of special session, and it's my understanding the court actually pretty much said they can't do anything until twenty thirty. So you know that the state courts that is in Alabama,

so they're not going to touch in twenty thirty. We already had the new Florida remap was anticipating this, which is why the Darren Soto District, which is mostly a Puerto Rican district in central Florida, basically got carved up, and it was arguably in anticipation of this. Isn't at

this point another district in Florida that somehow this court ruling would have any influence on. There's certainly the possibility in South Carolina. There's certainly the possibility in Tennessee. In fact, it is worth I would point you to the down ballot. It is the down ballot is a publication and a substack that is very much has been on top of this, and they did a terrific analysis state by state of

what could happen, what would be at risk. I just you know, rather than me reading to you his work, I was done by David Near and Stephen Wolf. You should subscribe to them. I do. I don't want to take away subscription dollars for them, but they go through it. But like I said, the top line is Alabama's going to be untouched till twenty thirty. Florida has already been done. Georgia if they, I doubt there's an attempt at doing it.

And we're going to get into why. I think even if they tried to do something in the Georgia legislature, it would probably implode on them and only elect create more potential democratic seats. And I'm going to give you an example of that in a minute I told you about Louisiana. That's obviously this core case was about Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and potentially in Texas. But again, they've already done their big remap, So let's see what this

all looks like. I think it's a it's not the

way they drew their map. They're anticipating winning over as many Latino votes on the Republican side of the als Donald Trump won in twenty twenty four and to a lesser extent in twenty twenty two, and I think there's some questions about whether that holds up on that front.

But I want to take you back and sort of what does this mean, because look, I think we have a serious issue about representation of this country in our Congress, and I'm going to get to that because I think there is a better solution than trying to redo the Voting Rights Act, trying to come up with special rules and all of this stuff. There is a cleaner, better

way to do this. But let's talk about the near term political impact and when it takes you back to nineteen ninety it was the nineteen ninety one reapportionment map, where essentially it was the Bush forty one Justice Department working with the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly in the southern redraws, where in conjunction with the Voting Rights Act, that was that they needed to have and they got majority increase

representation in Congress of African Americans. And essentially the Bush Justice Department saw it that they had a quote win win situation with Black Democrats. They would draw some majority Black districts in the South, and Republicans would suddenly have more districts that they could win because essentially they took

a chunk of Democratic voters and put them all into compact districts. I'm going to tell you the story about Georgia in nineteen ninety before this reapportionment began in Georgia four years later. By nineteen ninety four, so at the start of the nineteen ninety decade, Newt Gingridge was the only Republican in Georgia's ten member congressional delegation. At the time, it was a nine one advantage Democrats owned the state.

After the nineteen ninety one reapportionment that created essentially the maximum African American districts you could create in Georgia, that was driven by the voting by the previous interpretation of the Voting Rights Act the second and the eleventh Congressional district districts because they increased by one, they went from ten to one. Georgia was a growing state, became majority African American for the first time in ninety two, and the delegation went from nine to one to nine Democrats

to one Republican for ninety two they win. This was an election that Democrats won. Nationally, Bill Clinton wins, Democrats lose some seats in Georgia, their advantage goes from seven Democrats to four Republicans, and then two years later, after the ninety four tsunami for Republicans, it essentially flips to seven Republicans and four Democrats with three African American majority African American districts and one white Democrat. So essentially, in

four years, Democrats went from nine to ten to four of an eleven. And basically it was because they created these maximum a very much large African American majority districts, concentrating black voters in a smaller number of districts. Now, the good news for African Americans is an increased representation in the US Congress, there were more Black Democrats. What it did for the party though, is it actually made it harder for them to elect more Democratic members of Congress.

So what does that mean now? So this is why these this remap is not going to be as clean as people think. It isn't going to be automated automatic pickups in order to draw these new districts. If they're going to no longer have majority African American districts, well they're going to be. Then you're gonna have African American voters who are vote sort of eight times out of ten more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. You're something

going to have a whole bunch more swing districts. Right. We sort of saw this already, and we're getting this example in Florida with the with the Soco district. In order for them to essentially eliminate that district, they spread out Democrats into a whole bunch of other central Florida districts.

And it's in theory taken a lot of likely Republican districts and turn them into quote lean Republican district Well, guess what in a waveyear like we're anticipating here in this midterm election with the party out of power sort of seeing a surgeon turnout, the party in power seeing a depression in turnout all of these Any sort of remap that does this sort of spreading out of Democratic voters and trying to put them in Republican seats is

suddenly going to dilute these maps. And what it, in theory, could end up doing is creating more swing districts throughout the South, which is exactly what we had in the eighties, and then in pre nineteen ninety and the nineteen ninety one reapportionment between the Bush Jets Department and the Congressional Black Caucus, we did not have nearly the number of swing districts in Southern states in the old sort of

Confederate states. So it is a so this is there is there is a lot of anxiety on the left about this decision, and when it comes to representation. I absolutely understand why there's so much anxiety about this because in some ways it's claiming that we've somehow all of the wrongs that took place all the way through nineteen sixty five. If suddenly, oh they're all gone, Well we know they're not all gone, and so taking away this

guardrail on representation in the South is quite risky. But just for the political outcome, if you're looking for D versus R on this, this is not an automatic I mean, yes, it gives a Republican's an opportunity to redraw their maps in the South, and so there'll be certainly less court pushback on certain things. Although I still think the Florida map could get some pushback based on what's in their state constitution when they passed a fair districts referendum a

few years back. But it's not clear to me that this is going to be an automatic net gain for Republicans. If you get rid of packed part of and districts and these districts get unpacked, you are essentially going to create more swing areas. Now what you may see is you may see some more. You may see some reciently charged democratic primaries in some of these districts where you will have a large chunk of African American voters, another

chunk of Democratic voters of either white Democratic voters, Latino, et cetera. So you might see more. You know that there certainly will be more a diverse set of candidates perhaps running in primaries. How identity politics works in that is going to probably depend on the candidate's running and

the issue sets of that day. But when you're just looking at it as far as Democrats versus Republicans, it's not clear to me, And if anything, it could be a wash, if not a potential in a waveyear of an advantage for the out party, which in this year is this. But again, how many districts are we really going to see get changed this year this cycle versus those that will happen for twenty twenty eight, and then of course we have the actual reapportionment going in twenty thirty,

so that's the near term political impact. You know, we've already seen, like I said, we've already seen Florida's already did their redraw that would have this is the redraw they would have done. They've almost assumed that the court ruling was going to be what it was, with really the Darren Sodo district being the one that falls under the Voting Rights Act on this one, Now, let's talk about what is a better perhaps a better thing to

fight for. Now. You know that one of the arcane, sort of very political sciencing nerdy things that's out there is this idea of uncapping the House and what does that mean. Well, in nineteen thirty, after a dispute, and I've gone some of you have heard me on this rant before, but in you know, the House of Representatives used to expand with the population of the country, the

number that we would have in the House. Not just you don't just decide how you reapportion the foreign and thirty five congressional districts among the fifty states, of course in nineteen thirty it was among forty eight states, but

also whether the population size has increased enough that it's time to expand the actual House of Representatives itself. Pretty much every decade before nineteen twenty, every single decade, after every census, we pretty much we expanded the House, and then we stopped doing it. Now, in nineteen twenty, you'll

be shocked to know what. You know, there was a big impass and both parties were fighting over this, and they couldn't agree on how many seats to add to the House and which states were going to get them, and there was a big fight, and eventually they got a compromise of let's just lock it down, let's not expand the size of the House anymore. Anyway, they were worried it was getting too big, too unruly, et cetera.

