Trump CHOOSES War With Iran + Jake Tapper On PROBLEM With Electing Older Leaders Like Biden & Trump

Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Todcast. Obviously a pretty momentous weekend as far as America's national security is concerned. I'm going to get to that in a second. I just want to give you a quick

But two things can be true at the.

Same time, that how they've handled Gaza and how they've done the humanitarian aspect of this has been atrocious, and at the same time it's a righteous cause to go after Iran. Iran is not a good regime. These are bad people, committed to doing bad things, committed to the eradication. The people do not share our values. They don't share a lot of values with anybody who's high character.

So look, that's just a fact.

But still Israel played a major role in cornering the United States into this air strike. Israel's government has been increasingly skeptical, if not hostile, to diplomacy with Iran. They didn't like the first Iran agreement and they were petrified Trump would do a similar agreement. And then you can't

There.

What was most striking though about Trump's remarks to the nation,

To like it.

But let's I do think the single most important question

Did it make America safer?

Maybe in the long run we'll look back and say, yes, maybe this is a needed course correction, and this will create new momentum to halt nuclear proliferation. But right now, in the near term, it doesn't feel that way. What it feels like is more instability, more uncertainty, and perhaps

And here's one final thought.

If this really was the only option left, if diplomacy had truly failed, if every other path had been exhausted, then make that case to the American people. That's what you use your remarks to the American people to do. Don't treat this like a tweet, which it did. Don't make it look like a reaction to Israel or a political ploy to distract from domestic failures. Own it, justify it.

On that front, my second of view was with Eric Swawa.

He's a Democratic congressman represents the East Bay of the Bay Area in California. H he has been, he has served on the House Intelligence Committee, he himself ran for president, and he is somebody who is caught, I think, in.

The middle here.

He does not like how the President went about doing this, and certainly also wants to see Iran stop from developing a nuclear weapon.

You know.

One of the things he talked with me about is the challenge Democrats are going to have. He thinks there's going to be bipartisan agreement that how how the White House informed Congress was just awful, you know, And and it certainly appears as if the President refused us to work with Democrats, even when the law states that they have to inform the entire Gang of Eight what they're doing, including the Democratic ranking members of Intel Armed Services, that

Doesn't appear.

Jim Hins was told. You know, it's not just about protocol. It's about that. And I know this is a quaint notion, but you know, there was a time we all, at least during the Cold War, that there was a belief that politics you should try to at least stop politics at the water's edge. But the irresponsibility of this administration in their.

In their.

Constant whether I guess it's a grievance, but they pull let a size everything and think that things that they're supposed to do to keep Democrats informed of things, or even work with a Democrat that has nothing to do with a political election or anything, they just view it as some sort of They view it with such animus.

It's not.

You know, again, the man didn't win fifty percent.

Of the vote.

The inability to work with the other party, You're going to pay a price at the next ballot box if you continue to do this. So I think it's a it's a terrible thing on there. We close our interview

It was interesting.

Eric Swawell did have one what I would call alarmist statement to me. He believes if Democrats don't win the House and don't get any sort of foothold of power in Washington after the twenty twenty six midterms that he doesn't believe twenty twenty eight will be a free and fair election. Like I said, it's a bit of an alarming statement. I'm not I'm certainly I'm I'm not going to sit here and say he's being alarmist considering what

What it's worth.

And my final conversation was with my friend Jonathan Martin over at Politico, and he and I dove into the New York City Democratic primary because that happens Tuesday of

And certainly if the.

Center left or the pro business or the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, we're looking for an avatar in a primary, the last person they would have chosen is Andrew Cuomo. But here they have Cuomo and mom Donnie. I will tell you this the panic among the establishment crowd if mom Donnie wins this primary, because he will be the Democratic Party nominee. Now look, Andy Quomo's still going to be on the ballot. Eric Adams, who's the current mayor, is going to be on the ballot. There's

We'll see who's right.

You know, I'm old enough to remember when a lot of establishment Republicans thought MAGA and the far right of the Republican Party was a losing strategy for them to win elections. Ten years later, I'm writing essays that say Donald Trump's the most influential president since FDR. So I'm not going to sit here and assume either side is

That was too liberal.

So something to keep in mind and a reason to watch that race. And with that, let's sneak in a quick break and when we come back, my friend Jake.

Tapper joining me now somebody I have known forever.

We've basically professionally grew up together and watching and I think, Jake Tapper, you're of course kind is just I tell everybody we're sort of here simply because you're hawking a book through. I'm not sure if people know this book hasn't gotten a lot of attention, so we'll have to spend some time trying to tell people about the book.

Can I tell you what podcast? So we show your fan of Yes, my first memory of you, my first memory.

Of you, and I'll tell you my memory of you is the Iowa State Fair.

Yeah, in nineteen ninety nine, nineteen ninety nine, you were there with Hotline, I believe. Yeah, I'm there with Salon dot Com. Yep, you're there with like a little group. It's like Dominic and Vaughn. It's just like a whole bunch of hot like Vaughn.

I don't remember a Dominic, but that's all right, all right, maybe maybe I maybe I had a Domaco at NBC.

But that's maybe maybe Domenico.

All right, Anyway, you were more You and Vaughn were

I don't know how you guys, Dido don Yeah. Yeah, we had twelve ships. It was like I don't even know, thirty pages by the end, and like.

Yeah I didn't, I didn't. I I was more inclusive. I said, we're online. It could do as long as it once. I never thought we should have a cut off.

It was just like all the press summarized for politics, all of it, and we.

Did this crazy thing.

You know, back then, we had these weird you know, people may not realize this, but there were these things called local newspapers, and they had these things called political reporters that were based not in Washington, but actually based in communities all.

Over the country, all over the country.

And guess what, when you have people all over the country, you get a more diversified look at what the hell is going on in America.

Anyway, everybody wanted to be mentioned by the Hotline.

And one thing, we boulded the names, right, We bolded all of your names, and that's what mattered.

I just remember, just because I was at Salon dot com and you know, we were trying to get established and trying to recognize that being mentioned and having my reporter mentioned alongside of the David Broders of the world.

Was really important. And I think I remember that there.

I have to go back and find it, but there was a profile of Hotline by the Washington Post Style section.

Yeah, and we had like for a long time.

In nineteen ninety nine or two thousand, in which I admitted that I whined to you if I did not get mentioned, which is true, and I own up to that. And you still always just want to be mentioned. You still always just want to have your work we recognize.

So by the way, it's this is true. I mean, like we write social media's proof of this, you know, this is this is sort of the the dirty little secret, right, Like that's all we just want to be seen, right, reports want to be seen.

I don't think it's a secret, but yes, no, so I've known you forever and then you are our kids now are kids with the school together. The first one that's leaving, my second one is leaving. How are you handling this? You're going to be a kid in college.

I'm gonna have a kid's gonna I'm good. No, I'm not ready. And I'm going to be a mess. I'm going to be a mess.

And we have the same breakdown, older old, younger boy, and I'm.

Going to be a mess. But yeah, we go back.

Obviously you were white esk correspondent for NBC when I was white es correspondent for ABC during the first Obama term. And it's been a long, lovely, fruitful fruit deal friendship. Our wives are friends, our kids are friends. And just to just to illustrate how far back this isn't actually how far back it goes. But I got a photo like apple, you know, reminds you of on this day five years ago. I sent you and your wife five years ago this week your son's co virtual bot metzah. Yeah,

Little it looked, you know, I made him put a suit on. You know, we did it as if we had our own little bema. It was we had to do that for aliss too, and it's uh yeah, so you know, he never got his party and he was always kind of disappointed in that. But in exchange for the party, we went to lambeau Field like a couple years later.

That's nice.

So we just held off Alice's party until I forget if we did it for her sixteenth birthday or for gradu.

I think our friends in the Latino commit I like King Sanaras I grown up at Miami, those were I think fifteen feels like a bet, Like, you know, it's so funny of these these the botmtz but we threw the big bot Metzva party for our honor and you did it for check And it's just so I mean, every cliche is true when you try to like who do you invite at? Like what kind of I feel like at fifteen the kids are ready to at least

Well, thirteen they're still not ready. No, that's totally true. And I also kind of think that COVID set back this generation of kids a couple of years when it comes to emotional development obviously.

