Who Takes The Fall For Tariff Disaster? + Trump’s Enemies List

Hello there, Happy Friday. Here at the Chuck Podcast. This is a bit of a bonus episode. I don't always not always going to drop four in a week, but this has been one of those weeks, and I know, and the Trump era, there's always one of those weeks, and that's always a word of warning. Sometimes, right just when you think, oh my god, can it get any crazier,

That Kushner.

Previous and Pence were stabilizing forces for conventional economic thinking, conventional national security thinking, and conventional day to day governance of the larger entity that is the federal government. And it's pretty clear that by the time Trump got to the end of his first term, he knew exactly what happened. Right, He went through four National security advisors because he didn't

Of the party.

Now, look, he had picked Mike Pence because there was he needed to try to heal. He needed to try to reach out to a wing of the party that was skeptical of him, the evangelical community, and he thought Pence would help him with that, as well as mainstream conservatives. And then he didn't know anything about how Washington worked, and so he delegated a lot of authority to Mike Pence.

And Mike Pence, I think, you know.

As the more people are learning about the job he did and the things he did that we didn't see every day. You know, there's a core competency to Mike Pence. You may have some ideological disagreements on certain ideas that he had out there, but he had a core competency to him and something that came through during COVID, something that when you talk to a lot of governor's Democrat or Republican that were on those COVID calls, you know, the the chaos was Trump's. The the the planning and

On the up and up.

We're going to discuss this, and I discussed this with Mark Puto in a minute, but I do think that you've got to see what this is for the chilling effect, that that the that this administration, and it's more orchestrated by Steven Miller than it is Trump. You know, one thing about Trump is that he has plenty of grievances, but he's usually a bit too lazy to execute revenge fantasy. You know, he has revenge fantasies, but actually to execute

It's why you know you sit here.

I saw there's a few lawmakers that would like to

As much of that friction as you can.

But ultimately, the reason I'm dropping this special pod is because I think Marco Puto is going to be able to paint a picture for you and to understand who's you know, who's on the end, Who's who's got his ear in the moment, who doesn't have his ear in the moment?

Right?

Who got benched in this? I'm looking at you, Peter Navarro. What is the status of Howard Lutnick?

Right?

Does he have a cell by date? Well, everybody in Trump world is a sell by date. We just don't always know what date what dates on the milk carton. But is it sooner or is it later? All these things you're going to learn in this interview, But I do think it's helpful to understand we're all trying to figure out what guardrails were working with him, and there

You can't.

You can't just somehow stop it in its tracks, rebuild it somewhere else without having massive, massive, catastrophic.

Collateral damage.

And I'll tell you one other thing that I want to leave you with that the tariffs are are already

Who's the hand to the king these days? It is mister Mark Caputo.

So joining me now is the person who I think has the best pulse on the Trump White House. It's not an easy thing, and we're going to discuss how do you know when to take a Trump source at their word, which is one of the great sort of enigmas trying to that that Washington produces these days. But Mark Caputo of Axios, the beat writer, uh for Trump, I guess you're what's your official title for Axios?

Let me get it right, white House is Trump White House reporter?

Uh?

National political reporter some sort of.

You are.

Just to give a little bit of your credentials for those don't realize that one of the reasons you're on this beat. You're sort of the king of Florida reporting. I've known for so long political reporting, and the Trump white House is now basically the Florida produced by Florida power brokers. Donald Trump became a Floridian of sorts and became the Florida Florida man.

Let's speak clear.

Yeah he is now I know hundred percent from New York. But you are the first sort of beat writer not based in Washington for the White House. You are actually based in Miami. You come up a lot, don't get me wrong. You uh were kind enough to speak to

Uh and that was very fat. But here you are.

And I guess the number one question I have after the the gyrations of the week with trade and tariff is we know Donald Trump never makes a mistake, So the question is who takes the fall. It appears Peter Navarro has been benched for a while. Now we know you can be benched. It doesn't mean you're ostracized. There's a difference. There's ostracizing there's Benching, and then there's still

Here, I think you've probably hit it on the head. The interesting thing about Lutnik is that he's got so many critics in the administration, and I think a lot of it just.

Boils down to his style. He is this outer Burrow be like, hey.

