¶ Introduction
Hello, They're happy Thursday. Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So my guest later in this podcast, yesterday we uploaded. I say yesterday. I know, in the world of podcasting, perhaps you just you're listening to this the day of my previous episode. How do I how about we say that my previous episode, I had a former Democratic governor of Washington, Stayed Jay ins Leon, who himself
ran for president in twenty twenty. Well, for this episode, I have a former Republican governor of the Great State of Ohio who ran for president in twenty sixteen. It's John Kasik. He's got a new book about how faith communities can essentially do good in America in different ways. And frankly, I think Kasik is somebody who is desperate to,
I think, revive a sense of local community again. He's always kind of been that kind of politician, you know, he's you know, he made a name for himself at first in Washington for being the budget guy, so it was always cut cut cut. But you know, when I think of the phrase compassionate conservative, which was made famous by George W. Bush, to me, the avatar to that is John Kasick, and before him, would have been a guy named Jack Kemp. In the eighties, Jack Kemp was
considered a conservative with a heart and the point being. Look, he was an advocate for smaller government, an advocate frankly for more international engagement, an advocate for business, but also an advocate for lifting people up. And being a former athlete, he sort of was able to cut through the race issue.
You know.
He's one of those folks that I've always wanted to write a book featuring the I can't believe they never became president. Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley are my sort of one A and one B, and I think it's Jack Camp, Bill Bradley, and John Glenn. You know, I look at those four guys and you might throw Bob Dole in there. You know, they they all ran. Don't
get me wrong, they all wanted to become president. They all just ran in the wrong year in various ways or in you know, they got on national tickets in the wrong time, and you know, but for a different political circumstance, they would have become president. Certainly had the resume or the unique American background astronaut, athlete, you know,
et cetera. I think case it is one of these people that this sort of has a little bit of of of all of that sort of Oh what would my friends in France call it genes sequa, meaning meaning it's just this and he he just he feeds off of community. And I mean that as a compliment on that front. So I think you're going to enjoy this conversation that we have really about figuring out how we restore civics and a America in a way that's a little less partisan and a little more productive. So I
hope you enjoy that conversation with him. And he's got plenty to say about the current situation in politics. But I do think you'll enjoy this conversation. But before we get to it, I want to pop in on a
¶ Armed conflict between India and Pakistan
couple of other issues. And to me, there's one giant issue that is getting a little bit of attention but probably deserves a lot more, and it's the current security crisis in the Southeast Asia between India and Pakistan. And it to me is this current situation is a troubling reminder of what happens when American leadership retreats from the world. Now I'm not going to sit here and say America is the cause of the situation. It is not okay.
This is a long standing regional rivalry between India and Pakistan. It goes back. You know, we talk about a current partition having to do with Israel and the Palestinians. You know, there's another partition that has also been the cause of strife around in that region, and it's in India and Pakistan. It was obviously the most just a quick refresher here, not sure how much you're following the story, but in late April, April twenty second, it was a terrorist attack
in the Indian administered part of Kashmir. Twenty six civilians, mostly Hindu tourists, so there's a religious element here. The Hindus and the Muslims were killed. A Pakistani based terrorist organization called the Resistance Front claim responsibility, and India decided to point the finger at Pakistan, the country saying they were housing, essentially protecting these terrorist organizations. It's frankly a similar thing that the US government had accused Pakistan up
back during the al Qaeda days. And of course where did we find bin Laden in Pakistan? So this is certainly not an unusual unusual situation and sort of how things are managed in Pakistan. Pakistan's govern it has been a mess from a while. You have a very you have an sort of an independent intelligence agency that sometimes feels like it operates on its own. The military literally a military industrial complex and in many ways is the
stabilizer of the country. Civilian leadership that is either in the pocket of the military or finds themselves in the crosshairs of the military. But it is not a stable There's an uneven check and balance that goes on there.
So it is it is. It has always been a source of concern because both India and Pakistan have nukes, but because of the unsteadiness of the governance of Pakistan, and frankly, there's plenty of evidence that the that that the notch of the nuclear intelligence that Iran in North Korea has acquired has come through essentially leaks out of Pakistan and a Pakistani scientist and things like this. So it's always been an area of concern for a variety
of reasons, but loose nukes being the biggest one. But obviously there is a when you're when you have your own citizens attack and killed, most countries are going to feel the need to respond. So on May sixth. India responded. It called it Operation Sindoor. They made air strikes. They claimed they never actually crossed into the airspace of Pakistan, but they hit nine targets that they believe were areas in Pakistan where many of these terrorist organizations were either
being protected or lived. Pakistan claims it shot down some Indian jets. Look, I think it's possible we are close to a crisis averted here, because India's sort of made it clear that they did not want to escalate, that their response was targeted and was designed to only go after the terrorists themselves. The Pakistani response was, hey, we shot down some Indian fighter jets, which is something that
is certainly not certainly pretty embarrassing for India. India has a very much a conventional military advantage over Pakistan, but the fact that Pakistan also has nukes that is what's kept this sort of uneasy balance between the two countries. And so I think it looks like they're both going
to take their off ramps. Obviously, if India escalates anymore than Pakistan is probably going to feel the need to respond, but they really don't have the resources to deal with India in a conventional military front, and there's no doubt
¶ We see more conflict when the U.S. is in retreat
that they can't escalate. But this is a reminder of what happens. I don't think it's an accident that when the US is in retreat that suddenly we see situations like this. So we're in the middle of a philosophical shift here in Washington, and the Trump administration's made it clear both through words and action that its foreign policy is going to prioritize disengagement, less NATO, less Ukraine, less
commitment to traditional alliances. This says to two both economic right we're seeing this with the retreat on trade, but also just more skepticism in general of multi lateral agreements, even when they come with security. So here's the problem with this approach and why it may have helped escalate the situation in India and Pakistan, is that when America
sort of retreats like this, it sends a signal. And the signal is this that we're no longer going to play the world's beat cup, We're no longer going to be the world's first responder when there's a crisis, that we're not even sure we want to be leader of the free world anymore. I think the President wants to be the strongest country in the world, but he doesn't
want to take that strength and accept the responsibility. That means that we're sort of the you know, we're the first ones to respond to a crisis, whether it's a natural disaster, a famine, a civil war, an outbreak between two countries. Look, I get it's actuallyally pretty popular to say,
¶ If America doesn't play the role of world police, Russia and China will
you know, these aren't our fights. America can't be the world's cop. But here's always my response to that. If America doesn't play the role of the world's cop, who's going to And here would be my reminder the way I would answer that question, It doesn't matter who does it, We're not going to like it if it's anybody else other than us, Okay, other than us. We trust ourselves, our values. If we're not there to fill in the gap, you know who will be China, perhaps in some parts
of the world of Russia. Just look at the entire continent of Africa. Both Russia and China are making so many in roads, military to military inroads that Russia's been making in various places, and they're not interested in helping the African people. They're interested in helping themselves. China has engaged in a different way. They engage financially. They have actually been a big part of of economic expansion in Africa.
The United States has been way behind. And if anything, with the essentially the shuddering of aid, we've actually disengaged even more from Africa, which is throwing many countries into the arms of China or any other entity that is willing to invest. So look, it looks like cooler heads are going to prevail in Indian Pakistan. But it was a bit disconcerting. And I know we're doing some stuff behind the scenes, but we weren't at the forefront of this.
We weren't quickly trying to de escalate in a hurry. We weren't quickly trying to frankly, figure out if the Indians were right about who was behind this terrorist attack. We weren't trying to figure out how much the Pakistani government was involved. That's a more engaged United States perhaps could have broken an uncomfortable piece before. Maybe this doesn't happen. The point is my concern now is that what we're
¶ We're likely to see more conflict around the world
going to see is not less of this, but more of this, where countries are going countries and frankly, terrorist organizations are going to sort of test, Oh, there's no more American beat cop on here, Let's see what happens. Right, It's almost like testing the fence. And if you're in India, you're sitting there going, oh, we're going to have to respond on our own. There isn't going to be a
global partner like the United States. And you know, think about the neighborhood India's in, right, They've got China to the north, they got Pakistan to the west. They certainly don't trust the Pakistanis and they don't trust the Chinese. In many ways. They have by necessity decided to come closer to the United States. You know, during the Cold War, India was sort of in the was on the Soviet side of things, and Pakistan by necessity was on the
American side of things. Ever since, and it really started with George W. Bush after nine to eleven, and then more so with Barack Obama, and that was actually continued by Donald Trump. There's been a through line here of getting closer to India. Economically, India is likely to be the biggest beneficiary in the trade war with China, so we certainly have a lot of interest in a stable
and secure Southeast Asia. Now the question is whether we're willing to use our sort of our larger sort of global capital to do that, and I think the fact that it looks like we won't. It's just the likelihood of more of these small regional conflicts breaking out into hot wars, and of course one between two nuclear powers is always of a huge concern. But I'll be honest, this is something that I think American disengagement indirectly is
encouraging the possible of more of this. This is why so many of us are pro international engagement, because if you look at the last eighty years since World War Two, an American led free world has been safer and more secure for the entire planet than in any of the years previous to World War Two. Or frankly, already as we see as we begin this disengagement, how violent things are already getting on multiple continents. So, like I said,
¶ Joe Biden weighs in on foreign affairs on BBC
hopefully things continue to de escalate. One other little note that I want to make before we get to the interview with John Kaiseik. Joe Biden is back. He did a sit down with the BBC. In some ways he didn't really share anything new in the conversation, he expressed his speaking of international alliances. He called it he called Donald Trump's decision to pressure Ukraine into accepting sort of Russia seating territory to Russia. He called that modern day appeasement.
