Chuck’s Commentary - Americans Have Become Numb To Trump’s Horrific Behavior + Trump Has Mainstreamed “Mobster Politics” - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. I've got

(01:48):
a fascinating interview today with somebody who's been in politics
a long time. And for some of you who be
a familiar name and others you might say, oh, I
haven't heard from him in a while.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's Jack dan Forth.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
He was a long time I'm senator from the state
of Missouri, very much a sort of kind of would
I would have referred to him as almost like Bob Dole,
not quite mister Republican, but close. And in fact, he
runs a project now that essentially about trying to recapture
the Republican Party, away from away from Donald Trump, away

(02:21):
from the Mega movement, but in particular the reason he
wanted to have a conversation with me. And by the way,
you'll hear when I tell you he's eighty nine years old.
You most of you will be surprised. And I think
all of you will hope that you are is nimble,
and is and is smart, and is coherent and is

(02:43):
you know, on top of things, as Senator dan Forth
is in our conversation, it is you'd forget that it's
been nearly thirty years since he's been in the Senate.
It doesn't feel that when you have that conversation with him.
But those that know Jack dan Forth, well, he's always
been on this. He's, like I said, a very much
a you know, when George W. Bush used the phrase

(03:07):
compassionate conservative, I think that's exactly what Jack dan Forth
would have described his type of conservatism. He's an episcopal
he was an ordained episcopal priest, so his faith is
very important to him and he's believed that faith in
general can be a unifier. But he's deeply troubled by

(03:28):
the lack of empathy in this version of the Republican Party.
He's also troubled by the loss of the definition of conservative.
It struck me in many ways, like versions of conversations
I've had with George Will over the last couple of
years since the Trump era of court. George will famously
left the Republican Party and said it's no longer a
conservative party. So he left and registered reregistered as an independent.

(03:54):
But the biggest thing that disturbs him is the character
and decency aspect of the Trump movement. And it actually
I did the interview a couple of days ago before
the President made it is just heinous remarks about Somalian
immigrants at that cabinet meeting earlier this week, and it
was one of those moments and where you know, I know,

(04:17):
we're all exhausted from outrage, right, and there's this collective
you feel it in sort of the legacy press corps. Look,
I can tell you Mayan, You're like, oh God, really,
here he goes again.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
And my immediate reaction was.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Public's not going to care. They're going to shrug their shoulders.
But then I sat there and said, no, I think
the public does care. They just don't know how to
express it.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Anymore.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Right, We don't know, we don't quite know how to.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
You know, the inability to shame people in the Trump
era has taken away I think the public's best tool
to keep politicians from totally misbehaving.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And that's a big part of this.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
But you'll hear this in the conversation with Jack Danforth
and we'll get to it. I've got a few other
things on there. But to me, it really dovetails well
with this conversation with what the president's behavior because he
asked this question and he really believes if you took
it to the voters. I'm a little more skeptical about this,
but he believes if you basically say, is this who

(05:26):
we are? Is this who you want to be? Essentially
holding up examples of Donald Trump attacking people, calling reporters piggy,
particularly the harsh words he uses for any woman that
pushes back on him, what he says about anybody who's
not white, who's an immigrant in this country, the dehumanizing
and demeaning way, I mean, using the word garbage. I mean,

(05:49):
this is this is what inspires hate attacks on members
of various immigrant communities. Is when you have somebody with
a platform that Donald Trump has referring to the referring
to people in this dehumanizing way. And you know, this
is where I share in some ways Danforth's optimism in

(06:15):
that I don't believe a majority of Americans want or
accept behavior that the President showed this week. Now we've
had this conversations before. He has, you know, demeaned people
with disabilities. He has mocked you know, where does it end. Right,
He mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war

(06:35):
during Vietnam. His his he's called soldiers suckers and losers,
those that died in battle and combat because, as he
essentially is making clear, he wouldn't have allowed himself to
be stuck having to fight in the military and be drafted.

(06:56):
Pick whichever foot you want to pick to find out
whether he can whether he was eligible or not for
the draft, or whether his deferment was honest. But he
wasn't alone on that, and so that's why it hasn't
been a penalty. But this is why I'm a I
used the phrase Trump fatigue, and that I think Trump

(07:17):
fatigue is.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
A much more.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Is a much bigger accelerant to what I think is
going to be a tough election in a tough political
environment for Republicans in twenty six that there's just an
exhaustion from Trump's antics and the more and in some
ways right, we're on reruns, but we're on like crappy
ring runs. You're like, I don't want to watch this

(07:41):
show again. I don't want to see another version of
this again. You know, I'll confess it makes me even angrier.
It's sort of how poor Biden led this country. I'm sorry,
I do. I hope that a better leader would have
would have helped the country move on from Donald Trump,

(08:02):
but we didn't have that, and we are where we are.
But there are moments like this week where you're like,
I can't I can't believe we went back to this
because I don't think individually anybody that that a large man.
And perhaps you know this is this has been a
question that I've had uncomfortable conversations with people I trust.

(08:26):
Perhaps some of you out there have had similar that
you know, I've used the phrase others, We're not this way,
this is not who we are. What if it is right?
What if we're in the minority, What if the deed,
what if there is such a belief and I and
I do. I've had conversations with people who I think
are high character people who shrug their shoulders at Trump's behavior,

(08:49):
and they shrugged their shoulders for a variety of reasons.
One is they believe, Hey, politics is a tough business.
You kind of need an asshole in there. I think
a lot of you no voters like that, who are
so cynical about how politics works, so cynical about Washington,
and I understand it. But what I try to remind

(09:12):
people is that the cynicism that is driving the Trump
movement about Washington is a perception that while there are
nuggets of reality, for the most part, this isn't what
it is. But eventually perception does but become reality because
we have seen in the Trump era, Donald Trump has
mainstream kleptocracy.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
The idea that Washington is for sale is not controversial.
It's just how you do business. Every fortune five hundred
company in America knows that if they want favorable treatment
from government regulators, there's an easy way to do this.
You don't have to go to Congress, you don't have
to go to the agency. You go to Donald Trump

(09:54):
and you simply say what can you do about this?
And by the way, we'd love to become a tributor
to pick whatever slush fund he's got going on. Maybe
it's a public sector slush fund like the East Wing
building or his inaugural fund, or maybe it's his library
or whatever it is. And you know, I say, I

(10:16):
don't say this to just throw it out there.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
This is a fact.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
I'm just telling you. This is currently how the influence
game in Washington is working. It is so efficient right
now because there is there's no complicating factor. Everybody knows
if you're right, a big enough check and you get
in front of him, you can get whatever you want.
Right Look at the pardon situation. I mean, he just

(10:41):
pardoned this pardon of the former president of Honduras who
was a massive cocaine trafficker. I mean, this is one
of those where and if you've noticed, nobody is defending
this publicly, and quite a few Republicans are expressing discomfort
with this one and are going ahead when caught by
reporters with sticking the microphone in their face. Aren't willing