I gotta tell you something, And he's got the He's got a lot of these Trumpet qualities where like like, no one knows finance better than I. Now, don't get me wrong or me uh, I mean, he's a billionaire, self made man.

Et cetera.

But you know, in the Trump White House, it's like highlander, right, there can only be one.

There only can be one.

But that's the thing, Like, it is always funny to me to watch Republican members of Congress who is giving him this bad advice? Who is telling him to do these things? And you're like, wow, you know you you know it can't be, dear leader, We know this, So who's the bad whisperer? Here right, like, so, I.

Mean Donald Trump, Donald Trump's wanted to do that. Let's just be clear. Donald Trump is wanted to do this.

For thirty years or whatever it was when we first.

Talked about running. The reason he had Peter Navarro there was to cook up a formula. And the formula you cooked up, according to every analyst who knows what they're talking about, was just absurd.

The columns were wrong.

But Dave Trump what he needed, and so Navarro sort of served his purpose. But I want to be clear about Lutnik is, while I understand all the reporting that's been done about people being annoyed with him and oh he went off script and oh we did this. Yeah, as of now, and this could change in five minutes between when you post it, as of now, Howard Lutnik is in good stead. I mean, it's basically like him the Commerce Secretary and the Treasury Secretary Scott besson't and Besting'

And if if.

Lutnick was really on the outs this way, he wouldn't be on television all the time.

And he's on telephone.

Yeah, I take that, and I but I tell you what wreaked of desperation of him when he wanted to let everybody know he was in the White House at the moment giving that tweet out, And that told me he clearly wanted to send the message I'm not on the outs, I've not been I'm not the I'm not getting blamed here, I'm sitting with your leader, right And it was like it it really was sort of a proof of life right the way he worded that tweet.

Yeah, Well, he knows and his people know that there are multiple people in and around the administration that don't like him. And even though he's a billionaire, he bought a thirty million dollar house in the DC area, and he wants to be able to live in it for more than a few months before he kind of has to.

Go back home.

By the way, the high end real estate market in DC, my goodness, Stryt, Mark Zuckerberg, Howard Lutnick. I mean, the first administration, it was really just Wilbur Ross that truly planted some expensive stakes into this boy. This is another level there does feel as if a lot of people feel the need that to get close to deer leader, you've got to live You've got to live here, You've got to have a house here.

One of the you're talking about the sort of the deer leader dynamic. There's a really good his treat book called The World by Simon Sebeg montafy Or, and at the very beginning of it he points out how potentates throughout history have courts that are characterized by the closeness to power is equals the more power you have.

Yeah, I'm glad you just used that phrase. That's exactly this is. This is his core totally right. You know, he has certain people that he wants in it to play with until he's tired of them, right, I mean, and he's by the way, and he'll get tired of them.

We know this.

We just don't know who get in what order do they get ostracized and replaced?

Yeah, I mean, not to engage too much in the sort of the Trump world survivor, but yeah, I guess

Oh to which one? Which one? Yeah? Yeah? So I mean if you're if you're a betting man, you know.

All right, But let's talk about because I think the biggest fear many many folks had, including myself, was what if you know, we all look, I think we all assume the markets were going to be a guardrail with Trump on these policies and it for the entire weekend. You're like, oh no, what if this is Thelman Luise? What if he's like, you know what, I ain't running again. I always wanted to do this. I believe in it, and I don't. I'm never going to be poor? What

Is it?

Who spooked him? Who scared him? Who had the ear?

Here?

Is it? Best from my reporting which I wrote, is there were basically three factors that combined to have Trump change his mind. Number One, he was hearing from every possible CEO, so E Susie Wilder.

And they all have him at speed down, don't they correct? Or between him and her, they all have these two cell phones, so they were getting direct agitated calls.

So you get correct and that that's there.

But but the three factors bottom line were besn't and and Lutnik went in there certainly with the hope of getting a pause, and so their pitch was, hey, we got seventy five countries that want to make a deal now, and we don't have the time and staff to do this. Like, let's sort of like, how do you And they didn't say, let's do this. Apparently they said, what do you want to do? Right, like, because you don't tell Donald Trump what to do with you present the.

Hockey choice, right, you know. So so that was one.

