¶ Introduction
Hello there, I'm chucked out. Welcome to another episode of The Chuck Podcast. And yes, I'm still the host of my own podcast. I tas because I don't know who else would do it if you're going to name it the Chuck Podcast. But I digress. I welcome new listeners, new subscribers to the content, whether you've liked and subscribed on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, if you watch us in video form as well, thank you. We've seen the growth lately. It's great, it's reassuring, and
it's good to know. Look, this is a tough business to get into the independent media business, especially if you're not a partisan hack.
Right.
It's a lot easier to be a partisan hack in this world in order to quote get attention. But when you're building something that I'm hoping to be building here, it's incremental. So it makes you more grateful that I know I'm earning every like and subscribe that you get, rather than just trying to ride a grievance wave, whether it's a liberal one or a concern a bit of one.
On this front, I'm going to go through three topics, well, two topics today, plus a fun interview hip the Welcome to Welcome to Reality with the World of Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein Files going to tackle a little bit of where Elon Musk if he chose to actually engage in third party politics, where in twenty twenty six he could be the most impactful I'll give you that guide there. Then my interview with Marjorie again and Jim Roddy.
Jim and Marjorie have hosted the Jim and Marjorie Show throughout the Boston media markets on a variety of places that currently with WGBH, which is Boston Public Radio. I've appeared on their show for over a decade and I'd never had them appear in my show, so finally I get them. It's lively, it's fun, it's interesting. If you love politics, you're going to love these two. Well, you talk every thing future of media. If you like your Kennedy politics, We talk a little Kennedy. What happened to
the Kennedy mystique? Is it still viable? How much is Bobby Kennedy Junior sort of destroyed the brand? So a fun conversation will be had there. We even touched on
¶ The right wing Epstein conspiracy theorists are turning on Trump
the Epstein Files a little bit, And that's where I'm going to begin, because I think the most distressing thing here is that you know what happens when conspiracy theorists become the government, and that's that's you know, this is the lesson right. You know, the expressions you reap with you, so you know when you when you create an information ecosystem that's built on conspiracy and built on distrust, that's all well and good. If that's how you're going to
exploit and profit from it. Your Dan Bongino's did that your cash betels Donald Trump? There's no doubt quite a few people in the right wing ecosphere has created this misinformation nightmare that we've all been living in a lot of distrust and many folks on the right and particular, but frankly with Jeffrey Epstein, there isracy. The conspiracy theorists are not on one side of the aisle. They're everywhere.
The belief that there is always more that's hidden than what's been revealed, and it's I'm not going to sit here and discount that that isn't true. Why won't I discount it? Because our government only in the last month admitted that the CIA had a file on Oswald before and even had and there was even a case worker on Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald, before he shot Kennedy. So
¶ The CIA withheld info on Lee Harvey Oswald for 60 years
the CIA had been trying to deny anything like that for decades. So if our government is capable of keeping a secret like that for over sixty years, I understand why there's so much skepticism of how government handles anything, let alone something that could be as controversial as Jeffrey Epstein's alleged client list. Right, I say alleged because there's been reporting that it exists, and then suddenly it supposedly it doesn't exist, et cetera. I'm one of those, as
many of you know. I'm an Okham's razor person. I also think it's very hard for conspiracies to sort of hold, if you will, right, there's always a break. I mean, I I'm on Kennedy. I've always believed that the government conspiracy is simply covering their ass. It's not CIA at c YA. They're paranoid that they did that one of their guys, somebody they were keeping an eye on they weren't doing a good job with, because if they had kept a really good eye on them, maybe they would
have been able to stop them. And my thesis on that has always been that that it with the CIA didn't want to admit that it messed up like this. That's been my thesis, not alone in that thesis. Others believe that it must be if they're concealing that what else? So they're concealing And it's a reminder. I've talked to some good friends on this issue of the JFK conspiracy. Is there anything the government could release that would say, Okay,
I now know the whole story, anything right? And the answer I get is, well, know that the assumptionet is if you if you give them some moll out, you hit that or there must be something more hidden. And that brings me to the Jeffrey Epstein phenomenon. Right and right now, you know this is the akin of Maggie Maga eating itself. Right, They're literally this this. The snakes
¶ Right wing media created atmosphere of distrust
are swallowing their tail, their own tails, if you will. And it's because they've created you know, they created an information of distrust, They created an atmosphere of distrust. They raised expectations and turned rumors into potential facts. Uh, and they were going to get to the real story once they got power. And you know it. You know this isn't deep state figures. You know this that's in power. These are the conspiracy theorists themselves got the power. They
got the keys, they got the access. Tulsa Gabbert got access to the JFK files, right, Cash Betel and Dan Bongino, Dan Bongino in particular, who has become wealthy trafficking and these conspiracy theories and misinformation. They got the keys to
¶ The conspiracy theorists are now in power
the kingdom. And either there are now participants in this conspiracy that they have been railing about for years and now the shoes on the other foot, which some in MAGA now believe, or the more likely result is, oh, the truth is the truth, and there's no more there than anybody else could hope, might have hoped that there was, because you know, this has been some you know, desperate attempt to try to you know, look, I understand, you know, when you have this moment that we live in, which
is just a lot of people don't like the elites, don't like their station in life, and so they want to believe that the elites are like not human beings, that they are off and creating pedophile islands and all sorts of bizarre, weird behavior because it makes it easier to then hate the elites and dehumanizing the elites. And now we're now now now you have the Trump administration
¶ The Trump administration won't be believed by their followers
that can't get their own people to believe what they're saying. They're not going to believe it, especially because of Pam Bondi, who while Attorney General, kept trying to play into the story.
Right She was leaning into the story a few months ago, claiming she was going over the client list, she was getting ready to They did that ridiculous pr stunt where they handed these notebooks to the to these right wing influencers who all flashed it in front of the White House, you know, sort of part one of all these secret files that they were going to release. And now suddenly you know, they're trying to wrap it up. And look,
the behavior of the administration is extraordinarily defensive. Donald Trump's immediate shutting down of the question of Pambondi and the cabinet meeting shows you. It's just they consistently are behaving
¶ The administration is behaving like they have something to hide*
as if they do have something to hide. Now, I happen to think what they're hiding is that they've been bullshitting you for years. They've been making stuff up about this for years and now, but at the end of the day, they don't want to admit that they were lying, because the minute you admit you were lying, then what else are you lying about?
Right?
So this is the trap that the Trump misinformers, who are now in office and are now supposed to be those that have the government facts that who is to believe anything? And this is the concern that I think, you know a lot of people have had about our misinformation crisis, about the big tech companies only surfacing information based on popularity or interest rather than in truth, is that we now have a situation where nobody knows what
to believe. Number one and number two an assumption of everybody's lying, and you've got to somehow find a way to be you know, you're sort of you're guilty until proven innocent. And in the in the world of social media, the world of internet algorithms, it's pretty hard. It's pretty difficult.
In a world where you've got Elon Musk reprogramming artificial intelligence programs in order to reflect his not so mainstream politics, then all of a sudden, you know, you've got even more reasons why people are going to question anything they read, anything they hear, anything they see. And so this moment here where Maga is essentially not wanting basically not wanting
¶ Misinformation has polluted the discourse
to accept what Trump's government is telling them, this should be this should be the moment that everybody takes a step back and says, oh my god, what have we done? What have we done to the the information ecosystem we have now? You know, I think it's perfectly reasonable now for most folks to assume that Trump is bullshitting first, and the truth is somewhere. You're going to have to hope for seven different reports to figure out the truth that everything is sort of you know, this is the way.
By the way the American information ecosystem worked in the nineteenth century. Nineteenth century wasn't such a good century for us politically. We were divided the entire time. You know, there was at one point a storming of the capital, storming of the capital city in Washington, DC, based on some bizarre conspiracy about the pope. This is in the eighteen fifties. This was before the start of the Civil War.
So the America the nineteenth century, which was in many ways, had a information, a daily information ecosystem that was very unsteady. Trust me, go do some research in old archives and read news stories about events that we now know what happened. And then you read during there would be all sorts of partisan takes and every city had their own politically
aligned news organization. Frankly, it's very similar to what the last ten years have looked like on cable news or what you've seen on social media and sometimes what you've see and now in the world of independent media. But this moment where we don't know was was Dan Bongino
¶ Trump acolytes lied about Epstein at some point
lying to you then or lying to you now? It's Cash Betel lying to you then or lying to you now. It's Pam Bondi lying to you then or lying to you now she lying They lied to you at some point. And what you've created is is not an information you know is now we're in a We're living in a world where you just don't know what the truth is. This is life in Russia. Talk to or Russian somebody who lives in Moscow who's not a Putin fan and ask them, how do you know? What's you know? What
do you believe? And they're like, it's hard to know what to believe. This is what life is like many times in the Middle East, and the way the media is sort of both consumed and interpreted, lots of skepticism. Nobody believes anything. And by the way, the only people that benefit from a world where nobody believes anything are those in power, right, because then they get to manipulate
the information. They're the ones in power. So is this should be this should be a five alarm fire, right, this is a moment and we're going to have more of these where the government is going to say something and literally seventy percent are not going to believe it. And we're in a situation with Epstein. And look, there's partisan reasons for it.
Right.
You have those on the left, they're convinced that there is something there in Trump's just a frame of how many times he shows up in the so called Epstein files. There's those on the right that believe that that maybe, well, they're covering something up. Maybe it is not about Trump, but maybe it's about somebody else in the quote elite ecosystem that just happens to be on the right side
¶ When you stoke conspiracies, you aren't believable when in power
rather than on the left side. But when you stoke conspiracies and automatically assume there's a conspiracy and then you get power, and then you realize the truth, and then you realize you don't know how to release the truth. You don't know where to put it where people will believe it. And right now, I mean the number two person, the number one and number two people at the FBI, how are we supposed to believe anything they have to say?
The Attorney General, how are you supposed to believe anything she says? So this is real crisis. I mean, you know, in the short term, arguably the president probably ought to fire all three of these folks, because if you don't have the if the public isn't going to believe what you have to say in law enforcement, you're in trouble. You're completely inoperable as ahead of a law enforcement agency. So now perhaps those three just had to take the fall.