(11:05):
to just ignore this one, aren't willing to just say well,
Trump's Trump are actually going this now? This certainly sends
a mixed message, given supposedly the focus of what we're
up to with Maduro and in Venezuela. But the fact
of the matter is the former president of Honduras had
figured out the game, so he hires roger Stone, pays him,

(11:30):
and roger Stone gets in front of the president and
a base probably calls in a favor or two. You know,
who knows how much the price was right. We don't
have any transparency on that. We have transparency on the
pardon itself. We have transparency on the on the request
for the pardon from from the former president himself, but
we don't know how much he paid. Essentially an influencer,

(11:52):
which roger Stone essentially is a I don't even know
if he would have to register to lobby I might argue,
did he violate I'm curious if if this is since
he's representing a foreigner in this pardon request, whether he
filled out the proper paperwork, which many a lobbyist has
failed to do, which actually is a crime if you

(12:16):
didn't register as a foreign agent. Whether somebody would have
to register as a foreign agent in order to represent
that given I think that at a minimum, given that
Roger Stone back in the days of black Manift and Stone,
since they kind of invented, or certainly they didn't invent
the influence game, but they certainly expanded the reach of

(12:37):
the influence game when they had when they first came
to prominence in the eighties during the Reagan era.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
He knows the rules.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
So my guess is if on this front he likely
followed them, filled out the correct paperwork because he doesn't
care if he's fingered as a foreign lobbyist. He's not
running for office or he's not going to be up
for any Senate confirmed position. But the point is is
that we it is it is we all know how

(13:07):
this works, and it is it is that sort of
craven on that front, and you know at what point?
And I do think that there is this This is
where I believe the exhaustion comes in in that when
you talk to people individually, many of who may be
Trump supporters, and you ask ask them if this is

(13:30):
something that they would want to support in a politician,
they'd all say no. And then when you ask them
why do they tolerate it in Trump? It is they
will come back to this perception that somehow will politics
is a dirty business, and you kind of need a
dirty representative sometimes in order to accomplish this. The problem is,
this is exactly what Donald Trump wants people to think,

(13:51):
and he's trying. I mean, and this to me is
the explanation of how did Henry quay Are, a Democratic
Member of Congress from South Texas, end up getting a
pardon from Donald Trump. You know, there are certain crimes
that the Justice Department prosecutes that Donald Trump doesn't think
should be criminal, you know, whether it's you know, being influenced.

(14:12):
He essentially pardons anybody who commits a crime that he
is committing. So I guess you could say is at
least he's being generous with that, right, Henry Quaart took
money out of being to be influenced. Well, Donald Trump
is taking money all over the place and being influenced
to sign pardons, to agree to grease the wheels on regulation,

(14:35):
to look the other way on a merger and acquisition.
I mean, look look at the game they're playing with
the with Warner Brothers right now. I'm following this pretty closely.
This is a former employer with Comcasts trying to get
their hands on Warner Brothers. Netflix, and then of course
there's you know, what's the future of CNN since that's
part of the Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Organization.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Is the Ellison family going to become essentially the new
m and they're going to consolidate and try to control
as much of the news ecosystem as they can with
CNN and CBS. In any normal administration, there's no way
any of these mergers could happen. Netflix wouldn't get regulatory approval,
Comcasts wouldn't get regulatory.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Approval, neither would Warner Brothers.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Already we're seeing that the administration is raising eyebrows about Netflix,
raising eyebrows about Comcast because of the President not liking
Brian Robertson still mad over all things NBC, MSNBC. Trust
me on this one. His obsession over Comcast is all
about his failure as host of The Apprentice. Okay, that's
what this is about. His leftover anger at NBC is that.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Trust me.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
I've heard it a.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Million times from him.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
He believed that show was much more successful than it
actually was because he used to say things, you know,
the Apprentice pays your salary, and it's like, I don't
think so, brother, but you keep telling yourself that, so
there's this weird sort of he's so angry at NBC
that he's just going to punish comcasts. Right, it's it's
really less about NBC News and MSNBC. It really is

(16:04):
all about the Apprentice. It's also his anger with Jeff Zucker, Right,
It's weirdly it all comes back to it. You know,
You've got to remember, ultimately, if he's got a grievance,
it's usually something personal and in this case, uh, it's
it's it's about the apprentice because obviously the Apprentice has
become part of his identity.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
But when you're.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Watching this, the government's plain favorites. They're basically saying, look,
there won't be any regulatory you know, shouting basically at
Warner Brothers shareholders and the board of directors. Listen, if
you take the Ellison deal, won't be a problem at all.
You decide you wanna you wanna greenlight a acquisition by
Netflix or Comcast, well you know there's going to be

(16:47):
a lot of regulatory interest in looking at this deal.
This may take a year, maybe it takes two years.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
How long.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Maybe the value suddenly goes down and and and this
doesn't happen and et cetera.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Now, you know, we'll.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
See if if the private sector can kentuck business based
on the private sector without government interference. But it seems
that Donald Trump wants to decide who gets to own
Warner Brothers in CNN, and so here we are. This
is what's really striking to me is how normal this
is all being portrayed, that this is just Trump's Washington.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
This is how it works.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
You know, the pardon of Henry Quayart, you know where
nobody's even blinking at this point about him once again
likely selling a parton I mean, now let's see what
what what was the price for Henry Quaar? Is it
a party switch?

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Right?

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Do we see that in the next Is it a
promise to party switch if they need that vote to
control the House of Representatives?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Who knows?

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Right, But let's just say Donald Trump has leverage over
Henry Kluar. Now I question obviously, you know Quaar was
in a was was vulnerable to a deal like this,
and and this is what Trump does. This is just
like the mafia, right it is.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know it's a kid.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
I used to tell a version of this story, you know,
so a criminal, criminal organization comes into a shopping district
and says, hey, good news, we've got some we're we're
you know, we're going to be able to provide security
for you now. And you, as the shopkeeper, say, well,
I didn't. I didn't ask for any new security. Oh
so you don't want any security for your shop?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, anyway, if you.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Do want security, this is what it's going to cause.
And then the next morning the shopkeeper comes back and
he sees that his store has been ransacked. And then
the criminal element comes back to the ShopKeep the next
day and he says, so you said you didn't need security,
do you think you need security?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Now?

