Jay Inslee On Why Trump’s INCOMPETENCE Will Hurt Americans

this off. For the mothers, the grandmother's, Hi mom, and all the other special moms of all sorts in your life. So keep that in mind. I look forward to President Trump going on truth social and wishing all the mothers, even the losers, loser mothers, and the hater mothers, happy Mother's Day. I'm sure that will be coming coming quite soon. But I thought, if I can do anything for you as a public service, it is that it is Actually took a bit of a quick weekend respite. So what

did that really mean. It meant I got to navigate Newark Airport. And if you followed my x feed at all,

you will know this. In the entire Northeast corridor, here is the bottom line, all of the tri state leaders need to get together. This is a mess. The train situation is a mess. The Newark situation is a mess. This is as big of a travel corridor as there is. This is what makes people either trust government or not trust government. Get this stuff right and they're amazed and impressed. Get this stuff wrong, and this is what sort of

can leave a mark. And let's just say, look, there has definitely been I think the Northeast Corridor has a few disadvantages. Politically, it is considered a bluer area. It is made getting sometimes Republican support for various transportation projects that would be helpful in the Northeast corridor not necessarily helpful in other parts of the country. It is tough to get bipartisan support for this sometime. But look, this is an important economic engine. The Northeast Corridor is the

gateway to this country when people come in. So it is something everybody and of course it's really important when it affects me, right, because that's what that's why we've all started podcasts in order to get our own grievances out of the way. So what grinds my gears is that I semits. But the point is it is a reminder of how government leaves an impression on the average person. You may not be paying attention to politics, but you pay attention when you can't get from point A to

point B. And this is the type of stuff. When people are paying attention to government not working, it means you have somehow interrupted their lives. Right. There's sort of two types of voters, those that pay attention and those that tune in on election day. And if you're disrupting those that tune in on election day, they're the ones that can turn election days into blue waves or red waves,

depending on who is in power. And that brings me a little bit. As much as I'd like to wax eloquently about the Alcatraz decision, I will just say one thing about Alcatraz and the movie business. This idea of tifying all movies that come from overseas note when they came out. I don't think Donald Trump thought as Meet the Press interview went very well. I think two things really stayed sticky and I think will stick to him

from that interview. In particular, asked about following the Constitution, I don't know, even though he actually takes an oath of office that says he promised he's going to defend and protect the Constitution. He said, I don't know to that when it came to following the Constitution. And then he continues to double down in this idea that he's going to play mister Scrooge and well, you know, two dollars is enough. Well what about the person that can't

even afford the two dollars? What about that family? And what's he going to say to them? It is an unusual and watching sort of former Republicans who do not like the idea of government deciding how many of anything you can have, you can you know, sort of this idea, this is this is what communism is about. Let's limit

the resources. You will hold back, you will decide, you know, hoard and and you know, you get two pieces, two loaves of bread for this family of six, but a family of four gets one loaf of bread because that's the rules from central from the central government. It is a really weird place for President Trump to be going, and it only I think invites more problems for the

Republicans as a whole in general. And again it continues this uncomfortable ideological realignment that's taking place inside what we're supposed to call our conservative party. But we've been going through this. What is a conservative right? I always, you know, the first word matters here conserve, which is less government, you conserve the amount of And in some ways, sure, he's trying to whack government with the sort of the chainsaw and doge, but he also wants to use weaponize

government when it suits him. He wants to strengthen government when it suits him. Decide who gets a doll and who doesn't get a doll, Decide when there's a military parade for his birthday, and things like that. So what I would point out is I think it is not an accident that by Sunday evening he needed a couple of shiny metal object type of stories, and Alcatraz is one of those shiny metal object stories as well as

somehow attacking Hollywood that would feed his base. And at the same time, perhaps you know, do his little Jedi mind trick on the news cycle. Pay no attention to what I said about the Constitution, pay no attention to what I said about about restricting the amount of toys that come for Christmas. Instead, look over here, look over there, welcome to the rock. So for me, I look at the Alcatraz float and the and the movie business as

simply distraction items. And this is what he's quite good at, right, this is what makes him. He's so wired for a short attention span world. He has sort of built. I always said this, He's been built this way his whole life. Our media environment just caught up to his short attention span. And now he is what his mainstream fits right into Trump's mindset. So he sort of the moment the moment grew to him. He didn't meet the moment the moment met him, and here we are. So that's the way

I sort of compartmentalize those two. And look, this isn't easy the decision. How do you cover an now Alcatraze.

It's a ridiculous story. It's too small. Anything on an island is a big you know, going to cost a lot of money. This is you know, I have no doubt in his head. He's just excited by the idea of America's worst criminals being, you know, just a few miles off the coast of San Francisco, his favorite city, wink wink. But I thought I would focus before my

guests on this episode's gonna be Jay Insley. In fact, the next couple of days, I'm gonna have governors from both sides of the Ay. I've got Jay Insley coming up, got John Kasick coming up to sort of two guys that have run for president, two guys that have were successful, won a three term governor, won a two term governor. You know there was it wasn't when I first started covering politics, Washington State was a swing state. It has moved sharply. A lot of the coast have moved sharply.

Back to nineteen ninety two, California was a swing state, was considered a swing state. But what Jay Insley did three terms in a row, I believe Washington State right now has the longest streak of one part rule for governor going He had certainly had a very consequential twelve years. Ran for president on a single issue, climate change. It's an interesting conversation and he certainly has his belief on the role that the Democratic Party and government ought to

play in this issue of climate change. And he certainly has some strong feelings about Donald Trump. I won't tease the John Kasik interview. That'll be coming up later in the week. But because I have a couple of governors who are very camp you know, sort of political guys, I thought this would be a good time to sort of take the temperature of campaign twenty twenty six, if

you will. As you know, the last time we chatted, I threw in a couple of other Democrats that had a very strong first hundred days, in particular Abigail Spaanbergert, who is now the clear favorite to be the next governor of Virginia. And there's a variety of reasons for that. One is I think she ideologically fits. She's in the much closer to the center, which is I think in these light blue and light red states is where the Democrats have to be if they are going to have

a chance to successfully win statewide. Number one and number two, government workers are just really ticked off at this administration. Whenever government workers are fired up to vote, that's usually bad news for Republicans in the state of Virginia, and so that was obviously one of the reasons there. Look