But look, there's reason for the phrase you reput yourself and this is a classic case of that. But instead of dunking on them, this is you know, this is why I'm here, This is why I want to rebuild the local news ecosystem. We need to rebuild mainstream media. We need to rebuild trust because too many partisan hacks like Dan Bongino and others have systematically helped accelerate distrust and purposely did it in order to gain power. And you can sit here and say, isn't it rich that
now that they're in power, they're not believed. Well, they did it. They did it to themselves, but more importantly, they've done it to all of us, and they've done it to the country, and they're doing it to the government. Look,
¶ The government has earned its distrust
the government has earned its distrust the Iraq War. Just look at the last twenty five years, right, no WMD, the financial crisis, nobody held accountable, government did shit, did squat right. Not a single banker, not a single person that took down the entire world economy was held accountable for their actions. COVID happens upon that after the fact,
and only adds to it the Russia investigation. All of these things that were not fully that were you know, in some ways manipulated, in some ways you had misinformers trying to get involved. But it doesn't matter. It created an environment of distrust that was built on two particular issues. Where that distrust was was was earned right, And then I'd go back to the core one that I brought up, which is the government took sixty two years to finally admit that it had a file in that the CIA
was following Oswald. So it is obviously government did this to themselves. But the but the people that have tried to benefit have tried to essentially profit off of this. You know, they're they're they're the they're on the I mean, at least they're the ones having to deliver this message and they're watching their reputations with with their right wing conspiracy friends go down the train. But again, if this
¶ In a functional administration, Patel, Bondi and Bongino would be fired*
were a functional presidential administration that was not sort of the way it operates right where it's just on the whims of one person. But if this were an administration that did care about whether the public was going to believe its law enforcement agencies, all three of these people would be fired tonight, Bondi, Patel and Bongino because they're just they've they've been they're too toxic. They're two points I it is, I go back, why should anybody believe
anything they say? And they did it to themselves, all right. I want to pivot here to a topic I touched on a little bit about Elon Musk and third parties. So a little bit of what I wrote about in my substack piece this week as well. You can go read the fuller version of this, because look, this is a theme I want to say, Hey, Elon Musk, welcome to the party. Right, this is a theme I wrote two months ago. I've been talking about here a lot.
¶ The two party system is on brink of collapse, and that's a good thing
I do think the two party system is on the brink of collapsing, and if it does, it's actually could be very healthy.
Right.
If we want to rebuild this democracy, a functional democracy for the twenty first century, we need to create us the condition so that we can be a multi party country.
In fact, I just had an interesting conversation for a for an episode of my new sphere show that'll be coming out in a couple of weeks with the head of the George Washington Presidential Library, And you know, she was telling me that the founders, you know, whether it was Hamilton Adams all, you know, they knew parties were going to form, but the assumption wasn' be factions, that
there'd be multiple parties. They really thought it would operate a bit more like the UK, even though we were a parliamentary system, but we did sort of emulate the system.
And the fact that she put it to me, many of the founders saw themselves as Whigs, you know at the time, which was a borrowed essentially a borrowed political movement from the UK, and the assumption was it would be multi party, that it wouldn't it wouldn't sort of devolve into what we have, which is this two just a two party system, And look, the work that it would take to break it up is is where is
where you would need rich people to get involved. But the fact is, you know what's bothered me about the coverage of Musk is that it's it's the conversation has shifted not towards the vulnerability of the parties, whether whether actually there's a market for this, which I believe there is. I've been making that case for a while, but instead it's been focused on him. Right, you know, all things Musk. I get it right, Musk is sort of sticky all
that stuff. What's his motive? What's his angle? Is it a brand play? Is that revenge is at boredom? All right? I get it. But I also don't want you to dismiss anything Musk is up to just by saying, well, you know, look what he did with Twitter, because you know,
¶ Musk isn't wrong to want to break the two party system
the blind squirrel finds an acorn a stop clock is right twice, and Elon Musk is right right. Our two party system doesn't fit the moment because right now both parties our cultural are stitched together in culture. Neither the Democratic Party of the Republican Party. It's held together by any sort of coherent ideology. The glue is cultural identity, economic policy, foreign policy, institutional theory. These are all fractures within both of these parties.
Now.
Right on the Democratic side, you've got a growing divide over capitalism itself. Democratic socialists like Zorn Mamdani and others are openly questioning whether the system can even be salvaged. And they're not on the fringe anymore. They have momentum, they have organizing power, and they have a sharp critique of both Wall Street and Washington. On the right, the old Reagan coalition is just simply gone. The Party of Free Markets and Globalization has morphed into a party skeptical
of trade, allergic immigration, isolationists. In his worldview, you've got the Mago wing on one side and what's left of that Chamber of Commerce crowd on the other trying to hang on. So if ideology isn't binding, these parties together. What is well we know it is it's cultural grievance, tribal loyalty, fear the other side. And that's the problem because that kind of glue is very brittle, doesn't hold
under pressure. It makes people dig in deeper. But it's also the vulnerability as to why I think a third and fourth party could come up and if we had, if ballid access were fair, and again I do think that there is not equal access, and I think it's a violation of the Constitution. I think these ballot access rules that favor the two major parties over minor parties in each states are unconstitutional and probably ought to collectively be challenged in a smarter and better way. An interesting
¶ The country would be better served by a four party system
use of elon musks of money, by the way, But the fact of the matter is we've got we've got a country that would be a lot more comfortable in four parties. A populist nationalist right, a pro business center right, a progressive economic justice left, and a liberal institutionalist center left right. That is the four sort of groups of voters, and they are about twenty twenty, twenty and twenty with another twenty percent of the country just all over the place.
So those factions are there. The voters are there, but they've been awkwardly stuffed into this binary system that no longer fits. And that's why we get this dysfunction. That's why we get the performative politics, and that's why we get loyalty tests instead of policy debates. So I want to be clear, the demand for a real alternative is there.
The market exists. What's missing is infrastructure and patience. So just because Elon Musk's is involved, don't just dismiss it because you you know, he'll lose interest and he'll do all that you know, and he'll make bad decisions and all those things are true. Right, maybe he's smart enough to let somebody else do it, and that's going to be something I'm looking for. But the fact is it's possible,
and I just wouldn't dismiss dismiss this moment. I think we've never been I don't think the two parties collectively have been this week in a long long time, because neither party is stitched together in policy. They're only stitched together on identity and feared if you could break that, the volatility could end up breaking the two parties. So while I'm very skeptical that Musk is going to follow through, but if he does. If he does, there is a path for him. He is something few others have in
¶ There is a path for Elon to succeed due to his money
this goal to start a third party. He's got money. Ross Bureau was filthy rich, and that's what helped him get on the ballot. He used it in the nineties to break through the ballot access wall. He built a political party. Musk could do the same. He could build the infrastructure and if he wanted to play the long game, not just make headlines, he could actually reshape the party
infrastructure for decades to come. So if he is interested in doing this, and if I were advising him politically, I'd say this number one, don't try to create one centrist party. Create two. A center right party, say in the state of Texas, and a center left vehicle stay in the state of Florida. Those are my two test cases. Use those two states as your test markets. Thank you for yourself as sort of a startup right because if
¶ Texas and Florida are the two best states for a third party to succeed
it works in those two places, it's going to work everywhere. And those two places, why do I pick there? Because the ruling party is dominant, but it's internally divided. Texas is divided between sort of that John Cornyn institutionalist wing and the ken packstif Magna win, what an opportunity for Musk right now to go get build an infrastructure that John Cornyn could run in as a third party candidate and probably win in a three way or four way race.
And in Florida you have a divided Republican party there is somewhat it's a little more personality divide, very loyal to Trump, distrustful of There's not a lot of love these days. For DeSantis, it's more of a personality issue. But there's a large independent population and a fractured Democratic party that's kind of broken, but a center left independent that's interesting. So the point is is that both you
have two big states that would be very expensive. But if you're Musk, money is no issue, and I think it's the two best proving grounds.
Now.
His goal is to see if he can elect three or four independent senators right to become sort of the majority makers of Senate control. So if you're going to go down that, this would be the states that I would be targeting first. So I gave you my Florida and Texas big examples. So you obviously need more than just two targets. The next two places I'd be targeting if I were him, would be Maine in Alaska. Both
states have a history of electing independent candidates. There's an independently elected senators in both states right now, Murkowski one
¶ Several other states are viable for third party senate candidates
not because she was outside the Republican Party structure, and Angus King and Maine one outside the Democratic Party structure. Perhaps Susan Collins, who's not very popular inside her own Republican party these days. Maybe she would take the third route on that and he could get her to become a member of his party. You know, you can get that quickly. The point is that both states also have
easier ballot access laws. They're both ranked choice voting states, so there is almost an openness and it allows you to do this. So again, two places to do. Michigan is another place. There's going to be a very competitive three way governor's race thanks to Mike Duggan, the former mayor of Detroit, running as an independent for governor. Well, if you have a highly contested three way race for governor, easy to create the conditions to make the Senate race,
which is an open seat. Gary Peters, the Democratic senator not seeking reelection there's going to be a Democratic primary there of interest, and then some going to probably not be a Republican primary. We'll see Mike Rodgers, who lost in twenty twenty four, is going to run again as a Republican nominee. So you could find a third party candidate, be cut and basically ride the codetails of the governor's race.
Then the four other states that I would be looking at where there are divides on Republican philosophy are in Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Me take Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa together. These are the farm states. These states are getting hit extraordinarily hard on the tariff war, and the trade war is going to make people poor, particularly Republican voters poor. In those three states, there's opportunity. It fits Musk's ideology of sort of center right, pro business, pro trade. I think
the opening is there any of those states. We already see there's an independent candidate in Dan Osborne running against Pete Ricketts. Osborne's worldview is probably further afield than where Musk is. He maybe actually is pro tariff as Trump on some things, but we've seen Osborne have some success. It's a weak Democratic Party in Nebraska, so you could
see that. Throw a third party, a third independent, a second independent candidate in Nebraska, and suddenly you have a very interesting three way race and it creates what Musk claims he wants, which is a potential check on the MAGA majority, if you will. And then there's Ohio right where you have a real divide between sort of the institutionalist wing think Mike DeWine and the MAGA wing like
Vivik Ramaswami and JD Vance. You've got a Democratic party that's struggling with its brand, but it's fairly competitive, especially if Shared Brown or Tim Ryan ends up running. But I think you could go a long way. I think some of their success is winning over some voters who normally wouldn't be Shared Brown voters, but they can't stomach supporting MAGA. That's the constituency that Musk his center right party could so it's another testing ground. And then two
other states I might throw in in senate races. You have the open seat in Kentucky. He's already going to probably spend some money helping Thomas Massey out in the Kentucky house race.
There.
Ran Paul is certainly no maga guy. So I do think there could be an environment and interest of an alternative to the Maga Republican Party in Kentucky and then Colorado. While John Hickenloop is not somebody that I think is very vulnerable, Colorado is a state. It's kind of a
weak Republican party these days. It's a state where he could get some traction with a third party that, even if you don't win the race, just getting over ten percent in any of these places could get you semi permanent status for the next election, i e. The presidential election. So that would be the path I would advise him.