And he drew plenty of parallels to the failed policies of the nineteen thirties. And he also believed that these concessions are only going to embolden Vladimir Putin further. And of course, the greatest test of the NATO alliance that we all fear is what happens when he decides to go into Latvia, or Lithuania or Estonia all three or NATO countries all three on the border of Russia. I'm old enough to remember when at Tucker Carlson flippantly said, what Americans are going to be willing to go to
war on behalf of Estonia? Well, that's what Article five
¶ Putin likely to test article 5 in the Baltics
in NATO seems to say. And there is no doubt in my mind that Putin is going to want to test this premise. If he can get Europe to believe that the United States won't be there for a NATO member country, read, it would destroy NATO and probably allow him to just march on through eastern Europe if we're not careful on that front. More of Biden, he seemed to He was asked about the withdrawal, should he have gotten out sooner? Does he regret getting out at all?
And he just simply said it was a difficult decision. He didn't He believes an earlier exit wouldn't have benefited, wouldn't have changed the outcome. It's an interesting, interesting take. Now we know he's going to be sitting down with the folks at the view. He's looking for some friendly territory. He knows some books are about to come out that are really going to expose what I would call was sort of well but nine neglect of the situation with
Joe Biden. You know, I continue in my own reporting, None of these folks thought Joe Biden was the best candidate Democrats could put up president, but they would, but many of them looked at Joe Biden's age and thought, well, against a younger candidate, this would be a problem. But
against the crazy of Donald Trump, it's somewhat neutralized. And so it was certainly a comparative analysis that I think many of these folks made, and I think none of the other part was you had a whole bunch of skepticism about whether Kamala Harris could be a good candidate, and he had a whole bunch of skepticism that if you didn't believe she could be a good candidate, did you have a plan on defeating her in a primary without creating a massive intra party fight inside the Democratic
Party that could actually set the party back even further. And so it is, Look, it's one of those situations we're never going to know the answer to. You know,
¶ Democrat loss was 10 years in the making
my take, I think, ultimately, I go back, this was a defeat that was ten years in the making. When Barack Obama put his arm around Hillary Clinton to be the nominee in twenty sixteen, he essentially cleaned you know, essentially benched the entire an entire generation of potential Democratic leaders, the Gen X generation of Democratic leaders, including people like
Kamala Harrison and Klobe Sharcorey Booker, Michael Bennett. I could go on and on essentially everybody that eventually ran for president in twenty twenty, but many of whom would have run in twenty sixteen had Obama not done that. And so when you go back, sort of the you know, that's the fork. That's a fork. To me, that was the real fork in the road moment right where we never would have had Clinton nor Biden. But when you know, and I think this goes back to something that I've
all often wondered if now Barack Obama understands this. But you know, he won in two thousand and eight because Democrats didn't want more of the same. They didn't want the establishment wing of the party in charge, i e. The Clintons. They wanted something new and that was Barack Obama. And for the most part they were satisfied. This wing of the party was very satisfied. And I would argue that you saw a Democratic party start to grow in
a different way. You started had different kind of leaders, and they were sort of following the north star of
Barack Obama. And then twenty sixteen comes along and he essentially doesn't listen to those Democratic primary voters who already rejected her once and he went with her, and it sort of put and I think whether it's a slice of independent voters, whether it's those Sanders voters like Joe Rogan who liked Sanders, probably liked Obama and also like Trump right, We're looking for people that were willing to break the elites, break the establishment. Obama was trying to
break the establishment in a kinder, gentler way. Donald Trump came with a sledgehammer for the establishment. Hillary Clinton is the establishment was the something. Joe Biden is the establishment was the establishment, and so you know, I'm not sure any sort of tinkering around the edges come twenty twenty
four was going to change any of that. That ultimately, neither By nor Clinton should have been at the top of any ticket twenty sixteen, twenty twenty or twenty twenty four, that it really should have been the next generation all ready. But Joe Biden's not going to be making that argument. Joe Biden's got to defend his presidency and he's going to probably continue to defend his presidency. It is intriguing to me that he chose to go to the BBC first,
because I think and my own reporting confirms this. Once Russia invaded Ukraine, basically the one issue that Joe Biden was focused on more than any other was NATO and was containing Russia. Everything else was secondary for him in this presidency, whether it's his domestic agenda, whether it was the border that every day, what he was really working on, what really animated him in the morning, what really kept him up at night, was the situation between Russia and Ukraine.
And I think he believes his job was to save NATO, expand NATO, which he did, and I think he believes it's the best part of his legacy. Well, I tend to agree unless unless Donald Trump destroys NATO, and then ultimately he's going to share in that responsibility, right because his failed political leadership, you know, is I've put it. I put it this way, if Joe Biden had been a better leader, I don't know if the American voters
were to turn back to Donald Trump. And maybe that's an unfair way of putting it, but ultimately, you know, he made the case that America had to move on from Donald Trump, and America decided to turn back to Donald Trump because they didn't like the governance of Joe Biden. That's ultimately on him, and we're never going to know about the various alternatives. But again, I go back, I'm not sure nitpicking when Joe Biden gets out of the
race really matters. At the end of the day. I think what mattered is the fact that Joe Biden was still in the thick of all of this is probably the bigger situation there all right. I think I've I've done enough here, done enough damage with this open on what happens. American disengagement indirectly leads to uncomfortable and potentially hostile situations that could end up fantastasizing and making things a heck of a lot worse. That's how I'm watching
the current Indian Pakistan situation. And I am sure we're gonna be hearing more from Joe Biden as he does his little defend his legacy tour over the next week or two. And I'll be curious if he has new arguments or better arguments as his tour continues. So let me sneak in a quick break and when we come back, John Cason.
¶ John Kasich joins the Chuck Toddcast!
Well joining me.
Now, if you've been listening to my podcast over a few years, you know with somebody who I always enjoyed having a conversation with, and we are in the mutual admiration each other's mutual admiration societies. It's the former governor of Ohio, former congressman, former presidential candidate, and forever friend here John Kasik, John, good to see you.
Thank you, Chuck. It's going to be with you again.
Look, you're ostensibly on here because you've written a new book and it's very and for me, I think what's interesting, and I think you it's kind of a bookend in some ways because you've I remember your first the first book I remember that you wrote. I know you. It may not be. The first book you wrote was Doing the Probe is sort of the ordinary people doing extraordinary thing right, And that was generally in the in this sense you're focused on faith communities. Am I shorthanding it right? Now?
You're doing it right? I mean it was the first one is called Courage is Contagious, and it was about individuals doing remarkable things. And then I kind of concluded that if individuals had some fellow travelers with them, they could do a hect of law more and the faith institutions were a great way to be able to accomplish more things.
And look, I always say, people, are you know when you're writing a book like this? To me, it's reflecting how you want politics to work, right, And it that
¶ Why have we lost the art of politics and compromise?
sens is to me, this is always how you wanted to work. Why do you think it We've had a struggle at getting everybody to sort of view politics. You know, I always joke that, hey, civilization invented politics in order to resolve disputes without violence. Right, That's why at some point we humans decided we can't keep fighting to decide who lives here and who lives there and where we draw our border. Maybe we should negotiate, And suddenly politics
was born. Why do you think we don't know how to do this as well as we used to.
Wow, you know me, given an answer like that is so silly, because you could write your couple volumes about.
It, of course, but you've been a practitioner. I'm the observer, you're the practitioner.
I think that you know, it's so interesting because, as you know, political parties have lost their influence, right, I mean this is going to sound counterintuitive. Parties no longer screen candidates, they no longer fund them. They're all funded by special interest groups. So these people go to Washington elected by you know, this group and that group and the other group. And you would think that there'd be less loyalty to sort of a Republican or a Democrat brand.
But yes, it seems as though that brand kind of defines a person.
Oh it's my favorite conundrum. Yeah, we're we're we were more tribal than ever, and yet the parties have less influence than ever.
Exactly. I don't know if they have much of any influence, to be honest with you, Chuck. And maybe that's something I want to write about. Maybe you and I can write something together about that, about how that's an interesting thing because people don't realize that. You know, when I was first starting out, I had to go, you know, visit the screening Committee, the Central Committee, the committee, members of this that, that, all that stuff.