The second one that was part of it was China is, hey, China came out and disrespected you with raising the tariffs, and now you have this goal and opportunity of doing a pause, making a deal with everyone and isolating China and putting a ring around China. And then the third one, and this is probably not in order if you think about it, it's just the bond market and the stock market.

It is the gold bar.

Of the twenty first century. Gold bars are great, Treasury bonds.

Are greater, are greater.

So so it was sort of those three factors. It was not just sort of one person. And though it wasn't as only Bill Ackman out there pounding away on Twitter like oh please.

Really, Bill Ackman's tweets didn't have an impact up shot, they did not.

You're talking about It's like coffee plantation or something like a heart goes out to you.

But you know Trump.

What's always interesting about Trump, especially the more time you give him, is while he is not known for telling the truth, is that there is a sodium pentathl quality about Trump.

He always tells you.

Correct, you've just got to content figure out that yesterday He's like the ball.

Market, Yeah yeah, and and and yet, dear leader. Yet you know Levitt, the bag dad Bob. God, what is she doing.

She's doing what she's supposed to do with That's her job, I guess.

But it really does feel like bagdad Bob has met North Korea. Between that and these and these reports about his golfing, I mean.

I don't know, man, I mean, you know.

What I found interesting over the past week, and I, of all weeks to take off, I took last week off because I had a some personal things.

Please.

I used to tell this of people that, you know, I told this to my friend Kristen Walker. What's who was paranoid that she was going to miss something at first Tart, But I'm like, first of all, yes, you're going to miss something, but I promise you, literally, the day you get back, there'll be seven new developments that will make it irrelevant that you missed something. Mark, I say the same thing to you, Sure you really actually did miss a thing?

Well, I'm you know, it's always kind of good to be in the flow. But what was notable for me throughout the process here was that this is a team that he has assembled that believes in him, and they weren't sending the words like oh my god. Because if this or Trump number one, like the Trump one point zero Trump forty five White House, there would have been all these reports about.

This guy's crazy, this guy's mad. Jared Kushner.

What if Jared Kushner would have done their leak and their official leaky, right, yeah, I don't.

Clearly when your I'd be like you sure you guys aren't nervous, like, well, you know, but you know, this is what he campaigned on, they said, which is not fully true. Donald Trump didn't campaign in the idea like, hey.

Uh, trade war, trade war with the entire world.

With the entire world, and by the way, you're gonna have to swallow some you know, some pain here, right.

He didn't talk about the toughness the opposite, right prices, I mean, my my, I remember, you know, it was sort of like Kamala equals high prices, Trump equals low prices, right, Like that.

Was the They were putting out yard signs that said that. Towards the end, I mean, you talked.

About the Kamala crash. Just everything, hold on for half

So it's interesting comparing Trump one and Trump two because I the morn you know, there was a whole group of voters who told us, well, you know, they thought that a Trump one wasn't so bad, right, And it turns out, well, Trump one was an entirely different administration

Right.

The people who are out him now are either the unconventional picture, or true loyalists, or people who became true allies who knew what they were getting. Into the latter category, Marco Rubiyat.

Who decided they wanted the accent that they were willing to trade their potential reputation. You know, by the way, what do you make of you said that there wasn't many leaks. There was there was somebody friendly to Bessant who was leaking. Oh he wants And you and I both know Trump isn't going to like that. No, And I wonder how much rope, how much leeway Besson's going to get, or if he better, he better fix that at some point.

Yeah, I don't want to name names, but I'm pretty sure I know who leaked that story to Politico about bessent't flying back with Trump flying down there. What was totally left out of the story was that Howard Ludnick was there at mar A Lago with Donald Trump and flew back with Bessett and was basically saying the same thing.

But you often find this.

In politics, where the lieutenants of the principle right where the cardinals around their little pope hate the other pope so much more than you know, the kind of the rival popes would sort of hate each other, dislike each other.

You know the.

By coincidence before Trump made his announcement, Owen Cass who is sort of more of an ideological guy who's been sort of works at one of the think tanks that are trying to create intellectual and intellectual argument for trump Ism. You know, we can debate, you know, some of these, but he at least laid out a way you could have done all this. Yes, that would have given some certainty to be given the business community time to absorb, given trading partners time to negotiate.

Should we look at that as the model?

Now?

Are they now going, okay, let's try to be more orderly about this, And should we expect something a bit more orderly going forward?