Speaker 1 (18:56):
That's how a criminal syndicate creates leverage over and honest
that somebody who might want to be honest, and suddenly
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believe you're innocent, maybe you did commit a crime, but
you certainly have this hanging over your head. There comes
Donald Trump, he doesn't do these things or zero. So
I think we're all just wondering what is you know,

(20:43):
what is it that Henry Kuayar has either agreed to
or perhaps Donald Trump hasn't called in his favor yet.
But the point is is that this is this is
now everyday business. And this is kind of the point.
It goes back to, wy are we so numb when
the president of the United States attacks fellow human beings

(21:03):
and calls them garbage? Why are we so numb when
one of the largest cocaine traffickers in the history of
this country is set free due to a presidential pardon?
Why are we so numb when a foreign country hands
a nearly billion dollar plane personal gift to the president
and in return gets a NATO like security agreement for

(21:25):
a country that is not necessarily worked in America's best interest.
When it comes to Afghanistan or Israel or other parts
in the Middle East, we're just shrugging our shoulders and
I look at the pardon situation. So again to sort
of circle it back to why I do think while

(21:46):
the individual items here don't cause the political feeding frenzy
and don't create this sort of moment of pressure, and
I'll get to why I think that isn't happening for
a variety of reasons. I do think now that with
this crummy economy, sort of exhaustion from ten years of this,

(22:09):
that this stuff doesn't play well the way he thinks
it plays well. And so you have a base of
his party that's sort of tired of the same old
antics and exhausted from having to somehow rationalize their support
for him when he couldn't be a more low life
character morally or ethically right. If any other politician behave

(22:33):
this way, particularly if they had a D next to
their name, all of these Republicans that are looking the
other way on Donald Trump would be filing articles of impeachment.
The only upside out of this pardon business is that
I do think we're going to reform. There's I think
in the next ten years there's going to be a
constitutional amendment that puts some guardrails around presidential pardons, perhaps

(22:56):
creates a pardon board where the president is not the
final say, but is part of a group that has
a final say. But what is happening now is just
totally delegitimizing the Justice Department as a whole. I mean,
this guy, and you know it was funny. Is the
new the US attorney in charge of the of the

(23:16):
Sovereign District of New York, the Southern District of New York, right,
perhaps the most important district within the Justice Department, arguably
its own many Justice Department.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
That's who prosecuted.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
This, this former hundorn president. And oh, by the way,
the prosecution actually happened during the Trumpet first Trump administration.
He was finally extraduided in the United States, and the
sentencing took place during the Biden era. So there's not
even this way makes this even more of a head scratcher. Right,
This was an investigation and a prosecution that in theory

(23:50):
started and took place during Trump's first term, was completed
during Biden's term. And now Trump obviously has decided, you know,
he will decide who gets punished, and he will decide
who gets set free. This is the stuff that I
think is the is the extra anchor that is going

(24:12):
to drag Republicans down because it's it works two ways.
It demoralizes sort of Trump supporters that are like, you know,
you know, my kids keep asking me, you know why
I vote for him? How do I defend you know,
him attacking fellow human beings and calling them garbage and
all of this corruption with the pardons and oh, by

(24:33):
the way, the economy sucks.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
That's why I think this is this is real weight
this time, and that this isn't something that's going to
go away. But there is another reason why this stuff
isn't sticking in the immediate and that is the fragmentation
of the US media. I mean, take the take the
current situation at the Pentagon. So HAIG SATs successfully essentially

(25:01):
got rid of the professional journalists from covering the Pentagon
because they you know, forced some you know, frankly, something
that was against the First Amendment. I don't think was
constitutional what they did. I you know, I got to
think there's going to be a a I think having
to sign that sign that is unconstitutional, and I got

(25:23):
to think there's going to be a lawsuit that has
some success on this. I'm not active in the first
Amendment legal community. Because I'm not a lawyer, but if
I were, that certainly would be something I'd be advocating
and would be working on. But you know, so now
it's a whole bunch of you know influencers. Right, You've
got lawer Lumer, you got that white that sort of

(25:43):
want to be white superbat. There's a poor man's Tucker Carlson,
what's his name, Jack pro probacyak or whatever, sort of
a truly sort of irrational clown. And you know they're
also kind of sicko fan tea. But it says, you know,
hag Seth hasn't had to face a barrage of questions.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
We even have this new Inspector General report out that
says exactly what everybody said he did during Signal Gate,
which is he risked the lives of folks involved in
that mission. Yes, he technically had the power to declassify
those things, but apparently he could not come up with
the could not come up with paperwork or prove that

(26:24):
he had done anything to declassified other than I guess
magically thinking about it in his head. It's kind of
like the Donald Trump defense during the during that investigation
of the classified documents that he had just said, I
just thought about declassifying it, so therefore they're declassified. But two,

(26:46):
but you look at the fact that there's no sort
of media pressure on hag Seth the way we would
have had twenty years ago, right where you've had. If
any of you remember Bobby ray Enman, who was a
nominee for Defense Secretary during Clinton, had some things in
his background, it became kind of a feeding frenzy and
he was ended up, uh pulling the nomination. We don't

(27:10):
have these moments because we have such a fragmented media.
I think if if part if, if if we had
the less splintered media and you had more of a
and everybody were focused on what's going on with pardons,
it would create I think national urgency. It would force

(27:32):
attention and there I think then you would have more
members of Congress, regardless of party, being forced to go
on the record on how they feel about these things.
But we don't have that right now. Because this is
another thing. In some ways Trump has accelerated this, but
his attacks on the mainstream press to delegitimize the mainstream press,

(27:54):
and he's done a terrific job of doing this, you know,
the help of a of a legacy entity like Fox
News Who's who who sort of character assassinated many a
journalist in their day. By doing all of this fragmenting,
it's it makes it so no one thing becomes the

(28:17):
focal point for the for the sort of entire political
press court. I would argue these pardons are among the
most criminal things we've had a president do. In fact,
I'm I'm gonna one of my tododcast time Machine is
going to uh stories as soon as the anniversaries come up,

(28:37):
is going to be about the story of Lamar Alexander
having to be sworn in early as governor of Tennessee
because the person he was replacing was literally selling pardons
as he was out the door. And it was such
that Democrats joined Republicans and and essentially impeach getting rid
of the guy. It It happened in the seventies. Will

(29:01):
I will have the more of the details, but the
basic story was the Tennessee Legislature, which was Democratic controlled,
essentially they accelerated the timeline to swear in Lamar Alexander
to stop the outgoing governor from selling pardons. It's actually
how Fred Thompson got his acting career because they did

(29:22):
a movie about this loosely, and the movie maker couldn't
find anybody to play Fred Thompson, who was the lawyer
at the time for Lamar Alexander during during this period.
So Fred Thompson played himself and lo and behold, it
started a career. But the point was there was a
time when selling pardons like Donald Trump is doing with

(29:44):
something that outraged left and right, that it was just
this isn't what you do in a free country. This
isn't what you do in a democracy, and if you
do do it, it's criminal.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
And it should be stopped.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
And I think the lack of focus, the frag mened media, right,
there isn't this one. And he does plenty of things
that que the outrage, right, the attack on Somali immigrants,
what he does to elin Omar all the time, how
he goes after personally goes after people that in some
ways there's distractions. Right, Venezuela story is a big story.

