¶ Bradley Tusk joins the Chuck ToddCast
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five day returns now available in Canada as well. That's qui nce dot com, slash chuck, free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns quints dot com slash chuck. Use that code. My guest today as someone who's been at the center of American politics, business tech uh for the better part of a couple of decades, and because there's so much happening in the world of business that
¶ Third terms don't make sense, people wear out after several years
is intersecting with the world of politics, and Washington in some ways is becoming an epicenter of business in a derivative way, because it's frankly about a whole bunch of companies trying to figure out what it takes to keep Washington out of their business. But that in itself is a big business. So my guest is Bradley Tusk. He's a political strategist turned investor. He lives in this world in between in a political side. He was the campaign
manager for Michael Bloomberg. And when Michael Bloomberg decided he wanted a third term, which I wonder if in hindsight he ever. I want to tell anybody who wants a third term, don't do it. Yeah, third terms never go.
I'm trying. I was trying to sit here and think of a good third term.
There's none, Bradley, there's none. Ask Mario Cuomo whether he should have run for a third term. Ask Andrew Cuomo whether he should have been thinking about a third term. Third term. I Tim Walls is running for a third term. I want to say, don't do it. There's no good that comes from it. If you've if you've succeeded enough that a third term is viable. There's nowhere to go but down.
Yeah. I saw a study once it said that after
¶ America's rule of law issues will end when Trump ends
seven years, no matter who the chief executive is, people are ready to move on. And that's like every Taco system, whether it's a dictator or a mayor or a governor or anything else.
Right, look at our own history. I mean, I'm a believer. And this will get to a little bit of our conversation here a little bit. But you know, I think any Democrat that is still consumed with Trump is sort of wasting their time. And I don't mean this. Look Trump, there's a lot of things he's doing that you that you may that may impact your life, and you've got
to care about it. I get it, But I don't think he's you know, we're about to have a debate about what the post Trump world's going to look like. And I got to think people need to be focused on that because he's been in our lives for a decade. And guess what, nobody ever lasts that long. We're at
¶ Trump has undermined the pillars of America's economic strength
the tail end, right, the Reagan Bush eraw basically ended with the nineteen ninety tax deal.
Right.
You know, Eisenhower lasted, you know, you know, his era was about a decade, Kennedy, Johnson a decade, Nixon even less than that. I mean, you know, Obama sort of, you know, but it just we don't we sort of wear out. And if you look at the modern era of our presidents going back since World War Two, there's a reason that sort of a movement sort of petered out right in that eight to ten year mark in some form or another, and we're ten years with Trumpere.
Yeah. Man, I think the question is to me, the things that he's doing that will go away when he goes away, and the things that he's done that will last,
¶ Trump has chosen to end America's role as leader of the free world
of which some might prove to be good, but a lot of it might prove to be pretty harmful long term the area. And maybe this is where kind of my perspective from the business side is a little different than the typical person in the political world is I don't like all the rule of law stuff, but I
think that that ends when he ends right. That is very much a product of him specifically, Whereas some of the steps he's taking around the economy really do worry me from a much longer perspective as an investor, because if I were China and I said I want to put in the Manchurian candidate, and I want to undermine the long term strength of the US, our economy, one of the things you would really go after. So what are the things to me that make our economy unique.
It's free trade, its intellectual property, it's rule of law, it's independent markets, independent data. It is getting the very
¶ Trump selling chips to China undermines security argument
best people through immigration. So a lot of the fundamental things that make our economy truly unique, Investing in R and D, investing in higher ed, all of that are all things that Trump, for whatever reason, has really tried to undermine. So I worry more about the impact of just taking our strengths and undermining all of them than whateverything he has said today that on truth social that makes everyone upset. I don't care about that stuff.
No, I mean, to me, the biggest I've always said that there's the presidency. Actually there's three different jobs wrapped up in one. You're being elected to lead your party, you're being elected to command our armed forces as commander in chief, and you're being elected to be leader of the free world. And he has chosen not to be leader of the free world. And that is something that the public doesn't realize is a problem until it's gone.
It's a very hard in fact, when you tell people you want to be leader of the free world, No, we don't want that. We don't want to be the beat cop. But as I always say, you know, I always say when people say I don't want to be the world's policeman, I'm like, yeah, but somebody's going to be. Would you rather be us or another country? You may
¶ Will business expect the Trump treatment from future presidents?
not want us to be the world's cop, but you're not gonna like it if China is right.
Which then how do you explain the other day him sending allowing the Vida to sell you know, the h two hundred GPUs to China, right like it? There are things that I don't get. So for example, he says that, and look if you were a full free trade you know, absolutist, right. But then the next day they issue an executive order saying, oh, States can't regulate AI because it's a national security issue.
It can't be an ob security issue. If you just took the most valuable thing that your biggest rival would want and allow the to go to the.
Well, let's talk about this is actually the heart of the conversation. I want to have which is, you know, the business community in general has been frustrated with the last two Democratic administrations, sure for too much regular, too much regulation, too much red tape, things like this. And I get the appeal of, Hey, isn't it great that you don't have to have an army of lobbyists on Capitol Hill? You just have to go into the Oval
¶ State by state regulation is wildly inefficient compared to federal
office write one check or rite you know, or make one board seat change whatever. You only have to placate one individual as a hell of a lot easier than placating you know, thirty members of Congress or ten senators and all of that stuff. So I understand the efficiency aspect of this, But are we doomed here because business such as an easy relationship right now with Trump's version of the Republican Party, that they're now going to expect
this kind of treatment from all politicians going forward. That this is something that we can't put back in the bottle. And I, you know, I'm sorry, I don't trust the tech industry with AI without guardrails, because I saw what the tech industry did was social media, which totally destroyed
¶ There is only state level regulation of autonomous vehicles
our information ecosystem. So yeah, but this is the world you live in, and you're navigating, so you tell me, so, I.