Or is Trump going to get impatient again? Yes? And yes, I think so.

I think there's more of an orderly process. One of the things I made sure to avoid in the story that I wrote about what sort of led up to Trump putting the pause was, you know, the everyone administration was like, oh my god, Donald Trump, are of the deal Grand strategists like, no, folks, this is Donald Trump sort of trial and error and experimenting with things in real time.

And I think he.

Had to touch the hot stove a few times to realize like, oh wow, it really burns.

But conversely, he also realized that the.

Market's getting as we're talking now the market. You know, it was a one day reprieve. Right, about half of it's been given back because we are in a full on trade war with China.

And then that's the real thing they don't like.

Generally speaking, this is where Trump perhaps is directionally right, is that, Yeah, the stock market is a global financial correct issue.

This is the globalists.

And when you try to do it America first. I'm putting it in air quotes as much as scare quotes. When you do an America first policy to import job or grow your domestic manufacturing and change the United States economy, the globalists sort of punish you for.

You know, the biggest problem Donald Trump has right now is, you know, one of the things that I would look I think if he wanted to do this, he should have done his tax cut first. And by the way,

I think the answer to that is yes, but they're not telling me, so you can sort of hear it in their voice, which is this like, oh, you know, it is what it is.

That's sort of the guiding principle.

I mean, the tax guid Even if they get it now, it's not gonna have any people aren't going to feel like it had any impact on their lives, not whatsoever, because you're going to have this inflationary period.

That's possibly true, but Trump feels really strongly about wanting

As that. But here's the other thing they gave up, Mark, is they gave up the ability to blame Biden for the economy. Now this is now all Donald Trump's economy, like like he created this shakiness now for better or for worse. Obviously, if it works, he gets a bunch of credit. But right now, you know, and you're being

They're not looking good, and I'm not sure it's going to get much better because in the end, if you want to change the United States in no more of a manufacturing society, you have to have manufacturing plants, and we really don't have them.

And where's the shovel. Where's any shovel going into the ground on a new factory. Like if I were Donald Trump, I'd be desperate for that symbol right now. I'd go to the opening if I could find some company to break ground on some T shirt factory that is moving from Vietnam, right Like, you know, A one thing I thought Trump was usually smart about was was sort of showman symbolistic showmanship, and they don't even have that.

They don't have that. And you know, on a more granular level, a good example is wood. Right. You know they're talking about the we have tariffs on Canada. Now you know I live. I live in the southeast.

A lot of the construction tubuy forst we use here made out of Southern yellow pine. But the Canadian pine is superior wood. And the reality is Tenni's got a

You're not doing it overnight.

Anything with building, manufacturing plants just doesn't happen.

I want to ask you about the Chris Krebs thing in the Miles Taylor thing, because it does seem as if is there a list Is he going down a list of like, Okay, I'm going to get my revenge? Is it Stephen Miller? Is there somebody that's the keeper of this? Because Donald Trump forgets half the enemies that he has, So I don't know.

I don't know if he does about that.

Well, yeah, but I am curious, is this is this It's just Miller and just assisting in executing.

The plan or is Hee the keeper of the flame on this stuff.

Don Trobe is surrounded by people who do maybe dear to your point, who are.

Are sort of the bearer of his.

Grudges, and they do remind him of who wronged him and so who reminded him.

He didn't even really know who Chris Krebs was.

About Chris Krebs, I think he sort of knew who Miles Taylor was, but Crebs is sort of a lesser character. But yes, there are people around him who say those sorts of things and sort of remind him. There is always the ongoing effort among his advisors to try to minimize the encounters he has where he has to spend time on grieving stuff, and he kind of focuses more on his day job. What I wonder about the investigations that he essentially authorizer called for of Krebs and and

Well, what's the you know, are they really doing an investigation or are they sending a message to any potential whistleblower in Trump two point zero.

I think it's a little bit of both.

But I do think they're going to get visited by by agents there and they're gonna have to lawyer up a person I know, or some people I know from Trump one point zero who got hauled before Congress, who had to hire lawyers, right and.

We're never charged, are so.

Bitter at what happened that even though what Trump is now doing with crabs who really had nothing to do with the Russia stuff.

Yeah, all he did was say, hey, the election wasn't stolen, say the truth. Yeah yeah, And there was a faction.