He doesn't take advice very well. But if that is what you were looking to do as a third party, to both be disruptive and to find places you could actually win, that's where I'd be focused Texas, Florida, Maine, Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, with maybe Kentucky and maybe Colorado throwing bones there. When do it everywhere, focus there, you might win two
or three of those races. Because I think things are I just think this electorate just think it's a bit more unsettled, all right, Yes, midterms more or less operata
¶ The midterm electorate will be volatile
as a referendum on the incumbent party. But I just think this is going to be a very volatile electorate, so keep an eye on it. And look, I am somebody who believes if we can actually break up the duopoly create a healthy four party system, you may need some money, like from people like Elon Musk in order to in order to pursue, in order to succeed sort of breaking these barriers. If he's willing to spend his money but take a step back in his personality, the
possibilities are really there. And look, it's it's I'm one of those who believes a two party system isn't bending anymore. It's calcified, and if we want to fix it, we need we may need a break for both parties. All right, I'll sneak at a break and when we come back, a fun conversation with my friends from Boston politics and Boston media, Jim and Marjorie. So for over a decade, every Thursday,
¶ Jim Braude and Margery Eagan join the Chuck ToddCast!
I've made an appearance on Boston Public Radio w GBH, the Jim and Marjorie Show. And now that I have a podcast, I realized I have never been able to flip the script on them, and instead of them peppering me with questions and basically trying to goad me to end my career in some sort of viral moment in the Boston media market, I want to try to present them with the same opportunity. And you know what I
was doing the mathire guys. I realized, I've been doing this over ten years, and then are you have you guys been doing this for thirty years close together since nineteen ninety nine.
We've been doing radios for twenty six years, six years, and we did an under the radar television show that absolutely nobody watched for a bunch of years before that.
When I say nobody, I don't mean nobody.
I mean nobody watched this television show, not even our pounds watching television show.
One of my first shows was a cable access show. I know it should talk about those. That's how you learned, That's how.
You learn, That's how we learned.
That's right.
When I was at the Hotline. We started a show in ninety eight or ninety nine on a cable access that was only available on like one of the cable systems in DC. And it was and the channel itself was owned by some looney tune widow who was sort of like crazy right wing, was willing to fund this channel and they just needed a film programming. And I remember our pre the guy who who was our the show that preceded us, Billy Bush, oh before Billy Bush
made it like he was scrabbing Billy Bush. Yes, yes, god, you know he was a local DC DJ.
I didn't know.
But but it's funny. You guys have been in this business a long time, you know, we we've all we were all experimenting in the late nineties, and now we're
¶ The state of journalism and public radio
all kind of re experimenting again. You guys have shifted to a YouTube format from public radio a little bit, and obviously still doing public radio. I'm doing what I'm doing. But in some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same, right, I hope.
So I don't I don't know where journalism is going. I get you know, these are tough times for the business, and I'm nervous about it. You know, people that have their kids in college now say tell me about journalism, and I don't know what to tell them.
Chuck, is it so different?
You know you don't even know this, Chuck Todd, But you are part of a quote. We have a feature on Friday on our show, one of our segments called press Play. We started about I don't know three months ago, and I ask every guest the same question every week, and it goes like this, I said, a couple of months ago. Marty Baron, form writer of The Boss and Globe and the Washington Post, was on our show. A day later, Chuck Toddho's with Us every Thursday was on
our show. And it was right after Ruth Marcus had not only had her problem with the bosses of the Washington Post, but had been honest enough to write in a long piece in The New Yorker that at least on two of her columns, one of which I think was about Bezos who owns the Washington Post, one of which I think was about Trump, where she admitted she
pulled back from what she was going to say. And we asked, Marty Baron, do you know any about the Washington Post reporters, not editorialists, who are even if it's not truly intentional or pulling back a little. He said, absolutely not. We asked you the same question and you said, yes,
¶ Journalists compromising ethics out of personal preservation
that there were people at NBC. That's What really worries me that people with good intentions who are worried about their boss, worried about their own career, are not trying to be unprincipled, but maybe doing things that are unprincipled in the spirit of self preservation.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope you're wrong.
I hope so too. And yet you know, I understand it's human nature, right, some of this, right, which is you're trying to You think, well, if I can just survive the storm in the moment, then I can do Then I can you know, if I can stay in the room, you know, it'll it'll help in the long run, you know. And we're I mean, you know, the rationalization for why you compromise a principle or compromise an ethic, right like, and it makes sense until it doesn't, right,
until you've twisted yourself into a pretzel. And so I don't know, But Marjorie, it's interesting you don't. Here's the way I give hope on journalism. Okay, so young journalists, I say, well, because I got my start in nineteen ninety two, which was a time of terrible transition for legacy media at the time. Right, you had newspaper consolidation. It was the beginning of the cable boom. Broadcast TV
was pulling back. It was very similar to this, and then O. J. Simpson happened, and then the rise of cable with internet as almost like an accelerant with it helped. But it was a disruptive time, and as a young person, I got a lot of opportunity that I wouldn't have gotten if it hadn't been a disruptive time. So I do. That's how I give hope to younger journalists.
Okay, you want to hear my serious give hope to younger journalism thing. What I usually say to people is.
We should say you were a big time columns.
I was a newspaper report and most of the people on talk radio in Boston come from newspaper, not you, But I did.
And would you say, this is two big chapters you've had in journalism. One was print and one was radio. Is that how you put it, Marjorie?
Well, I did print until just a few years ago. So I've been a newspaper person most.
Of my life.
And I added on the radio, you know, I'm a
¶ The death of print journalism
divorce a and I needed the two jobs.
I was just going to say it's whatever. Print journalists. Why did print journalists move to another medium?
Yeah?
Never, because the other mediums better. We all know writings better. Writing is the best of the mediums, right, you never it yet? But why do you do other mediums?
It's money, money, yeah, But I tell the young journalists. Gay Talise was a great writer. He wrote for the New York Times. He wrote for a lot of places. He wrote novels and books. But he wrote something called The Kingdom and the Power about the New York Times years ago, maybe thirty thirty five years ago, and he talked about how becoming a reporter enables young people, kids from you know, middle class backgrounds, working class backgrounds like Talise.
Maybe they didn't go to the best schools, but they can go become a newspaper reporter and they can meet people and talk and ask questions to people.
They would never get a chance and any other opportunity.
Presidents, governors, mayors of cities, celebrities, to be able to cover trials and fam as people. And I think that's so true, and I think of when I look back in newspapers what I got to do, and in radio too, but in newspapers because you had to actually go to the scene. I got experiences that I would never ever have gotten working anywhere else. I think being a reporter is one of the great jobs of all time. And plus, you know, you could actually make a difference in people's lives.
And I think that that that's kind of neat.
You've Marjorie, You've worked all over New England, big markets in small markets.
Is it?
You know it? I sort of live in this fantasy world that I that it is ultimately as a as a newspaper reporter, economist, that it is better to be the big fish in the small pond. You really can have bigger impact locally than trying to have you know, Bob Woodward like impact nationally. Yeah, is that is that your experience?
I think I think.
That's probably true. You know, I spent most of my life working for the tabloid in town. Uh my former
¶ The impact of local journalism on political accountability
husband worked for the Globe and they, you know, we were so I'm so old.
They had a nepotism rule.
You that's quite the mixed marriage, right, It was a mixed people have Jews and Catholics exactly exactly.
I just say that, so people, don't you know know that I could have been at the Globe, but I wasn't at the Globe, you see, I just say that to make myself puff myself up. But but but the point is that, you know, you write something about somebody that got really screwed in some way, and this is the working class, blue collar paper was in all the courtrooms,
all the subways, all the buses. You wrote something with someone that got screwed, and it would matter, you know, that the checks would come in, or the phone calls would come in, or the head of Charlie Baker.
I remember he called me.
When he used to be an administrator in the in the Weld administration, called me and said, you know, uh, I'm going to fix.
This, you know.
And I did a lot of stories about child welfare, which is no one wants to read those cases. So it's it's a it's a wonderful, wonderful job. I would never ever want to do anything else and be a newspaper reporter because of that.
Well, you know, in all fairness, Chuck, I think we have to add when Marjorie saying, you know, writing about people who got screwed, one of the people who Marjorie knows got screwed because of one of her columns.
Was me I was doing.
I was doing a ballot question in nineteen ninety against the woman.
This is how you guys? Met is this how you guys?
We're not sure you doesn't remember I made question impression.
He doesn't even remember a.
Woman who was the doyen of the tax cutting movement
¶ John's background in politics led him to radio/journalism
master since Barbara Anderson had a question on the ballot and I was leading the opposition, and in an attempt to throw the vote to Barbara Anderson, Marjorie wrote a column saying one the opponent that be me drove a Volvo station wagon. I never owned a Valvo station one.
We did. After the column, I'm not done yet. It was two years later. Why don't you tell them what you said I wore, Marjorie?
Why don't you Oh, I said he wore whale pants.
Yeah in Nantucket, like applying, he's like a vineyard nine.
So let's not say like Marjorie's career helping me oppressed because I was the oppress.
Ee, yeh, from Cambridge, I know, I know the oppressed oppressed.
Yeah that's right, from Cambridge. That's right, that's right.
So Jim, your path to this is is you were politics really activists at this? I mean you both there's two ways into this world, right, what is you know starting you know, the small newspaper Falls River right going through and there's you know you were on the activism side. I'm sure there's so many things. I mean, this is why I think your partnership is so good in that you had different experiences. In that way you can you
¶ Media is harsher on activists than politicians
can attack sort of issues and questions and even media coverage from both of those perspectives. What did you think of the media when you were an activist.
That it never treated us as fairly should.
Like everybody else feels about the media, right, Like, yeah, tell you something.
This is beyond dispute, and this is something that I'm going to take to my grave with me. It's nobody's fault in I can't even mention because she's.
Gonna mock me.
I led what I believe was probably the single largest pro taxt rally maybe in the history.
You wanted to raise everybody's tax.
So that you jumped into the Boston harbor and pulled the tea out. Is that what you're saying.
I'd say that's a variation on a theme. And unfortunately, even though it was the biggest rally ever. It is a bad example because it's not the media's fault. You know what happened on the exact same day as a rally, tim and square And as a result we got to paragraph everybody.
You got to pick which is the lead today.
But one experience that neither of you had, and it wasn't just doing politics, because they did do politics.