And so we've back in nineteen thirty we locked in four hundred and thirty five district and it was one per three hundred and fifty thousand, you know, basically one congressional district for three hundred and fifty thousand people. Well we're now at basically one per eight hundred thousand. And

you see, eight hundred thousand is the size of major cities. Right, there's only like eleven cities in America that have a population greater than that, and we now have we have four and thirty five that are just massive, and so that's why we have so much factional representation. So, you know, I understand the frustration about what we saw today, what we saw in the Supreme Court, But if you're looking to get a seat at the table, then you should fight to expand the size of the table. Right, we

have not talked about expanding the size of the table. The table being here the House. Now, what was founder's intent. Founders intent was the House of Representatives to grow with the country number one and number two be the most most representative of the people. Right now, the House of Representatives is not representative of the people. Each congressional district essentially is dominated by a faction. It could be a faction on the right or a faction on the left. Right,

it's it. And it is sometimes a faction within that party that is able to dominate an entire congressional district. And so look, I know some people are out there going, you know, so take Louisiana and Louisianas with thirty percent African American population, if they suddenly have no African American representation or one African American, is that truly fair? If a third, right, third of the congressional districts are not you know, right now they are, right, it's about a

third of the population. Third of the congressional district two out of six is majority and representative by African Americans. Now, another way to do this you could always have multi member districts, right or this idea that you know, Okay, the state of Louisiana has six and you you know, the top six people get elected to those districts. And

you would think over time that if there's various constituency groups or identity groups want to make sure they have representation. As long as they finish in the top six, you could have that. Now again, I don't think we're moving to sort of that sort of proportional representation or the

idea of multi member districts. It is an idea we usually export whenever we're helping fledgling democracies around the world, because it's the fairest way to get various constituency groups to feel as if they all have a seat of detata. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteisonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty

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simply an Act of Congress to expand the size of the House. You don't need a constitutional amendment. You don't need new legislation beyond this, beyond deciding. Now, you know, if you ask me, I'd put in a constitutional amendment that said no congressional district can be bigger than point oh three percent of the population. Yes, I've done the math. Point oh three percent of population is essentially one per eight hundred, eight hundred thousand. But this by putting it

in the constitution. In theory, this could fluctuate. Right, if we shrink our population shrinks over time, then you know we might have you might actually shrink the House of Representatives. So in this case, it would pretty close to double the size of the House. But here's what you would have. You're essentially making the table bigger, which means you're going to have a more diverse set of representatives when Congress. You're going to have a more diverse set of constituencies

represented in Congress. It's not going to just be by identity group either. You're going to have the opportunity, first of all, you have districts that are more compact number one, So they truly will be geographic communities of interest, which matters a lot. You're likely to have less issues, with less need to Jerrymander. I'm not saying Jerrymander wouldn't happen. That's always going to be there. As long as you give the states the right to draw the districts. There's

going to be political influence on how that's done. But

when you're down, when you're when you're doing one per three hundred and fifty thousand, it's just it's just less necessary. Oh by the way, so, oh, by the way, you would fix the electoral college conundrum that we've been in right as our population has grown. But the numerator when it comes to the electoral college, it's been sitting at

five point thirty eight forever. Well, if you increase the size of the House, you increase the number of electoral votes, and then you'll you're going to write size the electoral college,

and so the likelihood of having a split national popular vote winner and electoral college winter being different. You you sort of shrink that from a you know, ten to fifteen percent chance down to a zero to one to you know, zero point five to one point five percent chance. So it it creates fairness across the board. It's small d democratic. And here's the other thing. To me, this is something that a lot of groups on both sides of the oul should be arguing for. Right now, the

large states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives. They're also underrepresented in the Senate. Right right, two senators from Texas have the same amount of power as two senators from Wyoming. If, by the way, if you do this one para one per three or fifty thousand, you might not even add one new seat in Wyoming. Wyoming might still end up being a one congressional district state. But you certainly the big states would have more proper representation

in the House of Representatives. So my point is is that I don't I think this There is no there's no ideological advantage to my idea, to this idea. I say, it's my idea, please, it's the founder's idea. We just have stopped listening to what they recommend it. But this will This only improves smaller constituency groups that are fairly large but have no representation in the House of Representatives.

Now they're more likely. The Libertarians are more likely and actually have a couple of people actually elected as a Libertarians, and the Greens are likely to have a couple of people elected that way, And you'd certainly lower the barrier to entry, and you'd have a lot more diversity, whether it comes to age, whether it comes to ethnicity, whether it comes to jobs. Right, you also lower the in theory, if you have fewer voters you have to win over,

the cost of campaigns is less. So look, the courts have spoken on this, and Congress can do some things to follow, you know, to sort of create a few more guard rails here to make sure minority voters aren't disenfranchised. Frankly anywhere in the country. I mean, I think one of the awkward aspects to this is that we were putting the Southern states, which had a history of this, under more of a under more of a Justice Department scrutiny than all the states. And arguably we should be

worried about this in all states rather than just the states that traditionally did this. But if you're if you're looking for a way to increase representation and you want more African Americans from the South, in Congress. Double the size of Congress double the you know we it is and it look I'm saying double, you know, I know that there's all this, Well, we don't need more politicians in Washington, and oh my god, it's it's so it would be so big in here. Yeah, democracy's messy. My goodness,

have you seen what India does? They have a messy democracy. But it seems to you know, people feel as if there's at least opportunity and representation and so. And the House was meant to be a bit unruling. In fact, James Madison in the Federalist Papers Federalists fifty seven explicitly was arguing for an expense that the House was always going to have to expand. And the argument was this, he designed the House to grow with the people and

remain dependent on the people. He would not like a frozen House at four hundred and thirty five members, which now maps are engineered to dilute the voices of minority votes. It violates the initial promise that the House was supposed to be. And remember who we wanted to elect the House, right, not the rich more than the poor, not the learned, more than the ignorant, not the hoitty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune.

The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. But the founders intended on the Senate not to be sort of a house of lords, you know, elected by state legislatures, to worry about what those states would worry about, a little bit of the cooling saucer. Our house was designed to be the voice

of the people. But when you do this, when you frozen. We're at one hundred years now where we haven't expanded the House of Representatives, and yet we've more than doubled the size of the US population since then, we have diluted the voices of minority votes. We have essentially created another Senate. So it is founder's intent. I think I could argue conservatives will benefit in some ways, Liberals will benefit in some ways. You know, Conservatives complain that they

have no representation. There's no representation in the state of Massachusetts. Well, I promise you, if you essentially have twenty congressional districts in the state of Massachusetts, you're going to get a couple of conservatives elected because you're going to have smaller districts and you have more concentrated areas, and some of

those areas are going to produce a conservative. So whether you are living in a you're a conservative living in a blue state, or you're a liberal living in a red state, this will only increase the chances that your voice will actually be representative from your community or at least from your state that you have some like minded thoughts with. So ultimately, I really believe that that look this,

this fight with the judiciary is over. Okay, it is not going to be you know, this is I think it's a waste of time to try to keep fighting in the courts. If the goal is to get a

seat at the table, then start fighting to expand the size of the table. Stop fighting over the chairs, and instead fight over the size of the table. Increase the size of the table, and suddenly you can bring your own chair and you'll find your own seat. That is a reform that is small d democratic, and again there is no obvious advantage for anybody except for the American people that feel as if that they're no longer represented

in Congress. I ask many of you you live in a congressional district that you feel like has been gerrymandered, you feel like you're represented in Congress. I promise you if we go down this road of increasing the size of the House, you will feel like you have more representation. And this will you'll have more locally oriented members of Congress. It'll be harder to be performative jackasses, right, because there'll be more and that part will be diluted. Yeah, we'll

dilute a little bit of political theater. But this is a free market. And here's something else I know about a free market of ideas. When you have more people entering the free market, you're likely to get some better ideas and how to govern this country. That's the best solution. This is how you take if you're upset about what happened this week in the Spring Court, channel that energy

into doing something that would be good all parts of the political spectrum. Uncap the House. Let's bring back the people's house. It no longer represents the people. It's easy. Let's get back to Founder's intents. If you believe in a Madisonian democracy, you should believe in expanding the size of the house. All right, I want to turn a little bit to what I'm calling sort of the sort of the woke right moments that we're having, and I

think in some ways the Komy the sensitivity about Komy. Right. Look, I'm not going to defend Komi's actions, and I think I said that yesterday. I told you the news sort of broke as it came through. I think we're all fascinated to how the heck did they find a grand jury to do this. I think it's pretty clear we're going to find out what instructions given to that grand jury. This thing may never make it into any This thing

could get thrown out the minute the minute. Comey's defense is, can we see a transcript of the instructions that were given to the grand jury? And then once we find those out, it could be game set and matching this thing is thrown out. But I'm old enough to remember when the right thought the left was too sensitive? Right, And you know, any normal rational person you know, can't

you know? Are you really telling me that this man who arranged Seashells right was hoping for an assassination attempt? Can you get inside his mind? And you're sure that's what that means? The point being is we just had an election where I thought we were trying to sort of de sense it like we are. Hey, everybody's taken each other too seriously, and all this stuff that was what I thought was the heart and soul of some parts of the Magma movement, right, your great Gutfelds of

the world. Right, the rationalizations that they've had about you know what's the left too sensitive, they're too woke, they're too worried about being nice to everybody. Well, what the

hell is this talk about over sensitivity? This is clearly over sensitivity. Right, And then we're seeing and this, here's the thing. This stuff's bad politics, right, Weaponizing the DOJ, weaponizing the FCC. I mean Brendan Carr, right, the clown, the clown car, Brendan clown Car. And I know I'm not I probably shouldn't be a name color, but he really is sort of just coming across like kind of a dufus on this and again, super sensitive. I'm not going to sit here and say it was a good

joke by Jimmy Kimmel. I think the frankly, there's nothing And this is the part that really frustrates me about our politics. Jimmy Kimmel can can both be angry at Brendan Carr and this White House from not caring about the First Amendment and at the same time admit, yeah, I see why, I see how that joke looks terrible after the events of Saturday. That's all right, But everybody

gets in their corners and you can't ever admit weakness. And I mean, this is unfortunately why I am a believer that this is this stuff. You know, de escalation has to be across the board or it'll never happen, right, because everybody has this mindset now of well, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna unilaterally disarm whatever that you know

means to them in that moment. But again it goes back to apparently an inability to you know, there's no law on the books that says you have to ban bad jokes and bad punchlines, right, I mean, it is and so but the you know, you got Ted Cruz coming out sort of standing up for Jimmy Kimmel on this. I had to tell you this, Brendan Carr and Donald Trump.