right now in campaign twenty twenty six, the biggest news over the last ninety six hours was another recruiting failure for the Republicans when it came to some key Senate races, specifically what's going on in Georgia where the governor there, Brian Kemp, passed on a bid to take on incumbent Democratic Senator John Ossa. And I think Kemp's decision when you couple it with the decision of now former governor Chris Sununu in New Hampshire deciding an open seat, not

even having to challenge the sitting incumbent. This would be an open seat race for him, he'd likely be the front runner right away, but he decided not to. And I think there's there's a couple of reasons. One is, and this is something that I've experienced over the years. Any of the senators that used to be governors, the path from governor to senator. You talk to any former governor who's serving in the Senate and you ask them which job they like better. None of them hesitate. They

in fact now they hate the Senate. The way the Senate works, it's dysfunctional. It's not bipartisan anymore. It's still more bipartisan in the House, but it's less bipartisan than it ever was. It's hard to get stuff done because the party leadership runs the Senate. Now, committee chairs don't have the power they used to have. The Senate is a terrible is a terrible place to be compared to what it was just twenty years ago, thirty years ago. It is not the same place. It is not a

deliberative body. They don't deliberate squat anymore. Yes, you might occasionally get an interesting day long filibuster, it's about the only time you see any deliberation. If there is any, you don't see real debate. That would be kind of nice. There was a time that actually happened in the Senate, even in my lifetime. But this isn't This isn't the

way it is. So it is not surprising to me if Brian Kemp calls up any former Senators that he knows or current senators that he knows, what do you think of the place, they are going to tell them it stinks. Ask the current list of governors will complain about the place. Mark Warner missus being governor, John Hickenlooper missus being governor, Mike Bround's missus being governor. So and none of those guys will tell you that the Senate

is a better job than that. So I don't want to sit here and just simply say these are a couple of Republican governors who assess the political landscape and it's a bad year to run. Even if it were a good year to run, the Senate doesn't feel like

it's going to be a great place to be. But the second thing that I is going on, here's the political landscape. I mean, if you're you know, it's pretty If recent history is any guide, twenty twenty six is going to be advantage de rats. The question is how big of an advantage is it a small advantage? You know, the way it was in the in some races sort of in twenty twenty two, it was sort of a mixed bag with a slight advantage of the Republicans. They

always had a little more wind at the back. That's why they won the won the House, but they couldn't pull off the Senate, mostly due to bad nominees sort of trumpet trumpet candidates that were just too trumpy when Trump wasn't on the ballot. And that's the other thing.

With Trump not on the ballot, we've seen a couple of midterms when that happens, Republican performance goes down, Democratic performance seems to grow, So you have to assess the situation that way, So you know it is it is all of a sudden if you're a Republican challenger, but you have to behave like the incumbent because it's really an election about the party and the White House. So I understand why it's not appealing to quote unquote be a challenger but have to behave or get treated by

the by the electorate as an incumbent. And that's what both Chris Nuknew and Brian him would be walking into there. Now, look, the Senate map is not great. Not only do they

have to win four seats in order to take the Senate, they have to defend four open seats plus the Georgia Senate seat with John ast Off, which is going to be noisy feat. So you're essentially looking at five races. The four opens Michigan, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Illinois. And look, do I think Illinois is going to be that competitive

at the end of the day. Probably not, But it's an open seat and it's going to be a really crowded Democratic primary, and what if the Democrats nominate somebody too far to the left that gives an opening to somebody, It's unlikely, considering that MAGA seems to be the more dominant force in Republican primaries. Rarely does do moderate Republicans

get through. I guess Glenn Younkins sort of kind of was at least less MAGA E than most, which is why he was able to, I think, perform, you know, pull off the upset that he did in Virginia governor back in twenty twenty one. So you look at that, and that's a tough An area. And then you look at the Republican seats in theory that are in the competitive states. Right you have Maine and North Carolina are really the only two Republican health seats that jump out

at you. And so then the question is what are the ones that can put into play? Well, this is where I think if you're the Democrats, I don't think there's a plausible path yet to the majority. But here's the thing it has The path for the Democrats has gotten better than it was one hundred days ago. Right, Yes, they've got these open seat problems, but they don't have major challengers, good challengers and Republican candidates. I think they didn't get the best candidate they could have gotten in

Michigan Senate. I think John James would have been better than Mike Rodgers. There. They're not getting their strongest candidate. In New Hampshire, They're not getting their strongest candidate in Georgia. It is Minnesota is just a mess of a situation for the Republican Party there. And then I, you know, do I are there some modern Republicans you know, on a previous on Earth too? Adam Kinsinger is running for the US Senate in Illinois and would have a boxer's

chance in a off year like this. But Adam Kinsinger's no Republican anymore. And I think we all know that that ship has sailed a long time ago. You know, I could have seen a Darren Lehood put that race in play again in a non trumpy atmosphere, but I can't imagine it. So you have that situation. Then you have these primary challengers to sitting Republican incumbents in Louisiana, in Texas and North Carolina. Well, I do think Texas can get put into play if Ken Paxton knocks off

Cornan in the primary. I don't think Cornyn is beatable in a general election at all by any Democrat. I think a lot of Democrats could be Ken Paxton. I

think he's that polarizing and I think he becomes that problematic for the Republicans if he gets there. And I don't know how corn beats him, I really don't, but we'll see. And I'll tell you this, Cornyn will not be out and he'll not be outworked. And I think, and in some ways having he personally clearly doesn't like Ken Paxton has no respect for his character, I imagine he's motivated.

You throw the fact that there are two appointed senators having to seek election on their own for the first time, one in Florida in the Rubio seat. Ashley Moody is going to be sitting in that one. And then of course you have the Ohio situation, which is a special where we have John Houston filling that seat. And I'll tell you it's Ohio. You know, if shared Brown runs again, that puts potentially that seat in place. So again, what's the path look like? They got to somehow win get

North carolinagain. They're going to need a governor to act a former governor who want to run on the Democratic side, Roy Cooper, so they have to win North Carolina, they'd have to go win Maine. The governor there, Janet Mills,

is pondering that race against Susan Collins. I'm one of those folks who thinks, you know, if you follow sort of New England Republican politics closely, there was a time when and the Chafees were impossible to beat in Rhode Island until finally a mid term happened in twenty oh six and Sheldon white House knocked off a Chafee and it's the last time a Republican held a Senate seat in Rhode Island. I have a feeling that could be

what happens to Susan Collins. She's still probably the only Republican that can hold that seat, but eventually her party ID may be the reason she loses. And I'll tell you this, if Paula Page being on the ballot just in one House race, I think that's actually a net negative for the Republican ticket. He's polarizing, He will bring out the wrong type of voter if you're a Republican.