(30:19):
So maybe the pardon, you know, takes a back seat.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
And it's not.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
New, right, Donald Trump selling a pardon is no longer
a shock anymore. And look, Joe Biden didn't help the
pardon story when he did his versions of preemptive pardons
and gave all these pardons to his family members. It's
to me one of the just worst things he could
have done, because he essentially provided a provided cover and
a permission slip for Donald Trump to abuse the process

(30:45):
even further. And look, I'm no fan of what about ism,
but when you can give your opponent material that allows
them to say what about then you're not in the
best place on that front. But I do think we've

(31:07):
totally are under we're under angered by this pardon situation,
and I don't think we fully appreciate the long term
impact this is going to have on our ability to
convince another country to combat corruption, our ability to convince
another country to extradite bad actors that we want to

(31:28):
prosecute because our rule of law is so ironclad and
so well respected. He is totally damaged the perception of
America as an honest place for the rule of law,
and that has long that can have a long tail
effect that makes businesses less comfortable doing business in this country.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
One of the reasons why we're supposed to be a
safe haven to start a business or bring money into here.
Is is the strength of our rule of law? But
if it is now this manipulable And that's the thing, Like,
are the people that follow Donald Trump, if we we
are not outraged by the selling of pardons in this administration,
are we going to be outraged when the next president

(32:13):
decides to do it? So our inability collectively to enforce
some sort of guardrail on this, to seek to to
sort of I mean it is it has become so
normal for him to do this that it's being treated

(32:33):
like another plane landing safely at National Airport. And I'm
just here to tell you that, you know, to repeat
an old Bob doleism, where's the outrage? There should be
real outrage here. You know, I've spent a lot of
time on pardons on this my podcast, but hey, I
know I'm part of the fragmentation now. But this is

(32:54):
an extraordinarily important story. And if you're somebody with some
influence listening to this, know, I don't. I don't think
there's any over selling the importance of what we're seeing
take place in the in the slow destruction of what
the United States of America is supposed to represent when
it comes to the rule of law, when it comes

(33:15):
to freedom, when it comes to honesty, what he is eroding,
you don't just automatically get it back when he walks
out the door. And certainly if JD. Vance is his
successor or somebody, they're going to see what he got
away with.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
And we know this.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Every president sees what a previous president gets away with
and tries it a little bit more themselves. We've yet
to see a president voluntarily give up power voluntarily, like
give you know, hand power back that We've heard rhetoric
claiming they would, but they're never signing legislation that would.

(33:58):
So it's going to probably take a constantutiontional amendment. But
this what we're seeing with the pardon, with the use
of the pardons, this is dictatorial. This is the one
dictatorial power he actually has, and he is I don't
think every anybody realizes how much damage this is going

(34:22):
to do to us long term, to the rule of law.
To pay to play in this town, h it is,
it is. It is the you know, the next stop
on the road to losing this republic is going to
a full on kleptocracy.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Right now.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
It's the Trump's Republican party. That's the kleptocracy where everything's
paid a play. But this will get contagious, and may
already have gotten contagious, very very quickly. There's a reason
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Their fee is free unless they win. Let's get into
a few ass chucks as Chuck. This question comes from
Mike from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, South Bloomfield. Any

(36:05):
writs to join the podcast. Thanks for sharing your experience
and perspective with regard to the National Guard soldiers shot
in Washington, DC. Is there any indication that the FBI
missed information in advance of this heinous act because they
were distracted by immigration enforcement? Well, Mike, I think it's
an excellent question. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that
simply moving. It's not just with the FBI, but it's

(36:27):
also been with DHS that shifting resources to the President's
deportation policy and focus on trying to essentially find anybody
they can to deport using any means necessary. It's pretty
clear that we know this that FBI resources from counter

(36:48):
terrorism has been sort of diverted into this. We know
that DHS resources that are focused on other things have
been diverted into all things ice and essentially tracking down
anybody that may be in this country that's undocumented. There's

(37:08):
been plenty of anecdotal that we you know, you'd have
to almost rely on more and more whistleblowers telling us
what's not being investigated versus what is being investigated. I
think over the next it's probably going to take us
a couple of years to know this for sure. Now,
maybe this investigation on sort of okay, what was you
know what what did we know about this? Should there

(37:34):
have been a unit of the FBI and counter in
the counterintelligence unit that was sort of constantly keeping an
eye on some of these Afghan refugees, considering that we
were concerned that that Taliba or essentially enemies of of
of of the.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
West, we're going to infiltrate.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's clear that the vetting process fell down somewhere, but
I don't think it should get lost on anybody that
you know, we're you know, we do this with there's
not a shooting that happens now where we don't look
for another reason to not talk about the gun issue, right,
So it's in this case we want to talk about, oh,

(38:18):
vetting these Afghan nationals. We're not talking about mental health.
And yet it does seem as if this was a
huge mental health issue.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
This guy.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
You know, it is not easy going from the Afghan
culture to the American culture. It sounds like he was
having a lot of trouble. Sounds like people are you know,
and you know, how much help do some of these
refugee communities need.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
In making sure they can.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Assimilate or if they're leaving a war torn area that
they're not experiencing PTSD and things like this.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I'm not looking for.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
An excuse as to why this guy did it to me.
You know, he should be off the streets period. Right,
that's not the issue. But I hope we do a
real after action report here because I want to know
all of those things, right. I want to know, has
there been a unit of the FBI that was a
little a bit more aggressive about keeping track in some
of these refugee communities that have come from some of

(39:14):
these places where we've been conducting counter terrorism measures.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
I want to know that. I want to know.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
What resources when we do settle these settle folks in
these refugee communities, in these various communities that are willing
to take refugees, whether it's the Twin Cities with Somali,
this was Bellingham, Washington. What kind of resources are we
going back, are we checking in? Are we making sure
these folks are able to assimilate to our culture as

(39:44):
best they can, navigate our culture as best they can?
You know, how are we helping to integrate them?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (39:52):
So I hope it's say, you know, I hope our
Congress looks at this in a sort of three hundred
and sixty degrees rather than just look looking for the
easiest path here, and the easiest path here is let's
go vetting Afghanis and kick all immigrants out of the country, right,
don't let anymore asylum seekers in.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Right?