You know, ran campaigns, You ran for government. Well, I ran for governor for months. No, but that wasn't these stories.
I ran for governor for a month in nineteen ninety but I did run, unfortunately, and won a city council
¶ John's experience in city council made him a better journalist
seat in Cambridge. And while both of you may mock me for that.
That people's you must have been the conservative let's compared to everybody.
Let me tell you something, it was one of the most valuable experiences in terms of what we do now. And even though it's a low level kind of thing.
When you're on the other side of the fence and you're getting screamed at by not screamed abt ask tough questions by reporters, scream that by constituents, your one's ability to understand what the hell you're doing when you're asking the questions is enhanced a millionfold and so well, it was a horrible experience in many ways because the people in the city Council on Cambridge is sort of believe they're in the United States Senate, not in the But
it was really value I wouldn't really say it was a really valuable tool in terms of what it is we do.
Now do you worry Jim that let me ask you this, would you if you know, if you were knowing what you know now, would you still run for office? Would you still have tried it? Or do you look at how hard it is to sort of not get you know, pilloried and docksed and all these things, or you know, your families get targeted. I mean the Tom Tilli situation. I tell people about this one all the time. Now
¶ Harassment/threats to public figures
now that Tillis chose to retire. You know, he was going to vote against Hagseth and he didn't. And one of the reasons is his family was getting harassed. It wasn't just him, and it was people that hadn't They didn't run for office. He ran for office, and he just decided to back off of that. The way we the pugilistic nature of politics today, where there is no there seems to be no rules, right, and the elected official is seen as a dehumanized figure. How do we
encourage people like you to run again? You know, how would you encourage yourself to run again? Or are you kind of fearless about it?
Well, I'd like I'm fearless about nothing.
By the way, let me clear about that, to be totally honest. But you know I was going to have I was going to answer your question by saying, which is true? When I did political stuff, particularly against the very popular anti text leader, I got death threats all the time in our earlier career on the radio, death threats. I mean, I'm not trying to show.
Braver now, I understand them. I've been getting them for a while, and you sort of shrug them off because you'll know that is nine percent of them aren't true, right, Differently, worry about the one percent is the.
Kids and the family, the wife, the husband, the kids that don't And I don't know what the answer because one of the things we talk about a lot on the show is how leaderless we are in lots of ways. And if one believes one is a person and principle, look it up. Believe you'd like to think you'd take the opportunity, but I can't answer, honestly say to you that I'd be willing to do it in this sort
¶ Politics is so toxic that good people don't run
of environment because it's dangerous in lots of ways. Which is I'm almost embarrassed to say those words, but I think that's unfortunately.
Real, Marjorie. This is my biggest concern that we have driven. It is such a toxic place that good people are fone around.
Listen.
I could not agree with you more.
I can't believe how insane things have gotten. It's really bad now. But I think it started to start with Obama or did it even start before then?
You know, it's funny, you could keep going back. I've thought about this, right, which is, you know when did it start? You know, we could go to New Kngridge, right, you could go to the Clintons and then you could say, well, it goes back for the Robert Borke. Right, some people on the right will bring up Robert Borke and that that was a character assassination. You can keep going, but we've been slowly increasing the character assassination quotient in politics. Yeah,
all you know, almost on a steady rise. Right and to here we are. You know in what I hope is that we can't get that it can't get worse. Well, that's my optimism.
I know this is the dread of local angule as Mardie would call it, But don't you think it was? The Willy Horton ads were a pretty major moment against the Caucus. And by the way, I hope people realize while they blame it on George H. W. Bush, I believe the first person to talk about Willy Horton was Al Gore in the primary against.
Was right and he did it the New York primary.
John willy Horton was a black guy ken furloughs and then ended up going out in a weekend furlough and raping a woman. And that was something to Caucus did for lifers, would give them these weekend furloughs for good behavior, and I think that was the end.
Was it not?
Well? Then the commercials Willy fort Horton with a who's a black man? A close up on his.
I think the I think the person who made the was it Floyd Little was the guy's name. I think it was an independent. It's one of the first super PACs and we didn't call him then that it was an independent The actual ad itself was not paid for by Bush or the RNC. It was an independent committee. Right, it was this there was. But by the way, when you watch the ad today, most people would be like, really that was contra you're a meeting, like because we
see such garbage now you know that. But at the time it sort of it it crossed the whatever the line is, as Bill Hurt said in broadcast News, they keep moving the sucker, right, you know, with the line
¶ Toxic politics/liberal media discourse goes back to Roger Ailes & Watergate
whatever this line is. But look, I actually go back to Roger Ales and Roger Stone in Nixon and that if you actually look, you know, ultimately the entire invention of the liberal media phrase liberal media didn't you don't. I believe you cannot find liberal media as a phrase before nineteen seventy two, and that it was the Watergate coverage. It was the initial sort of I don't know if it was Buchanan that came up at the line or you know, one of the Nixon operatives is or Ales.
And you know, Roger Als' entire professional career after leaving Nixon was about exploiting this concept that the liberal media is out to get conservatives, and it began with Richard Nixon. And and you know, for me, I look at it, it may be that this is the end of the long arc. This is the the ultimate and the fact that Roger Stone's still alive, right, He's the only one
left of that Nixon ar are still alive. But these were the people, and so many of them are derivatives that are left where you know, here they are with you know, Roger als built the ecosystem that Donald Trump exploited to sort of finally right every wrong that they believe happened to Nixon. So I kind of think this is the endpoint of that. But that's just the thesis I've been working on lately.
You know, Can I get back to one thing you asked, you know about running for office kind of thing. With all the scary stuff that's happening, how about the flip side. I don't know if we've ever talked to you about this. I continued to be amazed that that other than the.
¶ How do educated elected Republicans sleep at night?
For example, let's take senators, Republican senators who probably can't read a stop sign, you know, like a Tuberville or whatever the hell's name is that kind of a guy.
But those who were relatively intelligent, and.
Tom Cotton, who got you know, who was educated at.
Cabridge how well, and he's gone right, yeah, So how do they live with themselves? I mean, I don't know. I mean I'm not naive enough to say all of a sudden, the majority are gonna wake up. They got to go home and face their kids, their grandkids, their spouse. I always think, if you're a politician, do you think about the first paragraph of your obituary in your paper? What's it going to say, Trump's sycophant voted to cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid voted?
¶ The country is woefully uninformed
What if that isn't the media?
Like?
What if I read a very disturbing stat today that seventy percent of the country is unaware that Donald Trump has a cryptocurrency business.
I can't even what did you? Yeah, go ahead, you see what I mean?
Like, so you know, it may be that those that know will know, and those that don't won't.
I am such a believer in that, Chuck Todd I was telling Jim I was talking to somebody over the weekend who used to be in politic dish in Boston his whole life, and he was we were talking about the Trump administration. He said, well, you know, look at Marco Rubio. He's been a stand up guy.
And I said, the.
Guy who's been in fifty years in politics, And I said, Marco Rubio, who was the guy that stood up for US aid that would you know, have the the the HIV virus and food for starving children, all the things that they did, disease prevention and stuff like that. Who's now done a complete one eighty and he has been the architect of getting rid of us AI D.
And I thought that.
This person doesn't know about Marco Rubio is really upsetting to me. And I don't know the explanation, because he
¶ Fox News & social media have been incredibly effective for the right
is a smart guy.
I think that.
But I think that the Fox News and social media has been really effective. We get text here we are when an NPR station. We get text messages all day long. We get text matches just from people who basically believe, you know, there are little men walking on on Mars. It's crazy stuff and they believe it. And I think, wow, what's going on here?
So some little men walking in Mars, some little men walking on Inside RFK Junior's brain, those are the.
Ones that might be little men walking.
Well, this is a good transition. This is a good transition. When you guys began your career together, the word Kennedy meant something. Yeah in Massachusetts, Uh, in a way that was just you know, it was still a gold brand. Yes, it wasn't perfect, and no, Joe Kennedy the second couldn't get elected governor. You know, it wasn't it wasn't you know, it wasn't as if it was an automatic, but there was a reverence that went with it. Is it done done?
Now?
Is this thing?
Like?
Is this the are we at like the Freuling Housen stage? Like there for those of you who are like not total American history dorks like me, Freuling Housen, there was a Freuling Housend in Congress I think for like two hundred straight years out of New Jersey. You know, it was this constant like sort of regional family name, and you know, I think they were signers, and I think there was a Rodney Finland Housen in the nineties in New Jersey. And eventually sort of you know, the names
¶ What's the state of the Kennedy brand in Massachusetts?
go away and all of that. Where would you put you know, we saw Joe Kennedy the third lose a primary right, So a Democratic primary. So and this was before RFK is crazy. What's what's the state of the Kennedy brand?
What do you think, Marjorie Well?
I think that even when we began, when Ted Kennedy was still alive, and people might argue that in terms of getting legislation passed, he was one of the most successful settlers ever. But even then, when you would talk about Ted Kennedy, the messages would come through about chap equintic And I think, as as.
I know, is that an original sin? Is this an original sin? That boy talk about a do over in life? What would have happened if he'd just I think like I choked, I fessed up. I was afraid. I looked out for myself first. I didn't want her to die. I just I choked. I panicked, you know, And if that's.
The better, it might have been better if you'd done that. Because he never admitted it. I thought the rest of his life was like the as we Catholic sate to venance for letting a woman die in that car and going off and going back to that hotel and sleeping and getting up in the morning and having breakfast.
And knowing that she was in that car.
I thought, I think he was trying to make up for it, but because he never admitted it, you know, you can't you get a tone right, and he never did.
The stories I hear about him in the nineties and the aunts I went to school with somebody who had no health insurance, and he put them This was a student at GW and he put him on staff to get him healthcare, to get him the right. They've extended this person's life an extra five years. Like the number of stories like that that you'd hear that nobody he didn't ask for attention. You're right, it almost feels like,
you know, that was the inner Catholic in him. I've got I've got to I've got to right the wrong.
Yeah, I always thought that. I don't know if that's true, but I always thought that.
Let me give you a personal story if I can, about Kennedy's effectiveness, which doesn't answer your question, but does speak to how incredible he was. I was the president of the union that represented legal services lawyer secretaries and
¶ Ted Kennedy was one of the most effective politicians ever
paralegals from Ronald Reagan proposed abolition of legal services for the poor, and the two champions were a freshman in the house, Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy, and so a bunch of we were affiliated with the United Order Workers. A bunch of us met with Ted Kennedy, first time any of us had ever been in office with him. We're all, for the most part, from all over the country.