Oh, I completely agree. I see it. I see it with my both.

Uh more so with my daughter in the age because you know, in terms.

Of your angling and learning how to date. Yeah, you know.

I don't know about you, but it wasn't High school was sort of when you when you made your mistakes. I don't know holse to put it right when you made your miss you know, maybe it ghosted somebody the wrong way, whatever it is, but in a weird way, you need that in order to sort of prepare for young adulthood when you start dating, and when you don't get it in high school, you know there is something that's missing there.

Yeah.

I will not say that I made all my mistakes in high school because if so, we would be subjected to all sorts.

Of comments to your posts. I know there's I just from people with whom I made mistakes well into my thirties.

So uh fair, No, I hear you on that. How do you handle I I I can't tell you when the switch flip, but it flipped for me right around about a month or so after the lockdown, where it's just like, remember it doesn't matter. Journalists are not meant to be popular. Who cares? You know, we're all human beings.

You know.

There's always moments where you probably feel defensive and you want to say something, but you've learned not to do it.

I've learned not to do it. Whenbody goes.

Nobody should and nobody should, I don't want them to. I'm not interested in it, which is why I'm not going to do there. I'll call you up and bitch and moan. Right, we can exchange texts and go blah blah blah, right, all that stuff. But for a long time,

Right.

We would engage. We'd engage positively and negatively. When did you feel like, eh, it's not worth it anymore? When did you flip that switch?

I don't know when it was exactly, but it just became clear at one point. I do remember. I do remember one of the first experiences I had with social media where I'm like, oh, you'll get criticized no matter what you do on this was when you and I did the go t gamble, which.

Right with the Philadelphia so the Phillies Dodgers on Phillies.

Ahi fan, He's a Dodgers fan, and I'm.

More of a Nats fan now, but at the time I was, you know, very much more of a Dodger fan.

And we did we did bet, yeah.

They were, and the bet was that Chuck would shase he at the time yeah well he now, Yeah, at the time it was a good just to go tea and and the bet was and he you were he was never going to do this. But it was like either like I said, I think I never really accepted the bet, but that's okay.

I remember you you sort of proposed it. And it was either if the if the Dodgers won, I would grow a go tea and if the Phillies won, Chuck would shave his go tea.

But it's not clear you can grow facial hair, right, You're still not sure, right, you're still trying.

That's fair, and so I mean, who knows? Who knows is the answer to that. So and then there was a charity, a charitable giving opt out and I think that's what we did. We did really well. And I think we both and we but my the chair I picked was Nick Christoff of the New York Times had just written something about Pakistani girls having this horror.

Do you remember that?

That's right during a pregnancy called called like fistula or something like that the girls would die of.

And like I was like, oh, I just read this.

This is before I got involved with homes for our troops and like I had the designated charity I always worked for. I was like, oh, this is this is like a really worthy cause. I'll do it for a fistula And like immediately the response on Twitter was how dare you?

Why aren't you giving to an American charity?

And it was just like and that was the light bulb moment that I was like, Oh, it really doesn't matter what you're doing.

No matter what you do, people are going to criticize it.

But let me ask you this, how often in person

How rare? Is that very seldom?

And that says to me is the point I'd say, I literally can count on one hand the number of negative experiences.

I've had in person, and it's proof.

You know, it's about the same amount of negative interactions you have with just anybody, like on traffic jams or you know people that don't you know that don't think that think they ought to use the ten items or less line, you know, things like that. It's proof that if we all spend more time face to face, we're not going to be assholes to each other.

No, I agree, I agree. And the social media has definitely made us as a and.

I don't think it's in real life. I think it's only on social media, but it's made the world seem harsher well.

And I sit here and I try to say this all the time. There's an online world and there's the real world. Mike Lee is a great example of this. And I used to say this about Marco Rubia when he was the Senate, the online senators versus who they were sometimes in person, and they were like different people. Do you think Mike Lee is not who he I don't know who Mike Lee is, right, I'm not.

And I sit there.

I'm not trying to say this is some sort of provocative statement. I don't know, yeah, right, like you think you know. And one of the things that I think the longer you do this job, the more politicians you meet, is I don't presume I know any of these people anymore, like who they really are, right, Because I think the

One of the other things that I always wonder about is how much because we are journalists, and therefore I think in the back of the mind of everybody who is in the public eye at all, I think that they are all wondering, am I ever going to betray them for a story? I do wonder I do like for the politicians, and I'm friendly, Well.

Think about it. Look.

My favorite line to quote about that I say to young journalists you know, is you know there's that line in almost famous by Philip Seymour Hoffman early on when he says, don't be friends with the rock stars. Rock stars aren't your friends, right, And I think about that all the time on the political front, right, because the politicians want to be our friends at first, really badly, right.

Right.

I used to say, ninety five percent of the people got elected to Washington, you know, got there for the right reasons. They had a real reason why they wanted to run, like a genuine You may not agree with what they were running on, but they felt passionately on it. And then to me, the town corrupts them.

I'm less, I less believe that. Now I don't know what I believe. I think that my default is.

So there is this concept in Judaism that Michael Medved

And it's something that really stuck with me almost as much as the goate gamble.

Which is this idea that like, don't all automatically assume that people are in this for the wrong reasons. And so I do try to do that, which is not to say, don't be skeptical. But don't just like go into an interview thinking this is just a power hungry psycho.

No, no, no, no, like try to.

I understand where they're coming from, right, And there's no doubt this this era where it does feel like a lot of people have decided politics is a good way, is a shortcut to becoming famously Yeah, and wealthy and wealthy.

That's the part of this that I it is a good shortcut.

You get a lot of insider information and you can invest accordingly. And it's still and this is how you know that the town is truly corrupt. Is that Like

And like me, that's the idea that that's controversial, Like it's the public trust.

They get lots of insider information, they do. They're in closed door hearings all the time.

By the way, So do you and I what do we ow? I've thought about this? You know, I don't, look, I never in that time.

I never was based on that. Neither do I.

But the point is we we could, and I'm sure there are some of our brethren that do.

I'm sure, but I don't. And so, by the way, I don't trust myself as a financial providing financial guidance.

Let's do the book a little bit. Original sin? What is your original What is the original sin? I have my own original sin, That's why I'm asking it. So what is your original sin?

The original sin?

According to all the Democrats we talked about talk two for this book, and Alex Thompson, my co author, and I interviewed more than two hundred people. And I'd love to find out about your book experience when you wrote your Obama Hillary book, Chuck, because I found people much more willing to talk to me for a book than for anything else in my life than a print story of TV interview.

We're just general reporting whatever.

I got to know people better doing the book that I did as a regular old reporter.

And now there's I don't know if it's because it's just it's there forever or whatever, but in any case, the original sin is Joe Biden's decision to run for reelection when he had implus not explicitly, but implicitly suggested that he would be a one term president, and then from that decision when he was because he had like a reasonably not horrible mid terms, even though he was not popular and most of the country thought he was on the wrong track and most of the country was concerned he.

Was too old to do the job.

From that decision came a much shadier set of decisions, which had to do with hiding the degree to which he deteriorated cognitively, which really started getting really bad in the summer of twenty twenty three.

So for me, the original sin was running in the first place.

Oh well, yes, I've heard you talk about this because because his family was in crisis, right, because his daughter and his son were.

When I read, I read, I followed that Hunter Biden trial.

Soup to nuts.

I read every single transcript, I read all of the testimony. I cannot believe to this stage that Hunter Biden, that Joe Biden did this to his kids.

So somebody close to the family, I can't believe that he did it.

Somebody close to the family told us and said, this is in the book that everybody knows. You know, some of the family aphorisms like you know my words a Biden or you know et cetera, et cetera. A lesser known Biden family saying is don't call a fat person fat. And by that they mean it's not about being, it's not about politeness. It's about hiding truths, not acknowledging truths. And this person close to the family suggested that there are lots of truths that the family did not want

Look, I mean, you know you and I covered you know for most of our professional lives. The story of Joe Biden was this guy cared about his family so much he commuted home every night from Washington.