Speaker 1 (40:11):
That that kind of obviously isn't it's sort of go.
And by the way, if we want to live in
a free country, you know, living in a free country
means there's you know, if you want to live in
a less free country, we can have people constantly harassed, invented. Right,
what's the line that we want to have of having
our own freedom and privacy and having security. Right, you

(40:35):
can have you can guarantee security, but it takes away freedom.
So what's that line that you're willing to do?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
And we don't.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
We don't always have that whole conversation, you know, I
always say that's why, That's why God invented libertarians to
force us to have those conversations. Next question comes from
Chris C and he writes, love the longer podcast form.
It feels like I actually learned something. Oh, I appreciate it,
unlike the up and fire style of most news shows.
As a Washington State grad go Koog's, I can't help

(41:05):
but feel like college football is totally broken.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Man.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
I think about you guys all the time. I think
it drives me nuts. Well, let me finish your question.
Between realignment and il chaos, coaching turnover, and players constantly transferring,
it's getting harder for fans to say connected. Maybe it's
just my Pacific Northwest perspective, but something feels like it
has to give before the sport loses its core appeal.
You know, Chris, this is what frustrates me about. First

(41:29):
of all, they're obviously college football has to you know,
we need a commissioner, right There needs to be somebody
looking out for the sport, not entities looking out for
universities and conferences. Right in theory, that's what they president
of the NCAA could have been should have been that
ship sailed and that ship shalled decades ago. I think

(41:50):
Charlie Baker could be a terrific overseer of all this.
But you know, the NCAA has no power over FBS football.
They have some power over to Vision two and Division
one f FCS Division one Double A, they have no
power over over that. Now, imagine if Congress said conferences,

(42:12):
you know what that that you know, Congress intervenes, and
I do think your concerns. I do think this is
begging for congressional intervention. And that's the thing, right, the
beauty of a representative democracy is you have a Congressman
in Spokane who is seen that not you know, there
was you know, just willy nilly, the Big Ten, USC

(42:37):
and Oregon got into bed together, YadA, YadA, YadA. Suddenly
Washington State can't compete on the highest level for college football?
Why why is there burier entry suddenly higher because of
a decision that USC made, a decision that Oregon made,
and a decision that the Big Ten made. And I

(42:59):
guess we could say Oregon would have stayed had Washington stay, right,
you know, I know a couple of versions of that backstory.
But the point is I've long thought that the strength
of college football and why college football was different, and
I always thought kind of better than the NFL. I mean,

(43:19):
trust me, the game itself is great in the NFL,
don't get me wrong. But what the beauty of college
football is. It felt like more people had more teams.
You know, there was sort of it just was it
was both more local and more accessible. And so yeah,
fifty thousand people would show up in Spokane to see
to see Washington State and Ryan Leaf play in a

(43:44):
game that gets into the Rose Bowl. You know, I'm
old enough to remember Mike Leach having a lot of
fun as the coach of Washington State. Spokane is a
great market for college football. The advantage of college football
over the NFL is the NFL probably couldn't support a
team and spoken, but college football can't. Right, The NFL

(44:06):
can't support a team in a team in is it
Beaverton or Corvallis. Excuse me, Corvallis, Oregon. But college football
can Tallahassee, Florida, Tuscaloose, Alabama, Oxford, Mississippi, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Champagne, Illinois.

(44:28):
You see where I'm going here. That's what's so great
about college football, and frankly, the advantage that college football has,
right they have more markets where they have more devoted
fans in a variety of ways. And instead the powers
that be and the and the greed that's there with
with with what the conference has done is that it's

(44:51):
every conference for themselves and they're trying to hoard the value.
They're hoarding players, they're holding hoarding TV money, and the
irony is what it doing is. And this is where
I love this guy. I think his name's Cody Campbell.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
This is the.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Gentleman that's won the Sugar Daddy for the Texas Tech
football team. But too he's the one that's been running
these ads about about the old broadcast media rate. He's
basically trying to get the TV negotiate to have all
college football programs in Division one and FBS pool their

(45:27):
TV rights together and it be negotiated as one right,
just like the NFL negotiates as one and NBC gets
a piece of the NFL, CBS gets a piece, Fox
gets a piece, Amazon gets a piece, Netflix gets a piece, etc.
And if college football did it that way, well, the
Washington State could get more TV revenue if it was

(45:49):
in the same negotiation pool of money as Oregon, Ohio
State and Alabama and Notre Dame, and it's one entity,
and certainly yes and all these different media entities would
get a piece of the action. But what you would
have is you would actually have more revenue coming in.

(46:10):
You'd probably get collectively more money the more you spliced
it up. And instead, the SEC negotiates and then ESPN
plays them off of and then of course they're willing
to pay a premium for the SEC. So they're going
to try to cheap out on what they'll pay the
American Conference or what they'll pay the ACC, or they'll

(46:30):
lock the ACC into this long term deal because they
realize because you know, they pulled one over on the
ACC commissioner who didn't realize how quickly the valuation of
these media rights were going to grow, and ESPN was
going to be sitting with a bargain while they spent
the money they saved from paying the ACC to go

(46:51):
ahead and pay the SEC. So look, I hate this.
What really frustrates me is that there's a simple solution.
Pull all the TV money together, and I promise you
everybody would have more money. Every program would have more
money than they have right now coming from TV revenue,
every single one, And that would and then I think

(47:12):
you would have the best of both worlds. You'd get
relevant college football back and Spokane and Greg Sanktye and
the SEC would has still have a whole bunch of
cash to jump into, like Donald Duck jumping into his
vat of money back in the old cartoon days. All right,

(47:36):
Next question, it's anonymous, but from a Notre Dame fan.
With Trump's approval ratings continuing to slip and the midterms
looking more and more bleak for Republicans, do you think
we will start to see some justices of the Supreme
Court announced their retirement. Thanks and go Irish. By the way,

(47:56):
I'm one of those who thinks Notre Dame in Miami
both should be in the playoff Oklahoma and Alabama should
be the ones fighting for the last stop. But I will,
I will, I will digress. I one hundred percent believe this.
I think that I will be shocked if Clarence Thomas
is a Supreme Court justice in twenty twenty seven. I

(48:16):
think given the current political environment, and frankly, if I'm
going to be you know, I'm going to play political
strategists for Republicans in the White House. I would love
nothing more to fire up the Republican base than to
have a open, have a Supreme Court justice debate and

(48:36):
to be able to sort of soak up sort of,
you know, especially if this is going to be not
the best economic environment, not the best foreign policy environment,
not the best moral and ethical environment, having you know,
to go back to a sort of a core, having
a fighting for somebody to be a Supreme Court justice,
hoping that it, you know, bates the laft into going,

(49:01):
you know, sort of picking a fight that showcases parts
of the left that are less popular with swing voters.
There's a lot of reasons. Oh, by the way, the
age of Thomas. But do you want to risk a
Democratic Senate coming in in twenty seven, right? You know,
the chances of that are about if you believe the
political markets, the prediction market's about one and three chance

(49:22):
that that's going to happen. So if you want to
guarantee this advantage that you currently have in the Supreme Court,
this you know, this is the calendar year twenty twenty six,
particularly the first essentially six months, so I think this
is a really smart question. I wish you'd put your
name in there. I'm going to give you extra credit
because I think you have your spot on and you know,