In Trump world.

There are some legitimately aggrieved people who are just out for blood, and that also populates sort of the broader Trump chorus.

Is that the role Todd Blanche is supposed to play at the oj that he's there to to sort of make make other people's lives miserable. I think that's probably more cash. Buttell the keeper of the investigations. But it seems like Blanches, Yeah, those are just people. Remember Donald Trump wanted the loyalist and people he could trust, and Todd Blanch, the Deputytory General, really burned the ships to come work for Trump. He left, he had to leave a job from another law firm because law firms would

He was all in, and so blance has also sort of internalized that same thing of it's us versus.

Yeah. Again, I'm not just as of this total.

No, no, no, no, That's what I was curious, like, how much of this is a piece of paper more to threaten the current? You know, mid level staffers who who might get, you know, ideas in their head that hey, I work for the taxpayers. Maybe I don't tell the truth right that that happens for a lot of even political appointees. They sort of they can feel the weight and they start to you know, waiver.

So I think it's more like.

I think I think it's more revenge rather than foresight.

You really think it's right, I just do.

It's like whoever's around, Uh, we're and yes, it does.

Sort of slippery slope stock it is. Yeah, and I think it sends a message.

Uh. And in addition to that, remember they're not particularly worried in the broader Trump orbit here about whistleblowers and future lawsuits, because when this president leaves office, every single person who worked for him, whom he likes, is going to get a full and complete pardon for everything. Ever from now until the beginning.

Of time, every single person will get a pardon if they think it. I was just going to say, so if you if you turn on him at all or you cause him in his head political harm, he may not give you that part.

Oh totally. Yeah.

I think everyone who decided to get in get on board the the USS. Donald Trump knew the score.

So I'm going to take advantage of something I learned from you when we last saw each other about a week or so ago about HHS. And what's intriguing to me is look lost in all of the tariff, the liberation from Our Savings Day that took place last week was the fact that Bobby Kennedy Junior said that the measles vaccine was the best way to prevent measles. He shows up in the community that doesn't seem like a decision Bobby Kennedy Junior made on his own. Is that

Well, I did a story a few weeks ago about how the White White House has had to open up a parallel press shop to handle messaging from HHS because it's been such a mess under Kennedy. And that's largely because he has this loyalist who's been within this entire time, who has insisted on controlling all things about his messaging and his press. And she's bad at the messaging. Name

Now.

I don't have any insight into how the measles evolution occurred, but it's pretty clear that over time what started to cause real problems with the White House was just the bad way in which his administration didn't publicly respond to the measles outbreak like these are generally kind of pretty easy thing to do, disasters are, and he didn't really follow it. And so the short answer your question is is yes, they are sort of taking the reins a

That they got him. How dare you recommend a vaccine that might save lives?

They are and it's not just that, uh Weldon, Congressman Weldon, the former congressman.

From Florida, was up to be the head of CDC and and they yanked him.

There are there are competing stories as to who called for the yanking, by the way, because it is after all, Trump world.

But that really kind of I thought you thought it. I thought it was a Florida connection.

There.

I can't really tell who's telling the truth.

But right we are speaking a little in code, not

But you know, one person led me to believe that the official narrative that, oh, some members of the Senate don't want weld in there. I was led to believe that that's not the full story and it's.

Much more sort of complicated than that. Interesting.

Well, that's always one of those you're like, God, there's so much else going on sometimes that boy, you'd love to go down that rabbit hole, but is it really worth your time when you've got to deal with day to day? And that actually leads me to sort of the difficulty. You know, I think as a reporter, there's no better beat than Trump right now because it's so fascinating.

There's so much going on.

However, it's so hard to source up because you don't know how you know, most of your sources are bsing you. But you've got but there's an art to it, and if you can decipher it, you actually can find the truth.

But it takes time.

Like I feel like it's studying Trump, and you know, I think I know how to decipher some of him, but you know, I think you.

Do a lot more. But how do you.

How do you decide what the truth looks like when you deal with Trump.

Officials generally speaking, And I say this at my peril is you know, for the stories that I have done. I don't think I have been as lied to as perhaps other people, in part because I haven't put.

Maybe you know who to talk to. That's part of it. You know.