I mean, Jimmy Kimmel probably ought to give them his six percent rather than his agent because nobody has done more for Jimmy Kimmel's career over the last year and a half than Brendan Carr and Donald Trump, uh and and sort of the woke right, and it is it is,

I you know what this really is. There's this everything is retribution, right, Everything is retaliation with Trump, right, everything is you know, it's like, why is he so you know, you know Trump, there are certain things that he just you know, he has to change the name of just to say he has to change the name of or he's going to do because he said he was going

to do. Right, So he's got to go after Komy and he's got he's now got an acting Attorney General that literally was his personal lawyer now just doing retribution and things. I think it is notable by the way that Todd blanche is willing to go down these ridiculous roads of questionable you know, targeting of political opponents, as he's already done, whether it's the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I have a feeling that's going to struggle when an actual judge takes a look at that with combing, that's going to be quite difficult. And so I think it's

pretty clear as I said about Pambondi before. This is somebody who was a prosecutor for half her career. This was not somebody that was going to be comfortable essentially misbehaving as a lawyer. And so I don't think it's an accident that she wouldn't bring these cases and he would.

And I think it does take you know, I know many of you are not big Pambondi fans that listen to me here, but you know, everything is by degree right, And as I said before, there was I think that was part of the reason why she got pushed out, because there were somethings she just wasn't going to do. And now Donald Trump has an attorney general that is pretty much willing to do all of his bidding whatever

he wants. So you know, judge these people by the alternative, not the almighty sometimes. And I had a feeling that some people might miss Pam Bondi once she's gone, believe it or not, and one of those people might actually be James call me as for what we learned or

didn't learn on Capitol Hill about the war. Look, the hearing was useless because hag Seth came in as a partisan and of course, you had plenty of house members who wanted to do frankly wanted to do their viral moments and hope that they get you know it is this is one of those where I wonder what would have happened had there been no cameras with the questions have been pointed, but more substantive rather than pointed and

sort of buzzwords. But you know, Hank Seth in there, he's the line I used on seeing it is they just think he's got Internet brain rot where you know, this is the Mike Lee disease where you've just certain and you know, I saw that Jade Vance gave up X for lent. Good for him. I think it's quite healthy. Just stay off because you'll do in that doom scroll and you could see, like Mike Lee is one of these people that apparently just doesn't have anything to do

at night. He needs a hobby because he spends so much time trying to own the libs or own himself on social media. He sort of spins himself into into crazy and yet nobody has. I don't know how many actual physical, personal, in person relationships he has these days.

But Haig Seth also seems to have internet brain right, and certainly Sean Parnell, who I think does a lot of his right. He was very much somebody also sort of of that. But when you look at some of the some of the quotes that were out there, right he immediately, you know, for a defense secretary to go out there and basically say that the it was Democrats and Republicans who didn't support this war who were bigger problems than any other adversary. It's look, I don't think

he's very well respected. I don't think anybody takes in Washington takes Pete Hegseth very seriously. The problem is he does hold the job of Defense secretary, and it was notable to me that you'd have a partisan hackery from Pete Eggseth, and you'd have General Kane being very disciplined, very a political talking about how he believes in the idea that the military is supposed to be a political when literally Pete hag Seth is doing everything he can

to politicize the military. The biggest failure of hag Set's testimony is his inability to make the case of why this war is necessary, and that's been part of the problem that they've had right, which is, you know, Donald

Trump seemed to imply regime change. At the same time, Pete Hegseth claims that there is you know, no more they're not doing any more regime change anymore, that that's not something that this uh, that's not something that this Defense Department is focused on anymore. But then he like talks about, well, we're not for regime change, but the regime changed but hasn't really changed, right, But that doesn't seem he couldn't really paint a picture of what an

endgame looks like. Uh. And you know, ultimately we kind of all know what the end game is going to look like. It's just waiting to see when the president accepts the fact that if he is doesn't have the stomach to escalate and send in ground troops, then the only choice he has is to negotiate essentially the nuclear deal two point zero. And maybe it'll take fourth dollars and thirty cents a gallon at the gas station. Maybe it's until it hits four fifty, But I continue to

believe that's where we're headed. And I'll tell you this, Hexa did not do. I don't think he did the war any good and you know, here's the other thing that this administration is so bad at and the first Trump administration was not this bad at it. There's never there's never anybody that will say, well, look, I understand why this isn't popular. I understand that why some people are upset. They will never accept the premise that criticism

might be valid. And I will tell you, you cannot success fully lead in a democracy if you don't know how to accept the premise of your critics. And you know, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, what made them successful two term presidents is that they were really good at that. Some would complain, oh, they're they're they're creating straw man. Yeah, it was. Sometimes their arguments

are pushback was creating straw. But they accepted the premise that the criticism was valid, even if they disagreed with the criticism. These guys don't accept the premise that criticism is valid. They're always trying to blame it on people like me, right, anybody in the press. It's got to be the press's fault because somehow, you, the American voter, are too stupid to come to these conclusions on your own you're easily persuaded by us inkstained wretches in the

press corps. I mean, when you really think about it, the way they the way they treat the American public, they really have for the intelligence of the American public, because they consistently believe that the problem isn't the substance of what they're pushing, that the problem is how it's being interpreted by the press. So do they really think the American voter is that stupid? We can all see this with our own eyes, and ultimately we're seeing right

now in the Poland public's not happy. Public's not in favor of this, and I don't think Pete Hegseif did anything this week to improve that standing even among base Republicans. All right, well, look, we're going to go more in the world of politics and inside the Democratic Party a little bit of the Democratic divides. I got progressive Democratic strategists Adam Green as my guest, and Adam very much has his finger on the pulse of the progressive movement.

He's got very strong opinions about Chuck Schumer, very strong opinions about what he might refer to as corporate democrats. I think some of you that listen to me just refer to yourself as pragmatic democrats. But I also find Adam to be somebody what I would call a pragmatic progressive, at least on the campaign side of things. Is he simply wants to win, and he is more likely to make some compromises than I think some that are more

ideologically driven. I do think he comes at this from a it's time to upend the entire establishment, not just rearrange rearrange the deck chairs. So I always learn something from Adam, and I think you will too. So let's sneak in a break and want to come back my conversation with progressive democratic strategies, Adam Gray. This episode of the Check podcast is brought to you by Soul. So if you love that end of the day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you.

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and use the word toodcast. That's getsold dot Com promo code podcast for thirty percent off, and yes, I too am a customer. Well, as the calendar goes, it means

primary season is really sort of truly going to kick off. We got a taste, we had a little taste to primary season in Texas and in Illinois with these March primaries, but they were in very much sort of like really important preseason games that counted certainly. But now the true primary seed is beginning pretty much every Tuesday in May, every Tuesday in June, a couple of weeks off in July, and then every Tuesday in August. I mean basically primary season.

The heart of it kicks off with May. And look, there's interesting primary divides on both sides of the aisle it is. You know, we can talk a lot about Thomas Massey. I think the acceptance that the president is a lame duck becomes more widespread in mainstream if his side loses that primary. So I think it's a very distinctive primary. But we've also seen on the Senate side, in particular, on the Democratic side, sort of I don't know what to call the non progressive swing of the

Democratic Party these days. Is it center left, is it pro business? Is it I think It all depends on what they want to be called versus what their opponents might be called. You might want to say it's the pragmatic wing. Whatever you want to view it probably really says about your own subjectivity, which is why I'm sensitive in what I call. I'm trying not to give any

sort of waiting language to what it is. But we have this sort of progressive versus non progressive battles in Maine, Michigan, Iowa that could be definitional and to me serve as a preview of what's going to happen inside the party for twenty twenty eight. Well, one of the people that I think maybe the person and I think has their finger on the pulse of this is my friend Adam Green.