Now here's by the way, here's the by the way.

You know what else you could say is this man

Had his sister help read.

I sit here, I look at this and the and and I think were we sold to forty year bill of goods?

Well, there is this and this is in the book.

There is this legend of Joe Biden, and some of it is based in reality and some of it is based in myth.

And the legend.

Isybody is not the first president. Whether it's no myth, I mean my got In fact, the most presidential resumes are are are have some myth in them, all of them. You know, we could sit here and do it, but anyway, go ahead.

Well, I mean you could talk about the Obama's marriage because I mean, like she never wanted him to run for president, period, And oh, I mean she's been pretty honest and open about that.

Right And no, that memoir, I mean, yeah, I mean it's yeah.

The legend and this is some of that one of the things that that people love about Joe Biden is this idea that no matter what life throws at him, he gets up off the floor and gets back to work.

Get up, he says his dad. Get up.

And he always seemed to be optimist. Find a way to be optimistic.

Yeah, debilitating stutter, horrible car crash that killed his wife

Brain aneurysms, and on and on and on.

That same quality, however, is what paved the way to this bad decision.

This idea that I'm Joe Biden and I cannot be defeated by age.

I cannot be defeated by whatever is going on with my mind in my body right now.

I will persevere. And it's not just a mythology. For some people in the family and close to the family, it's a theology. And like any religion, skepticism is not permitted.

One of the things that I've I've been a bit more defensive of the overall media coverage than clearly others would like to be, right, meaning, you know, I think the blaming the media is an excuse not to blame the actual people that did this, Okay, I like the media is a look for better or for worse, where a reflection were reflection of the best version of events that we can come up with.

We are only as good as our sources.

I you know, and I've brought this up and I heard you bring this up to which is the single most difficult thing to report out on a politicians health?

So sensitive? Yeah, exactly there is.

It is easy to frankly get shamed out of doing it, right, tell you to hear you it's a private thing.

Well, think about how it's private.

Think about how insanely sensitive people are about getting somebody's college transcript right, I mean, people are crazy about that like that that should honestly just be like automatic, you're running for president, Okay, here are my grades in college? Who even cares? But you can't even get that head because they're so crazy. But yeah, the health stuff, and we saw it. It's not an insignificant thing.

And I do think what I want to like sort

Right, he's very sensitive about us there.

And it will And you and I both know the way political operatives work. Anytime you can identify a topic, if you're an opponent on somebody that you know is going to get under their skin, you're going to go ten You know, you're going to go ten x at it. But I do wonder if the Trump era and the Biden cover up, right, these the combination of these two, in theory, it should create the single most skeptical press score for the next decade that we've we've had in

I agree, Let's say you I agree, And you know it's funny you say that, though, because the moment you say this is a lesson we have learned from Biden. Whatever the lesson is, it should now be applied to every president. The right wing goes, oh, so that's the reason he wrote the book on Biden just to get at Trump. Like, now, what I'm just saying like that's the insanity of this convers.

It's always a bizarre Trump like there's always a bozar Trump angle.

So forget Trump. So forget Trump for a second. Let's talk about post Trump. Let's talk about post Trump.

Just to remove that nonsense from this doctor Jonathan Ryner, who you know, who is a cardiologist at GW, very respected.

Yeah, and completely they shouldn't be voluntary, no, exactly.

And also they decided they're going to release on what they're not going to release the White House does, but that voluntary thing, that that should be test, that that should be submitted under penalty of perjury. And I would go even farther into say that that medical report should list though I doubt Reiner would disagree with me on this, every medication that the person is on, and every test

I see what he's doing. His job is a cognitive test.

But there's another explanation that some people posit, which is the only reason you don't give a cognitive test is if you don't want to know the results in this situation.

Constitutional amendment to do this, though, I really unfortunately you don't think it could just be a law no separation of powers. The legislative branch can't necessarily so it's just like all of the uh you know the issue of trying to uh force a blind trust. You know that you can do it for every cabinet secretary, but you can't do it for the president and vice president.

Well, there should probably there should probably be some constitutional amendment.

Oh, I think there should be.

We got that that has this has like everything, like the Stock Act that like it has everything in.

It absolutely and now that probably we got to redo the age stuff. I think the aid you know, you should be a cap well, the only by the way, because there are age minimums in the Constitution, it means the only way you can put in a cap, the only way you can put it in age sort of.

Uh, you know where you where you.

Age out of being able to hold office, You're going to have to make it a constitutional amendment otherwise it's going to be unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, did you did you catch the subtext of the fact that they're so the senators Cornyn and Schmidt of Texas and is or had a that's the first time I ever said Missouri. By the way, I don't know why I said that of Missouri.

Well, well depends the asuri is Saint Louis and Kansas City, the rest of the state.

Yeah, No, I don't know why I said that anyway, So of Missouri and Texas. They had a hearing this week on by autopen hearing. Yeah, and the and and

That's not to say it isn't.

But we know this is just literally a right wing meme that it got so much attention that these Republican senators have to respond to it.

I do think that there is I do think it's worth exploring because I don't know how much he knew everything that he was signing. But by the same token, I don't know how much any president knows everything they're signing.

But in any case, moving on, old.

Enough to remember when Gary Cone just pulled papers off of Trump's desk to defend him from signing stuff. You know, So what's the you know, I mean, like, you know, be careful opening this can of worms, you know, Eric Schmidt, right.

So, but in any case, the thing that was interesting was they had this hearing, Democrats boycotted it, and so it basically became known for the Democrats refusing to participate. But what's interesting about it is who's the chairman of the Senate Judiciary.

Committee, isn't it Grassler? Right? Ninety year old Chuck Grassler is in ninety one.

I don't think I don't think he presided over it. I don't think he presided over this hearing about Biden's acuity. So, I mean, there is this, and we have a chapter

Miss Stafford's staffer.

Yeah, because in the Therman office it was apparently known that you had to accept that if you work for him.

But also, by the way, Senator Murray to this day hasn't talked about it because she was talked out of complaining about it back then.

And I guess it was like.

This is like ninety three, ninety four, yeah, pretty early. It was her first term.

Yeah, she by the way she has she is now she was recently Senate pro temn I mean she was, she is.

I know she went from like mom and tennis shoes to grandma tesshoes.

Yeah. So but be that as it may. The only point is like this this culture of coddling members of Congress and Supreme Court job.

But this is the seniority issue, right, like in a weird way. You know, I always talk about this is a reminder that in Washington, do you know why seniority? You know, there was a time the idea of seniority was actually a political reform because at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, there was a Speaker of the House that would was basically forcing him, was was essentially doing, you know, didn't want well, no, I'm going to put my people in these committees, and and so

Well, because it does because voters take.

Power away from the speaker.

At the time, the speaker could say no, you're the committee chairman, not you, you know, literally could take it newly.

Now they still do that, not as much, it's hard not not not like they did.

And well there's a reason McCall and Turner are not at Foreign Affairs and.

Inteler, but they also ate.

But they also turned out right, the Republicans put in committee.

I don't think. I don't think Turner aged out. I think that they turned out.

I think he I think he technically was turned out.

Was he or wasn't he? I don't think so. No, I think he pissed off Trump.

Well, but Intel is different, by the way, Intel is a joint committee, and I don't think the seniority doesn't apply. I think that's it.

And in any case, we've taken a deviation. Let's go back.

So, yes, that reform now means that we have a system that rewards people who are elected over and over and over. And that system doesn't necessarily reward accomplishment or ability.

It's just longevity.

And those people are surrounded by staffers and lobbyists and family members whose job it is is to give the principle as much power and cover as possible, so that we now have more people over the age of seventy in Congress than ever before that ever before period. And one of the reasons why Republicans control the House right now is because since April of last year, six House Democrats have died in office, and of those six, five

Yeah. Look, and then of course you keep going.

You could keep going down this road, which is you know, the way the system works. If you're of working age, you don't really have the resources to run for office. Only older, wealthier people do, right like, And that's the other that's the other part of this.

So we just did a story on this on my show like a week and a half ago. I had some one of these great young reporters from Notice, and then I had Paul Kine like you and me an old grizzled veteran walking stayed Rich.