But you had to prove your bona fides. Now I wanted to be a good member of the party.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't really. I saw the play. Saw the party as my vehicle, never my master, but it was my vehicle for being able to do things in life. So, to make a long story short, I think people now they're afraid, first of all, to associate themselves with their quote, their brand, or their group because they're afraid they will be punished politically or they won't be liked. You know, they got to go if they're going to go to
a party. They got to be in the right place, because if you're not in the right space, then you get shunned. And you know, some people care about that. You know, it's not anything I've ever cared much about. And then there's the threat of the primaries, of course, and so if I go my own way and I
¶ The Obama/Chris Christie hug shouldn't have been a controversy
start remember, remember what was really crazy? You remember when Chris Christy hugged Obama because Obama brought all that money to New Jersey.
After that, it was just it was it was sort of your typical broug. It was a handshake, Hug, I might have done that with you. Hey, good to see it's been a while, exactly exactly.
And yet nothing more than respect. Yeah, well it didn't work out that well for him because people went crazy. And now you see, well whatever Charlie christ first of all, Christie's not even the first governor named christ then went through this Charlie Chris got kicked out of the Republican Party, arguably for hug at Obama and oh nine, you know, Chuck, I think what it gets down to is people would rather have the We all would rather have an easy road than a hard road, and it's just easier to
be part of that group. It's easier to win reelection without a primary. It's just it's just easier. And I just don't think easier is good in life, you know. I mean, we'd all want easier, but we know that difficult has made us better.
So I want to go, let's unpack the party thing a minute.
You know.
I remember one of the arguments that a few politicians,
¶ Government never finds a way to get money out of politics
including Mitch McConnell, made against McCain Fine Gold in the time that it happened, and I was I sort of I actually thought it was a genuine critique of McCain fine Gold and not just a partisan critique. And McConnell worried that McCain fine Gold, while it had all its attempt was to take big money out of the political parties. He argued it was going to weaken the political parties. And it turned out he was right, because you don't get rid of money. Money just finds the way money
always moves. And every time government has tried to legislate campaign money, it has never made it less. It has just made it harder to track, right, easier to abuse, and harder to track. And yet if I said we should repeal McCain fine gold it would you know, it's sound like, oh, you just want more money in politics, but it's no.
I think they should because it was.
At least it was transparent. At least we saw where it went and the parties had to keep track of how it was used.
Now. I don't know how much it would change with where the political parties are today because most of the people running the political parties are kind of have this mindset as well. But it gives you a greater chance, I think, to bring about reforms. And this is everybody talks about redistricting and all that. I think this is a really significant thing because there's no screening process anymore.
There's not, and people would say, well, that's not open, you know, the party bosses, you know, when you have adults who are you know, trying to decide who's fit to represent people and who's not. I think that's probably necessary today. We certainly need to need to reflect on it for sure.
No, that that's true. I want you to dig into something that you said one other.
Thing, Chuck. I know this is the way it always is with you and me. Keep interrupting, I keep interrupting you. But but you know the book Heaven help us. Is about courage, and it's about faith in something greater than ourselves. And all you care about is what's in it for myself? Then you fall short. But if all of a sudden you show courage and you go your own way, you know, it's fantastic. And life is so short and your ability to make an impact is so short, that don't blow it.
¶ Faith in democracy?
And we're that faith in a higher power that looks after us. That's a contributor to why people can have more courage.
In my opinion, let me throw something at you. Will you accept the premise that you know I would say, where I show the greatest faith. I have a lot of faith in the idea of democracy, and therefore I'm weird it is it is what I would die to fight for. And I've wondered that, like, would you what do you? What are you willing to do? You accept the idea that the idea of democracy is a form of belief and faith?
Yeah, one sort, but not the kind of faith I'm talking about.
I know you're talking about a different faith, and you know I'm I go.
I faith in democracy would mean that you believe that, despite any turbulence, that we might see from time to time that there's enough checks and balance is in the system that democracy will be preserved.
I always say this, Have I trust the voters eventually? Yeah, you know, I just think if everybody has all the right information, they're going to make the right decision. Sometimes they just don't have enough information.
I would say most times that would be right, But there have been times when people's minds have been and we don't need to get into the ravages of you know, the ability of human beings to be incredibly cruel to others. But by and large I agree with you.
Yeah, I want to dig into something you said, and that.
Can be protected too, by the way, by this bigger issue of faith. I know. See, You're always been a skeptic that somebody that's been in politics could write a book like this, But I don't think so. I think now more than ever it's.
Well, I'll tell you this, if you wrote this book twenty years ago, somebody would the assumption would be, and you're doing it for political purposes. I would argue, you're writing this book now, nobody's going to assume that you're you're doing this for some sort of political gain.
Yeah, Yeah, that's not why I did it exactly right.
But but you accept that that that's the way someone might look at this if you had written it.
Here's what surprised me, Chuck. If I'd have written a real ripper here and it just attacked a whole bunch of people, the book would do better because I thought that people would be ready at this point in time for a little bit of going to your corners, chilling out, relaxing. No, it's Duke's up, man, We're still We're still in Canada.
Elbows up, elbows up, els up elo. Yeah, it's funny.
Point it's going to settle down, though it has to. We're gonna even fighters get that's why they only have
¶ The next president has the opposite traits of the prior president
fifteen rounds. You can't go sixteen because it can't keep fighting.
Well, it's it's funny when I think about what's going to come next after Trump, and you know, it's a question I get. I'm sure it's a question you get. And one of the things that I lean on and I never try to you know, I said, well, you know, i'll throwt some names, but instead of names, I try to get people to focus on the following. You know,
we have an uncanny ability in America to gravitate. When we pick a new president, we usually pick a president that has a character trait that the previous president lacked and that it bothered us. Right, I go back George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton. Well. HW Bush had a hard time connecting with the average person. Feel your pain, right, Bill Clinton was all that, Right, George W. Bush, I'm going to restore honor and integrity. Right, that was the
whole character thing, personal integrity. Bush to Obama was sort of black and white versus Nuance. Right, And you know he was mister gray. You know, Obama was the gray, you know, and all this stuff, even Obama to Trump, right, can you get more opposite of Obama of a skinny the skinny black guy than the than the big large band from New York City, right, the blowhard. But but
we wanted a salesman. And in some ways, you know, I always thought, you know, Obama's best asset was also his worst asset as a politician, which was he he he didn't always he didn't always need the He wasn't as needy as the average politician, and I think sometimes that made him a bit dismissive of those on Capitol Hill. Who were maybe a little needier and you needed to, hey,
¶ What will the country look for in the next president?
go bring them, invite him to the Oval office and things like that. But you know Trump was almost all showman. Biden obviously was the opposite. So so then I sit there and think, what will that mean in twenty eight are we going to be looking for an opposite personality? An opposite We are looking for somebody with a lot more empathy, you know, And that's what I don't know, but I know it will be something Trump is missing. Maybe it's empathy, Maybe it's on temperament, maybe it's on you.
Know, it's if you were looking it would be a uniter rather than a divider. That's that's what I would think.
And do you think any member of a of a one of the two major parties can is going to be able to credibly campaign as a uniter.
Can't predict? I mean just just say that. People are
¶ Advice for 2028 candidates?
pretty smart. So we have to see we're just early, you know, we're one hundred days in.
You were advising somebody like that was thinking about it in twenty eight, you'd be telling them, look, think about where this puck's going to be. Don't think about where the puck is at the moment.
Well, if I were advising somebody who is going to run, I would say, you need to make sure that you are capable of raising money, because Chuck Todd in the old world would pay attention to nobody who wouldn't pay attention to somebody that didn't raise any money and didn't have a good finance report. So that's one thing I tell them. Oh and secondly, I would also tell them that they need to have an agenda and they should start.
You know, I don't know who. I'm thinking more of the Democrats than the Republicans because I don't know what the Republicans are going to do.
I don't know.
I think it's somebody that has had a record that can, you know, be like you say, a little bit more empathetic. I mean, look, one of the guys I think has got a lot of potential, Chuck, and you might dismiss it. It is And I've said this before. I don't know them well, but I've watched him. I was first first caught my attention in a shooting in Kentucky and how he talked about it and combined compassion his faith. I think Andy Basheer is a very interesting guy. I know
¶ Could the MAGA candidates become toxic in the primaries by 2026?
that if the Democrats want to win and they go left again, they're going to lose, right, But I don't know who the brothers Leons will pay.
I don't know, Yeah, I you know, that's it's funny. It's like I'm because we don't you know, we don't know in a year from now with whether being maga is good or bad in a Republican primary.
That's right, that's right, even.
Though the assumption I'm obsessed with the three there's three senators who are getting primaried that are all Republican. Tillis in North Carolina, Cornan in Texas, and Cassidy in Louisiana. None of them you would say or maga. All three were sort of very much sort of what you would have said pre Donald Trump as conventional conservative Republicans. And I don't mean that as anything, just sort of like, you know, and will it be an asset not to be maga? Well maybe the time from now, right.