I think this really hurts Susan Collins. With PAULA Page sitting there and frankly, I'm I'm not one hundred percent. If you told me by the end of the summer she's announced that she's not going to run again, it wouldn't completely blow me away. I still think it's a little early in the calendar and that's still possible. So again, I got to find my math here, right. So they

need four seats. They have to win North Carolina, win Maine, hold all their vulnerable seats, seats I told you about, and I'm actually pretty confident, barring in debacle here, they could do that. That's now more realistic than ever, especially when they've had Sonunu and Kemp pass. So then you're looking like, where do they find two more seats? Maybe there's Texas. I'm skeptical on Florida, and I'm somewhat skeptical

about Ohio. I always say somewhat. I think if the ticket is Ramaswami at the top for governor, I think he's pretty polarizing and I think he's he's more like Vance and he'll underperform an average Republican. Does he underperform enough to bring down the ticket and to give a shared Brown a shot? Maybe maybe we'll see, And I also, But here's another sort of counter counterfactual there in Ohio. Shared Brown may be quite supportive of some of these

tariffs of Trump and can he message can Hess? Can he somehow walk that line in Ohio? I don't know. So the thing that I would watch out for is, I do think if Democrats want a path, they need one more. They need to put at least one or two more Senate seats in play. I'm going to give you four states where I think they're going to attempt to try to put two of these foreign play. Mississippi, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. The farm states. I've talked to you about

this before. Between the tariffs and the AID funding cut off,

farmers have been hit hard. Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa are going to pay a price for the Trump economy that's steeper than most other states. Does that harm incumbents there? And I'll throw one other thing at you. There's been interesting speculation that if win Donald Trump finally gives up on Pete hag Set and the smart money in DC is when, not if He's going to do it on his timeline, not on the media's timeline. But we saw it already with Mike Waltz. The backup candidates probably Jony

Ernst more than Tom Cotton. I know Cotton wants it. I think Laura Lumer has Cotton, has got Cotton in

her crosshairs, and I think Cotton becomes an on starter for some of MAGA world. That's not the case with Joony Ernst, who sort of tries to find her way a little bit closer, you know, a little more MAGA adjacent, I think than Cotton is. And I think the there's always a I think MAGA would love to be able to say a Republican woman was the first woman head of the Pentagon. So the point is, then, all of a sudden, you have appointment. Why is this speculation up

and running? Will Zach Nunn, who is a Republican member of Congress in the third district in Iowa. It is the swingiest of districts, it is. Frankly, he's probably the most vulnerable Republican in Iowa if he runs for reelection. Decided not to run for the open governor's race in that state, which a lot of people thought he would jump into that and didn't say right away he's running for reelection. So look, there's a lot of chatter here

about Ernest Pentagon. Maybe she's not running it. Who knows, is none holding out for that. It's just something keep an eye on. Look, it's not that long ago that Iowa elected Democrats statewide, but you know, but in the Trump era, it's been a lot tougher for them. But again, without Trump on the ballot, these are places. So as you can see here, I'm trying to create the best possible path here I can come up with their Democrats, and they're still probably a seat or too short, and

that's why we're not there yet. But if they get competitive candidates in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Mississippi, if they can put two of those four realistically in play, then all of a sudden, the path is there still a long shot. You're still looking at the you know, it's about I think the Indiana Pacers have a better shot at winning the NBA title than the Democrats do of winning the Senate. But I think the Indiana Pacers have a boxer's chance to win the NBA title. So it's not out of

the realm, and it is slowly building. And you got to remember what this political environment is about. This is about Donald Trump these days and the House. Meanwhile, our friends at Down Ballot, I love this the Down Ballot. If you don't subscribe to it, you should. It's a great newsletter. They have a great podcast. These are folks that they are. They live and breathe data, They live

and brief politics. Yes they come from stage left, but their reporting and data is just facts only. They did the presidential vote by house district. They had the first list of that out before anybody else. And what's fascinating here is that you had one hundred and sixteen. Let me get this right, make sure I have this right here in my numbers. I went through and basically it's races. Here's what it was, one hundred and sixteen congressional districts

where the presidentill vote was fifty five or lower. There were seventy nine additional districts where the number was between fifty six and fifty nine. Why do I point that out? So out of foreigner in thirty five, right out of foreigner in thirty five congressional districts less than two hundred, Less than two hundred had a presidential vote of fifty nine percent or less for either of the presidential candidate. That is the most generous definition of competitive you can

come up with. So you have just under two hundred districts that are at least going to be decided by twenty by less than twenty points, the spread between DNR will be by less than twenty points. There are more Democratic seats than Republican seats on this list. Now there's

a reason for that. Democrats really the Democrat you know, Kamala Harris really underperformed in the Blue states, and that underperformance trickled down a lot of Democratic incumbents won by their lowest vote margins that they've won in a long time in places like Illinois, New Jersey, California. And so while on paper it looks competitive, in theory, it's not going to be as competitive because Donald Trump is going to be on the ballot. But here's all you need

to know. There are forty two Republican districts where Donald Trump got less than fifty five percent of the vote. If you assume there's a three to four point bump when Trump's on the ballot for Republicans in general, that just shows you how easily that if there is a dem way. First of all, the ceiling is going to be no more than thirty to thirty five seats, Max, and I think that's being generous. But the path is there, and the path that winning the House for the Democrats

is quite clear. It's quite easy, and in fact, not winning the House would be catastrophic for the party at this point, barring some unforeseen event that rallies the troops. So there's my early picture there. It's been a good

first hundred days for the Blue team when it comes to preparing for twenty twenty six, even though they've had more retirements, the lack of good recruiting on the Publican side and the intra party fights that are already developing on the Republican Senate side, I think, do put do suddenly give the Democrats a glimmer of hope that they can somehow put the Senate in plane in twenty twenty six. Still a long shot, but it's like Indiana Pacers winning

the title long shot, all right. So with that, it's a nice long open for you political junkies out there. I hope you enjoyed this one. I will try to do this every couple of weeks where we just go deep into my brain when it comes to comes to the Senate and gub and House races. But with that staking a break, Governor j Insley on the other side, you've only been retired now, I don't know. I guess it's one hundred days. So right, what do we about at one hundred and fifteen days? How does it feel?

for Gun Responsibility. I'm trying to stir the masses. I just had a piece in the Guardian I printed saying we got to wake up and smell the roses to push back. So I really feel the same degree of lust for the fight.

because I didn't approach the job as feeling constrained. I always felt it was my job to raise the state's ambitions and not be constrained by forces of the status quo or economic power. And so no, I'm mind constrained now. I was fairly unconstrained then, and some people were not happy with that by the way you call it.

sometimes you've got to You've got to be willing. Look, I'm going over here and these people are going to be unhappy, but that's so be it.