And.

It was basically about this phenomenon. And also we were specifically talking about Dwight Evans, the congressman from Philadelphia who have a stroke last year, missed a lot of votes and is now back. But the same question being asked about him is the same question being asked about Eleanor Holmes Norton, the.

Delegate from Washington, d C.

Which is Philadelphia and DC need fighters. Are these two politicians Eleanor Holmes Norton, I think just turned eighty eight.

Yeah, are they up to.

The task owing our Holmes Norton cannot drive anymore because of her acuity about.

Kay Granger, the Granger story down in Fort Worth, where it was apparently in a in a in a in an assisted living she.

Was in a dimension centeral paycheck.

Yes, while her staff was clearly covering up so they wouldn't lose their infut.

Not just staff, by the way, right, not family and staff. That's right, Oh, there are.

The entire House Republican leadership knew about this because Kay Granger stepped down as chair of what was your chair of Appropriation.

Propriations, Like, so she shifted like the single most powerful committee slot you can have, okay, by the trailer committee that hands money out, yes.

And steps down. Uh. And then like at some point in there, this is like the may.

Or June summer yeah it was early summer.

Yeah, goes into a dementia center and then nobody knows about that.

Nobody knows it's a It took a reporter in Texas to track it down figure it out right, And all that time that district had not did not have a congression.

And this is not like a rural district, this is Fort Worth. And and this gets it too, the larger issue that I'm obsessed with, which is like, and you started off by paying a very nice compliment to the

But but it's like we.

Don't have enough local political reporters and there were there was more local accountability.

Let's I want to get Let's give this guy shadow because I should know his name by now. K Granger story because.

I think it was.

It was like an independent journalist, right, it was, I think a North Texas startup. I think I can't remember now, it wasn't like that. I'm trying to remember what it was myself. This is obviously, uh, really fun for folks when they can hear us googling.

So that's that's that's always good. That's good stuff.

My ajor stepped down is the top of this is the time, so the top of Republican appropriations coming in March, said she would not seek re elections.

She should continue to serve out the rest of her term. Unbelievable. It might have been the Dallas Morning News.

But the point was is that it just there's this there's less local urgency on political coverage and I don't know how because there's just fewer people doing it. And this is what happens is I don't think constituents are fully aware of, frankly, how invalid some of their representation is.

At times. Oh it's crazy, and look, I should also we should also note that age is not necessarily determinative of ability, although it's there is a correlation, but it's not necessarily determined.

Oh, I'm going to get grief my mother has noted the few times that I note you know about you know, and my mother works, and she's you know, I've.

Learned that to mention my parents in these situations.

So I'm not mentioned my mother. Exception.

Yeah, there are exceptions to this, but we cannot pretend that in your seventies and eighties people don't slow down a little and sometimes, you know, it is actually a good time to go in the porch and drink some lemonade and read some books and look at it.

But I'm going to be more crass about it, which is you're further away from how many Americans live their lives.

So how are you? How are you? How do you know.

Even how to represent people with small kids, people with kids in college?

You know what I mean?

You know, also not invested in the future because you're not going to be around for So this is why. By the way, so I got and I guess it's because of the movie Conclave. I got really into this Conclave. It was the first Conclave I got into.

As a dry love.

It's a single, that's my it's the election. I want to observe. The most Conclave of the movie was really good until the last ten minutes.

Yea, I didn't like the twist, but beyond beyond the twist, that movie got me really into the idea of the conclave, and I learned and I guess some people, a lot of people probably knew this, or at least our Catholic friends knew this. But like, cardinals over the age of eighty have not been permitted to participate in the conclave since the seventies. Since the nineteen seventies, Yes, the Catholic Church has been well ahead of the rest of the world.

The Catholic Church is rarely ahead of society on anything. Yeah.

No, but they were like, are on this The Pope said, well, they tried, they try to get cardinals to step.

Down at seventy five and they won't, right.

And so but what they said is okay, but you can stay on and emeritus or whatever, but you can't participate in the conclave. You can offer advice on the sidelines whatever. But like you're not voting because you're not And I guess the thinking is because you're not going to be around for the future of the church, and like it should be younger people.

And by younger they could mean seventy nine. But like still.

So there is this age thing that is part of

The parties are much stronger there, etc.

Couldn't happen in Canada, couldn't happen in New Zealand, couldn't happen in Australia.

But in the United.

States, in Washington, DC, it was inevitable And in fact, this has happened before to lesser extents, with Reagan and his Alzheimer's JFK and his Addison's Wilson and his stroke, and on and on.

FDR player in nineteen forty four, No way ever run for president, never should have run for president.

But you know what's interesting about that is that the party steps in, yeah, now, knowing that he's going to die, right, and at least forced him to pick a different price and has and say, okay, well, get rid of Henry Wallace, the Soviet sympathizer. Put in somebody else who could actually be president. They put in Harry Truman. So the party is hint to what's going on, but not to like.

What you can run. So let me get to some one.

One more on the book, the motivation to protect Biden, how much of it was about Kamala Harris and a lack of belief she could win.

That was an excuse? You?

Yeah, I was wondering is it an excuse or was it real? What do you think?

Like? What's your I think it was no.

I think that they thought this, And by they I mean Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Hunter Biden, and then what.

Was called the folks, I would say, Mike Donlan Rochetti, that's the pro That's what I was coming to.

Next.

The Pola Buro is the is the tight circle of topics. Okay. So it's Mike Donald and Steve Roshetty and others. Okay.

And they they thought the following one, Joe Biden is the only one who's ever beaten Donald Trump.

Two.

Therefore, Joe Biden is the only one who can beat Donald Trump in twenty twenty four. Three, Donald Trump postes an existential threat to the nation. If you believe those three things, you can justify anything.

Uh.

And they used Kamala as an excuse. Oh so Joe shouldn't run. So who's going to be the nominie?

Kamala? She's even less popular than him, which was true at the time. Well, well then why did he pick her? Why why did he pick her in the first place.

Plus, she wasn't right to me, if she wasn't prepared, you didn't have confidence in her and being president, then clearly this first what are we told the most? You know, the first decision a president makes is who they want as their number two. Well, if that's a failure, then their first decision was a failure.

Well, I think it's fair to say that he made the He made the pick for political reasons, not for governing reasons.

I guess, But I don't even understand the political reasons. I've never understood that pick. I've never understood what he look. I get what they I get what they thought it might bring to the ticket, but it didn't.

But anyway, go ahead.

Well, they thought that, especially after George Floyd and the protests, that black women are the beating heart of the Democratic Party, the most reliable and most needed voters, and the Kamala Harris had been vetted on a national stage because she'd run for president, done successfully and dropped out in twenty nineteen.

She had an impressive resume.

She was on paper an attractive candidate senator, former attorney general, former district attorney, et cetera. And they thought that it was a no brainer.

It was between.

If that is what you thought, then it wasn't even a close call. Val Demings was the pick. It was the same, I mean, why pick.

She was never really?

Why you don't pick the cop is the single look. I understand why they didn't pick her because they didn'.

Know her well enough. But it wasn't between baron An I know it wasn't, and it was between her, and it was between her and Whitmer.

Dennings and Val Deming's a congresswoman and former police chief from Florida, and Karen Bass, the current mayor of Los Angeles then a congresswoman from California, were publicly it was

And that's what he went with. But but yes, that would drive Pluff crazy.

David Pluff, Obama's campaign manager in OH eight, his chief of staff, I know, you know, I'm telling them, and uh and who was brought on to bring to help run the Kamala Harris campaign in those last time one hundred and seven days. It would driving him crazy because he'd be like, if you don't think she's up for the job, why did you pick her to be vice president?

Because they picked Remember Pluff and ex Rod helped pick.

But don't forget no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Biden. Excuse me. Axelrod was a Biden guy. Pluff did not want to pick Biden. Pluff argued against Biden all the way. Bluff hated all of them. Pluff, well, I really hated Biden. He never bought the Biden thing. He never was a Biden guy. There was a weird relationship there because you know, uh, Pluff's a Delaware It's from Delaware. Yeah, you know right, it's a Delaware kid.