He says, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and I'm going to meet with the senator whose name I forget, from Texas, who is wildly anti legal service, is not talk to him. And so we say thank you, we got in the hole, and we're all saying that was great, But I mean, really, I mean, the guy is the most right wing, vicious, anti poor person. Okay, next day we go back to his office. Who do we see in the distance walking arm in arm down the hole but the Texas Center and Kennedy and we're
still incredulous. Nothing's going to happen. The vote comes up the next day.
I forgot.
It was an amendment about class actions or something around legal services lawyers around the country, and we have a the word we need. I can't remember what the exact vote was, but this guy's vote, he has still not voted. The guy from Texas was the critical vote that was going to was going to kill our ability to do
class actions. You know what happened. Didn't show up for the vote, and it was totally a function of Ted Kennedy getting a guy who had nothing but hatred for legal services for the poor to dissa exactly because he had respect for Ted Tenny.
So that maybe a.
Small thing, but he was really one of the most effective characters ever.
Now and answer your question.
Even though young Joe Kennedy lost to Ed Markey, I am among those who thought he'd beat Ed Markey.
I did too.
Expect for Markey, but I think he would generational kind of thing. I'm not sure he's done.
I mean, I haven't spoken to him in recent times. I don't know.
But he is a really skillful, talented young guy. And I think it's maybe too early to write off the whole family name.
I think that's fair. I mean, you would you would think. I wonder how much damage Bobby Kennedy Junior is doing. Ah,
¶ RFK Jr. is doing tremendous damage to the family name
I think he's look I am irrational about I'm pretty irrational about him. And I think I went off on your show once you did. I mean, I just find it. I'm just I'm gross I'm just sickened by this, intentionally watching kids die, having measles, like letting the outbreak happen. I'm just I just like, who does this? Who does this? Just shocking to me?
Aren't we saying that almost about everything that is stopping?
I know who talks about Alcatraz, you know, alligator Alcatraz and seems to repels merchandise. Apparently now you can buy it, could buy the merchandise. And who thinks it's okay to throw to give million take away the healthcare of millions and millions of people so you can give tax breaks.
To I'll tell you who thinks okay, everybody? Because nobody's
¶ Americans have become numb to Trump's outrages
doing anything, are they. We talk about this all the time, Chuck on the show, and I'm sure with you too. You know, you raise the tuition for public universities in Paris and there are a million people on the street. The next day, you take twelve million people off healthcare or whatever it is. Let's go on the list the poor people who are wonderful members of our communities on and we tweet about it or.
X about it or whatever the hell we do. I think the answer is we're.
Look, I got I have family, members who don't look like you and me who are American citizens who were detained off a plane and had to prove their citizenship. Oh my god, And this just happened recently, and it's it's you're just sitting there, You're just you know, I think it's because until it happens to you, you don't, you know. It's like, you know, what's the great poem? First they came for the you know, the Jews, and I just you know, said, well, it's not me or
whatever it is. You know that that lioselle poem. That and and that's I guess the world we're living in. This is where I always vacillate. Do we are we in a Is this a five alarm fire, a seven alarm fire? Or where I try to end up? Hey, we've done this before. We survived George Wallace, we survived Joe McCarthy, we survived Charles Lindberg, we survived Civil War, we survived you know, I I vacillate, right and I
¶ Will America survive and recover from the Trump era?
choose right now. I choose to make the case we've been through this before, we know how to and this should give you comfort that we know how to get out of it again.
But can I tell you we have had this discussion with three relatively reputable historians in recent times, Heather Cox, Richardson ken Burns, and Darris Kurrn's Goodwin. Every single one of them's answer to our question is exactly yours. And I'll mean this with any because I have huge respect for all three of them. I'm not sure any of the three of them believe it.
I think we asked, you know, I don't know if I believe it. I choose to believe it. That's why I emphasize.
That's why they asked Dars and she said exactly that I need or I choose to believe it.
Who's the president who's been this corrupt? Who's the president this live as much as he has?
You know, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts besides of course, the Check podcast This Morning and Daily, and they were talking about a man who had uncovered cigarette smoking. He did big expose on cigarettes, and then they were threatening. Then I think it was again CBS and CBS people know has just knuckled under to Donald Trump. They're going to give him sixteen the whole Parent corporation par I'm not going to give him sixteen million dollars
to his library to get out of this lawsuit. This this this frivolous, ridiculous lawsuit. But anyway, he was saying that, the interviewer said to him, well, it was the same thing that they that you were under pressure not to tell the truth about cigarettes from the cigarette companies. As what's going on now? And he said no, because then
it was the cigarette companies. Today it's the President of the United States, and it's a Justice Department and the wheels of power and ice agencies and doing all these This is this is the power of the federal government,
¶ The administration is reaping what they've sown with Epstein
which is more powerful than any other entity in the country.
Picking on is.
This administration is now realizing you reap what you sew. The Epstein story, right, they create this, you know, they they all make money Dan Bongino, cash Betel, they you know, Pambondi, They all make political hay and and get their viral clips and get their notoriety by by flirting with this Epstein story. And then they're the deep state. Yeah, you know, and here we are. But you know it is damaging because guess what, who do you believe, Jim, Do you believe the government on Epstein or not.
Uh.
I honestly don't know. I don't know what I believe. And answer isn't that the problem, isn't it?
I do not believe, you know. I'm one of those who believes that if it were as if it were is uh, if what is alleged is true, there's no way this these secrets hold, right, Maxwell would have used it to get out of going to Jay Okay, So I just I don't think there there. I think all these people hung out with him. I think they all knew you. Oh yeah, Jeffrey's a little bit this right, but you know, but he gives me free rides and
his plane or I rather like hanging out at his resort. Man, it's really fun to get served pina coladas by these scantily clad girls.
You know.
Do I think all of that was true? You know? But the next level of it, right, like, look, if there was another Prince Andrew, wouldn't we know? Yeah, That's sort of where I'm at. That said, I understand if most people go I don't know what to believe anymore, because the same people who were telling me don't believe what the government's telling you are now the government and they're telling you believe what the government is telling you.
So let me pose a question return in the other direction.
Let's assume that what was exposed were unsavory conducts. Talk about euphemisms with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. I would posit that Bill Clinton would never be invited to any event again for the rest of his life, and Donald
¶ Trump gets away with "I hate Democrats" comments
Trump would be the same as if nothing had happened the day before.
Is that a fair And.
I'll give you another one. You caught Donald Trump's line on Friday where he said I hate all Democrats. Of course, Barack Obama had said that after the passage of Obamacare, I hate all Republicans. What would happen?
That is so true? That was on July fourth.
By the way, didn't this didn't Carolyn leven or whoever was say this is going to be a unifying things.
This is a thing where he reaches out to other than Democrats.
This idea that you only govern for those who support you. I mean, this is really the virus that I really I'm you know, I did you see the axiom? I'mous. Here's something I've been curious your guys take on.
Marjorie.
I'll let you take the first bite. I assume you saw the Axios newsletter this morning, Mike Allen. They had the little nugget about how they had these anonymous Democratic members of Congress who said, hey, man, the base is really fired up. They they don't care if we break
¶ Should Dems break rules in defiance of Trump?
rules to fight Trump. In fact, they don't understand why we're You know, if you have to start a fire, get shot whatever, it is like, fight fire with fire. And this has always been my concern that a second Trump term was going to not change just the Republicans, but it would change the Democrats. And in the zeal with defeating trump Ism, how many rules are how many norms and rules is it okay to break if it's in defiance to Trump, right like? And what kind of
slippery slope art could we be ending up on. It's a concern I have, yeah, but I understand the Democratic anger.
That's a tough an answer. I don't think well.
I was going to say, maybe I'm being Pollyanna here in Massachusetts, but I want some leadership for the Democrats. I don't think that they should lower themselves to steal and cheat and lie and do what Donald Trump has done.
I don't think I'm with you. I think Kamala Harrison I got as many votes as she got because they're the party that isn't doing that.
Yeah, I hope so, but I don't know. I don't know.
I think the Democrats have going to do something you mentioned Kamala Harris. I think the Democrats have got to do more to recognize talent. You know, you don't want to keep putting up people. You know, Barack Obama was wrong. Biden should have run against Donald Trump the first time around, not Hillary Clinton that was.
So un anybody else, or it should have been an open primary. Should maybe Barack Obama shouldn't have been the one to decide who. Let the voters decide. Had the establishment decided in know seven, Barack Obama never would have been the nominee.
That's a good point.
I also think it was too bad that the Democrats. You know, Kamala Harris was a tough candidate when she ran for president, she was eliminated very quickly. I think she I mean, obviously there was sexism, there was racism, but in general, I don't think she's that talented a politician to have growne up against Donald Trump. And I wish they'd had a primary then with the Josh Shapiro, etc. So anyway, that's I'm getting off.
For break is rule breaking, the rule breaking.
¶ Democrats sit-in over guns was an example of good rulebreaking
I understand the rule breaking that you don't want the Democrats across. I'd like them to break some rules. I mean the example, I'll give you an example, Martin and I talk about it quite regularly. A bunch of years ago. I'm sure you'll remember this, Chuck, they had to sit in, and I thought they had to sit in because wouldn't allow voting guns.
Do you remember how the sit in, this principled sit in were breaking.
They were breaking house rules?
You're right? Do you remember remember how the sit in ended?
It was a holiday weekends and they ended they ended the sit in because they had to.
Get home for the holidays.
I would argue a little more rule breaking might be a thing.
Okay, So I get that. That's that's you know, as as John Lewis love to call it, good trouble yo truck. But you know, we all know there's this line. You know, look, there's a whole group of democratic consultants who want to come up there like, hey, the right wing is doing this information, maybe we auto too, you know what I mean? Like, that's the slippery slip I'm worried about.
I don't think that's true.
I think you wonder why the Democrats aren't better at certain things. The old line about how you know the Democrats are showing up with scissors or a gunfight, or knives at a gunfight, or the Republicans were brilliant enough after Roe v. Wade to spend twenty or thirty years organizing the judicial pipeline which has brought us the Supreme
Court we have now. I don't know why Democrats are better at those kinds of things, why we get out smarted, why we didn't know so much about Project twenty twenty
¶ Democrats are bad messengers
five before the election, or maybe people didn't didn't care. But the Democrats are lousy I think at messaging to meant too much.
But even when they're good, I mean, look at this.
I'm hesitant to be critical of these two things because so many people saw them as great moments in political history. Corey Booker stands up without paying for twenty six hours or whatever he did and gave a speech.
I heard about an hour of it.