Would say, for me, the efficiency argument probably doesn't work because it's it's too risky and too variable. Right, you were dealing just with winning the favor of one very mercurial person and who seems to a lot of the time agree with the last person he spoke to about something, and so I don't like the notion of basing an
investment strategy or regulatory strategy around that. And to me, the right analogy is when I have a company that I'm investing in that has some sort of new disruptive technology that either we're taking on an entrenched interest and there's a regulatory fight, or we're cruitting an entirely new type of industry AI, crypto, flying cars, whatever, and you need to build a regulatory framework. There's often the question of do you go federal or do goo state? We
usually choose to go state by state, which is wildly inefficient. Right, we're talking about fifty different bills or whatever it is that we rules, whatever it might be that we have to create or pass. However I can get outcomes. So in twenty fifteen, the House Energy Subcommittee, on a bipartisan basis passed unanimously legislation to begin the regulation of autonomous vehicles.
¶ State level regulation allows for experimentation & learning
So right now, the US federal government has done nothing to figure out how to regulator deal with self driving cars or trucks or anything else. The bill passed the subcommittee honesty and has never moved since, nor has federal dot issued any sort of rules whatsoever as to how this should work.
This is for presidential administrations.
Correct, right and at the same time in states that you can like or not like any individual states rules around autonomous vehicles, but they have them right, and you can get to an outcome and even if you don't get the president you want in one state, you have fifty bytes at the apple. So oftentimes we're looking at
¶ Americans have lower approval of AI compared to other nations
something and saying, Okay, where do we think is the right starting point to launch this thing? Based on partly the economics, so the market you know, and evermarally starts in California, in New York and Texas, but also from a political standpoint, where can we win? Because you know, one of the things that when when I invest in an early stage tech startup, I genuinely believe that people are going to really like the product or the service or otherwise I'm not deploying the capital or making the
investment in the first place, and so like. For example, the very first tech company I ever did was Uber, starting in twenty eleven. And my view, which was the same as Travis's view, was people are really gonna like this, So we just need to get this thing up and
¶ The political tsunami hasn't hit yet, will by 2028
running wherever we can show people how much better it is in the taxi system, and then they will fight for it. And in every market where we prove it, it gets that much easier in the next market. And that basically it was a big fight, and it was city by city in that case, but it turned out to be right. So I generally think the right strategy to legalize most technology actually occurs at the unicipal or state level, and not in Washington.
It's always been the I mean, look at the recreational marijuana movement, the medical marijuana movement, same sex marriage. Right, we've in some ways to create critical mass to convince Congress that hey, you should get involved in this, you know,
having it emanate. I mean, that's the beauty of federalism, right, Like that is that is supposed to be the beauty of the system, which is why I'm glad to see there's bipartisan concern about a moratorium on state regulations with AI, and it it is you know that this is I think this is where if I were, if I were in this industry, I wouldn't want this. I mean, look at the public right now. The public approval ratings of AI are plummeting. Right we are, compared to the rest
¶ If AI makes trillionaires & 18% unemployment, it'll cause revolution
of the world, more dystopian about AI than most other civil societies. I would argue that has a lot to do with how involved our polarizing president is with the industry. I actually think if he were less involved, there'd be fewer doom and gloomers about AI.
With two caddiats, one is I actually think the political tsunami and AI hasn't even hate.
I agree twenty eight is going to be that. I think it's I think the fear I believe the single biggest issue in twenty eight, and we'll see it a little bit in twenty six. He is going to be fear of AI displacement.
Well displaced on our jobs, combined with so every data center requires so much compute and so much energy that they're expecting it to consumption to double. We're certainly that doubling supply, which means consumers electric builds are going to skyrocket. We already saw a little bit of this in Georgia.
Virginia, I mean Louden County. Man. You know, they were making all this money lead some land on data centers. It is now like you know, it's a they've declared war on data centers.
I think we're going to see laws passing states this year that say that localities cannot issue permits and zoning for data centers without proof that there will not be a corresponding price increase for consumers and electric bills. And so you're right, But we had a world where let's say that unemployment and the job numbers today, I think
further to except that they were valid. Further you know, support of this thesis that if job displacement keeps going up, and unemployment keeps rising and rising gets even potentially double digits, and electric prices keep going up, and because of Tariff's other consumer prices keep going up, and you know, only
¶ Crypto only works due to having a level of regulation
five thirty guys like Sam Altman become trillionaires, but the rest of the world's you know, that's of the country city of eighteen percent unemployment. That's the French revolution man, and I don't think either party necessarily understands that or sees it coming. I think one, you know, Trump in his view is like, doesn't matter. The only goal is to get your hands on as much as you can before you die. So therefore this at least fits with
his worldview. Democrats, I don't think have any plan at all from one I can tell.
No, I don't think they do either, and it strikes me and I'm curious. Look, I take it you're trying to help Democrats be more pro business.
Yes, I mean, in part because that's how.
You would describe your you know, your sort of your altruistic goals here.
Often times, and I think, you know, not counting what I do out of my foundation, which is totally separate. But yeah, and I think oftentimes I feel like, and you might appreciate this more than most people. Both sides are so dug in that they miss the underlying point. Right. So you have these Silicon Valley types who are now very powerful Washington a Mark Injuries or someone like that, right, and they hate regulation and their Libertarians and that sort
¶ Regulation is neither inherently good or bad
of sounds great in theory, no rules, but in reality you can't build multi multi billion dollar industries. In the absence of all structure, you need a certain amount of rules and regulation. Crypto, right needs a certain amount of regulation to separate the coin basis of the world the
circles of the world. Companies that I've invested in with total scams, right, And because there's a lot of fraud in the crypto world, and there's also a lot of genuine companies that you can decide whether or not buying crypto is a good idea. That's up to the individual. But crypto itself only works because there is some level of regulation that says this exchange is permissible, this exchange
is not right, so you need that. But then, on the other hand, democrats, by sort of playing to their extremes that all capitalism and all wealth is inherently corrupt and evil in some way totally missed the point because people need to make a living, and people are aspirational and want to do well, and so just vilifying everyone doesn't work either. And the reality is regulation is neither inherently good nor bad. It's how it's applied. Like, let
me give an example. I was driving once from Santa Barbara to Alla, and I'm going down the Pacific Coast Highway, and I'm appreciating how beautiful it is, because you'd have to be something really wrong with you not to do that right. And the thing that hit me was, Okay, what I'm seeing is from my car window the ocean. The reason why is that they are not gas stations and you know, Chipolis and whatever else blocking the view
because of regulation. So in that case, I would say, a good regulation, I didn't get to LA and I run into all these homeless encampments. Now again, again that's the product of regulation. Bad regulation in that case, those are regulations that make constructing affordable housing way too expensive and difficult, and people don't have anywhere to live as a result. So basically, zoning regulation on the same street
¶ We haven't found the politician to meet the current political moment
right resulted in a net positive at one part of it and negative in the other. And anyone on either side who just declares unilaterally that something is inherently good or bad just doesn't understand what they're talking.