But Pluff was never he was.

My understanding was he was the guy arguing against He wanted the generational pick.

You pick Kane. Look, that's it.

You know, we could play this game of original sin, right. Obviously,

You know there's a whole bunch of them.

And then you throw in Booker in thirteen, and Michael Bennett and ten. You know there was a whole generation of them that all would have been Klobashar is another one. All would have been primed to run in sixteen, but for Obama putting his finger on the scale for Clinton.

Yeah, he didn't. He didn't explicit least, that's my pre original sin on this.

If you really wanted to keep going back, because you wouldn't have been in the situation where you had Biden and Clinton as the sort of the only two people.

That could. We will probably never know thepromise candidate. We'll probably never know. Well, we can't wargame it.

But no, But I wonder if that was an explicit, behind the scenes deal when they had that meeting, you know, when she endorsed him finally after that had fought primary, and also when she came on board to be Secretary of State.

I wonder if just the two of them and nobody would even know. We'll never know.

Well, and Bill Clinton was a huge asset to Barack Obama in the reelect in twenty twelve. I look, I always I respected Obama. If Obama endorsed her basically out of loyalty, hey she you know, she she took one for me. You know, she brought the party together. You know, I owed her. That's politics, Like, I respect that mindset. Don't get me, but I agree it probably was the end of a deal. And I also think he did respect her and said, hey, this woman has the ability

I mean, the voters have rejected Ronald Reagan two times before they went for him.

You can't go by that. But I will say this not real. We got We get into this a little bit in the book because Biden has this chip on his shoulder based on this revisionist history that Obama picked her over him, when the truth of the matter is bo had just died in twenty fifteen, and Obama right, it was even no shape to run. It was in no shape to run.

And and just the political reality was that by the fall of twenty fifteen, Bernie and Hillary were both so popular it didn't even matter if that whole class that you're talking about had run. Hillary and Bernie were just so popular with the populists and with the base and with women.

You know, Bernie doesn't run if Hillary, if there's a you know, there were so many other folks. Elizabeth Warren probably runs in sixteen. If Hillary doesn't run and Bernie doesn't run. You know, Bernie only ended up running when nobody else would.

Hillary running is not dependent on Obama backing her. That's my point. Hillary was going, oh, you're not right there. No,

A top a might have been a trigger.

Yeah, And the top aide told us that watching his psyche Biden psyche then Vice President Biden psyche in twenty fifteen, when Bodon was like watching somebody pour water on the sand. And that was when he first started deteriorating with whatever he had, whatever generation.

And this is the part where I have tons of empathy. Okay, I you know, when my dad died, my grandfather outlived my father, and I remember he was catatonic. The lex he lived six years after my dad died, and he was a hollowed out person. Yeah, he was totally as you or I would be correct you. So I fully understand all that. But it does get at the point where he never should have put the country. Well, here's the thing that's put that he put his ambition. He

So it was blind ambition.

In I mean some of the other some of the other evidence that shows that he was declining significantly before he ran in twenty twenty is in the her Report where Robert Hurr. When Robert hur is investigating Joe Biden's mishandling of classified information, he finds these tapes or he gets these tapes of Biden taught the officer right, yeah, his.

Ghost his ghost writer.

And you know when he's sitting there in the skiff and he hears Biden say, I just found the classified documents downstairs, and you know, eyes light up, Oh my god, he just confessed. But on these tapes, Biden sounds old, and he can't remember dates and he can't remember facts, and that's in the her report, and that's twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. But what I find interesting about all this and I'd love to be able to talk to Barack Obama about this.

But he'll never give you or eyeen interview.

Ever.

Maybe he does the Gerald Ford and does a you know, there's a there's an interview that we don't know about that gets released after death, right, like that's a probably only shot we got.

Yeah, I let to know Obama's head.

So he so our reporting suggests that Biden, that Obama did not support Biden running for president of twenty sixteen because he didn't because he needed Biden was not in any condition because he was grieving his son so much. And I wonder if Obama, and I don't know if he's read the book or not, but I wonder if Obama looks back at that and thinks, oh, that wasn't just grief, that was something else.

I think it could have been grief that I think it's I don't know. I think it's hard to disaggregate it for what it's worth.

I just wonder what he thinks. And you know, I agree. He was never super accessible.

Much more accessible than Biden was, but he was never super accessible. When we were White House Correspondence, he started off, remember when he would like to have a lunch, have a lunch with the NBC team, have a lunch with the ABC team.

And then it was all good for about nine months and then the beer you know what it all? You know when it changed. It was I think it's the beer, the Beer Summit. Everything changed after the Beer Summit, our access to them change, everything.

Changed, you know. That was that was that was a that's my thesis.

You know, I felt like that that's when they that's when they got a little more.

You know, one of more pretorian.

Yeah, you have an interest, you know.

I was thinking about all the books you've written, and you've done fiction. Yeah, you've done war, a war book. You've done the sort of the the quick thing that Jesse Ventura book, Like I don't know how what you

How the hell did this happen? This is it? That was that was a right instant paperback in Saint Martin's price. Get it.

I think I was paid like ten thousand dollars. It was very early in my career.

Yeah.

Right, And you've done these various different and you what I think is interesting is most people who have authored as many books as you have, there's a pattern and other than generally politics being the subject matter, you've actually dabbled in different styles of writing, different styles.

So what do you like?

Is it one of those things you like at all and you like dabbling in the different styles, doing a little novel, or is there one? Is there one that you're like, you know what, in the next twenty five years, I hope to do five more like this.

No, it's it's entirely what interests me at any given moment, entirely, and there's really other than politics or at large, there's there's really no theme I have.

I'm working on two more books right now.

One of them comes out in October and it's about the prosecution of a terrorist and it's just I was at a paintball with my son for his birthday party, and because it's an hour outside of DC, you know, I have pizza and refreshments for the adults so they don't have to drive an hour and then drive an hour back, then drive an hour, you know whatever, just hang out for a couple hours while the kids beat each.

Other up in the woods.

And one of the dads comes up to me and says, Oh, I know Dave Roller from The Outpost And I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. Dave Roller is one of the heroes of The Outpost in my Afghanistan book.

And I said, yeah, that book's really tough.

The Pentagon, the military really doesn't keep very good records and they're very reluctant to share.

And he says, oh, tell me about it, and.

Then he proceeds to tell me this incredible case that he was an assistant US attorney for in which they had to build a case against a terrorist and it was just this unbelievable yarn and it was just so that's my next book, just because I was just like, Oh, my god, that's fascinating, what.

A great story.

So you're just a story follower and I mean this in a good like, Yeah, it's a good story. I want to tell you the store.

The one after that is illustrated. It's a great it's not enovel.

That's what I wanted to ask you, Like you've always like, if you could be a full time political cartoonist, would you be?

I don't think.

I don't think I'm good at it, honestly, Like no, I mean yes, if I had like a whole new set of talents, that's fun. Although that's a dying field, unfortunately, I don't. Just like I look at the political cartoonists that I admire. And I was just at the LBJ Library for this book tour and they showed me some pat Oliphant cartoons that they have in storage. At first of all, why are they in storage? Please put them up on the wall. But anyway, and they showed me, and.

Why are they at the LBJ library and not like LBJ.

Because pat Oliphant in the sixties LBJ would read the political cartoons, look at the ones he liked and has for that tell people to go get them, and then pat Oliphant would sign them respectfully pat Ollifant, and hand them to the president.

Yeah no, and it was like dozens of them, and it's just like, oh my.

I guess good for him for saving it. I mean,

No, it's so cool.

Anyway, I look at him and I'm like, that guy was just the best political cartoonist.

He just took no prisoners. He was such a beautiful draftsman.

I can't do that, but I will say the next book is about So. I was in France with my family and my son and I went to the Museum of the Resistance and we learned about Jean Mulan, the hero of the Resistance, and he was tortured by tortured and killed by the Nazi Klaus Barbie. And I'm like, oh, I've heard of Klaus Barbie. And then I just want to kind of went down this rabbit hole of Klaus Barbie, this Nazi who escaped justice after World War Two and

Doing a graphic novel, which you've never done before, So no, exactly.