You may know him from the p Triple C, the Progressive Change Committee, but he's a democratic strategist and certainly is pretty active in progressive politics. And I don't know whether he's going to take this as a compliment or derision. So Adam, here it comes. I think you're a pragmatic progressive, meaning I do think your north star is winning. You certainly want to win with a progressive agenda, But I feel like you've got you would be you would call

yourself more pragmatic, but let me let you define your self. Well.

Trump party or do we have a vision? And if we have a vision, are we willing to tell a story about power, name villains or just kind of have a mushy message about fighting for everyone, which I think motivates nobody to the polls. So let's let's go a little deeper. But I take it as a compliment, So thank you.

which is show in twenty twenty six swing races, particularly swing Senate races that bold inspiring economic populism is a winner as a priming of presential primary voters for twenty seven, twenty twenty eight. You know, we want we saw in twenty twenty a lot of people that told us as Elizabeth Warren supporters, Oh I love Elizabeth Warren. If I put anyone in the White House, it would be her, But I can't vote for her. Kish can't win. Heard

that too much also with Bernie. And we just need to solve this division between head and heart and let people who were inspired to feel like it's okay to be inspired. So as we see gymnasiums full of five hundred, six hundred people in Maine coming out in the most rural areas to see Graham Plattner and thoseeople are getting inspired. You know, we want future primary voters to not feel like they have to trim their own sales if they get inspired by someone like Platiner or tell Rico abdual Side.

So what do you.

he's actually not giving a laundry list of policies. He is telling a story about power and supporting details in his story happen to be policies. Right, He'll say, pretty much, you're getting screwed. These forces in society, the billionaires, the corporations, the rigged politics are working against you at every level. You know, I fought for our country. I'm an oyster farmer. I know how broken this system is. I'm going to fight it. And by the way, we'll have things like

medicare for all. Right, It's not I have a plan for that. Frankly, it is you're getting screwed. I have a story. And unlike Trump, who also says you're getting screwed, I have a story. He's not blaming immigrants, He's blaming billionaire's corporate power and a Greek political system itself. It's I think it's really that simple, you know. I think others would have a gender and race analysis, which or at least gender gender analysis in this case, which is

probably fair. I do think that there's a lot of skittishness, including among some very progressive women I talked to about you know, are we ready to nominate a woman yet again? And it's really heartbreaking to hear that sometimes. So maybe there's a comfort with all right, well, if you have this veteran who looks the part and can tell a story and feels good, maybe it's safer to go there. You know, that's a that's a fair question.

think that's fair.

selling our politics. And I don't think you have to have just masculinity to appeal to working class voters. But again, starting with the premise that there were scared electability voters who felt guilty voting for the person that inspired them last time, I think twenty twenty six is a valuable opportunity to do the trick in swing states this time.

You know, when people describe themselves as moderate more nine times out of ten, it's in temperament less than it is in policy, meaning you know that they want you know, they they may have progressive leanings, but they're an incrementalist about it, or they may even have conservative leanings but

they're an incrementalist about it. They're like, look, we want to we want to directionally move there, but we don't want to race to that. And because it does feel like this, and I'm speaking, I'll speak for myself that sometimes you race ahead and you have to take You may think you've just left three steps forward, but actually

the backlash you end up going two steps back. You make some progress, but it looks it sometimes can be misleading that you've made progress, right because you left forward and then step back. Your baseline is better, but you haven't gotten there.

doing a fantastic job in New York. I believe his approval is twenty points higher today than it was when he was sworn in. And that says to me that he's doing a good commodation of boldness and pragmatism, pothole politics and aspirational politics, and he's not going too far ahead. So completely agree with the premise that we can't get ahead of ourselves. I would push back on the current

definition of those who call themselves moderate. And I gotta tell you, I see most of politics these days less about left versus right, and more about inside versus outside, creatures of what has preceded as a broken political system and broken economic system versus those who want to shake it up. And when you wear those lenses, you see moderates often as people who want more chain and think that both parties are corrupt and not actually advocate for

people like them. I think that as we see you know, unaffiliated numbers rise, those are people who are just mad at the system and.

are not centrist in that. Hey, they are trying to split the difference on marginal tax rates. That's not what they're advocating.

about welfare? You know, welfare queens. He's like, you know, the real welfare queens are the corporations that don't pay their taxes. Then he's asked, are you declaring class war? He's like, you know who's been declaring class war? Billionaires on us for the last fifty years. It's time to fight back. Is that temperamentally moderate? I don't know. But it's beautiful and it's inspiring people, So I just don't know that they want incremental change. I agree with your

premise we have to bring the public along with us. Well, I think the public starts off there with anything that shows distrust of a broken economic and political system and

someone who has the credibility to say I will be a change agent.

differences in obviously our system? How vulnerable do you think both parties are to collapse at some point? Because I look at this right when you do the seesaw where

voters are simply rejecting your agenda each time they're not advocate. They have not voted for anything since Obama twenty twelve. It's been a consistent I don't want that, so I'll try this, Well, I don't want that. I'm going to try this. At what point does this does one of the two parties or both collapse on the weight of not at some point, Like I look at the Democratic

Party brand this year. They're going to have a huge midterm year and their brand might actually be still underwater the entire time, which is a unique thing to pull off.

And I do think that as the parties do collapse, it will happen locally first, where rules are changed to allow first things like ranked choice voting, but then having just get walking like multi member districts where you have proportional representation. You know, one party gets a third of the vote they get and there's three seats, they get one of the seats. They don't lose all three seats because they got a third and all three smaller elections.

There's little reforms like that that are actually passing locally and in states that I think are a harbinger of what's to come. You know, one thing I've recommended to some of them is, you know, how do you at around the problem of politicians who know what the right thing to do is but want to cling onto their

own political power. And I think that we should be comfortable with adding a time element where you know what, starting in eight years, we will have more open ballot access or proportional representation, and that way the current politicians get out of their system and they know that it's

not culgetable being used against them. But or we can spend eight years, you know, back to pragmatic or it could spend eight years losing and just have nothing in the reform, you know, realm pass And you know, I mentioned that as some reformers and they're like, oh, we haven't thought about that before, and it's like, to me, so obvious. Actually, I'll tell you one one other story.

You know, someone in Bernie World in twenty twenty one happened to mention to me as in the side as he was pushing for a fifteen dollars minimum wage, that you know what, Joe Manchin supports a twelve dollar minimum wage,

and you know what, Bernie Sanders has a five year phase in where it takes three years to even get to twelve dollars. Maybe we should just agree with Joe Manchin and then have three years to worry about the last three right, And months later I actually asked John mantionins people did they ever come to you at that And the answer was no, But to me, that would have been such a great example of decay.

meanwhile we're still technically fighting about the minimum wage. So I'm just saying, to your democracy point, I think we should induce a time element into it as a way of you know, Supreme Court justices, Okay, we'll start term moments in ten years. I hate that, but you know what, it's better if we did ten years ago. It would have been great now. Right, So we just have to, you know, be pragmatic and you know, play a long game a little bit. Assuming we still have a country in ten years.

And if Democrats win the Senate, it is not a validation of Chuck Schumer. But you know, if he's just handed a Senate majority and there's been no real challenge,

he will cling on. So it has to be a case that's pushed before the election in order to be successful or to have maximum success in my opinion, And I will say, haven't we have at least four states where credible Senate candidates have called on him to belong to be a leader and a victory in the Illinois Senate primary where the candidate who called for that one, So I think Grand Platner's another, There's another in Michigan, other Iowa, and we'll see how that plays out.

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it's the Schumer candidates. If Hailey Stevens is a Senator in Michigan, and if Janet Mills is a senator senator in Maine, and if Josh Turik is a Senator in Iowa, and Mary Patello and Roy Cooper, it's pretty hard to

make the case against him. Correct, yep, I can see why if Democrats win the Senate with Mallory McMorrow, Josh Walls, Graham Plattner, still Roy Cooper, and Mary Patello? Is that to you a message that said, hey, Democratic primary voters had a chance to speak between Schumer candidates and non Schumer candidates, and when given a choice, they took the non Schumer candidate.

the two thousand and two thousand and four midterms.

You know, we did a poll that showed her behind the incumbent governor, behind an oyster farmer by twenty points in the primary. Other polls show him up thirty points. It's actually a growing lead, and he has more room he starts off even as more room to grow against using Collins. That says something about both the type of politics that we need to have our finger on the pulse of for twenty twenty eight and something about truction

res judgment. I mean, the fact that he went to a seventy seven year old governor and robbed her of her retirement and recruit her run really is emblematic of the strategy he's used. Let's name them with Ted Strickland in Ohio, dusting off an old horse and having them lose Evan buy in Indiana, Oh Shoein' No.

not edging out some rising star progressive that I'm aware of. Right, it's not like CINCINNTI mayor.

super weak. And I think that doesn't mean that doesn't happen. And you know, but this is it's still a light red state. It ain't a dark red state.