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¶ Capitalism now has been taken to the extreme, leading to unhappiness
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It was sort of you kind of had to have a Democrat who acknowledged at that point in time. And I have a friend of mine who we argue, is the country center right or are the institutions center right right? The constitution sort of arguably gives the minority a bit. You know, you could our rules give the current structure the right side of the spectrum has more advantages. I could argue fifty years ago that same structure gave sort of the Democrats a little bit more. But at some
¶ With less immigration, America would have better safety nets
point that is the structure that we live under. But Bill Clinton sort of you know want, Hey, we should have a rules based, opportunity focused society, right like you know, should be fair, equal access and opportunity, and I remember responsibility and opportunity, right, that balance between the two. I guess you know. I could say Obama tried to get that messaging, and he was better about it by twenty eleven,
twenty twelve. Frankly out of necessity, right he was. He had a tough reelection, and he borrowed more of the Bill Clinton language or the Teddy Roosevelt language of the Square Deal things like that. It seems as if we just haven't found the politician to meet the moment that we're in. I think we all know them. We want to be both aspirational but with a I think we want a stronger safety net, and we haven't figured out how to. Donald Trump said, hey, I can do both,
but he couldn't. Right, he doesn't really have the He doesn't really have a political party behind him that actually wants to do both. And I think there are those in the Business Committee that don't believe the left wants to create what you said, a society that allows for wealth, right right, Yes, they want the strong social safety net. So with Ultimately, what we really want is strong safety net and a realistic path.
And look, it's harder stand the other day, right, So, capitalism as a system, to me, I think almost just incontrovertibly is the greatest system ever created because if you look at the last eighty years since World War Two, three billion people who were living in extreme poverty now have clean drinking water and electricity and less infant mortality and longer life expectancy in higher literacy. You know all those stats, right, So unquestioningly none of that happens without
globalization and capitalism. Capitalism, when taken into its full logical extreme, which is kind of what we tend to have here,
¶ The debate would surround when immigrants qualify for the safety net
often results in a lot of unhappiness and a lot of people who are frustrated with the system. Because if the only ultimate goal to be successful and happy is to accumulate as much status and wealth as possible by definition, ninety nine percent of people can't be in the one percent,
and those ninety nine percent are upset. So then you look at it say, okay, well does Finland or someone have it right, because it's capitalism, but with a much stronger social safety net, like you said, so, yes, people there if you look at say the World Happiness Report, are exponentially happier because both they feel compelled to need less and they have more on the on the floor.
But when you look at the last thirty years or so and look at all of the innovation in the world that has emerged, basically none of it has come from Europe right other than Spotify, and there's not a giant tech company that's been invented. So if you were to say, Okay, the US will be Scandinavia, as the Left I think would like to see the case, yes,
¶ Eric Adams decision to house & feed immigrants hurt other services
you will have a higher floor for people, and I believe in that. But at the same time, there is something about our system that is incredibly unique and that encourages the kind of innovation that has lifted the billions of extremely poor people that in theory the lefts you care about the most out of poverty.
Well, I do think I'm one of those who believes it's because we're a nation and immigrants that we that if we if we have I think what you're I think we could we would already be Scandinavia if we weren't continuing to have fairly open doors, meaning if we weren't importing more people who want it, who are looking for the American dream. Like in some ways third and fourth generation Americans are more satisfied than first and second generation of Americas.
So would you say then that, let's say we have so I would argue, which have exponentially higher legal immigration? Right, perfect world. You know who was at the quotas the Bureau of Labor Stistics, because they would say, okay, the construction industry has this whole.
Hospitality this by the way, along with the Social Security Administration where because we need new workers to fund Social Security, correct, right.
You need tens of millions potentially of people. And that's not at all exclusive with having strong borders. But the question is if we said we're going to keep bringing in the greatest talent from all over the world, and if we do that, we're always going to have the kind of innovation we need because those are I'm a
¶ Someone willing to risk life to immigrate is willing to work hard
first generation America and I know I was raised in an immigrant house, so I know exactly what this is.
You like, right, right, It's always like you were I mean education. First look, I grew up in Miami, an immigrant community where it was just you felt it all around. Everybody in that community even frankly, even the domestic you know, even those second third generation Americans like myself. You moved to Miami for opportunity. Nobody was a native of there. You were there for opportunities. So it had it had an immigrants mentality, which means it hustlers. Everybody hustle.
So let's say that we really increase that, which again does not in any way have to me not having strong border security. They're not mutual exclusive at all. But let's say that we said we are going to radically increase legal immigration so that the people who are the
hustlers are constantly coming in. Right, if you did that, could you have the kind of social safety net that Scandinavia has without deterring the innovation that America has because that combination of the new people constantly coming in takes care of that problem.
Well, it depends on when you make them eligible for the safety net.
Now, right, Oh, fair point.
And I think you and I think this is what I'm what we're talking about here. Some people would say, as heartless, what do you mean you wouldn't make the safety net available for the immediate first gen family at the same You know, I but I think that would be a debate, and I think that's a fair political debate to have. Is I don't think when should somebody be eligible for the social safety net in the United States?
¶ Will pay to play politics outlast Trump in the business community?
You know, you certainly need to become the citizen, right, I think that that's a fair that's a fair bar. You have to do the work to be a citizen. You have to proact. Now, I'll tell you this. I remember this great George W. Bush quote when he used to talk about people coming over there. He goes, anybody that's going to go over is going to fight the environmental elements to get across the Rio Grande River. I want them in America. Yeah, because they're going to be great workers.
