Chuck’s Commentary - Deciphering The “Trump Doctrine” + America Is A “Reluctant” Nation Of Immigrants - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:47):
December twenty ninth. Full disclosure and recording on Sunday, December
twenty eighth. I always want to put those timestamps out
there just to give a little context and perspective from
where where I am speaking. From today's episode, I've got
a little bit on sort of what's happening. You know, currently,

(02:09):
the US military is in the middle of a couple
of different military campaigns, and I want to talk about that.
What's happening in Nigeria, what's happening in Venezuela, and a
little bit of sort of how this fits into the
larger picture of America's role in the world and the whatever,
and sort of the Trump doctrine, what does it mean anymore?
Is there a doctrine beyond the word transaction. I'll get

(02:32):
to that in a minute. I kind of want to
answer a question that I kept getting from friends and
family over the last few days, and that was an
interpretation of the president's truth Social feed, which many people
don't see on truth Social but see it perhaps on
X or they see it, you know, repost it on Instagram.
I mean, it is interesting how this works now. And

(02:56):
of course you've heard me get into the mistake collective
life the world made in his attempt to try to
deep platform Donald Trump after January sixth. By the way,
my what If episode is coming later this week and
early next week. You're gonna get a couple of my
what ifs, including what if Donald Trump had won the
twenty twenty election. But before I don't want to give
away too much of the store on that. But ever

(03:21):
since right, Truth's Social been his primary way to communicate,
and people on X repost it, people on Instagram, repost
it gets reposted on TikTok, all the other social media platforms,
and being the president of the United States, you know,
I do think there are things that don't get reposted
that if people saw them more intently, they would be
even more troubled by the psyche of this president. But

(03:44):
I got kept getting a question about one specific thing
he tweeted or truthed, however you want to call it.
And that is when he was tweeting about, like just
his anger over Epstein, which clearly anything that anything that
makes him look bad he gets angry about. And you know,
sort of the grievance comes out, the victimization, and you know,

(04:05):
let's make other people pay the price before he has
to pay the price. Right, Let's called for any and
said this, and it was something like, this may be
your last merry Christmas, you know. And I had a
lot of people go, what does he mean by that?
You know, seeing it as a threat, seeing it as
what is it? And you know, look, I will fully

(04:25):
confess that I ignore most of his you know, I see them.
I ignore most of them because it really I don't
believe he means anything. This is to me, I think
about the time period with which we get most of
these we get them after ten o'clock at night, sometimes
at three or four in the morning East Coast time,

(04:46):
you know, and I think we all think about the
person in your life that you notice is on social
media a lot at odd hours. These are people that
have some form of anxiety. Perhaps they're super lonely, maybe
things are going well at home. And that's what I
always come back to when you have the president doing
this on Christmas Day, on Christmas Eve night, going all

(05:11):
through this, and you're asking yourself, oh my god, what
is wrong with this man? And I look at it
as a this is a cry for help. This guy
is lonely. He really doesn't have anybody he's close with.
It is I know this will come across sounding like
a hater, but you know he doesn't. He is. He

(05:32):
is close with his kids because he's supposed to be.
But if you know, if you've done reporting about his
actual personal relationships with his kids, you will know they're
not great. There isn't. It is a one way relationship,
and that's been the problem. All of his relationships are
one way. He uses people, he discards them, which may

(05:52):
explain why you never hear things like former college roommate
of Donald Trump stopped by mar A Lago to hang
out with him. You know, a friend that he grew
up with has been you know, show it doesn't happen.
There are no old friends. He has old acquaintances that
he discards or uses whenever he deems necessary. Right, Jeffrey

(06:15):
Epstein is probably the best version of this. There was
somebody he was quite close to, and then he drops
him like a rock when he starts. And this is
what he does when any He is not going to
be a friend when you're in trouble. He expects you
to be a friend though, when he's in trouble. And
I think it explains why that on a day like

(06:38):
Christmas Day, when most of us the last thing we're
going to be doing is behaving lonely on the internet,
he does. And it is most people ignore it, Most
people don't see it. I do view it as some
sort of, you know, personal cry for help, which is
why I very much think that his is so social

(07:01):
issues really do are a part of sort of the
lack of character that he has to be leader of
the free world. But that's not where I want to
focus that conversation, because what I really want to there
is something else that we learned via his feed all
through the Christmas sort of that thirty six hour period
of a little bit before Christmas Day and a little

(07:22):
bit of after Christmas Day, and that is sort of
the Trump doctrine was on full display. Right If you're
looking for a consistent moral compass in American form policy
right now, you're not just looking in the wrong place.
You're looking at a map that's been rewritten by a sharpie.
And if you want to understand what I mean by that,

(07:45):
don't start with this national security strategy, which I've already
explained in detail a few episodes ago. Don't start with
a Pentagon brief. Instead, you have to start with the
truth social feed of Donald Trump's on Christmas Day, because
over that thirty six hours stretch Christmas Eve Christmas Day
in the morning effort, you actually could see the entire
Trump second term worldview play out in real time. There

(08:10):
were holiday greetings, there were religious proclamations, there were threats,
there were missile strikes, there were deportation talks, ominous warnings
that sounded more like a mob boss than a head
of state. And it wasn't chaos. It wasn't doctrine. It
was just simply doctrine. It was not chaos. So let's
walk through it all. So in the twenty four hours

(08:30):
before Christmas, Donald Trump was already setting the tone. He's
doing the Norad Santa calls, right, the simplest thing you're
supposed to do as president, you know, having a little
fun with Norad is santaw Are we tracking Santa around
the globe? But even there he's warning about quote bad
Santas infiltrating the country border rhetoric wrapped in tinsel. By

(08:51):
the way, it sounds like Donald Trump is a fan
of my single favorite Cheech and Chung record that I own.
I'm done forty five, and that is his tale of
Santa Claus where he's stopped by border patrol. Anyway, it is.

(09:12):
If you've never heard Cheech and Chong and Santa Claus,
please it's Cheech. Tell him the story of Santa Claus
to John it's amazing, It's fantastic, and I used to
have it memorized at the age of eight. Don't judge
my parents. So he's talking about bad Santam. Then comes

(09:32):
the now famous post wishing Merry Christmas to the of course,
radical left scum, so he always wants to attack fellow
human beings, call them scum if they politically don't agree
with him. Again, pretty much the worst attribute any US
president could have, particularly this one. Then, of course there's
he attacks on the media, the threats to review broadcast
licenses because he was mad, because again he's lonely and

(09:53):
he has nothing to do but watch television, watch late television.
He gets mad and they're making jokes at his expense,
and he feels isolated. All of this was before Christmas dinner,
and then on Christmas Day itself at escalated. Early Christmas morning,
the President announces that there are US military strikes in Nigeria,
and he's described them as quote powerful and deadly against
the ISIS affiliated militants. Now, obviously it was very important

(10:17):
for him to create legal justification by claiming this was
ISIS affiliated militants. Okay, but listen, but do listen carefully
to the language. This wasn't about counter terrorism capacity, it
wasn't even about Nigerian sovereignty, and it wasn't even about
regional stability. It was simply about religion. The president framed
the strikes as a defense of Christians from what he

(10:39):
calls slaughter. He literally wishes a merry Christmas to quote
the dead terrorists. That's not policy language, that's civilization language. Okay.
And in Nigeria, America isn't acting like a strategic partner.
It's acting like a moral avenger. He literally thinks of