And when you mentioned incrementalism, I think it is interesting. I think we did reach the right we did reach the right pace of that. As evidence, we had three of my major advances were challenged at the ballot box last November with and with a referendum to repeal them. Best climate change policies in the country are capital gains tax and our first in the nation long term care plan, which you were very proud of. Were actually the first

state that have long term care plan for people. We know the silver tsunami is coming, and there was an effort by the forces of reaction to repeal all of those, and we won those going away, like sixty thirty eight, how much healthier?

more trustworthy and healthier. Meaning, look, you did something that some you know that that at first may have looked like it was a fifty five to forty five decision, right, getting the voters to affirm something the legislature the governor did usually strengthens that law into sticking, right, Like you know, you know, there's a reason why in Washington, this Washington the other Washington you always want a little bipartisanship for big bills because you don't want to you know, you

don't want to give whiplash, you don't want to be unbringing it every four years. In some ways, is it better that you were challenged and that you wanted the ballot box rather than never being challenged at all? With those loss.

I think we picked the right pace. We're with in tune with the hearts of Washington State, and I hope

other states will follow us.

start to see the benefits. So our Climate Commitment Act, you know, it was very contentious when we passed it in twenty nineteen twenty.

and in our industrial sector. So what it does is it sets an absolute cap, an absolute limit on pollution of these toxic materials in the state of Washington, and it forces the polluting industries to purchase a credit against that total amount, and we only sell enough credits to go to that total amount, So they have to pay to pollute. The first principle of it, the polluters have

to pay for their pollution. And that's a very important concept because you know, when you go to the garbage dump, you got to pay you fifteen bucks, twenty bucks to dump your garbage for.

you know, there's always these are the fears that get thrown at people about these policies that if you put this cap on carbon either one of two things going to happen. The cost of energy is going to go up because there's a limited amount of potential supply, or there just won't be enough when there's a surge, whether there's a heat wave or a cold wave or something

like this. Explain to me the provisions that I'm sure are in this bill that you have that sort of deal with sort of outsized events that that could cause surges and cost or surges and power use.

a lot of work to be done on that. But they're actually starting potentially construction next year. That is an amazing achievement. If fusion pays off, pays off, that's like the Holy grand Is. A lot of people have skepticism about it, but I'll tell you there's some really good investors who are investing in this, and I'm glad we're moving forward on small modular reactors. The question is can they be built to reduce the amount the risk of any problem at at at a reasonable price. That's a

question that remains to be seen. We did have a proposal here. It fell apart just because of cost, not because it's nothing on it, but just the supply chain.

moving forward. But I think we should be open to these potentials of anything that's that's non carbon omitting. But coming back to your central question, Look, the best argument is success and that's what we're experiencing here with the clean energy economy. And that's been so maddening about Trump because he's trying to kill all of this economic growth for low cost energy. That's the other thing that I

want to point out. This energy is the least expensive in ninety percent of America now solar and wind and advanced battery storage are less expensive than coal. But he wants to get rid of the less expensive and that's why we've had some utility bills go up since he's been president.

of the industry over another. And of course that's been the mind boggling thing to me, and I'm sure you've probably thought about this too, which is, where are the small government people? Where are the free marketeers, you know, just sort of let let let the market decide on these things. And they're not there, and I'm I'm wondering where that constituency has gone.

ch cheapest electricity in America. And it also cuts against his sort of vision of the dominant America. You know,

dominance is his number one verb. He worships the gods of dominance, so he wants energy dominance. Well, if you want to be energy dominant, why are you killing domestic sources of energy? This is homegrown, all American energy, red, white, and blue spinning wind turbines and solar panels in advanced electricity. Uh, this is all American. So this cuts against virtually everything he told citizens he wanted to do when he ran for office. Hey, he said he wanted to reduce inflation.

These actions by him of killing these clean energy industries is increasing inflation. Number two, he said he wanted to be American, to be dominant. Well, he's actually shooting us in the foot and giving these markets to China. And that's not a winning message. So he's you know, I wouldn't. You've asked to be judged against a rational position. I've given up.

logic has been banned or banning logic because lot if you if you look at this administration or you look at his governance through a lot, there is none. I mean, the only the only through line is his quote unquote gut.

But let me that gets me to to another point and that you wrote in the Guardian in your op ed, because it I've had this question the question you opened your op ed with I've had with I've had from a friend of mine that lives overseas, and he's essentially, why aren't people in the streets that's been like the probably of the non political people just sort of these are not super highly charged, but people that live overseas that pay attention obviously pay more attention than than the

average global citizen. And my explanation is exhaustion. I say, you know, the best explanation I have is is there are some people who think, well, we tried that the first time and he came back. Now I would argue, well, and that's why he didn't win a second term, and that's why all those things. But that is my best explanation. Exhaustion. What's your explanation?

I grew up with that all American conatitude. And to think to have to imagine an American president facially ignoring the US Supreme Court, it takes the powers of imagination because we've never experienced that in the United States. Hungary has experienced it, Germany has experienced it, Argentina has experienced We never have. So I think part of it is we don't we have to imagine this because we've never experienced.