Yeah, that's totally hart. Well, look, do you remember when Eric Adams all these migrants showed up in New York City and Eric Adams made the decision that New York City would house and feed everyone. Even though I am wildly promegration and our first generation American, I thought that was crazy for two reasons. One, so they didn't have the money to do that. It came to the expense
of sanitation and police and schools and everything else. But two, my family, your family, you know, millions of families have come here, and what there are asking for is not
¶ Different industries will support the party that's best for their interests
free housing or free food. What they're asking for is the opportunity to work and to make a living. And I don't think you needed to provide that because I think people would have gone to where the jobs were. Some might be in New York City, a lot might be at meat packing plants in Iowa or something like that.
That's fine, right, But I don't think you even necessarily need to at the beginning, because the truth is, most immigrants just want to work, and the economy has a lot of holes of jobs that are needed to be filled that most Americans don't want to do. And so I think the problem kind of solves itself if you just let it happen.
No, I mean, it's by the way, it's been true if you fought, you know before, if you look at the immigration patterns at the border pre say twenty fifteen, okay, and we've had some different surges for different reasons, I would argue since then, but it usually went if we had a lot of ope, but if our economy was humming, there were more people at the border. If our economy and humming, there were fewer people at the border. I mean, you know, if you thought you could find work in
the United States, you came. If you didn't think you could find work, you weren't going to risk your life to.
Come, right, right, Yeah, I think that that's I think that that's right, and I think I mean, it seems like it's a puzzle, right, which is, if you accept that most people want others to do well right now, some of us have easier some mentality where literally we believe that if you win, that means that I lose,
¶ The case for allowing voting on a mobile device
and I think the president has that mentality quite frankly. But overall, what we're really talking about is enough resources, enough of a social statety, and enough opportunity and balancing it so that it's fair so that people aren't starving. And yet we are still innovating and creating.
So let me go back to sort of the premise that I that I really want you to deal with, which is, is the business community going to see the Trump way of doing things and not want to risk of going back And basically, look, you brought up crypto. Whatever you think of crypto, the industry decided, hey man, we're tired of waiting to convince the left on this.
We're just going to buy supporters, right. You know, Look, they're not the first industry to decide to do that, but it was kind of it's kind of gross just looking at it from my perspective, You're like, I don't we're not making We didn't create that. That Genius Act didn't pass because we thought it was a good idea. It passed because they bought enough politicians. I could argue, okay, and we can we can have a we can we can.
You know, I am pro blockchain, less convinced on the value of of of of the of the coins themselves, but I accept the pre tokenization I get right like, I'm I find myself. I'm in I'm in the middle on this. I worry that the value scam on one hand, to get rich quick scheme part of it, versus the blockchain and all of that, which is a different type
of technology. But if I look at if I'm an upstart industry in any sort, and I look at what crypto pulled off, why do I want to risk the other party coming in, who is just at the end of the day going to be more bureaucratic.
Yeah, well, but flipping around depends on the industry right. So if you are the solar and wind energy industry, you feel exactly the opposite. Right. You felt like under the Democrats you had the kind of regulatory structure, the kind of tax credits, the grants, everything else that you wanted and needed, and Trump came away and came in
¶ Online banking is incredibly secure, voting could be made that way
and threw the big viewery.
I hear you. But should any industry be basically at the whims of which party wins?
I mean, to a certain extent, that is the point of democracy, right. I think the bigger question really becomes who's making the decisions? And to me, the real problem is a structure one in that if you accept that in a world of gerrymandering, only the primary matters ninety plus percent of the time, and Stat's proved that out.
And if you look at primary turnout, which is typically about ten to fifteen percent, and those voters are typically the extremes, either the far right or the far left, or different special interests that can move money and votes, whether it's fair Shake doing Crypto or the teachers unions or whoever it might be. And if you accept that politicians will always do whatever it takes to get re elected, then by definition they're governing for that ten percent on
each side to the exclusion of everyone else. And I actually think, you know, if you sat most people down, you could get eighty percent of people to agree on a framework to solve almost every single problem we have. But those people don't vote in primary, so they're disenfranchised. So one thing that I've been trying to do with you know, I didn't I can to grow up a lot of money. We're in government. I didn't make much money.
Then I went into tack and I did pretty well, and so I've been given it away is to try to make mobile voting happen, because to me, you're only going to get primary turnout from ten to say thirty or forty by meeting the people where they are. Will people take off from work and line up to vote for president, yes, But will they do that for city council,
state rep, state Senate. No, they don't. And as a result, and that, by the way, even congressional primaries have a ten percent primary, you know, have ten percent turnout rate. So and yet close to one hundred percent of us
¶ Mobile voting should start at the local level, then work its way up
have phones. We live our lives on our phones, our banking, our healthcare, our love, lives, all this other stuff, and if we were able to allow people to vote securely on their phones, we could get turnout from ten to say thirty, and then all of a sudden, I'm not sure that any one industry is at much risk of the whims of a party because it's not being decided just by the extremes that either hate Crypto or hate gran energy or whatever it is.
Well, I just had somebody on as a guest who's
¶ How security would work for mobile elections
been advocating getting rid of partisan primaries, and I kind of think that it's pretty clear it is. I put it this way, I don't see how a taxpayer funded primary is constitutional. The idea that I think it's actually a poll tax.
Right.
If I tell you the only way you could participate in this primary is you join a private club and you could participate in this taxpayer funded election. That's that seems you know, give where the where are my goddamn lawyers here?
Come on, I'm an independent living in New York City and my vote does not count.
Well, and that's just that doesn't make It's like, what are we doing, especially when you look at this youngest generation and they're registering as independent or no party at a greater rate than either of the two major parties. So I do think this might actually fix itself, meaning a majority of people plurality would prefer a non party you know, sort of, Hey, I want to I want to decide, right, we're we're actually all libertarian, you know,
the whole idea of America's libertarian. You know, I would, I would, I would argue. So I think we're getting there. But on mobile voting, you know, when you look at mobile technology through the prism of our banking system, yep, it's really secure right now. The times that it's not, Like, there's nothing I hate more than when a credit card company tells me, hey, you've got to change your number. We're doing this for your purposes. No, you're not. You're
doing it for your purpose. Like I just hate being lied to about that. Like it's like no, no, no, no, And I even tell them, stop reading your script. You're not doing it for my benefit. You're doing it for your benefit.