(11:00):
this as part of the crusades. This is the first
color of the Trump doctrine religious identity as a justification
for force. And notice something important, This only works where
the US can act unilaterally, not against non state actors
with no risk of escalation. That of course matters here.
Now let's move to Venezuela in the Western hemisphere. In Venezuela,

(11:23):
the language changes completely when he talks about it. Here.
It's not about faith, it's not about human rights. It's
about ownership. That's why the Minormon doctrine gets talked about
quite a bit. When trying to understand his motivation with Venezuela,
the President boats about a massive naval presence. He calls
it an armada. He talks about oil that was quote stolen,

(11:48):
about assets that must be returned. This isn't democracy promotion,
although I could argue that's the better justification for Venezuela,
but he never talks about that. This is repoman to see,
if you will. He sees himself as basically the thug
helping the American oil companies. The US is acting less
like a guaranter of regional stability and more like a

(12:09):
collection agency with aircraft carriers. That's pillar number two. Resources
justify coersion. And here's the key distinction. In Venezuela's strength
means seizing. In Nigeria, strength means striking. It's a different language,
it's the same logic. Now, let's move to Ukraine. Right,
He's going to be meeting this week and we'll see

(12:32):
if something happens. I'm skeptical, which is why I don't
want to make a huge deal over the meeting and
mar lago between Zelenski and Trump. But we see that
Zelensky is at least trying to keep Trump from striking,
you know, essentially some sort of compact with Russia and
essentially leaving Ukraine on their own. So let's compare both
of Nigeria and Venezuela to the Ukraine situation, because this

(12:54):
is where the moral code completely disappears. In Ukraine, the
rhetoric isn't about civilization, not least from Trump's point of view.
It isn't about resources at least not upfront. It's about
ending the bloodshed, which sounds noble until you look at
the mechanics. Military aid paused, intelligence sharing throttled. Then the

(13:16):
pressure is applied not to the invader, but to the person,
to the entity that was invaded. And what's quietly folded
into this so called peace plan a minerals deal that
benefits only the United States lithium titanium, uranium. So Ukraine's
sovereignty is simply collateral. This is pillar number three. Negotiating

(13:37):
leverage beats moral clarity. So in Nigeria we fire missiles.
In Venezuela, we blockade ports. In Ukraine we walk away
and call it strength. So the question is how inconsistent
is all of this? Is it inconsistency or is it
simply a system, Because there are many critics. On one hand,

(13:58):
you look at this, you say this is not coherent
at all. It's completely incoherent. But it depends on how
you look at how Trump use thinks. And if you
look at it through the umbrella of selective transactionalism, well
then it all starts to work together. Military force is
used when the enemy fits a domestic political narrative Christians

(14:20):
for the evangelical base, migrants. When it comes to Venezuela,
the cost is low, right then, as well as not
really attacking the United States, neither's Nigeria, and the leverage
is total. When those conditions don't exist, like confronting Vladimir
Putin or Shijing Ping, the moral language just completely vanishes.

(14:41):
That's why there are no missile strikes over the Wigers
in China. Right, what's the difference between protecting that religious
minority versus what the persecution of Muslims in Western China
versus the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. That's why me
and Mark gets ignored, same thing. Religious minorities essentially a genocide.

(15:06):
That's why Ukraine gets a spreadsheet instead of a shield. Right.
So the question is what kind of long term change
does this create with America's relationship with the world. I
personally think this is damaging us for a generation, and
it's going to take us a generation to win back

(15:28):
enough allies to restore freedom and democracy around the world. Okay,
and you can call me an expansion US all you want. Yeah,
I am pro democracy and pro freedom. I know that
every civilization, every tribe, will take a different path to
get there. But ultimately I believe in what was written

(15:50):
in the Declaration of Independence that we have inalienable rights.
So what do our ally see in all this, Well,
here's the part there I think matters. This isn't changing
American form policy, but it is changing how Americas perceive
and europe leaders no longer are whispering about this issue anymore.
They're openly talking about what's called strategic autonomy. Translation, we

(16:11):
don't trust Washington and we can't trust America anymore. Some
that are very much in the isolation of Swings say, good,
Europe should pay for their own security. America shouldn't be
doing it. To this, I'm always ready to respond with, Okay,
I get it. You don't want America to be the
world's beacop, but you do know somebody's going to be
the world's beacup. You really want Putin and she to

(16:33):
decide who the beat cop is or do you want
the United States to decide? But let me put a
pin in that. In Nigeria, officials are scrambling to have
to walk back to the religious framing because they're now
turning a counter terrorism operation legit counter terrorism. This is
radical extremism. This isn't about some crusade fight between the
Christians and Muslims, although I do think the president's trying

(16:55):
to appease a small group of people in this country
who do see it is but they're turning this count
when you turn a counter terrorism operation into a quote
religious crusade. What Nigerians fear is that this is going
to put a target on their own citizens, because if
you start to justify killing via God rather than sort

(17:18):
of via the actual humans living on this planet, that
is how you get more bloodshed, and that's how you
get no remorse with that bloodshed. In Latin America, governments
that dislike Maduro are alarmed at the America's behavior because
if oil seizures become precedent, then any resource rich country

(17:40):
in Latin America could be next. America isn't being seen
as unreliable, it's simply being seen as transactional, frankly, no
different than China. And if we're going to behave the
exact same way China does, which is essentially transactional, pure
and simple, then don't be surprised when people that used
to be our all I say, huh, maybe I'll get
a better deal from China. That's kind of a problem,

(18:05):
don't you think? Which gives us leads me to what
I believe is a grand problem. Now, So, for seventy
five years, rightly or wrongly, America sold one idea. We
sold the idea that borders matter, that sovereignty matters. And
look what we did to defend the sovereignty of Kuwait successfully.
Mind you, force is constrained by an accepted set of rules.

(18:28):
Now the rule is simple, what's in it for us?
And can we enforce it? That's not leadership. It's essentially
portfolio management. Right. He sees himself as the head of
a private equity fund who's just trying to make that
fund more financially bigger, wealthier, etcetera. And here's the but

(18:51):
here's the dangers. If allies don't want to be our customers,
they're going to shop around, Hello Beijing. And if credibility
becomes conditional, partnerships will become extraordinarily temporary. So in a
world with Moscow in Beijing, this is again Putin's worldview,
is everything's transactional. There is no moral clarity, There is

(19:13):
no democracy's bullshit as far as Putin's concerned. And if
we accept his worldview, which Donald Trump does, this is
the huge problem. And so does she and that's why
he gravitates. That's why he won't confront when they violate norms,
but he will confront anybody else who's quote smaller than

(19:35):
the United States when they do. I think it leaves
us very vulnerable. So here's the problem. Trump might get
a few short term wins here. Hey, look, he protected
a handful of Christians in Nigeria. Maybe maybe he took
out ISIS, or maybe he just radicalized religious extremists even
more in Nigeria. Seizing a tanker, Okay, you're going to

(20:01):
create regime change and Venezuela. Are we going to manage that?
Or are we just going to walk away and let
the chips fall where they may not? Managing dictatorships that
fall and helping with it leads to some really bad outcomes.
See my time podcast Time Machine segments on the Ottoman

(20:21):
Empire and the fall of the Soviet Union basically another empire.
But you can lose the one asset. We are losing
the one asset that mattered a lot, and it's frankly
an asset we talk about in my fight to restore
legitimacy and media, and that is trust. And once trust

(20:45):
is gone, no amount of missiles, minerals or holiday posts
can buy it back. We're not leading the world right now.
We're negotiating it one transaction of a time, and that's
an extraordinarily risky thing for us to do. And we
ignore he's crazy on his social media posts because we think, hell,
you know, he's all bark, very little bite. But the

(21:08):
bites he does do and I agree the bites are
smaller than you think. But the bites that he does
do sets us back, sets us back on trust around
the world. Just like he has done. He wants to
any institution that has ever been legitimate, he tries to delegitimize.
He did it with NATO, He's done it with mainstream media.