If they win. You know what you and I love about politics, and you just never know what's going to happen tomorrow. I just never know.
¶ Vivek Ramaswamy's prospects in the Ohio governor's race?
And there's always think yeah, and the and the and the human element. Yea, your your state's going to be hosting a fascinating couple of of exercises. I I I think Ramaswami is not going to walk into this governor's mansion. He's gonna have to earn it.
Yeah, that's probably right, I mean right now. But again it's right now. He you know, he looks. I don't. I really don't invest a lot of time looking at Ohio. I'm like Chuck, I'm like George W. Bush. I was there, so now I've moved on, So I don't. I don't do those people try to drag you into it. Oh yeah, but I do it out of it. Yeah, well, how they're going to drag each ock? I mean, nobody ever. I can't think of anybody that ever dragged me in politics anywhere. So I'm just I'm just not going to
be engaging in it. I mean, I love what Bush did about that. You know, he just doesn't engage a very rarely does he say anything. And I think that's appropriate when you're a former governor. Just you know, let somebody else be governor and let him pick the next governor. And I'm not even sure I'm going to show up at meetings with former governors I decided, but I can give you a handicap. I choose not to do it. But I, of course, being still in the media, I
¶ Ohio isn't ruby red
have an obligation to kind of analyze things, but I really shy away from Ohio. I will say one thing I don't think Ohio is ruby read. Remember when I got elected governor, every office in the state was held by a Democrat except for one. The Democrats had a horrible bench, they had terrible party leadership, and they disintegrated, and so you know, things change, and I think, you tell me, do you think people in Youngstown are going to keep voting Republican?
Well, right now they're voting Trump. I don't know if they're voting Republican. Okay, Well, but you know what I mean by that, And that's the I think that's the real question. Right, Yes, I agree with that, and that's you know, you're right on twenty eight. I sit there and it's like, if you make me pick names, I say, well,
obviously there's bands. I think there's Donald Trump Junior. I mean, if he wants to run, he's got the brand name, and then you're going to have I think a guy like Glenn Youngkin is going to be the great Normy Hope is my guest, right, it could be Chris. You're going to have some that are who can be MAGA adjacent without MAGA, right, and young Kid probably is slightly more personality than Brian Kemp, but it's sort of those guys are both sort of feel like they're maybe there.
I don't know, right, I don't know if MAGA adjacent. If you can't get that vote out, maybe it's it. It doesn't matter, right.
Maybe sometimes you do it because you just think you want to do it.
Well, that ought to be the reason to do it. Yeah, So if you were running in twenty eight, what do you think think the biggest problem? No, and I'm not no, I don't mean it. Well, what's the biggest problem that you think somebody should use a presidential Put it this way. I just interviewed Jay Insley, and this you and Insley are going to And I admired Insley's candidacy because he decided I don't know whether he thought he was going
to win the nomination or not. And I'm not going to put but he said, you know what, I'm going to use my candidacy to focus on one issue. And he decided to make a climate and we could we could just you know, we can debate whether, but I admire somebody who says, look, I'm going to use my candidacy to try to bring attention to an issue that I really think people ought to focus on. So if you could use a candidacy like that, you thought it could do that you were you were a budget guy.
It's hard to get people excited about the budget, right.
¶ Voters care less about issues and more about personal connection
You found this out the hard way at times? Well what do you how would you galvanize.
What I found out? It was real simple. People did not care about these issues. They cared about personal contact and do you get them in you care about him? And look, remember this, I go to New Hampshire, very low name, I D and I finished second. I beat Bush, Cruise, Rubio, all of them except Trump. I beat everybody else. And I found there that they didn't really care about balancing budget and cutting taxes and all that they it mattered. But what they really cared about was I think he
gets me. He's willing to listen to you, he's willing to understand my problems. And then I could get into the ditch with him and give him a come on, We can get out of this ditch. We can do well. I'll be here with you. It's why I was re elected so overwhelmingly in Ohio after balancing budgets but expanding medicaid, right. I mean, it was a combination of leave no one behind and try to lift everybody up. I think unity,
unifying this country again is really important. It's going to take a special voice and a special person to do it. And we're better when we're united and not as good as when we're divided. So and then, I think there
¶ The issues John Kasich would focus most on addressing
are a couple issues out there that really matter. People are worked up about the stock market, the bond market, and everything else. If we don't figure out a way to tame this national debt, and I know nobody's interested in it, but I'm trying to figure out how we can get them interested in it, We're going to melt
down like you've never seen when we start printing money. Okay, just that's number one, and I'm I'm going to actually work on that, I think in the next couple of years, if I can figure a way to get anybody motivated around it. But I think there's a couple other things. I think the healthcare system in this country is very
seriously broken and it is so hard to fix. If I were a leader and I had the power, I would convene hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, nurses, all the people that are connected to the healthcare system to sit down and say, how do we fundamentally change this in such a way that we are now treating people to keep them healthy rather than being rewarded for treating them when they're sick.
And how do we open the whole system up to look at quality, to look at costs, to look at at you know that I think is really big, And I think the other one that is really big is I think just outside is I think retraining. There has to be a lifetime retraining program in the era of AI and everything else, so people don't think that they're stuck. And because they're stuck now they're in a job, they don't know what's going to happen. I think those are
two really big issues. How do you give people the sense that I can be okay tomorrow? And secondly, how do we control the healthcare system because programs like Medicare are on a fast train to bankruptcy. Those two things really matter, But at the end it was Bill Clinton who you brought up saying I feel your pain. That is what that's isn't that when you think about him. That's to me what connects. I feel your pain, and then everything is that's the patina. Then everything else is
underneath it to to demonstrate who you are. You know, another serious problem we have in this country is behavioral health and insurance form and that should be done in terms of health care because the insurance people are starting to hate insurance. Well, we know that people are very angry about insurance. It's always great until you need it.
I mean, all those things where people feel as though it's out of control are things that and I think it includes health care, It includes insurance, it includes a loss of job. I think nothing we can see right now, but it's it's the avalanche that could come our way if we don't control our debt. And it's finally, I
¶ The healthcare system is broken
feel your pain and we're in it together. That's what I would do. It's pretty good campaign message.
Right, I mean, I think you're spot on about both AI and healthcare. And let let me do medicaid here a minute, because you did. I feel like we have stumbled into medicaid is universal catastrophic health care, meaning if worst case scenario happens in your life, there's always Medicaid.
But that is not and and maybe it wasn't initial and I do think, look, it is a God said to have medicaid if you've got an aging parent and they run out of money, and you know, to know that there's a system out there that will help you take care of your parent. You don't have to figure out how to do it in your house. You can go find a Medicaid bed right in a nursing facility or recovering facility, things like that. But it you know,
it's funny. I remember Lamar Alexander when he was governor Tennessee said once he said, boy, I would gladly trade Medicaid back to the federal government for all the education dollars. You guys can run healthcare. I don't want to run healthcare anymore because it is it's just hard to do it by the states. Do you agree with that assessment?
Now, if you gave the education establishment a trillion dollars, it would never be enough.
We have.
Our education system is so broken. And that gets back to this ongoing training through a life time education Chuck, come on R K through twelve schools, not all of them, many of them. Let me just put it many of them. So nobody going.
I know, I didn't mean to get at but I agree with that.
And he was saying, oh, let me spend all this money on education. No, we need a different kind of education, an education system with technology coming where where we can have individual instruction to every kid to figure out how they learn best. That's another story. But when it comes to medicaid, the problem that Chuck, this is amazing. When I became governor, I think medicaid was grown in like
nine percent rough numbers here. When I was governor and expanding it by six hundred thousand, it was growing at three and a half percent. Now the guy who's the governor is growing it at nine percent. You know why, pay off, pay everybody off, all the providers, get what they want. You make them all happy, Chuck. We're down in this country to I have to give you what you want because if I don't, you're going to be mad at me.
Yeah.
That's where we that's how we exist today. And that doesn't work. You've got to call people to a higher purpose and explain to them why.
But I mean saying, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what's perverse about the health care industry.
¶ For profit hospitals are less profitable than non-profits
And before we're done, we are going to talk about my book, because that's why we are here.
No, in fact, I think we've been intertwining it. But let's talk about the health care industry a second. Let me give you this conundrum. Since you're a free you're a free market tier. For profit hospitals are less profitable than nonprofit hospitals.
Discuss Wait, say that again.
Let's say for profit, the for profit hospital systems are less profitable than the nonprofit. That's probably true, it is true.
Just you know what, I would never have known that if I hadn't been watching things, because I'm aware of a for profit operation involving primary care, and I keep telling them you should go and become a not for profit.