But let's you know, let's figure this out. You have a You're going to have a hard time convincing the public that because cyber criminal activity exists when it comes to scamming people out of crypto or scamming people based on you know, a text message they get and they click the wrong link, that they're going to have a hard time believing that the voting is going to be secure.
Yeah, I mean, I.
Just think psyched the psyche.
Yeah, I think that's right. The polling doesn't quite show that. What's interesting is so before twenty twenty, we polled nationally and about seventy five percent of Republicans, Democrats, Independence all said if mobile voting is secure, of course we should have it. Right after twenty twenty, we pulled again, stayed in the mid seventies with Independence, and Democrats fell to the forties with Republicans because of all the doubt cast on the twenty twenty election. So, to me, the solution
¶ High turnout will create better incentive structures for politicians
to that, and this is what we're working on right now by to start running legislation in seven states to do this is to allow start with local elections and let cities choose to opt in to offer mobile voting as one form of voting for council, school board, may or things like that. So Anchorage is the first city
that's going to do this. They're going to do it in their April municipal elections and then if we pass our bills in these different states that would allow cities to choose to opt in if they want to, to offer it for local elections only, and then let's see how it goes. If people use it and it works and they develop trust, we can move up the ladder to state and then maybe one day federal. If not, then then we don't. But I think we have enough.
You can start locally enough to sort of experiment a little bit.
What's your So give me some of the tech, the security things is it?
Here's how it would work. Location?
What would it be?
So you would go on the app store. You live in Arlington. So let's just say for purposes, you would download the Arlington Board of Elections app and the first thing would say, okay to someone named Chuck Todd, really live in Arlington? Who's registered voter? Last four digits of your social your address? Okay, now we know that there's a voter named Chuck Todd in Arlington, but are you really that person? So first thing is multi factor authentications.
That's like when you figet your password, they send your code, you put it in the app. Then biometric screening so they matt scan your face, match it up against your driver's license or whatever idea you have. Now we know this is really Chuck Todd. Ballot comes up on your screen. Ballot is as simple and straightforward as can be. Whenever you're done and you're ready to submit, three things happen. Your ballots encrypted, your ballots anonymized, and you get a
tracking code, goes back to the Board of Elections. They air gap it, which just mean they take it offline once your ballot is on a flash drive and not connected to the Internet. Then they decrypt it. A paper copy of your ballot gets printed out. That gets mixed in with all the other ballots. You can see where your ballot stands because the tracking code will show you it was received, tabulated, printed, and so on. And then
the underlying code itself is open source. So we've spent the last five years building this thing out of my foundation. We posted it to GitHub a couple of weeks ago, so it is now public code. Anybody can use it, anybody can download it. I don't even known it anymore. It's just purely in the public domain, and any government that wants to try to do it now has the ability to do so. And I've already and I've spent
¶ Is a rise in low information voter turnout actually a good thing?
twenty million dollars my own money so far, you know, working on all of this, I've already paid for it. So I feel like, given that we live in a world where polarization seems to be the contributing factor to so many of our problems, and polarization is because not that people are polarized, but because the only the extremes
vote in primaries, and that's where everything is decided. If you could do something that could make it so much easier to vote, especially in primaries, and you get do you remember when Amazon wanted to put their second headquarters in Queen So part of it went to where you are, to Arlington, right, and then the other half was supposed to go to Long Island City, So hundreds of cities competed for this. New York want a little unexpectedly, everyone's
very excited. The poland shows people are really into it. Then AOC comes out against it and look for her politics. Fine, she's anti jobs, business, capitalism, whatever. Fine. So there's a guy named Mike Gennaris who is a state senator in Long Island City, Queens. And Mike is just a guy. He's not good, He's not bad. He's not conservatives at liberal.
¶ Unique challenges selling rural states on mobile voting?
He is just a political hack that wants to stay in office, nothing else, and all things being equal, of course, it's exciting when your district is picked by Amazon to be this thing. But now he says to himself, oh shit, if I support this, I could get a primary from the left. Turn out I'll be around eight nine percent based on the data, and the voters in that primary will be the most left wing voters of my district.
And if AOC supports the opponent, I could lose. And he had a choice forty thousand, forty thousand new jobs for New Yorkers that are good jobs with benefits, or one job his own, and he picked himself, and by the way, that's what politicians do. But if he did the same analysis and turn out as primary was gonna be thirty seven instead of nine, not because he cared anymore about the voters, the district, the job, whatever, Nothing
only changed, just the math. He would have done the deal simply because he would have needed to get re elected. So what if they were not partisan primaries or open primaries, that would definitely help. But you know, I still think if you look at places with the open primaries, and I'm a big supporter of open primaries for local elections. You still just don't get people going to submit plays. With mail in voting, it's a little easier, but in New York where you have to go, people just don't
show up. But you know what, those same people all have phones, So when they're sitting on the subway or they're waiting for their coffee or wherever else, if all they have to do is press a few buttons, then you can go from nine to thirty seven. I don't think you can do that when people have to go show up some money.
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¶ JD Vance is the biggest variable on the potential return to rule of law
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¶ Vance will struggle to distance himself from Trump
and I'm not I'm saying this. I'm not saying I agree with it. So anybody listening that wants to try to like, you know, aggregate me and sort of say, oh, there he goes he doesn't want to if you choose not. You know, it's sort of like I'm not for compulsory voting like I think you should. I think you should feel comfortable made. You know. In fact, I think it's been fascinating that that voter turnout goes down. The more
apathy goes up, the more content and stable our governments are. Right, apathy goes down a bit more unstable when our leadership is a little bit more unstable. Maybe that's a good thing that that people pay more attention, but it is is more uninformed people voting a good thing.
You know what, if more uninformed people is more, it's still a better reflection of the mainstream and therefore democracy than fewer. And you know, I just when I was giving a talk on mobilevoting somewhere someone said raise their hands, said, well, under your as system, we're going to have a TikTok president. We have a TikTok president, and a New York have a TikTok mayor mayor.
Right now, we're already living in the biggest in the biggest markets. We're already living in that world so we're we're already there.
So to me, the thing that I learned I worked in city government. I worked in you know, I was in DC, I was sumer's communications director, I was deputy governor of Illinois. I saw it from really every angle, And to me, the only thing that you can count on is that politicians will do whatever it takes to get re elected. And so even if it's an uninformed
¶ How different would the world have looked if Gore beat Bush?
thirty seven percent, a politician trying to sell for an uninformed thirty seven percent is still going to land much more in the mainstream than a politician trying to solve for nine percent.