(21:28):
He does it. He does it in so many aspects,
does it with the rule of law. He just you know,
it is it is. He is in some ways, like
I said, I want to be TV. I've called him
this before, a want to be TV mobster. Real mobsters
are sort of smaller, and heeddier and not as and

(21:49):
not as glamorous as Trump builds him up in his head.
But Trump is a creature of fiction, right, he is not.
His ideal is something he saw in a movie or
on a television show. It's not something that's actually existed. Right.
This has always been the disconnect between the Donald Trump
version of America and the actual version of America. What

(22:12):
the America he wants to make great again is the
one he saw via John Wayne films. Right, it's not
the America that actually existed in the fifties and sixties.
And so it is a bit of a fantasy, and
it's just like what kind of leader he wants to be.
He admires guys like John Gottie On, an actual mobster,
but he also admires people like Putin. He does admire

(22:35):
people like Tony Soprano, a fictional mobster, because of the
total and complete control they had. And that's ultimately it's clear,
whatever it is that he's never had in his life,
he keeps looking for something to have more control, to
be in charge, to be venerated, to be resp whatever
it is he's and in some ways I've always said,

(22:57):
lucky for us, he's still looking for some sort of
human acknowledgment of his existence, which in some ways may
explain why he behaves the way he behaves. Right, He
is desperate for affection. I've seen it myself when I
compared him to FDR. I didn't compare him positively or negatively.
I just compared him factually. He saw it as a

(23:18):
positive because that's what he wants. He wants to be
seen as bigger than the moment. He wants to be
seen as somebody who were all stuck learning about in history,
whether we like it or not. And in some ways
he thinks, great people, your greatness is measured by how
much impact you have, regardless of whether that impact is

(23:42):
positive or negative. I really truly, and this to me
has always been the warning side. You know it does.
I mean, it's alarming what we may end up doing
with Ukraine. Now I'm pretty confident the unintended consequence of
this isolationist foreign policy, that the pres the sort of

(24:03):
transactional semi isolation of foreign policies sort of anti Europe,
is that it's going to strengthen Europe and it's going
to make the European Union a more an actual competitor
to us economically. It's going to strengthen Europe's involvement in
NATO in such a way that we may we may
miss the influence we once have. So I do think

(24:26):
there's and that's the thing, right, there's always unintended consequences
that develop when we try to engineer the world through
our prism, and we want everybody to see things absolutely
through through the prism of of how he wants to
make things. Everybody else gets to say in this too.

(24:47):
And while it looks like there's no consistency into this
foreign policy, we are starting to see a consistency. He
picks on smaller entities to try to make a point.
He ultimately sees things, as you know, like he did
with the Iraqi oil. He still to this day believes
that oil belongs to America since we helped liberate Iraq,
that that should be the price. Everything is a transaction,

(25:09):
which is the exact worldview that Vladimir Putin has been
preaching since he took office at the start of this
twenty first century. All right, So with that we will
transition from one Christmas Day unpacking of our politics to
the other issue that pops up every Christmas Day, the

(25:31):
relevance and interest of NBA basketball. How's that for a
really rough transition. I kid, let's sneak in a break
when we come back, your own Whitesman on his book,
A Hollywood ending Lebron and the Lakers and what has
been an uncomfortable partnership. Right is Lebron James is always
going to be at least number four on the all

(25:52):
time Laker list, right behind Magic Kobe. And there's a
real there's a real generation well debate of who's won
Magic or Kobe both have five titles? Who's won on
that one? I know where I come down. Then there's
Kareem who some argue should be above all of them, right.
Then there's Wilt Chamberlain on Lebron James kind of no

(26:15):
madish all timers who were mostly associated, who were associated
with the Lakers for a time, who did great things
on other franchises, and sort of I think the questions
are they Lakers or not? And you know what I
mean when I asked that question. All right, let's sneak
in the break. You're on Whitesmith, the Native's side. It's

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(28:32):
is podcast time machine time, And as I teased, I'm
going to do some what ifs that you could argue
are sort of going back at a time machine but
impacting what happened and then coming back and seeing, hey,
what happened when you gave Biff the gamble, the sports
Almanac and he could go back in time and gamble

(28:53):
on all the actual outcomes. Right, So we'll be doing
you know, in some ways that is the distortion of
our todd Cash time Eschine segment. But I am in
straightforward mode. And as you know, just to give you
sort of the parameters of what I use it is
there is something taking place this coming week in history,
a milestone that happened. In this case, it's December thirty first,

(29:16):
nineteen fifty four, is where we're going back in our
Toodcast time machine. So that is and it is something
that came to an end, and I'm going to use
it to tell the story of what we are, which
is a very reluctant nation of immigrants. Let me explain.

(29:38):
December thirty first, nineteen fifty four, Ellis Island quietly closed
its doors to become simply a museum. There was no ceremony,
there was no speech, there was no national moment of reflection,
which is actually fitting because at the time, Ellis Island
didn't close because America stopped being a nation of immigrants.
It closed because the immigration system that built Ellis Island

(29:58):
no longer existed. I'm going to get to that and
that quiet ending gives us a perfect entry point into
a much bigger question, and it's one we have been
arguing about since the founding of this country. Is America
a nation of immigrants? And if we are, which factually
we are, have we always been actually a reluctant nation

(30:19):
of immigrants? Which is the case I'm going to make
with this time machine so to answered honestly, we do
need to strip away the nostalgia and we need to
look at what the twentieth century actually did when it
came to immigration into the United States. First, we're going
to talk about the myth and the reality of Alissimon.
At the turn of the twentieth century, immigration in the
United States was massive, It was chaotic, and it was

(30:41):
largely unrestricted. Allis Island processed millions of people, sometimes as
many as twelve thousand people a day, and most were
arriving by steamship from Europe. That was the primary way
we got immigrants into this country. And it is also
the version of immigration that we America love to romanticize.