But they're rare for profit because your Medicare right, your Medicare reimbursement rates higher. But talk about how perverse the system is when that is a fact and you're sitting here. The reason I'm more aware of this, perhaps than than than the other non healthcare reporters is one of the reasons why universities right now. Are some of them are so flush with cash? Is if they run their own
hospital system, they're all nonprofit. University of Miami takes their you Miami Health money and uses it for the football program. University of Texas, you're in favor of that, Chuck md Anderson, But University of Texas md Anderson helps provide there. And in fact, the universities that don't own their own hospitals now wish they did because of how that the system works. So the question is this is a case where you just see there was a time the for profit hospitals
made more money and the non profits were struggling. And then you government sort of just reversed how they did this, and then everybody realized they could they could make money out of the tax code.
Well, and then you know, they did the tax system for the you know, you know about that.
We're probably making everybody. But this is to me, no, no, no, no, at the heart of the problem.
No no no. But you see, you're you're trying to go at it and on an individual basis, and I get get all that. Okay, how you have to take
¶ Healthcare stakeholders need to be forced to compromise
this piece and that piece and the other piece I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you three quick examples. Penny Casic, take a penny out of every dollar. We got an equal group of Republicans and Democrats together in a room and we were able to save a penny out of every dollar. And it doesn't sound like a lot, but you had it all up. It's pretty good. And both parties fought it and we came very close
to winning. If anybody on this in these groups, Republican or Democrat, objected the savings were taken out, we had very few taken out. Let's go back to the budget itself when I was chairman and we were trying to get things done.
This is basically this is Doze the right way.
Susan Molinari gave up transit subsidies as long as the guy in Iowa gave up farm subsidies, and we got it done. What I'm trying to tell you is, Chuck. You need a convener who can get people. We need Chuck Todd in the room. Okay, you walk in there. You're gonna be intellectually honest about how we fix it. So the hospitals are honest, the pharmacies, pharmaceuticals, right, we get everybody in the room and sink, how are we going to fix this system? Because it's costing more and more.
There are more people who are not getting to kind of care they want. The quality is not what we want. And everybody would agree with that. If you just go at it one piece at a time, you'll never get there.
¶ We need politicians that can build consensus, not just offer a plan
It has to be done, and you can't do it. It's not I've done it two or three times.
You know. This is why I've always gravitated towards you in general, which is I'm not looking for somebody with the right plans right as my elected official. I'm looking for somebody who knows how to bring the right people in the room to solve the problem exact period. And too many presidential candidates I think they have to have the solution. This is my you know, climate solution, this is my healthcare solution. And it's like, I don't want plans. I want to know you're going to I want a
plan of action. How am I going to do it? I always thought Bill McRaven, you know, I had this fantasy about Bill McRaven coming in to be the pastor for patriotism for America right, but to come in and as a thirty year as a thirty year military guy, him saying, look, I don't I haven't been in public policy for thirty years. I've been serving the country. But
I can tell you what I know. Immigration is a problem, and I'm going to get everybody in the room and we're not leaving until we have a reasonable asylum system, a reasonable eight you know, eahbo et cetera, et cetera. I'd like more candidates to there's one process. There's one thing to make the process part of the pitch, and I can't remember which candidate. But the danger in that is if you don't have some experience in government. Okay, I agree with that.
If you don't have some, you're going to get lost the same way.
Jesse Ventura is my favorite example. He all the right instincts. He got eaten alive by that legislature he did.
But you have to have as an experience if you're going to run for president, you have to have people around you that can tell you no, no, no, no, not that, but look at this, and then let them do what they want to do. And when you're in office. I had more meetings where I'd stuffed twenty twenty five people in a room. Everybody got to participate. I made a decision. I empowered people. They reported to me. Look the proofs in the pudding. You know we I hate to even go on it sounds I had a great
team of people. They all work together. We created jobs Ohio the most important and dynamic economic development operation in America. Today. We've gone from forty ninth to like seventh. I mean, we're just kicking tail because we all work together. We work together, and that's how you get things done. And you need a leader, and they've got to have a sense of where they want to go. But you've got to have a little bit of political experience.
Well look, it's funny you brought up a Shaer earlier. Basher, somebody I'm very intrigued by, because here's a guy who's had to govern with a Republican legislature and he could run it. He could just be angry at them all the time, or he tries to figure out how they can get stuff done. And ultimately, I think I do think whatever the middle I think I always describe the middle of the country is more like the thirty yard lines. I think the middle is a lot larger than we
treat it. That doesn't mean they don't vote the same way. But I think when I think middle of the road, meaning you're you're not dogma right, you're not willing, You're you're willing to move all right, I'll accept that, you know, type of type of mindset versus the extremes. Let's go
¶ Integrating faith into governance without violating separation of church and state?
back to your book, because i'd hear you. I know you want to you want to talk about the book. Where are you? You know there's this where where how do you integrate faith institutions into government response without making the separation of church and state.
People leave examples in the book. So look, one guy goes up to this place in Portland. He gets a group of his buddies from church and a couple other churches. They go up and clean up the playground. They fix the whole school. He then turns it into a literacy program. The schools worked with him. Uh, there's a lady who's used the portal of the schools to be able to inform parents about all the things that might be available to them if their kids have trouble. There are the
people who have worked in the foster care area. There's now a program going nationwide where the faith communities working with the government of foster Care, and the government has praised these people. You can't go in and proselytize your greatest The greatest way to spread faith is not by what you say, but what you do. And these people are in there, yes, And I think that to not have these solutions come from well meaning people. Now you go in there and you start preaching your stuff, I
don't think that works. Okay, But the most important thing to me is if you look at this book or anything else about faith, it's because you feel so strongly about the call of a higher power that you're willing to take. You're really willing to have courage and believe even if you start at skipware one, that you can be successful in the end. And it also forces us
to think, if you have a liberal and a concert. Okay, Chuck, you and I are driving in we're in Vermont, the middle of the winner, and we see this car in the snow bank, and you and I hop out, and these other two guys hop out, and we pushed the dark. We can't get it out. We're pushing it, pushing it. We're laughing, our halts are falling off, and we push it out, we go have a beer, we find out that you know that they're of a complete different philosophy
and political It doesn't matter right the body. It's like sitting in a University of Miami football game getting their brains beat off by Ohio State and you just have a great time with your.
Fucking funny I mean, I will tell you I still have vision of the Ohio State fan I was sitting next to when you guys told that national title from US who when we when it appeared that Miami had won, the guy literally turned to me and he goes, man, I really enjoyed watching the game with you, I said, say, this is great. Then of course, oh look there's a flag, and then you know and then lo and behold Terry Porter. By the way, I still know the guy's day. His
name was Terry Porter. He was a Big twelve official, and I'm still ticked off the guy for throwing the flag.
Somebody told me that there was guy in Columbus that saw the incompletion or whatever the heck it was. I don't remember it, turned off the television and went to work, and the next day he shows I.
Didn't find out.
That's so funny. Yeah. But anyway, Uh, well, to go
¶ The social gospel changed the culture from an "I" environment to a "we" society
back to your example and the other thing you I've told you this before we get to fixing things locally. And I want to bring up that Huntman book called The Upswing. Yeah no, not.
All of his work. Yeah, all of his work is fascinating, it really is.
But the Upswing says that the Social Gospel movement changed the country from an eye culture to WE culture, coming from the Gilded Age to the Great twentieth century. In our country, where we went from I to wei, we were in an eye environment, not a we. And secondly, the other thing is all changed comes from the bottom up. The biggest I say, and you're in my lifetime. The single biggest change in our society is civil rights and it all came bottom up. So you know who you
going to miss more if they go on vacation. You're the Secretary of State or your trash man. I mean, So we need to dig in. And if we're at a rally, that's fine, We're to rally on Saturday, Well, what are we going to do on Monday? So we can know.
¶ Local journalism is service journalism, national journalism is civics journalism
There's part of me that thinks are obsession with national politics is because we've untethered people locally.
Well, yeah, you and what you're thinking about in terms of local news, you're.
Right now, we've got to bring the community back where and frankly, it can't be about you know, this isn't about making journalism for journalists. It's more of journalism and service to your community, which is you're just helping people live their lives. You're helping people, you know, whether maybe it's reporting on the public school system, but like, how do you navigate the public school system if you have an autistic kid and every system slightly different, and what
are the services? Like? You know there local journalism, when it was really good, did that really well? Right? It was served journalism. National journalism is civic journalism. It is slightly different. And I think when you get rid of one, then everybody looks at journalism and thinks, oh, you guys, just you know, you have no idea about my life. You're not reporting on the things that matter to me. And they're right, because that isn't what that wasn't the
national deal. Locals should be this service oriented oriented journalism. Sometimes it's simply telling you what's happening at the high school games that night, and sometimes it's telling you where where you could take your kids to get it, to go out to eat for less than fifty bucks. Right, that's also a service that you could provide somebody. And I think that's the you know, I have a Richard Gingris. Gingris. He's a guy who's been been doing a lot of
the news initiatives outside of Google and stuff. And he's
a guy I been talking to a lot. He actually thinks the worst thing to happen to journalism was the Woodward and he calls it the Woodward and Bernstein effect, where you had a whole generation a journalists who just wanted to go find the big stories, go for go find and and and get fame and fortune that way, when actually ninety percent of journalism really is community service journalism, and that that actually is what people that's why they relied on it locally, and that Chuck.