Let's get out on political satire. Okay, your favorite satire out there these days? Who's doing? Because I think it's never been harder to be a satirist of our current political world because sometimes, you know, or if you try to fictionalize what we're going through, you can't come up with the scenarios that we're actually dealing with, right, Like some.

Of it is.

You know, if I would have told you ten years ago that, yeah, a president's family is going to start a mobile phone company, wow my god. I mean, like you know, like just the little thing like this one. Yeah, and you sit here and now it's just sort of normalized. I think it's never been harder to be a satirist or or or humorist where you need to you almost need to exaggerate in order to make a point, right R. How do you exaggerate? How do you sound this exaggerated?

Like these days?

I mean, you know, I do think the late night guys from Kimmel to Fallon, to Seth Meyers to Colbert to Bill Maher at.

You you're saying good things about all of them, all of them will help.

But I mean that they but I do see their clips and they do make that I do. The test for me is always just like, am I watching the clip? Am I watching the clip? And my watching it all the way through?

I do?

And Bill Maher you know, who is obviously not predictable in terms of the stuff he's ranting on. I appreciate to me it makes them slightly more interesting because it's not predictable, right, Yeah, yeah, I do, I do.

I do. I wish it was.

More thriving though, the political satire world, because it just does seem like it should be so ripe and yet at the same time there is.

Well there's like I take a guy like Greg Guttfeldt. I knew gut You probably knew him too. Twenty years ago. He was the editor of UK Maxim. He's the editor of UK Maxim and he was sort of an iconoclastic kind of guy, sort of loud, but also like would satirize anybody, right, And you know the version that we see of him now is not the guy that you know he could be. I think of more interesting satirists if he didn't feel trapped by I think or maybe

I mean, look, I don't I don't know Greg particularly well. I will say that you know he's probably delivering what the audience at ten o'clock on.

Fox points that's exactly right, meaning like he's let he's been audience captured.

Right.

And to me, the best satirists are the ones that aren't afraid of pissing off the audience.

I'll tell you, Like, when you asked about political satire, my mind immediately ran to Tom Larr, who from the sixties, who I still.

A showing our age even though was us.

He's still alive out there. And Tom, if you're hearing this, you're a You're a god. But I have to say and Ben Smith interviewed him once, like ten years ago, and I was like so jealous. He was a satirist who was just there to make the jokes and just vicious no matter who he was making fun of, the Democrats, the Republicans, it didn't matter, and he was so clever. And that's still I listen. I still listen to him.

You know?

I look, I know, I mean, you know, I will say this, I've I look at the animators. I think the South Park guys still have captured Oh they're great. Yeah, I think they they have captured this moment better than others. I think they really do well on the culture stuff. Like I really feel like the South Park guys really know how to sort of expose the cultural so great.

Do you know one of the reasons why they're so great. I'll tell you because I did a piece about.

Them for Nightline, like literally like twenty years ago for Nightlines.

If you have to say Nightline, it's automatically twenty Yeah.

Well they're still around, but yes, but is it? Sorry I didn't I have to be that one.

I had to be reminded of it's like you're telling me, like twenty twenty, is that still around?

I know, yeah, so they did. They crash it in a week. I mean, that's how they do it.

That's why they're so I mean they're also very very funny, and they're very very gifted storytellers, and they have no allegiance to any party, and they are making.

They're true libertarians. I mean, they really are. You know, they're Colorado Libertarians. I say this that you know, there's a distinction. You know, you and I've done this long enough where we know you got your your East Coast Libertarians or one thing you're but Colorado is a different cat, right, Like, it's just a different walk of libertarian and they capture it so well.

So they and they crash in a week. They do it in a week. It's also one of the reasons why the animation so whatever. But uh, but you know, and but they're brilliant and you know, they're the kind of thing that I remember trying to introduce my son to The Simpsons, and I got ahead of myself.

He wasn't ready for it.

Yeah, my son likes Family Guy okay and South Park okay,

Oh is that right, Shane gill Well, a lot of the I mean talk about political satire, so so Shane Gillis, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, like a lot of the guys who if you said that you like them five years ago, you'd get canceled like they you're right, they really and again everybody should live and be well and pro love and all that.

But like.

They're I guess, I guess what about snl We didn't even we haven't even mentioned snl uh in terms of political satire. I think weekend updates funny, but you know the funny two.

But you know the weekend that they exhausted. I'm exhausted from the Trump stuff. And it's not their fault, like you know, this is a formula and somewhat, Hey, you got to do the president. You got to do that, and they've been doing it for fifty years. You got to keep doing it.

Right. You should read the Lorn's biography, by the way, it's really good. But I've done a lot.

I heard a long interview with her, and yes it is.

It's a great it's a great book.

But let me just say, what I think is the funniest thing that SNL does is when Chay and Jost swamp jokes and Chay makes Jost say like the most racist jokes and.

The uncomfortable, Right, that's what you like. You and I both like a comedy that it's a little uncomfortable. Yeah, And to me, maybe that satire is supposed to make you a little long. You're not supposed to just be comfortable and laugh. You're supposed to be like, Oh, that's how you know it's effective satire, right, right?

And so I mean I do think that that is effective. And I think we are in an era right now of people who are very very sensitive and try to impose their sensitivities on everybody else, and people who have zero sensitivities and are.

Also try to put that on everybody. Right, And.

So what I guess whatever makes me laugh? You know,

I don't either. I don't Slow Horse.

I watch a lot of sports. Oh, I like slow Horses. You know, I didn't realize it was based on a series of books. I may, I may, that may be a summer may be a little summer fiction reading for me? Is that those slow horses. It's a whole series of books.

Did you know that I did?

And apparently the Gary Oldman character and by Gary Oldman easily top five actor of our lifetime. Right, it's unbelievable how he can just he's It's never like you always have to oh, that's Gary Oldman. You know an actor is good when you have to be told who it is and you don't know it right away.

Yeah, he's great horses. George Clooney is always George Clooney, Department Q. But you know what don't don't know? You shouldn't say that about George. Let me tell you why I watched.

No, I'm not saying he's not a good actor, but there's a difference. There's two types of actors. I read this and I thought may have been behind the kinds who there's aliens and there's humans. Right, there's those that become the character Gary Oldman does this, Meryl Streep because this, And then there's Harrison Ford or or even Julie Louis dreyfuss or, who are great, great actors kind of themselves stars.

There are versions of them. Go back and watch Clooney, Go.

Back and watch Clooney and Burn after reading, which is, yes, perhaps the most relevant film to today's Washington d C.

After reading.

But he's he's really good in that. I don't want you to think. I don't think he's not good. There's I'm just saying, it's just a different style of acting. Like it's the method acting. It's it's the I've got to become this person acting like the guy from Succession, Right, who's Jeremy Strong, right? Who other actors don't love his method? Right, there's all these there was all these Vanity Fair stories about oh he was hard to work with because he

God, he's amazing. Yeah. Well, just to think that the guy in Slow Horses is also the guy from Dracula from one hundred years ago.

My point is, is apparently the reason I want to talk Apparently the books, the character Gary Oldman plays in Slow Horses, right, with all the farting and how disgusting he is is awful. He's really appearly. It's like appairly. He's like even more disgusting in the books. Oh even worse, Yes, it's even worse. How could he be worse? I know That's what I'm like. I'm a little afraid of reading one of the books, like really, so is? He literally started watching the other one self.

In the middle of a of a of an interrogation.

Sorry, here's another one you'll like. Is I just started watching Department Q where that is?

Oh? Is that the That's an Amazon thing? Right?

This is a James Bond thing, like a spinoff.

I don't you know what? I have every streamer and I don't even know. I just talked into the thing and but oh I know what you made Department First problem, it's Scott frank Is, this writer director who's just absolutely brilliant. The first two isn't that? Is it a little James Is? It's basically no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

It's because it's it's basically Cold Case. It's basically Cold Case, not the TV show, but the concept is Britain or America UK. Yeah, Okay, it's really good. It's it's really good. And it's Matthew Good.

Do you know. I think it's pronounced good.