I would never get behind U because I think he's like a corporate tool and who gives that. You know, he actually screws over a little bottle guy Farmers and gives him the big agg And I think he would actually get crushed in Iowa. But I know his reputation is.

support Abdul el Sayad. I think, for my purpose of liberating the minds of future presidential primary voters, a guy named Abdul who's sports Medicare for All winning Michigan, in addition to Alista slock and winning Michigan sends a picture that there's multiple ways of being elect totally successful in

swinging areas. And then don't forget that Chuck Schumer supported Colin Allred again in Texas, that Tall Rico had to put himself out there, and eventually some things happened that ended up aligning Schumer with Tall Rico against Statsmic Crockett. But that was not his instinct. He was willing to trot off an old losing horse and do it again,

even though he's younger. So I think, I think that we will have a string of Chuck Schumer losses in primaries and it will send something, say, a larger signal about the direction of the party being economic populist and shake up the system.

get your wish in Michigan and he comes up short because it's a bridge too far for some folks, what does that do? Do you think that is a ding on progressivism or do you think that's going to be would you chalk it up to Islamophobia?

point in the general election. Now there are a lot of grievances around that, with the Democrats Centurial Campaign Committee and the various super PACs pulling their money out of Wisconsin in a way that gave him no air cover in the weeks after he got the nomination, in a way that allowed Republicans that define him, that had our side dark on TV for just a couple of weeks before the election before eventually catching up the final couple weeks. And you know, in my mind, and we took the ding,

but it wasn't a fair or a clean example. They weren't all in for their candidate the way that they would be for an Alyssa Stockin or something like that. So I do think that if we win the nominations, I will be looking at does the infrastructure get the back of the Democratic candidate in the same way that they would expect us to get the back of Amery Patola in Alaska and an undermine her. And if so and we lose, well that that would really be bad

for our narrative. I will admit that. But if they undercut our person who's the general Action nominee, you know, I think that's more a pox on their house strategically than ours.

that Hey, the Democratic brand is just too badly damaged in Montana to succeed and you need to be You needed an independence to get believable again in Montana for for a message. That's whether it's you know, you want to call it progressive or populous, but that the Democratic brand takes away from it. That's that's why tester's endorsing the guy I'm just sort of flow following sort of

his logic there. He I'm curious what you that. I assume that means something to you if John Tester is involved, right, it does.

Democrats used to win North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska. I mean in this century, multiple you know, boat states where both senators were Democrats.

is Tim Johnson. Back in that time when we had four Dakota senators and all, it was all prey populism. It was all you know, appealing to people who could be wooed to vote Republican, but were willing to stand up for economic populist in his case, fighting for family farmers in a really serious way. You know, you say defined by the coasts. I also think it's defined by weak party leadership that would rather stuck up to corporate

donors than fight for little guy family farmers. And doesn't actually you know, if Graham Plattner was Instructioner's position, I guess is the Democratic Party brand would have a chance to be more popular in the Prairie States more than it does now. So you know, lack of credit where lack of credit is due. It's not just like elite people in New York and California. Yeahtrunctioners from New York, so Montana is also you know. I love John Tester.

I think he is over index as being a centrist where he was right there with Elizabeth mourn working to make sure that Larry Summers was not going to be the fet chair working for real corporate accountability for Wall Street. If he was there now it would be for crypto. I think he is a very salt of the earth guy who when it comes to economic issues in particular, is a vibrant economic populist and therefore I tend to trust his judgment certainly on policy.

on the economics. What matters more to you? What matters

more to the B triples state.

I believe that there is a that we make our achilles heel smaller on cultural issues if we are culturally aligned with working class people, which Kamala Harris was not

a giant. She had an Achilles's body, right, They them just yeah, worked better with her because she did not have the shield of being seen as culturally in tune with working class people. I mean, there was Donald Trump at the McDonald's and she she never did anything like that, and therefore it's anchra candidacy. So you know, you know, if you asked Bernie Sanders, what do you think about trans bathrooms, he'd probably say, I don't give a damn about the bathroom. I'm trying to raise wage.

should have been. And by the way, the answers, yes, okay, right, Barack Obama wasn't as in tune on some cultural issues right away? Sure, yes, right, But you know what Barack Obama did get sixty sentences right, you know, at LBJ gott in sixty four enough Senate seats to pass the civil right, sex and Voting Right secks sixty five did

it with there. So I'm basically making your argument for you here that you need if you want, if you want a Hungarian style repudiation, you're going to have to compromise in some parts of your coalition.

Jared Golden and Angie Craig. Jared Golden is retiring. He won a Trump district multiple times. I don't grew with him and everything. I strongly grew with him on most economic things, unions, taxing millionaires, anti corruption.

and went on with his life. He wasn't just tump me about it. He wasn't doing ads about it, he wasn't doing press conferences about it. So to me, it's about point of emphasis. He got to yes, he didn't throw that part of the collation under the bus, but he's not leading with it in rural Maine, right anti krag hat a similar example in Minnesota, a very arcane reason that she put out once and went on with her life. So I want to say that they do

that in every issue. You know, they both vote voted for kind of the Lincoln Riley Act, which is a vote that has not aged well for Democrats who voted for it, which is like an anti immigrant had But I think that's a template for how Democrats can proceed in tricky environments. Try to get to yes. Try to

get to yes. Sometimes you won't, at least try. Don't come into the fight being like my starting off point is to throw the colist under the bus and then go hard on economics and earn trust by being a believable messager, being culturally aligned with working class people. And then occasionally if you go in a way that they hear about, they forgive you more because you're culturally aligned without economics. That's how I would put it.

and if he ever veered off course, they'd find somebody else. Right, Like, they've already proven this right. He's there because they decided

they're not going to have any speaker that tries to at all worry about that institution Over and above, do you want to see progressives put some shackles on leadership the way the chip Roy wing of the Republican Party has done with leadership in the House. On the right, I.

would like to lower the threshold of a discharge petition instead of to eighteen, just simply fifty from each party, and you've got to do it. That's would mean a minimum of one hundred as long as you had fifty in each party or that that forces a discharge, you know.

believe that. M But that's the kind of thing that sure, any of those things that puts more hands, more power in the hands of those who are finger on the pulse sounds good to me. You know, there's a question do we try to get rid of the filmbuster now I I you know, my default would be yes, you know, especially if you have a democratic majority, Like don't like they're giving people process reasons for not delivering on your

promises or even trying to deliver. The kind of thing that ruins faith in both parties and turns people to independ our moderate and hating Democrats. Right, it's the kind of thing that will make all of our candidates in twenty twenty eight or you know who win the nomination in twenty twenty seven less credible if we just campaigned on something and then don't even try because we don't

have sixty votes. Right, Wait, one last thing. The filibuster also hurts Democrats in the sense of we have to cobble so many things into this wonky reconciliation bill that we actually get credit for almost none other things. The things that are super majority popular get put in the

bill on week one, while we're still debating in week fifty, and people forgot about it. You know, if you remember the cleaning years, just to go back, like I don't, you'd know better than me, Like what the filibuster, how much it was invoked then? But I remember that there were these week long sagas where he was trying to get to fifty or fifty plus one votes with Al Gore, and it was just like I've got forty two, I've got forty three. Right, the gun bill, right, the gun right.

And then the crime bill, the tax bill that passed like by one vote to race axes on the rich. It wasn't sixty votes, it was fifteen. So there was a conscribe ourselves of getting credit for the things we do by having only one bite at the apple. We have to cram everything into a bill where no message

gets out. So for the Senate, that's why, just politically speaking, getting rid of the filibuster would be a game changer for Democrats, rebuilding the reservoir of trust that we should have when we try to do stuff.

that kind of thing. But you know, in terms of agenda items, our government relations entity called p Street, the Progressive alternative to Ky Street, has been working with a lot of Republicans and a lot of you know, quote unquote moderate Democrats on a bill to take on insider stock trading in Congress, and the Republicans have offered a very weak t version that wouldn't actually solve the problem.

But that's the kind of thing where you actually have anti corruption forces on the left and right, but then when we actually look at them with the inside outside glasses, it makes more sense. It's like, oh, this is an inside versus outside like literally insider trading versus those who

hate corruption our politics. These kind of issues, I think are the things that could get whether it's house side process rules or filibuster rules dismantled, if we can kind of marry the wonky process argument with a minoritarian, easily digestible anti corruption kind of theme.

they be involved in it? What about siblings? What about adult children? Obviously not minor children, but what about adult children? And is that really fair to them? What did they do? Right? You know, it is in fairness to these Now, look, you chose to become a member of Congress, so you know, welcome to you. You know, you know this is very popular, This has got to be done, So just come up

with a way. I mean, you know, I guess we could have essentially a new blind trust committee where they just hire financial advisors who do nothing but manage congressional stock portfolios. You know, the second you win an election, boom automatically, you know, this committee now oversees your stock portfolio.