There's this young man I know. His mother is a dear friend of mine, and his name is Jackson Rorr, and he's writing for the local newspaper and you know, in New York, and he covers sports. The kid's like a big he's like everybody wants to know him because he's writing about the football team. The baseball team, and uh, it's it's really cool. And he's really he's he now he wants to be a journalist, But I don't know
if he wants a journalist to be an investigator. I think he maybe, I don't know, we'll see, but.
I think he enjoyed hemply curious. Say, the best journalists are those that I always say the best. The reason why I love it is I'm a I'm curious and I enjoy knowing something before somebody else does. And I know that seems like a that's that's you know, that's and and and the best journalists sort of are just obsessed with getting information. They're curious, they want to know more. And if that's your motivation, you're usually going to get some pretty good journalism.
Yeah, exactly right. Well you and what you're doing now is very interesting. So yeah, well I get local news. It really does matter. It really does. Local matters. It
¶ How do we move America past its "I" culture?
does it's.
Well and it gets back to the it gets back to the community. It's sort of you know, I do worry. You know, if you look at and it's interesting you brought up the Gilded Age because there's a part of me that believes were kind of right, not quite repeating, but it rhymes right, the the Robert Barons and the Broligarchs. Right. The transactional nature of politics back then was super transactional. It's becoming super transactional now. Frankly, I worry that we're
worshiping essentially everything is about getting yours. Everybody's got to get there.
It's the eye culture. It's the eye culture again.
And it did. I don't know if it's you hate to say it. Is it going to take an existential threat or a great depression for people to sort.
Of look, I mean, I've told you this before, and so I think you're there's something in you that says no. It was a it was a faith movement that changed it, the social gospel movement change.
It was all over and they went all around it, right, But it just started.
But it started in one little place and its spread and then we had the reform for child labor, the reforms around women. It doesn't take that, it takes. It takes a spark that comes where we are. And the other thing you'll never know.
What can come.
And you know this whole thing that if we just had a catastrophe, everybody would be united I'm not. I don't buy that. I used to think that, but I mean,
¶ We need a spiritual renewal
we'll come together momentarily and then we go back to our corners. There has to be a different perspective, a different sense in everybody's soul. And part of it is this. When I look at a person, I need to see the image of God of which I will be held accountable for. If I cease the image of God, I'm going to be really careful about the way I treat them. And if I see nothing but another guy honking his horn at me on the road, or you know, road rage or any of that other stuff, then it's just
like Katie bar the door. It's going to take that kind of of some sort of a spirit renewal. And you saw it a little bit of it, by the way, I think with the Pope a little bit.
I was just going to ask you about Pope Francis. I mean, he really is sort of the he was.
¶ Pope Francis could be remembered as the most important of the century
He's been fighting this, you could see it. He sees whatever the culture is going, and he was trying in his own way to both modernize the church on empathy issues in some ways go back to basics on being in service of your community.
You know, he was nobody. Nobody liked him. The left didn't like him, the right didn't like him. How many people like the people the people liked him.
I think he's going to be. I think he's going to be. I don't know. We'll see right, recency biases everything, and I'm always trying to be careful of this, but I feel like a one hundred years from now he might be the pope, the one pope people remember could be twenty first.
B And when I say they didn't like him, you know, the right didn't like him because they thought he was too loose with the theology. The left didn't like him because they didn't think he went far enough. You know what you and I say when when you when people in the right and the left don't like you, you must be doing something right.
He was doing what you and I talk about all the time, which look, he had a north star, yea. He was going to bring everybody as closer to it. But he knew that you have to actually go slowly if you want to bring more people along. If you go too fast, you only bring certain people with you. Right, This is the problem what Trump is facing. You know, just I always say tactically. I am, I am. I'm
¶ Trump's tariff implementation shows his inability to listen and win people over
not a fan of the tariffs for a variety of reasons. I'm guessing you're not either. But there was if you really believed in this, there was a way to do this.
Oh absolutely yes. And this was not the way to do it.
You could have you know, or or you could have done this with six months advance notice, put it out there, given business time to prepare, given countries time to potentially do deals, and instead you go too fast and you don't bring everybody with you. And this is just a classic. But this shows you. You know, Donald Trump here, he is a two term president. Now, he's shockingly inexperienced at governing. Still, he just doesn't know how to bring people together and he never has.
I think it might be chucked that he has too many people around him that don't tell him him with what's going on. And when you don't have people to tell you you're wrong and you need to think or change or modify, I.
Won't allow those people around you know, he doesn't allow you have to be a person comfortable hearing negative information, and I don't know if he is.
Yeah, I think that's you know, you think back to JFK And I don't know. He's probably been lionized about the Cuban missile crisis, but it just sounds to me like he had such an open discussion that instead of dropping the bombs, he you know, he sent his brother to see Doll Brannon and they ended up getting past it because they they just didn't listen to to the military. They listened to lots of different people, and they obviously
they came to the right conclusion. And uh And faced on Khrushchev at a time when Khrushchoff thought he had us on the run.
Open.
Open is the way it is. But you have to you have to be comfortable with yourself, secure in the knowledge that however smart you are, it's okay to have people smarter than you around, that you can make good judgment, that you have good instincts and a good gut. I mean, that's how it works.
Now.
If you go too fast, it's not only going too fast to implement one thing, it's also having too many things you're trying to do at once, which was a mistake I made because I had so many things I was doing when I was first elected as governor that I think a lot of people didn't know what they were and I slowed it down a little bit and let people see it. It would have been more effective.
Well, it's funny, you're right, and yet how many times have people thought that? You know that the mistake some presidents do is by the time you get to your second initiative, you're not popular enough to get it past. Right. That's the tyranny, Right, That's why you get the advice that says, hey, try to do everything at once to
¶ We've never updated the design for our public education system
see how much you can get done, you know, because everything is a time. I want to go to something you hinted at and I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead. And Gina Ramundo said something. I was at a dinner with her about six months ago, maybe it was a year ago, and she said something that triggered and it was like one of those oh my god, how come we're not having this conversation And she goes, you know, our public the whole we haven't rethought the public school
public education paradigm since we started it. Here was this amazing idea that when we first implemented, everybody around the world was like, man, we got to do what they're doing right, And other countries adopted our boy, they're making education. They're going to educate that, they're going to institute this by the government, and they're really onto something. And yet the design of our public school system is the exact same as it was when we first did it, and
yet we're four times the population. I think we have more states since we last rethought this. That we haven't rethought what the public education system should look like, forget in the twenty first century, in the last half of the twentieth century, and instead we're doing what we've done with healthcare, which is, well, let's try a charter school system, let's try magnet schools, let's try this. But we haven't rethought the fundamental aspect of you know, how it should
be run, how it should be funded. What you said, do we even rethink grades? This isn't an age thing that should be done by by You know, if somebody becomes an expert at something, so what if it takes them till they're forty to become that expert versus twenty
¶ The education industrial complex resists reform
five to become that expert? Right, why do you think this has been so difficult to say? You know what, Look, it's an amazing idea. We need to update it, and let's have let's have this big conversation.
Well, because you think the Pentagon has an ability to resist reform, it pales in comparison to the education educational industrial complex.
I'm going to call and it's all over, right, you can't just this one. It's not just teachers union.
No, it's has to say my kids school. You know, education is not great, but my kids school is good, and and they think that, you know, if we just pour more money in, it will all be better. And it doesn't work. And so this is a case where I think you need to go with a group of the willing, a coalition of the willing. What schools do you want to join to do things differently and then show that those things can work. This is one maybe
where you cannot do it comprehensively. Unlike what I said about healthcare.
You think this is something that is community and a coalition of the willing.
I mean, I look, you can get to the point where a teacher is a helper, not really a teacher, that the kids can learn through technology in a different way. Jimmy learns different than Sally. Let them learn on the basis of how.
Look, but the teacher. You could almost be an expert coach more like a coach. Interesting.
Yeah, I think that's one way. And I do think that it's pretty darn clear that the KIP schools do a great job, but there's such resistance.
But is that self selecting? I mean, I'm with you on the cane.
I mean, I have about you here.
How do you know it's not self selecting in that?
Because because if you take Abigail Wexner, who runs a KIP school out here, she takes the kids that come from the toughest places that I mean, and they're all going to college. I mean, I believe, I've seen it. Believe I've seen it, and I.
Believes there because they're Any parent that wants their kid to get a good education figures out how to navigate a system, whether they have money or not.