He's this incredibly good looking guy who he's like one of these guys. It's like like William Hurt, like a character actor, born into a leading man's body, and and he's he's in it and he's he's shaggy, and it's just it's good anyway, just recommended, just recommending. I still need to be get caught up on films. I haven't seen Sinners, I haven't seen Friendship. There's a ton I

So let me ask you this.

This is always something that people ask me about and I don't have a good answer than I just constantly read.

That's just what I do.

But you're also very culturally literate, and there's always and I'm sure people wonder where where do you find the time?

You know, I get used? How do you say that? Yeah? Right?

How do I get asked you? Because of the books? I mean, first of all, I'm very driven and obviously a little nuts.

Do you not sleep a lot? You probably don't sleep a lot, right, I.

Try to No, I need no, no, no, I need. I need more than that. I try to sleep a lot. I try to go and I go through different periods where I'm like, I'm sleeping well, and then I'll go through a pier where I'm not sleeping well. I just I work a lot. I'm just constantly working. I'm not veg I don't do a lot of vegging.

And in the.

Morning at work, if you're doing that, that means it's not really work.

Well, that's the other thing. I really mean, if it were work, you wouldn't do it. These a different are These books are a joy. But I'll tell you, I'll I'll tell you that. I'll tell you the way I do it.

I constantly have this laptop or my iPad that I'm drawing on with me at all times.

And if I put down my.

Stupid phone and stop reading Twitter or Instagram and go online and start working on Google Docs.

Or all I'll say is, ever since you slowed down on social media, you've written more books. And I'm not saying there's a correlation.

There is a correlation. I stopped. Oh no, I were a heavy tweeter. You were heavy. It was a big tweeter. And I'm twenty fourteen to about twenty eighteen, right when you say.

I don't know when I I don't know when I stopped, but I definitely stopped. And it's funny when people like attack you for things that you haven't done in five or ten years later.

I feel the same way at which look, if there are times I go back, I regret how much I was on Twitter in twel oh yeah, twenty twelve, totally, totally.

Do I remember, like in that early experience of like twenty two thousand and nine twenty ten.

People would tweet.

People would tweet, and I'm including myself in this, like anything they were experiencing or thinking they would share, and it was almost my.

Remotes not working here, you know, like tweet him, you know, it was like, what are we doing?

And I remember Mike Allen now currently of Axios, and I don't know who he was with at the time, maybe Politico or whatever.

I don't remember who he's with at the time, but.

I remember him writing something about it, and I was like, and I had tweeted something about Alice, my daughter when she was maybe like one, and it's something like, uh, you know, whatever I was experiencing with Alice at that moment, I tweeted it, which is insane, and Mike had written something like love Jake, love Alice, But why why is he sharing this kind of thing?

And I just I remember thinking first I was like, oh, you know, fuck you, but then I was like, oh,

This is going to sound like phony phoniness to some people, and you can we shouldn't be celebrities, of course, but I always say it, I didn't choose, you know, I don't think you know, but somehow we became personalized to people when it came to write how they got their political information. So rather than viewing us simply as a vehicle for information, right, they you know, were the where the you know. And it's just look, it's been very

I will I will just say where we are.

I will just say that I think the most important thing that journalists can do is report. And I don't consider like my tweets about the Eagles to be anything

Like that's all right, let me get you out of here on this. You're a Philly guy. You love all the Philly teams, and when they're winning, you're going to love all the Philly teams.

But when when they're currently which of they.

Are most for the most part?

Right, Phillies and Eagles in particular, we can you know, But of those four teams, who will you follow even when they suck? Which one of the four do you like? You'll torture yourself to keep following them, even if it's just a horrendous situation, Like what's the what's the true first love of those four of those four films?

I mean, it's a time between the Eagles and the Phillies, depending on what the season is, I just have to say. And then probably Eagles have a leg up right now because they've won two Super Bowls since twenty eighteen.

I think about it, you were like, you were of amazing, You were of that. I mean Wilbert Montgomery, Harold Carlmichael, Mike Schmidt. I mean that that period of seventy nine to eighty one, right where you where Philly got baseball and Pete Rose your baseball and football we.

Were in the super Bowl.

Your age, your age, that's pretty That leads an impression. It's like why my son is obsessed with Yes, well, exactly.

I remember when Pete Rose came to the Phillies in seventy eight, seventy nine from the Reds. And then I remember when Tug mcgrawth through that final pitch in nineteen eighty I was eleven, and the very next year or like January February of eighty one, the Eagles were in the Super Bowl. And then the eighty two eighty three season the Sixers won the championship. So that period, I mean imagine being ten, eleven, twelve during that period, like it was an incredible gift to young sports fans.

But then no, and that's that's how fandom, that's how it sticks. So Flyers is probably the weakest of the four.

I'm just not a hockey fan, and it's probably just because I can't follow them.

They not good. Do you think they know?

No, no, the broad state, but Bullys were great in the seventies when I was growing up. I just, you know, probably also a lot of this is just shape by who your parents are rooting for and who your friends are rooting for. Although I will say my best friend when I was in grade school, a guy named Jason Lerner, was a huge.

Bobby Clark and Flyers fan.

And maybe if, just like life, maybe if he had taken me to a game, I would have become a Flyers fan.

I don't know, but I just I've been sitting on a Manila envelope of for some reason, have a World Series Champion Phillies color photo from top somehow, oh my god, nineteen eighty and I've literally it's been for Jake.

It's been sitting on my desk. So what of these times? I will remember it.

When we we see each other for dinner. But I do I think of you all. I like that, the the eighty Philly stuff. I'm you know, way into sports collectibles.

These days.

Oh yeah, and I know you are too. You're sort of a sneaky eBay guy. Comic books, what is it?

Comic book, comic books, political cartoons, historical stuff. And then I do have I do have a bunch of baseball cards, and I think I have almost every Mike Schmidt card ever except for this one very obscure sticker card from when he was with the Puerto Rican League in like seventy one seventy two. That's how you won't find that, I know, I know, I just got by the way, I just got Jackie Robinson's rookie card that was a which one.

Forty eight leaf for forty eight nine leaf forty okay, because the forty nine leaf is also.

Marketed as a rookie card. It's not though right now, I know, I know it's actually.

The same exact photo, it's the same exact everything, just they just reprinted it in forty nine.

Yeah, and there's a lot of fakes out there also, yes there is, yeah, so but yeah, and Jackie Robinson memorabilia. Just because I've just become a huge Jackie Robinson fan, it's for like thirty years, just because of who you are.

No, I've I've got it.

Campanella was my dad's favorite player, So I do Campanella and Jackie, but more I've been Campingella because it's it's a little more affordable.

Did you do.

Anything when the when so the Dolphins didn't get their their white house visit during nick time.

I was never a Dolphins fan. My dad always right.

Yeah, my dad had a grudge against the Dolphins for ripping off the university, the Dolphins and the Hurricanes in Miami. You know, my first love is college football. Is university like that. I will fall if they're owen, if they're o and twelve, I will watch every game matter like I'm gonna you know, I will torture myself.

I love everything about them.

And my part of that is again, I was of age when they dominated college foot like, so when that happens, when you're that age, you never lose it. But no, my father was not a Joe Robbie.

Do you hate University of Florida with a fashion no other? Ye? And you consider do you still consider them cheaters? Cheater?

I mean, any any member of the SEC automatically is a cheater.

But did they get did they get a championship? Did they get a championship strip from them in the eighties or something.

Are on probation a couple of times. But no, they didn't lose a title. Okay, I don't remember them getting a title yanked. Okay, I think I think that happened to Kentucky basketball.

I wouldn't say. I wouldn't wherever John CALLI, wherever John Colin goes.

I just remember this T shirt who says we're not champs and it was a Florida Gator.

Anyway, Yeah, there was a year where they were considered the best team, but they were ineligible to go to Do.

You edit these at all? Do you edit these podcasts? I don't like, not know, I like them up? Why are you will have to? No, I don't care. I'm just want you know, I let it go. I let it go. We went too long. This is too long. But I don't care. I'm just wondering if people care about like my phillies, they'll stop.

We'll find out only the hardcore people. I mean, you

But you know what, I'm not allowed to do yet, and in fact.