But I do believe there's some exhaustion. But I'll tell you, people are waking up. So I spoke to twenty thousand people on a Sunday day in Seattle. A couple of weekends ago. On my street corner up here in Bambridge Island. Every day there's two dozen people standing out there and they're not in the New York Times or on your show, but they're just out there. People are waking up. I wrote this piece in the Guardian you refer to about a month ago, and there has been some marginal waking

up that's happening. So I'm very pleased by that because people are starting to feel the ramifications, because he is capable of totally ripping apart every law, on every constitutional privilege if we don't get out there. So I'm glad. I'm glad that we are, and everybody's got a stake in this. You know, there's gonna be report released tomorrow a couple of days after this, by Climate Power. I work with a group called.

your economic conditions of your family. It's not just kind of Ivory Tower constitutional law. It means you're going to pay more for utility, your kid's gonna lose their jobs, and your prices are going to go off. Those are the real term ramifications of losing democracy, not just pointy headed things for constitutional lawyers at the law schools.

stop authoritarianism in this country make people poor again. Like you know that the economy if he if he's mismanaging the economy, he's not going to be able to get away with everything else. I mean, that's sort of a a dark way of trying to find optimism. But do you do you concur with that conclusion that that once people feel the economic impact, then suddenly they'll start, you know, putting all this together.

and it's like, you're never putting this back. The small business owner in Nigeria who can export to the United States or the EU and make money is never going to say, oh, I guess now I got to go to economic nationalism and sell people here. That isn't how it's going to work.

our constitution intact. The preferred way is for people who get out on the street in peaceful protests, and college presidents saying I'm not going to deal with you, and law firms saying I'll see you court and school district administrators teaching their kids on this subject. That's what's going to ultimately restrain restrain this situation.

Don't look at us? It's this weird. It's like, now we all, I frankly have a better understanding of how things happened in Berlin and Munich in the thirties. Right, it was fear and survival kick in, and sometimes people get selfish, right, and it's like I've got to survive and my surviv if I have to sacrifice you to survive, at least I stay in the room and maybe I

can fix it later. I mean, that's a that's I feel like what we're watching, at least in the legal community, the media community, in the university community.

His name I won't mention, And Churchill said, you know, it's a really bad strategy to feed a crocodile in the hopes that he will eat you last. And I think that just defines why these decisions have been so damaging to democracy and ultimately to these institutions, because I'll tell you what, Blackmailer's extortionists never get done with the first bite. They come back. You've already seen him coming back and want more from Columbia and these law for him.

You're already seeing him coming back for that, and so surrender is not an option here if we want to keep a democracy. And I think these you were starting again, You're starting to see this tide turn a little bit. You're starting to see people waking up in these c streets, c suites. Now, if I may in the media, I wouldn't saw George Clooney's play that Good Luck about edwar Armurrell, a proud Washington State University graduate by the way, who

is such a great friend of demogracy. Yeah, and the whole play was about management of the media at that time, CBS trying to lean on Edgar Murrell to lighten up on his attacks on Joseph McCarthy. That day, same day, in the same studio, the executive producer of sixty Minutes had it quick because management was leaning on him, because Trump was leaning on him. And I'm going, like, this play is when we're living this play, it's a real thing. It's not just on the stage. We're living it at

this moment. Well, yes, we hope the voices in the media can do the same thing. We know some have capitulated and some are standing up. But if there's ever a moment to stand up, you know, and I've appealed. I've tried to make this on a very personal basis. So I've called my agents of the University of Washington to talk to him about this subject, and they've expressed some of the same concerns you have research dollars, he's

going to attack us, blah blah blah. And what I've tried to say is that look, imagine you're the region of the University of Heidelberg in May nineteen thirty three and you're told by the new chancellor that you won't you can no longer admit Jewish students, or he's going to cut your research budget in half. And I've asked these reagents, what would you do? You're being tested and you get to decide what you really believe in. And

I've tried to appeal people on a personal level with that type of issue because I do believe that's the same scenario. I really do, because we have seen this happens.

But when I think about the trade situation and the issue with tariffs, and you know, the Sun Belt has become a financial juggernaut, right and a manufacturing juggernaut, and that's due to arguably these open trade deals that have allowed foreign manufacturers to build plants in the United States

and things like that. So when I think about the Democratic Party's debate about sort of how to win back working class voters, and certainly the issues in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, I'm bringing up some former swing states and as well as potential swing state you know where they lost. Washington gained, Nevada gained, Texas gained, Arizona gained, right, the Sunbelt gain

how do you have that conversation with the American public. Right, it was a net positive, NAFTA was a net positive, but there were people that lost.

about every single tariff. But the thing you should not have is a president who is grossly incompetent, who has created so much uncertainty that he has even unintentionally started trade wars that has now resulted. You want to talk about manufacturing, a lot of these manufacturing companies are not going to be able to do their job at all because they're not going to be able to get the rare earth they need from China, and the magnets of today, the ninety percent of the rare earth comes from China

that's getting shut off. That's a consequence of these tariffs. So when you have a grossly incompetent person who wants to cause chaos and nobody knows what his real plan is, and he has caused the damage to the image of the United States because he's been a buffoon. You know, he says, I'm going to do one hundred and forty five percent tariff on China. He says, they're going to back down, they're talking to me, They're going to surrender the next day. Gee says, forget it. But I'm not even.

treasure of credibility because he's folded. He folded on this. But now Trada won't let them even fold. They won't take his.

Used to be lazy Boy, used to be Monroe shock absorbers, right, right, But Washington State's benefited quite a bit from increased exports around the world, right, So you know, Look, part of me thinks people should have just moved out of the Midwest more and we should probably have more domestic migration. But but set that aside. There's still a you know, that constituency wants one thing, and that's how you win presidential elections.

grow when people can do what they do best. And if they group bananas and you know, and in Panama and we can't and we should be willing to buy bananas even though we have a trade deficit with them, and to make us pay more for bananas or restrict the ability of our ability to get bananas general doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'm in general, I don't think tariffs make a lot of sense, except they are useful obviously for national security purposes, so you can

protect your national security assets. They are useful if you are being abused, for instance, with issues of intellectual property, and there has been some abuse of our intellectual property, so as a mechanism to force compliance within national standards, there's some reason in that regard and when we do

do them. And if I was going to criticize NAFTA for a moment, I think the pace of change when you are having new technologies coming on, as with these huge new technological advances, we should pay more attention to the pace of change. And the pace of change was more disruptive than anyone would watch.