(31:03):
But even that, there was anxiety built into that immigration
system at that time. Newspapers in that time and if
you go to Alis Island as a museum. You will
see this. As this was happening, we talk about it
as amazing Elis Island, and in fact it's a badge
of honor if you had a relative come through Ellis Island. Right,

(31:24):
But at the time, this is what newspapers were warning about, crime, disease, anarchists,
job competition, cultural change. In other words, America has never
experienced an immigration surge without fear attached to it. And
this has been true arguably since the very beginning, but
certainly was also all throughout the twentieth century, and by

(31:47):
the nineteen twenties, this fear got turned into policy that
brings us to the quota system, which actually governed America's
immigration system for basically half of the twentieth century. The
modern immigration debate really begins with this decision to restrict
entries via quota. The Immigration Act of nineteen twenty four,

(32:08):
which was also known as the Johnson Reid Act, created
what was a national origins quota system that fundamentally reshaped
who could come to the United States, And this decision
sort of embedded a form of racism that people now
look back on nostalgically and think, well, if America was
for it. It couldn't have been racist, but I'll get
to that. But here's what this Immigration Act did. One

(32:30):
it severely limited immigration from southern and Eastern Europe. As
somebody whose Jewish relatives came from Eastern Europe, let me
just say that. A lot of Jews saw that at
the time as essentially preventing Jews from coming into the
United States. But if you just made it about a
certain region of Europe, it didn't look like some sort

(32:52):
of restriction based on religion. The nineteen twenty four law
favored northern and western Europe and virtually excluded immigrants coming
in from Asia and Africa. Well, what it did do
immigration dropped by more than eighty percent, And this is
actually what essentially ended Ellis Island, even though thirty years

(33:14):
later they finally shut their doors. Because after nineteen twenty four,
most immigrants had to be approved before arriving. It used
to be you got processed once you got here. Then
in the after nineteen twenty four, you had to get
approval before you could come. Ship based mass migration completely
collapsed because of this change in law, and Ellis Island

(33:35):
never really operated again as a true gateway after nineteen
twenty four, and in fact, by the time Ellis Island
closes December thirty first, nineteen fifty four, it's no longer
a symbol of openness. It's simply a relic of a
system America had already had abandoned. Which brings us to
the next turning point in the immigration debate nineteen sixty
five and what lawmakers thought they were doing versus what

(33:57):
ended up happening. And this arguable is the most consequential
legislation that was enacted and arguably still not fixed sense.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of nineteen sixty five is
easily one of the most misunderstood laws in American history
because it did not come due to a sudden embrace

(34:18):
of mass immigration. It actually came out of a civil
rights argument, and it was a Cold War inspired civil
rights argument. Yeah, I've one of my thesis in sort
of why we had less polarization during the Cold War,
And in fact, one of my major thesis is I

(34:40):
don't think we get the Civil Rights Act of sixty
five without the Cold War. That our fight with the Soviets,
who were we are having a propaganda war about democracy
and freedom. How could we be glamorizing democracy without giving
freedom to every American that lived in this country. So

(35:01):
there was the Cold War politics sort of how bring
I think both sides together on this? And I wonder
without the Cold War do we get the Civil Rights Act?
I'll save that for another what if. But by the
early sixties, the national Origins quota system was really embarrassing
for the United States internationally because it was explicitly discriminatory.

(35:23):
We picked and chose what ethnic origins we wanted in
which ones we didn't. We contradicted what was the civil
rights movement at home at that moment, and we undermined
US credibility abroad. And in fact, it was standing at
the Statue of Liberty that then President Lyndon B. Johnson
said the system violated quote, the basic principle of American democracy.

(35:46):
So he was making a moral case on immigration. But
here's the part we forgot. The law was sold to
the American public as being very modest and non transformational.
This wasn't going to have a huge impact. Supporters went
out of their way to reassure skeptics in that moment.
They argued the following this would not dramatically increase immigration.

(36:06):
This would not change the ethnic composition of the country,
and this was about fairness, not volume. In fact, then
Senator Ted Kennedy famblessly said the bill would not quote
flood our cities or quote upset the ethnic mix of
our society. And many critics, including labor unions, weren't focused
on race at all. They worried about job competition, wage pressure,

(36:27):
and whether the country could absorb more people. Those concerns
were minimized. They were sort of glossed over and attributed
frankly to Oh, you're being racist, you're being xenophobic. You're
not seeing it. So here's what Congress built. The structure
of the law mattered more than the speeches that were given.
So the law abolished the national origins quotas. It prioritized

(36:52):
family reunification, which was a huge aspect to this. It
created limited employment based visas, so no one fully modeled
what that all of that would mean over time. And
once one family member entered legally, then others could follow.
It was called chain migration, and it was never the
intent of the law, but it ended up being a mechanism.

(37:16):
The result wasn't immediate chaos, but it was steady and
sustained growth, and the shift and where immigrants came from
also changed, which brings us to the next unresolved chapter,
and that was the nineteen eighties amnesty enforcement and the
deal that didn't hold. So by the late seventies, growing
up in Miami, this was my sort of first memory

(37:36):
of policy debates, and it was all over Central American
and Cuban immigrants, so I had a front row seat
to this. So by the late seventies and early eighties,
a reality had become impossible to ignore. Millions of people
were already living and working in the United States illegally,
and the system had no credible answer. There wasn't This
wasn't new migration. It was simply accumulated migration, and culture

(38:00):
relied on it and there was no enforcement against it.
Construction relied on it, again, no enforcement against it. Restaurants
relied on it, again, no enforcement against it, and both
parties knew it. And it leads to the Immigration Reform
and Control Act signed by Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty six,
the Mizzoli Act some people know it as the deal
had three parts legalization, so basically it gave amnesty to

(38:23):
about three million undocumented immigrants, they got legal status automatically.
Number two was employer sanctions. Employers were supposed to be
punished for hiring undocumented workers nineteen eighty six. Yeah, we
can't even get anybody to use e faerify today and
we didn't even have that system in place in nineteen
eighty six. And then of course there was the promise
of more border enforcement. This was a promise that this

(38:47):
would be a one time resent. Reagan even framed it
pretty optimistically, consistent with his worldview. It was a humane solution.
So here's why it failed. And this is the history.
The lesson history keeps teaching us on the issue. The
legalization worked, enforcement did not. Employer sanctions were very weakly enforced,
if at all. Demand for labor never did change, and

(39:09):
the legal pathways never did expand, so then all the
incentives remained. Chain migration essentially was the best way through,
and Congress moved on. They left the system permanently unfinished
because our politics were too complicated on this and there
was no clean left right argument. There were coalitions in

(39:29):
different ways that sort of really made this impossible for
one party to be the party in one way or
the other. I mean in South Florida you had Republicans
standing up for migrants and undocumented immigrants in ways that
you didn't have in other parts in the country. But
then in the Midwest you had conservative farmers. You needed
labor anyway. You know, many of you if you're listening

(39:51):
to this podcast, you know that story. But after eighty six,
arguably this is where our modern immigration politics are bornation
without durbal enforcement, enforcement without legal reform, and a growing
population living in limbo. And then this is where the
current era fits into all this historical contest, of course matters,

(40:11):
which is why I wanted to lay this out. I
thought this would be a good pretext to sort of explain,
you know, constantly, the number one question that I'm asking
is how did we get here? It's usually a follow up,
whether it's on campaign finance reform, it could be a
follow up on democracy, follow up on for policy, follow
up on character politics, follow up on the media. But
the question remains the same, how did we get here? Well,

(40:33):
on immigration, this is my best way of trying to
explain how did we get here? I don't know if
I've got a way out. If I did, maybe I'd
be running for office. But this is it's important to
understand the context because the Trump administration didn't invent immigration restriction,
but what they did do is rejected the optimism of
the nineteen sixty five reforms, rejected the compromise language of

(40:57):
the nineteen eighty six reforms heavily into enforcement, de terrence,
and symbolism. So what was new wasn't really restriction. It
was rhetoric. It was the visibility, the willingness to make
immigration the central cultural dividing line historically. This isn't a rupture.
It's actually simply a pendulum swing. It's a return to