You just have to also understand there are certain people if you put them in a position, and this is not limited to this administration. Yeah, certain people you put in a position to lie to you, they're going.

To lie to you. So correct, That is very true.

The ultimate problem in covering Trump is that is Trump is. You can talk to the top people who just spoke to him and they will tell you, hey, look I've heard X, Y and Z, and an hour later you can call back and say, well, from what I'm gathering, it's not X Y and Z.

A, B and c.

And then they will say, well, yeah, maybe that's true.

You know, Oh oh I had that. I've had that experience a bunch of times. I've never had Trump. Well, you may have talked to somebody who's talked to him since, which is like because so many of these guys have been burned themselves before, so they don't.

Just look over the weekend. Is it over the weekend? Like Donald Trump was like, look, no deal, no negotiation, no pause. In one of the kind of great meta examples of the relationship between Trump, the truth, reality, and the media is.

There was a.

Social media rumor or a Twitter post that got sort of misconstru rude on Monday that Trump was gonna.

Walter Bloomberg, the Walter Bloomberg, I'm Chuck Reuters, by the way, nice to meet you.

You know, I'm Mark Mark Political. Yeah, exactly, Mark Political.

Ye. But the the they reported that there was going to be a ninety dight pause, Ruders picked it up.

Just by the way, Is that now do we now go back and say, hey, Walter Bloomberg was right.

And that's the thing with Donald Trump and the Trump administration, like things can be simultaneously true and untrue, and it's

All right, let me uh, I'm basically asking you to give me the internal temperature check. And certain individuals here we've been doing, Howard Luttney, we did Bobby Kennedy Junior.

So let me ask you, Ques. Yeah, I think Musk. Remember Musk his standing right now, I mean it's still pretty good.

But you know, the Cabint meeting that just ended, Trump made sure to go out of his way to praise how great Elon Musk is. But number one, like the major charge of his work is done, which was to go in there cause hell people fired and shake things down. And then secondly, he's a special government employee. His charge is supposed to end after one hundred and twenty days. And you know his I think his time has come, and he's for this coming series.

Of episodes in the Trump Show. In this season, I.

Think he's going to go out, But that does not mean he's gone from The Trump Show.

I think he's gonna he's going to be a reappearing character.

Well, it's interesting. There were certainly a lot of congressional Republicans. I certainly talked to a couple of them who were rooting for the Democrats to do really well in that Wisconsin Supreme Court race. If the fallout was minimizing and and distancing themselves from Musk.

Uh, Yeah, one of the smart things or maybe it was one of the honest things that Musk's folks had done. I wrote the story at the time. Is about ten days before that election. They put out a memo saying if if the Shimmel I think is his name, the candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was more trumpy and if we got out the Trump voters, then he would win.

Yeah, so they created so they were setting up the explanation for the loss. Right.

It wasn't Musk, I mean, but the Democrats have been bad on a lot of messaging. But one thing they'd made sure to do is really kind of go after Musk, and Musk himself is just you know, he's picking fights with Peter Navarro, calling him Peter Ritardo on social media.

That was the one thing she tried to minimize was staff on staff crime. Correct.

But you know, Elon Musk is a different character, and when you talk to the rest of the staff about it, they'd be like, hey, walking to Trump World, this is how we play.

Yeah, you had let me ask you Marco Rubio, uh, rising, falling, staying the same.

I notably in the Wednesday I'm not sure when this runs cabinet meeting, Marc Rubio is seated at the right hand of the father, so he's well.

It is secretary of State.

It's usually you know, it is the it is the cabinet post, the first cabinet post that becomes president, by the way.

And so the two guys that Donald Trump is in the White House are thrilled with is Rubio and Vance. And they have very similar just.

For their media performance.

They both have the same quality of being able to be able to describe very conservative, very Republican, very maga things which if other people's had said it would sound horrifying, and.

Deliver it in a way.

So both of them are in good stead. That having been said, there is because it's Trump World. A faction not in the White House, outside of the White House that doesn't like Marco.

Rubio, that calls him a neo khon and a war pig.

Is that Laura is that Laura Lumer and her oppo research team.

I would I think it's fair to say that Laura is probably more allied with the people who who would like to see someone else in that position?

Correct?

Yes, And what's notable is that some of the firings and the purgings that happened at the National Security Council under Waltz all had ties to Rubio.