US economy. And it's interesting to me how even though tariffs and not everybody gonna get a major economics right. So I got around for SATAN for four years and argue this issue with professors one way or another. Not everybody had that privilege. Yet Americans have a deep understanding

that this guy's going to cost him more money for everything they buy, practically bluting utility bills because he's refusing to let us have access to good, clean so learn win energy. So Americans get this and it you know, it's principal reason as numbers or are just creating.

your state. But what did you learn from trying to from trying to create an urgency around this issue that government should be involved in the solution. What did you learn in your conversations with voters that says, you know, when you talk about these issues, talking about them this way not that way? Or what advice would you give to other politicians who want to get voters to understand the urgency better on their terms, not necessarily on my

terms or your terms, but on on their terms. What what have you found to be most effective?

week we're just laying out all over the ground. I mean, it was it was a very good graphic illustration and these and that place had never seen a flood before. It had been there for one hundred and fifty years, and that tout had never seen a flood before, so this was a perfect example of climate cause disasters that we are now are experiencing. And the thing was going well. I talked to a lot of people there. They all thought that we should do something about climate change, and

it was really a great visit. And as I was going to get in the car, my young staff for who I didn't know very well, says, you got to come over here, guv, you got to meet Henry over here at the auto body shop. And I go, no, no, we're done. We got to here. He said, no, you have to come see Henry. Everybody knows Henry in town. I said, no, no, we're done. He says, look, you got to come. I said, okay. So we walk across town.

We go on to Henry's shop, auto body shop, and there's NRA posters and Dixie flags and I said, no, this is not a place. I wanted to be.

So that's a little campaign story. So here's what I've learned is that that you have to talk to people about this issue where they live. You can't lecture people obviously, you need to talk to them about where they live. You need to find out what they care about, what do you care about, what's important to you and your family, And that's the first part of any discussion. And then once you find that out, to talk to them about

possibly they might be interested in this question. If it's a job for their kid coming out of college, we got good ways to say, hey, here's a good reason your child may have a good career. If it's your crop that you're trying to sell, well, we sure hope that your crop isn't one of those silos that is being washed away. If you have a child with asthma, you say, you know, you know it's making your child.

Because we have an epidemic of asthma right now. So the first thing I've learned is to just meet people where they are and talk to them about their personal ambitions and fears, and that's the way to move forward. Well, I'll mentioned weather thing though, Okay, Americans still don't understand this phenomena. Only one out of five Americans know there's a scientific consensus about this, that we're wrapping the Earth in a blanket of carbon dioxide, and that there is

a scientific consensus about this. So there's still a lot of basic information that we need to share with Americans. It's one of the reasons I like the Climate Power Accountability Group holding Trump accountable so we can share of this scientific information with people.

you start with sort of hey, are you are? Are you tired of the high cost of insurance for your home because you live this close to a body of water, Well, here's why it costs more to live this close to a body of water. I mean it, And this is why maybe we need to build a barrier or maybe we need to do this. Is is that a better way in with some people?

She did an internship in Scambia County, which is in the Panandle, Florida. It's a pretty conservative area, and they told them never to use the frame climate change. Talk about fishing, talk about conservation, talk about making sure you have plenty of good places to fish. Why do people move to Florida, you know, for the outdoors figuring out how to speak essentially native languages no matter where you are in the country.

I mean, you can't. You're not going to be able to get insurance.

in their family, you talk about asthma. You talk about those issues, not the global crisis. Right, It's not the planet this problem, it's your life. I haven't found though that that. You know, on occasion, you'll get a Republican say yes, I'm willing to finance a new dyke right

to protect the town. You're getting some of that, but that is not translated to them saying and by the way, I want to do something about fossil fuels destroying and causing this problem in the first place. It's been so disappointing that we have not been able to find Republicans in office to be able to help us on this. And I keep hoping that's going to change, but it is not. The only Republicans really helping us the ones that are out of office. So right now we've got to replace them.

I'm just going like, you don't deserve to be in office, and we're going to retire you from private life.

you for sure. I have never regretted my vote for the assault weapon bill for one second, even though I lost something that was very dear to me, because I just believe that public service is such a blessing that you have. It's bestowed on you by so many thousands of people. To not follow your convictions and the real best interests. Just you're abusing this great gift that is

given to you. And when these Republicans know climate change, because these are smart people, right, you're dentists or doctor, they know this is eatness alive. They understand chemistry, they understand physics. But when you refuse to do that because you're afraid of Donald Trump, you're abusing your office. This is a great gift that has been given to you. And so I feel very strongly about this. As you can tell, when people are afraid of their own damn skins,

it won't stand up for their constituents. There's too much of that going on. And I will just tell you, even though I lost, I never regret of it because I felt so passionately about my obligation of my constituents.

think that. I'm you know, it was like mildly courageous, But I actually would think it's a different thing. Maybe I have more confidence in my citizens than some of the politicians. I just have more confidence that people will be able to understand the science of climate change, and they'd be willing to do modest things to improve the situation. That's why we passed this Climate I could havement Act. And it turns out my confidence and citizens was fulfilled

because we won sixty two to thirty eight. So I think part of it is that that I'm willing to ask for more change because I trust people that they'll be able to figure it out, take some work that they get.

so I'm pleased about the leadership. We're happy, which isn't necessary to have some sort of flag bearer because we're not going to have one for a year nominae.

what he did. I love Jen Mills standing up at the White House to this bully. So we got we had a lot of voices. I'm confident we're gonna have a good nominee because there's a lot of talent.

the end and unpopular. And you know, I'm I'm one of those people who believes that we the American voter usually picks a new president based on you know, that has the characteristic that the last president didn't have, whatever that is, you know, and from Obama to Trump, right that I would always say, it's a little bit of the showmanship. Right. They thought Obama was almost too nuanced. They want it, they wanted everything's black and white and

binary and a little bit of that. Obama was different

from Bush. Bush was sort of black and white, good and evil. He was mister Gray, right. But Bush was a you know, he had a distinction with Clinton having to do with the personal character issues and people didn't like that, right, So hw Bush couldn't feel your pain, Bill Clinton could. My point is is that we do seem to do that. So what do you imagine is the characteristic this country is going to want to have post Trump? What's the big one? Is it empathy? Is

it technocratic expertise? What do you imagine three years from now that that sort of forget issues. What's that characteristic that hey, we need this kind of president this time.

another six months, to be totally cynical about it. But he said no, no, no, I'm going to make it my economy.

where my party is right now. I know that sounds totally there.