Yeah, do you think you're gonna have an easier time selling more rural states on mobile voting than urban.
St It's one of the reasons why Alaska's are Alaska is a perfect Yeah, a perfect example, if not for twenty twenty. Yes, the challenge I have right now is that red states don't want to do anything Trump doesn't like, and he hasn't said anything about mobile voting. But if you are a paper only in person thing, then clearly you're not gonna like mobile voting. And so therefore in blue states, you not only don't have the concern about Trump,
but you actually have the incentive of sticking it to Trump. Right, So in theory, what you said should have been the rollout plan, Trump scrambled that. So now the rollout plan is much more partisan, which I'd say again, I'm not even an Emerald party anymore, right, So it's not like I want one party as opposed to another or one type of state. But I'm going to have mobile voting.
I want ever want to have it. I think realistically, there's a world that I live in for what I'm doing through twenty eight, and then there's a new world that starts in twenty nine.
That's interesting that you say it that way when you say there's just a new world, that's you're just are you sort of plotting and living? I mean I want more people to be thinking this way, which is, Look, the Trump era is over. It just hasn't ended yet.
Yeah, I mean He's gonna go away and norms will be restored.
So well, see that's the question. That's what I'm not I'm now starting to become a skeptical so we never go backwards, Bradley.
¶ If Gore wins, Iraq never happens
So I've been asking people who know Dvance specifically this question, right, because let's say it's any Democrat, we're probably going back to a more normalized rule of laws system, right. So now on the Republican side, even someone like Rubio probably goes back to that. So to me, Vance is the biggest of the major contenders, the biggest variable. He might not want to, but remember when Jordan retired and the NBA kept turning to manufacture these errors to Jordan and
it never worked. Right, you had great basketball players, but until Lebron naturally came along, you just didn't have it. Right, Vance and others will try to imitate Trump at every turn, and it's not gonna work because Trump is an end of one and for better or worse, he's just unique, right, and if you try to imitate him, that will probably look really inauthentic and actually fail. And so Vance would be my biggest concern about continuation of the current approach
¶ The two most qualified of the last seven presidents only got 1 term
to rule of law. But I kind of think that people are gonna want change, and I think that he is gonna refer he has to run on continuity to Trump.
And look, Vance is discovering this same trap that being vice president for an unpopular president is like that Kamala Harris discovered you're never going to be judged on your own merits, right.
Right, Well, do you think he learned?
So?
Harris clearly regrets not distancing herself from Biden in any way. Do you think Vance has learned from that? And if so, when you're the city vice president and a candidate, how do you distance yourself?
You can't. I mean the point is just because you should doesn't mean you can, right, yeah, right, you know, look, Hubert Humphrey couldn't do it, and he waited too long. Al Gore to this day did the best version of it that was possible.
Right.
He found he was trying to figure out a way to show distance on the things that mattered the most, the concerns that people had, which was the kind of the personal ickiness of Clinton, right, and Joe Lieberman was
¶ The Iowa caucuses force presidential candidates to meet the people
the tonic.
And so.
You know what, you know, had Kamala Harris picked Elon Musks are running made, I don't know. I'm like trying to think, like who could have been the.
I'm not sure anything. I don't know if anything.
Could even al Gore couldn't outrun it. Right, he got closer. I will always go to my grave believing that race got competitive because he figured out a way to walk the line of being, Hey, I'm going to be the stuff you liked about Clinton, and I'm not going to allow the stuff you didn't like to happen either, right, which was but it was hard.
Yeah, and bother one of the biggest what asks because if you think about it, let's say Florida. You know, a few ballots got fully punched through instead of hanging had tats or whatever. Right, and the outcome is different. It seems to be there's two very radically differ friend outcomes that we said of what we had. One is, let's just see nine to eleven still happens, because it probably would have.
Right, I've gone through this. What if I'm curious where you're going to go. I have an idea where this goes.
See, you still get Afghanistan. That doesn't change, No.
But I don't think you realize Rack, it's not just that, Bradley.
Yeah.
If at nine to eleven happens under Al Gore, that's the ninth year of a democratic presidency. So while George W. Bush was new and could claim the intelligence was new,
¶ The DNC made a huge mistake removing Iowa as first in nation status
then all of a sudden, if Gore's president, then the whole well, you knew this guy was a problem because your administration tried to kill him once and missed. You were on top of bin Ladden, and you still missed this. I think the politicizing of the intelligence failure under a democratic administration, which is a continuation of eight years of
a democratic administration, becomes we are far more polarized. The world we live in today is the world that would have happened to us September twelfth, ninth, two thousand and one. Meaning I think we would have gone immediately because it would have been this was the because he would have had the same CIA chief probably maybe he had the same Secretary of State maybe, but you know what I mean. There would have been more continuation than difference, and it
wouldn't have been a new president. It would have been right like. So that to me is the is the dog that didn't mark right, which is well, we were we could have nine to eleven, could have gotten politicized. It didn't, right, and it was a unique set of circumstances for why it didn't.
But could you have gotten away with the WMD stuff?
Well, I don't think Iraq ever happens right, right right? I mean, in that sense it doesn't happen, and we probably still do Afghanistan. But what I'm saying is I think we have a far more politicized world because this wouldn't have been the failure of a new administration. It would have been the failure of an administration that, in theory, had been in power for nine years.
Right, right? I think that's probably right. Can I throw one crazy idea at you, because.
Lad, that's what we do here at the Chuck Podcast.
So, okay, So if you look at sort of modern political history for the president, let's just say since Reagan, So there's been seven presidents, including Reagan's nineteen eighty five of them, I would argue, were rock stars who were definitely not the most qualified person to win. So Reagan, Clinton, w to some extent, Obama Trump. The two that were
¶ Communication is so much more important to success now
ultra qualified, Biden and HW both only lasted one term.
Right, so I call them nineteenth century presidents. They'd have been better in the non media era, right the at least for president.
Americans want rock stars, and my argument is the DNC or the RNC are the least qualified entities to pick rock stars. Do you remember that show? I think you were probably around this age Battle of the network stars.