(41:19):
an older American instinct. But it's one of the uglier
chapters of America. It's not the ugliest chapter, we know
what that one is, but it's one of the uglier ones,
and we're still dealing with the fallout from it, which
leads me to ask this question, are we really a
nation of immigrants? So let's answer the question as honestly
as we can. Yes, we are. We are a nation

(41:41):
of immigrants, and America is still more of an idea
than it is an ethnicity. But history suggests something a
bit more precise. We are a nation of immigrants, but
we're a reluctant nation of immigrants. We celebrate immigration in
retrospect once the simulation happens and once the fear fades,
But in real time, anxiety dominates, restriction follows, and the

(42:03):
half finished reforms pilot. Ellis Island closed because mass immigration
and the quota system rose because fear prevailed. The nineteen
sixty five law reopened the door cautiously, nineteen eighty six
tried to reset the system imperfectly, and today we're still

(42:24):
arguing over the consequences of both. So Ellis Island didn't
close because the American dream ended. It closed because the
system changed, and the tension between openness and control never
went away. That tension isn't new, and it goes back
to what I think is the founding tension that divides
so much of our politics, which is a basic argument

(42:47):
of who gets to be an American? And I actually
think it should continue to be the single most important
debate question that a Civics teacher should want to be
asked to everybody that runs for office, and every debate,
every interview of a new candidate for office should always

(43:08):
include that question, Right, who gets to be an American?
Tell me how you answer that. You answer that question
for me, and I'll tell you what your political philosophy is,
because that's the debate we continue to have, and ultimately,

(43:31):
it's the debate that's at the heart of this division
and what has been essentially a never ending debate about
who gets to be an American, who gets to come
to America, who gets to work in America, and who
gets to be who gets the privileges of American citizenship.

(43:54):
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(44:58):
with that, let me sneak in a few questions. We'll
do a little last check coming up. I'm gonna I'm
gonna give a empty the mail bag, as they say,
but let me do a few now, ask Chuck. I
hate Chuck and happy holidays. Wanted to flag a fun
but serious proposal from former podcast guest Congressman Chris Dluzio Pennsylvania,

(45:21):
the hot Dog Act. Honest hot Dog is an acronym
in this case, honest Oversight of ticketed dining and on
site grub, which calls on the FTC to investigate concession
price gouging at publicly funded stadiums. Has anyone who's recently
been to a major sporting event can attest food prices
are out of control. Giving your intersection of sports and politics,

(45:42):
i'd love to hear your take on this. PS totally random,
but you have a favorite political comedy. Dave nineteen ninety
three is high on my list, Chris Pittsburgh, you know
that's actually a good It's a good top five list
that I ought to come up with. I'll tell you
the first movie I think of when you asked me
about a good political comedy is Distinguished Gentleman. It's the

(46:02):
Eddie Murphy one on Congress. It was written in early nineties.
I remember in the moment I felt the same way
about that movie that I felt about Idiocracy the first
time I saw it when it came out in No. Six.
Let's just say it age as well. I think Distinguished
Gentleman does as good of a job of explaining how
Congress actually works, or excuse me, how Washington works, since

(46:23):
it's a class that I teach for my friends at
USC than any any other. Dave's a good one, don't
get me wrong, Dave's in that my top five, but
Distinguished Gentlemen probably I go a little bit higher because
it was written by ex congressional staffers, so there was.
There was little little grace notes of detail that were

(46:44):
just fantastic that Dave didn't have. Dave romanticized, you know,
Dave is sort of the West wingification of things, a
little bit, kind of like American President. You know, Dave
feels like it should have been an Aaron Zorkin even
though it wasn't. It's sort of the fantasy land versus
distinguished gentleman is a little bit more of a reality

(47:06):
check on it. So anyway, but I digress. Look, I
think you bring up an interesting point, and it's one
of those I remember when the sort of the snobbish
political media coop cooed Biden focusing on junk fees. But

(47:28):
this sort of incremental price gouging that takes place. First
of all, I do think sporting events and music events
are becoming we are pricing out the middle class, right,
And in fact, I would expand that to Disney. Right.
Look at how expensive two nights at Disney are, and

(47:50):
there isn't. I mean, basically, if you're not a Florida
resident and you get a little bit of the Florida
resident discount, it's hard to afford Disney more than sort
of once a lifetime, right, once a generation. It is
that expensive to do, and it is look, you know,

(48:10):
I could mind, Hey, I only paid fifty bucks to
go see the Rolling Stones, right, and I think and
I remember feeling price gouged when I was sitting in
the four hundreds for you too at ninety bucks. And
then of course there's the amount of money my daughter
spent to go see Taylor Swift that I may or
may not have helped subsidize at least one of the
concerts that you got to see, and that was well

(48:33):
into the three to four hundred dollars range. So some
of this is inflation, there's no doubt. But you know,
are we making sporting events? And you're right right, so
many taxpayer dollars are being used to develop almost all
of these venues. Right. There aren't many arenas or stadiums

(48:55):
that don't have some that didn't get developed without some
sort of public tax break. Some of it is quite small.
I mean, the owner of the Dolphins mostly built everything
on his own. But you know it's not like he
built the roads to the stadium that he got that
that certainly had some taxpayer, uh taxpayer involvement in it.

(49:17):
But all of these venues, all of these arenas open
air stadiums, closed stadiums where you see concerts, revivals, Disney
on ice, sporting events, concerts, et cetera. Right, they're all

(49:37):
massively going up in price, and there is this idea
of captive audience the process. You know, we've we've we've
we've had fits and starts. You know, we beat up
ticket Master. It feels like every once in a while
when we when when it looks like everybody's hey, look
we're we're going to protect the consumer. Let's go after
ticket Master because they're kind of the ticketing monopoly, although

(49:57):
the monopoly is less than it was than it once.
But you're getting at something that I think that there is.
You know, there's always a question are we going to
hit a point where the average fan is priced out
of being able to attend to these games? NFL games
feel that way, you know, and you throw in the

(50:18):
hassle of it all, right, it's not easy to get
to in some cases that for the price, the hassle
is the experience worth it? Right? You start factoring all
that in and you know, there's so many different velvet
ropes that they want to sell you as well with
these experiences, and then these teams and these even entertainers

(50:45):
prioritize the experience for the super elite because they can
basically profit more on that, creating more velvet rope moments
for those that can afford it, because that's where you
can get your extra cash, that's where you can get
your extra profit. Not providing those experiences for the middle class,

(51:05):
not even providing the opportunity beyond obviously financially being able
to have the opportunity. It is. Look, I'm at the
end of the day, I'm a free, free marketer. But
I think that you are a large customer base is
better than a niche customer base that is extraordinarily wealthy.

(51:25):
You may make a good business out of that for
a few years, but that is not a long term
strategy for success. Disney World works because it seems to
appeal to all, but the minute Disney World creates these
barriers to entry that are now higher and higher for
the working class, well, then suddenly Disney isn't for all.