not be replicated. Inflation which we got hit with every country in the world and blamed for a president of extreme age, an eventual candidate only at eighty nine days to campaign, an immigration crisis that was not handled as well as it could have been. That's on us to some degree. Those were all one offs that I don't believe we're going to be replicated. So what happened in a narrow win in twenty twenty four, I don't believe, well any reason I believe is going to happen in

the next go round. So I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic about the twenty twenty six cycle. I think there is a I'm kind of sarcastic on occasion, but I gave you some advice to my Republican colleagues in the House. Don't sign any long term leases, fellas, ladies, because there's fifty or sixty of you that are on in great, great danger right now. And I saw where change elections can

be in nineteen ninety four. I've seen it, and there's every reason to believe that's what we're going to experience again. And something changes, because I kind of tell you the anger that's out there right now is so deep, so profound, and for so many different reasons that how they're going to pull out of this nosedive.

population of eight hundred thousand. I don't think we should have four hundred and thirty five major cities as congressional districts,

which is essentially what we've done. But I've had plenty of people say to me, Yeah, but why do I want twice as many members of Congress running around Washington? Why do I want to have that? Now? I think it would bring democracy a bit more local have people would be a little bit more connected. They might actually know their member of Congress or know somebody who knows them. You know, that's one thing. That's one thing I'm at. You know, I'd like to get rid of partisan primaries.

I like what you guys do in Washington State. I like with California. There's different ways to do it. I think it's a very I think you have more people participating in primaries because of the way you guys do it. What are some structural changes you'd like to see.

of algorithms and computers have now allowed it to be diced and sliced like.

when I started politics, half as many. So there's been a structural demographic shift that has made this business of democracy much more difficult because the people geographically are so segregated.

million voters who don't have access. They're citizens, but they don't have access to the first piece of paper that they need, even though everybody knows they're citizens. So that's

a threat as well to make it much more difficult. And the fact that we have people standing in lines for hours to vote is insane. So we have all mail voting here. You do it from your kitchen table. You got two weeks to do it, and we got a high voter participation. I see these people stand in line in the South and there's one hundred and five degrees and they made it illegal to give them water.

That's how much Republicans hate people when they vote. Okay, this is a threat, and going to all mail voter really makes sense, not to big people suffer to vote. I think there's things we can do. You might have two day voting periods, for instance, if you don't have no mail voting. So there's a lot of things we can do to make it easier to have access, but we need some work. But the first is they have the first the first is to expect the president to

follow the damn law. That's the first thing that we need.

talk to people, I encourage him to talk to their family first. Really, I'm very serious. About that, and we need to talk to each other about these things. You don't have to be a senator to influence this debate. You can just do it in your own family. Great man, So that's where I encourage people to start. Then run for senator.

talk with you. Great to catch up, sir.

with Jay Insley. Something tells me, did you get the impression he's still going to run for I did. I don't know what that's. Something is, who knows. Maybe there's a senate race in his future. Maybe he's ready to be a cabinet secretary. If there's another administration that leans to the left, we shall see. But he didn't strike me as somebody that was that was retired, as you could tell in that conversation. All right, let me get through a few ask Chucks.

Democratic Party. By the way, I think you're not alone. I think the increase of the last four years and the independent numbers come almost exclusively from stage left. The first in the first Trump term, it most exclusively came from stage why. But here's what he asked Lately, I'm

wondering if this was a mistake. I suspect that many newly minted independents that switch parties for similar reasons, and that in states with close primaries, such as my home state of New York, switching parties has only made it more likely than an ideologically extreme candidate becomes the nominee.

Ding Ding ding Ding. I'm wondering what you think of the best way forward would be both for me as a voter and our nation as a whole when it comes to nominating more moderate candidates who could better bridge our political chasm. By the way, love what you're doing and I never miss an episode Keep it up. PS. I think Todd makes a better last name than a first name, appreciated as somebody who has lived with two

first names. Of course, we used to joke at NBC that we were the home of the two first name of the two first name personalities Chris Matthews, Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, David Gregory. Right, a bunch of us had first and last names that could be interchangeable. Look, this is I think. I think partisan primaries are a virus in the country. I think partisan primaries are why we

have too much polarization in Congress. Essentially, the average Democratic voter is much closer to the center than the average Democratic elected official, and the average Republican voter is much closer to the center than the average Republican elected official. Why is that? Because our primary system essentially tries to keep you Todd Jay from actually voting. They don't want you voting, They want you independence voting right, they want

hard partisans voting only. I think it's a huge problem. I'm I think one of the bigger changes we need to make is to open the voting to all. We need to have I'd like to have more predictable times when primaries are held. Look, state should be able to hold when they want to hold them. But maybe we create sort of quarterly national primary days where if you're going to hold a primary in April, you're going to

do it in this second Tuesday. If you're going to hold a primary in May, you'll do it in this second Tuesday of May. You know, some sort of predictability of schedules so people remember when they's voting, they're not shocked. I mean, you've had such a mess over the last four years in New York State. You know, the year AOC won her primary, it was the first time that they had ever held they separated the state primaries from

the congressional primaries. There were actually two different primary days in twenty eighteen, and so she won in a much much lower turnout situation. In fact, I don't know if she wins that primary. If AOC's ever in Congress had New York held its primaries normally combined, where the state offices and the federal offices shared the same primary date.

For some ludicrous reason that cycle, they did not. And you know it's I always say, butterfly effects of history, right, you know, one of the most you know, dynamic and interesting and most consequential new members of the Democratic Party, one arguably thanks to a fluky decision to split the calendar in some weird way that New York did to create the primary system that they created. So, look, you're

not wrong. I think that the more people that vote in primaries, the less ideological winners you will have, because most people are not ideologues. Most people are where you are. You may have a preference of left versus right. You may consider yourself more of a social liberal or a fiscal conservative, however you want to look at it, But you're somewhere between the thirty yard lines. There are not many people between the zero and the thirty on the left, and ditto on the right. So you know, I do

think we need to get rid of partisan primaries. I think that is just a massive decision. And yes, I'm a strategic voter, I'm lucky. In the state of Virginia, there are no there is no party registration, and I get you know, I can't if both parties are holding a primary for the same election, I have to pick a side. But for the next election, I can pick the other side. You don't ever have to. So I always vote in the most competitive primary, hard stop right.