(49:47):
both Thomas and Alito are in the in the in
the retirement zone. I think Thomas is more likely to
do this. Alito, I think, really enjoys the job, so
I think he's going to be harder to pry to
convince to do this.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
I think Clarence Thomas will be.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Perfectly happy getting into his RV and driving around the
country to be if he thinks he can be semi anonymous,
which I think you might enjoy that. So now I'm
sorry I haven't thought about this, but I think you're
onto something. And again you're remaining nameless, but extra credit.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Thank you for the great nugget.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Next question comes from Chase Carmichael Little Rock, Arkansas. Hey, Chuck,
you and Sarah Essker recently said that dismantling political parties
has actually increased partisanship, which sounds backwards from here in
Red state country, where everything still feels very party driven.
Can you walk us through how weaker parties lead to
stronger partisans If you take this one, I'm declaring myself
the charter member of the ash Chuck five Timers Club.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
And yes I'm buying a jacket.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
I love it. And yes we've taken this question. So congratulations,
welcome to the Ashchuck five Timers Club. Like I said,
I can't wait till my friend Sarah Esker.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Becomes in five timer.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
I think I'm go back to I Meet the Press
podcasting days. I think we're up to She's been on
three times, so I appreciate you asking this so that
we could clarify. So here's what we mean by weaker parties.
So when McCain fine Gold passed, this was the Bipartisan

(51:20):
Campaign finance Reform. It's the biggest reform it made was
limiting the amount of money political parties could raise in
large chunks. Okay, it was called soft money. Back then
you'll hear references to soft money and hard money. And
hard money means you can essentially coordinate with campaigns and candidates.

(51:43):
Soft money you can't spend directly on candidate advocacy, but
you can spend it on like operations. You know, you
can spend it on get out the vote.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Costs. You can spend it on office supply.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Stuff, I mean early, you know, anything other than direct
advocacy for the candidate. And so when the when the
parties were so here's here's why it turned out to
weaken the parties when you were when you're a candidate
running for office, and look, I understand what you're saying
in Arkansas and that if you're in this, look, parties have.

(52:20):
The more local a political party is, there are places
where it is still strong because you've got to go
through the party if you want to maybe get ballot access,
or you've got to go through the local party if
you want to you know, get make sure you're getting
invited to all the key you know, because some of
these are you know, you've got to talk to the
super advocates, activists and the super voters in a local community.

(52:43):
So parties certainly have. I mean, I think about the county.
I live in Arlington County. The Arlington County Democrats, UH
are are a pretty powerful local entity, sometimes behaving a
little small, d undemocratic and some of their aggressive tactics.
But the point is the party is if you want

(53:05):
to run for local office and you want to be
on the county board, you try to go around the party,
you're gonna have a hard time. Well, the national parties
had that kind of hold for a long time before
the passage of McCain. Fine, Goald, this is one of
those where good intentions. So when you're a Senate Canader,
a presidential candidate and you needed money, you had to

(53:27):
go through the party. So what does that mean, Well,
that gives the party leverage over you. So take Donald
Trump's attack on John McCain and writes previous at the
time was chairman of the RNC, and he denounced Donald
Trump for that, and he said that republic you know,
John McCain's a publicly in good standing. You know, if

(53:47):
Donald Trump knew he had to go through the party
in order to get, you know, access to donors and
get these things, the party could say, you know, no,
we're not going to fund your candidacy. And if you
could get funded and you had to your reliance was
unfunding or volunteers was through the party, and the party
was not going to help you, then you've essentially been

(54:10):
purged by the party. Right, Yes, you can go around,
but it's much harder to run third party. It's much
harder to get on a ballot in a place where
the party controls access to the ballot and things like that.
And when they took away the biggest thing that the
parties had to offer candidates money and access to it,
when it became where the candidates themselves, where essentially could

(54:34):
go find their own essentially build their own political parties, right,
find their own sugar daddy. We call them super PACs now.
But that's essentially what happened. So it doesn't change like
we you know, it's still the red versus the blue,
but it weakened parties. I mean, it is the strangest
conundrum to me. Right, we've were more polarized today, right,
And as part of it is because our politics is
very negative, meaning you're constantly being told who you shouldn't

(54:58):
vote for. Nobody's being nobody really is running for officing
what they want to do for you. Instead they're running
for office telling you what that other person's going to
you know, screw how that other person's going to screw you.
So it created you know, we're sort of negative. We
have negative partisanship where people don't like the two parties
but they but they're really devoted.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
To not liking one of the two parties, right, and
that's there there.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
It's almost like bizarro Superman, right, you have Superman, Bizarro Superman.
You're on the bizarro You're a bizarro Democrat. You're not
pro Democrat, you're just anti Republican. You're a bizarro Republican.
You're not pro Republican, you're just anti Democrat.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
And that's what we've become.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
But taking money away from the party as an institution
or as an organization where you had to go through
the party to get access to ballot and it gave
the party the ability to essentially keep the David Dukes
out or keep the the Lindon Laruschi's out right. And

(55:55):
every once in a while those those people did sneak in,
But for the most part, that is what's allowed party,
what it allowed parties to do that, and that's what
Sarah were referring to. This episode of The Chuck Podcast
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I love that my college football rants have have have
seeped into enough of my little ecosystem here that I

(57:57):
feel like almost every question that we get has I'm
reference to college football these days. So obviously I expressed
before my frustration and anger at the ACC because ultimately
I cannot believe the position that the ACC finds them in,
and as a is somebody who's a supporter, a donor,

(58:20):
a booster of the University of Miami Athletic department. I am, Okay,
I'm putting all my cards out there.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
I am.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
I've loved them since I was a kid. I've my
daughter is going to be a graduating scene, so I yeah,
I am, and.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yes, I write checks. Okay, I I am. I am
a booster.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I am not a I'm for those of you that
know Miami football, I'm not Nevian Shapiro level booster.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Okay, I'm I'm.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
A middle class booster. Uh in the in that world
so I consider myself though a shareholder.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
This is the way I would look at it.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
I feel that kind of I feel like I have
some and I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm sure other
people who support their support college, their favorite college football
program may feel the same way. And I'm just appalled
at the treatment the ACC has given its members. It
is I think the ACC's lack of you know, they

(59:24):
didn't just not support Florida State when Florida State got
jobbed by ESPN two years ago, and.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I love there was this y're in.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
The there's a question about whether Old miss should be
dropped out of the playoffs since they lost their head
coach and Lane Kiffin, and the chairman of the committee said, well,
we don't have a data point. We can't see how
they play. Yeah, because they're not going to play another
GA unless they play in the playoff. Well, Florida State
played two games one both of their games without their quarterback.