(51:48):
And suddenly Disney releases a DVD or a movie or
a new show on streaming, and people don't want to
give you the six dollars a month anymore, the ten
dollars a month anymore in order to get access to
those princess movies or get access to some of these,
you know, fun animated shorts, and then you suddenly lose

(52:10):
pieces of your customer base. So look, I think I
love the idea. You know that you focus on publicly
funded stadiums. I would love find me the stadium or
arena that didn't have some public funding help. And again
to me building roads and freeways that explicitly get to

(52:32):
your stadium, like the Joe Robbie Stadium. Yes he did
the stadium part himself, but not all of the government
essentially infrastructure that was needed to support fifty to eighty
thousand people going in and out of that place ten
or fifteen times a year. So, in fairness, there isn't

(52:54):
anything there. And you know, would it be interesting if
you essentially created two pricing structures where those that paid
taxes in that area got a discount, the same way
Disney does give Florida residents a discount. You get a

(53:15):
Florida resident discount. I assume there's one in California. I
don't know about that one. I know about the Florida one.
Because I live the I have lived planing around. There's
certain months, it used to be certain months a year
that the Florida discount would kick in. You know. It's
basically I think it would be the times that others
were traveling less and they wanted you know, it used

(53:37):
to be that Disney saw, just get people in your
park and then you can sell them other stuff, even
if you get them in the park for free. And
it used to be the mindset of stadium owners, right,
gets you into the park, you know, buy a ten
dollars coke, you know, so what if you got the
ticket for free? At least I got some money out
of you. But it's an interesting thought. I will just

(53:58):
tell you this. This is the type of populist politics
that cuts across partisan lines. Right when you're sort of
getting at something that annoys the liberal and the conservative,
you know, you're like, man, what's this price gouging? Didn't
my taxpayers contribute taxpayer money contribute to this? Why am
I now paying an extra surcharge on top of the
tax dollars that already went to this? You know, so

(54:20):
I think it's a I think it's a good It's
like the stock trading ban at it's good populous politics.
I don't know if this is good law, but I
do know it's good politics. All right, let me take
one more question. We'll do a little football because, like
I said, I'm going to do a whole monster mail
bag here that I promise this comes from daniel A.

(54:42):
He says, Hey, Chuck, a few weeks ago, you mentioned
that both parties are likely to see new congressional leadership soon.
How much do you think the twenty twenty six midterms
will shape those races? For instance, if Democrats gained lots
of seats, could new moderates push for centrist leadership while
GP losses leave only hard right members to elevate a
more extreme leader. Or are there are other dynamics at
play beyond the math. Look, I think the math is
going to mean something, you know. Take take Chuck Schumer.

(55:05):
Though he's unpopular in the Democratic base, there's no doubt
about it. He has got many elected senators who don't
have the confidence in his leadership. But if Democrats gain
the Senate, are they really going to get rid of them?
They're not going to get rid of him. It's just
not the way senators behave even if there's a slew

(55:25):
of new Senators. So the point being his results matter here. Right, Look,
does Mike Johnson state speaker if they hold the House? Yes,
you know, I mean it's just yes, that's how it works,
you know, it is it is. And is he gone
and not a leader at all if they lose control
of the House. Yes, that's going to be the case too.

(55:47):
By the way, I think both Schumer and Jefferies, if
Democrats don't win the House and Senate, they're both gone.
The question is whether any of them can survive what
I think is going to be knocked out on drag
out intra party fights in twenty eight on the direction
of both parties. You know which direction? Is the Democratic

(56:08):
Party going to go in a more democratic socialist direction
or in a more sort of business friendly direction. Right?
That is ultimately the larger argument that that party's going
to have, and I think the larger argument the Republicans
they're going to have is are they going to be
a sort of more of a populist nationalist party or

(56:31):
are they going to be a more free market business
friendly party. And that same fight in a different different
ways is going to and it's going to be interesting
because you have some people participating both in the center
left camp and the center right camp, hoping that at
least one of them wins their argument in their primaries.
It's possible neither does right and we get JD Vance

(56:53):
and AOC right, which would be you know, it's sort
of I joke. You know, if we got Ken Paxon
and Jasmine Crawt in Texas, it would be essentially a
preview of what would happen if both parties nominated from
their bases the next two presidential nominees. So I do
think the results in twenty six will have a huge impact.
The safest of the four leaders is Thune because Thune

(57:17):
isn't a Trump acolyte, but he is seems to have
managed Trump okay enough. You know, we'll see, but you know,
and I don't think losses will be attributed to him.
I think the losses will be attributed to Trump, which

(57:38):
weirdly could strengthen Thune. So, of the four, I think
Thune is the least in danger, but all of the
other three very much their futures rely on the results
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toodcast for thirty percent off. All right, I'm going to
stop there because I think for many of you this
will be I'm going to use this instead of a
little bit of a football in review. A little bit

(59:26):
we've had. We had our single best, most interesting college
football bowl day that you could have, and it really
was just not that interesting, right. I mean, I enjoyed
the BYU Georgia Tech game. I was glad to see
it was competitive. It does feel as if the Pop
Tarts Bowl is now the only non major bowl that
anybody seems to have heard of, which is just crazy, right.

(59:51):
You know, back in my day, the Gator Bowl, Liberty Bowl,
Peach Bowl, which were not major bowls then none of
them were Citrus Bowl. You know, they had their own
cachetes about it. You know, the Sun Bowl had a
real history, the Liberty Bowl had a real history. I've
been to a Liberty Bowl, for what it's worth. I've
been to a Peach Bowl back in the day when
it was Miami's first bowl game in fifteen years, and
you still have the phenomenon, right. Look, the Clemson Penn

(01:00:15):
State game was just atrocious to watch. The only game
worse to watch was was the mim of Ohio Presno
State game. Literally, if you only if you were gambling
on it, were you watching that game. So I may
have given a hint away of how I was watching
that game, but I always made sure it was in
my four box. Even the NFL offerings. Right, boy, this

(01:00:36):
was just a Christmas dud for the NFL. All of
those games lacked a little something right. Obviously, relevance is
a big part of it, and there was no Patrick
Mahomes right in theory it was supposed to be the
Cowboys and Commanders fighting it out for a playoff spot
or the division, just like it seemed like that could
be at the beginning of the season. So it was

(01:01:00):
a good day for the NBA. As I told you,
these were games worth watching, and I have to say
the Knicks delivered. That was a heck of a game. Nicks, Calves,
Wemby delivered as I promised you Wemby would, And man,
you gotta love me some Anthony Edwards. You know, he's
the he to me is the forgotten rising star. He's
like the guy that sort of everybody wants to talk
about Wemby and Jannis and Jokic. And then there's old

(01:01:23):
Anthony Edwards, who's kind of an old school He's just
a you know, Lebron Kobe Jordan like player who you know,
can do a little bit of everything, wants to be
that kind of player. And we forget Hey, don't forget ant. Man,
I'm a huge ant. Man. I enjoy it, Man, I
enjoy watching him play basketball because it kind of feels

(01:01:45):
like a throwback to the game I grew up with
in the eighties and nineties. You know, there's a there's
this sort of a style that he plays with that
I enjoy. But the NBA delivered, and you got to
give it to them Karma, right. The NFL tried to
steal it It's Christmas and it really just fell flat.
And now you have so many opt outs by the way,

(01:02:07):
I mean, you know, we end up dealing with opt
outs in Bowl games, and you're dealing with, you know,
teams that are deciding. Are we using this to try
to see which players we want to keep? You know?
And we're just seeing the same thing. And this this
is a warning to college football if you choose to
go to twenty four teams, because you'll get the last
week or two of the season, you may get games
that are meaningless, more games that are meaningless. Look at

(01:02:29):
all the meaningless games now in the NFL, like next
week the Packers. They don't even get me started in
the Packers situation at the moment. Look, I obviously have
skin in the game as a Packer fan. I the
coach frustrates me. You guys, if you've learned anything from