In some ways if you if you have you know, I always said my first name up until January of twenty twenty eight was meat right, and so until your your your first name is still going to be c Right. For seeing Jake Tapper, and still you could be Jake Tapper. I wouldn't do it.

Yeah, no, I would love to do it. I think it looks like you guys are all having so much fun and like what people have been able to.

Let's the fact you can have the longer conversation. I mean, my biggest frustration with television interviews is that I think that unfortunately the I've to a ten minute interview has been what I call perfect. It everybody knows how to evade it if necessary. Everybody you know it's performative. And I don't mean it in a pejorative way. It just it just is. Everybody understands the time limits. Everybody understands how you can run out the clock. You know, there's

It looks like you guys are all having so much fun, honestly, you I mean, and you're all. Everybody's building different things. But whether it's you or Crystaliza, or it's Atality or whatever, like everybody building different stuff.

Well, we're in the middle of you know, the history of media is new technology fragmentation, consolidation, new technology fragmentation, consolidation. You and I both benefited from the initial fragmentation of the Internet, right, maybe we got our breaks. I always say because of the Internet. Well, guys didn't want to do it. And I think streaming is this next thing. I don't know what this is going to look like

A row, four weeks in a row.

I know, crazy, right, hang on, man, we were number one, number one for two of those weeks, or as Fox News says, not selling very well.

So well there you go. Well I'm sorry you didn't have a billionaire just purchase boxes of them.

No, we sold, we do the web kitting. We're selling really really well.

But it's always like a yeah, this isn't like a Donald Trump JUNIORR bestseller right where you just sort of I.

Didn't mention him by name, but but I will say that it was just very funny. Part of the book tour that was interesting was and we can talk about this over drinks when I'm going to be really candid, is just the information the misinformation silos that people are in, because people were rooting against this book from the far left and the far right, the world of normies and Strage, the world of normies in between were very interested in embrace the book and bought it, and the reviews were

You were content, and I know, which was weird.

It was just very weird because it's like, who is this person they're talking about and I'm not talking about anybody.

The only other author that that happens, you know that happened is that happens to Woodward now these days, and it happened. It happens to Michael Wolf all the time right these days. Part of that is the way he drips out information, But Michael Wolf becomes the story with his book sometimes.

Yeah, and I didn't.

It was just very You didn't choose this yet, No, no, I wanted the scoops to be the news, and for the most part they were, but it was it was just interesting. It was very interesting because I don't pay a ton of attention to the far left and the far right when it comes to their misinformation silos, Like I just don't like, it's not worth my time for people who are You.

Feel though, that you need to be informed of rabbit holes. You need to know what rabbit holes they go down, Like I feel like I need to know the rabbit holes that I feel like I follow up Carlson or Rotar going down.

Well, but yes, but I feel like I am I follow enough people who are rabbit hole adjacent that that I'm aware of some self awareness. Yeah, yeah, No, like I'm fully aware of Tucker Carlson's interview with Ted Cruz, right, I mean, and without having to like.

But also that's not even a rap.

I mean, that's that's that's relevant because that's the mag of fight and Tucker and Tucker and crews are not fringe characters.

They are they're mainstream characters, but they're they're they're part of the act.

But that said, the misinformation silos were really interesting to watch, and also the horseshoe theory of the misinformation silos, but we'll talk about that some other time over cocktails.

Yeah, it's amazing that this whole time where there's a news story that's hanging over our head, that we're all waiting for it to.

Be an act. I don't think he's gonna Yeah, well, who knows, But you're right, you can't predict I can't.

And by the time, this is very unpredictable. This is

Well, i'll tell you, let me tell you something about it anymore, But who knows.

Yoav Gallant, the former Defense Secretary for Israel told me that just and this will be the last thing to say, but he told me on Wednesday on air that Israel had degraded Iran's nuclear capability several years and so I thought, oh, well, then President Trump doesn't need to bomb the facility at four to oh where the nuclear Richmond's going on, because now you have a couple extra years before they can

Trump wants to do.

But I think he's also he's really you know, he's really into this concept.

Look as much, look as much as I I think he's you know, temperamentally, you know, you there's probably three hundred and twenty nine million other people that temporarily might be better prepared for dealing with some of these situations.

He's been jammed. And it's not an easy decision.

No resident would be sitting here because I know, one one one, you have some staffers that are going, look, they've never been this degraded. You've never You'll never have a better chance to wipe this out than right right now, And if you don't take it, you may not have another chance, so yes, And on the other hand, what if it doesn't work right?

On the other hand, rock right on the other hand, Afghania, rock right exactly. In the other hand, Syria. On the other hand, Benghazi, yeahah, no, it is there's I'm not you know, we all give. It's easy to give.

I mean, I can't believe he like, lets us all watch this, you know, the sort of indecisiveness and real time. But he isn't it. He's been put into a corner. It's not easy.

Yeah. I don't know if sympathy is the right word, but.

I look, this is the job you wanted to be president.

You know there was that.

You know, Obama used to talk about it, right, mare, He used to say this all the time. One the decisions that gets to my desk are the ones nobody else wanted to make.

Right.

This is the this is the definition of that. Yes, are you do you want to write? It's all out there, But yeah, perfect Tapper.

We we did our little We let people in on something.

Maybe we'll say, all right, please, buddy, I'll talk to you soon. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Appreciated.

Like I said, Jake, and I we grew up professionally together, so and we will fight like brothers, and we will

Ask Chuck.

First couple questions is when it comes from Joe D from Santa Maria, California. Howdy, Chuck, have been a follower

Thank you?

Well, look, I think since nineteen seventy five. Well, that just talk about your recency bias, right, you know? For me, I just I guess I look at it at the people I trust, So you'd have to put cronkite on there. David Brinkley, you know, one of the proudest things for me at NBC I my desk in my office was David Brinkley's desk. It was actually one half of David Brinkley's desk.

He had this monster desk that had one of those like old school like it was.

It was, you know, it had had two sides to it. It was like L shaped. Well you know, the L had been long gone, but I had the one part of it. And you know, I always thought it was a nice homage that I was sitting in Tim Russell's chair,

First.

I mean, I remember Tom Broke telling me, you know when I sort of got handed the baton. He said, Man, NBC has always been you know, he says, CBS kind of ate our lunch in the coverage of Vietnam. That's what he once told me, he said, But nobody topped NBC for politics David Brinkley. Then from Brinkley, I went to Brokon Russert, and yes, I took the baton from there. So that's always mine. It was one of the challenges

Do you know that.

I know there's a lot of cheaper polling out there, but remember, you get what you pay for. That's all I will say, you get what you pay for on that front. So i'd have again TV side, I gave it to you, Cronkite, Brinkley, Brokeaw Russer. I'd put those four up there for now.

But that's.

Either's so many other places. I would want Chip to sort of put up put up others on there as well. Second question here comes from Andy g Andy from LA home of the Dodgers. What should happen if the Nats get swept by the worst team in baseball history? The

I know it.

Think it's Willie Stargel that has the longest home run in history out of Dodger Stadium, if I'm not mistaken Andy, But I was happy to see James Woods show up and uh and and make sure people saw that. Look,

Out of trouble. So uh and that damn song Max and Ruby, Ruby and Max, Well somehow it you know, you're coming up with a name, and it had to be Ruby.

So she was a good dog. She had a hard last couple of years, hard last couple of years at kidney failure, liver failure, all those things, and she was spent a Trooper. It's one of those couple of years ago we were told was never going to get better, but we just wanted to make sure that she was, that she could live a comfortable life. And then when she couldn't, we wanted to know, and we figured she'd

We all do.

But it's uh, it's it.

Well, you're reminded, and it's so true.

No matter how bad my day was, my dog Ruby was always happy to see me, especially if I give her a treat. She was always happy to see me, especially when I was cooking and would accidentally, well not so accidentally, drop stuff on the floor for her. So, you know, in a vicious town, right, Harry Truman said it best right, If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. It's more true every day, as toxic as things get. And I think it says something my neighborhood.

All right with that? You know?

C the Sarah McLoughlin, uh and I will see you the next time we unload