(59:58):
But they said, well even though they won, and we
still don't think they can be competitive. It was look,
I know what they were worried about. They were worried
that Florida State was actually going to beat Michigan in
a game that was nine to seven because the Florida
State defense was so good and the Michigan defense was
so good that it wasn't gonna be very entertaining, and

(01:00:18):
that if they ended up winning, they probably wouldn't be
able to keep up with the Georgia or keep up
with And I think that was the other the other
team in that one. Oh they did, they took Alabama
in Texas instead of Florida State. But you know it
is the ACC did really barely lifted a finger in
defending that with Florida State. And remember, everybody in the

(01:00:42):
conference gets a piece of this postseason Bowl money. So
the ACC really this is why I hold the leadership
so account. I mean, look, no offense to do by
the way, I love man ideas, I know him a
little bit, I think the way that I hate the
way he was a show the door down in Miami.
He basically, you know, and so I know he is

(01:01:07):
you know, he loves the karma that he got to
the ACC title game before Crystal Ball did. But basically,
all these donors said they weren't going to donate money
if many Diaz was a coach, but they would donate
money if Mario Cristo Baal was the coach. So it's
just I hated the way that that happened. I'm glad
to see that there's real money now being invested in
this football program.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
There hasn't been for twenty years.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
So but I've been torn about it because I think
many Diaz is a good dude. I think he loves
that university. I know he loves you know, And yeah,
I felt I felt my own little connection. You know,
I are about the same age we both grew up,
you know. Our our love for the nursery of Miami
was sort of kate because we were we were of
that age when we were kids growing up in Miami.
I didn't know him growing up, but I did. I

(01:01:51):
always felt a bit of a bond with him. So
I'm I'm personally really happy for Manidaz And I'm like,
you know, I'm small ailing for him because I know
he's you know, there's a there's a little bit of
you know, how do you like me now? Type of
mindset there. So I don't want to denigrate Duke's football program,

(01:02:13):
but I'm going to denigrate.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Duke's football program. They have no they have.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
No business being in this game. And I think deep
down inside manadiez No's they have no business being in
this game. Now, look, the rules are the rules, and
the ridiculous tiebreakers that the conference decided to create to
deal with their seventeen teams and their conference is.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
What it was. Well, what are you thinking?

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
You had an opportunity to have your two ten and
two teams face off in here, but you created a
convoluted system where your overall strength of schedule, your non
conference schedule, has no impact over in a tiebreaker situation.
That's just stupid. It really is stupid. And I have

(01:02:55):
to tell you if the ACC ends up getting completely
shut out of the college Football Playoff because Duke wins
this game and then James Madison and Tulane both end
up in the playoff, because it's the five highest ranked
conference champions, there's no guarantee for the Power four conferences.
The assumption was all the Power four conferences would have
somebody that would be in that top five. Remember last year,

(01:03:18):
Clemson didn't get the buy the five conference champions. The
buys went to the four highest ranked conference champions in
Boise State, I believe got the buy, not Clemson, right
because Clemson shouldn't have been in there. That's another one
for they're weird tiebreaker situation. Last year's the two highest
ranked ACC teams were Miami and SMU. They should have
faced off, but they created a system that a lot.

(01:03:42):
And what I want to say to the ACC is,
do you want to make your members any money? Do
you want to have to stop ESPN screwing you all
the time with its coverage of the SEC versus how
they treat you as a business partner. And that's what
I don't get and I have to tell you. I
think there's a strong argument to be made that Miami,

(01:04:03):
Florida State, SMU, Clemson, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech to
say we're out. Maybe I'd bring a Georgia Tech in
Atlanta and Callen Stanford. I go and just get out
of the s ACC. Form your own sort of negotiate
your own TV contract. There's other TV contracts out there.

(01:04:24):
I think you can get a.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Better deal.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Each Each school would get more money than what they're
getting out of there because you wouldn't have to have
the the you know, the the weaker football programs that
don't generate much revenue from the for the ACC and
just get out of the ACC because the ACC is
not looking. Miami can't sustain being a major power in
football stuck in the ACC. They either have to get

(01:04:49):
out and become an independent again, go join one of
the two major conferences, or see if there's a third
way here. Because it's clear and less you know that
unless nless the university asency ACC realize that they have
that this has been a catastrophic failure of leadership by
the conference. Just catastrophic costing every school millions of dollars.

(01:05:13):
That's the thing here. This is not just angry fan
Chuck Todd here, I'm looking. This is a financial thing.
This is hurting the bottom line. This is costing every
member of the conference money and that trickles down. It's
going to hurt in your ability to compete for players.
It's going to hurt your ability to convince players to
come if they be getting into the college football playoff matters.

(01:05:37):
None of it is helpful, and I'd like to see
a little little bit more urgency from the university presidents
of the of the football programs that care in the ACEC.
And that's part of the problem. It's only about half
the conference that does the other half doesn't give a shit,
which is why you know there isn't more anger at
at the leader of the at the commissioner of the ACEC.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
But that's got to change. Now let's go to the rankings.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
I you know, the perception of the SEC versus the
reality the SEC really frustrates me. Oklahoma, I mean, oklahw
and Alabama are just being automatically assumed to be you know,
there they are their locks, but Notre Dame in Miami less,
So what's the what? Where where is Alabama? They've played
one good half of football, the first half against Georgia.

(01:06:27):
They almost pissed that game away. I think they scored
three points the entire second half of that game, or
maybe zero if memory serves. Let's just say I'm I'm
hoping for a two or three score Georgia win on
this one. If I think, if they expose Alabama for
being who they've mostly been, which is kind of a
more like they were last year. You know, they've shown

(01:06:49):
flashes of being a good playoff caliber team, but not
that many. But again, they carry a brand name Oklahoma.
My god, all right, look, they've got some good wins,
right it? But who wants to watch that putrid offense,
and you know, kind of like Miami last year, the

(01:07:12):
you know, the best on the field. You know, the
best argument against Miami was, yeah, they have a great offense,
they don't have a championship defense. So if they're on
the bubble, no, well, that to me is Oklahoma. They
have a championship defense, but they don't have a championship offense.
And it's not even close, and they're you know there
may might win a game, but you know, depending on
a matchup, that's it. So if you're gonna hold Miami

(01:07:35):
to account like that, that's the way Oklahoma should be
held to account. But they've got their magical victory against Alabama,
and it's like pay no attention, you know, you know,
it's like a Jedi mind trick, right, just like Alabama
has this victor over Georgia and it's like never mind
the Jedi mind trick. And then there's this total like
perception that the ACC is garbage. Well this garbage conference.

(01:07:56):
Georgia Tech was one score game, had a chance to
win that game. Last five minutes of the fourth quarter
against Georgia, Louisville blows out Kentucky a team that took
Texas to overtime, you had Clemson whipping South Carolina. You've
had If you compare Miami in Alabama, they have one

(01:08:17):
common opponent, Florida State. Miami b Florida State. Alabama lost
Florida State. So it is frustrating to me that it
is Miami and Notre Dame that are in this sort
of shootout with each other when realistically they both probably belong.
And in fact, you want to know the single highest

(01:08:40):
rated first round game you would have in the playoff.
I mean, if this truly is a TV show and
ESPN executives are just thinking about ratings, how about an
eight to nine matchup of Notre Dame at Miami at
South Bend and let's settle it. Let's settle this debate
right here and there. Now, the possibility of that, I
think is very very low. It does appear that. Look,