(01:02:50):
me is I I'm obsessed with play callers, and I
hold play callers more responsible than anybody else when it
comes to my two favorite foot ball teams, the University
Remidi football, the University Remidi and the Green Bay Packers.
And here's what frustrates me, right, I've gone, you know,
soup the nuts on my frustrations with the Miami Hurricane

(01:03:12):
play caller Shannon Dawson and how he does not call,
does not game plan for the team, we're playing until
the second half. It drives me batty. It's terrible, and
it has put Miami in the situation of almost not
making the playoffs. I really believe that. But it almost
cost us the A and M game. And it better

(01:03:32):
he better actually game plan because if the Ohio State
team shows up that showed up against Indiana, Miami could
beat that team if they actually gained plan to face
that team and don't wait until the second half to
start play calling against the actual defense you're facing, not
just simply getting your offense offensive issues worked out, to

(01:03:54):
see what's working and what isn't. Well, my complain about
lafleor is and this is something me and my packer
buddies we've been talking about a lot in our text chain.
Why is it the little floor looks like he is
more dynamic of a play caller when Willis is at
quarterback than when Love is at quarterback. And you know,
Jordan Love games. Look, he wins, he's got a good record,

(01:04:17):
and you can't you know, it is never flashy with Love.
And you know it's not like Farvar Rogers both were
a bit more. You know, Love is just very careful.
By the way, that's pretty responsible. He runs the offense well,
he doesn't improvise as much, and I think that's the
jenesiqua that's sometimes missing from you know, from Jordan love

(01:04:39):
apologists like myself, because there isn't like these you know,
you know he does. He is pretty good at sort
of when he moves around the pocket. But for whatever reason,
he doesn't like to run as much. And Willis, you
know what you see with the packers is that there?

(01:04:59):
To me, Malik Willis the last two weeks has looked
like a better version of Jalen Hurts, has looked like
a a version of Lamar Jackson that has succeeded in
the past, right where he is comfortable behaving like a
running back at times. Right, and he will both you know,

(01:05:21):
both Jalen Hurts and Lamar you know, they both have
learned not to take as many hits. But early on,
you know, they were running backs who could throw the ball.
And I think Malik Wilson Willis was and this is
why it took him a while to develop. I think
from Liberty and etcetera said he was really a running
back who could throw the ball, and who could game
plan and who could read a defense and he's obviously

(01:05:45):
and when you think about where Laflour, yes he comes
from McVeigh, but it's sort of that McVey Shanahan, the
larger Shanahan tree, and the Shanahan tree does like to
emphasize the running game. And it's clear to me that
Lafleur wishes Jordan Love would run more. And if he would,
I think he would game plan more that you would.
You would see more run RPOs that where the R

(01:06:09):
was picked before the P was picked and the quarterback
did a little bit more running than he does. And
when you know, it's sort of when that system is
working on all cylinders, it's when you have a quarterback
that is willing to run. And it does seem as
if for whatever reason, and I don't know enough. I'm

(01:06:29):
not a Packers beat reporter, but I'd love to know.
Is this something? Are we protecting Love? We're afraid of
him getting hurt? Has there been issues? Is it like
you know that they don't want him to take hits?
Does he not want to take hits? You know, we
don't know the full situation, but for whatever reason, the

(01:06:50):
play calling feels much more dynamic over the last couple
of weeks when Willis has been there, now part of it,
maybe the stakes are lower, and so Lafleur doesn't second
guess himself as much when Willis is at quarterback than
when Love is at quarterback. But as a fan, as

(01:07:10):
a as a fan who watches every play, there's a
noticeable difference into how he calls it. There's a there's
a liberation in the play calling decisions. I feel like
that that Lafleur makes when Willis is there, then when
Love is there. And you know, look for all the

(01:07:32):
Packer fans that have enjoyed the way the offenses look
these last two weeks, and I'm one of them, I'm
also mindful they lost the last two games. First one
was a freak way to lose, and you know, the
Ravens game was I don't know. I mean, clearly, losing
Kenny Clark in the trade of Micah Parsons matters a lot.

(01:07:52):
If Michaeh Parsons gets hurt, we have nobody to stuff
the run. And my god, I mean, it looked like
Derrek Henry was back in high school. It was just
ridiculous that he got over one hundred yards and so
it doesn't matter what you do on offense if you
can't stop the run on that front. So, but I
go back, that's the question I have, and that's the

(01:08:13):
question we're going to see, you know. I mean, I
assume Willis plays again in the final week because the
Packers have no reason to play. I'm a little concerned
about Jordan Love rust for what it's worth. So maybe
let's treat it like a third preseason game, or maybe
he plays for a quarter and then you bring in Willis.
Be careful there. But there's something off I think in

(01:08:38):
the relationship between Jordan Love and the floor that is
that is a that would be a theory I would
pursue if I were a Packers beat reporter. Do are
they not as in sync? Why does the offense look
more dynamic when Willis is running it? It's just a fact,
It's true. Is it just as simple as Willis is

(01:08:58):
willing to run and Love isn't? Is it different play calling?
Is it different RPOs that he's given? Is it simply?
Like I said, Willis playing for a job. I'm curious.
You know, he's not under contract. Do the Packers get
anything for him? If I were the Miami Dolphins, and

(01:09:22):
Mike McDaniel stays Malik Willis would be an incredible quarterback
for them. He could be the guy that unlocks that team,
that offense in a way that too and never could
unlock because that was a case where they couldn't use
they couldn't have to run the ball. But if you
get Mike McDaniel, who was, to remember, a run game
coordinator first, and he's essentially wants to be a run

(01:09:44):
first team and the Dolphins have been a bit more
competitive when they've just decided to screw it to him,
let's be a run first team. Well what if that's
Malik Willis back there with Devon a Chain h and
Oli Oli Gordon Jr. And you have Jalen Waddle and
you have a couple of those good receivers and you

(01:10:05):
have a main leak Willis that can also run the ball.
As a Packer fan, can the Packers get first or second?
Can they at least get a second round pick for him?
In this day and age of the NFL, do you
want to pay a backup quarterback reasonable money to keep
them around? Given this is now two years in a
row where the Packers have had to play meaningful games

(01:10:27):
with a backup quarterback. Right, These are all questions that
the Packers have to the side in the off season.
But it's interesting there all right, a few storylines for
the upcoming quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff. Obviously, you've
got Miamu Versaile State. I love that my friends at
ESPN are promoting the historic nature. The last time they

(01:10:49):
met when stakes were this high was when a controversial
flag was thrown by a Big twelve official by the
name of Terry Porter calls the past interference that hand
to Jim Trussell in Ohio State their first national title
for Ohia State, it was their first national title in
over thirty years at the time and essentially jump started there,

(01:11:09):
brought their program back to elite status. Without that victory
over Miami, you know that if they lose that game,
they was scandal ridden. Tressel was kind of driven out
that hold the backle with the with the their big
freshmen at the time, You know all of that Ohia
State may never be the Ohio State we know of
today without that controversial ending to that game, where if

(01:11:33):
they just are another hurdle in Miami's drive to be
the greatest greatest of their generation, which I still think
they probably have a good, pretty good case for that
back to back would have cemented it in a way
that would have been different. Right, even though that one
team is considered an all time, that entire entity would