It's like when I was a kid, right, So, yeah, what if you did that in say in twenty twenty seven, where you said, okay, instead of a tug of war in the mud, go to the waffle house of midnight, talk to the truckers, talk to the cops, talk to the college kids, show them all of America and see who comes and what they talk to you about. Call inning of a Cardinals game on the radio, whatever it is.
And put candidates in real world situations that are not totally scripted and not totally packed with party faithful and
¶ In business, narrative is more important than fundamentals
just see how they do. Because some will resonate, some will not. And ultimately you got to pick the candidate that has that intangible quality. And you're never going to get that through the debates and the normal primary systems. You almost need an alternate method.
Well, you know we have. You know, it's funny, what if I told you that we had already had that system, but we didn't like it, and it's called the Iowa CAUCUSUS. This single grind greatest aspect of the Iowa caucuses is what you just described, the fact that candidates have to go into small venues, They have to it's the only time in the presidential process where you see more personal interactions, right.
And you know, I've always thought that what people don't understand that actually the two parties that stumbled on a really smart way to do the presidential primary system. We start in a super rural state that's very friendly, in the state of Iowa, and you're being tested, can you organize ninety nine counties? Like that's essentially what you're being told to do. You've got to figure out how to organize. You can't just win DesMoines. You've actually got to show
strength in ninety nine counties. Then with the second test, we're going to send you to a state that is cranky independence and in fact they get to decide which party to vote in and they vacillate Like two thousand was fantastic. It was really a fight between McCain and braw to see who could convince more independence to pick the D ballot or the R ballot. Well, McCain won that,
and therefore Gore won. Had Bradley won the debate with McCain, Bradley wins the New Hampshire primary, and then the messages said, hey, this guy is better at winning independence and it's a test of that. Like I think the parties and we didn't fully appreciate that the system that we had stumbled into place you test or actually existed. And what you have is you had a whole bunch of idiots at
¶ Is it better to be a public company or private company in 2026?
the DNC who said, well, Iowa was too white, and it is, and they had it, and they applied a DEI test to the state of Iowa mistakenly realized, not realizing that by preventing their candidates from learning how to speak to rural America in a friendly state like Iowa, that they were going to fail in appealing to rural America all over the country. So I absolutely agree with
what you're saying. And I'm like, we already had this system because it tested Barack Obama, it tested Bill Clinton, and in fact, it was in the small states and their interactions in the small states that made the country comfortable with what they what. We weren't sure whether these were attributes that were going to work or not. So we had the system, and we're now actually trying to throw that system away, which I sort of am frustrated them.
Well because by throwing it, throwing it away and sort of nationalizing it empowers the people inside the Beltway at the expense of everyone else. But the problem is those people like other people who went to Yale and write in bullet points, and that is not a rock star, right, right, But let me go back, let me.
Throw some up at echew, which is which is? And I've i've I've been working with a company that's basically popped up, that didn't exist for a while, but now exists as an entity to help corporations communicate how to
¶ Tech companies stay private for too long
deal with tricky political situations, either with their own employees or with the outside world. And it's sort of it's a company now that it's thriving, and there's a lot of Fortune five hundred companies that want this research, this information, etc. And what I've come to discover is that basically we're now looking for the same attributes in our CEOs as we expect in our presidents as you just defined, right, which is ultimately we're looking for the best communicator. Right,
we elect the best communicator. We don't elect the best person. We're electing the best communicator. The companies with good communicators probably are doing better on Wall Street than the companies with bad communicators. And I actually think now we're communicating is so much more important now to success in both the business world, the political world, the entertainment world, frankly even the sports world. That it is now a skill set that is as important as learning how to type.
It is a skill set that it's important as understanding how to write. In fact, you need to know how to do that then you do right cursive. Right. I just think it's a skill set that it's necessary now and all walks away.
In my world investing in tech startups, narrative is frequently more important than economic fundamentals, right, you know, even and P and L and everything else oftentimes takes a backseat to who has the narrative, the rhetoric, the sort of you know, flash that really gets investors excited, and that's what drives evaluation. Look, think about AI right now. You take two companies and you call one of them AI and one of them not you think to be the
same company. The AI one has doubled evaluation immediately, right. I mean, I would even argue that a lot of the spending the open aiyes and the Navidias are doing on data centers and everything else is really short term
narrative and profit seeking disguise as long term plan. So it looks like you're saying, oh, I'm thinking twenty thirty years out, and the market loves that and they reward it with higher share prices or higher valuations if you're still a private company, and in reality, we have no idea what we're actually going to need to power AI in twenty or thirty years, because the answer might be
¶ Any candidates that excite you for 2028?
that we don't need nearly this much compute, right, maybe the influence model works. I'm at a company that is literally using rat brain stem cells to try to power compute. Whether it works, who knows, right, But like, there's lots of different ways to go about it. And I think that if your Jensen want you know, you say, if I announced I'm going to spend a trillion dollars on data centers, my valuation goes way up immediately, and the truth, by the time that the bill comes due, I'm probably
long gone. My shares became worth more and more money in the short term, and even if all that debt goes bad and people's four oh one k's get wiped out as a result, not really your problem. So yeah, narrative, you know, for better and for worse, you know, it has overwhelming influence over everything else.
No, and it's like, it's not just politics, it's it's it's business. Let me get you out of here on this is is it better to be a public company or a private company in twenty twenty five and in twenty twenty.
Six, that's a great, great question. I believe that tech startups stay private for too long. And the reason they stay private oftentimes is it's easier you don't have all the scrutiny of the market and analysts and investors and all of that. And b oftentimes they're really overvalued and they're afraid to go to the public markets because they're going to face a deep cut in the share price.
They might have a good IPO day, but then you look six months later and it's down seventy percent, and that's because fundamentally the company was never worth what people like me said it was in the first place. And we tell me if this is a little too technical, but in the venture world, we have gotten into a game where the real way for people to make money is have more AUM assets under management, because you get
a two percent fee. So if you can have billions of dollars of AUM it doesn't really matter what your investment performance is because the management fee is worth tens of millions of dollars and if you're the you know, the main GP, you can pocket that. And so as a result, if you are raising much more money than you need to get that two percent, you have to deploy it at much higher evaluations to make the math work.