(01:09:04):
if Alabama and BYU get blown out, you know, both
lose by two or more scores. I think there's a
scenario that both Miami and Notre Dame get in.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
But that's in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
That's I think that's that's a long shot. Now, if
you tell me that Notre Dame and Miami are ranked
right next to each other. Let's say Alabama gets blown
out and it's it's Notre Dame at ten Miami at eleven,
or they're back to back, and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Let's say Duke does win.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
That game and they're not going to make the playoff,
and and ACC is going to get shut out, and
and they're leaving Miami on the cutting room floor and
taking Notre Dame. I think that's going I actually think
that won't happen, right. I think that there's a So
I'm not saying I'm optimistic Mimai's go to make the playoff,
but I think the chances are about one. I saw

(01:10:03):
the odds are sort of five to one. I think
the odd should be about three to one because I
think under you know, shoot, if I'm not I'm not
convinced that if BYU beats Texas Tech, that Texas Tech
is a playoff team. I know some people are, so
I think regardless, I think if the loser of the
Big twelve game has a shot at not making it

(01:10:26):
the playoff at all, it all depends, I think, on
the margin of Georgia and Alabama. So I'm I am
I'm frustrated. I don't know what these what this committee
is watching. I think if you set the precedent that
that head to head doesn't matter, then what the hell

(01:10:46):
are we doing? It will make scheduling interconference games that
much harder if you make these head to heads not
only not matter as a positive, but end up like
it feels like it's a negative. Right, you risk a
loss where the loss could punish you, but the wind
doesn't get you anything. I mean, this is the logic

(01:11:07):
of the college Football Playoff Committee just drives me nuts.
The idea that a loss matters more than a win,
because basically, in all of these scenarios, when they're differentiating
these teams, they're trying to make the case, well, this
is a better loss. Your losses are crappier than their losses. Well,
you know this is like I rolled my eyes when

(01:11:29):
the rationale the guy gave for Alabama for Alabama getting
moved ahead of Notre Dame was boy, they were in
a tough rivalry game on the road against Auburn. Well,
you know what frustrates me is Mimi just gets you know,
their two losses are just getting well, they just lost
to a couple of medio gracc teams. Well, maybe what
you don't know is that the Louisville game is a

(01:11:51):
freaking trophy game, all right. And it's a trophy because
Louisville wanted to make a trophy game. It's for the
Howard Schnellenberger Trophy because Howard Snellenberger coach both teams. Well, look,
Miami doesn't, Miami does not see Louisville's arrival.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Louisville.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Literally, Miami is the second most important football program they
play after Kentucky. And I would bet that the Louisville
football partisans would say the Miami game means more to them.
They lobbied the ACC to make Miami one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Of their every year opponents.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
That's how important Miami is this to Louisville's status. So
sorry if you don't think much of the ACC. But
Louisville cared so much about that game. They put everything.
You know, half their season was devoted to trying to
win the Miami game. Did it with SMU, So you know,

(01:12:38):
I'm not I'm not gonna look, Miami should have won
both games. They blew it, Okay, they absolutely blew it.
But if you're going to sit here and rationalize all
these other you know, oh boy, the SEC and these
tough games, and boy boy Texas A and m good
for them for pulling out a game against South Carolina
team that loses to Clemson, who's one of you know,

(01:12:59):
a mid level sort of you know, wasn't even good
enough to tie Duke in the conference in the conference standings.
That it's this is because we have created this perception
that whatever happens in the SEC is amazing, and if
the same things happen in other conferences is proof that
that conference is weak. But when it happens in the SEC,

(01:13:22):
it's proof that the SEC is tough. It's just a
bunch of nonsense. And when you're not a member of
the and every one of my friends who are SEC people,
they all drink this SEC kool aid, and you're just like, Okay,
you know what, Miami just went on the road beat
Pitt in cold weather. Yeah, often Miami's done that. I

(01:13:42):
can't remember them ever playing a game that well in
that cold weather.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
But did this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Committee think that was an impressive showing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
It's just it's it's a bunch of bias bullshit. This
committee is not using metrics. They're they're sort of And
that's another thing. Right, if they didn't rank any of
these teams at all all year long, and the first
ranking they put together was the one going into this week,
I promise you Oklahoma is not in the top ten

(01:14:13):
because when you look at Oklahoma into totality and you
compare them. But the problem is they release these rankings
every week, and in some ways they're stuck with the
ranking that they initially give. When you realize the body
of work, the longer you go, you're like, Oklahoma's not
a top ten team. They have a record, good for them,
but they're not a top ten team, and it's you.

(01:14:36):
It's just this whole thing sucks, and it sucks. And
the only thing the reason I complain about it so
much is there is a pattern that win in doubt,
this committee screws the acc They did it in twenty three,
they did it in twenty four, and it looks like
they're going to do it again in twenty five. And
I'd like to see somebody, whether it's university presidents or

(01:14:58):
somebody else, stand up and demand some accountability from.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
The leadership of the ACCI.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
Now should be a fun weekend of college football champions Championships.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
I actually think Friday is going to be amazing. I
can't wait to watch Tulane in North Texas get ready
to be fully entertained.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
I'm pulling.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
I got more of my son's friends are at Tulane
and my daughter's friends are Tulane, so we're Toulane advocates
in this house. I couldn't be a bigger Georgia Bulldog fan,
so let's go Georgia Bulldogs over Alabama. I think I'm
rooting for Texas Tech. I don't or it may not
matter if it's if b YU or Texas Tech wins,

(01:15:40):
as long as whoever wins wins by margin. I don't
think what Mimy could afford as a close game, and
considering what this committee is doing and the big disappointment
for me, and by the way, there's a part of
me that is pulling for Duke to win this championship game.
At this point, I know it's better for the conference
if to guarantee a spot in the playoff for UVA
to win, And I got friends that love their who's

(01:16:02):
and all that stuff, but I kind of want the
leadership of the ACC to have to eat this shit sandwich.
So and you know there's something like I said, I'm
happy for Manny Das that he gets this, that he's
having this moment considering the uncomfortable way that I think
and the kind of shoddy way that I think the

(01:16:23):
University of Miami forced him out the door. So the
big thing I wish the Ohio State Indiana game meant
something like, we should be more excited about this game
than any game all season long. It's one versus two,
undefeated versus undefeated, But honestly, do you put everything you
need to in that game knowing that you have the

(01:16:46):
playoff coming up? So this is a reminder. I have
a new idea. I think these conference championship games shouldn't
go to the top if you're going to be in
the playoff. We should instead go ahead and keep the
conference titles, but match up your bubble teams, right, So
let's put Alabama and Oklahoma and the SEC title game.

(01:17:08):
Let's put Miami and UVA and the ACC title game.
Let's put USC and I guess you would say Oregon
in the Big Ten title game, right, like you do
it so that it is the bubble teams, you get
to either play your way in, and winning the conference
means you don't have to play that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Extra conference championship game. Just a thought. We certainly got
to do something about those championship games. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I hope you enjoy the weekend. I really want to
enjoy the game on the field. I am petrified of
noon on Sunday when we hear what the ESPN Invitational
Committee decides to do. But with that, have a great weekend.

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