(01:11:55):
be I think it would be an elevated There wouldn't
even be a debate with the LSU twenty nineteen team.
But what it did for Ohio State, right, Ohio State
hadn't won a national title in over thirty years, hadn't
had always been a wannabe never really you know, it'd
always been sort of the rung below, kind of like
where Wisconsin football had been sitting for the last twenty

(01:12:16):
five years, so close but can't quite make that next
sleep where I would argue Oregon football is at right,
which is boy, they seem to be with the big boys,
but they when are they ever going to break through?
Are they ever going to actually win a title? Can
they ever actually break through? And so there's some fun
storyline there. The Big Ten has a lot on the line, right,

(01:12:40):
I'm if you told me all three Big Ten teams
lost this weekend, Oil State to Miami, Indiana to Alabama,
and Oregon to Texas Tech. Right, there's the only other
game is Georgia Ole miss which has no Big Ten
team in it. What's the narrative, right, I'm just saying, Look,

(01:13:01):
I'm not predicting anything. And you know, the Big Tens
fan base is I think, second to none. They have
terrific fans. You know they'll they'll sell out stadiums for
eight and four teams, So kudos to them. I just
think it's a storyline that's sitting out there. I'm obviously
very bullish in Miami's ability to beat Ohio State. I

(01:13:23):
think Texas Tech. I think Oregon is much softer. I
don't think they've I am not impressed with who Oregon's
beat yet. Look, they beat Texas Tech. I'm not going
to be a doubter anymore. But I'm a doubter until
I see them play a team that can physically I think,
bully them in a way they haven't faced yet. They
didn't face Ohio State this year, they didn't face Michigan,

(01:13:45):
they didn't face the more physical Big ten teams. Well,
we shall see. Maybe Indiana does count, is that maybe
Iowa does count. But look at the struggles they had
with Indiana and Iowa, who are built more physically than
Oregon is so I have some I have some suspicion there.
And then of course there's the the question I have
in Indian Alabama is you know you have the whole

(01:14:07):
hot you know there used to be there was a
bit of a the It seemed as if we went
through a period in the eighties and nineties where the
team with the Heisman Trophy candidate usually lost. There if
they were playing a meaningful little game, usually lost. And
the assumption was, well, the player wasn't around as much.
They were basically on the banquet circuit because if you

(01:14:29):
win the Heisman Trophy, it also means you likely win
a Davy O'Brien or you win the and there's all
these awards ceremonies, and yes they've consolidated it's somewhat into
one thing. But you're you're doing you're making more money
than you've ever made at any time, and appearance fees,
maybe you're starting a business, maybe you're doing all sorts
of stuff. So you have the distraction issue that is

(01:14:50):
that is that never mind the overall distraction that every
players are facing with the portal being portal door opens
two days after the Miami game, one day after the
January first games, which is what's leading a lot of
people to assume that Old Miss gets just hammered by
Georgia because half those players are trying to figure out

(01:15:10):
what hour they should sign with LSU to transfer from
Ole Miss to LSU and follow Lane Kiffin. So the
two question marks I have in Alabama Indiana. One is
Kaylen de Bor is a great game planner, Okay, and
you can't deny that he's not the guy. You know,
Alabama is better in bigger games than they are in

(01:15:31):
smaller games. So I you know, and you look at
Kaylen de Bor's record in playoffs at lower levels, how
he handled big games at Washington right, it did seem
as they he was a game planner. Indiana has some
significant injuries on defense, including the one where they lost

(01:15:53):
the lineman. Thanks to their celebration of the Big ten game,
that's not an insignificant loss. So and the Rose Bowl.
You know, this is the biggest stage Indiana's ever played on.
Now we're going to keep saying that right wherever stage
they are, it's the biggest stage because and you know,
look when you're when you're knocking on the door of
the elite club. Right Indiana Oregon, right, you certain certain

(01:16:19):
entities already. Alabama can lose and it won't matter to
their long term legacy. Indiana loses and suddenly is out.
They couldn't play with the big boys right up. The
first time they face an SEC opponent, look what happens
to them. So the pressure's more in Indiana. Alabama's playing
with house money, just like the pressures more in Ohio State.
Miami's playing with house money. The pressure's more on I

(01:16:40):
think on Texas Tech in the Texas Tech Oregon game
for what it's worth, because the Big twelve, right, you know,
Miami got its win to prove it belong. The Big
twelve hasn't gotten its win by US win over Georgia
Tech is not the same as as Texas Tech knocking
off Oregon. And will I think Texas Tech is on

(01:17:00):
the level. I really do. But you got to see it, right,
they're knocking on the door and they want in, and
the winner of Texas Tech Oregon has a better shot
of get letting the door than the loser does obviously,
and then Georgia olemiss I think the I think I
am I am betting that that Georgia just sort of

(01:17:23):
smokes them, and it has more to do with distracted
Ole Miss players than it is debating whether one side
is better than the other. I just think it's simply, uh,
George is better in general. And you're gonna have half
of the old Miss team thinking about it's uh how
how much money they're gonna get paid at LSU. So

(01:17:45):
we'll see. I am awfully confident if I I'll say
you where I am either blindly loyal to my my
homies uh in Coral Gables, or I am right about this,
and that is I think. I think the point spread
on this is just ridiculous and absurd, and I think
this gets it to how perception. You know, again, a

(01:18:08):
point spread doesn't indicate whether these teams are close. It's
how the public regards them. And there is a belief
that Ohio State is a juggernaut and that Miami it
can all fall apart at any moment, right, And it's
all about recency bias, and Miami has fall has not

(01:18:29):
met the moment. Although I would argue that the Miami
teams in the last ten years wouldn't have won that
A and m game. This team seems different. We're going
to find out against Ohio State. But that's that nine
and a half point spread. I just don't buy it.
I don't think that game this game is. If it's
more than one score, I'd be surprised. I think it's

(01:18:51):
going to be another slow game. I think it's going
to be another grinder, particularly in the first half. And
I will say this, I don't think Miami wins if
Ohio State scores more than twenty four points. I don't
know if Miami can score thirty one or twenty seven

(01:19:11):
or twenty eight. I think if Miami wins this game,
it's because they win the game twenty four to twenty,
twenty four to seventeen, twenty to seventeen. You see where
I'm going. That's that's my expectation on that. But I'll
tell you I'll say what I said at there. I
do think it's about time look to just letter rip.

(01:19:33):
You're going to have to if we fall behind by
ten points. I want to see, you know, let Carson
Beck live or die with him, don't try to protect
him anymore. And I still think there's too much play
calling that's done to protect rather than simply to let
the chips fall where they may. All right, Um, I got,

(01:19:57):
like I said, coming up, we'll have one more drop
this win. I got a couple of what ifs that
I am doing based on your feedback, two pretty big ones.
One I've already told you that I'm gonna do about
twenty what if Trump wins a twenty twenty election. I'm
actually going to put two different what ifs into the
same episode there. I'm also going to do a Powerhouse
mail bag. We're going to go forty five minutes full

(01:20:20):
just questions. So, by the way, if you're listening now
and you want to get a question in under the
under the under the deadline, submit asap. So with that,
thanks for your support, thanks for listening, and until we
upload again,

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Chuck’s Commentary - Deciphering The “Trump Doctrine” + America Is A “Reluctant” Nation Of Immigrants

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck’s Commentary - Deciphering The “Trump Doctrine” + America Is A “Reluctant” Nation Of Immigrants