Oh that note, Well, I've heard another name that there is that is toxic inside Nssay, that is, if you have any ties to Tom Cotton, that could be too.

Yeah, and you know Rubio and Cotton, certainly in the past we were really.

Fellow travelers, more symbiotic. I remember.

And was it in twenty ten or was it twenty fourteen whenn't Cotton first win?

No, it would have been twenty twelve. Cotton won in

Okay, yeah, so I remember, I remember Cotton.

Yeah, Rubio is leading.

Around Miami actually for his his initial Senate right, so there they were very similar at the time.

But yeah, Rubio looked very strong.

He he shot out of the gate with a lot of wins and also implemented that catch and revoke program of finding the homosniks in quotes.

And I tell you that again is some border. I that's uh.

I thought the Constitution applied to anybody in the United States. Yeah, anyway, that's going to be That's an interesting This is this idea that hey, we're going to monitor the social media feeds.

They're using AI to do it too.

I mean, yeah, this is this is big brother shit. Yeah, I mean this is yeah. I'm I I don't I don't think this is going to pass muster in court.

But maybe they don't care. I don't know. Somebody's losing in court they think is good PR with.

The mood Khalil case, maybe because he's a citizen or not a citizen because he had legal permanent residency. But for students here on student visas, I think the I think the law is a little more on the administration side where they can start canceling pete.

That could be.

It just depends on your definition of of I mean, you know, just that's thought anyway, borderline thought police stuff.

It's not borderline thoughtfully stuff. It's very thoughtfully stuff, like very thoughtful.

Well, and that's the case. I don't think it's I just don't think it's constitutional.

There's a there's an interesting one. I'm sorry to even though you'll cut it out.

There's a really interesting case of a Spanish official who stopped in Miami in like I don't know when Reno was the Attorney General under Clinton, and he had like fifteen thousand dollars in undeclared cash and they didn't know what to do with this guy. And soas Mexican actually was on his way to Spain, and so Reno or the Secretary of State at the time, exercise their authority to remove his ability to be in the United States.

Welcome to Miami. It does it just, you know, to

I know there's a version of Marco Rubio that criticized the Cuban government for doing.

Stuff like this. Oh much, undred percent.

Yeah, okay, Like that's that's what makes it so alarming to me, because he's executing orders that he would have criticized another country, particularly that country, Cuba, from doing that. Not to not to bring it all back to Miami, but there's that last one. And then I'm gonna let you go because it's Florida and I care about Florida politics. Oh yeah, Byron Donald. Oh yeah, this thing is this thing is turning into a juggernaut.

The case no the Casey DeSantis story, if everyone needs to go, read the Miami Herald stories, the Tampa Bay Time stories. Casey Desantus is probably going to run for governor and her husband, the governor, had with her had

I was with, where's the data?

Where are the nine nineties? Where are the forms? It's interesting.

I was with a with a longtime veteran of Florida Republican politics about a week or so ago, and he goes, hey, it's really funny the way Rond de Santis thinks he's governor. Still this was the line he gave to me. I went, wow, is it that bad in Tallahassee? He goes, oh, he goes to me, can't he can't get any you know, well, look you rode the tiger and he thought he won and he wound up inside he didn't. That's right, yep, No,

I would love to.

It's a cameos on the Chuck Todgy. You know, like

Well, I appreciate. I think there's some other people, but I'll take the compliment.

No, there is there is, but you're my favorite narrator. I'll take it.

Thank you, all right, Yeah, the art George R. R. Martin of this generation for this administration. See you, my friends. All right, that's it for this edition of the Chuck Podcast. I'm gonna keep this, keep this a bit short. I got a satyr to prepare for. I love, I love Passover Jewish Thanksgiving. UH it's it's my second favorite holiday after American Thanksgiving. So for those of you that celebrate that, I hope you have a nice satyr. If you're not Jewish and have and you have been invited to a

It's a it's a it's a it's an interesting thing to UH to to observe and participate in.

So with that, for those of you that celebrate that holiday, and I know we're preparing for uh many of the Christian holidays coming up at the end of the end of next week with Good Friday and Easter. So with that, I hope you UH travel safely if you're traveling, enjoy time with your family, and I will see you on all of these channels again soon until we upload again.

H