And everyone's in on the joke from sort of the earliest stage, you know, investor to Fidelity, whoever at the Series F for g. And then they know that it all works for as long as are not exposed. And what exposes it is often the public markets. As I think tech companies stay private for way too long as a result, and that is really harmful to the employees, to consumers, to a lot of other people. So I think that ultimately I would really like to see the speed to market increase.
How would you incentivize that because right now, I mean, I'll be honest, is as much as look, I'm an advocate of the public markets. I think the public markets
¶ Candidates need to be battle tested by the primary calendar
are for all the reasons you just said, right, It's a way to protect employee rights and all those things you have. You know, it's having another set of eyes on everything. But I think the incentive is to stay private, and atentive is But if you so, how do you incentivize the public. How do you incentivize.
Driven by the institutional capital allocators, meaning the giant pension funds, the sovereign wealth funds, the endowments that give hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars to a private equity fund of entra capital fund, whatever it is. Because ultimately, every year that the company stays private, the RR of
the pension fund goes down. Right, So the people who ultimately control the money are way too lax in the requirements and pression that they put on the funds that they invest in.
And so you think that people running the pension funds could put more pressure in these private companies. And you want our if they want our crash, you need to go public.
Yeah, they said to Sequoia, if you don't get your average company from your investment to an IPO down by twenty five percent, we're not doing your next fund. At the next board meeting, the person with Zaquoia on the board is betting in the table, saying we got to get to the market faster. So that's where the power lies in this situation. And I really think that in some ways because the public pension funds especially or look when I was deputy governor of Illinois, like I saw this.
We would appoint people, but there are pointees right to
¶ First mobile votes will happen in Anchorage
the pension funds. They weren't business people and as a result, they're often poorly run. And you know, they are more eager to be able to say I'm in sequoia, I'm in in grease and whatever it is KKR. Then it is demaining that the leaders of those funds be accountable and provide really good returns. And so you know, that's where it has to come from.
Anybody, uh, anybody getting grabbing your attention for twenty twenty eight that you're excited about yet.
Or no, because in part, if you go back to the conversation we had about twelve minutes ago, I would say that I don't know who the rock star is yet, and I know that if I just find the look you know, like you people come through New York and they're rising money or whatever in the car.
Yeah, you meet these people, right you kick, they're smart, anyone's for president smart, they're impressive. Well, they're they're also super narsiss. I always say this, like you run for president, You're like, boy, you know you're You're a bit different than most of us who don't think we should be right, but you're.
Good at this. And so I don't trust my own reaction in those meetings. And I've spent a lifetime around politicians because I understand what they're really good at, and that's what they're really good at, and so I don't maybe it's you know, returned to the version of Iowa, but I would like to see something that shows me because look, I'm a rich guy in Manhattan, right. I am not an any way indicative of America, right you. I live in downtown, I went to Ivy League schools.
I'm everything that the that the right hates right many ways, and I'm not a good barometer for who's gonna win Iowa or New Hampshire. And so for me, what I'm trying to do is know what I don't know. And rather than saying, oh, Josh Shapiro is the guy, Yeah he might. I don't even know Josh Piera, but he might resonate really well with in a one on one
launch or whatever it is. But so what right, So I would like to try to figure out a way that who is the candidate that can do what you talked about, which is they figured out how to navigate the independence in New Hampshire, they figured out how to organize ninety nine counties in Iowa, and then through that you knew this person has the intangible skill.
Well it goes back. You know, it's funny you brought up the Battle of the Network Stars. By the way, if you if you ever want to entertain yourself, go look at go go watch highlight reels of that on YouTube, because they haven't. Okay, oh my god, it's it's fantastic. It's unbelievable, right you just see the You're like, how much cocaine was being done behind the scenes, right, there is no doubt, Like you wouldn't have it if there was it, like you know, the amount of like crazy
s seventies coke that was taking place. But anyway, that ought to be actually a pretty good Netflix limited series like behind the scenes and the battles and would starts. I'm sure it'd be you know.
Just hilarious investing and we're going to make the show.
Let's make that show. It would be you know, tell us the real story of Farah Faucet and Lee Majors, you know, like those those sorts of things. But there is a series of tests that we want these candidates to go through. And while I don't think we want it to look like Survivor or a game show, in
some ways I do. I do like that there are all these weird obstacles in the primary calendar, or that there used to be, because while it doesn't test you on whether how you're going to handle Putin, if you can't handle you know, the person that you got to deal with in Columbia, South Carolina, that that in order to navigate you know, precinct, why well, then how the hell do we expect you to be able to handle a tough moment with Putin? Right?
So, the modern version that actually is the candidates who are truly adapt to new forms of technology, whether it was Kennedy and television or Obama and text, or Trump and Twitter or Mandani in short form video, they do really well because that becomes the way to do it.
No, it's a you're not wrong, it's like how do we how do we how do we sort of celebrate that part of the prime because you know, there's plenty of people who will criticize our conversation. You're trying to gamify. It is sort of, it's not gamify. It's simply finding the person who's got the best attributes to handle how the job is done today.
Plus a binary contest is a game by definition, right, So like we're already in that construct.
Yeah, well, mobile voting, when will we see the first votes.
April in Anchorage? And then my hope would be a whole bunch of these in different states.
What does success look like to you? Fifty turnout? Like huge increases, You're not.
Going to get that in year one. So Estonia is the one country in the world that has had internet voting for twenty years. I went over there this summer to kind of meet with a lot of people and learn more about it. So in year one it was
one point three percent of voters voted online. Today it's well, it's a significant majority, right, And they went from having higher national turnout and low local turnout to sort of normalize get across the board, whereas now even Musp elections are getting fifty instead of five because people just got used to it and it just became so easy that there's no reason not to do it. So that's what I'm going for.
Hey, in nineteen ninety five, the state of Oregon ran this interesting experiment for mail in voting. It was the special election to replace Bob Packway the entire West coast. Now it majority votes by mail. Yeah right, you know, and that was just thirty years ago.
So that's that's what I'm hoping to do here.
Yeah, well, I'll be watching rather than this great conversation and this was.
Super fun and yeah, absolutely loved it to meet and sort we'll do it again, all right, See, thank you.
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