I want my vote to count, I want my vote to matter, and so I vote in primaries left and right, depending on what's the competitive primary in a given cycle, in a given year. So it's a I feel lucky that way. I would hate. I think New York State is the most undemocratic state, especially for supposed blue state.

The ridiculous rules that still take place, the petition signatures that are necessary to get on the ballot, it is. It is a bit arcane the way New York does holds its elections in general. So look, you're not wrong on that, but it's a system I think that that needs needs to be changed. And and I understand, and I think you're not wrong in how you're thinking that. If you want to say, it's like, for instance, living in the district, if you live in Washington, DC, whether

you're a Democrat or not. You almost have no choice. But the register is a Democrat if you want to have any say of who's going to hold office. That's true in Idaho. If you're a Republican, there's no use registering as a Democrat because all the primaries are going to basically decide in the Republican primary. So I think you have to I do think sometimes as a voter you have to be strategic in your voter registration. Second question here, as an Arlingtonian, thank you for the local

political shout out here. What do you think will be Governor jenkins legacy? He made such a splash when he was elected, but it's seeing he hasn't accomplished much in Richmond. His failure to bring a major sports franchise to Virginia exemplified his lack of understanding of local politics. Also, what is having the commanders moved back into DC mean for the city? Do you think Mayor Bowser and the DC City Council can pull it off? Go? Ohs Douglas. So

he's a sneaky Marylander, you know, Douglas? Are you one of those guys that still tries to say oh's during the Star Spangled banner, you know, that was that was a big When I first moved to DC, the only baseball team in the area was the Orioles. This was in the nineties, and I remember the first time I heard that. You do the national anthem ins oh the Home, and whenever you hear the oh the Home and then it's Oh's, there would always be this big o's, just

like in Atlanta. You know, at the Home of the Brave, you're braves, you know, they get all excited. Well, the best thing that has happened about the downfall of the o's over the last twenty years and the rise of the Nationals in general, and sort of the dcification, the DMV really becoming its own identity. I go to DC sporting events now and I rarely hear somebody saying oh during the Star Spangle banner. Anyway, just thought i'd get that rant out of the way. Look, I think Youngkin's

legacy was winning. Was winning, right, That's that's the legacy that he was able to show that Virginia still is a competitive state. If you're not a Maga Republican, but you're right. I think his his big goals, he's not been able to achieve it's some of it is you could say it's his fault. Some of it is the fault of the national atmosphere. I think he'd probably govern a bit more centrist if he didn't also have one eye on running for president someday and still wants to

be sort of Maga adjacent. He certainly was flirting with being Trump's running mate, so I think he kept a bit more of a conservative. You know, it's funny. The last Republican governor before him was Bob McDonald, But Mob McDonald wanted to be the running mate and acting more moderate was the way to do that, and I think and he got well, he got a big transportation deal done, something that hadn't been done in a couple of decades.

That was a big deal, So he had a legacy. Obviously, he ended up getting sort of a taint on him, having to do with some personal graft issues with some donors in the use of the governor's mansion. But he did he did get something big done, but he was sort of incentivized to move to the middle a little bit. He ran more as a conservative and ended up governing

as a middle Younkin ran more as a moderate and he ended up drifting a little bit more to the right because I think he's still hoping to have a future in the Republican Party. So I think his decision to keep one eye on running for president someday in Donald Trump's Republican Party has probably constrained him from I think, having a bigger legacy as a governor here. But hey, guess what, the election ain't over yet. I mean, his

term isn't over yet. He still got one, arguably one more year to do that, all right, But thank you Douglas, and I'm rooting for the O's. But if I were you, are you mad at Rubinstein? My buddy Jason Lockham Forth, a man guy, is on fire when it comes to his anger at how the O's have not spent money on free agents and unpitching. But I digress. Last question

I will take for now is from Jack Vista. Jack a from Vista, California, and he writes, Hey, Chuck, despite not being a Catholic, I'm always fascinated by the conclave you and me both brother. Over the years, I've enjoyed your interviews with George Wigele. Whenever some big news out of the Vatican came and was wondering if you might have him on All Things Pope politics interview, whether it's before or after the White Smoke, I'd devour it. Jack. I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't thought about

Wigel until you wrote. So. I want to give you all the credit in the world. George, if you're listening, we're coming at booking. I'd love to have you. He's right, George has got a unique understanding of the politics of the College of Cardinals. And let me just say here, Yes, I saw the movie Conclave, and I thought the ending was stupid, and I'll just leave it at that. I'm sorry. I was so that movie was eighty percent awesome, and

you know I did. I get what they were trying to do, and they thought it was an interesting twist. It just left a weird taste in my mouth. I don't know how to put it. I don't want to be a spoiler. I know a lot of people are watching it, but it was so good and it captured what I look I still this is my dream is to be, you know, to watch this happen, to watch

the politics of the College of Cardinals. I've always envisioned it like the Iowa caucuses, where there's people like, we'll go in certain groups and then they have these little conversations and then they vote again. And here's this So I in my head, I've treated it sort of like the Vatican caucuses, you know, if you will. But here's something that I've learned from all of all of the experts I've spoken with over the years since I got to cover two conclaves as a professional journalist, is that

nobody knows anything. This is one of those things that the conclave works its will, and you know it is you know, these are these are things that I feel like, forty years from now, we'll learn about what happened in this conclave that is about to begin any day now. So I look forward to Wigel. I'm sorry for those of you that love the movie Conclave that I that I'm giving it my you know, it's a two and a half stars for me because I love the concept,

loved eighty percent of it. Thought the twist was worthless, didn't need it, wasn't necessary, could have done it one hundred other different ways. But the twist really sort of is like what really We're going there, and it's like Anyway, again, I'm trying to be respectful of not being a spoiler on this, but let's just say I was bummed because I thought it's like having this incredible flight and then you just sort of land without wheels and you just sort of crash land. And that felt like a movie

that crash landed for me. All Right, I'm gonna take at least a twenty four hour break the next time we update this pod. I hope you will have devoured this episode and I'll have another one right behind it ready for you to listen to. I was always like, and subscribe, We appreciate it. Tell your friends, subscribe everywhere.

Subscribe on Apple, Spotify podcasts, subscribe to YouTube channel. And coming soon, we'll have a couple of other announcements coming, including a couple of other places where you'll be able to find content by yours truly with that until we upload a down