Was pretty impressive eight hours or whatever for a king. Jeffreys and the words of Peggy Lee that you're not old enough to remember her famous song.
Is that all there is at the end of both I saw it, and I don't have a better idea. Is that all there is?
Long speeches that are substantive and well, and then you go home.
I mean, what is it?
Well, here's what all? Right, I'll throw something else. I had Kristin Sultez Anderson on the show last week and she said something that I thought she just thinks we were talking about mom Donnie right and the whole Why did he win? Did he win on substance or did he went on style?
Right?
Essentially right. I think there's still this debate was it substance or style? And her she is basically saying, look, he really is like Trump. He filled he filled all
¶ Politicians have to be performative
the empty space with entertainment, if you will. It was substantive entertainment. But oh, you know, I'm going to show up here, I'm going to show up there. Yes, it was a little performative. She thinks you have to be performative now in order to be seen as legitimate. Right, And this is sort of a problem in the in the media space. Right, good journalism isn't enough?
Are you?
Do you know how to sell it. Are you a good influencer?
Right?
Do you know how to go viral? Do you know how to do these things? And that that is the skill set and that in some ways right right, this this comes back to like Donald Trump's been doing this this whole life. Suddenly the media ecosystem changed to his strength. He didn't, he didn't change. It's just suddenly his style of zero attention span suddenly was an asset when it used to be a liability, right, Like you know, it was sort of we evolved towards we devolved arguably towards him,
uh in our in the way we consume information. But that was sort of her conclusion. She's not alone here, thinks that performance is more crucial than ever and performative being knowing how when do when to do these So I'm with you, Jim. I don't know what the hell either got you because you because here's the thing. It wasn't like it was going to lead to a new vote.
There wasn't like there was going to be this is not mister Smith, that suddenly you've persuaded people who are watching, all right, I'm now going to vote with him, Right, Corey Booker wasn't changing a vote. A Kim Jeffreys wasn't changing a vote. They were there literally to raise money. Okay, Now, when Corey Booker did it, I think it it was the day of those special elections. It was April first, and it was the day of those special and I think it was an asset to turn out in Wisconsin
and in some of these places because it gave base Democrats. Hey, while you're getting ready to vote, are you excited about this?
Right?
So, I do think the theatrics. I think what we have to learn from Trump is that the theatrics do matter. Filling the space matters, dominating the space matters. And you know who understood this accidentally, It turns out who Bill Clinton? Oh yeah, right, because Bill Clinton. We were assumed by all things Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton loves to go to McDonald.
Bill Clinton's going to a football game, Bill Clinton. You know this, Bill Clinton that, And it drove the right wing crazy, right, And yet it was profied arguably Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, this, Ronald Reagan that, and it drove the left wing crazy. You know, they couldn't seem to touch this guy. I you know, I don't like to admit that that's where we are. But maybe that is where we are.
Well, why can't you be? I mean, it's funny we have this exact same conversation. I don't know if you know nik Koaha, who's the podcast for a Vulture and rights for New York Magazine too today.
I don't even know how we got into this.
Oh, because he had a conversation with mom Donnie about what podcasts he was listening to and whatever. And I think we the three of us, agreed that the delivery was hugely important with Mom Donnie. But I would argue, you can be both things. You can be substantive and be good messager, as opposed to Donald Trump, who's an incredible messenger and has no substance whatsoever. So I don't think being I don't think valuing the quality of the message and how it's delivered means you have to cheap
¶ The left needs to have a socialism vs capitalism debate
one has to cheapen the policy prescription of the messenger.
We don't have one at the moment, do we.
Well, we were just.
Talking about how Mom Donny, in a local way, if you like his politics, is doing both.
You know.
So look, I think Mom Donnie is an important you know. I think if he sparks, there isn't a necessary debate that the left needs to have about socialism versus capitalism. And I mean this like, I do think that there is a true dispute. Is capitalism too broke, too broken to fix? Or can you know you know which side of this column you're on. I remember, remember Elizabeth Warrenson, I'm a capitalist. I want to reform it. You know
something Bernie Sanders wouldn't say. It was her way of trying to differentiate herself between Sanders and her I think, mom,
¶ Cultural issues are the glue for both parties, not economics
Donnie's I do think this is an important debate because I do think we're in this weird moment with both parties where they're the only thing that keeps them together is cultural issues, not economic issues.
Right.
The divide in the Republican Party is essentially free trade versus protectionism or isolationism versus internationalism. And it's a real divide. You know, they're papering over it. You know. Trump's personality I think in the Democratic Party really is it's sort of socialism versus a technic what I call technocratic capitalism, right, sort of that public private partnership, but for the most part, a regulated free market, if you will, and we weren't
and the left wasn't having that debate. They're just so consumed with not being divided, and maybe having this debate will be healthy.
Yeah.
Well, I also think, you know, there's a difference between being a democratic socialist and being a socialist, and socialism has got more to do great, I know, but that's sort of That's another problem is that we seem to have people that either don't care to learn about you know, they all detoke.
The line that we all read in college.
You know, this republic only survives if it's got it educated electorate. And I don't know that we have an uneducated electorate, but I think we have an electricate doesn't pay much attention. And I think that's a problem because you do have to kind of pay a little bit more attention and know a little bit.
More what's going on.
But I think socialism is to help with your childcare. I don't think socialism is getting help on rents. You know, they could people can turn it.
Well, actually, I would argue you're arguing that now helping with childcare isn't socialism, it's part of the the sort
¶ Democratic socialist policies are popular, the socialist label is not
of the how government should assist with capitalism. Well, if you're helping with childcare, you're helping people participate in the private sect. Well versus socialism, it's everything right, Well.
We've got social Security.
I don't see that's socialism, right, we know what's complaining about that or Medicare. So I think you have to people have to stand up and say this is not social Maybe you're right, maybe no one is too dim witted to get the nuance I'm messaging.
The answer is don't use the terms. Is the is the thing? I mean? You know what we talk a lot on the show. Do remember that.
I'm sure you've seen this the great Jimmy Kimmel thing when he sends a reporter at the Hollywood Boulevard and says, which do you prefer the Affordable Care Actor Obamacare? And everybody hates Obamacare and Olibrett loves the Affordable Care Act.
Marjorie says this on the show all the time.
If you take away the alleged radical left slash democratic socialist agenda and say, do you want more affordable childcare? Do you want some control on rent so I can go down the whole mom dummy or whatever list?
Do you want to give taxes to rich people? Almost everybody got climate change. Almost everybody will not an agreement and say this is what I want. But if you then said either socialism or democratic socialism, and I don't think anybody knows the difference except who are one of those things, You're going to lose a lot of people. But on substance that debate should be had.
And if you can avoid the terms without Donald Trump forcing you to use them, I think it'd be really valuable for a party that doesn't quite know where it's going, you know.
Let me, for my entire professional life, Massachusetts has been sort of among the heartbeats of American politics, right, not the sole heartbeat, but among the heart beats multiple people coming running for president, multiple nominees, and my professional life. So I'm always right in on both sides of the aisle we've had. We've had since nineteen eighty eight former governors of both parties of the state of Massachusetts been
major party nominees. Is the brand of Massachusetts tainted too much now for anybody to rise up and become a nominee again? Is there like too match Buyer's remorse on the left and sort of Taxachusetts branding on the right. For for the next generations of Massachusetts leaders to populate
¶ Can a Massachusetts politician win nationally?
our national political debate, or or or am I buying into the to the right wing and left wing spins of Massachusetts politics?
Jim Well, you know, I guess I would say, on one hand, a really smart, really competent, talented senator run for president and she didn't even win her home state. That was Elizabeth Warren So and she's I think she's a really talented person. But I mean, let's do both sides of the equation. While there is no Republican Party for him anymore, if Charlie Baker decided to run to represent that minority part of the Republican Party, he'd.
Do better than his former boss Bill Well did. So at some point, hopefully trump Ism is going to die and Republicanism comes back, there'd be a place for that kind of person.
And I don't buy. I don't buy the notion. I know you're just asking a question, not positing an answer. I don't buy the notion that our influence is going We have a lot of really talented politicians here, and I think the question is just Tommy, don't you.
Think Martin Well, I've always thought the reason that is for what it's worth is that the local politics is so well informed, you know, I mean I you know, every little township seems to produce some pretty quality people. Not to say there isn't less quality people too, but that there is. And this is New England in general, right, that there's a bit of a there's still a legacy or an expectation that all politics is local and and
and they kind of mean it in New England. Am I am I overlyingizing Marjorie Listen.
I have lived in Massachusetts my whole life, and I am more grateful than ever that I live in Massachusetts, because I don't think people were outraged when Ramesa Osturk was taken off the street by masked ice people in Somerville for writing co authoring on OpEd. When they took that young man that was on the way to volleyball practice,
ice did and hauled him out of the car. When they broke a window in New Bedford with children in the back seat to get people out of the car, people took to the streets.
They were outraged.
If you're a gay person in Massachusetts, I don't think you have to be afraid to live here. You know, it's tough for trans people. But it's better here than there's a lot of other places. You have people like more Heally when she was Attorney General, and Andrea Campbell, the journey General now who are taking Trump to court on all these outrageous things. We have some very talented politicians here. We have a very good school system here. If your kid is disabled, you may have to fight.
To get always been, I mean, it's always been. Public school rankings, Massachusetts is always number one.
I think a lot of people would be lucky to live here here. It's very expensive to live here, tough to buy a house here. But I'm really proud of Massachusetts.
We also have a mayor on our show tomorrow who kicked Congress's as a couple of months ago.
Only one I've ever seen give as good as she got,
¶ State of the Boston mayoral race
better than what she got with a nursing child, infant newborn at her breast, I might add, I love that for all the women of America.
Well, what I was that was actually going to be how I was going to land this plane, which is the Boston Mayor's race. Yeah, and mister Craft, is it Josh Craft? Josh Craft that's running? It looks like an invisible campaign at the moment in that it's a lot more advertisements than it is hand to hand campaigning. But you tell me you guys are on the ground there.
Well.
People are mad about the bike lanes in Boston and Michelle Man, that's.
Welcome to being mayor of any town. It's a huge I get it where you park space.
I have been amazed by her.
She's got a great backstory as a mother with mentionalininess, raised her two younger kids, brought them all to Boston, the mother and the two younger sisters, while she went to Harvard and Harvard Law School. Uh. She, as I said, she out smarter them all in Congress. I've not seen anybody do as well in one of those gang bangs as Michelle Wu did and as I said, a nursing mother of three. We've had a chance to interview a
lot of politicians in our time, Jim. Is there somebody that knows more about the city of Boston as the mayor than Michelle Wuh, she's very impressive. Whether she's going to do I think she. I think she will win big again. I could be wrong, but I think I think she'll win big again.