So yeah, but I do think this is I get the sense that details are more difficult than we fully appreciate.

the people who push back hardest are not good government advocates who are trying to get it right. It's people that have massive fortunes in the stock market or whose spouse has a massive fortune and they're worried about their own stuff. And again, maybe we pass it now and kicks in in six years, and no senator, you know, any senator who runs again will know what rules are running under. I'm sympathetic to the argument of my wife or my husband didn't know when I ran two years ago.

monopolies want to do. Jadvance has actually been an interesting ally, at least in his Senate life on anti monopoly issues. Those are things where they would actually impact the cost for consumers, like money in pockets, affordability, but with an anti corruption and hold the bad Apple corporations accountable kind of lens, That's why I would recommend that they lean into.

still need his signature on bills. Right, So, well, there's it's sort of like, how do you walk that line when you're going to have some people like take my friend George Conway, and I say this. I admire that he is saying up front, you elect me, and my mandate is to impeach the guy. I'm not making any I'm not dancing around that issue, right most everybody else dances around it. He goes, No, I'm there, I'm running.

I got two terms. That's all I'm going to do, and this is what I'm going to do, okay, because I think this is the best way to restore rule of law. We can. We don't have to agree with his tactics. It's what he's telling voters. What I always liked is just tell the voters what deal you want to make with them, and they you know, and if they vote for you. It means they want to make that deal. Now it's up to you to do it.

But I think this is going to make for a really challenging spring of twenty seven because you're going to have these cross currents. You're gonna have presidential candidates out there running hard on Trump, some of them harder than others. You're going to have and then you'll have you know, if anybody works with Trump, there might be criticism of

that because it plays better. I just think that I look at what happened to Abigail Spamberger, right, one wins with this incredible brand of moderation, of above partisanship, and then she comes right in and the opening acts are very partisan. You may think it's very successful, but it's

very partisan. She took ahead politically. It's recoverable. Right, It's early, and one would argue, right, the old Mario Cuomo saying is, you know you campaign in poetry and government in prose, and you know prose has come sometimes quite cold, right, and type brutal, quite harsh. Right. I just find this first three months more precarious for the party than maybe people realize. Again, if everything that they hope happens happens.

let him do that make Republicans even less popular. If he wants to work with us and cut a deal, we'll accept a down payment and bring the election, you know, the twenty twenty eight election, you know, into focus in terms of going for the full kahuna, like, you know, let's push for a public option. Now he'll probably stay none of that, but at least we're talking about something

a challenges insurance company that are very unpopular. Right. But if we start off with would ever support of public option and you look at his donors and it's like, well, no, now we won't talk about anything but the smallest boar of things with healthcare, that makes no sense, right. You know, there's a growing movement to have publicly manufactured pharma, particularly for generic drugs, but also just like a competitor to the big pharma companies and use public muscle to do that.

It's really popular when you pull it. I don't think we're going to pass what.

or how much it should you know, it's like how much energy should be about the post Trump era versus putting a check on Trump right twenty six. I get it, it's a check on Trump. I think it's a I think it's a bigger it's a larger debate about how much should be check on Trump versus and resistance messaging versus turning the page messaging.

Back Better agenda. They were thinking about Trump versus not Trump. But at least he tried, or didn't even try. Like his manifesto, that's what you call it, there is like do nothing. We're just not them, right, I really do worry. Like the part of the reason that we supported Tall Rico is, you know, I like Das mccrockett over personally. She's a good you know, team Blue versus Team Red, spar you know spark, you know, jouster, but she was

not offering an academic vision. Tell Rico was. And I really believe that we will do better off this election cycle if, of course we're anti Trump, but we also are trying to appeal to people's you know, working class lives. And this is the muscle memory time. We have to prove to ourselves that we can do it now because twenty twenty seven, you know, it's gonna be weeks after this election that people are announcing for president, and if all we've done is train ourselves to week.

they're gonna want you know, they're gonna want to try to ride a financial wave, you know that that would come with it.

would have been seen as outsiders in a previous era have already started to, you know, make the run right, have already started to make noise in their own way, whether it's Andy Basheer, Joshapiro, Alyssa Slacka, whatever, I mean, I could you know. I get that you may not be happy about some of those. But my point is is that there isn't like I can't think of any candidate that I've heard floated that I'm like, well, I'm curious what that's going to look like. I feel like

I know already exactly. Oh, they're gonna run this way. They're gonna run this way, They're gonna run this way, and it feels familiar. It's twenty twenty. It's a twenty nineteen field all over again, just with different names. Yeah.

creature of the political system. She's an outsider.

You have to be able to communicate. Now, so it's a it's a primary skill, no longer a nice to have skill.

a fairly you.

and they'd actually do the competency stuff right. But you know, again, I allow my mind to go there just because I feel like this is an outsider moment and we.

That's the same idea, because normally you know twenty eighteen Beto o'rouricx near victory made him a presidential candidate. Who of the twenty twenty six victors on the Democratic side, could you see who you think that their victory? Yeah,

you know what it ought to translate to kicking the tires on presidential.

do it because he didn't win, right, And but to me that's a weird. It's weird to well, he almost one. So it's like Pete Budaget. You know, same thing, right, you know, he lost d n C chair, but let's let's see it does for president.

with this. But I think we're in a different trust period. I think we're going to roll our eyes if you do the politician lie, if you get my drift meaning the politician white lie. Well, you know everybody kind of knew it was a wink and a nod. Well we're kind of tired of the Lincoln and a nod politician.

of wish the timing was off a little bit different a little bit, but we all where we are. Well.

a different type. It's very anti corruption, it's a it's it's certainly it's a different you know, it's not going to fit cleanly in anybody's bucket. Yeah, but he's interesting

to me potentially on that.

the rules. I mean, they pretty much defanked him of power like he was the way, so he had no choice.

come back to tell Rico, Platner, Abdul. They tell a story about power in America and the forces that are rigged against every day people in America. And they can apply that critique to healthcare or your banking, or your schools or your housing. It is one critique across issues. It's not an issue. And I just think that has to be the future if we're going to be credible and be able to speak to so many people so many parts of the.

like what would what would what would animate the American public better if they could find is I always say the problem with the two parties, it's like imagine going into a T shirt store and finding out the two choices were extra large and extra small, right, and you're like, well, I can't find the shirt that fits me. And I think today's two political parties. I think more people would say it doesn't fit me than it does. Right. That's,

you know, one of the questions we're not asking. You know, we've got a lot of people under the age of forty whose knee jerk decision is to register as no party or independent. And we spend all this time going, okay, but if you had to choose, which side do you choose? It's the wrong question to ask these voters. It's the right question to ask these voters if you're simply trying to win election. I get that. It's the wrong question if you're trying to represent those voters, which is here's

the question. I want to know, what keeps you from registering with the party that you hold your nose and vote for each time. That's the question we've not spent enough time asking, and certainly I don't have We don't have the answers because we haven't asked them those questions that huh, well put man. I always learn a lot from you, mister Green, what's your favorite primary in May?

What's the big thing that what you'll feel good if things in May happen? Where? Like where? What's your what's your sort of current early early primary state obsession?

is critical too. There was a block home of the flat roof, no attict and a metal framed dual pain windows,

and all that survived was the blocks. Just devastating. Also, a friend that stayed to protect his home had a stroke a few days later. Yeah, I bet the local stroke center told him that there was a significant increase in cases afterwards. The bottom line is get ready and leave.