The lady told me once when I went to Philadelphia to the poorest schools back when I was writing my first book. He said, you know, every parent loves their kid, but sometimes you have to go down very deep to find that love. And I think it's there's another place where I think the churches could be critically important to helping to change this system. We've been spending our time
¶ Biden's staff kept him insulated from hearing contrarian views
talking about how, by the way, how Trump doesn't want to listen. Biden didn't let anybody they Biden's people wouldn't let anybody near him, no, because they might tell him something to get his attention. And the cover up by the media is a disgrace.
Well, I don't know. I get my back up about blaming the media for this, because I blame the Democratic Party. The media only can report what they can report.
Well, they didn't report what they saw.
Well, I think some did, but there were others did there were others. Well, the problem is you have too many pundits pretending they're journalists.
Well, any other thing is they all want access. So you know, if you want to get access to Tiger Woods, you better not write anything negative.
¶ Biden's presidency was a failure
Something to that. But but it goes back to I mean, you're right about Bob.
But look, I just I didn't want to just trash Trump without no in fact, they're trashing of Biden and to hear other things.
Oh, I think Biden was a failed president and he.
Thinks that he could he would have won.
No, are you kidding me?
I know, telling him, Matt.
You know, my wife says this all the time, she goes, look, a better leader would have made the country not want to return to Trump. And it's a tough thing to say, but she's not wrong. And I you know, she's always put it that way. She goes, you know, look, and she didn't want to she doesn't like being a Biden critic, but she said that, and I thought, you know, that's a very fair point. A better leader would have made the country not want to go back. Fuck.
I endorsed the guy.
I know you did.
I mean, I was the first Republican you know. Now, they were all endorsing Kamala Harris and all that stuff, and I was the first one out there doing it. Ranks and I thought he was going to be a healer and he was anything but that.
You know what.
The same thing I talked to him the night that I endorsed him at their convention, he called me. Do you know that? I never spoke to him for the next four years, not a single word.
I that's that's so telling. I mean, it's so telling.
You're right, that's not political malpractice. I don't My feelings aren't hurt.
It's just but I'll be honest, that wasn't the presidency. I thought we were voting for and I actually thought we were voting for a guy who was going to restore the idea that hey, this is how, this is how governance should work. Everybody's got a seat at the table.
Yeah, and it didn't.
It didn't work that way. And you're right, I don't know how I go. There's a part of me that wonders, had he been fifteen years younger, maybe he's maybe it's a different guy. Maybe I don't know, or maybe there's a part of another part of me that goes, boy, the guy tried to either ran or tried to run for president every four years. He could you know, you know.
Kind of heresy, But I've got to tell you this story. So Biden invited me up to the University of Delaware, and I went up to do an event with him. And let's say the event was I was probably an hour and a half, but let's just assume it was an hour. So he spoke for fifteen minutes and I spoke for ten. Okay, I get home.
And by the way, it's not as if you're a shrinking violet.
No, no, no, but I it's just the way it was.
And the way it worked out.
So I got home, I called McCain because he was at the time he was very sick, and I said, checking on him, john how you doing and how do you feel about your faith? And he goes, you don't have to worry about me, Johnny, And so it was very nice, and I said, well, I just went to this event for Biden, and you know, he spoke fifty and I spoke ten. He goes, yeah, he says, that's that's Biden, is it? He said, he said, it's why
we love him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he said. You know, I went to a funeral once and I was sitting next to Dan in a way, and Biden was doing one of the eulogies, and when he finished in a way poked me in the side and said, McCain, if you ever do one of those eulogies, don't forget to mention the corpse.
Oh yeah, I'll tell you. It is so funny. There's quite a few people who who make eulogy. It always bothers me when I go to any memorial service and the eulogy about the about the person, about the person giving the eulogy, and not about the person exactly.
I still laugh at that. I'll tell you, we miss McCain. That was that was one really great man. We miss him.
He well, I mean, you know, look, I think you hate to say life experience is probably what shapes you. But his life experience shaped them right and it and it made them. It made them where the political party was just that. Okay, that's a club I chose to join, but it's not the only club I'm going to hang out in.
Heaven Help Us is the name of the book.
Sell Sell Sell. We've done it pretty well. I think we're selling you, Jack, We're selling you.
Hey. It's always great, it's always great to be with you. You're just you know, I think if people watch this, they see they see you know, my friends, when they see us, they just see the kind of the connection, the magic that whatever it is, the sparks, and it's a lot of fun. So we're gonna do more.
Either that or they think, wow, these two, these two old guys. Yeah, I gets very obsessed with with their own sound of their own voices.
Right, probably right, Probably a little truth in that too.
Now it's all right, are you are you so sour?
¶ College football has been turned into the minor leagues
You've been pretty sour about college football because you haven't liked how this how what gets rewarded? Are you? Are you still kind of sour on how the system's working. Yeah, I think the system's terrible. And this is transfer portal and all that stuff. We've just turned it into the minor leagues. I mean, if you want a minor league, you know, I remember talking to a football head football coach of one of the NFL teams, and he was at a golf course with me. He's if I've known
him for a long time. He campaigned for me once. He said, you know, John, the thing that we're missing, the baseball has a minor leagues.
We don't, Well we now do. We now have a minor league.
And they don't even have to pay for it. You know. Baseball used to complain that they used to be jealous that the NFL had college football, that they had a minor league with having to actually spend money on their minor league versus what. And I actually think that might at this point, that might be where we're going, and that the Cleveland Browns will someday spend all this money on helping Ohio State's NIL to help do player development for Ohio State. I know that sounds crazy, but that
may be where the system is headed. Well.
The one thing that's fun is it is fun to talk about sports because it's pretty neutral and when you have an argument there, you know you can. It's okay, It's.
Well, and it's still the other reason that sports I think is a unifier, is it. It really is the one place where the meritocracy still works. Yes there's nepotism, Yes there's a lot, but ultimately, if you've got it, you're going to make it, and if you don't got it, you're not going to make it. It's the meritocracy.
Shock is a crazy time because I'm one of a handful of people I happen to really like the NBA playoffs. And and by the way, Cleveland just destroyed Miami. I mean that was I thought that Miami would win. I thought Miami would win a game. I mean, I knew they didn't match up.
I love Evan Mobley, I think, and you know, it's interesting, I'm skeptical you guys can beat Boston.
I'm right. I mean, it's going to be very tough, but but.
If you do, it'll be because Evan Mobley took that next level for that.
Or that guy Hunter that came from Atlanta, who's really been terrific, And can anybody beat Oklahoma City?
And I'm wondering, there's a part of me that thinks that this is really We're all just these are just the pre We're just sort of watching the Saturday pre lns for Oklahoma City and Boston to face off. You know, I mean, you hate to say it, but until Cleveland beats Boston, they have to be you have to you know.
One other subject we have to cover, as you heard when I was talking before we came on the air. So next Friday night, Yeah, me, my buddy's Metallicalica.
I love it.
Heard Columbus right in Clumbus and uh uh Miley Cyrus saying with Metallica, okad, I absolutely incredible. That was What the heck is the name of that song? Uh? Nothing really matters. Yeah, if you can hear it, and it was really great and only to be exceeded by Heart singing Stairway to Heaven with with the boys sitting up in the stands at Kennedy Center Honors. Yeah, I mean check it out. Those are some really cool things to see.
I love it. Concert recommendations, This will air before you're at the Metallica concert.
Oh well, and I will have enjoyed myself air before.
This will air before. No, this will air before. So this is good. Yeah, okay, if they catch the Metallica concert on Friday.
Yes, I'll be thinking of them.
All went on there absolutely, Uh, mister Case, I appreciate it. The book is hea and help us there you go, Evan, help us. It's a good read. And it's an easy it's a yes, it is. It's a it's a nourishing read, meaning it is a good news read. And I do wish good news sold as well as bad news. But you know another another plane lands safely at National News.
All right, thanks Chuck, thank you as soon.
¶ Chuck's thoughts on the interview with John Kasich
Well as you can see. Fasik and I have spent a lot of time together and so it's uh and and we both like to hear the other person talk. So I hope you in all seriousness, I hope you
enjoyed that and and sort of see. You know, it's interesting I've got and I go back and forth on where where the future of faith is going in America and and how and how much where we were our moral compass seems to be messed up, and you know, it seems to have coincided with with with a retreat from organized religion, which I myself am somebody who is a retreater. And yet I think you can have a
moral code and a moral compass without it. But I understand those that look at what's happened in this current environment that we're living in, and that we seem to be so transactional financially that that's the only thing that matters. We'll overlook character, will overlook immorality as long as we get ours. That is something that certainly people would have
been other than that quote unquote prosperity gospel business. But the most people of faith that sort of see that sort of the hey we've got to have, you know,
¶ Ask Chuck
preached that kind of of of morality. Anyway, it's I think more of a provocative conversation to have amongst yourselves a little bit. All right, before we go, let's do
¶ How would increasing the size of the house of representatives work?
a little last Chuck ask Chuck. All right, first question, you know anything that praises me. I'm gonna end up asking your question here. This comes from James, and he says, I like your suggestion for expanding the house. If you follow up questions well, this diminished the impact of jerry mandarin. How do we have to do How do we have to go about implementing something like this? Will it require a new constitutional amendment or simply for Congress to pass
this as a new law. So, James, the beauty of this, and why I'm such an advocate of it, is that you don't need a constitutional amendment. It is up to the House. It is just an act of Congress. And this was the norm up until nineteen twenty, which is as our population expanded with every census, we didn't just reapportion the congressional districts. We also made a decision to decide, okay, what size should the districts be. How much should we
expand the House by? Maybe we add ten new districts, fifteen, whatever it is. So no, that's the beauty of this gerrymandering, and it's it is. Look, you're never going to get
rid of gerrymandering. As long as the Constitution says state legislatures are essentially in charge of deciding these lines, there's always going to be And I always would would caution people to get I don't think you can quote unquote get rid of the practice and The reason I say this is it because you never know when you need to use jerry mandering in order to create more competitive districts.