By the way, can you be mayor mumbles anymore and win.
Well, can I tell you something? They loved him.
I know they did.
There was a level that came out about him and a predecessor of his, Ray Flynn, which are two of the most amazing pauls ever saw.
I think the Globe did it.
I'm not sure have you ever you have ever met the mayor of Boston? And by the way, it didn't mean have you been at a rally where he spoke or in an auditorium?
Have you ever.
Met and it was in the high fifties and low sixty percent. Yeah, major American city where people had met Tominino or ray Flynn.
I mean it's just it is that's become a traditionary wor.
Old school really old school? Is Mayor wu this way? Does she do the same thing? Do you see her out there.
The same way?
I mean she has a brand new baby, as you probably know. As Marty said, she bought the baby to Congress. She often brings the baby to our radio show and then hands it off to her husband, who has decided to put his career on hold to take care of of the baby for the time being. But yeah, she's I think they established this notion. If you're not out there, Marty Walsh, doo, if you're not out there meeting people almost twenty four to seven, this is not the job for you.
So touchcraft. We should give credit.
I mean, Josh Kraft ran the Boys and Girls Clubs of Florid for I mean in Boston for years and years and years, and we did a great job. I'm not sure why he's running at this particular juncture.
I tell you, I'm laughing. I left him because of this covers that you just mentioned a minute ago. We're talking about bikelnes. I love that you said a chuck. You know where do you park? All our listeners mocked me because I made the big mistake when we had our first bike line discussion about six months ago, mentioning
was my birthday last year and I couldn't. I had to get my own cake, which is bad enough to begin with, and I couldn't find a space nearby side to walk two blocks to get my own birthday cake. And I will never live.
Was it raining at the time or snowstorm?
Both ways? Actually, and I was boiling unbelievably hot, and I was snowing. It was uphill. It was hard.
¶ Should Michelle Wu be worried about being an incumbent
So is this you know, I do think there's an anti incumbent vibe that is nationwide.
Right.
You saw at Pittsburgh's incumbent mayor lost. We saw that San Francisco's at mayor loss. So I look at these things through that national lens. Are we going to see more of this? I think it's a terrible time to be an incumbent, right, just in general? Definitely, you can feel it, right, people are just like you know, I think this is why we've had three one term presidents in a row. You know, people didn't vote for Trump. They just voted against, you know, they voted against at
least that final slice of voters did. How concerned should she be about that? In Boston? Is that you've sense that feeling?
In all Jim not as concerned as the other guys should be about the fact that his father, fairly or unfairly has a friendship with Donald Trump, and some major Donald Trump donors have given a huge pile of money to a pack that's sports truck.
So she she's gonna be able to turn him into a Trump she'sis or something like that.
She's trying. And even though he has said I a poor Donald Trump. He has supported members of Congress who are trumpified and are bailed on every issue except Israel and uh choice, anti choice, anti same sex marriage. So I think the answer is a fair unfair. That's I'll leave that up to voters. That's going to be a has been and will be a major thrust the of the She often says to at events. He just moved here too, from Chesnut Hill, which is right across the thing there.
Welcome to Boston, Josh. That's funny that that worked well.
That worked well against Andy Cuomo was like, oh, hey, welcome to New York.
I know that was It was an amazing That was an amazing race in New York City.
So we'll see and it's not over, you know, we we That's say I saw a poll today that you can if there's consolidation behind somebody, there's you can see that Mom, Donnie has a harder ceiling. Yeah, Now the
¶ Can Andrew Cuomo make a comeback against Mamdani?
question is is it forty five or is it fifty one? But the ceiling is there and you can see. You know, it was interesting the pole I saw broken up by Burrow and he's the mayor of Brooklyn today already. You know that's not a problem. It's a coin flip in Manhattan, and he doesn't win any other borough. So look, you can win it on the strength of Brooklyn and Manhattan alone,
So it doesn't matter. But you can see the path to stopping mom Donnie if there is, if there is reason to do it, I guess would be the way I'd look at it.
I think you for a Cuomo to have a shot, as he has to decide, well, I should accept the endorsement of only one sexual harasser, Bill Quinton, not a second.
Don't you think there's a there's a ceiling to that? And then yeah.
Yeah, culture, No, I think I don't understand. And this is where I think Schumer and Jeffries have escaped accountability. Here, your national leaders that live in New York City, you look the other way while everybody rallied around Andrew Cuomo. You want to lead the Democratic Party seriously.
And also if they endorse Mom donniet or no.
No, they haven't. I mean, you know they've They've got this massive problem now that is dividing the Democratic Party. I think it'll be healthy in the long run, but still it is. And you're the the facto leaders of the party right now. There's nobody else. You're the Senate leader, and you're the House leader. You're both New York City guys, and you and you. You couldn't find a better candidate than Cuomo. Seriously.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know that they've been that.
You want to be my late tech salesman.
Come on. They reached out to Joe Biden, but he was unavailable.
I can't wait till Biden runs for Wilmington mayor h Beach mayor. I feel like that's coming. I feel like something like that, or Hunter Biden runs for mayor of Wilmington, Like I just you know, something like that's going to
¶ Can America get itself out of this mess?
happen sooner than we think, because you know, you know, every every TV series needs a needs an episode like that.
Can I ask you a quick question before we leave here, Chuck, yes, ma'am. Are we going to get out of this mess?
Do you think, well everything ends, It's just going to end badly and here's the here let me ask. I'll leave you as this will make my real out question. Okay, I don't think this is a a you know, the Trump arrow will come to an end. My guess is it'll be abrupt, and I don't know how right, Like, maybe it's a natural disaster, maybe it's an economic collapse, maybe it's something else. It's going to be a mess. There's going to be one of two directions we go
as a country. We decide, uh, that's never going to happen again, and we move on, or we try to Trump proof the Constitution and the government so that we don't allow that to happen again. Which direction do you expect us to go?
Marjorie, Well, I'm not discouraged.
I'm not encouraged by the ability of the Republicans and Democrats to agree to to to do something as dramatic as Trump Proof. But maybe if Trump is gone, because I don't see a jd. Vance or anybody able to take up that charismatic place he holds for the country, maybe then they could.
I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to think they could do that, but I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't have a good answer.
We want to do something that people love. In talk radio, I'm gonna argue both sides very quickly. Well, I don't think there will ever be another leader who can do what Trump does, even though they've tried. Ron Desanta's being a perfect example bismal failure. I think the freedom that Trump has given to people to be like him is.
Going to be hard to get rid of.
I think people find it liberating to be able to say they're worse innermost thoughts and things like that. Having said that, the other side is I'm a huge believer in leadership, and I'm not the first person who said if Ronald Reagan had run as a liberal Democrat, he would have been elected in a landslide.
Leadership really matters in this country. It really matters to me.
And I think if the people with the right thinking approaches find a leader who has charisma, who is youngish, who is tough, I think this could end in a far better way than I worry that it will. It's such a great point. My wife says this all the time.
She goes, if Joe Biden had been a better leader, there would have been no second Trump term. Yeah, and it's a fair ethic, it's the fairest critique of it. Look, it just is true. He just wasn't the leader that was necessary to have us turn the page. Maybe it was due to age, maybe it was due to other things, but he wasn't And that you're right. Leader leadership can overcome a lot of things. If you have good leadership or bad leadership.
That's what we're looking for. If you are not.
Before we leave, I just say one thing for the record here so people know this. I did not own a Volvo station Wagon and I did not have pants.
It was probably a suber Uh.
I'm sorry, I can't talk about.
I also called him the heart throb of economics one oh one.
That was very complimentary.
And let me let me uh, Will Bond and Cornheiser actually can socialize like they're off off camera?
All right?
How how are you guys able to socialize like off hours?
You have enough of friends tonight the road tonight?
Yeah, yeah, the.
Red Sox just make some gnats ass this past Fourth of July weekend beautiful. That was embarrassing, lovely.
It was expression made you.
Guys look like, gave you guys hope.
That's right.
Now we're playing the worst team in baseball, right, so it's even more we're very excited.
No, you just played the worst. I thought you just played the worst even baseball? Who is it?
Tonight? Do you get the rock in Colorado even worse? Yeah?
The Gnats have more losses than the Rockies since twenty nineteen, so really, yeah, we've really done well.
Sausage.
Think of those sausage things tonight, the sausage and onions things.
That was the fun things.
They're bold sausage onions, onion things.
I'll have a salsage and onion thing. Please, thank you.
Now everybody knows why. This is my favorite half hour that I spend every Thursday with.
We love well. Thank you, the guests, the audience, Chuck. Thanks.
It's always fun when you get to interview friends and people you just like each other.
¶ Thoughts on interview with Jim and Margery
Uh.
So, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I enjoyed having it, so I hope you enjoyed listening to it. All right, let me do a few questions, and I love it, man, The questions are getting better and better. Feedback's amazing. Uh And I admit I'm getting to the point where we may have to do entire episodes that are just as Chuck as Chuck. The real reason is because you want that, You want that sort of that music's kind of familiar,
¶ Ask Chuck
but you don't know where it belongs. That's the trick, right, All right, let's start with this, this comes from Grants. It looks like he's writing from Alabama, and he writes, Chuck love the pod, especially the longer episodes. Well, all right,
¶ Why did the left take the "hall monitor" vibe from the right?
the roganification of podcasts are here. Don't do any podcasts under an hour and a half, right anyway? I tease. He continues, great insights and analysis. I wanted to bounce something off of you. Have you noticed how the left and right seem to have switched places when it comes to cultural orthodoxy? He goes, when I moved to d C from Alabama, I felt judged by moderate dem staffers for things like smoking, but my GOP and libertarian friends
never cared. Is this hall monitor vibe a bigger challenge for the Democratic Party? And can they shed it? Would love to hear your thoughts. You're right, I especially sort of Southern Democrats, right, you know, you know, I'll give you another one. It's not as common, right for a Democrat in d C to bechure going, and yet it's quite common in the South for everybody to be church going. So I think you're not wrong that there's a little bit of that going on. But let me flip the
script here. You know where I thought you were going at first had to do with the nanny state, and I sort of more focused on sort of the bizarre, sort of the bizarreness, if you will. It's not really that bizarre anymore of Kennedy, at least on the right when it comes to that, which is you know, ten years ago, when Michael Bloomberg was trying to get rid of the big gulp, the right went crazy. Sarah Palin came out and gave speeches with a big gulp as a prop. You know, it was their way of going
after the crazy left. You know, I don't know if we were calling it woke then. Right now, who's the one trying to get rid of sweets and trying to get rid of you know, trying to decide, no, you shouldn't eat this and you shouldn't eat that. Right, it's suddenly the right. So I do think these things go cyclical.