Your life is worth more than protecting property. Jeff, I know that that's just great advice. Same thing is true with hurricanes. You know, everybody thinks, you know, what are you going to do against? In this case, thirty mile an hour wins. You're not going to do a thing. I remember during Hurricane Andrew, we were trying to prevent two French It was a French door set up at the house I was staying at, and we're literally three of us for about an hour because the doors were

buckling and we leaned against it. But it was kind of ridiculous that we were putting ourselves. It's sort of like, if there's an evacuation order, follow the evacuation order because mother nature is undefeated. Matt from Upstate New York rights, Hey, love the podcast. Been following you since your time at Meet the Press. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, sir. What do you make of the pete Hegseth firing more

than a dozen generals. My first thought was that the administration was getting ready for larger military action against Iran, that this was a way to purge officials who were not in line with what the administration is planning. However, were with your recent opinion that Trump is just seeking a way out of this war with Iran for any type of offering possible. I'm not sure what to make of this purge. Keep up the good work. Look, this

purge is just ideological, right. You know, at first, he's going after anybody that he thinks were somehow an affirmative

action or some sort of minority driven. Right. He's gotten rid of women that were high ranking, He's purged African Americans, anybody that he in his own head has decided got it because of identity rather than merit. And even though apparently there's plenty of evidence that these people were worthy on the merit. But that's what this is. This is

sort of an ideological purge. And then some of the stuff's personal, right, like the guy at the Navy secretary, and he certainly has been trying to get rid of the Army secretary. But that's almost more like political rivalries,

if you will. But you know, it's no different than what Trump and Steven Miller were trying to do at the start of the second term with those which was, you know, they believe that the civilian staff, they believe that the nonpartisan a political staff, whether it's in the Interior Department or at the Pentagon, are somehow standing in the way of their ideology, right because these people do

things like follow the Constitution. These two these folks, you know, actually try to keep politics out of their decision making. And so that's what this has been about. When you really start to look at the list, you'll notice there's quite a few women that he's purged from these ranks, quite a few minorities that he's purged from these ranks. Next question, he goes, great episode. Oh, this is a

question on dynastic. I probably I'll put it on a dynastic. Okay, we speaking of dynastics, it's a good time for me to say that the latest episode is up. We do the Stealers. It is fantastic. I promise you. If you're a Steelers fan, I can't wait to hear from you because I want to know if we did you right on this. But here, let me get this question. He goes, great episode. Please pass along my thanks to Jaa as well partner Jay Adande. As someone who watched those seventy

Steelers teams, I loved hearing Bill Nunn get his due, and I'd even argue the seventy sixteen might have been their best despite not winning an all quick note, the Dolphins would have been fifteen to No, not sixteen to no heading into that game. Also, I didn't realize the Steel Curtain was the first all black defensive front. Such a cool piece of history. Thanks for all the great content and really enjoying it. Well, I appreciate it. And that's that's what our goal is with Jay and I

with these series. Is said, so I call it sports History podcast, but it's about it's not just sports history, it's our history, right, It's you know, especially both Jay and I are pretty close in age, and you know, the seventies and the eighties were our coming of age eras, and so yeah, we're these the seventies Steelers sort of

had a different type of imprint on us. But that's how we want to deal with this, with all of these franchises is to you know, let them live and breathe and the eras that they were in and you know what the cultural moments at that time meant. And you know, the we're getting ready to dive in to tell you, I read the book I read for this one to prepare the one. I read the most thoroughly was Dan Rooney's memoir about his seventy five years in

the NFL, and it was just amazing. And in fact, it was Dan Rooney's decision to open with his perspective on the immaculate Reception that made me think, that's how we've got to open the show. So, man, this makes me feel good. Thank you for that question. Dan from Arlington, Right hey, longtime listener, also a neighbor here in Arlington, Yes you are. I was intered in your take on Israel and the Democratic Party and it made me wonder how you see this evolving politically in a post Trump,

Postnetanahu era. Do you think Democrats return to or more neutral or traditionally supportive stance on Israel or is this shift more permanent? And relatedly, does someone like Josh Shapiro have a viable path given where the party is today? So that's a great question. I'm going to take the second part first. There's a and I don't know if I'm seeing this with clear eyes, I will confess to that.

I think, you know, we all have our biases that we're born with and all of that. Right, which is I think it's going to be hard for a Jewish Democrat to win the nomination. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I think it will be this cycle. I think there's always now. I think if you're going to I think Josh Shapiro is addressing it better than any of the other Jewish Democrats that are thinking about running for president. It's quite a few, by the way, including Ram Emmanuel, J. B. Pritzker,

Josh Shapiro, maybe even John Ossa. But Shapiro sort of leaned in and I think, you know it, I do think it his candidacy if he runs, even if he doesn't win, and let's say we all decide that's the reason, right that that's you know, there were some people that never were going to vote for him. There if he uses his candidacy to remind Democrats that you can be a defender of Israel's right to exist and be a critic of their policies and that there is space for that,

you know, I think right now. Unfortunately, you know, even a guy like now who's not creating space for that, but I think there is. You're asking, I, look, I think this is a generational shift, and you know it might be a generation before before this goes back to you know, when I first entered politics, the Democrats were more pro Israel. It was the Republicans had more anti Israel politicians in their coalition than pro Israel politicians.

just saying I think it's a higher hurdle. But I actually appreciate how he's been trying to lean into it and sort of deal with it rather than sort of

try to avoid it. Right. I think this is one of those riped the band aid off, and let's see if we can have the correct, nuanced conversation on this and get back to being supportive of democracies in the Middle East period, right and promoting I mean, to me, it was always I thought pretty easy to support Israel, was at the time, it's only real democracy in the Middle East, and the United States should always be on the side of democracies that exist and should be supportive.

But you know, you could be critical of policy, and I think that that's something our politics isn't mature enough to handle at the moment. Vinc Berkeley, California. Right, Hey, long time listener here. I've lived in New or for most of my life and now I'm in Berkeley, California. I wanted to revisit a question I said earlier about statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. How do you see the political path forward for either becoming states and what

would the implications be for national politics. Well, Vince, I'm a believer that the only way for either to get statehood is to go together. I think I think that there is Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood. Rick Scott supports Puerto Rican statehood. I think Marco Rubio supports Puerto

Rican stated and Puerto Rico has a Republican elected governor. That's a pretty bipartisan island. It's a very two party competitive politics on the on the in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. By the way, as an aside you may have heard it in my interview with with the Teamah.

But you know, if if if the right really wanted to put a wedge in the Democratic Party, not only do you propose giving Arlington back to d C, but then be and say, well, we'll give We're going to take Arlington back from Virginia, give it to d C and let d C be a state. Right. That's that would be if you really wanted to quote own the Libs on the right, you know that that would create a wedge issue how badly do you want statehood? Right? But in some ways that just shows you, right that

the rights not very clever. Everything is every everything is a sledgehammer. You know, every problem is a nail and every solution is a sledgehammer. But that's you know, it sort of reveals, you know, because if you if you gave Arlington back to d C, then you really are disenfranchising a big chunk of voters. You better franchise, enfranchise them and so come out and support a statehood if

that's what if that? And I am curious, I wonder if the price of statehood was Arlington, would Democrats still be in favor of it? I actually think they would. I mean again, I'm not trying to carve up Virginia, and I you know, I'm fine with with with my tax bill right now in Virginia versus what my tax

bill would be in the district. I only tease a little bit there, But in all seriousness, I think d C statehood in Puerto Rican statehood, either they both happen together or neither happens, because right now DC is just seen as more likely to be two Democratic Senate seats. And if you can convince Republicans, and look, you know, we've got to enfranchise voters, and things are going to be competitive in Puerto Rico, and it will be a

competitive state. You might win both. You might win one, you might win the euro right, but you certainly get you know, it won't. It won't be the dilution of advantages that you think. And I think those on the right that think Puerto Rico is just part of this grand plan by the left to quote unquote rig the Senate, well that's pretty insulting to Puerto Ricans, plenty of whom have voted Republican for decades. And I think it exposes

an interesting form. You know, I think if that is your mindset, then you don't believe in a diverse Republican party. You believe in the in the a white, homogeneous Republican party, because again, Puerto Rico's, like I said, pretty competitive politically. All right. Next question comes from uh Trevor in Austin, Texas, and he writes, hey been a fan since the Tim

Russer days and really appreciate your perspective. Always wondered why interviewers don't more often pres Lindsay Graham by replaying his January sixth remarks distancing himself from Trump and asking what change is that a matter of access, time constraints or something else? With his reelection coming up, do you expect him to shift his posture again? Well, part of it is how you know how long you know the expression

beating a dead horse? Right? You know it's early on a lot of those questions were asked of them, and

then you know it's sort of like when and you know, you get caught up in the news of the moment versus sort of you know, like to me, if I had Lindsay Graham for for forty five minutes, a darn right, I definitely asked that question. Frankly, if I'd had him for ten minutes, I would still want to ask that question. He somehow was afraid of coming on Meet the Press

after January sixth. I wonder why that was. But he is somebody that has always been fearful of tough interviews, and because he you know, and he used to be a fairly easy guest book, right, and then as soon as as soon as sort of he made his decision. But again, you know, Lindsa Graam's got a lot of problems, right. You know, the Steele Dosia got spread around Washington thanks to Lindsey Graham. Right. He was one of the biggest

proponents of the Steele Dosia. He was one of the bigger contributors around town of saying, hey, this is serious. People need to take this seriously. So look, he's always done this for political survival and I think he's a survivalist. And so what does that mean you're asking, is he going to shift his posture again whatever it takes to keep that sentency if he has to become a liberal Democrat,

Lindsay Graham's will become a liberal Democrat. I think we kind of see, right, you know, Lindsey Graham was one type of Republican. And then Donald Trump came around, John McCain passed away, and he became a different type of Republican. So and part of that was simply his state shifted right. South Carolina Republicans were more maga than they were McCain,

and they were pro Lindsey Graham. And ultimately, Lindsay is going to go where his voters go, And if his voters suddenly shifted hard left, Lindsay Graham would suddenly shift hard left. I think he wants his Senate seat that bad. To the last question for the weekend, This one also comes from the Texas Kelly Acts from Aubrey Texas Rights. Hey, why died to push back in your point that Democrats need to tone things down and focus on being more

measured than Republicans. To me, that approach can come across as passive, especially when many voters respond to more direct and emotional messaging. Should Democrats be more willing to call out what they see as harmful rhetoric and actions more forcefully, even if that means matching some of that intensity, or does that risk doing more harm than good politically? Well, Look, Kelly, I think I've made my point clear on this. I think that and I look, I'm just going to look

backwards over the last ten years. I think that Democrats

have benefited by being the adult party, and I think anytime they're not behaving like the adult party, like the grown ups in the room, it may make the base feel better, like finally you're punching back. And I know that there's this mindset of what wrong and strong beats weak and right, and short term that might be true, but long term, being right is going to mean something.