If say, a your state passes a referendum that says districts should have some form of competitiveness to them as one of the things. Not everybody believes that congressional district should be based that way, and not all congressional districts are drawn that way. But look, I think the reason I'm such an advocate of this is that A it does not take a constitutional amendment. B. I think it
just minimizes the need to jerrymander. Right, if you have these smaller four hundred thousand member communities of interest, Where Arlington, Texas at four hundred thousand people is a community of interest, I think we can agree they get a member of Congress, But you wouldn't want to have the entire DFW represented by one person, right, or even half the DFW area. Are they really going to represent the interest of Arlington and Fort Worth or Arlington or Fort Worth? Will they
pick one? You see where I'm going here. So I think it definitely limits the need and limits the motivation of gerrymandering on that front. And then, of course, the other thing that fixes is the electoral college. Right, you double the amount of votes in the electoral college, and you make it to where the popular vote in the electoral college are less likely to be in conflict when all the numbers are set in. So, James, I hope
¶ How do entities/organizations earn the label "non-partisan"?
I've made you now not just a supporter of the idea, but now an advocate. Go out there and evangelize about this. Uncap the house. Uncap the House, and we start solving some of our polarization problems in this country. Okay, next question comes from Eric C. Does it How does an individual or an entity get the label get to label
itself as non partisan? I'm thinking of advocacy groups or think tanks, even government entities, etc. I saw an individual sitting for an interview on what we'll call an unnamed news in a program, and the individual was from an advocacy group, which the news program label is non partisan, and it struck me as a potentially subjective label as Another example is in the Congressional Budget Office considered non partisan.
What makes it so? Is it simply because its staff is not hired by anyone acting on behalf of either of the major political parties. Appreciate your thoughts. Thanks for the work on the podcast. An interesting guest, ps, how about some love for the Capitals. Go Caps? Yes, I am taping on Wednesday evening May seventh, bummed that the Caps are down one oh to Normally a team that I would be rooting for any team who's the Hurricanes, but not the Carolina Hurricanes. I don't root for any
Carolina Hurricanes. All my Hurricanes are in Miami, not even my friends in Tulsa and the Golden Hurricane. No, we only root for the Miami Hurricanes. So we shall see, let's go. I just I have a lot of confidence that this Caps team is going to somehow. It just feels like there's a there's a narrative here with Ovechkin. He breaks the record sort of one last hurrah, you know, kind of like Brady and his Tampa Super Bowl that maybe we get that in one more Stanley Cup from Ovechkin.
But you know, you bring up a good point about nonpartisan, bipartisan and all that stuff. I don't know if the word nonpartisan I you know, I guess the one place that I've been comfortable having somebody label themselves as nonpartisan is active members of the military because they have to be nonpartisan, right, they have to follow the commander, the orders the commander in chief, no matter who the commander in chief is. So I think there's do you behave
in a nonpartisan way. But everybody is born with I always say, inherent bias. I always checked my pulse. Okay, yeah, I'm a human being. Humans are born with original bias, is what I like to call it, and meaning, you know you everybody has an ideology and a partisanship that's has formed as much by where you're born, who you're born too, when you were born, the circumstances of your childhood. All of that is shaping so it's it shapes you. And so there's bias. And where there's bias, there's going
to be some form of partisanship. So I don't think I think there's I think I think these government entities Congressional Budget Office, I would label as bipartisan because essentially they are. It's a staff that has been that has been hired by people appointed by both parties, right, So that to me is by privacy. The Federal Reserve, to me, is bipartisan. So I think bipartisan is a better version of that, I think nonpartisan. I think you're not wrong.
It's not just subjective. I just think that you know, if you know, if your nonpartisan, a partisan on the left or right might view you as a as a as an opponent anyway, because you're not for their side of things. You might if you're using you're not you're if you're using the descriptor of nonpartisan as a way to avoid taking a stand on something. Are are you actually being nonpartisan? Or are you are you being sort of a silent partisan if you will by not by
not taking a stance on something. So I think it's a fair point, and I think that I don't think anybody is if the only entities that I think in American institutions that are probably best to be described as nonpartisan or is the military. Look I've always said in you know, there's that ridiculous phrase that that Rodger Ales and Fox came up with fair and balanced. Well, I don't believe that the two. I actually think that phrase is in conflict. Right, you can't balance fairness. You're either
fair or you're balanced. And balance is also a very subjective word. So I think the best you know, the term I've always trived for journalistically is fairness. I'm going to be fair but fair. If I could be described
¶ Will the national debt cause economic catastrophe?
that way any interview that way, tough but fair, I would. And I think fairness doesn't always mean you're going to like all the questions, but they're fair questions to be asked.
All right.
Last question comes from Dell. I'm desperate for someone to answer a question for me. It might sound basic, but I feel like it is basic. It's the very foundation of much of the political talk around the country. So when is this looming crisis of debt going to destroy us? Is there a number that triggers this? I just don't understand how on a macro level the debt of a country is detrimental, especially that of the US. Also, how will a potential catastrophe caused by the debt affect the
average person? I mean higher prices. We already see that now, from the pandemic to tariffs. So I was that any different? I'm just really confused about the boogeyman I've heard about for forty eight years. It feels like the boy who cried Wolf. Look, I tend to agree with you, right, and the whole what we thought was debt to GDP ratio that we could withstand. Turns out it was much higher,
which many economists had said. As long as we're the reserve currency of the world, as long as the dollar is a safe haven, ooh, whoops, is it a safe haven anymore? Our debt won't matter until it does. So the problem is if you do policies, I think, if we continue to pursue the policies, these tariff policies, which then sort of send a message to the world that maybe we're not the free trade haven of the world,
that we're not the safe haven of financial markets. If people start to question, you know, what gives us the safe haven status is that we have a rule of law that is pretty pretty good that if we're suddenly not the reserve currency, then are debt holders. Then all of a sudden, then you'd have interest rate hikes and then this could this would just it would have catastrophic effects, right, And this is what happened in Europe when there was a debt crisis with the Greeks, and there's been other
countries where they've had that. But the other countries that have had these debt crises weren't reserve currencies and didn't sort of have our our our economic standing that we do here. So look, I tend to think that we do overdo the debt issue, and it is sort of a convenient way to try to to because the number sounds so fantastical, right, and that debt clock is everything, But you know not some of that debt is bad debt. But some of that debt is you know, debt that
just about every fortune five hundred company would call good debt. Right, it's debt. You're borrowing money today to finance something for economic empowerment tomorrow. Right, You're borrowing money today to build housing which will only create new tax payers tomorrow. Right. So I think we we in the media do a poor job of explaining the debt and what it really means, and which which debt is good debt, in which debt
is bad debt. But this becomes more of an acute issue if our standing is the reserve car, if we suddenly have sovereign funds all over the world, the side that the US dollar is not a safe haven, that US treasuries are not a safe haven, and once they don't become a safe haven, well then you sort of have runaway interest rates and then that that that creates a catastrophe. But guess what if the if the debt
ever becomes a problem for America, the whole globes in trouble. Right, you want to talk about a contagion issue, right, it would? It would. And in some ways, because you want to talk about too big to fail, the United States is too big to fail. So in some ways it's probably why our debt's never going to be ultimately as as catastrophic a problem as some as some might argue. But you know what, my answer to that question is likely to trigger some fun responses, and I would love to
hear from you. Tell me why I'm wrong on this one. Explain to me how our debt as it currently stands could be as catastrophic as some of you think. I would love to hear from you that. And remember any question you have here, ask Chuck at the Chuck podcast dot com, drop comment and the YouTube, or drop comment in any of the podcast feeds or Instagram feed, TikTok, all of those places. We comb all of them for potential questions, and we're only going to ask the relevant questions,
the good questions. But I would love to hear from you on some contrarian answers on the debt, but Dell, I appreciate that question, and I appreciate all of you for sticking around, for listening and until I upload again