You know, I'll give you another thing. Right, it was more likely you'd see a Democrat, a Democratic voter or candidate, would you know, if you saw somebody with more than one tattoo, you would assume they were their politics were on the left. Now these days, if you see somebody with more than one tattoo, you might assume their politics is on the right. So I do think some of this thing can be generational or subgenerational, and we don't see it. I do think I'm smoking. There's a few
things smoking. Maybe I would have said three or four years ago, tackle football, where if you were on the left, you might get judged by your friends on the left
on some of these things. So look, I do think one of the core problems, and I've said this, is that if there is a basic sort of one line descriptor problem that the Democrats have is that the Democrats seem to be always wanting to tell you how to live your life, where Republicans are trying to agree with are always going out of their way to agree with your grievance about life.
Right.
You know, it's sort of the idea that in general, Democrats are telling you, well you no, no, no, no, that isn't the most important issue. This is really the most important issue, versus the Republicans are saying, oh, you think that's the most important, okay, Right, They go out of their way to try to agree with the voters. Democrats go out of their way to try to tell voters, you know, no, no, no, you should think about it this way. So, yes, I think there's I think this
what you've hit on something. I don't think it's as clean, quite as clean as you've gotten it. But but I know exactly what you mean, and I think it is a there is a slight. It does feel as if you're somehow. When I was growing up, it was the Republicans that were the judge Party. Now it feels like it's the Democrats of the judging Party. If we wanted to be simplistic about it, and it's and it's something they have to shed.
I know it.
Here's a good question for a local government administrator from Peoria, Illinois. How's it playing in Peoria? An old phrase for an older set, Chuck. I make a genuine effort to source my news from multiple perspectives, and the Check podcast has
¶ Are we living through the fall of the American empire?
been one of my sources for a long time. Today, I have two mostly unrelated questions. First, every empire rises and falls. Are we currently living through the fall of the American Empire? Second, as a timestamp, I'm listening to your interview with Ian Bremner. Bremmer, what do you think it would actually take for the magabase to abandon trump Ism, not necessarily Trump himself given out strong echo chambers, or for both parties. Hope you find either or both of
these worth tackling on a future pod. Happy Independence Day, Scott Sorow Scott, I appreciate the question, and I guess I would tackle it. You know, the last people to know when an empire falls are those that are part of the empire. Right, I'm I'm way back in my previous life when I was working at National Journal and also working a bit with The Atlantic. They and an editor there who wrote a book that was titled Are
We Rome? And I think it came out in twenty ten, Right, so you're talking, you know, here we are fifteen years later, And for what it's worth, I feel like about every fifteen or twenty years, this concept of hey, you know, are we in the late stages of something? Is this like late stage Roman empires collapse, et cetera, et cetera.
And you know, I think it's fair to say that a fall of a country politics or constitution, or however you would call the fall of the American Empire, it's going to feel I'm sure it would feel the same way, just like the metaphor about bankruptcy. Right first it happened slowly,
then quickly, right all of a sudden, it's gone. Right, And we've seen that when the fall of leaders, right Assad, when Assad fell, whoa we all I think eventually we all thought eventually Aside's going to fall, but nobody knew when it was going to happen. And then when it happened, it just happened. It was like gone overnight. Now he's
shopping at Russian grocery stores. So you know, it is one of those things that that I think that I think the better way to look at it is if we're not careful, we could end up on the path and we could see the fall of the great democratic experiment.
Right.
The challenge to capitalism is that if we don't figure out how to reform capitalism in a way that feels that everybody's got a shot. If people feel as if they don't have access to the American dream, the country's politics is going to collapse. It just is because it's when people feel like they don't have an ability to make a living, they don't have an ability to better
their lives on their own, that's when governments fall. That's when revolutions happen, that's when you're able to gather people up. So if you look at it through that prism, right, if you look at it to see you know, how did Venezuelan fall? How did Turkey fall? If you will,
there are few things that concern me. I think our rural urban divide is is UH is very makes us very vulnerable to a collapse because when you look at what happened to Venezuela, it was an authoritarian taking advantage of poor, of the rural poor and pitting them against the UH. The elites of Caracas. Airdwan got to power using both religion and and and resentment at the elites in Istumbul. You know his weakest is you know he's weakest in Istumbul because that's where the money people live.
That's where the elites live. That's where they're basically the pro Democrat, pro small deed to myocracy folks live. So the the fact that that there is a monolithic political identity in rural America, I think is potentially dangerous for us. And it's why the Democratic Party has to find a way back into because that's where the seeds of this
could could get worse. So I'm you know, I would I wouldn't put this as a flashing red light, but it's it's one of those if if we continue to make bad decisions over the next decade or so, then yeah, we may look back and say, oh, it's late stages of of the fall of the American Empire. But I choose to be optimistic. I choose to believe that We've had these near misses before, Mcarthyism, isolationism, a civil war, and we and we got through it. We're in one
of those moments. We're going to get through it. Why do I believe that? Because why do I want to believe the alternative? Ask for your second question, what would get mega? Well, what brought the isolationists sort of what brought the isolationists back to the mainstream in the nineteen thirties,
¶ What would it take to break Trump's hold over MAGA?
Pearl Harbor. So you're asking what would it take to sort of for the MAGA world to essentially abandon trump Ism. I think it's two things. One if trumpsm harms their livelihood. So I think the terror for the trade wars makes it very vulnerable when it doesn't work, and I just don't think it's going to work. But I'm you know, I'm going to be sitting here watching with the rest of you when it fails. The people that are going
to get harmed the most are is that mega coalition. Particularly, like I said, rural farmers, those in the agricultural sector are going to get hit the hardest. That could be one thing. But the isolation it's back was, you know,
an attack on Americans themselves. So you know, I have one of my theories as to why we're so polarized today is we don't have the Cold Wars as a as a way to sort of keep people from going to their political fringes, right, the threat of war with Russia, nuclear war, fear of that the Cold War kept the fringes in the fringe, and party leadership left and right did their best to sort of right. There was an agreement who the enemy was. There was a disagreement on
how to confront the enemy, but that was the divide. So, I mean, those would be the two ways that I could envision Maga leaving Trump is and these folks leaving Trump is. I'm gonna take one more question here and then wrap it up for the for the day. This comes from Micah Chuck You've talked extensively about the need for more options for political parties in the States. Yes,
¶ How and where can Musk succeed with a third party?
I just did it again. To the biggest factors of poor performance in the pastor money and personality. If Must launches this America Party, it seems like those two factors are less of a problem. Obviously, he's very polarizing, and while I myself do not agree with most of his ideas, I am intrigued by the possibility that he could actually rupture the two party system. He stated that his strategy would focus on a few seats in the House in
the Senate. Which states do you think he would focus on traditional swing states or red leaning libertarian es states? And if he were to run for Senate in Texas right now, could the combination of him and Paxton running as the Republican be enough to give Democrats an even greater fighting chance? Thanks Micah, Well, obviously, here I am answering your question after I've given you the beginning of this podcast my guide the states I would advise Must
to go through. And you add an important point, which is Musk has Texas business ties. Right He's building his own compound in Austin for all of his children, to potentially live in. I don't think all of the mothers of his children have decided they're comfortable living together in a compound in Austin. But he's building one there and hopeful for that he's trying to start. He's incorporated his own city. We know that as well, with SpaceX there.
But no, I don't think Musk himself should run ask You know, Henry Ford once ran for US any lost primarily because he was exposed as an anti semi But you know, the rich people that fund their own campaigns. And I put that caveat on there because Donald Trump's a rich person who did not fund his own campaign. But rich people that fund their own campaigns usually make terrible candidates because they think about everything through the prism of their own. You know, this is theirs, they own it,
et cetera, et cetera. So I continue to believe the best way Musk can help break up the two parties is if he writes the checks and sort of handles it the way he handles SpaceX, which is he lets competent people run the day to day parts of the company, and he plays dreamer. He plays pie in the sky guy, and he plays funder. If that's what he is, maybe there's a there's a possibility there. The problem is must personality. You can just see totally blowing this thing up and
becoming too definitional to the party. And then it's what's going to scare people. I mean, I think, you know, I think in all these places, you know, the minute you introduce a third candidate that gets over five percent of the vote, you scramble all of the coalitions and it opens the door for all sorts of outcomes that are unexpected. So in theory what you just described, yes, Musk and Packston, Yeah, two very unlikable people. I do
think that opens the door. But I think if it's Corn and Packxton and already I'd put my money on corn and to win that three way race. And the question is do you want what is the goal?
Right?
Is the goal to elect more of the of the other party or is the goal to create a fulkroum of folks who can sort of decide which side, sort of the way that the the lib Dems had been in the UK, right they were sort of the third partyment would they work with conservatives? Would they work with labor who needs the numbers? You know, maybe that the Tories will become that party, that they'll be the third party.
Do they end up? You know, it'll be interesting. Would Tories team up with the with Labor in order to stop Nigel Ferrage and the Reform Party?
Right? You know?
So the point is, the minute you open the door to a third and a fourth party, I think you opened the door to all sorts of potential outcomes that are unpredictable because we've not had many you know, we don't have enough instances to know exactly we to sit here and tell you for certainty which way things would go. But again I go back to what would be healthier for the democracy more choices?
Right?
Are you comfortable shopping at a store if you were trying to buy a shirt and all they offered was small and extra large?
Right?
And that's all we seem to to give the only two options we get the voters when people would like do they have extra small, do they have extra large? They have medium? Do they have sh medium? Do they have medium large. I'm not saying we need seven new parties, but a more robust Libertarian party would be an interesting check on the Republicans, and a more robust Forward Party could be an interesting check on the Democrats. So there, all right, I think I'm going to call it an episode.
There.
Appreciate you listening, Thanks for sticking with me spending time. If you enjoyed the listen, give me that five star review wherever you want to do it, Tell your friends like and subscribe. By the way, have a sub stack, so please go over there and subscribe to that. I post every Tuesday, and I have a more detailed guide to how and where a third party candidates could really which states would it make the most sense to target if you were Elon Musk, So you will enjoy that.
We got.
I'll have a new episode on the new Sphere app coming up this Sunday with Rom Emmanuel, so be sure to check that out as well. If you haven't had your free try to go grab it so that you can catch that episode in full. And with that, I'll see you the next time we upload this