And I just think that this goes back to and maybe this is a good place to end, because I wanted to talk about the Democratic autopsy that we're not seeing and Ken Martin and I have a few theories and they're just theories, and I want to throw them out there, but finish your question. Answering your question, I get it, and I think that there's there's sort of

this fine line. I think that the Democrats need you need to be strong, but you can be strong in your rhetoric about like adults right versus deciding, oh, let's just start saying the f wort a lot more and that'll make us cool in the manisphere, right, Like I think it's learning the wrong lessons from Trump. You know, I think the right lessons to learn from Trump's success is show up everywhere in you know, whether I don't love this style of politics, but frankly, you know, be

everywhere all the time. Now, I think you got to do it and in a tad more disciplined way. But you know, whatever you think of Trump, he is who he is, right, you know, this is the authentic version of whatever he is. I always say he's authentically and authentic. But it works, right, Nobody denies that that that Trump bars all these things. So, yes, be a bit more authentic,

don't be so cookie cutter. But I think that there is a group of voters that gravitate towards the adult in the room, and if there's no adult in the room, they're gonna look elsewhere. I just think it it is, it is. I know right now politics feels binary, but

it doesn't always have to be binary. If you're not if you're if you're not careful, I mean, just you know, maybe it gets you a hollow victory like Labor got in the UK, right, Labor, Keir Starmer got these massive majorities, but you know, all they were was a reactionary anti Tory party. They got their big majority and they had no idea what to do with it, and they're afraid of offending different aspects of the coalition, so they don't

end up doing anything. So I again, I know what I'm saying is not popular in the more partisan corners, and I guess what I'm trying to speak from is from this. You know, look, I'm I I Others will call me a centrist or a moderate. I consider myself an incrementalist, meaning you know, I'm I'm You know, I do think it should If you're going to make change for three hundred fifty million people, you got to bring as many people along as you can, and so you

take incremental steps in order to get there. I think that you know, these are the voters that decide these elections. They are not a large chunk of the primary electorates. And I know this isn't what wins a primary, but like I said, I think it. I think it's I think there's a chunk of voters, which brings me to and I'm going to close with this. Actually I've got one sports item I want to share, but I'm going to close. I want to close my sort of political

side of things. So Ken Martin went on Pods of America. It was clear that they had a strategy of finally, Okay, we're going to let the Pod save America boys beat us up over not releasing the autopsy, but we're going to make it clear we're not releasing the so called twenty twenty four autopsy. And I've talked to people who were involved in being interviewed for the autopsy, and nobody's quite sure where it comes down. And I think the

question is it clearly is going to have make some recommendations. And the question I have and I think I get what Ken Martin fears, it will start a fight, right whatever you release, And obviously the longer you wait, the more you impact. Right, this autopsy should have been released last Thanksgiving. Let everybody sort of get their anxiety out, you know, complain about it, beat up each other, all

that stuff could have been done over the holidays. Turn the page, you focus on on the midterms, and you move forward. But I've been trying to think, what is it that the autopsy discovered. Is it going to be too critical of Biden and they don't want to do that. Is it going to be too critical of the old democratic establishment, is going to be too critical of progressives? Is it going to be like who is it that

they're afraid of picking a fight with that? The autopsy is going to say, hey, you know, the big problem is this, right? It's you know, is it a branding issue? Is an ideo ideological issue? Is it too much identity politics?

groups might have been picked on in this autopsy, and maybe that's what they're afraid of. But it's certainly not giving you know, I think it's it's a and I think we know why. There's just no money going to the d n C. Right, Democrats are keeping up with Republicans on fundraising at every level except one the DNC, And I don't think showing this type of fear of being a party leader, which I think Ken Martin is

showing here. It feels like beer of his coalition being upset about something that was said in that you know autopsy, perhaps is why he wants to keep it sealed. I don't know how it's helpful. I hope they at least share it with Democratic strategists, or they share it with candidates, or they share it with somebody, because what's the point of doing it if you're not going to try What's the point of trying to figure out how to learn lessons from a loss if you actually don't share the

lessons that were learned from the loss. Right, But it's possible that this autopsy will help will help resolve the debate that Kelly X and I are having about whether

Democrats ought to take the high road or not on things like this. I just want to make one comment and I want to just make a mass one comment about because I'm going to take an unpopular opinion here being happy that the NCAA back is expanding the men's and women's basketball tournament from sixty eight teams to seventy six teams. Look, I wanted to see it to ninety six. And I think I even outlined an idea of how

easily it can be done. And yes, it means Tuesday and Wednesday become Thursday and Friday, you know, as packed of a schedule as you have on Thursdays. And yes, the more. Yes, we're gonna have more games on Tuesday and Wednesday. I don't think the two best days of the NCAA tournament are Thursday and Friday, those first round

one games, right, the round of sixty four? Are you telling me I could have two more days that are filled with that many games. You're gonna give me two more days of sixteen games each? Count me in. That's a good thing. Isn't that what we want? Here? More schools, rightly, more money, more everything for everybody. Right, It's one of those again. It's like even the House of Representatives, right, you expand the table rather than fight over a minimum

number of seats. But I want to make one more Look, and some of you may say, well, ninety six is too much, but I know the argument, well, seventy six is too much. But here's where you're actually wrong. And I'm just going to just do a math equoid for everybody arguing that somehow this tournament's being diluted by making it seventy six teams. In nineteen eighty five, when the NCAA expanded to sixty four teams, there were actually only

two hundred and seventy six Division one basketball programs. So you had, which meant the round of sixty four meant twenty three percent of all Division I programs got into the tournament. Well, now there are three hundred and sixty one Division one men's basketball programs. Okay, there are more actual programs than there were an nineteen eighty five with sixty four. So this is just twelve more in the field.

And so what is the number. Seventy six teams out of three hundred and sixty one means twenty one percent of all Division I programs will get into the field. It's actually a lower ratio of Division one programs making it into the into the NCAA Tournament than when they expanded it in nineteen eighty five, when it was sixty

four teams out of two seventy six. I know math is a problem for many people and they don't want to hear it, but nobody seems to be aware that we keep expanding the size of Division one men's basketball and women's basketball. There are more Division I basketball. We have Grand Canyon. Now we didn't have Grand Canyon. We have Florida Golf Coast. We didn't have Florida Golf Coast. Right, you can keep going and going, basically almost one hundred more NCAA programs, So of course you had to expand.

The point is not only do seventy six, not dilute, and you know the biggest beneficiaries are going to be the sort of the high mid majors, the A ten. So yeah, that's why I'm happy fight GW revolutionaries have a better shot in than ever before. A ten probably becomes a four or five bid league. Now should should become a maybe a three or four consistently a three to four bid league, and maybe as many as five. This should be good for the AA whatever they call

the American Conference. I guess we're only supposed to be called the American on that front, and possibly the Mountain West. But this I think the criticism is a bit misplaced, and we actually look at it by the numbers, we were overdue for expanding the NCAA tournament to where it is, and again next year with seventy sixteams, fewer per cap at A TEA teams will make the NCAA tournament then when it was expanded to sixty four in nineteen eighty five.

It's been a math heavy episode of the check podcast. But hey, this is what you get when you sign up from my podcast. I'm always gonna throw some data at you, throw some by the numbers at you, because sometimes arguments are just that arguments. Data trumps it all. And with that, have a great weekend, enjoy the enjoy the NBA playoffs. I still am. I'd like to see a few more competitive games. It feels like we've had

way too many blowouts. Hopefully that'll change. That'll change when we move from the first round to the second round. But enjoy that, enjoy weekend, and I'll see it Monday. Hey,